brutal | grayson hawthorne

friends.

***
Anna Sun by WALK THE MOON
***

"We need to talk," Liz bursts into Jameson's room just like old times.

His room looks the same as old times too. Messy.

Xander throwing a baseball up and down while spinning in Jameson's desk chair.

Liz knows if she had siblings, or maybe even a pet dog growing up, she wouldn't be so tangled up in the Hawthorne family. But they were always there, even when it felt like no one in the whole universe was, and as much Liz knows it's where the majority of her flaws came from, she's far too grateful for their existence to ever acknowledge how destructive they can be.

"To what do I owe this pleasure, my dear?" Jameson steps out of his closet holding two clothes hangers with the identical suits on both. "And which of these matches my eyes best?" He holds up the two against his body, and in the light Liz notices one is navy blue with thin, diagonal stripes, and the other is just plain navy blue.

"The blue one," Liz dismisses, flopping on her back onto his bed. "Why did your grandfather leave me the Hawthorne Foundation?"

Liz spent the entire night before tossing and turning after she'd gotten back home from her rendezvous with Grayson following Jameson and Avery - but she wasn't going to tell him that part - and all her mind went to was what is so special about her that she's worthy of what's practically Zara and Grayson's life's work?

"Because he wanted you and Grayson to fall in love again," Jameson seems to have gone back into his closet, because his voice is more muffled now, and Liz is sure she didn't hear him right.

"What?" She sits up suddenly. "Me and Grayson? In love? Again?"

Liz thinks back to the day she spent in the foundation's building with Grayson teaching her about the business.

"I think. . ." Liz trails off. She doesn't want to say that to him just yet.

"What?" Now he's staring at her.

"I think I'm done for today," she settles on, and stands up to take her leave.

'I think the old man wanted us to run it together,' is what she almost said, but that would've been ridiculous.

But hearing Jameson basically say it too. . .

"Anyway, we can get to your love life later," Jameson is holding two new suits now, both black this time. "For dinner tonight," he holds them up.

"Dinner tonight?" Liz can't remember the last time - if ever - Jameson has cared this much about his clothes. He literally walks around this house shirtless half the time.

"It's nothing special. Thea will be there, so we're excited for some drama," Xander explains easily, then pointing at a suit for Jameson who nods approvingly.

"Thea? Dinner?"

"Do you always talk like that?" Jameson hangs one of the suits back up.

"Am I invited?" She dismisses his tone.

Liz and Thea have a surprisingly simple relationship. The two of them used to be as close as Liz and Emily were before high school, then Thea started acting like. . . well, like Thea, and Liz didn't like to hang out with bitches, so they fell out and. . . Liz did something to Thea the day Emily died, and they hated each other even more after that, if that was even possible, so now Liz showing up to dinner will probably end horribly, but at least she won't be on the other side of the table from her drunk mother who doesn't even know about her daughter's inheritance.

"Always," Xander grins, probably imagining the chaos that will ensue, Jameson just rolls his eyes as he steps out of the closet again, moving to his bathroom now to change.

***

Zara, Thea, and Constantine are sitting in that order beside each other on the far side of the table, Xander leaving a chair between him and Constantine as him and Nash sit beside each other. Skye and Nan are at the heads of the table, Grayson then Jameson diagonal to their mother, then Avery, her sister, and finally Liz across from Nash, diagonal to Nan.

"How is field hockey going, girls?" Zara asks too nicely to Thea and Liz just before Liz is about to shovel another bite of these delicious mashed potatoes into her mouth.

"Great," Liz answers, knowing damn well she hasn't gone to a single practice and never really plans to.

"We're undefeated this season," Thea continues. "Have you decided what sport you'll be playing, Avery?"

"I don't do sports," Avery all but snorts.

"Everyone at Country Day does a sport," Xander informs, taking a bite of his roast beef, his eyes rolling upward with pleasure as he chewed. "It is an actual, real requirement and not a figment of Thea's delightfully vindictive imagination."

"Xander," Nash warns.

"I said she was delightfully vindictive," Xander replies.

"If I were a boy, people would just call me driven," Thea shoots a Southern belle smile down the table.

"Thea," Constantine frowns.

"Right, no feminism at the dinner table," and Liz momentarily forgets how much her and Thea hate each other.

"A toast," Skye raises her glass out of nowhere, swaying slightly and slurring her words, showing this wasn't her first drink of the evening. "To Avery."

Who was anyone to object to that?

"To Emily," Liz remembers why her and Thea hate each other when she says those words from the other side of the table. Thea's eyes are first on Jameson, then shift down the table to Liz. "May she rest in peace."

Jameson easily allowed his chair to screech back and he walked out of the room without a glance back. Liz tried staying a moment longer, out of politeness or respect or maybe just proof to Thea that her childish games didn't have an effect on her anymore. But the way dinner was mostly just awkward silence for the next five minutes, so Liz is sure no one even noticed her leave through the haze of the tension that surrounded everyone.

"Y'know-" Liz ducks into the coat closet and slides down the wall beside Jameson after making her escape, "-every time I think of trying to apologize to her for what happened that night, she pulls stuff like that, and I don't even want to look at her anymore."

"What happened that night?" Jameson stares at her in the dark, confused.

Liz is taken aback. After everything. After knowing how resourceful Jameson is. Liz just assumed he would've figured out her part in everything that had gone down by now.

"I-. . ." her voice trails off. She's never had to admit this out loud before. Now she realizes Grayson probably doesn't even know.

Why am I thinking about Grayson right now?

"Never mind."

a/n:
mastermind by blondie (taylor swift not actual blondie)