Suits fic: Fingers tap into what you were once
Title: Fingers tap into what you were once
Fandom: Suits
Rating: PG-13
Genre: hurt/comfort, pre-slash, some fluff
Characters/Pairing: Harvey Specter, Mike Ross, Donna Paulsen
Spoilers: none, really. Diverges from canon after 2x10, "High Noon"
Warnings: none
Summary: Two nights isn't quite a habit but it's definitely the beginning of a trend. Sequel to I've been losing myself here lately.
Word count: 3182
Author's note: I warned you this might become a 'verse. Title borrowed from "Whispers in the Dark" by Mumford & Sons.
Harvey doesn’t understand the appeal of texting. It’s the laziest form of communication, lacking punctuation, grammar and tone. He almost never texts anyone, except sometimes Ray and only then if he’s not in a place he can make a phone call. So when the text alert goes off on his phone, he ignores it for a few minutes before a mixture of curiosity and instinct forces him to pick the phone up and unlock the screen.
He should’ve known, of course, that it would be from Mike.
Need your help, it reads, followed by an address in Manhattan. If it were anyone else, Harvey would ignore it completely, turn his attention back to his work, and not feel even an ounce of guilt about it.
But it’s Mike. And Mike will forever be the person who makes Harvey bend all his own rules. He tidies his desk and puts his jacket back on, before descending down into the lobby. The night is crisp and cool and it smells like fall, which has always been Harvey’s favorite season. It reminds him of the quiet Thanksgivings with his dad and Oliver after his mother left.
He hails a cab and gives the driver the address Mike sent him. He’s fairly certain he knows where he’ll end up, but sometimes he needs to leave himself a margin of error with Mike, because unlike most people, the kid can still surprise him.
The building is red brick and not far from the park, with a doorman and a nice lobby. Harvey takes the elevator up to the fourth floor and knocks on the door with the brass letter B on it.
It swings open a few moments later and he finds Mike with that lost look haunting his eyes that's been there since his grandmother died. It hurts Harvey, seeing that, especially knowing there’s next to nothing he can do about it.
“My lease is up.” Mike says, as Harvey follows him into the apartment.
“In Brooklyn?” Harvey asks, unnecessarily.
Mike nods. “I know I should move in here. It seems wrong though.”
“Wrong would be not living in this apartment.” Harvey says, taking a moment to survey the crown moldings and the leaded glass windows. His condo is all modern, clean lines, but that doesn’t mean he can’t appreciate the charms of an older building.
“I have to decide soon. First mortgage payment is due in a few weeks.”
Harvey is surprised Mike is even considering moving into this apartment. He has the air of a perpetual renter, nervous about anything too permanent. But a mortgage means commitment, means putting down roots, and Harvey is relieved because he was almost certain Mike was going to disappear after his grandmother died.
Mike sits on the floor, tipping his head back to lean it against the wall, staring up at the ceiling. “We never could’ve afforded a place like this when I was a kid. She worked so hard and I just wanted to show her how much I appreciate it.”
“You’re an idiot if you think she needed a million-dollar apartment to know that.”
“I know she didn’t need it. This apartment couldn't even begin to pay back everything she’s done for me. And it wasn’t a million dollars. This is a buyer’s market, you know.”
“You almost sound like a grown up.”
“Good. I’ve been practicing.”
Harvey snorts.
“I just owed her so much. I wanted to repay her.”
“You can’t settle debts with family, kid. That’s just not how it works.”
“Speaking from experience?” Mike prods.
“My dad bailed me out more than enough, before I got my life on track.” Harvey says, not particularly willing to elaborate.
“So you’re saying if you had the chance, you wouldn’t do anything in your power to make it up to him?”
“Of course I would. But I wouldn’t be able to.”
“The trying matters though,” Mike insists, like he needs to reassure himself.
“Yes,” Harvey agrees, although he’s hardly the one to be giving out familial advice. “But you’re just looking for an excuse not to live here.”
“I like Brooklyn.”
“You’ll like Manhattan more.”
“Snob.”
“Yeah, because Brooklyn’s really slumming it these days.” Harvey can’t help rolling his eyes. “Besides, think about your commute. You could sleep a whole extra hour in the morning.”
