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The soulmate bond typically manifests itself between the age of ten and twelve – no one has yet come up with a decent reason why –, if it manifests itself at all. But the world likes to be messy apparently, because it’s not that rare for people to be in their forties and suddenly feel that proverbial bond, or for two people to know each other for a while and wake up one day to seeing each other in a completely different light.
So, the fact that Harvey at the age of twenty-one still hasn’t felt any emotion that’s not his own isn’t too weird or unheard of— most of the time, it doesn’t really bother him. People like to talk about how magical soulmates are, how much of a blessing it is to have someone that is meant just for you—
Except people are liars and cheaters, except there are studies that show how you can literally delude yourself into thinking that you are somebody’s soulmate when you are not, except unrequited bonds are a thing— except Harvey has grown up thinking that his parents were soulmates, only to find his mother in bed with another man, calling him her soulmate.
She says she was lying to Bobby, that his father is the one for her, that she just felt lonely— you are not supposed to betray your own soulmate. He is not sure if she’s still lying, what he does know is that she begged him not to destroy their family, that she promised she’d end it all and go back to being the faithful wife and devoted mother that she’s always been – “Haven’t I always given everything for my family, Harvey?” –, no harm done.
He doesn’t know if it’s cowardice or misplaced trust that’s keeping him from running to Dad to tell him everything, but the weight of his parents’ broken marriage doesn’t do much to make him believe in the magic of soulmates.
It’s like any other relationship: you can lie and cheat, and you never really know the other person as much as you think. What’s with all the glorification then?
He can’t say that he hasn’t tried to feel something, a couple of times. Everyone gets lonely, and it’s not that difficult to get desperate enough to search for a connection with the one person who will be there for you no matter what – or is supposed to anyway.
When it does happen, he’s getting ready to go to class and it catches him by surprise.
One second he’s buttoning up his shirt, the next he’s overwhelmed with a wave of nausea and sadness, his heartbeat reaching a worrying speed and his breath coming short as if he were in the middle of a sobbing fit.
It doesn’t take a genius to realize what’s going on.
“What the hell,” he mumbles, pushing back a wave of tears and taking a few steps back to drop on his bed and try to get a grip on his – well, his soulmate’s – emotions.
He takes a slow, steadying breath, but his heart keeps racing and a pervasive sense of loss keeps compressing his chest. He can only compare it to finding out what his mother was up to and to the loss of the illusion of a perfect family— the sense of loneliness and abandonment is definitely there, but it’s not easy to make out the single components of whatever this is, and thinking back to his own sorrows can only make it worse for both of them.
God, he has a soulmate. And he can feel him – it’s a him, he’s pretty sure.
“What’s happening to you?” he asks, as if hoping that he could somehow be heard. He feels the compelling urge to make it stop, to run to his soulmate and fix it— but they are not anywhere near each other, there isn’t much he can do.
“Okay, okay,” he sighs, trying to push away the sadness and holding onto the first happy memory he can find. He pictures spending a quiet afternoon with his dad, playing baseball and making the best out of his days off, he tries to hold onto his own laughter and the sense of peace and carefree joy that he felt in that moment, hoping that it will ease his soulmate’s mind.
When he gets the silent message, Harvey knows because there’s a spike of stupor and a chill rolls down his spine, as if up until that moment he had just been spying and they got wired together only in the exact moment in which his soulmate realized he was there.
Only about 8% of soulmates seem to be able to communicate physical sensations to each other before they meet. The percentage goes up to 22% after the first meeting.
Harvey knows because they make you study this crap in school, and he also knows that it’s pretty unlikely that he’s lucky enough to belong to that small portion of people that can physically feel each other without having ever laid eyes on each other, but his soulmate is hurting badly and he has to try.
He feels more than a bit stupid as he closes his eyes and tries to picture hugging someone – a someone that ends up looking like the puny guy that always sits in the front during class and takes notes at inhumane speed, but good enough – and rocking them into his arms.
He certainly doesn’t expect to feel him hugging back, as if he was actually there with him. Harvey finds himself opening his eyes and checking, just to be sure: he’s alone, but he feels arms wrapped around him and someone pressed against his chest.
In spite of how much they are both still hurting, he can’t help the thin smile that twists his lips for a second.
“It’s gonna be okay,” he whispers, and the loneliness isn’t all that crushing anymore.
He decides that he’ll keep a tally, just so that when he finally meets this soulmate of his he can get all the details on how many people he needs to burn into the ground: soulmates may be overly glorified in society as a guarantee for a fairy-tale happy ending, but this guy is his, and Harvey is going to take care of him.
“Michael, I’ve brought you something to eat,” Grammy announces, entering the room without waiting for his permission. She’s carrying a tray with a couple of sandwiches on it, and Mike can’t help thinking that if she didn’t cook anything more it’s because she’s sad, and that can only make him think of why she’s sad— his cheeks aren’t dry yet and he just wants to start crying all over again.
He feels his soulmate’s hold onto him tighten a bit, and it doesn’t make it stop hurting but it helps, because he’s not alone, there’s someone who’s made just for him out there, and he’s trying to help now. Mike just wishes that he was here, in his room, to hug him for real.
Mike is a smart kid, he reads a lot and he remembers everything: he knows what soulmates are, he knows how they make it all better when they touch you, and he also immediately recognized what it meant when he felt his presence.
“Can I sit here with you?” Grammy asks, leaving the food on the bedside table.
