Fanfic: Employment History
Title- Employment History
Fandom- Suits
Ship- Harvey/Mike
Rating- PG-13
Genre- angst, slash
Warnings- unbetaed
Wordcount- 2000
Disclaimer- I do not own Suits
Summary- Harvey takes Mike to a client's bar. Turns out Mike already knows the place.
A/N- written from a prompt here at suitsmeme: Pearson Hardman has among its clients a few alternative clubs (Author’s choice what kind) and Harvey drops by one to deal with said client with Mike in tow and Mike is known at the club (worked there, friend, whatever).
Mike stared up at the flashing sign on the side of the wall, which proclaimed the bar in the cellar to be “The Down Low.” The rainbow stripes painted on the door of the cellar made its demographic unmistakable.
“This is really owned by one of your clients?” Mike asked, feeling a little light-headed.
“It is,” Harvey answered, not batting an eye. “Kenneth Blake owns several highly successful bars throughout the city, each catering to a different type of clientele.” He looked over at Mike, taking note of his nervous expression, and smirked. “Consider yourself fortunate that it’s only this one that we’ve been called to. Some of the others are much worse.” Mike gulped at the thought, willing his cheeks not to turn red. He didn’t tell Harvey that he already knew about Blake’s other bars.
As Harvey went inside, Mike ducked in behind him, trying to remain out of sight. He followed Harvey down the staircase and the cement-lined hallway, feeling the pounding music in his ribcage before he heard anything more than the bass. They reached the door of the bar itself and stepped into the room. It was dim, with brightly-colored flashing and spinning lights, music pounding so loud it was nearly impossible to speak. Bodies were moving and twisting sinuously on the dance floor. Mike tried to stay on the opposite side of Harvey, next to the wall.
They moved along the wall until they reached the bar, where a man with several piercings in his ears, brows, and lips was expertly mixing drinks. He tossed bottles above his head, juggling, twisting, and finally handed each customer an expensive but excellent drink. When everyone at the bar had been served, he turned his attention to Harvey. Mike took a step back and turned his head away, trying to avoid being noticed. It didn’t work.
“Mikey!” Eric shouted over the music, and came over to him with a grin. “What’s up, man? You looking for your old job back, ‘cause I tell you, our last bartender quit and ran off with some guy from LA, and we’ve been short staffed ever since. I can put you to work right now!”
Mike glanced swiftly at Harvey and saw his arched eyebrow. He quickly ducked his head, his cheeks heating up, and mumbled something he knew Eric couldn’t hear over the music.
“What’s that?” Eric yelled, leaning over the bar to get closer.
“I don’t need the job,” Mike repeated more loudly, his cheeks burning with embarrassment.
“You got a new gig, huh? What, you just checking up on things?” Eric didn’t sound angry, and he grinned casually at Mike. Eric, the manager of the Down Low, had been a good boss, always encouraging Mike and helping him to learn new tricks for mixing drinks. Mike would have liked to have come back more often just to see Eric, but he hadn’t had any other reason to stop by the bar. Since he’d gotten his job he had more than enough fantasizing material to handle things himself.
“Tell you what, I’ll give you your first one on the house!” Eric offered, holding up a bottle of green liquid to tempt Mike.
“He can’t drink,” Harvey said, finally butting in after watching Mike make a fool of himself. “He’s on the job right now.”
“Job?” Eric looked between them curiously, then his face split into a huge grin. “Aw, Mikey! A lawyer now, I told you you could do it! And working with one of the best firms in the city, too! That definitely deserves a drink, if Harvey here’ll let you!” He grinned at Harvey, who frowned in response. Eric rolled his eyes and waved over a young man with bad acne, whom he put to work at the bar before leading Harvey and Mike into the back room and closing the door, cutting off all sound from outside.
“I guess you want to talk business now, huh?” Eric asked tiredly, dropping into the chair behind his desk, long limbs sprawled out.
“I’d like to, yes,” Harvey said, seeming to ignore the fact that Mike had essentially been outted in front of him. Though really, Mike supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. After all, Harvey was too professional to fire him on the spot.
“Mr. Garrison went out back with some guy to get his rocks off, and the guy stole his wallet,” Eric explained bluntly. “We are in no way responsible for the behavior of our clientele, especially not once they’re technically outside the bar, but Garrison is still trying to sue us for putting him in a dangerous position. Personally, I think it’s bullshit and he won’t be able to do anything with it if he tries, but Blake demanded I call you in on it.”
