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A/N: There is no such thing a Juno-14. I made it up and don’t be e-mailing me asking for some.
Chapter 62: Dru II or The Land of Nuts and Fruits
"Big mistake, I knew it," Blake said as he flopped his big fanny onto his bed, grabbing a pillow, punching it, and then hugging it. Drury watched him as he yawned.
"Think about it, Robbie," Drury said as he grabbed the remote and turned on the television. "I mean we weren’t gonna win tonight. Patty’s mistake really didn’t do much to hurt us."
Blake yawned again and he smiled. "Oh yeah," he said, laughing quietly, "I forgot about Patty. Poor guy... heh heh. You know if you do the math, Patrick faced a shot a minute almost? I don’t get goalies... naw that wasn’t what I was talking about though."
"What were you talking about then?" Drury asked as he flipped through the channels.
"Footer and Peter," Rob said, "I meant that was a big mistake, making them alternates."
Drury frowned and he turned off the TV. This sounded like something he would need to listen to. "What?" he asked.
Blake yawned again, rubbing his eyes. "Joey made them alternates, because he’s known them longer I suppose... because of the whole original Nordique thing. But, but, you know as well as I, that they can’t run a team without a captain to look up to! Hell, all Peter cares about is taking care of his own game on the ice, and Footer, well he only listens to whatever Patty tells him."
The thought had crossed Drury’s mind; he couldn’t deny that to himself. But he had figured initially when Joe had picked the alternates for his absence, that Joe was just choosing whom he saw fit and that the dart of anger in his stomach was because he was unhappy about being left out. Blakie must be feeling the same thing, Drury reasoned to himself.
"Rob, you’re being silly," Chris said, opting for the safe route. "Joe knows what he’s doing, he’s not dumb."
"Nah, nah, I wasn’t saying he was," Robbie said sitting up, "Don’t get me wrong. But think about it, he has a lot on his mind, all the time. You know how he is, maybe he didn’t think this one over... I mean at least he should have named a captain. Just a temporary one, you know, to tide the team over. Without a captain look what happened today! And he’s not gonna be back for another two weeks."
Chris shook his head. You want to be captain! He thought.
"Rob that was a fluke today, Footer didn’t order tainted brownies, it was an accident."
Rob nodded his head. "I know that Chris! It’s just that... well if there were a captain, at that moment, he could have ordered everyone to not touch the food, he could have stopped Patty from drinking that punch."
Chris laughed. "Yeah, I think the punch helped out Patty."
Rob smiled. "Well, you see my point?"
"Yeah, I think I do," Chris said quietly. "But what are we gonna do? Hm? Who did you have in mind?"
"Well, me of course," Rob said. "Peter’s never been a captain, and neither has Adam. I know I would have stopped that buffet fiasco. And you heard them crying about monkeys? Mojo Jojo? What the hell was that?"
"Powerpuff Girls," Drury said.
"Yeah!" Blake said. "They thought they were Powerpuff Girls! I mean they even ate some brownie! What kinda example was that?"
Chris nodded. He was feeling nervous now. This was definitely not something they should be discussing. It was interesting though, and he did agree with a lot of it, except that last part of it of course. If he wanted to be a captain someday, he decided, he should listen to all sides of a problem. There couldn’t be much harm in just listening to Rob, for a little bit.
"Yeah," Chris said. "We could bring this up to Joe, just a suggestion."
Let’s see where you’re getting, Drury thought.
"You’re captain material," Rob said abruptly as if he hadn’t heard Drury’s last comment. "Even you’d be better in charge than Adam or Peter. At least you have some education!"
"Yeah?" Drury said narrowing his eyes. Was this some sort of trap?
"Yeah," Rob said. "I have an eye for these things, you know. You’ve got the goods for a top position, maybe not here but somewhere, you’ll be a captain."
"So you gonna tell all this to Joe?" Drury asked again.
Rob smiled. "Yeah, maybe I will, tomorrow."
Drury pursed his lips a bit, looking at Rob, scrutinizing his face for something. He didn’t like the sound of all this, and yet he did. Had Joe made a big mistake in not picking a temporary captain? Well they were all human, stuff like this happens, he supposed. What about Rob? Was that all he cared about was the next two weeks, or was he thinking about the next two years? How comfortable did he want to be in a Captain’s C?
