A/n: Alex Vreeke was requested, and so I have delivered. Like sixteen years late. Enjoy! If you want more imagines in this books you guys really have to give me ideas, I'm about out.

When my mom brought home a new game for me, it was easy to say that I was excited. I grabbed it and raced to my room as she yelled after me, "I got it in a - YOU'RE WELCOME!"

It had been a while of me being stuck with the only two games I'd ever had. We didn't have a lot of money these days so we'd had to be careful with how we spent it. Which meant, as the black sheep geek of my completely normal, popular-kid type family, I was stuck in my room all day playing games that I'd already beat. Again. I would go out and talk to my family, but they never found anything I had to say important or interesting, and had picked up a habit of tuning me out unintentionally. I didn't have any friends at school either, because everyone thought that a girl gamer was weird. Apparently, a girl who dresses and acts more like a guy is even weirder, because everyone seemed to like pointing it out. So yeah. I stuck to myself.

Now, though, I could dive into the world of a brand new game and not have to worry about real life people and their nasty opinions and pushy expectations.

The game started up and I picked a character. There was a character that was off color so I fiddled with it, curious. The game wouldn't let me pick him though so I brushed it off and moved to the others. I moved around until I found a character called "Elaina Lang" who was a culture nerd, in lame man's terms. She knew seven languages and was well versed generically in culture around the world. Impressive. She'd spent her life ever since she'd turned eighteen traveling the world and picking up tricks here and there. Some fighting. Some basic medical. Slight mechanical knowledge. All around seemed a well rounded and random, quirky girl. Jack of all trades - good at everything, great at nothing. I loved her immediately.

My finger pressed the button and I made my choice.

That's when everything went wrong.

When the world stopped spinning and everything stopped hurting and the feeling that I was being sucked through a straw and pushed through a cheese grater - not painful, just... weird - stopped, I noticed the air was hot and thick and it was hard to breathe. The sun was hot and stuck on my skin, like something with bad breath had licked me until I was soaking and was still breathing on me. I rubbed my eyes, blinking, then groaned as I tried to sit up. Soreness ran briefly through my body as my head pounded softly.

Running a hand through my hair, I slowly stood and looked around. I was in a jungle, which made no sense but was undeniable. The air was thick and humid, moisture sticking to my skin and flattering my hair. A soft breeze pushed at my ponytail and slipped across my skin- a blessing in this heat. I looked down, surprised to see that I'm in cargo shorts and hiking boots, my socks long and some sort of florist looking short sleeves flannel over a T-shirt that was tucked into the shorts. My hair was long and pulled up in a hairstyle I hadn't had since I was tiny- braids. My eyes found the dark tint of my skin and the long legs and hands that didn't belong to me. "What...?"

"You came sooner than I thought." My head snapped up and there stood an incredibly gorgeous man, smiling and looking at me as if he had been waiting for me. Which, it really seemed he had been. My mind went blank as the shock coursed through my body and I paused, anxiety and curiosity battling for dominance over me. "My name is Alex." He offered his hand and I tentatively took it, stepping closer to him. He swallowed and the dropped the contact. "What's your name?"

Blinking, I breathed out slowly as the anxiety began to win. "Y/n."

He spoke slowly, soothingly, as if sensing my upcoming freak out. "This is Jumanji. You're in the game." My eyes widened and he held his hands up, crouching a bit as if to approach a wild animal. I realized my whole body had tensed and my hands were shaking. "Is there anyone else with you?" I shook my head. "Okay, then we have to wait for the others. All of the players have to be selected and come into the game in order for us to beat the game and go home." He grabbed my wrist, tilting it so I could see the inside. "See that?" He pointed to three black bars on my arm. I nodded. "Those are how many lives you have. Just like in a regular game, you get three lives. Three chances. I... don't know what happens after you lose all three." I paled. "Anyone else in this game other than you and me is a NPC, so they won't be much company or help though you get kind of used to bing alone and all that." He seemed to be trying to convince himself. "I'm not from the game either." He watched me a second before softly asking, "Any questions?"

I wasn't one to lose my cool- especially in front of people- but this was insane. "Why do I look different?"

Alex didn't hesitate, keeping that smooth, calming, even voice. "You've come into this game as your avatar. Like, technically this body is this Seaplane guy- he's a pilot, pretty rad and stuff. So you're in the body of the character you chose."

