Title: Hands That Touch The Wrong Things
Rating:T, for language, incest, and implied sex.
Disclaimer:I don't own Wizards of Waverly Place or any of the characters. I also don't own anything from Disney. Each chapter has different songs that are at the beginning of them, so I don't own those either. No copyright is intended!
Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comments, news reporting, teaching, scholarships, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational, or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use. THIS IS JUST FOR FUN. No copyright infringement is intended. All rights are reserved to their respective owners.
Warning: heavy angst, incest
Author's Note: I would like to thank and TwistedWizards for betaing this and encouraging me to post it. I haven't posted since 2017 for this fandom and the idea of my beloved ship and fandom are dying is the saddest thing. I hope I continue to write for this fandom years later. Anyway, enjoy Angsty!Alex
"We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering – these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love – these are what we stay alive for." -Robin Williams
"Hands That Touch The Wrong Things"
She has a thing with drawing hands.
Not just one hand, but two hands together. She sits on her bedroom floor for hours, canvas propped up against her wall, and she just paints. And it's always hands.
Reaching out. Touching fingertips. Always so close and never close enough.
She feels the brush move, as if it's moving on its own accord. Taking curves and shapes and sizes. She has a feeling she knows what this image will be too. But this time she's determined to paint something different. This time she's actively trying to paint anything other than what she has been painting.
She lets out an exasperated sigh, running her fingers through her hair, and clenches her teeth together hard. It's hands again.
The painting is different though. This is the first time the hands are intertwined together. Actually touching.
She puts her brush down in the cup of water by the canvas and marvels at her work.
This obsession. This painting. Something about this screams at her louder than all her other paintings. Something inside her rips and roars and howls. And she feels her stomach in her throat as if she's on a roller coaster just waiting for the inevitable drop. The answer to all this. The answer as to why she's been feeling this way for weeks, months, maybe even years. This gnawing feeling in her gut that's been eating her alive from the inside out.
"It's just hands," she mumbles as she draws her knees up under her and wraps her arms around her legs. She's soothing herself from something she doesn't understand. She starts rocking back and forth unconsciously. "It's just hands," she whispers again, but her instincts are telling her it's more than that.
She stops rocking as soon as she realizes she's doing it and picks up her brush again, this time dipping into other colors. Maybe a background would help? Or...something. She's not sure what yet, but her own hand seems to know. She's on the precipice of a darkness within her and she knows continuing this painting will throw her off the edge straight into it.
She doesn't care. If it helps this...whatever this turmoil is inside her...to go away, then she will carry on with it. Just so she can feel like herself again. Just so she can breathe again. Just so she can paint anything other than goddamn hands.
She draws a fire. The hands are over a fire. No...wait... The fire is in the background. The stars in the sky. The lush green leaves-.
She drops her brush as if it burned her.
She knows whose hands those are. One was her own. The other one was her older brother's.
Justin's hand.
She's hit in the face with a sudden realization. This must be why she's obsessively fixated on the subject of hands. People who fall in love typically experience warmth and excitement when they come to that conclusion. What if the person you are falling in love with is your own brother? What does that say about you? About your character and morals?
Worst of all, what would Justin think of her?
She thinks back to their time in Puerto Rico. How they sat there scared, alone, and afraid. She remembers him absentmindedly running his fingers through the dirt under them. She remembers grabbing his hand, feeling terrified he could disappear at any second, and him looking up at her, smiling, and interlacing their fingers. She remembers how her heart felt at home the moment he interlocked their fingers together.
He pushed a piece of hair out of her face, mumbled her name, and told her everything will be okay. She believed him, but didn't once let go. And maybe she blocked this memory out until now, but she vaguely remembers wanting him to kiss her. Wanting him to tell her he loved her. Wanting him.
She felt her stomach lurch and the color drain from her face. She curls into a ball on the floor as if she's in pain and begins to shake at the memory. She closes her eyes tight so she wouldn't have to see the image in front of her that reminded her of her sin.
