fic: The Best Version of Yourself, Suits, Mike/Harvey
The Best Version of Yourself
Suits. Mike/Harvey. 4550 words. Based on Tom Ford's five rules for a modern gentleman.
read below or at AO3.
Disclaimers: I'm pretty sure gigantic and I started making up Suits stories based on the ad campaign before the show even premiered. This show has absolutely no grounds on which to protest a story like this. (Neither does its guest star.) Read Tom Ford’s five rules for a modern gentleman and you’ll see how much I borrowed verbatim. And I stole a bit from the unaired pilot of Pretty/Handsome.
(Also: I love the women of Suits. Love. None of them are in this. I’m truly very sorry about this.)
1.
Mike says, “Because it’s pretentious,” and Harvey’s mouth turns down.
“You think I’m pretentious?”
“No, I -- that’s not what I said. I said -- I think the idea of there being a set standard, a rule that applies without any regard for actual self-expression is pretentious. For me to wear a suit that I hate every minute that I’m wearing it to an event I’ve attended for the last six years in jeans and a t-shirt is pretentious.”
“Wait, you hate it every minute?”
A man in sunglasses passes on the sidewalk, then doubles back, stepping between them. “Hello Harvey,” he says warmly, and they hug.
They hug. Harvey hugs? The cheap plastic lid pops off of Mike’s coffee cup and lands with an ugly splat among their three sets of gleaming shoes.
Harvey says, “Careful, kiddo, I just got these shined.”
The man bends down quickly, gracefully, and picks up the lid. He holds it delicately between his thumb and finger and hands it back to Mike.
Mike puts it back on the cup because he has no idea what else to do with it.
“I’m Tom,” the man says. He’s wearing a crisp white shirt open at the collar and a week’s worth of beard. Mike envies that liberation. He checks the reflection of his own tie -- crooked, naturally -- in the reflection of Tom’s aviators.
His gold rimmed aviators.
Which say TOM FORD along one curve, letters etched into the polarized glass.
“Oh shit,” Mike says, “you’re Tom Ford.”
Harvey sighs, aggrieved. “My associate is always incoherent this early, Tom, but rarely so gauche.” He turns to Mike. “Pearson Hardman handles Tom’s domestic business affairs.”
“I’m new,” Mike says. “And definitely not awake yet. Sorry.”
Tom says, “Not at all,” and touches Harvey’s shoulder. (Harvey lets people touch him?) “I knew this lapel would look good on you,” he says.
Harvey waves him off in that way that actually means keep going. “I’m just a glorified hanger,” he says, and --
Harvey is flirting. In the middle of their regularly scheduled pre-work coffee sidebar. With Tom Fucking Ford and his smug stubble and his open collar. Mike should have never gotten out of bed today. He doesn't get sick days until next year but even so.
Harvey says, “Maybe you can help us settle a bet, Tom.”
Mike finds his voice. “We didn’t bet.”
“An argument.”
“We’re arguing now?”
Tom smiles, a shade more generous than Harvey has ever been before 9 a.m. “Of course,” he offers.
“Mike here thinks it’s acceptable to wear jeans and t-shirt to a graduation party.”
“It’s a recital at my grandmother’s best friend’s daughter’s music school. For children.”
Tom looks him up and down, pointed but professionally detached. He pushes up his glasses and squints in the morning sun. It’s a long deliberation, like Mike’s standing under a spotlight on Project Runway. Then Tom says, “You should always put on the best version of yourself when you go out in the world.”
Harvey nods, that sycophantic traitor in a three-piece suit. “Yes, exactly.” Harvey gestures magnanimously. “It’s a show of respect to the other people around you.”
“Okayyyy,” Mike says. But he can’t just leave it at that. “But what if a suit isn’t the best version of yourself? What if it’s someone else’s idea of the best version of yourself? How is that respectful to those around you?”
“Do you really hate it every minute?” Harvey asks.
“No, I said -- it’s like you don’t even pretend to listen to me --”
“Harvey, really,” Tom says, fond and -- it sounds like he’s wagging his finger, like how Harvey does every day about something Mike has done or not done or done but not done to his exacting, always changing standards. Mike has apparently been dismissed from this deliberation.
Harvey rolls his eyes a little, but when he speaks it’s almost sweet. “How’s Richard?” he asks.
Tom says, “He’s well. I’ll tell him you asked, though. He’ll appreciate that.”
“Please do.”
Tom leans in and kisses Harvey’s cheek, a breath away from his mouth, and Harvey’s hand comes up to squeeze Tom’s arm. “We should really discuss that retail deal in Chicago, I think it’s --”
Tom shakes his head. “You know I don’t do business in the middle of the sidewalk.”
“How about a proper dinner date, then?”
“We’re only here through Saturday.”
“Donna will figure it out,” Harvey promises.
Tom turns to face Mike. “You work in a world of suits,” he says. “Do you want them to see you -- or be too busy worrying about what you’re wearing?”
Harvey does his little shifty-eyed side glance towards the street, staying out of it. Two taxi drivers honk at each other. A hundred people push past them, rushing to work.
Tom stares steadily at Mike. There are flecks of gray among the stubble. Every single hair in his eyebrows is the same length, groomed at precise perfect angles to his face. He makes Harvey look thrown carelessly together.
Mike says, “Okay, yeah, thank you,” and Tom brushes a quick, bristly kiss across the far edge of Mike’s cheekbone, almost all the way over by his ear. Mike feels himself flush.
“Besides,” Tom says, “every man’s grandmother likes to see him dressed up.” He waves a little and slides effortlessly into the passing flow of pedestrians. A billionaire supermodel, momentarily anonymous. Mike loves this city as much as he hates how easy some people can make it look.
“Come on,” Harvey says. “We don’t want to be late for court.”
2.
“The court finds for the defendant. All legal fees and court costs to be paid by the plaintiff.”
