Fic - a minor acclimation (Donna/Harvey) NC-17, 1/1
Title: a minor acclimation
Summary: It's all just a series of fits and starts. Or, the one where these two are still fumbling towards the inevitable.
Rating: nc-17
Author's Notes: 4,670 words. General series spoilers. Set in the same universe as take your cues and Equilibrium, but you don't need to have read those to understand this. Written in the spirit of Donna/Harvey drabble-a-thon which everyone should go participate in right this second. All mistakes are mine. These characters, however, are not.
Also: For magisterequitum. Because of reasons.
There is a long expansive history between them, both combined and separate, a series of tries at making this - a fully functioning, adult relationship - work with other people. It is little surprise that Donna is much better at it than he is. Her baggage is present, but not nearly as heavy, and for the longest time, for as long as Harvey can remember, it has been easier for him to hold the world at arm’s length, not allowing anyone to get too close because endings are eventual, inevitable, and he simply doesn’t have the time to deal with them. He simply doesn’t want to deal with them. In the past, with other women, there was always an endpoint looming in the distance, one where he knew he would eventually stop himself from caring, a defense mechanism cultivated and strengthened over years of practice.
It isn’t that he doesn’t still believe all things must eventually come to an end. He does, maybe always will because old habits are hard to break, but things with Donna make it easy to forget. The secrets and baggage they carry have already long-since been shared and learned, and it’s easier to let her in, to ignore his instincts, because he’s been doing it for so long that it feels almost natural now, instinctive.
Which is exactly why Harvey doesn’t fully realize it when he starts keeping a running list in the back of his mind, ordered and arranged just so, of all the reasons why Donna should maybe, possibly move in with him.
It goes a little something like this:
1. It’s economical.
(Harvey is, after all, a reasonable guy. He is a smart guy, and despite what most people assume, he doesn’t just throw money away. Which is exactly why he finds it sort of ridiculous for the two of them to have two separate spaces when they can just as easily occupy one, together.)
2. She’s at his place most of the time anyway.
(Donna is messy - which is something he knows most people wouldn’t assume, but she is, and most of the time he forgives her for it. Still, her lipstick leaves stains on the bathroom sink, and she constantly leaves her wet towels on the bathroom floor. He’s learning, little by little, just to go with it, to pick up her towels when she’s done and hang them next to his. To leave the lipstick as a reminder of sorts for those nights that are becoming increasingly less frequent when she does go home or has plans that don’t involve him and he misses her just a little too much.)
3. He really hates her place.
(He does, and she knows it. He hates the location, her nosy neighbors, and the fact that she’s shared it with two other men before him. Donna loves her place, loves the character of it, how it is decorated just so, but she loves his place more - Harvey sees it in the way she moves around his space like it is hers, like she belongs there. He knows the sight of the skyline relaxes her.)
4. He has more closet space.
(He may or may not have already started clearing out space for her. It started as an unconscious movement, a drawer in the bathroom to house all the things she leaves behind, a slot on the sink for her Colgate next to his Crest, space in the closet for an extra dress or two so she doesn’t have to leave so early in the morning just to change her clothes. Harvey is very much aware of the fact that her shoes are going to be an issue; he’s trying to work out a plausible solution which doesn’t involve him moving some of his own to the guest room’s closet, but he knows if it comes to it, if she pushes for it, he’ll give in way too easily. He’s learning to choose his battles.)
5. He is a great admirer of watching her get dressed.
(Donna has this routine, and watching said routine has inadvertently become his routine. She walks around the room, half-dressed in his gym shorts, or just a pair of cotton panties and that damn Harvard sweatshirt she still hasn’t relinquished control of, taunting him without even trying. When they have time, she’ll allow him to linger in bed, ESPN on in the background, as she hums lazily to herself, the sound a little bit too husky, a little off-key. It usually ends with him catching her wrist when she passes, fingers thumbing the pulse point there, grinning at the way it quickens under the pads of his fingertips. Inevitably, he will pull her back to bed, and they will argue over being late, and whose fault it will be, as their hands trace bones and muscle from memory, working each other over until there is that familiar arching of backs.)
And, yeah, it’s mostly the last one. He knows this, and he isn’t ashamed to admit it either.
Harvey is who he is. He doesn’t make excuses for it.
He learned that from her.
They have these routines, both separately and together now, and on Sunday mornings he fields phone calls from home while she does yoga and runs errands, meeting friends for things like brunch or coffee. She usually makes it back to his place around one, quietly closing the door behind her with the key she’s had for years, fingers drawing across his shoulders as he talks to Mike on the phone about whatever case is most pressing. It’s her version of Hurry up and he reads it easily, smiles softly in return and appreciates the view as she walks away. After, when he knows she’s reclaimed her position on the couch or in his bed, the TV turned to low on something he’ll probably make fun of her for later, he pushes himself into overdrive, finishing whatever is most important so he can enjoy the rest of his afternoon with her.
A mere hour later he finds her on the bed, pages of a magazine crinkling under her fingertips as the baseball game plays on TV. He watches her from the doorway, shoulder against the door jam to carry some of his weight, the smile playing across his mouth affectionate. She’s on her stomach; head cradled in one hand near the foot of the bed as the other turns the page of whatever tabloid she picked up while she was out. Donna doesn’t have to look to realize he’s there, she just instinctively knows - Harvey can tell by the way she starts swinging her feet back and forth in the air before crossing them at the ankles near the pile of pillows, exposing the long line of her legs.
