Fic: No More Pencils, No More Books (GH, Robin/Patrick, Matt, Lanaverse)
Title: No More Pencils, No More Books
Author: empressearwig
Claim: Robin/Patrick
Fandom: General Hospital
Theme: 11 - Teenage Rebellion
Disclaimer: Any character first appearing on the series General Hospital does not belong to me.
Matt opened the front door to find his parents sitting on the couch waiting for him.
He frowned and closed the door behind him. “Is something wrong?” He dumped his backpack off his shoulder and toed off his sneakers.
Robin nodded towards a chair. “Have a seat, Matthew.”
He sat. “Did I do something?” He looked back and forth between his parents’ faces. Something was clearly going on.
“I think it’s more about what you didn’t do,” Robin said, voice clipped and face tight with strain.
His forehead crinkled in confusion. “What are you talking about? I actually did my chores without being reminded for once.”
Robin turned to Patrick. “You’re going to have to do this. I’m too angry to talk.” She got up and began to pace around the room.
Matt watched her for a second before turning to his father with a befuddled look. “What is going on?”
“Your mom got a call from your guidance counselor,” Patrick said, one eye on his wife who was muttering under her breath and gesturing wildly, and the other on his son. “She told us that you haven’t filled out any of your college applications.”
“Shit,” Matt swore.
“I don’t think you want me to be pissed about your language on top of everything else,” Robin warned, not missing a beat in her relentless pacing.
“So does that mean it’s true?” Patrick asked sharply.
Matt nodded reluctantly.
“Did you maybe want to explain why?” Patrick prompted. He looked at Robin who looked like steam might start pouring out of her ears. “Before your mom’s head explodes?”
He took a deep breath. “Because I don’t want to go to college,” he said quickly, eyes darting back and forth between them, trying to gauge reaction to what he’d said.
His mom stopped dead in her tracks and was staring at him as if he’d slapped her in the face. His father’s jaw had dropped, and was looking at Matt as if he were speaking in tongues.
Matt sighed. That had gone over about as well as he’d expected.
His father recovered first. “I’m sure I didn’t hear you right. You didn’t just say that you don’t want to go to college.” His eyes begged with Matt to say that he’d misunderstood, and his head jerked ever so slightly towards Robin who looked like she might cry in frustration at any moment if she didn’t hear the right thing. “Tell me you didn’t just say that.”
Matt sighed again and shook his head. “I’m sorry.”
Robin found her voice. “You are going to college!”
Matt opened his mouth to answer, but Patrick spoke first.
“I think what your mother meant was, please tell us why you’d want to do something so stupid as to throw away your future and not go to college.” He looked over at Robin. “Right, honey?”
“No, I meant he’s going to college,” Robin said bluntly. “He doesn’t get a say in the matter.”
Now it was Patrick’s turn to sigh. He held out a hand to his wife. “Why don’t you come sit down and we can all talk about this.”
Robin brushed the hand aside, but came and sat down. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she grumbled. “I want to bash some sense into his thick skull.”
“If you hit me hard enough, college’ll be out of the question,” Matt quipped. He winced at Robin’s stony expression. “Wrong time for a joke?”
She nodded sharply, and smiled at him with an overly sweet smile. “Besides, you have the bad luck to have the best neurosurgeon on the eastern seaboard as a father. You’d recover.”
“Before we get to the head injury portion of the discussion, I think we’d be better off if you’d tell us why you don’t want to go to college, Matt,” Patrick intervened. “Now.” His voice was pleasant, but the underlying tone made it clear that there were no alternatives.
“I just don’t think college is for me,” Matt tried. It was true after all. He didn’t. Somehow he didn’t think it was going to be enough, and judging from the expressions on their faces it wasn’t. “It’s not like I don’t know what I want to do,” he defended. “I just don’t think college is necessary for it.”
“Please enlighten us as to what career you’ve chosen that college won’t be necessary,” his mother invited. “I’m dying of curiosity.”
