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Harvey never thought Mike would be a fixture in his life. He thought he'd hire the kid, degree or no, and run him ragged like any other first year associate. He never once thought that Mike would blend into the swarm of associates – he was too bright, mentally and metaphorically, for that – but he thought the kid would bounce around from Partner to Partner like they all did. He never thought he'd lay claim to Mike the first week and never let him go, not even to Louis whom Jessica had appointed Chancellor of the Associates.
Then…well. Mike pushed professional boundaries like no other person Harvey knew. He not only talked back to his boss, but showed up at his place of residence late at night with a six pack and a fistful of terrible 70s horror films. He didn't settle for simply caring for their clients, he went the extra mile and screwed them over if he thought they were wrong. He flirted shamelessly with all the pretty paralegals and even bedded a few, if they bite marks and throngs of giggling women were anything to go by. Mike relished in flouting firm policy and that was pretty much how Harvey became his best friend.
Mike clearly thought that the final milestone to pass (read: rule to break) was being bros with his boss. So Harvey found himself spending an inordinate amount of time 'hanging out' with Mike. This meant bars, God awful food, and various adventures of the Harvey Specter will not be caught dead doing that again kind. Mike found the whole ordeal boundlessly and eternally entertaining and Harvey found it minutely and occasionally pleasant.
Mike was a fun guy to be on an adventure with, as it were.
They were currently in Central Park and Mike was wearing a Santa costume in the middle of August. He was quite clearly obscenely hot in the getup, but Harvey wasn't going to give himself the satisfaction of an I told you so. Anyways, he was wearing an elf costume that featured a too small pair of tights, so he wasn't in a position to poke fun. Mike found his tights situation endlessly amusing.
"Have your balls fallen off yet?"
"No, Mike."
"Are you sure? Sometimes they go numb first. Maybe you didn't notice."
"Sometimes? You have a lot of experience, Mike?"
"More than I'd care to share."
Harvey snorted. This kid.
"You have spectacular legs, Harvey. Have you ever considered modelling?"
"No, Mike."
"If you ever change your mind, I know a guy. He doesn't have studio or anything, but he's got a really nice office. He can do pictures there, just to start you out. Real solid guy, Joe."
"Mike, he's a porn director."
"Nonsense." Pause. "Oh, God, he is!"
Harvey laughed. Jesus. "Mike, you are drunker than I have ever had the misfortune to experience you."
"Imitation is the highest form of flattery, darling."
"I'm not drunk."
"You're sober and wearing the ball-chafing elf tights?"
Harvey rolled his eyes. No, he thought. Of course not. He was entirely plastered, as fate would have it, and that's why he was strolling through Central Park in the middle of the night wearing an elf costume and engaging in mutual propping-up with Mike Ross.
At least Mike knew how to party. Like he was still in college. They'd both been laid that night and Mike had spent an extra twenty minutes in the bathroom on their way out of the party, from which he had returned looking flushed and with bruised lips.
"I'd like to get out of these tights, actually," Harvey told Mike, who fixed him with a glassy-eyed yet disappointed stare. Harvey picked at the little green shorts he would not admit to wearing, not even to Donna.
"Public indecency," Mike said with great glee. He eyed Harvey's tight-clad legs and smirked. "At least you'll have the best lawyer in New York City cutting you a sweet deal."
"Yeah, I represent myself, as a rule."
"I meant me."
"I'm aware."
Silence.
"Harvey, let's get laid," Mike decided, tripping over his shiny black high heels. Yes, Mike was wearing a Santa costume with stilettos – where he'd found women's shoes was none of Harvey's concern and he genuinely hoped that wouldn't change. "Son of a bitch, how do women even stand?"
"Well, for one, they are usually sober and have countless hours of practice under their belt."
"I learn things like an exponential function, bro," Mike protested, kicking his pointy heel. "I don't understand why the fuck women do this to themselves."
"It's hot."
"Yeah."
"There you go."
Mike took this as gospel, the fact that women wear heels because it's hot. Harvey thought there had to be something more to it because they wear them even when they're sitting behind a desk all day and who cares what your feet look like if they are invisible?
It's the principle of the thing, he imagined. Harvey Specter wears suits that cost him a number followed by several zeros, women wear heels that look like murder weapons.
"Where did we get these outfits?" Mike asked. Harvey looked at him blankly because, shit, he didn't have a clue. He shrugged and Mike grinned, wobbling in his heels. "Damn, Harvey, you're more fun than I thought. Your tights are splitting, by the way."
"Shut up."
"Let's get laid."