“I will probably have to go in later,” he tells her, and he can’t help himself, his line of sight trails over the long, languid line of her, his mouth growing dry.
Slowly, he makes his way into the room and over to the bed. Out of the corner of his eye, he catches sight of her sandals next to his shoes near the door, his smile deepening despite himself at the familiarity. When his knees hit the edge of the mattress, he reaches for her, the palm of his hand splaying against the gentle curve of her calf, before traveling up up up to tease the soft skin behind her knee.
She spares him a glance, her mouth curling. “Bummer.”
The mattress dips under his weight, his palm moving up to slip under the edge of her dress, skirting over the perfect curve of her ass. He presses her eyes closed for just a moment, follows the lines of her from memory.
“But you’re in bed.”
“I am,” she says, laughing a little. It presses into his skin, but the weight is different, lighter, a little too airy. Harvey knows she’s ticklish there, right at the top of her thighs. His fingers dance along the edge of her underwear a little more boldly, his smile turning into a grin when she squirms away from his touch.
“That’s not exactly fair,” Harvey tells her, serious as he watches goosebumps rise under the tips of his fingers, hands moving farther down to fumble along the line of muscle at her inner thigh. “Come to work with me.”
She shifts away from his touch until she rests fully on her side. “Yeah,” she starts, drawing out the word. He anticipates her movements, his hand moving with her as the hem of her dress slips farther and farther upwards, revealing the lean muscle of those thighs he loves so fucking much. “I don’t think so.”
Harvey presses his mouth into a mock frown. “That’s not fair.”
“Not my fault I got all my work done on Friday and you didn’t.”
“That’s technically not true.” He shifts onto the bed until he’s next to her, body forming a long line that parallels hers. Donna moves backwards to accommodate him, and somehow the magazine she was reading ends up on the floor. “Your desk was a mess when we left Friday.”
Reaching for him, her fingers smooth over the mess that is his hair, the ends sticking every which way helplessly. Her mouth twists near the corners, revealing the smile he swears she saves just for him, before she presses it into a thin, serious line. The glint in her eyes gives her away when she says, “That’s because somebody was rushing me out the door.”
“We had tickets to the seven o’clock game. The Yankees were one game away from clinching a spot in the ALCS,” he reminds her quietly, leaning forward to brush his mouth against hers. She obliges easily, their kiss easy and learned, familiar. “Priorities are priorities,” he murmurs and Harvey feels her grin spread against his mouth.
Outside, rain spits against the glass, the insistent tap tap tap against the windows a steady, soothing cadence and it’s funny to him, how easily things change. How they are both evolving, growing and shifting into the type of people who can sustain this sort of thing, who can make a relationship work past weeks and months. It was a trial at the beginning, still is, to adjust fully to the other’s habits. They know each other, of course. Have been intimately familiar with the other’s quirks, likes, and dislikes for a length of time that spans longer than a decade. Still, there are habits, ingrained into the very core of themselves, which were much, much easier to ignore, to look past when there were bits of their lives still kept just for themselves, parts of their lives they didn’t allow the other to infiltrate.
Before Donna, before he knew her in this way, Sundays were for long runs in the park, lunches and meetings that would help him land this client or that company. Sundays meant hours spent at the office as the day died outside the glass windows. It was hard, in the beginning, to find a different sort of line to draw between them, one which separated what they had at work from what they had here, at home, but they decided early on that those two things needed to remain as two separate entities for both their sanities and clarity’s sake.
Here, now, as her mouth works against his, the weight of it, the sheer taste of her so achingly familiar, he knows that very line has become blurred, barely visible over the past months and year they’ve spent fumbling towards something altogether different. They’ve never been very good at drawing boundaries and respecting them after. Harvey isn’t foolish enough to look at his future with any sort of certainty, doesn’t paint pictures of happily ever afters because they don’t exist. Not for people like them, people who operate under the guide of realism, who live in the here and now.
What he does know, however, what he can say with absolute certainty is that he wants her by his side - now, tomorrow, a year from now, and the very thought weighs heavily on his shoulders, frightening and alluring all at once.
He is still figuring out what exactly it means, though, but he’s never been very good at these sorts of things. Neither of them have, really, and it’s kind of nice figuring which way is up, what the next step is with somebody else by your side.
Donna groans, and he doesn’t know why, but he laughs. His hand is at under the light fabric of her dress, fingers dancing over ribs, and smoothing over the gentle curve of her spine.
“We just had sex,” she says and he knows she means it to be a start of an argument, but it definitely looses it effectiveness when the words are wrapped around a sigh and her hands are clawing their way under his t-shirt, seeking out skin.
“That was this morning.”
Shifting, Donna moves until her back is sinking into the mattress, dragging him with her until he’s half on top of her. Harvey slides down her body a few inches, fingers pushing her dress upwards until the fabric bunches, revealing the smooth expanse of her stomach. His head dips, lips pressing against the warm skin, and he watches her mouth turn, closes his eyes when her fingers tangle in his hair. When his eyes slide back open, they catch hers; both of them take a moment and smile at each other, sharing both amusement and affection, a tenderness neither one of them knows how to articulate. Which is okay, he muses, because it is who they are.
Besides, she just knows.
“These legs are closed for business, Mister.”
“Oh, really?” he hums.
“Yes.”
“I can think of a few ways to change your mind.”
