No times they don't.
Five Years
Part 3 in It’s Just That
PG-13 for swearing, drinking, repressed sexual feelings, borderline misogyny, and Harvey being so deep in denial we may as well call him Antinous.
Dedicated wholly to my bros and sectionally to Miri and Marika.
Five years. Five times they don't fuck, just fuck with each other. No times they don't.
year one, birthday
“Get him something nice,” Donna tells him, two weeks before Harvey’s birthday. “You know how he is.”
“I’ve got this,” Mike says, and he does.
--
Mike is ignored at Harvey’s party. He sits back with Rachel and her new, not-him boyfriend and Donna and her smoking hot girlfriend (she has seriously awesome hair and Mike wishes he could make his do that thing where it looks like he means for it to look like he woke up that way instead of just looking like he has bedhead), and wishes for a cheeseburger and a girlfriend he could bring to work parties. But no, he’s still basically banned from dating, though apparently he’s encouraged to get laid, as long as he doesn’t try to move in on any girls Harvey’s got his eye on.
The sound of expensive silver tapping against expensive glass clinks in his ears.
“Time for presents,” Jessica declares from the head table. He’s been informed this it’s tradition for Jessica, Harvey, and some of the other senior partners, to publically open their underlings’ annual tributes to them.
That just makes it that much better, really.
Mike’s is small, and stashed behind some eager associate’s much larger and probably way more expensive bag. It takes a while for Donna to get to it; it keeps getting pushed aside in favor of the flashier, professionally wrapped offerings.
“This one doesn’t have a tag,” Donna announces, looking artfully innocent as she hands it to Harvey, who is so clearly loving the attention he’s getting and the kowtowing he’s being offered. She knows who it’s from, since she helped him wrap the damn thing. Mike’s pretty sure she doesn’t know what the point of it is, but she knows it’s something. Donna’s hot, not stupid.
The look on Harvey’s face is priceless, mostly because Mike doesn’t know how much a freeze ray strong enough to freeze the entire restaurant costs. He doesn’t shiver, goddammit, and he doesn’t break eye contact with Harvey.
He ignores the hot and cold butterflies of death in his stomach.
“Thanks, Mikey,” Harvey drawls, gesturing with the bottle of Evan Williams, with just his middle finger wrapped around the neck. If Mike wasn’t in the habit of flipping people off that way, he wouldn’t have picked up on it. No one else seems to.
“Happy birthday, Harvey.” Mike licks his lips and doesn’t look away first.
year two, victories
Harvey’s favorite game after winning in court is who can pick up the hot waitress for meaningless sex. He’s very, very good at it. He’s won twenty-four out of twenty-nine rounds so far. Not that Harvey keeps track, or even acknowledges that it’s really a competition.
He’s set to win round thirty, too, going by the way Meredith is practically pushing her not insubstantial cleavage in Harvey’s face.
Mike is getting really, really sick of watching Harvey drive off in his douchey car of the week with the model-hot girl of the night while he picks up the tab and weighs going home alone versus trying to score with someone else.
Usually he goes home alone.
“I’m off at 10:30,” Meredith giggles in Harvey’s direction. Mike raises one eyebrow at Harvey as she teeters off on her heels.
“Have you ever thought about actually, you know, dating someone?” he asks, moving his sweating glass to make another circle on the table. “Someone who doesn’t think turning 25 is the end of their social life, maybe.”
“Why bother dealing with dating someone? I sleep with beautiful women, and talk to you. That takes care of everything.” Harvey looks smug and waves Mike away with his half-empty glass of scotch. “Now get lost, I’ve talked to you too much already today.”
Mike rolls his eyes and pushes his chair back. He checks his pockets for his phone and grabs his briefcase, taking Harvey’s glass from him.
“She’s banging the bartender, so watch your back,” he says, and finishes Harvey’s drink for him before heading for the door. He watches in the reflection of the glass as Harvey swivels around in his chair in time to see Meredith the not-actually-available waitress sucking the beefy bartender’s tongue in the corner of the bar.
year three, promotions
“I’ll bet you a thousand dollars I can get someone before you can,” Harvey drawls right into Mike’s ear.
“No.” Mike doesn’t even bother trying to maintain personal space any more. It sort of takes the fun out of invading it.
“Why, because you can’t afford it?” He scoffs, gestures the waiter over for more beers. “How much did Hill and Castenmiller offer you?”
“Hundred and seventy-five and partner.” Mike looks sullen. It’s very annoying that Mike isn’t being sufficiently grateful for the strings he had to pull to swing this promotion, a year and a half ahead of schedule. Very expensive strings, too.
“And how much am I giving you to stay at Pearson Harden?”
“Two twenty-five and partner.”
“Then you can afford it. Cheer up, Mikey, you’re supposed to be celebrating.” Harvey drops an arm around Mike’s shoulder and gives his arm a hard squeeze. “So. I’ll bet you a grand that I can get someone in here before you can.”
Mike’s juvenile flair for melodrama may come in handy for figuring out suitably awesome ways of one-upping people in the boardroom, but it irritates the shit out of him when Mike just uses it to sigh like a teenage girl and roll his eyes. Harvey resists the equally juvenile urge to squeeze again to make Mike pay attention to him properly.
“Fine. A grand.”
