New York; 2012
The sun starts spilling into the lair room the next morning at 7. Justin groans and rolls over to bury his head against the back of the couch.
"Ugh, turn out the lights," Alex whines from the other end of the sofa.
Justin nudges her with his foot. "It's morning, genius," he says, sitting up.
Alex lifts her head to look at him and says over a yawn; "It's too early to be morning."
Justin laughs, rolls his eyes, and tosses his end of the blanket over her head. He wavers just a little once upright, feeling the effect of his drinks from the night before. Alex, of course, is already back asleep.
Justin feels queasy. He figures it's about half hangover and half after shocks from the fact that his sister kissed him the night before.
And yes, he kissed her back.
He doesn't know yet if she even remembers. She had seemed more than a little lucid by the time it happened, but she had a lot more to drink than him. Who knows what she's going to remember when she wakes up.
His mother is already in the kitchen when he walks through the door. He forgets that they opened early and served breakfast sandwiches now.
"Hey, what are you doing down here so early?"
"Um…" God. Can she see him sweating? "Alex and I were listening to music last night. We fell asleep in the lair."
Theresa offers him a piece of bacon from the plate she's making, and he takes it gladly. "I love that you two are getting along so much better. Believe me; I worried that you two would never stop arguing."
Guilt washes over him, enough to make his stomach twist into what feels like 73 different knots of discomfort. Then his palms begin to sweat as well. Its okay, he thinks to himself. We were drunk, we didn't mean it. And it wasn't even anything that bad anyhow.
"Yeah." What else can he say? He goes out into the sub station, pulling the coffee pot and a mug from under the counter and pours a cup he hopes will make the cottony feeling in his brain dissipate.
The mug is halfway to his lips when Alex breezes past him and takes it out of his hand. She settles onto one of the stools on the other side of the counter and begins to pour a steady stream of sugar into the cup.
"Would you like some coffee with your sugar?" Justin quips, pouring himself another cup.
She takes a very big, rather noisy, gulp. "No thanks. But a danish would be nice."
"I'm amazed you have any teeth left." He sits it on a napkin in front of her and watches her devour it like she hasn't eaten in a year.
Theresa laughs as she walks by with a tray of breakfast sandwiches and glasses of orange juice.
A silence falls over them-a very awkward silence. Alex eats her danish, Justin sips his coffee.
The stalemate begins.
…0…
Washington DC; 2018
Getting through security at the Washington airport is a nightmare. Much worse than it is in New York. Not that Justin is in the best of moods to begin with. It took three solid hours to convince Annaleigh to go on back to New York and let Justin go with Max to DC. They told her it was private, sibling stuff, but it had still been a battle. He refuses to even entertain imagining what his parents will think of his going to visit Alex.
The cab ride to Alex's studio isn't much better. It's close to 8 pm when they make their way across the bridge over the Potomac towards 2nd Street where Alex has lived for the past year and a half according to Max.
There was a time when Justin dreamed of going to Washington; seeing all the historical sites and political landmarks, soaking up the culture and heritage that the nation's capitol had to offer. Now…
All Justin could think of were the knots in his stomach.
He hadn't seen his sister in close to 6 years. Not since the day they had been found out, stripped of their powers due to misuse of magic, and he had left New York for the last time.
That day, it still haunted Justin like the vestiges of a bad dream. A memory too horrific to ever really be forgotten. It replayed in his subconscious in vivid detail, unbidden, at times whenever he was too close to letting his guard down.
What he wouldn't give for the occasional bout of amnesia.
Max, if possible, seems even more on edge than he does. He sits beside Justin in the back of the silent cab in a constant flutter of nervous energy. His leg bounces, fingers twitching on the window, and he chews away at his bottom lip in distraction.
Growing up in the Russo family, the three of them had stuck to a very distinct dynamic. Max was more like Alex. They engaged in pranks together, teased their older brother. They understood each other. Necessary when forced to live in the shadow of sibling with a near perfect GPA and even better attendance record. Yet Max looked up to his brother. That's what little brothers do. Justin was smarter, more talented, a better wizard. It was just easier to ignore how high the bar was set than to try and meet it only to fall on his face.
And then there was Alex. Max got away with a lot of the stuff he did because there was usually some bigger crisis involving his sister going on to divert his parents' attention. His sister who was always wilder, cooler, more daring than he ever dreamed of being.
It really came as no surprise to anyone that Justin and Alex clashed the way they did, being such opposites. And while Max tended to lean a little more on the Alex side of the disagreements, he still tried to help as best he could if for no other reason than to try and garner some of the glory for himself.
