In the series finale, "Really Big Shrimp," Drake says some hurtful things to Josh. This fic is my attempt to deal with that. The majority of the fic is Josh-centric (why are there so few Josh-centric fics? He needs love too!) If you read, please leave a review!

Josh hated Drake being mad at him. They argued daily, and they each had a long list and a plethora of stories about what they found annoying about each other. Josh got upset with Drake fairly regularly, finding it difficult to keep up with his cooler step-brother for whom things always turned out awesome. And Josh knew he had his moments too, even though he did blame Drake for a lot of stuff. He knew he could be a "dork" and a "spaz," but Drake had always been the more chill of the two of them. He had never been this angry at Josh. Ever.

Drake would never forgive him for giving over creative rights to his song.

They had been brothers for more than five years now. Josh could barely remember a time without Drake in his life. For years he'd been this lonely kid, just him and his dad. He'd come home from school to an empty house, make his own supper, get himself to bed – his father working late again. No wonder he was such an amazing cook; he had a lot of experience having to make his own meals. But Josh didn't like to talk about that time: the long, dark period after his mother had died and before Walter had re-married.

Then Walter had fallen in love with Audrey, and Josh's whole life had changed. He went from being an only child to having a little sister and a brother. It was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

But now Drake was acting like he didn't want to be brothers any more. When he had fired Josh as his manager, he seemed to be saying that he was done with him as a brother too. Josh wanted Drake to stop being mad at him. He wanted him to re-hire him as his manager. He wanted to be a part of his brother's life again. Josh felt like all of Drake's successes and failures were his too. Every time Drake played a new gig, arranged by Josh, to an ever-increasing, ever-adoring fan base, Josh felt this satisfaction and excitement in the pit of his stomach, like he was the one on stage. He was incredibly proud of Drake, even if the sentiment didn't go both ways. But Josh didn't mind that – being in Drake's shadow, having his accomplishments seem dorky in comparison. He didn't even mind all the trouble he'd gotten into since he had moved into the Parker household. Having a brother made up for all of that.

That was all Josh wanted right now – a brother.

"Oh, like you never screwed up anything for me?" Josh was speaking out of anger. The anger itself masking the hurt he felt. Drake had messed things up for him a million times, in a million situations, but he always forgave him. Why couldn't his brother do the same? "I made a mistake."

A very big mistake, but an accidental one. He would never purposefully hurt Drake.

"You're a mistake." Josh's jaw tightened. The words stung, and he couldn't think of a reply.

"You're both mistakes," Megan informed them, wishing she wasn't awake at 6am to listen to this. Any further conversation was interrupted by Helen's grandmother, bringing the toilet with her. Drake stormed from the room and locked himself in the bathroom, emerging only after Josh had dressed and left for his shift at the Premiere.

Usually Josh looked forward to going to work, but not that day. Mindy made him scrape chewed gum off the table bottoms – Mindy, who had stolen his golden vest and never ceased to remind him that he was second-rate. He couldn't compete with Mindy, and he couldn't compete with Drake. You're a mistake. The words echoed through his mind all day. A mistake. A blemish. A screw-up. As if he hadn't always thought that about himself already.

Drake's mood hadn't improved when Josh arrived home. He had a glass box full of nasty fruit flies. Normally he would eagerly let Josh in on his schemes. Now he just wanted him out of the way. Josh followed him up to their room, where they continued their argument in the presence of several seventh-grade girls.

Finally, Drake told him what he was planning on doing with the flies. "Well, that certainly is a mature way to handle this situation," Josh commented.

"He ruined my song. Somebody's got to take action."

Josh had taken action. He had written an extremely angry email.

"You know what, Josh? You don't get it. You never will."

"What don't I get?" Josh wanted to understand, wanted Drake to explain it to him. Let him in on the big secret that separated their two worlds.

"That when people play dirty, sometimes you got to play dirty back. That's what you don't get. You always got to play by the rules."

