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Through the haze of nausea, dizziness, and breathlessness, there is Mike.
The two of them are huddled outside their third fraternity party of the weekend, one of many Harvey plans to attend before his last few months at Harvard ends. The cool October air feels both amazing and overstimulating on his heated skin, making the sweat under the collar of his shirt dry in uncomfortable patches. His chest hurts, from hyperventilating, from his heart beating so fast, and Mike is there, holding his hand and squeezing it every so often to try and ground him.
Usually, he's averse to touch when he's panicking like this- Scottie had learned that the hard way, the first time she'd seen one. She'd stared, brown eyes wide and hurt when he'd slapped her hand away from his shoulder. Harvey had been living with that guilt ever since, even after she'd reassured him she understood, that it was okay. The guilt had only doubled marginally when Mike had placed a tentative hand on his shoulder at the tail end of the first he'd seen and Harvey had all but collapsed into his touch, leaning his forehead against Mike's thigh until he could breathe again.
Harvey sucks in a shuddering breath, shoulders shaking on the exhale as he tries to focus on the way Mike's hand feels in his, how he strokes idly over the expanse of skin just beneath Harvey's thumb with his own. It's hard to do anything at all except wait for it to be over, but Mike has always made the hardest parts of everything easier. Beneath the blood rushing in his ears, he can hear Mike murmuring the names of bones, twitching each of his fingers in an almost-tap as he maps out Harvey's hand underneath his.
The absurdity of the situation- of Mike trying to soothe him by whispering about metacarpals and phalanges, and it working- draws a breathless, choked laugh from the older. Mike, in turn, turns his head to face him sharply, a small smile pulling at his mouth.
"What can you see, Harvey?" The younger murmurs, bright blue eyes glinting under the moonlight, colors flashing over his face from the window they're standing under. "Tell me."
For one brief, insane moment, Harvey wants to say: You. All I can see is you.
But that's not how they are, and they never will be like that. Never can be like that, so Harvey does his best to summon enough strength to focus, unblurring his vision just enough that he can look around the yard.
"I can see," He mutters, still fighting against his uneven breathing, "That shitty fake skeleton this frat put up by the steps to signify it's a Halloween party."
Mike lets out a breathless laugh of his own, fond amusement shining through the concern in his eyes when Harvey looks at him, and he can't help himself.
"I see you," he murmurs, too gentle, too much for the state he's in. It makes Mike's mouth do this thing where it goes soft at the corners, like he's suppressing a smile, and Harvey has to look away.
"I see," Harvey says, looking around them again, finding himself drawn back into the feeling of Mike's hand in his, "that tree we heard about someone jumping out of, the much less shitty decorations of the neighbors across the street, and…" He fights the urge to say Mike again, and instead points out a couple walking down the opposite sidewalk, dressed as Wayne and Garth from Wayne's World.
"Not a bad matching costumes idea." Mike muses, thoughtfully bemused. He spares one glance over his shoulder at them, and Harvey's eyes trace his jawline. "Should remember that for when I find someone to match with. If I ever find someone."
The weight that drops into the bottom of Harvey's sternum at Mike's words is not from the panic attack, but for his own sake he believes that it is. Despite this, he can't help the way he squeezes Mike's hand, breathing picking up again just barely.
In the wake of Mike coming to help him, Harvey had forgotten why he'd started panicking in the first place: In just a few months, he'll be graduating, moving on to bigger things, and Mike won't be there with him. He won't be there for another year, even at the pace Mike is working at, and the idea has been weighing on Harvey more heavily than the thought of graduating itself. Reminders that Mike will keep living without him, that Harvey won't have him by his side after next May are not doing him any favors, not that Mike knows that.
Noticing the subtle change in his demeanor, the younger turns back towards him, worry making his eyes even more striking.
"You're okay," Mike murmurs, gentle when he squeezes Harvey's hand back. "You're okay, Harvey. Tell me four things you can hear."
"Besides your grating voice?" Harvey tries to joke, but it comes out as a wheeze. Everyone in Mike's year is so lucky to have another few semesters to hear his voice, to be privileged enough to see Mike in action in mock trial and lectures and places Harvey won't be soon, and it's not fair, he can't- he can't-
A bass drop from inside the house startles Harvey out of his spiral, and he gasps wetly. "The party- I can- hear it. The party." The words feel like they're being scraped out of his mouth, leaving his throat feeling raw. "And I can hear the wind, and the laughter from the DnD group in the house next door, and-"
"Me. Like you said before." Mike gives him the smallest of smiles, proud and worried and focused solely on Harvey, wanting to help him however he can. Harvey swallows dryly with a nod. "Give me three things you can touch."