She lay there for what felt like hours, willing the image to go away and when it wouldn't she let out a scream. Feral and loud and filled with a heat she didn't know she had in her. Her feelings for him aren't going away either. Feeling hot and seeing red at that thought, she gets up with a purpose and punches the canvas. She hears a thud as her hand goes through the image. When she pulls her arm back out, she sees a torn hole where their hands used to be.
How could her own mind and body betray her like this? He was her brother. He was family. He wasn't...he couldn't be more.
Words like freak, and slut, and brotherfucker came to her mind. She's never been so livid. At herself, at Justin, at the world, at the whole universe for playing this sick joke on her.
The image still sits there. Taunting her. So she ends up punching the canvas again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
Until it's nothing more than shreds and when she's finally done she throws it across her room for good measure, the remnants of the image skidding across her bed.
She didn't even realize she was crying until she looked around at the mess she created. Her cheeks were damp and her breathing was coming in rapid paces as she scans the room. Her hands and arms were covered in wet paint. Paint was smeared all across the carpet. Her brush was forgotten on the floor. More paint. It was everywhere. Stained.
It felt fitting.
She was shaky and light. She reached for her wand, not caring if paint covered it too. She wanted to go far away. She wanted to run and hide and just be anybody other than Alex Russo. She wanted to be any random girl down the street. Any random person would have a better chance at having Justin than she ever would. Any random person could love him openly. Could touch him and be touched by him in return. More tears run down her cheeks and she quickly wipes them away.
She waves her wand and all the paint covering her room goes away with the help of magic. She would handle this like she does with everything else in her life. Use magic as an end to justify the means.
She looks around when she's done and everything was the way it was before. Her sheets a mess and a few clothes on the floor. That's the worst of it, from what she can tell.
The feeling that everything is unclean wouldn't go away though, and to make matters worse, she notices the painting is back. The image of their hands intact like nothing ever happened. It disgusts her. She disgusts herself.
No.
She can fix this.
She hurries back to her spot on the floor and grabs her brush, dipping into more paint. She listens to the usual soothing scratch of the brush against canvas, but she feels anything but soothed. Her nerves are on edge and she keeps feeling like someone is watching her every move. Like someone could discover her newfound taboo secret any minute.
"I'm just painting," she reminds herself in a shaky voice, but the feeling won't leave. "There's nothing wrong with that."
This is wrong, but every stroke feels right. The image comes into focus. It's Justin. There is no doubt about that. It's his eyes looking at what will soon be her own. (She spends a great deal more time working on Justin than working on herself).
She didn't get his hair right. His lips aren't parted the way she remembers. His eyes aren't as soft and filled with something she's never seen from him before, like in her memory.
It's not the same.
It's not the same.
It's not the same.
She feels the drop of the rollercoaster again.
She wants this moment back more than anything. They both forgot who they were. Both of them. If only for a minute.
And they reached out for one another. Not as siblings, as something more. If only for a second.
It's funny how there's an eternity in every second if you reach out and take it. She thinks this is theirs.
Nothing about the way they held hands in that moment felt like holding hands with just her brother.
It felt like more.
She's crying again and she won't stop painting and she knows she couldn't explain this away if someone were to walk in because it's clear. It's so fucking clear.
It's an image of Justin looking at her for the first time, as if he truly sees her. Like she's all his. Like she's the work of art. Nobody looks at her like that. Not Riley. Not Dean. Not Mason.
Not her family.
Her hands are shaking and she won't stop painting. She can't stop now even if she wanted to.
She's in love with him and she has no clue how long it's been. Maybe forever? Maybe when she sent his clone to college? Maybe when she was making wishes with a genie? Maybe when they were flying over New York City together? Maybe when they were consoling each other over Juliet and Mason? Maybe when he held her hand all night somewhere deep in the Puerto Rican rain forest?
Maybe even though they were both lost in that moment and their existence was put into question, it was the one time she ever truly felt found.
Later she hides her painting, redoes her makeup, and acts like nothing happened. Her mental breakdown about being in love with her older brother put on pause as she goes down to dinner.
Her mom talked about clothes shopping with her. Her dad talked about seeing a movie this weekend. Max talked about skateboarding and how he learned a new trick that she has to try. It almost felt normal.
