Never Let Me Go, Harvey/Mike, Suits [3/8]
Title: Never Let Me Go [3/8]
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 your pain
Because you trusted me enough
To share your past with me.
“Does this thing have an expiry date?” Mike asked one day, over the phone. Harvey had just been getting ready to leave for court when his mobile had rung and Mike’s name had flashed up on screen, surprising him. “Can I have to the end of the academic year?”
Harvey paused, cradling the phone between his ear and shoulder as he slid files into his briefcase. Mike sounded younger on the phone, though Harvey wasn’t sure why he noticed that.
“Why?”
“It seems stupid to have spent five months doing this and not even get my MPhil out of it, and they won’t give me a colloquium until May.”
Harvey sighed slightly, dropping his shoulders.
“I don’t really have time to talk about this right now. Meet me at Greenhouse 36 at seven and we’ll talk about it.”
“Midtown... Isn’t that a bit down town for you?” Harvey could hear the smirk in Mike’s voice and he rolled his eyes, knowing Mike couldn’t see him. “Your eye rolls are audible, Harvey. You need to work on that.”
“Goodbye, Mike.”
He was smiling until he made it to court.
--
Mike had been right that Greenhouse 36 was a little more down market than Harvey was used to but Donna had taken him there one evening while they’d still been at the DA’s office, the night before he’d asked Marian to marry him. She’d been surprised, though when Harvey questioned why, she’d given no explanation and told him she was happy for him.
Being there with Mike was interesting. Mike didn’t look at the menu but ordered correctly anyway and when Harvey queried it, Mike had told him he’d looked it up online.
“Good memory, right.”
“You’re rolling your eyes on the inside Harvey. You need a new signature move.”
Harvey had to fight not to roll his eyes and Mike smirked at him.
“Okay, rookie,” Harvey said once their drinks had been delivered and Mike ducked his head. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”
Mike sighed and Harvey settled back into his chair, ready to listen.
“I just think it’s stupid to throw away the work I've already done.”
Harvey quirked a brow.
“You think that, or Nial and Marian think that?”
Mike sighed again, looking across at Harvey.
“Both?” He sipped from his drink (water, because apparently his gram had drawn a promise from him not to drink and ride, to which Harvey had snorted). “If you’d asked me this six months ago - hell even three months ago, I’d have bitten your hand off for the chance. But... things have changed.”
“What things?”
Mike smiled, a little tightly.
“I don’t know, it just seemed like the right thing to say.”
“What do you want, Mike?”
They were silent for a long time, right through their starters and while it was awkward as all hell, Harvey refrained from speaking, refrained from pushing. He wasn’t sure why, because that’s what he did but for this, with Mike, it didn’t seem like the right thing.
“All through college, all I wanted was to be a lawyer. Then my gram got sick and Trevor came up with this stupid idea to cheat on tests. Nial found out, went a little crazy and made me promise to stop, that we’d work something else out. It was the right choice. When I wanted to drop out and get three jobs again, Nial kept me going, made me apply to Harvard, made me do all the stupid debate championships, pushed me to be the best I could be.”
“You didn’t take the Bar, though.”
Mike shook his head.
“No.” Mike laughed a little. “That’s when Nial stopped pushing. I didn’t know what to do, he decided to pull back and let me decide what I wanted to do. And then one night, I was talking to Trevor and Jenny about debate championships, Nial made a comment about how that would make a good research topic and... then I was doing a PhD, and the Bar question was never brought up again.”
Harvey smiled, tried to lighten to the mood, “Until some asshole bet you that you couldn’t pass.”
Mike smirked, though there was a flush to his cheeks that made him look incredibly young. Harvey shifted slightly, suddenly more than a little uncomfortable.
“Exactly.”
They were silent again, and the waiter cleared their table. Harvey ushered him away when he brought over the dessert menu with a discreet hand gesture.
“Listen,” he said after a few long minutes. What he was about do was uncomfortable on so many levels but he also knew that Mike needed to hear it. “I’ve known Marian since I was fourteen years old. She moved in to the house next door to ours and that was it. When she started applying to colleges, I started applying for jobs. We broke up for about a year when she moved to college and I moved into the city. I was a fuck up. Drink, coke, you name it. I ended up getting a job in the mail room at Pearson Hardman, gave some lip to Jessica Pearson and next thing you know my ass is being kicked back into gear, someone’s given me an incentive and I’m at college getting ready to be the best damn closer this city’s seen. When I got to Harvard, Marian was there, keeping me on the straight and narrow.” He shrugged. “So I get where you’re coming from when it comes to trusting Nial’s judgement because without Marian and Jessica, I’d never be here. But neither Jessica nor Marian ever tried to hold me back. What he’s doing, whether you want to see it that way or not, is holding you back.”
