#ler!nash

Still, somehow, Nash had his ways of getting his younger brothers out of their own heads. Pushing them past the ‘emotion is weakness,’ ‘boys don’t cry’ bullshit their grandfather drilled into them.

Xander was probably the easiest to crack. Afterall, their nearly ten year age difference was enough that Nash had always been closer to a father figure than an older brother. Nash could just saunter into Xander’s room, or the circular library, or his lab, and make things feel a little too serious for a little too long, and Xander would crack, spilling exactly what was bothering him or who Nash had to beat up. Nash would listen without judgment, even if the issue was as small as a screw not fitting into one of Xander’s new robots, and take him out for ice cream or cupcakes afterwards.

Jameson and Grayson were, obviously, much more difficult. The heir and the daredevil had far too much time collecting bad coping mechanisms.

Grayson, typically, wandered on the side of emotionlessness. Spit in his face? Grayson’s stone-cold exterior isn’t cracking. Threaten him? Steal from him? Trick him? Grayson would never show it, he’d greet every challenge with a tight-lipped look and a firm handshake. 

Yet somehow, Nash, with his older brother instincts and extra year with Grayson before Jameson was born, could always tell when Grayson was trying just a little too hard to keep his face blank. He could see the small wrinkle next to his left eyebrow, or the way Grayson would dig the nail of his thumb into the tip of his index finger. Grayson usually took a while to come around, and it would never be completely, he would never, ever, open up entirely. Nash still had ways of making things easier on him, and he never took his Grayson-reading skills for granted. 

Jameson, though, has always been a different story, His fearlessness, his borderline recklessness, was always rewarded, always nurtured. When he showed himself to be unwilling to back down from any challenge, their grandfather would reward him. His brothers might not have jumped from the top of the solarium to unlock a clue during one of their Saturday schemes, but Jameson would. His brothers wouldn’t wander into a drug den on the opposite end of the world to retrieve a singular coin, but Jameson would. The fear, the adrenaline of the chase, it took away from all the rest of it for Jameson. 

Jameson never let himself get still enough to think about the bad, and there was a lot of bad. He just spent his life running and running from the inevitable break. When Em died, there was a glimpse, just a sliver, of what Jameson was feeling on the inside, but it was covered up by his constant fighting with Grayson, the calloused shell he adopted like a second skin. 

But Nash knows. He always knows. When Jameson jumps a fraction too quick, when he rushes into things headfirst without giving things a moment to set in, when every challenge looks like a competition to him, that, that is when Nash knows Jameson is losing it. 

When those risks, that danger, isn’t close enough for Jameson to touch, or to throw himself towards, he goes to the rock wall.

Nash had always thought the rock-climbing wall was a bit silly, and he hadn’t been kind enough to his eight-year-old brother when he decided to pick it up as his skill that year, insisting instead that he could learn rock climbing in ten minutes at a playground. It didn’t matter now, ‘cause Nash quickly adapted to the rock wall, the incredibly dangerous heights Jameson would reach, serving as his younger brother’s coping mechanism.

It was better than climbing a real cliff, sans rope, afterall.

Nash preferred the rock wall now, as opposed to all the other options, because Jameson’s been climbing the thirty-five foot wall without protection since he was eight, he could trust that Jameson knew all of the risks, all of the possible outcomes. He just couldn’t always trust that Jameson would do what’s safest for himself. 

Given Nash’s amazing Big Brother Instincts, he also knows exactly when Jameson is using the wall to de-stress rather than channel anger, and tonight is one such night.

Things are going well. Well, as well as they can be going in the Hawthorne house, Avery’s keeping Jameson steady and everyone’s mostly getting along. Today, though, Grayson and Jameson got into an argument that even had Grayson losing his cool for a moment. 

Grayson and Jameson somehow manage to fight even when everything’s going fine, in fact, especially when everything’s going fine, and it usually took both Xander and Nash to get them to relax. So while Xander forces Grayson to join him in a baking lesson with Libby, Nash goes to the rock wall to find Jameson.

Jameson is exactly where Nash believed he’d be, halfway up the wall, eyes closed as he seemingly just hangs there, taking everything in. 

“Jamie,” Nash calls up, and he sees Jameson take out a wireless earbud and drop it in the pocket of his sweats. 

Jameson rolls his eyes, his teenaged-era rebellion always flaring its head when he Nash has put on his big brother hat. “What? Not baking bubblegum cupcakes and ice cream frosting with Libby?” 

"That sounds far too sweet, even for Libs," Nash says, his voice jokingly solemn, “besides, somethin’ tells me Xan’s got that handled.”

"What do you want, Nash?" Jameson asks, straightforward, annoyance seeping into his tone.

Nash grins, taking his cowboy hat off and setting it gently on the floor behind him, “You gonna come down yourself or am I gonna have to come up there and get ya?”

Jameson just rolls his eyes again, but begins to eye the height he's at on the wall. When Nash sees Jameson bracing himself to jump, he can’t help but yell back up at his younger brother “you won’t like to deal with the consequences if you jump down from that wall.”

“Like jumping from this height is even a big deal” Jameson responds incredulously, looking down, more than fifteen feet up the wall. “I’m not made of glass, Nash, and I’m not a child.”

