Work Text:
It was two in the morning. Mike awoke on his couch to the sound of footsteps and movement in his little kitchenette. He shifted, moving the paperwork resting on his chest to the table, sitting up with a groan. “Whosat?” He called.
“Oh, honey I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you,” came the reply and in his half awake state he didn’t wonder whether it was a dream.
“Mom, it’s late what are you doing here?” He asked getting up. His mom stood at the counter making sandwiches, humming to herself.
“Dad’s working late, I was going to go bring him something to eat when I pick him up.” She said, working quickly as she made two ham sandwiches and quickly cut the crusts off. “You ok?”
“Yeah, just lots of work to get done.” He kissed her shoulder.
“You’ll be fine. Tell me about the case?”
“You know I can’t.”
She smiled, a white pristine smile. “Oh come on, just a little.”
Mike sighed and leaned against the table. “Alright, alright. There’s this guy, a complete ass-”
“Language, Michael.”
“Sorry, Mom.” He laughed. “A complete jerk, is trying to sue our client for infringement. Thing is our client has had his product copyrighted for twenty years.”
“So what’s the problem then?” His mom asked, packing the food.
“Apparently they have some sort of clause that proves we’re wrong. So I have to find the loophole in their loophole.” He rubbed at his eyes. Harvey had been riding him about this for a week. “And if I find the loophole in their loophole, then we can wipe the floor with them.”
“Good! Have you found it yet?”
“I think I’m close. There’s just a lot of legal jargon to sort through.”
“Your boss should give you time off when you find it.” His mom said. “We could take Grammie to the lake for the weekend. Would you like that?” Her smile was gorgeous, Mike couldn’t tear his eyes away.
“We haven’t been to the lake in years mom,” he said.
“Exactly, we should go,” she cupped his face. “You need some rest, honey, you look so tired.”
“I am tired, Mom.” he rested his forehead on her shoulder. “So damn tired.”
“Language.”
“Sorry.”
She kissed him. “We’ll call Grammie in the morning, go pick her up this friday and go to the lake, okay? And if this boss won’t give you time off, we’ll just steal you.”
“Okay.”
“Good. Now,” she squeezed his shoulders and went to get the food. “I’m off. Going to go feed your father and make sure he gets home in one piece. Get some sleep, ok?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
He watched her go, light on her feet, silent as she moved through the apartment. He turned to look at the clock, see what time is was. When he turned back, she was gone. He never heard the door close. He was left sitting in the kitchenette in deafening silence.
It took a moment for it all to sink in.
“Mom?” he called weakly.
Silence.
“Mom?” he called again, eyes clamped shut.
Nothing.
Then it sank in.
The room spun and he dropped to the tiled floor, gasping for breath. His stomach tightened painfully, his chest heavy, hands shaking as he tried to breathe through it. He had seen Grammie a few days earlier, sitting in the living room with her book. His father had been on the street corner a few blocks away a week prior, smoking, waiting for the bus. Grammie’s voice was the most frequent, her voice, her shuffling steps, her silhouette. It had been a month since her death and he’d seen her at least twice a week. His heart hammered against his ribs, painful and aching and it was all he could do to keep from puking up red bull and pretzels all over his kitchenette floor.
No, Mike couldn’t see ghosts. That was irrational and illogical and ridiculous. When his parents had first died, he thought he was seeing ghosts. The therapist, a sleek young woman, had said it was the grief. That grief makes us hallucinate, makes us deny what actually happened, or so she had told him. It was his brain tricking him into thinking he wasn’t alone. Somehow that didn’t make him feel better, no matter how many times he reminded himself. He almost would rather see ghosts, instead of reliving half a conversation or watching them like it was a faded old film.
It had taken him years to learn to live with his parents, with the spontaneous wave of regret and guilt and disgust and anger that would hit him at the worst time and bring him to his knees. It still happened, just as painful and lasting as when he’d been a kid. He was starting to believe it never really went away.
“Mom?” he had to try again, his voice breaking. He had to make sure, make sure she wasn’t really there.
When he was met yet again with nothing but the silence of his apartment, he let himself cry. His thin frame shook with it as he sat curled on the floor, fingers tugging at his hair so he could feel something through the numbness. He could feel a few strands come loose in his grip, the stress and poor diet causing his body to submit to the side effects; hair loss, the shakes, night terrors, weight loss that made him look almost skeletal in the mirror.