“Despite what you may believe, smug is not an attractive look on you.”
“Everything looks attractive on me.” His hands push her dress up farther, fingers skimming the underside of her bra - the black lace a stark contrast against her pale skin. She squirms on reflex, her hips shifting against his. One of his hands slips between them, finding home in the warmth between her legs. She’s wet already and he’s caught between a sigh and a laugh, both of them catching in his throat, intermingling and forming a sound he swears he never made before her. “Exhibit A,” he breathes and he doesn’t have to look at her to know she’s rolling her eyes.
When he kisses her then it is to subvert her reply, his mouth sliding against hers and swallowing whatever retort she had ready, his tongue smoothing against hers, the roof of her mouth, his body shifting until it is almost fully on top of hers, the two of them fitting together in all the right places. Harvey sighs softly at the familiar feel of her against him. His mouth draws hers into a game of give and take as her hands fist into the cotton of his t-shirt before releasing. They slip underneath to smooth along the line of his back, fingers fumbling along the dips of his spine and settling at the base, her hips slanting up to meet his in a way that nearly drives him crazy.
His mouth pulls away from hers only to graze the soft skin of her neck. “Come to work with me,” he tries again, shifting until his shoulder is carrying most of his weight and a hand can slip down, fingers tracing patterns into the smooth line of her thighs, his way of coaxing her into saying yes.
Donna watches his hands for a moment, the movements of his fingers slow and precise before she turns her head, slicks her mouth against his for a chaste kiss. “To do what exactly?”
“I am sure I can find something for you do.”
Her laugh runs through him, the dull vibrations rattling his bones. “Is that a threat?”
“Only if you would like it to be,” he murmurs. His grin is hidden in the crook of her neck, his mouth finding the spot, the one right where the shoulder dips, his teeth skimming the tender skin there.
Harvey knows her body like he does the law - how it works, how it responds, how to manipulate it - and he smiles in sheer satisfaction as her knees part, allowing his body to sink between them, the way her fingers tighten at his waist, slipping into his jeans and palming his ass, pushing his hips to hers. Harvey expects her mouth to nudge it’s way back to his before she even makes the move, sighs softly against her lips as her tongue flicks against his and betrays every intention, every want and need she thinks she is so good at hiding from him.
“I can’t,” she breathes. Then, “I need to go grocery shopping.” The words are said in a rush, hoarse as they fall between them.
“We have food here.”
Shaking her head, Donna’s fingers start on the button of his jeans, feet urging the fabric down his legs little by little until they are a tangled mess near his feet. “For my place,” she amends.
“We have food here.”
The words slip out before he can stop them, the inflection intentional despite being unexpected. Because she’s Donna, because she knows everything and him her hands still almost immediately, her body pulling away slightly as she twists her neck to look at him. She doesn’t question him, merely narrows her eyes, studying him for a long moment that would threaten to unnerve him if he weren’t used to it, if he didn’t trust her inexplicably.
It’s still foreign to him - this ridiculous feeling of happiness that hums consistently under his skin, this fierce constriction he feels deep in his chest every time he looks at her. He doesn’t want to fuck it up, actively tries not to at every turn, and hopes he didn’t do just that.
There is a long stretch of time where they merely look at each other, Donna trying to figure him out, deciding the best way to respond, and Harvey trying to gauge her reaction. She is a hard read though, even despite the years of practice, and the emotions flicker so fast across her face that he has trouble discerning them sometimes, can’t distinguish between the elation and surprise, and whether the surprise is good or bad, if he should be at all concerned.
So when her mouth quirks around a quiet yeah?, he sighs something akin to relief, leans forward to kiss her, deep and a little rough around the edges, the excitement coursing through him unexpectedly, throwing him off kilter. There is a soft moan - his, hers, it doesn’t really matter - and one of his hands finds hers, their fingers pressing together somewhere above their heads.
“Say it,” she murmurs thickly, and it’s her turn now, teeth grazing along the stubble on his chin, the curve of his jaw and lower, to the spot behind his ear that sends a shiver through him.
“Donna.”
“I want you to say it, Harvey,” she tells him, tone almost sing-song, her mouth moving against his skin as she speaks. He dips his head until his mouth catches hers again and her free hand slides over his ass, then between them, palming him through the fabric of his boxers.
He accidentally bites her lip at the sudden pressure, covering up his graceless moment by drawing it between his teeth just the way she likes. “You say it.”
“You’re the one that asked.”
“Irrelevant,” he says, but then her hands stop moving and her mouth tears itself away from his, so he sighs raggedly, giving in and pulling back to look at her - cheeks and ears tinted red, hair a mess as it fans against the sheets behind her. “I think,” he starts, and then stops, choosing his words carefully, his smile sincere as it turns his mouth. “I want you to move in here. With me.”
Blinking, she watches him, and then uncharacteristically looks away. His hand leaves hers above their heads to catch her jaw, to steady her gaze with his. It’s easy and foreign at once, this moment, they way they lay themselves out threadbare and open, and the conundrum of that alone scares him more than he would like to admit. The trouble she seems to have finding words catches him off guard, and it’s going to be another change, another adjustment, but she doesn’t give him time to think about it - just leans up, captures his mouth with hers possessively, wantonly. Her palms pressing flat against his chest, rolling them until she’s on top, a thigh snug on either side of his.
