Fall Into Me - Part 2
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Harvey Specter didn't need anybody, it was what he'd prided himself on his entire life. He never needed anyone to help him move from a small town to New York, he never needed anyone when his brother had passed away and he'd certainly never needed anyone when he'd been made Senior Partner. He didn't need anyone because he did that, all of that, on his own, got through it on his own. Sure he'd had some short term fun, he sometimes did casual scenes with eager subs, but he'd never needed anyone until he met Mike.
But needing him, wanting him, that was a weakness and one he just wasn't going to allow himself to have. So after what he'd seen as effectively nipping a problem in the bud he'd tried to go back to normal, to what he assumed normal felt like. Because the more he thought about it the more he realized that from the start, from day one, his relationship with Mike had been anything but normal. He felt like even if he hadn't already been familiar with domination that they'd have ended up in the same place but maybe then he wouldn't have had to feel guilty about it.
Stopping himself hadn't been easy and while he still sent Mike around to do what he needed he stopped with the voice that he knew Mike responded to, he stopped touching him, standing close to him, he stopped stealing his coffee and looking into his eyes like he wanted to stare into them forever. Harvey did the best impression of a boss working with his employee that he could manage.
But the problem was he did it too well.
So instead of what he'd hoped would be a gradual change from where they'd been to where they should be, it was anything but. It was sudden and unnatural and Harvey felt the loss like he'd spent his whole life with his hand wrapped around something and now it was gone. But convinced it was for the best and he was doing the right thing he refused to back down, hoping one day it would get better, it would get easier and that they'd be alright again.
Before Harvey had come to talk to him that night, before Harvey had made Mike aware of things he'd been completely oblivious about until that night he'd never been aware of just how far they'd gone by that point and after - once Harvey stopped Mike was so painfully aware of what was missing. It was something he hadn't even known he was getting, something he hadn't even known he'd needed and then suddenly without it Mike felt lost.
He tried, he really did. Because Harvey said they needed to stop, that it wasn't appropriate and there was just too much that could go wrong, so Mike tried to stop it. He tried not to let himself get hopeful every time he went to see Harvey, tried not to wait to hear something in that all too familiar tone of voice, tried not to wait expectantly for the praise that didn't come.
It was harder than he'd thought it would be.
Nearly impossible, to be perfectly honest. Mike couldn't help it. He'd suddenly had his eyes opened to something that he didn't understand and it was all he wanted.
Harvey said he couldn't, because Mike didn't know what he was asking for - that at least was something he could fix. It took time, of course, but Mike managed to squeeze in his own personal research, starting with the internet. He looked up Dominant and submissive, looked up BDSM, spent far too much time on wikipedia trying to figure it all out and from there he'd gone to Amazon, because there was no way in hell he was going to check out any sort of book about any of this from the library.
Every night he went home and he read and learned and just like he told Harvey once he read something he understood it, and once he understood something he never forgot it. But like everything he'd read about law, this was all just knowledge from books, it wasn't a knowledge born from experience and trial and error the way most people learned. He could have found someone to teach him he supposed, Harvey had told him there were other Doms, other people who would be happy to have him, but Mike was stubborn and he didn't just want any other Dom, he didn't want some nameless person - he wanted Harvey.
Which was why he was standing outside Harvey's door for the second time, at least this time he could say he wasn't drunk. He did worry though, what Harvey would say - if he would simply tell him to leave and then close the door in his face, it was a chance that Mike was willing to take though.
He knocked and waited, hands clasped behind his back until Harvey opened the door. "I think we need to talk."
The last thing Harvey expected was Mike at his door, late at night and looking like a man on a mission. He worried for a moment that something might be wrong and that was why he stepped back and let the boy into his pristine apartment.
"Okay, talk," Harvey said, standing with his hands behind his back as he faced the window, looking out over the city.
Despite having come over to talk, to have this conversation with Harvey, Mike hadn't actually been prepared to step into Harvey's apartment. It took him a minute to get used to the idea that he had made it past that first step, what he'd thought was going to be the hardest step.
"Okay, so - you remember the last conversation we had, right?" Mike asked, but he continued without really waiting for Harvey to respond. "You said being a sub was something I had to decide for myself, not because you told me that was what I am. And you told me this - all of it was complicated and I didn't understand it. So I've been doing some reading since then, well a lot of reading - and I know I told you about me and reading and I think we should talk about this again."
Mike wouldn't claim to be an expert and he wouldn't claim to know everything, but what he would say is that he was far more informed this time than he had been before. And he would say that he had spent long enough thinking about this to know it wasn't just something born from Harvey's suggestion. And that was a starting point.
Harvey made a sound under his breath when Mike asked him if he remembered, sometimes he wondered if the kid really thought before he spoke, of course he remembered. But he was off and running before Harvey could answer and onto what he'd come here to say.
Breathing slowly in through his nose he turned around to face Mike, if they were going to talk seriously he'd need to let down a few of his usual walls and pretending Mike wasn't there really wouldn't do anyone any good. Sitting down at his end of the couch he crossed his legs and gestured to the other side. "Would you like to sit?" He asked, the words feeling wrong in his mouth even as he said them.
Mike said it all in a rush when he'd told Harvey why he'd come over, what he wanted to talk about. When Harvey asked if he wanted to sit, asked instead of told him to Mike hesitated. Maybe he hadn't expected to tell Harvey that he had been reading and then suddenly Harvey would change his mind and things would go back to the way they had been, but when nothing at all changed - well Mike was caught a little off guard.
"I- yeah." He nodded sitting down on the opposite side of the couch, pulling one leg beneath him. "I just, you said you couldn't explain it to me because I didn't understand what I was asking for - but I understand better now."
He was so sweet and eager, really just like the puppy Harvey had accused him of being, and Harvey struggled not to give in to what he felt like they both needed, he assumed he'd just have to struggle with that every day. "Oh, kid," Harvey said softly, bringing both his hands together in front of him so he wouldn't touch Mike.
"The bond between a submissive as his Master is... Well for a lot of people, me included, the most serious relationship there is. Now I've scened, casually. A Dom for a night kind of deal, but it wouldn't be like that with us. I wouldn't be able to turn it on and off, do you know what I mean?" Harvey asked, keeping his voice gentle as he watched Mike's face.
Mike bit his lip, watched Harvey while he spoke and just waited, waited for what he hoped wouldn't just be Harvey turning him down all over again. He nodded. "Yes, I know what you mean." Mike nodded, "I didn't come here to ask you for a one night thing, I don't want that, Harvey." He couldn't have done something casual - not if he was going to keep working with Harvey.
"That's not what I mean," Harvey said gently, patting the center seat of the couch so that Mike would move closer. "Look, some people practice in the bedroom, it's about sex and submission and heat and lust and I love that. I love hearing someone begging me to come for three hours, until their voice cracks and they have tears running down their faces," he said quietly, wanting to paint the picture for Mike. "But it's not just that for me, the reason I'm single, that I don't have someone is because with me it would be twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. There would be no off time, no down time. There would be you belonging to me, serving me, being mine, not just when you feel like it," Harvey said, tempted to shake Mike to get him to understand what he was trying to say.
Mike moved closer at Harvey's prompting. His stomach clenched when Harvey created a picture in his mind, that idea so clear Mike couldn't help the way he leaned toward Harvey just slightly. "This - us, Harvey. I didn't just come here to talk about it in theory with you. I work for you Harvey, I don't want to jeopardize that for something I'm not going to take seriously." He shook his head. "And I know it's been a while since you've been an associate but working at Pearson Hardman, it's a bit like a twenty four hour a day seven day a week job, I think I know what I'm asking for."
Harvey sighed, his lips thinning as he pressed them together, Mike sounded so sure of himself, so confident and that worried him, because he didn't know if he could feel the same confidence, not yet. "Do you know what subdrop is?" Harvey asked, trying to keep the same even tone in his voice and not get worked up.
"Subdrop is the return to normality, the coming down feeling that many submissives experience after intense scenes." Mike said the word which would have stumped him had Harvey asked him during that first conversation finding its definition in his mind this time easily. "It can be good or bad, and it varies from person to person, lasting anywhere from minutes, to hours, or days in some cases. More?" Mike asked, not sure if he could continue, not everyone appreciated his encyclopedic knowledge and there was a time and a place for all people.
He smiled, he couldn't help it, Mike was studying for this like it was just another test and he had to give him credit for it. "You're right. But that's just book knowledge, you don't know how it feels or what it might do to you and I just-" Harvey cut himself off, reaching out his hand and placing it on Mike's forearm. "I don't know if I'm ready to be a twenty four seven master any more than you are to be a twenty four seven sub. I don't-" he cut himself off again, cupping Mike's cheek gently in his other hand. "I don't want to ruin us both."
"It's not something I can just go out and experience for myself with just anyone," Mike protested because he knew that so much of what he knew about, well, everything was just book knowledge. It had been shown to him time and again that his ability to perfectly recall information wasn't always the only thing he needed to get the job done. "Can't we just try? I - I miss the way you used to touch me." Mike said slowly, closing his eyes and pressing toward that hand on his cheek.
He swallowed and opened his eyes again. "Harvey please, I've never wanted something like this before, not with anyone else - and it's all I can think about when I'm around you." Mike knew there was a line here, one that would be hard to cross back over again if Harvey did turn him away again. A line where he confessed things that might make it more than a little difficult if he was going to continue working with Harvey, but it felt like they were things that needed to be said. "I want to be good for you, and not just - not just winning cases and doing better work than the other associates. I want to be yours, Harvey."
There was a buzzing in his ears, he could still hear every delicious word Mike said but there was just this noise overlaying it and he felt like he couldn't think clearly. Harvey was going to make the wrong decision here, that felt like that was the only thing he knew but now he wasn't sure which one was wrong.
Mike wanted to be good for him and hell, he already was.
