Coffee House-

Damian walked back into the coffee house during his break between classes. One more class and then he would be done for the day. Technically, he could have gone back to the penthouse, but he decided against it, knowing that if he went into his room and relaxed on the bed he probably would lose every urge that he had in his body to try and get back up and return to the college. He hadn't missed any days yet during the semester, but it was still young. Whatever the case may have been, Damian did not wish to have a repeat of the trials that had plagued him during the semester before. The days upon days that he missed while he recovered from the accident. Sometimes, on the extremely cold days, which he wouldn't even have to worry about if he lived back in Los Angeles, he could still feel it. The tenderness in his ribs, the ribs that had been broken by the impact that was caused when the truck rammed into him as he shoved Michael out of the way. Although he had told Carly that he did not blame her for what had happened, and it was an entirely honest statement, he had never forgotten that she had a huge part to play in the accident, however unintentional it may have been.

They didn't speak of it very often, but that didn't mean that it wasn't there, the feeling, the knowledge of what had happened. Sonny wanted to sweep it under the rug and continue living life. Who could blame him? After all, everything that Sonny worked so hard for seemed to be so fragile, and if there was one thing that Sonny Corinthos never wanted to deal with it was losing the things that he loved, like his children or his wife. Both Damian and Carly knew that if Sonny found out what had happened, found out Carly's part in the plan, it would be over like that. Sonny wouldn't tolerate such actions taken by his wife. And Sonny tolerated quite a bit when it came to Carly and her antics. He would always love her, no matter what, because she had given him two children, but, if he found out, it was also a safe assumption that he would hate her for what she did to his family, their family.

The coffee shop was filled with a few of the locals that almost always seemed to be there at the same time that he was. Were he nearly as skeptical as his father, Damian would have thought something was amiss about their frequent appearances, but he wasn't nearly as bad as Sonny was when it came to worrying about things that may or may not have happened, even if there was a brief moment where he did indeed wonder if they were trying to do something to him, trying to find some information out. They didn't ever really look at him, though.

He was about to get in line for yet another cup of tea, something that he needed to both warm himself up and give himself a much needed caffeine boost. Try as he might, it wasn't exactly easy to make it through class after class without needing some sort of pick me up, and, apparently it was a sign that he was getting old. Old at twenty-one, that wasn't exactly something that he wanted to feel. Twenty-one years, and he still didn't know much about himself. The things that he thought he knew were taken from him when his mother died, and he spent the rest of the time basically in a freefall session. The things he thought he knew about his family were stolen from him when he came to Port Charles and discovered all the lies that had been told him and the rest of his family from the moment that they were born. And, most importantly, the innocence that he thought he could hold onto forever, for as long as he lived was destroyed with one gunshot that continued to echo in his mind each time he let his guard down. It was impossible to get sleep sometimes. Each time he let his guard down, it was there, a painful reminder of everything that he had been through, everything that he had sacrificed. The worst of it came with the knowledge that, given the choice, he would do it all again if he was forced to. Like it or not, he would kill someone who was threatening someone that he cared about to protect that person, or to protect himself. Before he would have believed that there would have been another way, that they could have found some sort of common ground that would allow them to solve everything without violence. But now he understood things better. Now Damian understood that the world he lived in was no longer nearly as gray as he thought. There was black and white, and, sadly, he lived most of his life in the darker black section than the pure white.

The line wasn't excruciatingly long, but it was long enough to force a halt as he waited for people in front of him to order what they wanted. It was then that he looked around the small building and saw the boy sitting in the corner, looking at a magazine that had to have been on the table, his eyes focused entirely on that magazine as if it was the only thing that made any sense at all. Moving away from the line, Damian walked over, "What are you doing here?"

Dillon turned his head up and looked at his best friend. Was this a good idea? He needed someone to talk to, someone who knew what had happened, which left Brook out of the picture entirely, and Ned as well, because he didn't want to talk about Ned. Nor did he wish to worry Georgie about what had happened. After all, there was nothing that his girlfriend could do about it. "I was waiting for you…"

"You're supposed to be at school right now," Damian replied, looking at the clock that was hanging on the wall. He didn't know the Port Charles High School schedule all that well, but he did know that the day was unlikely to be over just after noon.

"I couldn't go to school today…"

Damian sat on the chair across the table from Dillon, leaning over. Of course he couldn't go to school, his ex-sister-in-law, someone who he had just met a few weeks ago but was obviously connected to through some fashion or another had just been in an accident. Not a terrible one, but still, an accident nonetheless. "Do they know?"

Dillon didn't need to ask who 'they' were in order to know just who Damian was talking about. Courtney and Jason. His guardians, although not legally. If something happened to him, the school would still call his mother. People knew that he had moved out of the mansion, but, unless Tracy herself decided that she wanted to bring him back, there really was nothing that they could do. "I don't even think they would care…"

"What are you talking about?" Damian asked. "Of course they would care. They took you in when your mother decided that you couldn't stay at the mansion anymore. Dillon, they care about you."

