Work Text:
So ask yourself before you get in-
You know the insurance won't cover this
Are you the rabbit or the headlight?
And is there room in your life for one more breakdown?
-Marilyn Manson
She isn't sure exactly when it started, and she never, never thinks about where it's going to end.
It hadn't always been there. Of this she is sure.
Give her some credit. True, self-analysis hasn't usually been her favorite activity, but she's not blind. And, regardless of what her teachers think, she's not stupid, either.
She's raked her brain over every casual encounter going back freaking years, looking for clues, hints, for even the tiniest of signs that could have served as warning. If she'd been paying attention.
That was one thing she'd never been great at- paying attention- and usually that suited her just fine/down to the ground; it had not, in her experience, proven to be a particularly vital skill set. Paying attention led to thinking, and then overthinking, and before you knew it you'd talked yourself out of your perfectly acceptable course of winging it.
Winging it worked for her. And when it didn't, when some massive, unforeseen complication leapt from the shadows to sucker-punch her, Justin was always there to fix things. And she liked to watch him fix things. So really, even when she screwed things up, winging it worked for her.
This time, though, she couldn't ask Justin to help her, and without Justin, she was finding, getting blindsided really, really sucked.
Maybe that's not quite the right word- blindsided- but she's not Justin, she doesn't have a freaking dictionary in her head. It hadn't been sudden... but it had certainly been a surprise.
Surprise, sure, try shock. Try fucking cerebral hemorrhage (and when, exactly, did she start thinking in his weird geek words?).
He'd been her favorite target forever... and she doesn't know just when that had started to mean something else to her. Hours of wracking her brain######
But, okay, this one time she'd waited for him to fix his hair in the morning (twenty minutes? what was he, a girl?), and when he emerged, she'd creamed him with a snowball. In July.
He freaked out, as she'd known he would, blood pounding in his face, eyes bulging comically.
"Guh-wuh-buh-Aargh! Alex!"
"Is that your way of apologizing for taking so long in the bathroom?"
"No, it is not, when Mom and Dad find out... I told you I have that English presentation today..."
The thing is, he had told her.
"Well, duh, why do you think I picked today to throw that?"
She isn't sure either of them know the answer to that question, really.
Gathering his composure, he said, "When I tell Dad about this, he's going to ground you until the wizard competition."
She shrugged; "I'll deny it. It'll be your word against mine. That's the good thing about snowballs- they melt."
He'd still been processing this when she hit him with the second one, her laughter mingling with his surprisingly girlish shrieks.
Grounded and in her room an hour later, and she could still feel that squirming warmth in the pit of her stomach. Planning a prank on Justin was good, but seeing him loose it like that was about a million times better. There was something about seeing him loose control, seeing his carefully ordered demeanor succumb to waves of shock or rage, that made her feel...
(what? what was the word on the end of that sentence?)
This wasn't supposed to feel this good. Nothing was supposed to feel this good.
Kissing that guy at school had felt a little like this. Even if she had only done that for Justin's benefit. And, really, if the kiss had felt good, seeing the look on his face when she'd pulled back, that had felt great.
Her throat constricted. The warmth was gone now, replaced by waves of nausea, and she suddenly felt very afraid of something she could not (would not) place. There was a pull here, one that shouldn't be here, or in any way associated with her brother, and however much she loathed introspection, it was too strong now to completely ignore.
And, really, she wasn't Justin, she didn't need to label everything, didn't need everything carefully arranged and ordered, but whatever this was wasn't even on the map, and even someone like her could see this was seriously messed up.
She shivered, suddenly cold, and pulled her knees to her chest. No one could know about this. Harper would kill her. Juliet- well, Juliet might actually kill her.
And Justin...
Justin would freak.
Almost against her will, she smirked, picturing his reaction; if he lost it over one lousy snowball, (okay, two, but so what?), something like this would probably send him running for a mental institution.
Which was probably where she'd end up when her parents found out about this little... this.
Her mouth turned sour, the spark of mirth vanishing.
Okay, well, this was just going to have to be something that wasn't. She's Alex and she's always been good at doublethinking and not thinking and she's just going to forget about this.
She's not going to feel her stomach clench when she sees him the next morning, that little shock of warmth when he touches her arm, that jerk in her chest when he asks if she's okay, because she hadn't been like totally staring at him.
And she's going to swallow, and fake a smile, and tell him she's fine. And she's not going to put hot sauce in his cereal no matter how tempted she is, because that leads somewhere she can't afford to go.
And for a few weeks he'll wonder why she's being so nice, while she avoids him like the plague. And in a month or two they'll start to slowly but surely slip back into their old routine, and it'll feel good, but not too good, because whenever she starts to feel that way she'll swallow it.
And she doesn't dream about him. Really, she doesn't.
And, with time and luck, she'll find she doesn't feel anything at all.