Fic: "Lit Up" 1/4, Suits, Harvey/Mike NC-17
Harvey invites Mike to watch the Yankees game at his condo in October.
“You've been working hard,” Harvey tells him (and the spark of approval in his eyes warms Mike in a way that is mildly embarrassing but oh, so satisfying). “Bring the Killerman briefs, we can proof them during commercial breaks. No need to spend another weekend in the office when we could spend it watching baseball.”
Mike spends all of Friday night anxiously anticipating the game. This is new territory for them, an unprecedented redrawing of borders. With anyone else, a casual invite to work from home and watch the game would hardly be worth thinking about. But with Harvey, who guards himself like a kingdom under constant siege, it’s groundbreaking. Mike is terrified of fucking it up somehow, of losing this tenuous ground he’s gained, and he feels on-edge and off-center by the time he arrives at Harvey's doorstep Saturday afternoon.
Mike is immediately, thoroughly shocked by two things when he arrives: Harvey has a glass fucking elevator in his condo (further blurring the lines between “lawyer” and “pimp mack daddy”), and Donna is there, wearing a fitted Yankees jersey and holding a bowl of popcorn.
Mike feels something suspiciously like jealousy and disappointment twinge low in his belly. He swiftly squashes the train of thought that wants to explore why Harvey's gorgeous assistant is standing barefoot in his condo. He squashes the train of thought that wants to explore why he even cares with far more vigor.
“Harvey,” Donna shouts, casual pony tail sweeping over her shoulder as she turns her head, “Someone left a puppy on your doorstep! Can we keep him, pretty please?”
“No,” Harvey's voice sounds from deeper in the room, amusement tingeing it brick red.
“Too late,” Donna says, shoving the bowl of popcorn into Mike's hands with a wink and stepping aside to let him in. “I've already fed him.” Her voice is teal with undertones of emerald green.
“You're responsible for the inevitable vet bills, then,” Harvey says, appearing with a beer for Mike as they make their way to the lavish living room. Harvey is wearing jeans (jeans that are clearly more expensive than Mike's entire wardrobe combined, but still, jeans). Mike feels his world view tilt a little on its axis. He determinedly does not stare at the obscenely hot way the denim sits on Harvey’s ass.
“If either of you even think about mentioning neutering, I'm out of here,” he says instead, settling into an armchair more comfortable than his bed.
“That is a specialty of Donna's, I believe,” Harvey says, smiling around his beer as he drinks.
“Speaking from experience?” Mike chuckles. “I sort of suspected she might be keeping your balls in her desk somewhere.”
“Kid, she'd need a lot more storage than that.”
Donna curls her legs under her on the sofa, cups her hand to shield her mouth from Harvey's view, and mouths lower right hand drawer to Mike.
Mike chokes on his beer and enjoys the resulting back and forth banter, watching Harvey and Donna's voices twist together like playful otters in the air between them.
They drink imported beer, eat Harvey's idea of “junk food” (which probably costs more than a four course meal at Mike's favorite restaurant - really, who puts white truffle oil on popcorn?), and enjoy the first inning without ever cracking open the files.
It quickly becomes apparent that Donna is an insane baseball fan. She hurls insults at the opposing team that would be considered colorful even to someone without synesthesia, whoops with joy when the Yankees score, and at one point is apparently prepared to hurl her beer at the obscenely large flat screen before Harvey skillfully slips it out of her upraised hand.
“This is why they won't let you back in Hurley's Sports Bar and you have to suffer my company to watch the game on a big screen TV” Harvey admonishes her wryly.
“No,” Donna says, raising a stern finger in Harvey's direction, “They won't let me back in Hurley's because I broke that investment banker's wrist last fall.”
Mike chokes on his beer a little (again - it seems to be a pattern). “What? Seriously?”
“He grabbed my tits,” Donna shrugs. “I feel as though it was an appropriate response. You disagree?”
She has that slightly off-balanced, shark-like look of danger in her eyes.
“No, no!” Mike rushes to assure her. “If I had been there I'm sure I would have broken his wrist on your behalf, or relieved him of a finger or something as a reminder not to go where he's not invited.”
“You think I need you to break wrists on my behalf, Junior?”
“No, I mean, clearly you're capable of breaking bones on your own, I just meant that I - uh-”
“Give the kid a break,” Harvey scolds Donna, “You'll break his brain or something,” (and that right there is just further evidence of the fact that Harvey very well might need an airplane hanger to store his apparently massive balls, because who else but someone with epic cajones would scold Donna? The woman is terrifying).
“I knew you cared,” Mike grins at Harvey, who rolls his eyes.
“Don't read too much into it, kid. I just find your freakish memory useful for impressing clients and amusing small minds at the firm’s cocktail parties.”
Mike continues to smile beguilingly at Harvey, unconvinced, even as his heart clenches a little at Harvey's choice of words.
Freakish.
“I do like the idea of removing that banker's fingers,” Donna concedes, tapping her lip with one perfectly manicured finger. She appears to be considering the logistics of divesting a man of his digits in a bar. “Very Arabian. Has a certain barbaric flair to it.”
