“So J-boy, have you noticed anything strange about your brother lately?” I asked.

“Strange? He’s a fucking freak!” Justin said shaking his head. “He’s getting huge and all, and that’s great, but I wished he’d lose that attitude. This morning I was in his room looking for a shirt. You know we always wear each other’s clothes.” I nodded. “Well, I was looking through his drawer and he walks in a nearly bites my head off. I seriously wondered if he was going to take a swing at me.”

“Yeah, I know. He’s been like that with me too. I think something’s going on with him.” I paused to see what Justin’s reaction would be. He looked up at me, “Like what?” I was wearing a baseball cap at the time, so to lighten the mood a little bit; I grabbed one of Justin’s and put it on backwards. “Elementary, my dear Watson!” He smiled at me, “You can be such a dork, you know that?”

I ignored him. “Let’s examine the evidence. In the past two months Mike has gone from struggling to gain any weight to putting on over 20 pounds. He’s lifting really heavy weights. He can train like an animal every day without overtraining. His sex drive is out of control. He has nasty mood swings – and he’s got zits when he never had ‘em before.” I paused in Holmes-like drama. “I can mean only one thing Watson…”

“You think he’s on steroids, huh?” Justin frowned. “I guess that must be it. I sort of thought the same thing, but I never thought he’d be so secretive about taking them. Where do you think he got them?”

“I say, Watson, really. You simply must pay closer attention.” I said it in a very bad English accent. “You’ll recall the day that we all went to Iron Mike’s a few weeks ago…”

“Yeah, I guess. Can we lose the stupid accent?”

“Ok, ok. Remember how Jonathan and Carl reacted when they saw Mike. Jonathan looked like he expected Mike to be big and Carl was upset about it. Then they were arguing. I know Carl wouldn’t like it if Jonathan got steroids for Mike, so I’ll bet they were arguing about that. The only question left, is: Where is he keeping them?”

“Beats me, Sherlock.” Justin said. “I suppose they must be somewhere in his room.”

“Ah, yes! Very good Watson!” I was trying the accent again. “And we can further deduce from your most recent run in with our muscle-bound boy that he is keeping them somewhere near where you were looking today.” We walked through their shared bathroom into Mike’s room. “Now Watson, show me, if you please, where you standing when you had your altercation with the suspect.”

“Only if you promise not to talk like that anymore.” Justin laughed. I smiled and nodded. “I was right here, Holmes. Looking in this drawer, right here.” The two of us carefully looked through the drawer’s contents, but found nothing. We checked of the other drawers in the chest, but found only clothes in them too. We also found the couple cards that I’d given him. I thought it was cute that he kept them.

“I don’t understand it.” I said. “Why would he get so mad if you weren’t getting close to his little secret?” Justin shrugged. “I don’t know, he gets mad about a lot of things lately.” Then I noticed that one of the drawers didn’t close completely. We pulled the drawer out it’s opening and found the box taped to its back. “Shit Justin, this must be it.” Sherlock was now long gone. Somehow actually finding the drugs made everything seem much more serious.

We removed the box and sat down on Mike’s bed. We opened it and saw the vials and the needles. We both just sat there and stared for a good bit. Finally I picked up the large vial. The label said, ‘Testosterone Cypionate’. It looked like it was almost empty. Then I looked at the small vials. There were three of them. The label said, ‘Deca-Durabolin’. “What should we do, J-boy?”

Justin’s mouth was open and he was still absorbing the sight. “Whoa, Eric. He’s even injecting himself.” Just then the door opened and in walked Mike.

“What the FUCK are you two doing?” he yelled, slamming the door behind him. “Give me that!” He yelled as he grabbed the box out of my hands and put it on his dresser. “Who said you two could dig around in my stuff?” He was really angry and I think both Justin and I were afraid he was going to hit us. I’d never seen him like this, and with his new size, I was actually frightened of him.

“Easy, Mike.” I said, trying to calm him down a little. “We’ve been really worried about you, we just wanted to find out what was going on.” There was still rage in his eyes. We paused hoping he’d calm down. “Worried about me, why would you be worried about me?” He walked over to me and knocked the two hats off my head. “Take that stupid hat off.” He said, as angry as ever.

“What’s with you, bro?” Justin protested. “Don’t take it out on Eric.”

“Maybe I should take it out on you.” Mike shot back. Justin, to his credit, kept his cool.

“We just want to know why you’re doing this, bro.” I said calmly as I could.

“Why? Can’t you see why? Look at me!” He flexed for us. “Twenty-five pounds of rock hard muscle, that’s why I did it. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t want to look like this!” In my case, he was probably right. There was a nagging voice in the back of my head telling me to ask him to help me get some, but there was a louder voice telling me that we weren’t ready for this yet.