Mike was staring at him, and Harvey felt something unravel in him under that look and he shifted in his seat, reached out to fiddle with the glass in front of him.
“He’s not-”
“He is. Why didn’t he push you to take the Bar? Why push you to do law and then not push you to become a lawyer? The fact that you didn’t blow me off straight away shows me that you want this, but that you’re afraid.” Harvey shifted forward, settling his elbows on the table. “He pushed you to do what he wanted you to do, but when it came to what you wanted to do? He let you down.”
“He’s not a bad guy, Harvey. Don’t make him out to be.”
Harvey shrugged.
“Maybe he’s not. But he’s not good for you, right now.”
And Harvey didn’t even know where this speech was coming from, didn’t know why he was so vehement to get Mike to agree to come and work with him. All he knew was that with Mike at his side, he could do anything. They would be a force to be reckoned with.
At the time, Harvey hadn’t been aware just how true that was.
“I’m buying in as Senior Partner in August. At that point, I’ll need an Associate. You’ve got six months.”
--
The following six months were strange. Harvey had been snowed under at work and he hadn’t expected to hear from Mike until maybe July, or maybe just in passing at parties Marian dragged him to.
In the six months following that meeting, Mike becomes a semi-permanent fixture in Harvey’s life.
It started with a text the week following their meeting with one simple sentence;
vigorous reading of The Wasteland
leads to broken chair in the doc’s office
- beware, we’re coming for yours.
Harvey had laughed, startling Donna who had swivelled in her chair outside his office and raised an eyebrow. He shook his head, went to type out a reply when another came in from Marian;
mike think i dont know his destruction
of my chair was intentional. dont let
him fool you. tho he does make the
prettiest sounds when under duress.
Harvey wondered what alternate reality he’d stepped into before closing both messages and opening a reply to both of them;
don’t need to know details of your sordid
book club meetings. busy and important
work being done here. you kids have fun
- i hear ikea’s lovely at this time of year.
--
He met Mike for lunch in late March.
“What are you reading?” Mike held up the book cover, hiding his face behind it and Harvey noted the title Never Let Me Go by an author who’s name Harvey was not even going to pretend he could pronounce. When Mike didn’t lower the book even after Harvey sat down (Greenhouse 36 again, this was the start of a habit), Harvey hooked his finger over the top of the spine and pulled it down. Mike resisted, then eventually relented and Harvey could see his eyes were swollen and red, his cheeks streaked with the shiny remainder of tears. “Are you crying?” He asked incredulously.
“It’s sad!”
Harvey rolled his eyes and grabbed the book from Mike, reading the blurb on the back.
“Why are you reading this?” He asked in disdain as he tossed the book back onto the table between them. Mike picked it up gently, cradling it in his arms for a moment before placing it back in his bag (and God, Harvey groaned, he was going to break the kid from the bag if he was going to be his associate).
“I’m delivering a class this semester on dystopias.” Harvey frowned at him, bewildered and Mike shrugged. “Nothing better to do.”
“Could be working with me,” he murmured and for some reason, he couldn’t look at Mike when he said it.
“Not yet, Harvey,” Mike said to him once he looked up. Harvey had to fight to ignore the little bubble of something that floated through him at that.
--
“Dude, you’ve got the rhythm of a steel pole in the wind,” Mike had crowed one evening at dinner, the mirthful tears in his eyes renewing at Harvey’s exasperation.
“Don’t call me-”
“Dude!”
“Shut up.”
“Dude!”
“Shut up.”
“What was that!?”
Harvey didn’t dignify that with a response.
(In the months leading up to his wedding, he does take Mike’s advice and invests in dancing lessons. From Mike. It’s interesting, to say the least.)
--
“Mike-”
“We gonna drink until we die!”
“I think you’re almost there,” Harvey replied.
“Dude!”
“I’m hanging up, Mike.”
“No!”
Harvey hung up.
--
“What’s the point in drunk dialling if you don’t even answer your phone? Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike answer your phone. Mike answer your phone. Mike. Mike. Mike. Fine.”
--
“You and Mike seem to be getting on well,” Marian said one night in bed, her voice quiet in the darkness. Harvey turned his head to look at her, attempting to search her face in the near blackness.
“He’s a bright kid.”
Marian laughed, the sound more a huff of breath than anything else and Harvey wasn’t sure what to make of the sound.
“Can I tell you something?” Marian asked and Harvey shifted onto his side, sliding his hand across her stomach to rest on her hip. She turned to him and he nodded, smiling as his fingers tapped out a rhythmic tattoo against her skin. “I’m a little jealous.”
Harvey frowned.
“Of what?”
She laughed, turned her head back so she was facing the ceiling.
“You’ve never taken to someone like you’ve taken to him. Not since you were fourteen, anyway.”
