Title: Just Josh
Author: GatorGrrrl
Rating: K to T (G to R)
Warnings: implied to mild slash, angst, bad words
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters from Drake & Josh. If I did, the show would have to be on Showtime or HBO.

Author's Note 1: I am the "voice" of Josh Nichols on the Livejournal community, Theatrical Muse. Each week, the community moderators offer up a new prompt (in bold) that the members, writing in the voice of their character, have to write a short ficlet for. The ficlets I have written so far are below. I'll add more as they become available, probably 4 or 5 at a time. Enjoy!

Author's Note 2: Three of the five ficlets below are slash (fairly mild for the most part). When I opened a new Word document each time, it wasn't my intention to write slash; it just came out that way. I tend to write these in a "stream of consciousness" manner, typing the first thing that comes to mind when I read the prompt, and then going from there. Apparently, my mind has been in a slashy place lately.

Name three things that you're looking forward to in the near future and why.

Let's see. Just three? Would you like those in alphabetical order or in order of importance, 'cause I can do either.

Well, I suppose the most immediate thing I'm looking forward to is getting out of these wet clothes. It seems Drake conveniently forgot, once again, that we share a car. Which means, of course, that we share a ride to and from school. Now, this is not a new situation, but Drake has the thoughtfulness of a quilt. No, scratch that. A quilt is more thoughtful. Because its job is to simply provide warmth. It just lies there waiting for the opportunity to provide comfort to those who need it. Unlike my brother, who… Never mind. So, yeah, I'm gonna get out of these wet clothes and slip into my nice, warm jammies and wrap myself up in the quilt my grammy gave me when I was eight years old. 'Cause there's nothing better than plotting revenge against your stepbrother while wrapped in a comfy quilt.

The second thing? That's easy – finishing the last puzzle in my Insanely Hard Sudoku book. In ink. I've been working on this book for six months. Six months! And I've only had to use white out a couple – twenty-seven – times. He Who Shall Remain Nameless thinks I'm a dork, thinks I'm wasting my time, thinks I'm lowering my cool factor exponentially (that's my word, by the way) by pulling it out in public and working on it in front of everyone. But he should know by now that my cool factor is on life support, anyway, so a few number puzzles aren't really going to hurt anything. And anyway, I think it is cool to finish things you start. It's not dorkiness, it's diligence. I've set a goal for myself and I'm sticking to it. And when I finally finish it and emerge victorious, he's gonna…he's gonna…he's gonna still think I'm a dork.

But most of all? Well, most of all I can't wait to see the look on my brother's face when he sees what I have in store for him. Of course, I haven't thought of it yet. But it's gonna be good. It's gonna be great. It's gonna be the stuff of legend. It's gonna be right up there with turning his hands and feet green or filling the car with squirrels or –

"Hey Josh before you get mad let me explain I didn't mean to leave you at school I swear but there was this girl this really hot girl who asked me to take her to the mall and I couldn't refuse 'cause dude she was really really hot but then I felt bad and while I was there I bought you this to say that I'm really sorry and I hope you can forgive me."

Drake. He says this all in one breath as he bursts through our bedroom door in a frenzy of words and hair and wildly frantic hand movements. He's holding a bag and all of a sudden the thing I'm looking forward to the most is tasting whatever's inside. 'Cause, yeah, Drake knows me better than anyone and when pastries are involved, I just can't stay mad at him. And he knows it, too.

A friend asks you to recommend a book: which book would you choose and why?

The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. Read it. Why? Because it'll change your life. It did mine.

I don't remember a lot about my mother; she died when I was really young. Her name was Margaret but Dad says she hated it, that she always went by her middle name, Abigail, instead. She had dark brown hair and blue eyes and a beauty mark on her left cheek.

Sometimes I think I dream about her. I'm never really sure, though, because the dream disperses like so much dandelion fluff seconds after I wake up. But I'm always left with a warm feeling of familiarity and a dull ache in my chest after the dreams.

I remember her laugh the most – the way it always seemed to brighten the room. How it was contagious and spread from person to person faster than a virus. Sometimes I'll hear a woman laugh and it'll sound so familiar, it makes my breath catch in my throat. But it's never her; I know that. It'll never be her.

And I'm okay with that. Really. I've got a mom whom I love and who loves me.

Dad says my mother loved to read, that she used to read to me constantly, even before I was born. He swears that's why I'm "such an intelligent boy" as he puts it. And I have one vivid memory that sneaks up on me sometimes out of nowhere, when things are really quiet. I'm sitting on her lap, my head tucked beneath her chin. Her arms are around my stomach and she's holding a book open on my lap and I'm helping her turn the pages. I can feel her voice vibrating against my head and if I close my eyes and concentrate hard enough, I can actually hear the words as she reads.

"Once there was a tree...and she loved a little boy."

I used to imagine (and still sometimes do) that the tree was my mother and I was that little boy. That she gave me everything she could until she couldn't give any more. Because she loved me.