It’s annoying when Mike doesn’t even blink at the waitress when she leans over the table to display her perfectly adequate cleavage. Harvey can’t even be bothered to flirt with this one if Mike isn’t even going to try to win. It takes all the fun out of it. He might even sulk a bit.
Later.
After he’s won. He still does want to win, after all.
He isn’t paying attention to where Mike’s attention is; there’s a girl with better-than-adequate tits and fantastic legs making googoo eyes at him from the other side of the bar and he’s definitely going to win.
“Hi.” Harvey most certainly doesn’t whip his head around so fast he gets whiplash, because he doesn’t have whiplash when he takes in the sight of some scrawny young Mike-clone standing at their table. He doesn’t have a tray or an apron and he’s definitely not one of their clients.
“Can we help you?”
“What are you doing tonight?” Mike asks, and Harvey only realizes he’s still got his arm around Mike’s shoulders because he’s shrugging it off and angling away from him. He’s cut out entirely from the weirdly intense eye-contact exchange between his associate and this kid and it displeases him.
“Nothing, really. I was gonna leave soon…” The kid- and he’s a kid, the way Mike was when they met, with the same hard edges and earnest smiles that Mike used to have- shrugs. Harvey scowls and drops his arm around Mike’s shoulder again, hard. He still has the hard edges, at least.
“Want to get out of here now, then?” Mike asks, and ducks out from under Harvey’s arm to grab his briefcase. Harvey slides his hand into his pocket like he was expecting this to happen. He can’t decide if he’s more annoyed about Mike winning the bet or about being ignored.
“Um, yeah. Sure.”
“You’ll get this, right?” Mike asks, gesturing casually at the drinks littering their table and smirking at him.
“Yeah. Jesus, who promoted who, here?” Harvey smirks back; it’s probably closer to a grimace but there’s no way this stupid blond kid with a tie even skinnier than Mike’s is going to pick up on the difference.
Mike will. He definitely does. Harvey gestures the adequately-cleavaged waitress back over while Mike slides an arm around this kid’s- this boy’s- waist and invades his space the way Harvey invades his. He straightens his jacket out of habit to keeps his hands busy.
“Is your boyfriend coming too?”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” Mike says, quick and hard and sharp enough that the kid looks confused. Harvey is offended; he’s an awesome catch. Mike should be so lucky- if he wasn’t a pain in the ass, a constant challenge, and a mouthy sonuvabitch. “I don’t date douchebags.”
“Oookay then,” the kid mutters. Harvey sneers at him when he shoots a glance over. He’s douchebag but the kid’s a one night stand. Mike doesn’t date one night stands, either. Harvey’s the only person Mike really has time for. He can have this fuck. “I live right around the corner, so…”
“Sounds awesome. Let’s go.”
“Don’t be late for work tomorrow, honey,” Harvey drawls after them, and Mike’s response is to drop his hand down to the kid’s ass and ignore him.
---
“So how’s your first day as partner going?” Harvey drops into Mike’s new office around lunch to annoy him.
“Fine. I’m kind of busy, so if you don’t mind?” Mike doesn’t even look up from his screen to acknowledge Harvey’s presence. It’s unacceptable.
“How was last night?”
“Not bad. Young. Also, you owe me a thousand dollars.”
“Aw, that’s it? You’re not playing boyfriends with this one?” Harvey commandeers one of the client chairs and sprawls in it like he owns it; after all, he does technically own a share of it.
“Do you date all the women you fuck? He was just some kid. If I was gonna date anyone it’d be someone who isn’t a waste of my time.” Mike hits something on the keyboard emphatically and looks up, finally acknowledging Harvey’s presence like he should’ve done immediately. “Maybe it is time to start dating again, though. Start settling down or something. Have something in my life other than work and you.”
“I’m wounded,” Harvey says, but he’s not. Insulted, maybe, that Mike isn’t satisfied with his company, but definitely not wounded or hurt or jealous. Definitely not jealous of someone else Mike may or may not date.
“No, you’re not.”
“No, I’m not.” Harvey shrugs. “So I guess he wasn’t any good, then.”
“Like I said- not bad, young, and I’m not dating him after that. Why are you obsessed with the guys I sleep with? You never ask about the girls.” Mike’s expression is inscrutable and intense and irritating. “Are you considering making a switch or something? Because I know some guys who’d totally go for you if you want me to make some calls. Give you tips, maybe.”
“No, thanks, I’m good.” Harvey blinks rapidly for a second and stops himself short. “Did you just offer me your sloppy gay seconds?”
Mike smirks. Harvey hates that expression when Mike turns it on him. It’s funny when Mike brandishes it at Louis; it’s not funny when it’s used at him.
“I haven’t slept with all of them, if that makes you feel any better.”
“Much.”
“I’ll give Donna their numbers then.” Mike turns back to his computer and starts typing again. “But seriously, I’m gonna start thinking that you’re into me if you keep acting like I’m turning you down every time I fuck some other dude.”
“When have I ever done that?” Harvey dismisses the slight twist in his guts as the predictable consequence of street vendor hot dogs and coffee, and definitely not as any indication that maybe Mike has something resembling a point.
“Last night. Jessica’s birthday party. Last month at that neon place. Donna’s wedding. Louis’ birthday, but I’ll let you slide on that one because it was Louis’ birthday and you acted like everyone had personally offended you by just showing up.”
