Corinthos Household-

Sonny was a cautious man. Even when he thought he felt save, he always took precautions to make sure that, in the off chance that his initial feeling was incorrect, he would have enough time to fix that error. He knew how to fight. He might not have been as quick and his punches may not have had as much power as they did when he was a youngster, but he was still a scrapper at heart. Growing up in his neighborhood, if one didn't know how to throw a good punch they tended to get their lunch money taken away. It was a lesson that young Sonny didn't need to be taught over and over. The first time it happened was the last time it happened. He regretted taking advantage of people, but he hated being taken advantage of even more.

Sonny, at least, had the knowledge that his children didn't have to go through the same thing. Michael had never been in a fight during his school years. In fact, aside from times when he had to be taken out of school for his own safety or because he was sick, Michael was an outstanding student, among the top of his class. Things had even gotten better since Damian came around. He would do whatever he could to help Michael when he needed it, and he was much more educated than Carly and Sonny. Not that either of them weren't bright, but Damian had a more refined mind. They grew up with more street smarts than anything, and while Damian had his fair share of those, he was much more the scholar. He never got his lunch money stolen either. People didn't pay much attention to him. It was a fact that still carried some weight on Damian's mind, the fact that he had grown up so quiet and alone. Only now, when he came to Port Charles and made friends was he slowly starting to branch out. Sonny, in a way, wished that he would have picked a better person to fall in love with than Maxie Jones, but she made his boy happy and Sonny could see how much they loved each other. For that reason alone he would never try to break them up.

Upstairs there was a strange sound coming from the hallway. Carly was out, and Sonny had only recently returned from one of the warehouses and a meeting with Myer. Max, ever dutiful, never left his post, which meant that if someone got inside the house they had to climb up through the terrace or find some way to sneak past Max. If the latter proved itself to be true, Sonny would not be a happy man. His gun partially hidden, but unencumbered enough for a quick draw if need be, Sonny investigated the strange sound.

Before he could check the rooms of his sons, Sonny saw one of the doors opened slightly, the rustling sound coming from right behind that door. Since no burglar would be stupid enough to make that much noise, especially in the home of Sonny Corinthos, Sonny didn't see any reason to hold the gun in the open. He moved to the other side of the door and saw the redheaded boy digging around. Sonny got on his knees, a Cheshire grin evident on his face, complete with dimples. "Santa doesn't like it when little boys look for their presents early!"

Michael jumped up a bit, his head jerking back at the unexpected voice of his father. His face turned red, a crimson shade that was only marginally different from the shade of his hair. If he was sneaking around for his presents, he would be in a whole lot of trouble. Luckily, nothing could be further from the truth. Michael was still the type of person who believed in Santa Clause, and therefore had not contemplated the fact that his parents were the ones responsible for almost all of his gifts, save those that were given to him by Jason, Courtney and his grandparents. "Daddy!"

"You're not going to find any presents there, Mike."

"I know," the blush faded away, Michael's usual freckled complexion returning shortly after. "I wasn't looking for presents."

"Well, what were you looking for?" Sonny asked. He was intrigued. Unless Michael was making up some elaborate lie. Maybe Damian managed to use his little brother as a tool, searching for his own presents. Sonny had no idea what he was going to buy his adult son. He somehow doubted that Damian wanted the same things as Michael. Unless Damian had some action figure fetish that he was hiding until the right moment. Not that Sonny would judge the boy.

"Decorations, the Christmas decorations." Michael started looking through the boxes again. Sonny didn't mind. None of the things that could make his children wonder about him were kept in places that they could find.

"We'll put up the decorations a few days before Christmas, like we always do." Sonny wasn't the type who had his decorations out the day after thanksgiving. He waited until a few days before Christmas to get the biggest tree, which would be decorated with his children shortly after. It was one of his favorite traditions, something that he and his mother did when he was a boy.

"I want it to be special, daddy," Michael admitted, finally halting the search for the elusive Christmas decorations. There was a very good reason that he was looking so frantically, and so early. He had dreamed of the day where he could put up the decorations with his big brother since Thanksgiving. He liked Thanksgiving as much as the next person, but Christmas was always something special. It wasn't just because of the presents, although they helped, but it was about the feeling that was given during the holiday. He wanted to share that feeling with Damian. "This is the first time we'll have Damian with us, I want everything to be perfect."

"I get what you're saying, buddy, but the decorations aren't there." Sonny stood up and reached for the higher parts of the closet. Although they weren't clearly labeled, Sonny knew which boxes held the Christmas things. It was his favorite time of the year as well, one of the rare few times when he could say that he had a good time. Lois helped with that immeasurably. He missed that lady so much. She and Carly didn't get along at all, but that didn't mean that they didn't try and be civil around each other for his sake. He brought the boxes down and put them on the ground. "They were up there. You can't reach them yet, you're not tall enough."

"I wish I were taller. I want to be real tall, daddy!"

"You'll grow plenty, Michael," Sonny gave the boy a pat on his shoulder. His love for his sons always seemed to go past the limit. When Sonny thought he couldn't give them any more love there was always something that happened that made him love them more. "But you have to wait. You don't want to grow up too quickly." Or, rather, Sonny didn't want Michael to grow up too quickly. There was only so much that he could deal with, a teenage son was something that he wasn't ready to battle. He got lucky, on some level, with Damian. He was an adult. He knew his place in the world, at least on some level. Sonny and Damian had their battles, but they were about more important things than Sonny giving him a curfew that he felt was too early, or not letting him drive the car.

"Aren't you excited, daddy?" Michael wondered, looking through all the things that were clearly displayed in the boxes. Everything looked so sparkly. He had his favorites. Everyone did. Maybe Damian would get his favorites when he saw the decorations. He was probably going to fall in love with them, too.