I still have my mother's copy of The Giving Tree. The one she held in her hands and read to me from. It's worn now – the cover's torn and the pages are coming loose from the binding, but I still take it out sometimes and read it, even though I have it memorized. It's something of hers I can hold on to, something tangible that she loved that I love, too. It was hers when she was a child and inside the front cover, written in neat, child-like handwriting, is the name "Margaret Abigail Simmons."

And tucked inside the back cover is a photograph. In it, she's smiling so widely I imagine her laughing. She's holding my hand.

And we're standing next to an apple tree.

3am.

The alarm clock is mocking me. If it could laugh, it would. In fact, I can almost hear its little electronic snickers as we speak.

It's three o'clock in the morning. In three hours I have to get up and face The Beast: my Calculus mid-term. I've studied so much, my mind is swimming with integrals and functions and derivatives. It's all I think about. The letters in my breakfast cereal seem to arrange themselves into formulas. When Mom asked me how many scoops of ice cream I wanted, I answered, "3 to the nth power".

I think I'm losing my mind.

What I need to do is sleep. I tried counting sheep, but numbers? Really not conducive to sleep right now. I tried drinking warm milk, but warm soy milk? Ick. I tried listening to soothing music on my iBot, but I kept trying to count the number of beats and that just meant more numbers. And like I said – numbers? Really bad right now.

There's one surefire, tried-and-true way I know to ease tension. But I really don't want to do it. Okay, it's not that I don't want to do it. I just don't want to do it right now. I mean, not here. In my bed. With Drake sleeping just a few feet away.

I could get up and go to the bathroom, I guess. Take care of it quickly in the light blue glow of the nightlight. But I just finally got comfortable, you know? The sheets are just the perfect degree of warm and the pillow is fluffed just right and if I move now, I might never get it back. And then I'll never get to sleep.

I can hear Drake snoring lightly from his side of the room and I look over at him. His silhouette is framed against the wall behind him, a dark, misshapen lump of pure blissful slumber and I'm suddenly so envious I could scream. Or cry. Or both.

Fine. I give up. I'll do it. Right here, right now. Just a few practiced flicks of the wrist and the welcome arms of sleep will wrap around me, all snug and warm for the next three hours. Okay, two hours and fifty-five minutes, now that I look at the clock. Well, more like two hours and fifty minutes, if all goes as planned.

Stop. Stop calculating.

I take a deep breath and one last, quick look at my brother to make sure he's still sleeping. I see him roll over onto his left side, dragging his blanket with him, and hear him sigh contentedly into his pillow.

Damn him. But at least he's facing away from me. This'll be easier if I know that.

Taking another deep breath, I stare resolutely up at the ceiling and then close my eyes. Alright. Think. I need something hot. Something sexy. Wait, no. Not something. Someone.

Mindy. Yeah, Mindy.

I can feel my mouth curve into an easy smile as I conjure my girlfriend's face in my mind. Her radiant smile. My fingers find the end of the drawstring on my pajama pants and tug, pulling the knot loose. Her light brown hair that smells like lavender and shines in the sunlight. I snake my fingers beneath the soft elastic waistband of my boxers, the scratchy hair rough against my fingertips. Her soft lips that always taste like cherry lip gloss. I run my fingers against the length of my penis; it's already getting stiff. Her fingers snaking through the hair on the back of my neck. I wrap my hand around myself, feeling the heat against my palm, my breath catching in my throat. Her voice whispering in my ear, "the logarithm of the product of two numbers is the sum of the logarithms of those numbers." I run my thumb over the… Wait, what? No. No no no.

I squeeze my eyes tighter, trying to go back. Her hands. Think about her hands. The way they brush down your arms when you kiss. They way her palm feels soft and warm against yours when you're walking. The way they've built a better science fair project than you every year since sixth grade.

No! I can feel my fledgling hard-on dwindling fast. Think, dammit. Hands. Lips. Smile. Hair. Lavender shampoo. Cherry lip gloss. "The derivative is a measurement of how a function changes when the values of its inputs change."

"Shut up, Creature." Drake's voice. "Don't listen to her, Josh. Just relax. You can do this." I can see his face, clear as day, in my mind. Mindy's face is gone. "Just stop thinking."

What? What the hell is Drake doing here?

"Josh."

Jesus God, I'm hard again. Really hard. Just like that. Just from the sound of his voice saying my name. And I'm not even gonna think about what that means because, yeah, I need this.

"Just relax, dude."

I move my hand rhythmically up and down, up and down. It feels so good, I can feel my eyes roll back behind my eyelids. My heart starts to thud against my ribs.

"That's right. Just like that."

Warmth begins to pool deep inside my belly, starts to spread outward until I can feel it infuse my fingers, my toes, the tips of my ears. I press my head into the pillow and crane my neck, gritting my teeth.

"You're almost there, Josh. Just a little bit more."

My wrist is starting to feel tight, my palm slick. I tighten my grip, giving myself a squeeze, and pretend they're his fingers wrapped around me. And then I come, fast and hard, feeling the hot, sticky wetness soak into my t-shirt. I have to bite my bottom lip painfully to keep from crying out.