Max can't imagine what Justin's feeling at the moment. When he still lived at home, Justin had never been shy about expressing his emotions. If anything, he over shared. That was just one in a continual barrage of habits that Alex chose to pick at. But now he sat stoically against the cab door, face pressed to the glass, lost in thoughts his brother would never want to be privy to.
Finally the cab driver turns on the radio. All the silence in his back seat must have been too much for him to handle any longer.
"…it's Friday, I'm in love."
The words vault Justin back in time. It feels like he's 21 years old again, feeling the affects of too many Long Island Iced Teas, while Alex twirls in her blood red dress in the lair and he's overcome with the knowledge that he's about to be sick.
"Pull over," he tells the driver. He manages to escape just seconds before the scant breakfast he ate that morning makes a reappearance.
"You okay?" Max asks when he gets back in.
He's not. He's clammy and queasy, and none of it is due to the ride, which he tells the driver repeatedly after he apologizes for the bumpiness of the trip.
Since he's sitting next to one of the only people who could ever know the real reason he feels like he could empty the contents of his stomach all over again, he doesn't even have to pretend. "I don't know, Max. I honestly don't."
…0…
New York, 2012
42 hours pass before Justin has the guts to be alone in a room with his sister again.
He's been lucky so far. His parents are so thrilled to have all their children back under the same roof at the same time that it isn't hard to wrangle one of them into always being around. He helps his mom in the restaurant (Jack doesn't look too happy as he leaves, casting forlorn glances back at Alex) during her shifts, sets the table while she cooks dinner, folds when she does the laundry. He sits in on Max's lessons with his dad, then they watch whatever game is on after it's over. Even Max, when he's home, is only too happy to hang out with his older brother and pump him with questions about college girls and frat parties (Sadly, there aren't too many of those stories).
Alex hovers around, trying to catch a second with him. It unnerves him. The Alex he grew up with was only too happy to let days pass without speaking to him. She preferred it in fact.
That Alex would never have kissed him though.
Right?
He walks into her room about an hour after their parents have gone to bed. She's standing in front of her dummy-mannequin, whatever its called-pinning the hem on a long blue dress with multicolor beads along the neckline. Her iPod is in its dock and she's humming along to Silver Springs, oblivious to his presence.
Justin announces his presence with a generic "That looks great, Alex."
"He speaks." She won't look at him. There's anger in her voice, a defiant tilt to her chin. And he'd bet money on a reproachful glare in her eyes when she does look at him. "I'm busy in case you hadn't noticed."
"I just…" He lets his voice trail off, hoping she'd take the hint. But she's Alex, and she's going to make him work for this. "I wanted to, you know, talk. About what happened. The other night. In the lair."
"Oh my God," she exclaims and tosses her pincushion to the floor. "Do you talk to everyone in those little sentences like they're a toddler, or am I just a special case?"
"Look, Alex, I know you're angry-" He moves toward her. If she doesn't lower her voice their parents are going to come and see what's going on.
Alex steps backwards when Justin closes in on her. There's fury in her eyes, making them bright. Disappointment is there too. Not as much, but it's still there. Alex is hurt and it's his doing. Justin feels sick.
"No, you don't know," she says. "You have no idea what I'm going through."
The statement is enough to make him snap, and he feels the anger boil over without warning, without deliberation. "I have no idea what you're going through? You don't think I'm going through this?"
"Are you?" she demands. But before he gets the chance to answer she moves around him and closes her bedroom door. This isn't something they want anyone to overhear. "I'm not the one avoiding you, Justin." Her accusation stings, he won't deny it. Truth is like that.
"I'm sorry." It's all he has.
Alex turns away from him. It hurts, down deep in his soul, it hurts like hell. More than anything else in the world, he wants to be who he has always been; the big brother who makes it better. But he can't fix this. And that fact tears away at him as much as anything else.
"Do you blame me?"
It reaches up and grabs hold of him, the guilt he feels. It's not like Alex to take responsibility onto herself. Especially not for something like this; something that has the potential to really do some damage. He doesn't know how to respond to this. Justin only knows that he's suddenly so aware of Alex, of Alex being a girl instead of just being Alex. A girl willing to bear the brunt of a mistake they both made.
He feels something open up inside himself, something big and scary that feels like the moment before jumping off the high dive at the local pool. For the first time in his life, Justin feels reckless and spontaneous. Alive. This is the feeling that had brought him here, to her room, ready to leap without looking for once.
