Author Note: I apologize for the delay; we should be getting back to a semi-normal posting schedule now that my bandom big bang story is done.
Enjoy!
Family Ties – 4
Jason is sitting right inside the door when he gets back and Dante is mumbling, eyes heavy.
He's fighting sleep, when he was a baby he'd do the same thing, fight it with every fiber of his being, babbling in his baby talk at them and fussing and moving until it finally pulled him under. Then he'd be out for at least seven hours, they never managed eight. But seven was pretty much unheard of, friends with kids had been completely jealous of them.
Sonny exchanges a look with Jason and Jason just shrugs.
"He told me to," he says and Sonny looks over at Dante.
"He was like a gargoyle, dad," Dante says, his voice sounds heavy. "Standing in the doorway, hovering, I kept expecting to look and he'd be like made of stone or something."
"They gave him some more pain meds," Jason says, he looks as amused as he gets.
"They're awesome," Dante grins sleepily at him. "Except they make me tired and I wanted to wait for you to come back."
"He's been telling me about his classes to keep himself awake; he really hates his English teacher."
"She's making us read stuff that I read two years ago, though half the class evidently didn't read it then so it's probably not a bad thing except she never asks them for character motivations or underlying themes, she asks me or Theresa or Scott and why doesn't she ask one of the kids that's not reading it again this time."
"Maybe she doesn't want to waste time on the kids that don't have any interest in the material," Sonny says, he hides his grin and leans downs to kiss Olivia's temple, she stirs slightly but doesn't wake. Then lays a hand on top of her head.
"I don't have any interest in the material," Dante mutters, he sounds sullen and cross and every inch the sixteen year old boy that he is; though he has to wonder why this is what Dante is choosing to worry about.
Books and classes and teachers forcing him to have interest in things that he doesn't want to have interest in.
Instead of the fact that a man grabbed him off a street and broke his arm and had him chained in a dark, dank room and would have kept him there if Dante wasn't both his father and mother's son and fought his own way free.
He touches Dante's forehead with the other, just making sure he's there, giving himself a physical reminder that his son is safe and there and out of harms way for the moment. He's warm, but that might be from the blankets and the fact that he should be sleeping not babbling about English.
"You can sleep now," he says softly and he keeps watch while Dante lets his eyes flutter closed and his face goes lax in sleep.
OF + SC = DF
His mom is hovering right at his elbow; he hates it even though he allows it. He's tired and he's achy and his arm is throbbing with an edge of burning. He wishes that he'd hit the guy harder with his chains, and maybe kicked him a few times.
Why should he be the only one in pain?
They wheel him out in a wheelchair, his dad behind the wheel and his mom walking beside him with her hand on his shoulder. Jason is on the other side of the dad though slightly further back. A faithful guard dog and Dante glares at the cast on one arm and clenches the fingers of the other into a fist.
He wants to go home.
He wants to burrow into his bedroom and not come out until Frankie comes by to coax him into watching TV or his gram makes her nine layer lasagna from scratch.
He can hear his mom and dad talking quietly, no distinct words though Dante gets the drift, there's not going to be any going home in his foreseeable future. Unless he gets to call wherever his dad lives in Port Charles home.
That little life that him and his mom lived where they didn't have to acknowledge the truth of what his dad was doing is pretty much over with. They're known to the other families now and he knows enough about how things work, mostly from old mob movies but also from listening to the guys in the neighborhood talk, that if his dad sends them away it'll be to an uninhabited island on the freaking moon.
They're targets now.
And his dad can't protect them if he sends them away.
OF + SC = DF
Dante is not happy about the decision to relocate to Port Charles if the silent treatment they're getting as a group, Jason included, is any indication. Sonny doesn't think any of them has actually told him what the plan is. He glances over at Olivia and she shakes her head at him, her hand comes off Dante's shoulder and wraps around his arm.
"He's sixteen," she says softly. "He's old enough to read between the lines."
Sonny frowns and focuses on the top of his son's bent head.
"I just want to keep the both of you safe," he says, he glances over at Jason, Jason looks back with an inscrutable expression, he has a stack of cards in one hand. Seven of them are from the leaders of families that four days ago didn't know that Dante or Olivia even existed.
