Title: Alternate Endings: Wizards vs Angels: Chapter 1

Fandom: Wizards of Waverly Place

Word Count: 10,097

Spoilers/episodes: Wizards vs Angels

Rating/Content/Warnings: Jalex. NC-17, I think. This is quite a bit darker than any of my other Jalex stories. Please be aware that this story contains incest (duh), violence, gore, suicidal ideation, Dark!Justin, eternal damnation, ANGST, slightly nonconsensual scenes, and the 'F' word (once).

A/N: This story started life as a chapter for my 'Alternate Endings' series, but quickly grew out of control as I became infatuated with writing Dark!Justin. (Seriously, how fun is that guy!) Also, I have it on good authority that it's both a bad fit for the fluffy stuff, and a heck of a long trip to make all at once, being a kajillion words long and all. So I'm going to pull it out as it's own story as well as post it in chapters.

I was tempted to give this an 'M' rating… but it's not quite bad enough for that. Next time, I'll try harder.

Also, this is my first real attempt at angst. If you like it, I'd be thrilled all the way to the tips of my writerly toes if you'd reach deep into your soul and give it some love, in review or PM form. And if I screwed it up, let me know where I took a wrong turn so I can get it right next time, huh? And if you don't have the time or inclination to do those things, I hope you enjoy it all the same.

Beta: Thanks (yet again) to my amazing beta TheWolfHourx for catching my mistakes, pointing out the good stuff, fielding my frantic requests. If she didn't have my back, these stories I'm posting would be all kinds of messed up, trust me on this. Go check out her newest fic 'The Bad Alex' if you haven't already!

Disclaimer:I don't Wizards of Waverly Place, or anything else that might look familiar. I *know*, right?

Summary: In Wizards vs Angels, Justin gave up his magic to join his girlfriend Rosie in the Dark Realm and stole the Moral Compass from the Guardian Angels, thus plunging the world into chaos and evil. In the episode, Justin was eventually redeemed, the Compass returned, and the world restored to balance.

This is the other thing way things might have gone down.

On a rooftop high above the city, Justin Russo paces outside a cellblock of sorts. It's a rude cage, hastily constructed with a specific purpose in mind. It's an ugly thing of brick and wire and cruelty, built to hold the heart's desire of the Dark Lord's new apprentice. The wind howls along the rooftops.

Justin paces, nervousness and excitement gathering in him. For so long now he's denied what he wants, what he is. There has always been an evil in him, always an empty place in his soul for the one thing he couldn't have. Always he's known a hunger that eats at him daily, breaking open wide cracks for the wind to blow through. All his life, he's struggled against it, if only to protect others. That's over now, which is good. All that hiding and struggling and protecting has exhausted him. Justin is tired.

Now there's nothing left to protect. Well, almost nothing. Just the one thing, and that's waiting for him on the other side of the door. Chained to the wall. Unable to escape.

Now that he knows where he belongs, there's no need to pretend. He knows what he wants. Justin steels himself, and opens the door.

The sight of her goes through him like a natural disaster, leveling him, burning him down:

Alex.

"Do you know how long it takes to form a new habit? Technically speaking?" Justin Russo had asked one of his fellow Dark Angels one day, feeling the momentary pull of his old, trivia loving self, the guy with the big brain and the unruined soul, the guy with a family.

Not waiting for a reply, he'd rushed on, "Twenty one days, that's how long. They've done scientific studies. In less than two weeks, I'll be free of all the things of my old life – my weak, pathetic Wizard life. I'll be one of you!" Justin looked at him expectantly, but the big quiet ogre had simply gone away, to eat his meal rations somewhere else.

When it came to finding someone to sit with at lunchtime, the Dark Realm was worse than middle school.

Yesterday:

Justin Russo, Angel of Darkness, leaned on the parapet that circled the rooftop of the Dark Fortress, and stared into the void. He felt numb. That was good.

When he wasn't numb Justin felt strangely hollow, almost worse than what he'd felt before everything changed. Before he changed. He felt incomplete, as if his heart was walking about in the world, and he had no claim to it. He didn't like to think about it, if he could help it. He preferred not to think at all. He preferred not to feel.

It'd been just twenty days since he's become a creature of the darkness. Twenty days ago he surrendered his innocence and his magic; honestly, it feels like a lifetime. Twenty long, dark days, in which he's seen, and done, and been things he'd never have believed himself capable of. Twenty days ago he'd renounced his wizardry, his humanity, and nearly everything he believed in.. At the time, he'd thought he was doing it for... well, for love.

How ironic.