Taking another deep breath, I nodded slowly, letting myself mull over the information. "How long has you been here?"

He shrugged. "A few days at most."

"Okay, so we have to wait for the other players to join the game whenever that happens and... then we all come together to beat it and get out without running out of lives?" He nodded. "It's just a game." Our eyes locked. "A game that we could really die in." He nodded again, a frown etching onto his face where a smile had been before. Another deep breath from me. "So... what's the deal? The thing we have to beat... The problem?"

Alex shuffled, pursing his lips. "It's kind of a long story. Come this way, I'll show you. Some on the NPCs are kind of cool actually." He began walking and I looked around, feeling my stomach turn. It was starting to process and I was starting to feel more and more like I was about to throw up or pass out but neither was happening and I wasn't completely freaking out, so I suppose that was good. "Coming?" My eyes snapped back to the man in front of me and I nodded, jogging to catch up to him.

-

"That was mildly terrifying," I whispered as Alex and I were dropped off by the tour guide dude who's name I'd already forgotten in the mass information overload. Alex chuckled as I looked around, taking in the new world. It was kind of beautiful, actually. Real and tangible. Whatever this was, it was amazing. Magic? Weird technology from aliens? I don't know but I was really digging it. My eyes found Alex again and I thought about how nice it was to have him to guide me, filling in information holes and keeping me calm and oriented and focused. I couldn't imagine having to learn all this through trial and error, taking each step along the way completely alone. Even if he had only been here for a few days like he said, he'd learned a LOT in a very little amount of time and he was constantly adapting and trying to progress. It was kind of amazing actually. "Alex?" He looked over. "What was it like? Being alone with all of this?"

His humor faded away and he looked at his feet, kicking the dirt. "It was scary. Like, you're just chilling in your room about to play this game that seems pretty chill or whatever, and then you're in some random jungle place about to get taken out by some hippos and now you have a whole world to learn anew except that if you make any mistakes, you're dead." He looked at me, his face softening. "It's not nearly as bad now that you're here." My heart skipped a beat. "I've been checking every other day or so waiting for someone to show up and you did."

Pushing hair behind my ear nervously, suddenly self conscious, I offered a mumbled, "Glad I could help."

He held his hand out to me, palm up. "Come on. Want to come explore? The bikes will be getting here soon- they did when I first came here. If we get going we might be able to get places at like a chill pace and enjoy our stay. It's actually gnarly once you get passed the death stuff."

I chuckled, taking his hand. "Sure, yeah." He began helping me down the little hill and I let him even though I didn't need it because his hand was warm and he was cute. And so the nineteen years I would spend with Alex in the world of Jumanji began.

-

It felt like it had both been a hundred years and only a few days since I'd met Alex. As if we'd spent our whole lives in this game, but it had all passed very quickly. Alex and I got along really well, coming from the same kind of house and family. He was an only child with parents that had been more concerned with work than they had been with him since he had hit the teenage years. I was one kid of many, all much smarter and socially active than I would ever be, keeping my parents busy with their accomplishments while my beating hard levels and getting average grades could never even dream of matching up. He was easy to talk to and really funny; life wasn't so bad as we half waited and half tried to find a way out of this game without having to waste all that time between now and the day someone might finally come into the game.

Alex had successfully kept all of his lives without problem and for a wile, I thought I'd make it to whenever the new people would come without losing any lives at all. My weaknesses were that I had no strengths, since I wasn't especially great in anything. I was as average a character as I was a person, dabbling here and there. We simply dabbled in different things, this Elaina and I. I had been perfectly fine with lot I'd gotten so far, but the one actual weakness I had was I didn't know how to swim. And when the game said I didn't know how to swim, it meant it wasn't going to let me learn either. Every time I got into water, my feet never left the bottom no matter how hard I tried or what I did. It wasn't a problem before. We just avoided deep waters and it was whatever.

It quickly became a problem while exploring, though.

My feet stopped moving as my eyes traced the deep lake under the log that Alex was walking over with no problem, arms out to either side of him and eyes on his feet as he stepped quickly but carefully. I didn't know about him, but one slip and I would understand what it meant to drown to death. "Alex," I called nervously.

