Chapter Text
Mike wasn’t exactly sure what his first thought was. He just remembered there being nothing, and then suddenly a million tiny knives stabbed at his brain, trying to get his attention. It was hard to decipher whether or not the many thoughts were to blame for the abrupt headache.
Where was he? He didn’t have a very good sense of his surroundings currently and didn’t dare open his eyes in fear that the dizziness would bring up a bout of nausea. The last thing he needed was for his headache to get worse from heaving his guts out. What even happened to make it like this? Surely he didn’t get so drunk that he set a new record for Weirdest and Most Painful Hangover.
The sense of feeling began to extend out from his head to the rest of his body, which was not as pleasant as Mike wished it were to be. Immediately, he could feel cool, hard ground beneath him, and a solid wall supporting his upright sitting position behind his back. He used to think describing pain using the words “everything hurts” was a massive exaggeration, but now that seemed to be the only appropriate response. Literally, everything hurts. It ached like someone bashed him all over with a baseball bat, ran him over with a bus, and then threw him in a blender, all in the span of five minutes.
Even his mouth wasn’t free from the curse of pain. Mike rolled his tongue over in his mouth, hitting sore spots in places he didn’t even know existed. It tasted awful, dry and sour, like dirt mixed with rust. He opened his mouth to get rid of the foul taste, letting out a small groan.
That’s when he realized his hearing was busted too. A ringing noise bounced around in his eardrums, distorting and muffling the groan.
Great. This was just awesome.
Mike sucked in a breath through his mouth, not even surprised anymore by the weight of a thousand bricks on his chest. He couldn’t even breathe properly.
Finally, he managed to squint his eyes open to be blinded by the unusual amount of light overwhelming the area of… wherever he was. Blinking took a lot more effort than he remembered.
Close.
Open.
Close.
Open.
Just when he thought his sense of sight was going to fail him along with everything else, blurry shapes and colors streaked his vision through the white brightness. A red brick wall materialized about ten feet in front of him. Metal pipes bent around and up parts of the wall like a maze. He could see a green dumpster with a black, plastic lid open a few feet to the left in his peripheral vision. It didn’t take long for him to figure out he was sitting in an alleyway.
All of his where questions had been answered, for the most part. Now they all evolved into a scarier version of themselves—why. Why was he in an alleyway in the middle of the day? Why did it feel like he had just broken all of his bones at once? Why wasn’t he at work, like he probably should be? He hoped whatever was happening wasn’t going to make him late or Harvey angry.
What day was it anyway? Shouldn’t he be able to tell what day it is? Mike’s heart dropped down to his stomach. Something was wrong.
Step one had been opening his eyes, now it was time for step two—mustering up the willpower to move somehow. His limbs still radiated stabbing pain like they had been steamrolled, but he was going to have to try to get up. He could feel his limp arms, one across his body and bent into his lap, and the other against the pavement with his palm facing up.
Mike started by turning his arms, placing them so that they were in a position to support himself on either side. The process was painstakingly slow and sent shock-waves down his spine. Then, when he could feel cool cement under his spread-out fingers, he slid his legs up to his chest with his feet planted flat on the ground.
God, it hurt so much.
The next thing Mike did was slide his hands into his pockets, searching for anything that could prove useful right now. His fingers fumbled around for forever, but never found the smooth surface of his phone that he expected to feel. Instead, the rustling noise of paper could be heard as he shook around his right hand. Weird, but he didn’t think about it too much, as standing up became his new priority.
Every little movement he made he planned out in his head before executing it. Think, move, breathe, repeat. A haze fogged up his brain, and the next thing he knew he was on his feet, clinging to the wall for dear life.
“Don’t fall, don’t fall,” he muttered to himself weakly, shaking like a leaf in a hurricane.
What Mike wanted to know was why everything hurt so much. What had even happened to make him not able to support his own weight? No matter how hard he thought, no reason or explanation appeared in his head to give him clarity on the situation.
Looking down, he got a clear view of the clothes he was wearing—well, as clear of a view as he could get with colorful spots dancing around his vision. The black dress pants he had on desperately needed a wash, but probably wouldn’t even survive the machine in their condition. They were disfigured with holes, tears, and mud. The rest of the suit he was wearing wasn’t in much better shape. A sleeve was ripped off the faded gray suit jacket, and the button-down polo underneath it looked as if it were once white, but had turned brown long ago. It was also riddled with holes along with everything else.
It made him think for the millionth time since waking up, what the hell?
