Work Text:
i.
Mike knows Harvey is strong, knows he was a baseball star with a deadly throw, and knows he boxes to force the tension out of his body, especially on the days it just sucks. He also knows Harvey’s arms are big enough that his suits and dress shirts have to be tailored to accommodate his broad shoulders, but knowing this didn’t prepare Mike in the slightest.
Harvey wipes the sweat from his brow with the back of a gloved hand before drawing his fists in towards his chest. He doesn’t notice Mike, blessedly, because a shock goes through Mike’s spine and freezes him in his tracks at the sound of Harvey’s fist connecting with a pad. His partner, a man roughly Harvey’s equal in size, stumbles, and Harvey—
Harvey grins. A flash of perfect, white teeth. He ducks a sparring jab and reels back again. The smack of leather on leather makes Mike jump.
“I gotta call it, man,” his partner breathes, and Harvey claps him on the back. He notices Mike as he rips the Velcro off of one glove with his teeth and takes a long drink of water.
“Feeling better?” Mike calls, and maybe he really should start going to church again because he owes God one for keeping his voice steady. Harvey rips off the other glove.
“I told you to meet me outside,” Harvey says, “I need a few more rounds. Today sucked. Mostly because of you.”
Mike looks at the floor. He’d fucked up plenty of times, but this…
“You never listen.”
Mike looks up and has just a second to think fast before the gloves catch him in the chest. Harvey raises expectant eyebrows at him.
“Not gonna jump at the chance to hit your boss?” He asks. He sprays something inside the pads his partner left behind and straps them onto his hands.
“I thought you’d want to hit me, ” Mike says, and wishes he could swallow it back. Harvey’s been teaching him how to read people, figure out the story told by minute twitches of facial muscles without a word needing to be said. Mike tries and fails to decipher the look on Harvey’s face, his mouth set in a thin line and eyes dark. Not angry , is all Mike can gather. Hurt? At the slightest implication that Mike thinks Harvey might—
“Strap those on and get in here.”
Mike snaps back to see Harvey shrugging off his sweatshirt, left in a tank top that fits loose, and his biceps are the size of Mike’s head. There’s a light gleam of sweat on his shoulders that makes Harvey look sun-kissed even under fluorescent gym lights that would wash anyone else out. Mike’s mouth is dry and he wonders belatedly if Harvey will let him have a sip of his water. He hopes it’s the thought of sharing a drinking vessel with his germaphobe boss that makes him feel a little hysterical and not the ridiculous amount of Harvey’s skin he’s seeing.
Harvey huffs impatiently as Mike ducks under the ropes, getting tangled a little. Mike’s still in his work clothes, but he knows Harvey doesn’t care.
“I hope I don’t have to teach you how to throw a punch, too,” he taunts, “I’d hate to find out you’re not even a little scrappy. Hands up.”
Mike listens. He sees the quick shine of Harvey’s approving grin through the gloves in front of his face.
“Good,” Harvey says, “where was that today? Hit me.”
Mike hesitates. Harvey’s eyes narrow.
“What did I tell you about listening to me?” His voice is low. “That’s how we got into this mess. I have to teach you ,” he gets into Mike’s space, “one way or another. Now, if you don’t grow a pair and hit me—”
Mike reels back and swings. Harvey catches the punch and the sound makes Mike’s ears ring.
“There we go.”
Mike swings again and Harvey blocks effortlessly, solid on his feet.
“Keep going.”
Mike feels his shoulders start to burn, heat building in his arms. He’s sweating and he thinks it’s a little unfair that Harvey looks like he’s doing a cooldown, easily intercepting each of Mike’s jabs. Mike kicks a leg out before he can think about it too hard and catches Harvey in the side. Harvey grunts, surprised, but stays grounded and fixes that smirk on Mike again, something else in his face now that Mike still can’t piece together.
“Shit, rookie,” Harvey glows, like Mike hadn’t just lost him half a million dollars, “that’s exactly what I need from you.”
Mike thinks he might pass out, heart thudding hard in his chest, but he needs to hear that pride in Harvey’s voice directed at him again. So he pulls his arm back and shouts a little with the effort, glove connecting with Harvey’s padded hand, but Harvey pushes this time. Mike has to lunge backwards to keep upright, and he’s not weak , okay, years of biking being his only form of transportation means his legs are definitely developed, but Harvey’s undoubtedly got him on the ropes (ha) in the upper body department.