He frowned. “You won’t like it.”
“Oh, and I like being told that my son is throwing his future away by not going to college?” Robin countered. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Start talking.”
“Fine.” Matt paused, considering ways to say it. “Look, I want to be a spy, okay?”
His parents stared at him with identical expressions of shock on their faces.
“Why is this such a surprise?” he demanded, uncomfortable with their silence. “It’s not like it’s not a family tradition or anything.”
“You want to be a what?” Robin managed finally, voice rising to a yelp at the end of her question.
“I second that,” Patrick muttered.
“A spy.”
They stared at him in silence for a few minutes more.
“Say something,” Matt said finally.
“A spy,” Robin echoed.
“Besides that, “Matt said irritably.
“I’m sorry, it’s not every day your only son tells you that he wants to be a spy,” Robin fired back. “That’s not a real job, you know. No one actually grows up to be spies.”
“Really? What would you call Grandma and Grandpa, then?”
“Overgrown children,” Patrick muttered under his breath.
Matt frowned at him. “I thought you liked them.”
Patrick rubbed his hands over his face in frustration. “I do. Most of the time. That doesn’t mean I want my son to aspire to be them. Do you realize the dangers that life involves? What it costs the people in their lives?” He rubbed a comforting hand across Robin’s back as he said the last part.
Matt turned to look at Robin, who looked like someone had punched her in the stomach. “Mom…”
She held up a hand to ward him off. “Save it, Matt.” She narrowed her eyes at him, gathering herself together. “Let’s pretend for a moment I’m remotely okay with your choice here, but tell me, do you have a plan for how to go about this? Or were you just planning on walking into WSB headquarters and offering yourself up for service on the basis of being Robert Scorpio and Anna Devane’s grandson?”
Matt just stared at her.
“You did have a plan, right?” Robin pressed.
He still didn’t answer.
She shook her head. “I didn’t think so.”
“What do you know about becoming a spy?” Matt questioned, growing angry at himself but directing it towards his mother. “It’s not like that’s what you chose.”
“Tone, Matthew,” Robin warned. “Besides, I was offered positions with the WSB on multiple occasions. I turned them down.”
Both Patrick and Matt stared at her in shock.
“You were offered what?” Patrick demanded. “Why do I know nothing about this?”
She shrugged. “Because it was never something I was remotely willing to consider. Besides, the first of them came while I was still in medical school, and the second after the monkey virus outbreak at GH, and we weren’t together then.”
“Still,” Patrick said, stung that she’d never told him. “You should have told me that there were agencies recruiting you to be a spy.”
“Not a spy, exactly,” she corrected. “But to do research for them, yes.” She turned to Matt. “So you see, I could probably make a phone call and get you a job of some sort. Because I do have contacts with the WSB, who would only be too happy to have a third generation Scorpio spy in their hands. But Matt, if you want me to make that phone call, there are conditions.”
“Why do I need you to make a phone call?” Matt questioned. “If what you say is true, they’ll take me without it.”
“Because I can make a phone call to stall them, to hold them off, as easily as I can make one to open the door.”
“You wouldn’t.”
She looked him directly in the eye. “I would.”
Mother and son stared at each other, not blinking, till Patrick stepped in.
“Alright, Robin, you mentioned conditions. What sort of conditions did you have in mind?”
“Matt goes to college and graduates,” she said simply.
“What, no! That’s not what I want, and you can’t blackmail me into it,” Matt said angrily.
“Look, Matt, you’ll be of more use to the bureau if you’ve been to college. Do you speak Farsi? Russian? Mandarin? Those are the types of languages you’ll need to be truly effective as a spy in this day and age.”
Matt frowned. “I can already speak French and Spanish.”
“And that’s a great start. But it won’t be enough, unless you want to ride a desk doing analysis for them for the rest of your life.”
Matt didn’t answer, but seemed to be contemplating what she’d said.
