Fic (Suits): Stop the World
Title: Stop the World
Author: cookielaura
Characters/Pairings: Mike Ross, Harvey Specter, Donna Paulson, (spoilers) unrequited Mike/Harvey
Wordcount: 2,300
Rating: PG-13
Contains: Mild swearing, sexual references, angst; no spoilers
Summary: Mike wants some answers from Harvey
Notes: Written for highlander_ii's fandom stocking for their prompt of: (spoilers) the idea of Mike having a thing for Harvey, only to find out that Harvey isn't interested. Also filling the wild card on my hc_bingo card.
Mike knows he can do this. Tonight is the night.
He approaches Harvey's office, his steps carefully measured. He practised his walk in the restroom earlier, to own embarrassment, because he suddenly became self-conscious and unsure how to walk in a casual manner. Despite the fact that he does it everyday.
He's got a file in his hand. He doesn't need to be carrying it - it's not relevant to their current case and even if it was, he knows every word of the contents anyway - but it gives him something to hold onto, something to stop himself fidgeting.
He feels like he's sixteen again, plucking up the courage to ask Kelly from homeroom to go to the prom.
Mike passes Donna's desk, not surprised that she's still here even though it's past nine pm; she often stays until Harvey leaves, though he wishes she hadn't today. He loves her, but she sees straight through him, and that's the last thing he needs tonight. He tosses a carefree smile at her over his shoulder as he goes by, and hopes it looks natural. Hopes she isn't continuing to watch him as he reaches Harvey's door.
He raises a hand and gives the door a brief, cursory knock. Mike barely needs to knock these days, especially not when the offices are almost empty and Harvey's not on the phone, so he doesn't bother to wait for an answer, just pushes the door open and enters. Harvey, seated at his desk with a file open, looks up, and Mike freezes for a moment, taken aback by the way that Harvey has removed his tie and undone the top two buttons of his shirt. Mike can see the top of his collarbone, the dip at the base of his throat: exposed, almost vulnerable skin. It's unusual for Harvey, and it catches Mike off guard, leaving him standing, staring, in the open doorway for a second.
Harvey raises an eyebrow at Mike's silence. “See something you like?” he says, sardonically, and Mike feels a rush of heat to his face. He forces the blush down as best he can, because it's just a joke of course, just one of Harvey's arrogant quips, not meant to be taken seriously. And yet it's quips like that which make Mike think he's not alone in what he feels.
He pulls himself together and rolls his eyes in a long-suffering manner, and Harvey grins.
“I'm heading out,” Mike says, just as rehearsed. “You wanna get a drink?” It's nothing he hasn't said to Harvey twenty times before, so he tells himself that the awkwardness he hears as the question hangs in the air is imagined.
Harvey glances down at the file in front of him, then at his watch. Mike knows he's not working on anything urgent - that's why he chose tonight - so he's not surprised when Harvey shrugs, shuts the file and rolls his neck to loosen the muscles.
“Why not?” Harvey says, standing, and Mike isn't sure if he should be relieved or terrified.
----
They’re on their third whiskeys. Dutch courage, Mike thought when he swallowed the first one down quickly, the burn hard and fast in his throat, but now he tells himself that this will be his last drink, because he can feel the sharpness of his thoughts start to dull a little at the edges, feel them connecting a little slower. And he can’t be sloppy here. He needs to be in control, if he is to carry on manipulating the conversation in the direction he wants it to go.
He’s finally manoeuvred Harvey away from the bar and into a booth, and Harvey is relaxed - or as relaxed as Harvey Specter gets. His sleeves are rolled to the elbow, his smiles easy. It’s exactly what Mike wanted, even if those lightly muscled forearms are distracting as hell, the fine blond hair over tanned skin occasionally catching the glow from the low lights in the bar. He tries not to look at them. Tries to subtly mimic Harvey’s pose, lounging a little against the side of the booth.
“What about when you were working in the mail room?” he asks, keeping his tone light, teasing. “Any dalliances with the other mail room employees?”
