Chapter Text
Harvey Specter did not do pet names.
If you asked him, he would say that they were embarrassing, unnecessary and reserved for those hand-holding couples that always block the path on his morning runs through Central Park. Or worse: made out in line at the coffee shop like the rest of the world was just an extra in their very personal soap opera.
Disgusting.
You don’t need to make up a new, corny nickname for someone to prove that you care. To Harvey, love should be shown in actions rather than empty words and promises. With loyalty, with presence and with respect. There’s nothing respectful about being called buttercup in the middle of a public sidewalk.
Pet names are for people who expect things to be solid. To last. For people who believe that love can conquer all things and that once you love somebody enough, everything else will fall into place. They are for people who say “till death do us part” and actually believe it.
Harvey Specter had long given up on believing that such things ever last.
Not after learning early, too early, that love can look perfect and steady – right up until the moment where everything falls apart like a house of cards with no possibility of ever being rebuilt.
The good thing about limiting your relationships to a revolving door of flings that leave your apartment in the morning and ideally never reappear is, that you don’t have to learn their names. Even if Harvey tried (which he rarely did), he just couldn’t remember most of them in the morning anyway.
As soon as the door of his condo clicked shut behind the woman (or occasional man) he had spent the night with, he was back to being Harvey Specter; New York’s best closer, ruthless lawyer. Untouchable and unaffected by sentimental bullshit.
The point is: Harvey Specter did not believe in romantic nicknames of any sort – in the bedroom or elsewhere.
In hindsight, he really should have paid more attention to what he called Mike Ross when he first came into the firm. It started small, almost insignificant. His new habit sneaked into his vocabulary and – not unlike a certain associate – refused to leave but instead wormed itself deeper into his heart until it stayed.
i. puppy
“Get your ass in here, Mike!”
The way in which the kid nearly tripped over his own feet in his hurry to obey was somewhere between irritating and strangely endearing. Not that Harvey would admit that, of course.
“Careful” Harvey muttered, eyes never leaving the file in front of him. “If you split our head open on my desk I’m replacing you tomorrow.”
Mike just grinned, blue eyes sparkling with that mischievous glimmer again. “You bellowed?”
Harvey glanced up, eyebrows rising, a cutting remark on his tongue – but Mike had already launched into a detailed report of his latest research. Something about financials not adding up and a company hiding assets with the help of somebody they needed to deposition and-
As he talked, Harvey watched him pace through the office, taking him in. Skinny tie crooked as always, suit a little too big (and very much too cheap), hair ruffled like he had just braced a storm on this sunny New York morning. Mike was gesturing wildly while he talked, full of restless energy and enthusiasm. His genius brain, as usual, going a mile a minute, like the thoughts couldn’t wait for their turn.
The image came completely uninvited to Harvey.
Like a damn puppy.
He should find it annoying, should tell him to get the hell out of his office while he was at it.
But somehow, unexplainably, he didn’t.
Instead, he leaned back in his chair, arms crossed and let him finish.
“… and if we compare the timeline of their deposition with every expense they made after the merger, that means either their CFO skipped third grade math or that somebody is lying under oath.”
After Mike had finished his ramble, slightly out of breath, Harvey gave him a nod. God help him, despite the chaos and the overeagerness and the crooked ties, the kid was good. He had hired him for a reason, after all.
“That’s good” he finally acknowledged.
Mike blinked. “It’s good?”
Harvey looked back down at the file, the words slipping out before he could stop them.
“Yes, puppy, it’s good. Don’t make me repeat myself.”
He pretended not to notice the slight blush that had crept onto his associate’s face and the way that sight made his heart stumble a little.
It didn’t mean anything.
After that, the puppy-nickname stuck. It was still delivered with a little bite – a reminder of who called the shots and who was still earning his place at the adult table.
“Good catch, puppy.”
“Focus, pup.”
“Keep up, puppy. You’re playing in the big leagues now.”
Somehow it had become normal. There was no denying the affection hidden behind the word and they both knew it. Even if Harvey would vehemently deny it if confronted with it.
By the time they were together – like, really together – the word had lost all of its edge at all.
To everybody else (except Donna, of course) they still have the same old dynamic. Harvey the experienced, grounded one and Mike, although more experienced now, still the overeager puppy at times.
When Harvey calls him puppy now, the others don’t hear the difference. To them it’s still the same old quip. A way of a senior partner telling his associate where he stands.
But Mike hears the difference.
Now, it means things like:
“I see you.”
“I’ve got you.”
“I’m proud of you.”
He never calls Harvey out for it.
Because after all, old habits die hard.