Work Text:
-- 1 --
Oh, shit.
Your life doesn't flash before your eyes, 'cause you're too fuckin' scared to think - you just freeze, and pull a stupid face. A craggy Jason Statham taunted Mike from inside his brain, supplying an appropriate quote while dope piled up at his feet.
“Whoa, what’s this?”
The expression on thousand-dollar-suit guy -- Harvey Specter, Mike's aural memory cache ponied up -- was inscrutable. He wore his smirk like another suit, a professional smirk that he wore daily and for varied purposes. Harvey Smirker, J.D.
Mike could feel his facial muscles pulling themselves into a stupid expression to match his useless stream of thought. Silent seconds awkwardly ticked off. Mike’s toe nudged one of the bags. Shit shit shit. Think .
Specter’s eyes roamed over Mike’s face, dropped to the floor, back up to Mike’s suit, his face. The smirk sharpened. This was a case study in why lawyers were called sharks.
Mike frantically weighed his possible outs: I certainly do not know where those drugs came from. Hey man, here’s a brick for you to pretend this never happened. Mercy, sir.
He took a deep breath. Regroup. Law interviews. Expensive suit. Redhead’s wink when Mike told her about the cops. He could use this, he could--
“Where’s the wasted girl and the bag of fertilizer?” Now Mr. Specter was grinning outright.
Mike’s eyebrows shot up. “Really? Guy Ritchie quotes from a lawyer?” That grin was almost contagious.
“Well, Handsome Bob, how about you pick up your little horti-fucking-culture experiment and impress me with the rest of your story.”
-- 2 --
Harvey scowled at Louis.
Deep vertical creases took hold between his eyebrows.
Seeing it didn’t make Mike feel any better, or any less bitter. He still had to suffer through being Louis’ associate for two weeks. Two weeks of mudding threats and misunderstood movie references.
Harvey’s eyes flicked to Mike for a split second before he looked away. His jaw clenched, and then, suddenly, his expression went limp and pale, stone-faced.
There was too much hidden there for Mike to get the words he wanted.
-- 3 --
Off of his face. Off of it.
That was the best and only way to describe Mike right now. Mike and Mike’s face.
Also Harvey’s face. Harvey Specter was stoned. With Mike and stoned. He knew Coffee Cart Guy. Mind blown, because Harvey was un-necktied, loose, cotton mouthy. Harvey Specter who was telling Mike about his dad. Jazz, love at first sight, groupies, protecting him.
Mike fit those things into the gaps in his mental Harvey puzzle. Seemed to click the whole outside of it together. His thing, many things with women. His epic thing about loyalty.
And then Harvey was laughing. The lines around his eyes, the laugh lines, not the creases between them Mike usually saw. The lines around his eyes were deep, like they got used , or used to get used, maybe lots. And when he laughed it was quiet, held in, private. But that smile was open and trusting. No 31 flavors of professional smirks tonight.
Then they were raiding the fridge at the bodega for Gatorade and hailing a cab to piss at the office. Idiotic, perfect idea.
Mike was wrapped up deep in the pot blanket sensation, the way everything was muffled and quilted and slow. But this time was different from the hundred times with Trevor. This time there was the bright, woken up flare of Harvey trusting him.
Back at you , Mike silently grinned at him.
-- 4 --
No one could roll their eyes like Harvey Specter. It was completely juvenile and, even when it was directed at him, it amused Mike.
--5 --
Harvey hadn’t noticed Mike through the glass of his office. Yet. He would, but until then Mike could look at him.
The elevator dinged faintly. Someone else leaving for the night, late.
Harvey was in profile, looking out the window at nothing. He had a pen this time. Other times it was a tumbler of whiskey, subpoena paperwork, the needle of his record player frozen in his hand. What went on inside his head, inside the mind of the great Harvey Specter?
Split seconds like this happened a lot now that Mike was watching for them.
The pen tapped out time against Harvey’s lower lip. Mike's eyes flicked to the record player. Spinning. The pen caught gently. Mike could see from here the skin of Harvey's lip pull. He licked them. Mike licked his.