Mike smirks at the judge banging her gavel, just as he always does. (“I mean -- of all the things about the law I thought were definitely fake,” he told Harvey once.)
That asshole from Rollins & Macgruder shakes Harvey’s hand, his palm like day-old fish, and it takes every ounce of breeding Harvey ever taught himself not to wipe the guy’s greasy sweat off on his pants.
“This is great,” Mike is saying, “it’s not even 11 and I know Donna thought it would take longer because she told me what a pain in the ass it was to reschedule your afternoon because Mrs. Lorshire will only meet over high tea at the Plaza and --”
Harvey snaps his briefcase shut and Mike closes his mouth. And just when Harvey was ready to get creative on how to do so for him. “Do you think we get the afternoon off because we won a judgment so relatively minor our own client didn’t even think it was worth his time to show up?”
“Lunch, at the very least,” Mike bargains, following Harvey out.
Mike always negotiates, especially with those who outrank him, which is another way Harvey can tell Mike really does have the potential to be a great lawyer. Plus he’s learning how to throw charm onto his pile of chips.
“Come on,” Mike says. A casual shrug as he slides into the car. “Gentleman’s lunch?”
“A gentleman has to work.”
“And wear a smart suit, yeah, I think I can tell where this is going. Did you take some kind of prep school class with your buddy Tom on how to be the most annoying gentleman ever? Hang on, let me find my pen.”
“You have to be passionate, Mike. You have to contribute to the world.” Harvey sighs. “People who don’t work are usually bored, not to mention boring themselves.”
“Well don’t worry. I’m a first-year associate. By that measure I’m the most fascinating person you’ve ever met. Even if you won’t feed me lunch.”
“I didn’t say you couldn’t -- and what the hell is a gentleman’s lunch anyway? I told you: no strippers.”
“You know,” Mike says, his mouth loose. “Lunch among men. Power lunches. Steaks and martinis at the club.”
“Nobody orders steak at lunch any more.”
“That’s so tragic,” Mike says. “What do they eat?”
“Chicken Caesar salad.” Harvey wants to rinse out his mouth just saying the words.
Mike shakes his head back and forth sadly but he smiles wide.
“And I didn’t go to prep school,” Harvey says, though he doesn’t mean to. Mike doesn’t need to know any more than he already does about how much they have in common.
“I’ll bet you a nice piece of steak Tom did, though. Is that guy for real?”
“‘That guy’ is a client with luxury flagship stores on five continents. His reality is ours.”
Mike drums his finger tips against the car door. He’ll say whatever it is he’s been holding in about Tom if Harvey gives him a minute. Or less. “You were flirting with him,” Mike says.
That’s not what Harvey was expecting. “Flirting is for 14 year olds," he says. “And he and Richard have been together since Tom was younger than you are.”
“So it was just because he enjoys the attention?”
“Who doesn’t enjoy being the focus of my attention?”
Mike blushes at that, just the tiniest bit, and Harvey chooses to let it go as Ray pulls up to their building.
Guy, the French hot dog vendor who is always out front, waves at Harvey as he steps out of the car. Harvey helped Guy chase down the seller of a phony city permit last year and he hasn’t let Harvey pay full price since.
He calls Mike back just before Mike hits the lobby doors. “I’ll buy you lunch,” he offers.
3.
“Stop fidgeting,” Harvey says, again, and Mike snaps.
“I know, Jesus, I promise not to embarrass you at dinner with the client. I know the right fork to use and --”
Harvey side-eyes him as he opens the front door. “I swear to God, if you count the tines --”
“You, sir, are no Richard Gere.”
Harvey stops at the vestibule’s speckled mirror, and Mike fixes his own tie and jacket until everything’s on straight. “Better,” Harvey says, and his touch on Mike’s elbow as they go down a darkened hall toward the host is light. Suggestive.
No, not suggestive. It’s just dinner with a very important client. Mike tries very hard not to fidget.
Briget Kirlaten is 15, maybe 20 years older than Mike and owns 7.3 percent of all commercial real estate in upper Manhattan. She drinks the lion’s share of a bottle of red wine Harvey orders without looking at a menu and tilts her head curiously at them, staring at whoever isn’t speaking, which only makes Mike talk more than he means to. He just gave some kind of soliloquy on sustainable apple orchards.
“It was in the Times last week,” he mumbles, pushing back his chair. “I just have to --”
Harvey stands up, too.
“I’m just going to --” Harvey raises an eyebrow. Mike turns to Briget. “Can you excuse me for a minute?”
She smiles, indulgent, a little intrigued, and when Mike glances back -- he just needs to pee, he’s had like eight glasses of water and he can’t shut up and this has to be the lesser of two social sins -- the waiter is laying a napkin across Harvey’s lap.
He stands again when Mike gets back. He pulls out Mike’s chair.
Mike sits down faster than if he’d been clubbed across the head. It’s obvious he’s missed another entry in the gentleman’s parade and pretty soon someone is going to notice Harvey’s treating him like a girl.
If it were Louis, Mike would understand. This would be one of his endless mindfucks designed to demonstrate which peacock had the biggest plume. Mike would mock him and Louis would threaten and Mike would call his bluff and unless it was something that mattered -- a case -- Louis would move on to an easier target and Mike would go back to whatever Harvey was waiting for him to finish.
Harvey’s challenges are live action. No practice rounds of Russian roulette, only real cliffs to run right off of if he miscalculates. Sometimes Harvey is there reaching out a hand and sometimes, especially in Mike’s fitful few hours of sleep between leaving the office and going back to it, Harvey just gives a little wave as Mike falls.
The point is, Harvey wouldn’t pull his punches to prove some macho point. Harvey knows his place at the top of the food chain. And he’s never been interested in going easy on Mike.