Harvey nodded slowly, biting the inside of his bottom lip. "You are always making me rethink everything I do and it's still annoying," he said, watching Mike carefully. Harvey hesitated for a moment before he slid his hand up Mike's arm and behind him, pulling the boy easily into his chest as he lay back against the arm of the couch. "There are going to be rules and we have so much to talk about before we can even think about starting this. Do you understand?"
Those moments when Harvey just looked at him, rather than responding, they stretched on for what felt like hours, to the point where Mike was sure this had been the biggest mistake of his life, coming here and telling Harvey Specter of all people that he wanted to belong to him. But then Harvey nodded, and he spoke and Mike couldn't help grinning.
He went easily when Harvey pulled him close, closed his eyes as he pressed into Harvey's chest and he nodded. "Rules are good, I like rules." Mike hadn't expected there wouldn't be rules if Harvey agreed to this, rules were something of a given in his mind.
Harvey's arms wrapped tightly around Mike as he gave in to holding him in a way he knew they'd never come back from. They'd never come back from any of this and maybe he didn't want to. Carding his fingers softly through the boy's hair he closed his eyes, like every single weight of the world was off his shoulders because Mike was in his arms. All of his concerns weren't gone, in fact they were still simmering under the surface but he felt like denying this was just forcing them both to live a lie. "Eyes up here," he said, finally letting himself use that tone, the one he saved just for Mike.
Everything clicked into place with that tone, that restless humming feeling that had been whirling around in his chest since Harvey had told him he needed to stop finally stilling again, and Mike couldn't do anything but lift his eyes like he was told.
"There's someone I want you to meet, her name is Lila Fisher," Harvey said with a smile. "I don't want you isolated in this, with no one you feel like you can trust or talk to. If you meet her and don't feel like you can tell her everything from how you love sucking cock to how it feels when I disappoint you then we'll find someone else and someone else until you find someone you would happily tell every single intimate detail to. Because this person is going to be your lifeline, okay?"
Mike nodded when Harvey told him about Lila, "Okay." He could do that, he could meet her and they could talk and Mike would try to see if she felt like someone he'd be able to talk to, though Mike wondered if there was actually such a person that he'd feel comfortable enough with to share that much. He couldn't even imagine telling Trevor anything about this and Trevor was his best and oldest friend. Like he imagined most things in this relationship with Harvey, it would take time.
"And when everything is ironed out and you're comfortable and I'm comfortable, we'll see," Harvey said as he stroked his fingers through Mike's hair again, never wanting to stop touching him now he'd started. At least now he wouldn't have to.
"But most importantly?" Harvey said as he slid his hand down over Mike's jaw, fingers sliding under his chin. "No one touches you without my permission. Within reason of course, handshakes for business, hugs for friends. But you do not kiss, you do not even look, and anyone who breaks that rule, you or otherwise, answers to me. Do you understand?"
It would have been all too easy to just close his eyes and just soak in that feeling of Harvey's fingers in his hair, fingertips against his scalp, and the steady rise and fall of his chest. But Mike didn't let himself do that, he looked at Harvey while he spoke and nodded. "We'll see." He repeated. He could wait, he could wait for things to be ironed out, so long as Harvey kept touching him it seemed.
Mike licked his lips when Harvey continued and this rule in particular perhaps more than any other Harvey might have given him felt like the ownership he'd wanted. "I understand." Mike didn't really touch people all that often as it was, and other than Harvey (for a time) most people rarely touched him as well.
Sliding his hand down to cup the back of Mike's head Harvey pressed down gently so that the boy would settle back against his chest. "Good boy," he said quietly, pulling more of Mike's weight onto him and letting it press him down into the cushions.
Donna had been watching Mike and Harvey ever since that first interview. She has known Harvey for years now, been taking care of things he didn't even know he needed as well as the things he knew he needed, and generally making herself as indispensable as humanly possible. It hasn't always been easy and there were a few times at the beginning when even she wasn't sure she had the wherewithal to deal with Harvey Specter for another second longer.
But she did, because she's Donna and Harvey might be the best closer in Manhattan but she was the best assistant in the city - more likely the state, but she left the ego trips to Harvey.
It was her job to take care of the things Harvey needed, she did the behind the scenes work, she had the connections around the office and with other firms in the city, and she was the one Harvey went to when he needs something.
And then came Mike Ross.
The seemingly unassuming kid who just stumbled his way into the best job he was ever going to get and into Harvey's life like it was no trouble at all. That's not to say he didn't struggle, because Donna saw him struggle every day - from that very first day all the way through until the present day.
But more than just struggling she had seen Mike wanting, she'd seen the way he looked at Harvey, and she'd seen the way Harvey looked at him, she'd seen the small smiles and the way Mike ducked his head when Harvey deigned to let the kid know that he was actually doing a great job, and she'd seen the way he sort of curled in on himself when he knew he'd messed up. The way he snapped to attention, and that tone of voice Harvey slipped into around him.
Some people might not piece it all together, some people might just see a kid eager to prove he could do the job, and some people might write off Harvey's behavior as exasperation, or frustration, maybe even pride occasionally. But Donna wasn't some people, and she'd known Harvey long enough to know what is going on when she saw it.
Particularly when things started to change.
Harvey understood that everything changed, that everything was constantly evolving and that fighting that would leave him old and out of touch, unable to do much of anything at all. But that way he and Mike were changing felt fast, too fast. Maybe being a natural, or two naturals it seemed, was dangerous. It felt like once they both know what they were doing, once they'd given in to it, it was in every single thing they did.
It probably was all ready.
Mike made Harvey smile, sometimes it was just a twitch of his lips, because he was proud, or an outright grin because Mike was goofy and young and charming. But he felt it more now, that little smile that said what he couldn't you're doing so well, boy because there was no place for that in his office.
He worried they weren't hiding it well, but he also knew that people don't often notice things that were right under their nose. Harvey also assumed they weren't going to read into something they probably didn't understand. Or that was his hope.
Standing beside the big glass windows in his office he watched Mike head back to his desk, lips pursed before he looked back over the city. They aren't even doing anything yet, they're not ready, they're just not fighting it anymore and it was already everything Harvey wants it to be.
"Do you know what you're doing with him?" Donna never bothered with beating around the bush, or trying to play coy with Harvey. She'd earned that right, just like she'd earned the right to listen in on every conversation that happened in Harvey's office if she wanted to.
She closed the door behind her when she stepped inside, giving them as much privacy as a firm filled with glass walls could offer. "Does he know what you're doing with him, might be the better question though."
Glancing at Donna he raised his eyebrows, wondering just how much she knew, probably everything knowing her. "I'm thinking about selling him on the black market if he screws up this case," Harvey said with a little smile, determined not to give away any information she might not already have.
"I'm sure he has no idea about my plans to profit from selling him to the highest bidder, no," he added.
"This is not like when Scotty comes to town and we pretend like I don't know exactly what you two are doing." She warned him, because she had no doubt in Harvey's ability to continue to play dumb far longer than she had the patience for if that was what he thought was best, and she was going to stop that thought right then and there.
Pursing her lips she looked at him, he'd seemed - happier she thought, though there were a few days when he was anything but happy, leaving the office in a mood only to return the next day like everything was right once again. She'd seen the same change in Mike, it didn't take a genius. "Now, you will tell me what you're doing with that boy, and you will not leave anything out, and you will not sell him or I am going to take all of that vacation time I have been saving up, and leave you with a temp. Now talk."
It wasn't at all like it was with Scotty, but Harvey wasn't going to even go in to that, the two were just too totally different situations.
There was no crossing Donna, no messing with her either, unless it was harmless fun and he knew keeping anything from her was pointless. Sitting back against his neck he scanned the hallway for a moment before looking back at her. "I'm going to give you the quick version, he started here, we are a certain way with each other, a way I don't feel like I need to go in to because you're so ridiculously smart. I realized what we were doing. I talked to him, informed him because he had no idea. I ended it. He educated himself, came to me, asked me to take him back and we're still working out the fine print," he said quickly, trusting Donna to keep up and read between the lines.
She'd come into his place and seen handcuffs hanging around and listened in on him more than enough times to know exactly what was going on.
Donna listened while Harvey explained, the quick version with as few details as possible, but it was enough. Enough that it allayed her fears for them both, at least slightly. She really would have had to smack Harvey if he was doing all of this and either wasn't aware of it or hadn't made sure Mike was aware of it too.
"And how is the fine print going?" She asked, raising an eyebrow at him, she didn't need details about this - because Harvey was more than welcome to do whatever he liked in his private life, but they were bringing it into the office now, and that made it her problem too.
Usually when he started talking to Donna about something serious, all it did was remind Harvey she needed a raise. "It's slow going, I'm taking precautions to protect him, every single one I can," Harvey said as he slid his hands into his pockets. "I still feel like I'm going to end up getting sued."
She might be the best, but if something happened to Harvey here, she would likely be dragged into that as well, and her looking out for Harvey was just as much her looking out for herself. "You do know that you don't hide it as well as you think you do, right? Louis won't notice, but someone might."
The idea that someone would notice worried him and he looked down at Donna, considering her for a moment. "Do you say that because you know everything or are you saying I'm being obvious?"
Donna loved Harvey, not a romantic love because well this was Harvey and Donna would never let herself do something like that - but she loved him in the way that she loved people who were important to her. People who saw her for more than just a personal assistant and treated her like an actual human being. It was the sort of love born of years of working with Harvey and seeing him at his very best and at some of his very lowest points.
And now here they were, and she watched the way Harvey seemed to still be looking for answers, so unlike the man she knew. "Both." She answered smoothly, because she did know everything, and Harvey was being obvious - though it was a relative term. Obvious for Harvey didn't mean the same thing it meant for everyone else. "You've been smiling too much."
The idea that he'd been smiling so much was ludicrous, because Harvey was a lot of things but he wasn't the sort of person who stood around smiling because of a boy. So he just made a face at Donna and looked away.
