
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/1909506.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Drake_&_Josh
  Relationship:
      Josh_Nichols/Drake_Parker
  Character:
      Josh_Nichols, Drake_Parker, Megan_Parker
  Additional Tags:
      Step-Sibling_Incest, Blackmail, Awkward_First_Times, Humor, Accidental
      Crushes, Sleeping_Kisses
  Stats:
      Published: 2007-08-16 Words: 10805
****** A Little Extortion ******
by puckity
Summary
     Megan charges a steep price for her silence after catching Drake
     doing something other than sneaking out during one of his and Josh’s
     numerous groundings.
Notes
     Written in 2007; my first Drake & Josh fic.
     Set sometime during Season Four, pre-movies.
     Beta'd by the amazing Amber and Rachel.
     You can also follow me on Tumblr.
“What…what are you doing?”
Drake stopped dead in his tracks. He remembered Josh blabbing away during an
episode of World of Legumes about plant camouflage or something; he hadn’t been
paying attention to the details. Who could concentrate on boring stuff when
there were giant peanuts on the screen? But now he really wished he’d tuned
into that particular lecture because he was pretty sure it would’ve come in
handy right about now. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to visualize Josh’s
droning over the montages of oversized nuts.
No sudden movements. Blend into your surroundings. Be very, very quiet. That
sounded like Josh. Or maybe it was Elmer Fudd. Whatever, the advice sucked
anyway. Past his frozen body Megan stood in the doorway, looking genuinely
shocked. For once. If this wasn’t such a horrible situation he might have
actually been pleased with himself for finally getting her.
“I’m going to ask you one more time before I jump to loud and sleep-waking
conclusions; what are you doing?” As her voice became increasingly shriller,
Josh shifted gently underneath Drake. He decided that this whole camouflage
thing was crap and leapt off Josh’s bed like he was just as surprised by this
inappropriate scene as Megan was.
“I was…just…you see, there was this bug and it crawled into his mouth—it was
huge—and I thought he was going to choke and what kind of brother would I be if
I let him die like that in his sleep so I just…well, I was just gonna…” Drake
broke off uncertainly; the look on Megan’s face told him she wasn’t buying his
lame cover story.
“What? You were just going to suck the bug out of his trachea? So I walked in
on you performing respiratory breathing exercises on Josh while he was asleep
and not you making out with your—our—poor, unsuspecting, slumbering brother?”
Megan was practically screaming now, and Drake kept frantically looking over at
Josh to make sure he was still snoring.
“Um, yes?” It was a pathetic last move, but probably also his best bet. Megan
stared at him coldly, looked at Josh, then moved back to him, took a deep
breath and opened her mouth wide. Drake raced forward.
“No, no, no, no, no, no, no!” Scooping her up and soaring out the door, Drake
didn’t stop running until he hit Megan’s room. The hum of panic in his head
distracted him for a while before he realized Megan was still dangling in his
arms. She glared at him like she was trying really hard to make his head
explode with her mind. Terrified, Drake set her down slowly and extra
carefully.
“I—I’m sorry Megan,” He edged back towards the door, hoping to get a lot of
distance between them relatively quickly. “But I, I couldn’t let you…wake Josh
up. That would be so…rude. Yeah, rude. It’s rude to wake someone up from an
afternoon nap. And Josh has been working really hard lately and waking him up
would just be cruel, which I know is kind of your ‘thing’ but still I don’t
think—“
“If you don’t want me to hurt you in ways that are so bad the government
couldn’t even make them illegal, you will shut your big, dumb mouth right now.”
Drake’s jaw clamped tight on cue. His hands flailed behind him, grasping
unsuccessfully for the door knob. Still fuming, Megan thumped past him and
locked the door bolt. The ominous clank made Drake’s stomach plummet.
“You are not going anywhere until you tell me exactly what was going on in that
room.” She spun around on him and he yelped. “And if you ever pick me up like
that—”
“I know, I know. Sorry.” He fidgeted nervously with his thumbnail. This worst
case scenario was compounded by the extreme discomfort of being in his evil
little sister’s room. He eyed every pink and sparkly object, waiting anxiously
for some hidden assault. Meanwhile Megan stood in front of him, arms crossed
and one foot tapping in rising irritation.
“Well?”
“Well…” He tried that goofy grin that worked on every other member of the
female sex, exempting him from any responsibility or necessity for explanation.
Megan walked past him to the door without so much as a girlish quiver.
“I bet Josh would be interested in hearing your explanation.”
“No, wait!” Megan paused with her back to him and he could almost see that
vicious smile of hers curling. She peered over her shoulder and sure enough,
there it was.
“I’m waiting. But not for long.”
Drake wondered if he could fake a seizure or a heart attack or something like
that. Anything to distract her. What was the difference between a stroke and a
heart attack, again? He coughed once, twice, and cleared his throat a few
times. Scratched his head, clapped a little. Megan reached for the door knob.
“IwasreallyboredandIwantedtoseeifI’dbeagoodkisserwithJoshsoIkissedhimwhilehewassleeping!”
Drake felt oddly relieved now that he’d sort of confessed, but as Megan
continued to stare blankly at him his foreboding nervousness returned.
“So, you were bored and you decided to molest Josh? Is that the gist of it?”
“No!” Drake’s denial rang with genuine offense. “I did not molest him, geez. I
mean, what Josh doesn’t know can’t hurt him right? No harm no foul.” He grinned
smugly at his logic, and for a second he thought that Megan’s silence proved
his reasoning to be indeed flawless.
“What?!”
Drake sighed. He knew he’d set his hopes too high.
“Are you seriously that much of a moron? There are pranks and then there are
lines you just don’t cross no matter how much hilarity may potentially ensue—”
Drake thought he heard a little regret in her voice at that. “And then there is
this.
“This wasn’t a prank! I wasn’t playing a prank on him…or on you for that
matter!” Megan’s eyes narrowed and Drake’s chest felt like it was shrinking
against his lungs. Lying to her—even little white maybe-half-lies—was bad, bad
news. He scrambled to sound completely honest. “I wasn’t, really!”
“So you were just trying to alleviate your boredom, and you figured that you’ve
made out with all the teenage girls in the San Diego area, why not start on the
boys?”
“Yes—no! Wait…what?” In his mind, Drake tossed around the potential meanings
for the word alleviate. “Look, it’s no big deal. Just…please don’t tell Josh
about this.” His lungs seized up painfully.
“If it’s no big deal, then you shouldn’t care whether Josh finds out or not.”
Megan smiled that sugary sweet smile that told Drake he wasn’t going to like
what came next. “And I feel it is my moral obligation to inform him about it.”
“Moral obligation?!” Beads of sweat pricked up along his forehead. “Since when
have you ever had a moral obligation to do anything?!”
Megan paused and chuckled a little. “This is true.” She eyed him coolly again.
