Title: When Words Become Superfluous
Author: GatorGrrrl
Fandom: Drake & Josh
Pairing: Drake/Josh
Rating: R
Word Count: 3,424
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters. No profit being made, no offense intended.
Spoilers: None.
Notes/Warnings: bad words, boy kissing, implied sex, angst

Summary: "We've had sex seventeen times," he says. "And in all those times, we've never kissed."

A/N: Written for a prompt on LJ. Title taken from this quote from Ingrid Bergman: "A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous."

When Words Become Superfluous

Josh's hand is on Drake's fly, then through it before Drake even makes it two steps into their bedroom and he's able to think damn, Josh is really getting good at this before all thought is erased from his brain at the feel of Josh's fingers on his cock.

Then there are teeth on his neck, on that spot right below his ear, and a flick of tongue behind his earlobe and Drake vaguely remembers that there was something he wanted to talk to Josh about, but for the life of him, he can't remember what it is.

Josh is whispering something into his neck, his breath warm and wet as he presses the words into Drake's skin, and his hand is closing tighter, squeezing, and the twist of his fist just so draws a choked sound from Drake's throat.

"Josh." The name is barely a breath as Drake closes his fingers in Josh's t-shirt and tugs him closer. They've been doing this for weeks now and it hasn't gotten boring yet, much to Drake's surprise, and even if he was the one to make the first move all those weeks ago, Josh has taken to it like insects to a bug zapper.

And okay, that's not a visual he needs right now.

Josh grunts in frustration as he pushes at Drake's jacket, finally taking his hand off Drake's cock to push at the barring piece of clothing with both hands, and Drake grunts in frustration of his own at the loss of contact.

"Come on," Josh says, pulling away, and his eyes are dark and focused and not looking at Drake at all as his hands push Drake's jacket off his shoulders, then curl around the bottom hem of his t-shirt.

Drake watches Josh's face, sees the unblinking concentration in his green eyes and the way his lips are parted around the short, quick breaths he can hear in the air between them and he leans in—he can't help himself—and tries to kiss him. But Josh pulls away, turning the move smoothly into something less insulting as he dives back into Drake's neck, pushing his hands under Drake's shirt as he slides it up.

And suddenly, Drake remembers what it was he wanted to talk to Josh about.

But there's the sweet pressure of Josh's cock against his, the rough scratch of denim scraping along his nerve endings, and it takes him a second to force his neurons to relay the message to his hands to push Josh away.

When he does, Josh just stands there staring back at him, a half-dazed look on his face, his breaths pushing his chest against Drake's hands. His hands are still on Drake's skin and Drake can feel each fingertip like a point of fire and the little devil on his shoulder is telling him to fuck first, ask questions later. Only, there's this one question that's been bothering him for a while now and before they get to the fucking, he really needs to ask it.

"Why don't you want to kiss me?"

Josh's fingers twitch against his back, then withdraw, and Drake waits for him to answer but he doesn't. So he does the only two things he can do: He brings his own trembling and clumsy hands to his fly to carefully zip himself back up and ignores the sudden lump burning in his throat.

Josh still hasn't said anything and he's suddenly too close, all up in Drake's personal space, and Drake slides out from between Josh's body and the door without a second glance, bending to pick up his jacket before stepping off the platform into the room.

He throws his jacket over the arm of the couch, picks up the remote and flips on the TV, and walks away. His phone chimes in his pocket, telling him he has a new text message, and he reaches in and grabs it out of habit, flipping it open to see the name Crystal.

Crystal. Brown hair, hazel eyes, and a very narrow definition of sex. Apparently, orgasms delivered manually don't count as real orgasms. Or so she told him the last time he had her writhing beneath his thumb.

That had been before Josh, though.

He flips his phone closed and tosses it on his desk, toes off his boots, and tries to ignore the itch beneath his skin. It's like nothing he's ever felt before, but it's always there when Josh touches him—the tingle of blood warmed by Josh's hands—and God, that sounds fucking girly but he doesn't care.

"Seventeen," he says and closes his eyes.

The TV's blaring, so Drake feels more than hears the scrape of Josh's feet on the platform. And it's stupid when he thinks about it, but it's almost like whenever Josh moves, he creates waves in the air that Drake can feel against his skin and that's how he can always tell where Josh is without even looking.

