Never Let Me Go, Harvey/Mike, Suits [2/8]
Title: Never Let Me Go [2/8]
Summary: You have to know who you are, and what you are. It’s the only way to lead decent lives.
Pairing: Harvey/Mike, Harvey/OFC, Mike/OMC
Rating: PG-13
Notes: AU. All quotes are from I Knew You So Well by Cindy. Summary is from the movie Never Let Me Go.
I knew what was important to you
Because you were always
So honest with me.
Mike, from the moment he met Harvey, knew that that was it. His life, up until that point, had been shapeless, formless and he’d known he’d been waiting for something - he just had no idea what that something was.
Until he’d met Harvey.
--
Marian Turner-soon-to-be-Specter is the woman Mike would want to spend the rest of his life with, if he was straight. She’s smart, funny, gorgeous, quick, caring, strong... The list goes on and it goes on only to show how perfect she is for Harvey.
But Mike is also perfect for Harvey, just in a different way.
--
Nial is the person that Mike could spend the rest of his life with. Nial should be everything he’d ever wanted; he’s smart, funny, gorgeous, caring, absolutely amazing in bed and he’s absolutely perfect for who Mike was. When he was eighteen.
And that wasn’t to say that Mike is a different person when he’s twenty four than when he’s eighteen. Except that he is. A little.
Enough that Nial, who should be a perfect fit for him, isn’t.
Mike met Nial through Jenny. She’d gone off to college while Mike had gone off to work three jobs to help support his grandmother and his increasing dependence on Trevor’s stash of weed. She’d been gone for a month or two before she invited them both over. It’s the first night (so they say) that they fuck, and it’s the first night Mike meets Nial (he’d been set up, he knows, but he doesn’t mind because Nial is gorgeous. And gorgeous.)
They hadn’t gotten together straight away. Mike really hadn’t needed any extra complications in his life, not with work and Trevor and Gram but the more time he spent with Nial, the more he came to realise that Nial wasn’t a complication. He just... fit. He was someone Mike could spend time with to get away from it all, someone Mike could take home to his Gram who wouldn’t completely offend her, someone who Mike slowly found himself loving.
Nial had been the one to convince Mike to go to college, even though he’d assured Nial he would no doubt drop out. Nial had been the one who, when he found out about Mike and Trevor’s stupid plan, had thrown an fit and demanded Mike stop. Nial was Mike’s voice of sanity when he had felt like his life was starting to spiral out of control. He’d been there when Mike had gotten kicked out of his apartment, he’d been there when Trevor had been a complete dick and tried to set him up on a drug run, he’d been there when Mike had needed him. And Mike loved him for it.
He really, really did.
And all of this was fine. Mike’s life was going where he wanted it to (because he’s good at ignoring things he doesn’t want to know about), finally, slowly.
And then Harvey.
And it wasn’t Harvey’s fault. Not entirely. All he’d done was shown to up to a departmental dinner party, been himself and filled all of the empty spaces in Mike’s head with colour and noise and peace and... all he’d done was raise an eyebrow and be smug and so entirely heterosexual it was almost offensive.
--
The thing is though. The thing is. Mike actually likes Harvey. He’s actually kind of sweet under the smug exterior and Mike melts every time Harvey smiles, especially when Harvey smiles at Marian because it’s just so full of love that Mike feels secondarily adored just from the intensity of it.
At the first dinner after the first time Mike had met Harvey, they had their first of many legendary back and forths. Mike was more than holding his own, and Mike could see that Harvey was suitably impressed. After their meeting on the balcony, they had found their way back around the dining table when Harvey had overheard Marian and Mike discussing his thesis.
“How can you do a thesis on the law when you’ve never actually studied the law?”
Mike raised an eyebrow, tilted his head slightly and smirked at Harvey.
“I did.”
“Really?” He could hear the scepticism in Harvey’s voice but Mike just shrugged and nodded. “Kid, you’re like what - twelve?”
“Ha ha.”
Harvey rolled his eyes and shook his head at Marian with an amused smirk on his lips. Mike could practically hear that ‘this kid, huh’ that passed between them and he bristled slightly.
“Why aren’t you a lawyer then?” Harvey asked and Mike shrugged. It’s a question he’d asked himself many times before but never quite found an answer to.
“Not my life plan.”
