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When our actions do not,
Our fears do make us traitors.
- Macbeth
He hates the smell of hospitals. The scent of piss-blood-vomit not quite hidden beneath the almost overpowering scent of bleach. He feels his stomach lurch with every breath and he tells himself it’s the smell. That it’s all these sick people sitting in A&E with him, coughing and spluttering, some crying, others bleeding, all impatient and tired and hurting.
He picks at his fingernails. There’s blood, thick and cloying stuck beneath them. He shudders to see it, but no matter how many times he’s scrubbed his hands in the past hour, it won’t budge. Sometimes, when he stares at his hands for long enough, he thinks he still sees the bright red of fresh blood coating his fingers, crawling up his wrists and soaking into the sleeves of his shirt. He startles at the sight of it, and the vision fades, but not the memory. No, the memory is still as fresh.
“Come on!” Mike cajoles, his grin so wide it’s threatening to infect Harvey just by his looking at it. “Even you have to admit it, I totally owned that guy!”
He presses his fingers to his eyes, digging until spots of monochrome burst across the back of his eyelids. He presses until it hurts. Just like he taught Mike.
“I have to admit nothing.” Harvey says instead, though inside he does. It’s inspiring to see Mike when he’s in full on lawyer mode, all that wit and charm luring his opposition into a false sense of superiority before- wham!- he hits them where it hurts. “And gloating does not become you.”
“You gloat,” Mike returns, his grin not even phased by Harvey’s blatant refusal to give him his due credit.
“Yes, but we’ve had this conversation before. And you’re not me, are you, pup?” And Mike’s smile changes, softens. And Harvey looks away before he can smile too.
He pulls his fingers from his eyes when he feels a hand brush at his sleeve. There is moisture on his fingertips. He sees in blurs of colour for a blink-and-two before the hospital refocuses around him.
Wordlessly, Donna passes him a cup of coffee; the Starbucks logo on the side explaining where she disappeared off too a quarter of an hour ago. He takes the cup without a word and she touches at his hand, fingers squeezing a moment before pulling back.
“You know, some people might get the wrong idea,” Mike says, catching up to him as he turns down a side street from the courthouse. It’s a short enough distance to the restaurant Harvey’s taking them for a celebratory lunch that he doesn’t mind the walk…. or the company.
“About what?” He asks, side-eyeing Mike.
“All the pet names,” Mike says, trying for blasé as he bumps his shoulder against Harvey’s. “Someone might think you actually care.”
Harvey grins then, quirking an eyebrow. “If referring to you as a dog somehow equates to an expression of affection, then by all means. Although I suspect people are more likely to get the wrong idea about you.”
He feels the lightest of touches against his hand; Mike’s own, his fingers sliding like a lovers touch across the palm of his hand in a quick brush of skin on skin, the slightest squeeze of his fingers before he pulls away and looks ahead as if the gesture never happened. As if he’s giving Harvey the choice.
His hand tingles, the phantom touch lingers. Or maybe it’s just Donna’s touch he feels. He flexes his fingers around the cup of coffee, blames the tingling then on the warmth seeping through into his cold hands. Anything but…
“I spoke to one of the nurses,” Donna says, eyeing him carefully. He must look a mess, he knows. He certainly feels like one. He doesn’t ask her what they said; he knows it won’t be different to the twenty other times he’s spoken to them. Not even with the threat of every lawsuit he could think of did any of them so much as budge. There’s no news. There’s no knowing when news will be made available to them. All they can do is sit and wait and pray to whatever deity deigns to listen in on their silent pleas.
“He’s going to be alright,” Donna says. He shakes his head. She can’t know that. He’s been in surgery for over an hour now. And there’d been so much blood. It had just poured out of him and he’d watched, horrified, as the colour drained from his face as quickly as the life seemed to drain from his body.
There’s blood on his hands again. He sees it, plain as day, seeping through the fingers gripping at his coffee cup and staining at his skin. He blinks against the sight, once-twice, and his hands are clean again.
Harvey smiles, can’t quite help himself although he knows better. He doesn’t look at Mike, and though he can see Mike’s own smile, Mike doesn’t turn to look at him either. In fact, they’re so busy not looking at each other they very nearly miss seeing what’s right in front of them.
