Title: Playing By The Rules (Chapter 3/3)
Author: justinebeckoning
Pairing: Drake/Josh
Rating: a strong PG/mild PG-13
Disclaimer: I am not Dan Schneider and therefore do not own anything. However, if Dan Schneider wants some slashy ideas for the Christmas movie, that's fine by me…
Author's Note: Well, more than a month after I said I'd have the last chapter up, it's finally done (and I met my goal of two fic postings in a week!). I've put this off for a while and finally decided to get this out of the way today. I'm not tremendously happy with it... as has become par for the course with this story, it seems, I've been doing the self-doubting/rewriting/self-doubting/rewriting thing ad nauseum. But I'm just ready to move on from this, I think, so I'm going for broke. It's far from perfect, but it's completed, and that's kind of all that matters right now.

Josh's car was the only one in the driveway when Drake arrived home Tuesday evening. Great, he thought, thumping his head against the steering wheel. He'd hoped Josh wouldn't be home from his shift at the Premiere yet. Drake had been pretty successful at avoiding him ever since the morning of the… well, the problem, and tonight had already been bad enough without all that staring him in the face all night long.

And boy, was it a problem. Between panicking about his own mixed-up feelings, and the fact he was sure his brother thought he was some kind of pervert for doing, well, that,to him, he couldn't even pay attention to the awful week he'd been having. There was the fight with his band, partly because he'd blown off practice Sunday afternoon (in his defense, pulling the covers over his head and moping had sounded like a good excuse), and partly because he'd lost them an important gig when he'd forgotten to call the club to confirm. The guys just didn't understand that he had way more important things on his mind right now than stupid snippy club managers, although there was no way in hell he was explaining to them what those things were. Then he'd gotten his report card in the mail, which told him with a big red F that he'd be repeating geometry again next semester. And on top of it all, tonight had been way more humiliating than he'd even thought was possible. He swatted angrily at the cowlick sticking up from the middle of his head, which had come back this morning from the depths of his second grade nightmares, but all that did was make his head sore and his mood worse. For the second time in his life, Drake Parker was a jittery, thoroughly uncool mess all because of Josh Nichols, and he didn't even care.

Drake made it up to their room and headed straight for the refrigerator. Josh didn't move from his spot on the couch. "Hey," Josh said, then turned his attention back to the rerun of the Blaine Darvey special he was watching. Drake braced himself for another night of forced conversation as he rummaged through the cans and bottles in his search for the two-liter he was seeking.

"Dude, where's the Mountain Fizz?" he asked, noticing afterward how irritated he sounded.

"Finished it yesterday. I told Mom to pick up some more on her way home from Megan's oboe recital." Great, he was stuck with Diet Mocha Cola.

Normally, Drake would've plopped himself down on the couch sideways and thrown his legs over top of his brother's lap, settling in for the evening. As bad as he needed it right now, he knew that wasn't going to happen any time soon. The two of them falling asleep on the couch together would just give him more to freak out about, anyway, which he did not need. He tried to focus on something else, anything, just to keep his mind from exploding as a result of the places that thought could go.

"Is that the one where they buried him in quicksand?" Well, that was better than nothing, he supposed. He nodded toward the television, hovering halfway between the refrigerator and the couch.

"Nope." Josh turned around, his face not really meeting Drake's. "It's the one where he goes down into the erupting volcano and grills hamburgers on the lava." Drake carefully sat on the arm of the couch, leaving as much distance between him and Josh as possible without falling off.

"You're home early."

"Yeah, so are you." Josh smiled a little, a real smile, and for a moment everything was the way it was supposed to be again. Drake wanted so badly to scoot over and collapse into a "hug me, brotha" that would make everything better, and he almost believed it could.

"How was your date with Jessica?" Way to end the moment. Drake made a face. "That bad? What happened?" Josh was still acting funny, but at least he didn't seem disgusted, just… nervous? Or maybe it was just him that was nervous. He'd stopped being able to tell the difference about two days ago.