After Harvey has paid their check with some sleight of hand that never required reaching for his wallet, after he’s helped Briget put her coat on, after he’s grudgingly allowed Mike to hold her town car’s door as she climbs in -- after all that they’re back on the sidewalk together.
The summer night is ripe with New York’s finest sewage, the city’s grime wafting along every mighty avenue and tiny street, and still Harvey looks impeccable. Mike puts his hands in his pockets so they don’t yank his own tie off.
“That wasn’t a disaster,” Harvey allows. Ray is parked a few feet away, engine running, AC on behind those dark windows like a climate controlled tunnel to wherever the next stop on Harvey’s charm offensive may take him.
“Thanks for letting me come,” Mike says. “To dinner.”
Harvey doesn’t bother hiding how much he laughs at Mike. “You’re my favorite beck and call girl,” he says, and a swift moment after he raises a hand, a yellow cab slides to a stop at their feet. He opens the door for Mike and Mike gets in. “Good night,” Harvey says, and closes the door with one soft, smooth push.
4.
Harvey likes the coffee at the bodega a block away, so Ray drops him off and he walks from there, one cup in each hand, meeting Mike at the bike rack. If there are files he needs, Ray will be waiting with his briefcase, and if they need to get right back in the car to go to court, they can.
Of course walking one block a day in no way negates the fact that he’s a wealthy man with a chauffeured car and an associate who should be the one fetching breakfast. Harvey simply likes the brisk, brief physical reminder of his city pressed close and urgent against him.
As he waits for the cars to cross Fifth Avenue, he glances over towards the diner on the corner. Mike waves from inside. He’s sitting at the end of the counter, gesturing with his fork at Harvey to join him.
Harvey changes course.
“You’re supposed to be at work in --” He flicks back his cuff. “Eight minutes.” Harvey would have been early, would have leaned against the town car and drunk his own coffee slowly, looking up at the skyscrapers and feeling satisfied with everything over which he has power. Instead he’s inside a greasy corner diner with his insouciant associate.
Mike shrugs. “They have a $3.99 special,” he says, scooping egg into his mouth and inexplicably managing to avoid splattering yolk all over himself.
Harvey sets down Mike’s coffee next to the plate and Mike pulls off the plastic lid and takes a big gulp, face slack with gratitude.
“If you’re going to sit and eat,” Harvey says, “you should be reviewing the Martinson case.”
“But I’m talking to you.”
“But you weren’t. You were wasting at least a quarter of a billable hour and -- Jesus, how long does it take to even be asked if I want something to eat?”
“You eat at home.”
“That’s not the point. There are a dozen diners within six blocks of the office and you pick the one with absolutely no interest in providing the most basic in service --”
A hunchbacked waitress of approximately 75 years shoves a menu at Harvey and shuffles off.
“Be nice,” Mike warns, though he can’t possibly think Harvey is about to tear into a grandmother this early in the day.
“The way your brain works, we should be billing at least 18 or 20 hours of any given day, whether or not you have a file in front of you. You’re like the SETI project.”
Mike just stares.
“The computer program researchers use to sort through massive amounts of data in the background so that eventually they can spit out some useful finding about the potential of life on other planets.”
“Okay, Spock --”
“We don’t have a billable rate for a brain like yours, Mike. At the very least we shouldn’t be undercharging our clients for the privilege of having it turned in their direction.”
“I’m not a computer.”
“No. You’re Spock. Obviously.”
Mike stands up. “Okay, Captain Kirk, I’m done with my extremely inefficient morning meal. Let’s go.” He pulls out a wallet -- fake leather, Christ, it’s like he found Mike in a cardboard box -- and leaves a ten on the counter.
“If you take that up to the register, you’ll get your change faster,” Harvey says.
Mike slings his messenger bag over his shoulder and Harvey breathes in deeply and doesn’t reach out to take it right back off. “I’m good, let’s go.”
“But you’re leaving --” Harvey never hates Louis as much as he does in a moment when he’s forced to acknowledge that people, not numbers, are his purview. “That’s an obscene gratuity for what might at best be considered mediocre service. Mike --”
“It’s 250 percent, Harvey, and it’s my ten bucks, and if you can look at a woman that age who still works for tips and think it’s about math, you’re even more of an asshole than I realized.”
The door slams shut with an angry jangle. Harvey catches up to him at the corner. “Hey, Mike --”
“Whatever, Harvey, shouldn’t we talk about something we can charge someone for?”
Mike dodges a gaggle of Japanese tourists, taking long, angry strides toward their building. “Look, kid, don’t act like you’re the only guy who’s ever done a good goddamned deed in his life. I take care of plenty of people.”
“You take care of people who take care of you.”
“I bring you coffee!”
“And I’m your personal SETI project. Investing in someone’s potential or rewarding their loyal service is hardly a philanthropic act, Harvey.”
Mike gives the security guard a high-five and a restrained “What’s up, Matty?” on their way in. The elevator dings open and Mike steps back to let a pregnant woman carrying an oversized portfolio in ahead of them.
Harvey stands shoulder to shoulder with Mike all the way up to their floor, his ears popping as usual from the rapid rise. Mike fumes silently, jaw clenched.
Harvey pulls him back by his messenger bag strap just before he can dart down towards the associates cubicles. “Hey,” he says, low. “Wait a minute.”
“Do you really think it matters more what you wear than how you treat people?” Mike asks, and he’s not angry now. He’s preparing himself to be disappointed. “I’m not even talking about caring, I’m talking about basic human --”
“You’re right,” he says. Mike blinks. Harvey’s not going to say it again. “I am most inclined to spend my time and money on people I know, not random strangers. If that makes me an asshole, fine. But if someone I know -- someone I know well -- if they need me, there is nothing I wouldn’t do. And I can do that because I don’t expend energy on just any person passing by.”
“Oh my God,” Mike says. “You’re a Republican.”
