Summary: Hunter gives Ben and Michael the best Fathers' Day present ever.
Rating: PG
Archive Date: 19 May 2006
Notes: Spoilers for Seasons 3 to 5. Inspired by Mikou and uuthrunthru's story, Heartstrings.
Things had finally settled down in the Novotny-Bruckner household. The adoption was official, so he was now Hunter Novotny-Bruckner. Melanie and Lindsay had moved back to Pittsburgh with Gus and J.R. and settled into Carl's old house, so Michael got to see his daughter more often. That, plus the fact that he was establishing a relationship with Danny, had helped ease a lot of the tension from his face, and from his and Ben's marriage. Deb had had a fit when she found out that Michael had contacted Danny, but in the end she could see that it was a good thing. Even Brian was taking more interest in Gus' upbringing, which made the boy extremely happy.
So it seemed like all of the "parent-child" issues had been resolved, except for one. True to their word, neither Ben nor Michael brought up his father, reaffirming their statement that any contact would be made on his terms, if ever. He was still terrified at the thought of actually communicating with the man, but he figured that if he was able to go through with it, that chapter of his life would be closed once and for all.
He knew that Ben kept the letter that his father had written when he signed away his parental rights, which he was able to retrieve with a quick search of their file cabinet. He stared at the note for a long time, letting all kinds of emotions wash over him. Anger from him leaving, disillusionment from when he didn't come back and save him from his mother, confusion about the mixed messages in this note. Through it all, though, was a tiny glimmer of happiness. Back when he was just a kid, he'd been happy, playing ball with his dad in the back yard of their tiny house. What had happened? Why did he leave? If his mom had been as much of a bitch to his father as she'd been to him, he could almost understand why he left. Almost. Shit, this sucked.
He copied the address and phone number down on a piece of notepaper, then put the letter back in the file cabinet. Upstairs in his room, he got out his notebook and grabbed a pencil, unsure of how he could actually write this letter.
Dear Dad,
Shit, he couldn't even get past the first line! He wasn't his dad any more, Ben and Michael were. What in the hell should he call him? Mr. Montgomery sounded way too formal, considering what the rest of the letter might say. James seemed disrespectful; the man was his biological father after all. He wracked his brains, but just could not come up with a salutation that made sense so that he could move on to the rest of the letter. Maybe he could just skip that part.
Hey,
I just wanted to let you know that the adoption is final, and yes, I'm okay with it. It's true that two men adopted me, are you worried that I might be gay? Or that I'm living with two queers? Why do you care anyway?
Aaargh! He really didn't want to say that much, but his pencil seemed to have a mind of its own. He tore that page out of the notebook and tried again.
Hey,
I just wanted to let you know that the adoption is final, and yes, I'm okay with it. Why the hell didn't you help me when I told you things were bad?
Fuck! He tore that page out as well, balling it up and throwing it across the room. He was apparently becoming Ben and Michael's son through osmosis. He'd gotten Ben's ability to write and Michael's inability to hold in his emotions.
As he sat there, looking at a blank page, Ben's words came back to him. Maybe he should just write for a while, let his pencil say what it needed to say, before tackling this letter. He started writing, letting the words come out however they wanted. He wrote about missing his father, how he hated his mother, how being a hustler was both one of the worst things and one of the best things he'd ever done, how he thought he might be gay, but now realized that he wasn't, but it was cool that Ben and Michael were. He just kept writing, filling page after page, until he thought his hand would fall off, then he wrote some more.
When the words finally stopped, he stood and stretched, his body aching from staying in one position for so long. He glanced over at the clock, surprised to see that nearly two hours had gone by. Ben and Michael would be home soon, and he wasn't ready to show this to them just yet.
=:=
A few weeks later, Ben and Michael were sitting at the kitchen table, eating breakfast, when they realized that there were no sounds coming from upstairs. Hunter should be up by this time, so Michael got up and went to Hunter's room to check on him. He came back down stairs just a minute later, reading the note he had found on Hunter's bed.
Ben looked up and saw Michael reading something, concern showing on his face. "Baby, what is it?"
Michael handed him the note, shaking just a little bit as he did so.
Dudes,
There's something I have to do, so I'm gonna be gone for a few days. Don't worry, I'll be back.