"It doesn't have to mean we like what that's going to mean for us," Olivia says, she squeezes his arm, he looks over at her and she's not looking at him anymore. He stills sees her though, and he really doesn't like what he's seeing.
Circles under her eyes already, worry lining her face. She'd admitted back at the beginning that she hadn't been going to tell him about Dante; that she'd been mad about him taking up with Connie and she'd all but decided to keep the fact that she was pregnant to herself.
That she hadn't liked the direction his life was taking and if she couldn't keep him from heading into the life she sure as hell could keep their child as far away from it as humanly possible.
He doesn't like to think about where they would be if her brother hadn't taken matters into his own hands. The thought of not having them, of not even knowing about Dante, about having never seen him take his first steps or hear his first words… those are not thoughts that he likes to entertain; sometimes he gets angry that if a different choice had been made that Olivia would have taken the choice of seeing those things out of his hands
"You're targets now," Sonny says. He doesn't like it; it doesn't mean that it's not the truth.
There's two cards in that pile in Jason's hand from the Zacchara's. One from Anthony and one from Johnny and Claudia.
Sonny doesn't know what it means, though he thinks that the hints that Zacchara has been tossing around about a possible uniting of their two fronts might become more then hints.
The thought of his sixteen year-old son tied in some way to either Claudia or Johnny doesn't sit well, Claudia is a viper in training and Johnny is learning at the knee of his father.
OF + SC = DF
There's a woman and a boy at his fathers place when they get there, he's feeling tired and cranky and completely not up to dealing with more people.
Everyone seems to know them but him and he wants to scowl and mutter and go hide in whatever room has been designated as his.
Of course then the boy has to smile at him, the woman has a hand on his shoulder and the smile on her face doesn't reach her eyes, but the boy is just beaming at him like meeting Dante is the best thing that's ever happened to him.
In the face of that Dante has to smile back and he grudgingly lets go of a little of his black mood in the face of this little boy and his pure joy at seeing him.
"Hi," the boy says, he can see the woman's hand squeeze when it looks like the boy is going to move forward. "Mom."
"Sorry sweetie," the woman says and she doesn't sound apologetic and Dante really doesn't like the way that she's studying him like he's some sort of rodent that she's gotta figure out how to kill and dispose of properly.
"Hey," he waves the hand not in a cast at the boy.
"I'm Michael," the boy says, he shakes the woman's hand off and comes forward, he's all straight posture and a serious expression and the kid, Michael, he keeps darting his eyes over at his dad like he's making sure that what he's doing is acceptable. Dante can see his father smiling a small smile of approval.
It hits him then that if this is Michael, the little boy who isn't really a brother but kind of is by virtue of the fact that his dad has claimed him, that the woman must be Carly.
He's heard his mom go on and on about Carly when she hadn't know he was listening.
"Dante," he says and he shakes Michael's hand.
OF + SC = DF
Dante's sleeping, curled up in a ball on his bed looking impossibly small and young. Olivia sits on the edge carefully, his eyes open, blink at her twice as he makes sure that someone is there, then they close as he falls back into a restless sleep, making a soft huffing noise as he pulls his broken arm closer to him.
She has to keep reminding herself that he's okay, that he's safe, that's he's home, even if this isn't the home that he wants to be at. She makes a mental note to call the DelVecchio's and let them know that Dante's safe.
She's sure that word has spread through the neighborhood already, but it doesn't hurt to extend that courtesy to them. Dante and Frankie are close; the best of friends and he at least deserves to hear that Dante is okay from her if not from Dante himself.
She brushes the tips of her fingers over Dante's forehead, smoothing down hair and his nose wrinkles at her. She presses her lips to the tips of her fingers and then to his cheek.
Behind her she can hear the door opening, a quiet sound and she turns to see Carly standing there, she stands, tucks Dante's blanket more firmly around him and walks towards her. She can see Carly's mouth open and she presses a finger to her lips in the universal sound of 'shh'.
Carly rolls her eyes but backs into the hallway; Olivia pulls the door closed behind her and then crosses her arms over her chest. A movement that Carly duplicates.
