Fic: Five Fandoms That Drake&Josh Is Not -- Drake&Josh Is Not... Roswell (Drake/Josh, PG, 1/5)
Title: Drake and Josh Is Not...Roswell
Series: Five Fandoms That Drake & Josh Is Not
Chapter: 1/5
Series: Drake and Josh
Author: dancinbutterfly
Pairing: Drake/Josh
Rating: PG
Warnings: Slash
Word count: 5,900
Disclaimer: I don't own Drake & Josh or any of the other fandoms I borrowed from. *sigh*
Dedications: This, as all my D&J fic is until I can write HER D&J fic, is for Marla who made a really generous contribution to the really fantastic charity fire_fic
Beta: Beta'd by danakszoul
Feedback: Pretty please?
A/N: A Five Things fic, meaning that it is five unconnected AUs tied together by a common theme. Each installment will explore how Drake and Josh would handle the scenarios in other fandoms. Parts of the dialogue from Roswell episode 101 - Pilot were used verbatim but I tried to avoid that where ever possible except where to do so would ruin the effect.
Summary: Drake & Josh Is Not Roswell - if it were, it would have opened with a miracle.
1)"Journal entry one. I'm Liz Parker and five days ago I died. After that, things got really weird..." - Roswell, Episode 101 Pilot
Drake was one of the few people who actually liked the nachos at the Premiere. The cheese was just fake and processed enough to really stretch and the salsa was spicy and the same dark red as roses and blood. Plus, Trevor made the weirdest faces when he ate it.
But today, Trevor wasn’t making bug eyes at his inorganic cheese dip. He was glancing over his shoulder at one of the other patrons.
He blinked. “What?”
“He’s doing it again,” Trevor said blandly.
“Who’s doing what?” Drake asked, reaching for another chip.
“That Nichols guy. He’s staring at you again.”
Drake looked up from his nachos and around at the other teens loitering in the Premiere lobby. No one was staring at him.
There was a gaggle of giggling cheerleaders clustered together near Theater 3. His sister and her friends were at the table the farthest away from him, probably talking about clothes or shoes or the best way to torture him, slowly. Two burnouts loitered around the pool table. There was a pair of dorks talking D&D over by concessions and Josh Nichols sat with his dark head bowed, talking quietly to that Mindy girl, the brainy bitchy one who hated him almost as much as his English teacher, at the table nearest the exit. Drake shrugged.
“He’s not staring,” Drake argued. “You need to let it go, Trev. He’s just some guy.”
Trevor shook his head. “Dude, yes he is. He’s had the hots for you since we were like…twelve.”
Drake doubted that. No, wait he didn’t doubt that. He had a way with people and it was pretty possible that when they were twelve “that Nichols guy” as Trevor was so fond of calling him, had had a crush on him. But Drake wasn’t the sort of guy who inspired long term emotion in a person. And he liked it that way.
“He’s not ugly.”
“He’s also not normal,” Trevor countered.
Drake rolled his eyes. “Well no duh.”
Josh was an outsider from the entire network of outsiders. He and Mindy, who was probably not his girlfriend if Trevor was right about the whole staring thing, had been outcasts since before Drake could remember.
They were both that sort of intimidating crazy smart that made them a misery to have classes with but in general, they kept to themselves. They could have fit in just fine with the student government geeks or the honor roll dweebs just as well as the pen-and-paper roll-players but they chose to stay distant and separate. So besides the fact that Mindy hated him and he hated her, he didn’t know a damn thing about either of them. They could be from Mars for all he knew.
But none of that mattered because Drake had officially run out of chips. He scanned the concessions stand, his eyes landing on Helen. Bingo.
“Be right back,” Drake said, grabbing his nachos and the bottle of salsa and strutting over to the manager. He turned on his best smile as he approached.
“Hey Helen.”
She beamed at him. “Drake! How’re you doin’, handsome?”
“I’m good, I’m running a little low on nacho chips.” He tapped the plastic container gently with the back of his fingers, his nail clicking lightly against the ridges. He glanced over his shoulder at Trevor, who was watching the legs of the girls at the table of cheerleaders intently. “You think you can help me out?”
Helen wrinkled her nose and smiled at him. “For you? Of course.” She snatched the nacho tray out of his hands just as another customer sidled up next to the counter. Helen glared at the oddly familiar man in the ratty leather jacket and ski cap. “What do you want?”
Drake blinked and suddenly the guy had a gun. For a long moment, he was too stunned to do anything but stare at the man who he was sure he knew from somewhere and think ‘what the hell?’
“I’m gonna need all the money in the register,” Ski Cap Guy said, the shiny barrel of his gun pointing in Helen’s general direction. She stood frozen to the spot, her eyes as big as monster truck tires. “Now.”
Who the hell robbed a movie theater? Drake thought disconnectedly. What kind of loser would do that? And then, like something in his mental database had clicked into place Drake remembered where he knew Ski Cap Guy from. FBI’s Most Wanted. It was that Theater Thug dude, the one who’d been profiled just last weekend. It’d be cool to see someone famous up close if he weren’t so damn scary.
Helen squeaked and made a dash for the register. Drake was moving slowly and carefully back away from the crazy man with the gun when someone, one of the cheerleaders probably, let out a strangled scream. The thug whirled around and the gun went off loudly.
More screams filled the air as chaos ripped through the Premiere and Drake blinked. He was staring up at the ceiling. How had that happed? And why was it spinning? Everything was far away, from the light fixtures above him to the carpet below him. Nothing was touching him.
Someone was saying his name and he wanted to answer but he was suddenly cold. It was like someone was pumping out freezing air through the entire building. He’d have to talk to Helen about fixing her air conditioning later. Much later, when he could think straight and he wasn’t so damn cold.
“Drake?”
“Megan?” Drake mumbled numbly, his eyes rolling up into his head. His sister was here. He wanted his sister and he knew that she was here. Was she okay?
“Drake,” the voice said again, this time touch came with it. A large warm hand caught him firmly by the chin. “Drake! Look at me, Drake. You have to look at me.”
Drake blinked and stared up into the face of Josh Nichols. He was staring down with panic and terror in his eyes and Drake could sort of feel him pressing his hand against the skin of Drake’s stomach.
It was wet. Why was it wet?
The gunshot. It must have…Drake couldn’t think because now it hurt. It hurt, like fire, like razors, like no pain he’d ever experienced before in his life, oh God-
His vision started to swim again.
“Look at me, now Drake.” Josh hissed again, his voice hoarse and desperate. “Stay with me and look at me.”
Drake’s vision cleared and all he could see were those huge dark eyes. Then with something like a flash, he was looking at a little boy, chubby and laughing with an older woman, as he gleeful pets a large white rabbit. Then it was gone and he was gasping.
“You’re all right now,” Josh whispered, pulling his hand off of Drake’s stomach. Glancing down, he saw red. So much red. Blood. His blood. Jesus, he’d been shot. How could he have been shot? He felt fine.
“Keys,” a female voice cried, “Now!”
Drake watched dazedly as Josh tossed a set of car keys over his shoulder. Mindy Crenshaw caught them and took off out of his line of sight as Josh reached up and grabbed the bottle of salsa Drake had brought over to the concession stand. He broke the bottle sharply against the side of the stand and poured it out onto Drake’s stomach. The tomato sauce mixed with his blood on his clothes.