Mike kicks at Harvey again, but Harvey dodges. He catches Mike’s swing with his left pad, and Mike realizes Harvey’s been giving a little, letting himself be pushed back a bit by Mike’s hits so Mike didn’t have to fully absorb the shock of striking something completely unmoving. Mike had caught him off guard enough with the kick that Harvey couldn’t recover enough to consciously relax, and the reverberation sent tingles up Mike’s arm. Harvey drops his hands.
“I think that’s enough,” he says, “you wore me out.”
Liar.
“You went easy on me,” Mike says once his heart has stopped trying to climb its way out of his mouth, “you don’t think I can handle—”
Mike’s cut off by Harvey’s foot sweeping his legs out from under him, and then he’s flat on his back, wind knocked from his lungs. Harvey crouches down to look him in the eyes, gaze hard.
“I don’t go easy on anyone,” he says, voice level but sharp, “but I’m not trying to break you, Mike.” He stands and rips the pads off his hands. Mike stares at the ceiling, lights white and oppressive. The shadow of Harvey’s hand cuts through the glare. Mike grabs it, lets himself be pulled to his feet, and definitely does not think about Harvey’s unexpectedly calloused palm covering his entire fist.
“Jesus,” Mike mutters, “did you live on a farm or something? What desk jockey has callouses like that?”
Harvey studies his cuticles.
“Let’s go get a manicure,” he says, “and you can recap today down to the minute until you can tell me the timestamp of when exactly you fucked up.”
ii.
Mike’s throat hurts from yelling and he’s read enough medical text to know he’s probably mildly concussed. He’s sure the knot on his head isn’t going to be pretty, and neither will the reaction he’s going to get from Harvey when he realizes Mike hasn’t spent his night poring through the discovery files but buried in evidence, literally, under two collapsed file racks. Mike’s wondering if this was an elaborate long-con revenge plot exacted by the poor first years forced to put the ancient metal racks together thirty years ago, when he hears the file room door click open.
“Help?” He tries, pitifully hoarse, and honestly wishes he'd just been crushed when he hears a long-suffering sigh he knows belongs to Harvey.
“Are you fucking serious?” Harvey asks. Mike knows better than to answer, but he does make a little noise to help Harvey locate him. Mike wiggles and gets his hand out, and ouch, maybe a sprained wrist too? Harvey sighs again, closer this time. His steps are heavy and his shoes are so shiny Mike can see his reflection in them when they’re eye level. Harvey bends down to look at him. He’s pissed, Mike can see, but there’s also the line creasing his brow bone that makes an appearance when Harvey’s worried.
“I don’t even want to know,” he says, standing back up, and Mike thinks for one, terrifying moment that Harvey’s mad enough to leave him there for the night, but then some of the weight on him is lifted. Harvey makes a sound of effort and starts on the other rack. “Shit.”
“What—”
“Shut up.” Harvey snaps. Okay, still pissed. “I’m thinking. The metal on this piece of shit bent when it fell and you’re stuck.”
Mike moans a little. His head throbs and he feels dizzy, and he knows he can’t doze off because that’s Big Concussion Rule Number One, but Harvey is here and will figure everything out—
“Hey. Mike.” Harvey’s bending down again, minty breath fanning over Mike’s face. Mike realizes Harvey had probably been in bed. “Did you hit your goddamn head?”
“Are you wearing dress shoes and pajamas?” Mike answers. Harvey lets out an incredulous laugh.
“Some of us do sleep,” he says, “it helps with critical decision making skills, like, I don’t know, grabbing a fucking ladder instead of climbing the shelves like a goddamn spider monkey.”
“How’d you know?” Mike mumbles.
“That you climbed the shelves or that you needed help?” Harvey’s hands appear in front of Mike, knuckles whitening as he grips the metal caging Mike in. “Well, you basically just admitted to climbing.” Harvey pulls and the metal squeaks, hinges groaning. “And Donna has been worried you’re pulling too many late nights so she tracks your access card. She told me you came in around ten and hadn’t scanned back out.” Donna, Mike thinks with a weird pang in his chest, that makes more sense than—
Harvey grunts and wrenches the metal bars off their hinges. They land somewhere behind the mess with a clang that definitely wakes Mike up enough to register Harvey’s hands hauling him up by the armpits to his feet. Mike feels weightless and he’s had enough concussions to know this isn’t a symptom.
“Mike.” No anger, this time. “I’m taking you to the hospital.”