“My commute?” Mike snorts. “Harvey, you’ve never given a fuck about how long it takes me to get to work or how much I’m sleeping. Why do you really want me to move so badly?”
“I think you would be an idiot to lose this apartment.”
“I call bullshit.”
“Kid, your apartment is a shithole. You own this place, and you would regret selling it. It’s not as if you can’t afford it.”
Mike scowls. “Sure, until everyone finds out I’m not a real lawyer and I get fired. Little hard to pay a mortgage without a salary.”
Harvey huffs out an annoyed breath, “If that happens, I’ll pay your fucking mortgage.”
“Why does this matter so much to you?” Mike explodes angrily.
“Because you matter to me,” Harvey snaps. It bothers him that he doesn’t know why Mike treats himself like shit, why he keeps constantly getting in his own way and self-sabotaging.
Mike sits there blinking at him and Harvey feels his neck start to get warm, because he’s given too much of himself away again.
“Do you want a beer?” Mike offers. “There’s some in the fridge.”
“Yeah,” Harvey nods, because he recognizes the offer for what it is - Mike’s attempt to put some distance between them. The kid can be so skittish sometimes and Harvey can’t help wanting to eviscerate the person who made Mike believe that he wasn’t worth anyone’s attention or affection. He’d put money on that person being Trevor.
Mike returns with the beers and hands Harvey one before perching on the edge of the sofa.
They both drink half a beer in silence, Mike picking absently at the label on his bottle.
“I don’t see why it matters,” he says finally. “Whether I live there or here.”
Harvey does not particularly want to have this conversation. He’s revealed too much of himself already, and he’s only good at vulnerability in fits and starts.
“It matters.”
Mike doesn’t say anything, just looks at Harvey in that way that Harvey knows means he’s piecing things together, absorbing every ounce of meaning from Harvey’s words, the way he does with contracts and depositions and fucking memos.
“Fine. You can help me move then.”
* * *
Harvey doesn’t know why he thought Mike was joking. He should know better but apparently he doesn’t. He wakes that Saturday to five texts from Mike ranging from where are you to if you don’t get your ass over here Donna and I are both quitting.
He takes his time showering and dressing and getting to Brooklyn. When he does get there, Mike’s apartment door is propped open with a half-full box. He can hear Donna and Mike bickering, so he lets himself in.
“That panda isn’t coming to Manhattan. It would be a sin to hang that up in your new apartment. Actually, it’s a sin to hang it up in this apartment, and that’s saying something.”
Mike flinches almost imperceptibly and it tells Harvey everything he needs to know. He hates that fucking panda too, but he’s not going to force Mike to part with anything from his grandmother right now.
“Donna, you’re here to help him pack, not re-decorate.” Harvey says, maybe more harshly than he should if the way Donna arches her eyebrow at him is any indication.
“Fine,” Donna sighs. “My taste is impeccable, but I don’t expect either of you to appreciate that.”
Some of the tension leaves Mike’s shoulders and he takes the panda off the wall and packs it into one of the boxes.
“Thanks,” he says quietly.
“Don’t mention it.” Harvey nods.
Mike doesn’t have a lot of stuff, so it really doesn’t take them long to pack it all up and move the boxes down to the U-Haul Mike rented.
“I’ve got somewhere to be, do you think you boys can manage the rest without supervision?” Donna smirks.
“We’ll be fine. Thanks for all your help,” Mike smiles.
“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Donna sing-songs as she leaves the apartment.
“Do I want to know how you got her to help?”
“Nope,” Mike says cheerfully. “Now help me load up the U-Haul.”
It takes them the rest of the day to move Mike into his new apartment, and Harvey finds himself silently thanking Mike for moving into a building with an elevator; getting all of his boxes down the stairs of his walk-up was bad enough.
It’s only once everything is in the new apartment that Mike starts to look a bit miserable.
“This is so weird,” he says.
“You’ll get used to it.”
“I know,” Mike says, crossing his arms defensively over his chest. “But I’ve been living in my old apartment for six years. It was the first place I lived on my own.”
