Notes: I said I wouldn't, but I caved and did a Drake PoV. Josh's perspective just wasn't working out for this chapter.
Also, I realize it has been an insanely long time since I have updated, though I promise I will not give up on this story. There should only be about two chapters left, and I want to finish them before January.
And thank you so much, those of you who took your time to review. I really appreciate it. :)
This chapter is dedicated to eumonigy, because she is awesome and not at all cruel to me in any way. At all!
Disclaimer: Clearly I am Dan Schneider, and this entire story is just an afterthought. :3 Or I just lied.
III.
Something told Drake that Josh wasn't really feelin' the Drake Vibe.
Drake had considered--fleetingly, of course--that this was a possibility before he'd though about it realistically: he was Drake.
Being Drake transcended all boundaries regarding race, religion, social standing, and sexual orientation. (Sexual Orientation being the one orientation Drake would actually attend without ending up unconscious in a puddle of his own drool.)
Drake hadn't exactly pursued anyone in the last category, of course, though his mind couldn't quite conjure up a good reason why Josh would work differently from the many girls he'd dated.
For one thing, girls were Drake's specialty, and this was Josh. Josh was already bordering a bit on girly, what with his emotions always resting at their peak and the way he had cucumber melon lotion at the ready for when he had what Josh called a Skin Crisis.
For another, Josh already shelled out the cash for most of Drake's dates, even if he was slightly unaware of his contributions. So Josh'd finally be getting the full-on Drake Experience for his generous donations, and not just in way that would prompt Josh to blurt, "Don't you dare serve me that with those hands, mister! I walked in on you and Polka Dot Panties earlier, and my eyes burned!" when they ran into each other in the kitchen.
They would still be what they had always been; they would still be Drake and Josh. Only things would be colored a bit differently, reshaped, switched up. Sexed up.
If Drake were entirely honest with himself, though, he'd say his plan wasn't going as well as he'd expected. This was demonstrated in the way Josh had grunted his assurance that he couldn't even look at Drake and then got all spasmodic when he did it anyway.
Drake had just thrown himself into Walter's car, taken the wheel, and held on tight.
There was something that made Josh different. It was that he actually made Drake care about how things turned out. There were actually things like feelings and thinking involved, not just grabbing and kissing and "Hey, we're both hot here. You up for some Drake Time?"
The inside of Walter's car was burning up from the heat outside, like the hot, soupy breath of someone he really had no desire of knowing. Josh had taken the passenger seat and tucked his hands firmly under his armpits as he conducted a surly investigation of the now-passing scenery.
Drake immediately stretched an arm over toward the air conditioning knobs, because sweat would really only make the situation worse.
It seemed Josh had gotten the same idea, because as soon as he reached out, he felt his fingers brush Josh's skin. The contact left a hot patch of Drake's hand buzzing, and Josh jerked away as if Drake had shocked him.
There was a moment when they were both entirely still, and his eyes darted between Josh and the black, plastic knobs. He could see Josh doing the same, coldly calculating.
They reached at the same time, hitting and swatting at the others' hands as if it were some poor, unsynchronized choreography they hadn't gotten the hang of in time for the performance.
Drake sucked in a breath then and knocked Josh's hand away hard, going for the knobs on the AC with an exasperated "Dude!"
They pulled up in front of the store almost twenty minutes later.
Walter? Not so good with distance. A few blocks his ass. They'd be closer hopping borders and swimming to Africa or wherever it was the stuff they were after came from.
Drake turned to say this to Josh, his words freezing on his lips and dropping to the ground to shatter like ice. Josh had his arms crossed high over his chest, glaring out the window like someone had just killed his pet turtle in front of him.
Drake turned the key in the ignition, killing the engine. "You comin' in, or am I gonna have to roll down the windows part way so you can stick your nose out and sniff the air?" Drake quipped.
He let the keys jangle over his palm, clinging to the sound like a reprieve.
Josh looked over at him and stared blankly. "Cute," he muttered before turning to look back out the window. "You just go by yourself. I won't be any use anyway."
Drake undid his seatbelt. "Alright man," he said in a teasing, you-don't-know-what-you're-missing tone. "But when will you ever get the chance to see such fine foreign confections all in one place?"