Mike didn’t know how long he stood there, catching his breath and staring at his disheveled clothes. His head was spinning harder than he ever thought possible. He groaned once it became apparent that he had to move again. How hard could walking be? It was just one foot in front of the other, step after step.
Here goes nothing, he thought as he inched his leg away from the wall. His hands came next, sliding off of the smooth brick at a painstakingly slow pace. After what felt like an eternity, Mike was finally standing up and supporting all of his weight on his own, albeit very wobbly. All the blood in his body seemed to be stuck in his head, leaving his feet numb and legs barely functional. It was a weird sensation he hoped he would never have to experience again.
Now, walking time. Mike experimentally shifted his weight onto one foot, his left one. Then, he took a step. Well, more like a shuffle, but it got him further away from the wall. He repeated the instructions for walking in his mind, over and over. Lean onto one foot, lift your leg, and step.
One foot… lean
In front of… lift
The other… step.
Again and again and again, over and over until Mike was pretty sure that the mantra was going to get permanently tattooed on the inside of his skull and blare like fog horn 24/7. Awful, yes, but it also managed to get him to the edge of the alleyway, looking out onto the streets of New York washed in daylight. Well, he was ninety percent sure it was New York. His surroundings were somewhat familiar.
Cars and people passed by as Mike just stood and watched, wondering what to do next. The reasonable part of him knew that he should be heading directly toward a hospital, but there were multiple reasons that was the last place he wanted to be right now. For starters, was he even up to date on his health insurance payments? He didn’t think so. Plus, he didn’t even know where to go to get to a hospital. Taking a cab was possibly an option, but based on how he felt he assumed that he looked kinda crappy. His choices were whittling down quickly.
Just when Mike was about to give up and collapse back onto the ground, maybe take a little nap, a woman walked a large dog close by, lazily scrolling on her phone. Mike didn’t know why the woman stood out to him at that moment, but it gave him an idea. She wasn’t walking very fast, so it only took him a few painful hobbles to catch up and lightly tap her on the shoulder to get her attention.
She jumped before swiveling around to face Mike. Her brunette high-pony swished from how hard she whipped her neck around. The leash she held in her phone-free hand was pulled taut by a dog who seemed very unhappy at the sudden hold up. The German Shepard barked right as its owner let out a small gasp.
“Hi.” Mike tried his best to form an apologetic smile. He was surprised at his voice, hoarse and uneven. “Sorry to bother you, but—”
“What happened to you?” she squeaked out as her jaw hit the floor, looking him up and down with wide eyes.
He must look worse than he had thought. Oh well. “Um, can I borrow your phone for a second?”
“Oh God, do you need to call an ambulance?” She fumbled around with her phone, looping the leash around her arm so she could use both hands. “Here, I’ll dial 911.”
“No, no, no! It’s okay, I’m fine!”
Her thumb hovered right above the screen. She scrunched her eyebrows as she sized him up once again, giving him the most skeptical look Mike’s ever seen. He didn’t think he was in that bad condition. Well, every breath made him want to scream, throw up, and cry all at the same time, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle.
“Really! I just need to make a call. Really quick, I promise,” he assured her, extending a hand. The way his voice cracked at every other syllable did nothing to prove his point, but he hoped he was persuading enough. He was a lawyer, after all.
There was a pause as the woman contemplated handing over her phone, which her dog decided to fill by barking once more. If Mike knew he could bend down and have the energy to stand back up again, he would have definitely pet the cute animal. Finally, she swiped her phone screen to the dial pad and gingerly placed it into Mike’s open palm. “Here.”
“Thank you!” His fingers flew across the keypad instantly typing in the number like he had when he saved it into his phone years ago. Most people wouldn’t remember a number from typing it once, but Mike did. He didn’t even have to try to have certain phone numbers memorized for an emergency, he saw it once and it stayed in his brain like someone had attached it with duct tape. This number, though, he would have memorized even if he didn’t have his super-photographic memory.
He just hoped Harvey would pick up.
The woman’s phone must be broken because every ring lasted an hour longer than it was supposed to. Days and months passed until finally, the ringing stopped and—
“Your call has been forwarded to an automatic voice messaging system.”
What? Mike had known that calling from a stranger's number, Harvey would be a bit reluctant to pick up. Or maybe he was in the middle of a meeting, or talking with Donna, or 146 other reasons he couldn’t pick up his phone. Mike had somewhat expected to have to call three or four times before he would answer. What he didn’t expect was that voicemail.