“You broke the bottle when you fell, you hit your head and spilled salsa on yourself.” He dropped the bottle and stared into Drake’s eyes pleadingly. “Don’t say anything. Please.”
Drake was torn between those eyes and Josh’s hands, coated and slick with his blood. Then as suddenly as he’d appeared over Drake, he was gone. Drake staggered to his feet, his hand sliding under his soaked shirt, sliding through wetness on undamaged skin. Megan was at his side instantly, blinking back tears.
“Are you okay? God, you idiot. He had a gun. Why didn’t you move away from him faster?” She demanded. She was furious and, less obviously, scared.
Drake nodded numbly, his fingers still stroking stunned over the healed skin of his stomach. “I fell, spilled the salsa,” he said numbly. His eyes were locked on the exit.
Six hours and one shower later Drake was standing shirtless in the bathroom. His eyes were locked on the mirror because that shouldn’t be there. There should not have been a large silver hand print spread across the pale skin of stomach.
It shouldn’t have been there. But it was. He should be in the hospital - dead or dying from a gunshot wound to the gut. But he wasn’t.
He stared up at the ceiling of his room for a long time before he fell asleep that night and when he closed his eyes, he could see Josh’s face behind his eyelids.
~*~
They drove to school in silence the day after the shooting. Mindy had been emanating rage so forcefully josh was surprised he didn’t drive his car into a ditch, she was flinging it at him with every glare and exasperated sigh.
Josh was sick of it by the time he pulled into what he liked to think of as his parking space in the junior lot. He couldn’t take her silent fury. He never could.
“Just say it all ready.”
“You are so stupid.” Mindy exploded, practically sagging with relief to have it out there.
“I know that.”
“Do you? Do you really? I mean, do you have any real concept of just how completely moronic and idiotic what you did was?”
Josh sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “What was I supposed to do Mindy, just let him bleed to death on the floor of the Premiere?”
“You do what anyone would do! You call 911! You don’t…”she waved a hand at him. “You know. God. You’re so stupid.”
Josh nodded and rested his forehead on the steering wheel. Of course he was stupid. He’d been stupid over Drake Parker for years, since they were kids. And if he’d had any choice in the matter at all, he definitely wouldn’t be. But there was something about Drake that called to Josh, something that had been calling him since the first day he ever saw him and he just hadn’t been able to lose that. Not yet. Not to something as senseless and horrible as a gunshot wound.
“I couldn’t let him die. I just couldn’t. Okay? So just, stop. Please.”
“You have to tell your dad so he can-“
“No.”
“Josh. You have to tell him. You know you do. And you know that you’re going to have to go.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“And if they find you? If they find your dad? What do you think they’ll do to you?”
Josh didn’t answer because it’s his worst nightmare. That the mysterious they would come in the middle of the night and take him and his dad away to some dark sinister X-Files lab was his oldest fear.
“He’s not going to tell anyone,” Josh prayed more than said. “I don’t think he’ll tell.”
“You don’t think? Oh, that’s great Josh. That’s fantastic. Call me and let me know how the autopsy goes,” Mindy snapped furiously.
Josh couldn’t be mad at her. She was scared for him. She had been the lone guardian of his secret, his best and only friend since they were in kindergarten. And as angry as she was, he knew it was because she cared about him. It was just hard to remember that sometimes when she was yelling at him.
“I’ll talk to him.”
“Now? You’ve been trying to talk to Drake Parker since you were in second grade, Josh. What makes you think that ten years later you’re going to magically gain the ability to speak to him?”
Josh sighed. He’d tried, over the years, to approach Drake. But they usually ended with him spazzing out and running away before he said word one.
‘This is different.”
Mindy rolled her eyes, a distinct, nonverbal “no shit.”
“Yeah, well, you better. Because my photon canon isn’t good enough yet that it would completely incinerate him and I don’t have anywhere to hide his body.”
“I’m going now. I’ll talk to him before classes start.”
“You honestly think Drake is the kind of boy who’s going to get to school early?”
Josh nodded. “He hangs out with Trevor and the rest of his band in the gym for an hour every morning before classes start. Sometimes they get high. Most of the time they talk about music.”
Mindy stared at him, all googly-eyed. Yes, Josh thought with resignation, he was well aware that he shouldn’t know any of that.
“You are pathetic.”
Josh grinned wryly and fished his backpack out of the backseat. “And stupid.”
“Yes. We can’t forget stupid.”
He sighed and kissed her cheek.
“Thank you, Mindy. For everything.”
She continued to glare at him. “I love you,” she said sullenly. “You’re my best friend and I’m scared for you, Josh.”
“Me too.” Josh said simply, before slipping out of his car. He left the keys with Mindy. If he could trust her with who he was, then he could trust her with a little thing like car keys.
He’d kept thinking about the day before as he trudged over to the gym. If he let himself, he could still sense all of it. He could smell gunpowder and smoke. He could hear people screaming as Drake crumpled like a marionette with its strings cut. His hand could still feel the hot, slick blood and the pulsing, gaping hole in Drake’s gut. And in that one bright moment when they connected, he could see a little boy with red hair and big brown eyes clad in cowboy pjs, watching his father drive away in the middle of the night.
He didn’t do things like that if he could help it. His dad had warned him, over and over, about the risks. In his whole life before yesterday, he’d only ever done it once before.
He’d watched Mindy Crenshaw fall victim to a hit and run one day on his way home from school and he hadn’t even thought about it. He just moved. It was easier then that it had been yesterday and at their young ages, all he’d pulled from her was the image of a big stuffed bear with a slightly chewed ear.
Afterwards, he’d helped her to her feet and moved them out of the street. She had blinked at him with wide eyes from beneath ridiculous pigtails and asked, very seriously, “You’re not magic are you?”
Josh had replied honestly with the qualifier, “But you can’t tell anyone. My dad’ll get really mad if he knows you know.”
She rolled her eyes at him. “Duh. Who’d believe me anyway?” Then she’d smiled at him and declared, “We’re going to be friends.” She said it in a tone that brooked no argument Josh had been helpless to do anything but nod.
That had worked out for the best, Josh thought. He and Mindy were best friends now, confidants. Maybe things with Drake would go just was well.
Yeah, and maybe he’d suddenly be normal Joe High School and start dating the prom queen. Or, prom king rather.
Yeah. Right.
Josh took a deep breath and pushed open one of the double doors and walked into the gym. It was a haven for the cool kids. Minimally supervised in the morning, the jocks, stoners, and rich kids congregated here. When he didn’t give into his stalker tendencies, Josh avoided it.
As always, his eyes were drawn through the crowd to that red hair and that thin frame. He wasn’t with his friends today, instead standing away from the group against the wall, his gaze looked on the wall, his hand pressed to his stomach.
This would be so much easier if he wasn’t so damn beautiful. Just looking at Drake made Josh feel shaky and dumb and like even more of an outsider than he already was. It didn’t matter if he was seven or seventeen, Drake just moved him.
So much that he found himself walking across the gym to where drake was standing, dazed and distant. The other boy blinked as Josh moved into his line of sight before his eyes went wide.
“You.”
Josh swallowed and licked his lips. “Hey.”
“You,” Drake said again, his hand clenching in the fabric of his shirt over the place the gunshot wound once was. “You…what did you…” He glanced around nervously then whispered desperately, “What did you do?”
“We shouldn’t do this,” Josh hissed back, wishing fervently that he’d just listened to Mindy for once. She was smarter than he was. She always right. Why hadn’t he just listened?