"What did you say?"

The seconds stretch between them before Drake turns around, before he walks back over to the TV and flips it off, before the admission on his tongue spills past his lips.

"We've had sex seventeen times," he says, dragging his eyes up to finally look at Josh across the room.

Josh swallows and shifts his weight, a blush painting his throat red.

Drake can still feel Josh's teeth on his skin and brings his hand up to rub at the spot behind his ear. It didn't take Josh long to discover just what happens when the right amount of pressure is applied to that spot and as he drags his fingertips over it, he can feel himself getting hard again. "That's fifteen more times than I've done it with anyone else," he says.

Josh seems genuinely surprised. "Really?" He asks the question like it can't possibly be true, like being with him can't possibly be good enough to earn so many encores.

Drake ignores the question. "Seventeen times," he says again. "And in all those times, we've never kissed."

Josh shifts again and slides his fingers into his pockets. "Drake, I—"

"Why is that, Josh?"

"Drake—"

"I mean, it's usually the first thing you do, you know? Before anything else. Before the rest." He swallows. "But we haven't. And I want to know why."

Josh looks away, turns his profile to Drake and walks over to his bed. He opens his bureau door and disappears behind it and Drake wants to scream in frustration because this? This is all backwards. It's usually Drake who's avoiding and Josh who's pushing, but now everything's flipped and the pieces don't fit and Drake can't deal with that.

He walks across the room and steps up, reaches out and pushes the bureau door closed and stares at the side of Josh's face. There's a hard set to his jaw and a blush of heat beneath his skin that Drake wants to feel against his lips, but he holds back because this is important, damn it, and he hears his next question inside his head two seconds before he asks it.

"Is it me?"

Josh snaps his head to look at him then, his green eyes wide with surprise. "What?"

Drake swallows down the nervousness clawing at the back of his throat and feels stupid for feeling nervous in the first place. He's Drake Parker, for fuck's sake. But this is Josh—Josh—and his opinion matters more than anyone else's in the world. "I—" he begins, then stops. This isn't going well. Things are suddenly awkward and awkward is something Drake has never been good at.

"Drake—"

But Drake presses on, pushing the words out in a rush. "I-I mean, we've done, like, everything else, so I know it's not that you don't like being…close or anything. And it's not like I haven't tried to kiss you, but you always turn away, and I know you think I don't notice, but I do. I do notice. It's just that most of the time, I forget about it because you're touching me and my brain sort of stops working and by the time I think of it again, it doesn't seem to matter." He stops, blinks, takes a breath. Josh shifts his weight and there it is again: the buzzing of his Josh radar. "It's like you're always in a hurry to get it over with," he continues after a moment, his voice softer, and damn it, he's blushing—which is something else only Josh can make him do. "Like the sooner you get off, the sooner you can stop touching me, and I don't know…it just feels like—"

Josh kisses him then and his lips are softer than Drake thought they'd be. There's a hand on the back of his neck and the scratch of stubble against his chin and maybe, just maybe, he makes a little sound in the back of his throat. But it's good, better than he'd imagined, and so what if his fingers snake their way through Josh's hair? That doesn't mean anything except that Josh is right there and they're kissing and there aren't really a whole lot of other things he can do with his hands at the moment and—

Who is he kidding? He loves the feel of Josh's hair against his skin—sliding beneath his palms as Josh swallows him down, tickling his chin as Josh sucks bruises into his collarbone, sticking to the back of his neck as Josh pushes into him.

He opens his lips, feels the edges of Josh's teeth graze his bottom lip, and presses his tongue inside Josh's mouth. The slick slide of it against Josh's draws another sound from his throat and he closes his fingers in Josh's hair, tugging him closer.

But Josh breaks away, pressing his forehead against Drake's as he tries to catch his breath. Drake loosens his grip on Josh and licks his lips, tasting Josh there. He opens his eyes, sees that Josh's are closed, and feels something twist in his belly.

"Josh."

But Josh doesn't answer, just reaches up and wraps his hands around Drake's forearms, pulling his hands away. Then he steps back and drags a hand slowly across his lips, meeting Drake's eyes briefly before turning away. "We can't do this," he says.