Harvey stared at her, and he could feel something unsettling in him, shifting slightly at her words and he didn’t like it.
“He’s a good kid,” Harvey said, the only thing he knew to say. Marian nodded. “Don’t be jealous,” he murmured, sliding closer to her, wrapping his body around hers.
“I’ll try.”
--
After the conversation with Marian, Harvey didn’t speak to Mike for a month. He ignored the first few texts Mike sent, deleted the voicemail that was left at four thirty one Saturday morning and grinned at the apology that followed twelve hours later.
Marian’s words had prompted him to think about Mike, about Harvey’s reaction to him. And it was odd, really because he hadn’t thought twice about letting Mike stay in his life. It should have been weird, having lunch with his fiancee’s student but to Harvey, he was just Mike and that wasn’t weird. Which was weird.
When he did see Mike again in June, and he felt that little bubble shift and settle again, he acknowledged it this time. Acknowledged how his whole body shifted, how his mind settled, how all the corners of his mind filled up - not with noise, or colour, or vibrancy but with quiet, with space, with ease. How Mike just fit.
And that was bad, especially because Mike was trying to hold himself together, especially because when Harvey’d got the message from Mike he hadn’t been able to resist ringing him back straight away;
“What do you mean, he’s gone?”
Mike’s voice, when he’d replied, had been void of everything and it sent chills down Harvey’s spine.
“He left me.”
“Where are you?”
“No. I can’t see- I just needed to hear your voice. I mean, I just needed to talk to someone.” There was a pause, during which Harvey fought with words and lost. “Fuck.”
Mike hung up.
--
Mike started work at Pearson Hardman three days after Harvey was promoted to Senior Partner. They’ve been working together for a little over two months when Marian starts pushing Harvey to get married. It’s around that time that Harvey started to notice that Mike and Marian don’t speak much any more.
He chalked it up to them not having time.
--
Harvey saw Mike pretty much every day after he started working at the firm. At time, Harvey wondered if Mike had moved into his cubicle in the Associates Den and when he’d questioned him about it, Mike had replied simply;
“The apartment’s too quiet.”
--
“I saw Nial the other day,” Mike said to him over lunch one day and Harvey looks up. Mike looked tired - exhausted actually, and Harvey felt a pang at that.
“Oh?” He said instead, sipping from his cup of coffee.
“Yeah.” Harvey looked over the table to him, to Mike’s utterly lost expression. He didn’t say anything, didn’t know how to, what was acceptable. If he wanted to. Mike used his fork to push the food about, not eating, and Harvey took a moment to notice just how thin Mike actually is. “Do you think- No, never mind.”
Harvey’s not one for deep and meaningful conversation but for Mike, he’d make an exception. Only because he didn’t think Mike had anyone other than Nial (who’s gone) and Jenny (who’d introduced him to Nial) and Trevor (who’s an insensitive prick, if Harvey did say so himself).
“What?”
“It’s stupid.”
Harvey tried to smirk, felt it fall flat but continued anyway, “And that’s different, how?”
It drew a smile, at least. A small victory.
“Shut up.”
“Mike...” He didn’t know what else to say, really.
“Do you... do you think you love someone, just to get you ready for loving someone else?”
Harvey stilled.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know.” He shifted in his seat, letting his fork drop to his plate. “Just something Nial said. Forget it.”
“If that’s what you want.”
Mike looked up at him then, his expression unfathomable, which was strange because Mike had such an elaborately expressive face.
“Marian text me to tell me you guys had set a date for the wedding?” Harvey was thrown momentarily by the question and it took him longer than it should to nod. Mike smiled, covered Harvey’s wrist with his hand and squeezed. “Congratulations, man.”
Harvey frowned across at Mike, who smiled a little, looked away.
“Mike... are you in love with my fiancee?”
Mike cackled a laugh at that, and Harvey was glad to see the smile.
“Of course I am. Who wouldn’t be?”
Harvey grinned, a little brittle, and turned back to his lunch.
“Quite right.”
--
What Harvey doesn’t know is that the day before Mike takes his colloquium, the following conversation takes place:
“I cheated on Harvey.”
Mike looks up from where he’s working at the other side of her desk.
“When?” He asks and Marian looks him straight in the face, even if she doesn’t meet his eyes.
“A few times. College. Once after I got the job here. Not for a few years.”
“Does he know?”
Marian snorts.
“For all that Harvey reads people, he’s blind when it comes to me. Because he wouldn’t do that to me, he can’t imagine that I would do it to him.” Mike frowns “He doesn’t know. He won’t. And he will never cheat on me.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
Marian watches him for a moment, shrugs.
“Just letting you know.”
Mike makes sure Harvey never does find out about it, even after everything falls apart.
--
PART FOUR