Disclaimer: I do not own Wizards of Waverly Place. No profit is being made from releasing this fiction story.

Author's Note: So so so sorry it took forever to get this out. School is hell right now. I'm on my last year of college so I've been on overdrive.

And thank you so so much for staying with me for this long. Whenever I get kinda lazy with the writing, I always read the great reviews that everyone leaves and those really encourage me to keep going. Thank you.

Anyway, let's read on!

A Familiar Pattern 18

By genielou

"Come on, cutie. Dance with me."

Justin tried very hard not to cringe again. He has dated hybrids before but never one that was mostly one thing than the other. And in her case, she was more octopus than she was human. She was large. Very large. The mass of her body was round, and even her tentacles were thick and massive. Her smooth, gray skin was so shiny that one could mistake her to be slimy. Although the most abnormal feature about her were not any of these, but that the only human feature that she had was her head. It was like having someone randomly glue a Barbie head on an octopus doll. Justin had never seen anything like it.

"I'm sorry, Miss. I actually have to go get to my date now."

He began to walk away but a thick tentacle suddenly wrapped itself around his waist, pulled him back, and turned him around to face the very persistent human-octopus female.

"You're dancing with me, hotness."

Justin braced himself as he was pulled, pushed, and twirled along with what he could only guess to be 'dancing.'

"Argh! I have to find my date! Whoa!" Justin turned his head to avoid a kiss. "Harper! Where are you?"

"LOOKS LIKE WE'VE GOT ONE SPECIFIC LADY WHO'S GOT MOST OF THE VOTES! MEN, ARE WE ALL AGREED THAT SHE'S THE FAIREST OF THEM ALL?"

The entire place suddenly became overwhelmingly loud. Men of all creatures yelled and hollered their cheers. Justin tried to see where the majority of the crowd was grinning towards but there were too many people crowded to where the 'fairest' is supposed to be at.

"That's not fair! I got me a partner too!" the octopus yelled. She expressed her jealousy loudly and eccentrically. Justin took advantage of this distraction to push away from her. He swam as fast as his fins could allow him to, and when he was finally far enough away, he proceeded to look for Harper again.

"Harper! Harper!" He yelled, but the entire place was already so full of activity that he could barely hear himself. He felt a hard push and quickly turned in irritation to glare at his assailant.

"Watch it, pal!" said Justin, and immediately felt guilty for his outburst upon realizing who it was.

"Pardon, Justin. I didn't mean to," Mason said with a frown. "It's getting quite extreme in here. I can't find Alex."

"Same with Harper," he shared.

Mason smiled sheepishly at him. "Really? Well, you're the only one. She seems to be the focus of attention, Mate."

Justin looked to where Mason pointed, and his mouth dropped open in surprise. On the stage, somehow, an awkward-looking Harper was smiling and waving at the crowd.

"YOUNG LADY, WHAT IS YOUR NAME?"

Harper frowned as Max held the microphone to her mouth. "Max, you're kidding, right?" she said away from the mic. When Max didn't respond, she rolled her eyes and said through gritted teeth, "HARPER."

"GIVE IT UP FOR HARPER, EVERYONE!"

The entire place boomed with cheers.

"CAN WE ALL AGREE THAT SHE IS INDEED THE FAIREST OF THEM ALL?"

The volume of the crowd was so massive that Justin and Mason had to cover their ears.

"ALRIGHT! NOW, FOR THE BIG SURPRISE. ONE LUCKY YOUNG MAN WILL GET TO HAVE A KISS FROM THIS VERY BEAUTIFUL GIRL! WHO WILL IT BE?"

Justin glared at the stage as another cheer erupted.

"OKAY! NOW EVERYONE HAS A TICKET NUMBER IN THEIR HANDS—" with a snap of Max's fingers, blue tickets appeared in everyone's hands. Justin stared at his ticket with panic-stricken eyes. "HARPER, HERE, WILL BE DRAWING NUMBERS FOR THE WINNERS—" Jeannine from the counter suddenly appears with a bowl of blue balls in her hands, "—AND THE SEQUENCE OF WINNERS WILL DEPEND ON THE PRIZE. ARE YOU GUYS READY?"

The place erupted again.

"Wow," Mason quipped. "I hope I win."

Justin turned to him.

"I—I mean, so that I can give you my ticket and you kiss her. Honest."

