I've been in love with this couple for a while. Don't get me wrong, I love Ezra, but there's just something about Jason that I've always found sooooo hot. Haha. This is based on his quote in the fashion show episode, which I think was in season 2. I've had it written down for ages that I wanted to write a oneshot around it but hadn't gotten to it until now! So here we go.
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters.
Alison DiLaurentis had been kidnapped over two years ago, but sometimes it felt as though it was only last week. Living in a small town which thrived on any piece of gossip and scandal that it could get it's hands on meant that sometimes when things died down, it drudged up old news, just because it was bored. It didn't help that Alison had never been found, so her parents came on the news on an almost regular basis, pleading with someone to come forward with information about her whereabouts. It had started slowing down as the years went by, but her birthday was coming up, and a charity fashion show that was being thrown by a group that Jessica DiLaurentis ran.
So Jessica had decided that she wanted to coincide the events.
As usual, a good two thirds of the people who came were only there because they wanted to hear if there was any new gossip on the case. Students that Alison used to go to school with just liked to watch Alison's four closest friends, and parents liked to watch her parents. Jessica had gone off the rails when it had happened, drinking breakfast, lunch and dinner, and her father, Kenneth DiLaurentis, had had affairs with almost every woman who worked in his firm. And then there was her older brother, Jason DiLaurentis.
Jason was gorgeous, just like Alison, and he was now a mess, just like his parents.
He had been going through the whole teenage rebellion phase for pretty much as long as Aria Montgomery had been paying attention to him. The first few years that she was friends with Alison, Jason was just her annoying older brother. He would always tell them that they were making too much noise or that they had to turn down the TV, but then he would blast his music so loud they could barely hear themselves think. But as they got older, when Aria reached thirteen, she started paying a whole lot more attention to Alison's attractive older brother.
He ignored her for the most part; classing her as just another one of Alisons friends. But then as she got a little older, he paid a little attention. He gave her a few smiles, and when she was experimenting with her hair, dying streaks of blue and pink into the brunette strands, he told her that it looked good. He also told her a couple of times that he liked her taste in music.
But then she turned sixteen, and Alison was sixteen, and then she went missing.
And everything in everyone's lives who was connected with her all fell apart.
He was back in town, and Aria had seen him around a couple of times, but they hadn't really spoken to each other. Tonight, as she looked through the parting in the curtains, out over the crowd that had gathered, and her eyes sought out Jason. He was looking good, his hair brushed back, wearing an expensive suit and looking painfully sober.
Hanna Marin was all floundering and worried because her parents were both here tonight, their first public even since their divorce, and Emily Fields was flustered and stressed because the girl that she had been casually seeing had just come in with another girl, and Spencer Hastings was panicking and tense because, well, because she was Spencer Hastings. Aria was just trying to think about how she was going to face all these people for the next two hours when all they were going to be doing was thinking about Alison.
She hated that.
She wasn't even Aria anymore.
She was just Alison's friend.
The missing girls friend.
Aria had three glasses of champagne, and once she hit the runway, she was glad that she had. All these people with their sharp eyes and sharper tongues, whispering about what 'brave, young girls' they were, when they really didn't care. They just wanted to stare up at the girls who were best friends with Alison and then whisper to each other behind their hands about how grown up they were, but they really would've been nothing compared to the gorgeous blonde who drew every eye when she was in a room.
The girls all looked gorgeous, Aria had no problem admitting that.
Caleb Rivers had showed up in support of Hanna, and the blonde was practically glowing, her worry from her parents shifted. Toby seemed to manage to get through to Spencer, because she was practically floating on air. Emily had sorted something out with Samara, because they were sharing kisses before the girl hit the stage.
And then there was Aria.
Strong, beautiful, alone...But hopefully not going by herself.
She swallowed back another glass of champagne before her and the three other girls went back on stage when the video memorial for Alison was playing. All they had to do was stand there, for four minutes and fifty seconds while the video played, speaking about how lovely, and sweet, and giving Alison was. They never put out their how manipulative and devious she could be, even though that was what everyone was thinking.