He paused on the log, hearing my voice and the tone and instantly realizing why this was such a bad idea for me. He turned very carefully and made his way back to me, hopping down from the tree he was on. "Sorry." His eyes wandered back to the great unknown something past the log's end, frowning longingly, before looking back to me. I could see the internal sigh as he gave up what he had been wanting to do, continuing his way. "Let's go."

I caught his hand. "No, we don't have to not go across, I'm just... nervous about it is all."

Alex smirked at me. "Don't worry, I'll be the hero and carry you across."

He wasn't a dick, but we had been jokingly flirting a lot recently. In response, I rolled my eyes, scoffing. "Barf me out- NO! Just stay close, okay?"

His chuckle was soft and his smile was insanely attractive. "I'm right behind you, Princess." He quipped jokingly but the fluttering in my stomach was unmistakable. I wondered if I would ever adapt to the effect this boy had on me. It hadn't been prominent, the flirting and joking we'd been exchanging. Not in the beginning. As things calmed down, though, and we slowly but surely got more into exploring and trying to figure out how to beat the game without the others since it seemed pretty clear they weren't coming... it changed, I guess. We were stuck in a world where the only other real person that was actually conscious and had been born and raised and had varying emotion and responses... was each other. It was scary to be apart for long simply because it made you go a little crazy. Sometimes though, I wondered if the attraction I felt to him wasn't just the body he had or the way I depended on him to keep me grounded but also him as a person. Which is what attraction is supposed to always be, I guess. Feelings just got scary and complicated once they developed past simple, easy, upfront, temporary pleasures.
I was torn out of my thoughts when he squeezed my hips softly. "Keep going," he encouraged. I was looking forward but now my eyes flickered down to see where the place my feet. I froze. He moved up right behind me. "We can go back. Really it's okay."
That kicked me into gear as my eyes snapped up again. "No it's okay." I kept walking, breathing deeply and evenly. It was going just fine until we reached the end where it was a bit of a step up and I couldn't get my feet to move off the log because I didn't have good balance and I was too scared to take that chance.
He leaned close. "I'm gonna go ahead of you okay? I'll be very careful, promise. You won't fall." I nodded and he skittered around me, barely nudging me. I didn't fall. He jumped up the last bit of the log, turning and offering his hand to me. He smiled. "Come on, you've got this. I'm right here." I went to reach out for him and he smirked. "You know you could call me your hero really. Always her to save the day." He was trying to flirt, keep the mood light, but his words grated on my pride.
Slapping his hands away I set my face in determination. "Eat my shorts you dweeb."
His eyes brows came together. "I'm just joking, take a chill pill."
I scoffed. "Don't tell me what to do. I'm fine." And as I took a step forward and leaned to grab the branch, I misplaced my foot and slipped. Both of our nasty expressions wiped away as I fell. I heard him call my name before there was a loud splash and then all I heard was rushing water as I started rapidly sinking.
Long story short, I died. Alex tried to swim after me but the water was moving just a little too fast and went a little too deep. I tried to walk to find where the water went up but didn't get far before the pressure and lack of air got to me.
It didn't hurt like I imagine it would have in the real world. The world just got darker and darker until it went black and then I was falling again, landing on solid ground in a crouch.
Alex and I stayed away from water after that. The second time I died is when he crashed the plane trying to get over the canyon and then vowed to never fly again after we both revived at the beginning of the level. Every time I tried he bit my head off so I finally just stopped pressing it and we moved on to just waiting for the others.
Then, finally, they came.
For a long time, things between Alex and I had been kind of whatever. We hadn't realize how touchy we were or how close we'd gotten. Not until Fridge started teasing about it. Not until Bethany started to flirt with Alex, setting me on edge so that I was getting weird urges. Like sinking my teeth into her arm.
Alex seemed to be enjoying every second of it. It was while we were traveling to the shed that's start us on our journey across the canyon - somehow - that she got on my nerves enough for me to snap. "God Bethany would you just chill? We get it, you're pretty and young and get every guy who looks at you." I shot to my feet, storming off, leaving awkward silence behind me. I settled on watching the guards instead. When I heard someone approaching I figured it was Alex... which is why my face twisted in irritation when I saw it was Bethany.