Except Justin. Justin was probably the only one who could sense she was off. It's hard to hide things from him when he's been conditioned to tell when she's up to no good. His eyes study her mannerisms at the table and she feels like she's under a microscope. Her chest constricts and tightens because she feels like she will be exposed any second.
She quickly tells him he's a nerd for separating his food to throw him off her trail.
He visibly relaxes.
He quips back that food shouldn't touch or it will be contaminated. She tells him he's dumb when it's all the same in your stomach.
He makes a face at her, and she's surprised she has the energy to do so in kind. She thinks she loves him more than she did before, if that was even possible.
Nobody suspects a thing.
Xxx
She can ignore it...and hope it goes away. She's good at ignoring stuff. For example, she ignores Harper when she goes on and on about her clothes and sewing and her crafts. She's good at faking too because Harper never notices her lack of attention.
So she ignores the feeling and pushes it down just enough until later in the night she feels like she will burst. Her emotions are everywhere and the only way she feels like she can reign them in is by doing what she arguably does best: turn her pain into art.
She takes her painting and stares at Justin. His eyes are a frosty grey in the soft orange light of the fire she painted in the background. His hair was mused from walking in the heat. His skin had a slick sheen to it. His full attention was on her.
The way he's looking at her...She wants that again.
This time she takes a new canvas. She starts with a hand, no surprise there, resting on bare skin. She's painting her own naked back to the best of her abilities. She even lifts up her shirt to look behind her in the mirror hanging on her door to see if she's missing anything. She goes back to painting Justin's hand and arm around her.
It could be any two people, she reminds herself. She adds her own dark hair running down her back. Any two people in the world. But she knows the truth.
She imagines herself on top of him. His arms wrapped around her. His head against a pillow. His eyes rolling back as he moans her name.
She hears her doorknob turning, and she's never felt her heart practically leap out of her chest like that. Even when she's done something bad, she has her reasons. But this reason is purely selfish. This reason is sick. She quickly turns the painting of them at the campfire around so it can't be seen and sits in front of her current, half-finished painting.
It's Justin who walks through her door, and she feels both hot and cold at the sight of him. Her face flushes and she turns to put her brush away so she can better hide her blush.
"Are you-?" His question dies on his lips when he sees the painting behind her. The one where her back is naked and his arm is around her, his hands all over her skin.
"It's Mason." The lie comes easily and naturally. She didn't even have time to process the words that fell out of her lips. Once they were said, it was dead weight. God, she's not sure if she's ever discussed sex with Justin beyond the quick 'make sure you don't get her pregnant' or 'be safe' talks they had while heading out the door on a date.
He stiffens at the sound of her ex's name.
He averts his gaze. "I, um, ok? I was just wondering if you're okay, but I can see that you're busy..." He starts to retreat and she doesn't know why that makes her heart drop.
"I'm not okay." She gasps at her own betrayal, but she knows she's dying inside. This sick feeling is pushing against her insides and forcing to be seen.
It's now forcing itself to be heard too.
He looks at her again, and she can see his face soften. "Is it because of Mason?"
She bites her lower lip to physically stop herself from speaking anymore. She looks at him as he kneels down to her eye level. He rests his hand on her shoulder, like any good brother would do, and gives it a squeeze.
"You deserve better."
She feels tears well up in her eyes at that. She's not sure what she deserves, but it certainly isn't better. She's a disgusting human who is in love with her own brother. Someone she grew up with. Someone she has a familial history with. Someone she's shared holidays and birthdays with. Someone she's not supposed to be in love with.
Her body betrays her again as she leans into his touch. "Justin...," she sighs, and she can hear the pining in her voice and she hates herself more for it. "I don't know how to get over it."
He looks at her, and she can see his brain working in overdrive. His face scrunches up, his brows are drawn together, and his grey eyes are storm clouds. She knows he thinks she's talking about Mason.
She isn't.
"Alex, sometimes we have to move on to let better things come into our lives."
What's better than Justin?
Justin's hand hasn't left her shoulder and the warmth of it is filling her soul in ways it shouldn't.