The hand not holding his stomach shot out and caught Josh by the arm. He nearly passed out from the touch.
“No. Josh, I need…” he trailed off. He looked lost and so much younger than he should. “I need to talk to you.”
Josh found himself nodding because Drake Parker knew his name. Knew it and said it and he could die now. Really, there wasn’t anything else he needed. Ever. He was set, thanks. And wonder of wonders, Drake didn’t release his arm.
Without a word, Josh moved through the gym to the quiet of the halls to an empty chemistry lab. There were no classes in this room until second period so even if this talk took as long as it could, they wouldn’t have to worry about a flood of students rushing into the room once the bell rang.
Through all of that, Drake never let go of his arm or moved his hand off his stomach. He moved where Josh moved him and just stood sort of frozen. Josh thought shell shocked might be a better term for it.
Josh figured he should probably shake him out of it. He reached out and gently pushed the hair out his eyes instead.
If asked Josh would have sworn that it had been beyond his control to do otherwise. Either way, it seemed to bring Drake blinking back into reality and he released his grip on Josh, stumbling backward a step.
“Are you okay?” Josh asked softly.
“I…no. No I’m not. I got shot.”
Josh didn’t answer and Drake began pacing back and forth between two long black lab tables. His hand rubbed his stomach as he moved.
“Right? I did get shot yesterday. Didn’t I?” He rubbed his stomach a little harder. “It felt like I got shot. I remember pain.”
Josh swallowed around the broken glass in his throat. He knew that. He could remember the pain too. Just a split second of it as he’d healed torn tissue and blood vessels. It was pain that was too much to handle, to great for the human body to bear. He would have given anything for Drake to have never had to feel it all.
At his positive response, Drake came to a halt directly in front of Josh. Then, because apparently God decided that today He really liked him, Drake abruptly pulled his shirt up to his chin, exposing his chest and stomach to Josh’s gaze.
For split second that felt like an eternity, all Josh could see was pale, soft skin that he wanted to lean over and lick. Slowly. And thoroughly. It was the stuff masturbatory fantasies were made of.
Then all Josh could see was the silver hand print, his hand print, sprawling across Drake’s stomach. He didn’t remember that from when he’d healed Mindy.
His fingers itched to touch the mark he’d left on Drake’s body. It was unnatural and strangely beautiful in the fluorescent light.
“Wow.”
“Yeah. Dude,” Drake began then lost whatever it was that he was going to say. “Dude, what did you do? What...”he shook his head and laughed, a half-hysterical laugh of someone who obviously thought he was going crazy. “Can’t even believe I’m asking this but I should be dead. I should be so dead. He shot me. He killed me but you saved me. How could you have saved me, Josh?” Drake’s voice was getting high and panicky. “What are you?”
Josh couldn’t seem to get that glass out of his throat so he took a deep breath and spoke through it, as lightly as he could. “I’m not from around here.”
“Where are you from?”
Feeling like a complete idiot but unable to actually say the words, Josh pointed upwards with his index finger.
“You’re from the north?” Drake asked dumbly.
Josh lifted his hand higher, so it was pointed up at the ceiling and beyond the ceiling to the sky outside.
Drake shook his head. “You’re not an alien.” He laughed at the ridiculousness of the statement but Josh didn’t move or react.
He’d been ten the last time he had this talk. It had been so much easier with Mindy. At ten years old it was easier for someone to believe the truth. At seventeen, the concept of aliens was too ingrained as science fiction to be easily believed.
“I mean, you’re not. Are you?”
Josh shrugged and pushed the hand that had pointed heavenward into his pocket. “Well, I prefer the term not of this earth.”
Drake gaped at him, slack jawed.
Josh winced at his own insensitivity. He’d had his whole life to come to terms with who he was. Drake had had about fifteen seconds.
“Sorry. Bad joke with worse timing. But, yeah. Yeah, I am.” He smiled slightly. “Wow. It’s so bizarre, you know, to actually that out loud.”
Drake was backing up, slowly, carefully. His eyes were locked on Josh but he was moving towards the door with a look of fear that had a starring role in Josh’s nightmares, right after those shiny metal instruments and government labs.
“Drake,” Josh began, not moving towards him, dealing with the object of his affection as if the other boy were a frightened animal who could and would run at the slightest threat. “You have to listen to me. You can’t talk to anyone about me. Not your parents, not your sister, not Trevor. No one. You don’t know what’ll happen if you do.” He took a deep breath and looked into those brown eyes he found himself drowning so very often. “Please, Drake. Now it’s my life in your hands.”
“I have…a…class…so…yeah.” Drake replied numbly. It was by far the weakest excuse he had ever heard.
Josh wished that it made his heart hurt less when Drake finally turned and ran.
~*~*~
Drake couldn’t focus. He was a little ADD to begin with but now it was like his brain was on Josh-Nichols-based speed. All day at school his head buzzed with images of flying saucers and little grey men and the look in Josh’s eyes as he hovered over him in the Premiere.
It was just too much to believe, that he’d been in school with a freaking alien since elementary school. It was too wild, even for him, and Trevor had him half convinced that the government was hiding a car that ran on water.
The guy had healed a bullet wound in his stomach. Laid hands on his body and fixed what should have been destroyed.
It occurred to Drake, during his many bouts of obsessive thinking, that Josh Nichols, quiet unassuming Josh Nichols, was crazy powerful. He could save people just by touching them.
And for whatever reason, Josh had decided to touch him. When that thought occurred to him, the focus of his obsessive thinking began bouncing wildly back and forth between ‘holy crap, alien’ and ‘why’d he do it?’
“Hey.”
Drake blinked and sat up sharply. Speak of the devil, Josh was standing in his room, looking up at the platform where he had been laying on his bed. He wondered if he could read minds too. If he could, he was so screwed.
“How did you get in here?”
“Your sister let me in. She seems…evil.”
Drake chuckled. “Yeah. Pretty much.” He sat on the edge of his bed, looking down at the alien in his bedroom. “Why’re you here.”
“I need to talk to you.”
Drake shrugged and tucked his knees up to his chest, his toes digging into his comforter. “You’re already here…” He waved at the ladder, inviting Josh to climb up.
Josh did, looking a little awkward until his feet were planted on solid wood again. Then he looked down at Drake nervously, fidgeting on the balls of his feet.
“I can’t imagine what you’re thinking right now, what you’re feeling. I mean, I’ve thought about telling you so many times.” Josh told him nervously.
“What? Me?”
Josh smiled, a small shy smile that went all the way up to his brow. His eyes darted down to Drake’s feet nervously and he shrugged.
“What?”
“Sorry, I just, I keep seeing those, um, crazy pajamas with the uh, the cowboys on them.”
Drake blinked.
“What?”
Josh shook his head. “Forget it. It was ages ago.”
For a very long moment Drake was completely lost. And then it hit him. Cowboy pajamas. He’d worn them to death and they were now living in the back of his mom’s closet in keepsake box.
“I never wore those in public,” Drake said softly. “Ever. I outgrew them before I ever met you.” He felt cold all over. “Can you, like, look in my brain? Read my mind like an X-man?”
Josh shook his head so hard Drake was a little worried he’d hurt himself. “I don’t have telepathy or anything. It’s just…when I healed you we made this, I don’t know, connection. I got this flash of a bunch of images and I saw you in those pajamas and I knew how you felt when you were wearing them.”
