Chapter Text
It must have been quite late, the sun had definitely started to set but the living room lights weren’t on until Ted walked through and turned them on himself. He flinched when he realised that Mike was sitting in an armchair, in the dark, normal kids didn’t do that. He was instantly suspicious that something must be wrong.
“Urm, hey kiddo. Is your mum around?” He ventured, hoping beyond hope that she was and he would be saved,
“She, er…her and Holly went to stay with one of her friends. They’re going to some big fundraiser really early tomorrow morning, it was easier if they just all stayed there.” Mike was sniffing his nose quietly as he talked, he kept his face angled away from his dad and was obviously trying not to meet his eyes. Even Ted could tell that his son had been crying but he still considered he might be able to pretend he hadn’t noticed for a while longer, just long enough to find somebody else to deal with it he hoped.
“Your sister?”
“She’s *sniff* out with Johnathan, I think they’re *snuffle* staying with erm Steve since they got back from Lenora,” his eyes were streaming now and he pulled the sleeve of his t-shirt down to dab at the side of his nose.
“Oh, come on now. That’s not hygienic is it? Let me find a handkerchief” There was a box of disposable tissues on the side of the Tv stand and Ted was very thankful when he spotted them and quickly passed them over to Mike, the last time that he had lent the boy one of his own cotton hankies it had been returned covered in some sort of ink and oil mixture which was completely impossible to get out and had to be thrown out, much to his annoyance.
“Thanks dad,” Mike blew his nose but didn’t move from his seat. Ted was torn, he didn’t want the child to be upset with nobody to comfort him, but he didn’t really want to be the one to comfort him and he really would like to settle himself in that armchair and watch some TV; perhaps the easiest and quickest way to do that was to talk to his son. Hopefully whatever had upset Mike would be something trivial that a good fatherly pep talk could sort quickly and then Ted could get back to the business of having a peaceful life in his own living room unbothered by the inconvenience of having a family.
“Do you want to talk about it?” With those few words from his dad Mike burst into full blown tears, he was still quite guarded and stayed in his armchair alone but he curled himself into a tight ball. Bringing his legs up to his chest he grabbed hold of a loose cushion and held it tight to his chest while he tried to breathe despite huge racking sobs coming in waves. Ted stood behind the armchair and patted his shoulder awkwardly, “There there.”
It felt like hours later but eventually Mike’s breathing started to calm and his crying got quieter, Ted pushed the tissue box closer towards him and they were taken and tears mopped up with silent gratitude. After a couple more minutes Ted sat down on the sofa next to his son, he thought perhaps that it would be easier for words to come to them if they weren’t looking directly at each other. Neither of them had ever been very good at sharing feelings and at least there was some shared ground there, if there were going to be feelings shared then it would be a new and novel experience for the both of them. The pillow Mike had been clutching to his chest dropped quietly to the floor as the tension from his body relaxed slightly and he started to whisper his troubles out to the room in general, Ted daren’t move in case he spooked the boy by reminding him that he was there.
“El dumped my ass” Ted let the language slide, just this once, “But I feel like I really deserved it this time and it’s all my fault because I just can’t do it right and no matter how hard I try I just can’t be enough for her. I try so so hard and I do everything I’m supposed to do but it’s just not right and it’s just not natural for me because I am never the right person and I can’t be the right person even if I put in ten times as much effort as I see everyone else making in their relationships because there’s just something wrong with me and it’s always me that’s the issue not her and not our relationships because I’m the problem and I’m the broken one and it’s always going to be me, I just can’t be normal because I’m not the heart of the party, I belong in the underdark.” Mike shifted himself around a little in his seat, gathered up the collection of tissues he’d wiped his face with and tidied them neatly into the small bin next to the armchair. His movements were all very slow and purposeful, as if he were gathering his thoughts together at the same time as he was tidying his surroundings and Ted allowed him to do so because he recognised a lot of himself in the child while he did it. “I think, maybe I only ever loved her as this really awesome friend who I wanted to spend all my time with. I don’t think I ever wanted her to be my girlfriend and I only asked her because I felt like a boy my age had to have a girlfriend to be normal, does that make sense?”
“It makes perfect sense son.”
“Is there something wrong with me dad?”
Ted had been dreading this conversation for years, he wanted desperately to get up and walk away from it but he was in too deep now and honestly he still felt like the quickest way to get his peaceful evening was to power through, so he was going to prove to Karen that he was just as much of a parent as she was and find some way to talk this through.