“Harvey,” Mike says, voice low, footsteps faltering. Up ahead, towards the end of the side street, a gang of youths, mid to late teens, loitering. They look a tough lot, but Harvey’s faced worse things than a couple of kids hanging about dimly lit alleyways.
“You’re not serious, are you?” Harvey laughs, the sound echoing off the bricks. Some of the kids look up but the rest ignore them. “Mike, you just faced off against one of the toughest lawyers in this city, and won. You can’t tell me you’re scared of some kids.”
Mike says nothing but keeps up with him. He’s fidgeting though, and the happy-go-lucky attitude from a few minutes ago is gone. He looks frightened and Harvey doesn’t know whether to mock him or hug him. And when in doubt…
“Would you just relax? Honestly you’re making me nervous.”
“Sorry,” Mike mutters and Harvey sort of stares.
“Are you really-?”
“No, I just… don’t think this is such a great idea.” Mike hurries to interrupt. “Could we maybe-,” but he cuts himself off.
Harvey smiles, cocky. “Kid, you’re with me, what’s the worst that could happen?”
Famous last words.
The coffee’s too sweet. The taste of sugar sticks to his tongue as he swallows. He prefers it black, as Donna well knows, but he drinks it without a word. He really should thank her for it. For the change of clothes she brought him. For clearing his schedule for the rest of the day. For staying here with him and not asking him a hundred and one questions about what happened. He doesn’t though. Can’t find the words to speak. The police took his statement during the first half-hour, and he hasn’t found the energy to speak since.
In his head he replays the moment over and over again. A garish movie on repeat, the colours sharper in remembrance- the ashen colour of his face, the too-red colour of the blood pulsing up around their joined hands as they tried to quench the flow.
“Hey, man,” one of the youths pulls away from the group to stop in front of them, cutting them off. The others quieten and turn to look. “You got a cigarette, yeah?”
“Sorry, kid,” Harvey says, keeps walking. Mike presses himself close to his side, keeps his head down. He looks all the more conspicuous for it.
“Who you calling a kid, old man?” The youth asks, stepping to block them off again. The others move away from the wall, circle closer.
He smiles, cocks his head, makes a quip about everyone being a kid to an old man like him. There are some laughs at that, chuckles soon turning to heckling comments over the state of their suits, what they did, where they were going, another request for cigarettes. Nothing he was unable to handle. The key was to brush them off in a manner that entertained but didn’t offend. They were just looking for a little bit of fun.
And then Mike flinches against him. The youths laugh as one and he turns quickly, sees Mike cradling his satchel and glaring at the kid that quite clearly tried to snatch it from him.
He feels the humour evaporate from him as he sees the ripped leather of the belt where it was cut and looks up to find the kid with a switchblade in his hand and a smirk on his face.
“Got something good in there, yeah?” he asks, pointing the blade at Mike’s bag.
“Gentlemen,” Harvey starts, calling the attention to himself, “it’s been fun, but unless you want to find yourself on the wrong end of a lawsuit, I think it’s time my colleague and I left you to your business.”
He lays a hand on Mike’s shoulder, tightens his fingers. His other hand he slips into his pocket, thumbs at the emergency call button on his phone and hopes he doesn’t have to use it.
Quickly he steers them through the gang of kids, ignoring the way they seem to press closer instead of making way for them.
Mike makes a surprised sound, twisting, and Harvey turns with him to see that his bag has finally been snatched from his arms. He presses the call button on his phone then whirls round to face the kids.
Switchblade boy is holding the bag in one hand, in the other… the other… he feels the blood drain from his face at the same moment Mike crumples against him. There’s blood, blood on the blade, shock on the kid’s face. There’s a moment, a so quite you can hear every inhale of breath moment, that the sudden cry of pain from Mike is made that much more piercing.
“Mike!” and Harvey’s dropping to his knees, carefully lowering Mike to the ground. Mike’s eyes are wide, scared, his face so pale and lined with pain. He moans, tries to curl up, hands pressing to his belly and Harvey pushes his hands away, trying to see where it hurts.
“Harvey-!”
There’s cursing, shouting, the sound of a half-dozen feet pounding down a sidewalk. There’s blood, so much blood. He presses Mike’s hands back to his stomach, folds his own atop them.