Her own hand aches to reach for her brush. It aches to paint this moment in time with him. Or maybe it aches to simply reach out and touch him? She instead keeps her hand still at her side.
Justin stands up to leave and gives her a small smile. "Dad's serving ice cream and wants to watch a movie with all of us. Come on." He didn't ask whether or not she wanted to, but that's okay because she would probably follow him anyway. He gives her his hand to help her up and she takes it.
If only to feel him hold it one last time.
Xxx
She paints something else a few weeks later. It's messy. It's not flattering. And it's certainly not something that she is proud of.
Shameful is what she would title it if she were to keep it. Shameful is all she'll ever be if she keeps up this false hope she has a chance with Justin. Shameful is what she is. Shameful is what she will continue to be, but no longer. She's letting it out one last time.
Her brush soaks in dismal cream colors and she globs it onto a paper she failed in class a few days ago. She has no canvas so this will do.
She smears the colors this way and that, watching them mix and swirl together in ways they probably shouldn't. It doesn't work. It's not right.
When she's done, she lets it air dry on her makeup table and goes down to The Substation for work.
After work and a quick shopping trip with Harper, she comes back and it's mostly dry. The paper's all wrinkled and not its normal flat shape.
The colors of this painting don't work together. Normally, you're not even supposed to paint on paper for this exact reason. She supposes that she's never fit into anyone's ideal definition of normal either.
She grabs a blue eyeliner pencil, the closest thing she could find, and writes the following words in big letters:
"I HAVE HANDS THAT TOUCH THE WRONG THINGS"
When she's done writing she places the blue eyeliner back. She clenches her teeth together as she looks down at what she just wrote and fights to hold back the tears. Her face feels hot. Her breathing amplifies. She takes the paper and crumples it. She throws it at the canvas of herself and Justin holding hands.
It's still facing the wall. Shame radiating off of it.
Xxx
In the middle of the night, when she can't sleep, she gets up and takes the paper. Smooths out the edges until it's as flat as it will ever be, not minding if the paint flicks off here and there, and places it upright against the hidden canvas.
She no longer can keep this shoved down. She needs to feel this. It's a part of her. It's all consuming, yes, but it's not her undoing. It's her awakening to what's been there the whole time. Justin.
She finds she can sleep much better after that.
Xxx
It's 5 years later, and she's moving out of her first apartment with Harper. Harper and Zeke are getting married in a few weeks so the girls are no longer in need of this little apartment anymore.
It's sad. They've made so many memories there. Harper cried, telling her she would miss her, and she just smiled and said it's not like they won't see each other anymore. But she cried in secret as they watched a movie together one last time on their crappy sofa, moving boxes surrounding them.
She had asked Justin for help to move as he offered to let her stay with him at Wiztech. Of course he agreed. She finds herself not asking her dad or Max for help though. She thinks she knows why. She thinks this problem of being in love with Justin has only festered over time. She's just gotten slightly better at hiding it.
She thinks back to a time she almost admitted to him what she has been dealing with internally for literal years. The Wizard Competition was in full swing and Justin couldn't move. He seemed so frustrated stuck in a tree root, all his years of hard work down the drain. He asked her point blank, "Why?," as she freed him. When she didn't immediately answer his hand grabbed her upper arm and his face searched hers. "You could have won already. Why are you doing this, Alex?"
Why? Because I love you! She wanted to shout as she set him free. She stayed quiet, not trusting herself to speak, his eyes moving down to look at her mouth. She did so in kind and subconsciously leaned in, their breath mixing together. Her heart rate picked up and she swore she can hear his heartbeat too.
"Hey, what happened?" Max asked as he broke through the second to last barrier in the maze, both of them instantly sprang apart.
"Justin was stuck," Alex said as a lame attempt to see how much Max might have seen.
Max took no notice, staring at the entryway behind them, and said, "Now what?"
