Three days later, on her way down to the basement, Alex curses and nearly drops her laundry basket as she bashes her forehead on the pipe that hangs low over the landing. Seeing stars and grumbling to herself, she half-stumbles the rest of the way down, wondering for the thousandth time why her parents have never bothered to have the damn thing moved. She sets the basket full of dirty laundry down on top of the washing machine, wrenches her eyes shut, and brings one hand up to probe the tender spot on her forehead. And seriously, it's a wonder her entire family hasn't suffered permanent brain damage thanks to that stupid pipe. Well, everyone except Max, anyway.
Gradually, as the pain and the dizziness start to subside, Alex becomes aware of an unusual noise, drowning out the familiar, persistent drone of the furnace: a kind of mechanical hum, accompanied by a regular, staccato thud-thud-thud-thud. Frowning, knowing that she's heard it before, Alex struggles to place it...and for some reason, curiously summons up the hideous mental image of Jerry dressed in a neon-green cutoff T-shirt, purple spandex pants, and a bright orange headband...
And then she gasps and her eyes pop open as it finally clicks: ohmigod, somebody is actually using the old home gym!
Alex spins on her heels to look across the basement to where the treadmill usually sits, forgotten, with several pairs of her mom's stockings hanging from it. And sure enough, there's Justin, in a Captain Jim Bob Sherwood T-shirt and grey sweatpants, huffing and puffing as he power-walks on it, completely oblivious to her. His arms swing stiffly at his sides as he pumps his legs beneath him, raising his knees as high as they'll go with each step, as though he's engaged in some kind of crazy one-man geek pride parade. Red-faced, sweat running in rivulets down his neck to soak the front of his shirt, he stares unblinkingly into the middle-distance as he runs, his eyes fixed on something only he can see. A pair of earbuds are jacked into his ears, plugged into the iPod strapped to his right arm. The thumping bass of whatever he's listening is just barely audible over the whir of the treadmill. Which is a surprise, given his usual paranoia over hearing safety, and that his taste in music lately tends to run towards smooth jazz.
Frowning, Alex takes a few steps closer and leans forward to peer at the digital timer built into the treadmill, then blinks in surprise and looks back up at him, impressed despite herself. Then, curious, she narrows her eyes and cocks her ear towards him, trying to place the song that she can almost make out through his headphones. It's definitely not Miles Davis or (ugh) Tears of Blood, but it sure sounds familiar...
And that's when Justin finally notices her out of the corner of his eye.
"AAAUUUGGGHH!" he shrieks suddenly, and jerks away, arms flailing. He loses his balance on the treadmill as he trips over his own ankle, falls forward onto it in a belly-flop, and immediately shoots off the end of it as it propels him backwards into a haphazard stack of cardboard boxes. Alex winces as they come crashing down on top of him.
Christalmighty. No wonder Tinkerbell managed to kick his ass.
Alex sighs as she picks her through the rubble towards him, and gingerly lifts a box of their father's junk off his head. "You all right down there, Batman?"
"AAAUGGGH!" Justin shrieks again, knocking aside the boxes on top of him as he leaps to his feet. Grimacing in pain, he starts hobbling stiff-legged around the basement, like Frankenstein's Monster on a cocaine bender. "CHARLEYHORSE! AUUUUGH! CHARLEYHORSE!"
Dropping the box she's holding, Alex crosses her arms over her chest and shakes her head as she watches him lap the concrete floor around her. Then, when he's finally close enough, she hip-checks him into the clothes dryer. As he collapses against it with a grunt, she crouches down to massage his spasming calf with both hands through his sweatpants.
"There," she says flatly, even as she feels the muscles begin to relax beneath her fingers. "Better?"
"Yes...thank you," Justin gasps, his chest heaving as he struggles to catch his breath. "Guess I'm...a little...dehydrated..."
"Yeah, no duh!" Alex scoffs as she continues to knead his calf. "You've only been on that thing for close to two hours. Overdoing it much?"
"Told you...you were right..." Justin breathes, leaning heavily against the dryer. He reaches up to tug the headphones out of his ears, then clicks the control wheel on his iPod to pause the music. "Not good enough...need to train..."
"OK, you just said I was right, so clearly you're not just dehydrated, you're delusional, too. You're supposed to be recuperating, egghead. Mom would flip if she saw you pushing yourself this hard."
"Would you relax? It's just a little low-impact cardio...or at least it was until you came along," Justin says, looking pointedly at the boxes that were toppled over in the crash. "Oh, you can stop now, by the way. It's much better, thanks."
"Oh, right," Alex says, releasing her grip on his tender calf. She stands upright and grimaces as she holds her hands out in front of her. "Ugh. Now I'm all covered in geek sweat."
"Besides," Justin continues with a sigh, "the monsters loose in New York—"
He breaks off as Alex steps in front of him and starts wiping her palms off, back and forth, on the sleeves of his T-shirt, the only parts of it not already drenched with sweat. Justin glares at her and clears his throat pointedly, only to have Alex look up at him as though this is nothing unusual.
"What? You were saying?" she asks.