In fact, one of the last things he did remember before waking up in a strange alleyway was Harvey’s voicemail, and it did sound like that. Mike knew it didn’t sound like that because he had made Harvey’s voicemail. Long story short, a bet was lost and Mike got to make Harvey’s voicemail, which he had to keep for the rest of the week. His annoying high-pitched voice still rang in his ears.
“Uh oh! It looks like the great and all-powerful Harvey Specter doesn’t have time for you! Why don’t you leave a message that he’ll never read and go cry about it. Bye-bye!”
Harvey hated that voicemail, but there’s no way he would have taken it down already. He might have had an ego the size of Texas, but even bigger than that was his integrity. He was a man of his word, and taking the voicemail down when he had lost a fair bet went against that.
A loud beep brought Mike out of his spiraling thoughts. The woman looked like she was about to take her phone back, and Mike’s heart crept into his throat. Before she could say anything, he dialed again and slammed the green call button.
The rings started up again, and Mike shoved the voicemail panic over with all the other things that didn’t make sense, forming a landslide-shaped elephant in the room. Hopefully, it would be addressed before it all came toppling down on top of him.
This time, the rings couldn’t have been shorter. Everything stopped all at once and then all that existed was Mike and the silence on the other end of the phone. Like a plane stopped mid-flight, suspended in the air. Mike counted to three before he heard a sharp inhale, and then Harvey spoke.
“Hello?”
Mike sighed with relief. He didn’t know why, but hearing Harvey’s voice felt like seeing a sunset for the first time. “Hey, Harvey. Sorry, I think I lost my phone, I’m calling from—”
“Who the hell is this?”
He laughed. He didn’t feel like laughing. This wasn’t funny. Maybe he had the wrong number, except this was definitely Harvey’s number, and that was definitely Harvey’s voice. “It’s Mike. I think I’m, um, late for work. I…”
He didn’t know how to even begin to explain the situation. Harvey filled the void of the inexplicable with that same frazzled voice, this time much, much angrier. “Is this some kind of joke to you?”
“Whoa, whoa, I’m sorry, okay?” Mike was hoping he’d get a ride from him out of wherever he was, but that was becoming an unlikely scenario as Harvey’s tone shot through the roof. “I’m in a bit of a weird situation right now.”
“This isn’t funny. You tell me your name right now or I’m going to find you and you’re going to wish you didn’t decide to prank call Harvey Specter. Name, now.” Mike wasn’t the only one dealing with voice cracks, apparently.
Why was he so upset? Prank call? “Uh, Harvey, chill out. It’s Mike, you know, Mike Ross? Your associate? This isn’t a prank call. I just need a ride, that’s all.”
“Bullshit!” the phone vibrated from how loud Harvey screamed. It wasn’t on speaker, but the woman probably overheard it anyway.
Mike felt all the air leave his lungs. What was going on? Why was Harvey screaming? Why was his entire body on fire? Where was he? He wanted to leave. Go far, far away from here and this whole mess and never look back. He wanted to put a record on in Harvey’s office and discuss the latest lawsuit they were going to win. Why was he stuck here instead? How did he get here?
He dropped the phone, or the woman took it from him, either way it was out of his hands. He wasn’t holding on to anything anymore and now he was lost.
Vaguely, he could hear the woman speak in the background, “Um, I’m calling an ambulance for your friend here. I would meet him at the hospital.”
No, he didn’t want an ambulance. He wanted to go home. There were suddenly way too many people walking on the sidewalk, and the cars going by made way too much noise. If Harvey were here, he’d tell Mike to breathe, focus on him. He kept looking for him in the crowd, but he wasn’t here.
Then, like an angel, a different face appeared.
Her dark, tan skin glowed in the noon lighting, brown hair tied up into a neat bun, pieces falling out, but not so awry that it looked messy. Her eyes that swirled like esspressso stayed locked on the path in front of her, not noticing Mike, who was staring a hole through her head. She strolled along, not in a hurry to get wherever she was going.
Unlike earlier where Mike couldn’t see anything, now all he could focus on was Rachel. Her outfit, a blemish-free, white, button-down shirt tucked into grey corduroy pants. Her makeup was on-point and perfectly enhanced all of her best features. Mike swore she belonged on the cover of a magizine.
His lips were moving before he even realized he had the breath to talk, “Rachel!”
There was an instant where he was scared she wasn’t going to turn around. Terrified, in fact, but the moment passed before he had time to question why. As Rachel strolled by, she whipped her head around to see the source of the voice that had called her name.
It was then that a lot of things happened at once.
The German Sheppard barked.
Rachel screamed.
And the world spun and spun and spun until the ground rushed up to swallow Mike whole.