“It’s okay, Mike,” he says, tries and fails to smile with confidence. Mike moans, the sound high and keening, he clenches his eyes closed, breathes his name on an exhale, nostrils flaring.
“Harvey…!”
“You’re going be fine, Mike. Just… just stay calm, alright?” He lifts one bloody hand and fumbles at his pocket, grabs his phone and rhymes off as much information as he can to the operator on the other end.
“Oh god,” Mike moans. He feels Mike’s fingers curling beneath his, clenching at his stomach. “Hurts so much,” he says, teeth clenching against the words.
He squeezes at Mikes fingers. “Just hold on for me, okay? There’s an ambulance on its way, Mike.”
“’m holding on to?” Mike says, words slurring. His eyes roll, head lolling to the side and Harvey drops his phone, reaching for Mike’s face; fingers streaking blood across his pale cheeks as he forces Mike to look at him.
“Hold on, Mike!” he half-shouts, desperate. Oh god. “Mike, I need you to stay with me.”
But Mike’s eyes won’t focus and his fingers stop scrabbling at his stomach. He presses harder, swallows bile at the sight of so much blood surging over their hands.
“MIKE!” he shouts, louder, the sound jolting Mike to look at him.
“Don’t you dare, Mike,” he threatens, brushing his fingers through Mike’s hair, stoking over his cheek, down his neck. “Don’t you dare even think about closing your eyes on me again!”
He feels sick; flushed and cold with the horror of seeing Mike like this.
“Where in God’s name is my ambulance?” He shouts, frustrated, terrified. Mike squirms beneath him, pulls a bloodied hand from his stomach and reaches for Harvey; fingers painting themselves against his skin. He grabs at Mike’s wrist, leans into the touch.
Mike smiles and he wants to smile with him but his face won’t obey the command.
“’mit it,” Mike slurs, eyes finding his for a moment, “you do care.”
“Jesus, yes!” he curses. “I do, of course I do.”
Mike’s smile turns sloppy, happy. “Next time… we listen to me, ’kay?”
And then his eyes slip shut and his body goes limp and Harvey feels as though the very life has been knocked from him as much as it’s been drained from Mike.
“Mike! Mike, please… oh god. Stay with me, Mike! MIKE!”
“Michael Ross. Family for Michael Ross?”
The sharp grip of Donna’s fingernails against his arm jerk him back to the present. She’s hissing in his ear, dragging him to his feet and towards the doctor in surgical scrubs who’s come looking for the family of Michael Ross.
“That’s us,” She says and he swallows, heavy with dread. The man looks tired, worn out, there’s blood on his scrubs and he can feel the eyes of almost everyone boring into his back, their ears straining with morbid curiosity.
Oh god. Please don’t be dead… please don’t be…
“Firstly, he’s going to be okay-,” the doctor says, and Harvey feels relief wash through him so forcefully he’s left shaking. He closes his eyes a moment, presses his fingers to his eyelids and sucks in slow, deep breaths. Mike’s alive. He’s alive. He…
“-lost a lot of blood and crashed on the way into surgery. We were successfully able to revive him but he’s going to need a couple more blood transfusions over the next few days and until we get him stabilised he’ll be kept in the ICU. He’s very lucky to be alive.”
“Next time… we listen to me, ‘kay?”
“When can we see him?” Donna asks, her iron-tight grip the only thing keeping him upright.
“I just don’t think this is such a great idea.”
“He’s still unconscious, and probably won’t wake until tomorrow,” he pauses, looks them over, then says, “I’ll let you have five minutes with him.”
“Next time… we listen to me, ‘kay?”
His hands are shaking. When he looks down at them, curling them tightly into fists, all he sees is blood.
- - -
“Didn’t I tell you not to disturb me?” Harvey says, barely turning his gaze from the window he’s been staring out of for the past forty minutes. He touches his hand to his desk, fingers sliding over the small mound of paperwork sitting there, untouched.
“Did you?” Donna asks, managing to sound both apologetic and accusing. The look she shoots him when she steps into his line of sight however is neither. Instead, he finds her smirking just enough to let him know that she knows something she probably shouldn’t.