Mike nods briefly, knees to his chest and chin resting on top of them. “I feel my soulmate,” he says, because Grammy is looking all sad like she’s about to start crying, and Mike really can’t see that now. If she started crying too, it’d all be much, much worse.
“Do you?” she echoes, surprise twisting her features as she turns towards him. “That’s— that’s wonderful!” she says, smiling. It doesn’t look forced, and something in Mike’s chest unclenches at the realization that she’s probably not going to cry.
The calming waves erupting from his soulmate seem a bit more pervasive now.
“He’s hugging me,” he adds.
“Oh— that is very special, you know?” she comments, leaning a bit towards him. “It means that your bond is very powerful. I’m so happy for you, sweetheart.”
Mike smiles back a bit and— then he realizes that he was happy with his mom and dad up until yesterday. He loves them and they loved him and they were an happy family, then they got taken away. His soulmate is supposed to be his and his alone, he shouldn’t leave, but— what if he doesn’t get to meet him? He’s not alone, he has Grammy and his soulmate hugging him with his mind, but— what if he never gets to hug him for real?
God took away his parents, what if he’s mad at him because he thought it was all a bit silly and didn’t like going to church, what if he’s going to make sure that he never gets to meet his soulmate?
“What if I don’t meet him?” he suddenly asks, feeling tears building up again in his eyes. “Ever?”
“No, no, Michael,” Grammy soothes, coming closer and adding an extra pair of arms around him. “You will meet him. You two are meant to be together, it’s only a matter of time.”
“Some people don’t find their soulmates,” Mike points out.
“Yes, but you can already touch each other. That’s very special. I’m sure you’ll meet. And it’ll be wonderful, the best feeling you’ll ever experience.”
She sounds so convinced and his soulmate’s arms are still wrapped around him and it’s so warm and safe that Mike can’t help believing it too.
“Jesus, calm the hell down,” he mumbles to himself – or rather, to his other half who’s currently unable to hear him at all –, trying to resist the urge to slam his head against the wall and call it a day.
Over the years, he became pretty good at dealing with the bond, keeping his soulmate’s emotions at bay just as well as his own, but today he’s in a terrible mood because of Jessica’s request to find himself an associate when there doesn’t seem to be a decent candidate out there and he’s having to deal with this crippling anxiety pushing from the back of his mind.
He’s tried calming them both down the way he usually does when his soulmate is freaking out about something, but nothing seems to be working and he’s not sure if it’s because his own bad mood is getting in the way or whatever is happening is the end of the world for the guy.
Also, feeling worried and frustratingly helpless whenever something like this happens doesn’t help matters.
The anxiety only increases as Donna winks at him to let him know that she’s found someone that she deems interesting – thank God, if the guy is somewhat tolerable he might hire him just to get this over with –, and it’s honestly kind of a miracle that he’s managing to keep a straight face with that pounding in his ears.
The candidate is a scrawny kid with messy hair, the look of a fish out of water and a cheap suit, which is not too promising, but he really wants to wrap this up, so he might skip over the importance of first appearances for now. Plenty of time to educate him, after all.
“Uh, Rick Sorkin,” he says, a bit hesitantly.
Harvey reaches for his hand. “Harvey Specter, nice to—” The words fade out as their hands touch and his headache, his pounding heart, his annoyance at the whole situation, it all gets swallowed by a sense of calm and recognition, as if everything in his life had been walking him right up to this exact moment and someone was showing the result to him saying: “See? It all makes sense, doesn’t it?”
“Oh,” Rick lets out, blinking at him with his hand limp in Harvey’s.
It doesn’t take too long for Harvey to get a grip, put an end to the handshake and take a sharp breath, his lips twisting into a soft smile without asking for his permission. “Why don’t you have a seat?” he offers.
Rick nods, looking shell-shocked, but he has barely moved a step when the briefcase he’s holding pops open and what looks suspiciously like weed falls all over the floor.
“Woah— what’s this?”
Rick opens his mouth, probably looking for some decent excuse for that – and Harvey doesn’t know if it’s the excitement he can’t help feeling over meeting his soulmate after years of feeling him, but he finds the whole thing a bit funny –, but Harvey raises his hand dismissively before he can say anything.
“Just— let’s clean it up, before somebody sees it, then you’ll explain to me what you are doing with a briefcase full of weed at a goddamn job interview,” he says, crutching down to help as Rick follows.
“Uh, okay, let’s— let’s do that,” he lets out, a bit absent-mindedly.
Stashing weed in a briefcase is quite the bonding activity, and Harvey has no idea how he manages to keep a straight face through it.
“Thanks,” Rick says, as he closes the damn thing, looking more than a bit embarrassed. Actually, he doesn’t just look embarrassed: Harvey can literally feel his desire to go ahead and bury himself alive in the first hole he can find. He decides to reach out and make sure that he notices how amused he is by this situation.
“Alright, tell me all about it,” Harvey prompts, laying back against his chair. He feels the urge to take that table dividing them and push it out of the way, already missing the sense of belonging and this is how it’s supposed to be coming from actual physical touch with his soulmate. His presence in the room is already doing wonders and it’s much better than what he got in the last years, but it’s not enough compared to that single handshake.
“Uh, okay— first of all, my name is Mike,” is the answer he gets. Harvey tenses a little upon finding out that the first words that his soulmate ever spoke to him were a lie. “Mike Ross. I’m not actually here for the interview, I was— trying to ditch the cops.”
Well. This should be interesting.