“A good choice,” Harvey said. “But I think you’re right. Garrison doesn’t have much of a case. Do you know who the man is that he went out with?”
“I didn’t see it myself,” Eric said, “but we do have security cameras. I have the footage from that night saved, but Garrison’s lawyers haven’t asked for it yet.”
“Good,” Harvey said. “If they do, tell them they can get it from us.” Eric shrugged and dug in a drawer of his desk before producing a DVD that he handed over to Harvey. “Is that all you can think of?”
“Well,” Eric said, “it’s not the first time this had happened. Oh, not here, I mean, but at other places that I’ve heard about. The Mancave, and the Hole in the Wall. They’ve had it happen too, lots of times, I think, but no one ever tried to sue them.”
“Alright,” Harvey said with a nod. “We’ll talk to them as well.” He stood up from his chair, and Mike and Eric followed his example. As Eric led them to the door, he turned to Harvey with a grin.
“Hey, Harvey. Why not let Mikey have one drink on the house, for old times’ sake? I’ll give you one too, if you want.” He winked at Harvey, and Mike turned away. He wanted to tell Eric to back off, but he couldn’t, not while Harvey was there. And anyway, he had no right to. Harvey wasn’t his boyfriend; Harvey wasn’t even interested in being anything to him. Harvey wasn’t gay.
Harvey looked between Eric’s pleading face and Mike’s averted one, and sighed heavily. “One drink,” he allowed. “But only because Blake pays me so well.”
“Awesome!” Eric replied, shouting again over the music that crashed over them as he opened the door of his office. He hurried back behind the bar, working behind the young man who was helping customers to fix a drink for Mike. He brought back two martini glasses filled with bright blue liquor, and handed one to each of them. Mike sipped his as quickly as he could, his head bowed, wanting to get out of there as soon as possible. He saw from the corner of his eye Harvey sip the drink and nod appreciatively to Eric.
Mike was suddenly caught off guard by an arm being thrown around his shoulders. “Mikey!” a familiar voice shouted in his ear, and a sloppy drunken kiss was placed on his cheek. Ian. “What’s up, man? How you been? God, I hope this means you’re working here again! One of the new guys isn’t any good to look at, and the other won’t dance for tips. C’mon, I’ll give you fifty bucks right now if you’ll take off that pretty little suit!”
Mike squirmed out from under Ian’s arm, blushing even worse than he had when Eric had outted him. This was what he’d been trying to avoid. Mike didn’t even bother to look at Harvey; he didn’t want to see the look on his face now that he knew his associate used to strip for tips while making drinks at a gay bar.
“Ian,” Eric said as gently as he could manage while shouting over the music. “This is Harvey, the lawyer who’s handling the whole pick-picket thing. Mike works for him now.”
Ian’s face scrunched up in a look of confusion. “Doing what?” he asked, and Mike wished he could melt into a puddle and leak through the floor. He could feel Harvey’s eyes on him, and he wanted to get away from that critical gaze.
“Harvey is a lawyer,” Eric said slowly, as though he were talking to a child. “Mike is a lawyer now too.”
“How?” Ian asked. Eric just shook his head and put his hands on the other man’s shoulders, turning him around to face the dance floor again.
“Goodbye, Ian!” he said, giving him a shove towards the crowd of men. Ian went without any further objection.
“Well,” Harvey’s voice said calmly, “I’m finished with this. I think I’ll go wait with the car. Mike, I don’t care what you do, but if you’re not up there in fifteen minutes I’m leaving you behind.” Mike gaped after Harvey as he left, wondering what exactly Harvey expected him to do that would take fifteen minutes.
“He’s gorgeous, isn’t he?” Eric sighed as he watched Harvey leave. Mike sipped his drink and reminded himself that he didn’t have the right to tell Eric to stop staring. “You lucky bastard,” Eric said, slapping Mike’s back. Mike coughed as it caused him to inhale some of his drink, and Eric patted his back again apologetically.
“What?” Mike asked when he’d caught his breath. “Because I work with him?”
Eric gave him a strange look. “You mean you’re not sleeping with him? That look of his face when Ian started touching you was all ‘My property, Keep off.’”
“You’re imagining things,” Mike accused. “Besides,” he said, thinking back to the root of all his problems, “Harvey isn’t even gay.”