"Don't go acting like everything's peachy between us," Josh spat. "I'm still not–-I don't even know how to deal with you right now or how you can act so-–" He stopped, inhaled heavily. "You know what? Just go. Mom and dad are waiting. Or do you care about anybody but yourself?"
There was a silence and a crack of upholstery as Josh shifted, and Drake stared at Josh like he was incredibly stupid.
"Dude, c'mon," Drake answered.
"Well?"
Drake responded by opening his door.
The sun had set, and a few stars were peeking through the ink-blue like tiny, silver inlays on a new fretboard. After slamming the door, Drake poked his head back into the car, hands clutching the edge of the rolled-down window.
He opened his mouth to speak, though barely a syllable had a chance to flee his tongue before Josh started running his mouth. "Ok, you've got step one complete: gettin' out of the car. Now if you'll get onto step two—"
"Walter gave you the cash, remember?" Drake asked, congratulating himself on effectively shaving off the rough edges--the hurt—in his voice like they were curling tendrils of soap.
Without looking at Drake, Josh reached into his shirt pocket and brought out a stack of bills, folded over and curling lightly at the edges.
"Here's the money. And I don't see why you can't just call him dad, Mr. Cool Guy. Like it would kill you to give him just a little more respect."
Josh really didn't know how to hold his tongue.
Drake grabbed a hold of Josh then, swiping at him like he was going for the money and instead took a firm grasp on his wrist.
"Hey, hands off!" he said, glaring at Drake's hand around his wrist. "In case you haven't noticed, this isn't the best time for you to be getting' grabby, Grabby."
"Because he's not my dad," Drake answered clearly. "I--I don't not love the guy, and he may be the closest thing I've got to an actual dad, but he's yours, Josh." He paused again. "He's your dad. And we're not blood related. Get that through your head so you can stop using it."
Josh looked at him levelly, mouth moving tightly like he were shredding his ensuing words between his teeth.
"Our parents are waiting," Josh replied tersely, jerking his arm out of Drake's grasp and flinging the money onto the driver's seat.
Drake leaned farther in and swiped it up before turning on his heel to make the unfortunate trek to find out just why this specialty market smelled like old salami.
-
It turned out they didn't sell salami at all.
Or at least Drake didn't see any, if that was anything to go by. He did, however, see a few things that would put him off junk food for a month. A week.
OK, he'd be scarfing down a Nutty Ho Ho as soon as he was home.
"So you want all of this?" the woman at the register asked him as she went over the list. Her voice was thick with accent and maybe a little phlegm. Josh had always said languages and accents were the different colored threads in the beautifully diverse quilt of humanity, but Drake thought maybe her part of the quilt wasn't so pretty.
She looked at him shrewdly from behind the counter, her little pinched face framed by hanging nets filled with things red and yellow and green that Drake had never even seen before. There were also hanging vines with dry, crisp leaves so she kind of looked to be staring out from inside a wildly decorated bush.
"Yeah, and if you could possibly hurry it up a bit, I really have to get home with this before-–"
"We do not have any of it but for the oldton seed and pnalton seed extracts."
"I hate those extracts," Drake muttered darkly.
"What?"
"Ah, nothing." The woman was looking at him, eyebrows raised. "Look, do you have anything else? Anything you can substitute or uh, anything already made?" He looked at her with wide, hopeful eyes: women couldn't resist.
She snorted and said something in another language that sounded kind of dirty: that last part made Drake very hopeful.
"This recipe was fashioned for the royalty," she said with disdain. Who spit in her seed extracts? "There is nothing you can merely substitute."
In response, Drake momentarily turned away to give a cough and a roll of his eyes to the tiny, cluttered space. "OK, fussy," Drake dragged out before brushing it off. "Then do you have any of it already made?"
She snorted again.
"Oh come on!" Drake pleaded. "Anything I can just slap some frosting on?"
The woman just looked offended at that.
"Look. I know it's kind of asking a lot, seeing as how you're uh—shredding that big, foreign purple thing—"
"It is an eggplant," she interjected dryly.
An egg—ew.
Drake held a hand up to put a block on her next words and said, quickly as he could: "Yeah, I don't really wanna know about your weird, foreign baby chicken experiments." There was a horrified pause, and then: "It's kind of really important that I get some kind of dessert like, in the next fifteen minutes, though. So if you could point me in the right direction," he said wearily, leaving the last part wide open. She seemed like she'd like that.
