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“Michael James Ross, what the hell is that?”
“It’s a fidget cube, I uh — I did some research on how to manage ADHD behaviours like fidgeting so it’s less disruptive and loads of articles said that fidget toys were the best way to make it more subtle, so I bought one.”
He holds it out. It’s a neon green plastic cube-thing with all sorts of technicolour buttons and switches on it. It’s awful, childish, the kind of thing that Harold would carry around with him, for crying out loud.
“You’re not having that thing in my office.” Harvey snaps, deliberately not looking as Mike’s face falls. “Bin it.”
“But—“
“Bin it.”
He takes a few shuffling steps, and the sound of plastic thudding into the wastebasket echoes across the office.
Mike sulks all morning.
He’s good at sulking, the role of petulant child coming far too easily to him when he wants it.
Thankfully, he only uses it with Harvey. It’s kind of a shame, because he’d love to see how Jessica would react to Mike’s pouty lower lip, and the way he mumbles under his breath, huffing every time their eyes meet.
As much as he thinks she’d hate it, she’s also so soft for him (soft for him in the same way Harvey is, in the same way everyone who meets Mike Ross is) and he just knows that his miserable brooding would win her over.
He thinks a little bit it’s an age thing, Mike doesn’t look even remotely older than 21, despite somehow only being a year or two shy of 30, and he knows that even with her successes, Jessica’s starting to feel her age.
And apparently when women become aware of the fact that they’re aging, they get unsettlingly maternal. And Mike doesn’t notice it, even though it always ends up directed at him. Like the time Jessica went out of her way to fix his tie, or when she suddenly insisted ’the associates’ weren’t drinking enough water, so bought all of them Pearson Hardman brand water bottles, and suspiciously only labelled Mike’s with his initials. Or even when Donna had taken it upon herself to start a calendar of all of Mike’s meetings and appointments, and had placed it neatly next to Harvey’s on her desk.
Harvey had noticed all of it, Mike? Absolutely none.
Harvey loses Mike at lunch. Or rather, he dismisses him. He’s got a deposition to attend for their current client, and as much as he likes having his associate next to him, what Mike’s doing is actually far more important.
And the client’s a dick.
Of course Mike pouts even more about it, because he’s still obsessed with ‘getting to sit at the adult’s table’ and there’s no way Harvey’s going to be able to convince him that this is, in fact, not him punishing Mike for seemingly no reason, but his attempt to try and help him.
So he doesn’t bother. He lets Mike sulk. It’s not like he doesn’t knows Harvey doesn’t mean it.
— — —
“You’re late.”
“No I’m not.” Mike glances at his watch, “Okay, I am, but only by six minutes, so I’m like — barely late.”
Harvey just gives him an unimpressed look.
“We have a meeting now Mike, the clients have been in the conference room since eight, when you were supposed to be here.”
“Sorry! I’m sorry, the traffic was awful even with my bike, just gimme a minute.”
Mike takes his sweet time (and far more than a minute) shrugging his bag off of his shoulders and digging out his laptop and files, flicking through the ones he needs before reaching into the side pocket of his satchel and pulling something out.
It’s a sort of wiggly plastic coated possibly wire thing in a closed loop, and it’s purple. Not a nice faded lavender, or a deep almost-navy plum… no. It’s an assault on Harvey’s eyes, almost fuchsia, and Harvey doesn’t care what it is, it needs to go.
“You like it?” Mike says, holding it out before him, clearly so proud of himself, not unlike a dog presenting a shit-covered stick. “It’s called a tangle, saves me breaking my earphone wires twisting them ‘cause—“
“— Absolutely not.”
“What?”
“Trashcan.”
Mike’s expression crumples.
“But Harvey I—“
“Shut it. Put it in the trash.”
Harvey should feel bad, but they have an important client meeting to go to all of ten minutes ago, and they need to impress them. Everyone already thinks Harvey’s hired a goddamn child as his associate, he doesn’t need them thinking he’s an idiot… or — god forbid — a student.
There’s something in Mike’s expression that looks genuinely hurt, but Harvey does not have the time for it. They are late, and if his associate is going to be upset with him then so be it. Really, what can he do about it? Mike’s feelings can wait until after they’ve dealt with their clients.
— — —
“No.”
“But — you?”
“No. I saw you in the hallway. Bin.”