Mike glances around his new apartment filled with his old furniture, simultaneously familiar and foreign, and looks every inch a little boy lost. Harvey can’t even tease him for it, because he remembers the days (weeks, months, years) after his father died. He’d felt untethered and off-balance, still does most days, and he imagines Mike is feeling something similar.
He cares. He cares too much, really, but it’s a one-way street so there’s no turning back.
“You’ll be okay,” he tells Mike, and wonders how many times he’s told his associate that over the past week. More than he’s told him in the past six months.
“Can you stay?” Mike asks quietly, not able to meet Harvey’s eyes.
Harvey hesitates. He’s not sure he trusts himself here, but he’s not sure he knows how to say no to Mike anymore either.
“Yes,” he says finally and Mike’s shoulders slump as he releases the tension he’s been holding onto for most of the day.
“Chinese?” He suggests.
“I’ll order.” Harvey says. “You don’t even have any menus yet.”
Harvey calls in the order, and a niggling voice at the back of his head wonders if this is going to become a thing. Two nights isn’t quite a habit but it’s definitely the beginning of a trend.
Mike goes out on a beer run while Harvey waits for their food, and he can’t help poking around the apartment while he has it to himself. Mike wouldn't have asked Harvey to help today if he were uncomfortable with the idea of Harvey going through his things. Mike has no secrets from him, and after their night getting high together, Harvey doesn’t have very many secrets of his own left either.
A strange mixture of dread and thrill settles in Harvey’s gut at the thought. Mike has gotten closer than anyone, except maybe Donna, and all of his instincts are telling him to run. Because Mike getting close and Donna getting close are two wholly different things. Donna knows his history because Donna is a big chapter of his history. With Mike, Harvey made a decision-consciously or unconsciously, the jury’s still out-to let Mike see the pieces of himself he keeps hidden from everyone else.
Mike isn’t just his associate anymore (a good lawyer would argue that Mike was never just anything; Harvey doesn’t repeatedly put his own career on the line for people who don't matter) and he can’t take that back.
Even if he wants to, sometimes.
Mike returns with a paper grocery bag from the liquor store a few blocks away. Harvey would never trust Mike to buy scotch on his own, but he has decent taste in beers, if nothing else.
When the food arrives, they eat on the floor in Mike’s new living room, since the chairs for the kitchen table are trapped behind a stack of boxes neither of them feels like moving.
They talk about nothing in particular over dinner and Harvey can’t help being surprised how easy it is. Of course, Harvey’s just telling stories about Louis from when they were associates, mostly to keep them from wading into all of their respective emotional baggage.
And Harvey’s definitely not drunk on just a few beers, although the words are starting to flow off his tongue without checking in with his brain first.
So when Mike interrupts him mid-story to ask, “Why did it matter so much to you?” and gestures vaguely around the apartment with his beer bottle, Harvey’s answer is embarrassingly candid.
“I didn’t want you to disappear.”
Mike frowns. “Where would I go?”
Harvey shrugs. “Anywhere. There was nothing keeping you here.”
“You’re an idiot.” Mike shakes his head. “You’re the only person I have left who gives a shit about me. Why the fuck would I leave?”
“Grief makes people do stupid things.”
“Oh yeah?” Mike raises his chin stubbornly. “What did you do?”
“I drank the entire contents of my liquor cabinet, got a tattoo, almost bought a motorcycle-
“Wait, wait.” Mike grins. “You have a tattoo? Dude, you gotta show me!”
Harvey chokes on his beer and Mike’s cheeks flush an embarrassed pink.
“Don’t call me dude,” Harvey says weakly. “And no, I’m not showing you my tattoo.”
“Because then you’d have to kill me?”
“No, because I’m not going to take my clothes off.”
Mike’s face goes even pinker, and Harvey can’t help smirking.
“Can I ask you something?”
“I’ve never been able to stop you before.”
Mike picks at the label on his beer, peeling back the corner. “Did your dad ever find out about your mom?”
It’s not the question Harvey expected, and he doesn’t want to analyze too closely the wave of disappointment he feels that this is what Mike wants to know. Curiosity isn’t one of Mike’s faults-he never asks something just to ask it. There’s always a reason.
“Yes.”
“Did he forgive her?”