“I know what it’s like to have nothing, and I won’t apologize now that I have nearly everything I could possibly want. But you -- you’re actually a good guy, Mike. You shouldn’t let anyone -- not even me -- turn you into anything else.”
They’re standing closer than Harvey realized, so close that when he lets go of Mike’s bag -- lesson over, apology (such as it is) done -- there’s nowhere for his hand to go but down Mike’s chest. He pulls away from Mike’s slim body and their wrists knock together. The back of Mike’s hand is smooth. It feels like Mike hasn’t taken a breath at all.
“Go on,” Harvey says. “Get to work.”
5.
Mike wakes up sweaty and nervous. He takes the train to SoHo and spends way too much money buying anything that looks remotely fashionable and not oppressively hot. As soon as he gets home, he drops all the bags on his bed and takes a shower.
There’s a text message waiting from Trevor -- so sick of cowboy hats -- and Mike drips on his floor for a long moment while uselessly debating whether to write back or delete it. It’s not like he can forget the text either way but still the minute stretches out, an endless elastic un-billable worthless minute like all the rest of his life he spent doing whatever Trevor wanted.
Mike is self-aware enough to realize he doesn’t always make the best choices.
Harvey said, “Be ready at five,” and Mike said, “Okay,” and Mike knew it was serious because neither of them even tried to make a joke of it. But as far as Mike can tell there’s no client, no obligated appearance on behalf of the firm. No reason. He’s just spending the last Saturday night of summer with Harvey for no reason whatsoever.
There’s a knock on his door at 4:59. Harvey is in the hallway, rocking back on his heels, in a dark blue shirt that stretches across his chest. He has one hand in the pocket of trim gray slacks, and Mike would swear for a second that even he looks confused about what’s happening.
“Are you wearing shorts?”
“I can take them off,” Mike offers, and then bites his lip. Sometimes just being near Harvey manages to get the better of him.
Harvey smiles slowly. “But then what will we do?” he asks, like after a million tries Mike has finally, impossibly gotten the point of a leading question.
“I spent a lot of money on clothes today, you know.”
“And that’s what you’re wearing? Show me what else you got.”
“What’s wrong with these?”
“You look like Vampire Weekend’s publicist.”
“They’re --” Mike cranes his head to look at the carcasses of his shopping bags. “I don’t believe you can name a single Vampire Weekend song. And they’re Marc Jacobs. And it’s summer!”
“There’s that one about commas that Donna sings when she types. And shorts should only be worn on the tennis court or on the beach.”
“Wanna go to the beach?”
“No,” Harvey says, and leans against the door frame.
Mike can’t stop talking. “Does this mean we’re skipping dinner?”
“I never said I was taking you to dinner. We’re not going anywhere as long as you’re wearing those goddamned shorts.”
“I believe there’s already an offer on the table.”
One eyebrow delicately raised. “You haven’t even asked me in.”
“Ohhh. A gentleman always has to be invited? Wait. That’s vampires. Are you a --”
Harvey comes in, draping himself briefly against Mike, his slick pants hot and smooth against Mike’s bare shins. Like kissing a girl, Mike thinks, because he can’t think like this at all.
“Why do you even care?” Mike fumbles out when Harvey’s stepped away, closed the door behind himself. They stand three feet apart in Mike’s tiny apartment, a fan wheezing from the window. Harvey’s shirt has four buttons down the front that don’t come anywhere near reaching each other, a shadow of dark hair at the bottom of the V.
“I care because it’s all a part of this life.” Harvey punctuates his statement with another step forward. Two feet apart.
“This life of deception, double-crossing, disbarment.”
“You wouldn’t dare double-cross me.” One foot.
“That’s true,” Mike says. “And it’s not like trying to impress you does any good.”
Harvey reaches out for Mike’s waist. His hand is hot through the thin t-shirt, five sharp points of pressure where his fingers hold Mike still and a smooth palm presses against Mike’s back, pulling him in until they’re touching from the hips down.
“Yes it has,” Harvey says, and kisses him. It’s a hungry, deep kiss, bruising Mike’s upper lip against his teeth, and Mike doesn’t realize he’s too shocked to move until Harvey freezes and begins trying to disentangle them. Mike makes an awful ridiculous growling noise, tugging on Harvey’s shirt to bring them back together.
He pushes up into the kiss and Harvey pushes back, bending him back a few degrees and it’s like a movie kiss, like the most unbelievable movie ever made because a week ago Mike didn’t even know Harvey could hug a guy and here they are in his sweltering studio apartment making out like they’re Clark Gable and it didn’t have anything to do with wearing a suit and --
“Oh,” he says, breathing hard, and tilts his forehead to Harvey’s very broad shoulder. “I get it.” Mike can’t stop himself from grinning. Harvey’s face relaxes, smile breaking through, and Mike says, “I get it now.”
Harvey shoves him back a few more feet toward the bed. “You’re gonna get it, all right.”
“You think if I don’t care about the suits and the cars and the food and everything -- that it’s not really real. That I can still just walk away.”
Harvey stiffens, that icy determination that is his only real tell. Mike really is right about this.
He touches Harvey’s wrist. “I’m really not going anywhere.” A slow thaw spreads across Harvey’s features, and Mike leans in to kiss him quickly.
“You wouldn’t get far in those shorts,” Harvey says.
“I’m just going to take these off, actually,” Mike says, yanking at the button and shoving them down, kicking off his shoes, too. He strips off his shirt because as much as he wants to do this he can’t stand around naked from the waist down and not feel like a total fool.
“Okay, now I’m really impressed.”
“Hey, not everyone here spends an hour a day at the gym, so don’t --”
“I’m not kidding,” Harvey says, and pokes his finger at Mike’s chest until he topples backward onto the mattress. “You’re not as nice as you act, you know.” He crawls up Mike’s body, shirt and slacks sliding against Mike’s skin, and bites Mike’s throat.