"There is a small shop a few blocks from here that sells pre-made confections. Nothing like what you are trying to make." She considered him for a moment.
"Awesome. As long as a few blocks doesn't mean half across San Diego, we're cool. Now where is it?"
She told him. Or started to, but all that passed through Drake then was Josh's voice coming from the front of the store.
"Drake! Drake Drake Drake Drake!"
Drake's stomach dropped as he turned. Josh appeared then, hurdling around a cluttered corner and knocking over a stack of boxes.
The woman verbally scolded them, but Drake couldn't comprehend that. Josh was standing before him, obviously spooked.
Drake had his hands out in a second, straining for that reassuring contact, but it was no use. Josh was flailing. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. What happened?"
"There's this guy outside, ok?" Josh started. "He says the car's parked illegally--illegally--and that if I don't move the car, he's going to have it towed – towed all the way to where we aren't, and there won't be anything we can do about!"
"Ok, relax." Drake said, walking past Josh and toward the front of the store. "I didn't notice I couldn't park there. Did you move it?"
Apparently a bad question. Josh fumed.
"No!" he exploded from behind Drake. Drake could hear his footsteps: hard, sulky stomps accompanied by the water from earlier's disaster squelching in Josh's sneakers. "I mean, you just never think, do you? Look at my eyes, Drake! Just look at them! Does this look like sobriety to you?"
Still walking, Drake turned to Josh, who was pointing to a left eye pinkened enough to rival the warm-looking flush trickling up his neck.
Drake stopped, bringing Josh ramming right into him.
"Ow!" The sound came very close to his ear. Drake steadied him, both hands on Josh's arms tighter than he meant to hold on. But then Drake always held on too tight. He could feel Josh's skin hot beneath his finger tips.
"You can let me go now!" Josh said, shoving Drake lightly. "And thank you helping me deliver a jab to my own eyeball!"
He pushed past Drake in a huff, straightening his shirt and walking freakishly stiff. Drake followed suit through the maze of hanging herbs and stacked boxes, like traveling through some freakish, foreign jungle.
"Josh," Drake yelled seconds later, right into the back of Josh's neck. Drake'd run right into him when he decided to stop in another doorway. Drake tried to squeeze through some imaginary space between, distantly hoping the shopkeeper wasn't watching them.
"Dude!" Drake finally said, throwing his hands up in the air. "If you're going to stand there, we're not going to get to move the car." Josh remained stiff and unmoving as an iron rod. "If you move, I'll give you a foreign biscuit," he said facetiously.
Josh squeaked something that sounded like a rat drowning in a tub. Really, of all things he responds to, it was biscuits? Drake really had to give him a talking-to when--well, when Josh would talk to him again.
"Come again?" Drake asked, his mouth inexplicably dry.
"I said," Josh repeated in an unnaturally contained voice. "We won't be needing to move the car anymore."
"Alright then," Drake said, making his way back into the shop. If the bad man with the tow truck left, he had no reason to complain. "Go back and wait in the car, and I'll be right out. I just have to ask one more – "
That was when he shut his mouth against the words, because it's not easy to talk when your arm is being wrenched from its socket.
"I can't!" Josh said with a cry of great despair. "They already moved the car for us!" With that, Drake was jerked out onto the concrete in front of Josh. He stumbled, but Josh was still holding onto his arm in a vice-like grip.
Drake looked. Drake also widened his eyes in horror and turned back to Josh.
"Oh man, how did that happen?" he pleaded, trying to sort the pieces in his mind. "You didn't even say anything about he tow truck already being there."
He was looking at Josh, pointing to the very empty spot he knew was illuminated by the yellow streetlight. It was burned under his eyelids. He didn't have to look at it again.
"I don't think it was towed." Josh was thrumming, his whole body quivering.
"What do you mean you don't think? What does that mean, Josh?"
"It means, Drake," Josh said and then stopped. Then he exploded. "It means I was sittin'--just sittin' and mindin' my own business, because that's my way: I mind my own business! And--and this guy: suspicious character, that one--he came and was all with the hands, and--and I was bamboozled! Oh, and the keys and the your fault!"
"What hands? Whoa. Slow down," Drake said. Josh was leaning in the doorway, a hand over half his face. It was swollen red and blistered, and it took Drake a moment to remember why. "You mean to say you left the keys in the car while you came inside to get me?"