The laughter catches in his throat, the surprise and appreciation intermingling as he watches her tug the dress hastily over her head, tossing it to the side carelessly. He reaches for her almost without thinking, the move more instinctive than anything, fingers tracing the bone of her cheek before tangling in her hair, tugging her towards him. They kiss again and she fumbles with her bra; his hands reach to help, always the gentlemen when it counts, and she smiles, murmurs something to that affect huskily, lips sliding against his with every word spoken. When she’s free of it, the fabric thrown in the same direction of her dress, his fingers knead the newly exposed flesh with careful precision, adjusting his movements to the way her hips start to roll, to the soft sounds she makes in response.
Donna’s mouth breaks with his just so she can bury it against his neck, and he takes a moment to catch his breath, knuckles skimming the underside of her breast, counting the bones of her ribs before reaching her hips, pulling at the thin fabric there, fingers starting to roll against her, slow and pressing. She mews, forehead pressing against his shoulder, the syllables of his name wrapped around a sigh that falls between them, and there is a rip and a tear, the fabric sliding down her thighs and to the side, forgotten. She says something about it, of course, but the words lose their effect when her knees start to buckle as his thumb finds her clit, the pad sliding back and forth with no particular motion.
The words that fall off her tongue are filthy, and she kisses him through it, all tongue and teeth, the sheer force of their mouths molding together reverberating in the back of his skull.
Harvey likes Donna the most like this - possessive, full of shameless need and want, completely vulnerable to him. It is a side of her that belongs solely to him, and he likes drawing it out of her slowly, loves the way she falls apart around him as he presses a finger inside her, then two, the curl and stretch driving her just as crazy as the feel of her everywhere pushes him towards the brink of insanity. He does so now, allows her to pull her mouth from his and arch her back, fingers tight and bruising against his thigh as she attempts to anchor herself, to keep from falling apart too quickly as her hips rock against his hand. Harvey can be a bastard when he wants to be, though, and he slows his movements until she’s just there, right on the verge of begging. Until her eyes snap open, all coherency lost as she murmurs oh god and please and Harvey, the brush of her hips trying to nudge his hand to move faster.
He refuses on principle, draws her out, and waits for her to take what she wants.
She does, all too easily, moving without hesitation to push his boxers out of the way. Donna’s hands curl in his shirt, pulling him upwards and towards her until he’s half sitting, most of this weight supported on his left wrist, while the other tangles in her hair, pulling and tugging until he can taste her, and worry her bottom lip between his teeth. Her mouth slips across his cheek, down his neck, teeth digging into the shoulder as he slides into her, and she’s tight, gasping, trying to bury herself as close to him as possible as they breathe and accommodate.
There is no agreement of movement, no method, no precision. They just move and keeping moving, and she is almost there already - Harvey can tell by the precise angle of her back as it bows, the way she watches him watching her, almost as if a dare. He grins, leans to kiss her but misses, ends up just pressing his mouth to her corner of hers, murmuring her name and nonsense that gets lost among the sounds of their sighs, the moan that rips through him when she adjusts the angle, allowing him to slip deeper inside her.
“We’re going to need a bigger closet,” she mumbles, the words coming out in spurts and starts, and it takes him a moment to realize she’s talking, to string the words together to make sense. “Too much stuff.”
He tries not to laugh, but the sound slips out as his mouth brushes against her neck over and over again. “I know.”
She’s nearly breathless when she says, “Thought about this, have you?”
Harvey grits his teeth, tries to focus on making complete sentences. “You have no idea.”
There is something about the way she looks at him then - the affection so evident, so clear as it flickers across her features - that does him in, has him spiraling helplessly out of control. He can’t breathe, can’t even think, just forces a hand between them, thumb sliding against her clit, drawing circles without any direction. Donna curses his name, the fuck eloquent and graceful as she spits it as him, and he comes right then and there, that goddamn easily.
It surprises neither of them that he doesn’t make it into the office.
Instead, they stay in bed, daylight dying, painting the room as they watch Eli and the Giants blow away the competition in San Francisco. Harvey has his files spread out on his side of the bed; Donna has her magazine back in her hands, thumbing through the pages. They’re both in various states of undress, an old t-shirt loose around her shoulders, his own still on, wrinkled beyond repair. Harvey watches her and the television simultaneously, one of his hands idly tracing patterns into the skin of her bare thigh as the other thumbs aimlessly through the papers in his lap.
Harvey can’t really focus on anything outside of how warm her skin is beneath his fingertips and how soon she can get her stuff moved in and, yeah, he knows he probably should have gone to the office. They’ll both pay for this tomorrow.
When he catches her watching his hands, he smiles, leans forward to press his mouth to her shoulder. “So much for your legs being closed for business.”
Donna pokes his side, her eyes rolling. “Shut up.”
“Told you I had ways of getting you to change your mind.”
“You’re ruining the moment.”
“We’re having a moment?”
“We were. You ruined it with the smug tone and cheekiness.”
“You love me,” he says too quickly, unguarded, not thinking at all.
The words hang between them for a minute, a taunt, a dare, his way of testing boundaries and loyalties all at once - an old habit he is trying to break but makes appearances at the most inopportune moments. Donna recognizes it for what it is though, and merely smiles. On the television, Eli widens the lead with another touchdown. The crowd goes wild and Harvey hears it, the dull noise of outrage drowned out by this fierce, uncontrollable tightness in his chest he recognizes and welcomes.
“Yeah,” she mumbles. “I do.”