Mike’s plan for the evening was to play to Harvey’s ego, to get him talking about his past lovers - not in depth, just enough for Mike to find out what he wants to know, and maybe, maybe, somehow bring himself into the equation. So far they’ve flitted from woman to woman - Scottie, girls at high school, women at Harvard - but Mike hasn’t found the right opening yet.
Harvey smirks and shakes his head. “Not other mail room employees,” he says.
Mike laughs. “You mean you were already sleeping with associates back then?” he asks, then pretends to think of something. “Wait - you and Jessica never -?”
Harvey tilts his head, doing his best to look mysterious, then breaks and cracks up, the whiskeys and the atmosphere apparently eroding his ability to hold out on Mike. “No. Of course not.”
“Nah, I guess Jessica wouldn’t put up with your shit long enough to sleep with you,” Mike jokes.
“There was an associate,” Harvey says, his own voice echoing Mike’s teasing tone, dangling details just out of reach. “They’re not at Pearson Hardman anymore.”
“Oh yeah?” says Mike, twirling his whiskey glass in his fingers. “And…?”
“Can’t tell you any more,” Harvey says. “It’s someone we’ve gone up against recently, and we’ll probably go up against them again. Don’t want you getting all starstruck.”
Mike snorts. “Hardly,” he says, though his mind is moving fast, trying to figure out who it could be. He hasn’t noticed any strange vibes between Harvey and opposing lawyers lately.
“What about if I guess?” he says, grinning.
Harvey shrugs. “You won’t,” he says, confident, and Mike feels his pulse start to quicken, because he sees the opening for one of the questions he has to ask, and more than that, he sees the possibility that he might get one of the answers he wants.
“Why not?” he asks. “Is it someone who’s not your usual type?”
Harvey just leans back, the smirk still firmly on his face. “You could say that.”
Mike swallows, his tongue suddenly thick. Keep it light, he tells himself. “Is it a guy?” he asks, and it doesn’t sound as light as he would like, but it’s not bad either. It’s not intense and desperate and aching, it doesn’t show how much he really wants to know.
Harvey’s smirk widens, and he shakes his head. “No, she’s definitely a woman,” he says.
Disappointment hits Mike, but all is not lost. Now that he’s brought it up, he has to follow through. Has to know. He abandons the questioning about the mystery opponent and follows up on his last question.
“But,” he says, leaning forward, giving as careless a grin as he can. “Have you ever? Been with a guy?”
He sees surprise cross Harvey’s face, and for a moment Mike is scared that he’s been too obvious, but then Harvey’s face clears and he simply shakes his head. “Not yet,” he says, simply, as if it isn’t important, as if it’s just a throwaway remark.
Mike feels dizzy. Not yet. It’s not a no. It’s about as far from a no as it can be. And Mike could leave it there, but he doesn’t.
“Not yet?” he asks, raising an eyebrow, not able to stop himself leaning in a little more. Because that not yet surely means soon, and it surely means with him, doesn’t it? He's fizzing with excitement, with happiness. All the looks Harvey has given him over the last year, all the unnecessary touches, all the demands that go beyond work, all the possessiveness that he’s not shy about showing over Mike, all the ways they can communicate without saying a word - Mike’s not been imagining them.
Harveys stretches a little and downs the rest of his whiskey, then puts the glass down on the table. “Yeah, I mean, it’s not out of the question I suppose. I guess if I ever meet a man who makes me feel that way. But I haven’t yet, so I’ve never really thought about it.”
Mike feels like the world has stopped. His hands have gone cold and his ears are buzzing and shit how did that go from so good to so bad so quickly? It’s unequivocal. Harvey hasn’t met a guy who he wants. He’s never even thought about Mike that way. Never.
Part of Mike is screaming at him to pull himself together and hide his emotions, but he can’t speak, can’t seem to think coherently enough to make words come. He looks down at the table, trying to focus, and then he hears Harvey shift and lean forward, and speak:
“Oh, shit, Mike…”
Mike looks up, and sees the last thing he wants to see on Harvey’s face: pity.