"Rules are the foundation of a gentle society." He didn't believe in playing dirty. He valued virtues like respect and forbearance. Oprah had taught him: "Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody's going to know whether you did it or not." For years that had been his motto – to always try to do the right thing, even if he sometimes failed at it. It seemed to him that maybe Drake was the one who "didn't get it."

"You see," Drake snapped back, "that is why you will always be a loser."

A loser.

Drake stormed out of the room, leaving the word to echo in Josh's head. Loser. Failure. Screw-up. Misfit. Someone who generally sucks at life. A mistake.

Josh was called a loser fairly regularly – at school, at work, mostly by Megan. People heaped a lot of remarks on him that they meant to be derogatory. They labelled him as "spastic" and "uncool," called him a "dork," a "nerd," and a thousand other things. Megan never failed to remind him that he was a "boob" and a moron, though part of him believed she said those things out of a weird, twisted kind of love. He'd learned to push away the things that people said, and to continue to love the things he did. Despite the name-calling, he remained true to himself. He brushed off the words; he'd gotten pretty good at not letting them affect him.

But never, not once, had that word been directed at him by Drake.

You will always be a loser. He felt like Drake had stabbed him.

Maybe he really was a loser. Some kind of tag-along that Drake was sick of. Maybe he was bringing his brother down, keeping him from reaching his potential at the top of the social ladder.

Maybe Drake was finally saying what he had always thought.

Josh needed to fix this.

He grabbed his keys off the counter, jumped in the car, and drove the more than two hour drive – alone – to Los Angeles. He turned the radio down, the music a faint soundtrack for his thoughts, like the traces of perfume left on the seat from Drake's latest girlfriend. The drive gave him time to think.

Josh hadn't told anyone where he was going. Drake wasn't speaking to him. And even if Walter and Audrey had been home, he wouldn't have said anything. They would have stopped him from going. They didn't like the thought of him driving into the city alone, and with the sun setting soon. Megan just wouldn't care. He should be able to make it to Spin City Records, do whatever it was he needed to, and make it back home before eleven

Josh didn't know what he was going to do. He had the original recording of Drake's song on a CD in his backpack; he hoped that they would listen to reason and agree to play the original for the Superbowl commercial. Maybe it wouldn't work, but he had to try. He had to do something.

You will always be a loser.

The words swam through his head, like a song stuck on repeat. He couldn't make them go away. Every day of the seventh-grade he had been called a loser. He'd heard it whispered by the crowds of girls as he walked to class or tried to show them a magic trick. He'd had it sneered in his face by the cool guys, when they passed him in the halls and pushed his books from his hands, or when they tossed food at him in the school cafeteria. He heard it snickered from voices in the back when he gave class presentations. He read the word, written in clumsy black marker, on his locker and notes shoved inside his binder. He'd been accused of sitting at the "loser table," which had been the lunch base of other misfits like himself, with unique hobbies and good grades. Friends, he had called them. Losers, everyone else said. He hadn't understood what made them losers; some of the most successful and famous people had been the outcasts when they were teenagers.

No one called it bullying, though that's what it was. His friend Marie, a starry-eyed bookworm with a face of freckles, would meet him at his locker before lunch. He remembered the nasty names people called her – the guys who hurled sexual insults at her, the girls who had called her derogatory names. She untaped the "Kick Me" sign from his back as he put books into his locker.

"Thanks. I didn't know that was there."

"I didn't think you did." He glanced down at her arms, where she always cradled her binder and her latest read. The cover of her book was ripped, hastily repaired with strips of transparent tape, and several pages were sticking out. She hugged it against her chest self-consciously.

"What happened?"

"Just some boys from my English class."

"Marie –"

"Please, Josh. Don't."

"I think you should tell your teacher –"

"And then what? Nothing will change. She'll talk to them and scold them, and then she will say the same thing I've heard a hundred times before – 'You shouldn't take things so seriously, Marie.' 'They were just joking, Marie. Lighten up.' 'That's the way kids are.'"