“He did.” Harvey says. “But he wasn’t the type to hold grudges anyway. Instead he internalized it, told himself it was his fault.” He doesn’t want to know, but he can’t stop the words leaving his mouth. “Whose wife did you sleep with?”
Mike flinches, but he doesn’t deny it. “It was after the funeral, so I wasn’t thinking clearly. Tess and I grew up together and I just wanted...I don’t know what I wanted.”
Harvey remembers the days after his father’s funeral, and the strange numbness he’d experienced, so Mike’s actions aren’t exactly a mystery to Harvey.
“You wanted to feel something,” Harvey supplies. “And you picked someone you trusted.”
Harvey’s lucky Mike is tipsy and not as quick as he usually is, because he gave too much away with that comment, and Donna would kill him if he told Mike. They’ve agreed never to talk about that night-not with each other, not with anyone else-and it’s a deal that’s served them well so far.
“Maybe. I shouldn't have done it, though.”
“Just don’t do it again. Getting in the middle of a marriage is always a mistake.”
“I’m not planning on it.” Mike says, a little defensively. “What happened, when your dad found out?”
“They divorced my freshman year of college. He started drinking more than he should. She got remarried and moved to Scarsdale.”
“What about your brother?”
“He was only fourteen. You know how it is with custody cases, the court usually sides with the mother. I didn’t see much of him until he turned eighteen.”
Harvey doesn’t add that those were also the years he spent slacking through his undergrad at NYU, getting his history degree as easily as breathing and the rest of it lost in a haze of drugs and booze and sex. He knows Mike would understand, but he’s reluctant to share too much of himself. He’s already too involved here, they’ve crossed too many lines and if Harvey has any hope of going into work on Monday and seeing his associate instead of whatever Mike is slowly starting to become, he needs to keep some boundaries.
Mike obviously notices Harvey’s need to change the subject. “There’s too much white in this apartment.”
“Paint it,” Harvey shrugs.
“Grammy and I painted our apartment once. I was nine and she let me pick the color for the kitchen. I chose neon green. It faded to an ugly puke color after a few years, but she never painted over it.”
“Under no circumstances are you allowed to paint anything in this apartment puke green.”
“Guess you’ll just have to supervise me to make sure I don’t.” Mike grins.
Harvey almost goes out on a limb, almost says just ask me to help you, but he stops himself. He can’t take that kind of risk right now, not when he’s not sure if Mike will meet him halfway.
So instead he just shakes his head, “I don’t paint. Neither should you, I’ve seen the damage you can do with a highlighter.”
Mike laughs, a little more feebly than Harvey had hoped. But Mike is still thinking about that puke green kitchen, Harvey can tell, and remembering moments he’ll never get back.
Then, Mike yawns and sets his empty beer bottle on the coffee table. “It’s late. We should sleep.”
“I’ll take the couch,” Harvey says before Mike can offer him the bed.
“Of course you’re taking the couch,” Mike laughs. “You couldn’t pay me to sleep on that thing.”
“Great, thanks.” Harvey says, getting to his feet. Mike digs out a few blankets for him, and soft and faded with age.
“Thanks,” Mike says softly. “For everything.”
He’s looking at Harvey a little too earnestly and Harvey ignores the way his stomach flips and says, “Well, you needed somebody to do all the heavy lifting.”
“That’s why I called Donna. You were just here to look pretty.”
“You think I’m pretty?” Harvey challenges, because he can’t help himself.
Mike opens and closes his mouth, searching for something to say, finally settling on, “I’m drunk. I’m going to bed.”
Harvey watches until Mike closes the bedroom door between them, and then he listens to Mike moving around his unfamiliar room, the unmistakable rustling as he digs through boxes. Harvey does his best to get situated on the couch, which is both lumpy and springy and still smells faintly of weed. Harvey will give him a hard time about it tomorrow, because an apartment this nice deserves a couch that wasn’t rescued from the sidewalk on garbage pick-up day.
He does his best not to think about how easy it was for Mike to convince him to help today, and to get him to stay. It’s not something he can ignore for much longer; he knows that with almost agonizing certainty.
He’s just on the edges of sleep when his phone buzzes on the cushion next to him.
Sweet dreams, the text from Mike reads.
