Note: Happy 50th Chapter, Ya'll!
Samsonlove- Dillon and Georgie have been forced into a corner as of late. Their scene at Liz and Lucky's wedding was wonderful, but that was about the only time they've done much of merit ever since the show stopped giving even a little bit of focus on the stalker storyline, which is stupid and pointless, all the teen characters have been pushed out, sans Maxie because of her connection to Jesse. Since Dillon is my favorite character on the show, I want to incorporate him in the story, and Georgie comes with him, so she gets a piece of the pie as well. Carly and Sonny will be understandably shocked and angry. Durant is, in no way, a subtle person. Kyle was horrid, that's why he's dead here.
Story-
Port Charles-
Try as she might, Maxie didn't find herself enjoying the date that she had made in such a random stroke of the moment with Robbie. There was almost nothing about him that she enjoyed. The way he talked about how he was trying to get a new high score on the latest Tony Hawk, or who he thought was going to be in the Super Bowl that year, all the things that he talked about were just there. In some way, the same could be said of Damian, who was always talking about his medical stuff, or the piano, or some other interest that she didn't share, but, unlike with Robbie, Maxie wanted to know those things. And, Damian also listened to her when she was talking about things that he didn't quite understand himself.
It was hard to find a place for the two of them to eat. She would usually go to Kelly's, but that was out of the question, with Mike and Elizabeth both working there almost constantly. It ended up being that the two of them needed to go out of town, to a neighboring town for a somewhat decent meal. He did pay for the meal, she gave him credit for that.
Robbie was sitting in the car, his car, with Maxie in the passenger's seat. A part of the boy couldn't believe it. He was sitting there with Maxie Jones. One of the most beautiful girls from high school. Kyle's old girlfriend. And, when Kyle had someone, nobody else was allowed to even look at her, it was one of his rules. Kyle may have been a demanding bastard, but he was still Robbie's friend, and, for some reason that would be unknown to just about anyone who truly understood what kind of a person Kyle actually was, he missed the boy. "Hey… Maxie…"
"Yeah?"
"Why did you decide to ask me out like that?" Robbie wondered. "I mean, I'm not going to say that I didn't want to do this, or that I didn't enjoy our dinner, but, come on, you never paid me any attention in high school, and last I checked you were pretty involved with someone else…"
Maxie looked away. He knew about her and Damian? It wasn't like she didn't expect people to know who the mob boss's oldest son was dating, but she didn't expect it to be the topic that everyone knew, even the people like Robbie. "We broke up…"
"So am I your rebound boy?"
"Robbie…"
"Answer the question, Maxie."
She sighed, "He hurt me, all right? I didn't think that he would ever hurt me the way that he did, but I was wrong. I trusted him so much that I only ended up getting burned in the end. I don't know why I do that, I've done it before… with Kyle… it's like I get into these relationships that are only going to screw me up in the end, and I fool myself into thinking that it's something else."
"I can make you feel something else… think something else… make the pain go away, at least for a little while."
Maxie turned her blue eyes over to him. Robbie was a lot like Kyle, in that they did the same things. However, unlike Kyle, Robbie did not end up overdosing. Once upon a time, the prospect of using drugs to get rid of her problems would have been enough to have Maxie going headlong into the drug induced haze, but she couldn't do that anymore. She had grown as a person, even without Damian there to give her a hand. She didn't need him to make decisions for herself, and she refused to become the type of person that she was before. "Robbie, I stopped doing everything… and I don't want to start again."
"Who said anything about drugs?" Robbie replied, a sly grin as he leaned towards her and placed a hand on her cheek. "No strings, Maxie. I promise. If you don't want to feel anything for that guy, then try being with another, even for a little while."
Maxie was repulsed by the touch. It felt like she was violating something that was pure and good, but, he had been the one who violated it first, the one who tarnished the beautiful thing that they once had. Why did it fall onto her to be the one who held back? Why did she have to sacrifice her own happiness for the sake of another man, one who no longer treated her like she was important to him? No answers came to her, which, at least to Maxie Jones, was a sign that it was all right to do what she was thinking about doing. "My dad's gone… let's go to my place." Robbie was right. She just wanted to feel something else.
Docks-
"Maxie? It's me. I don't know where you are, but when you get this message I hope you can call me back right away. I really need to talk with you, it's important. Really important. So, call me when you get the chance, all right? I love you. Bye." He closed the shell of the phone and stuck it back in his pocket. He hadn't spoken with her for the entire day, and while he wasn't one of those people who needed to be attached at the hip with the person that he loved, he at least wanted to hear her voice once a day, and not just from her voicemail.
Damian looked out into the moonlight night, the stars and the moon reflecting on the waves of the docks. Before, in Los Angeles, he would do the same thing sometimes. Go out on the pier that was a few miles from his home and just sit there and watch the waves crash. It was something that brought him a great deal of relaxation and tranquility. The boy hoped that the waves would serve the same purpose in New York that they did in California, but, sadly they could not. It was because there was now so much baggage on his mind, especially in the past few days.