Mike adds another mental tally mark to the Reasons Not To Piss Off Donna column in his brain, then scoops up another handful of popcorn with white truffle oil and dead sea salt (it is delicious).
Harvey calls him a cab close to midnight, long after the game has ended and Donna has annihilated them both in Wii bowling several times over. Mike stands awkwardly in the doorway as he leaves, slightly drunk and more relaxed than he's been in months. He feels like he's in high school, trying to decide rather of not to kiss his date. Except that's ridiculous, because this is Harvey (Harvey, who collects one night stands with beautiful women like they’re baseball cards or stamps), and Donna is in the next room trying to find her shoes and her phone before she leaves.
“The Killerman briefs,” Mike blurts suddenly. “We never - I didn't proof them.”
Harvey looks at him with a strange blend of consternation and amusement (and maybe, just maybe, a little affection).
“It's fine, Mike,” he says, passing Mike his messenger bag and ushering him out the door.
Mike is halfway home before he realizes that when Harvey said it's fine what he meant was that was never why I asked you over in the first place.
There is a warm blush of burgundy behind his eyes when he drifts off to sleep that night, despite the fact that Harvey is much too far away for his voice to be painting Mike's vision.
__
If Harvey's voice is warm and rich when he's pleased with Mike, it's cold and biting when he's let down. Mike hates the color of Harvey’s voice when Harvey's displeased with him, frustrated, annoyed, or (worst of all) disappointed. It's like a violent, sickening splash of blood across his vision, and he swears he'd do just about anything to bring the hue back to its usual Merlot.
“You've got a weak stomach,” Harvey tells him after the mock trial. “You're not cut out for this.”
His words are a metallic red, edged with a sharp, steely thread of contempt that cuts Mike to his core.
Mike wants to tell Harvey the way his own voice had looked in the fake court room, dirty gray and vicious black, the sound circling Rachael like a predator. He wants to tell Harvey how Rachael's voice had slipped from the gentle lavender of her usual cadence to a deep, wounded magenta that trembled with hints of red, the way the words he threw at her tasted like blood and dirt and pain.
But the metal in Harvey's voice is a wall between them. Mike knows that anything he says will only break itself against the unyielding color of Harvey's disappointment, his useless words falling away like dead leaves in a wind.
He stays quiet, unwilling to see the disheartened, chastised shade of his own voice stretch into the emptiness between them.
___
Chapter Two
A/N 3: Any and all feedback or concrit will be loved, cherished, and cradled like a firstborn child. I'm quite nervous about this fic, because I'm not sure if my descriptions of Mike's sensory differences make sense or not, so if it seems unduly confusing or unclear please let me know so that I can try to fix it! :)
“You've been working hard,” Harvey tells him (and the spark of approval in his eyes warms Mike in a way that is mildly embarrassing but oh, so satisfying). “Bring the Killerman briefs, we can proof them during commercial breaks. No need to spend another weekend in the office when we could spend it watching baseball.”
Mike spends all of Friday night anxiously anticipating the game. This is new territory for them, an unprecedented redrawing of borders. With anyone else, a casual invite to work from home and watch the game would hardly be worth thinking about. But with Harvey, who guards himself like a kingdom under constant siege, it’s groundbreaking. Mike is terrified of fucking it up somehow, of losing this tenuous ground he’s gained, and he feels on-edge and off-center by the time he arrives at Harvey's doorstep Saturday afternoon.
Mike is immediately, thoroughly shocked by two things when he arrives: Harvey has a glass fucking elevator in his condo (further blurring the lines between “lawyer” and “pimp mack daddy”), and Donna is there, wearing a fitted Yankees jersey and holding a bowl of popcorn.
Mike feels something suspiciously like jealousy and disappointment twinge low in his belly. He swiftly squashes the train of thought that wants to explore why Harvey's gorgeous assistant is standing barefoot in his condo. He squashes the train of thought that wants to explore why he even cares with far more vigor.
“Harvey,” Donna shouts, casual pony tail sweeping over her shoulder as she turns her head, “Someone left a puppy on your doorstep! Can we keep him, pretty please?”
“No,” Harvey's voice sounds from deeper in the room, amusement tingeing it brick red.
“Too late,” Donna says, shoving the bowl of popcorn into Mike's hands with a wink and stepping aside to let him in. “I've already fed him.” Her voice is teal with undertones of emerald green.
“You're responsible for the inevitable vet bills, then,” Harvey says, appearing with a beer for Mike as they make their way to the lavish living room. Harvey is wearing jeans (jeans that are clearly more expensive than Mike's entire wardrobe combined, but still, jeans). Mike feels his world view tilt a little on its axis. He determinedly does not stare at the obscenely hot way the denim sits on Harvey’s ass.
“If either of you even think about mentioning neutering, I'm out of here,” he says instead, settling into an armchair more comfortable than his bed.
“That is a specialty of Donna's, I believe,” Harvey says, smiling around his beer as he drinks.
“Speaking from experience?” Mike chuckles. “I sort of suspected she might be keeping your balls in her desk somewhere.”
“Kid, she'd need a lot more storage than that.”