“Why study law then?”
Mike laughed then.
“Why study business and not become a business man? Why study chemistry and not become a chemist?”
Harvey frowned and Mike could see the thoughts flitting through his mind, from ‘this kid’ to ‘why would anyone not want to be a lawyer’. Mike didn’t have an answer to that last one, because there’s a part of him that still does.
“Did you take the bar?”
Mike shook his head, turned his head slightly to look for Nial.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“He’s not a client, Harvey. Stop pushing,” Marian interrupted but Mike waved her away.
“It’s fine. I just didn’t.”
Harvey smirked.
“No one studies law and doesn’t take the Bar. Did you fail?” Mike rolls his eyes but shakes his head. “What then?” Mike shrugged again, feeling far too amused by the conversation, considering that when anyone else asked him these things he usually stormed out of the room without answering. “You afraid you might fail?”
Mike scoffs.
“Um, no.”
“Right,” Harvey smirked with a nod and turned away.
Mike took it for the dare it so clearly was.
--
He took the Bar. He passed with colours so flying, they could be their own nebula in the galaxy one over.
It’s a dick move but Mike googled Harvey Specter, Google mapped Pearson Hardman and turned up one Thursday afternoon with the print out of his Bar exam results.
There was a gorgeous red head behind the desk in front of the office he had been directed. Gorgeous, but terrifying. She refuses to let Mike see Harvey which, fair enough, he doesn’t have an appointment and Harvey wasn’t even in yet. He decided to wait, sitting down on one of the plush armchairs facing Gorgeous Red Head. Every now and again she would look up and stare at him with such a disconcertingly cold stare that Mike shivered. He didn’t leave though.
Half an hour later, Harvey had walked up the corridor, straight passed Mike and into his office. It was only when he came back out to speak to Gorgeous Red Head that he spotted Mike. He frowned, and Mike smiled, pushing himself up from the chair and sauntering back over to the desk.
“Mike, what are you doing here?”
Mike held up the sheet of his paper in his hand, waving it in front of Harvey. He glanced at the folded sheet briefly, before looking back to Mike’s face with his eyebrow raised. Mike rolled his eyes, thrust the paper at him and laughed slightly at the scandalised look on Harvey’s face as the paper touched his bespoke suit.
“Dude, take the paper.”
“You know this kid?”
Harvey took the paper, glared at Mike and turned to Gorgeous Red Head as he unfolded it.
“No.” Mike snorted, smiled at Gorgeous Red Head and turned back to Harvey. Harvey who was frozen, staring at the sheet of paper in front of him.
“You took the Bar?” Mike nodded. “Why?”
He snorted again, rolled his eyes.
“Some asshole bet me I couldn’t pass.”
Harvey looked up at that, his eyebrow raised but Mike could see the smile that was threatening the edges of his lips.
“This is impossible, you know that right?” Harvey said waving the paper in front of Mike’s nose. “If you’re going to cheat, aim lower.”
Mike tilted his head, smirked.
“Didn’t cheat.”
“Right.”
Mike tapped the side of his head.
“Good memory.” He winked at Harvey, tipped an imaginary hat at Gorgeous Red Head and walked away.
--
He was working on his thesis a few days when Marian pinged him on Google chat.
marion: u in dept?
me: downstairs, why?
marion: pop up for a min?
me: ten mins?
marion: see you soon.
In Marion’s office, Mike sat in the ridiculously uncomfortable chair she never got around to replacing, while she pottered about the tea pot that Mike had laughed at when he first saw it; since then he’s tasted the brew that the mighty tea pot can make and he dare not laugh at it again lest it take umbrage to him.
“How you getting on?”
“Getting on.”
She laughed slightly, handing him an old chipped China cup.
“That bad?”
Mike shrugged.
“Not really. Just... not in the mood, right now. Nial’s being... Nial.” Marian winced at him slightly, the gesture sympathetic but Mike hated it. He shook his head and waved her away. “What’s up, doc?”
She rolled her eyes at him, a gesture that Mike had recognised on Harvey, too. He wondered who claimed it first.
“Harvey asked me to ask you if you would go see him at his office.”
Mike stilled, feeling the blood drain from his face.
“Why? Oh my God he’s suing me isn’t he? I only called him an asshole!”