Justin, however, was getting fed up with him. “Yeah, right Mikey. You don’t look as good as you think you do. You look like you got stung by a bee!” I couldn’t believe Justin insulted him. It was definitely the wrong thing to have done. Unfortunately, there’d be no time for diplomacy. Without saying a word, Mike dropped his arms from flexing and punched Justin in the jaw. The shock of it stunned both Justin and me, but only for the briefest of moments. A trickle of blood came from Justin’s mouth. I saw Justin getting up, and I knew this wasn’t going to be good.

“No Justin!” I yelled trying to grab him. But in a single motion he pushed me away and swung around hitting Mike in the face with a perfect roundhouse kick. Mike hit the floor like the proverbial ton of bricks. He wasn’t knocked out, but it must have been close. Justin stood over him ready to hit him again. As Mike started to get to his feet, Justin said, “If you have an ounce of brains left, you’ll stay right where you are.” Thankfully Mike came to his senses and did just that. He knew he no match for Justin’s years of martial arts training.

I got to my feet and grabbed Justin and started moving him toward the bathroom door. I knew I needed to separate the two of them before they started in again. I whispered to Justin that I’d take care of it. He grudgingly went toward the bathroom yelling at Mike has he went. “Get your fucking head screwed on straight Mike! We had a promise; you remember that? We never hurt each other, you fucking asshole. WE NEVER HURT EACH OTHER!” I saw a tear in his eye as I pushed him through the door into his room and closed it. I knew what he was talking about. It was one of the first things Mike had ever told me about Justin – how they’d promised each other that they’d always look out for each other and never hurt each other. Now for the first time in years, Mike had broken that promise and Justin was hurt.

After I got Justin into his room, I grabbed a towel, wetted it and went back to find Mike sitting on the floor, blood flowing from mouth and nose. It was dripping into his and he just sat there looking down. I sat down on the floor next to him and grabbed his shoulders. “Here, lean back so we can the bleeding stopped.” Mike rolled onto his back and laid his head in my lap. He looked up at me as I washed the blood off his face.

“I fucked up pretty bad, huh?” He said softly. His amazing blue eyes were searching for forgiveness in my eyes.

“Yep, you did.” I said calmly.

“Would it help if I said I was sorry?”

“Depends what you’re sorry for.”

“Well, I’m sorry I started this whole steroid thing.”

“mmm hmm”

“And I’m sorry I went ballistic on you and Justin.”

“mmm hmm”

“And I’m sorry I kept secrets from you and lied to you” he whispered, looking away.

“Yeah, that’s the biggie Mike.” I turned his head back toward me.

“So what do I have to do to get you to forgive me?” His expression was pleading with me.

I thought about it for a second. “Two things,” I said stroking his hair a little, “First, you have to promise that we won’t have any more secrets. Second, you have to tell me why you did this.” I smiled at him, letting him know that I’d already forgiven him.

“I promise – no lies, no secrets, except for birthday presents.” He smiled at his own joke. “This whole thing was stupid, I know. It actually started before our parents found out about us. Jonathan seemed really cool, and I thought he could help me figure out why I wasn’t progressing. I talked him, and we got onto the subject of steroids. He told me that he’d done them. And, well – look at him, that guy is so hot.” I cleared my throat a little. “Umm, well not compared to you, but he has a nice body.” He continued. “Jonathan told me that he could get some for us, so I got them. I was actually planning on surprising you – I had enough for both of us. But then that shit happened with my parents…” He paused to find his next words. “I just wanted you to look at me like you used to when we first met. I wanted to be the big guy that you and Justin looked up to, not the one who was struggling to keep with you guys. I just wanted to be the best at something again. I don’t know.” His voice trailed off. “Does that make sense to you?”

It did make sense to me. Mike had been thrown some pretty nasty curves over the past few months, and I hadn’t done as much as I should have to help him through it. “It makes sense to me, Mike. The thing with your parents really sucks; I know it’s hard on you. I just wish I could help more. Speaking of them, you’re going to have one nasty bruise where Justin kicked you. How are you going to explain that?”

Mike frowned. “I’ll just tell my Dad that Justin and I got carried away wrestling. He’ll be ok with that, and my Mom practically doesn’t speak to me anymore.” I couldn’t imagine my parents treating me that way. I figured I’d better lighten up the mood.

“You know, bro – there are a few aspects of your little biological experiment that I kinda liked.” I said grinning broadly at him. “Like what?” he smiled back. “Like the way you toss me around when we’re having sex! Grrrrr!” I growled at him. “GRRRRRR!” he growled back, “it’ll still be in my system for another two weeks or so…we may as well enjoy it”

“Maybe you can come over tonight and show me just how sorry you really are.” I said knowing he’d be trying to do everything he could to make me happy.

“I think I could do that!” he grinned. “But first, I need to make things right with Justin.” •