Love, Hunter
"Was all of his stuff still in his room?" Ben asked. Michael nodded. "Well, I guess we just have to trust that he's telling the truth, that he'll be back in a few days." Ben wrapped his arms around Michael and they just stood there for several minutes, holding each other, each trying to believe that Hunter really would come back.
=:=
Two days later, Hunter came in the front door, seeing his dads at work in their respective places. Ben was at the kitchen table, writing something, probably for his class. Michael was at the computer, working on the next issue of Rage. They both jumped up when they saw him walk through the door, and started talking to him at the same time.
"Where the hell have you been?"
"Are you okay?"
"Dudes, chill. I'm okay. I know you're pissed that I left without telling you where I went, and I know that I'm in trouble with you, but I'm just not ready to talk about it just yet. I will, I promise." With that, Hunter tried to go up the stairs to his room, but Ben stopped him.
"Hunter, you can't just take off..." he started, but as he looked into Hunter's eyes, he saw that there were tears forming, and he was obviously upset about something. He decided that maybe they should just let him go to his room and work this out. He moved out of Hunter's way and let him continue up the stairs.
"Why did you let him go like that?" Michael asked. "He has to know that there are consequences to acting like this!"
"Michael, he's upset about something; now's not the time to jump down his throat. Look, he wrote in his note that he'd come back, and he did. Let's just trust that he said he'd tell us when he's ready, so he will."
Michael was clearly not convinced by this argument, but decided that he and Ben needed to be united in their approach to Hunter, so he said nothing.
=:=
That Sunday was Fathers' Day, the first one that they celebrated where Ben and Michael were officially Hunter's fathers, so there was a lot of emotion surrounding the day. Mel and Linds brought J.R. over for a couple of hours in the afternoon so that Michael could spend some time with his daughter.
That evening, Ben made a special dinner for the three of them to share, enjoying the feeling of being a real family. After dinner was over, Hunter stood up and said, "I have something for both of you, out in the back yard," Ben and Michael glanced at each other with quizzical looks on their faces, but followed Hunter outside. He led them to the burn barrel, and they noticed a stack of papers on the ground nearby.
"When I took off last week, I went to see my real father." Ben and Michael both looked shocked at this news, but by unspoken agreement they said nothing, allowing Hunter to continue his story. "I figured the only way to get rid of my anger toward my father was to finally confront him, and put it behind me."
"I knew that you," nodding at Ben, "saved the note he wrote me when he signed the paperwork terminating his parental rights, so I dug it out of the file cabinet to get his contact information. I tried a bunch of times to write him a letter, but each time it was like my pencil had a mind of its own, and kept writing more than I wanted to say up front. I remembered what you had said about writing stuff down, so I got out a notebook and started writing, just to get it out of my system." He picked up the stack of papers to show them how much he had written that day.
"Once I had done that, I was able to write him a very short note, explaining that I needed to see him. We exchanged a few e-mails, then he sent me a plane ticket down to Galveston. He actually met me at the airport, and we went to his place to talk. He asked about the two of you, wanted to make sure that I was happy."
"It didn't take long before I finally blew up at him. I told him all the things my mother had done to me, all the hell she put me through, all the time wondering why he didn't come back and take me away from her. Turns out that in her letters to him, she'd told him that I'd been acting up, fighting with her about going to school and doing chores around the house. When he got my letter saying that things were bad, he figured I was just exaggerating, so he didn't respond to it." Tears were streaming down his face at this point; Ben and Michael were crying as well.
Hunter drew a shaky breath, then continued his story. "Once we got past all of that, it was much calmer. We talked a little more about his life down in Texas, and hung out for a couple of days. He told me that he's glad I found the two of you, that I was finally in a home where I felt safe and loved. Then he put me back on a plane, and here I am."
"So, here's my Fathers' Day present for the two of you." He put the stack of papers in the burn barrel, then pulled out a lighter and lit them. The pages burned quickly, sending a thin stream of smoke into the evening sky. "I'm finally free of my birth parents. The two of you are now, really, my dads."
Ben and Michael both moved toward Hunter and enveloped him in a bone-crushing hug, then the three of them watched as the last of the pages turned to ashes. As they walked back into the house, Hunter asked, "So can we go out for some ice cream now?"
Ben just smiled at him, and said, "Anything you want, pal."
End of "Resolution" by Kirsten (eli_ollie@yahoo.com)