“Yes I am,” Mike protests, arching up. “I’m a perfect gentleman.”
END.
Suits. Mike/Harvey. 4550 words. Based on Tom Ford's five rules for a modern gentleman.
read below or at AO3.
Disclaimers: I'm pretty sure gigantic and I started making up Suits stories based on the ad campaign before the show even premiered. This show has absolutely no grounds on which to protest a story like this. (Neither does its guest star.) Read Tom Ford’s five rules for a modern gentleman and you’ll see how much I borrowed verbatim. And I stole a bit from the unaired pilot of Pretty/Handsome.
(Also: I love the women of Suits. Love. None of them are in this. I’m truly very sorry about this.)
1.
Mike says, “Because it’s pretentious,” and Harvey’s mouth turns down.
“You think I’m pretentious?”
“No, I -- that’s not what I said. I said -- I think the idea of there being a set standard, a rule that applies without any regard for actual self-expression is pretentious. For me to wear a suit that I hate every minute that I’m wearing it to an event I’ve attended for the last six years in jeans and a t-shirt is pretentious.”
“Wait, you hate it every minute?”
A man in sunglasses passes on the sidewalk, then doubles back, stepping between them. “Hello Harvey,” he says warmly, and they hug.
They hug. Harvey hugs? The cheap plastic lid pops off of Mike’s coffee cup and lands with an ugly splat among their three sets of gleaming shoes.
Harvey says, “Careful, kiddo, I just got these shined.”
The man bends down quickly, gracefully, and picks up the lid. He holds it delicately between his thumb and finger and hands it back to Mike.
Mike puts it back on the cup because he has no idea what else to do with it.
“I’m Tom,” the man says. He’s wearing a crisp white shirt open at the collar and a week’s worth of beard. Mike envies that liberation. He checks the reflection of his own tie -- crooked, naturally -- in the reflection of Tom’s aviators.
His gold rimmed aviators.
Which say TOM FORD along one curve, letters etched into the polarized glass.
“Oh shit,” Mike says, “you’re Tom Ford.”
Harvey sighs, aggrieved. “My associate is always incoherent this early, Tom, but rarely so gauche.” He turns to Mike. “Pearson Hardman handles Tom’s domestic business affairs.”
“I’m new,” Mike says. “And definitely not awake yet. Sorry.”
Tom says, “Not at all,” and touches Harvey’s shoulder. (Harvey lets people touch him?) “I knew this lapel would look good on you,” he says.
Harvey waves him off in that way that actually means keep going. “I’m just a glorified hanger,” he says, and --
Harvey is flirting. In the middle of their regularly scheduled pre-work coffee sidebar. With Tom Fucking Ford and his smug stubble and his open collar. Mike should have never gotten out of bed today. He doesn't get sick days until next year but even so.
Harvey says, “Maybe you can help us settle a bet, Tom.”
Mike finds his voice. “We didn’t bet.”
“An argument.”
“We’re arguing now?”
Tom smiles, a shade more generous than Harvey has ever been before 9 a.m. “Of course,” he offers.
“Mike here thinks it’s acceptable to wear jeans and t-shirt to a graduation party.”
“It’s a recital at my grandmother’s best friend’s daughter’s music school. For children.”
Tom looks him up and down, pointed but professionally detached. He pushes up his glasses and squints in the morning sun. It’s a long deliberation, like Mike’s standing under a spotlight on Project Runway. Then Tom says, “You should always put on the best version of yourself when you go out in the world.”
Harvey nods, that sycophantic traitor in a three-piece suit. “Yes, exactly.” Harvey gestures magnanimously. “It’s a show of respect to the other people around you.”
“Okayyyy,” Mike says. But he can’t just leave it at that. “But what if a suit isn’t the best version of yourself? What if it’s someone else’s idea of the best version of yourself? How is that respectful to those around you?”
“Do you really hate it every minute?” Harvey asks.
“No, I said -- it’s like you don’t even pretend to listen to me --”
“Harvey, really,” Tom says, fond and -- it sounds like he’s wagging his finger, like how Harvey does every day about something Mike has done or not done or done but not done to his exacting, always changing standards. Mike has apparently been dismissed from this deliberation.
Harvey rolls his eyes a little, but when he speaks it’s almost sweet. “How’s Richard?” he asks.
Tom says, “He’s well. I’ll tell him you asked, though. He’ll appreciate that.”
“Please do.”
Tom leans in and kisses Harvey’s cheek, a breath away from his mouth, and Harvey’s hand comes up to squeeze Tom’s arm. “We should really discuss that retail deal in Chicago, I think it’s --”
Tom shakes his head. “You know I don’t do business in the middle of the sidewalk.”
“How about a proper dinner date, then?”
“We’re only here through Saturday.”
“Donna will figure it out,” Harvey promises.
Tom turns to face Mike. “You work in a world of suits,” he says. “Do you want them to see you -- or be too busy worrying about what you’re wearing?”
Harvey does his little shifty-eyed side glance towards the street, staying out of it. Two taxi drivers honk at each other. A hundred people push past them, rushing to work.
Tom stares steadily at Mike. There are flecks of gray among the stubble. Every single hair in his eyebrows is the same length, groomed at precise perfect angles to his face. He makes Harvey look thrown carelessly together.
Mike says, “Okay, yeah, thank you,” and Tom brushes a quick, bristly kiss across the far edge of Mike’s cheekbone, almost all the way over by his ear. Mike feels himself flush.
“Besides,” Tom says, “every man’s grandmother likes to see him dressed up.” He waves a little and slides effortlessly into the passing flow of pedestrians. A billionaire supermodel, momentarily anonymous. Mike loves this city as much as he hates how easy some people can make it look.
“Come on,” Harvey says. “We don’t want to be late for court.”
2.
“The court finds for the defendant. All legal fees and court costs to be paid by the plaintiff.”