“That’s very generous of you.”
“I know. It seemed petty to not throw you a bone since you got me a promotion, I got laid, and you’re paying me a grand.” Mike pauses the incessant typing. “So pay up, go away, and let me get work done.”
Harvey pushes himself out of the chair. “I’ll have it for you tonight,” he says, and straightens his jacket out of habit. There’s a loose thread in the cuff; he plucks at it in irritation.
“Can’t go out tonight, I have an actual date with someone who isn’t you. You’ll just have to hold onto it for me.” Mike glances up, like he’s expecting a reaction. Harvey isn’t going to give it him.
“Your loss,” he drawls. “Tomorrow- Rene’s. You’re getting a new suit. No more of your goddamn skinny ties, you hear me?”
Mike ignores him.
year four, separations
“You, out.” Harvey barely looks at the girl pouting at his back when he orders her out. Mike is slouched against the door jamb with a half-petulant, half-pissed look on his face and a bottle in one hand. Harvey grabs a fistful of his t-shirt and drags him in, pushing him towards the sofa. “You, inside.”
He glares at the girl who’s taking her dear sweet time finding her Louboutins. Mike very helpfully throws the one he apparently sat on towards her; she sulks and Harvey snorts.
“Asshole.” She pushes past him and slams the door on her way out, leaving only the trail of expensive perfume behind her. Harvey turns his attention back to Mike, where he’s sprawled angrily. He’d been unaware that someone could sprawl with anger, especially on the most uncomfortable couch known to man, but if anyone could pull it off it would be Mike.
“You fucked my wife.”
“What?” Harvey drops into the chair across from Mike. “Did you go to Atlantic City or something, because I’m pretty sure the wedding isn’t until next month.”
“There is no wedding because you fucked my wife.” Mike gestures with the bottle. “You fucked my wife. You fuck my wife!”
“I am your wife.”
Mike giggles like a drunk lunatic, appropriately enough. “You fuck my wife!”
“Yes. I am your wife and I fucked her.” Harvey can’t resist it. It’s too easy.
“Y’see, it’s funny because you fucked her.” Mike’s giggles stop abruptly and he glares. Harvey leans forward and takes the bottle from Mike before he spills on the new carpet.
“It’s sort of hard for me to have fucked your wife, considering you’re not married.”
“Fine. You fucked my former fiancé.” Mike rubs at his face. “This is where it gets awesome, by the way. She thought I knew. Oh and it gets better.”
Harvey checks the bottle he’s confiscated; it’s nearly empty and the familiar bright blue label between his fingers matches the one he’s had stashed- unopened and untouched- behind the rest of his liquor for three and a half years now.
“How much of this have you had?”
“It was half gone when I started,” Mike says, sliding down until he’s supine on the sofa. “But you know what makes the whole thing even better?”
“What?”
“She… gimme the bottle, dude.”
“Don’t call me dude.” Harvey hands it back anyway and watches the line of Mike’s throat as he swallows. The sofa is different but the reminder is still potent. If he really wanted to, it wouldn’t be hard to remember what Mike’s mouth tastes like behind the Evan Williams. He doesn’t really want to.
He remembers anyway.
“So Mercedes thought I’ve been fucking you this entire fucking time.” Mike starts waving with the bottle again and Harvey grabs it back for a hard swig of his own. He may not be completely sober but he needs to catch up to Mike for this conversation to make any sense. “Oh yeah. And she was fine with it. Yeah, fiiiine with that. ‘At least it’s someone we’ve both had, at least it’s Haaaarvey and not some gold-digging boywhore, I mean we both know this is more for convenience than anything else.’”
Mike’s drunk impressions are better than his sober ones, and his imitation of his fiancé’s aggressively old-money drawl is miles better than his still-terrible Stallone.
“Wait, I thought you actually liked her.” He didn’t. He didn’t even remember sleeping with her.
“I do! I did! I think? I dunno. She was cool when we met but I dunno.” Mike grabs for the bottle. Harvey doesn’t give it back. “It wasn’t convenient, I mean she lives on the Upper West Side and keeps going to Connecticut.”
“I don’t think that’s what she meant.”
“I know,” Mike snaps. “I’m drunk, not stupid.”
“Good to know.” Harvey makes another dent in the remaining liquor. It’s for Mike’s own good, really, so he doesn’t finish it all himself.
“God, I just want cock,” Mike declares suddenly.
Harvey chokes on whiskey and wipes at his face to hide the fact that he’s just failed at drinking. “Uh. That might be why she thought she was your beard.”
“No, she thought she was my beard because you spent my entire engagement party invading my fucking personal space and acting like I was breaking up with you.” Mike squints at him. “Dude, stop looking at me like that. I don’t want your cock.”
“Well that’s a relief,” Harvey mutters, and drinks again. Mike’s gotten too good at managing to insult him and be reassuring at the same time. Something must be done. Something will start with more liquor. “What’s wrong with my cock?”
“You’re straight,” Mike points out. “I’m a guy. It’s fucking inconvenient. Your straightness is the definition of inconvenient. You’re worse than Mercedes’s stupid apartment.”
