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Alex tenses up, body rigid and shock-still. Mike holds on, really digs his fingers into the hollows of Alex's shoulder blades. After a few seconds Alex starts to relax, tentatively dropping his head onto Mike's shoulder, bringing his own arms up and loosely wrapping them around Mike's waist, which is a little weird, yeah, but Mike can't remember the last time he gave Alex a hug — a real, full-bodied hug — and so maybe the kid's just forgotten what to do with his hands. Mike sighs, because this is nice, and he feels like a totally awesome father for the first time in a long time, and so what if he nuzzles his nose into his kid's hair? It's his goddamn kid, and he can cuddle him however he likes. Alex pulls back a little and looks up at Mike through his lashes, shy. Mike shoots him a small smile, trying his best at being reassuring. Sure it's kinda weird to hug your dad like this at Alex's age, but Alex doesn't know that Mike — Mark — is his dad. Ned used to force hugs on him all the time when they were in high school, and even though it'd been beyond embarrassing at the time, it felt really nice to have your best friend hold you like that. Mike doesn't like the thought of his son not knowing what it feels like to be hugged this way. He may have failed Alex on that front as a father, but he sure as hell can make up for it as a best friend. Alex raises his head and stares into Mike's eyes, which is a little weird, because their faces are so close, and then — "Oh, you're gay," Mike says, pulling back from the kiss in shock. His voice maybe cracks in the middle, he isn't sure. 'That explains some things,' Mark thinks to himself. Or maybe it doesn't — Mike's only known gay people as adults, never knew any that were out in high school, has no idea what the signs for raising a gay son are, besides maybe walking in on them jackin' it to gay porn. For years he had thought Ned was gay, and look how that turned out. Fear seeps its way into Alex's eyes and he tries to shove his arms between their chests, to push his way free. Mike tightens his hold on Alex, keeps him still and tries to calm him down all at once. "Oh, you're gay!" He says again, makes it sound happy, pushes a smile onto his face and hopes that it doesn't come off too strained. Mike doesn't care, not really; it's the kiss that threw him off. "And you're not," Alex fills in, sounding miserable, still trying to struggle his way free."Yes!" Mike says, quickly, and then adds on, "No! I mean, I'm uh — I'm bi!" That's a thing people are, right? Alex must buy it, because he stills, meets Mike's eyes, glancing up at him through his lashes again. The silence pulses between them for a few seconds. Time seems to drag and be at a standstill all at once, but between one second and the next Alex manages to spring forward, tries to kiss Mike again.Mike ducks out of the way and starts pulling words out of his ass, all the boring shit he's had drilled into him over the years during sensitivity seminars that he's never had any use for until right this second. "Uh, just because we're both, you know, into dudes — it doesn't mean that you have to do this, Alex! You don't have to settle for the first into-dudes dude you meet.""I know that." He's looking at Mike like he thinks Mike's an idiot, which isn't anything new — not between Mike and other people in general, but certainly not between Alex and Mark — but he also looks like he thinks that Mike's cute despite it, or — or because of it? Jesus christ. "I really like you.""Oh," Mike says, softly, and he's helpless to stop Alex when he leans back in and presses their lips together. Nobody's ever liked Mike before. People grow to like him, sure, slowly becoming accustomed to his abrasive and overbearing personality, but that's about as good as it gets. Even Scarlet had only liked him at first because he was cute, then she'd gotten pregnant, and suddenly they were stuck with each other and had to find a way to make things work despite all the ways their worldly outlook didn't quite mesh. Alex pulls back and licks his lips. Mike finds himself copying the motion, shocked to feel them tingling. His jaw aches, and his tongue feels slightly swollen and jesus christ had he been frenching his son without even noticing? "Shit," Alex breathes, little huffs that have Mike's teenaged dick perking up, and isn't that something Mike remembers; the way his dick always managed to do the opposite of what Mike wanted back when he was a kid. Getting hard when he was in the locker room, or during hugs with Ned, or how sometimes it refused to get hard, like when his buddies on the team were passing around a Playboy, or that time in middle school when his first girlfriend had tried to give him head and holy shit has he actually been bi his entire life? Because in hindsight a lot of things are starting to make a lot more sense, considering. "Daddy," Alex puffs out and that — That has Mike finally letting go of Alex, has him holding Alex at arms length. "What?" He manages, voice strangled. Alex's face flushes, rosy and mottled and so utterly caught that Mike can't help but find it adorable, even though he's still reeling over the daddy-thing. Does Alex know? "It's," Alex stutters. "It's just, the porn I like? They always say —"Mike ducks his head and kisses Alex, hard, to shut him up, pulls back and sees that Alex is getting ready to open his mouth and say something again, so he drops in and kisses Alex a second time."No, no, no," Mike chants, punctuating each word with a kiss to Alex's cheek, eyelid, forehead. "None of that, son," slips out before he can think the better of it — it's just, the daddy thing, okay? It's not his fault, it's a reflex from days gone by — and now Alex is lit up like a kid on Christmas, like he's discovered the one true gift he'd been hoping for. Happier than he actually did look like as an actual kid on Christmas, even that one year where Mike spent all of Christmas Eve driving around trying to find the last stupid Xbox in town because fucking Microsoft hadn't made enough; a bad modern remake of Jingle All The Way.
Mike can't bring himself to take that look off his kid's face, not when it's been so long since Mike saw it last. He can't take that son back, even if Alex's taken it so far from the way Mike intended.He tells himself that Alex doesn't know anything about that, about the other way he should've taken it, the literal way, something other than dirty-talk. Mike isn't his father anymore, he's Mark, Alex's best friend — Alex's only friend, and apparently his boyfriend now too. Mike tugs Alex back into his arms, pulls him tight against his chest until Alex's head is snugly tucked under his chin, buying himself some time, trying to compartmentalize just how he's supposed to deal with being Alex's goddamn boyfriend — how he's supposed to deal with breaking his son's heart whenever the time comes for him to transform back into being Alex's father. He drops a kiss onto Alex's forehead and clutches him just that much tighter.