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Meddling – Robin 11
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This answers every curiosity I ever had about what Patrick Drake was like as a horny teenager.
It's with affectionate eyes that I watch Patrick pouting and grumbling under his breath across the Monopoly® board from me. He's been this way since sometime during dinner when it became obvious to him that his earlier promise to get revenge on me was going to be thwarted by the presence of his father as chaperone. Since then, and instead of asking his father to give us some privacy or trying to work around it, he just keeps pointedly glancing at the clock and then back at Noah, while Noah pretends not to get the hint. Then Patrick pouts some more. The last few hours have been vastly entertaining for both Noah and me.
"Your turn," Noah prompts his son who grudgingly picks up the dice and rolls.
I know it's not very sporting of me, but when Patrick once again lands on the "Go To Jail" box I can't help but let out an audible giggle. In my defense, Patrick's own father is having a hard time keeping a straight face as Patrick drives his car game piece to the proper square and mutters invectives under his breath. At my laugh, Patrick looks up and glares at me and I have a very strong feeling that if he wasn't so competitive he would have long ago quit this game and stormed upstairs to his room to sulk. And do what horny teenage boys do when they're alone. Patrick is not a very good loser, in any context.
Now, I could jump into the breach and quietly ask Noah to go to bed so that Patrick and I could have some alone time, but it seems as churlish of me to do as this is the first night that Noah has felt well enough to stay up with us after dinner. Still, despite Patrick's increasing frustration, this is the first time since the epidemic that I've seen father and son interacting with each other without the underlying animosity and awkwardness that has defined them for so long. It's the proverbial second chance come to pass, although in a slightly different setting than I ever imagined. You just can't imagine how heartwarming is it to see Patrick glare at his father when Noah offers to sell him a get out of jail card for the bargain trade of Atlantic Avenue to fill out Noah's monopoly.
I smile widely at Patrick whose dark eyes are now shooting daggers at me.
Yes, this is Patrick at fourteen, I'm sure of it. Truthfully, I find it pretty endearing and I'm not sure there's anything this man could do that I wouldn't find sexy.
"Does anyone need a refill?" I ask as I stand up from my seat at the dining room table. The kitchen has been my safe haven all night. I go inside, close the door and quietly let out some suppressed laughter, then bring out more drinks and snacks. It's been a perfect arrangement.
"But it's your turn," Patrick says, sitting in his chair with his arms crossed and glowering at the game board.
I swear that tears of laughter are going to be running down my face in a second if I don't get out of here.
"You know I think I'll just go to sleep. We can finish this game tomorrow night." Noah has apparently decided to cut his son a break. He stands up and puts a hand on my shoulder and winks at me.
"Fat chance," Patrick mutters under his breath loud enough for all of us to hear.
"Good night, Robin. Good night, Son."
At the sound of his father's good night, Patrick seems to finally snap out of his mood. "Good night, Dad." My heart skips a beat when I see the softness in his eyes as he looks at his father. It's not a heartwarming hug, but it's enough to melt my heart. And Noah's too because he smiles at his son with a look in his eyes I've only ever seen him exhibit when Patrick wasn't looking.
"Good night, Noah."
After Noah disappears up the stairs Patrick just sits staring at his hands, a thoughtful look on his face. I walk over to him and press a kiss to his head and walk into the kitchen to refresh my herbal tea. I know he needs a few minutes to himself.
Before my tea bag is done steeping he comes up behind me and wraps an arm around my neck and shoulders and rests his head on top of mine.
"This was nice, wasn't it?" I ask.
He grunts and buries his face in my hair.
"I think you're father enjoyed himself." I press.
"He kicked both our asses at a board game, what's not for him to like?" He sighs. "I behaved like an ass didn't I?"
"I think the latter is why your father enjoyed himself so much." I laugh and lean back against him and look up into his face. "You weren't being careful with him."
"I'm sure it gave him flashbacks." Patrick rolls his eyes, but seems cheered up.
"You're not angry with him anymore are you?"
"I have my moments, like when he's deliberately hanging around to cramp my style," he says lightly before nailing me with a heated look. "You were enjoying yourself at my expense way too much. You know the night is still young and I will still have my revenge." To prove his point he slides a hand down the front of my t-shirt and cups a sensitive breast. From behind he presses his arousal into my back.
"Oh good," I sigh and arch into his touch.
"It's not really revenge if you like it, you know." He nips at my ear. Just as I turn and raise my face for a kiss his cell phone starts ringing in the other room. He lets out a frustrated huff of air and goes to answer it.
Minutes later he's rushing out to the hospital to operate on a patient who has unexpectedly gone critical, leaving me now to be the frustrated one.
I so cannot wait until we're out of town together.
