par après avs yeux
- a jalex story-
a/n: Ugh, so sorry. It's been like a week and a half, hasn't it? So, so, so sorry. I've been getting a ton of homework and had a sudden flux of passion to write for Vampire Diaries. But I'm back, I swear. Here's the next part, which took me a bit to write because I want to make sure I have all the details down. Hopefully the story won't be too much longer, because no one likes a story which drags on pointlessly in the end, but I want to flesh it out right. Flat characters just won't do, lol. Reviews make me happy :D
chapter six - justin
En chronométrer nous détestons que que nous craignons souvent.
In time we hate that which we often fear.
-William Shakespeare
Two weeks of pretending. Two weeks of going to school and answering every question easier than the last. Two weeks of looking into our parents' eyes and smiling like nothing is wrong.
Two weeks of pretending like Juliet and I are the simplest thing, like nothing can break us apart.
Two weeks of listening to Alex mumble about Mason in her sleep, worry chasing the shadows across the planes of her face.
Two weeks of wondering if we'll ever go back home
or if we're doomed to this until we lose our minds.
I feel like I already am.
Old habits die hard.
It takes me five minutes of staring at the clock on the dresser in my old room before I realize that yes, it is 5:20 and no, I'm not going to fall back asleep. I thought you gave up the habit of getting up to study at 5am back in senior year, my thoughts shriek indignantly and, rubbing a shaky hand over my muddled vision, I groan softly.
Something – rather, someone – groans in response and I turn to see the peaceful face of my little sister. Alex's body is taking up three-fourths of the bed, with her head smashed between the sides of the pillow on her end and her feet tangling annoyingly with mine. It brings back memories of playing footsie under tables with Juliet when we thought her parents weren't looking and my Adam's apple bobs as I swallow guiltily.
I know I shouldn't feel guilty about having feelings for Juliet, because as a human being I have every right to. Besides, technically we're engaged and we love each other. You can actually be with her, I tell myself, feeling worse and worse by the second. True, we'd have to hide the fact that I'm a full wizard and Juliet is a vampire, but we could make it work if we really wanted to. But Alex…as much as I love her, we'd have to hide from the whole world and the frightened little part of my heart shies away from the risqué nature of such a lifestyle.
I've always been the rational one, and a relationship with my little sister is not rational. Why didn't we just walk away? Some rebellious part I've buried claws its way up. Now we're stuck here, fighting for something illegal to begin with, all because Alex begged me to care one more time. Guilt chokes me and I dismiss the thoughts, knowing that it really isn't Alex's fault. It's my fault for giving in to this.
Giving into what? You love her, don't you? I growl in frustration, wishing that my brain would just shut up. Of course I love Alex, more than anything, it's just sometimes, I get tired. That's all.
Alex's torso shifts again and my t-shirt she insisted on wearing rides up her flat stomach, revealing the smooth underside of her left breast; it's just enough to drive my hormones crazy and I force away the promiscuous dreams of taking her right now, listening to her cries as we both go over the edge. Stop being a perverted creature, I rebuke myself silently, reaching over and tugging the t-shirt - that looks way too good on Alex's slim body – down until it covers her chest. Back where we're from, Alex has developed a bit of a stomach, but I don't really mind that much. The animalistic side of my head, however, purrs appreciatively at how good my little sister looks right now, with her pale lips pursed and her face free from worry, with that thin stomach and hip bones protruding.
"Shut up," I mumble to those awful, lurking thoughts, scooting cautiously out of bed and walking over to my closet. Ugh, I'm still in teeny-bopper stage, I think, disgusted with my taste in clothing as I hold up a t-shirt with a high neckline and know that I'll find nothing but skinny jeans to go with it. Pulling off the shirt I wore to bed, I tug on the new shirt and slide a beige sweater on to ward away the early morning chills. Not bothering to slide on jeans that will only make me uncomfortable in a few minutes, I grab the ancient spell-book Alex had been pouring over yesterday and hug it to my chest as I scoot back into bed and turn the lamp on to the lowest setting.