“Why were you bored anyway, and why couldn’t you have done something else to
allevi—stop being bored? You know, something that didn’t involve groping your
sleeping stepbrother.”
“I was not groping him!” The suggestion that Drake needed someone—anyone—to be
asleep in order for him to get some action was particularly insulting. Still,
given the circumstances…Drake swallowed his pride and moved on. “And I couldn’t
leave our room. Josh and I are grounded because of that whole limeade stand
scam that we were running…”
“Ah, right.” Megan nodded sympathetically.
“Those neighborhood kids are real punks.” Drake muttered bitterly and they both
held a brief silence for another foiled plot.
“Whelp,” Megan turned towards the door again. “As much as I empathize with your
punishment, I still feel as though Josh should know that he is sharing a room
with a predator.”
“No, please Megan!” Drake grabbed her sleeve, then released it after she shot
him a warning look. “Come on, I’ll do anything you want if you promise not to
tell him!” She paused.
“Anything?” Drake really did not like that look, but it was too late to go back
now. “Would you agree to be my personal manservant?”
“Sure!” Drake didn’t really know what a manservant was. He’d been expecting her
to tell him to cut out his own kidney or raise a bunch of tarantulas or
something equally horrific; this seemed tame by comparison. And a manservant
sounded kind of cool, like a fancy job. He held out his hand, eager to seal
this transaction and her mouth. “Deal?”
She shook harder than any thirteen-year old had the right to. “Deal. Now get
out of my room.”
“Not a problem.” He grabbed the knob, but didn’t turn it. “Hey, how long do I
have to be your manservant person?”
“Depends.” She tapped on the glass of her hamster cage and smirked at him. “How
long do you want to keep your little secret from Josh?”
                                      ---
“Ow, ow, ow! Owwwwwwww!” Drake’s fingertips sizzled as they rubbed against the
chalky glass. The steel wool stung his palms. Scrubbing Megan’s old beakers was
maiming him. “This really hurts, Megan! Like, melting-skin hurts!”
“That’s why I told you to wear safety gloves.” Megan didn’t even lower her
magazine to look at him. “But someone was too cool for gloves. It’s your own
fault if you get chemical burns.”
“What do you even have that could do this?” He picked up another beaker coated
in hardened green foam and tossed the half-cleaned one into the finished pile.
Megan glared out at him from behind “Cutest Animals Unlimited” at the rattle of
glasses.
“I told you not to throw around my beakers. If you break one, I’ll make you buy
me a whole new set.” Drake muttered disgruntled under his breath and Megan
leaned menacingly forward on her bed. “What?”
“Nothing, nothing!” Drake focused his attention back on his hand-disfiguring
task. “Seriously though, how did you get the chemicals and stuff to do all
this?”
“I have people. Besides, it’s nothing that your high school chemistry class
doesn’t use.” She smiled indulgently at him. “Not that I expect you to pay
enough attention in class to know that, but you should at least recognize some
of the names from hearing Josh go on and on about his science fair projects.”
Drake couldn’t recall the specifics of any of Josh’s boring science fair
snorebots. He retained giant magnets, Mocha Cola, and Mindy, and he was pretty
sure that none of those were the names of chemical compounds. Of those he knew
oxygen because even he wasn’t that stupid, and he knew helium because once he
sucked it out of a balloon and started talking like one of those lollipop
people in The Wizard of Oz. Everything else had been in one ear and out the
other.
“So you don’t actually care about Josh’s mind then; you just want him for his
body, huh?” Megan casually crossed her arms and snickered. “You really are
shallow, you know that right?”
Drake stopped scrubbing in irritation. “First of all, I’m not shallow. Maybe
I’m not “deep” or whatever, but I totally have levels.”
“Yeah.” Megan scoffed. “Levels of boobishness.”
“Ha, ha.” Drake’s sarcastic laugh didn’t seem to faze her. “And I don’t just
want Josh for his body. I don’t want him at all, I keep telling you—” The same
explanation he’d been spewing for the last week was interrupted by a tentative
knock at the door.
“Megan?” Josh’s wary voice echoed from the hallway. “May I open your door? I’m
just looking for Drake; I have no intention of actually coming into your room
and disturbing you.” Ever since the time they thought they killed her hamster,
Josh and he had been avoiding her room at all costs. Even invited and under
supervision, Drake still felt nervous being there.
“Drake’s in here.” The door swung open, and Josh stared incredulously at his
brother. Megan sat up. “Did I say you could open the door?”
“Um, well…sorry.” Josh looked anxiously around at anything but her. She rolled
her eyes in exasperation. “Anyway. Drake, what are you doing in here? And…why
are you scrubbing out beakers?”
“He’s doing it because he agreed—” Drake cut her off mid-sentence, even though
he knew that was one of her pet peeves.
“It was a favor I promised her! No big deal, right Megan?” He laughed loudly,
ignoring the throbbing in his fingertips.
“Whatever.” Megan plopped back against her pillows and resumed leisurely
reading her magazine. Josh looked at him questioningly, like he was torn
between finding out what was really going on here and not prolonging the amount
of time he had to be in the room.
“Oookay. Well, when you’re done will you come upstairs? I found this awesome
site about band promotion that I thought you would like to see.”
“Totally, man. In fact, I can finish this some other…” From the bed, Megan shot
daggers at him. “Um, right. I’ll come up after I finish cleaning and organizing
these beakers.”
“Sweet.” Josh grabbed the knob to shut the door, clearly eager to get out of
Megan’s domain.
“Uh, Josh?” At Drake’s tentative tone, Josh paused.
“Yeah?”
“Do you think I have levels?”
For a second Josh stared blankly at Drake, like he didn’t quite understand the
question. Then his face cracked and he burst into one of his fits of laughter.
For a minute or so he just stood there doubled over, with the door still open
and everything. Drake fumed in aggravation, his lips twisting into a pout.
Finally Josh stood up again, wheezing and taking deep breaths to regain his
composure. With one last look back at Drake and an accompanying chuckle, he
closed the door. Drake could still hear him giggling in that dumb way of his
from down the hallway.
On the bed, Megan snickered behind a cover with fuzzy brown balls and giant
yellow eyes leering back at him. “Told you.”
Drake huffed resentfully and went back to slaving away over the beakers,
thinking about how he was so going to tell Walter that it was Josh who stepped
on and smashed the caboose for his toy train set.
                                      ---
“So then Dad tells me that he’ll have to drive all the way out to Albuquerque
to get another hand-carved caboose! He says that he bought it from a tribal
museum at a Pueblo village and that he met the women who carved it and she said
that if he didn’t take good care of it misfortunes would rain down upon him.”
Josh sighed as he flipped aimlessly through the T.V. channels. “Plus he says
that I’m gonna have to pay for the replacement and drive out there with him.
You know what the dry heat does to my rash!”