Robin sighed. “Look, I know that if this is what you really want I can’t stop you. Nothing would be able to stop you. But if you go to college, you’ll be so much better prepared for this world that you claim to want to be a part of. And if you go, I’ll make that phone call for you, I promise.”
“I’ll think about it.” Matt stood. “Are we done here?”
“For now,” Patrick said. “Why don’t you go make a list of schools you’d consider going to if you agree to your mothers conditions? You might have missed some application deadlines already.”
“Fine.” Matt stalked out of the room and up the stairs to his bedroom.
Patrick looked at Robin and folded his arms across his chest. “The WSB?”
She looked uncomfortable. “Yes. I’m sorry, I didn’t think it was important.”
“My wife has been recruited by a government agency and you didn’t think it was important?” His voice rose to near shouting at the end.
“No.” Robin grew angry. “It happened before I met you and before we got together, so no. I haven’t had an offer from them in years, and actually, I couldn’t have told you. That’s what being a spy is all about. Which is why I don’t want that for Matt. The lies, the secrecy, the constant danger…” Her voice broke on the last word and her face crumpled. “I don’t think I can handle Matt being in danger all the time, Patrick, I don’t.”
He sighed and gathered her into his arms. “I know,” he murmured, stroking her hair gently. “I know.”
“He just doesn’t understand. He doesn’t. We tried so hard to protect them from what my life was like when I was a child, and he has no conception of what it’s like to always wonder if when you say goodbye it’s going to be for the last time.” She shook her head, blinking away tears.
He cupped her face, forcing her to look up at him. “It’s not going to happen. You just bought us some time. You just ensured that he’s going to college, because whether or not he’s willing to admit it now, he is. Maybe when he gets there he’ll realize that he doesn’t want to do this after all.”
She shook her head. “No, I saw it in his eyes. This is what he wants, that’s not going to change. All I did is prolong the inevitable.”
“Even if you did, we have years now to prepare for it.” He kissed the top of her head. “It’ll be okay, I promise.”
She didn’t answer, but buried her face in his shirt, tears trickling down her cheeks.
Nothing would ever be the same again.
Author: empressearwig
Claim: Robin/Patrick
Fandom: General Hospital
Theme: 11 - Teenage Rebellion
Disclaimer: Any character first appearing on the series General Hospital does not belong to me.
Matt opened the front door to find his parents sitting on the couch waiting for him.
He frowned and closed the door behind him. “Is something wrong?” He dumped his backpack off his shoulder and toed off his sneakers.
Robin nodded towards a chair. “Have a seat, Matthew.”
He sat. “Did I do something?” He looked back and forth between his parents’ faces. Something was clearly going on.
“I think it’s more about what you didn’t do,” Robin said, voice clipped and face tight with strain.
His forehead crinkled in confusion. “What are you talking about? I actually did my chores without being reminded for once.”
Robin turned to Patrick. “You’re going to have to do this. I’m too angry to talk.” She got up and began to pace around the room.
Matt watched her for a second before turning to his father with a befuddled look. “What is going on?”
“Your mom got a call from your guidance counselor,” Patrick said, one eye on his wife who was muttering under her breath and gesturing wildly, and the other on his son. “She told us that you haven’t filled out any of your college applications.”
“Shit,” Matt swore.
“I don’t think you want me to be pissed about your language on top of everything else,” Robin warned, not missing a beat in her relentless pacing.
“So does that mean it’s true?” Patrick asked sharply.
Matt nodded reluctantly.
“Did you maybe want to explain why?” Patrick prompted. He looked at Robin who looked like steam might start pouring out of her ears. “Before your mom’s head explodes?”
He took a deep breath. “Because I don’t want to go to college,” he said quickly, eyes darting back and forth between them, trying to gauge reaction to what he’d said.
His mom stopped dead in her tracks and was staring at him as if he’d slapped her in the face. His father’s jaw had dropped, and was looking at Matt as if he were speaking in tongues.
Matt sighed. That had gone over about as well as he’d expected.