Alex mumbles something under her breath, sighs and tangles herself further into the covers, but doesn't wake up. She's always been incredibly hard to wake up, I think to myself, smiling absentmindedly as I remember all of the mornings where she would drag her feet before school.
"You're so beautiful," I tell her slumbering form, sliding my fingers down her cheek before turning back to the spell-book. Alex has – surprisingly – marked all of the corresponding passages in the book with colored pieces of paper and I begin to flip through them, knowing that I've got to find something. Even if my little sister won't say it, I know that subconsciously she wants me to fix this.
And, if I'm honest, I expect myself to fix this.
The bedroom is flooding with curious strands of morning light when Alex begins to stir. Muscles heaving, she turns until she's facing the ceiling and mumbles a strand of curses against the insanity of getting up early.
"Good morning to you too," I tell her, flipping another page in the book and forcing my tired eyes to read the miniscule print.
"I'd like to drive a stake through whoever invented school," Alex mumbles, sliding her hand through mine and ghosting her thumb over my skin. I shiver, goose-bumps exploding down my arm.
"Barbaric," I say softly, smiling exhaustedly down at her and trying not to laugh as I see her hair sticking out in all directions. "I have to say, I like your shorter hair better."
Alex hisses at me while dragging her other hand through her obstinate hair she inherited from our mom. Sitting up, she looks down at her bare legs and frowns, murmuring, "I will never get used to seeing myself like this."
"Like what?" I ask her, rubbing her shoulder and smiling as she flinches away. "You're just as beautiful at twenty-eight as you were - are - at seventeen."
"My mind is going to be middle-aged soon," Alex groans to herself, and I wonder if she heard me to begin with. Then her dark eyes meet my face, brazen and burning with something I can't place. "Thank you for sucking up, though you're not exactly subtle at it." Her fingers stroke a pattern down my jaw towards my neck, hovering by my collarbone.
"How long have you been up with that?" she asks a second later, gesturing to the spell-book. Her eyes ask me if I've found anything and I shake my head, watching her expression fall back into gloom. The smile on her face turns brittle, the result of pretending for too long, but I respect that she's trying to be optimistic.
"Awhile," I admit.
"That nerdish head of yours just couldn't let you sleep, huh?" Alex asks, tapping my forehead gently.
"Really funny," I say, rolling my eyes. "You should get back to your room before Mom comes to –"
There is a sudden knock on the door and Alex's eyes widen.
"Justin, it's time to get up," Mom snaps, knocking once more on the door. "You have to get ready for school."
"Okay, mom," I shout back to her, keeping my voice pleasant enough.
There are shifting noises from behind the locked door. "Do you know where Alex is?" Mom wonders.
My eyes meet the round, brown irises of my sister and I gulp, hoping that for once I can lie adequately. This has never been my forte.
"Um," I begin, cheeks flushing with the shame of it all, "I thought I heard her heading downstairs early, something about exercising."
"Genius," Alex whispers sarcastically, giving me a look which means I've said something stupid. When I glare right back at her, she burrows her head into my neck and I gulp as her lips meet the side of my neck.
"Exercising?" Mom says with a little laugh. "The day Alex exercises is the day pigs fly. She's probably sneaking out to see Dean again, after I specifically told her not to. Hurry up and get ready, honey. I've got some bacon cooking on the stove." She slaps her hand against the door and I wait for the sound of her retreating footsteps before exhaling slowly.
"What is it with Mom and thinking I have a crush on Dean?" Alex wonders, crossing her arms and accentuating the curve of her chest.
"Maybe, I don't know, because you guys used to go out," I tell her, smirking when she gives me a dirty look. "It's plausible."
"Dean moved," Alex says, holding out the last letter. "What, does she think I'm going to hitch-hike on this random love quest or something?"
