Exclusively Yours

Nov 18, 2011 09:40

Title: Exclusively Yours
Fandom: Suits
Ship: Harvey/Mike
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Say it with me now ~ me ... don't ... own.
Summary: Harvey turns up to work one Monday morning wearing a wedding ring. No one even knew he was seeing someone. Cue everyone noticing and commenting on the ring, trying to find out who Harvey married...
Authors Notes: Written for this prompt at the suits_meme. Much love to everyone who left me comments over there because I was massively nervous about posting my first Suits fic. I actually really love the way this turned out and I hope you like it.
(First fic in what has become the Exclusively Yours verse)


Exclusively Yours

Donna // 9.26am

Precisely ten minutes after Harvey arrives at work Donna strides into his office, hands full of paperwork, for their Monday morning briefing.

"Morning, boss," she says cheerfully.

"Donna."

"Good weekend?" she asks, sitting down on the other side of his desk.

A smile ghosts over his lips, so fast that she almost misses it. But she’s Donna, and she sees all.

"You could say that."

She raises an eyebrow at him. Something is definitely up. But then Harvey is sitting a little straighter and looking intently at her and she knows it's business time.

"Okay, so you have the Anderson deposition at 10am and the Copland and O’Connell meeting at 2pm."

"Okay."

"Mark Bavdek called this morning-"

Harvey groans. "Stall him."

"I have been. For two weeks. Not sure I can stall him much longer."

"Fine. I’ll call him at some point … this week."

Donna smiles at that but lets it pass. "You need to RSVP for the benefit dinner by Friday."

"Ask me on Thursday."

"The documents for the Shanahan case still haven't arrived."

"Give it until midday and let me know if they haven't arrived by then."

"You got married on the weekend."

Harvey meets Donna’s eyes, his face a mask. Wordlessly, she moves her gaze to his hands resting on the glass desk, the platinum ring on his left hand. She returns her attention back up to his face, waiting.

Harvey swallows nervously. "Yes."

Donna nods, and lets it go. Now is not the time for this conversation. "Kyle dropped off the Bilston briefs."

"What time?"

"8.59am," she replies with barely concealed glee.

Harvey rolls his eyes. "Tell him I want to see him this afternoon."

"And Jessica wants to see you ASAP."

Harvey nods. When Donna doesn’t continue he asks, "Anything else?"

"You could have told me you know." Her voice is quiet, an underlying note of hurt that only he would be able to detect.

"I wanted to. But my other half wanted to keep it quiet."

She stands, but before she leaves she asks, "Are you happy?"

His initial instinct is to make a joke, maybe something about having to work on his honeymoon, but he is Harvey and she is Donna and she would see through that in zero seconds flat. "Ridiculously."

They smile at each other for a moment before Donna starts to walk out of the office. But before she reaches the door she turns back and says, "And don’t for a second think I don’t know who your other half is."

Harvey gapes at her, open mouth and all.

"I’m Donna," she says simply. "I know everything."

Jessica // 9.51am

"Jessica."

"Harvey." Jessica stands from her desk and meets him in the middle of the room. "Call Mark Bavdek."

"Jessica, the guy is-"

"I don’t care what your problem with him is. Get over it and do your job. Or I will give him to Louis."

"Fine, great, Louis can have at him."

Jessica just stands there, staring at him. Something is different. Harvey would never give up a client, even one he doesn’t like, and especially to Louis. She gives him a quick once over.

"Sit down," she commands, gesturing to the nearby couch.

"I have a depo in ten minutes," he says, pointing at the door.

"This won’t take long," she replies, sitting on the couch and waiting for him to join her.

With a long-suffering sigh, Harvey sits beside her. He turns expectantly to her but she says nothing. She just stares, like she is waiting for him. When Harvey refuses to break the silence she finally asks, "Anything you want to tell me?"

He furrows his brow at her. "No. Why?"

Jessica simply reaches over, placing a hand on his left hand, over his ring. "Congratulations," she says, lifting his hand for a better look at the band.

Harvey chuckles to himself. Less than an hour into the day and two people have already noticed the ring. Clearly he needs to reconsider his assessment on people’s powers of observation.

"Thanks," he says sincerely.

"What is this?" she asks, finger lightly tracing the rough surface of the ring.

"A wedding ring," he replies dryly.

Jessica laughs. "Yes, I can see that. I was actually referring to the inscription."

Harvey withdraws his hand from her. "There is this quote I have always loved. It’s by a German writer, Goethe. I even have a print of it in my office at home. It reads: all the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is exclusively my own. Well, my partner didn’t take too kindly to that sentiment, so when they got our rings I discovered the engraving. sola tua est cor meum. It means my heart is yours alone."