Harvey knows. The shock and disappointment and all-out sickness must have shown on Mike’s face as clearly as the sympathy is showing on Harvey’s now. And Mike can’t do a damn thing about it.
He tries anyway. Tries to recover. Shoves his shaking hands under the table.
“Why ‘shit’?” he asks, trying to look genuinely curious as to why Harvey swore.
But he’s done a poor job, because the pity in Harvey’s expression only deepens. “Mike,” he says, gently, carefully, and it’s the gentleness that undoes Mike, that brings tears of humiliation and loss to his eyes. He stumbles up from the table, and feels Harvey reach out for his arm, but he yanks it away.
“Mike,” Harvey says again, louder, calling out to him, but Mike walks away, as fast as he can, picking up speed as he pushes through the crowd, through the door to the bar and out onto the cold street.
He walks faster and faster, his vision blurring, until he realizes nobody is coming after him, and then he slows, and uses his hand to dash the wetness from his eyes. The chill night air cuts through his jacket and shirt, but he ignores it, keeps putting one foot in front of the other, trying not to let himself think. Just walk.
He’s not sure how long it is afterwards when a cab pulls up by the sidewalk next to him, and the door swings open. Only a few minutes, probably. He looks to his right, half-dreading, half-hoping that he will see Harvey in the back seat.
But it’s Donna. She beckons him in.
“Did Harvey send you?” Mike asks, hating that his voice sounds loud and accusatory even among the rest of the street noise. He doesn't know whether to be pissed off or pathetically grateful.
Donna ignores the question. “Get in,” she says, sliding back to make room for him.
He thinks about protesting, but it's Donna, so he'd only be delaying the inevitable. And besides, he's not even sure he wants to protest.
He gets in, and if he had any doubt that she knew, it dissolves when he sees her face. He closes his eyes, leans his head back and tries not to fall apart as Donna gives his address to the driver and the cab moves away.
“He told you,” Mike says.
Donna puts her hand over his - a shock of warmth on his cold skin. “He just told me you’d had a disagreement and you’d left the bar upset. Asked me to find you, said he thought you’d respond better to me.”
Mike turns his head to look at her, unsure if that’s the truth.
She gives him a soft smile. “I worked out why by myself.”
“I’m that obvious?” Mike asks.
“Not to Harvey,” she says. “Well, not until tonight, I suppose. But I’ve known for a while.”
“Of course you have,” Mike mutters. He isn’t sure he can handle this. He’s lost so much, in such a short amount of time. For all his nerves about tonight, he really believed that Harvey felt the same, that he was going to get everything he wanted. Now there’s a gaping hole inside of him where that hope, that future, used to be. He can’t believe he misread the signs so badly.
“It’s going to be okay,” Donna says.
“How?” Mike says, his voice rough. “How can I even go back to work?” It truly hits him then: not just the loss of what might have been, but the way he’s monumentally screwed up his friendship with Harvey, his job, everything.
“Hey,” Donna says, her voice commanding, and Mike meets her eyes reluctantly. “You think this is the first time someone’s had feelings for Harvey that he hasn’t reciprocated? You can both move past this, just like you would if the shoe was on the other foot.”
Mike snorts at that, the idea of Harvey wanting him and Mike not returning the desire feeling ridiculous right now.
“It will be okay,” Donna repeats. “Harvey loves you. In a way. And you will be able to work together. Even if it takes some time for things to get back to normal.”
Mike wants to protest, to say that he doesn’t want things to get back to normal, that he wants more, that he wants all of Harvey, that he wants what he’s dreamt of for months. But for all Donna’s powers, that’s something she can’t give him. And getting back to normal is the best he can hope for now.
He nods, then closes his eyes again. For a moment, everything is dark, and quiet.
“I love him,” Mike says, so quietly that he’s not sure Donna will hear.