Marian laughed, loudly and long and Mike squinted at her, feeling the panic sizzling away under his skin because jesus christ, Harvey wanted to see him in his office. He’s known that was a dick move with the Bar exam, but it was supposed to be funny. Oh fuck fuck-
“Trust me, if Harvey was suing you you’d already be penniless and kidney-less. He didn’t say why.”
Mike frowned.
“So he just asked you to ask me to go to his office?”
Marian snorted.
“Well, it was more a case of ‘tell Mike I want to see him in my office at three tomorrow’.” Marian smiled at what Mike could only imagine was a look of sheer bloody panic. “Don’t worry.” There was a strange pause, where Mike was sure he should have said something though he wasn’t sure what. “If you two are going to keep arranging illicit lunch time liaisons, perhaps you should swap numbers? It is declasse to involve the injured party.”
Mike grinned.
--
He was in Harvey’s office, much to the annoyance of Gorgeous Red Head (Donna, her name turned out to be) but apparently she was under strict instruction not to let Mike wander around Pearson Hardman on his own. Mike wanted to be offended, maybe even was a little, but he shrugged it off quickly when he saw the view from Harvey’s corner office floor to ceiling windows.
“Enjoying the magnitude?” Mike spun around at Harvey’s voice, letting himself be ushered to a chair on the opposite side of the desk. He sank into it, groaning as he felt the leather suck him in, cradling his body. “Seriously?”
“You need to tell the doc to get one of these for me in her office.”
Harvey quirked an eyebrow.
“Spend a lot of time there, do you?”
Mike snorted.
“Enough to know which surfaces can handle me.”
Harvey’s eyebrow shifted slightly, less amused and Mike would have cringed and apologised but Harvey smirked.
“If I didn’t know you were as gay as Dale Winton you’d be counting your teeth as you picked them off the floor.”
There was a pause, during which they’d stared at each other impassively before Mike cracked, frowning as he grinned.
“Who?”
“Really?” Mike shrugged and Harvey shook his head. “And you call yourself a homosexual,” he said with an exaggerated eye roll.
Mike grinned.
“I don’t.”
Harvey frowned and eye rolled again.
“Whatever.” Harvey shifted then, reaching down to one of the drawers on his desk and Mike watched as he pulled a folded up sheet of paper out. He waved it in front of Mike before letting it drop to the table between them. Mike watched it, stared at it until Harvey moved into Mike’s line of sight. “Do you know what that is, Mike?”
“My Bar exam results.”
“Yes. Do you know what else it is? Proof that you’re an idiot.” Mike jerked his head up then and scowled across at Harvey, who didn’t look amused. “That,” he said and pointed to the sheet of paper, “is the best test result the State of New Jersey has ever seen.” Mike stared across at him, nonplussed. “And you’re doing a PhD in language?”
“Your fiancee has a PhD in language.”
“We’re not talking about my fiancee. We’re talking about you.” He picked up the paper again, unfolded it and looked at it for a few long seconds. “How is this even possible?”
Mike shrugged.
“I have a good memory.”
Harvey glared balefully across the table at him.
“That’s more than a good memory. A good memory means you’d get a decent score. A good memory doesn’t account for your college test results. A good memory doesn’t account for the fact that you won every debate championship at Harvard law school, which, by the way, you finished in two years.”
There’s a question in there, so Mike shrugs again, forces a smile.
“I like to read.” Harvey simply raised an eyebrow. “You saw my test scores. I got the impression they had sold me to the biology and psychology departments just to see what the human body and mind was capable of doing. I did it. It wasn’t difficult.”
“It wasn’t difficult?” Harvey’s clearly aghast at that, and Mike chuckled slightly at the look of utter astonishment on the other man’s face. “I’m above average intelligence - way above it, actually - but I struggled doing my JD at Harvard law and you, from the look of it, could have finished it even quicker if they’d have let you and you say it wasn’t difficult. Are you even human? Should I be looking out for Spock to come and reclaim you?”
Mike snorted at that, the laughter light and free and honest.
“Star Trek, really?”
“Shut up.” But the tone is light, the smile almost visible. “But seriously, Mike.” Harvey takes a breath. “I showed this to Jessica Pearson. I called around, did a little digging, showed her what I found. She’s impressed. Although I think she’s more impressed that I’m impressed by you but that’s besides the point. I talked to her and she’s willing to take you on as an associate for a year, working with me. And if it turns out you’re actually as good as the papers say you are, she’s willing to put you on the Partner Track within a year.”
