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Moving day. It should have been fun, he was finally leaving his tiny box of an apartment to live the high life with Harvey in Manhattan. Finally getting more space, a walk in closet, water pressure he had only ever dreamed of, and a coffee machine which cost more than his monthly rent.
It should have been fun, easy, simple; pack - move - unpack. Relatively painless, right?
Wrong.
****
Packing, the worst bit. A constant cycle of wrapping and sorting and boxing; all of the labour and none of the fun.
Mike was standing halfway between his bedroom and his kitchen, watching as the boxes piled higher and the trash bags filled. He had Harvey in one ear, asking why he was actually bothering to keep any of his clothes, and Donna and Rachel in the other questioning what they should do with his admittedly motley selection of silverware. Even Harold had come along to help, although he had spent most of the morning looking like a lost puppy.
This wasn’t the first time he’d moved of course. He’d had to move all of his things from his parent's house to Grammy’s, and then from Grammy's to his current place. Both of those had been difficult, but difficult in an emotional way, in an ‘I’m leaving my old life behind and don’t know what the future holds’ sort of a way. Leaving his little box of an apartment didn’t feel so much like that. Yes, it was strange to be moving on from the first place he ever lived alone, but the overwhelming difficulty in this move lay with the logistics.
The problem with moving in with someone who already had everything he had and more, is that there physically was not going to be space for all of Mike’s things in Harvey's apartment. Well, technically there probably would be, but he was pretty sure Harvey would be less than pleased if his crappy old couch ended up in his sleek, may as well be a show home, living room.
So, not only was Mike having to juggle sorting and boxing all the stuff he was taking with him, he was also desperately trying to find homes for all of his old things. Harvey’s opinion was that it should all just go to the tip, but Mike was determined not to be too wasteful.
He was also pretty sure the laws of physics had broken or something, because what do you mean the contents of his tiny closet were now taking up the entirety of the living room floor? The math was not mathing and Mike was just about at the end of his tether.
“Mike?”
“Yeah?” He shouted back ready for whatever insane question Rachel was about to throw at him next.
“Do you really need to take twenty seven spoons with you?”
“Huh?”
Mike turned round to see Rachel clutching a bundle of spoons in all different shapes and sizes.
“Errr…”
“Why do you have so many anyway?” She asked before Mike had a chance to answer her original question.
Mike ran a hand through his hair for about the hundredth time that day, he wasn’t enjoying everyone picking apart his possessions. “I guess I just lose them and then get more, then they turn up eventually, just put them in the box to donate,” he shrugged, hoping that would be the end of that particular conversation.
“Mike?”
Mike looked at Harold who could barely be seen behind a stack of books.
“Yes, I’m keeping them all.” Mike sighed knowing what Harold was about to ask. “Just add them to the box with the others.”
“Mike?”
Harvey that time.
“Do yo-”
“Mike?”
Harvey was cut off by Rachel, again. Mike turned back to the kitchen and Donna looked as if she was about to open her mouth to ask him something else.
Nope. That was it, he’d had enough.
“Stop!” he shouted and Donna and Rachel's amused expressions turned to shock. “Stop asking me questions. Stop telling me I have too much stuff. Stop making me decide every goddamn little thing. Please just stop!”
The room fell into a stunned silence.
“Maybe we should…erm,” Donna broke the tension and started to shimmy towards the door.
Mike turned his back and leant down heavily against the arm of the couch. He ran his hands down his face in frustration. “Sorry,” he said more softly. “Yes, please could you all…” he gestured vaguely towards the door, not wanting to send them away quite so explicitly. “I just need a minute alone.”
There was a bustle of movement from behind and he heard the distinct sound of a pile of books falling into a box haphazardly. Donna, Rachel and Harold walked out of the door sheepishly as Harvey emerged from the bedroom holding his jacket.
“Wait.” Mike grabbed Harvey’s wrist as he walked past him. “Not you.”
He looked up to see Harvey staring down at him, one eyebrow raised, his expression somewhere between concern and amusement.
Mike sighed. “Go on, call me a jerk and be done with it.”
“You’re a jerk.” Harvey said deadpan.
Mike froze for a second but Harvey quickly began to smirk.
“You’re not helping.” Mike pouted.