Just joking. Kids will be kids. Josh had heard it all before. As if the only wounds that hurt were physical. As if words could be brushed aside, and didn't crush you inside. As if names didn't hurt as much as fists. At least Josh could have taken a hit. But the words...they caused scars that could last forever, injuries so deep and bloody they changed who you were, how you saw yourself.

He had forced himself to ignore the words hurled at him like bullets. Marie hadn't been so lucky. She changed schools that summer, and after a couple months of emailing, had dropped out of his life forever. Left him alone to deal with the middle-school dragons that spewed hatred like fire.

Then his dad had married Audrey, and he'd gained a new family. Drake had become his brother - in more than a legal "now you're step-brothers" sense. Drake was his bud, his best friend. They did everything together, knew each other better than anyone else. Knew every secret and dislike, every quirk and irrational fear. They had been through a lot together. They had each other's backs.

Drake always introduced him to people as "Josh, my brother." They dropped the "step," as if the prefix somehow changed their relationship. They shared a house, a room, a family, everything. They didn't need the same DNA to make them brothers.

Josh hadn't felt like a loser since the day Drake had claimed him as his brother.

Sure, sometimes the kids at school still called him that, and he heard it (or variations of it) at work and from strangers, but he didn't believe them. He might never be as cool as Drake, but somehow that didn't matter. Just having a best friend like him was enough. Drake got him into trouble a lot, and he pushed his buttons constantly, but he'd also helped him loosen up, taught him to be proud of himself. He'd learned how to love himself, because he had someone there who always believed in him.

Only, that wasn't true now. Drake didn't really believe in him. Drake thought he was a loser, that he always had been one, and always would be.

Josh thought he had learned how to take power away from the words meant to hurt. But it was different when the person who said them meant a lot to you. "You will always be a loser," Drake's voice told him over and over again.

A loser.

So Josh did it – he played dirty. He listened to Drake, and he resorted to dishonest tactics. He switched cds, giving the company's media rep the original version of "Makes Me Happy." Now it would play during the Superbowl commercial, and Drake would forgive him.

He'd gone against everything he believed in, but at least he would finally stop being a loser.

Drake almost didn't watch the commercial. Josh had to wrangle him onto the couch in their room and force him to look at the screen. He heard his song, and all was forgiven. They hugged, and Josh rejoiced in Drake's delight. Everything was going to be okay. Drake loved him again.

But then he received a phone call from Alan Krim. Five million dollar lawsuit. Two years in prison. Josh wouldn't do well in prison. His heart plummeted. You will always be a loser. He'd done it again. He'd messed up – really bad this time. Nothing could fix this. He'd tried to make things right, and he had failed. He really was a loser. A mistake.

Josh had to go to work that afternoon. Not exactly how he wanted to spend his last days as a free man. Between calming down Crazy Steve and trying to understand where he stood with Mindy, Josh felt like he was drowning. You're a loser, and you're going to prison, crowded everything else in his head. He hadn't made assistant manager, even though he deserved that job, and he had almost ruined things with Mindy, again. "I've got you," he had promised Crazy Steve. But who had Josh?

When Josh left for work, Drake collapsed onto the sofa. Prison. He was too pretty for prison. Bad things happened to guys like him in prison. And where was he supposed to get five million dollars? His parents had needed to remortgage the house just to cover the expenses he had incurred last month after crashing a helicopter.

"You did a bad thing," a voice barked, startling him. Drake jumped, and saw Lula, Helen's grandmother, standing by the kitchen door.

"What? It's not my fault the CDs were switched. I don't want to go to prison." How did Lula even know what was happening? He hadn't even told his parents yet. Then again, something about the old woman told him that she knew much, much more than she let on.

"I ain't talking about that."

"Then what?"

"You can be a selfish boy, you know that?"

