Mick's lips twisted thoughtfully and he scratched absently at his chin as Ben told him his guy had died during a travelling accident. What, he got run over by a cable car or fell off a touring train or something? It sounded suspicious to him but he couldn't say that, it'd be rude.
"Ah, so... seven years together," Mick calculated, knowing his big brother was twenty-seven. He nodded but, again, didn't feel it was appropriate to comment on a relationship Ben was obviously not super keen to talk about. He guessed it hadn't been very long since the guy had died, from the way Ben was being so tender about it - of course, a relationship that lasted that long was beyond Mick's scope of understanding, so for all he knew it had been a while ago and Ben just hadn't recovered yet. Intellectually, he understood that could happen, even if it wasn't something he'd experienced emotionally.
His face brightened at Ben's question about his kid and he fished his phone out of his jacket pocket, clicking through it to get to his pictures while he answered. "A boy, Maximus. He's nearly five now but this is a picture of him and his mother, T'Liesha, the day he was a born. If you swipe forwards, you'll get to pictures of him now," Mick instructed, handing the phone over. "I don't see him much, because of T'Liesha. The bitch," he muttered darkly.
Ben would see pictures of a relatively attractive African American girl holding a tightly-swaddled baby with cocoa brown skin and tight black curls in the first picture. T'Liesha was seventeen when Maximus was born but without makeup she looked barely fifteen in the first photo. She appeared regularly in the first few photos, made up and covered with jewellery, looking progressively older and more tired despite her youth.
When the photos with T'Liesha stopped, there were two photos featuring Ben's parents with Maximus at about a year of age. His mother was smiling at the camera both times, his father looking unimpressed in the first (while his wife held Maximus) but happier in the second as he stood in the Samson's living room, Maximus' fat little fingers wrapped around his extended index fingers, teaching him to walk (with Ben's mother smiling from behind).
After that there were just photos of Maximus getting older, either taken at parks, the house Ben grew up in (because Mick took Maximus over to visit his grandparents whenever he got visitation) or a variety of dingy-looking apartments. Maximus was seen sitting on various swings, push cars, a tricycle and a bicycle later on, smiling broadly at his father with full red lips and rounded cheeks. His eyes had lightened as he grew, proving unequivocally that Mick was his father with their light blue hue. Combined with his brown skin and thick, curly brown hair, his unique colouring ensured that he would turn heads when he was older.