Drake isn't hearing this. He's horny and he can't catch his breath and he's not hearing this. "I think we just did," he says and it's not what he wants to say. What he wants to say is, "I love you," only, he's never said that to anyone before and meant it and he's afraid of the words, like they'll burn his tongue or something, like they'll choke him and come out all wrong and Josh will hate him forever.

"No, Drake. I mean…this." Josh gestures between them and grimaces a little, like the idea of this is painful.

"Josh," Drake says, feeling the panic start to settle in. "Josh, listen to me."

But Josh pushes past him, walking away, and Drake's left standing there with a million words crowding behind his eyes and the taste of Josh on his tongue. "What are you afraid of?" he asks.

Josh turns to face him and Drake looks at his lips. He wants them to be kiss-swollen but they're not and he's disappointed. He can fix that if only Josh would let him. "Josh—"

"As long as we didn't kiss, it didn't mean anything," Josh says.

Drake meets Josh's eyes. "What?"

Josh almost smiles. "That's what I told myself," he says, shrugging. "Kissing makes it matter."

Drake wants to laugh because he can't believe this. Here he is, thinking he probably just ruined everything, that he's gonna have to move into the garage because there is no way he can share the same room with Josh now, and Josh tells him that the problem is that kissing makes it matter. Kissing. Not the naked touching or the hickeys in hidden places or the late-night loads of laundry to hide the evidence from Mom.

Relief mingles with the want in his belly, making him feel light-headed, and before Josh can add more bricks to the wall he seems determined to build between them, Drake steps off the platform and walks over to him. Josh's eyes go wide and he opens his mouth, the sound of Drake's name on the tip of his tongue, but Drake simply curls his hand around the back of Josh's neck and kisses him again.

It's sloppy and one-sided, but Drake doesn't stop, just steps into Josh's airspace and presses against him. Josh is hard, he can feel it, and he gives himself a mental high five because at least Josh still wants him. He slips his tongue past Josh's teeth, drags it over the roof of his mouth, and feels Josh relent as fingers dig into his hips and a tiny sound of need vibrates against his lips.

"Come on, Josh," he whispers, taking a step, pushing Josh back towards the couch. "Come on." He pushes again, fingers twisting in his shirt, lips sliding over his, lungs burning with the need for breath.

Josh huffs a breath as his legs hit the couch and Drake pushes him down onto it, then smiles as he climbs on top of him, bracing his knees against Josh's hips. Josh is breathing rapidly through parted lips, his hands resting on Drake's thighs, and when Drake grinds down on Josh's cock, he can feel Josh's fingertips dig in. He slides his fingers into Josh's hair and tilts his head to kiss him as he grinds against Josh again. Josh makes a needy little sound and slides his hands under Drake's shirt, pressing his fingers into the small of Drake's back. There's an urgency in Josh's touch, in the way he tries to lift his hips off the couch to get more friction, but Drake ignores it because this is the first time they've done this and he wants it to last.

Pulling back, he feels the saliva snap between them and runs his tongue over his bottom lip to taste it. Josh is breathing heavily beneath him and his lips are red and shiny and swollen as Drake meets his eyes. "It's not the kissing that makes it matter, Josh," he says softly, pressing his hand against Josh's cheek.

Josh mimics the gesture, tracing Drake's lips with the tip of his thumb. "I know."

Drake smiles, then presses another kiss to Josh's mouth. "Now," he says, "for the fun part."

Josh cracks a half-smile, crooked with desire and uncertainty. "The fun part?"

Drake's smile widens into a grin. "The pre-game warm-up," he says. "Which is something you've been denying me for weeks now." He leans down and draws his tongue across Josh's bottom lip. "But now you're gonna make it up to me."

Josh swallows with effort and leans in for another kiss, but Drake pulls back, out of reach, grinning in self-satisfaction at the frustration on Josh's face. "Not so fast," he says, placing his hands on Josh's shoulders and pressing him back against the couch. "What's your hurry?" Then he leans in, sees Josh open his lips in anticipation, and bypasses Josh's mouth to press his lips to the line of Josh's jaw.