“Trying to steal my tricks?” Donna was at his side, from nowhere.
Mike licked his lips again, startled. “Just--” He half-lifted the discovery file.
Donna grinned. She adjusted his lapels. “Mike, you read the words on the page and never forget them, but what you need to learn is how to read between the lines.” She patted him on the chest and then was gone.
Harvey was looking at him now, a finger and raised brows telling him to get in here .
-- 6 --
The bartender leaned close and slipped a napkin to Harvey. Her phone number and a time, a lipstick smear. She whispered in his ear with a sly smile on her red lips. From the expression on his face, it was probably a suggestion for later. Then she stepped away, back to her job until the designated time.
Harvey's grin faded. He swirled his drink and stared into it.
Mike tried to imagine himself in Harvey’s shoes. Top of his game, rich, attractive, magnetic. Harvey’s slumped shoulders told a different story. It was like he didn't want this, or her.
Mike wondered if anyone had ever tried the Why don’t you come up and see me sometime line on Harvey; or if he’d used it on anyone else. He wondered if it’d work. He chuckled softly into his own drink. Probably would work, but no one night stand would know to try it on him. Everyone had a public face and a private one. Everyone played a role, and from where Mike was sitting, it looked lonely at the top.
It only lasted a second.
“Learn anything?” Harvey prodded, familiar grin back on. His knee settled against Mike’s under the bar.
He had, maybe, but not in the way Harvey meant.
-- 7 --
Harvey found him in the file room somewhere north of midnight.
“You should see me in my all-together,” Harvey said, horrible British accent slathered all over it.
“What’s up, Austin Powers?” Mike deflected. Three Red Bulls and two hours of sleep made that sound far too tempting, and he doubted it was a real offer.
“Edward Darby.”
“No way. Darby came on to you? That’s one way to secure a merger.” Mike air-drummed the ba-dum-ching.
“Funny.” His response came with the expected eye roll.
“ A bit of how’s your father? ” Mike’s accent was clearly much better.
The look Harvey leveled at him made him want to squirm, and so did the gravelly tone of Harvey’s voice when he said, “Give me your wallet.”
“What kind of non sequitur is that?”
Harvey rolled his eyes again. Before Mike knew what was happening, Harvey pulled him up out of his chair and reached directly into his pants pocket. He fished through Mike’s wallet until he found the requisite condom that every dude carried.
“Now,” Harvey said as he placed the packet gently between his teeth, folded Mike’s wallet, and slid it slowly back into his pocket. He held up the condom between two fingers and backed away toward the door. “Learn anything?”
“No? I have questions! About mergers!” Mike called after him. Christ, he had pressing questions.
-- 8 --
“Top ten list. Go.” Harvey tossed some popcorn into his mouth and looked at Mike expectantly.
“No pressure. Fine. Jeff Bridges as Kevin Flynn.”
“Wrong.”
“Wrong? You can’t tell me my list is wrong, it’s my list!”
“It’s your wrong list.”
“Ok, then. Give me yours.”
Mike took a long drink of his beer. Because this whole thing was right up to the line. God, he wanted to get up to that line. Right up on it.
“Marlon Brando, Stanley, Streetcar Named Desire.”
“Correct, but displays a remarkable lack of creativity.”
“Says your 1980 preschool crush.”
“Um, Tron came out in 1982.”
Eye roll with a smile. Harvey chucked a kernel at him and Mike snapped at it, trying to catch it. He picked it up and ate it off his lap.
“Alright, rookie. Robert Redford in Sneakers.”
“Say no more.”
“Why? That’s an unimpeachable choice.”
“It is. We agree.”
Harvey’s response was a weirdly soft, surprised smile that lasted a few beats too long before morphing into a smirk. “Great minds. Now watch the movie.”
Mike grumbled affectionately, “That was nowhere near a top ten list. Great minds should know how to count, at least.”
Harvey shoved a handful of popcorn in Mike’s mouth.