"The monsters loose in New York," he repeats, in his overly-patient, 'my sister is an idiot' voice, "haven't called a time out just because I got hurt, Alex. Every day I'm not out there puts the Village at risk."
Alex rolls her eyes as she braces her arms on the dryer, and hops up onto it to sit next to him.
"God, does 'hard work' always have to be your answer to everything? Because, um, dude? In case you missed the memo? We're wizards! There's gotta be spells you can use to, like, make yourself stronger or faster, or whatever, so you don't have to put yourself through this shit. And don't even say that'd be cheating, Justin, 'cause—"
"—because there's no such thing as a fair fight, and monsters don't give points for good sportsmanship," Justin nods, as though he's reciting it from a textbook he memorized, or something. "That's the first rule of Monster Hunting, yeah."
"Really? I always thought the first rule of Monster Hunter was not to talk about Monster Hunting," Alex frowns.
Justin stares at her blankly. "No, Alex. That would be Fight Club."
"Oh, right. Man, I need to watch that again. Brad Pitt was way hot in that movie..."
Justin takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, and Alex can't help but grin. God, it's so easy to push his buttons.
"Look, of course there are spells that could double my speed, or triple my strength," he says, shaking his head, "but that would still only make me as strong and as fast as two or three skinny science nerds who weigh too much, which I think we both know isn't going to cut it."
Alex freezes, her blood turning to ice water in her veins. OK, so he heard that, did he? Oops. But wait, hadn't he been unconscious when she said it? Had Juliet sold her out, or—?
"Bottom line," Justin continues, oblivious, "is that most of those spells are only as effective as I am. And I'll be damned if I'm ever going to let myself be carried home by my girlfriend and my baby sister, again."
Alex frowns, and struggles to get past the sting of being referred to as his 'baby sister'. Because as much of a dick as Justin can be sometimes—as much of a dick as he's being now—it's possible that Juliet just may have been onto something with that whole 'being hard on himself' thing, after all. And while getting under his skin like this normally lights up the pleasure centers of her brain like Rockefeller Center at Christmas, the angry look of self-loathing on his face is actually making her sick to her stomach. Which is...new.
"Justin," she says sincerely—and wow, it even sounds weird to her, because she just doesn't do sincere—"that wisp was way out of your league. And I don't mean that in the usual 'ha-ha, you suck' kind of way, either. You can't beat yourself up over what happened. You did the best you could, just like you always do."
"And my best...wasn't...good enough," Justin scowls, punctuating each word by jabbing his index finger into his own chest, then turns it on her. "Look, Alex, I know what you're doing. I'm guessing Juliet put you up to this. But she couldn't talk me out of this, and if you two honestly thought you might succeed where she failed, then you clearly haven't been paying attention for the past, um, forever. Which should come as a surprise to absolutely no one."
"Juliet never put me up to anything," Alex says, fighting to keep her voice level. "I'm just...worried about you, is all."
Justin blinks at n surprise at the sentiment, then snorts in either disgust, utter disbelief, or some combination of the two. And it's not like Alex can blame him, either, given the way it kind of snuck up on her, too.
"Wow," he says, shaking his head. "That right there has got to be the worst lie you've ever told."
Alex stares back at him, silently frowning, unsure how to respond. And when it becomes clear that she doesn't have a snappy comeback for once in her life, Justin snorts again and pushes himself up off the dryer, heading for the stairs.
"I think I'll go finish my workout up in my room," he says quietly as he storms off.
His dramatic exit is ruined somewhat when he bashes his head against the pipe on his way up the stairs, nearly knocking himself flat again in the process. And though she'd usually find this hilarious, Alex just rolls her eyes and turns away without even cracking a smile, busying herself with sorting her laundry as Justin stomps his way up the rest of the stairs.
So, great. Justin gets himself in over his head, nearly gets himself killed, gives himself a freakin' complex over nearly getting himself killed, and now is probably going to hurt himself even worse in some kind of insane quest to turn himself into Batman, or whatever. And somehow, when it all shakes out, Alex just knows that the blame for all this is going to wind up landing squarely on her.
And OK, so most of the time that's exactly where the blame for things actually belongs. She can admit that. But in this case, she's not entirely sure how any of this is her fault, exactly. Like, since when does Justin give a flying fuck what she thinks of him, anyway?
For that matter, since when does she care if he does?
Weird.
Not as nearly as weird, though, as the way she waits until she's sure he's gone to hesitantly bring her hands up to her face, close her eyes, and breathes in through her nose. The scent of him still lingers on her palms, and she smiles ever so slightly as it permeates her, instantly bringing with it a wave of sense memory: childhood nostalgia, comfort and belonging, mixed with...something else that she can't quite put her finger on.
Or, yknow, something that she can put her finger on...but would really, really rather not.
Shaking her head sharply, Alex drops her hands and rubs them on the thighs of her jeans, looking guiltily up the stairs to make sure nobody saw that. Because, hello, how awkward would it be to have to explain this to somebody? Especially when she doesn't have clue one about how to explain it to herself?