TITLE: The Quality of Darkness
SPOILERS: Anything from the series is fair game.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Drake & Josh. All are owned by Dan Schneider, et al. I am not profiting in any way except creatively.

A/N 1: I'm on a roll! Three chapters in three days! I don't know if I can keep up this pace, but having a long weekend has helped.

A/N 2: In case you haven't noticed, I HATE the book The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

A/N 3: This is for space raider - there are a few words in the fourth paragraph that you may recognize. Think "Hallelujah." I couldn't resist; it's been in my head all day.

Chapter 16: Downfall

When Drake was six years old, he used to have nightmares that someone would snatch him from his bed while he was sleeping and take him away from his family. He didn't understand them and whenever he woke up screaming, he could never put a voice to them. He would just curl against his mom's soothing warmth, hiding in her embrace, and close his eyes until his breathing calmed and the fear that had gripped him dissipated.

When he was eight years old, he played Ben Franklin in a school play about the Founding Fathers. He wore tiny wire spectacles and shiny black shoes with big silver buckles and a pillow under his costume. The wig made his head itch. He was shorter than the other kids – even the girls – and they used to call him "Pee Wee Parker". But he'd show them all. He had two lines to say: "A penny saved is a penny earned" and "Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise." He practiced them day and night, everywhere he went, until his mother gently told him to "practice inside his head." On the night of the play, he was ready, knew the lines back to front. He scratched under his wig one last time, pushed up his spectacles, and took a deep breath before the curtain went up…and then nearly fainted when he saw the auditorium full of grown-ups staring back at him. When it was his turn to speak, he froze, then managed to muddle through with a hybrid version of his lines: "A penny that is early to rise makes a healthy man wealthy." He heard muffled laughter behind him from his classmates and then was mortified to feel his big-buckled shoes squish as he turned to walk back to his spot. He ran off stage, tears of embarrassment streaking down his freckled face, and hid in the boys' bathroom until his mom came in and got him. For months after that, he had a new nickname: "Pee Pee Parker."

When he was ten, he used to pretend that old Mr. Kirby's gardening shed was a secret fortress. He would sneak inside and close the door behind him and imagine that he was safe from all his enemies, real and imagined. He would sit on the rough wooden workbench, his feet dangling inches from the floor, and listen to the quiet. He liked the smell – the earthy scent of potting soil mixed with the sharp aroma of fertilizer. He also liked the shape of the tools – spades and rakes and pruning shears that could slice right through skin (and did once). There were baby plants in tiny pots along one wall and an old lawnmower in the back corner. There were shovels of various sizes and big gloves with tiny rubber nubs on the palms that went nearly to Drake's elbows when he slipped his hands inside. There was a pair of rubber boots that he could slip his feet into, shoes and all, that reached beyond his knees and stacks of empty plastic pots piled precariously on the floor. It was his place, a place where he could hide away and sort through the things that scared or confused him. Mr. Kirby had caught him there once. But instead of being mad, he simply gave Drake a warm smile and said, "Mind the tools, son" before closing the door behind him. But then Mr. Kirby died and another family moved into the house and they tore down the shed and Drake had to find another place to hide.

He found it when he was twelve years old in the form of an old guitar he begged his mother to buy him from a yard sale. When he played it, he didn't have to think about all the stuff that bothered him. He could just close his eyes and drift away on minor falls and major lifts, on chords and modulations. Anger dissolved and fear dispersed with each note that drifted from the strings beneath his fingers. Lyrics made manifest his pain and confusion, turned them into tangible things that could be molded into something beautiful and innocuous, something that couldn't hurt him anymore. Music was the salve that healed all of his wounds.

That is until Drake was seventeen and even music wasn't enough to shield him. That was the year he ran out of places to hide.

"You proofed this yourself," Drake muttered between his teeth. "Before I even turned it in." His essay on the Cuban Missile Crisis was bunched in his fist and he was holding it out in front of him like a sword. "You said it was good."