Their mouths meet at the corners when he kisses her.
Summary: It's all just a series of fits and starts. Or, the one where these two are still fumbling towards the inevitable.
Rating: nc-17
Author's Notes: 4,670 words. General series spoilers. Set in the same universe as take your cues and Equilibrium, but you don't need to have read those to understand this. Written in the spirit of Donna/Harvey drabble-a-thon which everyone should go participate in right this second. All mistakes are mine. These characters, however, are not.
Also: For magisterequitum. Because of reasons.
There is a long expansive history between them, both combined and separate, a series of tries at making this - a fully functioning, adult relationship - work with other people. It is little surprise that Donna is much better at it than he is. Her baggage is present, but not nearly as heavy, and for the longest time, for as long as Harvey can remember, it has been easier for him to hold the world at arm’s length, not allowing anyone to get too close because endings are eventual, inevitable, and he simply doesn’t have the time to deal with them. He simply doesn’t want to deal with them. In the past, with other women, there was always an endpoint looming in the distance, one where he knew he would eventually stop himself from caring, a defense mechanism cultivated and strengthened over years of practice.
It isn’t that he doesn’t still believe all things must eventually come to an end. He does, maybe always will because old habits are hard to break, but things with Donna make it easy to forget. The secrets and baggage they carry have already long-since been shared and learned, and it’s easier to let her in, to ignore his instincts, because he’s been doing it for so long that it feels almost natural now, instinctive.
Which is exactly why Harvey doesn’t fully realize it when he starts keeping a running list in the back of his mind, ordered and arranged just so, of all the reasons why Donna should maybe, possibly move in with him.
It goes a little something like this:
1. It’s economical.
(Harvey is, after all, a reasonable guy. He is a smart guy, and despite what most people assume, he doesn’t just throw money away. Which is exactly why he finds it sort of ridiculous for the two of them to have two separate spaces when they can just as easily occupy one, together.)
2. She’s at his place most of the time anyway.
(Donna is messy - which is something he knows most people wouldn’t assume, but she is, and most of the time he forgives her for it. Still, her lipstick leaves stains on the bathroom sink, and she constantly leaves her wet towels on the bathroom floor. He’s learning, little by little, just to go with it, to pick up her towels when she’s done and hang them next to his. To leave the lipstick as a reminder of sorts for those nights that are becoming increasingly less frequent when she does go home or has plans that don’t involve him and he misses her just a little too much.)
3. He really hates her place.
(He does, and she knows it. He hates the location, her nosy neighbors, and the fact that she’s shared it with two other men before him. Donna loves her place, loves the character of it, how it is decorated just so, but she loves his place more - Harvey sees it in the way she moves around his space like it is hers, like she belongs there. He knows the sight of the skyline relaxes her.)
4. He has more closet space.
(He may or may not have already started clearing out space for her. It started as an unconscious movement, a drawer in the bathroom to house all the things she leaves behind, a slot on the sink for her Colgate next to his Crest, space in the closet for an extra dress or two so she doesn’t have to leave so early in the morning just to change her clothes. Harvey is very much aware of the fact that her shoes are going to be an issue; he’s trying to work out a plausible solution which doesn’t involve him moving some of his own to the guest room’s closet, but he knows if it comes to it, if she pushes for it, he’ll give in way too easily. He’s learning to choose his battles.)
5. He is a great admirer of watching her get dressed.
(Donna has this routine, and watching said routine has inadvertently become his routine. She walks around the room, half-dressed in his gym shorts, or just a pair of cotton panties and that damn Harvard sweatshirt she still hasn’t relinquished control of, taunting him without even trying. When they have time, she’ll allow him to linger in bed, ESPN on in the background, as she hums lazily to herself, the sound a little bit too husky, a little off-key. It usually ends with him catching her wrist when she passes, fingers thumbing the pulse point there, grinning at the way it quickens under the pads of his fingertips. Inevitably, he will pull her back to bed, and they will argue over being late, and whose fault it will be, as their hands trace bones and muscle from memory, working each other over until there is that familiar arching of backs.)
And, yeah, it’s mostly the last one. He knows this, and he isn’t ashamed to admit it either.
Harvey is who he is. He doesn’t make excuses for it.
He learned that from her.
They have these routines, both separately and together now, and on Sunday mornings he fields phone calls from home while she does yoga and runs errands, meeting friends for things like brunch or coffee. She usually makes it back to his place around one, quietly closing the door behind her with the key she’s had for years, fingers drawing across his shoulders as he talks to Mike on the phone about whatever case is most pressing. It’s her version of Hurry up and he reads it easily, smiles softly in return and appreciates the view as she walks away. After, when he knows she’s reclaimed her position on the couch or in his bed, the TV turned to low on something he’ll probably make fun of her for later, he pushes himself into overdrive, finishing whatever is most important so he can enjoy the rest of his afternoon with her.
A mere hour later he finds her on the bed, pages of a magazine crinkling under her fingertips as the baseball game plays on TV. He watches her from the doorway, shoulder against the door jam to carry some of his weight, the smile playing across his mouth affectionate. She’s on her stomach; head cradled in one hand near the foot of the bed as the other turns the page of whatever tabloid she picked up while she was out. Donna doesn’t have to look to realize he’s there, she just instinctively knows - Harvey can tell by the way she starts swinging her feet back and forth in the air before crossing them at the ankles near the pile of pillows, exposing the long line of her legs.