"Of course I'm excited about our first Christmas with Damian, buddy. And Morgan's a year older now, maybe he can finally start appreciating the presents that we give him, after he spends hours playing with the boxes."

"Why do babies do that?" Michael wondered. He'd seen other kids do that. It was the strangest thing to him. Why bother playing with the box that the fire truck came in when the fire truck was right there to be played with?

"You did it for a few years."

"No I didn't!"

"Yeah you did, I'm sure your mother has the videos around here somewhere to prove it. Unless you don't believe me."

"I believe you, daddy," Michael said, succumbing to the truth. He was just like all the other billions of babies that had been so fixated with gift wrapping and boxes that they didn't care about the actual gift. Luckily, he was no longer that type of child, now he tossed the boxes away and just played with his new toy. "But you didn't answer my question."

"Babies like playing with boxes, Mike. We all did it for a little while. It's just that when we're at that age, that's what we do." Sonny looked at the ornaments as well, the decorations, the nativity scene. Everything that he valued, the spirit of the holiday, captured in a few little cardboard boxes. He wondered how his son spent the holidays, before his mother died and especially after it. What was it like being alone? Was it the same for Damian as it was for Sonny? When Adella died, that first Christmas was hard on him. He could only imagine how much it pained Damian to be without his mother.

"Daddy? Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I was just thinking about what we were going to do with these boxes. It would be a shame to put them back up now that they're already down."

"We could decorate the house!" Michael said excitedly, clutching onto Sonny's hand and nearly begging his father to succumb to his dearest wish.

"No, buddy, it's too early for that. Besides, nobody else is here. Your mom is out, and I don't even know where your brother is. Do you?"

Michael shook his head, "I was sleeping. He said he was going to be over at Uncle Jason's, watching movies with Dillon. Maybe he's still there." Michael would never admit it, but there was a part of him that was jealous of the friendship that Damian and Dillon had. It seemed so different from the relationship that he had with Damian, and he was Damian's brother. Why wasn't he able to do things with Damian that Dillon got to do with him? Michael didn't understand, and he hated it when he didn't understand.

"Well, we can't decorate things for his first Christmas without him, that wouldn't be nice. Tell you what, if you promise to be really careful with these, we'll put them in your room, under your bed, until we're ready to get them out and decorate with everyone. That way you can look at them whenever you want, but you have to be really careful. These are very important to me."

"They're important to me, too," Michael agreed. The decorations would be guarded with his life if need be. Such severities wouldn't need to be taken, but he was more than willing to do something like that.

"Okay then," Sonny hoisted a box, the heaviest one, grunting a little as the weight settled in with his body. He was getting older, things weren't as easy to do as they were when he was younger. "Mike, grab the tiny box with all the lights, would you?"

"Sure!" Michael grabbed the box in question, it was light enough for him to carry without straining him in the least. They moved into Michael's room, which wasn't the cleanest place on the planet, but compared to how it could have been it was a vast improvement. He at least had some order to his mess. Sonny didn't know what the order was exactly, but there was some sort of motive for the room. It was apparent.

"Sonny!" Jason's voice could be heard from the lower levels of the penthouse. From the way his voice sounded, it seemed pretty urgent.

"Uncle Jason's here!" Michael was happy.

Sonny, however, knew that now wasn't a time when Michael hanging around was going to be the best thing for any of them. He put his hand out as Michael tried to run out the door. "Buddy, daddy and Uncle Jason have to talk about something really important right now, okay? When we're done, I'll call you and you can come down and talk with him. How's that sound?"

"I guess its okay," Michael was hurt that he was denied instant access to his Uncle, but there was nothing that he could really do.

"That's my boy." Sonny walked out before walking back in with the final box of Christmas decorations and shutting the door, the smallest amount of sweat building up on his forehead.

Jason was looking around the living room. How much of it had changed since Damian had come around? Not much, physically, but there was the feeling that something was different from the time before he got there. He knew everything that they did, they didn't have to be secretive about their lives, Damian had seen the darkness that lurked in the underworld, and he hadn't been turned away from it like so many people before him. It was scary, but that was to be expected, it scared Jason on some level, too.

Sonny came down the stairs, hiding the fatigue that came from the boxes. There was a reason that he usually had Max get them down. Max was paid to do the grunt work. "What's up?"

"Damian… he's still fighting what he did to Alcazar." Jason wondered if he should have told Sonny about that. Wondering if it was his place to tell Sonny about Damian's problem. It seemed like it was something that was better suited for Damian to tell Sonny alone. But Damian might not have told Sonny, ever. Much like his father, it came to other people to tell those that were important to them about what was bugging that person. Damian was no different. The world could be crashing around him, his world, and he wouldn't tell anyone, or at least wouldn't expect help.

"He shouldn't feel so horrible about what happened, Jason. We both know what kind of a bastard Lorenzo Alcazar was. Carly tried to believe that he was different, that he wasn't a killer like Luis, but she was wrong. He was going to kill my boy, but not before he killed me. If it wasn't for Damian, we wouldn't be here right now, and I don't even want to know what Alcazar would have done without me and you here to keep Carly from him. Worse, I don't know what he would do to my children. He saved my life and the lives of so many other people. Why can't he just see that?"

"Because he isn't like us, Sonny," Jason said simply. "I wish he could get rid of the guilt, too. But it won't ever be that simple for him. Think about how he was when he got here. We shattered his perceptions, but he still kept on thinking that maybe, just maybe he could fix things. The fact that he was forced to do something that he thought was so wrong only broke him down even more. Face it, he isn't like us…"

"Then what kind of person am I, Uncle Jason?" Damian wondered, having returned to the house. He had stayed outside of the door when he heard voices, not wanting to come into the conversation that was being had, but when it turned out to be a conversation about him he didn't really have a choice.