There was light sound on the stair, but Justin pretended he didn't hear her. He ignored her as she slid up behind him, standing too close. He felt her fingers walk up his back and over his shoulders, and thought of spiders. He became acutely aware of the tension in her body, the soft crush of her full breasts pushed against his back, and her hips cupping his. She was a creature of soft curves and supple flesh, well-trained in seduction, conditioned against arguing with her betters, and made for delight… she's everything he ever wanted. Once.

Her lithe fingers slid down his sides until she could bring her arms around his waist. Sinuous, they reminded him of snakes. She pressed her lips to his shoulder, then the side of his neck, and a dull heat flared in him, distant as a memory of love. "Go away, Rosie," Justin murmured.

She paused, but then her hands moved down, touching his hips. Skimmed the waistband of his black pants. Crept lower.

With a growl of distaste, Justin peeled her fingers from his belt, drew her hand away from his body, and pivoted to throw her to the blacktop surface of the roof. The Angel cried out, breaking her fall awkwardly with her hands. "Justin!"

And another, buried part of himself, a Justin that didn't hit girls or steal things or rejoice the suffering of others, was sorry. That Justin wept inside himself, hating the thing he'd discovered he can be.

But the rest of Justin stands over the weeping girl and smiled. "I thought you liked it rough, Rosie."

The Angel swabbed her angry tears with the back of her hand. "I thought you were different, Justin," she accused him softly. The words had no sting. It wasn't the first time she's used them on him.

"I was, before you came along." His gaze flickered along her prostrate form with marked disinterest. "What do you want?"

Moving warily now, she picked herself up and drew close to him again. She didn't touch him again. The cold part of Justin noted with approval that was afraid of him, and was glad.

Rosie, her body angled away from him now, rested her forearms on the wall and stared down into the city, With lowered eyes, she told him, "The Master himself has asked that I speak with you, Justin. He..." she swallowed. "He's asked that you meet with him in his chambers. Tonight."

His upper lip curled in a sneer. "You can run home and tell Daddy that I won't be a part of his ridiculous, doomed plan to infiltrate the Wizard World. Not until

he's ready to offer me something of value."

Rosie's face was pale and drawn of blood as she looked at him. "Please, Justin! You think that you can bargain with him, make your own rules, but you're wrong! You've been in his good graces up until now... you don't really understand what he is. He can be so, so much worse."

The fallen Angel stretched a beseeching hand toward her onetime lover, but drew it back at a cold, warning look from his grey eyes. "Justin, don't do this. This is insane. He's going to destroy you, unless you give him what he wants."

"You know, it's funny... it seems like I've heard that before. The last time he threatened to throw me off the roof, he ended up giving me a promotion."

"Justin, this isn't a game! Making you Guardian of the Moral Compass, that was like a joke to him. You don't know the atrocities he's capable of; you just got here. I've been with him so long. I know! I've seen! He'll destroy everything you love before he comes for you, he'll take your parents, little Max..." She hesitated, dropping her voice an octave, "...Alex."

Rosie cried out as the Wizard struck her hard across the mouth. Her hand rushed to cover her split lower lip as she stared at him, misery written in her eyes. Justin reached out for her and she flinched away, but he was faster. He squeezed her chin between his long fingers, bringing his face close to hers in a cruel parody of tenderness, until they were practically nose to nose. He turned his head, lining his mouth up with hers as if they were going to kiss, but his was voice is low and dangerous. "You keep her name out of your filthy mouth," he snarled.

He shoves her away from him then, making her stagger, although she regained her balance before she could fall. "You've done what you were told, " he said flatly, turning his back on her. " Now run and give Daddy my reply."

Rosie, who was, after all, brave for the broken thing she was, lingered in the dark behind him. "Justin, please?" For a moment, she sounded so much like another, more familiar voice that he felt his temples begin to throb with the warning pain that signaled a migraine. Still, he wouldn't move.

"I love you, Justin," she breathed, "...I wish it could have been different. I wish my heart was mine to give." She was silent for so long that he began to wonder if she'd gone. Then she added quietly, "If it was, I'd give it to you."

Justin didn't stiffen or flinch at her words. He wouldn't give the girl any outward indication of the hot spike of pain she'd driven into him, because Justin liked to think he was is stronger than that. He stood still and silent, just as though he couldn't feel her misery gathering like a stormcloud behind him.

"He says to come at midnight," she said softly, and stole away.

A long time after she'd gone, he turned to look at the spot where she'd stood.

"If you'd loved me," he told the emptiness, "you would have let me die."