“I will probably have to go in later,” he tells her, and he can’t help himself, his line of sight trails over the long, languid line of her, his mouth growing dry.
Slowly, he makes his way into the room and over to the bed. Out of the corner of his eye, he catches sight of her sandals next to his shoes near the door, his smile deepening despite himself at the familiarity. When his knees hit the edge of the mattress, he reaches for her, the palm of his hand splaying against the gentle curve of her calf, before traveling up up up to tease the soft skin behind her knee.
She spares him a glance, her mouth curling. “Bummer.”
The mattress dips under his weight, his palm moving up to slip under the edge of her dress, skirting over the perfect curve of her ass. He presses her eyes closed for just a moment, follows the lines of her from memory.
“But you’re in bed.”
“I am,” she says, laughing a little. It presses into his skin, but the weight is different, lighter, a little too airy. Harvey knows she’s ticklish there, right at the top of her thighs. His fingers dance along the edge of her underwear a little more boldly, his smile turning into a grin when she squirms away from his touch.
“That’s not exactly fair,” Harvey tells her, serious as he watches goosebumps rise under the tips of his fingers, hands moving farther down to fumble along the line of muscle at her inner thigh. “Come to work with me.”
She shifts away from his touch until she rests fully on her side. “Yeah,” she starts, drawing out the word. He anticipates her movements, his hand moving with her as the hem of her dress slips farther and farther upwards, revealing the lean muscle of those thighs he loves so fucking much. “I don’t think so.”
Harvey presses his mouth into a mock frown. “That’s not fair.”
“Not my fault I got all my work done on Friday and you didn’t.”
“That’s technically not true.” He shifts onto the bed until he’s next to her, body forming a long line that parallels hers. Donna moves backwards to accommodate him, and somehow the magazine she was reading ends up on the floor. “Your desk was a mess when we left Friday.”
Reaching for him, her fingers smooth over the mess that is his hair, the ends sticking every which way helplessly. Her mouth twists near the corners, revealing the smile he swears she saves just for him, before she presses it into a thin, serious line. The glint in her eyes gives her away when she says, “That’s because somebody was rushing me out the door.”
“We had tickets to the seven o’clock game. The Yankees were one game away from clinching a spot in the ALCS,” he reminds her quietly, leaning forward to brush his mouth against hers. She obliges easily, their kiss easy and learned, familiar. “Priorities are priorities,” he murmurs and Harvey feels her grin spread against his mouth.
Outside, rain spits against the glass, the insistent tap tap tap against the windows a steady, soothing cadence and it’s funny to him, how easily things change. How they are both evolving, growing and shifting into the type of people who can sustain this sort of thing, who can make a relationship work past weeks and months. It was a trial at the beginning, still is, to adjust fully to the other’s habits. They know each other, of course. Have been intimately familiar with the other’s quirks, likes, and dislikes for a length of time that spans longer than a decade. Still, there are habits, ingrained into the very core of themselves, which were much, much easier to ignore, to look past when there were bits of their lives still kept just for themselves, parts of their lives they didn’t allow the other to infiltrate.
Before Donna, before he knew her in this way, Sundays were for long runs in the park, lunches and meetings that would help him land this client or that company. Sundays meant hours spent at the office as the day died outside the glass windows. It was hard, in the beginning, to find a different sort of line to draw between them, one which separated what they had at work from what they had here, at home, but they decided early on that those two things needed to remain as two separate entities for both their sanities and clarity’s sake.
Here, now, as her mouth works against his, the weight of it, the sheer taste of her so achingly familiar, he knows that very line has become blurred, barely visible over the past months and year they’ve spent fumbling towards something altogether different. They’ve never been very good at drawing boundaries and respecting them after. Harvey isn’t foolish enough to look at his future with any sort of certainty, doesn’t paint pictures of happily ever afters because they don’t exist. Not for people like them, people who operate under the guide of realism, who live in the here and now.
What he does know, however, what he can say with absolute certainty is that he wants her by his side - now, tomorrow, a year from now, and the very thought weighs heavily on his shoulders, frightening and alluring all at once.
He is still figuring out what exactly it means, though, but he’s never been very good at these sorts of things. Neither of them have, really, and it’s kind of nice figuring which way is up, what the next step is with somebody else by your side.
Donna groans, and he doesn’t know why, but he laughs. His hand is at under the light fabric of her dress, fingers dancing over ribs, and smoothing over the gentle curve of her spine.
“We just had sex,” she says and he knows she means it to be a start of an argument, but it definitely looses it effectiveness when the words are wrapped around a sigh and her hands are clawing their way under his t-shirt, seeking out skin.
“That was this morning.”
Shifting, Donna moves until her back is sinking into the mattress, dragging him with her until he’s half on top of her. Harvey slides down her body a few inches, fingers pushing her dress upwards until the fabric bunches, revealing the smooth expanse of her stomach. His head dips, lips pressing against the warm skin, and he watches her mouth turn, closes his eyes when her fingers tangle in his hair. When his eyes slide back open, they catch hers; both of them take a moment and smile at each other, sharing both amusement and affection, a tenderness neither one of them knows how to articulate. Which is okay, he muses, because it is who they are.
Besides, she just knows.
“These legs are closed for business, Mister.”
“Oh, really?” he hums.
“Yes.”
“I can think of a few ways to change your mind.”
“Despite what you may believe, smug is not an attractive look on you.”
