always stay the same
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It starts before Drake is even fully awake. When
he opens his eyes, he can see that the sun is barely beginning to color
the sky, which means Josh has no business waking him. “Sleep,” he mumbles,
but Josh makes that sound again, that panicked screech that means
he’s not going to stop anytime soon. “Drake.” This time sounds more urgent, and when Drake lifts his head, still groggy, Josh is lying in his bed, covers pulled up to his chin. “Drake, something is wrong,” he hisses. Drake drops his head back onto his pillow. “I told you, it’s perfectly normal. Just shove your sheets way down in the hamper; that’s what I do.” “Not that,” Josh says. He sounds crankier than usual, and Drake figures he’s not going to get any sleep until Josh settles down, so he sits up and rubs his face hard. “Okay, what.” Josh just clutches the covers even tighter to his face and says, “I can’t tell you. Or, you have to come down here. You have to help me!” he says, with a wobble in his voice that sends Drake jumping down onto Josh’s bed. “Ow! Stop! Don’t…okay, back off.” Josh’s eyes are wide and frantic, but Drake draws back to the corner of the bed, away from the hard press of Josh’s shins. “Now, I’m going to show you something, but you cannot freak out on me,” Josh warns. “I’m not the one freaking out.” “I mean it! Promise.” “I promise, I promise.” God, everything has to be so dramatic with Josh, with oaths and signatures, like that one time he’d made Drake write a paragraph explaining exactly why he’d been wrong to use all of Josh’s socks to make the world’s longest sock rope. “Drake!” “Sorry, I’m here. I solemnly swear not to freak out. Although I’m a little scared of what you’re going to show me.” “You’re scared?” Josh laughs, a harsh, humorless sound. “I’m…okay. I’m going to show you, now.” He looks as though he’s asking for permission, so Drake nods. Josh has got to quit this; his hysteria is starting to rub off on Drake. Slowly, Josh lowers the blanket as he sits up in bed, and Drake might have to back out on his promise, because what the hell? “What happened to your, uh…” he gestures toward Josh’s chest. “Like you can’t see! You’ve spent a lifetime studying them. They’re breasts, Drake, and that is not the worst part!” he adds defiantly. “Oh no, I didn’t just get something new; I am missing something. Something very important, if you know what I mean.” Drake thinks about it. Josh’s idea of very important is different than Drake’s, so… “You lost your homework?” “On my body! Something on my body! My penis, you moron!” Drake can’t help but wince, which isn’t freaking out, but probably isn’t the best move. “So do you have…?” Josh’s face sags unhappily. “Yes.” “So you’re a…” “Yes. And as usual, it’s all your fault!” “What? My fault?” No way. Drake likes girls, but this isn’t his idea of a good time. “I was just sleeping.” “Last night,” Josh says, pulling the covers back over his extraordinarily nice rack. He’s never really thought about it before, but not enough women go braless. “Pay attention!” Josh snaps. “Crisis here! I’m talking about last night, those girls in that restaurant.” “What about them?” “Hello, you asked the blonde if she wanted to make out?” “She said no.” “So you thought it would be okay to ask her sister the same thing?” “Are you getting at something?” Because Josh is a girl, so why are they wasting time talking about something that had been—“Oh, are you talking about when their mom started yelling all that stuff at us?” “And did you happen to catch any of what she was yelling?” “Not really. You know, mom-talk. Blah blah blah.” “Not mom-talk, Drake, not mom-talk! Crazy voodoo babble, and now I’m the one with the very serious problem.” That’s not really how Drake remembers it, but Josh usually pays attention to that kind of stuff. “Are you messing with me?” “I’m not messing with you.” “But Josh, come on.” He glances around, looking for signs of a prank in progress. “You can’t just- I mean, it’s impossible.” “You’re not going to get to touch them.” Josh pulls his knees up to his chest. “Just trust me, all right? I can not go around like this.” He looks so scared that Drake crawls closer and sits cross-legged on the middle of Josh’s bed. “Okay, okay. Let’s think. Let’s just say that some lady put some kind of spell on you, and now you’re…like that.“ “Why me? You’re the one who was a jerk!” Drake decides to let that one slide, special circumstances and all. He’d be a little freaked out if he woke up without his junk. He manages a furtive little pat just to make sure, which Josh catches, and glares a hole through his head. “Sorry.” “I’m afraid to move! What am I going to wear? How can I go out in public? How do I pee?” “Do you have to pee?” “Not yet, but I’m thinking it’s going to happen eventually.” “We just have to find the lady who did this to you and get her to change you back. Until then, you can wear baggy clothes.” He glances at Josh’s chest. “Really baggy. Mom and Dad are going on that cruise in a few days, so you don’t have to fool them for long. Maybe you can pretend to be sick.” It feels good when Josh loses that panicked look and finally looks him in the eye. “That’s actually a good idea. I’ll stay in bed until Mom and Dad are gone, and then we can get it reversed.” “Yeah. There you go.” “Okay,” Josh says in a very small voice, but he remains frozen in place, arms wrapped around his knees. “Do you…want some water?” “Not wanting to pee!” “You’re going to have to pee eventually. And shower, and change, and all that. Millions of girls do it every day; it can’t be that bad.” It’s usually not this hard to talk Josh down, but Drake’s last resort is always a hug, and right now Josh is sending pretty strong signals that he doesn’t want anyone to touch him. “Want to go back to sleep for a while?” “Yeah, okay.” But Josh still doesn’t move. “Want me to stay down here?” They’ve done it before, during scary weather—their sworn secret—or when one of them has had a really bad day, but always under the pretense of accidental drifting off. “Okay.” Josh scoots over, up to his neck in blankets, and just so he’ll relax already, Drake stretches out on top of the covers. * Drake does a pretty good job of distracting Mom and Dad—not that it’s very hard. He makes sure he downplays Josh’s illness and assures them he’s taking care of things like fluids and saltines and the occasional temperature check. “You’re being awfully nice to Josh,” Megan says from the sofa, where she’s texting someone; probably one of her minions. “All that nursing and tender loving care.” “Well, he is my brother,” Drake says, glancing at Mom, who gives him the same smile as when she sees a baby or a puppy. “I think it’s very sweet,” she says. “I’m off to pick up a few last-minute things for the trip. Drake, I’ll need you to drop off Megan at Vanessa’s house on Friday; she’s going boating with the family for the weekend.” “No problem.” Drake watches her leave, and when she’s gone, can feel Megan staring at him from across the room. “You’re being weird,” she says. “When I come back, I’ll figure out what you’re up to.” “Yeah, well. You’ll wish you hadn’t,” he says recklessly, and heads up the stairs to check on Josh, who’s out of bed for the first time in days. “I showered,” Josh says as he comes through the door and shuts it like there’s an army of hungry zombies behind him. “I did it,” he says, breathing hard. Even with the baggy t-shirt, Drake can still see his—her, he supposes, because looking at full-length Josh like this, he can’t deny that she’s a girl—breasts, round and heavy where they push out from the t-shirt, and little points where his nipples are hard beneath the fabric. The sweatpants look pretty normal, but you can’t tell anything from a girl’s pants. Drake goes back to the breasts one last time, but Josh clamps his arms over his chest. “Do you mind?” “What, you get to see them, but I can’t?” “Yes! Is this how you treat your dates? Of course it is; that’s how I ended up like this!” “I’m sorry, okay? It’s just, they’re right there. Can’t you put on a bra, or something?” “Sure. Why don’t you lend me one of yours?” “Fine, I’ll buy you one. What size do you wear?” Josh looks down at his chest without moving his arms, his eyebrows scrunching together with worry. “I don’t know. What do you think?” Drake eyes Josh and thinks about what he’s seen so far. “Maybe a nine?” “Are you serious? Oh my God, have you ever even seen a woman’s bra?” “It’s not the bra that matters; it’s what’s in the bra.” And he’s had plenty of experience with those; soft handfuls in his hands and mouth… Josh’s face goes sour. “Why must I suffer for your flaws?” “I’ll figure it out,” Drake assures him, as he grabs his sunglasses. “See you later.” He really needs to get out of the house after two days of hanging around making sure Josh doesn’t have a