"OKAY, NOW, FOR THE FIRST WINNER, YOU GET TO KISS HER HAND!"

Justin watched intensely as Max dipped a hand into the bowl that Jeannine held. Max made a spectacle of mixing the balls within it. Finally, he pulls one out, looks at it, and grins.

"NUMBER 20456, COME ON UP!"

Justin quickly looks at his ticket, and unfortunately, his numbers were not even close. He turns his head when a male voice starts yelling, "Here, here!"

Justin watched in dismay as a very happy-looking teenager swam quickly towards the stage. He could see Harper's discomfort as the teenager took a hand and kissed it lightly, and held on for much longer than preferable.

"ALL RIGHT, KID. GET OFF THE STAGE. NEXT WINNER GETS A HUG!"

Justin's grip on his own ticket became tighter as his anticipation became unbearable.

"EVERYONE READY? OKAY! NUMBER 20504, COME ON UP!"

Justin quickly looked at his ticket, cursed out loud, and began to look around for the winner. This time, it was a fairly handsome-looking merman. A real, shirtless, toned, and handsome merman.

"HOT DAMN! A LOCAL! COME ON UP, FELLAH!"

Harper blushed as the merman settled right next to her with an expectant look on his face.

"Hi," he said in a deep voice. Harper could only blush and smile.

"WELL, COME ON THEN!" Max urged. "WE HAVEN'T GOT ALL DAY."

The merman advance towards Harper and enveloped her in a warm hug. The crowd hooped and hollered as Harper slowly placed both arms around the handsome creature. And much to Justin's annoyance, the hug seemed to last forever.

"OKAY, OKAY, YOU'RE DONE, BUDDY."

"Would you like to dance later?" the merman asked Harper; his voice slightly audible through Max's mic. But before Harper could respond, Max began to push the merman off the stage.

"NOPE, SORRY. FLIRT ON YOUR OWN TIME. NOW FOR THE NEXT WINNER—" he addressed the crowd. "YUP! YOU GUESSED IT! A KISS ON THE CHEEK!"

The crowd erupted once again. Justin's heartbeat began to speed up. Mason merely grinned from ear to ear.

"NUMBEEERRRR—" Max stalled. "NUMBER 30246! COME ON DOWN!"

Again, Justin quickly looked at this ticket, cursed, and looked around for the winner. To his surprise, the loudest cheer came from right next to him.

"I won! I won!" Mason yelled and laughed. "Sorry, mate. It's just on the cheek. It's all right?"

"Well, uhm—" Justin began to say. "I suppose it's okay, but—"

"Cool, thanks!"

Before Justin could say more, Mason kicked off and swam towards the stage. Harper greeted him with a sincere smile as he approached. She welcomed him wholeheartedly with a tight hug and a kiss on the cheek.

"WHOA-HO-HO! DID YOU GUYS SEE THAT? HARPER, HERE, IS PRETTY GENEROUS IF YOU'RE HER TYPE." Harper glared at Max. "ALRIGHT, NOW FOR THE GRAND FINALE! THE PRIZE THAT EVERYONE IS WAITING FOR! A KISS! ON THE LIPS!"

The crowd's volume increased once again.

"THAT'S RIGHT! YOU HEARD ME! THE FINAL, LUCKY WINNER GETS TO LOCK LIPS WITH THE LOVELY HARPER!"

Another thunderous uproar.

"ALRIGHTY THEN, LET'S SEE WHO THE WINNER IS." Max dipped his hand into the bowl again, making extra effort to mix the balls in it. "NUMBER 30989! COME ON DOWN!"

Justin cringed before looking at his ticket, and cursed even louder than before upon seeing the incompatible numbers. He quickly looked around to see who the winner was. Every second that passed felt terribly long and Justin could've sworn that Max must have made everything move slower with magic. Suddenly, a hoarse, heavy breathing comes from behind.

"Oh my god, I won." Justin hears the disbelieving whisper from its owner. Turning, he sees an overweight, older man stare wildly at the ticket in his hands. Justin's heart could've stopped right then and there. Of all sorts of creatures that he could have imagined winning a kiss from his Harper, this fat, wheezing, pimple-covered, old man was possibly the worse.

"I've never won anything," he exclaimed with wild eyes. "I can't believe I—uh."

Justin's eyed widened as he suddenly froze in mid-sentence. He waited a few seconds longer to make sure; yes, definitely, the man was indeed frozen. Icicles started to magically form from his long nose and his skin turned blue with frostbite.