Drake unfolded himself and leaned forward. “How’d I feel?”
Josh rubbed the back of his neck. “You liked them. They made you feel brave but you were sad. Your dad gave them to you and he was leaving, back before your sister was born. It wasn’t the last time he did it but it’s the time that hurt you the most. You didn’t know how to stop him and you felt like if you were a real cowboy, you’d have been able to.”
He’d been four at the time. His dad came back two weeks later, and it had been another three years before he left again for good but in his head, Drake had always known his parents had been over then. And he’d always thought that maybe he could have…
He stopped himself from thinking about it. He didn’t think about it so what the fuck right did Josh have to think about it? None.
“I’m sorry,” Josh said again. “I really couldn’t help it and I would never tell anyone. You have to know that. Look, maybe,” he sighed, “I can try and make the connection go the other way on purpose. I’ve never done it before but I want to try and show you, I’m still me.”
Drake nodded and Josh took a step forward, his hand reaching out.
“I have to touch you.”
Drake took a deep breath and nodded again. Josh gave him that shy smile again and moved in front of him, one knee pressing on the bed. Then, with the same gentleness Josh had brushed his hair back with this morning, he placed his huge, warm hands on the side of Drake’s face.
“Now, just…let go I guess. Take slow, deep breaths and try to just blank out,” Josh directed softly, his voice sending odd vibrations down his spine like a twitching guitar string and then it hit him like a fist.
Flashes of a life he’d never even thought to ask about exploded in his brain. Josh, no more than three and confused but sure that his father would protect him, clinging to soft cotton as his father ran. Josh, a little older now and worried as he held a small girl in his arms. Josh, the day before school, being told that he couldn’t tell, not ever, that people wouldn’t understand, that they would be scared, that they could hurt him. Josh, seven and staring at a seven year old Drake, watching him play on the jungle gym with his friends and aching with a kind of tame envy mixed with a quiet desire to share in the experience with him. Josh, fifteen with his lips on Mindy’s, confused and under whelmed and then laughing with her. Josh, yesterday, watching him eat nachos and longing, to reach out, to touch, to just get a little closer. Josh, yesterday, his hand coated in blood as it pressed against a fatal injury in his skin and fear, rank animal fear that he, Drake, was going to die. That fear mixed with an awful, gut wrenching pain when Drake wouldn’t look at him, when he was slipping away. Josh, this morning, staring at his silver handprint on Drake’s stomach and thinking how beautiful he was, how beautiful he had always been.
And then, as suddenly as the visions had come, they were gone. Josh was pulling away. He was no longer kneeling on the bed and his hands were shoved into the depths of his pockets.
“So…did it work?”
Drake nodded dumbly, awed by what he’d seen.
“Are you okay? I didn’t…you’re not…you’re okay right?”
Drake shook himself and nodded again. “Yeah, yeah I’m fine. That was just…whoa. You’re an alien.” He let himself smile now because yeah, he was, but he was also just a guy, a guy who thought that he was valuable and worth saving.
Josh smiled back and it was a bit bolder this time. It made his eyes shine. “Yeah.”
“Do you know where you’re from?” Drake asked, scooting over and making an obvious space for Josh to sit next to him on the bed. Josh seemed a little stunned but took the invitation and flopped down beside him.
“My dad says when the time’s right, he’ll tell me everything. For now he said the less I know, the better off I am but I’m pretty sure there was a crash back before I was born.”
“A crash?”
“Yeah. Back in the 40s in New Mexico.”
“New Mexico- as in, Roswell, New Mexico?” He wasn’t even a geek and he’d heard of the Roswell UFO crash.
Josh shrugged. “I don’t know. He won’t get more specific than that.”
“So you and your dad are both…?”
Josh nodded. “As far as I know it’s just us here.”
Drake licked his lips and bobbed his head as he tried to collect his thoughts. He’d been thinking about this all day, what he would ask. Now he was all over the place. He should have made a list. If his sister had met an alien, she would have had a list of things to ask such as “do you need me to take you to my leader?” and “do you intend to anally probe me?”
“So it’s not an invasion?”
Josh laughed. It was a nice laugh, warm, just like the rest of him. “If it is, it’s the worst organized invasion of all time. Even with what we can do, the two of us can’t exactly take on the UN.”
“What, uh, what can you do? Can you fly?”
“I’m not Superman, Drake.”
Drake shrugged. He didn’t see any reason why not. Superman was an alien wasn’t he? He didn’t read comics but he watched the cartoon as a kid and he saw the movies.
“You could be.”
“But I’m not. I can connect, like you saw, and I can manipulate molecules and-“
Drake held up a hand. “Wait. You can do what?”
“Manipulate molecules.”
“What’s that?”
“Molecules are particles that bind together to make, well, pretty much everything. All it really takes to be a molecule is for there to be two atoms joined together.” Josh explained.
Drake blinked at him. He was crap with science.
“Look here,” Josh leaned over and picked something up off the ground by the edge of the bed. It was an old sock, worn out and not exactly pleasant. But Josh cupped his hands over it and when he opened them again it had transformed into a small red box made out of what appeared to be plastic.
“That’s how I healed you. Sort of. It factors in but this is easier. It matters less and it’s less urgent so it’s easier to concentrate on what needs to be done. Plus, a sock? Way less complex than your intestines, stomach, blood vessels and skin.”
Drake stared at that little red box. It had been his sock a minute ago, now it wasn’t and Josh had done that. For some reason, that was even more stunning to him than the healing or the connection had been.
“Who knows about this?”
“Mindy.”
“And?”
“And Mindy. I healed her when we were kids and no one knows but that’s it. Just Mindy and my dad.”
“Because your dad’s an alien.”
Josh sighed. “Drake.”
“I’m just kind of…dude, no one but Mindy?”
“I’m not supposed to tell anyone. My life and my dad’s life depends on it.”
Because in the real world, Drake figured, the Men in Black weren’t funny and decent like Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. They were the enemy and they could be anywhere.
Wow, that was paranoid but then, Josh was an alien. A freaking alien. He had earned some paranoia. It was probably pretty legit paranoia considering how huge the secret was.
Josh and his dad probably bent over backwards to keep it safe. It certainly explained his loner tendencies.
But he’d healed Drake, in public, with people all over. That didn’t seem to fit with what Josh was saying.
“All of this could have gotten out by you healing someone in public like you did for me. Couldn’t it?”
“Yeah.” Josh nodded, his gaze locked on his feet as if they were going to forgive him for what he’d done.
“But you just said that’s dangerous.”
“It is. Very dangerous. Like autopsy-chopped-into-pieces-and-kept-in-jars-of-formaldehyde dangerous.”
“Then…why risk it?”
Josh was quiet for a long moment and Drake was crap with waiting. He’d never been a very patient person and this was a big deal. His new alien friend had risked everything to save him. Why? Why why why? He was desperate to know.
He just wasn’t really ready to see the affection in Josh’s eyes when he looked up from his shoes and into Drake’s face. He wasn’t really ready for the reply either.
“Because it wasn’t someone, Drake. It was you,” Josh said simply and Drake floundered.
What could he say to that? What could he say that could possibly be enough for what Josh had given him?
Nothing. Nothing at all, Drake decided. So instead he reached out and took Josh’s hand. He decided that instead of words he would give that big hand a squeeze, and that strange, incredible boy a smile. From the way Josh beamed and squeezed right back, that seemed to be more than enough.