He raises an eyebrow, enquiringly, and prays she gets to the point she’s about to make without much pomp and circumstance. He’s too tired to play the game of cat and mouse with her today. Truthfully, he’s been too tired to do much of anything for the past three weeks. Not since Mike…
He looks so pale, fragile almost, propped up against a mountain of pillows. Somehow, seeing Mike lying there in his paper thin hospital gown, all pale-faced and bruised with fatigue and pain, makes Harvey want to turn tail and run. This isn’t the Mike he knows, this is just the shell of him. There are tubes running into him beneath the scratchy cotton of his bed sheet, and even more sticking into his arms, pumping blood and saline into his system.
Harvey taps his fingers against the sheet, accidently-on-purpose brushing them against Mike’s unresponsive hand as he does so. In his minds eye he remembers Mike taking his hand, a touch so fleeting he could almost pretend to have imagined it. He wants to take Mike’s hand in his own now, but hesitates.
“I just don’t think this is such a great idea, could we maybe-,”
And just like that the decision is taken from him. He looks down, fingers poised to curl around Mike’s own, and sees his skin stained red once more. He snatches his hand back as if stung and then steps backwards, away from Mike, as if his mere proximity to him will somehow contaminate him with the guilt he feels.
“Kid, you’re with me, what’s the worst that could happen?”
“I thought you might like a look at today’s paper,” Donna says, innocently, interrupting him from his thoughts once again as she drops the newspaper atop the pile of files littering his desk. Harvey glances at the paper just long enough to scan the clip she’s highlighted for him-
- before he slides it back towards her, feigning nonchalance.
“Not that I don’t appreciate the thought, but I have better things to do than read the paper.”
“That’s funny,” Donna says, “because you were working so hard before I interrupted you.”
“Speaking of interruptions,” he counters, fixing her with a pointed stare and finding himself at a loss to explain the sudden look of hostility that creases her brow.
“How is it,” Donna begins, voice steely, “that someone prepared to go to great lengths to avenge another person-,” and here she taps one elegantly manicured finger to the newspaper, “-can be the same someone who’s determined to then turn around and hurt that self-same person?”
“Hey Mr!” Switchblade boy sneers, catching sight of him. He’s in the midst of his gang instead of hovering on the outskirts as he was the first time they met, and oozing the sort of confidence only committing a crime can give you.
“Where’s your boyfriend?” One of the others calls out, and he smiles, spreads his hands.
“Recovering, thank you for asking.”
The kids laugh, nudging and jabbing each other with elbows and kicks.
“You come back for more?” Switchblade boy asks, grinning. “’Coz your boy had shit-all in his bag.” His friends snigger at his bravado.
“Unfortunately, no.” He says, his smile sharp. He stops a few paces from them, slides his hands into his pockets. “I’ve come to offer you an ultimatum.”
The kids laugh again, throwing jeers and taunts in his direction. He waits them out, waits for the laughter to die down, for them to realise he’s still there, still standing, still waiting. When he speaks again, they listen.
“What do you want, Donna?” Harvey asks, frowning.
“I want you to answer my question,” She says, gaze piercing.
He spreads his hands, “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“Fine, let’s not beat around the bush. You haven’t visited Mike Ross once since he was admitted to hospital, and I want to know why.”
Donna’s angry, he can see that now. All her smiling and leading in with the newspaper were only fronts to disguise her real agenda. If she were a lawyer, Harvey knows she’d be a lethal opponent to anyone unlucky enough to get in her way. Himself included.
His epiphany aside, Harvey feels a pang of guilt at her words. What she says is true enough. He hasn’t visited Mike since the night they rushed him to the hospital and Harvey had sat for over an hour worrying himself sick over the idea that Mike could die and that it would be his fault.
“Is that what this is about?” He asks, turning his eyes towards the window once more and the view of storm clouds brewing in the distance. He touches, subconsciously, at his trouser pocket and feels the outline of his phone. Whilst it’s true that he hasn’t seen Mike, he has made the effort to kept in touch; albeit infrequently and never with any real intention to keep up a conversation.
“I know you like to have this whole ‘I don’t care’ vibe going on, Harvey, but I thought you were better than this.”
Harvey finds himself tensing at her words. It’s not that he doesn’t care-
“’mit it,” Mike slurs, eyes finding his for a moment, “you do care.” “Jesus, yes!” he curses. “I do, of course I do.”