"It's selfish of me to not want to go to prison?"

"No, noodle-head."

"Did you just call me –"

"Will you hush up and listen to what I've got to tell ya?" Drake shut up and nodded. This lady was even more intimidating than Helen. "This mess started because that brother of yours made a mistake." Drake opened his mouth to reply, but she cut him off. "Now, just listen! He made a mistake, and you was all ready to let him regret it for the rest of his life. You only forgave him when your song played on the TV, ain't that right?" Drake didn't understand where she was going with this. "You forgave him because you got something outta it. And now your brother is going to go to prison because he was trying to help you." She paused a moment to let her words sink in, and Drake shifted uncomfortably. Was that true? Had he only forgiven Josh because the original song had played? Would he have forgiven him otherwise? What if the pop-garbage version had played instead? "And," Lula continued, "you did something even worse."

"What was that?"

"You ain't learned yet the power of your words. You best be careful what you say. Words can hurt or they can heal, and once said they can be forgiven, but can never forgotten. Your words carry more power than you give them credit for, Drake, and you said some hurtful things to that brother of yours."

"I didn't–"

"We believe the things the people we love most tell us."

"So?" Josh was always saying things to Drake when he was angry, but none of them ever hurt or haunted him in the way Lula described. It had never bothered him that he wasn't as smart as Josh, or any of that other stuff. It was just what made them different. But he would never say anything to hurt Josh, would he?

The phone rang. It was Krim calling to inform Drake that Nick Matteo, president of Spin City, wanted to see him and Josh immediately. Drake swallowed the lump in his throat. This was it. "I have to go."

"You think about what I said, boy," Lula warned, pointing her finger at him, and glaring at him from over her glasses.

"Fine, whatever, I will." Drake grabbed his jacket and the car keys and went to get Josh.

They barely talked during the drive to LA, each entertaining his fearsome visions of prison. They were led into the same room, the same chairs, as they had been when Spin City first offered Drake a deal for his song, only a few days ago. Josh was painfully aware that these could be his final moments of freedom.

"Which one of you switched the song?" Matteo asked.

Josh glanced at Drake and cleared his throat. His lips trembled as the words "I did" caught on his tongue. But Drake spoke first, "I did."

"I did."

"We both did, okay?" What are you doing? Josh's face asked. Josh had breached the contract. He should be the one to go to prison. It was stupid for Drake to suffer for his failure. He wasn't the loser in this situation. In fact, Drake never lost at anything.

But Drake was thinking about what Lula had said, and he remembered how he had told Josh to play dirty. On his own, Josh would never have done something illegal. He'd been following Drake's advice. Josh put more faith in his words than Drake had realized.

However, as it turned out, they weren't going to prison. Matteo was pleased with the reception of Drake's song and was going to offer him a record deal. Of course, everything was working out for Drake, like always, and this time Josh wasn't even bothered by it.

Things would work out for Josh too – at Helen's wedding, she would make him assistant manager and he would get back together with Mindy. Everything was as it should be, but he still couldn't shake those words. You will always be a loser. Was he only getting his dream vest because Mindy had quit? And why would a girl as great as Mindy ever like him? The insecurities ate at him. Even when he was winning, he felt like he was losing.

That night in their room, Drake laid awake in bed, staring at the ceiling. He couldn't believe it. He'd signed a record deal with Spin City. He was going to produce his first album. His dreams were actually starting to come true, everything he had ever wanted. And he never would have gotten this far without Josh. With Josh as his manager, he had played bigger and better gigs than ever before. Sure, he had made a massive mistake, but if it hadn't been for Josh he never would have been noticed by Spin City in the first place.

Drake sat up, and looked at his brother's sleeping figure in the dark. He couldn't see him well, but he could hear him. Josh had this annoying habit of speaking in his sleep. Normally it didn't bother Drake, because he was a heavy sleeper, but tonight he'd never get to sleep if Josh kept it up.