“You’re the one that just told me to stay.” Harvey laughed. He shook his head and placed his hands on Mike’s shoulders, beckoning Mike to look at him properly. “You’re not a jerk Mike. It’s your house, you’re allowed to want space to think.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, really,” Harvey rolled his eyes affectionately and pulled Mike to his feet. "Now how about you sit tight for a minute and I’ll go get us some lunch?”
Mike began to panic again. He checked his watch. “Do we really have time for that?”
Harvey’s expression softened further. “Yes Mike. We have time to eat.”
He gently manoeuvred Mike round so that he was standing in front of the couch. “Now sit.” He said, firmly enough that Mike didn’t argue again, and he gave him a gentle shove so Mike sat down. “I’ll be back in five.”
Mike lay back against the cushions and let out a groan as the door clicked behind Harvey. He leant his head back and closed his eyes, trying not to think too much about the amount of stuff he still had to pack. Even with his helpers it was going to take all day.
Harvey returned not long later with sandwiches from the deli down the street and two steaming mugs of coffee which Mike wolfed down in about ten seconds. He hadn’t realised just quite how hungry he had been.
So, with food in his stomach and a new lease of life, Mike apologised to his friends for yelling at them and asked if they would be willing to come back. Unsurprisingly, they all agreed. Mike’s pretty sure the promise of takeout on him was what really clinched the deal but they definitely asked him fewer questions and miraculously they managed to get everything packed away and boxed up before midnight.
****
Moving, surprisingly, turned out to be the smoothest part of the process. Harvey had of course booked some swanky removal firm, so once they had everything packed up, a group of men came on and hauled all of Mike’s remaining possessions down to their truck with an efficiency Mike was sure even Harvey was impressed by.
He’d held back one box, just for those final few things; the contents of his nightstand, valuables he didn’t want to risk losing (although Harvey had assured him that he’d sue the removal company to kingdom come if so much as a pencil was missing), and a few last minute bits that had been missed.
Mike stood in the centre of what had previously been his living room and looked around at the empty space. It’s amazing how quickly home stops feeling like home once all the things that made it warm are gone.
He’d never really loved the place, but still, seeing it empty and cold made him feel emotional in a way he hadn’t expected.
“You good to go?” Havey’s voice snapped him out of his drifting thoughts.
“Yeah,” Mike nodded. He was. “Let me just grab the last box.”
Harvey gave his arm a quick squeeze and Mike walked over to the kitchen to retrieve his box of miscellaneous possessions deemed too precious to be left in the hands of strangers.
He grabbed it and had barely lifted it a foot when the bottom of the box gave out, sending everything tumbling onto the wooden floor.
Mike groaned, just when he thought everything was finally under control, the universe had to throw another curveball.
Harvey laughed from behind him but quickly came to assist in the tidy up. Thankfully most of it hadn’t gone far, a few smaller objects had rolled away but the majority remained within a couple of feet of them.
Mike turned to grab a rogue cufflink which had bounced towards the fridge. He quickly checked that nothing had been lost under the appliance before walking back to Harvey who was staring at him with a suspicious grin on his face.
“What?” Mike asked.
“Nothing,” Harvey said with a teasing note in his tone. “Just wondering who your little friend is, and why we’ve never been introduced.”
Harvey slowly brought his hand back round to his front and Mike saw what, or rather who, he was holding. He felt his cheeks flush pink. It’s not that he’d been hiding it from him exactly. Okay, maybe he had, Harvey wasn't exactly the kind of guy with an interest in cute stuffed animals.
“Uhm.. that’s erm…that’s Pancake.” Mike made a move to grab the little brown rabbit from Harvey but his boyfriend pulled back before he could reach.
Harvey raised an eyebrow. “Pancake?”
Mike scratched at the back of his neck. “Yeah…uhm I dunno, I guess I liked pancakes."
Harvey’s smile widened. He was clearly having a great time watching Mike stutter.
“I was like three, okay?” Mike protested and made another attempt to grab the soft toy. “Now can you please stop judging me so we can leave?”
Harvey handed the rabbit back over and shrugged. “Me, judge you? I wouldn’t dream of it.” He shook his head and grabbed another couple of items from the floor including one of Mike’s scabby old ties.
“Much.” he added with a smirk.
Mike snatched the tie from him and bundled it back into the box.