"NUMBER 30989? ANYONE?"

"Sir, are you all right?" Justin asked as he poked the man's shoulder. "Excuse me? Sir?"

"Boo!" Alex emerged her head from behind the overweight man. She held out her wand.

"Hey!" she greeted. Alex snatched the ticket from the older man's frozen fingers and held it out towards Justin. "You'd better claim it before Max picks another ball."

"NUMBER 3-0-9-8-9!"

Justin watched Alex suspiciously. His eyes darted skeptically from her, to the ticket, and then to her again.

"NUMBER 30989! COME ON! 30989!"

"Take it, stupid!" Alex shoved the ticket into Justin's hand. "Or do you want this schlub to slobber all over her instead? Your call."

"OKAY, I GUESS WE'RE PICKING AGAI—"

"Here!" Justin held his ticket up and yelled at the top of his lungs before he was even sure of what he was doing. "I'm the winner!"

Justin barely heard Alex murmur "moron" from behind as he kicked off and swam as fast as he could towards the stage.

"WE-HE-ELL! COME ON OVER HERE BUDDY!"

Max approached Justin as he settled onto the stage. He glanced at Harper just in time to see her staring at him anxiously, and then focused all his attention to his brother, keeping in mind that Max was the one responsible for the awkward situation that he was in.

"YOU LOOK LIKE A SMART, HANDSOME, AND SEEMINGLY CHARISMATIC YOUNG MAN. WHAT IS YOUR NAME?"

Justin first glared at the microphone that Max held towards his mouth, and then at Max himself. Max merely grinned mischievously at him.

"JUSTIN."

"JUSTIN, EVERYONE! THIS HANDSOME MAN'S NAME IS JUSTIN!"

The crowd cheered for no reasonable logic aside from the simple opportunity to cheer.

"CONGRATULATIONS, JUSTIN! YOU'RE KINDA CUTE, YOU KNOW THAT? NOW, OF COURSE, YOU WIN A KISS FROM THE LOVELY AND OH-SO-GORGEOUS HARPER. AND, LOOKING AT YOU, I'M SURE YOU WON'T DISAPPOINT HER," Max faced the crowd. "I MEAN, LOOK AT THE BOD ON THIS GUY. HE LOOKS LIKE A LADYKILLER. MUST HAVE DONE A THING OR TWO AROUND THE BLOCK ALREADY, EH?"

The crowd hollered. And in the midst of it, Alex laughed loudly as Mason shook his head in concern.

"NOW, HARPER. PLEASE COM E HITHER." Max gestured for Harper. She approached slowly and nervously, settling herself very closely next to Justin. "OKAY NOW. KISS! KISS! KISS! KISS!"

The crowd followed along; Alex especially with a rhythmic pump of her fist.

"KISS! KISS! COME ON, GUYS. THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN! KISS!"

Justin turned towards Harper, took her by the shoulders and looked at her anxiously. Her face had reddened considerably.

"Yeah, kiss her! Kiss!" yelled Alex.

"Alex, you're not really going to let them be exposed like this, are you?" asked Mason as his voice almost squeaked in panic.

"What? There's nothing wrong with kissing," Alex reasoned. "It's not like this is their first kiss. Kiss! Kiss!"

"Alex!" Mason pleaded. "This is their first date!"

Alex halted her cheering and looked at him. She had been so caught up with the excitement that she completely neglected this tiny fact. She stomped her foot, causing herself to be momentarily unbalanced in the water, and made a defiant face. "You know, sometimes I hate having a conscience."

Mason smiled and placed an arm around her shoulders. "I know, dear. I know."

Justin mouthed "sorry". Harper shook her head slightly and mouthed, "it's okay," although the embarrassed look on her face said otherwise.

"KISS! NO PECKS! IF IT'S TOO QUICK, YOU GOTTA DO IT AGAIN! KISS!"

"You can't tell me that you don't want to see them smooch," Alex argued.

Mason looked at her sheepishly. "I suppose it would be fairly entertaining. But—"

Alex made a face at him. "Yeah, yeah, it's their first date, blah, blah, blah."

Justin began to lean down, then stopped and took a deep breath. Both he and Harper looked skeptically into the crowd.

"KISS! KISS!"

Suddenly, an idea popped in Alex's head. "Would you settle for just letting them have the perfect kiss in their heads?"