"You have been known to be unpredictable."
Alex slaps my shoulder and hisses, "Shut up, smart-ass."
I laugh for a second, enjoying the simplicity with her. But the problems quickly sink back in. "So, how are you planning on figuring this out when we're stuck in school?" I ask her, brow furrowing.
Alex smiles a little wicked kind of grin that usually signifies trouble, then slurs, "I have it all taken care of. Go downstairs and eat. Meet me outside of school in twenty minutes. Oh, and Justin?"
She looks at me and I feel my breath catch in my chest.
"What?"
Alex's grin widens as she says, "You'd better not forget to bring me food. Russo loves her bacon."
With that, she slides off the bed and saunters out, purposely swinging her hips and exposing more skin than I should like to see. Goodness, I love you, I think as I get out of bed to find a pair of jeans that won't strangle my waist.
Fifteen minutes later, I mutter an excuse about some extra-curricular club I made up and scoot out of our house. Mom's eyes follow me a bit suspiciously as I stutter away and for one heart-stopped second I think she's caught me in the act, that she'll detain me or something, but she doesn't.
"Hello, young man," some ruffian leaning against the brick wall around the corner from Waverly Place grunts as I hurry past. He grins and displays a set of rotting, yellow teeth that smell absolutely horrible. "Spare a twenty, would you?"
I take a step back and nearly run into a mother clutching a toddler in her arms. The blonde flashes me an owlish glance before continuing down the street with her babbling child. "I - um, well," I begin, feeling my face flush and hating the truthful streak I've built over the years. "I don't have my wallet on me. Sorry." Instinctively my fingers creep towards my back pocket where I slid my thin brown wallet earlier.
The man's eyes follow the movement of my hand and he grimaces as I begin to walk backwards. "Kids these days," he mutters to himself, coughing up something black and disgusting. I shiver. "No compassion whatsoever."
A quiver runs from my head to my toes and I curse the busy streets leading to school, wondering why there seem to be so many people out on this particular day. It's funny how that works. People in this city don't give a damn about you until you start acting guilty, and then they swarm like starving monsters.
"You're five minutes late," Alex remarks when I finally make my sweat-stained, shuddering way to the alley beside the school. "Should I be worried?" She holds out a hand and I pull out a paper towel wrapped around five pieces of bacon, giving it to her.
"I thought you said you had a plan," I hiss when she tears into the bacon. "Alex."
"Whining is a very unattractive habit, Professor Russo," Alex mumbles snarkily around a piece of bacon. Swallowing, she says, "Would you relax? You're trembling like a leaf in winter, in the middle of a snow-storm."
"I'd relax if you would hurry up and clue me in," I snap, quickly losing my patience. My little sister has an annoyingly easy time of ticking me off and right now I don't need to be dealing with it. "Alex, if we don't figure out this curse thing then we might lose our lives. Take things seriously for once!"
She looks hurt for a second, but quickly brushes nonchalance over her face. Sliding her wand out of her left boot, Alex points it at her face and says clearly, "Edgebono Utoosis."
"No, what are you -" I begin, but it's too late.
There is a little flash of light and suddenly there are two seventeen year old Alex Russos standing in front of me.
"Alex," I hiss, pressing a hand against my forehead as I suddenly feel light-headed. "The last time you attempted that spell you screwed everything up. Magic is very tempermental."
Her eyes darken with frustration and as she laces her arms over her chest she spits, "I wish you'd stop teaching me like one of your stupid pupils. I became the family wizard for a reason, Justin. I know it's hard for you to accept that maybe, just maybe, I'm good at magic, but you need to get over yourself." Her chest heaves up and down and color spills onto her cheeks as she glares at me. I realize that I've hit a nerve and guilt surfaces.
"Look, I'm sorry," I begin, reaching out to touch her shoulder. She steps away from me and I swallow back the hurt, knowing that I've inflicted some damage. "I think you're a wonderful wizard, Alex."