-it’s just… maybe he cares too much. He’s never given it much thought, his feelings for Mike. Not before watching him crumple to the ground, his life seeping away before his very eyes. It’s… it was too much. Harvey doesn’t think he’s ever been as terrified as he was in that moment, thinking Mike was dying and not being able to do a damn thing about it. Perhaps the worst part of the entire ordeal was the knowledge that it was his fault. If only he’d called Ray to pick them up like he was supposed, if only he hadn’t taken that shortcut, if only he’d listened to Mike when he’d hesitated, if only…
“I really thought you were better than this,” Donna repeats, more softly and with disappointment lacing her words. Harvey wants to argue with her, wants to tell her he is, of course he is, and that he does care, about Mike, about her. But he doesn’t say anything. His hands are still stained. And he has no right to care about Mike when he’s the reason he got hurt in the first place.
“You think you can come here and threaten us on our own turf, old man?” Switchblade boy sneers, “Ain’t nobody here going to hand themselves in on your say so.”
“And why not?” he asks, casually.
“Are you for real, man?” another asks. “What’d we want to do that for?”
“I could tell you it’s because it’s the right thing to do…” and here he pauses for their snorts of laughter, “but I know that won’t work with the likes of you.”
“Now, there’s no need for insults,” the click of the switchblade. He feels his stomach roll with sickness and anticipation. It’s the same knife that ripped itself into Mike’s stomach, he’s sure of it. The others send up a cheer, shouts of encouragement, pushing Switchblade boy to the front of them. He looks nervous, but puffs himself up.
Harvey knows what he’s thinking: he’s done this before, he can do it again. He can take this man just as easily as he took the other one… right?
Wrong.
Because Harvey’s been expecting this. And he’s ready.
“Do you blame him?” Donna asks. She’s hesitant now, voice thick with doubt and Harvey looks up, unable to let that question lie unanswered.
“Blame him?” He repeats, voice hoarse with disbelief, and Donna nods. “For what?”
“For the stabbing?” She says, like she couldn’t possibly have been asking about anything else.
“What?” The absurdity of the question startles him. “How could I possibly blame him for that?”
“That’s what I said, but Mike can’t think of another reason why you’d be this upset with him.”
“I’m not upset with Mike!” And he’s half standing before he’s even thought about it. “Why-,”
“-would he think that?” Donna smoothly interrupts. “How about the fact that you haven’t visited him once since he was stabbed? The fact that you won’t return his calls, barely reply to his texts? You haven’t even asked how he is, Harvey, despite knowing that Rachel and myself have been taking it in turns to visit him. What else is he supposed to think?”
“That it’s my fault!” He exclaims, slamming his fist against his desk, Donna stares at him, surprise painted plain as day across her face. It’s a look he’s seen maybe a handful of times since he met her. He swallows thickly and straightens, turning away. He’s not used to loosing control of his emotions like this and he feels off kilter; it’s like his whole worlds been tilted upside down since Mike got stabbed and he doesn’t know how to put it back to rights anymore.
“Harvey,” Donna steps around his desk, her hands reaching to touch at his arms. He can’t quite meet her eyes. “Harvey, it’s not your fault either. You can’t honestly believe that…” but he does, and he finds himself unable to bluff his way out of this with a smile and a laugh.
“Mike doesn’t blame you,” Donna says, fingers tightening.
“He should,” Harvey says and Donna makes a frustrated sound in the back of her throat.
“God, I don’t know whether I want to strangle you or hug you right now,” she says, releasing his arms only to smack at him. “Mike doesn’t blame you. He thinks you blame him. He’s been asking for you Harvey, and if I have to look into those puppy eyes of his one more time and tell him you’re not coming to see him, I will destroy you. I thought after you got this-,” she gestures again to the newspaper, “-out of the way you’d man up and go see him.”
Harvey stays silent, glances fist at the newspaper, and then at his hands before slipping them into the pockets of his trousers.
“And by ‘I thought’,” Donna says, straightening, “I mean you will go and see him. Tonight.”
“Donna-,”
“I will not take no for an answer. You owe this to him. And to me for putting up with both of your angst.” He stares at her, she glares back, and so he does the only thing he can under the circumstances, he nods his agreement.