Mike stared at Harvey. He’s not entirely sure what he should be feeling, but it was probably not the absolute bone shattering fear that rattled him from the inside out.
“I can’t,” he says automatically and Harvey stares at him as though he’s another species entirely. “I... can’t. My thesis-”
“Your thesis? Really? You could have finished it months ago. You’re stalling, though I don’t know why. It’s time to grow up, Mike, make a choice that’s right for you.” Harvey stopped there, took a breath and Mike watched as he tried to reconstruct the Harvey Specter veneer that had become such a symbol for him in the short time since he’d been made Junior Partner (super fast tracked from Mike had read). “I don’t even want to know how you ended up doing a PhD.”
And that moment, right there, is the one that Mike will point to in years to come. Right there. And he will say that it was at that moment that he knew, without a doubt, that Harvey Specter was going to change his life forever.
“If I hadn’t,” Mike said after a few long moments of heavy silence, “I would never have met you.”
Harvey looked up at him then, almost from under his lashes. Mike held his gaze for a moment, perhaps too long, and Mike can feel something pressing against his chest, pushing in from the outside, quietly filling all the spaces he hadn’t really acknowledged were there.
“Think about it.”
--
When Mike went home that night, he told Nial about his meeting with Harvey.
“The doc’s man?” Mike nodded and Nial grunted. “What you going to do?” Mike shrugged, leaned back against the worktop and sipped from the bottle of water Nial passed him.
“I don’t know.”
Nial looked at him from the corner of his eye from his place in front of the stove and quirked a smile that Mike felt in his stomach.
“Yeah, you do.”
Mike stared at him for a beat, then looked down.
“I don’t know.”
Nial came over to him, wrapped him up in his arms and swayed them both from side to side in time to the slow blues beat pulsing around the kitchen.
--
He didn’t see Marian for almost a week after that. When he went to her office, she was flicking through a magazine (Bride) and listening to a song that was vaguely familiar to Mike.
“Quite an odd choice for a wedding song,” he said by way of introduction and she dropped the magazine as she jumped a good few inches.
“You gave me a fright.”
“Sorry.” He jerked his head at the stereo in the corner and she reached over to lower it. “Florence and the Machine... Your wedding is going to be rad.” She smiled, and Mike pretended not to notice how tight it was. “Your man’s trying to poach me.”
That drew a laugh from her.
“He told me.” She sighed, pushed herself back so she could put her feet on the desk. Mike sank down into the hideously uncomfortable chair and mirrored her pose. She quirked an eyebrow at him but Mike simply smirked. “He’s impatient to hear your answer.” Mike shrugged. “What’s Nial saying about it?”
“Not much, really.”
“He must be feeling a little...” Mike frowned across at her. “Betrayed, maybe?” Mike really frowned at her. “It was him that pushed to do this. You’re only a few months into it and you’re already giving up.”
“I’m not giving up!”
“I’m not saying you are, I’m just saying that it might come across that way to him.”
Mike scoffed, pulling his arms across his chest.
“I went to school for him in the first place.” And there was venom in that sentence that Mike wishes he hadn’t unleashed because now it was out there and he couldn’t take it back, not without polluting himself with the poison of it. He glared at the air around him, accusing it.
He didn’t know how long they sat there for, only that it was long enough for the album playing to swing back around to track four.
“This song...” Mike looked up at her, watching her as she fiddled with the pleat in her skirt. “Harvey’s impatient. When he wants something, he gets it. Always.” She closed her eyes, tilted her head back and let out an airy laugh. “He proposed to me six years ago.”
She glanced down her nose at Mike, her eyebrow tilt significant. Mike couldn’t miss her meaning.
“Maybe he’s waiting for you to make the next move,” he said but even he didn’t truly believe it.
Marian huffed.
“He’s certainly waiting for something.”
He stayed for a few minutes longer, then hauled himself to his feet, his mind feeling a little less clogged. He was halfway out the door when he stopped, turned back and nodded to the stereo.
“That song, what’s it called?”
She grabbed the CD cover from her desk and flipped it over, skimming the titles.
“Never Let Me Go.”
Mike nodded, and left.
--
PART THREE