"Uh huh," Josh said feebly.
"Josh!" he cried, exasperated.
"Oh, no, mister!" Josh said, in an ugly, loud voice. He peeled himself from the doorway, coming out onto the sidewalk. Distantly, Drake saw the door to the store slam shut behind them. "You are not putting the blame on me. You wanna know why I couldn't remember to bring the keys with me? It wasn't because I'm Josh the Spazz." He waved his hands in front of him wildly, making his voice shift into a mocking tone at "Josh the Spazz." "It's because you – yes, I'm poinin' at you, Mister Cool Guy, Mister Selfish – decided to talk me into taking some illegal substance that's got me all befuddled!"
"Hey, you didn't have to do it," Drake said. "It would have been just fine for you to say no."
"Oh, would it?" A pause. "God, that's just like you. You badgered me for weeks, Drake. And for what? I don't even get that part. So – so you could somehow use me as some relief or something from your crazy girl withdrawals? What? You couldn't dazzle me with your charm, oh godking of makin' out?"
And there it was, something only Josh could twist into something torn and ugly, thrown right in front of him. "That's not fair," Drake said. "You have no idea—"
"And I don't wanna know!"
"Fine!" Drake yelled obstinately. "I don't wanna tell you!"
Somewhere in the back of his mind, a voice was telling him to just stop it before everything that was still holding them up crumbled, but all he knew how to do was keep swinging the hammer. When it came to the two of them, he didn't think either of them knew how to stop.
It wasn't like he was in any danger of doing something as disastrous as actually think on it again. The drug situation Josh was so upset about was supposed to have been a simple, straight path, and this was all he got for actually giving it thought.
Because if Drake had genuinely gotten that little nagging—and it was minuscule really; the pygmy version of a nag--of uncertainty about Josh's reaction to Drake's feelings to quit its relentless race along his mind as if the crevices in his brain were its race track, he would not be in the situation his was in now. It was that uncertain thought that had tumbled face-first into Trevor's excited crow of how easy girls were easier when they were stoned that prompted his plan, because seriously, the drug must have had some power to eliminate all thinking for girls to actually be doin' it with Trevor.
And Josh? Well, Josh was always full of thoughts, thoughts that might mess things up for the both of them.
So he figured he'd calm Josh with some grass, confess his not-temporary and entirely manly feelings through an activity of the hot, lip-to-lip variety, and then express that he, Drake Parker, believed Josh could be more than a week.
And then better: that they—him and Josh--could be like extremely hot versions of Bert and Ernie, who were surely hittin' the sack.
But Josh had gone and switched on whatever girl-part he possessed that processed his thoughts to whirl on high so they disobligingly canceled out the weed, and now Drake was pretty sure Josh thought him a sex maniac, mostly by the way Josh had shrieked, Get away from me, Sex Maniac! when they had left the house.
Usually they got into a lot of unusual situations, but this--trying to win back trust when it had been so easy in the beginning and just getting Josh to listen--this wasn't supposed to be a part of it. He told himself he'd never be back there again. But he didn't regret the kiss, and he didn't forget that Josh – just before he turned his mind back on, and even if he wouldn't admit it--had kissed Drake back.
"What're you smiling at?" Josh spat.
"Ah, nothin'," Drake suggested. Josh narrowed his eyes at Drake before he turned on his heel and stalked off. "Now where are you going?"
"I don't want anything to do with this," Josh said matter-of-factly. Drake reached into his back pocket, and that was when he remembered how he'd left his cell phone in their room earlier, how he'd forgotten to grab it after he'd made sure his drawer was as Megan-proofed as possible.
How Josh wouldn't even let them go upstairs to change before they left.
"Hey!" Drake yelled. "Hey! At least let me use your cell phone."
"I can't," Josh screamed. It echoed through the little stone buildings and empty parking lot as he threw his hands up, as if releasing his words into the air. "It's with the suspicious character!"
-
Twenty minutes. That was how long it took to find a payphone that didn't look like it had gotten the worst of a car accident. The foreign woman had locked them out of the store and jabbed the end of a broom through a tiny slot in the front door, threatening to call the police for no reason Drake could understand.