“I know,” she says, and squeezes his hand tight.
Author: cookielaura
Characters/Pairings: Mike Ross, Harvey Specter, Donna Paulson, (spoilers) unrequited Mike/Harvey
Wordcount: 2,300
Rating: PG-13
Contains: Mild swearing, sexual references, angst; no spoilers
Summary: Mike wants some answers from Harvey
Notes: Written for highlander_ii's fandom stocking for their prompt of: (spoilers) the idea of Mike having a thing for Harvey, only to find out that Harvey isn't interested. Also filling the wild card on my hc_bingo card.
Mike knows he can do this. Tonight is the night.
He approaches Harvey's office, his steps carefully measured. He practised his walk in the restroom earlier, to own embarrassment, because he suddenly became self-conscious and unsure how to walk in a casual manner. Despite the fact that he does it everyday.
He's got a file in his hand. He doesn't need to be carrying it - it's not relevant to their current case and even if it was, he knows every word of the contents anyway - but it gives him something to hold onto, something to stop himself fidgeting.
He feels like he's sixteen again, plucking up the courage to ask Kelly from homeroom to go to the prom.
Mike passes Donna's desk, not surprised that she's still here even though it's past nine pm; she often stays until Harvey leaves, though he wishes she hadn't today. He loves her, but she sees straight through him, and that's the last thing he needs tonight. He tosses a carefree smile at her over his shoulder as he goes by, and hopes it looks natural. Hopes she isn't continuing to watch him as he reaches Harvey's door.
He raises a hand and gives the door a brief, cursory knock. Mike barely needs to knock these days, especially not when the offices are almost empty and Harvey's not on the phone, so he doesn't bother to wait for an answer, just pushes the door open and enters. Harvey, seated at his desk with a file open, looks up, and Mike freezes for a moment, taken aback by the way that Harvey has removed his tie and undone the top two buttons of his shirt. Mike can see the top of his collarbone, the dip at the base of his throat: exposed, almost vulnerable skin. It's unusual for Harvey, and it catches Mike off guard, leaving him standing, staring, in the open doorway for a second.
Harvey raises an eyebrow at Mike's silence. “See something you like?” he says, sardonically, and Mike feels a rush of heat to his face. He forces the blush down as best he can, because it's just a joke of course, just one of Harvey's arrogant quips, not meant to be taken seriously. And yet it's quips like that which make Mike think he's not alone in what he feels.
He pulls himself together and rolls his eyes in a long-suffering manner, and Harvey grins.
“I'm heading out,” Mike says, just as rehearsed. “You wanna get a drink?” It's nothing he hasn't said to Harvey twenty times before, so he tells himself that the awkwardness he hears as the question hangs in the air is imagined.
Harvey glances down at the file in front of him, then at his watch. Mike knows he's not working on anything urgent - that's why he chose tonight - so he's not surprised when Harvey shrugs, shuts the file and rolls his neck to loosen the muscles.
“Why not?” Harvey says, standing, and Mike isn't sure if he should be relieved or terrified.
----
They’re on their third whiskeys. Dutch courage, Mike thought when he swallowed the first one down quickly, the burn hard and fast in his throat, but now he tells himself that this will be his last drink, because he can feel the sharpness of his thoughts start to dull a little at the edges, feel them connecting a little slower. And he can’t be sloppy here. He needs to be in control, if he is to carry on manipulating the conversation in the direction he wants it to go.
He’s finally manoeuvred Harvey away from the bar and into a booth, and Harvey is relaxed - or as relaxed as Harvey Specter gets. His sleeves are rolled to the elbow, his smiles easy. It’s exactly what Mike wanted, even if those lightly muscled forearms are distracting as hell, the fine blond hair over tanned skin occasionally catching the glow from the low lights in the bar. He tries not to look at them. Tries to subtly mimic Harvey’s pose, lounging a little against the side of the booth.
“What about when you were working in the mail room?” he asks, keeping his tone light, teasing. “Any dalliances with the other mail room employees?”