The fact that he's touching Mike goes unsaid, only acknowledged by another squeeze of his hand, to which Mike offers another squeeze of his own. He murmurs about feeling the brick of the frathouse beneath his back, digging into his skin through his sweater, and the slickness of the grass under his feet, midnight dew making his sneakers slide against the blades. He gets a nod from the younger after every description, and he realises that the panic has begun to subside again, receding back into his heart where he carries the rest of his biggest emotions, the pain he'd been feeling in his chest ebbing away.
Harvey murmurs something about being able to smell the last traces of the food from the party in the air, and the scent of the trees in the wind. He pointedly does not talk about how Mike smells, about his woodsy, warm cologne and his slightly cheap, slightly spicy aftershave and what he's come to remember as the natural scent of Mike, slightly musky and slightly sweet. The combination should be overwhelming, and maybe even nauseating considering the circumstances, but Harvey only wants to lean in closer and breathe Mike in until he feels completely better. Mike does not seem to notice at all, too occupied with looking up at Harvey with an expression he's not too sure how to read.
"And for taste-" Harvey starts, about to make some crude joke about tasting the shitty beer he'd downed before the panic attack, how the lingering taste was worse than the attack itself, when Mike places a hand on the side of his face and kisses him.
The scent of Mike he'd been trying so hard to avoid floods his nose as Harvey presses closer on instinct, turning his body fully towards the younger to kiss him properly. He lets go of Mike's hand in favor of wrapping his arms around his waist, pulling their bodies flush together. Mike doesn't seem to mind, seeing as he loops both arms Harvey's neck to keep him close.
He tastes like the same cheap beer, and a little bit like the barbecue the frat had offered, and like the Doritos he'd been snacking on before following Harvey out of the party. His tongue is warm against Harvey's bottom lip, teeth sharp where they nip at soft skin, a gentle command to open that Harvey can't help but follow. Their tongues slide together, Harvey making a soft noise when he feels Mike's lick at his palate once before he's pulling back, watching Harvey's face with blown pupils.
He must like what he sees because Mike only laughs, happy and bright before pulling himself in to nose into the exposed skin of Harvey's neck, breathing in deeply. Harvey, unwilling to be the one to break the moment, only tightens his hold around Mike's waist, committing the warmth of his body against his own to memory, just in case he never gets to have it like this again.
It's after his heartbeat has finally slowed, from the panic attack and from the kiss, and once he's committed the scent of Mike's cheap shampoo to memory that Mike speaks again, lips warm against his neck as he murmurs,
"Let's go home. Wanna watch The Silence of the Lambs on your VCR."
Harvey muffles a snort into sandy blond hair, holding Mike just a little bit closer. His brain is caught between Mike calling his apartment home and his blatant demand to use his VCR."You just don't want to go back to your dorm because your roommate is there."
Mike pulls back to blink up at him, doe eyed and sweet, but his smirk screams mischief. "And you have an apartment you live in without roommates. Alone, with no catalysts for interruption?"
To his credit, the kid waits very patiently as Harvey pieces what he's saying together, brain still reeling from the panic and the kiss and everything else. Harvey can feel his fingers playing with the hair at the nape of his neck, humming along to the song that drifts out into the yard through the open window. He breathes out a shuddered exhale once he gets it, and Mike muffles his own laugh in Harvey's shirt when he squeezes the younger's waist.
"Point taken." He says, still a little breathless. "Let's go home."
Mike pumps his fist, sticking his tongue out at Harvey's responding eye roll before disentangling himself from him. They spend only the briefest of moments apart before Mike is threading their fingers together and pulling him out of the shadow of the frathouse and onto the sidewalk. He's talking a mile a minute again, like the last twenty hadn't happened, swinging their hands between them without a care in the world as he wonders aloud if any stores were still open for snacks, and if they should buy candy before going back to Harvey's.
As he listens to Mike talk (and nudges him towards Harvard Square where he knows a diner is open 24/7), he knows then and there that he will miss him more than he will be able to express. The fear of losing Mike to time and distance after he graduates is still real and palpable, sitting heavily at the bottom of his sternum like a sunken rock. But, with each step they take together, hand in hand, the weight starts to lighten into something a little more manageable, something he knows he'd never let go of even if someone tried to take it from him forcefully. Harvey may be leaving soon, but Mike would never let him get away that easily.
When Harvey squeezes his hand, Mike glances over at him, beaming when he meets his eyes. He's looking at him like he always does: Like no one else in the world matters. Harvey smiles back, knowing his expression is just as soft, and just as fond.
They'd figure it out. They always do eventually.