"It is," Mr. Bradford replied evenly.

"Then why –" Drake asked, then stopped, pressing his lips together in a thin line. He already knew the answer.

It was Monday morning, the first day back after a weekend spent trying to pretend that Friday night had been nothing but a bad dream. There hadn't been any text messages and Drake had nearly convinced himself that he really had imagined the whole thing. Except that when he walked into class that morning and felt Mr. Bradford's eyes on him, heard the irritating note of nonchalance in the way he said, "Good morning, Mr. Parker," Drake knew he had just been kidding himself.

And when the teacher had slipped his graded essay beneath a gaze that Drake had made a concerted effort not to lift and he saw the oversized "D" with the note "See me" written below it in red ink, he knew the nightmare wasn't over.

Drake glared at the teacher, who looked back at him impassively through calm blue eyes. The classroom was empty – third period was Mr. Bradford's planning period – and Drake could hear the sounds of locker doors slamming and mingling conversations drifting in from the hallway. He stood several feet from Mr. Bradford, who was standing by his desk, and suddenly wished he was closer to the door. "Look, I already told you. I'm not gonna tell anyone." He kept his voice low as his eyes flitted to the hallway and back.

There was a long pause before Mr. Bradford said, "I know you won't." He walked to the classroom door and closed it with a soft click.

Drake felt his heart thud against his chest. Mr. Bradford turned to face him. "I want to apologize for my actions on Friday night. I didn't mean to frighten you."

"It's alright," Drake muttered, his eyes peering through the small pane of glass on the door, then back to Mr. Bradford's eyes. "No harm done."

"It was just supposed to be a game," the man continued softly.

"A game." Drake's mouth was dry and he tried to swallow. If it was a game, he wished he knew the rules.

"That's all." Mr. Bradford smiled. "A little bit of fun."

Drake just stared. Well, it wasn't fun anymore.

"I let it go too far." He paused. "And I'm sorry."

"Yeah," Drake said. "You've said that." But the look in Mr. Bradford's eyes at his words made him take a step back.

"So I have," Mr. Bradford snapped, and Drake could see the other side of the man peering out at him through those sharp blue eyes. "But I believe it bears repeating." He took a step closer to Drake, then stopped. "I'm being sincere."

"I know you are," Drake said, cursing the fear in his voice. "I didn't mean to imply that you weren't."

Mr. Bradford seemed to consider this, then shrugged. "I'm sorry about your essay, too," he replied. "But I needed a little insurance."

Drake laughed then, a harsh sound that tore from his throat before he could stop it. "It's just an essay, Mr. Bradford," he said, waving the crumpled paper between them. "That's not much insurance." The words burst from his mouth like compressed air, drawn from a well of courage deep inside. But as soon as they left his mouth, he felt the bottom drop out, and his insides turned to liquid.

A cold smile curved Mr. Bradford's lips. "Progress reports come out next week, Mr. Parker."

"You…" Drake whispered. "You wouldn't."

The man chuckled. "I'd hate to see you fail my class," he said. "Especially after you've worked so hard."

"You can't do that." He could feel his pulse throbbing in his neck. "I need this class to graduate." He could barely hear his own words over the noise in his head.

Mr. Bradford's gaze didn't stray from Drake's. "So you do," he finally said. He reached for the doorknob with his right hand, pulling it open as he stepped aside.

Drake had to will his feet to move and the few steps to the door felt like miles. When he finally reached it, he felt Mr. Bradford's fingers wrap firmly around his upper arm and he had to stifle a shiver – he remembered that touch. He didn't turn to face him, just stared out into the empty hallway and wished he was anywhere else.

"Perhaps we can come to a compromise," the teacher whispered, and Drake closed his eyes against the words.

Mr. Bradford squeezed Drake's arm before letting him go and Drake stepped quickly into the hallway.

"Mr. Parker, your pass," he heard the man say behind him, his voice as light as if nothing at all had just transpired.