None of that mattered though as he pitched over onto his knees and heaved, his body forcing him to hurl despite nothing of substance being in his stomach. He could still hear his mother’s voice wishing him good night, still see her smile in the inside of his eyelids, still smell her old, stale perfume dad had loved so much. He could hear the clicking of his grandmother’s knitting needles, the flutter of her weak, breathy laugh when he told a bad joke. He could hear their whispers, feel the long lost touches, and he wanted it all to end.
He wanted numbness.
He wanted to forget.
He screamed, desperate and raw in his throat, hoping they could hear him in their graves.
Then he grabbed for his phone and hit the only speed dial listed. Grammie had always told him never to face the monsters alone, though he didn’t expect anyone to pick up. No one ever picked up.
Not Trevor.
Not Jenny.
Not Rachel.
And now not even Grammie.
Mike had gotten used to no one answering.
The phone rang three times before a gruff, sleep heavy voice answered with a mild hint of irritation. “Mike? What the hell, it’s almost 3am.”
Initially, when he had dialed the number, he had known what he was going to say, but with Harvey’s voice in his ear, a real voice, a voice he knew wasn’t just his mind tricking him, he forgot how to speak. He made a strangled sound, trying to breath, trying to force himself to speak.
“Mike?” The irritation had been replaced with concern. “Mike what’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry,” was the only thing he could force out. “I’m sorry.”
“Where are you?”
“Home.”
“Stay.” Harvey’s voice was firm, solid and certain and Mike felt the last thread of tension in him snap. “Just stay there.”
Mike nodded as if Harvey stood in front of him, watching him choke on air.
“Good boy.”
The line went dead and Mike screamed just to fight off the silence.
When Harvey arrived thirty minutes later, Mike thought he might kick in the door. But he listened to the key in the lock and Harvey’s voice asking if he was ok and he felt Harvey’s hands on his shoulders, lifting him off the kitchen floor. And it still didn’t feel real, not until Harvey had him cradled in his lap on the cold kitchen floor. The warmth of Harvey’s body, the soft fabric of the hoodie he had slipped on, the tickle of his breath against his hair, it all forced its way through the numbness and the ringing in Mike’s ears until it was all he could focus on.
“Breathe for me, Mike,” Harvey said, rubbing Mike’s back. “Try and keep breathing for me.”
“She was.... Harvey she.... Oh god I-”
Harvey shushed him. “Don’t talk, just breathe. Focus on breathing.” He held Mike’s face in his hands. “Look at me.”
Mike fixed his eyes on Harvey’s face, watching the way his nostrils flared as he breathed in deeply through his nose.
“Breathe.” Harvey ordered and Mike took a deep, gulping breath of air.
Harvey smiled. “That’s my boy. Come on, just breath for me.”
It took a few minutes, but soon Harvey had Mike matching his easy breathing, his hands still cradling Mike’s face, dark eyes soft in the dim light. He ran his hand over Mike’s hair, brushed the bangs off his sweaty forehead and waited for Mike to speak.
“I’m sorry,” Mike forced out and Harvey chuckled.
“You already said that.”
“I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“It’s okay, Mike.”
“We’ve got work in the morning god I’m sor-”
“What happened, Mike?” Harvey asked, cutting him off.
“I saw my mom.”
He saw, even in the low light, the look of panic crossover Harvey’s face. “Your mom?”
Mike nodded. “She was standing at the counter. Making sandwiches.”
“Mike she-”
“I know she’s dead,” he snapped. “I know and that doesn’t change the fact that I fucking saw her.”
“Shh it’s okay.”
“No. No it’s not.”
Harvey sighed. “No. It’s not.”
He let go of Mike’s face and reached for his hands instead, holding them tightly in his to try and quell the shaking. Mike knew he was stalling, looking for the right words, what to say to that Mike didn’t feel crazy, so that he knew Harvey was just as worried as he was, that he wasn’t completely alone in this. They were the same words Mike had searched for that night in Harvey’s office a week earlier.
“What did she say?” Harvey asked softly, catching Mike off guard. He had expected some reassurance that he was seeing things.
“She uh... She was making my dad some food, to take to him at work. She asked about our case.” Mike laughed. “That should have tipped me off I guess.”
“Was she interested?”
“She thinks you’re a hardass.”
Harvey rolled his eyes. “Your whole family seems to be under the same impression.”
“Well you kind of are,” Mike said with a weak smile.
“Yeah, well, I’m working on it cut me some slack.”
