Boobs In Love, Chapter 2/3
Title: Boobs In Love
Author: gmth
Pairing: Drake Parker/Josh Nichols
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Everything here belongs to other people and I'm playing with it without their permission.
Summary: Drake and Josh find Megan's new hobby very inspiring.
Warning: Slashy stepbrothers. Crossposted to drakexjosh.
Chapter 1 is available here.
"Mom and Dad are gonna have a fit." Josh closed their bedroom door as Drake vaulted over the back of the couch and landed on the faded cushions with a bounce.
"I know," Drake said, beaming. "Isn't it awesome? Finally, solid proof she's done something wrong, and in her own handwriting, too." He kissed the crinkled paper and pressed it against his chest with a happy sigh. "So, should we show it to them before or after dinner?"
"Neither."
"I think after dinner would be best," Drake said, ignoring Josh completely. "No sense in taking a chance they'll be so upset that no one gets fed, right?"
"Drake --"
"I mean, tonight's taco night --"
"Drake!"
Drake looked up in surprise. "What?"
"We can't show that to Mom and Dad."
"Why not?"
Josh made an irritated noise. "Because it's not enough, all right? Look, Megan's no dummy. She can easily explain that away."
"Yeah, right," Drake scoffed. "How's she going to do that?"
"I don't know. She could..." Josh paused for a moment to think. "She could say it's about a guy and a... a rooster. His pet rooster. And when he touches it too much, it gets angry."
"Are you kidding?" Drake said with a disbelieving laugh. "Even Megan couldn't get away with that."
"Do you want to take that chance?" Josh replied, sitting down next to Drake. "Remember all those times she lied and we told the truth, and they believed her over us? This is our one chance to get her back for all of that. Mom and Dad will ground her forever if they find out, but we have to play it smart and not give her a chance to wiggle out of it. We really have to nail her on this one. This --" He tapped the paper lying over Drake's heart. " -- isn't enough. We need more."
Drake batted Josh's finger away and placed his hands on top of the paper as though Josh were waving a lit match. "More what?" he asked peevishly.
"More of that," Josh said, pointing at Drake's hands. "Enough that she can't possibly explain it away. We have to find that notebook."
"We tried that already."
"Well, we need to try again. Can you think of a better plan?"
Drake closed his mouth and stared at the wall for a moment, apparently deep in thought. It looked like hard work. Finally, he shook his head. "No," he said, sounding defeated. "I guess not."
"Good. Okay. So. We just have to keep our eyes open. She can't keep it on her twenty-four hours a day. And once we find it, her butt is ours. Cool?" Josh smiled and raised his hand, palm out, waiting for Drake to slap it in agreement. Drake gave him a blank look in return and reached for the remote, instead. "Cool," Josh said again with an uncomfortable chuckle, his arm twitching slightly as he lowered his hand.
****
But finding the notebook turned out to be much easier said than done. Megan showed no signs of knowing Drake and Josh had invaded her bedroom, but neither did she appear again with her notebook in tow. After a few days with no sightings they started taking turns distracting her, with one attempting awkward conversation while the other slipped off for a quick search of whatever room she had just left. They surprised their father one afternoon by cleaning out the garage, a frustrating experience that left them with sore muscles and dusty clothes but yielded no worthwhile results. In desperation they even gave the yard a thorough search, going so far as to climb up into Robbie's tree house even though they'd sworn to one another they would never set foot in it again.
"I'm starting to think it never existed in the first place," Josh said into the darkness one night after he and Drake had crawled into their beds.
"Yeah," Drake replied, yawning, "'cause I hear it's very common for people to imagine seeing their little sisters write porn. There was a big article about it on the Internet a few days ago. They're working on a vaccine."
"Ha ha, very funny."
"Go to sleep, Josh."
****
July slipped into August before they finally gave up. It seemed Megan had gotten wise to their interest somehow, and either destroyed the evidence or had it hidden so well Josh wouldn't have been surprised if she couldn't find it herself.
He tried to take his mind off the missing notebook by making a to-do list the length of his arm in preparation for leaving for school. Making the list was the easy part; getting things done turned out to be a different story. He only had three weeks before he was supposed to leave, yet every time he thought about actually starting to pack he froze with indecision and anxiety. How much stuff should he take with him? And which stuff? Every day he gathered piles of things together on his bed, and every day he added new items and took others away, but by nightfall everything was always back in the closet again.
"What d'you think?" he asked Drake late one afternoon, holding up a armful of sweatshirts. "Should I take all of these?"
Drake strummed another chord and didn't look up. "I don't care, man."