Once he was sure they had everything, he shimmied the box into his arms so that the bottom rested against them and there could be no more embarrassing discoveries.
They locked up and Mike posted the keys through the door before turning away and walking down the hall for the very last time.
****
Unpacking, now that was the exciting bit. A chance to really transform a new room, put your own little flourish into a space.
Mike had been worried that there wouldn’t be much room for his things, Harvey had been living in his home alone for years, perhaps there wouldn't be any space for Mike’s personality to shine though. But Harvey had been surprisingly accommodating. Mike’s books now shared the shelves with Harvey’s, their DVD collections mixed perfectly together and Harvey even let Mike hang some of his art on the walls.
They were in their bedroom - Mike still had to pinch himself a little whenever Harvey called it that - unpacking the last few boxes. Harvey was on clothes duty, having claimed not to trust Mike’s ability to arrange his suits properly. Mike had tried to protest, saying that he’d managed quite happily at his old place, Harvey had just given him a look. So that left Mike with the box of miscellaneous items which had spilled out over the floor the day before.
He picked up Pancake the rabbit and stroked his fingers through its fur. The toy was still surprisingly soft even after so many years. Mike smiled, he remembered the day he got her, it was Christmas day, just after he’d turned three. Grammy had handed him the gift and looked at him with an excited expectation in her eye.
Rabbits had been his favourite animal growing up. He’d learned pretty quickly that he wasn't allowed a real one because of his dad’s allergies, so when he’d unwrapped Pancake he knew it was the next best thing. Grammy had always teased him about how he’d never wanted to let her go, he took her everywhere for years and was always clinging onto her like his life depended on it.
Harvey walked back into the room just as Mike was about to put her away in his nightstand. He smirked when he spotted what Mike was holding.
“Come on,” Mike rolled his eyes. “Don’t try to pretend that you never had a favourite stuffed animal.”
“Yeah I guess,” Harvey shrugged as he grabbed another one of Mike’s shirts and put it on a hanger.
“Wait,” Mike didn’t want to drop this quite yet. “You’ve got to give me more than that.”
Harvey looked at him like Mike had asked him to spill some state secret. “There’s really not much more to say. Why do you care anyway?”
“Just taking an active interest in my partner's upbringing”. Mike chirped happily as he took the shirt from Harvey and walked towards the closet.
“Put that on the right…” Harvey called after him with a hint of desperation in his voice.
Mike hung the shirt up and turned round to see Harvey watching him suspiciously. “So?” He prompted. “Tell me more.”
“You’re not going to let this go, are you?”
“Nope.” Mike smiled sweetly as he shimmied past Harvey to get the rest of his clothes.
He didn’t see the look Harvey gave him but he's pretty sure he could imagine it.
In the end it took three wonkily hung shirts and a tie stuffed haphazardly into a drawer to get Harvey to crack.
“Fine.” he said and he grabbed the second tie from Mike before he could ruin it. “I had a little toy dog, it was brown and white with a patch over its right eye and it had a little blue collar. Happy?”
Mike grinned.
“See that wasn’t so hard, was it?” he teased. “Did it have a name?”
Harvey turned away from him suddenly.
“Erm, yeah probably, I don’t really remember.” Harvey shrugged. He continued rolling up another tie.
Mike frowned. All those details about what it looked like, but Harvey couldn't remember it having a name. Something wasn’t quite adding up.
Mike bumped Harvey’s shoulder. “Surely you can remember its name, I know it was a while ago but you’re not that old.” He tried to keep it light but Harvey didn’t take the bait.
“What do you want me to say Mike? I had a favourite toy, it got lost somewhere in the chaos of my teenage years and I don’t remember its name. I’m sorry if that doesn’t fit the image you’re trying to build.”
He walked past him back out into the bedroom and started aggressively folding up the now empty cardboard box leaving Mike standing in the closet bewildered by Harvey’s sudden change of tone.
“Harvey?” He poked his head round the door.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” Harvey said, not meeting Mike’s eye.
“Okay,” Mike walked towards his boyfriend and took the box from him. “We don’t need to talk about it.”
Mike was still perplexed but he wasn't going to push it. If Havey didn’t want to talk about his childhood then he wasn't going to make him.
He took the box through to the living room and added it to the pile for recycling before setting about ordering them both something to eat. Pizza, they deserved something unhealthy after all their hard work.