Donna curls her legs under her on the sofa, cups her hand to shield her mouth from Harvey's view, and mouths lower right hand drawer to Mike.
Mike chokes on his beer and enjoys the resulting back and forth banter, watching Harvey and Donna's voices twist together like playful otters in the air between them.
They drink imported beer, eat Harvey's idea of “junk food” (which probably costs more than a four course meal at Mike's favorite restaurant - really, who puts white truffle oil on popcorn?), and enjoy the first inning without ever cracking open the files.
It quickly becomes apparent that Donna is an insane baseball fan. She hurls insults at the opposing team that would be considered colorful even to someone without synesthesia, whoops with joy when the Yankees score, and at one point is apparently prepared to hurl her beer at the obscenely large flat screen before Harvey skillfully slips it out of her upraised hand.
“This is why they won't let you back in Hurley's Sports Bar and you have to suffer my company to watch the game on a big screen TV” Harvey admonishes her wryly.
“No,” Donna says, raising a stern finger in Harvey's direction, “They won't let me back in Hurley's because I broke that investment banker's wrist last fall.”
Mike chokes on his beer a little (again - it seems to be a pattern). “What? Seriously?”
“He grabbed my tits,” Donna shrugs. “I feel as though it was an appropriate response. You disagree?”
She has that slightly off-balanced, shark-like look of danger in her eyes.
“No, no!” Mike rushes to assure her. “If I had been there I'm sure I would have broken his wrist on your behalf, or relieved him of a finger or something as a reminder not to go where he's not invited.”
“You think I need you to break wrists on my behalf, Junior?”
“No, I mean, clearly you're capable of breaking bones on your own, I just meant that I - uh-”
“Give the kid a break,” Harvey scolds Donna, “You'll break his brain or something,” (and that right there is just further evidence of the fact that Harvey very well might need an airplane hanger to store his apparently massive balls, because who else but someone with epic cajones would scold Donna? The woman is terrifying).
“I knew you cared,” Mike grins at Harvey, who rolls his eyes.
“Don't read too much into it, kid. I just find your freakish memory useful for impressing clients and amusing small minds at the firm’s cocktail parties.”
Mike continues to smile beguilingly at Harvey, unconvinced, even as his heart clenches a little at Harvey's choice of words.
Freakish.
“I do like the idea of removing that banker's fingers,” Donna concedes, tapping her lip with one perfectly manicured finger. She appears to be considering the logistics of divesting a man of his digits in a bar. “Very Arabian. Has a certain barbaric flair to it.”
Mike adds another mental tally mark to the Reasons Not To Piss Off Donna column in his brain, then scoops up another handful of popcorn with white truffle oil and dead sea salt (it is delicious).
Harvey calls him a cab close to midnight, long after the game has ended and Donna has annihilated them both in Wii bowling several times over. Mike stands awkwardly in the doorway as he leaves, slightly drunk and more relaxed than he's been in months. He feels like he's in high school, trying to decide rather of not to kiss his date. Except that's ridiculous, because this is Harvey (Harvey, who collects one night stands with beautiful women like they’re baseball cards or stamps), and Donna is in the next room trying to find her shoes and her phone before she leaves.
“The Killerman briefs,” Mike blurts suddenly. “We never - I didn't proof them.”
Harvey looks at him with a strange blend of consternation and amusement (and maybe, just maybe, a little affection).
“It's fine, Mike,” he says, passing Mike his messenger bag and ushering him out the door.
Mike is halfway home before he realizes that when Harvey said it's fine what he meant was that was never why I asked you over in the first place.
There is a warm blush of burgundy behind his eyes when he drifts off to sleep that night, despite the fact that Harvey is much too far away for his voice to be painting Mike's vision.
__
If Harvey's voice is warm and rich when he's pleased with Mike, it's cold and biting when he's let down. Mike hates the color of Harvey’s voice when Harvey's displeased with him, frustrated, annoyed, or (worst of all) disappointed. It's like a violent, sickening splash of blood across his vision, and he swears he'd do just about anything to bring the hue back to its usual Merlot.
“You've got a weak stomach,” Harvey tells him after the mock trial. “You're not cut out for this.”
His words are a metallic red, edged with a sharp, steely thread of contempt that cuts Mike to his core.
Mike wants to tell Harvey the way his own voice had looked in the fake court room, dirty gray and vicious black, the sound circling Rachael like a predator. He wants to tell Harvey how Rachael's voice had slipped from the gentle lavender of her usual cadence to a deep, wounded magenta that trembled with hints of red, the way the words he threw at her tasted like blood and dirt and pain.
But the metal in Harvey's voice is a wall between them. Mike knows that anything he says will only break itself against the unyielding color of Harvey's disappointment, his useless words falling away like dead leaves in a wind.
He stays quiet, unwilling to see the disheartened, chastised shade of his own voice stretch into the emptiness between them.
___
Chapter Two
A/N 3: Any and all feedback or concrit will be loved, cherished, and cradled like a firstborn child. I'm quite nervous about this fic, because I'm not sure if my descriptions of Mike's sensory differences make sense or not, so if it seems unduly confusing or unclear please let me know so that I can try to fix it! :)