Lying in his bed one night, Josh started worrying about the weather. How cold did it get in Michigan, anyway? He'd never experienced a really cold winter before. This question sent him scurrying to the Internet for two solid hours of research, and by the time he closed the last browser window he was nearly hyperventilating.
"Want to come to the mall with me?" he asked Drake, brandishing the credit card he'd managed to coax from his father. "I need to find a winter coat and some snow boots. Did you know the average annual snowfall in Michigan is like six feet --"
"Can't," Drake said, his eyes glued to the television. He shoved a handful of cheese balls in his mouth. "I'm busy."
After about a week of dithering back and forth, Josh finally decided he had to start getting it together. Drake sat in silence on his bed with his chin in one hand, watching as Josh manhandled a set of enormous powder-blue suitcases up from the garage.
"You're not using those," Drake said, his tone dripping with disdain as Josh lifted the largest of the cases on to his bed.
"Yeah, I am. Why?"
"Because." Drake's mouth worked soundlessly for a moment. "They're so lame!"
Josh turned slowly to face Drake. "These used to belong to my mother."
"Okay," Drake said, flapping his hands and making a scornful face. "If you want to look like a huge nerd. It's not like it's going to take people long to figure that out anyway, are you sure you want to tip them off about it the very first minute you're there?"
It was like someone had thrown a bucket of icy water in Josh's face. He stared at Drake for a few long heartbeats, his lips clamped together so their trembling wouldn't give away the hurt. "Why are you being such a jackass?" he finally managed, his voice low and soft. "This is really hard for me, you know? I could really use your support."
Drake's Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed, and his eyes grew wide and shiny. He looked away as he jumped off his bed. "I gotta go," he said, whipping his blazer off the back of the couch as he passed. "Trevor's expecting me."
****
They sat in silence at opposite ends of the kitchen table a few mornings later, each staring into his bowl of cereal as though it held the secret to eternal life. Josh sat with his head resting on his palm, poking disconsolately at a few soggy corn flakes floating in his bowl. One of them was shaped vaguely like a guitar pick, and with a surge of anger he pressed it to the bottom of the bowl with his spoon. It cried and begged for mercy, but he ignored its pitiful struggles and held it fast, grinding the spoon back and forth on top of it until he was sure it was dead. He felt his lips quirk into a triumphant smile as he pulled the spoon back; a second later the corn flake popped to the surface again, and he flung the spoon onto the table with a loud clatter. To his surprise, Drake tossed his own spoon down at the exact same moment, and they looked up at each other with narrowed eyes and grim expressions, their faces coloring.
Before either could speak the kitchen door swung open and Megan appeared, dragging a suitcase on wheels in behind her. Her blue and white backpack was over her shoulder. "Hey," she said, slipping the backpack off and piling it on top of the suitcase. "What's up?" She grabbed a banana off the top of the fruit bowl and peeled the skin back.
Her sudden presence quelled the urge to argue more effectively than Niagara Falls quenching a candle flame. Why give her the satisfaction? "Nothing," Josh replied, darting his eyes away from Drake.
"Where are you going?" Drake asked.
"Oh, I'm going to see my friend Jessica in Denver." She took a bite of her banana.
"Again?" Josh said.
"Yep. And this time Mom's taking me to the airport, so the LAPD is just going to have to handle it on their own if they have any problems."
"You ready, Megan?" The door swung open again and their mother hurried in, a set of keys jingling in her hand.
"Almost," Megan replied. "I just want to get a glass of milk."
"Okay, but hurry," Mom said. "Drake, Josh, would you take Megan's bags out to the car?" She dangled the keys in front of Josh's face, then dropped them into his outstretched palm.
"Sure," Josh said, at the same moment Drake said, "No."
Mom tilted her head and pursed her lips. "Drake," she said, a note of warning in her voice, and Drake gave an irritable sigh and shoved his chair back from the table. Josh was already on his feet. He was tempted to say it was okay, he could handle both bags on his own. They weren't very heavy, and one was on wheels, for criminy's sake, but people were always making things easy for Drake, and in any case he didn't want to be the one to breach the wall of silence that seemed to have sprung up between them. He grabbed the backpack and marched out with it, not waiting to see if Drake was going to follow him or not.
The grinding of plastic wheels on the driveway behind him gave Josh his answer. The SUV chirped and flashed its lights when he pressed the button to unlock the tailgate, and he pulled it open and stood back, arm upraised, as Drake hoisted Megan's suitcase into the back. He was about to swing the backpack in beside it when he looked down and noticed a small opening in the zipper's teeth at the top of the bag. A flash of green winked up at him through the gap.
All thoughts of their feud were forgotten at once. "Drake," he said, smacking his stepbrother in the chest with the back of his hand.