"No, they tolerate me. They feel badly for me because of what happened, and they wouldn't want to disappoint you. Face it, the only reason why I'm even at the penthouse is because of my friendship with you, Damian. If it wasn't for that, I would be just like all the other Quartermaine's aside from Emily and Justus to Jason and Courtney, I wouldn't even register a blip on their radar."

"Where's all this hostility coming from?"

"It isn't hostility, its realism."

"You truly believe that they couldn't care less about you? That the only reason they're letting you stay in the penthouse with them is because of the fact that you're my best friend? Come on now, Dillon, you can't be serious about that…"

"Why not?"

"Because it's just stupid…"

"So now I'm an idiot?"

"No… of course not, I just think that you're being too hard on yourself and on them. Why do you believe that they don't care about you, that they're just tolerating you for the sake of not having a guilty conscience?"

"They never let me in," Dillon replied softly. He didn't even know how much it truly bothered him until he actually thought about it. The way that they handled themselves, the way that they kept secrets from him. More Jason than Courtney, but even she wasn't immune to just looking at him as if she was trying to deem him worthy of the information that she could have given him, and almost always the same answer came: he wasn't. "I've lived with them for how long? Four months or so… and they still treat me like I'm more of a house guest than anything else."

"You don't think I feel the same way?"

Dillon scoffed, "Now you're just trying to make me feel better. Of course you don't feel the same way, Damian. You're Sonny's child, he would never, ever, shut you out of his life that way?"

"He would…"

"How do you know?"

"Because he did it before, remember?" Damian asked. "I know we didn't know each other for a little while when I came here, Dillon, but I know I've told you about what happened when I first got here, the way that my father kept everything from me because he thought that he was doing me a favor by keeping me in the dark the same way that he keeps Michael and Morgan in the dark, despite the fact that I'm not a child, that I can understand things that neither of them could."

"Well, yeah, but he only did that for a little while…"

Damian shook his head, "He still does it. Not as much, but he still does it. And you know what? You want to know the truth? I wish he still did, because, if he did, then that would mean that he didn't acknowledge the part of me that I don't want to believe exists. Do you know what I had to do in order to 'get in' with my father? To be seen as more than just a child to him? I had to destroy a part of myself that I never wanted tainted." He kept it vague, because of all the people who were around him, all the students who could overhear the fact that he had murdered Lorenzo Alcazar. That would go over just fine and dandy, quite possibly being the front page story on the weekly edition of the school paper. Damian could envision the titles that would be emblazoned upon the paper, all of them making some sort of connection to how he came into his birth right as a cold blooded killer. The thoughts weren't very pleasant.

"So…"

"So, if you think that they're shutting you out, if you want to be a part of their lives, to know the things that they know, trust me, Dillon, you don't. Because you don't want to have to deal with the baggage that comes with it. They've had a lot more practice than either of us, and I'm barely able to keep on functioning as it is. You've seen me when I'm at my lowest point, when I can't even watch a movie with a gun because of what it does to my mind. Do you think that they want you to have the same sort of problem? That they want you to wake up in a cold sweat because you had a dream that was so horrible, one that made you remember everything that you did that you wished you could take back?"

"I just… I want to feel like I'm more than just a person that is kept around for pity… especially from Jason. He's my cousin, Damian, and I've always admired him for what he's done. Not, you know, for that, but because he broke free of the bonds that tied him to our family."

"Talk to him about it."

"Like that's going to work…"

"You're selling him short, and you're selling yourself short, too. You think that you don't matter to Jason, and you think that, given the chance, he would send you back to the mansion without a second thought instead of keeping you at the penthouse with him and his wife…"

"Basically, yeah," that about summed it up. Damian neglected to mention the part where Jason did the happy dance because of the fact that he was finally getting rid of Dillon, but Dillon kept that to himself, mostly because the idea of Jason doing a happy dance, or any sort of dance, just didn't seem right.

"You can't hope to understand what goes on inside that man's head, Dillon," Damian noted. "And I'm not saying that because of what has happened to him, I'm saying it because nobody can understand what anyone else is thinking, not really. The only way that you're ever going to find out for sure, one way or the other, is if you actually talk to him."

"And what happens if he tells me that he doesn't want me at the penthouse?"

"Why don't you deal with that when the time comes?" Damian asked, smiling softly. He smiled because he believed that Jason would never, ever, say that he wanted Dillon out of the picture. But, he could have been wrong, and then what would happen? Refusing to believe that someone as kind as his Uncle Jason would actually be all right with just throwing the boy back into the lions den that was the Quartermaine Mansion, Damian quickly tried to do something that would alleviate the stress from the conversation that they had. "Why don't I get you something to drink?"

"No… I'm fine, thanks."

"Dillon, come on, what's the point of being Sonny Corinthos's son if I can't spread the wealth just a little bit? Besides, you look like you could use something to calm yourself down, after all the worrying that you've done."

Dillon snickered and stood up, "All right, how can I say no to something like that?"

"Looks like the line got longer… we'll just have to deal."

"Hey, Damian," Dillon waited for the boy to turn around, "Thanks."

"Don't mention it." They shared a knowing glance at one another, telling each other that, when the chips were down, they'd be there for each other, because that was what friends did, and friends were what they were.