"Josh?" he whispered.

Words were mumbled.

"Josh." Drake climbed out of his bed and went over to his brother's. He was tossing and turning. After the day they had, Drake thought he would be having pleasant dreams – not whatever this was. "Josh."

The sound of Drake's voice infiltrated Josh's dream. "Drake, 'm sorry," the dark haired boy murmured. "Please...I tried...not a loser." A loser. The words stopped Drake cold. How could he have forgotten? He'd been so angry at Josh. He'd wanted to say the most hurtful thing he could, and he had called Josh a loser. Not only called him one, accused him of being one forever.

"Josh, wake up." Drake shook his brother.

"I'm up! I'm up!" Josh sat upright, glancing about him distractedly. He yawned and rubbed at his eye. "Drake?"

"You were talking in your sleep."

"Oh, sorry, man." Drake didn't move. He stood by Josh's bed, staring at him. "Drake?" Josh reached over and turned on the lamp, flooding the room with light. "What's wrong?"

"You forgave me that time I used you to hustle pool and the time I dropped a barbell on your foot?"

"Yeah."

"And you forgave me for ruining your dinner with Mindy's parents, getting you fired from Megan's school, and for all the stuff I said on the Dr. Phyllis Show?"

"Of course. Drake, what are – "

"And you forgave me for forgetting your birthday this year and almost killing us with Trevor's El Camino? For buying Bobo with our car money? And for forgetting the door on the treehouse? For running over your bike, making you late, getting you arrested, getting us banned from Thorton's party, and almost getting you killed in a helicopter accident?"

"Dude, yes. I know I made a big mistake, but I hope –"

"I need you to forgive me for something worse than all that."

"What?" Josh shook his head, as though trying to clear his ears. No way he had just heard what he thought he had. "What?"

"I called you a loser, and I want you to forgive me."

Josh pushed off his covers, stood up, and walked over to the couch. "You want me to forgive you for speaking the truth?"

"Josh, man. You're not a loser." Drake put a hand on his brother's shoulder, but Josh shrugged it off.

"Whatever."

"No, Josh, listen." Drake spun Josh around to face him. "You are not a loser. Sure you can be a mega dork sometimes, but you could never be a loser. I couldn't have gotten this record deal without you. I wouldn't have even passed the eleventh grade without you! I know that everyone thinks I'm the cooler brother, and I definitely am the better kisser, but in so many ways you're cooler than I am. You're passionate and dedicated. You never act like anyone but yourself, and you have all these ridiculous hobbies, but you do them no matter how uncool they seem, because you love them. You work really hard, and you pay attention. You remember little details about people, like what song calms Crazy Steve down and people's favorite soda flavors, that Mindy loves sharks and Dad likes cinnamon in his waffles. You always do things for others, even when you know they will go unappreciated. You freak out about almost everything, but that's because of how much you care. The only thing I've ever really cared about is music, without it I don't know who I'd be. But you, you'd still be yourself, and you'd still be a good person." Drake sighed. "Look, Josh. You're not a loser. I am for ever calling you that. You make me want to be a better person, and you've helped me to be a better Drake, no matter what anyone else says. I just hope you can forgive me."

Josh stared at him, eyes and mouth wide open. Then, slowly, his shocked expression softened and morphed into a smile. There was only one phrase that could encapsulate his sentiments at that moment: "Hug me, brotha!"

Josh wrapped his arms around Drake and lifted him into the air. Drake embraced him back, then disentangled himself from Josh's long arms. Yupp, same old Josh. But he wouldn't have him any other way.

Drake crawled back into his bed and laid back against his pillow. He couldn't believe it – Helen's grandmother had actually been right. He'd kind of assumed that the only power his words had came when they were accompanied by music. But he understood now that words had the power to hurt or to heal. One word could change everything.

"True forgiveness is when you can say, 'Thank you for that experience.'" ~ Oprah Winfrey

END