"Maybe you should talk to someone about this." She suggested. Because she could be the one to tell Harvey when he was being a complete idiot, and she could make him tell her when he was doing something that had the potential to be bad for all of them, but she couldn't give him advice in this case. "Someone who has some experience in all of this, rather than just standing around waiting to be sued. You don't normally need the push to act, but this is me giving it to you now - do not make a mess of this, and do not be too proud to ask for help, Harvey."
He'd been so worried about finding Mike someone to talk to and support him; he'd never even considered maybe he needed it too. But now that Donna said it, he realized she was right. Usually one never to ask for directions maybe he did need someone, someone who knew how this felt, just to get out some of his concerns. "Alright," Harvey said simply, bowing his head a little bit. She was right, but that wasn't a surprise.
"Let's go to lunch," Harvey said, pushing off the desk and placing his hand gently on her elbow to steer her towards the door. He really wasn't going to hug her in his office, he wasn't that stupid and she deserved better than that rumor going around, but the touch to her elbow meant the same thing. "I'm sure you've got a list of places you've been waiting to use to bankrupt me."
A simple agreement was all Donna needed, just to be sure that Harvey was aware of what was happening and this wasn't going to be something that went up in smoke before it had even begun. Harvey was a brilliant man; he just occasionally needed someone else to remind him of common sense.
"Funny that you mention it, I know just the place." She assured him, smiling easily, her worries put to rest for the moment.
Lila Fisher was young, but she was the sort of woman who knew what she wanted and had made quite the life for herself in New York. She'd grown up in a big family, twelve brothers and sisters and hippy parents that really should have stopped with three children. But they'd lived on a big property and had been almost totally self-sustained.
Like most people to leave their families at sixteen, young stupid love had moved her to New York and while it hadn't lasted she'd fallen for the city instead. Now at twenty four she owned her own vegan cafe and lived over it, with a roof top vegetable garden and a compost heap that drove the neighbors crazy.
The cafe was quiet after about 8pm and Lila remained, having tea with a few of her lingering regulars until they headed home as well. Leaving the door unlocked, because she was expecting someone, she flipped the sign to closed and headed back to make a fresh pot of chai.
It was an early night for Mike all things considered, so often he found himself working late into the night at the office, either going through records looking for precedence or looking for loopholes, or just anything that was dropped onto his desk during the day, that being out of the office before 10 felt just a little wrong.
And yet there he was on the street looking for the cafe where he was supposed to meet Lila that evening. He still wasn't entirely sure how this was going to go, or what he was supposed to do at this meeting but having someone he could talk to had seemed important to Harvey, so Mike was more than willing to give it a shot.
"Hello?" The sign said closed, but the door was open when Mike stepped inside, taking in the room around him, noticing little details that made up the whole, the way he usually did in new places. "The door was open; I'm looking for Lila Fisher." Mike was pretty sure he'd seen a horror movie start like this once, and he was just going to pretend that thought hadn't entered his mind just then. Harvey wouldn't send him somewhere to get killed.
Lila heard the door, quickly finishing wiping down the sink and drying her hands on the front of her apron before sliding it over her head and hanging it up. "You found her," she called back as she collected everything on the tray they'd need for tea and balancing it on her arm as she headed back out to the front.
When Harvey had asked her to talk to his friend, Lila had been confused. But once Harvey had started talking about Mike it was clear to her what was going on and honestly, she was thrilled for him. He was a good man and a good Master and he deserved to be happy. Although she was curious who had caught his eye.
Well she wouldn't have to be curious for much longer.
"Mike, hello, I'm Lila," she said as she put the tray down on one of the low tables where they could sit comfortably on some of the large cushions. Straightening up she took his hand, not really shaking it but holding it gently in hers for a moment. "It's lovely to meet you."
Mike wasn't exactly sure what he'd expected when Harvey had told him he had someone he wanted him to talk to, but the woman who greeted him was not what he'd expected at all. And Mike realized how much that image he had of Harvey had spread from just the man himself to the people he might or might not interact with outside the office.
"It's nice to meet you, too." He said, watching the way she took his hand in hers. "So you know Harvey, right?" He asked her, still caught at that point where he wasn't sure what he was supposed to say or ask or where to start.
"I do, Harvey is an old friend and a much older friend of my Master," she said gesturing to the table as she let his hand go. Taking a seat herself she simply smiled and waited to see if he'd do the same. "He's sat right here many times, he hates it, he says sitting on the floor is for children," Lila said with a warm smile.
Mike filed that away, adding it to the folder of information he was gathering about Lila. He was curious, but that was usually a constant state of being for Mike, though here with Lila he felt it more than he did most of the time. He'd only just met her and she had mentioned her Master. It was - well Mike didn't know what it was, he was still trying to understand all of this and people who just talked about Masters weren't really a part of his understanding just yet.
"You got Harvey to sit on the floor?" Mike asked, just a little disbelieving, pausing for just a moment before he sat too - he didn't mind the floor on principle the way Harvey no doubt did. "That does sound like Harvey."
"I got Harvey to sit on the floor, of course I never asked him to, that wouldn't have worked," Lila said with a laugh.
"You didn't kick his legs out from under him did you?" Mike asked, the weird image of Lila not asking but just making Harvey sit on the floor suddenly jumping into his mind, and then past his lips without his permission.
Lila laughed, shaking her head and grinning at Mike. "No, of course not. I told him people who don't sit, don't eat and that seemed to be enough. You'll understand when you taste my vegan curry."
Mike smiled, he thought he'd have liked to see Harvey sitting on the floor here just for a chance to have some vegan curry. Maybe he would one day.
"I don't really know how this is supposed to work." He admitted to her, legs folded beneath him, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. "Harvey said it was important I have someone I could talk to, and he suggested I talk to you, but..." Mike trailed off not really sure how to frame his own doubts into actual words just yet.
Slowly pouring them both tea she added a little sugar and soy milk to hers and pushed a cup across the table to Mike. "It's alright to be nervous," she assured him, pushing her dreadlocks to one side. "We're just going to talk, tell some stories, drink some tea, you don't have to do anything, this isn't a test," Lila assured him, her voice calm and serene, but it almost always was.
He watched the way she poured the tea and then the way she fixed her own before he pulled his own cup closer, feeling the warmth of the tea through the ceramic of the cup against his palm and fingers. "Life is a test." Mike said pulling the quote from something he'd read, and then shaking his head. "Sorry, ignore me; I'm a little nervous about all of this." Though he suspected that much was painfully obvious by this point, subtlety had never been one of Mike's strong points - especially when he was nervous. "I'm sort of new to all of this, if Harvey didn't tell you."
Nodding she stirred her tea slowly, letting it cool off. "I really don't need Harvey telling me you're new to see that for myself, Mike," she said with an easy smile. "But look, I'm not going to call Harvey once you leave and tell him all about you and if you did the right thing, it's not like that. You and I are equals and it's not my right to judge you or make decisions for you. So there isn't a right answer or a wrong answer to anything we do here tonight. We're just talking." Lila assured him. "I'm sure there are things you'd like to ask me, about serving someone, about everything that's got you this tense."
Painfully obvious, Mike was sure that described him very accurately at the moment, but Lila didn't act like it was a problem, she just looked like maybe she understood a little bit of what he was feeling at the moment. Just talking though, he could handle just talking - he was pretty sure Harvey thought he might do a little too much talking occasionally, so really this should have been easy for him.
"How did you know?" Mike asked, blurted really when she suggested that he might have questions. "I mean - how did you know that serving someone was something you wanted to do? Do people just know these things about themselves?" And if they did, what did it say about Mike that it had taken Harvey sitting him down to see it?
Lila smiled, glad that Mike was off and asking her questions, it was progress. "I didn't, at first. When I was younger I got into trouble a lot, I just..." She faded off, taking a sip of her tea. "I wanted someone to see me, I wanted someone to look at me and need me, and I didn't want to be invisible. So I acted out, because even bad attention was better than none." Lila explained, fiddling with one of the beads at the bottom of one of her dreadlocks. "Then I started dating the wrong men, men that would hurt me and use me, because I felt worthless and I wanted to be treated that way, too." Lila's voice was steady, because even talking about things that had once been incredibly painful could no longer touch her anymore.
"I moved to the city with a man when I was sixteen and he cut me off from everything I knew, everyone I knew. He wouldn't let me have shoes or leave the apartment without him. He made me a prisoner and I still craved it, I still wanted him to tell me that I was worthy and loved. One day he came home from work and he was furious, not at me, just in general. I was cooking and he threw the hot pot of water on me," she said, pushing up her sleeves to show Mike the scars. "I was a mess, I was eighteen and I was terrified, I didn't have anything except a cruel man who thought that I was just a thing he could hurt and use and I still thought that everything was okay, because he made me feel like I'd never felt before, like I was whole." Lila paused, knowing it was best she just finish the story rather than wait for feedback. "I started doing research, in the middle of the night, I thought that maybe I was mentally ill, that's originally what I went looking for, but that's not what I found. I found a fetish website and feeling daring I sent a girl a message and just... Let it all out. She came and got me the next day and I never went back." Lila smiled and took another sip of her tea.
"I realized that everything I wanted didn't make me sick and it didn't mean I deserved to be treated like I'd let him treat me. It didn't make me weak, it made me strong. And then I just... thrived. It's like suddenly I was who I was always wanted to be and all the puzzle pieces fit together. Then I met Harvey and he introduced me to his friend Troy and it was like..." Lila paused, looking for the right words to describe it. "It was like fireworks. He looked at me and I couldn't fall to my knees fast enough. I found the place where I belong and I just knew, I knew and I'd always known, that's where I need to be," she finished, resting her chin in her hand.
"And I'm sorry, I got a little carried away there, but I thought the start is usually the best place to begin."
Mike just listened, while Lila told him her story - so much more than he'd been expecting almost to the point where Mike felt uncomfortable knowing so much about Lila all ready, while he hadn't really told her anything about himself.
And at the same time there were parts of her story that Mike recognized in himself.