She sat next to me. "You and Alex... have been in this game for a while, right?" I nodded, on guard. "You two seem... close."
The tone of her voice made me uncomfortable. What she was insinuating. Sure I liked Alex- who wouldn't? He was funny and flirty and easy going. Thoughtful. I could talk to him for hours and his sense of humor matched mine perfectly, even if we could disagree for days on who was the hottest celebrity or which album was the raddest. Even when we argued there was half of a joking tone. Things were so easy with him. So smooth. Even when things got hard we had each other and that was enough. And he was smoking hot too- that was never a bad thing. It made me wonder about what he really looked like... "We are," I finally admitted softly. He was amazing but passed the flirting and touchiness it had never seemed to occur to him to do anything about it. "He's my best friend."
She frowned. "Are you sure it's just friends?"
I shot her a look. "What would you know? Girls and guys CAN just be friends."
Her smile was warm and I could see the tender girlies of it even in the man's body. It was kind of freaky actually. "The way you smile when he talks. How jealous you get when I talk to him." I opened my mouth to protest but she held up a hand and for some reason, I stopped talking. Maybe it was her confidence that made me feel she had authority over me. "The way he looks at you when you're not paying attention. How aware he is of you. How well he knows you. How protective of you he is."
There was a pause where I tried to come up with something to say, my lips moving but my voice gone and my mouth dry. Finally I managed, "Are you saying he likes me?" She laughed. This ditz - that might not actually be that ditzy - laughed at me. "Not even!" I choked out. Why was she laughing. "That's like, bogus. Absolutely."
She went to speak but then Martha made her way over. "Hate to break up the female bonding but Bethany I need your help. We have that plan thing remember?"
"Right," Bethany sighed. When she saw my lost express she pat me on the head. "We can talk later sweetheart. Right now I have to educate our awkward friend on the awkward ways of flirting." She winked and then stood, sauntering off. You can't imagine how weird the walk looked on an old, fat dude.
Just as everything was about to come together, Alex approached me with a pale face. "Y/n."
Instantly I was worried, moving to him. "What's wrong Alex? Are you okay?"
He shook his head. "I'm fine but... how long do you think we've been in the game?"
This question put me on edge as much as Bethany's. "Uh... like, a few months? Three maybe?"
He seemed both relieved and upset by that answer. "That's what I thought too. But uh, I just talked to the others and... Do you know the Vreeks?"
I wrecked my brain for a few seconds. "Oh yeah," I said slowly. "They had a son like two years older than me that went missing about a year ago..." That seemed to upset him even more and I took another step towards him. "Why, Alex?"
He grasped my hands. "I'm Alex Vreek."
My mouth popped open. "Oh my gosh you've been in the game for a year?"
He shook his head. "Remember what I said when you first asked me? I said I'd been stuck here for a few DAYS. And it had been a year."
My mind was reeling until pieces suddenly clicked together. I stepped away from him. "Alex how long have we been in here?"
He tried to reach for me but I pulled away. "I've been in this game for twenty years. You... nineteen, with the year difference."
My knees buckled. Thankfully he caught me. "Nineteen years," I whispered, my eyes wide and trained on the ground and my breathing becoming irregular.
He pulled me up against him, tucking my head under his chin as he rubbed my back soothingly. "I know, I know. It's going to be a lot, I know. But we're going to get through this. We need to get out of here first okay?"
"How are you do calm?" I asked.
There was a while before he answered. "I guess it's like the stressful part of playing a video game. Or a hard patch in life. You adapt and go through it but ny but when you have time."
Taking a deep breath, I nodded. "Okay."
We stayed like that until it was time to get ready to watch Martha work her magic. It was.. not that magical, it gonna lie. I probably wouldn't have done any better though. We ran i  when it was time and it was finally my turn to calm Alex down.
My hands held his face in place as I finally closed the gap between us, kissing him hard. Spencer screamed, "OKAY!" and Bethany squealed but that was background noise.
Leaning away from him, I locked eyes and smiled softly. "You got this, okay? We don't have any other options. Please, Alex." I smirked. "Come on Seaplane." He nudged my nose with his but I could tell he was still terrified. "I'll be there every step of the way. We're both on our last lives but we got this, okay?" He frowned. I leaned closer, my lips next to his ear so only he would hear me. "I'll kiss you again when we make it to the other side. Really kiss you."