“I’m so sorry that my sexuality is such an inconvenience for you. Let me just-“
“Oh god let you just shut up and give me the bottle.” Harvey offers it up but doesn’t let go when Mike’s hand wraps over his. His fingers are clammy on the back of Harvey’s. “Gimme the bottle, Harvey.”
“If I give you the bottle, you’re not going back out to find cock.”
“I am not drunk enough to fuck you.”
“You’re too drunk to fuck anyone else.” That came out wrong. Harvey lets go of the bottle; Mike cradles it like a precious alcoholic baby. “You can sleep on the couch.”
“Mercedes was wrong about you.” Mike drinks again; Harvey doesn’t watch the line of his skinny neck when he swallows.
“This should be good.” Harvey gets to his feet. He’s more unsteady than he was when he sat down and his clothes feel too small even though he knows for a fact that they’re flawlessly tailored. “She was wrong about a lot of things.”
“She said you think women are disposable. But you don’t. You think everyone is disposable. When you lose interest in someone you get rid of them. You fuck girls and never see them again. You go through your associates almost as fast as you go through girls. If you ever hired a chick I’d think you were fucking the associates. I think the only reason you haven’t gotten rid of Donna is that you’re scared of her.” Mike lets the bottle fall to the floor. The thick carpeting absorbs the thud of its collision with the ground and it’s empty enough by now that only a few drops spill out when it falls sideways. Harvey doesn’t bother to berate Mike for it.
“Then why do I keep you around?” Harvey busies himself with the buttons on his vest. “I’m definitely not afraid of you… I mean, you’re right about Donna, but not you.”
“I dunno. Fuck if I know.” Mike rubs at his face again; Harvey pulls a blanket out of the cabinet hidden under the bar and throws it at him. “I figure I’ll figure it out when you stop getting upset whenever I don’t want to fuck you.”
year five, birthday redux
“Get in the car, loser, we’re going shopping.”
“Okay, I’m supposed to be the gayer one, and yet you’re the one quoting Mean Girls,” Mike says as he slides into the limo across from Harvey. He likes this new one better than the glorified Town Car; it’s easier being able to face Harvey than try to argue sideways. He takes the coffee Harvey offers him with more than an ounce of suspicion.
“It’s from Nico’s, don’t look at me like that.” Harvey has clearly already finished and discarded his. “And I wouldn’t mess with you on your birthday, I’m not that much of an asshole.”
Mike doesn’t bother to dignify that with a response after last year’s stripper fiasco.
“You have an appointment at Rene’s. And it’s on me, so none of this skinny tie bullshit.” Harvey looks too smug for Mike’s own good.
“We’ll see about that. He likes me better than you.” Mike switches his phone off and drops it in the messenger bag he refuses to give up. The coffee, he discovers, hasn’t been doctored, tampered with, or modified in any way after Nico put the lid on it. He slouches back in the seat for the short ride to Rene’s. He’s going to need to be caffeinated if Harvey is going to insist on picking out a suit. This always takes three times as long as when he goes himself. Even Mercedes wasn’t as picky about how he dressed for the wedding.
“You know, you’re supposed to buy me something I want for my birthday, not something you want for me,” Mike points out, after Harvey’s ordered him into and then immediately back out of the third jacket.
“Or something you need, which right now is a suit that doesn’t look like it comes from the kids’ rack at Mens Wearhouse.” Harvey gestures at Rene’s assistant. “That one next.”
“You know you just insulted Rene’s fine handiwork,” Mike informs him as he shrugs out of the jacket. Dammit, he liked this one. “This is why he likes me better.”
“Rene likes me just fine,” Harvey drawls from his seat. “Don’t you, Rene?”
“Which one of you is paying?” Rene calls.
“I am.”
“He is.” Mike takes the suit jacket from the assistant, who upon realizing that Mike was in fact not the one paying had turned most of her attention to Harvey. It irritates him less than it used to.
“Then I like Harvey better.”
“See?”
Mike sneers at Harvey in the mirror as he buttons the jacket and straightens a cuff. “How’s this one?”
The mirror allows him to watch Harvey roll to his feet- not as with the same sort of aggressively manly fluidity he had when they met, Mike knows his knees creak too much for that now- and pass judgment on his latest selection. He swallows down the aftertaste of street vendor coffee and the still-unsettling feeling of being the sole focus of Harvey’s attention, even when Harvey is staying just past his peripheral vision, just outside his personal space.
“The color’s wrong,” Harvey declares. Mike rolls his eyes and starts undoing the buttons. “No, don’t take it off.”
Rene brings over an armful of fabric samples; the assistant is banished to the back room with a gesture from Harvey that borders on rude. Mike can half-follow the heated discussion about materials and buttons and whatevers behind him after six years of this, but he’s never bothered to connect the dots on what he’s accidentally committed to memory.
Mike only starts paying attention again when Rene breaks out the measuring tape, chalk, and pins. He assumes the position that is least likely to result in him getting stabbed in the ass with a pin and ignores Harvey’s annexation of his personal space. The fact that he barely reacts when Harvey’s hands drag over his waist and adjust the fall of the front of the jacket is just evidence of Harvey’s constant presence.
“I’m not wearing a vest,” he states to anyone in the room who would actually listen to him. Predictably, neither of the other two people around do.
“You’ll wear one and like it,” Harvey informs him.