“A child you are not,” Nash drawls, “but your knees will be sore like a motherfucker in two years time if you don’t stop jumping down from this damn thing.”

Jameson sighs, defeated, and makes his descent down the wall, much less practiced at climbing down than he is at climbing up. When he’s within Nash’s reach, Nash grabs him by the nape of his neck, and Jameson tumbles into his oldest brother’s arms with a sound he would definitely never refer to as a giggle. 

Now, Nash is no stranger to dealing with a devastated Jameson, but frustration is a much easier demon to fight, and he must admit that today he is glad it’s just frustration. He knows exactly how to deal with that.

Nash doesn’t waste a minute, he gets Jameson on the floor and pinned in the blink of an eye, fingers fluttering over his stomach in the way Nash knows drives him crazy.

“Nash!” Jameson screeches, trying to grab his brother’s hand, even though he feels his strength leaving with every ticklish touch. He’s making aborted snorting noises, scrunching his nose with the force of the threatened laughter. Usually Jameson was the hardest to crack, able to hold out for a while without laughing when someone tickled him, but Nash took him off guard, knowing it was exactly what they both needed. 

“What’s the matter, Jamie?” Nash asks, feigning innocence “something botherin’ ya?”

Nash forms his hands into claws and vibrates them on either side of Jameson’s belly button, and Jameson bursts into loud belly laughter, hands flying everywhere to protect from the attack. He’s arching his back in an attempt to dislodge Nash’s hands, but somehow, the longer Nash stays in the same spot, using the same technique, the more it tickles, and it’s driving Jameson mad already, when he knows his oldest brother has only just started.

“NAHASH!” Jamie screeches, digging his heels into the ground when one of Nash’s fingers worms its way into his belly button, pulling at the sensitive skin. When Nash moves his other hand to just above Jameson’s hip bone, his younger brother can’t hold back a stream of snorts, and Nash can’t help but laugh along with him. Jameson’s laugh has always been the most contagious, and it doesn’t hurt that seeing his face scrunched up as his older brother tickles him is just too damn cute. 

Nash now vibrates both thumbs into Jameson’s hips and Jameson hiccups, throwing his head back while a blush climbs up his face. 

“Are you alright, Jamie? You’re lookin’ a little red,” Nash teases, grinning down at his brother. 

“Fuhuhuck ohohoff!” Jameson quips, and immediately regrets it when Nash reaches his hands back to squeeze underneath his knees. He lets out the loudest snort yet, shaking his head uncontrollably while he kicks out his legs in an attempt to dislodge Nash. Unable to even reach Nash’s hands to try to fight him off, Jameson winds his arms around his ribs, laughter catching in his throat “PLEHEASE!”

Nash snorts, but relents, moving his hands back up to Jameson’s torso, tickling his sides. “Begging already, Jame? I thought you could take more than that.”

“Ihihit-” Jameson squeaks when Nash’s hands hit his bottom ribs, “ihihit tihihickles soho bad!”

“God, you’re nearly as bad as Gray. Maybe it’s genetic? Where do ya think all this sensitivity came from?” 

“Ihihif it’s genehtic, Li- Lihihbby would wahahant to knohohow!” Jameson attempts to fluster his brother back, but of course, in his current predicament, it doesn’t work so well. 

“Or maybe I should tell Avery,” Nash responds, nonchalant. “If you can still muster the energy to be a smartass, I guess that means I’m not doin’ my job right, huh?”

Nash wiggles his fingers up Jameson’s ribs, already enough to make him scream, squeal, and thrash, before lodging his hands firmly under Jameson’s arms. His younger brother arches his back almost painfully, flattening his arms to his sides and effectively trapping Nash’s fingers in his armpits. None of those reactions, though, hold a candle to the ear-piercing squeal Jameson lets out when Nash’s fingers start to wiggle, worming around in his worst spot. 

“Ihihi’m gohohonna kihihill you!” Jameson screams. His smile is so wide it nearly splits his face in two, his eyes closed and nose scrunched while he throws his head back in ticklish agony. Part of him wishes Nash had chose a different torture method, anything would have been more bearable. 

“I’d hate to be the one to tell ya,” Nash says calmly, “but you’re not too intimidating like this, Jamie.”

When Nash starts to drill his fingers in, rather than wiggling around aimlessly under Jameson’s arms, Jameson’s laughter gets shrill and panicked, as his tired attempts at squirming become renewed.

“Nahahash! Mehercy! Uhuncle, PLEHEASE!” Jameson begs, bringing his hands up to cover his cherry red face while his elbows remain firmly pinned to his sides.

Nash wiggles one of his hands out to free it, rotating his body a bit so his other hand can continue under Jameson’s arm while the other can return to the soft skin under his knee. When Jameson’s laughter quickly goes silent, Nash pulls both hands away, rolling off of Jameson and sitting next to him on the floor.

Nash combs the dark, black hair out of his younger brother’s eyes while he tries to catch his breath, giggles and snorts peppered between laborious inhales.

When Jameson finally sits up, red with a goofy smile still on his face, he’s panting for breath, “you couldn’t have done that to Grayson?”