"Ow!" Drake sounded more surprised than hurt as he stepped back, rubbing at the spot where Josh's knuckles had landed. "What are you doing?"
"The notebook!" Josh thumped the book bag down on the SUV's carpeted interior.
"What? Where?" Drake said eagerly, crowding in against Josh's back.
"Right there," Josh said, pointing. He seized the zipper and started to tug it across, but it got stuck at the edge of the gap. "Oh man, the zipper's broken."
"Come on now, Megan." Their mother's voice drifted out from the front door, and they heard Megan's impatient voice in response. Drake grabbed at the zipper as well, and for a moment they both tried to wrestle the bag open, each mumbling and cursing the other under his breath.
Finally, Drake pulled the backpack free of Josh's grasp. "Go head them off!" he hissed, giving Josh a violent push, and Josh stumbled and nearly pitched forward on to his face. The momentum carried him around the back of the car. When he had managed to right himself, he tried to affect a casual pose by leaning his elbow against the window and bracing his head on his hand. He plastered a wide smile on his face as his mother and Megan hastened down the driveway toward him.
"So, Mom," he said in a loud voice, and she stopped digging around in her purse and looked up at him in surprise. "Are you... uh... sure you have enough gas in the car?"
"I think so," she replied slowly, her expression morphing from surprise to confusion.
"That's good! Very good. Because... uh... it's a long trip, all the way out there to the airport. Isn't it."
His mother nodded, her forehead wrinkled. "Yes, I suppose it is."
"And the price of gas is just so crazy nowadays, you know?" Josh felt a bead of sweat tickling its way down the back of his neck. Megan was staring at him, which only made things worse. "It's gonna cost and arm and a leg just to get there."
"Josh, are you feeling okay?"
The back of the SUV dipped as Drake slammed the tailgate shut. "Uh, yeah," Josh said with an uneasy chuckle. Drake stepped up behind him, and Josh backed away from the car to hide Drake and whatever he might have in his hands from view. "I'm fine. Fine. Megan, you have a good trip now, you hear?"
"Yeah," Drake agreed, giving Megan a quick wave. "Have fun." Together, they stepped back and around their mother and sister, not showing their backs to them until the two confused women had turned away. Only then did they pivot on their heels and tear into the house, slamming the front door shut behind them.
Go to Chapter 3.
Author: gmth
Pairing: Drake Parker/Josh Nichols
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Everything here belongs to other people and I'm playing with it without their permission.
Summary: Drake and Josh find Megan's new hobby very inspiring.
Warning: Slashy stepbrothers. Crossposted to drakexjosh.
Chapter 1 is available here.
"Mom and Dad are gonna have a fit." Josh closed their bedroom door as Drake vaulted over the back of the couch and landed on the faded cushions with a bounce.
"I know," Drake said, beaming. "Isn't it awesome? Finally, solid proof she's done something wrong, and in her own handwriting, too." He kissed the crinkled paper and pressed it against his chest with a happy sigh. "So, should we show it to them before or after dinner?"
"Neither."
"I think after dinner would be best," Drake said, ignoring Josh completely. "No sense in taking a chance they'll be so upset that no one gets fed, right?"
"Drake --"
"I mean, tonight's taco night --"
"Drake!"
Drake looked up in surprise. "What?"
"We can't show that to Mom and Dad."
"Why not?"
Josh made an irritated noise. "Because it's not enough, all right? Look, Megan's no dummy. She can easily explain that away."
"Yeah, right," Drake scoffed. "How's she going to do that?"
"I don't know. She could..." Josh paused for a moment to think. "She could say it's about a guy and a... a rooster. His pet rooster. And when he touches it too much, it gets angry."
"Are you kidding?" Drake said with a disbelieving laugh. "Even Megan couldn't get away with that."
"Do you want to take that chance?" Josh replied, sitting down next to Drake. "Remember all those times she lied and we told the truth, and they believed her over us? This is our one chance to get her back for all of that. Mom and Dad will ground her forever if they find out, but we have to play it smart and not give her a chance to wiggle out of it. We really have to nail her on this one. This --" He tapped the paper lying over Drake's heart. " -- isn't enough. We need more."
Drake batted Josh's finger away and placed his hands on top of the paper as though Josh were waving a lit match. "More what?" he asked peevishly.
"More of that," Josh said, pointing at Drake's hands. "Enough that she can't possibly explain it away. We have to find that notebook."
"We tried that already."
"Well, we need to try again. Can you think of a better plan?"
Drake closed his mouth and stared at the wall for a moment, apparently deep in thought. It looked like hard work. Finally, he shook his head. "No," he said, sounding defeated. "I guess not."