Working his way along the curve of Josh's jaw, he drags his hands down until his fingers find the edge of Josh's t-shirt, then slide beneath it, feeling Josh's muscles jerk beneath his palms. Josh tilts his head back, exposing his neck, and pushes Drake's t-shirt up as Drake licks a stripe to Josh's pulse point. Securing his lips over it, he sucks at it—gently at first, then harder, feeling the rise of blood below the surface—pushing Josh's shirt up over his belly.

Josh's breaths are rapid and short, belly pushing against Drake's hands, Adam's apple bobbing erratically beneath Drake's lips, and he tugs impatiently at Drake's t-shirt, which is caught under his arms. Drake pulls his mouth away from Josh's neck and smiles at the wet and shiny red spot there, marking Josh as his, then meets Josh's eyes and lifts his arms, letting Josh pull his shirt the rest of the way off.

Two seconds later, Josh's t-shirt joins his own on the floor and Drake slips his fingers behind the button on Josh's jeans, pressing the backs of them into Josh's skin. Josh surges forward, digging his own fingers into Drake's hipbones as he seeks Drake's mouth, and Drake lets his lips graze against Josh's before he slides them along Josh's cheek to press them to his ear.

"Relax," he whispers and is rewarded with the hot press of fingertips into his skin. Thumbing open the button below Josh's navel, he tugs at the zipper and slides his hand inside, the hard length of Josh's cock hot against his fingers. Josh jerks his hips, his breath stuttering, and Drake smiles against his temple, tracing a line across Josh's cheek with the tip of his tongue, ending at the corner of Josh's mouth, where he presses a tiny kiss.

Josh opens his lips a little further and the little whimpering sound he makes goes straight to Drake's cock. He slides his mouth fully over Josh's, which is wet and open and needy, and drags the heel of his hand over the length of Josh's erection.

"Fuck." It's more of an impression of the word, pushed into Drake's mouth on a choked breath, and he'd laugh if it wasn't so fucking hot. "Fuck, I—"

"Tell me, Josh," Drake says, drawing his left hand slowly over Josh's ribs, brushing a nipple with the pad of his thumb. "Tell me."

Josh's hands are at his fly again, fingers quick and agile and oh-so-talented as they find their way in, find their way to where they belong, where they'd always be if Drake had his way. "Need…" Josh rasps. "Want…" A thumb slides over the head of Drake's cock, the rough scrape of callused skin on the inside of Josh's knuckle sending a frisson of want through every nerve, making him gasp and grind his hips again.

There's a shift of weight and suddenly Drake finds himself on his back, Josh on top of him, the rough scratch of upholstery against his back. He's felt it before, but it's different this time, the sensation more intense, every touch against his skin like a million tiny jolts of electricity. Then his hands are pushing at Josh's jeans, scrabbling at them. He wants skin on skin, needs it like he'll die if he doesn't get it, and there's a hand digging into his shoulder blade and a delicious friction against his lower body as Josh wiggles out of his jeans.

Drake feels Josh's hand tug at his own jeans and he reaches down to help him along, lifting his hips off the couch to push them down, kicking his legs impatiently until they're off. And finally, there it is: Josh's body, no barriers, pressing him into the couch.

He lets his hands roam over the contours, over the angles and planes he never tires of touching, and draws one knee up, hooking his leg around Josh's, his heel anchored in the space between Josh's knees. They're not really kissing anymore, just sliding their mouths together, breathing each other's air. He opens his eyes and sees Josh there. He's too close to focus properly, but he can make out the dark smudge of Josh's eyelashes and drags his lips away to press a kiss to them.

Josh's breath slides across his cheek and there are fingers on his neck, then in his hair, and he brings his own hand up to curve it along the back of Josh's head.

It's still and it's quiet and it's never been like this before—like they have all the time in the world. Before, there was always an undercurrent of hurry up fueling their movements, a feeling of never enough time. But right now, even with the seconds passing like heartbeats, it feels like time has stopped. Josh is here with him and nothing else matters.

"I love you." The words are little more than breath on Drake's skin and he wants to say 'I said it first' but the fact of it is, he didn't. He couldn't. Josh has always been better at the mushy stuff, anyway.

Besides, saying it second doesn't make it less true.

The End

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