His father recovered first. “I’m sure I didn’t hear you right. You didn’t just say that you don’t want to go to college.” His eyes begged with Matt to say that he’d misunderstood, and his head jerked ever so slightly towards Robin who looked like she might cry in frustration at any moment if she didn’t hear the right thing. “Tell me you didn’t just say that.”
Matt sighed again and shook his head. “I’m sorry.”
Robin found her voice. “You are going to college!”
Matt opened his mouth to answer, but Patrick spoke first.
“I think what your mother meant was, please tell us why you’d want to do something so stupid as to throw away your future and not go to college.” He looked over at Robin. “Right, honey?”
“No, I meant he’s going to college,” Robin said bluntly. “He doesn’t get a say in the matter.”
Now it was Patrick’s turn to sigh. He held out a hand to his wife. “Why don’t you come sit down and we can all talk about this.”
Robin brushed the hand aside, but came and sat down. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she grumbled. “I want to bash some sense into his thick skull.”
“If you hit me hard enough, college’ll be out of the question,” Matt quipped. He winced at Robin’s stony expression. “Wrong time for a joke?”
She nodded sharply, and smiled at him with an overly sweet smile. “Besides, you have the bad luck to have the best neurosurgeon on the eastern seaboard as a father. You’d recover.”
“Before we get to the head injury portion of the discussion, I think we’d be better off if you’d tell us why you don’t want to go to college, Matt,” Patrick intervened. “Now.” His voice was pleasant, but the underlying tone made it clear that there were no alternatives.
“I just don’t think college is for me,” Matt tried. It was true after all. He didn’t. Somehow he didn’t think it was going to be enough, and judging from the expressions on their faces it wasn’t. “It’s not like I don’t know what I want to do,” he defended. “I just don’t think college is necessary for it.”
“Please enlighten us as to what career you’ve chosen that college won’t be necessary,” his mother invited. “I’m dying of curiosity.”
He frowned. “You won’t like it.”
“Oh, and I like being told that my son is throwing his future away by not going to college?” Robin countered. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Start talking.”
“Fine.” Matt paused, considering ways to say it. “Look, I want to be a spy, okay?”
His parents stared at him with identical expressions of shock on their faces.
“Why is this such a surprise?” he demanded, uncomfortable with their silence. “It’s not like it’s not a family tradition or anything.”
“You want to be a what?” Robin managed finally, voice rising to a yelp at the end of her question.
“I second that,” Patrick muttered.
“A spy.”
They stared at him in silence for a few minutes more.
“Say something,” Matt said finally.
“A spy,” Robin echoed.
“Besides that, “Matt said irritably.
“I’m sorry, it’s not every day your only son tells you that he wants to be a spy,” Robin fired back. “That’s not a real job, you know. No one actually grows up to be spies.”
“Really? What would you call Grandma and Grandpa, then?”
“Overgrown children,” Patrick muttered under his breath.
Matt frowned at him. “I thought you liked them.”
Patrick rubbed his hands over his face in frustration. “I do. Most of the time. That doesn’t mean I want my son to aspire to be them. Do you realize the dangers that life involves? What it costs the people in their lives?” He rubbed a comforting hand across Robin’s back as he said the last part.
Matt turned to look at Robin, who looked like someone had punched her in the stomach. “Mom…”
She held up a hand to ward him off. “Save it, Matt.” She narrowed her eyes at him, gathering herself together. “Let’s pretend for a moment I’m remotely okay with your choice here, but tell me, do you have a plan for how to go about this? Or were you just planning on walking into WSB headquarters and offering yourself up for service on the basis of being Robert Scorpio and Anna Devane’s grandson?”
Matt just stared at her.
“You did have a plan, right?” Robin pressed.
He still didn’t answer.
She shook her head. “I didn’t think so.”
“What do you know about becoming a spy?” Matt questioned, growing angry at himself but directing it towards his mother. “It’s not like that’s what you chose.”