"I thought we should talk," Carly says finally, "About Sonny and Michael." Olivia purses her lips and nods once then gestures for Carly to move down the hallway.
When they're in the living room, sitting at opposite ends of the couch she wonders if she could be this hospitable if it were Brenda or Lily sitting there.
There are three women that her husband has been involved with since he started this job and even though she's told him that it's okay, she always wonders if this is going to be the woman that takes him from her and Dante.
She thinks that the day that he stops asking for her forgiveness for every woman that he has to touch or take to his bed because of what he's doing is day that she'll have to make the hard decisions.
Until then every time he comes to her with the name of another woman he's touched she offers her forgiveness and her love and hides, probably badly, the little parts of her that die because of it.
She should have stuck to her guns those years before, should have told him what she'd planned on telling him, that she didn't know who Dante's father was, that she'd been sleeping around just as much as he'd been sleeping around.
Of course then he'd really be in the family instead of play-acting while they to bring the family's down, but she wouldn't have to live with the constant fear that she's going to lose him to somebody who professes to understand his life more then she can.
She understands, she just doesn't want to.
"Sonny has claimed Michael as his," she says, she hopes she sounds gracious, she hopes she can afford to be. Sonny hasn't asked her forgiveness in months and she sees no evidence that regardless of how much time Carly spends at the penthouse that she actually lives there. "I don't see any reason why he shouldn't spend time with him."
Carly looks at her and it's a calculating look. "People are going to wonder how you can stay with him after…" she waves at herself, probably means to encompass Brenda and Lily in with it. Or maybe not, maybe Brenda and Lily don't even register as points that Carly feels she needs to worry herself with considering they're not there and she is.
"I know my husband," she leans forward, like she's getting ready to share some confidence. "Just because he fucked you, or them, doesn't mean that at the end of the day he didn't go into a bathroom and scrub himself clean and then call me to tell me he did it. That he didn't call to talk to his son and let him tell him all about his day."
Carly looks at her and her eyes narrow slightly. "And you're not threatened by that at all."
"I'm human," Olivia laughs, she's sure that Carly can hear the bitterness in it. "Of course I'm threatened by that, but the fact of the matter is, Sonny is married to me, and if you know even the first thing about Sonny Corinthos it's that he doesn't take marriage lightly, he wouldn't have put this ring on my finger if he didn't feel that we were going to make it through whatever trials and tribulations were going to be thrown at us."
"He's claimed Michael as his son, we all know that he's not, but he's said he is and I have no issues with Sonny spending time with Michael. I have no issues with Michael spending time with Dante if they so choose to," Olivia stands and walks over to the bar, there's an assortment of alcohol there, but there's also several bottles of water and she takes one, twists the caps off.
"What I won't stand for is you using Michael as a way to stay close to my husband, no child should be used in that manner and if you try…" Olivia doesn't finish the sentence, just turns and looks at her and Carly doesn't say anything just purses her lips and nods her head stiffly.
"Then we understand each other," Olivia smiles brightly, she knows that it doesn't reach her eyes.
It's not meant to.
OF + SC = DF
"I like her," Carly says the moment that Jason lets himself into his apartment, she sounds grudging about it, like she doesn't want to but can't help herself.
"She seems nice enough," Jason says. She seems like a mom, and Dante seems like a good kid, he's still not sure why Sonny felt the need to hide them.
But he can understand wanting to protect your family, the thought of Emily or Monica seeing or being around some of the things that he sees…
If Sonny thought that Olivia and Dante were in any sort of danger he would have stayed away to protect them.
He can't now though, every family knows about them, now he's going to have to protect them by keeping them close. Somehow Jason doesn't think that Sonny's going to have any issues with that.
"She's got balls," Carly says. "And she stands up for herself. I don't see us being best buddies but…"
"You talked to her about Michael?"
"She said that she didn't have any issues with Sonny seeing him," that's relief in Carly's voice; she wants a dad for Michael. Sonny's the best possible one, and he already adores the boy.
"Well that's good then," Jason says, he thinks Michael's endless enthusiasm and happiness might be good for Dante at this point as well.
More then that he thinks that the boys might actually be good for each other.
OF + SC = DF