“Everything looks attractive on me.” His hands push her dress up farther, fingers skimming the underside of her bra - the black lace a stark contrast against her pale skin. She squirms on reflex, her hips shifting against his. One of his hands slips between them, finding home in the warmth between her legs. She’s wet already and he’s caught between a sigh and a laugh, both of them catching in his throat, intermingling and forming a sound he swears he never made before her. “Exhibit A,” he breathes and he doesn’t have to look at her to know she’s rolling her eyes.
When he kisses her then it is to subvert her reply, his mouth sliding against hers and swallowing whatever retort she had ready, his tongue smoothing against hers, the roof of her mouth, his body shifting until it is almost fully on top of hers, the two of them fitting together in all the right places. Harvey sighs softly at the familiar feel of her against him. His mouth draws hers into a game of give and take as her hands fist into the cotton of his t-shirt before releasing. They slip underneath to smooth along the line of his back, fingers fumbling along the dips of his spine and settling at the base, her hips slanting up to meet his in a way that nearly drives him crazy.
His mouth pulls away from hers only to graze the soft skin of her neck. “Come to work with me,” he tries again, shifting until his shoulder is carrying most of his weight and a hand can slip down, fingers tracing patterns into the smooth line of her thighs, his way of coaxing her into saying yes.
Donna watches his hands for a moment, the movements of his fingers slow and precise before she turns her head, slicks her mouth against his for a chaste kiss. “To do what exactly?”
“I am sure I can find something for you do.”
Her laugh runs through him, the dull vibrations rattling his bones. “Is that a threat?”
“Only if you would like it to be,” he murmurs. His grin is hidden in the crook of her neck, his mouth finding the spot, the one right where the shoulder dips, his teeth skimming the tender skin there.
Harvey knows her body like he does the law - how it works, how it responds, how to manipulate it - and he smiles in sheer satisfaction as her knees part, allowing his body to sink between them, the way her fingers tighten at his waist, slipping into his jeans and palming his ass, pushing his hips to hers. Harvey expects her mouth to nudge it’s way back to his before she even makes the move, sighs softly against her lips as her tongue flicks against his and betrays every intention, every want and need she thinks she is so good at hiding from him.
“I can’t,” she breathes. Then, “I need to go grocery shopping.” The words are said in a rush, hoarse as they fall between them.
“We have food here.”
Shaking her head, Donna’s fingers start on the button of his jeans, feet urging the fabric down his legs little by little until they are a tangled mess near his feet. “For my place,” she amends.
“We have food here.”
The words slip out before he can stop them, the inflection intentional despite being unexpected. Because she’s Donna, because she knows everything and him her hands still almost immediately, her body pulling away slightly as she twists her neck to look at him. She doesn’t question him, merely narrows her eyes, studying him for a long moment that would threaten to unnerve him if he weren’t used to it, if he didn’t trust her inexplicably.
It’s still foreign to him - this ridiculous feeling of happiness that hums consistently under his skin, this fierce constriction he feels deep in his chest every time he looks at her. He doesn’t want to fuck it up, actively tries not to at every turn, and hopes he didn’t do just that.
There is a long stretch of time where they merely look at each other, Donna trying to figure him out, deciding the best way to respond, and Harvey trying to gauge her reaction. She is a hard read though, even despite the years of practice, and the emotions flicker so fast across her face that he has trouble discerning them sometimes, can’t distinguish between the elation and surprise, and whether the surprise is good or bad, if he should be at all concerned.
So when her mouth quirks around a quiet yeah?, he sighs something akin to relief, leans forward to kiss her, deep and a little rough around the edges, the excitement coursing through him unexpectedly, throwing him off kilter. There is a soft moan - his, hers, it doesn’t really matter - and one of his hands finds hers, their fingers pressing together somewhere above their heads.
“Say it,” she murmurs thickly, and it’s her turn now, teeth grazing along the stubble on his chin, the curve of his jaw and lower, to the spot behind his ear that sends a shiver through him.
“Donna.”
“I want you to say it, Harvey,” she tells him, tone almost sing-song, her mouth moving against his skin as she speaks. He dips his head until his mouth catches hers again and her free hand slides over his ass, then between them, palming him through the fabric of his boxers.
He accidentally bites her lip at the sudden pressure, covering up his graceless moment by drawing it between his teeth just the way she likes. “You say it.”
“You’re the one that asked.”
“Irrelevant,” he says, but then her hands stop moving and her mouth tears itself away from his, so he sighs raggedly, giving in and pulling back to look at her - cheeks and ears tinted red, hair a mess as it fans against the sheets behind her. “I think,” he starts, and then stops, choosing his words carefully, his smile sincere as it turns his mouth. “I want you to move in here. With me.”
Blinking, she watches him, and then uncharacteristically looks away. His hand leaves hers above their heads to catch her jaw, to steady her gaze with his. It’s easy and foreign at once, this moment, they way they lay themselves out threadbare and open, and the conundrum of that alone scares him more than he would like to admit. The trouble she seems to have finding words catches him off guard, and it’s going to be another change, another adjustment, but she doesn’t give him time to think about it - just leans up, captures his mouth with hers possessively, wantonly. Her palms pressing flat against his chest, rolling them until she’s on top, a thigh snug on either side of his.