"See? I told you. Just stop thinking. Don't you feel better now?"

"Yeah," I whisper between breaths.

He's looking at me and he's smiling. He's smiling that smile that says, "I love it when I'm right." And I feel myself smile back.

His voice and his face disappear from my mind after a few seconds and I feel my eyelids begin to droop. Sleep at last. I peel my t-shirt off and toss it to the floor next to the bed, taking a look at the clock out of habit before rolling over into my comfy position.

3:12am.

If you could get anyone drunk, who would it be and what would you do?

Sometimes it's tiring always being the responsible one. The one who always thinks before he acts. The one who always knows right from wrong even when he ends up – usually through a little arm-twisting – doing the wrong thing.

For once, I'd like to do something irresponsible. All on my own. Something where I wouldn't have to think too much or even think at all. Where the sharp edges of the world would soften a bit and where I could do something frivolous without worrying about the consequences.

Like get drunk. It would be so easy, really. Just go downstairs and open the heavy oak cabinet with the cut glass doors where Mom and Dad store all the liquor. They really only have it for special occasions, like when Dad's boss comes over for dinner or when Mom's book club meets once a month to discuss the latest Sandra Brown or Nora Roberts offering.

I'd start with the sherry. I heard Dad say it's sweet. Or maybe brandy. Mom got a some of that stuff where the pear's inside the bottle as a gift once. I like pears. It'd be like drinking fruit juice, right? Really strong fruit juice.

I wonder what kind of drunk I'd be. Would I get all maudlin and cry? Would I think everything was funny? Would I get sick and throw up all over the place? I hope not. Vomit is gross enough when you're sober. It's gotta be worse when you're drunk. I'm already uncoordinated, so that would just be like every other day, only magnified.

I like to think I'd be a happy drunk. You know, one of those people who starts to think everyone's their friend. The guy who's touchy-feely, hugging everyone and saying, "I love you, man." The kind of guy everyone else hates because he just won't shut up or stop smiling like he's just had a lobotomy.

Yeah, that's the kind of drunk I'd be. I'd be the happy guy who sings cheesy power ballads off-tune at the top of his lungs while trying to form a conga line and do the limbo. And I wouldn't think about how badly my head's gonna hurt in the morning or how disappointed Mom's gonna be or how much Drake is gonna make fun of me or how much Megan's gonna torture me when I'm hungover.

I wouldn't think about my GPA or my college applications or the fact that I have a recurring rash. I wouldn't think about the rightness and wrongness of things or how the world is spinning too fast or how the thought of leaving for college in less than four months scares me out of my mind.

I wouldn't think about how I'm pretty sure I'm in love with my stepbrother.

And then I'd probably throw up.

Black and white.

Know why I like Chemistry so much? Because it's concrete. It's absolute. If you mix Chemical A with Chemical B, you always get Chemical C. You don't sometimes get Chemical C and sometimes get Chemical Q. Chemistry is black and white.

Life, on the other hand, is a palette of maddeningly different colors. Red. Blue. Purple. Green. Irritatingly similar, yet so vastly different, shades of gray. That weird color the cottage cheese turns after it's been in the back of the fridge for six months.

If life were like Chemistry, it would be so easy to predict. And in some cases, there are absolute truths. For instance, if I touch Megan's stuff without her permission, there will, without a doubt, be consequences. Very, very bad and possibly physically altering consequences. This is a black and white, absolute truth and has been proven and substantiated by empirical evidence so many times, it should be made into a Law of Nature.

Where the other colors creep in is where all uncertainty lies – with my stepbrother, Drake. He doesn't follow the rules. In fact, there are only two absolutely black and white things when it comes to Drake – one, he's always cool, and two, he's aware he's always cool.

But after that, the part of the world, the part of my world where Drake resides is a mind-numbing array of swirling colors. Take, for instance, the other day. We're sitting on the couch in our room watching reruns of Susannah Louisiana, goofing on how bad an actor the dad is, when all of a sudden Drake turns to me and says, "Hey, Josh. Wanna wrestle?" Now that wasn't so unusual in and of itself since Drake gets bored easily and often feels the need to entertain himself in some physical manner. He also is secretly self-conscious about his size and wants to prove he can take on someone bigger than him.

That part was black and white, you see. Predictable and comfortable. It was what happened next that brought on the laser light show of psychedelic colors. There we were, locked in some pretzel-like move we learned by watching WWE late at night, when all of a sudden Drake whispered, "I think about you when I jerk off." So of course, I lost all concentration, which allowed Drake to gain the upper hand and pin me to the floor beneath him, his knees digging into my ribs. He then grinned down at me like a doofus and held me there for what I felt was longer than necessary before getting up and settling back into the couch cushions like nothing had happened. Like he hadn't just said what he did.

That is not black and white. That is so far from black and white it's a prism. Or what comes out of a prism, anyway. You know what I mean.

Reviews are always appreciated. Thank you.