That need to be seen, for attention of any kind, and letting that need lead to bad choices. His life hadn't taken him in the same direction Lila's had, but he'd have never ended up involved with drugs and taking tests for people who couldn't be bothered doing the work themselves to get into law school if not for that need - whether it was attention from Trevor or just the people who saw value in him for the skills he could provide. He could see a series of poor decisions that had lead him to Harvey and that point where things just clicked for him, like suddenly things were right for the first time in his life.
"The beginning is a good place to start." Mike agreed, fingers tapping against the side of his cup, while he thought for a moment.
"I didn't actually mean to ... to want any of this," Mike started. "I'm not sure if that's the right way to say it, it's kind of complicated. I think maybe it's something I've always wanted, I just didn't really know I wanted it, Harvey just brings it out in me, more than anyone else has before." And there had been others, Mike could see that now, Trevor most notably, though that was another case of neither one of them realizing what was happening. Trevor had simply been his friend and that was enough of an explanation for Mike.
He bit his lip not sure where he was going with this train of thought. "It's a little scary though, when I suddenly became aware of it and seeing the way it had worked into so much of how I interacted with Harvey without even realizing it, and I don't - it's like things wouldn't be right between us without that. Does that make sense? I feel like I'm just rambling without a point."
Lila smiled affectionately, nodding her head towards him. "No one means to, it's a part of you, even if it's a part you choose never to recognize, it won't ever go away." She said, hoping to reassure him a little bit.
"It can be scary and intense, but you're making perfect sense and you're only rambling a little bit," Lila said with a kind laugh, sipping her tea again. "He completes you," she said simply. "And that scares you, because you're not used to needing someone so much and you're scared that when it's gone, because everyone has always let you down, that you won't know what to do?" Lila suggested her voice quiet.
It was a little unfair, Mike thought, that Lila just seemed to understand him so easily when he was still struggling to understand himself. He nodded though, watching the way the tapping of his fingers made little ripples in his cup. "That's a sort of constant theme in my life." He agreed, things with his parents hadn't been easy at the best of times, and then they were gone, and the way people didn't really know what to do with him after they'd died, kids who had been his friends slipping away until he was left with only Trevor, but even Trevor was gone now.
"And I know it's not - maybe it would be better to not do this, the way he'd said at the start. We work together. Harvey is my boss and if something goes wrong, I'm not just going to lose him." It was going to be everything this time, the biggest and most spectacular loss he'd ever had in his life and Mike would know there had been a point where he could have stopped it. He could have taken the out Harvey had given him and let that be it. But he'd pushed, he'd crossed the line and now all he could do was wait it out - wait for everything to work or everything to fall apart.
He breathed out slowly and looked at her, she was easy to talk to, something he hadn't expected - despite knowing the reason why Harvey had put them in contact with one another, and at the same time he felt like he hadn't known the right thing to say since he arrived. "I've messed up a lot in my life, and I don't just want this to be another addition to my list of failures."
Lila reached out, resting her hand on his sleeve, careful not to touch his skin, she had rules to follow. "Shhh," she whispered gently, trying to sooth him, but knowing there was probably only one person who could and he wasn't here. "You are not your mistakes and you are not your failures. You can't limit yourself because you're scared. Imagine if you never did anything you were afraid of, Mike. What would you have?" She asked, her head cocking to one side.
He nodded, understanding her point - he wouldn't have even met Harvey if he hadn't done things he was afraid of, he wouldn't be here now, and he wouldn't be in this hugely scary position. "I've spent a long time telling myself I'd never get the things I wanted from life, and now I'm in a place where the things I want and things I didn't even know I needed might actually be attainable," He exhaled in a rush shaking his head. "It's a little terrifying just how close I am to those things right now." And despite what he'd said to Harvey when he'd thought the other man was focusing only on the negative Mike found it was easier to see just how badly it could go than well.
"Do you do this often?" He asked her instead, trying to clear his head just a little. "Talk to people like me?"
The last thing Lila wanted was a nice boy like Mike to miss out on something that would probably be good for him, but more than that she didn't want Harvey and Mike to miss out on each other. "You need to relax, because all this tension is going to send you into an early grave," Lila told him gently.
"Sometimes," Lila admitted as she got to her feet, moving behind the front counter to open a jar and pull out two brownies, putting them on a plate and returning to Mike again. "Harvey is part of my... let's call them a family. He's dear to me and that makes you dear to me too, Mike." She smiled as she pushed the plate over to Mike. "Peanut butter and chocolate vegan deliciousness brownie, it'll help. It helps everything."
"Sorry," Mike apologized by rote and shook his head for a minute just trying to get a hold on himself and stop the way his thoughts were suddenly spiraling in a way that he couldn't seem to stop. He took a few slow breaths and thought briefly about Harvey, not about his fear and what it would be like to lose him, but he thought about that night when he'd gone to Harvey's apartment, thought about laying against Harvey's chest and the steady even tempo of his heartbeat, and Harvey's hand in his hair and he let that help bring everything back down several notches.
And when he was feeling just a little more ready to talk without borrowing trouble, Lila had returned offering him a brownie. "Thanks," where he'd mostly ignored the tea up to this point Mike broke of the corner of the brownie and ate it, sighing happily a moment latter and nodding. "Yeah," He agreed. "That helps."
"I'm glad, I think that there isn't anything that can't be fixed by food that is made with love," Lila said with a smile.
"Can I ask about that family?" He wondered.
When Mike asked about the family Lila nodded happily, leaning across the table to grab a large book off the shelf behind Mike. It was leather and soft and she set it down between them, opening to the first few pages. It was a scrapbook with lots of things stuck in, recipes, newspaper articles and she flipped past the first few pages towards the middle where there was a large group photo.
"This is Elle," Lila said, starting on the far left of the first row of the small group. "She's who I contacted that first time, when I needed help. She's not like you and I, she uses a scene as a release but would never answer to anyone in her day to day life. But she's perfect, you'll like her." Lila said with a fond smile. "That's Riley, me of course and Rob," she said as she finished the first row. "Now, this is Amy, but she'll ask you to call her Miss Amy, and Rob is hers, that's my Master," Lila pointed to the tall man with his finger wound around one of Lila's dreadlocks in the photo. "And of course Harvey," she finished, turning the book so he could get a better look at it.
Mike smiled, Lila reminded him just a little of Grammy, the way she set him at ease and food made with love - she was just a little more eclectic than his gran had ever been, at least as far as Mike knew, sometimes there was just no telling with her.
He looked at the people in the photo that Lila showed him, two familiar faces in the gathered group, while assigning names to the others gathered there. "And -" Mike tried to find the connection between them or what they must mean to each other without an obvious connection. "And the seven of you do what? I mean, you're - you share this stuff with each other?" Mike was just trying to understand it, "I don't know, Harvey told me I needed someone I could talk to about this, that you could be a life line, that I should be able to tell you about things, that's what the family is? Just on a bigger scale?"
Lila laughed again, giving a half shrug. "Sort of, but we don't just sit around talking about sex and bondage and what we did in the bedroom last night, any more than anyone else does." Lila explained. "Harvey sent you here because he knows how hard it can be to be alone, to feel things that you don't feel like you can tell anyone. Because he hopes that if something is happening you don't like that you feel like you can't tell him, you'll tell me and I'll help you. The family is like that, but more than that, they're a family."
Pausing she flipped through the book a few more pages. "This is when Elle got her promotion, this is when Rob graduated med school," Lila pointed out more photos, hoping they'd help explain. Flipping back to near the start she smiled at a photo of her and Harvey, when she'd still been a teenager. "This was the day that Harvey won my case, get me a settlement because of my burns and that meant I could buy this place. It was only Elle, Harvey, Amy and I then and we drank champagne right here, although I've done a lot of work since then."
"So you don't sit around talking about sex and bondage with them, but we're meant to?" Mike said and then shook his head, that didn't sound right either and instead he let her tell him more about her family, his imagination was running on overdrive tonight while he was there with Lila.
Lila laughed and nodded her head when Mike seemed even more confused. "We're meant to talk about anything you want to talk about, I think Harvey picked me because a whole group is intimidating, but one person is easier."
Mike nodded, thinking about how he might have reacted if faced with the entire group this first night and decided one person was definitely best.
Looking back to Mike she pushed the book closer to him, leaving him free to look through it. "Are you starting to understand?"
He started flipping through the book of photos when Lila pushed it toward him, seeing events shared between the people in the first picture. Harvey with these people, a whole life separate from what Mike had thought was all Harvey had.
"Starting too." Mike nodded slowly, not completely but as a start. Mike rubbed a hand over his face.
"I can come back, right? I mean after tonight?" Mike asked. "I just have a feeling I'm not going to be getting to everything I really do want to know about tonight." It was all just a lot to take in and Mike knew himself well enough to know how distracted he was.
"You can come back every day if you want to, Mike. Even if it's just for the brownies. I live upstairs so I'm around a lot." Lila said as she gently closed the book.
He chuckled softly and nodded. "I doubt I'd be able to come every day, they keep me kind of busy at the firm - but I'd like to come back." He told her. "It's been a while since I've had someone I can really talk to." He couldn't imagine talking about this to anyone that he knew all ready, just knowing that he and Lila had a shared connection that helped.
"I was trying to think about what kind of wisdom I could impart to you, but I'm not an expert either," she said, finishing off her tea. "But this is the most important advice anyone ever gave me and it's something I always want you to remember. A Dom has the control, but a sub has the power. No matter what happens, you have the power and you choose to give someone else the control. You are not weak, Mike. You're strong and you should never feel like being a submissive makes you lower than the other people you live your life beside."