“Yeah, sorry man.” Drake patted his shoulder half-heartedly and went back to
eating his pudding. “But hey, what is Walter even talking about? Misfortunes
rained down on him long before you broke his caboose. You know, because he’s a
weatherman? Get it?” Drake chuckled at his own pun as Josh shot him a dark
look. “And anyway, why are Pueblo Indians making toy trains? Don’t Indians ride
horses? Do they even use trains?”
Josh looked at him in that way that meant he’d said something idiotic, but
before he could swallow his pudding and ask for clarification Josh shook his
head dismissively.
“What I want to know is, how did Dad find out it was me who stepped on his
caboose in the first place?” Josh glared suspiciously at him while Drake put on
his most innocent, puppy-dog expression.
“Yeah.” Josh scoffed. “I bet.”
Drake smirked, pleased with himself and his little bit of payback. Finally
choosing a rerun of Action Masters: Duel to Destruction, they settled in for
their usual Thursday evening in front of the television. Drake spooned the
vanilla pudding into his mouth—Josh had been trying to perfect his new recipe
and he’d been using the opportunity to get free samples every night—as his
glance flickered between the spandex-clad girls on the screen and his brother’s
relaxed profile.
Girls in spandex had undeniable appeal. They were all…bouncy. Bouncy was good.
Bouncy was fun. And bouncy had been just fine up until a week and a half ago.
It was probably the dumbest thing Drake had ever done, and he’d done some
really dumb stuff in his life. Josh hadn’t been speaking to him—again—because
his botched money-laundering-through-limeade-stands plan had gotten them
grounded the same weekend Josh had tickets to see the new Blaine Darvey show
downtown. Really, it was all that kid next door, Robby’s, fault. If he wasn’t
such a crybaby—and a loud one at that—their parents would never have found out
about the scheme. In fact, Drake was pretty sure that the only reason he and
Josh had even gotten in trouble in the first place was because their parents
thought grounding them might shut up that ear-splitting shriek of Robby’s.
Drake hadn’t minded so much since Alicia, his date for Saturday, had cancelled
last minute to visit her dying great-grandmother in the hospital. But Josh was
mad. Drake tried telling him that he’d drive him out to the next regional
meeting for Oprah’s Book Club, but it didn’t help. Josh just ignored him, and
after an uncomfortable hour of sitting in silence he laid down on his bed and
went to sleep.
At first, Drake assumed he was pretending. He started whispering things like
“Hey Josh, your Grammy is here!” and “Sure Mindy, I’d love to make out with
you.” Josh’s snores got louder. Next he tried flicking things at him from
across the room—rubber bands, paper clips, ping pong balls. When he hit him in
the face with a sock he thought Josh was going to wake up and yell at him, but
he only grunted lightly and shifted onto his back. Then Drake grabbed a dull
pencil and went over to prod him; whenever he couldn’t sleep at night Drake’s
favorite thing to do was watch Josh squirm as he got poked. He’d bat away
imaginary monsters and if Drake was really lucky Josh’s dream would be vivid
enough for him to mutter what he thought was attacking him. Once he mumbled
something about a giant squid and Drake freaked him out the next day by
suggesting they go out for calamari.
After a while, tormenting Josh in his sleep got boring. Drake thought about
sneaking out—Josh wouldn’t even know he was gone—when the idea struck him. And
it honestly seemed like a good one at the time. For a while now, he’d been
thinking about how he could compare his kissing skills to other guys’ kissing
skills. It was great that all the girls thought he was an awesome kisser, but
that didn’t prove anything to some of the boys at school. They just said that
girls had low standards. Drake didn’t entirely follow their logic, but he
wasn’t about to let his make out reputation get tarnished. In fact, about a
week earlier Mark Fletcher had called him out about it while he was sweater-
shopping with his mom and Megan at the mall. He’d said that Drake’s kissing
skills were nothing more than a pathetic rumor and that he bet his grandfather
kissed better than Drake did. Drake offered to let Mark give him a test-run
right then and there. It wasn’t like he wanted to make out with guys, but he’d
do it for the sake of his honor. And he would have gone through with it, too,
if his mom hadn’t dragged him away to look at cardigans. But ever since then,
this whole thing had been bugging him. And now—thanks to another failed
scheme—he had been presented with the opportunity to regain his confidence and
avoid all the awkwardness and gossip that kissing a guy in public would create.
He could kiss Josh while he was asleep to see if his talents still applied to
guy standards, and then on Tuesday he’d be able to make out with Carrie worry-
free.
It had seemed like a foolproof plan, so Drake was still a little confused on
how it all went so wrong.
The first problem was one he really should have anticipated; it wasn’t some
random person he was kissing, it was Josh. If he put together the amount of
time he collectively knew all of his former girlfriends it was still probably
less than the amount of time he’d known Josh. The second problem was a purely
logistical one—it’s surprisingly hard to kiss someone while they are snoring.
And the third, and most serious, problem was just plain poor planning—he hadn’t
locked the door beforehand. That, more than anything else, was why he was in
such a predicament now. If Megan hadn’t walked in on him he could have just
acted like it never happened and no one would’ve been the wiser. He really
wished he’d locked that door.
Of course, if he’d just kept it to a quick peck on the lips this wouldn’t be an
issue now. The truth was that Megan walked in on the third time Drake had
kissed Josh. The first time he’d been so nervous that Josh would wake up that
he’d hovered over him for thirty seconds before swooping down to barely touch
his lips. Josh didn’t even shift and Drake almost wept in relief. The second
time he moved more slowly and forced his lips to treat that mouth like it
wasn’t actually attached to his stepbrother. He tried to imagine it was one of
his past girlfriends instead, but he couldn’t seem to recall the details of any
of their faces. All he could see was Josh’s abnormally large head, bushy
eyebrows, pudgy nose, and mop of curly dark hair. His lips were soft too, even
more so than some girls’ were. And they weren’t coated in all that gooey lip
gloss either. It was probably because Josh used that special prescription balm.
When he finally pulled away and opened his eyes Josh was still lying there,
still sleeping and still fully unaware of what Drake had done. Drake never
really felt guilty about most of the things he did, but he did have enough
decency to at least blush at that.
That second time should have been it. Drake knew that he’d made his point and
now he could relax about his reputation. But he couldn’t quite stop staring at
Josh. When he was awake he always looked so frazzled and stressed out, things
that he’d probably find a way to blame on Drake. But asleep he looked peaceful
and calm. Something about it made Drake want to just cuddle him. Although he
would never publicize it, he and Megan both shared a soft spot for cute things.
And though nothing about awake Josh was particularly cute, sleeping Josh was a
different story all together.