“I’m fine,” Mike tries, and Harvey glares. Pissed again. Mike takes a tentative step forward and thinks he’s about to get well acquainted with the ground for the second time tonight when he’s caught around the waist.
“Damn it,” Harvey mutters, and the weightless feeling is back as Mike’s hoisted—oh god, no. Mike feels his face turn what can only be puce as Harvey shifts him into a position more conducive to carrying him, Mike’s head cradled against Harvey’s solid chest and Harvey’s forearms under Mike’s knees. “With any luck, you’re too concussed to remember this tomorrow.”
“Not how it works,” Mike gets out, and then they’re moving. It’s fucking him up a little that Harvey’s not showing any sign of struggling under Mike’s weight. The walk to Harvey’s car is smooth and he almost dozes off again before Harvey’s snapping his name. Mike starts to register the damage done by blunt force from a couple hundred pounds of paper and metal when Ray hits a pothole on the way to the hospital and Harvey barks out a “be fucking careful” that has way more venom than necessary towards someone trying to help.
“Are you mad,” Mike whispers before he can stop himself. “At me? I know you’re mad at Ray for some reason, which like. I don’t get. Because I did climb the shelves because I was too lazy to get the ladder from the other room—”
“I want to tell you to shut up but I think this is keeping you awake,” Harvey fixes him with one of the faces he’s been making lately that Mike just can’t decode. “But yes. I’m pissed. Who knew geniuses could be so goddamn dumb.” It’s not a question. Mike shrinks, embarrassed. Harvey sighs, but it’s less exasperated than the last five hundred ones.
“I’m sorry,” Mike says. “I’ll be more careful—”
“I know you won’t.” Harvey cuts him off, but there’s no edge to it. Ray pulls in smoothly in front of the emergency room entrance. Harvey steps out and Mike gets his own door open, bracing to stand, but then the swell of Harvey’s bicep is behind his head again and strong hands support the backs of his knees.
Mike has a mild concussion and a sprained wrist. The ER doctor scratches her head at the weightless feeling and racing heart Mike describes and writes him a script for Xanax, which Harvey promptly tosses in the trash.
iii.
“Brute force can’t help you here,” Mike teases, giddy at the sight of Harvey looking for all he’s worth like a wet cat as he clings to the wall for balance. Mike skates past him easily, throwing in a little spin for good measure as he orbits the rink and catches up with Louis, who could actually give him a run for his money on roller skates.
“Harvey sucks, ” Louis says, gleefully. He takes Mike’s hand and spins him around. “After all the box tickets and floor seats, finally, something for us with more delicate sensibilities.” Mike disentangles himself before Louis can think of something weirder to say and continues his round.
Jessica’s also not half bad, and Rachel is worse than he expected. But Harvey, Harvey’s pitiful, and Mike kind of revels in it because Harvey’s never pitiful. It had been Donna’s suggestion to go roller skating, and of course she’s amazing at it, too, her red hair a blur as she zips past. They’d rented the rink for the evening with all the fixings. For teambuilding . Mike steps off and grabs a soda, too syrupy and the carbonation amped up, perfect. Harvey is still attached to the wall closest to the rink’s mouth. He’s sweating with the effort to stay balanced and Mike does feel a little bad, but then Harvey sneers at him. It definitely pisses him off a bit that Harvey still looks intimidating in goddamned roller skates.
“Struggling?” Mike needles him. “That’s what you get for skipping leg day.”
“When attorney doesn’t work out, it must be nice to know you have a back up career as a fucking party clown,” Harvey whips back.
It’s a cheap shot and it hurts, the word choice of when hitting Mike squarely in the chest. Harvey looks for a half-second like he might be worried he offended Mike, face softening then seizing back up. Mike would have missed it if he hadn’t spent the last year of his life attuning himself to Harvey, Harvey’s thoughts, Harvey’s feelings, Harvey’s faces that Mike wants to believe Harvey only makes at him. He realizes he’s been quiet a little too long and goddamn Harvey if he thinks Mike won’t hit back. He knows Mike will.
“Okay, big guy,” Mike goads, a little mean. He skates up into Harvey’s personal space and gets a weird thrill at having Harvey backed up against a wall. “Sore goddamn loser. Are you an asshole because you can’t help it or you want everyone else to be having the zero amount of fun you are?”
Harvey rolls his eyes, finally pushing off the wall. Mike takes off.