She focuses back on her current predicament, knowing it's risky to move-in considering her...illness...her feelings for him, but she agrees as she can't afford anything else in New York City and she doesn't want to be an almost 23-year-old living with her parents. She knows she'll just get roped into working at The Substation again and she is not going back to that. She refuses. It's just a bonus she'll get to see Justin everyday instead. Nothing more. Just two siblings living together. Taking on the world. No big deal. Totally platonic stuff. She won't even be in the same quarters as him anyway.
She looks around one more time, Harper busy in the corner filling up one last box of her things, and steps out the door.
She finds Justin out front of her apartment complex. He's busy loading her massive bed onto a moving truck with Zeke's help. He's very adamant they don't use magic. Most likely has to do with him being the headmaster.
"Lots of responsibility, Alex. And I don't need to deal with a family member exposing magic on top of dealing with all the other wizards who do it almost daily," he'd said to her a few weeks ago when she used magic openly to get herself more food when they were hanging out together in Central Park. She remembers their knees brushing together on the park bench and noticed neither of them moved their legs away from each other the whole time.
"Chyeah, whatever," she'd said, watching as his arm draped over the bench and thinking how they almost looked like a couple in the moment to an outsider.
She'd been low on cash and needed to eat. Justin let her know that he was willing to help pay right after she told him. She remembers feeling her heart skip a beat at the thought of them actually going out to eat together and he would pay for it all. Kind of like a date...
She turned him down immediately after that. Her own heart sank at her words. It was too close to ruining her familial relationship with Justin and she refused to do that. She didn't trust herself. So she used magic because magic always solved her problems.
Drawing herself back to the present, she wipes sweat from her forehead and hops down the steps until she's at the back of the moving truck. Her bed was one of the last things they had to move for her. Zeke smiled at her as he went to go back to help Harper, the bed of the truck dipping as he hopped off and she hopped on. She heard some things move and shift in the back of the moving truck from the weight change.
She takes a few steps forward to ask Justin if he's ready to go and her heart stops. Her feet are glued to the metal beneath her. The color drains from her face.
How could she be so careless as to leave something like this out without at least covering it with a blanket or something? Anything?
Justin is found holding her painting of the two of them by the campfire. It must have fallen over and he grabbed it and saw...everything. The painting of him clutching her naked back is propped up near it too. Her world flips upside down, her head feels stuffed with cotton, and her body feels almost like dead weight. Buzzing fills her ears as heat rushes to her face.
His voice is thick and heavy when he speaks, like honey. His eyes turn to hers slowly as he talks, where she still hasn't moved. "That's not Mason, is it?" His eyes glance back to her portrait of her naked back.
He still remembers?
"No," her voice sounds so distant and far away. She sounds tired to her own ears. Tired of hiding it. Tired of pretending.
His eyes glisten, and he swallows heavily as he looks back at her. "You too?"
The wind feels like it's knocked out of her. 'You too?' Her too? She's been alone in her feelings for years. Watching him live his life. Watching him be successful and happy. Just to find out he was struggling as much as she was? Her chest heaves to allow air in her lungs and she suddenly feels light. She hears her heartbeat pounding.
This is it. This is their second. This is their infinity.
Justin's always tried to at least pretend to be strong, but he seems so broken in this moment. Like a guard he's been holding up for literal years has finally crumbled.
She nods curtly, feeling like she's watching this all through a dream. "Me too," she chokes out. "Me too."
"You have no idea how long I've felt this way. I thought it was just me this whole time, Alex." His eyes are gleaming with tears and she can feel her own tears forming. He places the painting down and reaches his hand out to her.
"Justin..."
She's shaky as she grabs his hand, feeling his skin against hers, and something whispers in the back of her mind that her hand is right where it belongs.
Xxx
When they kiss for the first time, his mouth hungry and her own needy, she feels a peace she hasn't felt since they were in a Puerto Rican rain forest years ago.
Xxx
And when he takes her body, and there's no going back, their souls collide in vibrant colors.
Author's Note 2: Thank you so, so much for reading this fic. Please consider dropping a review. Thank you again to and TwistedWizards for betaing. Consider checking out their lovely fics if you have the time. Lastly, we have a Jalex discord so if you want; reach out and we will invite you into the fold. Much love and until next time my dear readers.