One more time couldn’t hurt. He repeated that over and over to himself as he
bent down to kiss Josh again. Now that he had gotten over the initial weirdness
of it, he found that it actually wasn’t all that bad. They had kissed once
before—that time it was Josh who kissed him—but Josh had been in an Oprah-
induced delirium and Drake had been so shocked that the sensation didn’t really
register. This time Drake moved slowly and casually, alternating between
brushing their lips and pressing them together hard. His heart beat fast
against his ribcage and even as he tried to control his body his face flushed
hot. Drake could have swore that he heard Josh whimper softly and move against
him but then suddenly there was someone who was neither him nor Josh in the
room, clearing their throat forcefully. He looked up hesitantly to find Megan
standing in the doorway. And that was how it came to this. Drake secretly
watching Josh, fully aware of being caught up with his little quirks and
mannerisms. Tracing and retracing the lines of his face and body like some
pitiful little girl with her first crush. He was Drake Parker, he thought
resentfully. He didn’t have crushes, he had dates.
And he especially didn’t have crushes on guys. Except for Devon Malone from
Zero Gravity, but that was a special case. He didn’t need to have crushes on
guys; like half the planet was girls and that should totally be enough, even
for him. And he especially especially didn’t have crushes on family members.
That was just…creepy. Kids with three arms and a tail creepy. Not that Josh and
him were blood relatives and not that they could even have horribly mutated
kids and really they’d only been brothers for three years but still. If cousins
were off limits he was pretty sure stepbrothers were a no-go too. There were so
many reasons why this was not a good thing and still Drake couldn’t stop
himself from getting more and more wrapped up in it.
“Um…can I help you with something?” Drake shook himself out of his thoughts and
found Josh staring at him with a puzzled expression.
“What?” Drake instinctively inched towards the other end of the sofa. “No. I
mean, I was just thinking.”
“Oh really?” Josh sounded less than persuaded.
“Yeah. But I wasn’t thinking about you or anything. I was just thinking
about…stuff. That’s all.” Josh looked at him skeptically and Drake started to
sweat. “Pudding! I was thinking about pudding! Your pudding. So I guess that
technically means I was thinking about you in some way…”
“What about my pudding?” Josh reached for the tupperwear container in his
hands, but Drake snatched it away. He still had pudding to finish.
“I was just thinking that this one is really good, but it still needs to be a
little thicker.”
“You keep saying that. I know you are just trying to get me to make you more
pudding. I’m not a Loopy Lucy, you know!”
“Fine, whatever.” Drake rolled his eyes and shoved another spoonful into his
mouth. “But don’t blame me when you end up with an almost perfect pudding
recipe.”
Josh tapped his fingers agitatedly on the remote; Drake knew he was trying to
distract himself with the commercial for heavy duty dishwashing soap. After a
minute he threw the remote down on the coffee table.
“Fine.” He muttered grimly without glancing at Drake.
“Good.” Drake forced his attention back on the spandex girls who were now
getting ready to do a ninja battle. “By the way, vanilla is nice and all but
tomorrow would you make butterscotch?”
                                      ---
“Dude, where have you been? It’s past midnight!” Josh stopped pacing in the
center of their room and pointed an accusatory finger at Drake.
“I was helping Megan with something.” Around nine o’clock Megan had informed
Drake that he was going to record a CD of N’Sync covers for some girl in her
class who loved both him and boy bands, and who was having a super-cool pool
party that Megan wanted to be invited to. She made him sing for three hours
straight; she wouldn’t even give him a glass of water. And now his voice was
all dry and scratchy. This manservant job was the worst thing ever.
“Megan, huh?” Josh looked both suspicious and impressed. “You two have been
doing a lot of stuff together recently. You aren’t, like, planning some huge
prank on me are you?”
“Ha, no. I wish.” Josh glared at him. “I mean, they were just a few favors I
owed her, that’s all.” He’d been working as Megan’s slave for almost two and a
half weeks now and every day was worse that the one before. She kept coming up
with more things for him to do, more annoying little tasks. At first it was
just one or two chores a day, but now he had to make her meals and snacks and
polish her oboe and bathe her hamster and be the test subject for her sadistic
little experiments. Plus her constant threatening to tell Josh was beginning to
make him paranoid. He was never really good at mind games well-rested, but when
he was exhausted they were just cruel.
“Favors? What fav—” Josh was interrupted by Drake’s name echoing throughout the
house. He yelped and raced past Josh into his bed, pulling his blanket over his
head just as the door flew open.
“Drake! Get up, Drake. I know you aren’t asleep yet!” Megan stood beneath his
loft bed with her hands on her hips. He peered out anxiously from under his
covers.
“Drake, get out of bed right now! You need to rerecord ‘Space Cowboy’! The
audio got all messed up!” Behind her, Josh snickered.
“Look Megan, I’m exhausted and croaky and my voice is going to sound terrible
if I sing anymore tonight. Your little friend can wait one more day for her
present. Now please, if you have one tiny bit of compassion in that black and
evil soul of yours, let me go to sleep!” With that, Drake threw the blanket
back over his head and held his breath, praying that she would just leave him
alone for the night.
After a while, he heard a deflated exhale. “Fine. You’d better not try to
weasel out of it tomorrow.”
From under the covers he called out, “I won’t!”
Listening to the sound of padded slippers shuffling towards the door Drake
thanked his mom’s genes for giving his little sister an ounce of mercy. Then
the shuffling stopped and the door creaked quietly.
“Oh, Josh. I almost forgot. When you and Drake were grounded for that limeade
stand thing, I walked in on him making out with you in your sleep and I’ve been
making him be my personal manservant in exchange for me not telling you.
Night.” The lights flicked off and the door slammed shut, leaving nothing but a
dark and choking silence over the room. It made up for the fact that inside,
every part of Drake was screaming.
He lay rigid for several minutes, hoping that Josh would just act like nothing
had happened and go to bed. After a while, he actually began to convince
himself that Josh thought he’d fallen asleep. He was getting ready to peek out
when Josh’s voice, low and threatening, sounded somewhere nearby.
“Drake?”
His own voice, when it finally came out, cracked with alarm. “Wh—what?”
“Is Megan telling the truth?”
“Um…” Drake scrambled for an explanation that wasn’t there. Never particularly
good at real explanations, let alone fake ones, he opted instead to mumble,
“Maybe?”
“MAYBE?!” The sudden piercing shout caused him to jump up and somersault off
the side of his mattress. “Maybe?! What do you mean, maybe?!” The vein in the
side of Josh’s neck pulsed ominously.
“Maybe—it’s that gray area between yes and no. It’s also a convenient answer
when yes or no might get you into a lot of trouble.” Drake tried to sound
smooth as he crawled back onto his bed, rubbing the spot on his head that had
smacked into the wall. Josh fumed at him from about three feet away.
“Trouble? You’re gonna wish trouble was all you had by the time I get done with
you!” Before Drake could even think about getting away Josh leapt up the loft
ladder, threw himself onto the bed, and began furiously smacking and slapping
him. Drake tried weakly to defend himself against the girly assault that Josh
liked to call “Josh Unleashed”, but finally gave up and resorted to curling up
into a ball in an attempt to protect his most valuable asset—his face—from the
brunt of the attack.