"Easy kid!" Rob laughed. "Don’t overanalyze it, I was just throwing out some stuff to think on. I wasn’t trying to butter you up or anything, I’ll talk to Joe tomorrow, he’ll tell you just what I did. You’ll see."
Drury yawned and scratched his head. "I’m going to sleep," he said. "I just want to forget today ever happened."
Drury forgot all about his conversation with Rob when he woke before dawn the next morning. He had just enough time to take a shower and grab his packed bags, for their ride to Los Angeles. In that time, he just slept some more, yawning and mumbling all the way to their new hotel room.
Later that morning, he was eating breakfast in the hotel restaurant when he saw Tangers come walking in with Patty and Keaner. Drury waved them over. "Hey!" Tangers said with a smile. "How ya feeling?"
"No," Drury said, looking as sympathetic as he could, just to show Tangers that he cared and could be relied upon. "How are you?"
Alex smiled and sat down, grabbing a menu. "No practice today! That feels good. Game tonight, that sucks. But I OK. I mean, we are, we didn’t have the brownies."
"Ooooh," Patty groaned. "My head!"
Keaner laughed and ruffled Patty’s hair. "You gonna get a cut?"
Patty glared out of the corner of his eyes, and Drury withheld a smile. Simple pleasures in life included getting that glare out of Patty. Hell even Joe indulged in that sometimes, waddling behind Patty in the locker room, imitating Patty’s old Butterfly Goalie duck-walk. That enraged Patty real well. "No," Patty snipped. "I see no need to cut it."
"But you lost bud," Keaner said with a smile.
"I did not!" Patty insisted. "You lost it, not even scoring a goal. Not my loss."
This time the table laughed, Drury knew he shouldn’t laugh at a veteran but this one was too silly for words. Patty sat back and crossed his arms, and then a small smile appeared on his face. "And besides," he said. "I’ll cut it when I have a home loss! This was not a home loss!" Drury and Alex exchanged looks, and smiles. It was times like those when Drury almost felt like he adored Patrick and he knew that Alex was probably thinking the same thing. In anyone else, Drury would have taken those words as proof of them being arrogant basterds, but there was an almost childlike naivete about the way Patrick sometimes announced his views of the world, that he ended up coming across as endearing. Patrick was built to be patronized, he decided.
"Right, Patty," Drury said. "We forgot that."
Patrick sniffed, and picked up the menu. "If they don’t have Froot Loops I will sue!" he declared.
"Hey, so how are the brownie munchers then?" Drury asked Keane.
Mike grinned. "I told em not to do it!" he said. "They’ll be fine though, not even hung over really. Musta been some drug, but it’s already washed out of their system it seems like. Karns is running the tests on them to make sure."
"I bet it was Juno-14," Drury said.
"What’s that?" Patty asked.
"It’s new! I hadn’t thought about that!" Tangers said. "Right, it’s a new party drug that you can get in night clubs."
"Yup," Drury said. "It’s real easy to bake it into things and kids like it cause it doesn’t leave em strung out and hung over the next morning. Also, it doesn’t show up in urine tests eight hours after the fact."
"Ooooh," Patty said. "I’m old..."
Keaner laughed. "Aw, heehee, if that’s true then none of the boys are weaseling out of the game tonight."
"Hey guys," Blake said in a low voice and he sat heavily into the empty chair at the table.
Drury raised his eyebrows, he was still grinning. "Hey, Rob," he said. "You talk to Joey?"
"Yup," Rob said picking up a menu.
"What about?" Tangers asked.
"Temporary captaincy, seeing what happened last night," Drury said.
"Eh?" Patrick asked.
Rob looked up holding out his hands. "Joe thought it was a great idea," he said.
"So you’re captain for now?" Drury asked.
"Nope," Blake said.
Drury held back a laugh. "Then who?" he asked.
Rob looked up at Keaner and patted him on the shoulder. "All hail the captain," he said to Drury’s near horror.
The identical smiles on both Keaner’s and Patty’s faces were also quite frigtening.
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