"Then why can't you ever trust me with anything?" Alex asks, her voice trembling. She glances at her duplicate. "Whether you like it or not, I'm trying to get us out of this mess. So just - just go along with it for once."
"Okay," I sigh, reaching out again. This time she permits the touch, her face softening a little as she notices my remorse. "I'm sorry. I didn't get enough sleep last night, but that's no reason to lash out at you." Fishing my wand out, I cast the spell on myself and shiver without meaning to as I watch my duplicate form in front of me, down to the triple knot on the black shoelaces. "Now what do I do?"
"For the bright child in the family, you're acting really dull," Alex comments, exhaling heavily. "Teach your duplicate the basics, conjure a map of the school or whatever. He'll probably pick it up fast enough." She turns to her own duplicate to do the same, mumbling intently to the thing.
Ten minutes later, Alex sends the duplicates scampering off towards the school, a satisfied expression on her face.
"Now, how do you plan on getting us out of here?" I ask her with a hint of reproach in my tone.
Crossing her arms once more, Alex flashes me a petulant look and mutters, "Did you happen to bring the flying carpet in your back pocket?"
I just look at her for a second in disbelief and wonder how she could leave us hanging like this, then give in with a grumble and tug the magically shrunken carpet from my front left pocket, spelling it back to its full size. I would ask myself how Alex could have known I'd carry the flying carpet in my pocket, but know that she knows me all too well by this point to bother. Someone passing by on the sidewalk gives us a weird look but passes by. It's only a carpet, hardly the oddest thing one encounters in this city.
"Now what do -" I start in on my little sister again, knowing that I'm being cruel about this but unable to stop.
"Invisibility dust," Alex says, pulling a small vial from her handbag and waving it in front of my face triumphantly. "Stop your moping and get over here."
There's nothing left to do but comply. Sitting down gently on the carpet, I wait for Alex to plop behind me and sprinkle the sparkly dust over us and the carpet before allowing the red-swirled rug to carry us in the air. Alex wraps her arms tightly around my waist, burying her head into the crook of my neck. It isn't that hard to direct the carpet further up into the skies - I won't take any chances of us being discovered by mortals - and a few minutes later we're soaring over the city, the breeze sending Alex's hair whipping and the skin of my face tightening uncomfortably.
"Where to?" I ask my sister hesitantly, hoping that she's planned this through.
"Metro," is all Alex says before her expression glazes over with something I don't want to think about. She's still hurt and it's my fault - again. Everything is always my fault. "Why are you so angry with me, Justin?" she whispers after a tense silence.
"I'm not angry with you," I tell her, half-lying. "I'm angry with myself."
"You've never been a good liar," Alex reminds me and I grit my teeth as thoughts of Juliet and Mason swarm through my brain.
"I'm just," I start, pausing to sift through my thoughts. "I don't like being back here and having to deal with Juliet, having to listen to Mom bring up Dean and Mason over and over again, and I guess -" I can't finish, don't know how.
"You're not losing your memory, are you?" Alex asks, sounding frightened. She's let her guard down and is staring at me with undisguised love and fear she hates to let show. Her fingers cup my cheek delicately and when she leans forward to kiss me I let her, needing her wonderful taste against my mouth.
"No," I mumble, eyelashes fluttering against her soft skin. Our brown eyes meet and I lose myself in depths of gorgeous brown. "I just don't belong here, Alex. This isn't who I am anymore. And I'm so tired of pretending."
She doesn't say anything else, but I can read the question in her eyes. Why are you mad at me then?
I'm not the reason you're pretending, am I, Justin?
I can't answer, because I don't know what will spill out of my mouth.
I land the flying carpet a block away from the Metro station, folding it with careful precision before stowing it back in my front left pocket. Alex taps her foot impatiently the entire time, but every time I look up at her she glances away as if afraid to make me angry. This isn't who I am, I want to say, but the words get caught in my throat. Instead I reach out and slide my fingers through hers, squeeze her hand reassuringly.