But Drake just ignored him, kept walking, and ran right into Mr. Sanderson, who was coming out of the boys' restroom in search of stragglers.

"Drake Parker," the assistant principal said, appraising the young man in front of him. "You are aware that the late bell has rung, are you not?"

"Yes, sir," Drake muttered, not meeting the man's eyes.

The man frowned. "I'm afraid this is your third infraction this month. Do you know what that means?"

"Yes, sir," Drake replied meekly, unable to conjure up one of his witty comebacks.

Mr. Sanderson reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a tear-pad of detention slips. He scribbled quickly on it, then handed the top sheet to Drake, leaving the yellow carbon copy on the pad. "I'm sure Mrs. Almeida will be pleased to see you again," he said, smiling slightly. "Now get to class."

"Yes, sir," Drake muttered, walking heavily to Mr. Johnson's Algebra class.

Mrs. Almeida looked up from the stack of papers in front of her when Drake shuffled through the door after school. Doing her best to suppress a smile, she said, "Ah, Drake. So nice to see you. It's been a while."

Drake willed himself to smile. "Hi, Mrs. Almeida," he mumbled, fishing the crumpled detention slip out of his pocket and handing it to her. She was one of the few teachers that Drake actually liked. He had had her for Pre-Algebra last year. She was nice and she liked him, always smiling and joshing him good-naturedly. He had gotten to know her mainly through his time spent in detention; sometimes he was the only one in it. They would chat about all kinds of things; that's how he found out that her son played football in the fall and baseball in the spring. Which is the reason why she didn't seem to mind being the detention monitor – she was waiting for his practices to get over anyway.

"We've been saving your seat for you," she quipped, nodding her head in the direction of the desk in the middle of the back row. This time she smiled.

"Thanks," Drake said without comment and made his way to the desk. He slumped into it, letting his backpack slide to the floor with a thud. Slouching in his seat, he slid his feet under the desk in front of him and looked around.

There were five other students in the room – two girls and three boys. He only recognized one of them – Randall Jordan, a giant hulk of a boy in a beat-up leather flight jacket who was repeating eleventh grade. He'd already had to repeat tenth. Drake had gone to elementary school with Randall, from kindergarten through fifth, and remembered him as the boy who nearly choked on a mouthful of paste and who once killed the class hamster by putting it in the microwave when it was his turn to take care of the animal for the weekend.

Randall was deficient intellectually, but what he lacked in brains, he more than made up for in bulk. He was nearly six feet tall by the time he reached fifth grade and towered over Mrs. Lilly in the class picture. But he was always picked first in PE no matter what the sport and Drake had always managed to stay on his good side by offering him the dessert from his lunch every day. So when Randall decided that his true calling in life was to be the class bully, he always left Drake alone. Which was good, because Drake had been certain that Randall could step on him and not even notice.

The girl near the front two rows over cast a surreptitious glance in his direction; Drake caught the movement out of the corner of his eye. When he turned his head to look, she didn't turn away, and his eyebrows lifted in surprise when he saw who it was. Sitting up, he grabbed his bookbag and moved to the desk next to hers.

"Hi," he said.

Maddie looked at him and smiled shyly. "Hi."

"I'm surprised to see you here."

A faint blush suffused her face. "This is my first time in detention."

Drake smiled – the first genuine smile he'd had on his face all day. "So you're a virgin," he quipped, then regretted it when he saw the look of mortification that widened her eyes and deepened her blush.

She turned away, fumbling with the edges of her science book. It was open to a section on mitosis.

"Hey, look," he said quickly, touching her arm. "It was just a joke. A bad joke," he added, shrugging. "I didn't mean anything by it, I swear."

He could see her looking at him out of the corner of her eye, but she didn't turn to face him. He withdrew his hand and sat in awkward silence. Finally, he asked, "So, what are you in for?" He smiled again. "Me? I was caught in the hall after the late bell." He leaned in. "My 'third infraction this month', according to Mr. Sanderson."