“Mike,” Harvey says behind him, a little urgent, “I—”
“Whatever,” Mike says and nearly takes out Rachel as he swivels to get as far away from Harvey as fast as he can. He turns around to skate backwards, just to show off, just because he can and Harvey can’t , and Harvey connects hard with his front. Mike teeters and has his balance back for a second, then—
“Fuck,” Harvey swears, and the asshole grabs Mike, big arms around his waist clinging for dear life.
“You dick,” Mike wrestles and they hit the ground hard, Mike first. He winces ahead of feeling Harvey’s weight on top of him but it doesn’t come. Harvey’s bracing himself on his forearms above Mike, panting, that worried line between his eyebrows. Mike realizes his head didn’t smack the linoleum, then processes Harvey’s hand at the nape of his neck. Harvey is close enough that Mike can feel him suck in a breath. Mike feels that strange, weightless feeling again, bracketed by Harvey’s thighs around his hips. When he tries to move, there’s no give at all.
“I—” Harvey starts, “I can’t get up. These goddamn skates, why the fuck did we do this—”
Mike knows even before he shoves him that Harvey’s not going anywhere, but he may as well try.
Louis and Donna help them up, well, help Harvey up, ignoring him while he bitches all the way off the rink and onto the bench. Donna chucks an ice pack at Harvey’s head, nearly beaning him if it weren’t for his reflexes, and hands one gently to Mike.
“You poor thing,” she coos, shooting Harvey a scathing look, “that brute. He thinks he can just toss people around and get what he wants.”
“Thanks, Donna,” Mike manages, because for some reason his brain conjures images of Harvey tossing him around. Mike remembers Harvey’s hand behind his head and reluctantly rules out another concussion. “I’m actually fine. I don’t think I got hurt.”
Donna looks at him.
“Are you sure?” She asks, peering a little closer. “You’re like. Really flushed.”
“Just warm,” Mike lies, “really hot in here.”
Donna shrugs, gliding back onto the rink hand-in-hand with Rachel, who is finally getting the hang of it.
Mike shuffles over to Harvey. He holds his half-melted ice pack out as an olive branch. Harvey’s fingers brush his as he takes it and presses it to his wrist.
“Fuck team building,” he gripes, “I’m going to be so goddamn sore tomorrow. You’re doing my hours for a month, I’m not going to be able to type.”
iv.
Mike doesn’t really know what does it. He tries to blink back the tears pricking his eyes painfully and wonders if he’s really crying at work over the fact that they got his bagel order wrong, or that he ate shit on his bike on the way to work, or that Rachel is still mad at him about who-knows-what-now (Mike knows what now, he fucked up, and he is going to buy her flowers for a week to apologize even though she said she forgives him, but she’s still a little cold to him in a way that makes him want to crawl into a hole and die). He’s sniffling softly at his desk after telling Donna again that it’s just allergies, yes, he has winter allergies, when Harvey scares him out of his skin like he loves to by looming over Mike’s shoulder until he notices.
“Stop fucking doing that,” Mike cringes at how weak and unintimidating his voice sounds, then cringes again because he cursed at his boss. At work. “I’m sorry, Harvey, I’m having—”
“My office.” Harvey’s hand is heavy on Mike’s back, right between his shoulder blades.
“Be right there,” Mike says, praying Harvey gives him just a minute to get his shit together, but it’s fruitless. Harvey walks Mike to his office, doesn’t take his hand off of him until they’re surrounded by the pristine glass walls, and Mike feels cold when he finally does. It’s so gray outside that everything looks black and white. The sun is low in the sky and Mike remembers the weather forecasting a 72% chance of snow.
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
To Mike’s horror, all that comes out of his mouth is a sob.
“Mike,” Harvey says, and the tone of it makes Mike cry harder. “Christ. When was the last time you slept?”
Mike doesn’t know. He shakes his head because it’s all he can do, the marble pattern of Harvey’s floor blurry through his tears. Harvey sighs.
“What about food?”
The goddamn bagel.
Mike sends up a quick thanks to the Universe for his photographic memory, because he’s going to need to come back to the totally befuddled look on Harvey’s face when he starts laughing, tears still on his cheeks. He hiccups.
“You need to go home,” Harvey says, slowly. “You’re scaring me. Better yet,” he presses the intercom button on his desk, “Donna, get Ray. Mike’s lost it.”
“I’m—”
“I don’t want to hear it,” Harvey grabs his jacket off the back of his chair, “get your shit.”