“Tone, Matthew,” Robin warned. “Besides, I was offered positions with the WSB on multiple occasions. I turned them down.”
Both Patrick and Matt stared at her in shock.
“You were offered what?” Patrick demanded. “Why do I know nothing about this?”
She shrugged. “Because it was never something I was remotely willing to consider. Besides, the first of them came while I was still in medical school, and the second after the monkey virus outbreak at GH, and we weren’t together then.”
“Still,” Patrick said, stung that she’d never told him. “You should have told me that there were agencies recruiting you to be a spy.”
“Not a spy, exactly,” she corrected. “But to do research for them, yes.” She turned to Matt. “So you see, I could probably make a phone call and get you a job of some sort. Because I do have contacts with the WSB, who would only be too happy to have a third generation Scorpio spy in their hands. But Matt, if you want me to make that phone call, there are conditions.”
“Why do I need you to make a phone call?” Matt questioned. “If what you say is true, they’ll take me without it.”
“Because I can make a phone call to stall them, to hold them off, as easily as I can make one to open the door.”
“You wouldn’t.”
She looked him directly in the eye. “I would.”
Mother and son stared at each other, not blinking, till Patrick stepped in.
“Alright, Robin, you mentioned conditions. What sort of conditions did you have in mind?”
“Matt goes to college and graduates,” she said simply.
“What, no! That’s not what I want, and you can’t blackmail me into it,” Matt said angrily.
“Look, Matt, you’ll be of more use to the bureau if you’ve been to college. Do you speak Farsi? Russian? Mandarin? Those are the types of languages you’ll need to be truly effective as a spy in this day and age.”
Matt frowned. “I can already speak French and Spanish.”
“And that’s a great start. But it won’t be enough, unless you want to ride a desk doing analysis for them for the rest of your life.”
Matt didn’t answer, but seemed to be contemplating what she’d said.
Robin sighed. “Look, I know that if this is what you really want I can’t stop you. Nothing would be able to stop you. But if you go to college, you’ll be so much better prepared for this world that you claim to want to be a part of. And if you go, I’ll make that phone call for you, I promise.”
“I’ll think about it.” Matt stood. “Are we done here?”
“For now,” Patrick said. “Why don’t you go make a list of schools you’d consider going to if you agree to your mothers conditions? You might have missed some application deadlines already.”
“Fine.” Matt stalked out of the room and up the stairs to his bedroom.
Patrick looked at Robin and folded his arms across his chest. “The WSB?”
She looked uncomfortable. “Yes. I’m sorry, I didn’t think it was important.”
“My wife has been recruited by a government agency and you didn’t think it was important?” His voice rose to near shouting at the end.
“No.” Robin grew angry. “It happened before I met you and before we got together, so no. I haven’t had an offer from them in years, and actually, I couldn’t have told you. That’s what being a spy is all about. Which is why I don’t want that for Matt. The lies, the secrecy, the constant danger…” Her voice broke on the last word and her face crumpled. “I don’t think I can handle Matt being in danger all the time, Patrick, I don’t.”
He sighed and gathered her into his arms. “I know,” he murmured, stroking her hair gently. “I know.”
“He just doesn’t understand. He doesn’t. We tried so hard to protect them from what my life was like when I was a child, and he has no conception of what it’s like to always wonder if when you say goodbye it’s going to be for the last time.” She shook her head, blinking away tears.
He cupped her face, forcing her to look up at him. “It’s not going to happen. You just bought us some time. You just ensured that he’s going to college, because whether or not he’s willing to admit it now, he is. Maybe when he gets there he’ll realize that he doesn’t want to do this after all.”
She shook her head. “No, I saw it in his eyes. This is what he wants, that’s not going to change. All I did is prolong the inevitable.”
“Even if you did, we have years now to prepare for it.” He kissed the top of her head. “It’ll be okay, I promise.”
She didn’t answer, but buried her face in his shirt, tears trickling down her cheeks.
Nothing would ever be the same again.