“You—scum—you—pervert—what—are—you—thinking—taking—advantage—of—me—while—I’m—in—ca—pa—ci—ta—ted!”
Each word was punctuated by a particularly harsh blow, and Drake decided that
if he didn’t want to be really sore tomorrow for all the wrong reasons he
should at least try to explain himself.
“I wasn’t taking—Ow!—advantage of you—Ow!—I really—Ow!—wasn’t—OW!” Josh started
focusing the majority of the beating on his back and sides, occasionally
getting in a slap upside the head.
“Yeah, right! Then what would you call it if a pervert groped you while you
were asleep, huh?!”
Drake raised his head in indignation. “I don’t know why everyone keeps calling
it groping but I was not groping you!”
“Everyone?! Who is everyone?!” Josh reeled back with a look of disgust on his
face that, quite frankly, hurt Drake’s feelings a little. “This is some sort of
sick joke, isn’t it? You had your friends take pictures, right, and now they’re
going to make a website for it, aren’t they? What is it going to be,
www.gropingjoshnichols.com or something?”
“What?” The amount of time it took Josh to go from angry to paranoid
continuously astonished Drake. “What are you talking about? No, there is no
website, geez! Anyway, why would I post pictures of myself—awake and
coherent—kissing you while you are asleep?! I don’t want that all over the
Internet!”
The hitting stopped abruptly. “Well, then what?” Josh eyed Drake distrustfully.
“What was it? A dare? A bet? How much money did you make off of my slumbering
humiliation?” At the mention of Josh’s humiliation, Drake snapped.
“Your humiliation?! What about my humiliation?! Why do you think I’ve been
scrubbing beakers full of toxic waste and covering has-been boy bands for the
past two and a half weeks?! Not for fun, I’ll tell you that! It was so you
wouldn’t find out about this! Do you think I wanted Megan to catch me?! No, of
course not! I didn’t want anyone to find out, and I especially didn’t want you
to find out!” He could feel his face burning as he gasped to calm his lungs
down. Josh said nothing, just sat perched on the edge of the mattress with his
mouth hanging open stupidly.
“Look.” Drake sighed and stared down at the pattern on his pajama pants. “It
wasn’t a dare or a bet or anything. The only person who knows about it is
Megan…and now you too, I guess. I wasn’t trying to make fun of you. So please
don’t be mad at me.” He muttered the last part into his chest. Josh remained
still and Drake shifted uncomfortably in the awkward quiet.
“Why?” He murmured it so softly that Drake wasn’t even sure he’d said anything
at all. “If it wasn’t a trick and it wasn’t a bet, then why did you do it?”
Drake shrugged. “I was curious.”
“You were…curious?” That familiar tone of superiority was back and Drake could
feel the pressure in his chest easing up. “Curious about what, exactly?”
“Well, you see Mark Fletcher said that I probably kissed like his grandfather
and that girls have low standards and I told him I would show him my skills
right there but then Mom made me go buy cardigans so I thought I’d see if I was
a good kisser by guy standards and since you were sleeping I thought no harm no
foul, right?” For a split second it almost looked like Josh was disappointed,
but that might just have been Drake’s exhausted mind playing tricks on him.
“So let me get this straight. Some guy you don’t even like insulted your
kissing skills and you decided to make out with me in my sleep to prove to him
that you were still a good kisser. Is that what you’re telling me here?” The
look of irritation on his face told Drake that his reasoning might not have
been as sound as he thought it was.
“No, see, I still knew I was a good kisser. I just needed to make sure that I
was worthy of my best kisser reputation from everyone.” That sounded better to
him, but Josh didn’t look so convinced.
“Why do you care in the first place what a bunch of guys think of your kissing
abilities?! It’s not like they’re the market you’re targeting, right? Why
didn’t you just solve this problem like you solve all your other problems—by
making out with like another dozen girls? That usually seems to work just fine
for you.”
“Yeah…” Drake smiled at his simple yet effective problem-solving tactics. “But
this was different! I just, I don’t know how else to say it.”
“Apparently.” Josh sniped at him. Drake didn’t know how to make him see that
this had been the only way to solve that crisis, and Josh seemed out of
questions to interrogate him with. For the third time in twenty minutes, their
room fell into an agitated silence.
“…was I?” Josh muttered something without looking at Drake, who only caught the
last part of it.
“Come again?”
Josh exhaled in dramatic exasperation, but still didn’t look at Drake. “How was
I?”
Drake paused, not entirely sure that he understood the question. “What?”
“Kissing! How was I at kissing?!” Josh glared at him from behind reddening
cheeks. “Don’t you make me say it again!”
“Ooooh, that.” Drake tilted his head thoughtfully. There were a lot of things
he could say, most of which would probably freak Josh out even more than he
already was. To avoid further complications Drake decided to play it safe. “You
weren’t bad. Just…average, I guess.”
“Just average?” Josh sounded strangely offended.
“Yeah. I mean, I’ve made out with worse.”
“Oh, well that’s just great!” Josh threw his hands up in frustration. “First I
find out that you used me in my sleep for your own twisted ego issues, then you
tell me that I wasn’t even that great of a kisser! Just fantastic!”
“Calm down, man.” Drake hadn’t anticipated this odd turn in the conversation,
though he couldn’t deny being relieved that Josh had stopped slapping him. “I
mean, you were sleeping so I guess that—”
“Right, that’s right! I was asleep! It wasn’t a fair comparison! I demand
another evaluation!” Josh stared triumphantly at him.
“You demand a what? What?” Drake started to feel a little panicky. This whole
thing was getting way out of control. “What do you mean you—” His protests were
cut short by the sudden sensation of Josh’s lips smothering his mouth.
Now this wasn’t at all where he had expected the night to end up at.
After only a few seconds of the “evaluation” it became clear to Drake that Josh
was a much better kisser asleep than he was awake. His eagerness to prove
himself almost knocked Drake off the mattress, again. And his moves were
anything but subtle. He was all pushy and slobbery about it. Drake had two
options here—he could either politely bow out or he could show Josh how great
kissing is actually done, and he knew that the second option would not end in a
good place. Any moron could pick the best choice. Then again, Drake wasn’t just
any moron. Readjusting his balance he reached up and bracketed Josh’s oblong
head, taking decisive control of the make out situation.
The first thing he did was slow Josh down. The one fact he knew to be true for
everyone when it came to something fun was that if you take the fun thing away
the person will inevitably want it more. So he pulled back over and over,
coaxing Josh to chase his lips. And when Josh caught him, Drake rewarded him by
nipping at his lower lip and darting his tongue over the corners of his mouth.
After Josh finally relaxed his anxious movements Drake dropped his hands from
his face, trailing them lightly down his arms. Then he leaned back and let Josh
practice his technique. Josh kissed him softly and carefully before plunging
forward hard; Drake opened his mouth in surprise. He could sense Josh hesitate,
unsure of himself, before edging his tongue inside. His whole approach was so
childlike that Drake found the urge to cuddle him rising in his stomach again.