He didn't feel weak, perhaps briefly when he only felt confusion about all of this, but when he was with Harvey weakness was not what he felt. It just felt right, it felt comfortable, and it felt right. "But some people will think that, whether or not I feel it." And that was why he thought it might be best that it was Lila he was talking to about all of this and not someone else.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Master Post
Harvey Specter didn't need anybody, it was what he'd prided himself on his entire life. He never needed anyone to help him move from a small town to New York, he never needed anyone when his brother had passed away and he'd certainly never needed anyone when he'd been made Senior Partner. He didn't need anyone because he did that, all of that, on his own, got through it on his own. Sure he'd had some short term fun, he sometimes did casual scenes with eager subs, but he'd never needed anyone until he met Mike.
But needing him, wanting him, that was a weakness and one he just wasn't going to allow himself to have. So after what he'd seen as effectively nipping a problem in the bud he'd tried to go back to normal, to what he assumed normal felt like. Because the more he thought about it the more he realized that from the start, from day one, his relationship with Mike had been anything but normal. He felt like even if he hadn't already been familiar with domination that they'd have ended up in the same place but maybe then he wouldn't have had to feel guilty about it.
Stopping himself hadn't been easy and while he still sent Mike around to do what he needed he stopped with the voice that he knew Mike responded to, he stopped touching him, standing close to him, he stopped stealing his coffee and looking into his eyes like he wanted to stare into them forever. Harvey did the best impression of a boss working with his employee that he could manage.
But the problem was he did it too well.
So instead of what he'd hoped would be a gradual change from where they'd been to where they should be, it was anything but. It was sudden and unnatural and Harvey felt the loss like he'd spent his whole life with his hand wrapped around something and now it was gone. But convinced it was for the best and he was doing the right thing he refused to back down, hoping one day it would get better, it would get easier and that they'd be alright again.
Before Harvey had come to talk to him that night, before Harvey had made Mike aware of things he'd been completely oblivious about until that night he'd never been aware of just how far they'd gone by that point and after - once Harvey stopped Mike was so painfully aware of what was missing. It was something he hadn't even known he was getting, something he hadn't even known he'd needed and then suddenly without it Mike felt lost.
He tried, he really did. Because Harvey said they needed to stop, that it wasn't appropriate and there was just too much that could go wrong, so Mike tried to stop it. He tried not to let himself get hopeful every time he went to see Harvey, tried not to wait to hear something in that all too familiar tone of voice, tried not to wait expectantly for the praise that didn't come.
It was harder than he'd thought it would be.
Nearly impossible, to be perfectly honest. Mike couldn't help it. He'd suddenly had his eyes opened to something that he didn't understand and it was all he wanted.
Harvey said he couldn't, because Mike didn't know what he was asking for - that at least was something he could fix. It took time, of course, but Mike managed to squeeze in his own personal research, starting with the internet. He looked up Dominant and submissive, looked up BDSM, spent far too much time on wikipedia trying to figure it all out and from there he'd gone to Amazon, because there was no way in hell he was going to check out any sort of book about any of this from the library.
Every night he went home and he read and learned and just like he told Harvey once he read something he understood it, and once he understood something he never forgot it. But like everything he'd read about law, this was all just knowledge from books, it wasn't a knowledge born from experience and trial and error the way most people learned. He could have found someone to teach him he supposed, Harvey had told him there were other Doms, other people who would be happy to have him, but Mike was stubborn and he didn't just want any other Dom, he didn't want some nameless person - he wanted Harvey.
Which was why he was standing outside Harvey's door for the second time, at least this time he could say he wasn't drunk. He did worry though, what Harvey would say - if he would simply tell him to leave and then close the door in his face, it was a chance that Mike was willing to take though.
He knocked and waited, hands clasped behind his back until Harvey opened the door. "I think we need to talk."
The last thing Harvey expected was Mike at his door, late at night and looking like a man on a mission. He worried for a moment that something might be wrong and that was why he stepped back and let the boy into his pristine apartment.
"Okay, talk," Harvey said, standing with his hands behind his back as he faced the window, looking out over the city.
Despite having come over to talk, to have this conversation with Harvey, Mike hadn't actually been prepared to step into Harvey's apartment. It took him a minute to get used to the idea that he had made it past that first step, what he'd thought was going to be the hardest step.
"Okay, so - you remember the last conversation we had, right?" Mike asked, but he continued without really waiting for Harvey to respond. "You said being a sub was something I had to decide for myself, not because you told me that was what I am. And you told me this - all of it was complicated and I didn't understand it. So I've been doing some reading since then, well a lot of reading - and I know I told you about me and reading and I think we should talk about this again."
Mike wouldn't claim to be an expert and he wouldn't claim to know everything, but what he would say is that he was far more informed this time than he had been before. And he would say that he had spent long enough thinking about this to know it wasn't just something born from Harvey's suggestion. And that was a starting point.
Harvey made a sound under his breath when Mike asked him if he remembered, sometimes he wondered if the kid really thought before he spoke, of course he remembered. But he was off and running before Harvey could answer and onto what he'd come here to say.
Breathing slowly in through his nose he turned around to face Mike, if they were going to talk seriously he'd need to let down a few of his usual walls and pretending Mike wasn't there really wouldn't do anyone any good. Sitting down at his end of the couch he crossed his legs and gestured to the other side. "Would you like to sit?" He asked, the words feeling wrong in his mouth even as he said them.
Mike said it all in a rush when he'd told Harvey why he'd come over, what he wanted to talk about. When Harvey asked if he wanted to sit, asked instead of told him to Mike hesitated. Maybe he hadn't expected to tell Harvey that he had been reading and then suddenly Harvey would change his mind and things would go back to the way they had been, but when nothing at all changed - well Mike was caught a little off guard.
"I- yeah." He nodded sitting down on the opposite side of the couch, pulling one leg beneath him. "I just, you said you couldn't explain it to me because I didn't understand what I was asking for - but I understand better now."
He was so sweet and eager, really just like the puppy Harvey had accused him of being, and Harvey struggled not to give in to what he felt like they both needed, he assumed he'd just have to struggle with that every day. "Oh, kid," Harvey said softly, bringing both his hands together in front of him so he wouldn't touch Mike.
"The bond between a submissive as his Master is... Well for a lot of people, me included, the most serious relationship there is. Now I've scened, casually. A Dom for a night kind of deal, but it wouldn't be like that with us. I wouldn't be able to turn it on and off, do you know what I mean?" Harvey asked, keeping his voice gentle as he watched Mike's face.
Mike bit his lip, watched Harvey while he spoke and just waited, waited for what he hoped wouldn't just be Harvey turning him down all over again. He nodded. "Yes, I know what you mean." Mike nodded, "I didn't come here to ask you for a one night thing, I don't want that, Harvey." He couldn't have done something casual - not if he was going to keep working with Harvey.
"That's not what I mean," Harvey said gently, patting the center seat of the couch so that Mike would move closer. "Look, some people practice in the bedroom, it's about sex and submission and heat and lust and I love that. I love hearing someone begging me to come for three hours, until their voice cracks and they have tears running down their faces," he said quietly, wanting to paint the picture for Mike. "But it's not just that for me, the reason I'm single, that I don't have someone is because with me it would be twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. There would be no off time, no down time. There would be you belonging to me, serving me, being mine, not just when you feel like it," Harvey said, tempted to shake Mike to get him to understand what he was trying to say.
Mike moved closer at Harvey's prompting. His stomach clenched when Harvey created a picture in his mind, that idea so clear Mike couldn't help the way he leaned toward Harvey just slightly. "This - us, Harvey. I didn't just come here to talk about it in theory with you. I work for you Harvey, I don't want to jeopardize that for something I'm not going to take seriously." He shook his head. "And I know it's been a while since you've been an associate but working at Pearson Hardman, it's a bit like a twenty four hour a day seven day a week job, I think I know what I'm asking for."
Harvey sighed, his lips thinning as he pressed them together, Mike sounded so sure of himself, so confident and that worried him, because he didn't know if he could feel the same confidence, not yet. "Do you know what subdrop is?" Harvey asked, trying to keep the same even tone in his voice and not get worked up.
"Subdrop is the return to normality, the coming down feeling that many submissives experience after intense scenes." Mike said the word which would have stumped him had Harvey asked him during that first conversation finding its definition in his mind this time easily. "It can be good or bad, and it varies from person to person, lasting anywhere from minutes, to hours, or days in some cases. More?" Mike asked, not sure if he could continue, not everyone appreciated his encyclopedic knowledge and there was a time and a place for all people.
He smiled, he couldn't help it, Mike was studying for this like it was just another test and he had to give him credit for it. "You're right. But that's just book knowledge, you don't know how it feels or what it might do to you and I just-" Harvey cut himself off, reaching out his hand and placing it on Mike's forearm. "I don't know if I'm ready to be a twenty four seven master any more than you are to be a twenty four seven sub. I don't-" he cut himself off again, cupping Mike's cheek gently in his other hand. "I don't want to ruin us both."
"It's not something I can just go out and experience for myself with just anyone," Mike protested because he knew that so much of what he knew about, well, everything was just book knowledge. It had been shown to him time and again that his ability to perfectly recall information wasn't always the only thing he needed to get the job done. "Can't we just try? I - I miss the way you used to touch me." Mike said slowly, closing his eyes and pressing toward that hand on his cheek.
He swallowed and opened his eyes again. "Harvey please, I've never wanted something like this before, not with anyone else - and it's all I can think about when I'm around you." Mike knew there was a line here, one that would be hard to cross back over again if Harvey did turn him away again. A line where he confessed things that might make it more than a little difficult if he was going to continue working with Harvey, but it felt like they were things that needed to be said. "I want to be good for you, and not just - not just winning cases and doing better work than the other associates. I want to be yours, Harvey."
There was a buzzing in his ears, he could still hear every delicious word Mike said but there was just this noise overlaying it and he felt like he couldn't think clearly. Harvey was going to make the wrong decision here, that felt like that was the only thing he knew but now he wasn't sure which one was wrong.
Mike wanted to be good for him and hell, he already was.