Eric looked at him in disbelief, then laughed out loud, and Mike’s eyes narrowed as he tried to figure out what the big joke was. “Oh, god, Mikey! Is your gaydar really that bad? Honestly! How do you think Harvey started working for Blake in the first place?” Mike frowned at Eric, wanting him to stop playing around and get to the point. Fortunately Eric took the hint.
“Harvey was a regular here when he was younger, just starting out as a lawyer, long before you came here. Not anymore, because he has a reputation to maintain, of course, but back then. He met Blake when he was here checking out how the place was doing, and Blake was pretty impressed with him, so he hired Harvey to handle all of his bars. That was back when he only had two, so you can see how successful Harvey’s been. I don’t think they ever slept together,” Eric added, seeing Mike’s horrified look.
“But really,” Eric said with a sigh, “you must be pretty clueless if you don’t think Harvey’s into you. He definitely is. Just go and see.”
Mike looked down at the glass in his hand, thinking that the combination of alcohol and Eric’s encouragement had never been good for his inhibitions. He shoved the empty glass into Eric’s hand and left, hearing Eric call after him “That’s my boy!”
Harvey was leaning against the side of his car when Mike got outside. “That was fast,” he drawled as Mike approached. He eyed Mike up and down, probably looking for any evidence that Mike had undressed.
“Yeah,” Mike agreed. “It didn’t take long for Eric to convince me that you really were gay. And into me.” Mike watched with satisfaction as Harvey’s eyes widened. He seemed to be thinking, then a smirk spread across his face.
“What else did Eric say?” Harvey asked.
Mike grinned and stepped forward into Harvey’s space, making it very clear what he was about to do. “He said I should do this,” Mike replied, then closed the distance between them and sealed his lips to Harvey’s. Immediately Harvey’s hands came up to tangle in his hair, and his tongue licked Mike’s mouth open. Harvey won the short-lived battle for dominance with incredible ease, and Mike’s knees went weak at the feel of Harvey’s rough kiss. It definitely wasn’t the kiss of a man who had no experience with his own sex.
They broke apart, gasping for air, and Harvey’s eyes locked with Mike’s, a predatory gleam in them. “Maybe we can take our lunch break early,” Harvey suggested. “At my place.” Mike was more than willing to agree to that. He thought as Harvey manhandled him into the car that he would have to do something nice for Eric, and then Harvey’s lips were on his again and all other thoughts were driven from Mike’s mind.
Fandom- Suits
Ship- Harvey/Mike
Rating- PG-13
Genre- angst, slash
Warnings- unbetaed
Wordcount- 2000
Disclaimer- I do not own Suits
Summary- Harvey takes Mike to a client's bar. Turns out Mike already knows the place.
A/N- written from a prompt here at suitsmeme: Pearson Hardman has among its clients a few alternative clubs (Author’s choice what kind) and Harvey drops by one to deal with said client with Mike in tow and Mike is known at the club (worked there, friend, whatever).
Mike stared up at the flashing sign on the side of the wall, which proclaimed the bar in the cellar to be “The Down Low.” The rainbow stripes painted on the door of the cellar made its demographic unmistakable.
“This is really owned by one of your clients?” Mike asked, feeling a little light-headed.
“It is,” Harvey answered, not batting an eye. “Kenneth Blake owns several highly successful bars throughout the city, each catering to a different type of clientele.” He looked over at Mike, taking note of his nervous expression, and smirked. “Consider yourself fortunate that it’s only this one that we’ve been called to. Some of the others are much worse.” Mike gulped at the thought, willing his cheeks not to turn red. He didn’t tell Harvey that he already knew about Blake’s other bars.
As Harvey went inside, Mike ducked in behind him, trying to remain out of sight. He followed Harvey down the staircase and the cement-lined hallway, feeling the pounding music in his ribcage before he heard anything more than the bass. They reached the door of the bar itself and stepped into the room. It was dim, with brightly-colored flashing and spinning lights, music pounding so loud it was nearly impossible to speak. Bodies were moving and twisting sinuously on the dance floor. Mike tried to stay on the opposite side of Harvey, next to the wall.
They moved along the wall until they reached the bar, where a man with several piercings in his ears, brows, and lips was expertly mixing drinks. He tossed bottles above his head, juggling, twisting, and finally handed each customer an expensive but excellent drink. When everyone at the bar had been served, he turned his attention to Harvey. Mike took a step back and turned his head away, trying to avoid being noticed. It didn’t work.
“Mikey!” Eric shouted over the music, and came over to him with a grin. “What’s up, man? You looking for your old job back, ‘cause I tell you, our last bartender quit and ran off with some guy from LA, and we’ve been short staffed ever since. I can put you to work right now!”