Josh had already gone half a block by then, so Drake ran to catch up and then followed him down a curving few streets sure to get them lost before they came out at a large street with a corner gas station. It was a real classy spot: he could tell by the hobos relieving themselves in the alley and the picket fence across the street that looked like the inside of one of their mouths, missing teeth not excluded.
Josh plopped down onto a concrete parking bumper facing the gas station's worn-looking air compressor as soon as they reached the outer wall of a bathroom and put his head into his hands. The streetlight cast a glow over the tired arch of his back.
"Okay, so now I've only got change for one phone call," Drake said after rummaging in his pockets. He wasn't even going to mention what else he found. "What about you?"
Josh didn't take his head from his hands. "I'm dry, man."
He looked toward the convenience store, taking in the NO CHANGE sign over the glass window.
Like in prison, he supposed one call was going to have to do it for now. At least he had Walter's money to try and buy something if the first attempt didn't work.
The phone receiver was thick with a layer of grease, and there was gum all along the outside of the booth. Drake held his breath as the phone rang; he couldn't have had worse luck.
On the third ring, he was proved wrong.
"Hello?"
"Megan!" he said accusingly. "I thought you were spendin' the night at Janie's."
A sigh. "I was, but then her dad ate a clam and swelled up like a blowfish. They rushed him to the hospital and wouldn't let me stay to watch. Now make whatever it is quick. I'm on the other line."
"Look, Josh and I are stranded somewhere out by that store with the weird, foreign foods."
"The one that smells like old salami?"
"Yeah, that one."
"So get a map. Oh, I forgot. The only map you two have is the one of Boob Land."
"Megan, I'm not playing around. The car's gone, and –"
"You lost another car?"
"No, not lost really. Just kind of taken."
"So…wait," she said, full of dry amusement. He could hear the smirk in her voice. "You mean to tell me that you got the car stolen? Walter's car?"
"Yes, aren't you paying attention? Now get mom."
"Oh, I'm paying attention, and I'll be paying even more attention when you two are getting grounded for the rest of your sad, boobish existences."
"Hey, you just stay out of this, alright? I don't need you makin' things worse for us with all your feigned innocence."
"Ooh, big word."
"Why thank you," he said sincerely. "See, there were these flash–offs, which at first—"
"And agreed."
"Huh?"
"I'll stay out of it. And I'll start by hanging up this phone."
"No. Megan, don't you dare!"
A short laugh. "Too late."
"Megan!" Click.
When Drake replaced the receiver, the only thought that ran through his mind was that he didn't know what he was going to tell Josh, but when Drake settled himself on the curb across from him, he realized he didn't have to.
"Megan?" Josh asked dully.
"Yeah."
"Little demon," he replied in resignation. Silence. "We can call back Collect," Josh suggested quietly.
"No. She's tied up the line."
A long silence coursed through them, the irregular sound of cars flushing down an expressway somewhere nearby the only thing keeping Drake really anchored to the moment. Listening to them then, it wasn't hard to imagine how easy it would be for something to crash.
"Well, c'mon," Drake suggested, more to break the mocking silence. "Maybe we can ask the hobos for change."
Josh just raised an eyebrow and looked back down at the pavement, giving a short, mirthless laugh.
"You wanna ask hobos for money?" he inquired incredulously.
Drake shrugged down at the pavement, which was cracked and mottled with pearly splotches of spilled oil
"I've been thinking," Josh said meekly, as if he didn't want to admit it–-like he didn't think all the time. "And I think I'm going to move into the guest room when we get back."
Drake looked up. Josh's face was pinched in concentration.
"You'd rather share a room with Walter's model train?" he asked incredulously.
Josh looked intently at his blistered hand, eyes heavily hooded. "Would you wanna share a room with you after what you did?"
It was one of those hypochondriac questions, Drake knew. He smirked. "Josh, a lot of people would want to share a room with me after –" he stopped himself at the way Josh looked up and quickly changed direction. "So what, are you done with me again?"
"If you don't mind," Josh said, his voice sounding as if it was gaining a bit of fuel between every word. "I'd rather not talk about being anything with you."
Josh bolted from his spot on the cement bumper, and something resonated with him that seemed uncharacteristically dangerous. After a moment he stopped and looked down at Drake as if he couldn't believe Drake's nerve. Something told Drake he should stay seated where he was.