Harvey rolls his eyes, but he replies anyway. You too. Now go to sleep.
Fandom: Suits
Rating: PG-13
Genre: hurt/comfort, pre-slash, some fluff
Characters/Pairing: Harvey Specter, Mike Ross, Donna Paulsen
Spoilers: none, really. Diverges from canon after 2x10, "High Noon"
Warnings: none
Summary: Two nights isn't quite a habit but it's definitely the beginning of a trend. Sequel to I've been losing myself here lately.
Word count: 3182
Author's note: I warned you this might become a 'verse. Title borrowed from "Whispers in the Dark" by Mumford & Sons.
Harvey doesn’t understand the appeal of texting. It’s the laziest form of communication, lacking punctuation, grammar and tone. He almost never texts anyone, except sometimes Ray and only then if he’s not in a place he can make a phone call. So when the text alert goes off on his phone, he ignores it for a few minutes before a mixture of curiosity and instinct forces him to pick the phone up and unlock the screen.
He should’ve known, of course, that it would be from Mike.
Need your help, it reads, followed by an address in Manhattan. If it were anyone else, Harvey would ignore it completely, turn his attention back to his work, and not feel even an ounce of guilt about it.
But it’s Mike. And Mike will forever be the person who makes Harvey bend all his own rules. He tidies his desk and puts his jacket back on, before descending down into the lobby. The night is crisp and cool and it smells like fall, which has always been Harvey’s favorite season. It reminds him of the quiet Thanksgivings with his dad and Oliver after his mother left.
He hails a cab and gives the driver the address Mike sent him. He’s fairly certain he knows where he’ll end up, but sometimes he needs to leave himself a margin of error with Mike, because unlike most people, the kid can still surprise him.
The building is red brick and not far from the park, with a doorman and a nice lobby. Harvey takes the elevator up to the fourth floor and knocks on the door with the brass letter B on it.
It swings open a few moments later and he finds Mike with that lost look haunting his eyes that's been there since his grandmother died. It hurts Harvey, seeing that, especially knowing there’s next to nothing he can do about it.
“My lease is up.” Mike says, as Harvey follows him into the apartment.
“In Brooklyn?” Harvey asks, unnecessarily.
Mike nods. “I know I should move in here. It seems wrong though.”
“Wrong would be not living in this apartment.” Harvey says, taking a moment to survey the crown moldings and the leaded glass windows. His condo is all modern, clean lines, but that doesn’t mean he can’t appreciate the charms of an older building.
“I have to decide soon. First mortgage payment is due in a few weeks.”
Harvey is surprised Mike is even considering moving into this apartment. He has the air of a perpetual renter, nervous about anything too permanent. But a mortgage means commitment, means putting down roots, and Harvey is relieved because he was almost certain Mike was going to disappear after his grandmother died.
Mike sits on the floor, tipping his head back to lean it against the wall, staring up at the ceiling. “We never could’ve afforded a place like this when I was a kid. She worked so hard and I just wanted to show her how much I appreciate it.”
“You’re an idiot if you think she needed a million-dollar apartment to know that.”
“I know she didn’t need it. This apartment couldn't even begin to pay back everything she’s done for me. And it wasn’t a million dollars. This is a buyer’s market, you know.”
“You almost sound like a grown up.”
“Good. I’ve been practicing.”
Harvey snorts.
“I just owed her so much. I wanted to repay her.”
“You can’t settle debts with family, kid. That’s just not how it works.”
“Speaking from experience?” Mike prods.
“My dad bailed me out more than enough, before I got my life on track.” Harvey says, not particularly willing to elaborate.
“So you’re saying if you had the chance, you wouldn’t do anything in your power to make it up to him?”
“Of course I would. But I wouldn’t be able to.”
“The trying matters though,” Mike insists, like he needs to reassure himself.
“Yes,” Harvey agrees, although he’s hardly the one to be giving out familial advice. “But you’re just looking for an excuse not to live here.”
“I like Brooklyn.”
“You’ll like Manhattan more.”
“Snob.”
“Yeah, because Brooklyn’s really slumming it these days.” Harvey can’t help rolling his eyes. “Besides, think about your commute. You could sleep a whole extra hour in the morning.”
