Brother from another mother

Harvey as a dad.[Part-5]

It was sometimes easy to forget that he was playing non-sexual co-parent with Harvey. With Hunter now taking a car service to school, and heading home after classes, Mike saw him only the two or three times a week Hunter required the sort of active parenting that Harvey seemed disinclined to provide. One weekend day a week he spent taking Hunter to something culturally significant, a museum or theater in the park. One weekend they took a boat around to see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.

Most people who saw them when they went out assumed that Mike was Hunter's father - even though he was far too young to have a kid Hunter's age - and thought he was the most adorable dad ever. Mike tried to not let it get to him.

It wasn't working.

"Do you ever find it weird that dad pays to babysit me, but everyone thinks you're my dad?"

Mike tried to shrug it off. "A little." He could admit that much. "You're a good kid." Mike slung his arm around Hunter's shoulder and the kid didn't shrug him off, just sat through it. "Is Harvey getting any better at communicating?"

"He checks over my homework now... and says stuff like 'not bad' when I get all the problems right." Hunter shrugged, but not to relieve him of Mike's arm. "He bought me some shoes I wanted, and he... told me stuff about mom when I asked. I guess he's doing alright."

"He's trying." Mike was almost proud.

"Yeah. I wish you'd come chaperon dinner more. That's the worst, almost two hours where we have to pretend to talk to each other. After he's done asking about school he doesn't have anything more to say." Hunter finally did shrug off Mike, and tilted his head towards a soft pretzel stand a few feet away. Mike dug out his wallet and handed over a ten, a few minutes later, Hunter came back with two soft pretzels, Mike's with mustard on half of it, Hunter's plain. "You must talk to him, right?"

They talked a lot, more than a lot, but that didn't make Harvey make much sense. "You could ask him about being a lawyer." Or being right. Harvey was only too happy to talk about how right he is.

"I don't want to be a lawyer."

Harvey might think anything of that. Mike didn't know. "Being a lawyer isn't just about arguing cases, it's... it's about knowing your options, standing up for what you believe in, and having opinions. When I was your age..." Mike stopped himself short, because he was one game of backgammon away from becoming far more like his grandmother than he was entirely comfortable.

Hunter snorted. "Go on, do tell, Mike."

"Just..." Mike reconsidered what he'd been about to say, the idea of putting his own old pain on Hunter rather than trying to take some away was intolerable. "I wish I'd had someone to tell me my options. I would have messed up far less with my life."

"It couldn't have been that bad. You're a lawyer, now."

It wasn't as though Mike could tell Hunter the truth, that his life was only alright because Harvey had taken a chance on a down-on-his-luck kid, and Jessica had backed him up when the hour was needed. "Not too bad. I still have a misspent youth that Harvey probably doesn't want me telling you about."

"If you think that's going to make me uninterested you're the worst lawyer ever," Hunter answered, but he just curled an arm through Mike's as they walked through the park.

"I'll tell you when you're older." Mike then abused his guardian-prerogative to ruffle Hunter's hair. "Are you still settling in alright?"

The evasive look on Hunter's face made Mike particularly worried for a moment, but he tried to hide it by pulling off a small bite of un-mustard-covered pretzel and dipping it in the mustardy part. He could do this. While Harvey responded pretty well to the hard sell, kids seemed to work better with a soft sell, let them come around, make them think it was their idea to tell you something. "Classes are good."

Mike tried not to frown. Hunter didn't sound like he was lying on that point, and Mike was the recipient of all of Hunter's grades, tests, and papers, so he knew Hunter's scores weren't slipping. "Does that imply something else isn't?"

"A lot of the kids have heard... um... that I've got two dads." Hunter took a huge a bite of his own pretzel, obviously buying time while he chewed. "And so they give me a hard time, ask if I'm gay too. So... yeah."

"You're getting teased?" Hunter's shrug-answer said it all. "I could talk to the Headmaster. Harvey could threaten to beat up the kid's parents." Harvey delighted in threatening to physically assault people, and Mike tried to ignore how nice it would have been to have Harvey dedicated to defending his - and his kid's - honor on that front. "It's not a big deal, really."

Mike meant that he didn't care that Hunter's schoolmates thought he was gay, but Hunter seemed to take it as a blanket statement about being gay in general. "I know. Harvey said..." Mike waited, hanging on Hunter's every word. "He said he wasn't much into anyone when he was my age. Baseball, however... He wants me to play baseball."

"Do you want to play baseball?" That was the question.

"I'd play catch, I guess, or go to a game."

"Tell him that," Mike said, wrapping his arm back around Hunter's shoulder. "He's a bit of a softie under the exterior, trust me."

"Are you coming to the science fair next week?" Hunter asked, out of the blue. "I know it's in the evening and you usually don't come over for late evenings, but it's... I'd like you to come. Harvey said he probably wouldn't make it."

Mike wanted to kick Harvey. Who would miss an evening science fair that his son was obviously proud about? "Of course. It was in the email bulletin, right?" Mike read them every Tuesday morning at work to make sure he was up on all of Hunter's activities and the happenings at Addison Prep. "Wouldn't miss it for the world."

And Mike wouldn't, which was one of the things that seemed to differentiate him from distant-dad Harvey.

On Monday he walked into Harvey's office, put the weekend's work on Harvey's desk, and then left. "Go to your kid's damn science fair, Harvey."