"Worse," Drake grumbled. Of course. Now Josh finally wanted to talk. He would have happily taken the three days of Josh mumbling any excuse he could to stay out of their room over this. But no, now Josh was looking at him like he actually wanted Drake to answer. He wondered if Josh would believe him if he said she got into a laughing fit and snorted so hard that her nose burst into pieces in front of the whole restaurant. That would be better, and less horrifying, than what had actually happened.

"She dumped me," he said.

"What?" Oh, Josh just had to look so amused by it, didn't he? Great. This couldn't get any worse, could it? "She dumped you? Why would she do that?" Well, hello, worse. Drake swallowed the knot in his throat and decided to just go for it.

"…shesdIwsbadksr." Or maybe not, since his mouth had made the decision for him to stop forming words correctly. Josh could try to figure that one out for himself.

"Dude, are you okay?" Josh reached over and put a hand on his shoulder, and just the little bit of physical contact was enough to make Drake snap.

"No!" He shot up off the couch. "I said, she told me I was a bad kisser." Luckily, he was facing away from Josh in the midst of his pacing fit, so he didn't have to know if he was about to start laughing hysterically, or was just horrified that Drake had actually said the word "kiss." Since it was the only distraction he had from the sick feeling that the word left in his own stomach, he continued his yelling. "She said I didn't put enough 'feeling' into it or something." So maybe she had a point there—after all, he hadn't really been concentrating on kissing her, but Josh didn't need to know that. "I know she's a total nutcase and everything, but there is no way someone could be that crazy. I mean, come on. I'm an expert at kissing girls." He stressed that last word to emphasize its importance. "I'm Drake Parker. I'm the best kisser at Belleview High School."

"Uh-huh," Josh muttered, with the tiniest bit of sarcasm. "And probably among the top ten in the greater San Diego area."

Drake whirled around from his place near the window. "What?"

Oh, no. Josh did not just say that. There was absolutely no way that he had just said that.

"B-but you were asleep! How—you were snoring and talking about Oprah and everything! That's not fair—what the—" Then Drake's full-blown panic mode started to kick in as he remembered all the other things he'd said that night. "Wait, how much did you hear?"

Josh stared at him like he'd just rattled off a whole novel in the Martian gobbledygook talk they'd used when they'd pretended to be aliens to scare Megan. "What?"

Well. This was really, really bad.

He spiraled into damage control immediately. "Wh-what? Did I say you were asleep? I meant I was asleep. I mean, if you heard anything, which you didn't, that was just me talkin' in my sleep like I always do. Yeah, probably having some crazy dream—" This was going nowhere real fast. "I mean, no way, I wasn't dreaming about—"

"Drake? Seriously, what's up with you?" Josh stood and moved toward him. "You've been acting strange all week." He paused, and his voice became quiet. "This is about that mistletoe thing at the party, isn't it?"

"No!" Drake could feel his cheeks bursting with heat. "Of-of course not. I don't even—"

"Look, if it was that disgusting, you could've just come out and said it, okay?" Josh's whole body seemed to shrink in a little. "I mean, I suppose I'm not up to your usual kissing standards and all, but I'm sorry if it was so revolting that—"

That sent Drake's brain right over the edge. What was going on? He wasn't even sure anymore. One minute Josh was messing with his mind about the other night, the next he was all insulted that Drake would think he was a horrible kisser. Did Josh seriously think that was why he was so upset? No, his mind screamed. No, you weren't a horrible kisser, you doofus. In fact, you were an awesome kisser. Happy? You went and infected me with your… incredibly-good-kisser germs, or something, and now I can't go five minutes without thinking about it. There is no way I should be thinking about how that was probably the best kiss of my entire life, which is just ridiculous, because it didn't mean anything at all. No, sir. No way.

Except all it took was one look at Josh's reaction to realize that it apparently wasn't just his mind that had been screaming.

A little part of Drake wondered if there was any way he could walk out their bedroom door right now, come back up the stairs, and convince Josh that the last ten minutes was a crazy dream brought on by eating an extreme amount of churros. Maybe his stepbrother would be too distracted by the mention of the fried pastries that he wouldn't notice Drake curling up in a hole and dying.

An unidentifiable expression crossed Josh's face briefly, but then he relaxed. "Okay." He shrugged. "Well, it's good to know I'm better in that area than I thought, I guess." He turned from Drake and moved to leave.

