Despite being turned loose, with an entire afternoon of parentally-sanctioned freedom ahead of her, Alex's mood doesn't improve once she's reached the loft. Instead, she finds herself puttering around, completely at loose ends. She briefly toys with the idea of making some Texan popcorn—hot sauce and pickle juice mixed into a bag of Orville Reddenbocker's finest microwave fare—and flopping down on the couch to watch a few PVR'd episodes of Jersey Shore, with the sound turned up way too high. But the idea quickly loses its appeal when she remembers that Justin isn't around to be outraged by it. (Which, duh, is half the point of even watching Jersey Shore.) Besides, the couch is to be avoided at all costs right now, as unsafe territory. Kind of like the Romulan Neutral Zone.
(And, oh Christ…she's not entirely sure, but was that a Star Trek reference she just made, there? Seriously? Ugh. God, is terminal nerdiness an STD, or what?)
Normally, whenever she's feeling like this, she disappears to the tunnel and puts in a few hours on whatever masterpiece of urban art she's working on at the moment, losing herself in painting and mindless banter with Link, or whoever else happens to be around. One look out the window puts the kibosh on that idea, though. The rain is coming down so hard it's practically travelling horizontally, which means the tunnel's likely to be flooded for a couple days, at least.
Usually a decent tunnel-flood is something she looks forward to. It's always interesting to walk down there a few days after a good, hard rainstorm to see which pieces have survived and which ones have been washed away, then watch as their artists either painstakingly recreate them, or choose to start from scratch with something fresh. It's kind of a testament to the spirit of New York itself, the way the city is constantly changing and renewing itself, or whatever.
Today, though? She just finds it annoying. It's almost as though Mother Nature herself were conspiring against her. Which, given Alex's history with the moody little bitch, she wouldn't entirely put past her.
(And yeah, she totally gets the irony of her calling somebody else a moody bitch at this particular moment in time. It's intentional, OK?)
Eventually, after a brief pit stop in the fridge for a bottle of water and some sliced pickles, she finds herself up in her room, sitting on her bed with her sketchbook open in her lap and her iPod turned up full blast. She sets it on shuffle, then immediately regrets it as a shmoopy Taylor Swift love song starts to play. Hey Stephen gets skipped with extreme prejudice—because, seriously, why the hell did she even download that?—as do the Black Eyed Peas (so overplayed), the Violent Femmes (eh, not right now) and Ke$ha. (Wow, really? That one's still on there? Jesus, she really needs to take a good, long look at her playlist, one of these days.) Grunting in frustration, she gives up on shuffle entirely, and switches over to Fefe Dobson—Sunday Love, the unreleased album, the one she had to beg Justin to titBorrent for her, or whatever—because pissed-off girl rock is exactly what she needs right now. (Even if, y'know, she doesn't entirely get why.)
Flipping to a blank page as the bassline from As A Blonde starts pounding in her head, Alex picks up a piece of charcoal and sets down a few tentative lines, not quite sure what she's drawing just yet. Not hands this time, that's for damn sure. She's sick to death of drawing hands, of obsessing over them. Of where they've been, and what they've done. His. Hers. Theirs. It's all she's thought about for four days, and she's frickin' done.
(Well, OK, so if she's honest with herself, that's not all she's thought about…)
"I've always believed that there's a world of difference between having sex and making love," he'd said after he'd kissed her, squeezing her hand.
Alex had blinked, her mouth hesitantly working open and closed a few times as she struggled to put words to what she was thinking, and failed miserably. Because, dude, there just weren't any. Justin's grin had only widened as he realized that, for possibly the first time in their short lives, he was literally seeing her struck speechless, and loving it. He'd leaned forward again to peck her gently on the forehead, then jumped up off the couch. The porn flick that had been playing in the background, forgotten, finally faded to black, bow-chikka-bow-bow music swelling while the credits started to roll. Justin hadn't even glanced at it as he padded towards the stairs in his bare feet, naked from the waist down, intent on retrieving his underwear and the lost remote from the floor of the Sub Station below.
Watching her brother from the couch as he strode away from her, her eyes drawn to the tight curve of his bare ass cheeks, flexing beneath the fluttering hem of his commemorative Captain Jim Bob Sherwood T-shirt, Alex had reached up to brush her fingertips against her lower lip. And she'd smiled.
Of course, she'd been bombed out of her goddamned skull at the time—they both had, otherwise you can bet your ass that it would never have happened in the first place—and by the time he'd come back, she'd been passed out on the couch. Or, at least, that's what she assumed, since the next thing she remembered was waking up hungover in her own bed the next morning (well, afternoon…OK, late afternoon), dressed in a white sleep cami and her Tinkerbell pajama bottoms, with last night's makeup having already been mysteriously scrubbed off her face. And even though her head had felt like it might spontaneously explode at any given moment, and her stomach was threatening to eject everything she'd ever eaten since second grade, she'd never felt so loved and cared for.
(Which, of course, made her even more nauseous. Because, dude, Alex Russo? Shyeah, so not the kind of chick who needs some dude to take care of her. Or, y'know, likes the idea of it, or anything. Nope. Nuh-uh. Not even.)
The guitar solo at the end of As a Blonde trails off, leading into the gentle synth riff that opens Don't Let It Go To Your Head. And Alex's hand pauses mid-charcoal-stroke as the first few lines of the song collide head-on with her memory of the kiss, so hard that she can practically feel every synapse in her brain seizing as they screech to a halt.
