Title: Nighttime Mutterings
Author: SP
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Nickelodeon and Dan Schneider and whoever else own everything.
Rating: T for the f-word.
Pairing: Drake/Josh
Word Count: 1793
Summary: Drake mumbles in his sleep. Josh is used to it. But one night he hears more than he expects to…
Author's Notes: This is only gonna make sense to one person, but I'm saying it anyway. It's Drake this time.
Josh knew that Drake thought he snored like a hobo. Josh thought that was both inaccurate and stereotypical. Not all hobos snored, and Josh didn't snore like the ones that did. So he had a small sleep apnea problem. It certainly wasn't as bad as Henry Doheney's.
And besides, although Drake was quick to point out Josh's nighttime noise-making, he was quicker to ignore his own. Drake mumbled and muttered and sometimes you could even carry on a whole conversation with him. (A sleeping Drake made even less sense than an awake Drake, if that was possible.) But Drake never mentioned it.
After more than three years of sharing a bedroom, Josh had gotten used to Drake randomly saying things in his sleep. It could be cause for hilarity, when the words were along the lines of "pickle," "juggle," and "toothpaste." It could be cause for alarm, when the words were more in the "fuck you!" category. Although Josh had never heard Drake use a stronger word than "damn" while awake, he would occasionally swear up a blue streak in his sleep. And of course, sometimes it was cause for embarrassment, when the words were less words and more moans, with the names of various girls thrown in for good measure. When this happened, Josh usually had to run off his desires, and sometimes take a cold shower or three.
So when Josh woke up at about two one morning, very thirsty and having to pee, he wasn't surprised to hear Drake mumbling unintelligibly. He grinned affectionately, and then made his way to the bathroom.
After drinking two and a half glasses of water and relieving himself, Josh returned to their shared bedroom. He tried very hard not to hear Drake now, as his gibberish mutters had turned into definite moans. Josh did not need to eavesdrop on his brother's x-rated dreams, thank you very much. That would result in another problem not as easily solved as a full bladder, and one that Josh didn't want to examine too closely, now or ever.
He climbed into bed, closed his eyes, and buried his head underneath Mr. Puff Puff. This sort of worked to drown out Drake's moans--until they got louder.
Josh's eyes snapped open. Maybe Drake wasn't dreaming, maybe he was awake and…doing…things to himself. The very idea of Drake doing that, with his hand--okay, Josh had to put an end to this, somehow.
"Drake?" Josh called softly. He didn't want to make things even more awkward, but if Drake was awake, then if he knew that Josh was also awake, he'd at least stop touching--Josh forcibly stopped that train of thought before it left the station.
The moans didn't stop, or decrease in volume. Josh didn't know whether to be relieved or upset that Drake wasn't awake. He settled on uncomfortably relieved. That way, he was pretty sure that Drake wasn't doing that, but he was also the involuntary audience to some sort of kinky fantasy.
Josh, trying harder to ignore the sounds, and the resulting…issue, burrowed back under Mr. Puff Puff, adding another pillow and a blanket to his head. There, now he almost couldn't hear Drake at all.
Or breathe. Breathing, Josh discovered, was extremely difficult when buried under two pillows and a blanket. Josh risked poking his head out for air, just as Drake's moaning turned into a name and a "yeah" that turned back into a long moan.
Josh froze. He must have heard wrong. He must have. Some sort of hopeful hallucination. Maybe Drake had said…
But there were no girl's names that sounded like "Josh." Or even other guy's names.
Josh moaned himself. "What am I supposed to do about this?" he asked out loud. "Wake him up? Ignore it?" Another "Jo-osh" from Drake's bed made Josh shift uncomfortably. "Okay, so ignoring it is out. Should I talk to him about it or just wake him up?" More moaning was his only answer.
Josh jumped out of bed and scaled the ladder to Drake's bed. He shook Drake's shoulder roughly.
Drake batted at Josh's hand, and then sat up. "Josh? What're you doing? What time is it?" He glanced at the clock beside his bed. "Two thirty? Do you have a reason for waking me up?"
"You were…you can't just…moaning," Josh stuttered out, managing to make sentence fragments sound accusatory.
Drake blanched, and then quickly asked, "I didn't say anything, did I?"
Josh blushed. "Um, yeah, kinda…"
"What did I say?" Drake asked, sounding as though he already knew.
"…My name," Josh muttered quickly.
Drake sighed and looked away. "I'm sorry."
Josh hesitated before asking his next question, half-hoping for a yes and half-hoping for a no. "Drake, do you…have feelings for me?" He winced at the dorky phrasing he'd just used.
"Would you hate me if I said yes?" Drake asked in return.
"No. I just--"
"Look, it's not my fault. I tried to not, but I couldn't."
Josh shook his head. "No, it's not your fault. You don't pick and choose who you're attracted to." Boy, wasn't that the truth!
"Right. But I never meant for you to find out, because you're probably all freaked out right? And now things are going to be awkward."