“Work,” Mike tries. Harvey glares at him, but his eyes are soft.
“I’ll take care of everything.”
It washes over Mike like the sun’s come out, the same feeling Mike gets when Harvey touches him, which, he’s not stupid. He knows it means something. But a: that’s so off limits, and b: Harvey’s not even close to him right now, so what gives?
Mike’s still thinking about it as Harvey walks him down to the lobby. He knows he has a crush on Harvey, probably has since the first day they met, and knows that he likes that Harvey is firm, strong, resilient. Reliable , Mike thinks. Dependable. Strong makes another appearance, but this time, divorced from Harvey's physicality.
Harvey curses under his breath when he sees that Mike doesn’t have a jacket and the flurries have started.
“I want this back,” he says, firmly, but there’s no bite as he drapes his coat over Mike’s shoulders.
Ray drops him home. Mike checks his phone out of habit before tripping into bed, Harvey’s coat warmer than any of the blankets he owns. The date stares at him.
“That’ll do it,” Mike whispers to himself. He falls backwards into sleep and dreams about introducing Harvey to Grammy.
Mike jolts awake to his phone ringing. Harvey’s name blinks incessantly at him. It’s dark in his room, but it was dark when he fell asleep, and he’s so disoriented he’s proud of himself for hitting answer and croaking out a feeble hello.
“He lives.”
Mike groans in response.
“You slept for a full twenty four hours.” Mike’s stunned silent. “Relax. I won’t take it out of your PTO. We’re tough but we’re not monsters. Sick days are part of the package.”
Some rustling, as Harvey shifts the phone to his other ear.
“Everything for the Graves case is sorted. They’re settling, which I know you would have rather it gone to trial but they made out like bandits—”
“Grammy died a year ago,” Mike says, "well. A year and a day." Harvey’s pause lets him know he’s thinking, calculating.
“I’m sorry. The first year is the hardest.”
“It was hard,” Mike admits. He hugs Harvey’s coat closer to himself and the faint, smooth smell of Harvey’s cologne does something to his brain, wringing out his frenetic nerves. “I’ve never slept for a full day like that. I’m not even sick.”
“No winter allergies?”
Donna.
“Shut up.”
Harvey’s soft laugh makes Mike so warm he forgets the heat in his apartment is broken.
v.
When the snow lets up a little, Mike wraps Harvey’s coat around himself as tightly as he can and steps outside. He glances at his bike, then at the ice caked thick on the roads, and sighs. The walk isn’t far but it’s damn cold. Mike thinks absently that Harvey’s coat probably cost Mike’s annual, pre-tax salary and isn’t meant for trudging through New York during a blizzard. Because it’s snowing again, hard.
He’s mostly frozen when he gets to Harvey’s building, snow on his eyelashes and in his shoes, but goddamn, this is a great coat. It kept him pretty dry and while he’s still sure it’ll take him the rest of the winter to defrost, Mike can still feel some of his body heat has been retained. Sucks he has to give it back.
Harvey’s doorman lets him in with a deep frown at the puddles of water Mike’s shoes track in on the spotless tile. He makes a big show of looking Mike in the face as he sticks a wet floor sign up.
“Your doorman’s kind of a dick,” Mike says when Harvey answers the door. Pajamas , Mike recognizes, the same flannel pants and threadbare t-shirt as when he’d Hulked out that night in the file room.
“What the fuck–”
“Your jacket,” Mike interrupts, “I mean, coat. I brought it back.”
Maybe the cold had frozen away some of his brain cells because it didn’t occur to Mike until just now that to give Harvey his coat back, he’d have to take it off.
“Where’s yours?”
Mike blinks.
“You’ve got to be kidding me. You’re soaked.”
Mike starts to protest, but then Harvey’s warm hand is on his chest, palm over Mike’s heart. Mike shuts his mouth with a click.
“See,” Harvey says, “soaked.” And he hauls Mike inside, peeling the coat off of him. Harvey tosses it in a hatch built into his wall.
“Incinerator?” That gets a laugh.
“Laundry chute,” Harvey says, “as if I’d burn it, that coat costs more than what I pay you in a year–”
“Pre-tax,” Mike finishes for him.
“So you did know it was way too expensive to take for a four mile walk in the snow?”
“Three point four miles, actually, wait, what–” Harvey’s hands, lifting the hem of Mike’s shirt up, calloused fingertips touching the sensitive spot next to Mike’s navel, “ what the hell are you–”
“You’re dripping all over my goddamn floor.”
