"There," Justin says then, the bed frame creaking above her as he steps down off it back onto the floor. "Now we can get started. Safety first, though. Note...to self...replace batteries...in smoke detector...upon completion of spell..."
Alex snickers to herself. Though all she can see of him are his stocking feet and the bottoms of his khakis, in her minds' eye she can see him writing a reminder to himself on the back of his hand. Her suspicion is confirmed with the telltale click of a pen before his feet turn back towards the bed, and he begins gathering up the items laid upon it.
Alex sighs as his legs pace to and fro across the room in front of her, his hands (ngh!) coming briefly into view as he opens the canister of sea salt and pours it in a wide circle around him on the carpet. She drums the tips of her fingers on the floor while she watches, weighing her options in the face of her stupid failed invisibility spell.
One, she can do the smart thing and just flash herself out of here. But then she'll never find out what Justin is up to, and Alex is far too curious for that.
Two, she can just wait it out under the bed, and watch from here. But, while she might catch a glimpse of what Justin's doing, she doesn't exactly relish the idea of being down here all freakin' night. Because Justin is nothing but thorough, which means it could take him until well after fuck o'clock to finish this.
Three...
Yeah, she really doesn't want to think about three. If only because it makes her cheeks burn. And tingle in places she ought not be tingling. Especially after the last couple of days.
Justin finishes pouring out the salt, then steps carefully out of the circle so as not to disturb it, and retrieves the other items from the bed. His hands come into view again as they place a small, old-school lab balance down in the center of the circle—the scales he was talking about, apparently—and the two blue tea candles on either side, which he then lights with the BBQ lighter. Alex watches them flicker and burn from her hiding place under the bed, as Justin's legs walk away from her, towards his desk on the other side of the room. He slides open the bottom drawer on the right side, and Alex hears the rustle of paper as he retrieves a stack of...it looks like postcards, or something?...then slides it closed again and heads back towards her. He spends a moment flipping through them, selecting two from the stack, then bends forward once more to place each of the postcards-slash-whatevers on either of the lab balance's plates.
"OK, I think that's everything," he sighs, then claps his hands and rubs them together. "Let's get this party started."
Alex is unable to help the little disgusted grunt that escapes her as she winces at this. "Let's get this party started?" For real? As grateful as she is for Justin's tendency to work things through out loud—otherwise, she'd no idea what the hell he was doing—his desperate attempt to sound cool even tohimself is so lame, it threatens to kill her from second-hand embarrassment. Christalmighty, could he possibly be any bigger of a dork?
Oblivous, Justin crosses back to the door one more time, double-checks the handle to make sure that it's locked, then flicks off the lights, casting the room into total darkness save for the flickering light from the small candles to either side of the scales. Alex glances from them to Justin's legs, hyper-aware of the sound of her own breath. He pauses by the door for a moment, then steps back into the circle of sea-salt and begins walking slowly, counter-clockwise, around the lab balance and candles. She hears a gentle crunching noise as he passes in front of her, despite him stepping in stocking feet on a carpeted floor, but just as it occurs to her to wonder why, crushed lavender and bluebell flower petals drift down through the air into view.
"Verum deformes et occulta fraude," Justin intones as he sprinkles a second circle of flower petals around the scales and candles, just inside the circle of sea salt. "Abrogare hoc ut veritas orietur."
"Ohhhhh, no..." Alex groans softly. Latin. Terrific. Not only does that mean this is a very old spell, and therefore incredibly dangerous, but it means she's got no hope in hell of knowing what it's supposed to do. As much as she hates the stupid modern rhyming ones, at least they're up to code, with built-in safeguards to keep you from completely shorting out the magic power grid, and killing yourself in the process. Not to mention that they're in English, so you can freakin' well understand them without having to be fluent in a motherfucking dead language!
"Excitanda deos, qui operatur in squamae!" Justin continues, sounding increasingly agitated as he completes his circuit around the scales. "Verum revelare ob omnium oculos!"
And then, as the last of the flower petals fall, completing the inner circle, the flames of both tiny candles suddenly flare skyward as though powered by blowtorches. Alex flinches in surprise, grunting in pain as she hits her head on the bottom of Justin's bed frame. Even Justin jumps backwards, stumbling a little as he catches himself at the last moment, before his heel can scuff against the sea salt and break the circle.