"Things don't have to be awkward," Josh protested.
Drake laughed shortly. "Right. Like it's not going to be awkward knowing I have a thing for you?"
"No more than knowing I have one for you," Josh blurted out, before he could stop and think.
Drake turned his whole body to face Josh. "Are you saying what I think you're saying?" he asked.
"I don't kn--"
Josh didn't get to finish his finish his sentence, because Drake's lips were pressed against his. And then they were moving, and Josh hesitantly started to kiss back, leaning over Drake at an awkward angle. One of Drake's hands tangled in Josh's dark curls, and Josh cautiously placed a hand on his brother's back and oh god, Drake is my brother and I know that and that's why I've never--and why am I still kissing him?
Josh almost shoved Drake away in his hurry to get back.
"Josh?" Drake asked, sounding hurt and confused.
"I--you kissed me!"
"You kissed back!"
"I know! But I shouldn't have, because we're brothers and that's incest and that's why I've never--"
"Stepbrothers," Drake corrected. "There's a difference."
"Not really. Mom and Dad wouldn't see it that way."
Drake rolled his eyes. "Who says Mom and Dad have to know about this?"
Josh bit his lip. "Is there a this for them to know about?"
"I don't know, is there? This has to be something we both want."
"Oh, I want it," Josh answered, sitting on the bed properly instead of leaning on it. "I just don't know…"
"Is this about the incest thing again? Josh, it's only incest if there's a blood relation. If it was Megan sitting here instead of you…ew." Drake shuddered. "Anyway, if it was Megan, then it'd be incest. We? Are not related by blood. No incest. You're smart, you should know that," he added.
Josh thought about it. Drake was right. But he was too; he knew that their parents would see it as incest, and gay incest to boot. But Drake was right again, and they didn't have to know about it…if there was an it.
"Is there an it?" Josh asked, not taking into account the fact that Drake wasn't present in his head and might not know what he was talking about.
"I told you, we have to agree on it," Drake replied.
"Do you want there to be?"
"Obviously."
"Well, so do I…if we can keep it secret from Mom and Dad."
Drake grinned. "Oh, there are a lot of things I keep secret from Mom and Dad."
Josh raised his eyebrows. "Such as…?"
Hastily, Drake said, "Oh, uh, doesn't matter." Then, probably as a diversion tactic, Drake kissed Josh again.
Josh melted into it immediately. He rested his hands on Drake's hips this time, while Drake again went for Josh's hair. Drake ran his tongue over Josh's bottom lip, and, shyly, Josh opened his mouth, allowing Drake entry. Drake slipped his tongue into Josh's mouth, sliding it against Josh's, and then moving to explore. His hands started exploring as well, moving from Josh's hair to under the hem of the T-shirt he was wearing to bed. He swirled his hands over Josh's stomach, feeling the muscles tense under his hands.
"Okay?" he asked, pulling back slightly.
"Tickles," Josh explained, before recapturing Drake's mouth.
Reassured, Drake skated his hands over Josh's stomach and up to his chest, where he traced his thumbs in circles over Josh's nipples. Josh gasped, once again breaking the kiss.
"Okay?" Drake asked again.
"More than," Josh replied. He slipped his hands under Drake's shirt and rubbed his back gently. Rather than continue the kiss, he moved his mouth to Drake's neck, sucking experimentally.
Drake moaned and tilted his head to allow Josh better access, still moving his own hands across Josh's chest. "Don't leave any marks," he managed to say, "unless you want to answer questions from Mom and Dad for me."
Josh abandoned the sucking idea, instead dragging his tongue over the skin of Drake's neck, before moving to his jaw. He contemplated the feel of rough stubble against his tongue, before kissing Drake on the lips gently. "We should stop," he whispered against Drake's mouth.
"Hm? Why?" Drake asked, trying to initiate another deep kiss.
Josh responded with a light peck. "Because…because it's like three in the morning on a school night."
"So? You know I don't care about school." Drake punctuated his sentence with another soft kiss.
"I do," Josh retorted. "And besides, as much as I'd like to continue, I also think I'm not really…ready."
Immediately, Drake drew back. "I'm sorry," he said. "You can set the pace of this thing. You've never done this before, I forgot."
"You have?" Josh questioned.
"Not with a guy," Drake answered, "but yeah."
"So, do you know what you're doing at all?"
"Not really. You?"
"No." The word ended on a yawn.
"You are right, we should get some sleep," Drake said.
Josh nodded around another yawn. "Yeah." He started to get up, but Drake caught his wrist.
"Stay here?" he asked softly.
Josh smiled. "Sure."
Drake shifted over on the bed, and then held up a corner of his blanket. Josh slid in beside him, and then kissed him once more. "Good night Drake."
"Night," Drake replied, before rolling over. Feeling Josh's hesitation, he reached back, grabbed Josh's arm, and draped it over his own torso.
Josh smiled again, then tightened his hold on Drake and kissed the back of his neck.