“My commute?” Mike snorts. “Harvey, you’ve never given a fuck about how long it takes me to get to work or how much I’m sleeping. Why do you really want me to move so badly?”
“I think you would be an idiot to lose this apartment.”
“I call bullshit.”
“Kid, your apartment is a shithole. You own this place, and you would regret selling it. It’s not as if you can’t afford it.”
Mike scowls. “Sure, until everyone finds out I’m not a real lawyer and I get fired. Little hard to pay a mortgage without a salary.”
Harvey huffs out an annoyed breath, “If that happens, I’ll pay your fucking mortgage.”
“Why does this matter so much to you?” Mike explodes angrily.
“Because you matter to me,” Harvey snaps. It bothers him that he doesn’t know why Mike treats himself like shit, why he keeps constantly getting in his own way and self-sabotaging.
Mike sits there blinking at him and Harvey feels his neck start to get warm, because he’s given too much of himself away again.
“Do you want a beer?” Mike offers. “There’s some in the fridge.”
“Yeah,” Harvey nods, because he recognizes the offer for what it is - Mike’s attempt to put some distance between them. The kid can be so skittish sometimes and Harvey can’t help wanting to eviscerate the person who made Mike believe that he wasn’t worth anyone’s attention or affection. He’d put money on that person being Trevor.
Mike returns with the beers and hands Harvey one before perching on the edge of the sofa.
They both drink half a beer in silence, Mike picking absently at the label on his bottle.
“I don’t see why it matters,” he says finally. “Whether I live there or here.”
Harvey does not particularly want to have this conversation. He’s revealed too much of himself already, and he’s only good at vulnerability in fits and starts.
“It matters.”
Mike doesn’t say anything, just looks at Harvey in that way that Harvey knows means he’s piecing things together, absorbing every ounce of meaning from Harvey’s words, the way he does with contracts and depositions and fucking memos.
“Fine. You can help me move then.”
* * *
Harvey doesn’t know why he thought Mike was joking. He should know better but apparently he doesn’t. He wakes that Saturday to five texts from Mike ranging from where are you to if you don’t get your ass over here Donna and I are both quitting.
He takes his time showering and dressing and getting to Brooklyn. When he does get there, Mike’s apartment door is propped open with a half-full box. He can hear Donna and Mike bickering, so he lets himself in.
“That panda isn’t coming to Manhattan. It would be a sin to hang that up in your new apartment. Actually, it’s a sin to hang it up in this apartment, and that’s saying something.”
Mike flinches almost imperceptibly and it tells Harvey everything he needs to know. He hates that fucking panda too, but he’s not going to force Mike to part with anything from his grandmother right now.
“Donna, you’re here to help him pack, not re-decorate.” Harvey says, maybe more harshly than he should if the way Donna arches her eyebrow at him is any indication.
“Fine,” Donna sighs. “My taste is impeccable, but I don’t expect either of you to appreciate that.”
Some of the tension leaves Mike’s shoulders and he takes the panda off the wall and packs it into one of the boxes.
“Thanks,” he says quietly.
“Don’t mention it.” Harvey nods.
Mike doesn’t have a lot of stuff, so it really doesn’t take them long to pack it all up and move the boxes down to the U-Haul Mike rented.
“I’ve got somewhere to be, do you think you boys can manage the rest without supervision?” Donna smirks.
“We’ll be fine. Thanks for all your help,” Mike smiles.
“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Donna sing-songs as she leaves the apartment.
“Do I want to know how you got her to help?”
“Nope,” Mike says cheerfully. “Now help me load up the U-Haul.”
It takes them the rest of the day to move Mike into his new apartment, and Harvey finds himself silently thanking Mike for moving into a building with an elevator; getting all of his boxes down the stairs of his walk-up was bad enough.
It’s only once everything is in the new apartment that Mike starts to look a bit miserable.
“This is so weird,” he says.
“You’ll get used to it.”
“I know,” Mike says, crossing his arms defensively over his chest. “But I’ve been living in my old apartment for six years. It was the first place I lived on my own.”
Mike glances around his new apartment filled with his old furniture, simultaneously familiar and foreign, and looks every inch a little boy lost. Harvey can’t even tease him for it, because he remembers the days (weeks, months, years) after his father died. He’d felt untethered and off-balance, still does most days, and he imagines Mike is feeling something similar.