Yow. So, good thing he took the batteries out of the smoke detector after all, then.
Gradually, the flames die down and settle back into the tiny flickering lights they were before...except now, they appear to be alternating between red, green and purple, and throwing off the occasional spark. Between them, the plates of the lab balance begin to see-saw back and forth ever so slightly, all on their own, even though the postcards or whatever that Justin's placed on them must weigh next to nothing.
"Ohhhhh-kaayyy," Justin sighs, in what sounds to Alex like equal parts triumph and relief. "OK. That wasn't so bad after all. Now we just leave it going until the candles have burnt themselves out, and done. That little jackass will never know what hit him."
Under the bed, Alex lifts her head as much as the narrow space allows, and cocks an eyebrow at this. Wait, what was that? Is...is Justin casting this spell on somebody? But who? And why? Grimacing to herself, she risks inching forward a little more, and turns her head to the side, craning one ear towards the end of the bed, eager to hear more.
"Aaaaaaand in the meantime," Justin continues, bringing his palms together and rubbing them eagerly again, "while we wait for that to finish..."
He trails off, as his feet skirt carefully around the edge of the sea-salt circle and come back towards the bed. Alex leans a little farther forward, straining to listen, but Justin doesn't say anything else.
What? In the meantime, what? While we wait for what to finish? Sweet Zombie Jesus, of all the times for Chatty Cathy to clam the fuck up, he chooses now?
Apparently so, because the next sound Alex hears is the plastic bag rustling on the bed again, then the box spring above her squeaking in protest and dropping a few crucial inches as Justin presumably settles himself down upon it. Next come the jingle of keys as her brother's weight shifts above her, towards the nightstand to her right. Overcome by curiousity, she dares to poke her invisible head out past the edge of the bed, and glances back just in time to see him insert a key in the top drawer, then slide it open and pull out his laptop.
Alex snorts in satisfaction as he pushes the drawer closed again, and disappears out of sight over the top edge of the mattress. Even with all the security wards that Justin places on his room to keep her out, he still feels it necessary to lock up his laptop when he's not here? Geez, paranoid much? As if she gives a crap what he's doing on that thing. What is she gonna do, hack into it and uncover his secret trove of Charmed and Dangerous fanfics, or something?
Shyeah, as if.
From above comes the sounds of the laptop booting up, and the subtle clicks of Justin's fingertips dancing across the keyboard. Alex sighs impatiently as she draws her head back under the box spring, crosses her arms and rests her chin on top of them. Just beyond the end of the bed, the candles continue to flicker and spark, as the scales waver back and forth of their own accord. The effect is soothing, almost hypnotic, and Alex stifles a yawn as she watches and considers what to do next. Clearly waiting Justin out isn't going to work, since he doesn't seem to be leaving anytime soon. And now that the lights are off, flashing herself out is going to cause so much of a lightshow that he'll know she was here, for sure. (They do call it 'flashing out' for a reason, after all.)
Which leaves option three.
Alex really doesn't like option three, but what other choice does she have? Other than getting caught, of course...but then, for Alex Russo, getting caught is never an option. Call it hubris, call it pride, call it gross stubborn stupidity, but even option three is more appealing than that.
With a small groan, Alex nods to herself. And moving as slowly and quietly as possible in the awkwardly small space beneath her brother's bed, she begins to peel her still-visible clothing off of her very invisible body, piece by piece. Because as much easier it would be to just use her wand to flash them of her all at once...well, there's that whole 'flash' problem again. Like it or not, there's no other choice but to do this the old-fashioned way.
Somewhere, the laws of physics and probability are practically pissing themselves with laughter. Bastards.
Her shirt goes first, then her bra, followed by her boots and socks. Her pants prove to be a bit of an issue—whoever came up with the idea of skinny jeans clearly never considered the possibility of having to shrug them off while trapped beneath their brother's bed, and should therefore be drug out into the street and shot for their shortsightedness—but she finally works them off after what feels like an eternity. After that, losing her panties is a piece of cake.
(A piece of extremely damp cake, apparently. Because even though she's hidden out of sight beneath the bed, and now completely invisible besides, just the idea of stripping herself naked as the day she was born with Justin right above her is making her cooch trickle like a broken faucet.)