Mike smirks at the judge banging her gavel, just as he always does. (“I mean -- of all the things about the law I thought were definitely fake,” he told Harvey once.)
That asshole from Rollins & Macgruder shakes Harvey’s hand, his palm like day-old fish, and it takes every ounce of breeding Harvey ever taught himself not to wipe the guy’s greasy sweat off on his pants.
“This is great,” Mike is saying, “it’s not even 11 and I know Donna thought it would take longer because she told me what a pain in the ass it was to reschedule your afternoon because Mrs. Lorshire will only meet over high tea at the Plaza and --”
Harvey snaps his briefcase shut and Mike closes his mouth. And just when Harvey was ready to get creative on how to do so for him. “Do you think we get the afternoon off because we won a judgment so relatively minor our own client didn’t even think it was worth his time to show up?”
“Lunch, at the very least,” Mike bargains, following Harvey out.
Mike always negotiates, especially with those who outrank him, which is another way Harvey can tell Mike really does have the potential to be a great lawyer. Plus he’s learning how to throw charm onto his pile of chips.
“Come on,” Mike says. A casual shrug as he slides into the car. “Gentleman’s lunch?”
“A gentleman has to work.”
“And wear a smart suit, yeah, I think I can tell where this is going. Did you take some kind of prep school class with your buddy Tom on how to be the most annoying gentleman ever? Hang on, let me find my pen.”
“You have to be passionate, Mike. You have to contribute to the world.” Harvey sighs. “People who don’t work are usually bored, not to mention boring themselves.”
“Well don’t worry. I’m a first-year associate. By that measure I’m the most fascinating person you’ve ever met. Even if you won’t feed me lunch.”
“I didn’t say you couldn’t -- and what the hell is a gentleman’s lunch anyway? I told you: no strippers.”
“You know,” Mike says, his mouth loose. “Lunch among men. Power lunches. Steaks and martinis at the club.”
“Nobody orders steak at lunch any more.”
“That’s so tragic,” Mike says. “What do they eat?”
“Chicken Caesar salad.” Harvey wants to rinse out his mouth just saying the words.
Mike shakes his head back and forth sadly but he smiles wide.
“And I didn’t go to prep school,” Harvey says, though he doesn’t mean to. Mike doesn’t need to know any more than he already does about how much they have in common.
“I’ll bet you a nice piece of steak Tom did, though. Is that guy for real?”
“‘That guy’ is a client with luxury flagship stores on five continents. His reality is ours.”
Mike drums his finger tips against the car door. He’ll say whatever it is he’s been holding in about Tom if Harvey gives him a minute. Or less. “You were flirting with him,” Mike says.
That’s not what Harvey was expecting. “Flirting is for 14 year olds," he says. “And he and Richard have been together since Tom was younger than you are.”
“So it was just because he enjoys the attention?”
“Who doesn’t enjoy being the focus of my attention?”
Mike blushes at that, just the tiniest bit, and Harvey chooses to let it go as Ray pulls up to their building.
Guy, the French hot dog vendor who is always out front, waves at Harvey as he steps out of the car. Harvey helped Guy chase down the seller of a phony city permit last year and he hasn’t let Harvey pay full price since.
He calls Mike back just before Mike hits the lobby doors. “I’ll buy you lunch,” he offers.
3.
“Stop fidgeting,” Harvey says, again, and Mike snaps.
“I know, Jesus, I promise not to embarrass you at dinner with the client. I know the right fork to use and --”
Harvey side-eyes him as he opens the front door. “I swear to God, if you count the tines --”
“You, sir, are no Richard Gere.”
Harvey stops at the vestibule’s speckled mirror, and Mike fixes his own tie and jacket until everything’s on straight. “Better,” Harvey says, and his touch on Mike’s elbow as they go down a darkened hall toward the host is light. Suggestive.
No, not suggestive. It’s just dinner with a very important client. Mike tries very hard not to fidget.
Briget Kirlaten is 15, maybe 20 years older than Mike and owns 7.3 percent of all commercial real estate in upper Manhattan. She drinks the lion’s share of a bottle of red wine Harvey orders without looking at a menu and tilts her head curiously at them, staring at whoever isn’t speaking, which only makes Mike talk more than he means to. He just gave some kind of soliloquy on sustainable apple orchards.
“It was in the Times last week,” he mumbles, pushing back his chair. “I just have to --”
Harvey stands up, too.
“I’m just going to --” Harvey raises an eyebrow. Mike turns to Briget. “Can you excuse me for a minute?”
She smiles, indulgent, a little intrigued, and when Mike glances back -- he just needs to pee, he’s had like eight glasses of water and he can’t shut up and this has to be the lesser of two social sins -- the waiter is laying a napkin across Harvey’s lap.
He stands again when Mike gets back. He pulls out Mike’s chair.
Mike sits down faster than if he’d been clubbed across the head. It’s obvious he’s missed another entry in the gentleman’s parade and pretty soon someone is going to notice Harvey’s treating him like a girl.
If it were Louis, Mike would understand. This would be one of his endless mindfucks designed to demonstrate which peacock had the biggest plume. Mike would mock him and Louis would threaten and Mike would call his bluff and unless it was something that mattered -- a case -- Louis would move on to an easier target and Mike would go back to whatever Harvey was waiting for him to finish.
Harvey’s challenges are live action. No practice rounds of Russian roulette, only real cliffs to run right off of if he miscalculates. Sometimes Harvey is there reaching out a hand and sometimes, especially in Mike’s fitful few hours of sleep between leaving the office and going back to it, Harvey just gives a little wave as Mike falls.
The point is, Harvey wouldn’t pull his punches to prove some macho point. Harvey knows his place at the top of the food chain. And he’s never been interested in going easy on Mike.
After Harvey has paid their check with some sleight of hand that never required reaching for his wallet, after he’s helped Briget put her coat on, after he’s grudgingly allowed Mike to hold her town car’s door as she climbs in -- after all that they’re back on the sidewalk together.