So what if I came clean
And told you all you mean to me
So what if I meant every word I said
Baby, don't let it go to your head
Alex scowls at her iPod, irrational anger bubbling up inside her. The urge to pick it up, rip the earbuds from her ears, and whip it across the room as hard as she can is nearly irresistible. But no, she refuses to give in to it, won't even allow herself to skip to the next song. Because that would be, like, giving in or letting it get the better of her, or whatever. And when it comes to a battle of wills, Alex Russo simply does not lose, not even to herself. Gritting her teeth, tightening her grip on the charcoal, she takes a deep breath and resolves to just let the song play out, like it doesn't mean anything.
(Because it totally doesnt. Not a goddamned thing)
So what if I write your name
'Cause you're always on my brain
In a heart, I paint a crimson red
Baby, don't let it go to your head
Shaking her head, Alex presses the charcoal back against the page, ignoring the song, fighting to get her head back to where it was when she'd started sketching. She lightly traces back over the last few lines, a subtle reverse-S curving exaggeratedly right-of-centre. Softly feminine, graceful, yet fraught with tension, like..
...she threw her head back against his shoulder and arched her back, her hands momentarily losing their purchase on his shaft...
"Oh, fuck me!" Alex groans, throwing her pad down against the bed in disgust, then flushes deeply, immediately regretting her choice of words. Wrenching her eyes shut, she reaches up and presses the heels of her hands into them, making flashes of color explode in the blackness behind her eyelids. The crunchy guitar assaults her eardrums as it ramps up to back the chorus.
Just cause I can't go on
Just cause I die when you're gone
Just cause I think of you in bed
Don't let it go to your head
If I looked in your eyes
One, two, too many times
And memorized every word you said
Don't let it go to your head
Alex lets out a ragged breath, drops her hands and looks sullenly back down at her sketchpad. All anyone else would see is a few seemingly random squiggles, without form or function. But in her mind's eye, Alex fills in all the missing details, the lines she hadn't set down yet—but would have—and it's undeniable what she's looking at.
Shit. This is so much worse than the hands.
So what if I want to kiss
From your toes up to your lips
It don't mean that you've had me yet
You're gonna be good, I bet
"OK, enough," Alex snaps, as much to herself as to Fefe Dobson, as she grabs the thin wires to each side of her face and yanks her earbuds out. She glances up across the room, and finds her own reflection glaring back at her, from the mirror on the back of her bedroom door. "Seriously, Alex, this is nuts. You need to stop obsessing and get a frickin' grip, here."
She winces then, once again regretting her choice of phrase—because, hi, getting a frickin' grip was how she wound up in this mess in the first goddamned place—and her reflection winces right back at her in response.
"Ugh, stop looking at me like that," she growls. "Look, it was just a little harmless smut. You were drunk, you were horny, and you used each other. That's all. End of story. Yeah, it was all kinds of fucked up...and OK, maybe that made it sorta hot...but it didn't mean anything, all right? And it's sure as shit never gonna happen again! Got it?"
Alex lets out a shuddering breath. Great. So now she's arguing with herself. Out loud. Like Grandma, except not in Spanish. Jesus Christ, she really is losing it. And even worse, it looks like Mirror!Alex isn't even remotely convinced, anyway.
Yeah, can't really blame her, there. Listening to herself, Alex wouldn't be, either.
(Especially not when she knows just how damp she's felt over the past few days, and how little the constant rain has had to do with it...)
"Ugh!" she grunts, jumping up off the bed and turning her back to the mirror, unable to stand gawking at herself any longer. Arms crossed beneath her breasts, she finds herself glowering at the wall behind her bed, the one that seperates her room from Justin's. Seething with anger at him, at herself, at this whole stupid situation. But, y'know, mostly at him, if only on general priniciple.
Because, c'mon, neurotically obsessing over crap like this? That's his deal, not hers. And yet off he's gone, God knows where, doing God only knows what, with goddamned Vampire Barbie. Like what happened between them is no big friggin' deal. Which is supposed to be her move, dammit. She'ssupposed to be the carefree, irresponsible, happy-go-lucky one, not him. What the hell, was touching her brother's junk a one-way ticket to Bizarro World?
(Guh, was that another nerd reference? Dude, seriously...he's given her geek cooties, she's sure of it.)
Scowling at the wall, Alex shakes her head angrily. No, screw that. Screw. That. There is no way that the Justin Vincenze Pepe Russo she knows and lo—uh, knows—just brushes off something as monumentally wrong as what they did. No frickin' way. And if it's had this much of an effect on her, then he's probably on the verge of giving himself the mother of all aneurisms over it. Because she refuses to believe that Captain Jim Bob Sherwood Jr. is actually capable of holding it together better than she is in the face of something like this.
And what's more? She is goddamn well gonna prove it.
Knowing from past experience that Justin has his bedroom door magically warded against intrusion six ways from Sunday—specifically against her, which is where the past experience comes in—Alex snatches her wand off her night stand as she impulsively jumps up onto the bed. Leveling the wand's tip at the wall, she twists it in a tight circle with a flick of her wrist.
"Go through, mow through," she mutters, the end of her wand flaring bright yellow in response.
The pink, furry wallpaper that lines her room seems to stand up on end like the hair of a frightened cat as the spell takes hold. Alex gives it a count of five to settle. Then, jaw set in determination, she marches forward off the end of the bed, and effortlessly walks straight through the wall into Justin's room beyond, slipping into it easier than a hot knife through butter.
(Or than Justin's fingers into her wet and ready pussy, she absolutely doesn't think.)
(Nope. Doesn't even occur to her.)
(Not even a little bit.)
(Augh.)