Mike nodded, pressing his face into Harvey’s shoulder. “She wanted to go to the lake.” When Harvey didn’t reply he explained. “We used to go to this crappy little cabin on the finger lakes. It was filled with spiders and shit and I found a snake in my bed when I was like seven, but we’d go and it was like time stopped, you know?”
“When was the last time you went?” Harvey asked.
“Three weeks before they died. Grammie couldn’t afford to rent it and even if she could, she wasn’t healthy enough to go.” Mike coughed and tried to clear his throat, fighting off a new wave of tears. “She said I needed to ask you for time off and we’d go this weekend. If you said now, she’d kidnap me and we’d go anyway.”
“Sounds like my kind of woman.”
“Oh gross don’t say it like that.” When Harvey made a face like he was considering his words, and just maybe whether Mike’s mom had been hot, Mike laughed and punched him in the shoulder.
And once he started laughing, Mike found he couldn’t stop. Even when he was crying again, holding onto Harvey like he was the only sure thing, his life force, his soul, he couldn’t silence the laughter that bubbled up in his chest. Harvey laughed with him, rubbing his back, kissing his hair, laughing just as hard every time Mike looked up with a red face and watery eyes. The laughter felt like a purification, ripping through him like fire, causing his hands to shake and his lungs to hurt and his voice to go raw and weak in his throat. It held the darkness and the silence at bay, paired with the touch of Harvey’s hands, keeping Mike grounded and alive. He could feel his pulse drumming until his skin again, he could felt the heat racing through his nerves, the spark of electricity that reminded him he was alive. He felt it and kept laughing.
“Hey,” Harvey whispered a while later when the laughter had finally started to subside. “Next time your mom swings by, let me know, okay?”
Mike wiped his face on his sleeve. “I called you this time didn’t I?”
Harvey shook his head. “Not what I meant. Call me when she turns up, I want to meet her. I want a chance to prove I’m not such a goddamn hardass.”
“Harvey...” It sounded like crazy talk, like Harvey had finally accepted the fact he was dating a lunatic and was just trying to work around it until he could get Mike into therapy. But there wasn’t a hint of humor in Harvey’s expression, not an ounce of mockery and cruelty. All Mike saw was honest emotion, unhindered by Harvey’s usual filters. It took him back to the night in Harvey’s office, when he had held his worn hands and promised they’d face it together, at their own pace, with their own rules.
“You want to meet her?” he asked, throat burning.
Harvey nodded. “I do.” He kissed Mike’s nose. “I want to thank her.”
He fought to swallow and hold back his tears, nodding with a small smile on his chapped lips. “Okay.Yeah, okay, I’ll tell you, I promise. God you are such a stupid sap.” He couldn’t contain the giggles as he buried his face in Harvey’s shirt.
Harvey chuckled and wrapped his arms around him. “Don’t tell anyone, I’ve got a reputation as a hardass, remember?”
“Never gonna let me live that down.”
“Never.”
It wasn’t until Mike’s legs had fallen asleep under him, and they were waking up with a painful pins and needles sensation, that Harvey gathered Mike into his arms and carried him to bed. He helped him undress, kissed the tears from his cheeks like they were in some sort of lifetime flick, and tucked Mike under the covers, promising to join him once he’d locked the front door and cleaned up a little.
The door was locked and Harvey grabbed his phone, calling Jessica’s office phone to leave her a message, alerting her to their absence. She’d probably have a fit and he’d be doing bro bono for the next two months, but he could stomach it. He called Donna’s cell, leaving her a message complete with an apology for the hour, a please, and a thank you when he asked her to search cabins at the finger lakes. It was four am on a friday, maybe with a bit of a miracle he could make time stop for the weekend. He thanked her answering machine again and promised a new Max bag in return.
He gathered up the dishes and wiped down the counters, mindless work to give Mike time to settle in his own space. He gathered up the papers strewn across the floor, organized them and set them aside for Mike to reread later, when he could see straight. He double checked the locks on the door and the windows, letting out a slow, uneasy breathe as he scanned the city skyline out Mike’s window.
As he made his way back to the bedroom, pulling off his hoodie as he went, he caught sight of a slim older woman standing by the window, humming to herself as she fiddled with the pendant around her neck. He stopped, holding his breath as he listened to the humming, waiting until the silence returned. Then he closed his eyes and whispered-
“Thank you.”
He joined Mike in bed and held him tightly, letting the easy quiet of the apartment surround them. And if he were to put words to how that quiet felt, he would almost call it a blessing.