"Good. Okay. So. We just have to keep our eyes open. She can't keep it on her twenty-four hours a day. And once we find it, her butt is ours. Cool?" Josh smiled and raised his hand, palm out, waiting for Drake to slap it in agreement. Drake gave him a blank look in return and reached for the remote, instead. "Cool," Josh said again with an uncomfortable chuckle, his arm twitching slightly as he lowered his hand.
****
But finding the notebook turned out to be much easier said than done. Megan showed no signs of knowing Drake and Josh had invaded her bedroom, but neither did she appear again with her notebook in tow. After a few days with no sightings they started taking turns distracting her, with one attempting awkward conversation while the other slipped off for a quick search of whatever room she had just left. They surprised their father one afternoon by cleaning out the garage, a frustrating experience that left them with sore muscles and dusty clothes but yielded no worthwhile results. In desperation they even gave the yard a thorough search, going so far as to climb up into Robbie's tree house even though they'd sworn to one another they would never set foot in it again.
"I'm starting to think it never existed in the first place," Josh said into the darkness one night after he and Drake had crawled into their beds.
"Yeah," Drake replied, yawning, "'cause I hear it's very common for people to imagine seeing their little sisters write porn. There was a big article about it on the Internet a few days ago. They're working on a vaccine."
"Ha ha, very funny."
"Go to sleep, Josh."
****
July slipped into August before they finally gave up. It seemed Megan had gotten wise to their interest somehow, and either destroyed the evidence or had it hidden so well Josh wouldn't have been surprised if she couldn't find it herself.
He tried to take his mind off the missing notebook by making a to-do list the length of his arm in preparation for leaving for school. Making the list was the easy part; getting things done turned out to be a different story. He only had three weeks before he was supposed to leave, yet every time he thought about actually starting to pack he froze with indecision and anxiety. How much stuff should he take with him? And which stuff? Every day he gathered piles of things together on his bed, and every day he added new items and took others away, but by nightfall everything was always back in the closet again.
"What d'you think?" he asked Drake late one afternoon, holding up a armful of sweatshirts. "Should I take all of these?"
Drake strummed another chord and didn't look up. "I don't care, man."
Lying in his bed one night, Josh started worrying about the weather. How cold did it get in Michigan, anyway? He'd never experienced a really cold winter before. This question sent him scurrying to the Internet for two solid hours of research, and by the time he closed the last browser window he was nearly hyperventilating.
"Want to come to the mall with me?" he asked Drake, brandishing the credit card he'd managed to coax from his father. "I need to find a winter coat and some snow boots. Did you know the average annual snowfall in Michigan is like six feet --"
"Can't," Drake said, his eyes glued to the television. He shoved a handful of cheese balls in his mouth. "I'm busy."
After about a week of dithering back and forth, Josh finally decided he had to start getting it together. Drake sat in silence on his bed with his chin in one hand, watching as Josh manhandled a set of enormous powder-blue suitcases up from the garage.
"You're not using those," Drake said, his tone dripping with disdain as Josh lifted the largest of the cases on to his bed.
"Yeah, I am. Why?"
"Because." Drake's mouth worked soundlessly for a moment. "They're so lame!"
Josh turned slowly to face Drake. "These used to belong to my mother."
"Okay," Drake said, flapping his hands and making a scornful face. "If you want to look like a huge nerd. It's not like it's going to take people long to figure that out anyway, are you sure you want to tip them off about it the very first minute you're there?"
It was like someone had thrown a bucket of icy water in Josh's face. He stared at Drake for a few long heartbeats, his lips clamped together so their trembling wouldn't give away the hurt. "Why are you being such a jackass?" he finally managed, his voice low and soft. "This is really hard for me, you know? I could really use your support."
Drake's Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed, and his eyes grew wide and shiny. He looked away as he jumped off his bed. "I gotta go," he said, whipping his blazer off the back of the couch as he passed. "Trevor's expecting me."
****
They sat in silence at opposite ends of the kitchen table a few mornings later, each staring into his bowl of cereal as though it held the secret to eternal life. Josh sat with his head resting on his palm, poking disconsolately at a few soggy corn flakes floating in his bowl. One of them was shaped vaguely like a guitar pick, and with a surge of anger he pressed it to the bottom of the bowl with his spoon. It cried and begged for mercy, but he ignored its pitiful struggles and held it fast, grinding the spoon back and forth on top of it until he was sure it was dead. He felt his lips quirk into a triumphant smile as he pulled the spoon back; a second later the corn flake popped to the surface again, and he flung the spoon onto the table with a loud clatter. To his surprise, Drake tossed his own spoon down at the exact same moment, and they looked up at each other with narrowed eyes and grim expressions, their faces coloring.
