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The first time Mike broke into Harvey Specter’s apartment, it was for an extremely valid and professionally responsible reason.
Which was exactly what he told himself while kneeling in the hallway outside Harvey’s door at eleven-thirty at night with a bent paperclip in one hand and six hundred pages of merger documents tucked under his arm.
"This still feels less illegal than half the stuff I did for Trevor," he muttered.
The lock clicked.
Mike froze.
Nothing exploded.
No alarms blared.
No hidden lasers sliced him in half.
Honestly, that felt a little insulting. Harvey lived in a building with marble floors, a doorman who looked like he’d once killed a man with his bare hands, and a wine collection probably worth more than Mike’s entire existence. The least Harvey could do was have dramatic security.
Mike slipped inside.
The apartment was dark except for the city lights stretching through the windows. The place looked exactly like Harvey himself somehow: expensive, sharp, smug, and aggressively well put together.
Mike stepped carefully across the floor.
He put the files down on the kitchen island.
And then he stood there.
Because now that he was inside, leaving immediately felt weirdly abrupt.
Mike looked around a little.
Not snooping, exactly.
Just observing.
There was a difference.
The kitchen looked untouched except for a coffee mug in the sink and an expensive-looking bottle of whiskey sitting open beside two glasses. One used. One untouched.
Mike squinted at it.
"That’s either deeply depressing or incredibly pretentious."
Probably both.
He wandered farther into the apartment before he could stop himself. Huge windows overlooked Manhattan, the furniture looked like it had been selected by an architect with emotional issues, and there was jazz playing quietly from somewhere deeper in the apartment.
Mike paused.
Of course Harvey left music on when he wasn’t home.
Because apparently silence also lost cases.
Mike followed the sound into the living room. A record spun lazily beside the window, low trumpet filling the apartment with that smooth late-night sound Harvey always seemed to carry around with him somehow.
The place was ridiculously Harvey.
Not just expensive. Controlled.
Every lamp exactly where it should be. Every book aligned neatly on the shelves. The entire apartment looked like it had been arranged five minutes before a magazine photoshoot.
And yet there were tiny imperfections if you looked long enough.
A jacket tossed over the back of a chair.
An empty glass sitting beside the couch.
A legal pad covered in sharp messy handwriting.
Mike stared at that for a second.
It was weirdly comforting.
Harvey acted like he emerged every morning fully assembled in a three-piece suit with orchestral background music. Evidence that he was occasionally human felt bizarrely important.
Five minutes later Mike left.
That should have been the end of it.
Unfortunately, it turned out Harvey Specter had an apartment that was weirdly difficult to stop thinking about.
Not because it was fancy. Mike had seen fancy before. Jessica’s office alone looked like it charged rent.
No, the problem was that the apartment was… interesting.
It had layers.
Like Harvey himself, except without the constant threat of insults.
Three days later Harvey tossed another stack of files onto Mike’s desk at six-forty-five PM.
"I need these reviewed before tomorrow morning."
Mike blinked. "Tomorrow morning?"
"Yes. That’s generally what before tomorrow morning means."
"You know humans require sleep, right?"
"I don’t hire humans. I hire winners."
Mike stared at him. "You practiced that line in a mirror."
Harvey pointed at him. "Nine AM."
Then he walked off.
Mike spent four hours finishing the files fueled entirely by spite and vending machine coffee.
At midnight he called Harvey.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Mike looked down at the files.
Then at the clock.
Then back at the files.
"This is how crime becomes habit," he informed the empty bullpen.
Twenty minutes later he was back outside Harvey’s apartment.
The thing was, after the first time, the lock got easier.
Which honestly felt offensive.
"You’re a millionaire lawyer," Mike whispered while working the pick. "Buy a better lock."
Click.
Inside again.
This time the apartment smelled faintly like expensive cologne and takeout.
Mike deposited the files on the kitchen island.
Then he noticed a basketball game paused on the television.
Mike stared.
Harvey watched basketball alone.
For some reason that detail rewired something in Mike’s brain.
He wandered into the kitchen and opened the fridge.
"Okay, wow," he said softly.
There was almost nothing inside except bottled water, Chinese takeout, and enough lemon slices to sustain a small cocktail bar.
Mike frowned at the shelves.
"You live like a recently divorced dad."
The thing was, Harvey’s apartment stopped feeling like Harvey-the-legend after a while. Instead, it started feeling like Harvey.
There were tiny things everywhere once Mike noticed them.
A stack of records left out instead of filed away.
A half-finished crossword puzzle.
Three expensive suits hanging over dining chairs because apparently Harvey Specter, titan of corporate law, still threw clothes around like a college student.
Mike absolutely did not start looking for those details on purpose.
He definitely did not start lingering longer every time he dropped by.
And he especially did not start fixing things.
That would have been insane.
Unfortunately, one night while dropping off paperwork, Mike noticed Harvey’s kitchen drawer jammed halfway open.
He tugged it.
It stuck.
Mike frowned.
"You’re kidding me."
Ten minutes later he was under Harvey’s sink with a screwdriver.
"This is breaking and entering adjacent behavior," he muttered.
By the time he finished fixing the drawer, he realized he’d also cleaned the kitchen counter somehow.
That was concerning.
The next morning Harvey walked into his office holding coffee and looking suspicious.
Mike knew that look immediately.
It was the same look Harvey got when opposing counsel lied badly.
"What?" Mike asked.
Harvey narrowed his eyes. "Did you break into my apartment again?"