He cares. He cares too much, really, but it’s a one-way street so there’s no turning back.
“You’ll be okay,” he tells Mike, and wonders how many times he’s told his associate that over the past week. More than he’s told him in the past six months.
“Can you stay?” Mike asks quietly, not able to meet Harvey’s eyes.
Harvey hesitates. He’s not sure he trusts himself here, but he’s not sure he knows how to say no to Mike anymore either.
“Yes,” he says finally and Mike’s shoulders slump as he releases the tension he’s been holding onto for most of the day.
“Chinese?” He suggests.
“I’ll order.” Harvey says. “You don’t even have any menus yet.”
Harvey calls in the order, and a niggling voice at the back of his head wonders if this is going to become a thing. Two nights isn’t quite a habit but it’s definitely the beginning of a trend.
Mike goes out on a beer run while Harvey waits for their food, and he can’t help poking around the apartment while he has it to himself. Mike wouldn't have asked Harvey to help today if he were uncomfortable with the idea of Harvey going through his things. Mike has no secrets from him, and after their night getting high together, Harvey doesn’t have very many secrets of his own left either.
A strange mixture of dread and thrill settles in Harvey’s gut at the thought. Mike has gotten closer than anyone, except maybe Donna, and all of his instincts are telling him to run. Because Mike getting close and Donna getting close are two wholly different things. Donna knows his history because Donna is a big chapter of his history. With Mike, Harvey made a decision-consciously or unconsciously, the jury’s still out-to let Mike see the pieces of himself he keeps hidden from everyone else.
Mike isn’t just his associate anymore (a good lawyer would argue that Mike was never just anything; Harvey doesn’t repeatedly put his own career on the line for people who don't matter) and he can’t take that back.
Even if he wants to, sometimes.
Mike returns with a paper grocery bag from the liquor store a few blocks away. Harvey would never trust Mike to buy scotch on his own, but he has decent taste in beers, if nothing else.
When the food arrives, they eat on the floor in Mike’s new living room, since the chairs for the kitchen table are trapped behind a stack of boxes neither of them feels like moving.
They talk about nothing in particular over dinner and Harvey can’t help being surprised how easy it is. Of course, Harvey’s just telling stories about Louis from when they were associates, mostly to keep them from wading into all of their respective emotional baggage.
And Harvey’s definitely not drunk on just a few beers, although the words are starting to flow off his tongue without checking in with his brain first.
So when Mike interrupts him mid-story to ask, “Why did it matter so much to you?” and gestures vaguely around the apartment with his beer bottle, Harvey’s answer is embarrassingly candid.
“I didn’t want you to disappear.”
Mike frowns. “Where would I go?”
Harvey shrugs. “Anywhere. There was nothing keeping you here.”
“You’re an idiot.” Mike shakes his head. “You’re the only person I have left who gives a shit about me. Why the fuck would I leave?”
“Grief makes people do stupid things.”
“Oh yeah?” Mike raises his chin stubbornly. “What did you do?”
“I drank the entire contents of my liquor cabinet, got a tattoo, almost bought a motorcycle-
“Wait, wait.” Mike grins. “You have a tattoo? Dude, you gotta show me!”
Harvey chokes on his beer and Mike’s cheeks flush an embarrassed pink.
“Don’t call me dude,” Harvey says weakly. “And no, I’m not showing you my tattoo.”
“Because then you’d have to kill me?”
“No, because I’m not going to take my clothes off.”
Mike’s face goes even pinker, and Harvey can’t help smirking.
“Can I ask you something?”
“I’ve never been able to stop you before.”
Mike picks at the label on his beer, peeling back the corner. “Did your dad ever find out about your mom?”
It’s not the question Harvey expected, and he doesn’t want to analyze too closely the wave of disappointment he feels that this is what Mike wants to know. Curiosity isn’t one of Mike’s faults-he never asks something just to ask it. There’s always a reason.
“Yes.”
“Did he forgive her?”
“He did.” Harvey says. “But he wasn’t the type to hold grudges anyway. Instead he internalized it, told himself it was his fault.” He doesn’t want to know, but he can’t stop the words leaving his mouth. “Whose wife did you sleep with?”
