Justin grunts as she pushes herself up and off of him, and she winces at the way his fingers slid out of her as she propels herself off the bed. Her feet thudding against the carpet, she neatly steps around the circle of sea-salt this time, careful not to disturb it again, and hisses "Go through, mow through" under her breath as she launches herself towards the mystically-locked door. And even though she doesn't have her wand in hand, and it really shouldn't work, the laws of physics and probability apparently decide that they've messed with her enough for one evening, and allow her to pass through the door as though it isn't even there

(Well, shit. Why the hell didn't she think of that before?)

Heels skidding on the hardwood floor as she exits into the hallway and makes a hard left. And though the thought of retreating to the safety of her own room is tempting, she bypasses it entirely, knowing it will be the first place Justin looks for her. Instead she hurls herself down the yellow spiral staircase as fast as her bare feet will carry her, through the living room and all the way down to the ground floor. She streaks invisibly through the still-empty Sub Station, right past Dad, Harper and Max, who are all lounging around Table 9. And even though she feels her cheeks burn as she bypasses them—naked and covered in her brother's spend as she is—none of them so much as look up, as they apparently explore the possibilities of an evening gown made entirely out of Twinkies, judging by the snippet of conversation she overhears as she ghosts into the kitchen and slips through the freezer door into the lair.

It's only once it closes heavily behind her that Alex finally allows herself to breathe again. Justin won't think to look for her in the lair. None of her family ever does, since she rarely comes in here without purpose, even tends to avoid it between wizard lessons, if only because there's no TV in here, and cell reception this close to the portal is for crap. Padding over to the workbench, she snatches up a dark blue cloth embroidered with golden stars and crescent moons—which could be some all powerful magical heirloom for all she knows, Merlin's hankerchief or some such shit—and uses it to wipe off Justin's still-warm semen, where it drips down her face and throat.

"I'd ask how it was for you," she'd said wryly to him the other night, after he'd burst all over her hands, "but the answer's kind of all over me, isn't it?"

"Uh, yeah, sorry about that," he'd said sheepishly. "I know how gross you think it is."

Without raising her eyes, Alex had shrugged one shoulder and coyly smiled at the memory of how his climax had triggered her own. "Eh, maybe it's not so bad."

Shaking her head, Alex whips the rag away from her in frustration, then crosses over to one of the bookshelves filled with magical brickabrack, and digs the case holding the titanium family wand out from where her dad thinks he's hidden it from her. Yeah, yeah, so she swore she'd never touch this thing again after the mess she'd made of things in Puerto Rico, but desperate times call for desperate measures. And it's not like this is even the worst thing she's done today. Or even in the last ten minutes, for that matter.

Taking the wand out of its padded case, she holds it up at shoulder-height, twirls it once through the air to cancel the invisibility spell, then a second time to retrieve her own wand and the pile of clothes from where she hid them beneath Justin's bed. They appear on the workbench before her, without the signature flash that normally accompanies magical teleportation. Just as she wanted, a testement to the power and control the titanium wand has over magic, the way it makes those pesky laws of physics and probability practically sit up and beg. Alex smiles grimly in relief. Now there's absolutely no evidence left that she'd ever been in Justin's room.

Except, y'know, for Justin's memory of having heard her call out his name in the throes of passion.

Alex slides her eyes over to the gleaming titanium wand, still held aloft in her hand. Once, with an idle wish, without even meaning to, she'd used it to change history so that her parents never met. It would be oh so easy to use it to deliberately erase Justin's memory of everything that happened in his room this afternoon. Along with her own. And both of their memories of the other night, too.

Hell, why stop there? Why not just change history again, so that the other night never even happened? Or reorder all of reality so that whatever utterly fucked-up impulse they both gave into is completely expunged from both of them. Turn them into normal siblings with normal, sibling-like feelings for one another, instead of...whatever the fuck they are now.

Fix it so that Justin wouldn't be in love with her, as he pretty obviously is. And so that she wouldn't...wouldn't love the idea of him being in love with her as much as she obviously does.

(Because that's all it is. Right?)

Alex stands there for what feels like a long time, still naked as the day she was born, staring at the wand in her hand until her eyes burn. Seconds slide into long minutes as inwardly debates with herself, weighing the consequences and probable outcomes of her actions for possibly the first time in her life. In an odd way, it makes her feel like Justin, because that's what Justin does, like, all the time. And thinking about that—about what Justin would do in her situation—is finally what seals the deal for her.

Nodding to herself, Alex makes up her mind. The family wand practically sings with power against the palm of her hand as she twirls it in a tight circle. The tip of it flares briefly in bright, neon pink...

...and then her iPod, earbuds, sketchbook and charcoal appear on the workbench in front of her, right next to her clothes.

Letting out a small sigh, Alex lowers the titanium wand and packs it back away in its case, then carefully stows the case back in its "hiding place" on the bookshelf. She quickly gets back into her clothes—grimacing at how cold and clammy her panties are, and using her own wand to dry both them and herself—then gathers up her iPod and sketchbook, carrying them over to her Dad's worn, brown recliner. She sits down and draws her legs up under her, plugs the earbuds into her ears, and fiddles with the iPod for a moment. Then, settling her sketchbook in her lap, she traces the charcoal back over the reverse S-curve she'd sketched on the page earlier, making it darker, then proceeds to start filling in all the other details she sees in her minds' eye.

It's just after five o'clock on a Tuesday night—look, we went over this already, just go with it, OK?—and although she's alone in a quiet room with no TV and no cell phone, listening to the same song over and over and over again on repeat, Alex Russo is far from bored. Her hand sweeps back and forth across the page, filling in all the details she sees in her mind's eye, working out all the thoughts and feelings she doesn't have words for. Reverberating in her ears, Fefe Dobson insists that—all evidence to the contrary—she's the one who's in control here. And as she puts the finishing touches on Justin's hand, and the guitar ramps back up into the chorus, Alex breaks into a smile.

—30—

AUTHOR'S NOTE, THE SECOND: Yeah, the ending's kind of ambiguous, I know...but then, so are the endings of The Empire Strikes Back and The Two Towers. Which is my really roundabout, geeky way of telling you that we haven't seen the end of Harmless Smut just yet. Hopefully it won't take me a year to get back to it, this time. Stay tuned. ;)

BONUS CONTENT! BONUS CONTENT!: Some of my earliest readers from the justin_alex community on LiveJournal may remember that this isn't the first time I've used the premise of Alex walking in on Justin getting off to photos of her. If you'd like to read the first (failed) attempt—the only story of mine that's never migrated from LJ to here—search for "You-niversal Truth" on LiveJournal. The story's honestly not that great (it was only my second Jalex ever, and I kind of chickened out with it), but if you scroll down to the comments, you'll witness some fun interaction with the writer of the third-season WOWP episode on which it was based.