Everything was piling up on him, and he didn't ask for it. How was he supposed to balance everything that was happening around him? He had to deal with helping Dillon out, and Brook, and now Bobbie, and when the news came out, which it eventually would, he would have to deal with that fallout as well. None of those problems were easy to solve, and to make matters worse he had to deal with his own life, which seemed to be less and less easy to do. All he wanted was some breathing space, all he wanted was some time to actually collect his own thoughts and not be encumbered by the problems of other people, but he wouldn't get that from anyone, would he? No, as long as he was the person that he was supposed to be, the person that he truly was inside, people would come to him with their problems and look for his help. Damian would never be able to turn them away, because he cared about all those people. They were, in some way, a part of his family. Maybe not by blood, or marriage, but certainly by bond, and that was all that mattered.
The soft creaking sound of someone else on the docks caught his attention. Instantly, he thought that someone was coming to take him away, to keep him hostage as a chip against his father again. Spinning around as quickly as possible, he readied to protect himself, even if it meant going down, he wouldn't go down without a fight. His instincts proved to fail him, however, when he realized that it was not someone who would ever do him harm.
Jason looked at the boy strangely. Why did he spin around so quickly? Why did he look like he was going to try and fight? "You okay?"
Relaxing his body, yet still feeling the adrenaline that came from the idea, Damian nodded softly, "Sorry, I just heard someone on the docks and I thought… well, you know what I was thinking. You're getting soft, Uncle Jason, last I heard you knew how to make it so that nobody could hear you when you came up to them on the docks."
"I only do that when I feel that I have to," Jason replied, "Why would I feel threatened by you? Why would I even need to sneak around you?"
"Maybe dad has you watching me again, like he did before."
"Sonny wouldn't do that to you again, Damian," Jason said sternly. "He knows that you don't want to be treated like a child, he knows that you're old enough to know how to protect yourself, and he respects that. Right now, at least. But I can't say that something will change, if someone goes after you again, like Alcazar did, then yes, Sonny will do something, will find some way to protect you from getting hurt, but, right now, he doesn't seem to feel the need to do so."
"What are you doing out here anyway?" Damian knew that it was the quickest way back to the house, but Jason tended to stay in the shadows, keep to himself whenever possible. "Or is it one of those things that you can't tell me about…"
"I was going home."
"Don't let me keep you from going home, then," Damian walked over to the bench and sat down. Jason started to walk away, and then the boy realized something. "You know, Uncle Jason, I never understood how hard it would be to act like you… until now…"
Jason stopped walking and looked over his shoulder, "What are you talking about?" Jason truly hoped that it wasn't something involving his job as a hitman, because the last thing that both he and Sonny wanted was to know that the boy had been further traumatized by some action that he had to take, an action that the both of them would have been able to do without flinching.
"The way that you are," Damian began, "the way that you give yourself to people without thinking about yourself. You are the most selfless person in the world, and I respect that so much about you, but I never knew how much of a burden that it could be on you."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because, like I said, I finally understand what it's like to have so many people confiding in you that you don't feel like you have enough room to even deal with your own problems, and I'm scared…"
"Scared?"
"I'm scared that I'm going to fail someone that I care about. That I'm not going to be able to help the people that mean something to me, that I'll have to watch them as they sink further and further into a position where I can't help pull them back up. I just… how do you do it? How do you be the person that you are without driving yourself insane? How can you take in all the baggage that comes with helping these people and not crack?"
"I've had a lot of practice."
"But you never even complain about it. It's like you're some sort of super best friend. Everyone can come to you and you'll never turn them away. A life-size version of My Buddy."
"My Buddy?"
"Never mind." If there was one thing about Jason that Damian would always forget about, and regret when he remembered, it was that Jason was not aware of any of the pop culture stuff that he was aware of. Granted, he wasn't a pop culture aficionado in the least, but that didn't mean that he didn't know his way around the decades that he had been born in.
"I'm not sure I know what you're trying to ask me, Damian. I can't help you unless I know what I need to help you with."
"See? There you go again, throwing your help out into the open so that someone can clutch onto it. Why do you do it?"
"Because I care about you, and everyone else that I offer to help. I don't want to see the people that I care about get hurt. I don't know why that seems to be such a bad quality…"
"It isn't," Damian replied softly, "and, if I made it seem like it was, I'm sorry, but… I guess what I'm asking is… how do you find time to breathe with all the things that you're dealing with? Because, right now, I feel like I can barely get time with myself, time to think about my own problems, and, even when I try to do that, I end up thinking about someone else."
"You just need to roll with it."
"That's it? That's your great piece of advice? Roll with it?"
"What else can I tell you? What works for me might not work for you… I'm going to bet that it doesn't. We're two different people."
"You're just better at this than I am."
"Like I said, I've had a lot of practice, and, when you deal with problems that come from Carly, you learn how to find some way to just distance yourself from everything…"
Damian gave Jason a wary eye. The boy wanted to tell Jason, of all people, what was going on, but he realized that if he did that he would just be doing the same thing that he was complaining about other people doing, that he would be burdening Jason with his problems, problems that Jason shouldn't have dealt with. "Are you trying to make a joke?"
"Maybe…"
"If I wasn't in this mood, I'd probably laugh."
"Are you going to be all right?" Jason asked. He asked because he wanted to know, not because of Damian being Sonny's son, but because Jason knew that he would want to help the boy get through his problems.
"Yeah, I'll be fine." Damian watched as Jason left once more, and then again, he called out to him. "Uncle Jason… wait… if… if Dillon wants to talk with you, please, listen."
"What's that mean?"
"Just listen, please." He repeated, hoping that the message got across. And, in some small way, telling Jason that made it feel like some of the weight had been lifted from his shoulders, which was not a bad thing in the least.
