Title: Gone
Pairing: D/J
Summary: A drunken night changes Drake and Josh's relationship forever.
Disclaimer: This is an unauthorized work of fiction. Drake & Josh is owned by Nickelodeon.
Chapter 12: Weird Englebert
At the point where Josh gives up the notion of a good night sleep, he finally dozes off. He dreams he is in a river, but he does not try to swim or float, instead he lets the current carry him under like a rock. He opens his eyes and mouth and lets the water fill him up, then he wakes up thickly, partly still attached to the dream. He stares up to find Brutus standing above him cross-armed, simply watching him. For a moment Josh thinks he is the river's Grim Reaper and he bolts upright so quickly that he stumbles off the couch. He lies stunned on the floor and blinks up at Brutus, who appears so tall that he feels like he is lying beneath a giant redwood tree.
Brutus reaches down and pulls him up effortlessly. "Get up boy, it's late. Did you have a bad dream?" he asks.
Josh feels an odd urge to run to the front door then bolt for his life. Brutus is standing so close that Josh notices a pale sickle-shaped scar intersecting his eyebrow, and smells sweat and leather and just the faintest edge of aftershave. "Um, yes, I think so--yeah bad." Josh sputters.
Brutus grins and points his thumb to his left. "There is a shower you are free to use."
"T-thanks."
Brutus steps back to let him pass. Josh picks up his clothes and looks around the room. In the daylight he can see the room better: there are no lived-in touches, no pictures, no decorations. He can't picture the person who owns the apartment. He walks toward the bathroom then glances back once to see if Brutus is following him, but he is still standing, now looking down at the empty couch. Inside the bathroom he considers locking the door but the latch is old and probably noisy and he didn't want to offend Brutus. His politeness, he knew his stepbrother always felt, would his downfall.
He likes Brutus but danger seems to lurk close behind him, and he could not tell if his feelings were fatherly, sinisterly or something else. But without him where would he had slept last night? And later, when they parted, what if he didn't get work, or go to school, or figure out what to do? He did not know another person in the area and his ineptness could lead him to a quick fall. In a few months he could be like the homeless he saw last night: bearded and stinking, wearing five coats while pushing a shopping cart down the streets haranguing people about the government putting a spy microchip in his brain. He can't help but wonder what Drake would think of Brutus. But who is he kidding? Drake hated every one of his friends, even the nice normal non-felon ones. Yet Drake was always better at reading people's intentions, he had a natural street-smartness to him. He begins to desperately wish for his stepbrother's presence but quickly pushes the thought away before his throat tightens. He is only able to function with the help of some kind of flat rock that has lodged itself in his chest and blocks him from thinking anymore deeply about what had happened, what is happening, to him.
He steadies his breathing and looks up at the plaster peeling away from the light fixture mounted in the center of the ceiling. The fixture appears to have been the place where bugs of every kind once hung out before dying in mass together. At least the shower trickles warm water on his tired body; he cups the water in his hands and he is just starting to relax when there's the creak of a door. The dark mass of Brutus appears on the other side of the frosted glass doors of the bath, like immortal figure in a fog. The hot water is already starting to run out but he doesn't move, he waits.
"I don't think you should go to Berkeley," the now familiar rough voice of Brutus vibrates through the glass. "I have a place in Truckee you can stay indefinitely, beautiful, secluded, doesn't even have cell reception--good place to heal. "
"What makes you think I need healing?"
Brutus breathes out a chuckle. "Whoever hurt you, will likely hurt you again--at least that has been my experience. In Truckee we'll drink hard and just look out at more stars you'll ever see around here. I'll help you forget whoever soon enough."
Josh is unsure, but physically unable to tell someone so much older than him definitely no, if only because his parents had trained him too well. "OK, maybe -- but after Berkeley. I really need to go there."
"Fair enough." Though he sounds a little exasperated.
Josh sees an arm rise from the muted mass, Brutus is holding up an object. "I got your cell phone number. I'll keep in touch. Two days."
--
Oh how the mighty have fallen, I say to myself when the salesman shows me the car mom rented for me. I have a beautiful babe-magnet 1968 Camaro SS sitting on the driveway back home, an awesome machine that has brought me hours of pleasure flying me through the coastal highway. And now I'm reduced to driving a geeking Prius through endless miles of blacktop between godforsaken cow patty fields.
My forehead is puffy and blue one day after the accident and I can not help but poke at it, each time causing me a jolt of pain. I am so angry at Josh for putting me in this situation, in pain and in a Prius. For a moment I think "let him try to live without me, let him try to live in the streets being such a big wus". Then I flip open Walter's phone and see that Josh has turned on his cell--and he is in Oakland. Oakland! I grin slowly. It all makes sense, I know exactly where he is heading. The bugger isn't getting away from me.
The Prius has a fun little camera in the back so I can drive backwards all around the parking lot and out into the main road while looking forward at a cute little screen. Back on the freeway I am still smiling, and thinking how Josh always said I only drive at two speeds, dangerously fast and really dangerously fast.