Mike flinches, but he doesn’t deny it. “It was after the funeral, so I wasn’t thinking clearly. Tess and I grew up together and I just wanted...I don’t know what I wanted.”
Harvey remembers the days after his father’s funeral, and the strange numbness he’d experienced, so Mike’s actions aren’t exactly a mystery to Harvey.
“You wanted to feel something,” Harvey supplies. “And you picked someone you trusted.”
Harvey’s lucky Mike is tipsy and not as quick as he usually is, because he gave too much away with that comment, and Donna would kill him if he told Mike. They’ve agreed never to talk about that night-not with each other, not with anyone else-and it’s a deal that’s served them well so far.
“Maybe. I shouldn't have done it, though.”
“Just don’t do it again. Getting in the middle of a marriage is always a mistake.”
“I’m not planning on it.” Mike says, a little defensively. “What happened, when your dad found out?”
“They divorced my freshman year of college. He started drinking more than he should. She got remarried and moved to Scarsdale.”
“What about your brother?”
“He was only fourteen. You know how it is with custody cases, the court usually sides with the mother. I didn’t see much of him until he turned eighteen.”
Harvey doesn’t add that those were also the years he spent slacking through his undergrad at NYU, getting his history degree as easily as breathing and the rest of it lost in a haze of drugs and booze and sex. He knows Mike would understand, but he’s reluctant to share too much of himself. He’s already too involved here, they’ve crossed too many lines and if Harvey has any hope of going into work on Monday and seeing his associate instead of whatever Mike is slowly starting to become, he needs to keep some boundaries.
Mike obviously notices Harvey’s need to change the subject. “There’s too much white in this apartment.”
“Paint it,” Harvey shrugs.
“Grammy and I painted our apartment once. I was nine and she let me pick the color for the kitchen. I chose neon green. It faded to an ugly puke color after a few years, but she never painted over it.”
“Under no circumstances are you allowed to paint anything in this apartment puke green.”
“Guess you’ll just have to supervise me to make sure I don’t.” Mike grins.
Harvey almost goes out on a limb, almost says just ask me to help you, but he stops himself. He can’t take that kind of risk right now, not when he’s not sure if Mike will meet him halfway.
So instead he just shakes his head, “I don’t paint. Neither should you, I’ve seen the damage you can do with a highlighter.”
Mike laughs, a little more feebly than Harvey had hoped. But Mike is still thinking about that puke green kitchen, Harvey can tell, and remembering moments he’ll never get back.
Then, Mike yawns and sets his empty beer bottle on the coffee table. “It’s late. We should sleep.”
“I’ll take the couch,” Harvey says before Mike can offer him the bed.
“Of course you’re taking the couch,” Mike laughs. “You couldn’t pay me to sleep on that thing.”
“Great, thanks.” Harvey says, getting to his feet. Mike digs out a few blankets for him, and soft and faded with age.
“Thanks,” Mike says softly. “For everything.”
He’s looking at Harvey a little too earnestly and Harvey ignores the way his stomach flips and says, “Well, you needed somebody to do all the heavy lifting.”
“That’s why I called Donna. You were just here to look pretty.”
“You think I’m pretty?” Harvey challenges, because he can’t help himself.
Mike opens and closes his mouth, searching for something to say, finally settling on, “I’m drunk. I’m going to bed.”
Harvey watches until Mike closes the bedroom door between them, and then he listens to Mike moving around his unfamiliar room, the unmistakable rustling as he digs through boxes. Harvey does his best to get situated on the couch, which is both lumpy and springy and still smells faintly of weed. Harvey will give him a hard time about it tomorrow, because an apartment this nice deserves a couch that wasn’t rescued from the sidewalk on garbage pick-up day.
He does his best not to think about how easy it was for Mike to convince him to help today, and to get him to stay. It’s not something he can ignore for much longer; he knows that with almost agonizing certainty.
He’s just on the edges of sleep when his phone buzzes on the cushion next to him.
Sweet dreams, the text from Mike reads.
Harvey rolls his eyes, but he replies anyway. You too. Now go to sleep.