The summer night is ripe with New York’s finest sewage, the city’s grime wafting along every mighty avenue and tiny street, and still Harvey looks impeccable. Mike puts his hands in his pockets so they don’t yank his own tie off.
“That wasn’t a disaster,” Harvey allows. Ray is parked a few feet away, engine running, AC on behind those dark windows like a climate controlled tunnel to wherever the next stop on Harvey’s charm offensive may take him.
“Thanks for letting me come,” Mike says. “To dinner.”
Harvey doesn’t bother hiding how much he laughs at Mike. “You’re my favorite beck and call girl,” he says, and a swift moment after he raises a hand, a yellow cab slides to a stop at their feet. He opens the door for Mike and Mike gets in. “Good night,” Harvey says, and closes the door with one soft, smooth push.
4.
Harvey likes the coffee at the bodega a block away, so Ray drops him off and he walks from there, one cup in each hand, meeting Mike at the bike rack. If there are files he needs, Ray will be waiting with his briefcase, and if they need to get right back in the car to go to court, they can.
Of course walking one block a day in no way negates the fact that he’s a wealthy man with a chauffeured car and an associate who should be the one fetching breakfast. Harvey simply likes the brisk, brief physical reminder of his city pressed close and urgent against him.
As he waits for the cars to cross Fifth Avenue, he glances over towards the diner on the corner. Mike waves from inside. He’s sitting at the end of the counter, gesturing with his fork at Harvey to join him.
Harvey changes course.
“You’re supposed to be at work in --” He flicks back his cuff. “Eight minutes.” Harvey would have been early, would have leaned against the town car and drunk his own coffee slowly, looking up at the skyscrapers and feeling satisfied with everything over which he has power. Instead he’s inside a greasy corner diner with his insouciant associate.
Mike shrugs. “They have a $3.99 special,” he says, scooping egg into his mouth and inexplicably managing to avoid splattering yolk all over himself.
Harvey sets down Mike’s coffee next to the plate and Mike pulls off the plastic lid and takes a big gulp, face slack with gratitude.
“If you’re going to sit and eat,” Harvey says, “you should be reviewing the Martinson case.”
“But I’m talking to you.”
“But you weren’t. You were wasting at least a quarter of a billable hour and -- Jesus, how long does it take to even be asked if I want something to eat?”
“You eat at home.”
“That’s not the point. There are a dozen diners within six blocks of the office and you pick the one with absolutely no interest in providing the most basic in service --”
A hunchbacked waitress of approximately 75 years shoves a menu at Harvey and shuffles off.
“Be nice,” Mike warns, though he can’t possibly think Harvey is about to tear into a grandmother this early in the day.
“The way your brain works, we should be billing at least 18 or 20 hours of any given day, whether or not you have a file in front of you. You’re like the SETI project.”
Mike just stares.
“The computer program researchers use to sort through massive amounts of data in the background so that eventually they can spit out some useful finding about the potential of life on other planets.”
“Okay, Spock --”
“We don’t have a billable rate for a brain like yours, Mike. At the very least we shouldn’t be undercharging our clients for the privilege of having it turned in their direction.”
“I’m not a computer.”
“No. You’re Spock. Obviously.”
Mike stands up. “Okay, Captain Kirk, I’m done with my extremely inefficient morning meal. Let’s go.” He pulls out a wallet -- fake leather, Christ, it’s like he found Mike in a cardboard box -- and leaves a ten on the counter.
“If you take that up to the register, you’ll get your change faster,” Harvey says.
Mike slings his messenger bag over his shoulder and Harvey breathes in deeply and doesn’t reach out to take it right back off. “I’m good, let’s go.”
“But you’re leaving --” Harvey never hates Louis as much as he does in a moment when he’s forced to acknowledge that people, not numbers, are his purview. “That’s an obscene gratuity for what might at best be considered mediocre service. Mike --”
“It’s 250 percent, Harvey, and it’s my ten bucks, and if you can look at a woman that age who still works for tips and think it’s about math, you’re even more of an asshole than I realized.”
The door slams shut with an angry jangle. Harvey catches up to him at the corner. “Hey, Mike --”
“Whatever, Harvey, shouldn’t we talk about something we can charge someone for?”
Mike dodges a gaggle of Japanese tourists, taking long, angry strides toward their building. “Look, kid, don’t act like you’re the only guy who’s ever done a good goddamned deed in his life. I take care of plenty of people.”
“You take care of people who take care of you.”
“I bring you coffee!”
“And I’m your personal SETI project. Investing in someone’s potential or rewarding their loyal service is hardly a philanthropic act, Harvey.”
Mike gives the security guard a high-five and a restrained “What’s up, Matty?” on their way in. The elevator dings open and Mike steps back to let a pregnant woman carrying an oversized portfolio in ahead of them.
Harvey stands shoulder to shoulder with Mike all the way up to their floor, his ears popping as usual from the rapid rise. Mike fumes silently, jaw clenched.
Harvey pulls him back by his messenger bag strap just before he can dart down towards the associates cubicles. “Hey,” he says, low. “Wait a minute.”
“Do you really think it matters more what you wear than how you treat people?” Mike asks, and he’s not angry now. He’s preparing himself to be disappointed. “I’m not even talking about caring, I’m talking about basic human --”
“You’re right,” he says. Mike blinks. Harvey’s not going to say it again. “I am most inclined to spend my time and money on people I know, not random strangers. If that makes me an asshole, fine. But if someone I know -- someone I know well -- if they need me, there is nothing I wouldn’t do. And I can do that because I don’t expend energy on just any person passing by.”
“Oh my God,” Mike says. “You’re a Republican.”
“I know what it’s like to have nothing, and I won’t apologize now that I have nearly everything I could possibly want. But you -- you’re actually a good guy, Mike. You shouldn’t let anyone -- not even me -- turn you into anything else.”