Drake wound his tongue into Josh’s mouth and began tracing over the roof of it,
memorizing its ridges and planes. He found a spot that made Josh’s shoulders
shake a little when he pressed against it and he focused his attention there.
Josh seemed to be losing concentration; his tongue and lips fumbled and then
stopped working entirely. Instead, he began making low noises in the back of
his throat and his breathing got funny. It was when the first actual moan came
out that Drake decided he should really stop before they did something that
Josh was gonna regret in the morning. Besides, he’d started to notice a
familiar stiffening in his pajama pants that he was fairly sure Josh wouldn’t
appreciate. When he pulled away, all he could hear was Josh’s staccato
breathing and the rapid beating of his own heart in his ears.
“See.” He smirked coyly at his red-faced stepbrother. “All you needed was a
good teacher. And hey, you got the best.” He waited for the snappy comeback,
but Josh didn’t say anything. His eyes were shaded beneath his long lashes and
his lips seemed even puffier than usual. Drake began to worry that he’d already
gone too far.
“Hey, man, you okay?” Still no reaction. Drake’s heart started to pound again.
“I didn’t, um, push you too much, did I? Josh? Buddy? Is everything alright?”
The oversized head in front of him nodded vaguely.
“Everything’s fine. It’s just that…um…” Drake wished he’d come out and say what
was bothering him already. He was uncomfortable enough with his growing problem
down south.
“What?”
“I think I should go to the bathroom.” Drake twisted his face in confusion at
this abrupt announcement.
“Huh?”
Josh fidgeted with his thumbnail. “There’s something that I need to…take care
of.”
“You gotta pee? Dude, then go and pee.” Drake didn’t understand the dilemma.
“No, I don’t have to pee.” Josh seemed to be getting more and more agitated,
which was starting to seriously bug Drake. “I need to take care of something
else. Somewhere that is not here.”
“Poop?”
“No, not poop!” Josh finally looked up at him, and Drake couldn’t help but
think that he’d never seen Josh so embarrassed before. “I have an urgent and
hard problem I need to relieve! Down…there!” Drake followed his frantic glance
towards his pajama bottoms and suddenly realized what he was talking about. He
was about to agree and send him off but then he paused, struck with what was
without a doubt the single dumbest idea he’d ever had. And he’d had some dumb
ideas in his life.
“You know, you don’t have to go to the bathroom.” It was out before what little
forethought he had could catch it.
“Well yeah, I could just wait until you fall asleep to do it but that seems a
little mean…”
“No.” Drake took a deep breath and ignored all the better judgment he’d ever
had. “I mean, you don’t have to leave. You can…do it here.”
“What?” Josh blanched. “Drake, I can’t even use the toilet in front of you. How
do you expect me to be able to do…this…in front of you?”
This was it. His last chance to stop. He could lay down right now, pull the
covers over his head, and wake up tomorrow like none of this had ever happened.
That was exactly was he should do, he thought, as he proceeded to do precisely
the opposite.
“I could help you.” The look on Josh’s face was priceless, and if Drake hadn’t
been so terrified of getting punched he might have been able to enjoy it more.
Josh sputtered and stammered, and then he gave Drake the boldest look he’d ever
seen.
“Drake, are you…seducing me?” Josh said it quietly, but his eyes flickered in
the darkness and Drake’s mouth suddenly dried up.
“If I say yes, will you hate me?” Drake stared at him, trying to look much more
confident than he felt. After what seemed like way too long, Josh finally
leaned forward.
“No, I won’t hate you.” He whispered it warm against Drake’s mouth. “Seducer.”
Then he pushed forward gently, and that was all Drake needed.
He grabbed Josh by the nape of his neck and pulled him down towards the
mattress where they both landed with a muffled oomph. Forgetting all his
teacherly professionalism, Drake shoved his tongue into Josh’s mouth like he
might never get the chance to do it again. He went straight for that spot that
made him shiver and licked at it like a kid with a lollipop. Josh, already
obviously disoriented by Drake’s aggressive switch, seemed to abandon all hope
of proving his kissing skills now. Instead, he bit at the invading tongue and
thin lips in front of him and Drake smirked to himself; Josh must’ve liked that
particular move from before.
Actually, Drake was equally stunned by his sudden aggressiveness. With girls
he’d always been gentle and delicate. They seemed to like that, and he did too.
If it did get aggressive, it was never him who initiated it. Once in a while
he’d have a date who wanted him and wanted him now—not that he could blame her.
Mostly though, it was just soft and slow make out sessions that ended with the
girl staring dreamily at him and sighing contentedly. That was what he was good
at and that was what he liked. There had never been a question of him not
enjoying making out with girls. But something about kissing Josh reminded him
of the near-constant slap fights, yelling contests, and wrestling matches
they’d had over the years. Maybe it was the feeling of Josh’s weight against
him or maybe it was the way they kept frantically moving or maybe it was that
familiar smell of Jasmine Dream bath salt sweat. Whatever it was, it was
driving Drake crazy and he wasn’t sure if that was a very good thing or a very
bad thing. What he did know was that he definitely was not alone in feeling
like this.
On top of him, Josh squirmed like an overly friendly dog. His hands kept
brushing over the hem of Drake’s tee shirt before bolting back up to touch his
face and neck. Meanwhile Drake’s hands were idling above Josh’s shoulder
blades, feeling for the way his back arched and sunk. Even having lost a lot of
his pillowy weight, Drake still marveled at how soft his body was. There were
no pointy, protruding bones or surprisingly sharp joints like most of his
girlfriends’ had. Girls’ bodies were soft, but not in the same way. Drake never
felt like he could break Josh; he never felt like he had to restrain himself
with him. He thought that maybe that was what this feeling was, but he wasn’t
completely sure.
The sound of strained gasping above him threw Drake back into reality. He
realized that, almost unconsciously, he’d been sucking at Josh’s mouth in such
a frenzy that neither of them had had much in the way of air for quite some
time. Dizzy and a little lightheaded, Drake pried himself away.
“You need a break?” He couldn’t stop himself from staring dazedly at Josh’s
puffy pink lips, glistening with saliva in the dim light.
“Nah.” Josh blinked slowly, obviously trying to regain his composure. Drake
thought that it should totally be a crime for him to look so cute. “Breaks are
way overrated.” He swung forward again, but this time Drake stopped him with a
palm to the chest.
“Wait.” Drake grabbed the bottom of his shirt and yanked, briefly aware that
he’d never be able to change in front of Josh without blushing again. After he
got it off he tossed it over the side of the mattress and looked back
expectantly at Josh.
Even in the dark, Drake could see him falter. His hands clenched the hem of his
pajama shirt and twisted, but didn’t make any decisive move. He looked
nervous—and something else. Drake tried to remember what that face meant. It
reminded him of the time at The Premiere when a pretty girl had laughed at his
favorite sweater vest, before Drake “accidentally” dropped it into the school
wood chipper. He looked…ashamed.