Mike’s somehow managed to get his hands on one of Louis’ awful stress balls, and even though Mike’s got it squished up in his hand, Harvey spotted him absently playing with it while talking to Rachel earlier.
Mike grumbles something under his breath as he tosses it into the trash can in the corner of the office, muttering something akin to “dick”.
Harvey pretends he doesn’t hear it.
— — —
Harvey doesn’t even know what it is. He doesn’t care, and he doesn’t want to know.
Whatever it is, Mike’s been fiddling with it in his trouser pocket since they walked into the building, and there’s no way Harvey’s going to let them out of the elevator with him still fidgeting. Maybe in Pearson Hardman would he let him get away with it, but not here, not now.
“Mike, give it to me.”
Harvey snaps, holding out a hand. It’s an order, no room for an argument no matter how much he can see Mike wants one.
He ignores the flicker of something smug when Mike drops the offending object into his palm without protest.
“Good boy.”
He really ignores the way Mike’s frustration seems to ease, just a little, and something foreign passes over his expression, just momentarily.
“Now come on, let’s show this son of a bitch what we’re made of.”
— — —
It’s a fidget spinner.
An honest-to-god fidget spinner.
In Harvey Specter’s office.
In the hands of Michael fucking Ross.
“No. No. Get that thing out of here Mike.”
Mike looks up, blue eyes wide as he continues to spin the goddamn thing between his thumb and index finger. It’s blue and green and yellow, and Harvey refuses to look too closely at it because he’s genuinely worried it might light up.
And that might be the thing that makes him have to fire him.
“What? No! It’s cool, look, I can already do a couple of tricks with it.”
Mike starts it spinning again, and carefully lifts his hand — obviously to do something stupid with it — but Harvey snatches it off of him.
He doesn’t even look twice at it before he drops it into the wastepaper basket at his feet.
“Don’t ever bring something like that in here again.”
Mike’s expression hardens, his lips narrowing into a thin line as he sets his gaze on Harvey.
“No.”
“No?”
“You heard me. No. Harvey you were the one so insistent that I might have ADHD, you were the one who told me that I needed to understand myself so I could understand how to live with it, well this is me trying to live with it!”
His fist clenches, nails digging into the palms of his hand. Harvey bites back the urge to tell him to stop it.
“I fidget, all the fucking time apparently, I don’t know how to sit still when I’m not focusing on something like a trial and these stupid toys actually help me, because I hadn’t realised how useless I actually was at doing normal people shit until you pointed it out. So I don’t care if you think they’re stupid or annoying. You told me to figure it out and this is me, figuring it out. So I’m sorry that me needing something stupid to work better pisses you off for some reason, but you started this so you deal with it, okay?”
He stands then, dropping the file in his hands on the desk. He moves to leave, but Harvey catches him, a hand wrapping around his thin wrist. He’s still so thin, too thin, the kind of thin that annoys him so much because no matter how many times he gets Mike coffee with extra cream and sugar and he gets them far too much takeout whenever they get stuck late at the office, or even whenever he gets himself an extra doughnut or cookie or goddamn portion of fries just so Mike can steal it brazenly off of his plate and he can put up enough of a fight for Mike to think he’s being conniving about it, he just doesn’t seem to put on any weight.
Well, actually, he definitely has since they met. The Mike that ran into that room at the hotel in his cheap, ill-fitting suit and his briefcase full of weed was more bone than he was boy.
So okay, he has filled out a little since then, lost the gaunt hallows of his cheeks, the way his bones stuck out just a little too much, but he’s still so skinny. It’s all the damn cycling, not enough sleep, not enough food, and too much cycling. Really sometimes Harvey feels he ought to invest in a chauffeur for Mike. Someone like Ray, maybe they could even share him, because Harvey’s not sure he’s ever going to find another driver as good as Ray.
Besides, it’s not like Mike ever really goes anywhere that Harvey doesn’t.
“Mike, that’s not what this is.”
His fingertips burn circles on Mike’s skin, his wrist bare under his grasp from where he’d rolled his shirt sleeves up.
“Isn’t it? Because I’ve gone out and spent my own money to try and deal with a problem you brought up, and everything I’ve brought in you’ve made me throw away. So tell me it’s not what it looks like.”
He doesn’t try and pull his wrist out of Harvey’s grip. Harvey doesn’t let go.