Drake stood up. "So you're just going to stand there and pretend that you didn't like it then?"
"Dude, don't be disgusting," Josh said with—well, disgust. Frankly, Drake could have gotten much of the same effect by stepping into the path of oncoming traffic, and even then, maybe his ego wouldn't have had to say 'Ow' so many times. Josh stepped back, almost falling over the bumper, and when Drake reached out to grab his arm, Josh wrenched it back. "I can't believe you. You're so…so –"
"Disgusting?" Drake spat, feeling his face boiling. "Spit it out! I don't know why we just can't talk about what happened racially!"
"Rationally!" Josh cried, eyes bulging as he swirled his arms about like a spastic spider. "Rationally, rationally, rat-ion-a-lly!" He punctured every syllable with a little dance he didn't seem to be enjoying. "Get a dictionary, whydontcha? Would it kill ya? And we can't talk about it rationally because you obviously weren't thinking rationally when – when you went and—when you did the thing that you did!"
"Oh, come on," Drake cried out in exasperation. "Just say it!"
"I can't!"
"Why not?"
Josh's mouth moved all out of shape before the subsequent explosion. "Because it's not befitting of a lady!"
Drake threw his hands up and rolled his eyes. "It's not befitting of a lady," he mimicked. "You're not a lady, Josh. Look. What do you think it meant?"
It ought to have been a good question. Josh liked thinking.
"Aw, don't you turn this around on me, Drake Parker," Josh said, thrusting a finger toward Drake like it was a taser gun. "Because this is all you! Don't you know what you meant? Do you ever know why'ya do things, Drake, or do ya just operate on little tics to get your jollies?"
"First of all, I don't even know what that means," Drake said, crossing his arms over his chest. "Second, I'm tired of you not giving me any credit."
"Oh, big statement," Josh snarled. "Maybe I'm tired of you, ok? You just went and changed everything without even considering me! Why can't you just do what you're supposed to?"
He ended it on a pleading note that made Drake's hair stand on end.
"Last I checked," Drake tried to say softly. He wanted to get this right: it was important. So obviously his words came out more like a growl. "Your feelings were that you didn't want to be anything with me."
Josh's face very suddenly changed, prompting the momentary thought that Drake had finally broached that outer layer of Josh's stubborn resolve.
"Exactly," Josh agreed vehemently. "Exactly! So nothing. From now on! It meant nothing!" Josh said in one violent burst.
Drake very suddenly felt the back of his head collide painfully into the brick wall, bruises blooming darkly before his eyes, so for a moment, he thought Josh was going to punch him. That is, before he felt Josh's lips knock into his. It was the worst and most painful kiss—if it could qualify for that—anyone had given him, exacerbated by the way Josh's hand curled around Drakes forearm like a vice. Josh's injured hand was crushed between them, and before Drake could move against the pain in his head, he tasted blood and Josh was shoving away from him.
"See?" Josh panted, stepping back as if to admire his work. His irises were washed out by tides of black, even under the light. "Nothing!"
It was a hell of a lot of nothing then.
Drake was very still, propped against the wall like a broken doll with his only point of motion being his heaving chest. Josh once again ended up sitting on the cement parking bumper in a motion more resembling a fall.
Drake watched him warily, catching his breath.
"So," Drake asked, touching the new split on his lip with the tip of his tongue. "Wanna tell me what that was about?"
All Josh offered was a slight twitch of the hand that was pressed tightly over his mouth. Drake pushed off the wall, the back of his head throbbing lightly, and walked over toward Josh as if he were approaching a wild animal. Josh didn't move, and so Drake sat across from him on the curb once more and couldn't believe he once thought this could be easy.
It was quiet. Everyone thought Drake liked those heated, riotous moments best, but it was really these moments with Josh that made him think he was home.
He could have stayed there, in that one moment suspended, despite all the hurdling disaster. It was almost like the second before a bomb hits: a small peace in something horribly messed up, but it was still, and it was theirs.
Once they got back to their room that night, those moments might not be theirs anymore. They might be his moments and Josh's moments. Separate. Maybe he'd actually screwed up that much.
Josh's breathing was evening out, and the buzzing yellow light nearby cast shadows that tucked themselves into the soft lines of his face, so Drake had to press a smile to his palm.
Josh was pretty.