Mike’s plan for the evening was to play to Harvey’s ego, to get him talking about his past lovers - not in depth, just enough for Mike to find out what he wants to know, and maybe, maybe, somehow bring himself into the equation. So far they’ve flitted from woman to woman - Scottie, girls at high school, women at Harvard - but Mike hasn’t found the right opening yet.
Harvey smirks and shakes his head. “Not other mail room employees,” he says.
Mike laughs. “You mean you were already sleeping with associates back then?” he asks, then pretends to think of something. “Wait - you and Jessica never -?”
Harvey tilts his head, doing his best to look mysterious, then breaks and cracks up, the whiskeys and the atmosphere apparently eroding his ability to hold out on Mike. “No. Of course not.”
“Nah, I guess Jessica wouldn’t put up with your shit long enough to sleep with you,” Mike jokes.
“There was an associate,” Harvey says, his own voice echoing Mike’s teasing tone, dangling details just out of reach. “They’re not at Pearson Hardman anymore.”
“Oh yeah?” says Mike, twirling his whiskey glass in his fingers. “And…?”
“Can’t tell you any more,” Harvey says. “It’s someone we’ve gone up against recently, and we’ll probably go up against them again. Don’t want you getting all starstruck.”
Mike snorts. “Hardly,” he says, though his mind is moving fast, trying to figure out who it could be. He hasn’t noticed any strange vibes between Harvey and opposing lawyers lately.
“What about if I guess?” he says, grinning.
Harvey shrugs. “You won’t,” he says, confident, and Mike feels his pulse start to quicken, because he sees the opening for one of the questions he has to ask, and more than that, he sees the possibility that he might get one of the answers he wants.
“Why not?” he asks. “Is it someone who’s not your usual type?”
Harvey just leans back, the smirk still firmly on his face. “You could say that.”
Mike swallows, his tongue suddenly thick. Keep it light, he tells himself. “Is it a guy?” he asks, and it doesn’t sound as light as he would like, but it’s not bad either. It’s not intense and desperate and aching, it doesn’t show how much he really wants to know.
Harvey’s smirk widens, and he shakes his head. “No, she’s definitely a woman,” he says.
Disappointment hits Mike, but all is not lost. Now that he’s brought it up, he has to follow through. Has to know. He abandons the questioning about the mystery opponent and follows up on his last question.
“But,” he says, leaning forward, giving as careless a grin as he can. “Have you ever? Been with a guy?”
He sees surprise cross Harvey’s face, and for a moment Mike is scared that he’s been too obvious, but then Harvey’s face clears and he simply shakes his head. “Not yet,” he says, simply, as if it isn’t important, as if it’s just a throwaway remark.
Mike feels dizzy. Not yet. It’s not a no. It’s about as far from a no as it can be. And Mike could leave it there, but he doesn’t.
“Not yet?” he asks, raising an eyebrow, not able to stop himself leaning in a little more. Because that not yet surely means soon, and it surely means with him, doesn’t it? He's fizzing with excitement, with happiness. All the looks Harvey has given him over the last year, all the unnecessary touches, all the demands that go beyond work, all the possessiveness that he’s not shy about showing over Mike, all the ways they can communicate without saying a word - Mike’s not been imagining them.
Harveys stretches a little and downs the rest of his whiskey, then puts the glass down on the table. “Yeah, I mean, it’s not out of the question I suppose. I guess if I ever meet a man who makes me feel that way. But I haven’t yet, so I’ve never really thought about it.”
Mike feels like the world has stopped. His hands have gone cold and his ears are buzzing and shit how did that go from so good to so bad so quickly? It’s unequivocal. Harvey hasn’t met a guy who he wants. He’s never even thought about Mike that way. Never.
Part of Mike is screaming at him to pull himself together and hide his emotions, but he can’t speak, can’t seem to think coherently enough to make words come. He looks down at the table, trying to focus, and then he hears Harvey shift and lean forward, and speak:
“Oh, shit, Mike…”
Mike looks up, and sees the last thing he wants to see on Harvey’s face: pity.