Neither of them shifted away when their sides pressed together. Shared popcorn bowl after all.
-- 9 --
“Mike, no.” Harvey crowded into his space, speaking sharply. “No.”
But Mike wasn’t the guy he was when they met, standing in a heap of spilled marijuana. He could read Harvey’s anger now as hurt. Both of them felt impotent.
“It’s the only way.”
“You can’t.” Harvey didn’t yell this time. No goddamn it. No I’m not going to let you . Not this time. The fight went out of him in a rush of breath.
Mike had to do this. It was the only way to keep Harvey out of prison. He had to take the deal. He was already a fraud, a drug user, a cheater, and a dropout. This was just one more in a list. He wasn’t going to drag Harvey down with him.
“This is the best case scenario,” Mike said quietly. He reached out and squeezed Harvey’s shoulders for emphasis.
“You and your fucking loyalty,” Harvey laughed wetly.
“Yeah.”
“Come here,” Harvey said, dragging Mike into a hug.
His exhales were warm and damp on Mike’s neck. Everything was changing. No more late nights breaking cases wide open. No more Sunday afternoons in front of a ballgame on TV. No more ambiguous flirtation. The ache in Mike’s chest was almost unbearable.
He didn’t know what he was going to do without him.
-- 10 --
At least they didn’t have to have a pane of reinforced glass between them. Harvey as his lawyer meant they could see each other, breathe the same air at least. That was worth something.
He looked tired. It was in his eyes.
-- 11 --
“She said she tried.”
“I know.”
Mike wished he could see the expression on Harvey’s face. The phone line clicked. Two clicks every thirty seconds so they knew they were being recorded. Harvey wasn’t calling as his lawyer. No privilege.
“She offered to move out. I said don’t bother. It’s not like I’m living there.”
“Mike--”
“It’s fine. It’s better for her.”
“You’ll be out soon. I’m working on it.”
Mike breathed in and out slowly, tried to get his loneliness under control. “You taking up pie baking?”
Harvey’s chuckle was soft over the phone line. “I was thinking more of a pick. A big, heavy one. Would that fit in a pie?”
They’d watched The Great Escape together about a year ago, before this had all blown up on them. Harvey knew it all by heart. Obviously, since it was Steve McQueen and this was Harvey Specter.
“Thanks, Harvey.” He wished he could see his face.
-- 12 --
“I was wondering which car you’d come in.”
“I tried to get the A-Team van, but turns out that’s not Face’s department.” He pointed at his own grin.
Mike didn’t smile exactly, but he did laugh a little. “I was always more of a Hannibal guy.”
“Come here.” Harvey drew him into a hug.
There wasn’t much to say, or maybe there was a lot to say. Either way, they stayed silent for a long time.
Harvey wasn’t wearing a suit. Maybe it was so Mike wouldn’t be reminded of the life he couldn’t have. As always, though, Harvey smelled good. Mike’s nose was used to antiseptic, overcooked green beans from the can, sweat, blood.
He’d done his time, though. Now it was time to rebuild. He pulled back and nodded at Harvey.
“Time to get you out of this godforsaken state,” Harvey said.
“You’re maligning all of Connecticut?”
“Yale.”
“Say no more.” This time Mike might have even cracked a grin.
“Get in, Murdock.”
“If I’m Murdock, shouldn’t I be the one driving?”
-- 13 --
The expression on Harvey’s face said he wouldn’t take no for an answer.
“This is ridiculous. You don’t need to repay me for--”
Harvey interrupted Mike’s objection. “That is not what this is.”
“What is it then?”
Harvey looked away, out the window, and then back at Mike. He wasn’t speaking, but the pleading look said enough. Nerves roiled Mike’s gut. This was dangerous. He didn’t even admit to himself in the dark of night what he felt about Harvey, just that it was complicated.
They didn’t talk about it. Mike moved in.
-- 14 --
Three months and Harvey hadn’t brought home any women. He hadn’t stayed out all night. Nothing.