"Have you heard that one story?" Drake was surprised to hear himself say. "The one about the ant and the grasshopper?"
Josh was looking curiously at him now, an eyebrow cocked in so much incredulity it looked like it was about to shoot off his forehead. "I'd rather not talk about ants anymore, if you please."
"Seriously, man. My mom used to tell it to me all the time."
"She would," Josh said, though he seemed to be veiling a certain level of amusement.
"Just listen, dude," Drake said, and Josh acknowledged this by folding his arms across his knees. "Ok, so there's this ant, right? He's always runnin' around like crazy, savin' away–-dirt and stuff or whatever ants eat in the wild-–just so he can survive the winter. Then there's the grasshopper who spends all his time playing the guitar."
"Fiddle," Josh interjected sternly.
"What?"
"The grasshopper doesn't play a guitar, Drake," Josh corrected. He'd always been so picky. "He plays a fiddle."
"Like it matters," Drake muttered, waving a hand airily. "Ok, so the grasshopper plays his fiddle all day long, until finally winter comes, and he's just about screwed, right? There're no dirt left for him to eat. But then that same ant comes along and decides the grasshopper's fiddle playing isn't so bad. He kind of likes having someone hot and awesome and who can play the guitar around to keep him company. So the ant makes him an offer. He'll share his dirt with him if the grasshopper plays for him and keeps him company. The grasshopper accepts, and they live happily ever after."
There was long silence as Josh just stared at him.
"Are you done now?" Josh asked.
Drake was pleased with himself. Let Josh poke holes in that. "Yeah."
"Ok, so first off," Josh said sarcastically. "The ant never asks the grasshopper to visit the anthill and play Stairway to Heaven for him."
"I didn't say—"
"Sh! Listen," Josh said roughly, looking as if he was barely grasping his patience. "Just, for once, listen." A beat. "The grasshopper? He starves and freezes to death because he was out havin' a good time while the ant slaved just so he could stay alive. Hard work pays off, Drake. The Ant and the Grasshopper is a fable against idleness."
"Nuh-uh," Drake said sternly. He knew he had this one right; his mom used to tell him all the time. "That's not the way I heard it."
"Well, tough cucumbers, because that's how it happened!" Josh insisted.
They both silently fumed in each others' general directions.
"Ok," Josh said, and for a moment it sounded like he would relent. "So say it did happen that way. The grasshopper only stayed with the ant because he was starving and had no place to go!"
"Now that's stupid," Drake argued.
"Oh, really?"
"Really," Drake fumed back. "That grasshopper had tons of other offers, ok? Offers from other ants. Even some squirrels. The point is that the grasshopper could have had anyone he wanted, but he chose to stay with that twitchy, stubborn ant!"
"That's beautiful."
It was exactly what Drake wanted to hear. Unfortunately, the sound had resonated from behind him, and Drake wheeled around to see a hobo about the size of a refrigerator leaning against the wall behind him.
"I'm sorry, I just," the hobo fumbled, plucking at the striped sleeve of his filthy shirt. When he looked up, his eyes were wide and hopeful and fixed on Drake. "Would you like to dance?"
"Uh--I--" Drake replied as he stood, stepping back in time with every opportunity his voice took to stumble over itself. "I'm gonna have to go with--"
He hit a fleshy sort of wall then and immediately relaxed under the touch.
"Back away slowly," Josh instructed close to his ear, and they moved backwards together, easily avoiding tripping over the cement bumper. "Okay," Josh continued slowly. "Now back away much faster."
They turned and ran.
They didn't stop until they emerged from a street to reach the glowing bustle of the expressway. There was a woman at the corner, leaning up against the street sign.
"Amazon," Drake panted, pointing in her direction. He felt a sharp pitch of pain in the back of his head and used the hand to massage the spot instead.
"Look," Josh replied, sounding ruffled. He was still bent and heaving. "I know you're probably trying to make a point about where you stand with the womenfolk right now, but this is not the time to be sayin' things about the locals!"
"No, dude," Drake said in exasperation, gesturing to the sign. "The street name. Amazon."
Josh stood slowly and looked up. "So you can read," he commented dryly.
"Whatever. Look, I passed through here the time Trevor and I—" Drake stopped. It was probably better not to get into what he and Trevor were up to. "Dude," Drake said instead. "I know where we are."
Thanks for reading!