“Good. Now he’s been discharged today, Rachel was helping him get settled in his apartment but she should be heading back now. I’ve cleared your schedule for the rest of the afternoon. Here’s his key-,” he takes the offered key obediently as well as the slip of paper she offers him along with it, “-his address, and Ray is waiting downstairs for you.”
Harvey stares at the objects in his hands, looks up at Donna. “Shouldn’t I wait until he’s-,”
“No.”
“He could be sleeping-,”
“No.”
“Donna-,”
“Do not make me hurt you, Harvey Specter. If you’re not out of this office within the next five minutes I’ll make you wish the only thing you had to worry about was your ridiculously misplaced guilt.”
And then she’s gone, leaving Harvey to stare after her in disbelief. He curls his fingers around the key, brings his hand up and tries to ignore the scent of blood as he presses his fist to his mouth.
- - -
He doesn’t know what he’s doing here. Two minutes in Mike’s apartment and he’s half out the door already. It’s not that he doesn’t want to be here, it’s just that he doesn’t think he deserves to be here. Not with the way Mike’s looking at him, all wide-eyed and grateful, happy to see him, curious as to why he chose now of all times, worried every time he moves for fear he’ll leave just as spontaneously as he arrived.
Mike’s still pale faced and bruised with pain and exhaustion. He looks just as fragile as he did that first night in the hospital and Harvey hurts to see him so vulnerable and deathlike against the dark blues of his own blankets.
He nips in and out of Mike’s room under the pretence of fetching him a fresh glass of water, another blanket, wanting to check if he’s got food in the cupboards, never staying long enough to actually talk with him past the basic pleasantries. He forbids Mike from leaving his bed and uses the moments he’s able to escape those puppy-eyes of his to berate himself for his behaviour. He can’t seem to help himself though, every time he looks at Mike he sees him lying on the ground beside him, blood pooling out around him, staining everything it touches.
It’s on the third time he goes to refresh Mike’s water that he finally gets called on his behaviour.
“Damnit, Harvey, would you just stop?” Mike snaps, then winces. “Look, I’m sore and I’m tired, yes, but I’m not completely useless. You’re treating me like some kind of an invalid. What gives? It’s like you actually care or something.”
And Harvey sort of just freezes. He doesn’t mean to. He’s sure he used to have a better poker face than this when it came to hiding his emotions, but he’s been rubbed raw over the past few weeks wallowing in his own guilt and he isn’t sure he could put up a front if his life depended on it.
Mike looks at him, surprise clearly etched across his face before understanding blooms and his mouth falls open. “Oh,” he breathes and Harvey unfreezes, his heart suddenly picking up a staccato beat as he turns smartly on his heel. He’s not running, per se, he just needs to leave the room for a minute, maybe grab some fresh air.
He takes maybe one step before Mike calls out to him, the shout of his name just as desperate and pained as it was the day he was stabbed-
“Harvey…! Oh god…hurts so much!”
-and Harvey turns back without a thought. He’s at Mike’s side within seconds, hands desperately reaching for him.
“Are you okay?” he’s asking and Mike grabs at his arms, sort of stares at him.
“I’m… I’m okay,” Mike says, hesitating as if he’s not quite sure himself. “Harvey… what’s going on?”
Harvey drops his hands but Mike keeps hold of his arms, adjusting his grip before tightening it as Harvey tries to pull away.
“Mike-,”
“Just tell me what’s wrong? Tell me what I have to do to fix this?”
“Fix what?”
“Us! I know you must blame me, and I’m really sorry, but I don’t want this to come between us, I just… I need us to be okay.”
“I don’t blame you,” he says, carefully lowering himself to the bed to sit beside Mike. He meets his gaze and feels his guilt increase two-fold at all the pain and uncertainty he’s managed to put Mike through due to his avoidance of him.
“Mike, I really don’t blame you. You can’t possibly think I’d hold your getting stabbed against you?”
Mike drops his gaze, then his hands. “I tried not to,” he admits, quietly. “but when you never… and I just started thinking… Donna said I was being stupid but… I’m sorry.” He shrugs and Harvey reaches out, squeezing at his shoulder.
“No, I’m sorry. I didn’t think you’d want to see me,” Harvey says, “I thought you’d blame me. I certainly did.”