"Interesting."

"What?"

"Latin is an intriguing choice. The only people I can think of who would choose Latin are scholars and lawyers."

Harvey smiles. "I plead the fifth."

"Of course you do," she says with a laugh. "And the six numbers?"

Harvey avoids her gaze, as though this information is more embarrassing than what he has already confessed. "It’s the day we met."

"Harvey, that was four years ago. How have you never told me that you were seeing someone in four years?"

"Okay, first of all, I said we met four years ago, not that we have been dating for that long. Second of all, you are my boss and mentor and friend, but none of those things means I have to tell you everything about my personal life. And finally, do I need to remind you that you had a wedding and a marriage and a divorce all without telling me?"

She thinks for a moment before nodding. "Fair enough," she relents with a smile. "Okay, you need to get to your deposition. Off you go."

Harvey stands with a nod.

"And before the day is out stop by and see Louis."

"What? Why?"

"If he is going to take over Mark Bavdek you should at least debrief him."

"Thankyou, Jessica."

"Consider it a wedding gift. Now get out of here."

Louis // 3.37pm

"So what did you do wrong?" Louis asks.

"Excuse me?"

"Jessica is giving me one of your multi-million dollar accounts. Which is a surprise in itself. Add to that the fact that you are here debriefing me on it with no cutting remarks about my abilities or intentions. It's almost like you are feeling repentant for something. Ergo, Jessica is punishing you for something you know you did wrong. So what did you do?"

Harvey sighs, running a hand over his face. He anticipated that this debrief would take ten minutes tops and they are currently pushing twenty minutes with no end in sight. He doesn't have the energy for this crap. "Louis-"

"What is that?" Louis demands, pointing at his hand.

He takes a deep breath, trying really hard not to just punch Louis in the face. "One, don't interrupt. Two, I am a Senior Partner and you are a Junior Partner, so you don't get to ask me personal questions. Three, why do you even care what it is? Four, I'm not in trouble with Jessica. Believe it or not, you taking over this case is a gift. To me. Five, can we please just get this done so we can both move on with our lives."

"Did you get married or something?"

Harvey throws up his hands in frustration. "Have you forgotten point number two already, Louis?"

"So who is the unlucky lady?"

Okay, time to change tack, Harvey thinks. Clearly the only way to get past this conversation is to have it first. He throws down his paperwork and looks Louis square in the eyes. "No one you know."

"And why is that?"

"What do you mean 'why is that'?"

"Because you're you. It's what you do. You show off your things - the records, baseballs, basketballs, suits, everything. So it begs the question: how come you have never mentioned her until now? Is she ugly? Is that it? You ashamed of her? Oh, wait, I know. It's one of those mail-order bride things, isn't it? Only way you could get someone to commit to you? So sad."

Harvey stands, buttoning his suit jacket and taking a few steps away from Louis before he does something he will regret (from a paperwork point of view, if nothing else).

"For the record, the only reason no one knew about us is because my better half values their privacy. And unlike you, I actually respect my partners' wishes. Enjoy the Bavdek account - he is a lying pain in the ass and I am glad to be shot of him."

And he walks out of the room without looking back.

Rachel // 6.06pm

Harvey knocks softly on Rachel's office door. She looks up at the noise, surprise clear on her face. "Harvey?"

"May I?"

Rachel nods, so he moves into the room, sitting opposite her. She has put her pen down and is regarding him with interest. Harvey can't really blame her. Despite the many years they have worked at Pearson Hardman together they have had surprisingly little reason to ever call on each other.

"I need your help," he says simply.

She raises an eyebrow, intrigued. "Go on."

Harvey places a folder on her desk. "As of 10am this morning this client was transferred from me to Louis. But when I tried to debrief him on the client things got … heated. I need you to acquaint Louis with everything he needs to know."

Rachel opens the folder and quickly scans the first few pages. "Ah. Bavdek."

"Yeah."

She closes the folder and looks up at him. "Harvey, I know better than anyone why you hate Bavdek so much-"

"We agreed never to talk about it again," Harvey interrupts.

"And we’re not talking about it now. I'm just curious. Why bother? You don't like Bavdek and you don't like Louis, so why do you even care? Why don't you just let them figure everything out for themselves?"

"Because as much as I hate Bavdek and violently dislike Louis, I care about the firm more. I'm grateful to not have to deal with him anymore but I still want Pearson Hardman to retain his business. That's more important. And you are the only one I can ask to do this."