“You can’t just strip me– ”
Harvey backs off like Mike had burned him.
“All right,” Harvey says, controlled, “go to the bathroom and take your clothes off. Leave them in the shower. I’ll get you something to wear.”
There’s no option in it. Mike feels like he moves without having to tell his body to, like it’s instinct to listen. Harvey didn’t say he could, but Mike turns the shower on after he strips off. The tile is heated beneath his feet and he can finally feel his toes again. A bit of flexing brings the feeling back to his fingers too and Mike bets he could stand under the spray for hours and the water would never go cold. He catalogs the bottles, wondering which ones Harvey uses.
When he finally shuts the water off and steps onto a bath mat with a higher thread count than most people’s bedsheets, he notices a white, fluffy towel and clothes folded neatly on the sink.
Harvey’s clothes.
Mike tugs the sweatshirt over his head and looks in the mirror. The hem stops at his mid-upper thigh, collar hanging loose around his neck. The coat had smelled just barely of Harvey, more of fine leather, and Mike had to look for it a little, but this–
It’s overpowering. Harvey is overpowering. Mike thinks he’s starting to freak out a little, because he’s had crushes, he’s had real crushes, but Harvey has fucked his shit up. This time, weightlessness feels more like vertigo.
“Mike,” Harvey calls through the door, “I’m ordering dinner. The snow’s not getting any better and I sure as hell am not letting you borrow another coat. You’ll stay here tonight.” He doesn’t wait for an answer.
Mike tugs Harvey’s pants up around his hips and knots the tie once, twice, and pushes open the bathroom door.
+ i
“I didn’t know what you’d want,” Harvey says when Mike stops to stare at the mountain of styrofoam roughly chest-high on the coffee table, “so we have pizza, wings, sushi, Chinese, Thai–”
Something catches Harvey’s words in his throat and he makes a noise that sounds like a cough. Mike tears his attention away from the food to see Harvey’s eyes fixed on him, on the exposed skin of his shoulder and collarbone where Harvey’s sweatshirt hangs off of him.
“Anyways,” Harvey clears his throat and looks away, “whatever you want. I’m not picky.”
“Yeah right,” Mike grabs chopsticks from the smaller but still formidable pile of plastic cutlery. Sushi first, it keeps the worst.
“I’m not,” Harvey says, watching Mike shovel sushi in his mouth like it's an extreme sport, “I’m particular. And I know how to savor. Slow down .”
Harvey’s hand encircles Mike’s wrist completely, stilling him. The piece of nigiri between his chopsticks falls into a puddle of soy sauce with a quiet splash. Mike feels his pulse rushing and knows Harvey can feel it too, battering through the thin skin of his wrist.
“You’ll choke.”
Mike swallows around the bite in his mouth and Harvey’s eyes flick to his throat. Harvey lets go of him and Mike wants to disappear with how much he wants Harvey’s touch back, and it's like Harvey knows that, of course Harvey knows, because he fixes the collar of his sweatshirt and smooths his fingers over Mike’s clavicle.
The wind howls and Mike jumps. Harvey braces a hand on his back, just there, nothing else, and then that’s it. They eat in silence and Mike feels his eyelids get so, so heavy as the fullness sets in.
“I’m going to get some work done in my office,” Harvey says, clipped. “Which is also the guest room. You take my bed.”
“No way–”
“Mike.” Instinctively, Mike wants to shut up, listen, do whatever Harvey says like he feels born to, but he’s nothing if not the dumbest genius alive.
“No.”
“Hm,” Harvey says, and then Mike doesn’t feel the floor beneath him anymore. It’s leagues less gentle than the last time Harvey carried him, which was all careful positioning and restrained movements. Now, it’s a show of strength, and it steals the breath from Mike’s lungs. Harvey’s hands settle on the backs of his thighs as he throws Mike over his shoulder easily. Mike tries to twist and feels heat coil in his stomach when Harvey just laughs, adjusting his grip to hold him tighter.
“Harvey–” It sounds like a plea, but Mike isn’t sure what he’s asking for. Harvey’s hands are so warm even through the fabric of Mike’s clothes.
Harvey’s clothes.
Mike scrabbles helplessly at Harvey’s back. Harvey starts walking, still handling him like a ragdoll, but there's a hand at the back of Mike’s head that’s steady and protective as they pass through the doorway to Harvey’s bedroom.