Harvey rolled his eyes. "Maybe next time, Mike. You've been laid twice tonight. And you're so drunk right now that I doubt you could get it up for Angelina Jolie."
"Angelina Jolie? Try Emma Stone, man. Christ, you're old."
Harvey shoved Mike into a bush and watched gleefully as the kid went down, balance inhibited by his ridiculous women's shoes.
"Fuck you, Harvey."
"You'll have to buy me dinner first."
"Not in this outfit, I wouldn't," Mike argued. "I looking fucking delectable."
"You're a scrawny Santa, Mike."
"I know, right?"
Harvey groaned – Mike was such a child sometimes – and decided it was about time to get the poor kid home. Some sleep and a glass of water followed by a couple of Advil were sure to do the trick. Mike was young and springy. Harvey, on the other hand, was awaiting a headache, a caffeine overdose, and possible use of sunglasses indoors tomorrow.
He dragged Mike back to his apartment and put the kid to bed.
: : : : :
"Clear your Saturday, man, because I am about to blow. Your. Mind."
Harvey glanced up from his memo to look at Mike briefly. "Find another bro, Mike. I have better things to do than go bungee jumping with my associate."
"How did you know?"
Harvey paused. "Seriously? Bungee jumping?"
"Hey, I have a bucket list," Mike protested, flopping down onto Harvey's couch. He fanned himself with a file for a few moments before huffing impatiently. "You seriously don't want to join me on my bucket list adventures?"
"You're twenty-seven, Mike. You've got time."
"What if I died in three months? I want to do everything."
"Stop being a teenage girl and find me precedent for the subpoena of termination reports from Xekax LLP, okay?"
Mike huffed and left Harvey's office for the library. The next two hours were spent reading documents and running through a series of complaint forms for Harvey. They were spent reading the entire employment law section of the Pearson Hardman library for Mike. When he returned, he flaunted the answer in Harvey's face with an "I'm awesome" and sat back down on the couch.
"You're a man of a certain age, Harvey," Mike began and oh, lord, this should be good. Harvey raised his eyebrows at Mike.
"Is this where you ask me if I'm having hot flashes?"
"No, no," Mike assured him. Pause. "Are you?"
"Get to the point, rookie."
"Well, I was thinking. You're not getting any younger and, let's be honest, you live, uh, well. I'm just pointing out that you should do something you want to before you kick the bucket, so to speak."
"You're concerned about my uptightness ruining my few short years left on this earth?"
"On this earth? Are you planning to move planets? Because I was talking about your last few years on any earth."
"Need I remind you that your position at Pearson Hardman is dependent on my position at Pearson Hardman?"
"That doesn't matter to me anymore, Harvey," Mike announced, spreading his arms over the back of the couch. "I gave Jessica my two weeks' notice yesterday."
Harvey stared. And then he raged.
"You're quitting?" he asked in his most dangerous tone. Mike just smiled and tilted his head to look up at the ceiling.
"Grammy died before I could say goodbye because I was working," he said simply. "I don't want to do that to anyone."
Harvey gritted his teeth. "After everything we've done, you're quitting because of some misplaced notion of guilt over the fact you might one day die before saying goodbye to everyone?"
"I am going to die."
"Of course you're going to die, Mike, everyone dies," Harvey exclaimed. "But the idea that you won't get to say goodbye to everyone. That's a future thing, don't let it mess up the now things."
"How very New Age of you. That's not what I meant, though. I'm going to die."
Harvey paused and reflected on that. They'd been through this already. Everyone dies.
"Like…soon?"
"Like in three months."
Silence. Harvey's stomach dropped out and something like, well, ice flooded his veins.
"Fuck, Mike."
"I've been doing a lot of that, actually. Gotta get my lifetime quota in before the end of November."
Harvey gaped at Mike because, shit, the end of November. Mike was sitting on his couch discussing how the end of November is his expiry date and he just…he wasn't even freaking out. Just oh, the end of November is when I cease to exist, but the world will still spin. Harvey never thought he'd be put in a situation where someone he – someone he…had in his life would tell him they'd be gone forever on a specific date. And the way Mike said it, like he was casually mentioning that Harvey will be going associate shopping at the end of November, made him a little off balance.
"Are you sure?"
"Oh, hell, yes. I've been a total slut for the past few weeks."
"That's not what I meant."
"I know."
"Okay."
The sat in silence for a few minutes before the door opened quietly and Donna stood in the entryway hesitantly. Oh, hell. She always listened. He waved her in and she sat beside Mike. His arm fell off the back of the couch and around her shoulders. She leaned into him.