Harvey nodded slowly, biting the inside of his bottom lip. "You are always making me rethink everything I do and it's still annoying," he said, watching Mike carefully. Harvey hesitated for a moment before he slid his hand up Mike's arm and behind him, pulling the boy easily into his chest as he lay back against the arm of the couch. "There are going to be rules and we have so much to talk about before we can even think about starting this. Do you understand?"
Those moments when Harvey just looked at him, rather than responding, they stretched on for what felt like hours, to the point where Mike was sure this had been the biggest mistake of his life, coming here and telling Harvey Specter of all people that he wanted to belong to him. But then Harvey nodded, and he spoke and Mike couldn't help grinning.
He went easily when Harvey pulled him close, closed his eyes as he pressed into Harvey's chest and he nodded. "Rules are good, I like rules." Mike hadn't expected there wouldn't be rules if Harvey agreed to this, rules were something of a given in his mind.
Harvey's arms wrapped tightly around Mike as he gave in to holding him in a way he knew they'd never come back from. They'd never come back from any of this and maybe he didn't want to. Carding his fingers softly through the boy's hair he closed his eyes, like every single weight of the world was off his shoulders because Mike was in his arms. All of his concerns weren't gone, in fact they were still simmering under the surface but he felt like denying this was just forcing them both to live a lie. "Eyes up here," he said, finally letting himself use that tone, the one he saved just for Mike.
Everything clicked into place with that tone, that restless humming feeling that had been whirling around in his chest since Harvey had told him he needed to stop finally stilling again, and Mike couldn't do anything but lift his eyes like he was told.
"There's someone I want you to meet, her name is Lila Fisher," Harvey said with a smile. "I don't want you isolated in this, with no one you feel like you can trust or talk to. If you meet her and don't feel like you can tell her everything from how you love sucking cock to how it feels when I disappoint you then we'll find someone else and someone else until you find someone you would happily tell every single intimate detail to. Because this person is going to be your lifeline, okay?"
Mike nodded when Harvey told him about Lila, "Okay." He could do that, he could meet her and they could talk and Mike would try to see if she felt like someone he'd be able to talk to, though Mike wondered if there was actually such a person that he'd feel comfortable enough with to share that much. He couldn't even imagine telling Trevor anything about this and Trevor was his best and oldest friend. Like he imagined most things in this relationship with Harvey, it would take time.
"And when everything is ironed out and you're comfortable and I'm comfortable, we'll see," Harvey said as he stroked his fingers through Mike's hair again, never wanting to stop touching him now he'd started. At least now he wouldn't have to.
"But most importantly?" Harvey said as he slid his hand down over Mike's jaw, fingers sliding under his chin. "No one touches you without my permission. Within reason of course, handshakes for business, hugs for friends. But you do not kiss, you do not even look, and anyone who breaks that rule, you or otherwise, answers to me. Do you understand?"
It would have been all too easy to just close his eyes and just soak in that feeling of Harvey's fingers in his hair, fingertips against his scalp, and the steady rise and fall of his chest. But Mike didn't let himself do that, he looked at Harvey while he spoke and nodded. "We'll see." He repeated. He could wait, he could wait for things to be ironed out, so long as Harvey kept touching him it seemed.
Mike licked his lips when Harvey continued and this rule in particular perhaps more than any other Harvey might have given him felt like the ownership he'd wanted. "I understand." Mike didn't really touch people all that often as it was, and other than Harvey (for a time) most people rarely touched him as well.
Sliding his hand down to cup the back of Mike's head Harvey pressed down gently so that the boy would settle back against his chest. "Good boy," he said quietly, pulling more of Mike's weight onto him and letting it press him down into the cushions.
Donna had been watching Mike and Harvey ever since that first interview. She has known Harvey for years now, been taking care of things he didn't even know he needed as well as the things he knew he needed, and generally making herself as indispensable as humanly possible. It hasn't always been easy and there were a few times at the beginning when even she wasn't sure she had the wherewithal to deal with Harvey Specter for another second longer.
But she did, because she's Donna and Harvey might be the best closer in Manhattan but she was the best assistant in the city - more likely the state, but she left the ego trips to Harvey.
It was her job to take care of the things Harvey needed, she did the behind the scenes work, she had the connections around the office and with other firms in the city, and she was the one Harvey went to when he needs something.
And then came Mike Ross.
The seemingly unassuming kid who just stumbled his way into the best job he was ever going to get and into Harvey's life like it was no trouble at all. That's not to say he didn't struggle, because Donna saw him struggle every day - from that very first day all the way through until the present day.
But more than just struggling she had seen Mike wanting, she'd seen the way he looked at Harvey, and she'd seen the way Harvey looked at him, she'd seen the small smiles and the way Mike ducked his head when Harvey deigned to let the kid know that he was actually doing a great job, and she'd seen the way he sort of curled in on himself when he knew he'd messed up. The way he snapped to attention, and that tone of voice Harvey slipped into around him.
Some people might not piece it all together, some people might just see a kid eager to prove he could do the job, and some people might write off Harvey's behavior as exasperation, or frustration, maybe even pride occasionally. But Donna wasn't some people, and she'd known Harvey long enough to know what is going on when she saw it.
Particularly when things started to change.
Harvey understood that everything changed, that everything was constantly evolving and that fighting that would leave him old and out of touch, unable to do much of anything at all. But that way he and Mike were changing felt fast, too fast. Maybe being a natural, or two naturals it seemed, was dangerous. It felt like once they both know what they were doing, once they'd given in to it, it was in every single thing they did.
It probably was all ready.
Mike made Harvey smile, sometimes it was just a twitch of his lips, because he was proud, or an outright grin because Mike was goofy and young and charming. But he felt it more now, that little smile that said what he couldn't you're doing so well, boy because there was no place for that in his office.
He worried they weren't hiding it well, but he also knew that people don't often notice things that were right under their nose. Harvey also assumed they weren't going to read into something they probably didn't understand. Or that was his hope.
Standing beside the big glass windows in his office he watched Mike head back to his desk, lips pursed before he looked back over the city. They aren't even doing anything yet, they're not ready, they're just not fighting it anymore and it was already everything Harvey wants it to be.
"Do you know what you're doing with him?" Donna never bothered with beating around the bush, or trying to play coy with Harvey. She'd earned that right, just like she'd earned the right to listen in on every conversation that happened in Harvey's office if she wanted to.
She closed the door behind her when she stepped inside, giving them as much privacy as a firm filled with glass walls could offer. "Does he know what you're doing with him, might be the better question though."
Glancing at Donna he raised his eyebrows, wondering just how much she knew, probably everything knowing her. "I'm thinking about selling him on the black market if he screws up this case," Harvey said with a little smile, determined not to give away any information she might not already have.
"I'm sure he has no idea about my plans to profit from selling him to the highest bidder, no," he added.
"This is not like when Scotty comes to town and we pretend like I don't know exactly what you two are doing." She warned him, because she had no doubt in Harvey's ability to continue to play dumb far longer than she had the patience for if that was what he thought was best, and she was going to stop that thought right then and there.
Pursing her lips she looked at him, he'd seemed - happier she thought, though there were a few days when he was anything but happy, leaving the office in a mood only to return the next day like everything was right once again. She'd seen the same change in Mike, it didn't take a genius. "Now, you will tell me what you're doing with that boy, and you will not leave anything out, and you will not sell him or I am going to take all of that vacation time I have been saving up, and leave you with a temp. Now talk."
It wasn't at all like it was with Scotty, but Harvey wasn't going to even go in to that, the two were just too totally different situations.
There was no crossing Donna, no messing with her either, unless it was harmless fun and he knew keeping anything from her was pointless. Sitting back against his neck he scanned the hallway for a moment before looking back at her. "I'm going to give you the quick version, he started here, we are a certain way with each other, a way I don't feel like I need to go in to because you're so ridiculously smart. I realized what we were doing. I talked to him, informed him because he had no idea. I ended it. He educated himself, came to me, asked me to take him back and we're still working out the fine print," he said quickly, trusting Donna to keep up and read between the lines.
She'd come into his place and seen handcuffs hanging around and listened in on him more than enough times to know exactly what was going on.
Donna listened while Harvey explained, the quick version with as few details as possible, but it was enough. Enough that it allayed her fears for them both, at least slightly. She really would have had to smack Harvey if he was doing all of this and either wasn't aware of it or hadn't made sure Mike was aware of it too.
"And how is the fine print going?" She asked, raising an eyebrow at him, she didn't need details about this - because Harvey was more than welcome to do whatever he liked in his private life, but they were bringing it into the office now, and that made it her problem too.
Usually when he started talking to Donna about something serious, all it did was remind Harvey she needed a raise. "It's slow going, I'm taking precautions to protect him, every single one I can," Harvey said as he slid his hands into his pockets. "I still feel like I'm going to end up getting sued."
She might be the best, but if something happened to Harvey here, she would likely be dragged into that as well, and her looking out for Harvey was just as much her looking out for herself. "You do know that you don't hide it as well as you think you do, right? Louis won't notice, but someone might."
The idea that someone would notice worried him and he looked down at Donna, considering her for a moment. "Do you say that because you know everything or are you saying I'm being obvious?"
Donna loved Harvey, not a romantic love because well this was Harvey and Donna would never let herself do something like that - but she loved him in the way that she loved people who were important to her. People who saw her for more than just a personal assistant and treated her like an actual human being. It was the sort of love born of years of working with Harvey and seeing him at his very best and at some of his very lowest points.
And now here they were, and she watched the way Harvey seemed to still be looking for answers, so unlike the man she knew. "Both." She answered smoothly, because she did know everything, and Harvey was being obvious - though it was a relative term. Obvious for Harvey didn't mean the same thing it meant for everyone else. "You've been smiling too much."
The idea that he'd been smiling so much was ludicrous, because Harvey was a lot of things but he wasn't the sort of person who stood around smiling because of a boy. So he just made a face at Donna and looked away.