Mike glanced swiftly at Harvey and saw his arched eyebrow. He quickly ducked his head, his cheeks heating up, and mumbled something he knew Eric couldn’t hear over the music.
“What’s that?” Eric yelled, leaning over the bar to get closer.
“I don’t need the job,” Mike repeated more loudly, his cheeks burning with embarrassment.
“You got a new gig, huh? What, you just checking up on things?” Eric didn’t sound angry, and he grinned casually at Mike. Eric, the manager of the Down Low, had been a good boss, always encouraging Mike and helping him to learn new tricks for mixing drinks. Mike would have liked to have come back more often just to see Eric, but he hadn’t had any other reason to stop by the bar. Since he’d gotten his job he had more than enough fantasizing material to handle things himself.
“Tell you what, I’ll give you your first one on the house!” Eric offered, holding up a bottle of green liquid to tempt Mike.
“He can’t drink,” Harvey said, finally butting in after watching Mike make a fool of himself. “He’s on the job right now.”
“Job?” Eric looked between them curiously, then his face split into a huge grin. “Aw, Mikey! A lawyer now, I told you you could do it! And working with one of the best firms in the city, too! That definitely deserves a drink, if Harvey here’ll let you!” He grinned at Harvey, who frowned in response. Eric rolled his eyes and waved over a young man with bad acne, whom he put to work at the bar before leading Harvey and Mike into the back room and closing the door, cutting off all sound from outside.
“I guess you want to talk business now, huh?” Eric asked tiredly, dropping into the chair behind his desk, long limbs sprawled out.
“I’d like to, yes,” Harvey said, seeming to ignore the fact that Mike had essentially been outted in front of him. Though really, Mike supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. After all, Harvey was too professional to fire him on the spot.
“Mr. Garrison went out back with some guy to get his rocks off, and the guy stole his wallet,” Eric explained bluntly. “We are in no way responsible for the behavior of our clientele, especially not once they’re technically outside the bar, but Garrison is still trying to sue us for putting him in a dangerous position. Personally, I think it’s bullshit and he won’t be able to do anything with it if he tries, but Blake demanded I call you in on it.”
“A good choice,” Harvey said. “But I think you’re right. Garrison doesn’t have much of a case. Do you know who the man is that he went out with?”
“I didn’t see it myself,” Eric said, “but we do have security cameras. I have the footage from that night saved, but Garrison’s lawyers haven’t asked for it yet.”
“Good,” Harvey said. “If they do, tell them they can get it from us.” Eric shrugged and dug in a drawer of his desk before producing a DVD that he handed over to Harvey. “Is that all you can think of?”
“Well,” Eric said, “it’s not the first time this had happened. Oh, not here, I mean, but at other places that I’ve heard about. The Mancave, and the Hole in the Wall. They’ve had it happen too, lots of times, I think, but no one ever tried to sue them.”
“Alright,” Harvey said with a nod. “We’ll talk to them as well.” He stood up from his chair, and Mike and Eric followed his example. As Eric led them to the door, he turned to Harvey with a grin.
“Hey, Harvey. Why not let Mikey have one drink on the house, for old times’ sake? I’ll give you one too, if you want.” He winked at Harvey, and Mike turned away. He wanted to tell Eric to back off, but he couldn’t, not while Harvey was there. And anyway, he had no right to. Harvey wasn’t his boyfriend; Harvey wasn’t even interested in being anything to him. Harvey wasn’t gay.
Harvey looked between Eric’s pleading face and Mike’s averted one, and sighed heavily. “One drink,” he allowed. “But only because Blake pays me so well.”
“Awesome!” Eric replied, shouting again over the music that crashed over them as he opened the door of his office. He hurried back behind the bar, working behind the young man who was helping customers to fix a drink for Mike. He brought back two martini glasses filled with bright blue liquor, and handed one to each of them. Mike sipped his as quickly as he could, his head bowed, wanting to get out of there as soon as possible. He saw from the corner of his eye Harvey sip the drink and nod appreciatively to Eric.
Mike was suddenly caught off guard by an arm being thrown around his shoulders. “Mikey!” a familiar voice shouted in his ear, and a sloppy drunken kiss was placed on his cheek. Ian. “What’s up, man? How you been? God, I hope this means you’re working here again! One of the new guys isn’t any good to look at, and the other won’t dance for tips. C’mon, I’ll give you fifty bucks right now if you’ll take off that pretty little suit!”