Series: Five Fandoms That Drake & Josh Is Not
Chapter: 1/5
Series: Drake and Josh
Author: dancinbutterfly
Pairing: Drake/Josh
Rating: PG
Warnings: Slash
Word count: 5,900
Disclaimer: I don't own Drake & Josh or any of the other fandoms I borrowed from. *sigh*
Dedications: This, as all my D&J fic is until I can write HER D&J fic, is for Marla who made a really generous contribution to the really fantastic charity fire_fic
Beta: Beta'd by danakszoul
Feedback: Pretty please?
A/N: A Five Things fic, meaning that it is five unconnected AUs tied together by a common theme. Each installment will explore how Drake and Josh would handle the scenarios in other fandoms. Parts of the dialogue from Roswell episode 101 - Pilot were used verbatim but I tried to avoid that where ever possible except where to do so would ruin the effect.
Summary: Drake & Josh Is Not Roswell - if it were, it would have opened with a miracle.
1)"Journal entry one. I'm Liz Parker and five days ago I died. After that, things got really weird..." - Roswell, Episode 101 Pilot
Drake was one of the few people who actually liked the nachos at the Premiere. The cheese was just fake and processed enough to really stretch and the salsa was spicy and the same dark red as roses and blood. Plus, Trevor made the weirdest faces when he ate it.
But today, Trevor wasn’t making bug eyes at his inorganic cheese dip. He was glancing over his shoulder at one of the other patrons.
He blinked. “What?”
“He’s doing it again,” Trevor said blandly.
“Who’s doing what?” Drake asked, reaching for another chip.
“That Nichols guy. He’s staring at you again.”
Drake looked up from his nachos and around at the other teens loitering in the Premiere lobby. No one was staring at him.
There was a gaggle of giggling cheerleaders clustered together near Theater 3. His sister and her friends were at the table the farthest away from him, probably talking about clothes or shoes or the best way to torture him, slowly. Two burnouts loitered around the pool table. There was a pair of dorks talking D&D over by concessions and Josh Nichols sat with his dark head bowed, talking quietly to that Mindy girl, the brainy bitchy one who hated him almost as much as his English teacher, at the table nearest the exit. Drake shrugged.
“He’s not staring,” Drake argued. “You need to let it go, Trev. He’s just some guy.”
Trevor shook his head. “Dude, yes he is. He’s had the hots for you since we were like…twelve.”
Drake doubted that. No, wait he didn’t doubt that. He had a way with people and it was pretty possible that when they were twelve “that Nichols guy” as Trevor was so fond of calling him, had had a crush on him. But Drake wasn’t the sort of guy who inspired long term emotion in a person. And he liked it that way.
“He’s not ugly.”
“He’s also not normal,” Trevor countered.
Drake rolled his eyes. “Well no duh.”
Josh was an outsider from the entire network of outsiders. He and Mindy, who was probably not his girlfriend if Trevor was right about the whole staring thing, had been outcasts since before Drake could remember.
They were both that sort of intimidating crazy smart that made them a misery to have classes with but in general, they kept to themselves. They could have fit in just fine with the student government geeks or the honor roll dweebs just as well as the pen-and-paper roll-players but they chose to stay distant and separate. So besides the fact that Mindy hated him and he hated her, he didn’t know a damn thing about either of them. They could be from Mars for all he knew.
But none of that mattered because Drake had officially run out of chips. He scanned the concessions stand, his eyes landing on Helen. Bingo.
“Be right back,” Drake said, grabbing his nachos and the bottle of salsa and strutting over to the manager. He turned on his best smile as he approached.
“Hey Helen.”
She beamed at him. “Drake! How’re you doin’, handsome?”
“I’m good, I’m running a little low on nacho chips.” He tapped the plastic container gently with the back of his fingers, his nail clicking lightly against the ridges. He glanced over his shoulder at Trevor, who was watching the legs of the girls at the table of cheerleaders intently. “You think you can help me out?”
Helen wrinkled her nose and smiled at him. “For you? Of course.” She snatched the nacho tray out of his hands just as another customer sidled up next to the counter. Helen glared at the oddly familiar man in the ratty leather jacket and ski cap. “What do you want?”
Drake blinked and suddenly the guy had a gun. For a long moment, he was too stunned to do anything but stare at the man who he was sure he knew from somewhere and think ‘what the hell?’
“I’m gonna need all the money in the register,” Ski Cap Guy said, the shiny barrel of his gun pointing in Helen’s general direction. She stood frozen to the spot, her eyes as big as monster truck tires. “Now.”
Who the hell robbed a movie theater? Drake thought disconnectedly. What kind of loser would do that? And then, like something in his mental database had clicked into place Drake remembered where he knew Ski Cap Guy from. FBI’s Most Wanted. It was that Theater Thug dude, the one who’d been profiled just last weekend. It’d be cool to see someone famous up close if he weren’t so damn scary.
Helen squeaked and made a dash for the register. Drake was moving slowly and carefully back away from the crazy man with the gun when someone, one of the cheerleaders probably, let out a strangled scream. The thug whirled around and the gun went off loudly.
More screams filled the air as chaos ripped through the Premiere and Drake blinked. He was staring up at the ceiling. How had that happed? And why was it spinning? Everything was far away, from the light fixtures above him to the carpet below him. Nothing was touching him.
Someone was saying his name and he wanted to answer but he was suddenly cold. It was like someone was pumping out freezing air through the entire building. He’d have to talk to Helen about fixing her air conditioning later. Much later, when he could think straight and he wasn’t so damn cold.
“Drake?”
“Megan?” Drake mumbled numbly, his eyes rolling up into his head. His sister was here. He wanted his sister and he knew that she was here. Was she okay?
“Drake,” the voice said again, this time touch came with it. A large warm hand caught him firmly by the chin. “Drake! Look at me, Drake. You have to look at me.”
Drake blinked and stared up into the face of Josh Nichols. He was staring down with panic and terror in his eyes and Drake could sort of feel him pressing his hand against the skin of Drake’s stomach.
It was wet. Why was it wet?
The gunshot. It must have…Drake couldn’t think because now it hurt. It hurt, like fire, like razors, like no pain he’d ever experienced before in his life, oh God-
His vision started to swim again.
“Look at me, now Drake.” Josh hissed again, his voice hoarse and desperate. “Stay with me and look at me.”
Drake’s vision cleared and all he could see were those huge dark eyes. Then with something like a flash, he was looking at a little boy, chubby and laughing with an older woman, as he gleeful pets a large white rabbit. Then it was gone and he was gasping.
“You’re all right now,” Josh whispered, pulling his hand off of Drake’s stomach. Glancing down, he saw red. So much red. Blood. His blood. Jesus, he’d been shot. How could he have been shot? He felt fine.
“Keys,” a female voice cried, “Now!”
Drake watched dazedly as Josh tossed a set of car keys over his shoulder. Mindy Crenshaw caught them and took off out of his line of sight as Josh reached up and grabbed the bottle of salsa Drake had brought over to the concession stand. He broke the bottle sharply against the side of the stand and poured it out onto Drake’s stomach. The tomato sauce mixed with his blood on his clothes.
“You broke the bottle when you fell, you hit your head and spilled salsa on yourself.” He dropped the bottle and stared into Drake’s eyes pleadingly. “Don’t say anything. Please.”