He just didn't see it until now.
Crossing the room in quick strides, Justin turns Alex around to face him. "No," he tells her, wiling everything in his heart to come through right now-in his eyes, his voice-anywhere she can see it. "I don't."
"But I kissed you," she protests. She lets Justin pull her hand, till her arms are no longer crossed over her chest, and wrap his own around it. "I pulled you back when you tried to leave the lair. I…" Alex takes a deep breath. "I lied to you. My friends did think you were my date, and I let them."
"Why?"
Her eyes go around the room, flitting here and there over his head like she doesn't have the nerve to look him in the eye when she gives her reason.
Justin thinks of his sister as fearless. Her being hesitant…it scares him a little. "Alex?" he prods, rubbing his thumb up and down the side of her hand.
"I think it's the same reason I kissed you. I just…I don't know what to call it yet." She finally meets his gaze. She's struggling. He can see it, he respects it. His fingers twine themselves through hers. "It was like a sneeze."
That's unexpected. "A sneeze?"
"You know, that feeling you get," she begins "when everything sort of builds up, waiting to explode, and then..."
"Boom?"
She nods. "Yeah. But a good boom." Then, realizing what she's said, a blush sweeps over her cheeks and she puts her hands over her face. "Ugh, I'm being such a girl here, aren't I?"
"Hey…" He pulls her hands away from her face and forces her to look at him. He's ready to take a chance for once. "I kissed you back," he whispers before letting his lips come to rest on hers.
…0…
Washington, 2012
They find the studio easily enough. There's some minor traffic on the street, so the cab driver lets them out at the corner and they walk, bags in hand, until the purple awning of Russo Gallery looms into view.
It's closed, which isn't really a surprise. The hours listed on the front door say closing time is 6 through the week. But the lights are still on and they can see a tall woman with long red hair standing by what looks like a reception area.
Max shifts his overnight bag on his shoulder and knocks on the door. Justin fights the urge to pass out.
The woman looks up, sees them, and walks briskly to the door. "We're closed." Her voice is muffled through the glass, but still audible. She point towards the hours listed, and begins to walk away.
"Wait," Max calls to her. "We're looking for Alex."
The door opens, but her hand remains firm on the knob. She's cautious, Justin thinks. He respects that. "Alex?" Doubt. Which is surprising in a way to them, but also expected at the same time.
Max takes a step closer, trying to wedge inside maybe. "We're her brothers."
The lady's eyes roam over Max's face, then Justin's. either she's looking for signs that she's lying or she's looking for a resemblance.
"Callie? What's going on?"
Alex's voice. Justin would know it anywhere. It thumps through his body, a beat, a vibration he knows instinctually. She's there and the knowledge makes his pulse speed up, his mouth dry.
"There are two guys out here," the redhead-Callie, Alex called her-yelled back. "They say they're your brothers."
It's quiet for too long. Could she be about to say that she doesn't have any brothers? That she does, but doesn't want to see them? Maybe she only wants to see Max? His erratically beating heart plummets through his feet.
The she responds. "Let them in."
She steps back, looking none too happy about it, so they can walk past her into the gallery bearing their family name. Both look around, taking in the place that their sister, who was never fond of work or responsibility or anything of the like, has built up, made a success. The towering walls are white, covered with huge paintings, as expected, in varying styles and tastes. There are small podiums scattered about displaying sculptures, pottery, even jewelry upon closer inspection. All of it has that air, that screams 'Alex.'
Justin hears footfalls on the hardwood floor and turns to see Callie walking out the door, locking it behind her. Her lack of parting words make the hair on the back of his neck stand up at what the reason behind her silence could mean, what Alex cold have told her.
They don't actually see their sister until the lock on the heavy glass door clicks into place and the click-clack of heels draw their attention to a staircase over the reception desk, and she finally comes into view.
If Justin was surprised by the sight of his brother as an adult, he's even more so by seeing his sister all grown up.
Technically, Alex was an adult when he'd seen her last. She had been 19, and that was, in fact, an adult. At least legally. But the signs of her childhood had still lingered on her in the roundness of her cheeks and the vibrancy in her eyes.
Before him now is a grown woman, all angles and sharp bones, still Alex, but not an Alex he's ever known.
"What are you doing here?"
There's no specification on her words. But she doesn't have to direct them at Justin to know that they're meant for him. The look on her face is enough.
Good thing he and Max came prepared for a fight.
…0…