Mike squirmed out from under Ian’s arm, blushing even worse than he had when Eric had outted him. This was what he’d been trying to avoid. Mike didn’t even bother to look at Harvey; he didn’t want to see the look on his face now that he knew his associate used to strip for tips while making drinks at a gay bar.
“Ian,” Eric said as gently as he could manage while shouting over the music. “This is Harvey, the lawyer who’s handling the whole pick-picket thing. Mike works for him now.”
Ian’s face scrunched up in a look of confusion. “Doing what?” he asked, and Mike wished he could melt into a puddle and leak through the floor. He could feel Harvey’s eyes on him, and he wanted to get away from that critical gaze.
“Harvey is a lawyer,” Eric said slowly, as though he were talking to a child. “Mike is a lawyer now too.”
“How?” Ian asked. Eric just shook his head and put his hands on the other man’s shoulders, turning him around to face the dance floor again.
“Goodbye, Ian!” he said, giving him a shove towards the crowd of men. Ian went without any further objection.
“Well,” Harvey’s voice said calmly, “I’m finished with this. I think I’ll go wait with the car. Mike, I don’t care what you do, but if you’re not up there in fifteen minutes I’m leaving you behind.” Mike gaped after Harvey as he left, wondering what exactly Harvey expected him to do that would take fifteen minutes.
“He’s gorgeous, isn’t he?” Eric sighed as he watched Harvey leave. Mike sipped his drink and reminded himself that he didn’t have the right to tell Eric to stop staring. “You lucky bastard,” Eric said, slapping Mike’s back. Mike coughed as it caused him to inhale some of his drink, and Eric patted his back again apologetically.
“What?” Mike asked when he’d caught his breath. “Because I work with him?”
Eric gave him a strange look. “You mean you’re not sleeping with him? That look of his face when Ian started touching you was all ‘My property, Keep off.’”
“You’re imagining things,” Mike accused. “Besides,” he said, thinking back to the root of all his problems, “Harvey isn’t even gay.”
Eric looked at him in disbelief, then laughed out loud, and Mike’s eyes narrowed as he tried to figure out what the big joke was. “Oh, god, Mikey! Is your gaydar really that bad? Honestly! How do you think Harvey started working for Blake in the first place?” Mike frowned at Eric, wanting him to stop playing around and get to the point. Fortunately Eric took the hint.
“Harvey was a regular here when he was younger, just starting out as a lawyer, long before you came here. Not anymore, because he has a reputation to maintain, of course, but back then. He met Blake when he was here checking out how the place was doing, and Blake was pretty impressed with him, so he hired Harvey to handle all of his bars. That was back when he only had two, so you can see how successful Harvey’s been. I don’t think they ever slept together,” Eric added, seeing Mike’s horrified look.
“But really,” Eric said with a sigh, “you must be pretty clueless if you don’t think Harvey’s into you. He definitely is. Just go and see.”
Mike looked down at the glass in his hand, thinking that the combination of alcohol and Eric’s encouragement had never been good for his inhibitions. He shoved the empty glass into Eric’s hand and left, hearing Eric call after him “That’s my boy!”
Harvey was leaning against the side of his car when Mike got outside. “That was fast,” he drawled as Mike approached. He eyed Mike up and down, probably looking for any evidence that Mike had undressed.
“Yeah,” Mike agreed. “It didn’t take long for Eric to convince me that you really were gay. And into me.” Mike watched with satisfaction as Harvey’s eyes widened. He seemed to be thinking, then a smirk spread across his face.
“What else did Eric say?” Harvey asked.
Mike grinned and stepped forward into Harvey’s space, making it very clear what he was about to do. “He said I should do this,” Mike replied, then closed the distance between them and sealed his lips to Harvey’s. Immediately Harvey’s hands came up to tangle in his hair, and his tongue licked Mike’s mouth open. Harvey won the short-lived battle for dominance with incredible ease, and Mike’s knees went weak at the feel of Harvey’s rough kiss. It definitely wasn’t the kiss of a man who had no experience with his own sex.
They broke apart, gasping for air, and Harvey’s eyes locked with Mike’s, a predatory gleam in them. “Maybe we can take our lunch break early,” Harvey suggested. “At my place.” Mike was more than willing to agree to that. He thought as Harvey manhandled him into the car that he would have to do something nice for Eric, and then Harvey’s lips were on his again and all other thoughts were driven from Mike’s mind.