"Maybe you should talk to someone about this." She suggested. Because she could be the one to tell Harvey when he was being a complete idiot, and she could make him tell her when he was doing something that had the potential to be bad for all of them, but she couldn't give him advice in this case. "Someone who has some experience in all of this, rather than just standing around waiting to be sued. You don't normally need the push to act, but this is me giving it to you now - do not make a mess of this, and do not be too proud to ask for help, Harvey."
He'd been so worried about finding Mike someone to talk to and support him; he'd never even considered maybe he needed it too. But now that Donna said it, he realized she was right. Usually one never to ask for directions maybe he did need someone, someone who knew how this felt, just to get out some of his concerns. "Alright," Harvey said simply, bowing his head a little bit. She was right, but that wasn't a surprise.
"Let's go to lunch," Harvey said, pushing off the desk and placing his hand gently on her elbow to steer her towards the door. He really wasn't going to hug her in his office, he wasn't that stupid and she deserved better than that rumor going around, but the touch to her elbow meant the same thing. "I'm sure you've got a list of places you've been waiting to use to bankrupt me."
A simple agreement was all Donna needed, just to be sure that Harvey was aware of what was happening and this wasn't going to be something that went up in smoke before it had even begun. Harvey was a brilliant man; he just occasionally needed someone else to remind him of common sense.
"Funny that you mention it, I know just the place." She assured him, smiling easily, her worries put to rest for the moment.
Lila Fisher was young, but she was the sort of woman who knew what she wanted and had made quite the life for herself in New York. She'd grown up in a big family, twelve brothers and sisters and hippy parents that really should have stopped with three children. But they'd lived on a big property and had been almost totally self-sustained.
Like most people to leave their families at sixteen, young stupid love had moved her to New York and while it hadn't lasted she'd fallen for the city instead. Now at twenty four she owned her own vegan cafe and lived over it, with a roof top vegetable garden and a compost heap that drove the neighbors crazy.
The cafe was quiet after about 8pm and Lila remained, having tea with a few of her lingering regulars until they headed home as well. Leaving the door unlocked, because she was expecting someone, she flipped the sign to closed and headed back to make a fresh pot of chai.
It was an early night for Mike all things considered, so often he found himself working late into the night at the office, either going through records looking for precedence or looking for loopholes, or just anything that was dropped onto his desk during the day, that being out of the office before 10 felt just a little wrong.
And yet there he was on the street looking for the cafe where he was supposed to meet Lila that evening. He still wasn't entirely sure how this was going to go, or what he was supposed to do at this meeting but having someone he could talk to had seemed important to Harvey, so Mike was more than willing to give it a shot.
"Hello?" The sign said closed, but the door was open when Mike stepped inside, taking in the room around him, noticing little details that made up the whole, the way he usually did in new places. "The door was open; I'm looking for Lila Fisher." Mike was pretty sure he'd seen a horror movie start like this once, and he was just going to pretend that thought hadn't entered his mind just then. Harvey wouldn't send him somewhere to get killed.
Lila heard the door, quickly finishing wiping down the sink and drying her hands on the front of her apron before sliding it over her head and hanging it up. "You found her," she called back as she collected everything on the tray they'd need for tea and balancing it on her arm as she headed back out to the front.
When Harvey had asked her to talk to his friend, Lila had been confused. But once Harvey had started talking about Mike it was clear to her what was going on and honestly, she was thrilled for him. He was a good man and a good Master and he deserved to be happy. Although she was curious who had caught his eye.
Well she wouldn't have to be curious for much longer.
"Mike, hello, I'm Lila," she said as she put the tray down on one of the low tables where they could sit comfortably on some of the large cushions. Straightening up she took his hand, not really shaking it but holding it gently in hers for a moment. "It's lovely to meet you."
Mike wasn't exactly sure what he'd expected when Harvey had told him he had someone he wanted him to talk to, but the woman who greeted him was not what he'd expected at all. And Mike realized how much that image he had of Harvey had spread from just the man himself to the people he might or might not interact with outside the office.
"It's nice to meet you, too." He said, watching the way she took his hand in hers. "So you know Harvey, right?" He asked her, still caught at that point where he wasn't sure what he was supposed to say or ask or where to start.
"I do, Harvey is an old friend and a much older friend of my Master," she said gesturing to the table as she let his hand go. Taking a seat herself she simply smiled and waited to see if he'd do the same. "He's sat right here many times, he hates it, he says sitting on the floor is for children," Lila said with a warm smile.
Mike filed that away, adding it to the folder of information he was gathering about Lila. He was curious, but that was usually a constant state of being for Mike, though here with Lila he felt it more than he did most of the time. He'd only just met her and she had mentioned her Master. It was - well Mike didn't know what it was, he was still trying to understand all of this and people who just talked about Masters weren't really a part of his understanding just yet.
"You got Harvey to sit on the floor?" Mike asked, just a little disbelieving, pausing for just a moment before he sat too - he didn't mind the floor on principle the way Harvey no doubt did. "That does sound like Harvey."
"I got Harvey to sit on the floor, of course I never asked him to, that wouldn't have worked," Lila said with a laugh.
"You didn't kick his legs out from under him did you?" Mike asked, the weird image of Lila not asking but just making Harvey sit on the floor suddenly jumping into his mind, and then past his lips without his permission.
Lila laughed, shaking her head and grinning at Mike. "No, of course not. I told him people who don't sit, don't eat and that seemed to be enough. You'll understand when you taste my vegan curry."
Mike smiled, he thought he'd have liked to see Harvey sitting on the floor here just for a chance to have some vegan curry. Maybe he would one day.
"I don't really know how this is supposed to work." He admitted to her, legs folded beneath him, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. "Harvey said it was important I have someone I could talk to, and he suggested I talk to you, but..." Mike trailed off not really sure how to frame his own doubts into actual words just yet.
Slowly pouring them both tea she added a little sugar and soy milk to hers and pushed a cup across the table to Mike. "It's alright to be nervous," she assured him, pushing her dreadlocks to one side. "We're just going to talk, tell some stories, drink some tea, you don't have to do anything, this isn't a test," Lila assured him, her voice calm and serene, but it almost always was.
He watched the way she poured the tea and then the way she fixed her own before he pulled his own cup closer, feeling the warmth of the tea through the ceramic of the cup against his palm and fingers. "Life is a test." Mike said pulling the quote from something he'd read, and then shaking his head. "Sorry, ignore me; I'm a little nervous about all of this." Though he suspected that much was painfully obvious by this point, subtlety had never been one of Mike's strong points - especially when he was nervous. "I'm sort of new to all of this, if Harvey didn't tell you."
Nodding she stirred her tea slowly, letting it cool off. "I really don't need Harvey telling me you're new to see that for myself, Mike," she said with an easy smile. "But look, I'm not going to call Harvey once you leave and tell him all about you and if you did the right thing, it's not like that. You and I are equals and it's not my right to judge you or make decisions for you. So there isn't a right answer or a wrong answer to anything we do here tonight. We're just talking." Lila assured him. "I'm sure there are things you'd like to ask me, about serving someone, about everything that's got you this tense."
Painfully obvious, Mike was sure that described him very accurately at the moment, but Lila didn't act like it was a problem, she just looked like maybe she understood a little bit of what he was feeling at the moment. Just talking though, he could handle just talking - he was pretty sure Harvey thought he might do a little too much talking occasionally, so really this should have been easy for him.
"How did you know?" Mike asked, blurted really when she suggested that he might have questions. "I mean - how did you know that serving someone was something you wanted to do? Do people just know these things about themselves?" And if they did, what did it say about Mike that it had taken Harvey sitting him down to see it?
Lila smiled, glad that Mike was off and asking her questions, it was progress. "I didn't, at first. When I was younger I got into trouble a lot, I just..." She faded off, taking a sip of her tea. "I wanted someone to see me, I wanted someone to look at me and need me, and I didn't want to be invisible. So I acted out, because even bad attention was better than none." Lila explained, fiddling with one of the beads at the bottom of one of her dreadlocks. "Then I started dating the wrong men, men that would hurt me and use me, because I felt worthless and I wanted to be treated that way, too." Lila's voice was steady, because even talking about things that had once been incredibly painful could no longer touch her anymore.
"I moved to the city with a man when I was sixteen and he cut me off from everything I knew, everyone I knew. He wouldn't let me have shoes or leave the apartment without him. He made me a prisoner and I still craved it, I still wanted him to tell me that I was worthy and loved. One day he came home from work and he was furious, not at me, just in general. I was cooking and he threw the hot pot of water on me," she said, pushing up her sleeves to show Mike the scars. "I was a mess, I was eighteen and I was terrified, I didn't have anything except a cruel man who thought that I was just a thing he could hurt and use and I still thought that everything was okay, because he made me feel like I'd never felt before, like I was whole." Lila paused, knowing it was best she just finish the story rather than wait for feedback. "I started doing research, in the middle of the night, I thought that maybe I was mentally ill, that's originally what I went looking for, but that's not what I found. I found a fetish website and feeling daring I sent a girl a message and just... Let it all out. She came and got me the next day and I never went back." Lila smiled and took another sip of her tea.
"I realized that everything I wanted didn't make me sick and it didn't mean I deserved to be treated like I'd let him treat me. It didn't make me weak, it made me strong. And then I just... thrived. It's like suddenly I was who I was always wanted to be and all the puzzle pieces fit together. Then I met Harvey and he introduced me to his friend Troy and it was like..." Lila paused, looking for the right words to describe it. "It was like fireworks. He looked at me and I couldn't fall to my knees fast enough. I found the place where I belong and I just knew, I knew and I'd always known, that's where I need to be," she finished, resting her chin in her hand.
"And I'm sorry, I got a little carried away there, but I thought the start is usually the best place to begin."
Mike just listened, while Lila told him her story - so much more than he'd been expecting almost to the point where Mike felt uncomfortable knowing so much about Lila all ready, while he hadn't really told her anything about himself.
And at the same time there were parts of her story that Mike recognized in himself.