Drake was torn between those eyes and Josh’s hands, coated and slick with his blood. Then as suddenly as he’d appeared over Drake, he was gone. Drake staggered to his feet, his hand sliding under his soaked shirt, sliding through wetness on undamaged skin. Megan was at his side instantly, blinking back tears.
“Are you okay? God, you idiot. He had a gun. Why didn’t you move away from him faster?” She demanded. She was furious and, less obviously, scared.
Drake nodded numbly, his fingers still stroking stunned over the healed skin of his stomach. “I fell, spilled the salsa,” he said numbly. His eyes were locked on the exit.
Six hours and one shower later Drake was standing shirtless in the bathroom. His eyes were locked on the mirror because that shouldn’t be there. There should not have been a large silver hand print spread across the pale skin of stomach.
It shouldn’t have been there. But it was. He should be in the hospital - dead or dying from a gunshot wound to the gut. But he wasn’t.
He stared up at the ceiling of his room for a long time before he fell asleep that night and when he closed his eyes, he could see Josh’s face behind his eyelids.
~*~
They drove to school in silence the day after the shooting. Mindy had been emanating rage so forcefully josh was surprised he didn’t drive his car into a ditch, she was flinging it at him with every glare and exasperated sigh.
Josh was sick of it by the time he pulled into what he liked to think of as his parking space in the junior lot. He couldn’t take her silent fury. He never could.
“Just say it all ready.”
“You are so stupid.” Mindy exploded, practically sagging with relief to have it out there.
“I know that.”
“Do you? Do you really? I mean, do you have any real concept of just how completely moronic and idiotic what you did was?”
Josh sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “What was I supposed to do Mindy, just let him bleed to death on the floor of the Premiere?”
“You do what anyone would do! You call 911! You don’t…”she waved a hand at him. “You know. God. You’re so stupid.”
Josh nodded and rested his forehead on the steering wheel. Of course he was stupid. He’d been stupid over Drake Parker for years, since they were kids. And if he’d had any choice in the matter at all, he definitely wouldn’t be. But there was something about Drake that called to Josh, something that had been calling him since the first day he ever saw him and he just hadn’t been able to lose that. Not yet. Not to something as senseless and horrible as a gunshot wound.
“I couldn’t let him die. I just couldn’t. Okay? So just, stop. Please.”
“You have to tell your dad so he can-“
“No.”
“Josh. You have to tell him. You know you do. And you know that you’re going to have to go.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“And if they find you? If they find your dad? What do you think they’ll do to you?”
Josh didn’t answer because it’s his worst nightmare. That the mysterious they would come in the middle of the night and take him and his dad away to some dark sinister X-Files lab was his oldest fear.
“He’s not going to tell anyone,” Josh prayed more than said. “I don’t think he’ll tell.”
“You don’t think? Oh, that’s great Josh. That’s fantastic. Call me and let me know how the autopsy goes,” Mindy snapped furiously.
Josh couldn’t be mad at her. She was scared for him. She had been the lone guardian of his secret, his best and only friend since they were in kindergarten. And as angry as she was, he knew it was because she cared about him. It was just hard to remember that sometimes when she was yelling at him.
“I’ll talk to him.”
“Now? You’ve been trying to talk to Drake Parker since you were in second grade, Josh. What makes you think that ten years later you’re going to magically gain the ability to speak to him?”
Josh sighed. He’d tried, over the years, to approach Drake. But they usually ended with him spazzing out and running away before he said word one.
‘This is different.”
Mindy rolled her eyes, a distinct, nonverbal “no shit.”
“Yeah, well, you better. Because my photon canon isn’t good enough yet that it would completely incinerate him and I don’t have anywhere to hide his body.”
“I’m going now. I’ll talk to him before classes start.”
“You honestly think Drake is the kind of boy who’s going to get to school early?”
Josh nodded. “He hangs out with Trevor and the rest of his band in the gym for an hour every morning before classes start. Sometimes they get high. Most of the time they talk about music.”
Mindy stared at him, all googly-eyed. Yes, Josh thought with resignation, he was well aware that he shouldn’t know any of that.
“You are pathetic.”
Josh grinned wryly and fished his backpack out of the backseat. “And stupid.”
“Yes. We can’t forget stupid.”
He sighed and kissed her cheek.
“Thank you, Mindy. For everything.”
She continued to glare at him. “I love you,” she said sullenly. “You’re my best friend and I’m scared for you, Josh.”
“Me too.” Josh said simply, before slipping out of his car. He left the keys with Mindy. If he could trust her with who he was, then he could trust her with a little thing like car keys.
He’d kept thinking about the day before as he trudged over to the gym. If he let himself, he could still sense all of it. He could smell gunpowder and smoke. He could hear people screaming as Drake crumpled like a marionette with its strings cut. His hand could still feel the hot, slick blood and the pulsing, gaping hole in Drake’s gut. And in that one bright moment when they connected, he could see a little boy with red hair and big brown eyes clad in cowboy pjs, watching his father drive away in the middle of the night.
He didn’t do things like that if he could help it. His dad had warned him, over and over, about the risks. In his whole life before yesterday, he’d only ever done it once before.
He’d watched Mindy Crenshaw fall victim to a hit and run one day on his way home from school and he hadn’t even thought about it. He just moved. It was easier then that it had been yesterday and at their young ages, all he’d pulled from her was the image of a big stuffed bear with a slightly chewed ear.
Afterwards, he’d helped her to her feet and moved them out of the street. She had blinked at him with wide eyes from beneath ridiculous pigtails and asked, very seriously, “You’re not magic are you?”
Josh had replied honestly with the qualifier, “But you can’t tell anyone. My dad’ll get really mad if he knows you know.”
She rolled her eyes at him. “Duh. Who’d believe me anyway?” Then she’d smiled at him and declared, “We’re going to be friends.” She said it in a tone that brooked no argument Josh had been helpless to do anything but nod.
That had worked out for the best, Josh thought. He and Mindy were best friends now, confidants. Maybe things with Drake would go just was well.
Yeah, and maybe he’d suddenly be normal Joe High School and start dating the prom queen. Or, prom king rather.
Yeah. Right.
Josh took a deep breath and pushed open one of the double doors and walked into the gym. It was a haven for the cool kids. Minimally supervised in the morning, the jocks, stoners, and rich kids congregated here. When he didn’t give into his stalker tendencies, Josh avoided it.
As always, his eyes were drawn through the crowd to that red hair and that thin frame. He wasn’t with his friends today, instead standing away from the group against the wall, his gaze looked on the wall, his hand pressed to his stomach.
This would be so much easier if he wasn’t so damn beautiful. Just looking at Drake made Josh feel shaky and dumb and like even more of an outsider than he already was. It didn’t matter if he was seven or seventeen, Drake just moved him.
So much that he found himself walking across the gym to where drake was standing, dazed and distant. The other boy blinked as Josh moved into his line of sight before his eyes went wide.
“You.”
Josh swallowed and licked his lips. “Hey.”
“You,” Drake said again, his hand clenching in the fabric of his shirt over the place the gunshot wound once was. “You…what did you…” He glanced around nervously then whispered desperately, “What did you do?”
“We shouldn’t do this,” Josh hissed back, wishing fervently that he’d just listened to Mindy for once. She was smarter than he was. She always right. Why hadn’t he just listened?