Bunching her clothes up together into a messy pile, Alex pushes it into what looks like the darkest corner beneath the bed, hiding it from view to be retrieved later. She hesitates a moment over her wand, not wanting to leave it behind but unable to think of a way to conceal it, before she reluctantly lays it on top of the pile. Grumbling inwardly—and promising herself that somehow, some way, Justin is gonna pay for this shit—Alex half-crawls, half-rolls out from under the bed, and stands up.
Justin can't see her, of course. He doesn't so much as glance up towards her, as he pulls the shrink wrap off of what looks like a brand-new DVD case. But the excited tug she feels in the pit of her stomach, the electric surge she feels in her clit as she stands before him—completely naked in front of her brother for the first time since their mother last bathed them together when she was three—is as undeniable as it is delicious.
She feels her nipples tighten and swell as she watches him. Her own breath sounds impossibly loud in her ears, but she does nothing to bring it under control, daring him to notice it, notice her. It's strange, because she's pretty sure the whole point of this is not to get caught, yet she still feels a bitter surge of disappointment when all he does is pop his new DVD open, pulls out the disc and feeds it into the side of his silver brushed-aluminum Macbook. Annoyed, she toys with the idea of tiptoeing over beside him and blowing in his ear—nono, putting her tongue in it, even better—and making him jump clear off the bed, but eventually decides against it. Justin's a screamer. Always has been, always will be. And security ward or no, at least one of their parents is bound to come running at the noise and pound on the door until Justin lets them in. Which would only serve to expose both of them. No point in cutting her nose off to spite her face. And Alex is plenty exposed as it is, already.
Besides, Justin's completely preoccupied whatever geektastic piece of crap he's just fed into his Macbook. (Another one of those imported "dating sim" games she's not supposed to know he plays, judging by the look on his face, she'd put money on it.) She'll never get a better chance to escape. He'll be so absorbed in trying to bed virtual Japanese schoolgirls that he won't even notice when she eases the door open—because, duh, even Justin isn't dopey enough to cast a security ward on the door that would lock it from the inside as well as out—then slips out and gently closes it behind her.
But first...
Turning her back on Justin as he continues to fiddle with his stupid Macbook, and swinging her hips a little more than is absolutely necessary, Alex pads barefoot across the carpet towards the middle of the room. She steps carefully over both the outer ring of sea salt, and the inner circle of flower petals within in, because even she's not reckless enough to risk breaking them when there's such old magic involved. Then, having reached the center, where the enchanted lab balance is still doing its freaky see-saw thing, as the tea candles flicker and spark to either side of it, she stoops forward to take a closer look.
(And she ignores the illicit little thrill that runs through her at the thought that she's presenting to her big brother, all bent forward with her ass and her sopping wet pussy poised mid-air before him, ripe for the taking. Big deal. It's not like he can see them, anyway.)
Alex squints in the flickering light of the candles, confused by what she's seeing. One the one side of the scale, bobbing up and down atop the left-hand plate, is a candid 4"x6" photo of her, uncharacteristically smiling genuinely at the camera, instead of cocking one eyebrow and smirking sardonically at it, the way she usually does. Her long, curly hair is tied back away from her face, her brown eyes dancing with joy, and even to herself she looks unspeakably happy. Alex swallows against the twin lumps that form on either side of her throat as she remembers why: that was the day in Puerto Rico, when she thought she'd lost her family - lost Justin - forever and ever, only to miraculously make everything right again at the thirteenth hour. It was Justin who'd snapped the picture, actually, telling her in a rare, unguarded moment that could only have come after what they'd been through together, that she'd never looked so beautiful. And as overjoyed as she'd been when he'd taken the photo, the compliment he'd given her afterward had practically sent her over the moon.
(Not that she'd ever admit that to anybody. Least of all him. Or, y'know, herself. Because, duh.)
She's never seen this photo in the family album that their mom had put together of all the pictures from that vacation. She's always assumed it just hadn't turned out. Justin is famous for getting his thumb in the way, or leaving the lens cap on, after all. Now, though, she finally understands the real reason why: Justin kept it for himself.
Puzzled, Alex turns to glance over her shoulder at him as he continues to fiddle with his computer, its backlit screen casting eerie shadows across his face. Why would he have kept it? And why the hell was he now using it as a spell component? Shaking her head, she turns back to the scale and glances at the opposite plate...and frowns as she realizes with a start that she's looking a blown-up yearbook photo of T.J. Taylor.