Before either could speak the kitchen door swung open and Megan appeared, dragging a suitcase on wheels in behind her. Her blue and white backpack was over her shoulder. "Hey," she said, slipping the backpack off and piling it on top of the suitcase. "What's up?" She grabbed a banana off the top of the fruit bowl and peeled the skin back.
Her sudden presence quelled the urge to argue more effectively than Niagara Falls quenching a candle flame. Why give her the satisfaction? "Nothing," Josh replied, darting his eyes away from Drake.
"Where are you going?" Drake asked.
"Oh, I'm going to see my friend Jessica in Denver." She took a bite of her banana.
"Again?" Josh said.
"Yep. And this time Mom's taking me to the airport, so the LAPD is just going to have to handle it on their own if they have any problems."
"You ready, Megan?" The door swung open again and their mother hurried in, a set of keys jingling in her hand.
"Almost," Megan replied. "I just want to get a glass of milk."
"Okay, but hurry," Mom said. "Drake, Josh, would you take Megan's bags out to the car?" She dangled the keys in front of Josh's face, then dropped them into his outstretched palm.
"Sure," Josh said, at the same moment Drake said, "No."
Mom tilted her head and pursed her lips. "Drake," she said, a note of warning in her voice, and Drake gave an irritable sigh and shoved his chair back from the table. Josh was already on his feet. He was tempted to say it was okay, he could handle both bags on his own. They weren't very heavy, and one was on wheels, for criminy's sake, but people were always making things easy for Drake, and in any case he didn't want to be the one to breach the wall of silence that seemed to have sprung up between them. He grabbed the backpack and marched out with it, not waiting to see if Drake was going to follow him or not.
The grinding of plastic wheels on the driveway behind him gave Josh his answer. The SUV chirped and flashed its lights when he pressed the button to unlock the tailgate, and he pulled it open and stood back, arm upraised, as Drake hoisted Megan's suitcase into the back. He was about to swing the backpack in beside it when he looked down and noticed a small opening in the zipper's teeth at the top of the bag. A flash of green winked up at him through the gap.
All thoughts of their feud were forgotten at once. "Drake," he said, smacking his stepbrother in the chest with the back of his hand.
"Ow!" Drake sounded more surprised than hurt as he stepped back, rubbing at the spot where Josh's knuckles had landed. "What are you doing?"
"The notebook!" Josh thumped the book bag down on the SUV's carpeted interior.
"What? Where?" Drake said eagerly, crowding in against Josh's back.
"Right there," Josh said, pointing. He seized the zipper and started to tug it across, but it got stuck at the edge of the gap. "Oh man, the zipper's broken."
"Come on now, Megan." Their mother's voice drifted out from the front door, and they heard Megan's impatient voice in response. Drake grabbed at the zipper as well, and for a moment they both tried to wrestle the bag open, each mumbling and cursing the other under his breath.
Finally, Drake pulled the backpack free of Josh's grasp. "Go head them off!" he hissed, giving Josh a violent push, and Josh stumbled and nearly pitched forward on to his face. The momentum carried him around the back of the car. When he had managed to right himself, he tried to affect a casual pose by leaning his elbow against the window and bracing his head on his hand. He plastered a wide smile on his face as his mother and Megan hastened down the driveway toward him.
"So, Mom," he said in a loud voice, and she stopped digging around in her purse and looked up at him in surprise. "Are you... uh... sure you have enough gas in the car?"
"I think so," she replied slowly, her expression morphing from surprise to confusion.
"That's good! Very good. Because... uh... it's a long trip, all the way out there to the airport. Isn't it."
His mother nodded, her forehead wrinkled. "Yes, I suppose it is."
"And the price of gas is just so crazy nowadays, you know?" Josh felt a bead of sweat tickling its way down the back of his neck. Megan was staring at him, which only made things worse. "It's gonna cost and arm and a leg just to get there."
"Josh, are you feeling okay?"
The back of the SUV dipped as Drake slammed the tailgate shut. "Uh, yeah," Josh said with an uneasy chuckle. Drake stepped up behind him, and Josh backed away from the car to hide Drake and whatever he might have in his hands from view. "I'm fine. Fine. Megan, you have a good trip now, you hear?"
"Yeah," Drake agreed, giving Megan a quick wave. "Have fun." Together, they stepped back and around their mother and sister, not showing their backs to them until the two confused women had turned away. Only then did they pivot on their heels and tear into the house, slamming the front door shut behind them.
Go to Chapter 3.