The hand not holding his stomach shot out and caught Josh by the arm. He nearly passed out from the touch.
“No. Josh, I need…” he trailed off. He looked lost and so much younger than he should. “I need to talk to you.”
Josh found himself nodding because Drake Parker knew his name. Knew it and said it and he could die now. Really, there wasn’t anything else he needed. Ever. He was set, thanks. And wonder of wonders, Drake didn’t release his arm.
Without a word, Josh moved through the gym to the quiet of the halls to an empty chemistry lab. There were no classes in this room until second period so even if this talk took as long as it could, they wouldn’t have to worry about a flood of students rushing into the room once the bell rang.
Through all of that, Drake never let go of his arm or moved his hand off his stomach. He moved where Josh moved him and just stood sort of frozen. Josh thought shell shocked might be a better term for it.
Josh figured he should probably shake him out of it. He reached out and gently pushed the hair out his eyes instead.
If asked Josh would have sworn that it had been beyond his control to do otherwise. Either way, it seemed to bring Drake blinking back into reality and he released his grip on Josh, stumbling backward a step.
“Are you okay?” Josh asked softly.
“I…no. No I’m not. I got shot.”
Josh didn’t answer and Drake began pacing back and forth between two long black lab tables. His hand rubbed his stomach as he moved.
“Right? I did get shot yesterday. Didn’t I?” He rubbed his stomach a little harder. “It felt like I got shot. I remember pain.”
Josh swallowed around the broken glass in his throat. He knew that. He could remember the pain too. Just a split second of it as he’d healed torn tissue and blood vessels. It was pain that was too much to handle, to great for the human body to bear. He would have given anything for Drake to have never had to feel it all.
At his positive response, Drake came to a halt directly in front of Josh. Then, because apparently God decided that today He really liked him, Drake abruptly pulled his shirt up to his chin, exposing his chest and stomach to Josh’s gaze.
For split second that felt like an eternity, all Josh could see was pale, soft skin that he wanted to lean over and lick. Slowly. And thoroughly. It was the stuff masturbatory fantasies were made of.
Then all Josh could see was the silver hand print, his hand print, sprawling across Drake’s stomach. He didn’t remember that from when he’d healed Mindy.
His fingers itched to touch the mark he’d left on Drake’s body. It was unnatural and strangely beautiful in the fluorescent light.
“Wow.”
“Yeah. Dude,” Drake began then lost whatever it was that he was going to say. “Dude, what did you do? What...”he shook his head and laughed, a half-hysterical laugh of someone who obviously thought he was going crazy. “Can’t even believe I’m asking this but I should be dead. I should be so dead. He shot me. He killed me but you saved me. How could you have saved me, Josh?” Drake’s voice was getting high and panicky. “What are you?”
Josh couldn’t seem to get that glass out of his throat so he took a deep breath and spoke through it, as lightly as he could. “I’m not from around here.”
“Where are you from?”
Feeling like a complete idiot but unable to actually say the words, Josh pointed upwards with his index finger.
“You’re from the north?” Drake asked dumbly.
Josh lifted his hand higher, so it was pointed up at the ceiling and beyond the ceiling to the sky outside.
Drake shook his head. “You’re not an alien.” He laughed at the ridiculousness of the statement but Josh didn’t move or react.
He’d been ten the last time he had this talk. It had been so much easier with Mindy. At ten years old it was easier for someone to believe the truth. At seventeen, the concept of aliens was too ingrained as science fiction to be easily believed.
“I mean, you’re not. Are you?”
Josh shrugged and pushed the hand that had pointed heavenward into his pocket. “Well, I prefer the term not of this earth.”
Drake gaped at him, slack jawed.
Josh winced at his own insensitivity. He’d had his whole life to come to terms with who he was. Drake had had about fifteen seconds.
“Sorry. Bad joke with worse timing. But, yeah. Yeah, I am.” He smiled slightly. “Wow. It’s so bizarre, you know, to actually that out loud.”
Drake was backing up, slowly, carefully. His eyes were locked on Josh but he was moving towards the door with a look of fear that had a starring role in Josh’s nightmares, right after those shiny metal instruments and government labs.
“Drake,” Josh began, not moving towards him, dealing with the object of his affection as if the other boy were a frightened animal who could and would run at the slightest threat. “You have to listen to me. You can’t talk to anyone about me. Not your parents, not your sister, not Trevor. No one. You don’t know what’ll happen if you do.” He took a deep breath and looked into those brown eyes he found himself drowning so very often. “Please, Drake. Now it’s my life in your hands.”
“I have…a…class…so…yeah.” Drake replied numbly. It was by far the weakest excuse he had ever heard.
Josh wished that it made his heart hurt less when Drake finally turned and ran.
~*~*~
Drake couldn’t focus. He was a little ADD to begin with but now it was like his brain was on Josh-Nichols-based speed. All day at school his head buzzed with images of flying saucers and little grey men and the look in Josh’s eyes as he hovered over him in the Premiere.
It was just too much to believe, that he’d been in school with a freaking alien since elementary school. It was too wild, even for him, and Trevor had him half convinced that the government was hiding a car that ran on water.
The guy had healed a bullet wound in his stomach. Laid hands on his body and fixed what should have been destroyed.
It occurred to Drake, during his many bouts of obsessive thinking, that Josh Nichols, quiet unassuming Josh Nichols, was crazy powerful. He could save people just by touching them.
And for whatever reason, Josh had decided to touch him. When that thought occurred to him, the focus of his obsessive thinking began bouncing wildly back and forth between ‘holy crap, alien’ and ‘why’d he do it?’
“Hey.”
Drake blinked and sat up sharply. Speak of the devil, Josh was standing in his room, looking up at the platform where he had been laying on his bed. He wondered if he could read minds too. If he could, he was so screwed.
“How did you get in here?”
“Your sister let me in. She seems…evil.”
Drake chuckled. “Yeah. Pretty much.” He sat on the edge of his bed, looking down at the alien in his bedroom. “Why’re you here.”
“I need to talk to you.”
Drake shrugged and tucked his knees up to his chest, his toes digging into his comforter. “You’re already here…” He waved at the ladder, inviting Josh to climb up.
Josh did, looking a little awkward until his feet were planted on solid wood again. Then he looked down at Drake nervously, fidgeting on the balls of his feet.
“I can’t imagine what you’re thinking right now, what you’re feeling. I mean, I’ve thought about telling you so many times.” Josh told him nervously.
“What? Me?”
Josh smiled, a small shy smile that went all the way up to his brow. His eyes darted down to Drake’s feet nervously and he shrugged.
“What?”
“Sorry, I just, I keep seeing those, um, crazy pajamas with the uh, the cowboys on them.”
Drake blinked.
“What?”
Josh shook his head. “Forget it. It was ages ago.”
For a very long moment Drake was completely lost. And then it hit him. Cowboy pajamas. He’d worn them to death and they were now living in the back of his mom’s closet in keepsake box.
“I never wore those in public,” Drake said softly. “Ever. I outgrew them before I ever met you.” He felt cold all over. “Can you, like, look in my brain? Read my mind like an X-man?”
Josh shook his head so hard Drake was a little worried he’d hurt himself. “I don’t have telepathy or anything. It’s just…when I healed you we made this, I don’t know, connection. I got this flash of a bunch of images and I saw you in those pajamas and I knew how you felt when you were wearing them.”
