round six prompt post - spoilers
ROUND SIX - SPOILER POST
THERE WILL BE SPOILERS FOR SEASON THREE IN THIS POST!!IMPORTANT: Please don't forget to warn for any triggers (these can be found in the Rules post), better to warn when in doubt. If a prompt is not warned for triggers and contains them, it will be screened and you will be asked to re-write it with the appropriate warning. ( Read more... )
THERE WILL BE SPOILERS FOR SEASON THREE IN THIS POST!!IMPORTANT: Please don't forget to warn for any triggers (these can be found in the Rules post), better to warn when in doubt. If a prompt is not warned for triggers and contains them, it will be screened and you will be asked to re-write it with the appropriate warning. ( Read more... )
It’s dark now, and Harvey is home alone spread out across his couch staring out at the Manhattan skyline. His favorite Tom Ford suit jacket is carelessly lying on the floor, and he’s still wearing his shoes despite propping them up on his glass coffee table. The tie around his neck is undone and he’s pushed his sleeves up to his elbows, not bothering to care about the wrinkles he’s made in the fabric. In his hand he cradles a half empty class of his most expensive scotch. He knows that across the city, Mike is stumbling into his office only to find Jessica standing in place of where Mike expects Harvey to be. If she hadn’t been standing right next to him as he’d made the call, Harvey knows he would have warned his associate of what to expect. Instead the kid is going to have to handle the situation and keep his surprise close to his chest - just like Harvey has taught him to.
He could have stayed for Mike. He could have stood beside him and protected him from Jessica’s harsh words. She wouldn’t have liked it - probably would have fought him tooth and nail about it - but it was already clear that she couldn’t fire either of them without opening herself up to all sorts of trouble. He could have stayed. He could have helped Mike. It’s what he’d been planning to do - but then Jessica had dropped that bomb of information in his lap and expected him to already know and Harvey just- couldn’t. He had to leave.
So here he is now. Drinking the scotch he’d promised the wealthy client who’d given it to him that he would wait for the right moment to open the bottle. Harvey’s sure the man had meant a more celebratory occasion than protecting some associate’s job and then finding out the kid held even more secrets than Harvey could have guessed.
The thing is - Harvey should have known. He should have figured it out. What other twenty-some year old kids are struggling to pay for their grandmother’s medical bills? That’s not supposed to be the grandkid’s job, and even Harvey - whose own family life is entirely too fucked up - knows that much. Yet perhaps it is because of how messed up his own family is that Harvey has avoided asking some of the most basic questions about Mike’s.
He takes another sip of his drink as he thinks of Mike - ten years old with wide, too blue eyes and ruffled blonde hair probably curling around his ears. Wearing his first suit: an ill-fitting black outfit picked out by grieving hands for a boy too young to understand the tradition or the symbolism of the color. All for the funeral of his two dead parents, hit by a drunk driver on their way home to tuck their baby boy into bed.
Harvey’s chest feels tight, and he coughs while swallowing a large mouthful of his scotch, the alcohol burning as it makes its way down his throat. His apartment is too quiet other than for the sound of his own breathing, and he wishes he had thought to put on a record when he’d first come in - but now his body feels sluggish and over exhausted and there’s nothing that could make him get up again.
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And maybe that’s what hurt the most. Not that Mike had never told him - because to be completely fair, Harvey has shared so very little with Mike about his own family - but that when the kid was finally willing to share his story, he gave it freely to someone vying only to hurt him. Who was plotting to expose him and fire him and prove he wasn’t Pearson Hardman worthy. Who couldn’t see his worth and potential and inherent decency as a human being - something that Pearson Hardman has been sorely lacking.
Harvey opens his eyes and looks back at the Manhattan skyline - all the lights shining fiercely in the dark - and all he can think is that Mike deserves better. A better life. A better best friend. A better mentor.
A better Harvey.
And he cringes, shame radiating through him, as he thinks of all the times he told Mike he didn’t care or didn’t want to hear about his problems. Because hearing them from Jessica was ten times worse than anything he could have imagined.
Swallowing the last of his drink, he knows he won’t ever let that happen again.
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However, I can pay attention, and I did know that Mike's parents died when he was eleven. This story, however, is told from Harvey's POV and Harvey was not at the dinner where Mike revealed his parents death. Harvey is an unreliable narrator for Mike's childhood story -- he doesn't know if MIke's parents were coming home to tuck him into bed. He doesn't know if Mike's parents had a funeral or if they were cremated or if his Grandmother even thought it was appropriate for him to attend the funeral and watch his parents be put in the ground or if he wore an ill-fitting black suit at all.
It's about Harvey and his learning that Mike lost his parents when he was young and his problem with Jessica knowing first. NOT Harvey knowing all the details and thinking clearly about Mike's loss.
But again -- thanks for the comment. Glad you took the time to read my story.
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Also, I applaud thee for your response to what I found was a rather rudely worded comment! *Stands up and applauds anon* I would probably not have responded in kind :)
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