Hardy Detective Agency featuring Hardy Boys Fan Fiction

The younger Hardy looked at his brother, pleading. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this…it was supposed to be the opposite…if I lost weight I was supposed to be cleaner…I wasn’t supposed to be dirty anymore…”

“Dirty? How are you dirty?”

“I don’t know,” Joe moaned, covering his face with his hands. “I can’t do this anymore, Frank. I’ve gained weight already. I just feel filthy…I just want it to be over…”

“Damnit Joe, fight! Please. Think; if this was some crook or criminal conquering you you’d never give in. You’d fight to your dying breath. Do that for me. Fight back. Don’t let this thing win. Don’t let it kill you. Joe…for God’s sake…” Frank’s voice cracked, and his eyes shone with tears that stunned the younger Hardy, “…don’t leave me.”

“Frank…” Joe’s own throat swelled, and he stared at his brother, unable to speak, desperately wanting to bury himself in the shelter of his older brother’s embrace, terrified of what it meant—touch, tenderness, love too intense, too frightening. Frank’s desperation touched him, but it also terrified him, and although he wanted to be swallowed in his older brother’s love, he was afraid it would take him whole. “I’m so scared,” he finally whispered. “Oh, Frank, I’m so, so scared…”

“Let me hold you,” Frank pleaded. “I know you’re afraid of touch, but please. I won’t hurt you. You’ll feel better. Please Joe…”

Joe could only nod and try to hide the signs of fear that threatened to claim him; the rushing in and out of breath, the pounding of his heart, the tears that burned in his blue eyes. Frank moved forward, carefully putting his arms around Joe’s fragile torso, feeling the jutting bones of his shoulders, neck, and back. Joe tried desperately not to shudder, but his older brother’s warmth frightened him, and he gave himself over to tremor after tremor, burying deeper into Frank’s embrace, shutting his eyes to listen to the steady beating of his heart beneath the sweatshirt.

Maybe I did think it. Maybe I didn’t want him to leave. I didn’t; I don’t. But did I choose that specifically just to keep him here? I need him so much, and I don’t want to. But we need each other. It’s give and take. Only it seems I’m always taking…

“I’m sorry, Frank,” Joe sobbed, “I’m sorry you’re stuck with me for a brother. I’m sorry I’m never there for you like you are for me. I’m sorry you didn’t get someone who deserves you.”

“What are you talking about? Joe? You’re always there for me. How many times have you dragged me out of the house when all I wanted to do was study or work? How many times have you tracked me down and rescued me from the bad guys? How many times have you listened to me bitch and moan about school, or Callie, or work, or Mom and Dad? Please, believe me. Believe me when I say I need you. Believe me when I say…that I really…care about you. So much, Joe. No matter what this illness is doing to you, you have to know that.”

Joe just clung to his brother, trembling, trying to absorb all the emotion, trying to hold on to some semblance of himself, desperately wanting to remember what it had been like to be the old Joe, with confidence and self-esteem, with a feeling of worth.

“I’m afraid the doctor’s right, Frank,” he whispered a moment later.

Frank raised his eyebrows. “About what?”

“The separation thing.”

“But you said…”

“You’re not going to go away, are you?”

Frank clamped his mouth shut and sighed.

“See?”

“Joe, it was unintentional. Although I wish you had just told me.”

Joe shut his eyes an gritted his teeth. “How could I do that to you, Frank? How could I keep you from going to the place you wanted? The doctor said it. We have to separate.”

“Joe, it would have been a better for you to just tell me you were anxious rather than wait until you were about to die. You know I won’t leave now. I can’t leave now.”

“You have to, Frank. You can’t let this thing win.”

“That would be a set up for you to relapse.”

“So what are you going to do? Go to Bayport U when you could get into Columbia, or Penn, just because of your stupid brother?”

“It’ll just be for a year or so.”

“Until what? I decide to go away? And then what, Frank? Will you choose your school based on my city? You can’t be looking over my shoulder forever, you know.”

“What the hell do you want from me Joe? You can’t possibly expect me to just go away after all this and not worry. How do you think I feel knowing that I had a hand in this whole thing?”

“Frank! You didn’t. No one did but me and my subconscious. All right? You can’t stay here out of guilt. You’d hate me before long.”

“Joe…”

“No. You’re not staying. You’re going to go away to some Ivy League school and kick ass, and then we’ll have the rest of our lives to annoy each other when we start our own detective business. Got it?”

Frank sighed and shook his head. “I don’t think I’d be able to concentrate on school. I’d just be worrying if you were eating, or throwing up, or upset and not telling me.”

Joe closed his eyes and rested against his brother’s chest for a moment, hearing his heartbeat.

“I would never forgive myself if you gave up college because of me.”

Frank started. “I wouldn’t be giving it up completely, just some part of it…”

“Frank, please. You’d be giving up your chance for a social life, giving up a chance to be with your intellectual equals, of working with great professors…everything! Just for me! How can I forgive myself for that?”

“I don’t know,” the elder Hardy felt himself weakening, “I don’t know anything anymore. Not you, not what I should do, not what I did wrong…nothing.”

“You do know, Frank. You’ve known what was going on with me before I had any idea. You knew how to get me help and you did it. You didn’t let me get away with lying. And you’ve stayed by me. But you can’t be doing that your entire life. Sooner or later I need to learn to live with myself, because it looks like I’m stuck being Joe for awhile.”

Frank smiled, although his eyes were filled and his voice was husky. “You’re beginning to sound like yourself.”

Joe closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He was drinking supplements, eating some solid food. He’d signed himself into treatment. He wasn’t exercising, wasn’t purging. And he was beginning to realize he was wrong.

“I think I might be getting there,” he murmured.

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Disclaimer

The Hardy Boys belong to Simon and Schuster and the Stratemeyer Foundation. The Hardy Boys Fan Fiction authors of the Hardy Detective Agency have just borrowed them for an adventure or two. The authors promise to put the boys back when they are done with them. The authors do claim copyright to the original characters in this story. Please do not borrow original characters without express permission of the authors.