Drake unfolded himself and leaned forward. “How’d I feel?”
Josh rubbed the back of his neck. “You liked them. They made you feel brave but you were sad. Your dad gave them to you and he was leaving, back before your sister was born. It wasn’t the last time he did it but it’s the time that hurt you the most. You didn’t know how to stop him and you felt like if you were a real cowboy, you’d have been able to.”
He’d been four at the time. His dad came back two weeks later, and it had been another three years before he left again for good but in his head, Drake had always known his parents had been over then. And he’d always thought that maybe he could have…
He stopped himself from thinking about it. He didn’t think about it so what the fuck right did Josh have to think about it? None.
“I’m sorry,” Josh said again. “I really couldn’t help it and I would never tell anyone. You have to know that. Look, maybe,” he sighed, “I can try and make the connection go the other way on purpose. I’ve never done it before but I want to try and show you, I’m still me.”
Drake nodded and Josh took a step forward, his hand reaching out.
“I have to touch you.”
Drake took a deep breath and nodded again. Josh gave him that shy smile again and moved in front of him, one knee pressing on the bed. Then, with the same gentleness Josh had brushed his hair back with this morning, he placed his huge, warm hands on the side of Drake’s face.
“Now, just…let go I guess. Take slow, deep breaths and try to just blank out,” Josh directed softly, his voice sending odd vibrations down his spine like a twitching guitar string and then it hit him like a fist.
Flashes of a life he’d never even thought to ask about exploded in his brain. Josh, no more than three and confused but sure that his father would protect him, clinging to soft cotton as his father ran. Josh, a little older now and worried as he held a small girl in his arms. Josh, the day before school, being told that he couldn’t tell, not ever, that people wouldn’t understand, that they would be scared, that they could hurt him. Josh, seven and staring at a seven year old Drake, watching him play on the jungle gym with his friends and aching with a kind of tame envy mixed with a quiet desire to share in the experience with him. Josh, fifteen with his lips on Mindy’s, confused and under whelmed and then laughing with her. Josh, yesterday, watching him eat nachos and longing, to reach out, to touch, to just get a little closer. Josh, yesterday, his hand coated in blood as it pressed against a fatal injury in his skin and fear, rank animal fear that he, Drake, was going to die. That fear mixed with an awful, gut wrenching pain when Drake wouldn’t look at him, when he was slipping away. Josh, this morning, staring at his silver handprint on Drake’s stomach and thinking how beautiful he was, how beautiful he had always been.
And then, as suddenly as the visions had come, they were gone. Josh was pulling away. He was no longer kneeling on the bed and his hands were shoved into the depths of his pockets.
“So…did it work?”
Drake nodded dumbly, awed by what he’d seen.
“Are you okay? I didn’t…you’re not…you’re okay right?”
Drake shook himself and nodded again. “Yeah, yeah I’m fine. That was just…whoa. You’re an alien.” He let himself smile now because yeah, he was, but he was also just a guy, a guy who thought that he was valuable and worth saving.
Josh smiled back and it was a bit bolder this time. It made his eyes shine. “Yeah.”
“Do you know where you’re from?” Drake asked, scooting over and making an obvious space for Josh to sit next to him on the bed. Josh seemed a little stunned but took the invitation and flopped down beside him.
“My dad says when the time’s right, he’ll tell me everything. For now he said the less I know, the better off I am but I’m pretty sure there was a crash back before I was born.”
“A crash?”
“Yeah. Back in the 40s in New Mexico.”
“New Mexico- as in, Roswell, New Mexico?” He wasn’t even a geek and he’d heard of the Roswell UFO crash.
Josh shrugged. “I don’t know. He won’t get more specific than that.”
“So you and your dad are both…?”
Josh nodded. “As far as I know it’s just us here.”
Drake licked his lips and bobbed his head as he tried to collect his thoughts. He’d been thinking about this all day, what he would ask. Now he was all over the place. He should have made a list. If his sister had met an alien, she would have had a list of things to ask such as “do you need me to take you to my leader?” and “do you intend to anally probe me?”
“So it’s not an invasion?”
Josh laughed. It was a nice laugh, warm, just like the rest of him. “If it is, it’s the worst organized invasion of all time. Even with what we can do, the two of us can’t exactly take on the UN.”
“What, uh, what can you do? Can you fly?”
“I’m not Superman, Drake.”
Drake shrugged. He didn’t see any reason why not. Superman was an alien wasn’t he? He didn’t read comics but he watched the cartoon as a kid and he saw the movies.
“You could be.”
“But I’m not. I can connect, like you saw, and I can manipulate molecules and-“
Drake held up a hand. “Wait. You can do what?”
“Manipulate molecules.”
“What’s that?”
“Molecules are particles that bind together to make, well, pretty much everything. All it really takes to be a molecule is for there to be two atoms joined together.” Josh explained.
Drake blinked at him. He was crap with science.
“Look here,” Josh leaned over and picked something up off the ground by the edge of the bed. It was an old sock, worn out and not exactly pleasant. But Josh cupped his hands over it and when he opened them again it had transformed into a small red box made out of what appeared to be plastic.
“That’s how I healed you. Sort of. It factors in but this is easier. It matters less and it’s less urgent so it’s easier to concentrate on what needs to be done. Plus, a sock? Way less complex than your intestines, stomach, blood vessels and skin.”
Drake stared at that little red box. It had been his sock a minute ago, now it wasn’t and Josh had done that. For some reason, that was even more stunning to him than the healing or the connection had been.
“Who knows about this?”
“Mindy.”
“And?”
“And Mindy. I healed her when we were kids and no one knows but that’s it. Just Mindy and my dad.”
“Because your dad’s an alien.”
Josh sighed. “Drake.”
“I’m just kind of…dude, no one but Mindy?”
“I’m not supposed to tell anyone. My life and my dad’s life depends on it.”
Because in the real world, Drake figured, the Men in Black weren’t funny and decent like Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. They were the enemy and they could be anywhere.
Wow, that was paranoid but then, Josh was an alien. A freaking alien. He had earned some paranoia. It was probably pretty legit paranoia considering how huge the secret was.
Josh and his dad probably bent over backwards to keep it safe. It certainly explained his loner tendencies.
But he’d healed Drake, in public, with people all over. That didn’t seem to fit with what Josh was saying.
“All of this could have gotten out by you healing someone in public like you did for me. Couldn’t it?”
“Yeah.” Josh nodded, his gaze locked on his feet as if they were going to forgive him for what he’d done.
“But you just said that’s dangerous.”
“It is. Very dangerous. Like autopsy-chopped-into-pieces-and-kept-in-jars-of-formaldehyde dangerous.”
“Then…why risk it?”
Josh was quiet for a long moment and Drake was crap with waiting. He’d never been a very patient person and this was a big deal. His new alien friend had risked everything to save him. Why? Why why why? He was desperate to know.
He just wasn’t really ready to see the affection in Josh’s eyes when he looked up from his shoes and into Drake’s face. He wasn’t really ready for the reply either.
“Because it wasn’t someone, Drake. It was you,” Josh said simply and Drake floundered.
What could he say to that? What could he say that could possibly be enough for what Josh had given him?
Nothing. Nothing at all, Drake decided. So instead he reached out and took Josh’s hand. He decided that instead of words he would give that big hand a squeeze, and that strange, incredible boy a smile. From the way Josh beamed and squeezed right back, that seemed to be more than enough.