He swallowed, eyes wide as I leaned away. "Let's motor." He turned away and as Bethany passed, she held her hand up. I didn't even pause before I high fives her, both of us giggling.
Our laughter died when the plane took off. It was a high pressure ride with extreme amounts of stress- I white knuckled the whole way. When we landed, it was a relief. But then Alex and I looked at each other, realizing what we just did. "WE MADE IT!" I screamed, rushing at him.
He scooped me up, spinning me. When he set me down again we were both grinning. He looked at the others. "We've been trying to do that for so long."
When he looked at me again I was blushing. "You know what else we've been trying to do forever?"
He grinned, leaning close. "You gonna keep that promise, Lang?"
"No duh." He chuckled and went to kiss me again - Spencer complaining in the background with a groan that was unnecessarily loud - when Alex froze. He flinched, stepping away from me. His hand rose to his neck, face contorting in confusion at first before he brought his hand to see what he'd just swatted. "Mosquito," he whispered. Then he fell.
The happiness of the moment shattered and we were all racing forward. There was too much panic so I just jumped into action, pumping his chest a few times and then pressing my líos to his, pushing air into his lungs. I continued to do CPR - a skill I had picked up outside of my character abilities - until I leaned back. My head was spinning and the vision was blacking out. "Hey it's working!" Bethany exclaimed. I looked at his arm which had been blank before as a bar filled back up. I continued. It felt weird, like I was dying, but I kept doing it.
Too late, Martha screamed, "You're giving him your last life!"
I kept doing it, ripping my arms out of Bethany's hands as she tried to pull away. Just in time I managed to give him the rest of my life but passed out the second it happened.
I had to have been out only a minute before I was jolting awake, eyes wide and body shaking. Bethany leaned away from me and I looked around. "What's your damage?" Alex screamed at me, grabbing my face in relief. He planted a hard kiss on my forehead. "You idiot! Trying to die to save me? Seriously? You moron."
Looking around, my eyebrows came together in confusion. "How am I alive?"
"Bethany gave her second life to you. Just like how you have yours to Alex," Martha explained.
I looked over at Bethany, eyes wide in shock. "Thank you," I whispered.
She smiled, reaching out to take my hand. "We all go home, yeah?"
Nodding, I returned her smile. "Totally."
We moved on. The rest of our trip was about as easy as it had been so far, if a little less so since it was the climax of the game and all.
At the end of it all, we were lined up, waiting to go home. With everything done and over with, Alex and I weren't sure what awaited us once we returned to the world we'd left twenty years ago, but we knew that whatever it was we'd make it through together. He turned to me before he shook Nigel's hand- the driver from the beginning of the game. "Look for me okay?" He smirked. "I'll be looking for you."
"I'm sure. I still owe you a kiss." He winked at me and then turned to shake Nigel's hand, disappearing in a cloud of green smoke.
Bethany was next. "It was nice to get to know you," she told me. "Maybe we can meet up some time and hang out. I need some quality friends like you."
I grinned. "I'd love that." I paused before catching her arm so she wouldn't leave quite yet. "You know Bethany, I was wrong about you. You're the bomb."
"I'm... going to explode?" She looked so confused that I almost laughed.
Her confusion made me wonder about what slang they used in her time. After all, my parents talked differently than me and my siblings did. "It- it means you're cool." She grinned and nodded then shook Nigel's hand and was gone. Fridge went next, him teasing me about getting with Alex before moving on and then shaking hands and disappearing. Martha went to go before Spencer stopped her. I let them have a sort of heart before I stepped in. "Spencer..." He looked at me. "Sorry to interrupt but I- I mean, you're kind of bad as hell, dude." He looked hurt by that and I winced. Kids these days... "You're- you're cool?" He nodded to let me know that word had gotten through to him and I continued. "Stay here forever? Where's the beef in that? You'd be stuck at the same place. The same age. Forever. Not even in your own body." I placed a hand on his shoulder. "Remember, you're bad. YOU. Spencer. You're smart and know CPR. And..." I looked at Martha before leaning close so only he could hear me. "Don't tell me that she's only liked you since you've been in the game because you two had chemistry from the first second I saw you." I leaned away and he blushed, rubbing the back of his neck.
Martha jumped in and between the two of us we got him to go home. Once they were gone it was just me. I shook out my nerves before shaking Nigel's hand.