Part 3 in It’s Just That
PG-13 for swearing, drinking, repressed sexual feelings, borderline misogyny, and Harvey being so deep in denial we may as well call him Antinous.
Dedicated wholly to my bros and sectionally to Miri and Marika.
Five years. Five times they don't fuck, just fuck with each other. No times they don't.
year one, birthday
“Get him something nice,” Donna tells him, two weeks before Harvey’s birthday. “You know how he is.”
“I’ve got this,” Mike says, and he does.
--
Mike is ignored at Harvey’s party. He sits back with Rachel and her new, not-him boyfriend and Donna and her smoking hot girlfriend (she has seriously awesome hair and Mike wishes he could make his do that thing where it looks like he means for it to look like he woke up that way instead of just looking like he has bedhead), and wishes for a cheeseburger and a girlfriend he could bring to work parties. But no, he’s still basically banned from dating, though apparently he’s encouraged to get laid, as long as he doesn’t try to move in on any girls Harvey’s got his eye on.
The sound of expensive silver tapping against expensive glass clinks in his ears.
“Time for presents,” Jessica declares from the head table. He’s been informed this it’s tradition for Jessica, Harvey, and some of the other senior partners, to publically open their underlings’ annual tributes to them.
That just makes it that much better, really.
Mike’s is small, and stashed behind some eager associate’s much larger and probably way more expensive bag. It takes a while for Donna to get to it; it keeps getting pushed aside in favor of the flashier, professionally wrapped offerings.
“This one doesn’t have a tag,” Donna announces, looking artfully innocent as she hands it to Harvey, who is so clearly loving the attention he’s getting and the kowtowing he’s being offered. She knows who it’s from, since she helped him wrap the damn thing. Mike’s pretty sure she doesn’t know what the point of it is, but she knows it’s something. Donna’s hot, not stupid.
The look on Harvey’s face is priceless, mostly because Mike doesn’t know how much a freeze ray strong enough to freeze the entire restaurant costs. He doesn’t shiver, goddammit, and he doesn’t break eye contact with Harvey.
He ignores the hot and cold butterflies of death in his stomach.
“Thanks, Mikey,” Harvey drawls, gesturing with the bottle of Evan Williams, with just his middle finger wrapped around the neck. If Mike wasn’t in the habit of flipping people off that way, he wouldn’t have picked up on it. No one else seems to.
“Happy birthday, Harvey.” Mike licks his lips and doesn’t look away first.
year two, victories
Harvey’s favorite game after winning in court is who can pick up the hot waitress for meaningless sex. He’s very, very good at it. He’s won twenty-four out of twenty-nine rounds so far. Not that Harvey keeps track, or even acknowledges that it’s really a competition.
He’s set to win round thirty, too, going by the way Meredith is practically pushing her not insubstantial cleavage in Harvey’s face.
Mike is getting really, really sick of watching Harvey drive off in his douchey car of the week with the model-hot girl of the night while he picks up the tab and weighs going home alone versus trying to score with someone else.
Usually he goes home alone.
“I’m off at 10:30,” Meredith giggles in Harvey’s direction. Mike raises one eyebrow at Harvey as she teeters off on her heels.
“Have you ever thought about actually, you know, dating someone?” he asks, moving his sweating glass to make another circle on the table. “Someone who doesn’t think turning 25 is the end of their social life, maybe.”
“Why bother dealing with dating someone? I sleep with beautiful women, and talk to you. That takes care of everything.” Harvey looks smug and waves Mike away with his half-empty glass of scotch. “Now get lost, I’ve talked to you too much already today.”
Mike rolls his eyes and pushes his chair back. He checks his pockets for his phone and grabs his briefcase, taking Harvey’s glass from him.
“She’s banging the bartender, so watch your back,” he says, and finishes Harvey’s drink for him before heading for the door. He watches in the reflection of the glass as Harvey swivels around in his chair in time to see Meredith the not-actually-available waitress sucking the beefy bartender’s tongue in the corner of the bar.
year three, promotions
“I’ll bet you a thousand dollars I can get someone before you can,” Harvey drawls right into Mike’s ear.
“No.” Mike doesn’t even bother trying to maintain personal space any more. It sort of takes the fun out of invading it.
“Why, because you can’t afford it?” He scoffs, gestures the waiter over for more beers. “How much did Hill and Castenmiller offer you?”
“Hundred and seventy-five and partner.” Mike looks sullen. It’s very annoying that Mike isn’t being sufficiently grateful for the strings he had to pull to swing this promotion, a year and a half ahead of schedule. Very expensive strings, too.
“And how much am I giving you to stay at Pearson Harden?”
“Two twenty-five and partner.”
“Then you can afford it. Cheer up, Mikey, you’re supposed to be celebrating.” Harvey drops an arm around Mike’s shoulder and gives his arm a hard squeeze. “So. I’ll bet you a grand that I can get someone in here before you can.”
Mike’s juvenile flair for melodrama may come in handy for figuring out suitably awesome ways of one-upping people in the boardroom, but it irritates the shit out of him when Mike just uses it to sigh like a teenage girl and roll his eyes. Harvey resists the equally juvenile urge to squeeze again to make Mike pay attention to him properly.
“Fine. A grand.”