"I'm going to miss you, Mike."
"Of course you will, I'm a delight."
Harvey cracks up at that and Donna follows soon after. Mike just sits on the couch, grinning like an idiot and watching them have a minor mental breakdown.
"Mike, what are you going to do?" Donna asked, still tucked into Mike's side. Mike snorted.
"It used to be about trying to do something. Now it's about trying to be someone."
Harvey rolled his eyes. "You're quoting The Iron Lady right now? Your big, profound death quote is Margaret Thatcher?"
"Hey, she was the longest serving prime minister of the 20th century, man."
"And a conservative!"
"Oh, please," Mike scoffed. "You're the biggest fatcat I've ever met, Harvey Specter. Mr. I-heart-Tom-Ford."
Harvey smirked and kicked Mike's shoe. "Mike."
"Yeah."
"Just…"
"I know."
"Okay."
And that was that. They didn't talk about Mike dying until Mike was almost dead.
: : : : :
Mike lay in a hospital bed and Harvey had spent the better part of two weeks in an uncomfortable chair to the right hand side of it. He'd never thought he'd take a leave of absence from Pearson Hardman, not to look after someone he loved. Not to watch someone who was important to his heart, not just his brain or career, fade into a string of memories.
"How long did you know?" he asked. Mike pretended to be confused because even when dying the little shit is irritating as hell. "Before you told me."
"Six months," he answered. Harvey closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair, hands clasped over his chest. It was the first time either one of them had brought up Mike's impending death. He considered Mike's admission for a moment before the ache swelled a little larger in his chest.
"How come?"
"One hundred percent selfish motive," Mike grinned. "I didn't want to be forced out of Pearson Hardman for some unwanted 'deal with the emotional fallout' time."
"Bullshit."
Mike laughed. "Yeah."
"You don't want to tell me."
"Nope."
"I could make you," Harvey threatened mildly. Mike raised his eyebrows and smirked. "I have access to your morphine drip. Maybe it somehow gets a kink in the line."
"Bastard."
"Yep."
"I didn't want to waste my last nine months having you look at me like I would break at any second. I wanted to keep working for you. I wanted you to treat me the same way you always did."
Harvey was silent for a moment, and then Mike started talking again.
"I know you're going to say that you would have," Mike warned. "And I believe you now. You're a motherfucking slave driver and something like impending death would not stop you from piling on the workload. Except I'd told Jenny as soon as it happened and she couldn't even be in the same room as me without crying. That's not what I wanted."
"What about Trevor?"
"I haven't spoken to Trevor since he told Jessica that I'm not a real lawyer."
"That was two years ago."
"I know."
Harvey smiled because, yes, Mike does know. Mike knows everything from the finer points of Sarbanes Oxley to how to solve any math problem imaginable to how quickly the different types of grass grow. He knows. Harvey couldn't imagine a world where there isn't a Mike Ross holding the secrets of the universe inside a single mind. He still can't, which is why he couldn't look Mike in the face now. Because, if he looked, he'd see the secrets of the universe fading away. Maybe that meant that Mike was somehow the universe to Harvey. Maybe it somehow meant he's the most important one.
Maybe. Probably.
Yes.
"There's too much inside of you, Mike."
Mike somehow understood what Harvey meant by this. He understood that Harvey wasn't talking about blood, guts, and cancer. He was talking about knowledge, goodness, and everything extraordinary. All the things that were maybe a week from going away forever.
"I'll never hire another associate as long as I live," Harvey decreed, making Mike laugh. "I'm not kidding, Mike. I can't go back to Harvard drones, not after you. How can I ever hope to find someone like you again?"
"The ship has sailed on epic associates, Harvey. You got the best one right away. Once you go Ross, you never go…fuck, nothing rhymes Ross."
"Your jokes aren't funnier just because you're dying, you know."
"I beg to differ. I'm hilarious."
"Mike," Harvey said heavily. They did this every day. They made jokes and pretended like everything was going to be fine. But it wasn't fine; it was the end. Mike glared at Harvey like can't we put this off until I'm teetering on the edge? "You should know something."
"Is this the trite bullshit you say to make yourself feel better?"
"Yes."
"Alright, then, on with it."
"How lucky I am to have found someone so hard to say goodbye to."
Mike snorted and rolled his eyes. Harvey smirked, a little amused and a little out of his depth with emotion. "You're going with Annie right now?"
"Shut up, you cheeky bastard. I'm being honest about my feelings right now," Harvey shoved Mike's arm and didn't let go. He squeezed Mike's too-thin bicep in his hand and took comfort in the warmth there.