The laughter catches in his throat, the surprise and appreciation intermingling as he watches her tug the dress hastily over her head, tossing it to the side carelessly. He reaches for her almost without thinking, the move more instinctive than anything, fingers tracing the bone of her cheek before tangling in her hair, tugging her towards him. They kiss again and she fumbles with her bra; his hands reach to help, always the gentlemen when it counts, and she smiles, murmurs something to that affect huskily, lips sliding against his with every word spoken. When she’s free of it, the fabric thrown in the same direction of her dress, his fingers knead the newly exposed flesh with careful precision, adjusting his movements to the way her hips start to roll, to the soft sounds she makes in response.
Donna’s mouth breaks with his just so she can bury it against his neck, and he takes a moment to catch his breath, knuckles skimming the underside of her breast, counting the bones of her ribs before reaching her hips, pulling at the thin fabric there, fingers starting to roll against her, slow and pressing. She mews, forehead pressing against his shoulder, the syllables of his name wrapped around a sigh that falls between them, and there is a rip and a tear, the fabric sliding down her thighs and to the side, forgotten. She says something about it, of course, but the words lose their effect when her knees start to buckle as his thumb finds her clit, the pad sliding back and forth with no particular motion.
The words that fall off her tongue are filthy, and she kisses him through it, all tongue and teeth, the sheer force of their mouths molding together reverberating in the back of his skull.
Harvey likes Donna the most like this - possessive, full of shameless need and want, completely vulnerable to him. It is a side of her that belongs solely to him, and he likes drawing it out of her slowly, loves the way she falls apart around him as he presses a finger inside her, then two, the curl and stretch driving her just as crazy as the feel of her everywhere pushes him towards the brink of insanity. He does so now, allows her to pull her mouth from his and arch her back, fingers tight and bruising against his thigh as she attempts to anchor herself, to keep from falling apart too quickly as her hips rock against his hand. Harvey can be a bastard when he wants to be, though, and he slows his movements until she’s just there, right on the verge of begging. Until her eyes snap open, all coherency lost as she murmurs oh god and please and Harvey, the brush of her hips trying to nudge his hand to move faster.
He refuses on principle, draws her out, and waits for her to take what she wants.
She does, all too easily, moving without hesitation to push his boxers out of the way. Donna’s hands curl in his shirt, pulling him upwards and towards her until he’s half sitting, most of this weight supported on his left wrist, while the other tangles in her hair, pulling and tugging until he can taste her, and worry her bottom lip between his teeth. Her mouth slips across his cheek, down his neck, teeth digging into the shoulder as he slides into her, and she’s tight, gasping, trying to bury herself as close to him as possible as they breathe and accommodate.
There is no agreement of movement, no method, no precision. They just move and keeping moving, and she is almost there already - Harvey can tell by the precise angle of her back as it bows, the way she watches him watching her, almost as if a dare. He grins, leans to kiss her but misses, ends up just pressing his mouth to her corner of hers, murmuring her name and nonsense that gets lost among the sounds of their sighs, the moan that rips through him when she adjusts the angle, allowing him to slip deeper inside her.
“We’re going to need a bigger closet,” she mumbles, the words coming out in spurts and starts, and it takes him a moment to realize she’s talking, to string the words together to make sense. “Too much stuff.”
He tries not to laugh, but the sound slips out as his mouth brushes against her neck over and over again. “I know.”
She’s nearly breathless when she says, “Thought about this, have you?”
Harvey grits his teeth, tries to focus on making complete sentences. “You have no idea.”
There is something about the way she looks at him then - the affection so evident, so clear as it flickers across her features - that does him in, has him spiraling helplessly out of control. He can’t breathe, can’t even think, just forces a hand between them, thumb sliding against her clit, drawing circles without any direction. Donna curses his name, the fuck eloquent and graceful as she spits it as him, and he comes right then and there, that goddamn easily.
It surprises neither of them that he doesn’t make it into the office.
Instead, they stay in bed, daylight dying, painting the room as they watch Eli and the Giants blow away the competition in San Francisco. Harvey has his files spread out on his side of the bed; Donna has her magazine back in her hands, thumbing through the pages. They’re both in various states of undress, an old t-shirt loose around her shoulders, his own still on, wrinkled beyond repair. Harvey watches her and the television simultaneously, one of his hands idly tracing patterns into the skin of her bare thigh as the other thumbs aimlessly through the papers in his lap.
Harvey can’t really focus on anything outside of how warm her skin is beneath his fingertips and how soon she can get her stuff moved in and, yeah, he knows he probably should have gone to the office. They’ll both pay for this tomorrow.
When he catches her watching his hands, he smiles, leans forward to press his mouth to her shoulder. “So much for your legs being closed for business.”
Donna pokes his side, her eyes rolling. “Shut up.”
“Told you I had ways of getting you to change your mind.”
“You’re ruining the moment.”
“We’re having a moment?”
“We were. You ruined it with the smug tone and cheekiness.”
“You love me,” he says too quickly, unguarded, not thinking at all.
The words hang between them for a minute, a taunt, a dare, his way of testing boundaries and loyalties all at once - an old habit he is trying to break but makes appearances at the most inopportune moments. Donna recognizes it for what it is though, and merely smiles. On the television, Eli widens the lead with another touchdown. The crowd goes wild and Harvey hears it, the dull noise of outrage drowned out by this fierce, uncontrollable tightness in his chest he recognizes and welcomes.
“Yeah,” she mumbles. “I do.”
Their mouths meet at the corners when he kisses her.