Mike choked on absolutely nothing.
"What?"
"My kitchen drawer works again."
Mike blinked rapidly. "That’s your evidence?"
"You’re the only person annoying enough to repair things in someone else’s home."
"That is wildly circumstantial."
Harvey kept staring.
Mike stared back.
Then Harvey smirked.
And walked away.
Mike sat frozen at his desk.
"Oh my God," he whispered. "He knows."
But apparently Harvey didn’t really know.
Or maybe he did.
The problem was that Harvey started leaving weird things around.
At first Mike thought it was coincidence.
Then it became impossible.
One night Mike broke in to drop off deposition files and found an entire pizza sitting on the counter with a sticky note attached.
Too much food. Tragic. - H
Mike stared at it for a full thirty seconds.
"This feels like a trap."
The pizza smelled amazing.
Mike ate two slices.
After that, things escalated quickly.
Harvey started "accidentally" leaving records out Mike had mentioned liking.
Mike started reorganizing Harvey’s bookshelves while pretending he wasn’t.
Harvey left a new lockpick set on the kitchen counter one evening.
Mike nearly had a heart attack.
Beside it was another sticky note.
Yours is garbage. Seriously.
Mike stood in the middle of the kitchen clutching the note. "This is the stupidest relationship in human history."
The truly horrifying part was that Harvey never actually confronted him directly.
Instead, they developed a system.
Harvey would leave things out. Mike would comment on them indirectly. Harvey would respond the next day at work without acknowledging how he knew.
One Thursday Mike found a medical bill sitting unopened on the counter.
Not hidden. Not buried.
Mike frowned.
Harvey never left personal stuff around.
Ever.
He looked at the envelope for a long moment.
Then he walked away from it.
The next morning Harvey appeared beside Mike’s desk while Mike was reviewing case law.
"You didn’t open it."
Mike looked up carefully. "Open what?"
"The envelope."
Mike shrugged. "Not my business."
Something shifted briefly across Harvey’s face. Surprise maybe. Or relief.
Then Harvey recovered immediately. "Good. Because if you had, I’d have to throw you through a window."
Mike snorted. "You live on the thirty-fifth floor."
"Exactly."
But Harvey lingered there a second too long before leaving.
And after that, things got worse.
Or better.
Depending on how pathetic one wanted to be about it.
Mike started stopping by even when he didn’t technically need a reason.
At first he told himself he was just returning files.
Then maybe borrowing records.
Then one night he ended up sitting on Harvey’s couch at one in the morning reading a legal journal he found lying around because apparently he had completely lost perspective on his own life.
"This is deeply concerning behavior," Mike informed himself quietly while flipping a page.
The apartment was silent around him, soft city light stretching through the windows. Harvey’s place always felt different at night. Less polished. The shadows blurred the sharp edges. The expensive furniture stopped looking intimidating and started looking lived in.
Mike glanced toward the hallway.
Harvey’s bedroom door was closed.
Which was ridiculous because Harvey wasn’t even home. Mike knew Harvey was at some corporate dinner because Harvey had spent most of the afternoon complaining about wealthy idiots pretending to enjoy sea bass.
Still, Mike felt weirdly like he was intruding now.
Which was a little late as realizations went.
He stood up, put the journal back exactly where he found it, and headed for the kitchen.
There was Thai takeout in the fridge.
Mike stared at it suspiciously.
Then at the sticky note beside it.
If you eat my pad thai I’ll know. - H
Mike snorted out loud.
"He’s become psychologically manipulative."
He ate the pad thai anyway.
Which was exactly the moment the front door unlocked.
Mike nearly launched himself through the ceiling.
Harvey walked in loosening his tie, clearly mid-thought, then stopped dead when he saw Mike standing barefoot in his kitchen holding takeout noodles like a raccoon caught in a security camera.
For one horrible second neither of them spoke.
Then Harvey sighed.
"You know," he said calmly, "most people just text."
Mike swallowed. "Most people don’t leave threatening notes on leftovers."
"That wasn’t a threat. That was a statement of fact."
"You weren’t supposed to be home yet."
Harvey set his keys down slowly. "Interesting that your defense strategy starts there."
Mike pointed the chopsticks at him. "You left food out with a note attached. That’s basically invitation behavior."
Harvey looked at the half-empty container in Mike’s hands.
"You ate all the chicken."
"There was barely any chicken."
"There was an appropriate amount of chicken until a burglar got involved."
Mike opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Then, against all reason, Harvey started laughing.
Not polite laughter.
Not courtroom amusement.
Actual helpless laughter.
Mike stared at him.
"You’re laughing at me breaking into your home."
Harvey leaned against the counter shaking his head. "Mike, I came home and found you stealing my takeout in socks. I don’t even know how to categorize this anymore."
Mike looked down.
Right.
Socks.
At some point he’d apparently taken his shoes off.
"Oh my God," he muttered. "I domesticated the breaking and entering."
That made Harvey laugh harder.
Mike should probably have been worried about getting arrested.
Instead he found himself staring because Harvey looked different laughing like that. Younger somehow. Less sharp around the edges.
More real.
Harvey eventually straightened, still grinning. "You want a drink?"
Mike blinked. "You’re inviting me to stay after catching me actively trespassing?"
Harvey shrugged. "You fixed my kitchen drawer."
"That is disturbingly low standards for companionship."
"Mike, you broke into my apartment to eat my food and read my legal journals. We’re past pretending this is normal."
Mike opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Then he grinned despite himself.
"Fair enough."