Mason's eyes widened. "Alex," he started in a warning tone as she began to hold up her wand. "Don't you dare-"

"An embarrassing event threatens to overtake these two lovers," Alex said while flicking her wand. "Make their surroundings disappear and give them empty space to hover."

Before Mason could stop her, a bright flash emanates from Alex's wand, momentarily blinding everyone in sight. Justin instinctively covers Harper as they both closed their eyes against the bright light. When they opened their eyes again, everyone and everything was gone. All that was left was the two of them in a complete vastness of space.

"Justin," Harper began to say. "What's going on?"

"I have no idea," Justin looked around him, frowning at the nothingness that surrounded them. There was literally nothing in sight. The hoard of creatures was gone, and so were the underwater surroundings that they were just in. All around them was a black mass of nothing. It sort of reminded Justin of when Alex accidentally vacuumed their entire apartment through a portal hole, leaving nothing but a blank space where their living quarters used to be.

Looking down, Justin suddenly felt ashamed of himself. "Harper," he started. "I know I messed up our first date. I'm really sorry."

Harper furrowed her brows at him. "What are you talking about?" she told him. "I'm having a great time. Well, except when—uhm—guys started crowding me and all of that."

Justin looked down again. "I know, I know. I should've brought you somewhere else. And of course, I should've just insisted that we go alone. Going anywhere with Alex always ends up being weird in the end. And then having Max follow us here and create all this trouble—"

Justin stopped when he felt something press against his lips. And it went as quickly as it came. His eyes widened as Harper slowly released him and moved back to look him in the eyes.

"Justin," Harper insisted. "This is all absolutely great. Just great."

Justin smiled at her. "For the second date, I promise I'll take you somewhere really nice. Much nicer than here."

"And more normal?" joked Harper.

Justin chuckled. "Yes. More normal. And," he continued. "We'll keep it a secret so that Alex and Max can't follow us."

Harper grinned. "Deal."

Justin couldn't help but smile wider as Harper flashed a grin at him. And with the comfort of the isolation that he had been longing to have with her, he bent his head down and slowly closed his eyes. He kissed her softly, and then pressed firmly when he felt her positive response. It was different from the last two kisses that they've had. It wasn't as desperate and emotional as the first, or as quick and surprising as the second. This was more at ease and slow. It was more familiar and rich. The awkwardness that they had once haunted them was now gone, allowing them the calm to move their lips in perfect sync. It was long, much longer than neither had intended. When they finally parted, both were flushed on the cheeks and breathing heavily from their excitement.

"Wow," whispered Harper, her eyes still casted down and staring at his mouth.

"Yeah," Justin chuckled. "Wow."

"WOW! THAT WAS HOT!"

Harper quickly pushed off of Justin. They both looked around and, not seeing anything, frowned deeply.

"I don't understand what's happening here," Justin declared.

"You?" exclaimed Harper. "Think about how much I'm freaking out right now."

"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THANK YOU FOR PLAYING! PLEASE ENJOY THE MUSIC AS WE PARTY FOR THE REST OF THE NIGHT!"

An ear-splitting cheer erupted, but Harper and Justin could still see nothing but the black vastness that surrounded them. At his sudden revelation, Justin pulled out his wand and flicked it with a determined wave. With a flash of light, they were suddenly right back where they were, facing an uncontrollable scene of waves, hoots, and hollers. Alex was especially recognizable as she flung her arms around with Mason trying to hide behind her.

Max flung both arms around the two and grinned at them. "You guys are steamy! And you haven't even been dating for that long!"

Justin glared daggers at him.

"You look mad," Max stated. "But I don't care! That's what you get for not letting me come along."

Before Justin could say anything, Max had already freed himself and had moved to Harper's other side to distance himself from his older brother's growing temper.

"LET'S GIVE IT UP FOR JUSTIN AND HARPER!"

Another round of applause.

"AND AS PROMISED, HERE ARE YOUR FREE MEAL VOUCHERS TO THE BLUE LAGOON CAFÉ."

Harper reached out to the pair of tickets that Max presented, but was pushed to the side as a rather pudgy man, who was seemingly shivering and blue on the lips, appeared in between them and snatched the tickets away.

"Mine!" he exclaimed. Then turned to Justin and slapped him hard on the face. "Jerk!"

Justin could only stare in surprise. Alex just very characteristically laughed hysterically from within the crowd.