It’s annoying when Mike doesn’t even blink at the waitress when she leans over the table to display her perfectly adequate cleavage. Harvey can’t even be bothered to flirt with this one if Mike isn’t even going to try to win. It takes all the fun out of it. He might even sulk a bit.
Later.
After he’s won. He still does want to win, after all.
He isn’t paying attention to where Mike’s attention is; there’s a girl with better-than-adequate tits and fantastic legs making googoo eyes at him from the other side of the bar and he’s definitely going to win.
“Hi.” Harvey most certainly doesn’t whip his head around so fast he gets whiplash, because he doesn’t have whiplash when he takes in the sight of some scrawny young Mike-clone standing at their table. He doesn’t have a tray or an apron and he’s definitely not one of their clients.
“Can we help you?”
“What are you doing tonight?” Mike asks, and Harvey only realizes he’s still got his arm around Mike’s shoulders because he’s shrugging it off and angling away from him. He’s cut out entirely from the weirdly intense eye-contact exchange between his associate and this kid and it displeases him.
“Nothing, really. I was gonna leave soon…” The kid- and he’s a kid, the way Mike was when they met, with the same hard edges and earnest smiles that Mike used to have- shrugs. Harvey scowls and drops his arm around Mike’s shoulder again, hard. He still has the hard edges, at least.
“Want to get out of here now, then?” Mike asks, and ducks out from under Harvey’s arm to grab his briefcase. Harvey slides his hand into his pocket like he was expecting this to happen. He can’t decide if he’s more annoyed about Mike winning the bet or about being ignored.
“Um, yeah. Sure.”
“You’ll get this, right?” Mike asks, gesturing casually at the drinks littering their table and smirking at him.
“Yeah. Jesus, who promoted who, here?” Harvey smirks back; it’s probably closer to a grimace but there’s no way this stupid blond kid with a tie even skinnier than Mike’s is going to pick up on the difference.
Mike will. He definitely does. Harvey gestures the adequately-cleavaged waitress back over while Mike slides an arm around this kid’s- this boy’s- waist and invades his space the way Harvey invades his. He straightens his jacket out of habit to keeps his hands busy.
“Is your boyfriend coming too?”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” Mike says, quick and hard and sharp enough that the kid looks confused. Harvey is offended; he’s an awesome catch. Mike should be so lucky- if he wasn’t a pain in the ass, a constant challenge, and a mouthy sonuvabitch. “I don’t date douchebags.”
“Oookay then,” the kid mutters. Harvey sneers at him when he shoots a glance over. He’s douchebag but the kid’s a one night stand. Mike doesn’t date one night stands, either. Harvey’s the only person Mike really has time for. He can have this fuck. “I live right around the corner, so…”
“Sounds awesome. Let’s go.”
“Don’t be late for work tomorrow, honey,” Harvey drawls after them, and Mike’s response is to drop his hand down to the kid’s ass and ignore him.
---
“So how’s your first day as partner going?” Harvey drops into Mike’s new office around lunch to annoy him.
“Fine. I’m kind of busy, so if you don’t mind?” Mike doesn’t even look up from his screen to acknowledge Harvey’s presence. It’s unacceptable.
“How was last night?”
“Not bad. Young. Also, you owe me a thousand dollars.”
“Aw, that’s it? You’re not playing boyfriends with this one?” Harvey commandeers one of the client chairs and sprawls in it like he owns it; after all, he does technically own a share of it.
“Do you date all the women you fuck? He was just some kid. If I was gonna date anyone it’d be someone who isn’t a waste of my time.” Mike hits something on the keyboard emphatically and looks up, finally acknowledging Harvey’s presence like he should’ve done immediately. “Maybe it is time to start dating again, though. Start settling down or something. Have something in my life other than work and you.”
“I’m wounded,” Harvey says, but he’s not. Insulted, maybe, that Mike isn’t satisfied with his company, but definitely not wounded or hurt or jealous. Definitely not jealous of someone else Mike may or may not date.
“No, you’re not.”
“No, I’m not.” Harvey shrugs. “So I guess he wasn’t any good, then.”
“Like I said- not bad, young, and I’m not dating him after that. Why are you obsessed with the guys I sleep with? You never ask about the girls.” Mike’s expression is inscrutable and intense and irritating. “Are you considering making a switch or something? Because I know some guys who’d totally go for you if you want me to make some calls. Give you tips, maybe.”
“No, thanks, I’m good.” Harvey blinks rapidly for a second and stops himself short. “Did you just offer me your sloppy gay seconds?”
Mike smirks. Harvey hates that expression when Mike turns it on him. It’s funny when Mike brandishes it at Louis; it’s not funny when it’s used at him.
“I haven’t slept with all of them, if that makes you feel any better.”
“Much.”
“I’ll give Donna their numbers then.” Mike turns back to his computer and starts typing again. “But seriously, I’m gonna start thinking that you’re into me if you keep acting like I’m turning you down every time I fuck some other dude.”
“When have I ever done that?” Harvey dismisses the slight twist in his guts as the predictable consequence of street vendor hot dogs and coffee, and definitely not as any indication that maybe Mike has something resembling a point.
“Last night. Jessica’s birthday party. Last month at that neon place. Donna’s wedding. Louis’ birthday, but I’ll let you slide on that one because it was Louis’ birthday and you acted like everyone had personally offended you by just showing up.”