The blood rushes from his head back into his body as Harvey dumps him unceremoniously on a stupidly large bed. Mike feels torn between trying to rush Harvey to take him out by the legs and seeing if any of these windows open so he can throw himself out of one, embarrassment seizing him further when he notices he’s the only one out of breath here. Harvey’s watching him, coolly.
“Fuck you.” Mike says, bitterly, and Harvey’s satisfied little smile falls.
“I–” There’s something in Harvey’s voice that Mike knows but has never heard from him. “I got carried away.”
“Leave me alone.”
“This is my room,” Harvey teases, but backpedals when Mike turns to face him. Mike knows he must look truly wrecked to make Harvey Specter eat his words. “I–fine. I’ll be in the guest room.” That’s it, Mike realizes. Guilt. He’s heard it a million times in a million other voices, but never Harvey’s.
The bedroom door closes with a soft, almost inaudible click that Mike realizes blithely was probably expensive to build in. Nothing in Harvey’s apartment creaks. Mike tests the bed with a little jump. Yep, nothing. He could probably sneak out if the front door is also this quiet, thinking the blizzard might be kinder to him than what he’s feeling now, but he really is tired and Harvey’s bed is crazy. Mike wonders if Harvey fills this bed out and falls asleep feeling small.
Mike blinks awake to see the storm has stopped, the city insulated in a white blanket that blocks out sound, eerily quiet. It’s the middle of the night but it’s bright, moonlight reflecting off the snow and turning the room ghostly blue. Turning Harvey’s room blue. Mike swings his legs off the bed and pads towards the door.
He has to open a few cabinets before he finally finds a glass, immediately dropping it to shatter at his feet when he sees Harvey standing in the backlit doorway of his office.
“Shit.” It’s too dark to see. Mike shifts and feels glass dig into his heel. “ Shit. ”
“Don’t move.” Harvey says, and like he remembers he’s on thin ice, adds “please.” Then his hands are firm on Mike’s waist and Mike feels the cold granite of the counter on his tailbone.
“I’m sorry,” Mike says as Harvey methodically sweeps the glass up. He’s wearing flip flops Mike thinks might be just for this purpose, because he can’t imagine Harvey wearing flip flops, period. Mike thinks of the godawful flip flop tan he got at sleepaway camp when he was nine, swinging his feet while Harvey dumps the glass in one of those hidden, rich-people pull out trash cans. He opens the fridge and tosses Mike a water bottle, ignoring Mike’s gripe about single-use plastic and disappearing back into the office/guest bedroom/exile chamber.
Mike is dozing off on the counter when Harvey comes back, and a soft touch to his Achilles makes him nearly topple off.
“What–”
“Getting the glass out of your foot,” Harvey says, and kneels.
Mike has found that holding his breath is the only way to even somewhat deal with Harvey touching him, but he doesn’t think anything is going to get him through this unscathed. He flexes his fingers on the edge of the countertop and hisses as Harvey gets a particularly nasty shard out of the sole of his foot, his grip strong and firm on Mike’s ankle to keep him steady while he wraps a bandage. Harvey’s touch is so light, controlled, but Mike feels the strength humming beneath despite Harvey’s restraint and knows what Harvey is holding back.
“I think that’s it,” Harvey says and stands, cracking his back with a low groan.
“Old man.” Mike can’t help himself.
“Past your bedtime,” Harvey hits back, fixing Mike’s collar again, “go on, then. Or do you need to be carried?”
The question hangs there, heavy. In the stillness, Mike can hear that Harvey’s holding his breath.
“Would you?”
Harvey breathes out through his teeth and scoops Mike against his chest, and even though he’s expecting it this time, Mike can’t help but gasp. It’s the same, a little disorienting and a lot scary, but this time Mike feels grounded , tethered by the places Harvey’s touching him, across his back, below his knees.
Mike squirms, just to test him. Harvey holds him tighter and walks slow.
“Your apartment can’t be that big,” Mike says, because it feels like they’ve been walking for a goddamn hour. He feels Harvey’s laugh more than hears it and then he’s on Harvey’s bed and so is Harvey. Mike moves to shove him a little and feels the heat that had been simmering in his stomach reignite when Harvey catches his wrists in his hands. “I guess brave and strong really aren’t the same thing,” Mike takes a minute to enjoy the little indignant noise Harvey lets out, then closes the distance.