Once, late, after they’d watched a movie, Mike thought he heard something through his closed bedroom door. A gasp, maybe.
The night was deafening then as he strained to hear something else, anything.
A grunt. Was that a grunt?
Every muscle in his body was stiff as he listened through the darkness.
Harvey’s bathroom faucet ran.
Mike turned face down on his bed and gasped. Had Harvey… did he just… It was normal. Everyone did it. There was no connection between those noises and their quiet, close evening on the couch. No connection to the electricity that was building between them. Was it one sided?
Mike shifted his hips. “Fuck,” he whispered. He tried to be quiet too.
-- 15 --
Mike came back from a long, aimless ride around the city. He was brooding about how to move forward. Nothing was clicking into place. It was going to take time, he knew that. But he needed to do something. He needed to be productive. A taste of helping people, and there was no giving that up. He had to find something he could do as a felon.
Harvey was in the kitchen, a towel around his waist, hair wet and sticking up at all angles.
“You’re sweating,” Harvey said, wide-eyed. He looked Mike over slowly.
“You’re dripping.”
“My prerogative, my apartment.”
Harvey walked down the hall to his bedroom. Mike couldn’t help watch him go. He didn’t close the door.
-- 16 --
“I’m never going to be as good as Donna at this, but I can usually tell what you’re thinking,” Mike said.
Harvey was barely in the door. Mike shouldn’t spring this on him, but it was hanging there between them. This unanswered, unnamed thing. It kept him up nights jerking off and wondering.
Harvey froze and looked at him leaning on the kitchen counter, met his eyes. “Ok. What am I thinking now?” he asked as he took off his suit coat.
“That I’m about to drop something on you.”
Harvey nodded for him to go on. His face was impassive. It meant he was nervous.
“I can’t always tell what you’re thinking. Sometimes I need you to actually tell me your plan.”
“What if I don’t have a plan?”
“You always have a plan.”
Harvey grinned a little. “What does the evidence say?”
“It says I should ask you why you asked me to move in here.”
His grin faltered. He fell back on, “Mike, what does the evidence say?”
His life was still in shambles. He had no job. He had an empty, fiancee-less apartment on the market that he might have to sell at a loss. He had a criminal record.
Mike let out a ragged breath. “I can’t yet.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Mike nodded.
They still hadn’t really said anything.
-- 17 --
“What’s this?”
Harvey sorted through the mail and held up an envelope with Mike’s name on it. It had CUNY’s logo embossed in the corner.
“Julius and I have been talking.”
“And?” Caution was painted all over Harvey’s features. A hint of jealousy maybe.
That was satisfying in a petty, territorial kind of way.
Mike walked over and took the envelope from Harvey’s hand. He slid a finger under the flap and tore it open. Harvey leaned over his shoulder and read the letter too.
-- 18 --
His books were way too heavy for his messenger bag. He needed to get a locker on campus. Or one of those fat-tired bikes with the baskets. He could hear the Wicked Witch tornado music now.
“Hey,” Harvey said.
He had a finger of scotch in his glass. He was leaning against the kitchen counter, seemingly in wait.
“Hey. Something up?”
Harvey’s expression said it was time for them to have the talk they’d been putting off. Harvey’d had the patience of a saint. Mike knew he hadn’t been on any dates since he’d picked Mike up at Danbury. That’d been six months.
Mike nodded. “I’m ready. You?”
“Beyond ready.”
Mike set his bag on the counter, freeing his hands to gently take the glass from Harvey’s fingers. He set it next to his books. The pads of Mike’s fingers were wet from the glass’ condensation when he slid them across Harvey’s cheekbone.
Harvey’s hands found his hips, rooting Mike in place.
“In that case,” Mike said, “ Why don’t you come up and see me sometime? ”
Harvey’s eyes went wide in momentary surprise. Then he was laughing against Mike’s shoulder. “You’ve got so much to learn about the art of seduction, rookie.”
“Did it work though?”
“Yeah,” Harvey smiled, closing the distance between his lips and Mike’s. “It worked.”