"I'm sorry," Alex says out of the blue and I start.
"You never apologize," I respond without thinking.
She gives me an incredulous look and mumbles, "Obviously I'm capable of it."
"What are you sorry about?" I stutter after an awkward pause. Our joined hands swing back and forth, bumping her hip every few steps.
"I'm sorry for getting us in this mess," Alex whispers so quietly I barely hear it. She clears her throat and those beautiful brown eyes glisten with determination. She looks at me, really looks at me, for the first time in a half hour. "I'm sorry for sleeping with you, Justin."
Something shatters within me at her words. "Do you regret it?" I ask, hoping more than anything that she won't say what I think she will. Because if we're stuck in this mess and she regrets that anything happened to begin with...I can't begin to imagine the hurt that admission will cause.
Alex looks startled as she says, "No, of course not. I would never regret it. That was one of the best nights of my life."
I smile without thinking about it, "For me too."
She looks pensive now and the sunlight frames her face perfectly, setting the crevices in her skin on fire - golden, roaring, alive.
"I'm just sorry that all of this happened," Alex says, gesturing around us. "If I could change it, I would."
Before I can think about it, I pull her into a hug and release a shaky breath into her dark hair. "I'm sorry too," I whisper, tears building up in my eyes and blurring my vision. Refusing to think about the fact that any day now our memories could be stolen from us, I focus on Alex's soft, jasmine scent and how perfectly she fits against me. How can something as amazing as this be wrong?
"Sorry to break things up, but I need to get through," an aggravated voice says and a girl with honey blonde hair pushes her way past us, shouldering a duffel bag that looks ready to burst.
Straightening, I prepare to give her a cold lecture about politeness, then freeze as I recognize just who she is. "Jocelyn?"
Alex swats my side and I realize that I've opened my mouth and said something idiotic again. What else is new? But I'm too preoccupied in looking at the younger version of Max's girlfriend to pay much attention to anything. Her hair is shorter, eyes a little duller, but other than that Jocelyn doesn't look all that much different. There is a forlorn expression on her face that makes something within me ache, however, the expression of someone who is horribly lost in the smothering grasp of life.
"I'm sorry," Jocelyn says, her hand wrapping more tightly around the strap of her duffel. "Do I know you?"
"Vaguely," Alex cuts in before I can screw things up further. She's usually pretty good at cleaning up my verbal messes, just as I fix her magical errors. "We met you once when we were talking to your brother."
"Freddie? You know Freddie?" The girl's face lightens incrimentally at the mention of her brother and she smiles, probably seeing how rude she's being. "I'm sorry that I ran into you. I'm just in a hurry to catch a ride downtown."
"Why, are you getting arrested?" I joke.
Neither Alex nor Jocelyn smiles. Every time, I think grimly.
Jocelyn smiles faintly. "Actually, I'm meeting with Freddie so that Professor Crumbs can transfer the full wizard powers to me."
"Wizards?" Alex asks, trying to appear shocked, but she quickly gives up pretending. "You ought to be more careful who you tell stuff like that too."
"Maybe you shouldn't have your wand in such plain sight then," Jocelyn counters, glancing at Alex's feet again and smiling crookedly. "I'm sorry. I really have to go. It was nice meeting you guys." With a last backwards glance, she heads off towards the Metro station, leaving Alex and I to give each other horrified looks.
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" I ask my sister softly.
Alex nods and swallows, hard. "We have to stop Jocelyn from getting her full powers. One of the Russo children deserves happiness." The smile she wears this time is so sad I wonder why she even bothers.
Kissing the top of her head and tangling our fingers together once more, I lead Alex down the path towards the Metro station.
..::.:.:::être continué:::.:.::..
..:.:..::...to be continued..::..:.:::.:..