Finally, she turned and Drake could see a hint of a smile on her face. The blush was completely gone. "I told Ms. Davis that I thought that Huck Finn was nothing but a load of racist garbage and that it made me wish that I never learned how to read."

"Really?" Drake asked, shocked. She didn't seem the type.

"Have you read it?" she asked him, turning in her seat to face him more fully as she warmed to her subject. Mrs. Almeida shot them a look – they really weren't supposed to be talking during detention, but as long as they weren't being disruptive, she didn't really mind – and then went back to her papers.

Drake looked sheepish. "Only the Cliff's Notes."

"Yeah, well you're lucky," she replied. Then it was her turn to look sheepish. "I didn't know it was her favorite book. She was so flustered that she couldn't even talk. She just gave me a detention for disrupting class." She smiled then and looked around the room. "But detention isn't so bad, really."

"Nah," Drake said. "Mrs. Almeida's really cool. And sometimes you meet some pretty interesting people," he added pointedly, smiling at her.

She blushed again at that and a silence descended between them for a long moment before she said quietly, "I saw you play."

Drake perked up at that. "Yeah? Where?"

"At the Town Center Mall. Two months ago."

Drake remembered that gig. Of course, he remembered all his gigs, good or bad; he had all the sets catalogued in his brain like a filing cabinet. It was funny how his mind worked; he could tell you the third song they played in a gig a year ago, but he couldn't remember the name of the girl he went on a date with last week. "What was your favorite song?" he asked her.

She shook her head, ducking it shyly. "They were all good."

"Come on," he wheedled playfully. "There had to be one you liked better than the others."

"Well," she said, turning to look him in the eyes. "I liked the one where all you did was play the guitar. The one at the end."

Drake wrinkled his forehead, remembering, then his face cleared. "That one? That's not a real song. We finished the set and still had some time to fill, so I just made something up." He tilted his head slightly. "You really liked that one the best?"

She nodded. "It was pretty."

"Thanks," he said. Then he laughed. "Dang," he said lightly. "I wish I remembered it now."

"I remember you had your eyes closed while you played it and I kept thinking to myself, 'Wow, he really loves what he's doing.' And I wished that I had something that I loved that much." Then a funny little look of horror crossed her face and she turned away again, flipping a page in her book.

Drake just looked at her and an odd feeling of serenity washed over him. Most girls gushed about his clothes or his hair or how cool he looked on stage. But not this girl. This girl talked about how obvious it was to her just how much he loved to play. And it gave him a sense of joy he couldn't explain – a welcome sensation, considering the last few days.

"Hey," he said, digging in his backpack and pulling out a spiral notebook. Pulling his pen out of the spine, he flipped open to a blank page and wrote down his cell phone number. Clicking the pen shut, he laid the paper on top of her book. "Here's my number," he told her, smiling. "I'd like it if you called me."

The look she gave him then made him suddenly backtrack. "You don't have to," he said quickly, reaching for the paper. "I just thought, you know, we could talk. About stuff. Just talk. You seemed to…" He closed his eyes and let out his breath. "Never mind."

"Drake," she said softly, a small smile curving her lips.

"You don't have a boyfriend, do you?" he continued, unable to stop the flow of words that were tumbling out of his mouth. "Like a really huge boyfriend who'll stuff me in my locker or something if he finds out I gave you my number."

This made her laugh. "No boyfriend," she said, touching his hand. She grasped the paper between her fingers and pulled it from his grasp. She folded it in half, sharpening the crease with her fingernail, and carefully tore it along the fold. Then she took the pen from his hand and scribbled something on the blank half, handing both the paper and the pen to him. It was her phone number.

He smiled at her and she blushed again, turning away quickly. "Hey," he said softly. "Why are you blushing?"

But she couldn't look at him. "I've never given my number to a boy before," she whispered, embarrassed.

"Well," he said conspiratorially, leaning in to whisper the rest. "If it's any consolation, neither have I."