“Josh,” Drake was starting to get cold without a shirt on. “What is it, man?”
“Nothing.” His eyes darted down and Drake knew he was lying. “It’s just, don’t
laugh at me, okay?”
“Laugh at you? Why would I laugh at you? Unless you got, like, a tattoo of
Oprah since I last saw you shirtless? You—didn’t, did you?” Drake didn’t know
if he could get through this with Oprah watching.
“No, I did not get a tattoo of Oprah! I couldn’t have her getting all—stretched
out and saggy.” Drake grimaced; that was a little more than he cared to
visualize. “But I’m not as…fit as you are and I don’t have flawless skin
and—I’m just not perfect like you, alright?” This sudden confession made Drake
giggle, which he realized almost instantly was not an appropriate response as
an angry Josh smacked him in the shoulder.
“Why is it that when I ask you not to do something you immediately do it
anyway?! It’s like we’re not even speaking the same language! Granted, I’m not
fluent in Moron but—”
“Hey!” There was nothing quite like an insult to ruin the mood, but Drake
forced himself to stay cool. He was not going to let this end in a fight. “I
wasn’t laughing at you like that. I was laughing because you’re so—adorable.”
At this, all the anger in Josh’s face melted.
“Adorable? I’m…adorable?” Josh seemed to consider this. “Are you sure I’m not
manly and/or ruggedly handsome?” Drake couldn’t stop himself from laughing at
that.
“You’re adorable. Deal with it.” Josh made a sound of halfhearted acceptance.
“And for the record, if I wanted someone who was perfect like me I would do
this with myself.”
“Well, how benevolent of you to let us mere mortals be in your presence. Are
you sure I’m not going to contaminate you with my unworthiness?” Drake sighed
and let his sarcasm slide for the moment.
“What I’m saying is, don’t be ashamed. You don’t have anything to be ashamed
of.” Even as he reassured Josh, an unsettling thought came to mind. “But, um,
you don’t have that rash down there, do you?”
“What? No!” Josh’s fervent denial eased his concerns.
“Good. Then nothing to be ashamed of.” Drake grinned at him in what he hoped
was a sufficiently naughty way. “Now will you take off your shirt, please. I’m
getting chilly here.” Rolling his eyes, Josh obediently stripped off his top
and crossed his arms stiffly across his chest. Rapidly losing patience, Drake
decided that chatting time was officially over and pulled him back towards the
mattress.
Their kissing was less frenzied now, partly because they were getting used to
each other and partly because they were busy fumblingly groping around
elsewhere. Drake’s hands ran circles over Josh’s lower back before brushing
across his stomach. Josh jumped and he froze.
“Ticklish.” Josh muttered. Drake snickered and slid his hands to Josh’s hips,
dipping underneath his waistband. Josh wavered against his mouth but didn’t say
anything, so Drake plunged on.
He brushed against a tuft of hair before hitting “little Josh”. For a second he
panicked, overwhelmed by the urge to pull away and yell “Gross!” before
sprinting off to scrub his hands with bleach. But then he recognized a familiar
sensation of smooth skin and hot stickiness and it didn’t seem so gross
anymore. He ran his fingers curiously up its length and Josh’s breathing
hitched. Encouraged by this, he rubbed the wet head roughly with his palm. Josh
cracked out a low yelp before moving over to nip at Drake’s ear.
Without warning, Drake bucked violently and shuddered. He hadn’t demonstrated
ear-kissing techniques for a very good reason—it was one of the few things,
aside from the obvious, that seriously drove him wild. A lot of girls didn’t
even think about it and he never suggested it; him horny and flailing was not
really something he wanted them to see. Way uncool. And he hadn’t really wanted
Josh to see it, but now that he was already doing it Drake didn’t think he
wanted him to stop either. Plus, he was actually decent at it. In fact, he was
more than decent. Drake caught himself moaning and grinding against Josh’s
thigh, and he suddenly wanted a lot more than just a tongue in his ear.
“Pants…” He whispered it with a bit of desperation. From against his neck Josh
murmured, “What?”
“Pants.” He said it louder this time, and with more urgency. “Take off your
pants.”
“Oh.” Josh leaned back and struggled to get his pajama bottoms and underwear
off. Without waiting to be asked, Drake tore off his own pants and flung them
somewhere that wasn’t the bed. He turned back to find Josh staring at him in a
rather unnerving way.
“What?” He moved to cover himself, considering with increasing anxiety what it
was that Josh had found so startling.
“You weren’t wearing underpants.” Josh said it with some repulsion and Drake
almost kicked him off the bed for making him freak out like that.
“Does it really matter?!” Josh hesitated. He looked like he sort of wanted to
say something, but then he shrugged and moved back towards Drake. Hovering
above his body like he was afraid he might crush him, Josh carefully kept at
least six inches between them. Drake, however, was not in the mood to wait any
longer. He grabbed Josh’s hips and pulled down hard, and instantly his whole
body got hotter. For a second they laid there without moving; both of their
penises twitched painfully, sandwiched between their stomachs. Then Drake felt
a light lick at his ear and they both started moving uncontrollably again.
Even though he’d been the one forcing Josh on top of him, Drake was still a
little thrown off being between someone and the bed. He tried adjusting himself
to the force of another person moving above him but found that was
significantly easier thought of than done. Frustrated by his own bumbling, he
settled for fisting his sheets and pressing insistently against Josh’s sweaty
skin. For his part, Josh kept sucking at Drake’s ear and timidly rubbing down
into him, all with his hands fixed firmly on the mattress besides Drake’s head.
Drake felt him toy lightly with the ends of his hair, but that was as close to
his body as his hands came. The initial sensation of skin to skin had been a
rush, but it only lasted an instant and Drake quickly found himself desperate
for Josh to touch him. Touch his face, his arms, his chest, anywhere. He
begrudgingly accepted the fact that he wasn’t going to be able to keep acting
cool if he actually wanted to come in the near future. He hated being the first
one to crack under pressure; he’d hoped Josh would succumb to his powers of
sexiness before he completely reverted to the maniacally horny teenager that
lurked beneath all the charm and mousse. But then again things like pride and
dignity seemed so frivolous with Josh licking around the shell of his ear and
all. Abandoning the few shreds of cool he had left, Drake reached up and
wrapped his arms over Josh’s back—in what felt like the most pathetic and needy
way ever—and clung tightly to him. Under the additional weight Josh’s arms
buckled and the remaining safety distant he’d been keeping between their bodies
disappeared. He collapsed against Drake with a dull thump, momentarily knocking
the wind out of both of them. When he could breathe normally again Drake
started grinding against Josh like his life depended on it, which at this point
it kind of did. Banking on instinctual reactions, Drake almost cried with
relief when Josh finally began to grind back, fast and hard. Instead, he held
on and closed his eyes, listening to the cacophony of their uneven panting.