There was the sucking feeling again and the green before I was back in my room. I put the Jumanji plug-in into the box and shoved the box under my bed before sitting on my sheets, thinking. I was back. Exactly how I'd left my life. How strange... hadn't it been at least a day? But no. No there wasn't a single thing misplaced or even one speck of dust on anything. I had gone back to the exact time I'd left.
I didn't sleep much that night. The next morning I greeted my parents, giving each of them and then each of my siblings a hug- something they thought was a little strange. The it was off to school. I was nervous, unsure of how to approach life now that I was back. I felt awkward and stiff and unsure. These were real people with actual, unpredictable responses. I made my way to the Vreek house after school. I'd tried to find him during hours but I asked for him by name once and all I got was, "Me know Alex Freak? God no. Even the thought of being within ten feet of him- gag me with a spoon."
Her use of the phrase made me feel a little more home, along with her clothes and hair, but her words irritated me. So here I was now, in front of the Vreek house, rolling from my toes to the heels of my feet and back as I hit my lip. I'd passed the house a few times. It hadn't been anything like this. It looked a lot less run down and happier. Mr. Vreek who used to be a shut in and would glare at you through the window was now outside in the lawn, mowing without a care in the world. He was an entirely different man.
He approached me when he caught me standing there for five whole minutes. "Hello dear, can I help you?"
"Um." I swallowed. "Is Alex here?"
"Y/n?"
I turned to see a boy. He had longer, dark hair and a sleeveless band tee on. He looked different than his avatar. More edgy. Younger. It was the expression in his eyes. The lilt of his lips as he smiled. The way his hands rested at his sides, fingers twitching as they refused to settle. My heart stopped. "Alex?"
He looked at his dad who was looking between us with a knowing, teasing look before clearing his throat. "You wanna go on a walk?" I coughed as well, nodding before moving to him. He turned away from the house so we could get distance. There was a long quiet. "You know it's weird. For the past year I've been waiting for you. I realized that you probably would be returning to your time as well since I went to mine. Looked for you everywhere. Anything to give it away." He smiled. "It was the way you twisted your hair into a bun that made me realize. Among- among other things. Little things that were all very you." I blushed, staying quiet. "I found you a few months ago but... but when I approached you you had absolutely no clue who I was." He winced, frowning, and I took his hand. "Figured I'd wait for you to find me, once you got back and stuff."
After a second I stopped him. "Alex..."
He didn't wait for me to finish. He leaned down and I reacted before his lips even touched mine, hands moving into his hair as I rushed to meet him. This kiss was different. He was different. His hair was longer, easier to wrap my fingers in. His nose fit with mine differently. His fingers were longer as they pressed into my waist. His lips were a little more chapped. But it was still him. Alex. My Alex. I vowed I wouldn't ever lose him again... even if in real world time I'd only just gotten him.
-
I kept that promise. We went through the rest of high school and college together, even though he was a grade ahead of me. We started dating as soon as we reunited, officializing it the second our lips were apart.
We waited until after college to get married, though it never felt like waiting. As things felt right we did them. Once graduated we moved in with each other, him planning his proposal and our honeymoon as I took on my last year of college head on.
Then came the kids. I suppose the fun part was making them, but once they were here we couldn't find a rhyme or reason to hate it. In the blink of an eye twenty years had passed and were married and more in love than ever. Our little family was all piling out of the mini van while on a visit trip to Alex's dad's when it happened.
He gasped, his hand shooting out and gripping my arm. I turned around. "What is it?" I asked, tense and on the alert. When he didn't say anything I followed his eyes instead. There stood four teenagers. A taller red head, a built boy in a letterman's jacket, a pale brunette in a skinny frame, and a short little pretty blonde girl with a smile that tilted in a scary familiar way. "Oh my god," I whispered.
The blonde girl was most definitely Bethany which left the red head to be Martha. It only made sense that the buff dude was Fridge- the way he talked about himself, it just made sense. That meant the one with the curly hair and the sky, awkward smile was Spencer.
Alex and I were suddenly 19 years younger as we interlaced our hands, making our way to the friends we shouldn't have. In all honesty this is NOT what I had planned for my life. No where near what had happened had been any level of predictable. But it had happened the way it did and I was happier than I'd ever thought was possible- I wouldn't have it any other way. Now, after all that time, we were finally together again.
Finally.