“I’m not denying that, but it’s not because they’re annoying or childish or anything you just said! I think it’s a good thing you’re doing what I suggested!”
Mike grits his teeth.
“Then why did you make me bin them?”
Harvey sighs, finally releasing Mike and reaching down to his desk drawers.
“I made you throw them away because you bought cheap plastic things, far too garish. No associate of mine is going to carry around a kid’s toy. I’m sorry it took so long, the shipping was delayed.”
He reaches into the top drawer and pulls out a box, it’s the sort of expensive, velvety cardboard that his fountain pens come in, a similar shape too. He slides it across the desk towards Mike, watching as his eyebrows knit themselves together.
“You don’t need cheap shitty plastic for children, Mike. You’re a lawyer at Pearson Hardman, you deserve something classy, and adult.”
Mike stares at him, his hand still frozen in the air where Harvey had grabbed it before he blinks, eyes flickering down to the box between them.
He opens his mouth, but shuts it again before any words escape, and reaches for it. He’s hesitant, sliding it towards him before he thumbs it open, and sets the lid down. Inside, cradled on a bed of shredded paper, are three things. All of them stainless steel, glimmering in the light of the office.
“I wasn’t entirely sure what you’d like best, so I got a selection.” Harvey starts, suddenly surprisingly unsure of himself. “The first one, that one,” he says, as Mike’s fingers hover over it, “is a spinning gyroscope thing. It’s got all kinds of different rings that you can twist and spin.”
Mike nods, then traces a fingertip over the second.
“And that is a slider, or something. It snaps and clicks if you push it back and forth, I thought it might be good to fill the urge to click your pen.”
Mike nods again, then smiles.
“Are you proposing to me, Mr Specter?”
Mike asks before Harvey can speak, reaching in to take the third item. It’s a fidget ring, a band of titanium with a thin steel one encircling it that Mike can spin while wearing it.
He twirls it between his fingers for a moment, before sliding it onto his index finger.
It’s a perfect fit.
Harvey will not be telling him how he knows that.
He figures it out immediately, thumb glancing off of the narrower band as it spins silently.
He spins it again.
Then again.
And Harvey can’t help it, he smiles. It’s something soft and warm and achingly fone, tugging at the corners of his mouth and the creases of his eyes.
“Harvey I—“
“Don’t thank me, just use them.” Mike raises an eyebrow, and Harvey rolls his eyes. “Seriously, I don’t want to hear it, rookie.”
Mike’s spinning the ring without thinking about it as he steps round to Harvey’s side of the desk, and it makes that feeling in his chest burn a little brighter as the space closes between them. There’s a look in Mike’s eyes that he’s not sure he understands.
“And do not hug me.”
“Oh we are well past that point.”
Mike’s on him before he really has time to process it, wrapping his skinny arms around Harvey and resting his chin on his shoulder.
“Thank you.”
He whispers, nose brushing against Harvey’s ear.
“Let go of me.”
Harvey grumbles, but Mike only grips into him tighter, and Harvey can goddamn feel him grinning.
“Nuh uh, not until you hug me back.”
Mike Ross is going to be the death of him.
Gently, he winds his arms around Mike’s narrow frame, ignoring the way he immediately kind of needs more, needs to cling onto him and bury his face in his hair and breathe him in, because that’s definitely not appropriate employer/employee behaviour… not that any of this, really, is appropriate.
He’s close enough that he can smell him, smell his cheap aftershave, his shampoo, his detergent. He only wears cologne on special occasions, Harvey’s noticed, and even then it’s the cheapest stuff from the drug store.
He has to change that.
Mike sighs, melting into Harvey’s embrace. It’s kind of unconscious the way his whole body relaxes against him, but damn if it doesn’t make Harvey feel things. Things he’s not sure he wants to name.
Have they ever hugged before? He’s honestly not sure, even thought it feels like something momentous that should stick in his mind. Mike is so familial in his arms, even if the action itself isn’t familiar, the perfect size to press himself flush against Harvey’s chest.
He should let go. He should stop this.
He doesn’t.
Instead, Harvey Specter does something unheard of.
He allows himself to be weak.
He allows himself to care.
“You’re welcome.”
He whispers back to Mike, like they’re sharing some great secret, as if they’re not standing in the middle of an office with glass walls and an glass door, and he holds him… just a little tighter.