meltdown, and bra-shopping turns out to be way fun. The salesgirls at Schneider's Secret are so helpful, listening intently as he describes what he needs: “Smaller than cantaloupes, but definitely bigger than grapefruit,” and they help him pick out some panties, too, because Josh wears those terrible briefs. He’s got Dad’s credit card, so as a final gesture of generosity, he splurges on a few pieces of girl-clothes for when Josh has to go out in public. * One of the bras fits, and Josh immediately stops being so defensive, which is nice, even though he refuses to try on the girl-clothes until Megan is out of the house. The night before Megan leaves, they watch TV in their room before bed, a band of tension stretched across the room after two days of endless waiting. Other than their threadbare patience, everything is perfectly normal until Josh stretches out his legs, long and bare in a pair of gym shorts, and Drake realizes that Josh is a girl, every part of him. And from what Josh has let him see, he’s a hot girl, curvy in an Amazonian kind of way, his pale, smooth thighs right there on the sofa. “Uh oh.” “What’s wrong?” “Nothing. Let’s just watch TV,” Drake says, right before he blurts, “What does it feel like?” Josh stares at him as though he’s not sure whether or not he’s annoyed. Finally, he settles on mild suspicion and says, “It feels weird. I know what you’re thinking, but it’s not very fun. I am not my own personal playground.” “But you could be. You’ve thought about it,” Drake points out. Josh is right; if it were him, he’d be holed up in the bathroom for hours at a time. “Not like that.” Now, that’s just crazy. Unless there’s a reason. Drake bounces his knee as he decides whether or not to say it. Josh is so touchy, and the last few days he’s been twice as bad. But he’s dying to know how deep the changes go, even if he can’t bring himself to say, do you have a sudden interest in dudes? He puts his hands on his knees and says, “Is it because…” “I think so,” Josh says quietly, and Drake doesn’t need to ask if he’d understood the question. Awkward. “Huh. Well, we definitely need to get you fixed up, then,” he says. If Josh stays like this, who knows who he’d end up dating? Some jerk, or one of his dorky slobbering friends. He shudders a little, and finds Josh looking at him with dark, wounded eyes. “What?” “Nothing,” Josh says, and in his head he knows it’s Josh, but right now he looks so much like a forlorn girl that Drake’s instincts are throwing out conflicting signals of touch and comfort and thighs, and it’s hard to think. “I think I’ll just go to bed,” he says, and climbs into bed without even brushing his teeth. * The next morning, Josh puts on a girl’s t-shirt that hug every curve of his torso, and baggy jeans belted at the waist. They’re his regular jeans, Drake realizes, and when he bends over to tie his shoes, Drake sees that he’s also wearing the black bikini panties that he’d flung across the room in outrage when he’d brought them home. Ha. He’s totally using that against Josh later. Much later, when everything is back in its rightful place. “We’ll hit the restaurant first,” Drake says. “Ask around if anyone knows them. You have to admit, they did stick out in a crowd. Then we’ll hit that shopping strip right next door.” “I’m going to be a girl forever,” Josh declares. “I might as well dig up Miss Nancy’s dress.” “Miss Nancy’s dress wouldn’t even fit you anymore. We’ll have to get you a new dress,” Drake says, before adding, “I mean, we would, if we had to get you one. But this is going to work, so just get in the car and let’s go.” Being out of the house seems to cheer Josh up a little. He rolls down his window and leans his face into the wind, one of those weird Josh-things, and Drake tries to concentrate on the road while simultaneously studying his brother. There are other changes, vague changes that aren’t immediately noticeable, but Drake knows Josh as well as he knows himself, so he sees them all. For instance, his face is a little more narrow, his voice just a pitch higher—overall, more girly, which makes Drake feel like he’s out on a date and out with Josh, all at once. It’s confusing, like trying to talk on the phone and play video games at the same time, and he needs things back to normal as badly as Josh does. “Stop staring.” “Sorry, sorry. I was just thinking, you actually shaved your legs?” He’s been holding that one in since last night. Josh gives him a hard look. “It is summertime, you know.” “I know.” It’s still kind of disappointing that Josh doesn’t want to share any of the details. They ask around at the restaurant, but no one knows the woman or her daughters. “I remember them,” the hostess says, a cute brunette wearing a red bow tie. “But I don’t know who they are.” “But you seated them?” Drake leans in and gives her his best smile, his yes, you are one lucky lady smile. “Yes.” Her eyes dart toward Josh, who is standing right next to him, arms crossed over his chest, as usual. “Is this your…” “Oh, sorry. This is my…sister. She was just leaving.” He knows how girls are; he’ll never get anywhere with Josh hanging all over him with those D-cups. “Oh!” She brightens, and her expression turns sweet as Josh makes a glowering retreat. “Like I said, I don’t know them, but I could maybe get you a copy of the book from that night.” “That’d be great,” Drake says. He probably doesn’t have time for any dating this weekend, but for good measure, he touches her hand where it rests on the hostess stand. “How long would that take?” “I can’t get it today,” she says, lowering her voice to whisper. She’s cute, probably a college girl. Maybe he can finesse some time away from Josh, after all. “My manager’s all over me. But she takes Mondays off, so come by around noon and I’ll have a copy for you.” “That is amazingly nice of you,” Drake says, and taps his fist on the hostess stand. “I’ll see you then.” “Here,” she says, and scribbles Katie and a phone number on the corner of the book before ripping it off in a perfect triangle. He reaches for the number, but she has other ideas, and leans in for a kiss, her pink-glossed mouth closing over his lower lip for the briefest moment before she presses the number into his hand. “Thanks again,” he says, one more smile, and strolls off to find Josh. * After a small freakout over having to wait until Monday, Josh agrees to stop at the smoothie place near where they’re parked. “We have to think of a good girl name for you,” Drake says when they’ve taken a booth near the back and Josh is sipping unhappily at a red striped straw. “We should be ready for questions like that.” “Why do we have to be ready for questions?” Josh says, his eyes squeezing shut in misery. “Now you’re making long term plans for me to be a girl?” “Of course not. It’s just that I didn’t know what to tell Katie, and if we’re gonna find the lady who did this to you, then you’ll probably need to go out in public again.” “Fine. I pick Janet,” he says, and Drake winces. “Maybe you should let me pick the name.” “I pick Janet,” Josh says. He looks down into his smoothie, tucking his hair behind his ear, where it’s grown long in front. For a second, with the long stretch of his neck and dark eyelashes fanned out over his cheeks, he isn’t Josh anymore but this unfamiliar girl-Josh that makes Drake go hot and cold all over, that same mixed-up feeling from the car, but then Josh looks up and says, “Janet from another planet” in such a dorky way that Drake can’t believe he ever saw anything but Josh all along. He eyes Josh’s smoothie. Would mango-orange taste good with strawberry-kiwi? He’s about to ask Josh to mix with him, when he notices a guy at the next table looking at Josh with a really weird expression. Drake does a double-take, and it’s suddenly obvious what the guy is thinking. “Hey, that guy is checking you out!” he says, with the sudden urge to get up and put himself between that guy’s creepy staring and Josh’s admittedly nice rack. He shouldn’t have said anything, because now Josh is looking back at the guy, and—wait, what, smiling? “Don’t look at him!” he hisses. “Don’t you know what he’s doing? He’s picturing you naked!” “Not everyone pictures every girl they meet naked,” Josh says through his smile, and lifts his hand in a wave so flirtatious Drake suspects he’s doing it just to punish him. “What are you doing? Put your hand down.” “Fine. I don’t know what you’re getting so worked up about. I waved. You have pink lip gloss on your mouth from a girl you’ve known for five minutes.” Drake scrapes his teeth across his lip. Definitely lip gloss, but this is not the same thing. “Josh, you have to remember that you’re still a guy, inside all that girl.” He pauses to snort. “Heh. Inside all that girl,” he says, but Josh isn’t laughing. “I know what I am,” he says. He puts his hand down, goes back to his smoothie, and leaves Drake