Harvey knows. The shock and disappointment and all-out sickness must have shown on Mike’s face as clearly as the sympathy is showing on Harvey’s now. And Mike can’t do a damn thing about it.
He tries anyway. Tries to recover. Shoves his shaking hands under the table.
“Why ‘shit’?” he asks, trying to look genuinely curious as to why Harvey swore.
But he’s done a poor job, because the pity in Harvey’s expression only deepens. “Mike,” he says, gently, carefully, and it’s the gentleness that undoes Mike, that brings tears of humiliation and loss to his eyes. He stumbles up from the table, and feels Harvey reach out for his arm, but he yanks it away.
“Mike,” Harvey says again, louder, calling out to him, but Mike walks away, as fast as he can, picking up speed as he pushes through the crowd, through the door to the bar and out onto the cold street.
He walks faster and faster, his vision blurring, until he realizes nobody is coming after him, and then he slows, and uses his hand to dash the wetness from his eyes. The chill night air cuts through his jacket and shirt, but he ignores it, keeps putting one foot in front of the other, trying not to let himself think. Just walk.
He’s not sure how long it is afterwards when a cab pulls up by the sidewalk next to him, and the door swings open. Only a few minutes, probably. He looks to his right, half-dreading, half-hoping that he will see Harvey in the back seat.
But it’s Donna. She beckons him in.
“Did Harvey send you?” Mike asks, hating that his voice sounds loud and accusatory even among the rest of the street noise. He doesn't know whether to be pissed off or pathetically grateful.
Donna ignores the question. “Get in,” she says, sliding back to make room for him.
He thinks about protesting, but it's Donna, so he'd only be delaying the inevitable. And besides, he's not even sure he wants to protest.
He gets in, and if he had any doubt that she knew, it dissolves when he sees her face. He closes his eyes, leans his head back and tries not to fall apart as Donna gives his address to the driver and the cab moves away.
“He told you,” Mike says.
Donna puts her hand over his - a shock of warmth on his cold skin. “He just told me you’d had a disagreement and you’d left the bar upset. Asked me to find you, said he thought you’d respond better to me.”
Mike turns his head to look at her, unsure if that’s the truth.
She gives him a soft smile. “I worked out why by myself.”
“I’m that obvious?” Mike asks.
“Not to Harvey,” she says. “Well, not until tonight, I suppose. But I’ve known for a while.”
“Of course you have,” Mike mutters. He isn’t sure he can handle this. He’s lost so much, in such a short amount of time. For all his nerves about tonight, he really believed that Harvey felt the same, that he was going to get everything he wanted. Now there’s a gaping hole inside of him where that hope, that future, used to be. He can’t believe he misread the signs so badly.
“It’s going to be okay,” Donna says.
“How?” Mike says, his voice rough. “How can I even go back to work?” It truly hits him then: not just the loss of what might have been, but the way he’s monumentally screwed up his friendship with Harvey, his job, everything.
“Hey,” Donna says, her voice commanding, and Mike meets her eyes reluctantly. “You think this is the first time someone’s had feelings for Harvey that he hasn’t reciprocated? You can both move past this, just like you would if the shoe was on the other foot.”
Mike snorts at that, the idea of Harvey wanting him and Mike not returning the desire feeling ridiculous right now.
“It will be okay,” Donna repeats. “Harvey loves you. In a way. And you will be able to work together. Even if it takes some time for things to get back to normal.”
Mike wants to protest, to say that he doesn’t want things to get back to normal, that he wants more, that he wants all of Harvey, that he wants what he’s dreamt of for months. But for all Donna’s powers, that’s something she can’t give him. And getting back to normal is the best he can hope for now.
He nods, then closes his eyes again. For a moment, everything is dark, and quiet.
“I love him,” Mike says, so quietly that he’s not sure Donna will hear.
“I know,” she says, and squeezes his hand tight.