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Harvey woke up before his alarm sounded, that wasn’t all that unusual these days but not feeling the warmth of his husband sleeping next to him was, and by next to he really meant basically on top of him, Mike was and had always been, a cuddler. He sleepily reached an arm out to feel for Mike lying next to him but all he was met with was the cold sheets of an empty bed. It took a couple of seconds for his brain to catch up and when it did he bolted upright, suddenly worried that something was wrong. It usually takes something pretty spectacular to get Mike out of bed before 7am, especially as William had long since stopped waking regularly during the night.
“Mike?” he called out, looking towards the door or the ensuite but seeing no light escaping from under the door he concluded that it must be empty.
He pulled back the covers, ready to go and help with whatever emergency must have taken Mike from his side. He wasn’t thinking it was a real emergency, Mike would have woken him surely, William was probably just feeling sick, or had a nightmare. Yep that was all, Harvey Specter doesn’t panic. Normally. Or at least not outwardly.
He grabbed his phone from the bedside table, just in case, and walked out towards the hallway, only a little faster than normal. He was about to open the door to their bedroom when he stopped suddenly, hand resting on the handle. He could hear music playing…it was 6:45 in the morning and he could hear music. Not even gentle relaxing music that you might put on to help you get back to sleep but loud, energetic music… the sort that Mike liked to play when he was cooking. The penny dropped for Harvey, today way Tuesday, or as Mike had been referring to for several weeks; pancake day.
Now, a few years ago Harvey made the grave mistake of thinking that Pancake Day was just like any other day of the year. But after careful tutoring from Mike, Harvey of now of course realises the full importance of the day and doing it just right… maybe . He’s still not sure understands all the fuss, they could have pancakes every day of the week if they wanted. Actually he’s pretty sure Mike would want that, and he thinks William wouldn't have any complaints either, but someone had to keep their eating habits at least semi-healthy and that person was apparently Harvey.
Mike had been trying to educate him on the proper art of pancake day pretty much since they’d met. Thankfully for the first few years he hadn’t actually force fed Harvey anything, he’d just talked his ear off until Harvey had finally relented and said they could make a stop at the local pancake house on their way back to the office. Then since the start of their relationship Mike had insisted on making them pancakes every year, well most years, sometimes they had ordered in if they’d been stuck in the office or working on a big case. It was quite sweet actually not that that ever stopped Harvey from teasing him about it.
He pushed down the door handle and carefully followed the sound of the music and smell of pancake batter towards the kitchen, hoping to catch a glimpse of the production that was apparently in full force almost an hour before they normally had breakfast. He paused in the doorway taking a moment to just watch the scene in front of him.
Mike was standing facing the stove and William stood on a stool next to his dad carefully watching the pan in front of him. They had two pans on the go, a bowl of batter sitting next to them and they were both enthusiastically singing along to ‘Dancing Through Life’ - of course they were listening to Wicked, the soundtrack had been on pretty much non-stop since November, William hadn’t even seen the movie! He laughed as Mike held up a spatula moving it between his and Williams lips as a makeshift microphone.
“While you're dancing…Through” they sang in unison.
“I think we’re ready to flip this one over,” Mike said to William pointing at the pancake in front of him. “You wanna do the honours?”
Harvey watched as he put the spatula down and carefully guided Williams hands onto the handle of the pan so that they could flip the pancake together.
“Ok after three” Mike started to count them down. “One…two…three...”
They flicked the pan up and watched as the pancake flipped in the air landing almost perfectly back in the centre of the pan.
“Yay!!” William exclaimed.
“Nice one buddy!” Mike replied, holding his hand up for a high give. “You’re getting good at this!”
“Better than Daddy?” William asked cheekily as he returned the high five.
Mike made a show of bending down to whisper in Williams ear.
“Much better than Daddy”
He said it just loud enough for Harvey to hear although neither of them had noticed him standing there watching. Harvey didn’t want to make his presence known just yet, he was enjoying the show too much. When he first met Mike, he would never have imagined in a million years that 14 years on he’d be standing in the doorway to their kitchen watching Mike, his husband, cooking pancakes with their son. Life really has a way of surprising you.
“I don’t think we’ll be able to flip this next one in the pan, it’ll be too heavy ” Mike pointed at the remaining pancake.
“Aww”
“Hey it’s ok, we can use this,” Mike moved the fist pan from the burner and turned it off before handing William the spatula-come-microphone so that he could flip over the last pancake.
Harvey couldn’t really see what they were doing, their arms were obstructing his view, but definitely didn’t miss their reaction.
“Aaaahh” they both screamed in unison, Harvey wasn't sure who’s came out higher pitched.
“Daddy what did you do to it?! ” William said in horror, still staring down at the pan.
“Err” was all Mike managed to get out before Harvey decided he’d finally join in with the fun.
“Yeah Daddy, what did you do to the poor pancake?” He mocked stepping forwards into the room.
Both Mike and William jumped again, letting out another startled cry.
“Harvey?!” Mike spun around to look at him and put his right hand down on the presumably still very hot burner.
“Aaah” he yelped again in pain. Three in under 20 seconds, that might be some kind of record.
Mike glared at Harvey. “Right, for that you can eat the demon pancake” he said mockingly, hurrying over to the sink to run cold water on his freshly burned hand.