“That’s very generous of you.”
“I know. It seemed petty to not throw you a bone since you got me a promotion, I got laid, and you’re paying me a grand.” Mike pauses the incessant typing. “So pay up, go away, and let me get work done.”
Harvey pushes himself out of the chair. “I’ll have it for you tonight,” he says, and straightens his jacket out of habit. There’s a loose thread in the cuff; he plucks at it in irritation.
“Can’t go out tonight, I have an actual date with someone who isn’t you. You’ll just have to hold onto it for me.” Mike glances up, like he’s expecting a reaction. Harvey isn’t going to give it him.
“Your loss,” he drawls. “Tomorrow- Rene’s. You’re getting a new suit. No more of your goddamn skinny ties, you hear me?”
Mike ignores him.
year four, separations
“You, out.” Harvey barely looks at the girl pouting at his back when he orders her out. Mike is slouched against the door jamb with a half-petulant, half-pissed look on his face and a bottle in one hand. Harvey grabs a fistful of his t-shirt and drags him in, pushing him towards the sofa. “You, inside.”
He glares at the girl who’s taking her dear sweet time finding her Louboutins. Mike very helpfully throws the one he apparently sat on towards her; she sulks and Harvey snorts.
“Asshole.” She pushes past him and slams the door on her way out, leaving only the trail of expensive perfume behind her. Harvey turns his attention back to Mike, where he’s sprawled angrily. He’d been unaware that someone could sprawl with anger, especially on the most uncomfortable couch known to man, but if anyone could pull it off it would be Mike.
“You fucked my wife.”
“What?” Harvey drops into the chair across from Mike. “Did you go to Atlantic City or something, because I’m pretty sure the wedding isn’t until next month.”
“There is no wedding because you fucked my wife.” Mike gestures with the bottle. “You fucked my wife. You fuck my wife!”
“I am your wife.”
Mike giggles like a drunk lunatic, appropriately enough. “You fuck my wife!”
“Yes. I am your wife and I fucked her.” Harvey can’t resist it. It’s too easy.
“Y’see, it’s funny because you fucked her.” Mike’s giggles stop abruptly and he glares. Harvey leans forward and takes the bottle from Mike before he spills on the new carpet.
“It’s sort of hard for me to have fucked your wife, considering you’re not married.”
“Fine. You fucked my former fiancé.” Mike rubs at his face. “This is where it gets awesome, by the way. She thought I knew. Oh and it gets better.”
Harvey checks the bottle he’s confiscated; it’s nearly empty and the familiar bright blue label between his fingers matches the one he’s had stashed- unopened and untouched- behind the rest of his liquor for three and a half years now.
“How much of this have you had?”
“It was half gone when I started,” Mike says, sliding down until he’s supine on the sofa. “But you know what makes the whole thing even better?”
“What?”
“She… gimme the bottle, dude.”
“Don’t call me dude.” Harvey hands it back anyway and watches the line of Mike’s throat as he swallows. The sofa is different but the reminder is still potent. If he really wanted to, it wouldn’t be hard to remember what Mike’s mouth tastes like behind the Evan Williams. He doesn’t really want to.
He remembers anyway.
“So Mercedes thought I’ve been fucking you this entire fucking time.” Mike starts waving with the bottle again and Harvey grabs it back for a hard swig of his own. He may not be completely sober but he needs to catch up to Mike for this conversation to make any sense. “Oh yeah. And she was fine with it. Yeah, fiiiine with that. ‘At least it’s someone we’ve both had, at least it’s Haaaarvey and not some gold-digging boywhore, I mean we both know this is more for convenience than anything else.’”
Mike’s drunk impressions are better than his sober ones, and his imitation of his fiancé’s aggressively old-money drawl is miles better than his still-terrible Stallone.
“Wait, I thought you actually liked her.” He didn’t. He didn’t even remember sleeping with her.
“I do! I did! I think? I dunno. She was cool when we met but I dunno.” Mike grabs for the bottle. Harvey doesn’t give it back. “It wasn’t convenient, I mean she lives on the Upper West Side and keeps going to Connecticut.”
“I don’t think that’s what she meant.”
“I know,” Mike snaps. “I’m drunk, not stupid.”
“Good to know.” Harvey makes another dent in the remaining liquor. It’s for Mike’s own good, really, so he doesn’t finish it all himself.
“God, I just want cock,” Mike declares suddenly.
Harvey chokes on whiskey and wipes at his face to hide the fact that he’s just failed at drinking. “Uh. That might be why she thought she was your beard.”
“No, she thought she was my beard because you spent my entire engagement party invading my fucking personal space and acting like I was breaking up with you.” Mike squints at him. “Dude, stop looking at me like that. I don’t want your cock.”
“Well that’s a relief,” Harvey mutters, and drinks again. Mike’s gotten too good at managing to insult him and be reassuring at the same time. Something must be done. Something will start with more liquor. “What’s wrong with my cock?”
“You’re straight,” Mike points out. “I’m a guy. It’s fucking inconvenient. Your straightness is the definition of inconvenient. You’re worse than Mercedes’s stupid apartment.”