with the feeling that he’s missed something important. * “We should do something,” Drake says, over dinner. “Something we can’t normally do.” “What are you talking about?” Josh pokes sullenly at his stir-fry with his fork “Think about it. There has to be something you can do as a girl that you can’t do as a guy.” “I can’t get you into the girls locker room.” “That’s not what I mean—although, excellent idea. I just, aren’t there things girls get away with that guys can’t?” “Oh yeah, I can now cry freely in public without judgment. Lucky me.” “Fine,” Drake says. “I just wanted you to have a good weekend if you’re gonna be stuck like that.” “Wait.” Josh puts down his fork. “You’re right! Like, we could get pedicures.” “Maybe you can get a pedicure.” “No, no, see, having a girl with you is a free pass. I see it all the time in the mall; the guys acting all cranky when you know they’re just living it up! I’ll say you’re my boyfriend,” he adds with a sly smile, looking at Drake from beneath his eyelashes, and for a moment he has that look again, the one where he’s someone else entirely, the one Drake does not like. “Whatever, pedicures, cool,” he says, and gets up so quickly he knocks into the table and nearly upsets his glass. “I’ll be upstairs watching TV.” * The next day, Josh actually wears the dress Drake bought him. It’s just a short swingy sundress in plain black, but Josh forgoes the bra, so there’s all this bare skin Drake isn’t used to Josh showing; shoulders and back and lots of leg. Josh is a girl, he thinks on the way across town, and then again in the pedicure chair, and on the way home, when the skirt rides up on his car seat. The whole day had been weird because Josh hadn’t seemed uncomfortable in the slightest, blithely letting people open doors for him and polish his toenails, although he had been fairly quiet on the way home. “You okay?” he asks, when Josh comes into their room and flops down on the sofa with a heavy sigh. Drake scoots over, making room for Josh and his seashell-colored toenails. “Yeah,” Josh says, but he doesn’t seem okay. He’s going a little too far now, just wearing an oversized t-shirt for bed, which is probably the same length as the dress he’d worn today, but different. Drake gives up and lets himself stare at Josh’s chest for a while; Josh has stopped calling him on it, and Drake is already permanently scarred by this situation, so what’s a little more baggage? “Tomorrow we get the book,” Drake says. “Then we’ll get you back to normal.” “Tomorrow is very far away.” Josh’s voice is tight and strangled. “Okay, dude, what is up with you?” He forgets himself for a second and slaps Josh’s arm with the back of his hand, the way he would have before. He realizes, then, that he misses Josh. They haven’t hugged or touched at all, really, for almost a week. And he shouldn’t care, but he does. Josh didn’t deserve this—Drake isn’t even sure he deserves it—and he’s getting pissed at that lady for doling out such a drastic punishment. “It’s nothing. It’s just.” Josh’s mouth turns down, and he covers his face with both hands. “This afternoon, I figured out why ladies like those vibrating chairs so much.” “Why?” “I knew you would say that, I knew you would make me spell it out.” Josh drops his hands down and lets his head fall back onto the sofa cushion. “Think about it. Vibrating sensation in what seems to be a very sensitive area?” The show he’d been watching suddenly fades to white noise. All kinds of warning bells are going off, only he’s not sure why. “Oh, yeah. I get it.” Drake had thought it had kind of tickled, so he’d left the settings at shoulder-level and left it at that. “Why didn’t you just turn it off?” “Because!” Josh says, huffy. “Why do you think? Are you seriously this bad at extrapolating information?” “I guess. Look, are you going to tell me or not?” “It just got me really, you know. The guy rubbing my feet and the vibrations, but I can’t do anything about it, and it’s driving me crazy!” “Wait, you got turned on by a guy?” “And a chair! And look at me, Drake.” He gestures at his body. “I. am. a. girl. Trust me; I’ve been like this for days.” Drake does not want to have this conversation. “And you won’t be for much longer.” “But I am now.” Josh sounds desperate, something that Drake can’t help but respond to, because he’s been there, he knows how it feels. “Can’t you just…?” he makes a jerking motion. “No! I have no idea what’s going on down there. I don’t know what to do; nothing I try feels as good as the chair.” Whoa, Josh tried stuff. He’d been pretty determined to escape this experience without direct contact, so he must be in serious trouble, here. “And you want me to tell you how to do it?” Josh gives him that look again, the one from the dinner table, and shifts toward Drake. “Not exactly.” Suddenly, it’s not at all hard to keep his eyes off Josh’s chest. Is this the punishment? “Josh, I don’t think so.” Josh looks defeated for a moment, but then he slides even closer, and okay, not wearing a bra, and up close Josh can see the dark shadow of his nipples through the t-shirt. “Why not? You know how to do this, please.” The thing is, he still smells like Josh. He looks like Josh, too. He’s got Josh’s mouth, his dark, pleading eyes, and his terrible haircut, so Drake is caught in that trap of confusion again when Josh puts one thigh over his lap and straddles him. “You’ve been looking at them all day, don’t you want to touch?” Josh takes Drake’s hand and slides it over his right breast, which is heavy and full and pretty much the best thing Drake has ever felt in his life. If it could be like this, yeah, he’d just slip his hands up Josh’s t-shirt and go for it, but with Josh, there are always these complicated twists and turns. “What do you want?” he asks, bringing his other hand up to the other one and stroking gently. Just for now. Josh moans softly and reaches for the hem of that t-shirt— no, no, Drake has to stop him—and pulls it up over his head. “I want everything. And in a bed.” Drake stares, frozen, at the nearly naked girl on his lap. “Your bed or mine?” * Of course it has to be Josh’s bed. And there has to be a discussion about under the covers or out, lights on or off, and whether or not there’s going to be kissing. It ends up being outside the covers, overhead lights off, Drake’s lamp on. The kissing, however, is something else entirely. “Can we work up to it?” he asks, vaguely ashamed of himself, because he kisses near-strangers all the time, and he knows he’s making way too big a deal of this. “Sure. Just, please. Do something?” Josh lies back wearing the panties that Drake had just bought a couple days ago, and looks at him expectantly. It’s easy to crawl over Josh and slide his fingers over those breasts again, hard-tipped and ready for his mouth, which makes Josh arch his back with a small sound of surprise. “That’s better than the vibrating chair,” Josh breathes, high praise, and touches the back of Drake’s neck while Drake mouths from one breast to the next, licking lightly at the nipple. Josh seems to really like this—and what is everything, anyway?—so Drake keeps it up, ultra aware of the sounds they make in the quiet room, the rustle of skin against the blanket, their breathing, and Josh’s low sounds of contentment. Drake thinks he can even hear the noises Josh holds back. He strokes down Josh’s soft belly, feels it tremble against his fingertips, and traces the edges of the panties with his fingertips. Josh goes still; Drake drags two fingers over the panties right between Josh’s legs, and is suddenly, viciously turned on when he feels how wet the fabric has become. Geez, no wonder Josh had come begging. “Do that again,” Josh says hoarsely. “That, oh, that, please,” so Drake does it again, this time from a different angle and with a little more pressure, while Josh begs in the background, breathing nonsense into the quiet room while Drake does what he asks. A few more passes, and Drake lets one of his fingers slip under the elastic, glides his finger in circles where Josh is hot and slick until he feels Josh’s hips start to move with him, catching the rhythm he needs. He keeps at it until Josh sits up abruptly, and Drake hadn’t meant to look him in the face while they were doing this, but there he is, flushed and heavy-eyed and probably seeing the same thing on Drake’s face. “Get undressed,” Josh says. He’s not asking anymore; he’s tugging the panties down over his hips, farewell to that last precarious barrier. “I don’t know,” Drake says, even though he’s been rubbing himself through his jeans for the past five minutes. If he takes his clothes off, there’s nothing to stop him from just pushing right inside…he squeezes his eyes shut when he feels Josh’s hands pulling at his clothes. He lets it happen. He wants it to happen, if he’s honest; he knows what “everything” is and he’s going to give