“You?” Surprise now. Mike’s eyes are wide with disbelief. “How could it possibly be your fault?”
“You said-,” Harvey stops, rubs a hand over his face. “Look, it doesn’t matter. Just… don’t blame yourself, okay?”
Mike’s watching him carefully. “I won’t blame myself if you don’t?” he tries, smiling just a little.
Harvey returns the gesture, agrees. “Sure, kid.”
And just like that Mike’s smile fades.
“What did I say, Harvey?” he asks, frowning.
“I told you, it doesn’t matter.” Harvey says, cursing himself.
“I think it does. If you want me to believe I’m not the reason you’re blaming yourself for this anyway.”
“It doesn’t matter, Mike.” Harvey tries, voice sterner than he perhaps means to have it, tugging his arms from Mike’s grip.
“Obviously, it does!” Mike protests. “Harvey, please?”
“No, Mike-,”
“You do think this is my fault.” he says, miserably.
“No, I-,”
“No. You must. Why else won’t you tell me?”
Harvey eyes him, aware that he’s about to be manipulated into a confession. Mike looks so miserable though, sitting propped up against his pillows, his knees half-drawn up to his chest, his head lowered just enough to look forlorn.
“You blamed me,” Harvey says, “just after it happened.”
“Next time… we listen to me, ‘kay?”
“Harvey… I wouldn't-,”
“You did.”
If possible, Mike goes even paler. He pushes himself up from his pillows, wincing at the movement.
“I just don’t think this is such a great idea, could we maybe-,”
“You were about to ask me if we could turn around after spotting them. I laughed at you. Told you nothing would happen, but I was wrong, and you almost died as a result.”
“Kid, you’re with me, what’s the worst that could happen?”
“I’m old enough to have turned and walked the other way without you holding my hand, Harvey. You can’t take that as any sort of proof.”
He shakes his head. He knows how much Mike looks up to him, tries to emulate his confidence. Would he really have gone against Harvey? For a case maybe, but for himself? The answer is staring at him with a hopeful expression and Harvey hates to break it to him, but Mike needs to know that Harvey was responsible for him and that he failed in that task.
“You told me that next time I should listen to you.”
“What does that mean?” Mike says. Harvey watches carefully as Mike touches gingerly at his bandaged side, repositioning himself into a more upright position.
“You admitted your concerns to me. I brushed them aside. You knew it was my fault the moment it happened.”
“Jeez. You of all people should know to disregard anything I said from then! Harvey, I barely remember what happened, never mind what I said. But I do know that I couldn’t have possibly meant it like that. Please, Harvey?”
He reaches out then, fingers curling around Harvey’s hand with purpose. Harvey looks down at the touch, sees the paleness of Mike’s skin against the red of his and he closes his eyes against the image, trying to pull his hand free.
“No.” Mike says. Harvey looks up into determined eyes.
“Come on, Harvey. You know I’m right,” Mike’s fingers tighten and Harvey swallows thickly at the tingle that runs through his hand. “Can’t we just both agree what happened, happened. And that neither of us are to blame?”
“We could…” Harvey answers, shaking his head.
“No,” Mike says again. “We will. We have to.” The last is said more softly and Harvey finds himself squeezing at Mike’s hand then, hating that once again he’s put this look of doubt and disappointment on Mike’s face.
Mike smiles at him then, shyly, as he twists their hands together, pressing them palm to palm as if in prayer before entwining their fingers. There’s a splash of colour creeping across his cheeks; just the faintest hue of pink. Harvey finds himself smiling back, thinking how much better Mike looks for simply blushing.
“Is this okay?” he asks, eyes flittering away then back.
And Harvey thinks about seeing Mike lying lifelessly on the ground, thinks about the sleepless nights he’s spent consumed with guilt and anger and worry. He thinks about the kids that did this, and what it took to get them to hand themselves in. He thinks about seeing Mike, today, and the relief he feels at knowing he’s going to be okay. That they’re going to be okay.
Harvey lifts their joined hands, sees Mike’s pale fingers fitted so perfectly against his slightly tanned ones, and he smiles. For the first time in weeks his hands are clean. He leans in, pressing the lightest of kisses to each of Mike’s fingertips.
“It’s okay,” he promises, knowing that this is a promise he can keep.
fin.