"We're being honest?"
"Yes, Mike."
Mike was silent for all of twenty minutes, staring at the ceiling and having what appeared to be a pretty epic internal battle of emotions. Harvey waited him out because that's all he'd been doing for months now. Waiting for Mike.
"Rachel came by today," Mike said eventually. Harvey nodded – she had met him in the hall on his way home to shower, the only time he ever left Mike's side these days. "She said she's sorry we didn't give it a better go."
"Yeah?"
"I'm glad we didn't," Mike confessed. He looked away from Harvey, out the window. "If we had, she might be here right now."
"You don't want her here?"
"I do what you here."
Ah.
"Mike, I'll be honest with you. You and Donna are the only people I have ever been one hundred percent honest with. Keep that in mind, okay?" Mike nodded, so Harvey continued, "I thought you would be like the other associates. Not that you'd blend in, but that we wouldn't work closely and I wouldn't really remember who you were. You have officially wedged yourself into every part of my life. Don't get me wrong, you're a total pain in the ass sometimes, but I wouldn't trade you in for anything. So believe me when I tell you that I'd be fighting Rachel Zane for this horrendous bedside chair, even if you had given it a better shot. Okay?"
Mike's eyes were glassy, a little too bright under the fluorescent lights on the cool, white room. He nodded anyways and swallowed hard before breathing again.
"Totally honest?"
"I don't see the point of lying to you now, Mike."
"Can I be honest, too?"
"I'm the guy who knows all your secrets, Mike. I'm the guy you tell."
"I'm scared."
"Of course you are. You'd be an idiot not to be."
Mike chuckled and gripped Harvey's hand. "You never liked to give an easy way out."
"I could tell you that everything will be okay and that you'll be surrounded by virgins and rainbows for all eternity."
"Fuck you," Mike said without conviction. Harvey gripped Mike's hand just as hard. "Remember me and smile, for it's better to forget than to remember me and cry."
"Yeah. Mike?"
"Hmm?"
"On the off chance that there's a heaven, put in a good word for me?"
"I suppose. You could use all the help you can get."
"Yeah."
"Except you're the best thing that ever happened to me, you know? That's got to score you some points."
"Maybe."
"If there is one, I'll wait. Wave you in when you get there." This was dangerous territory and Mike knew it, so he changed the topic. "Can you buy a pizza? With the cheese in the crust?"
"Last meal? You're going with pizza?"
"With cheese in the crust."
"You're such a child."
Harvey's heart clenched as soon as he spoke. Mike really was a child – barely twenty-eight. And he was dying in a hospital bed and asking for cheese crust pizza. His head swirled with the magnitude of everything, but he ordered Mike's pizza all the same.
"You know this isn't the last one, right?" he asked. Mike's thumb drew circles on the back of his hand. He closed his eyes against the feeling and clenched his jaw. "The doctor said you've got another week at least."
"I want pizza now."
"You're getting it, you're getting it. You're really milking this, you know."
"To the bitter end, dude."
Harvey smiled, didn't release Mike's hand. Silence had a way of dragging on and making their time seem longer, so Harvey relished in it when it happened. Not often, of course, because Mike was using his one week expiry date as an excuse to expedite everything he'd ever wanted to say. They ate their pizza in silence when it arrived and Harvey snuck it past the nurses and doctors and into Mike's room. They hid it in the bedside table and snuck pieces now and then, giggling like little girls. Mike was pale, thin, and in pain, but he could still mow back half a pizza like he was a freshman in college.
When they were done, they sat and stared at each other. Mike's face was impossibly fond – to the point where Harvey shifted uncomfortably, but didn't avert his gaze. Everything they had never said to each other was written on Mike's face and it felt wrong to bring it up now. Harvey knew, they both knew. Neither one of them would say it out loud. He saw it on Mike's face anyways and it made him feel better, if only for a second.
"You know, right?" Mike asked quietly and with terrifying finality, still looking at Harvey's face. Harvey could manage only a one-sided smile, sort of crooked and almost a frown. He nodded.
"I know. And you know?"
Mike nodded. They wouldn't say it out loud. Because it was a dick move on Mike's part to tell Harvey he loved him while lying in a hospital bed waiting to die, while he was escaping and leaving Harvey to deal with it alone. It was a dick move on Harvey's part to tell Mike he loved him with the safety net of Mike's demise lurking in the immediate future, with the assurance that the confession would be temporary. To acknowledge it silently was easier. So Harvey held on and so did Mike.
And when Mike didn't wake up in the morning, Harvey cried and didn't sleep for weeks.
But at least he knew.