it to him, judging by the way he pulls his t-shirt over his head as Josh slides his belt open and unfastens his pants. It seems like this is taking forever, so Drake kicks off the rest of his clothes and lets Josh look at him, since that’s what he seems to want to do. If Josh had seemed eager before, he’s downright frantic now, and when he comes at Drake with a firm hand and hard, messy kisses, Drake opens his mouth and lets Josh do as he pleases. It’s the craziest sex he’s ever had. The other girls are always so cool, almost like Josh wants this more than the others had, which is ridiculous, but it takes some effort for Drake to get back in control and settle Josh into slow, easy kisses. It’s not just Josh. Drake is different tonight, too: for the first time, he doesn’t have to think out every move, or test to see how far he can go. In fact, once Drake gets his clothes off, Josh seems so distracted by his body, hands everywhere at once, that he definitely isn’t judging Drake’s technique. “What do you like?” Josh says. He settles on top of Drake, propped up on one arm so he can give Drake’s erection long, twisting pulls. Drake likes this, actually; Josh’s bare skin pressed against his own. “You like head?” He squeezes Drake’s dick and runs his thumb around the ridge of the head, his hand sparking the sensitive nerves as much as his questions. “What, you’re offering?” He bats Josh’s hand away and wraps his arms around his back so they’re pressed together. The urgency doesn’t recede like he’d hoped, though, because Josh—of course Josh is like this in bed, how could he be anything but pushy enthusiasm and a total disregard for boundaries?—kisses him again and whispers “Yeah,” before he bites gently at Drake’s lower lip. “You want?” Of course he wants. He always wants, but he’s still trying to keep from coming right here against Josh’s belly. “Maybe later,” he says. A beat later, he remembers that he’s supposed to be the one relieving Josh, here. “You want me to?” “Nah.” Josh runs his fingers through Drake’s hair, tugging gently, rubbing the strands between his fingers, which seems weirdly out of bounds. So does the kiss Josh gives him, maybe because it feels so much like Josh, but it’s not entirely unpleasant, so Drake strokes his tongue against Josh’s in response, slow and easy. “I want to do this, now,” Josh says, rising up and settling right on Drake’s erection, rocking slowly. The glide of wet heat is an unexpected bolt of pleasure between his legs, down his spine and low in his belly, and he knows how to do this, but he doesn’t have to do anything, because Josh is holding him one minute and the next he’s buried in a tight, smooth clutch of warmth. His hips jerk instinctively forward, and Josh utters a low, “Ohh,” that worries him before he sees Josh’s glassy eyes and the soft, slack set of his mouth. But that’s still just not Drake’s style, so he rolls his hips again, this time slow and steady, and this time they both moan. It feels too hot in the room suddenly, and the heave of his chest seems like the only sound. Drake has never felt this strangled by arousal--as though he’s made of it, his skin thumping in time with his pulse, the throb of his erection that won’t subside. “Wait,” he pants. “I don’t know if I can-“ “Of course you can,” Josh says. At least he looks equally wrecked, where he’s fallen onto his elbows. Drake can feel the press of nipples against his chest, which he steadfastly ignores. “I can, I just, let me do this.” Drake reaches down between them and rubs Josh the way he had before, slow circles with the occasional selfish thrust because he’s not perfect. Josh buries his face in Drake’s neck. “That’s good,” he says, and Drake can feel the tension in his back, the tremble in his voice when he says, “I knew you’d be like this.” Just like that, everything turns on its side, and Drake only has a vague sense of what’s wrong, but he knows when he’s been duped. “I knew I’d be like this, too,” Drake says hotly, pushing the words aside because they’re already in this all the way, too late for talking now, and pushes deep, a little angry. He speeds up his hand until Josh shakes apart with a sharp exhale, hot breath on his neck, and after that Drake just goes for it, plants his feet on the bed and fucks Josh like he wants to, with his eyes shut and Josh’s smooth, curvy hips in his hands. It serves him right, he supposes. He’d been missing the real Josh, wishing he could hold him, and here he is: the real Josh, right where Drake had least suspected to find him. But his body doesn’t hold grudges; all it knows is the way to move when it’s been touched and kissed the way it’s been today, so it isn’t long before he comes so hard he can’t breathe, his orgasm slamming into him like a sudden fall. For a moment he forgets everything as he lies beneath Josh, inside Josh, and rides out the long pulses of pleasure with his face pressed to Josh’s. Then it’s over, and it’s just the two of them again. Josh lifts his head, blue eyes moving across Drake’s face. Whatever he sees makes his face go dark, because he’s always been annoyingly intuitive about Drake’s moods. “What’s wrong?” “Nothing.” It’s an awkward conversation to have with his dick inside someone, so he withdraws, rolling out from under Josh to make a quick escape. He takes his jeans with him. “Oh.” Josh pulls the bedspread up over his body. “Then thanks, I guess.” “No problem,” Drake says, pulling his jeans on and hunting around for his t-shirt. “Just so we’re clear, everything is going back to exactly how it was, as of right now.” He waves his watch at Josh for emphasis. “Sure. Of course,” Josh says, but it’s his wounded-puppy voice, the one he uses when you run over his bike or forget his birthday. “Because I agreed to do you a favor,” he says, trying a smile. “And I did the favor, which means the favor is done—and you only wanted the favor since you’re temporarily not yourself—so we basically never have to think about it again.” “Yeah. Got it.” This is much easier than Drake had expected. “So…I’m just gonna go hit the shower while you, you know. Do whatever,” he says, already halfway out the door. * The next morning, Drake calls the parents of Megan’s friend and tells them that he’s got the chicken pox, which Megan has never had, so could Megan please stay over a couple more days? They say yes, and Drake drives across town to get the book from Katie. There’s a whole page of names that fall within the right time frame. He and Josh—who is dressed in his regular clothes today—cross off all the people it couldn’t be, each take a phone book and start calling numbers. It takes hours of tedious dialing with no results before Drake reaches the end of his list and throws himself on the sofa without taking off his shoes. This is no good. If Josh doesn’t have the right name on his half, then they might be stuck like this forever. He picks up his cell and dials their home phone; Josh picks up on the first ring. “Hey. Did you call all your names yet?” “Yes, and let me tell you, some people are not familiar with proper telephone etiquette.” “Oh.” “Oh, what?” “It’s just, I called all my names, too.” There’s a long silence. This is the worst thing that’s ever happened to him. He doesn’t want that imposter upstairs; he wants Josh, and the optimism that usually comes so easily to him disappears. More silence, and it occurs to him that Josh might be up there offing himself or something. Josh is totally dramatic enough to do that. “Josh.” We’re going to figure this out won’t quite make its way out of his mouth. “Are you okay?” All he hears is a whimper. Drake sighs. They’ve been avoiding each other all day, but it’s kind of Drake’s job to take over when Josh goes comatose with terror. It’s a bad sign when he bypasses all the flailing and screaming and crashing around. He climbs the stairs and stands in the doorway, where he can see Josh, sitting motionless at his desk. “It’s gonna be okay,” he says. Josh just sits there, until he bends forward and his head hits the desk, hard. Drake pockets his phone. “Come on, it’s not like we’re going to let you stay like this forever. Here, get your shoes and I’ll take you to the doctor. I mean, doctors, they fix this kind of stuff all the time.” “No, they really don’t. And the way the doctors would fix me is not the way I want to be fixed,” Josh says into the desk. “Okay, but we’ll keep that one as an option. We could also go to Megan for help, although she’s getting seriously expensive these days, or, or, the police! We could put out some kind of warrant for that voodoo-lady.” “We don’t even know her name! And Megan’s good, but she can’t help with this. No one can know, no one would understand!” Josh moans. Drake tries to imagine telling Mom or Dad about this, and comes up short. “I understood,” he says uneasily. “And what about when it’s time for me to go to school? I’ve already registered and paid for the first semester, but they’re expecting Josh, not Janet.” “Man, I don’t know what to tell you. But we always figure something out, don’t we?” Josh lifts his head, and how awful, his face is actually wet. For the first time, Drake feels real remorse twist uncomfortably at his chest. “Maybe it won’t be so bad,” he says. “Being a girl. I mean, you definitely did okay last night, right?” What is he saying? Even if Josh is okay with it, Drake definitely is not. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that. I am going to pretend that you, with all your guy-parts intact, did not just tell me-“ he pauses and makes a little sobbing sound, “-that maybe it won’t be so bad.” “Sorry, sorry.” Drake sits down on Josh’s bed. “And just because I’m okay sleeping with a guy doesn’t make me a girl. It makes me gay,” he says, and Drake is pretty sure he blacks out a little. When the words have settled, he realizes that he probably should have said something already, and grasps for a reply. “Yeah, I kind of got that already.” I knew you’d be like this, like Josh has been thinking about it for years. “You did?” “I really think we should be focusing on a solution right now.” “Are you mad at me or something?” “No, I’m just mad in general, okay? You’re not the only one being affected by this situation.” He’s got a brother, not a sister, and he wants that brother back. Josh sits up straight. “Oh! Oh, I’m sorry, is this experience too trying for you? You, who committed the actual offense and still have a penis? You, who don’t want me as a guy and don’t want me as a girl?” “We’re talking about that now? See, that’s just one more way this sucks for me.” “I’m so sorry. It must be really hard to be Drake Parker, real boy. I don’t even know why we’re bothering to talk about getting me turned back, anyway. You think this affects you, but I guarantee that two weeks from now, you’ll have forgotten all about this. You’ll be out having fun and I’ll be sitting here all hidden away, like the elephant man. The elephant man!” Whoa, that’s a really heavy accusation. Is that what Josh thinks of him? Drake just looks at him, stunned. In his old clothes, Josh looks almost like himself, but Drake knows if he got closer, he’d see the differences. “I wouldn’t do that, and it sucks way more for me, because I have to be all oh, it’s okay, Josh for you, even though I am completely freaked out!” “About what?” Drake pulls at his hair; Josh is making him crazy with all this talking, when they should be doing something. “About losing you! About what happened last night! About how to fix this, because I don’t know.” Josh ducks his head the way he does when he’s really miserable, his hair concealing his eyes. “I’m sorry about last night. I just thought…” He shakes his head. “Well, I thought a lot of things. They’re all stupid, I get that now. And I’m sorry.” “Can we please not talk about it?” “Sure. Look, you can go out if you want. I could use some time alone.” Drake isn’t falling for that. “What, go out and have fun while you’re hidden away like the elephant man? No way.” “As a favor to me?” Josh still won’t look at him. Is it a test? It doesn’t seem like a test. “Okaaaay. How long do you need?” “Just a little while,” Josh says. Drake gets his keys and shakes them in his palm. “I’ve got my cell if you need me.” “I don’t need you,” Josh says, and if it sounds a little rude, Drake is sure he doesn’t mean it. * “We have an appointment at ten,” Drake tells Josh the next morning. It looks like Josh is planning on spending the entire day wallowing in bed, and they can’t be late. “What kind of appointment?” “Come on, you’ll see. Oh, and you’re driving.” Josh grumbles about not going within a hundred feet of a doctor’s office, but gets up nonetheless. He complains all the way there about how Drake had stayed out half the night and scared him to death, but Drake just tunes him out and prays that this will work. When they pull up at the run-down house in a neighborhood that would make even Bludge nervous, Josh gives him a look. Drake just shrugs, and takes Josh around to the back entrance. It had been a lucky accident that Crazy Steve had mentioned his uncle last night. Drake had overheard him telling a story about the spell his uncle had done to keep his sister from speaking for five years, and after a few crazy turns, Drake had wormed her address out of Steve. From the uncle he’d gotten another name, Ms. Nightwood, and he’d spent the rest of the night bargaining with the oldest lady he’s ever met. “Ah,” Ms. Nightwood says when she sees Josh, her eyes lighting up with approval as she touches his face with her gross old-lady hand. “Enchanting, absolutely enchanting! But your brother tells me you don’t like it so much.” At her request, Josh sits down at a tiny table, glancing around at the bundles of herbs hanging to dry. “Uh, no. Not really enjoying myself. Ma’am.” Drake drags his chair next to Josh just in case of a freakout, and gives Ms. Nightwood a smile, which she waves away. She’s scary in the way really old ladies tend to be. “I see that you have both been punished badly,” she says to Josh, as though Drake isn’t even there. She reaches across the table and takes Josh’s hands. “The brother may leave,” she says without taking her eyes off Josh. Drake leans in to protest. “But I-“ “Leave!” * Drake sits on her back steps for what seems like hours before the door finally opens and a delighted Josh bounds out, nearly knocking Drake over in the process. “Look at me, brotha!” Josh yells, and Drake can’t believe it actually worked, but there he is, the one Drake’s been looking for: the old Josh. “I’m looking, brotha!” he says, grinning like he hasn’t in a week until he gradually realizes that there are yards between them, and nothing in his arms. He can tell that Josh realizes the same thing, because his joy fades by degrees. Ms. Nightwood sighs from the doorway. “You have both been punished badly,” she pronounces again, and shuts the door on them with a bang. So much for goodbyes. But she’s performed her service and been paid, so he supposes she’s within her rights. There are more important things to think about, like how he’s going to deal with Josh, how they’re going to ever be brothers again. As if he knows what Drake is thinking, Josh shoves his hands into his pockets and gives him a wary look from beneath the hair that’s fallen over his eyes. “Hi.” “Hi.” “Want to go home?” “I can’t wait to go home.” “Let’s go, then. I’ll drive.” * It’s weird, in a way, that they’re celebrating the fact that Josh has gotten his penis back while Drake is steadfastly avoiding any talk about penises, or more importantly, what Josh wants to do with his and what Drake has already done with his. Josh is worryingly serious by the time they get home. A few times, he starts to say, “Drake…” in that tone that means he wants to talk, but Drake interrupts him every time, because he doesn’t deserve an apology, but he isn’t really ready to give one, either. He just wants time to think. “I think I’m gonna take off for a while,” he says when they pull into the driveway. “I haven’t been out in a while.” Josh puts his hand on the door latch, but doesn’t open it. “But I just got turned back.” “So?” “So I’d like it if you stayed.” He rubs his palms on the steering wheel. “I told the band I’d be over tonight. I haven’t seen those guys all week.” “Please?” “Last night you wanted me to leave, today you want me to stay.” Josh slumps back in his seat, hand falling away from the door. “Because if you leave now, I don’t know when I’ll see you again. And everything isn’t okay with us, Drake, I really think we should talk-“ “-okay, okay.” Drake turns off the ignition and points at Josh. “Here’s the deal. I’ll stay, but no ‘talking’ until later. Until I say so.” Josh doesn’t seem pleased, but he nods. “All right,” he says unhappily. “Later.” He says the word as though it’s a punishment. When they get inside, Drake heads for his room, and forces himself to stay on course when he hears Josh behind him. He’s safe for now. They’d made a deal, and Josh doesn’t break deals. What Josh does do, he remembers as he stretches out on the sofa so there’s no room for Josh, is pout. Josh’s sullen silences are worse than shouting, and Drake can’t believe he agreed to stay in this house when Josh is probably planning the greatest pouting session of all time. But Josh doesn’t pout. He doesn’t sit in the chair where Drake would have no choice but to see his long, sad stare; instead, he rummages around in his desk for a few minutes before he says, “Where’s the first aid kit?” Drake turns toward Josh, who’s got his wrist in a loose hold with the other hand. “Why?” “I just need some stuff from it, that’s all.” “What happened to your arm?” “Nothing. I just, I scratched myself on the…on a. A cat,” he finishes weakly. “Dude, what’s going on?” So