Josh moved down from his ear to his neck, running his tongue roughly over the
hollow just above his collarbone. Drake dug his nails into the softness of his
back, squeezing at the layer of cushioning fat that none of his girlfriends had
ever had. His hands started to slip over the lines of sweat their frenetic
humping produced and he clawed wildly for some traction. One slipped lower,
daringly running over Josh’s butt, while he wound the other into the mess of
dark curls buried against his neck.
Josh kissed the side of Drake’s throat before dragging his teeth along his jaw
line. One hand grabbed fistfuls of hair, tearing at it in a way that made Drake
want to remind him that bald patches were not sexy. The other hand traced the
curve of his chest, running down over his ribs and waist before heading back
the way it came. Rough fingertips raced over Drake’s right nipple, causing him
to yelp at the shock of pleasure. His reaction didn’t go unnoticed; Josh’s hand
gravitated back to his sensitive chest, rubbing and pinching both nipples hard.
Somewhere in the back of his mind Drake felt vaguely disturbed by how much he
was enjoying Josh’s new aggressiveness. But between that and the increasing
amount of friction against his dick, the feeling of being almost there had
finally begun to rise in the pit of his stomach and everything else was
secondary. He panted louder and arched fiercely against Josh’s slick body.
His desperation must have been obvious because after a second Josh released his
vice grip on Drake’s hair and snaked his arm between their shaking bodies.
Drake felt it before he believed it—Josh wrapped his fist around both their
dicks and started pumping. It wasn’t hesitant or cautious or anything that was
trademark Josh, and it had a hint of desperation to it that gratified Drake,
but mostly it was just really damn good and more than enough to push him right
over the edge.
“Ah, Josh! Ah, ah, ah, ah!” He groaned low and loud, writhing and digging his
nails into Josh’s scalp. The intensity of it had him reeling, his ears buzzing
with what felt like the sizzle of every nerve in his body. He’d never come like
that in his life; this so beat jacking off alone.
After a minute or so his own body started to relax, but he could still feel the
tension coursing through Josh. When his ears stopped humming he heard nothing
but harsh panting and the smacking of sticky skin against sticky skin. He
reached back up and hung loosely onto Josh’s neck, pressing his softening penis
into Josh’s still-hard one as both of them continued to be pumped at a furious
pace. Now that his boxer buddy wasn’t bothering him, Drake could wait patiently
for Josh to finish.
Finally, his shoulders seized up and his whole body got really still. Drake
felt Josh’s dick pulse before Josh caught his unsuspecting mouth in a kiss.
Shallow and broken up by a succession of low moans, Josh’s lips quivered along
with the rest of his body as Drake felt a hot wetness pool between their
stomachs. When his ragged breathing evened out, Josh slowly lifted himself up
and they both looked down to survey the damage.
“Here.” Drake tossed Josh a handful of tissues from the box at the side of his
bed. They wiped themselves down thoroughly, eager not to fall into awkwardness
immediately, then made an attempt to clean up anything that had gotten on the
sheets. Drake crumpled his up and dropped them next to the mattress, much to
Josh’s horror.
“Don’t just leave those there! What are you, a Neanderthal?” Drake responded by
grabbing his arm and yanking him down. The tissues he was holding flew towards
the center of the room.
“Just go to bed, will you.” Josh opened his mouth to protest, but Drake got
there first and silenced him with a chaste kiss and a giggle. Then he turned on
his side, pulled the covers over himself, and promptly fell asleep.
                                      ---
Drake opened his groggy eyes and for a split second was fully convinced that
he’d just had the weirdest dream ever. Then he went to move his arm off his
chest—it was kind of hard to breathe with it there—and realized that the arm
slung across his ribcage did not belong to him. He turned to find a very asleep
Josh, snoring like a hobo and drooling lightly on his pillow. He was starting
to seriously consider the possibility that this dream might have actually
happened.
“Ahem.” Drake spun around and screamed like a prepubescent girl. Behind him,
Josh jerked awake.
“I didn’t mean it, Oprah! What?!” Josh blinked at the morning light. “What
happened?” He looked perplexedly from Drake’s nakedness to Drake’s bed, then to
his own nakedness and back at Drake. Then he looked down at the middle of the
room where Megan stood, watching them with her arms crossed and he screamed
too. They both tried frantically to say anything in the way of an explanation,
but nothing coherent came out. Feeling like he’d been here before and sensing
the importance of getting her out of the room, Drake finally managed to
construct a lucid thought.
“We’ll do your homework for a month.” Next to him, Josh’s jaw unhinged a
little. Megan looked calculatingly between them.
“Two months. And you’ll also do my chores.” She seemed irritatingly calm about
this, which made Drake wonder if she didn’t have evil superpowers after all.
Josh balked at the offer even as Drake staunchly ignored him.
“Deal.”
“Good. You start today.” Megan turned briskly to leave, like she’d just closed
a high stakes business deal. When she reached the doorway she threw them a mild
look of disapproval. “And please, would you two at least put on some pants? A
girl can go blind like that. I swear, I’m going to need so much therapy when I
get out of this house…” They glanced back down at themselves as the door
clicked shut behind her.
“We really need to start locking that door.” Josh spoke listlessly, his eyes
vaguely glazed over.
“Yeah we do.” Drake thought they should probably look into some new locks while
they were at it. He paused to consider the various lock-picking tools Megan had
no doubt acquired over the years. Maybe they should look into a professional
security system too. Silence crept back into the room as they sat there letting
the stun of what had happened over the last seven hours sink in.
“Well.” Drake stammered, unable to handle the growing discomfort. He had not
anticipated how incredibly awkward facing Josh would be in the morning. The
sunlight from the window illuminated everything—their clothes flung around the
room, the wads of tissue next to the bed, the mess of blankets and sheets, and
especially them, all nude and everything. He glanced at his clock; it was only
6:19AM on a Sunday morning. He didn’t know if he could make it for the rest of
his…life.
“So.” Josh’s fingers tapped nervously on the edge of the mattress. “I guess
I’ll be going back to bed now. Um, back to my bed, that is.” He started to
quickly gather up his scattered pieces of clothing.
“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.” Drake tried to look casual as he wrestled
with his pajama pants. Josh was already back in his underwear.
“Yeah.” Josh nodded in over-emphatic agreement. “Yeah, yeah.” With that he
rushed down the loft ladder and scurried into his own bed, diving deep under
the covers. Drake pulled his tee shirt back on and buried himself back beneath
the sheets, both unbelievably relieved and kind of sad that Josh was out of his
bed. He closed his eyes and ran his hand over the still-warm spot where he’d
been. Taking in a deep breath he noticed a new scent soaked into his pillow.
Inhaling the heady smell of jasmine-sweet sweat, Drake smiled. That should be
more than enough, he thought wryly. At least until next time.
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