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"What's wrong?" Liz walks up to me holding a pile of files in her arms.
I'm standing at the nurse's station having just hung up the phone. I had just been talking to my father who called to tell me he was leaving Port Charles to go see my mother in London and assuring me that if she let him live he would be back. I'm relieved that he's finally facing her, but part of me wants to be there and play referee like I always used to. Part of me is also relieved that I won't have to play that role.
"Parents." I shrug and we share a knowing look. "My father is going to London to see my mother. She could very well shoot him." I say this last part matter-of-factly, because in the Scorpio-Devane family it is just a matter of course.
"And you're worried." Liz has become such a good friend since I've come back to Port Charles. I love that Lucky has married such a wonderful woman and that I get to work with her.
"I am, but it isn't going to do me or them any good so I need to just forget about it."
"Then how about coming to lunch with me? I just need to drop these off and then we can go get some fresh air. And you can tell me how it's going with you and Patrick."
At the mention of his name I am all smiles again, which thrills Liz to no end. I can tell from her expression that she's about to ask me a salacious question, but just then Jason comes barreling out of the elevator with his familiar "I must rescue Carly" expression on his face.
"Robin, you have to help me!"
I do? For the first time ever I feel a jolt of annoyance that Jason seems to assume that I went to medical school so I could be at his beck and call and that this is pretty much the only use that he has for me in his life anymore. Not to mention the fact that he doesn't care that he might be interrupting me or Liz. Still, I am nothing but polite, partly because I know from experience expressing how I feel isn't going to make a difference and partly because I am marginally responsible for Carly being tethered to a bed in the Psychiatric Care Unit. "What can I help you with?" I ask.
"You have to get Carly released." This misguided demand is no surprise.
I hear a small squeak out of Liz, as if she was going to say something but thought better of it at the last moment. I know how she feels. Both of us have been down the Carly comes first road with this man. She, fortunately, gets to busy herself putting charts away while I'm left dealing with Jason alone.
"I don't have any authority to do that, Jason. I'm not a psychiatrist."
"Just tell then she's not a danger," he says impatiently.
"It won't make a difference what I say, Jason." I don't bother to say that I don't necessarily think it's true either. The twenty-four hour hold she had been under has been extended to seventy-two hours and I know they wouldn't be able to do that unless there was cause. The law does not mess around with civil liberty except in the clearest of cases. I also heard that some hot shot psychiatrist from a downstate clinic has come up to consult.
"You did it for Manny Ruiz, against my wishes, but you won't …" He starts arguing with me, but I stop listening. His anger causes me to take a mental step back and really look at him.
"Do you even care that she was trying to attack me?" I interrupt to ask the question that's foremost in my mind and has been for a really long time.
"That's just how Carly is." Comes his rote answer and with it I feel relieved of any guilt I may have been able to muster at not being able to help him help her. It is in this moment that I really feel the irrevocable line dividing our past from my present. I no longer feel compelled to fight the hold Carly has had on him since he really was a boy with no past and blank slate for her to write on, which she did, indelibly.
"She's not my patient, Jason. You need to talk to her doctors." I force myself to turn and walk away, leaving Jason standing there looking stunned, pissed, blank? I don't care to know anymore and that makes me sad. Liz lingers behind for another second before joining me and we walk in step down the hall, neither of us speaking. There is, after all, really nothing else to say.
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"Where do you want to go to lunch?" Liz asks me as we walk out of the locker room with our purses ten minutes later. Both of us seem determined to not touch on the confrontation we just walked away from and I am very glad. I'm sure I'll second guess myself a thousand times later, but just now happy thoughts seem to be the order of the day.
"How about Kelly's?" As we're walking I power on my cell phone and see that I have a message from Patrick. Giddy, I open it up and stop in my tracks with jaw dropping shock.
Patrick Drake is a very naughty boy. He does not play nice.
"What?" Liz asks as she looks over to see what has riveted my attention. "Attention" being the key word, because before I can recover myself to act fast enough Liz is seeing a disturbingly clear photo of my boyfriend standing at, well, attention.
"I can't believe he did that! Hot!" Liz yells down the hall, at least it seems like a yell to me, and as my face gets redder and the next picture pops up I notice a couple of doctors and another nurse turning to look at us. I press the phone to my chest. "You are a lucky woman, Robin," she says in a loud whisper.
"I can't believe he did that," I whisper back, grab her arm and rush us towards the elevators.
What he's done is use his camera phone to take pictures of himself coming out of the shower and email them to my phone. Patrick apparently takes his vengeance very seriously and has a way with technology, as well as women and surgery. Apparently, his only weakness is board games.
I am a very lucky woman.
Two more days.