T.J.? What the hell did T.J. have to do with any—?
Oh. Wait. There was that little thing at that party the other night, when she'd gotten stuck in a closet with T.J. during Seven Minutes In Heaven. Nothing had happened, of course—aside from Alex cock-punching him after he'd stupidly tried to put his hand up her shirt—but that wasn't what T.J. was telling people. Which is what had led to her coming home drunk off her ass at three in the morning in the first place...
"Don't worry, Alex," Justin had insisted. "I'll fix this."
"There's nothing to fix, egghead," Alex laughed bitterly, waving one hand as if to brush the whole thing off. "Look, it'll be fine, really. You know how it is. Everyone will just whisper behind my back for a week, then someone else'll do something scandalous that gets everybody's attention, and I'll be old news. I survived it when Riley told the baseball team I did it with him before he broke up with me. I'll survive this. Like sand through the hourglass, these are the days of our lives, yadda yadda yadda."
Justin had stiffened, his grip on her hand tightening. Apparently, no one on the baseball team, or in Alien Loser League for that matter, had ever filled him in that particular juicy little rumor.
"OK, so now I'm definitely going to fix this," he'd said. "With extreme prejudice."
"God, Justin, you're taking this harder than I am," Alex said, shaking her head. "Look, seriously: don't. Trying to do anything about it is only gonna make it worse. Just let it blow over, all right?"
"No," he'd said firmly, his voice level. "Nobody talks about you that way, and gets away with it. Not as long as I'm around to do something about it. I'll fix this."
Alex had taken a moment to absorb this. Silently took a drink from her beer, then another.
"Assuming I wanted you to," she'd said in a quiet voice, without looking at him, "and I'm not admitting that I do, then how exactly would you do it? Because it's T.J. we're talking about, here. He's a pretty good wizard. I don't think a simple truth spell is gonna cut it."
"Please," Justin snorted darkly. "T.J. Taylor might think he's hot shit in a champagne glass when it comes to magic, but next to me he's cold diarrhea in a Dixie cup. I will pwn his noob ass. By the time I'm done with him, he'll be so compelled to spread the truth about what happened tonight, he'll be hiring skywriters and taking out full page ads in every local paper from the Penny Saver to the motherfucking New York Times. I. Will. Fix. This. OK?"
Alex blinks away the memory—or at least she tries to, but it's difficult to tell when your eyelids are transparent—then leans forward a little, trying to get a better look at the teetering enchanted lab balance before her. To be perfectly honest, in all her confusion over what had happened with Justin later that night, she'd completely forgotten about the whole thing with T.J. Sure, people had been pointing at her and whispering in the hallways, but no moreso than usual, really. (In fact, it's kind of a point of pride with her that every time something bad happens at Tribeca Prep, everyone automatically assumes that she's responsible, whether she really is or not.)
Clearly, though, Justin has not only not forgotten, but is determined to make good on his promise to fix it, and force T.J. into telling the truth about what really happened.
And that's when it suddenly comes back to Alex why lavendar petals set off warning bells in the back of her head—they're a powerful component common to old-school truth compulsion spells. She might not pay very close attention to most things during wizard lessons, but that she'd definitely made a point of remembering. Because to an accompished liar like herself—or TJ—they might as well by kryptonite.
"Wow," Alex murmurs to herself, her vision blurring slightly as her eyes threaten to mist over. Justin wasn't kidding aroud. He means to do this in a big, bad way, and consequences be damned. If it were anyone else, she'd say it was badass, but Justin doesn't have an ounce of badass in him...which somehow makes it even more badass, because she knows the only reason he's risking so much, and putting himself so far out there, is for her.
(Unf. As if she wasn't wet enough for him already...)
And that's about when it starts. It takes a few moments for it to penetrate, work its way through the sappy reverie she finds herself in as she watches her picture and T.J.'s bob up and down opposite each other, but she gradually becomes aware of the fact that, faintly, in the background, she's hearing some seriously porny bow-chikka-bow-bow music. Some seriously familiar bow-chikka-bow-bow music. Accompanied by some pretty enthusiastic moaning and grunting. Frowning to herself, Alex stands up and turns partway around...then gasps audibly at what she sees.
Fortunately, Justin is way too preoccupied with stroking the raging red hard-on that protrudes from his open jeans to notice.