That need to be seen, for attention of any kind, and letting that need lead to bad choices. His life hadn't taken him in the same direction Lila's had, but he'd have never ended up involved with drugs and taking tests for people who couldn't be bothered doing the work themselves to get into law school if not for that need - whether it was attention from Trevor or just the people who saw value in him for the skills he could provide. He could see a series of poor decisions that had lead him to Harvey and that point where things just clicked for him, like suddenly things were right for the first time in his life.
"The beginning is a good place to start." Mike agreed, fingers tapping against the side of his cup, while he thought for a moment.
"I didn't actually mean to ... to want any of this," Mike started. "I'm not sure if that's the right way to say it, it's kind of complicated. I think maybe it's something I've always wanted, I just didn't really know I wanted it, Harvey just brings it out in me, more than anyone else has before." And there had been others, Mike could see that now, Trevor most notably, though that was another case of neither one of them realizing what was happening. Trevor had simply been his friend and that was enough of an explanation for Mike.
He bit his lip not sure where he was going with this train of thought. "It's a little scary though, when I suddenly became aware of it and seeing the way it had worked into so much of how I interacted with Harvey without even realizing it, and I don't - it's like things wouldn't be right between us without that. Does that make sense? I feel like I'm just rambling without a point."
Lila smiled affectionately, nodding her head towards him. "No one means to, it's a part of you, even if it's a part you choose never to recognize, it won't ever go away." She said, hoping to reassure him a little bit.
"It can be scary and intense, but you're making perfect sense and you're only rambling a little bit," Lila said with a kind laugh, sipping her tea again. "He completes you," she said simply. "And that scares you, because you're not used to needing someone so much and you're scared that when it's gone, because everyone has always let you down, that you won't know what to do?" Lila suggested her voice quiet.
It was a little unfair, Mike thought, that Lila just seemed to understand him so easily when he was still struggling to understand himself. He nodded though, watching the way the tapping of his fingers made little ripples in his cup. "That's a sort of constant theme in my life." He agreed, things with his parents hadn't been easy at the best of times, and then they were gone, and the way people didn't really know what to do with him after they'd died, kids who had been his friends slipping away until he was left with only Trevor, but even Trevor was gone now.
"And I know it's not - maybe it would be better to not do this, the way he'd said at the start. We work together. Harvey is my boss and if something goes wrong, I'm not just going to lose him." It was going to be everything this time, the biggest and most spectacular loss he'd ever had in his life and Mike would know there had been a point where he could have stopped it. He could have taken the out Harvey had given him and let that be it. But he'd pushed, he'd crossed the line and now all he could do was wait it out - wait for everything to work or everything to fall apart.
He breathed out slowly and looked at her, she was easy to talk to, something he hadn't expected - despite knowing the reason why Harvey had put them in contact with one another, and at the same time he felt like he hadn't known the right thing to say since he arrived. "I've messed up a lot in my life, and I don't just want this to be another addition to my list of failures."
Lila reached out, resting her hand on his sleeve, careful not to touch his skin, she had rules to follow. "Shhh," she whispered gently, trying to sooth him, but knowing there was probably only one person who could and he wasn't here. "You are not your mistakes and you are not your failures. You can't limit yourself because you're scared. Imagine if you never did anything you were afraid of, Mike. What would you have?" She asked, her head cocking to one side.
He nodded, understanding her point - he wouldn't have even met Harvey if he hadn't done things he was afraid of, he wouldn't be here now, and he wouldn't be in this hugely scary position. "I've spent a long time telling myself I'd never get the things I wanted from life, and now I'm in a place where the things I want and things I didn't even know I needed might actually be attainable," He exhaled in a rush shaking his head. "It's a little terrifying just how close I am to those things right now." And despite what he'd said to Harvey when he'd thought the other man was focusing only on the negative Mike found it was easier to see just how badly it could go than well.
"Do you do this often?" He asked her instead, trying to clear his head just a little. "Talk to people like me?"
The last thing Lila wanted was a nice boy like Mike to miss out on something that would probably be good for him, but more than that she didn't want Harvey and Mike to miss out on each other. "You need to relax, because all this tension is going to send you into an early grave," Lila told him gently.
"Sometimes," Lila admitted as she got to her feet, moving behind the front counter to open a jar and pull out two brownies, putting them on a plate and returning to Mike again. "Harvey is part of my... let's call them a family. He's dear to me and that makes you dear to me too, Mike." She smiled as she pushed the plate over to Mike. "Peanut butter and chocolate vegan deliciousness brownie, it'll help. It helps everything."
"Sorry," Mike apologized by rote and shook his head for a minute just trying to get a hold on himself and stop the way his thoughts were suddenly spiraling in a way that he couldn't seem to stop. He took a few slow breaths and thought briefly about Harvey, not about his fear and what it would be like to lose him, but he thought about that night when he'd gone to Harvey's apartment, thought about laying against Harvey's chest and the steady even tempo of his heartbeat, and Harvey's hand in his hair and he let that help bring everything back down several notches.
And when he was feeling just a little more ready to talk without borrowing trouble, Lila had returned offering him a brownie. "Thanks," where he'd mostly ignored the tea up to this point Mike broke of the corner of the brownie and ate it, sighing happily a moment latter and nodding. "Yeah," He agreed. "That helps."
"I'm glad, I think that there isn't anything that can't be fixed by food that is made with love," Lila said with a smile.
"Can I ask about that family?" He wondered.
When Mike asked about the family Lila nodded happily, leaning across the table to grab a large book off the shelf behind Mike. It was leather and soft and she set it down between them, opening to the first few pages. It was a scrapbook with lots of things stuck in, recipes, newspaper articles and she flipped past the first few pages towards the middle where there was a large group photo.
"This is Elle," Lila said, starting on the far left of the first row of the small group. "She's who I contacted that first time, when I needed help. She's not like you and I, she uses a scene as a release but would never answer to anyone in her day to day life. But she's perfect, you'll like her." Lila said with a fond smile. "That's Riley, me of course and Rob," she said as she finished the first row. "Now, this is Amy, but she'll ask you to call her Miss Amy, and Rob is hers, that's my Master," Lila pointed to the tall man with his finger wound around one of Lila's dreadlocks in the photo. "And of course Harvey," she finished, turning the book so he could get a better look at it.
Mike smiled, Lila reminded him just a little of Grammy, the way she set him at ease and food made with love - she was just a little more eclectic than his gran had ever been, at least as far as Mike knew, sometimes there was just no telling with her.
He looked at the people in the photo that Lila showed him, two familiar faces in the gathered group, while assigning names to the others gathered there. "And -" Mike tried to find the connection between them or what they must mean to each other without an obvious connection. "And the seven of you do what? I mean, you're - you share this stuff with each other?" Mike was just trying to understand it, "I don't know, Harvey told me I needed someone I could talk to about this, that you could be a life line, that I should be able to tell you about things, that's what the family is? Just on a bigger scale?"
Lila laughed again, giving a half shrug. "Sort of, but we don't just sit around talking about sex and bondage and what we did in the bedroom last night, any more than anyone else does." Lila explained. "Harvey sent you here because he knows how hard it can be to be alone, to feel things that you don't feel like you can tell anyone. Because he hopes that if something is happening you don't like that you feel like you can't tell him, you'll tell me and I'll help you. The family is like that, but more than that, they're a family."
Pausing she flipped through the book a few more pages. "This is when Elle got her promotion, this is when Rob graduated med school," Lila pointed out more photos, hoping they'd help explain. Flipping back to near the start she smiled at a photo of her and Harvey, when she'd still been a teenager. "This was the day that Harvey won my case, get me a settlement because of my burns and that meant I could buy this place. It was only Elle, Harvey, Amy and I then and we drank champagne right here, although I've done a lot of work since then."
"So you don't sit around talking about sex and bondage with them, but we're meant to?" Mike said and then shook his head, that didn't sound right either and instead he let her tell him more about her family, his imagination was running on overdrive tonight while he was there with Lila.
Lila laughed and nodded her head when Mike seemed even more confused. "We're meant to talk about anything you want to talk about, I think Harvey picked me because a whole group is intimidating, but one person is easier."
Mike nodded, thinking about how he might have reacted if faced with the entire group this first night and decided one person was definitely best.
Looking back to Mike she pushed the book closer to him, leaving him free to look through it. "Are you starting to understand?"
He started flipping through the book of photos when Lila pushed it toward him, seeing events shared between the people in the first picture. Harvey with these people, a whole life separate from what Mike had thought was all Harvey had.
"Starting too." Mike nodded slowly, not completely but as a start. Mike rubbed a hand over his face.
"I can come back, right? I mean after tonight?" Mike asked. "I just have a feeling I'm not going to be getting to everything I really do want to know about tonight." It was all just a lot to take in and Mike knew himself well enough to know how distracted he was.
"You can come back every day if you want to, Mike. Even if it's just for the brownies. I live upstairs so I'm around a lot." Lila said as she gently closed the book.
He chuckled softly and nodded. "I doubt I'd be able to come every day, they keep me kind of busy at the firm - but I'd like to come back." He told her. "It's been a while since I've had someone I can really talk to." He couldn't imagine talking about this to anyone that he knew all ready, just knowing that he and Lila had a shared connection that helped.
"I was trying to think about what kind of wisdom I could impart to you, but I'm not an expert either," she said, finishing off her tea. "But this is the most important advice anyone ever gave me and it's something I always want you to remember. A Dom has the control, but a sub has the power. No matter what happens, you have the power and you choose to give someone else the control. You are not weak, Mike. You're strong and you should never feel like being a submissive makes you lower than the other people you live your life beside."
He didn't feel weak, perhaps briefly when he only felt confusion about all of this, but when he was with Harvey weakness was not what he felt. It just felt right, it felt comfortable, and it felt right. "But some people will think that, whether or not I feel it." And that was why he thought it might be best that it was Lila he was talking to about all of this and not someone else.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Master Post