OHF/LHF/AHF FANFICS FROM AO3

Bourbon and Poor Choices

by : Call_It_Alba on AO3

Bourbon and poor choices. It had been a joke. But in some ways it was the truth. It was the truth about how he lived his life.

He had fallen in love with a man and a woman when he had been in the military. It was frowned upon today, and even worse back then. So he had tried to walk away but he couldn’t. No matter how much he tried he couldn’t.

The man was Ben Asher, future President of the United States of America, the future leader of the free world. And that was someone who could not be seen as gay or being anything outside of what was viewed as normal. The woman, Maggie, she was and always would be the first love of Ben’s life. But they both pulled him in.

They both made sure he had a safe place to return to when he came home. And they would piece him back together, piece by piece, and hold him tight until the glue settled.

Eventually, Maggie spoke the words that Mike had worried about hearing. She was pregnant. And the biological father, well that was him. And being a father… again. That wasn’t in the plans for him. He cried as he admitted that to Ben and Maggie but both of them just pieced him back together and assured him that he didn’t have to be.

Hayes Banning was his daughter, and he did everything he could for her, but it was the toughest thing he had ever faced. And he had been to war to defend his country more than once. She was both the light of his world and the darkness that threatened to drown him. She was the person he lived for, but he was also scared to die for. He knew what it was like to not have a father, and that was something he never wanted Hayes to experience.

And that was also why he pushed Ben and Maggie to hide Connor’s true parentage. Ben was the perfect father for Connor and he was excited about the baby. More excited than he could be. And so it was an easy decision. Connor wouldn’t lose him as a father in the same way that Hayes might.

The relationship was pushed to the back burner when it was time for Ben to focus on preparing to run for President and that was something that would be a lot easier if Mike was only a friend. A Godfather to Connor. And a father to Hayes. Not the third wheel of their marriage. 

Connor Jameson Asher. Connor because it was the one name that Maggie, Ben and Mike had agreed on. Jameson after Mike, because Ben and Maggie wanted to ensure that Mike was still there as much as possible.

Until Maggie died. And it was all Mike’s fault. Which meant that he was removed from the White House Detail and therefore from Ben and Connor. Ben who couldn’t look at him. And Connor. Conor, who was just finding out the truth about who he really was. It had always been Maggie’s plan that Connor would learn the truth. That Connor would learn of the history between Mike, Maggie and Ben, and just how much Mike had been forced to sacrifice. And whilst Mike didn’t view it as doing anything other than what was best for Connor, both Maggie and Ben believed that it was. That Mike had sacrificed his chance of a son, and a relationship that brought him happiness.

    Bourbon and poor choices. The action that gave him his daughter. Hayes Banning. His blue eyes, brown haired, lovely daughter. It had been bourbon he had been drinking that night, at a party. Now why there was bourbon at a party for university students, Mike would never know and never ask, but there was and that was what he was drinking.

He had been determined to get drunk. To get so drunk that he would stop dreaming of Ben and Maggie. Drunk enough that he would just act and not think. And that’s what happened. He got drunk, he slept with a pretty girl - Sarah. And nine months later he was holding his daughter.

He and Sarah had been clear from the start. They would work together to raise their daughter but a relationship of anything more than co-parents and maybe friends was not on the cards. In fact, Sarah became his best friend from it all.