She turned her head at that, a tentative smile lifting the corners of her mouth. She knew what he meant. When he winked at her, it turned into an all-out grin. "That's better," he said, grinning back.

Drake was sitting on the couch in the bedroom, acoustic guitar across his lap, trying to remember the song that he played two months ago at the mall. He wasn't having very good luck.

"Hey, bro," he heard Josh say as the bedroom door opened behind him.

"Hey." Drake closed his eyes, played a few notes, frowned. That wasn't right, either.

"Working on a new song?" Josh asked, not recognizing the tune.

Drake shrugged, throwing his brother a look over his shoulder. "Sort of." He sighed. "More like trying to recreate an old one." He sunk into the cushions. "It's not going well."

"How was detention?" Josh asked him, grinning. "Did they miss you?"

"Cute," Drake said, setting his guitar down and turning on the couch to look at Josh, who was peeling off his gold vest and kicking off his shoes. "Randall was there."

"Randall Jordan?" Josh asked, incredulous. "I thought he dropped out."

"He probably should. Pretty soon he'll be old enough to drink." Drake grinned.

"He already drinks," Josh replied. "He'll just be old enough to buy it."

Drake laughed. "That's not all who was there," he said.

Josh pulled his belt through the loops and hung it on the hook in his armoire. "Yeah? Who else was there?"

"Remember that girl from study hall?"

Josh brow wrinkled in confusion. "Which one?"

"You know, the one I thought liked me."

"Be more specific, please," Josh replied, starting to unbutton his shirt.

Drake looked at his brother, exasperated. "The one with the slacks."

Josh grinned. "Ah, yes. The stalker."

"She's not a stalker," Drake asserted, suddenly defensive.

"Okay, so she's not a stalker." He took off his shirt and sniffed it carefully before deciding to hang it up neatly. "What about her?"

"She saw me play a couple months ago and says she likes my music." The way Drake said it, you'd think no one had ever said that to him before.

"So? I like your music." He took off his pants, revealing dark blue boxer shorts.

"Yeah, but she's a girl."

Josh finally stopped disrobing and just stood looking back at his brother. "Am I missing something?" he asked, bending to pick up his shoes and place them in line with the others.

Drake rolled his eyes, turning completely so he was sitting on his knees, his arms resting along the back of the couch. "It's just that…well, she wasn't all, like, 'Oh, Drake, you're so cool.' 'Oh, Drake, I love your hair.' 'Oh, Drake, could you sign my bra?'"

Stopping suddenly, Josh gave his brother an odd look, eyebrows raised.

Drake just shrugged. "Dude, it happens."

"So, don't tell me," Josh replied after a moment. "She – oh, perish the thought – likes you for you? It must be love." He rolled his eyes.

"No, no. It's nothing like that," Drake said. "I just like talking to her."

"Well, that's a relationship that's doomed to fail," Josh quipped, grinning, then said, "I'd really love to stay and chat, but I need to take a shower." He gathered up his pajamas. "I've got Physics homework to do."

"Have fun," Drake said, turning and sinking back into the couch. He picked up his guitar and tried again to recall a few notes of that song.

His phone beeped softly from the desk and he smiled. Setting his guitar once again on the couch, he stood up and padded over to retrieve the phone. Flipping it open, his smile immediately vanished when he read the message.

"tomorrow after school. c u then?"

Tomorrow was Tuesday. Tutoring day. He'd forgotten all about it.

Drake closed his eyes and squeezed the phone tightly in his fingers.

"I'd hate to see you fail my class." The menace in the man's voice had been unmistakable.

Now was his chance – his chance to stop the snowfall before it turned into a blizzard. But he couldn't control the weather, any more than Walter could.

He looked down at the phone in his hand. With trembling fingers, he opened the reply box.

"ok" He closed his eyes as he pressed SEND. He couldn't watch himself do it.

Mr. Bradford had meant what he said; he wasn't going to let him go. Drake could feel the snow falling all around him, burying him alive.

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