Rachel nods. "Consider it done."

"Thanks, Rachel," he says with a genuine smile.

"By the way," she says before Harvey can get up to leave. "Many happy returns."

Harvey looks at her, confused. "It's not my birthday."

"I know. I just figured that at this point in the day you'd be sick of 'congratulations' so I thought I'd mix it up a bit."

And then she looks meaningfully down at his hands. At which point Harvey realises that he has spent the last five minutes idly spinning his wedding ring around his finger.

"Thanks."

"Whoever she is, she's a lucky woman," Rachel says genuinely.

Harvey and Rachel have never been particularly close, but there is a genuine respect and warmth between them. And looking at her now, thinking about how differently things could have gone, he can't help but verbalise something he has always known but never said.

"I'm the lucky one."

She grins at him but says nothing. He remains silent too, because really, what else is there to say? So he merely smiles warmly at her, thanks her again, and leaves her alone to figure out how to deal with Louis.

Mike // 8.40pm

Harvey waits what feels like an impossibly long time for the lift to arrive. It's been a long day and all he wants is to go home and crawl into bed with a certain someone.

"Hey."

Harvey turns and sees Mike approaching, briefcase in hand, clearly leaving for the day. "Hey. Where have you been all day?" he asks. Looking closely at Mike, the younger man looks exhausted.

"The library. Jessica had me looking for precedents all day."

Harvey quirks an eyebrow. Jessica has never tasked Mike for anything before and the timing is suspicious. "When did this happen?"

"Um, about 10am. Why?"

Harvey smiles, mentally cursing Jessica. They were going to have words tomorrow. "No reason."

The elevator doors open and Harvey gestures for Mike to go through first. They silently move into the lift, and Harvey presses the button for the ground floor.

"Nice ring," Mike says evenly, as the elevator doors close in front of them.

"Thanks."

"So, how many people commented on it today?"

"Not many, just … everyone," Harvey says with slight disgust.

Mike can't help but laugh. "Told you."

"Yeah, okay smart ass," he replies, voice completely lacking in sting.

They look at each other for a moment before simultaneously dropping their briefcases and closing the already small space between them. They kiss desperately, Harvey's hands firm on Mike's hips. Mike gently places his hands on Harvey's cheeks, cups his face reverently, and Harvey can feel the cool metal of Mike's wedding ring against his skin. It feels like home.

The elevator stops and the doors open. With a sigh they break apart, picking up their belongings and heading through the lobby.

"Please tell me you got as many comments as I did today," Harvey pleads.

"Sorry, babe. Have to disappoint you there. I got a grand total of zero comments today. In fact, I don't think anyone even noticed."

Harvey scoffed. "I wouldn’t be so sure of that if I were you." Off Mike's enquiring look he adds, "Jessica."

Now Mike looks even more confused. "What, so, sending me to the library all day. Was that a punishment?"

"I don't think so. More likely her way of telling us that she worked it out and that we need to have separate, professional lives in the office. If it was a punishment we would know. Trust me."

The night air is cool as they make their way over to the car. Ray is waiting for them, car door open and a smile on his face.

"Good evening," Ray says warmly.

Harvey and Mike both greet him before sliding into the back seat of the car. As soon as the door closes behind Harvey, Mike has his body pressed against Harvey's, pulling him in for a kiss. Harvey meets the embrace eagerly, a hand to the back of Mike's neck. The car pulls into the busy New York traffic as Mike climbs onto Harvey's lap, straddling his hips, deepening their kiss and pawing at his shirt. Harvey pushes Mike's jacket from his shoulders onto the floor, hands roaming everywhere. The roar of the city outside is loud as they reacquaint themselves after too long apart.

"Whose brilliant idea was it to go back to work two days after getting married?" Mike asks, lips brushing Harvey's with every word.

Harvey chuckles in reply (Mike, eyes still closed, feels it more than hears it). He pulls back slightly, forcing Mike to look at him in the dim city lights. "That would be the person who called in favours at City Hall to get us married two days ago because he couldn't wait for when we had our leave booked in six months time."

He grins. "What can I say? I couldn't wait that long to be yours."

Harvey smiles indulgently. "Mike, we both know that I have been yours and you have been mine ever since the moment we met."

Mike gently kisses him. "I like that it's official now though."

"Well, that it is. No going back now. My heart is exclusively yours."

"For forever?"

Harvey simply kisses him in reply.

[Sequel: love consists in this]

other fandom fics, tv, suits, harvey/mike

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