They’re standing closer than Harvey realized, so close that when he lets go of Mike’s bag -- lesson over, apology (such as it is) done -- there’s nowhere for his hand to go but down Mike’s chest. He pulls away from Mike’s slim body and their wrists knock together. The back of Mike’s hand is smooth. It feels like Mike hasn’t taken a breath at all.
“Go on,” Harvey says. “Get to work.”
5.
Mike wakes up sweaty and nervous. He takes the train to SoHo and spends way too much money buying anything that looks remotely fashionable and not oppressively hot. As soon as he gets home, he drops all the bags on his bed and takes a shower.
There’s a text message waiting from Trevor -- so sick of cowboy hats -- and Mike drips on his floor for a long moment while uselessly debating whether to write back or delete it. It’s not like he can forget the text either way but still the minute stretches out, an endless elastic un-billable worthless minute like all the rest of his life he spent doing whatever Trevor wanted.
Mike is self-aware enough to realize he doesn’t always make the best choices.
Harvey said, “Be ready at five,” and Mike said, “Okay,” and Mike knew it was serious because neither of them even tried to make a joke of it. But as far as Mike can tell there’s no client, no obligated appearance on behalf of the firm. No reason. He’s just spending the last Saturday night of summer with Harvey for no reason whatsoever.
There’s a knock on his door at 4:59. Harvey is in the hallway, rocking back on his heels, in a dark blue shirt that stretches across his chest. He has one hand in the pocket of trim gray slacks, and Mike would swear for a second that even he looks confused about what’s happening.
“Are you wearing shorts?”
“I can take them off,” Mike offers, and then bites his lip. Sometimes just being near Harvey manages to get the better of him.
Harvey smiles slowly. “But then what will we do?” he asks, like after a million tries Mike has finally, impossibly gotten the point of a leading question.
“I spent a lot of money on clothes today, you know.”
“And that’s what you’re wearing? Show me what else you got.”
“What’s wrong with these?”
“You look like Vampire Weekend’s publicist.”
“They’re --” Mike cranes his head to look at the carcasses of his shopping bags. “I don’t believe you can name a single Vampire Weekend song. And they’re Marc Jacobs. And it’s summer!”
“There’s that one about commas that Donna sings when she types. And shorts should only be worn on the tennis court or on the beach.”
“Wanna go to the beach?”
“No,” Harvey says, and leans against the door frame.
Mike can’t stop talking. “Does this mean we’re skipping dinner?”
“I never said I was taking you to dinner. We’re not going anywhere as long as you’re wearing those goddamned shorts.”
“I believe there’s already an offer on the table.”
One eyebrow delicately raised. “You haven’t even asked me in.”
“Ohhh. A gentleman always has to be invited? Wait. That’s vampires. Are you a --”
Harvey comes in, draping himself briefly against Mike, his slick pants hot and smooth against Mike’s bare shins. Like kissing a girl, Mike thinks, because he can’t think like this at all.
“Why do you even care?” Mike fumbles out when Harvey’s stepped away, closed the door behind himself. They stand three feet apart in Mike’s tiny apartment, a fan wheezing from the window. Harvey’s shirt has four buttons down the front that don’t come anywhere near reaching each other, a shadow of dark hair at the bottom of the V.
“I care because it’s all a part of this life.” Harvey punctuates his statement with another step forward. Two feet apart.
“This life of deception, double-crossing, disbarment.”
“You wouldn’t dare double-cross me.” One foot.
“That’s true,” Mike says. “And it’s not like trying to impress you does any good.”
Harvey reaches out for Mike’s waist. His hand is hot through the thin t-shirt, five sharp points of pressure where his fingers hold Mike still and a smooth palm presses against Mike’s back, pulling him in until they’re touching from the hips down.
“Yes it has,” Harvey says, and kisses him. It’s a hungry, deep kiss, bruising Mike’s upper lip against his teeth, and Mike doesn’t realize he’s too shocked to move until Harvey freezes and begins trying to disentangle them. Mike makes an awful ridiculous growling noise, tugging on Harvey’s shirt to bring them back together.
He pushes up into the kiss and Harvey pushes back, bending him back a few degrees and it’s like a movie kiss, like the most unbelievable movie ever made because a week ago Mike didn’t even know Harvey could hug a guy and here they are in his sweltering studio apartment making out like they’re Clark Gable and it didn’t have anything to do with wearing a suit and --
“Oh,” he says, breathing hard, and tilts his forehead to Harvey’s very broad shoulder. “I get it.” Mike can’t stop himself from grinning. Harvey’s face relaxes, smile breaking through, and Mike says, “I get it now.”
Harvey shoves him back a few more feet toward the bed. “You’re gonna get it, all right.”
“You think if I don’t care about the suits and the cars and the food and everything -- that it’s not really real. That I can still just walk away.”
Harvey stiffens, that icy determination that is his only real tell. Mike really is right about this.
He touches Harvey’s wrist. “I’m really not going anywhere.” A slow thaw spreads across Harvey’s features, and Mike leans in to kiss him quickly.
“You wouldn’t get far in those shorts,” Harvey says.
“I’m just going to take these off, actually,” Mike says, yanking at the button and shoving them down, kicking off his shoes, too. He strips off his shirt because as much as he wants to do this he can’t stand around naked from the waist down and not feel like a total fool.
“Okay, now I’m really impressed.”
“Hey, not everyone here spends an hour a day at the gym, so don’t --”
“I’m not kidding,” Harvey says, and pokes his finger at Mike’s chest until he topples backward onto the mattress. “You’re not as nice as you act, you know.” He crawls up Mike’s body, shirt and slacks sliding against Mike’s skin, and bites Mike’s throat.
“Yes I am,” Mike protests, arching up. “I’m a perfect gentleman.”
END.