“I’m so sorry that my sexuality is such an inconvenience for you. Let me just-“
“Oh god let you just shut up and give me the bottle.” Harvey offers it up but doesn’t let go when Mike’s hand wraps over his. His fingers are clammy on the back of Harvey’s. “Gimme the bottle, Harvey.”
“If I give you the bottle, you’re not going back out to find cock.”
“I am not drunk enough to fuck you.”
“You’re too drunk to fuck anyone else.” That came out wrong. Harvey lets go of the bottle; Mike cradles it like a precious alcoholic baby. “You can sleep on the couch.”
“Mercedes was wrong about you.” Mike drinks again; Harvey doesn’t watch the line of his skinny neck when he swallows.
“This should be good.” Harvey gets to his feet. He’s more unsteady than he was when he sat down and his clothes feel too small even though he knows for a fact that they’re flawlessly tailored. “She was wrong about a lot of things.”
“She said you think women are disposable. But you don’t. You think everyone is disposable. When you lose interest in someone you get rid of them. You fuck girls and never see them again. You go through your associates almost as fast as you go through girls. If you ever hired a chick I’d think you were fucking the associates. I think the only reason you haven’t gotten rid of Donna is that you’re scared of her.” Mike lets the bottle fall to the floor. The thick carpeting absorbs the thud of its collision with the ground and it’s empty enough by now that only a few drops spill out when it falls sideways. Harvey doesn’t bother to berate Mike for it.
“Then why do I keep you around?” Harvey busies himself with the buttons on his vest. “I’m definitely not afraid of you… I mean, you’re right about Donna, but not you.”
“I dunno. Fuck if I know.” Mike rubs at his face again; Harvey pulls a blanket out of the cabinet hidden under the bar and throws it at him. “I figure I’ll figure it out when you stop getting upset whenever I don’t want to fuck you.”
year five, birthday redux
“Get in the car, loser, we’re going shopping.”
“Okay, I’m supposed to be the gayer one, and yet you’re the one quoting Mean Girls,” Mike says as he slides into the limo across from Harvey. He likes this new one better than the glorified Town Car; it’s easier being able to face Harvey than try to argue sideways. He takes the coffee Harvey offers him with more than an ounce of suspicion.
“It’s from Nico’s, don’t look at me like that.” Harvey has clearly already finished and discarded his. “And I wouldn’t mess with you on your birthday, I’m not that much of an asshole.”
Mike doesn’t bother to dignify that with a response after last year’s stripper fiasco.
“You have an appointment at Rene’s. And it’s on me, so none of this skinny tie bullshit.” Harvey looks too smug for Mike’s own good.
“We’ll see about that. He likes me better than you.” Mike switches his phone off and drops it in the messenger bag he refuses to give up. The coffee, he discovers, hasn’t been doctored, tampered with, or modified in any way after Nico put the lid on it. He slouches back in the seat for the short ride to Rene’s. He’s going to need to be caffeinated if Harvey is going to insist on picking out a suit. This always takes three times as long as when he goes himself. Even Mercedes wasn’t as picky about how he dressed for the wedding.
“You know, you’re supposed to buy me something I want for my birthday, not something you want for me,” Mike points out, after Harvey’s ordered him into and then immediately back out of the third jacket.
“Or something you need, which right now is a suit that doesn’t look like it comes from the kids’ rack at Mens Wearhouse.” Harvey gestures at Rene’s assistant. “That one next.”
“You know you just insulted Rene’s fine handiwork,” Mike informs him as he shrugs out of the jacket. Dammit, he liked this one. “This is why he likes me better.”
“Rene likes me just fine,” Harvey drawls from his seat. “Don’t you, Rene?”
“Which one of you is paying?” Rene calls.
“I am.”
“He is.” Mike takes the suit jacket from the assistant, who upon realizing that Mike was in fact not the one paying had turned most of her attention to Harvey. It irritates him less than it used to.
“Then I like Harvey better.”
“See?”
Mike sneers at Harvey in the mirror as he buttons the jacket and straightens a cuff. “How’s this one?”
The mirror allows him to watch Harvey roll to his feet- not as with the same sort of aggressively manly fluidity he had when they met, Mike knows his knees creak too much for that now- and pass judgment on his latest selection. He swallows down the aftertaste of street vendor coffee and the still-unsettling feeling of being the sole focus of Harvey’s attention, even when Harvey is staying just past his peripheral vision, just outside his personal space.
“The color’s wrong,” Harvey declares. Mike rolls his eyes and starts undoing the buttons. “No, don’t take it off.”
Rene brings over an armful of fabric samples; the assistant is banished to the back room with a gesture from Harvey that borders on rude. Mike can half-follow the heated discussion about materials and buttons and whatevers behind him after six years of this, but he’s never bothered to connect the dots on what he’s accidentally committed to memory.
Mike only starts paying attention again when Rene breaks out the measuring tape, chalk, and pins. He assumes the position that is least likely to result in him getting stabbed in the ass with a pin and ignores Harvey’s annexation of his personal space. The fact that he barely reacts when Harvey’s hands drag over his waist and adjust the fall of the front of the jacket is just evidence of Harvey’s constant presence.
“I’m not wearing a vest,” he states to anyone in the room who would actually listen to him. Predictably, neither of the other two people around do.
“You’ll wear one and like it,” Harvey informs him.