Demon pancake? Harvey rolled his eyes, surely whatever it was couldn’t be that bad. Mike had always been a little over dramatic, a trait that he was slowly passing onto his son. He walked over to the stove to investigate the damage and peered into the pan. To give Mike and William their due, the thing in the pan didn't look very appetising. He used the word ‘thing’ because he’s not really sure it could be described as a pancake anymore. There were what looked like blueberries arranged into what at some point could have been a face, but the heat of the pan had obviously caused the blueberries to burst and leak juice throughout the batter leaving it with a contorted smile and leaking eyes. Ok maybe demon was the best word after all.
“It was supposed to be a smiley face.” William said glumly. “All the ones with chocolate chips worked.” he pointed at a neat stack of pancakes on the side. “But we did one with blueberries for you because you like them better.”
Harvey thought he might actually melt.
“That’s ok champ” he said. “I’m sure it will still taste great. Thank you” he leaned down and planted a kiss on the top of Williams head and ran a hand through his soft hair as he stood back up.
Mike, having finished attending to his hand, grabbed the stack of pancakes from the side and carried them over to the table which was already littered with any and every topping you could possibly want on a pancake. Harvey lifted William up off the stool and put him down on the ground watching as he ran off towards Mike and the pancakes.
“We forgot the chocolate spread!” William shouted back at Harvey.
“Ok I’ll get it” Harvey called back with a laugh. He grabbed the jar from the cupboard along with three plates and cutlery for them all before joining Mike and William at the table.
William was practically bouncing up and down with excitement by the time Harvey put a plate in front of him. They all took a couple of pancakes from the pile and Harvey watched as Mike and William both started adding as many toppings as they could. He pretended not to be horrified at the amount of sugar his husband and son were about to consume whilst he added berries and yoghurt to his own plate and he made a mental note to up the number of vegetables in their meals for the rest of the week.
It wasn’t long before all of the pancakes were gone and they were all sitting back in their chairs completely stuffed. He’d been right, the demon pancake had actually tasted delicious but it was maybe best to stick with putting the blueberries on after it had been cooked in future.
“Well,” Harvey said, “that was delicious. Thank you.” He smiled at William who beamed back at him with a chocolatey grin.
“Worth getting up early for?” Mike asked him the hint of a ‘I told you so’ smirk on his lips.
“Worth getting up early for” Harvey agreed pretending that it pained him more than it did. In truth he loved that they all got to eat breakfast together and nothing made him happier than seeing Mike and William excited.
“Soooo” Mike began. Right here we go, Harvey mused. “Since we put in all that effort to make this delicious breakfast, maybe you could do the dishes.” Harvey watched as he winked at William, making him giggle.
“Hmm, probably.” Harvey rolled his eyes in his signature fashion. He supposed it really was only fair.
“I’m gonna get ready for school!” With that William jumped down from the table and rushed off towards the bathroom to get himself cleaned up.
“I was only joking, you can let me help” Mike protested when Harvey shooed him off before he could do clear any of the plates.
“No no, go get yourself sorted out” he teased. “I’m a big boy Mike, I can do the dishes on my own. Besides, someone needs to make sure he doesn’t get syrup all over the bathroom.”
Mike’s eyes widened and he gave Harvey a quick peck on the lips before hurrying off after his son. “Buddy wait for….” and he was gone leaving Harvey laughing.
He was pleasantly surprised by how tidy Mike and William had left the kitchen. Usually Mike left a trail of destruction behind when he cooked but he seemed to have used a minimal amount of utensils this time and there was only a small mountain of flour on the floor, so that was progress.
Harvey managed to get everything cleared away and into the appropriate cupboards before either Mike or William came back through, so he set the dishwasher to run and made his way back through to the bedroom to take a shower.
By the time he emerged Mike had joined him in the bedroom and was busy laying out his clothes for the day.
“Hey you” Harvey said softly as he walked over and wrapped his arms around Mike’s waist from behind. “Where’s William?”
Mike smiled and scooted himself round so that he was facing Harvey.
“Watching TV” he said as he linked his hands together around Harvey’s neck. “We’ve still got some time before we need to leave.”
“Mhmm” Harvey nodded. “I suppose he deserves it after all his hard work in the kitchen this morning”.
Mike raised his eyebrows “And what about me, don’t I deserve something?”
Harvey laughed, he’d walked right into that one.
“Oh, and what do you think you deserve?”
“Mmm I don’t know” he had that cheeky grin on his face, the one he knew Harvey couldn’t resist. “Maybe we could go in there and I’ll let you know.” He flicked his eyes up towards the ensuite behind Harvey.
“But I’ve already had a shower” Harvey tried to protest, not that he put much effort into it.
“I’m sure you’ll survive another one.”
He began to pull away, leading Harvey back towards the door.
“Besides, I’m injured” Mike stopped turning back to Harvey and holding up his right hand. “I might need some help” he pouted, fluttering his eyelashes at Harvey sweetly.
Harvey scoffed but it quickly turned into a laugh and he scooped Mike up into his arms.
“Come on then, my damsel in distress,” he mocked. “Let's get you ready for the day.”
“Hey!” Mike tried to wriggle free but he eventually gave up and allowed Harvey to carry him into the bathroom.
Harvey laughed, today was going to be a good day.