Title: "Under Your Skin"

Author: Wish Wielder

Fandom: Hannah Montana

Pairing / Character Focus: Jackson / Miley (anti-incest)

Challenge: 15 Minute Fic

Theme / Prompt: Word #21

Word Count: 719

Rating: K / G

Summary: Some things he did just bugged her. Like the stomach thing.

Notes: A look at the usually-strenuous brother/sister relationship between Jackson and Miley. Set sometime after "You Gotta Not Fight for Your Right to Party" but before the "Achy Jakey Heart" eps.

Disclaimer: "Hannah Montana" and all respective properties are © Disney. Meg D. (Wish Wielder) does not, has never, nor will ever own "Hannah Montana".

"Under Your Skin"

Some things he did just bugged her. Like the stomach thing. Honestly – how impressive was it to turn your stomach into a face, of all things, and make it talk? Even worse that he got Cooper doing it, too. That was just wrong on so many levels.

Other things were a bit more subtle, but equally obnoxious. Like the cheese-whiz thing. That could make her hurl any day. Or how he liked to confiscate her bras and use them to hang his toiletries (of course, he would never use a word so civilized for 'em), or even just how he'd decide to use her robe the minute his dropped somewhere unpleasant. (She'd gone through more robes thanks to his butterfingers and his seemingly incurable need to leave the toilet seat up.)

And it wasn't just bugging her. It was like tiny, prickly, scurrying bugs burrowing under her skin and squirming about – a constant itch that she just couldn't scratch, or that incessant need you had to swat your baby cousin with a cast-iron skillet but just couldn't because, let's face it, he's your baby cousin. Annoyance, she firmly believed, was an art. One that he had created and perfected to the point where people took courses in college to study it, and he wasn't only the professor – he wrote the books, too. That's just how good (bad) he was.

He found a way to carry that annoyance into her life as Hannah, too (really, couldn't he just leave it at Miley? Was that too hard?). The best example was the fiasco where she had hired him as her assistant. Really not the brightest of ideas, but her dad was right in the fact that she owed it to him. She had cost him his job and all. Still, as far as horrible assistants went, he topped the cake. Then there had been the Jacksannah fiasco; she still had nightmares about that one. One of her greatest fears was going on stage and being booed off; that talk show had been the closest that had ever come to happening. And of course, it was his fault. Really, how ballsy was he, using the song she considered Jake's to personify the fictitious Jacksannah relationship? That had been low, even for him – especially knowing how much the Jake Ryan ordeal still hurt her.

But when it all came down to it – beyond the wig, the lights, the melodrama of high school, and the simple insanity of just being a regular teenage girl – she was still Miley Stewart, and he was still Jackson Stewart, her older, occasionally wiser brother. As much as his antics got that creepy-crawly feeling of raging annoyance burrowing in her skin, she still loved him. And at the end of the day, that's what it all came down to.

Maybe that was what made this so hard.

She would deny it 'til the Glorious Appearing, if given the chance, but she did love him. And she didn't care who you were – famous celebrity or average girl from Podunk, Tennessee (ok, so Nashville wasn't really Podunk, but as far as she was concerned she was just a twist of fate away from it) – seeing someone you love wrapped up in hospital tubes and sticky cast and all those other horrible things that reeked of accident and death just wasn't fun.

She had that burrowing feeling right now, but for the first (ok, second, counting the truck fiasco) time in her life it wasn't because she was annoyed. There was a tiny bit of annoyance, mainly centering on how he could have been stupid enough to go out drinking (underage, thank you very much) and then let an equally drunk Thor (who was both an idiot and completely unfamiliar with the land) drive, but it was overpowered by that sinking fear that maybe – just maybe – her big brother wouldn't find his way out of this mess. It wasn't like you could sweet talk your body into healing itself.

She squeezed his hand, resisting the urge to go bury herself in her bed and not come out until he was telling her it had all been a bad dream. Older brothers could get on your last nerves sometimes, but when it came down to it, she wouldn't trade him for the world.

A.n.: Was gonna Who-afy this, but I figured I'm already planning a nice chaptery fic (oh yes, first one of those in about a year!) for that fandom, and I'm currently jammin' out to the Meet Miley half of the new CD(s), so it was begging to be written. And the word (burrow) seemed rather perfect, because anyone with an older brother knows that feeling of them getting under your skin (I have nine summers of near-drowning experiences in the backyard pool to attest to that!), but at the same time you know you'd move heaven 'n hell for 'em.

And to clear things up: I do not, under any circumstances, consider Thor an idiot. I'm actually rather fond of the big lug. However, I was trying to keep this in the same feeling, and you know how it is when someone you love is hurt; you're always looking for someone to blame. And as Thor was driving, and also doesn't always act the brightest, Miley felt justified saying that about him. Really, I find Thor and undiscovered genius. Then again, I think everyone's got a bit of brilliance in 'em, so who am I to talk?