much for not talking. It always freaks him out when Josh lies, because he only does it when things are bad, and he never lies to Drake. “Nothing.” Drake gets up and closes in on Josh. “If it’s nothing, then let me see your arm.” Josh takes a step back. “Fine. You can see it after you get the first aid kit.” When Drake gets back with the first aid kit, Josh is sitting on the edge of his bed. He’s pulled his sleeve up to the elbow, exposing a bandage that looks half soaked with blood. “First off, it’s not a big deal,” Josh says as Drake sits next to him, close, even though Josh is trying to lean away. “It’s a very small deal,” he says again, stalling. “Tiny. Miniscule.” “Now you’re freaking me out,” Drake says, and grabs Josh’s left hand. He holds Josh’s hand as he peels the tape from his forearm; carefully, because Josh is acting really dodgy. When he gets beneath, he finds a cut that circles Josh’s arm like a bracelet, halfway between wrist and elbow. “Okay, this is not from a cat,” he says, turning the arm to get a look at every angle. There are a few places where the cut goes deep, still oozing blood. “What the hell happened to you?” He can feel Josh getting ready to flee—no one takes pain worse than Josh—so he laces their fingers together. “And quit lying.” “It was part of the ritual to turn me back. There wasn’t any other way! I let her do it, it’s fine.” Drake watches Josh’s arm drip onto the discarded bandage. “This isn’t fine.” “The other way wasn’t fine! I’d rather have a little scar than live like that forever, so can we please just get to the first aid portion of the evening? She really didn’t do the best job patching me up.” Drake’s stomach does a slow, aching flip. “She didn’t tell me about—I didn’t even ask. I got so excited when she said she could do it, I didn’t care about anything else.” “It’s okay. Can we please just-“ Josh withdraws his hand, and Drake feels even worse. “Sure.” Drake slides to the floor so he can kneel between Josh’s legs. “Just put your elbow on your thigh,” he says as he snaps open the metal box and unwraps the antiseptic wipes. “So, she didn’t do anything to you?” Josh asks, staring at the ceiling, deliberately avoiding what Drake is doing. “Not like this.” Drake wipes a cautious path through the dried blood, cleaning the wound the best he can and trying not to notice Josh’s high wheeze of pain. “You mean you just asked her to do you a favor and she did it?” “Not exactly,” he says. “I’m gonna try to do butterfly bandages in a few places. That’s what they do when you don’t get stitches but kind of need them.” “I kind of need stitches?” Josh moans. “Don’t tell me anything else. And what do you mean not exactly?” Drake shrugs. “Nothing.” “Tell me. Need distraction, here!” Josh says, just as Drake bandages shut the most worrying incision. “She didn’t take money. She was more into the bartering system.” She’d loved the bartering system, so much that she’d bargained for hours like she hadn’t known that he’s Drake, and shouldn’t have to bargain with anyone. “So, what did she want?” Drake stops to wipe the blood again, which has almost stopped now that he’d taken care of the worst of it. For good measure, he uses a wet cloth to clean rest of Josh’s forearm, until the skin is clean and damp and pink. “My car.” Josh’s arm jerks, but Drake holds him by the wrist. “Your car? But you love that car! Is that why I had to drive today? And--you gave her the car before she even turned me back, have you learned nothing?” “It was worth it.” “What will you tell Mom and Dad?” “I don’t know. Now, hold still. I’m almost done.” “I can’t believe you did that,” Josh says softly. He’s bandaged over with gauze now, and looking down at Drake, which Drake avoids, steadfastly taping the edges down. He knows exactly what Josh looks like when he sounds like that. It’s how he sounds right before he kisses Mindy, which Drake has seen far more often than he’d like. Josh’s skin is sticky in the places that were taped before and smooth in the spots she’d missed; Drake feels both as he strokes his fingers over the tape’s edge, making sure it’s secure. Josh’s tension disappeared after the antiseptic, and his wrist rests in Drake’s open palm. He lets Drake trace the tape’s edges for far longer than is necessary, because he’s Josh, and he’s good like that. “You must have been pretty freaked out,” Drake says, looking at the old, bloodied bandage as he closes his hand around Josh’s wrist. “Nah. I, uh. I must have passed out when I saw the knife, and when I woke up, it was all over.” Drake snorts out a laugh and Josh joins him; a happy, relieved sound that Drake hasn’t heard in days. “It didn’t even start to hurt until the ride home.” Josh pauses and says, “Drake,” in that tone again, the tone that takes them right out of this conversation and plunges them into another. “I know you’re not happy with, you know, what happened, but I think we can get past this. Only, we can’t do that if you don’t tell me how. I’m sorry for what I said.” It’s just like Josh to bring this up now, when Drake is feeling all mixed up with tenderness and regret and sorrow, all the feelings he tries to avoid on a regular basis. “Which time?” Drake says, and lifts Josh’s arm out of his hand and onto Josh’s thigh. Without that barrier, they’re too close, so he sits back on his heels. “Which time what?” “Which thing you said are you sorry for?” Josh narrows his eyes, confused. “For what I said yesterday, when I was freaking out about not being able to find the lady who did this to me. What else did I say?” Drake snorts. Like he’s ever going to repeat what Josh had said. I knew you’d be like this, and he can even remember the way Josh had said it, every inflection relived over and over in his head. “Forget it.” “I can’t forget it. Not if it’s coming between us.” Josh gives him a pleading look. “After you get up, I don’t know where we stand, if it’s okay to touch you, how to act around you.” “Look, we’ll just act how we always do.” “Do you get how we always act?” The thing is, Drake likes the way they act. He likes the touching, climbing into Josh’s bed, and all the other stuff Josh is talking about. “I don’t know. Do I have to get it? It’s just what we do.” It’s not the right answer. Josh looks the way he had when he’d thought they were going to prison, unbearably sad. “No. You don’t have to get it. But it would be nice if you did.” He doesn’t care if he ever gets the way he and Josh are with each other. What he’d rather get is what happened in bed, when Josh had said, I knew you’d be like this like he’d meant it. “I just want us to be like this, okay?” he says, and touches Josh’s wrist again, casual, which Josh ruins by putting his hand over Drake’s. “If I ask you something, will you answer it?” The prickling burn of adrenaline washes over Drake as his stomach plummets. Josh is so obvious; he’s never learned how to get people to do what he wants with any degree of subtlety. He just barrels forward, appallingly direct in cases where coercion might be a better approach. “What,” Drake sighs. Josh stares down at his bandage. “When we kissed-“ “-come on,” Drake interrupts. He gets to his feet and walks away. “You said you’d answer,” Josh says, and this is worse than breaking up with someone, what are they doing here? He sits in the armchair, arms crossed over his chest. “Fine. Just ask your stupid girly question. Are you sure she turned you back all the way?” “Yes, and thank you,” Josh says haughtily. “Now, I just wanted to know, before I was so rudely interrupted, if when we kissed, you were. I mean, were you thinking I was a girl, or did you kind of know it was me? Just a little?” Drake stares at him. “How is that a fair question? If I say no, then you’re all sad and mopey, but if I say yes, then you’ll…I don’t know, you’ll take it the wrong way.” “I wouldn’t take it the wrong way,” Josh says quickly, with so much hope that Drake wishes he hadn’t said anything. “No, Josh. Just, no.” Josh is quiet for a second. “No you won’t answer the question, or no you didn’t think of me?” “The second one.” “Then say it.” “I don’t have to.” “Why won’t you just answer me?” Josh says, which is the dumbest question ever. Why doesn’t Drake want to tell Josh he thought about him while they were kissing? That would be the same as admitting he’d kissed Josh, and there’s no way Josh doesn’t remember the way they’d kissed, like they were going to die if they didn’t get more of it. Drake hasn’t ever kissed anyone like that, and at the time it had seemed okay, something he and Josh had agreed on, but now it just seems like way too much. It had all been too much. Drake doesn’t like feeling out of control like that; not with Josh. “Because we’re supposed to be brothers, remember?” “Well, you must be doing a bang-up job, because it’s been extremely brotherly around here lately,” Josh bellows, and there’s no need for all