Drake bounded toward the door to block Josh's exit, tripping over his own feet several times in the process, and screeched to a clumsy stop, holding onto the door frame for support. He'd just discovered about six new levels of confusion that he hadn't been aware existed until a few moments ago. "Wh-where are you going?" His words were gravelly and drained, and they burned on the way out.

Josh just kept on in the same infuriatingly calm voice. "Take a shower, I guess," he replied. "You should probably get ready for bed, too."

Josh attempted to take a step forward, but Drake grabbed his arm. "Wait. So you're not mad, or disgusted, or anything?"

He shrugged again. "Nope. Why would I be? You yourself said it didn't mean anything. So I guess we should forget all about it, huh?"

Drake wasn't as thrilled with that answer as he should have been. "That's all?" he asked.

Josh nodded, then thought for a second. "Well, one more thing. If you're going to make a rule, you know, you really should try to follow it yourself." Seeing that Drake was completely baffled, Josh cocked his head upward. Drake followed his motion and came face-to-face with the small patch of pointy leaves and berries dangling above them.

"You jerk!" he blurted, once he overcame his initial shock. He slapped Josh's arm, hard, and gave him his best angry look. He should've been furious, and he still wasn't quite sure of everything that was happening, but he felt the same tentative smile that Josh was wearing creep over his face. So what if this was some sick joke on Josh's part? He was just relieved that they could at least joke about it. "You were awake the whole time, weren't you? Jerk!"

"Dude. I might be a heavy sleeper, but I'm not deaf." Josh grinned sheepishly, and Drake slapped him a few more times for good measure.

Josh held up his hands in defense. "Ow! Quit it!" He laughed a little, an unsure sort of laugh, and before he knew it, Drake was laughing too.

"Nope. You deserve it," Drake said, chuckling in spite of the fact a small part of him was still pretty horrified. "Although I have to admit, I'm pretty impressed. I didn't think you had it in you to be that evil."

Josh looked adorably proud of his scheming ways. "Four years of living under the same roof as Megan is finally starting to rub off on me, I guess."

Drake ran a hand through his hair and laughed. "You have no idea how crazy I've been going these past couple of days."

"Me too, brotha," Josh said. "Me too." His eyes dropped to his shoes. "And I probably still would be if you wouldn't have made it so easy. I mean, it took me three whole days to get up the nerve to do anything about it, even after I knew you… felt the same way."

Drake's eyebrow shot up. Okay, he was definitely imagining things now. Really good things, so he wasn't complaining, but still.

"You mean…" He gestured to Josh, then up above them. "This isn't just you getting back at me for being a jerk at the party?"

Josh stared at him like he'd lost his mind. "Dude. I'm not that evil."

"Then you mean you…" He trailed off. He didn't know whether to be ridiculously happy or ridiculously nauseous, although the first option was quickly winning out as he watched his stepbrother chew on his lower lip and slowly nod his head. "Whoa." He felt dizzy, in a way that wasn't entirely unpleasant at all. "But… when did you…"

"I don't know." Josh shrugged thoughtfully. "I guess there wasn't really one point where I figured it out. I didn't have to—I guess I've always kind of known. I mean, even with Mindy, it wasn't really the same. We were always… us." Drake shook his head. Leave it to Josh to have something like this all figured out way ahead of him. But he was right. It shouldn't have surprised him. They'd never really acted the way normal stepsiblings were supposed to—because they weren't. They were them.

"So… are we gonna do this or not?"

Looking at Josh staring at him, waiting, he felt something entirely new in the pit of his stomach. It was anticipation, sure, but combined with something else… lack of confidence? Man, this was ridiculous. Was this what the rest of the world felt before kissing somebody?

"Hey. I'm nervous, too." Shoot, Josh knew him too well. "But it's not like we haven't done this before, right?" They exchanged smiles, and in the moment before Josh leaned in toward him, he didn't think he'd ever been so nervous, or so ready, for something in his whole life.

And this time, when Drake pressed his lips against Josh's, he didn't feel like running anywhere. He just wrapped his arms around Josh and held on tight.