Aria was trying not to think about that right now, though.
She had to remember the reason why they were here.
Alison was their friend, above everything else, and they were here to pay their respect to her memory.
After the show, in the changing rooms out the back, everyone was with their partners, who were comforting them after the emotionally draining night. They were all going their separate ways, and they were inviting Aria to go with them but she knew it was just out of politeness. So she turned them down, and then helped herself to a fifth glass of champagne, that she knew she was going to regret in the morning.
"So we're both left here alone, huh?" Came a rough voice from the doorway. Aria looked up from where she was packing away all her hair products and felt a wave of heat rush over her body as she saw Alison's big brother. Jason still looked gorgeous, even though it must have been a pretty rough five hours for him.
And he no longer looked sober, an open champagne bottle in his hand.
"Where did your friends go?" He asked as he took a step into the changing room, looking around at all the empty seats and the mountains of clothes that were hanging on hooks.
"Gone home," Aria said as she slowly got up from her chair, resting her ass against the corner of her dressing room table instead so that there wasn't such a height difference. "Where are your parents?"
"Dad took mum home straight after the video," Jason sighed and pursed his lips, the hand that wasn't holding the champagne bottle going to his hair and ruffling it, giving him this ridiculously sexy look that made Aria want to join her fingers with his in the strands. "Mum had way too many drinks, but then that's kind of all she does that day." Aria couldn't help but let her eyes go pointedly to the bottle in his hand. Jason followed her gaze and gave her a rueful smile and shrugged.
"How are you doing, Jason?" Aria asked softly. Jason opened his mouth to say something, then seemed to think the better of it and pursed his lips together. Then he shrugged again and parted his lips again.
"I still feel like I'm in the Ali show," he admitted with a snort. "I mean, it's been two years, and I still feel like I'm stuck in her world." He looked over at Aria, through his thick lashes that were wasted on a man. "It sounds fucking terrible, I get that, but I feel like I can say that to you, because I know that you loved and hated her, just like me." It did sound terrible, but Aria knew exactly what he meant.
Anyone who really knew Alison knew what he meant.
"And I fucking hate all these people...All these phonies," Jason waved his hand toward the thick curtain that separated them from the main auditorium which had been flooded with people only an hour or so ago. "They don't care about the cause here, they care about being part of the drama. That's the reason why they stare at me..." he pointed the neck of the champagne bottle at her. "That's the reason they stare at you."
"I know," Aria admitted quietly.
"We're the dark details," Jason stated, breathing in deeply through his nose and swallowing back some champagne before putting it down on one of the dressing tables and sighed, rubbing his hand over his face. He pinched the bridge of his nose and then looked over at Aria. "Everyone is fascinated by the dark details."
"Don't I fucking know it," Aria muttered. Jason snorted slightly and nodded. The two of them stood in silence for a long few minutes, the alcohol and stress of the night buzzed between them before Jason pursed his lips.
"I think that we're going to be stuck as that for as long as we're here," Jason said.
"Yup," Aria nodded her head, popping the 'p' in her word. Jason licked his lower lip and took another step toward her. Aria's heart was beginning to flutter, a reaction that she got every time she was around Jason. She didn't get it around any other guy, even though there had been a couple of guys that she had hooked up with over the years, but there was just something about Jason...Especially with the way that he was now leaning down close to her.
"You're not just Alison's friend to me," Jason murmured, his voice soft.
"You're not just Alison's big brother to me," Aria whispered, and a second later, their lips were pushed together.
She believed him.
When he told her that he didn't see her just as Alison's friend.
And now that she was kissing him, and he was pulling at her dress, him being a DiLaurentis was the last thing on her mind.
It felt good; it felt so good to be someone other than Alison's childhood pal—to just be Aria—and to let go as his teeth tugged at her lower lip. She knew that Jason felt the same way, because his eyes had the same look in them as he pulled back to make sure that she was okay with this. She nodded, and then he was pulling her behind the dressing room tables, their clothes falling in piles on the ground before they collapsed after them, a tangle of limbs around each other.
Let me know what you think :)