the sarcasm, because Drake is fully aware of how things have been around here. He figures that now’s as good a time to leave as any, since Josh is never going to let this go. * Thirty minutes later, Drake is in his new drummer’s basement, smoking one of Todd’s cigarettes even though he doesn’t really smoke. It’s a smoking kind of situation, Drake thinks as he takes long, perplexed drags and exhales through his nose. “Dude, where’ve you been?” Todd asks. “We haven’t seen you in a week.” “I’m back now.” “Kay. Want to get a jam session together and invite some girls?” Drake holds the cigarette between his fingers and rolls it slowly. Tempting, but all he really wants is some angry smoking and a little peace. “Not now. I just needed to get away from Josh, you know?” Todd nods, stroking his beard, which looks pretty cool. Sophisticated. Maybe Drake should grow a beard. He can get a pretty good mustache going in about a week; a beard wouldn’t be hard at all. Then he could stroke it when Josh asks him questions, which will get Josh get all crazy-mad with impatience. Except that Josh is being all weird and polite and sad, so who knows when he’ll go back to normal. “My little brother drives me nuts,” Todd says. “I always thought it’d be cool to have a brother my own age, though. Like Josh.” “Trust me, Josh isn’t cool.” “Dude, he is. He can pull a quarter from behind anywhere. Anywhere! A couple weeks ago we tried to find something he couldn’t pull a quarter from, and it was awesome.” “Sounds thrilling.” “Yeah,” Todd says happily. “But I guess it would suck to have to share everything with the same person. Bet he cuts into your ladies, too.” “Ew, no,” Drake says. “Josh? He’s been dating the same nerdy girl forever.” “Good for him, man. Good for him.” Drake prefers it when he doesn’t have to think about Mindy, but since he’s already thinking about Mindy, he can’t help but wonder where she fits into all this. Josh likes her, but they don’t see each other much, not even now that school’s out. It’s surprisingly satisfying to think that she’s had Josh all this time, yet he still prefers Drake. He’d take even more time to savor it if he were thinking about Josh right now, which he is not. “So, how long did it take you to grow that beard?” * There’s a plate of Fudgie-boos on the counter when he gets home, long after Josh has gone to bed. There’s also a note, which Drake just crumples up without reading. Josh hardly ever makes Fudgie-boos, which makes no sense because they’re Drake’s favorite. But Josh has this weird thing about how if he made them all the time, they wouldn’t be special anymore. He sits on the kitchen counter and eats cookies in the dark, chewing slowly because they’re so unbelievably good, until Josh comes in. He’s still half asleep, rumpled and heavy-limbed as he comes around the corner, stopping short when he finally sees Drake. “Hey. Fudgie-boos,” Drake says, nodding at the plate on his lap. “Still special, by the way.” “Only because I don’t make them every time you get hungry.” Josh crosses the floor to the refrigerator, barefoot and quiet. His bandage is gone, but the stitches Drake had fashioned are still in place. “I couldn’t get a new bandage on with one hand,” he says as he retrieves a bottle of water from the fridge. “Can you…?” He holds up his arm, and Drake nods. Fudgie-boos go a long way with him. He waits on the counter as Josh retrieves the first aid kit, and when Josh returns, says “I’m gonna grow a beard,” as he fits the new bandage into place, kicking his heels against the cabinets. “Sounds good,” Josh says sleepily. He’s way easier to handle when he’s pliant like this, and not making any demands. “Yeah, I figure I can sleep in an extra ten minutes every morning, too.” “Cool.” “Yup.” Drake presses the last piece of tape into place and runs his fingers around the edges a couple times. This time, the sticky places have been washed away, and it’s just smooth warm skin against his fingertips. “Done,” he says, and puts the tape next to him on the counter. “You shouldn’t smoke,” Josh says. “You can’t prove anything,” Drake smiles, and it’s impossible to miss the way Josh looks at his mouth as though he can think of the perfect way to prove it. Geez, Josh really wants to kiss him. That knowledge sinks into his skin like something warm and sweet, because it all suddenly makes sense: he’s Drake, and kissing is what he does, and he’s known the smell and feel of Josh’s skin for years now, so kissing Josh should be the most natural thing in the world. Kissing Josh is the most natural thing in the world, which is why he’d done it in the first place, and why he wants to do it right now. “What?” Josh asks, stepping back out of Drake’s space, self-conscious. “Nothing,” Drake says quickly, but he braces his hands on the counter, stretches out his legs and catches Josh at the hips with his feet. “Just wait,” he says. He tugs Josh closer and lets his feet drop back down to kick idly at the cabinets. “You asked if I was thinking of you, you know, when we did all that stuff.” Josh stops trying to get away. “And?” “And it was all the girl stuff that got me going,” he says, watching the hope die on Josh’s face, hair falling over his eyes as he ducks his head and nods his acceptance. “But the kissing was—I knew it was you. I was thinking about you, okay? But I didn’t like finding out you’ve been keeping this huge secret, like how you’ve been fantasizing about getting me naked all this time.” “Not all this time,” Josh protests, and at least he can look Drake in the eye. “Drake, I was never going to tell you. I mean, I always hoped that maybe…” And holy crap, Josh is actually talking about his fantasies, things he’s imagined they might do together. “Maybe what? What did you—what do you think about?” Josh shakes his head, his lip caught between his teeth. “It’s too-“ “Dirty? Embarrassing?” “Personal,” Josh corrects. “I think we’ve already been as personal as you can get.” “No,” Josh says slowly. “We haven’t. You were getting personal with a giant set of breasts, but I was getting personal with you. The things I think about are always mutual. Like, sometimes when you get in my bed, you get kind of…cuddly. And I think about how it would feel if you stayed like that, sleeping wrapped around me like that, and someone walked in and saw us. And I’d just look at them, and they’d know, you know? That you were mine.” It’s nothing like what Drake had expected to hear. On one hand, what a lame fantasy, but on the other hand, it’s such a Josh-thing to think about. Josh likes baking, and holiday traditions, and relationships. “Wait, your fantasy is to take a nap with me?” “No. My fantasy is for it to mean something,” Josh says, and leaves before Drake can figure out how to tell him that he’s crazy, because if it didn’t mean anything, they wouldn’t be here to begin with. * The thing that keeps Drake lying wide awake is the way Josh has put so much effort into fantasizing about reality. Drake in his bed? Done, and often. So, Drake has never dozed with his face pressed to Josh’s neck in front of everyone they know--that doesn’t mean it never happened. It had happened, all right; otherwise, Josh’s skin would never have tasted so familiar when Drake had kissed him, and so much for that big confession he’d gone through in the kitchen, because Josh doesn’t seem to have noticed. He steals down the ladder and paces silently beside Josh’s bed for a few seconds before he lifts the covers and gets in. Inside, it’s warm, and so is Josh when he startles awake. He settles when Drake lays his head on his chest, and he must not be too upset with Drake, because his hands come up to their usual place on Drake’s back, holding him close. This is how they do it; this is mutual, like Josh had said in the kitchen. This isn’t the first time they’ve lain here like this, both awake and fully aware, and it isn’t the first time Drake has slid his knee between Josh’s and warmed his leg in the cradle Josh’s solid thighs. It’s not even the first time Drake has found himself running hot during one of these nights, but it’s the first time that he lets himself go with it, without shying away. “Who do you want to see us like this?” he asks. “Tell the truth.” Josh huffs out a little laugh that means he knows whatever he’s going to say is dumb. “All those girls who think they’re going to marry you. Mom and Dad. Helen.” Drake curls his lip. “Helen? Why Helen?” “Because she’d never believe that her precious Drake Parker would be like this with me. She thinks you’re untouchable.” “So touch me,” Drake says, and after a second, Josh’s hand trails a cautious path down Drake’s spine. He arches into it, wanting more. “I do think about other things,” Josh says after they’ve curled closer together and his long fingers are rubbing circles at the small of Drake’s back. His voice is deep and pleasant as it rumbles through his