****
Mike and Havey had officially had the same address for three weeks, two days and approximately eight hours (not that Mike was counting) when Mike got back from work to find the parcel he’d been waiting for sitting on the kitchen counter.
“Hey,” he said to Harvey who was sitting on the couch already nursing a glass of scotch.
“Hey,” Harvey replied. “How was the meeting?”
“Ugh, you know, fine.” Mike shucked off his jacket and hung it by the door. “Louis was… Louis, so no surprises there I guess.”
Harvey laughed. “A package arrived for you.” he said as he gestured towards the kitchen from his seat.
“It’s actually for you.”
“Me?” Harvey looked at him suspiciously.
Mike picked it up and gave it a squeeze, it was exactly what he was expecting. “Yup.”
Harvey pushed himself up from the couch and walked over to join Mike in the kitchen, still looking at Mike like he was up to something.
Mike handed it over and Havey began opening the package as if it was a bomb which might go off at any second. He kept shooting suspicious glances at Mike as he tore through each layer. Mike had to give kudos to the seller, they’d done an incredible job at making it as difficult to open as possible.
Harvey’s eyes widened when he peaked inside the final bit of wrapping. His head snapped up and he looked at Mike with confused, questioning eyes.
“Is this?” He reached in and grabbed the object carefully. “Is…” His words trailed off as he turned it in his hands. The little dog with the patch over its right eye, little blue collar sitting slightly crooked around its neck.
The silence stretched between them and Mike started to panic. What had he been thinking? Harvey Specter was a formidable lawyer, feared by opposing counsel, youngest senior partner at Pearson Hardman, he didn’t have any interest in stuffed animals. Not even ones from his childhood.
“Sorry…I…it’s dumb” Mike stuttered. “I just thought…you know…never mind. Give it here, I can-”
Mike reached out to take the toy from Harvey but his boyfriend stepped back before Mike could reach.
“How did you…?" Harvey looked at him as if he couldn’t quite believe what was happening.
Mikes shifted on his feet.
“Well, uhm, after you told me I realised I remembered seeing a photo at Marcus’ house… you know, of the two of you as kids and, well the toy you described was in the photo, and I guess I kind of just went from there.” He bit his lip nervously. “Sorry if that was wrong, I just thought, since you said you’d lost it then maybe…” he trailed off again, staring down at the floor and waiting for Harvey’s inevitable snappy comeback.
“His name is Patch.”
The words came out so quietly that Mike barely heard them. He peered back up at Harvey who was looking down at the dog with a fond smile .
“Good name,” Mike chuckled partially in relief.
“Yeah.” Harvey laughed too.
They both stood there for a moment. Harvey turned the toy around in his hands, inspecting every inch of it as if he still couldn't quite believe it was real. Mike just watched, still a little unsure of himself.
“Thank you," Harvey looked back up at him. "Really Mike, I appreciate it.”
There was a softness to Harvey's smile that Mike had rarely seen. Something behind his eyes that Mike couldn't explain, but that let him know exactly how Harvey felt.
Mike smiled and stepped forward, capturing Harvey’s lips with his own. “You are very welcome.”
“Have I ever told you how amazing you are?” Harvey leaned in to kiss him again. “I love you.”
“I love you too.” Mike said back.
He took hold of Harvey’s hand and gave it a small tug. “Now, let's decide where he and Pancake are going to live”
Harvey gave him a questioning look.
“Well we need to find a good place for them Harvey, it’s their home too.” Mike clarified.
Harvey rolled his eyes and laughed. “Sure,” he said as he followed Mike through to the bedroom.
****
So that was it, Mike Ross officially living in the same place as Harvey Specter. He still couldn’t quite believe it himself, but it was his new reality. Joint home, joint bills, joint life. All of their things smushed together to create one big, usually happy, often chaotic, bundle of them.
They’d found a home for their childhood toys too. Harvey had, slightly reluctantly, allowed them a space in the living room, tucked away in the corner but still out on display so they could never be lost again.
Mike sometimes paused to look at them both sitting together on their bookshelf, side by side amongst the candles and paperbacks, a constant reminder of Harvey’s softer side and a reflection of their own togetherness. He’d never mention it, but he’d always smile and think about just how lucky he was.