chest, where Drake’s head is lying. “Other fantasies. But I didn’t know if you were interested in those.” “Oh, I’m interested.” Drake shifts against Josh’s thigh, hoping they’re finally on the same page. “It’s after a show, and you run offstage and jump on me, just put your legs around my waist and hold on. We get somewhere private, and you want it so much that I have to suck you right then, all fast and crazy and…that’s my, that’s, I think about that one all the time.” Josh’s voice catches, but he takes a breath and goes on. “About going down on you. Opening your jeans and seeing you, what you look like, and making you feel good.” Drake remembers Josh’s offer from the other night, do you like head?, and you want?, and if he’d known how much Josh had meant it, he might have taken him up on it. “Don’t I ever do anything to you?” “Not really, no. I just really like to think about—I wanna do it, Drake,” he says, breathing hard. “I feel how hard you are; I want—“ Josh breaks off with a whimper when Drake gropes blindly at his pants until he finds the place where Josh’s erection lies flat against his belly, trapped inside his pajamas. It’s thick and hard, and he rubs it slowly as he stretches out to feel Josh’s soft gorgeous mouth against his own. Josh kisses the same as he had when he’d been a girl, taking Drake’s mouth in deep, hard kisses that feel more like sex than any actual sex he’s ever had, except this time he’s easier to control, with Drake’s hand inside his pajamas, circling the smooth, dry skin of his cock. And he usually tries not to say too much in situations like this, except for maybe, mmm, or nice, baby, but it’s like he’s caught Josh’s talking disease when he says, “I always jerk off when I go back to my own bed,” because it seems so important for Josh to know he’s not the only one. “I know,” Josh moans, pushing up into his hand, and wow, his palm is starting to get all slick from Josh’s cock, which is pretty hot. “You make me insane, you are so unbelievably--oh,” he gasps, and that’s when Drake discovers that Josh’s neck is made of the same wide, firm contours as the muscles that spread from shoulder to shoulder and run in lean lines down his back, and that Josh really likes to have it kissed. He kisses his way around the soft underside of Josh’s chin and over the helpless bob of his adam’s apple, amazed at the way Josh swells in his hand as Drake works his fist up and down and over, just the way he likes it himself. “Your hands,” Josh says, which makes Drake smirk against his throat before he goes back for more of Josh’s mouth, because he is pretty good with his hands, but he’s still surprised a few seconds later when Josh makes a low, pained sound and spills over Drake’s fingers, thrashing against Drake through the last hot, slippery pulls. It’s even better than doing it to himself, because he knows that as hot as it is to have Josh pulsing in his hand, he still gets a turn of his own. “Look at you,” he says, tugging Josh’s shirt off even as he wipes his hand on it. He doesn’t know why Josh spends so much time obsessively keeping his clothes on, because underneath, he’s all soft skin and dark hair that scatters across his chest and grows thicker just below his belly. “I’d rather look at you,” Josh says, and there’s a moment of struggle where Drake is trying to get out of his boxers and Josh is trying to get in them, but then he’s stretched out naked underneath Josh, who stops to pet Drake’s hair the same way he had when he’d been a girl. He lets him do it for a while, because Josh distracts him with a long, sweet kiss that says more than any of Josh’s confessions, but then the gentle fingers in his hair drift down to his chest, over his hipbone and between his legs. Josh can’t do anything like a normal person, so of course he starts by rubbing his palm over Drake’s balls, stroking them lightly as he pushes Drake’s legs apart with his thighs, which is a little more open than Drake likes to be until Josh’s head dips down and drags the flat of his tongue from base to tip, sparking a dizzying wave of pleasure as his tongue catches the head. Drake grabs at Josh’s shoulders as he goes down again. That tongue—and Drake has never properly appreciated what it means that Josh has such a huge tongue—licks a hot, insistent path over Drake’s balls, everything scorching wet and oh, he thinks as he hears himself make a breathy sound, he can come from this, from Josh’s wide grasping hands on his thighs and slick, searching tongue. If that weren’t enough to do it, Josh’s mouth slides up again, finds the tip of his cock and takes it inside, hard suction that seals tight over him as he pushes deeper. Josh really has thought about this—either that, or he’s had a lot of practice, which Drake seriously doubts—and he’s making sounds like it’s the best thing he’s ever tasted. That’s Josh, though; all dorkish on the outside until you find his hidden talents like pool and carpentry and cocksucking. He squeezes his eyes shut and rocks his hips on the mattress as Josh keeps going back down and down until Drake is in so deep that he can’t hold back against the long, wet, relentless drags of friction. He wants to say something, but Josh’s fingers are curled around his balls, so he’s got to feel how close Drake is, and he comes with his knee hooked over Josh’s shoulder before he can do anything but gasp something that sounds vaguely like Josh’s name. Drake has never come against the hot tease of a tongue before, and it plunges the pleasure to bone-deep, so when he comes down from it, there’s moisture at the corners of his eyes and wilted sheets in his hands. Whoa. Drake stares at the dark ceiling and thinks, Josh did that. “Josh,” he says, tugging at Josh’s hair where it’s long in front. “C’mere, dude,” he sighs, and when Josh climbs on top of him, there’s a tight, twisting feeling in his chest. He’s on to something, he can tell, and it has something to do with the fact that he and Josh are in this together, that they’ve just done something amazing together. No wonder Josh wants people to know about them. “You like?” Josh says, all smug and annoying in his ear. Drake turns and kisses him quickly, ignoring the ridiculous flush he feels spreading across his face. “You know I did,” he says, pulling the covers up over them both. They like their room cold, but they’re not usually naked in it. They kiss for a while longer, which puts Drake in his comfort zone so much he thinks he might be ready for another go soon. In a few minutes, he’ll see what Josh thinks of that idea. When they separate—just barely, because Drake can’t quite bring himself to take his lips fully away from Josh’s, Josh takes a breath as though he’s just about to say something, but is interrupted when they’re blinded by the glare of the overhead lights, and Megan’s voice, sharp and accusing. Megan? Drake shrinks underneath Josh in an attempt to disappear. “Let me see Drake’s face!” she demands, dropping her overnight bag on the floor, and ow, lights, lights, so when Drake turns his face slowly toward his devil sister—who has no reason to be home at all—he has to blink away the dancing spots. “You don’t have the chicken pox. I knew it,” she spits. “Privacy!” Josh howls. When they do, Megan is giving him a hard, suspicious look. “Have you been crying?” she asks. “Uh…” “Yes,” Josh says quickly. “We were very…frightened,” he says woodenly; he’s such a terrible liar, but Drake realizes what they must look like, all damp-skinned and red-faced, naked under the covers. Maybe Megan is too young to pick up on these things. Finally, Megan screws up her face. “Oh, ew. I can’t believe I thought you two were doing something good here that I was missing out on!” “We were,” Drake snickers into Josh’s ear, but apparently Megan has super-hearing or something, because she glares like she wishes he were dead. “Gross. Wait until Mom and Walter find out you forcibly quarantined me so you could have the house free for your boobish sexcapades.” “Why are you still here?” Josh pleads, and Drake is momentarily distracted by the lines of his neck. “Good question,” Megan says, and tosses her hair over her shoulder as she retrieves her suitcase and storms out of the room. “We’re going to pay for this,” Josh says, rolling off of Drake, but remaining close. Drake isn’t so sure. He can’t imagine Megan will ever want to talk about this again, and with Josh’s hand spread across his belly, he really doesn’t care. “Hey, how’s your arm?” “It hurts,” Josh says, but sounds almost content. “You need some ointment or something?” Josh’s smile is slow and pleased as it spreads across his face. “Wow, Drake Parker is being solicitous? Is this what sex does to you?” It’s what something does to him, but Drake isn’t willing to say what. “The moment has passed,” he says, and very carefully, to avoid bumping Josh’s bandage, climbs back into his arms. * |