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Harvey Specter had wanted to be a lot of things in his life; musician, lawyer, professional baseball player, firefighter; he could never really settle on a specific path to follow.
Becoming a mermaid, or well merman, was not on the list of things he ever through he would do. His parents didn't see it coming either, not that they know about it, neither does his brother, he’d laugh the hell out of him.
Hell, he found it a funny kind of weird too at first.
But he tried it once and got the sting.
There's something so very satisfying about propulsing yourself under water using simply both your legs and physics that people who only view it as childish entertainment would simply never understand.
Of course, it doesn't pay his rent just yet, but he's getting there. In the meantime, he also occupies a full-time post in the mail room of a big law firm; it's not that bad.
His friend Donna is the one who introduced him to that world.
They met at the local aquatic center; she was training her speed lanes, and he asked her if she wanted to race. He undoubtedly lost and they got talking.
Eventually she shared her training program with him, and they started working out together.
Soon enough, they were friends.
She invited him to come see her underwater act at the nearby aquarium and he was breath taken by the beauty of it. He had thought he would find it funny at best but as it turns out, he was captivated.
In a matter of weeks, he was asking all about mono-fins, silicone versus fabric and underwater weight training.
He got hooked, right like a fish. The joke never gets old; Donna still laughs at it anytime she introduces him to someone and tells them she's the one who got him hooked.
With their training together, it got to a point where he could mostly keep up with her in a pool. But as soon as they got dept, or tails, involved, he was miles behind.
Learning to swim with a tail was probably the hardest part. Not necessarily because it was counterintuitive because they had practiced it enough without ever adding a mono-fin in the combination but because he managed to panic himself, he couldn't propulse himself right. At least with the flippers he could easily simply separate his feet to solve the issue, but it wasn't possible with the mono-fin and nor would it be with the tail.
But he got over it.
His first tail was a flimsy polyester thing, essential to get the full feel of it but a general monstrosity to look at.
Things got real when he got his first professional tail. He and Donna had worked on it for months before he could finally use it. Rather practical to have a friend who makes all her own costumes and tails, and what a work of art they are.
That and the fact that it was around that time that a new lifeguard made his apparition at the pool.
The first time he saw him, he was stretching with Donna before they went into the swimming lanes.
"You're staring at his ass."
"What?" He asked, the accusation pulling him out of his dream world.
"The lifeguard. You're staring at him."
"I am not."
"Yeah... you were, you most definitely were."
"Who is that anyway?"
"Stop staring!"
Turns out the ass he was absolutely staring at was of one Micheal Ross, the new lifeguard who got the part-times weeknights shifts.
Exactly the nights Harvey comes to the pool to train.
Mike wouldn't lie and say he didn't find it funny at first, two full grown adult playing mermaid at the public pool but he eventually saw the appeal too.
Or well, more precisely, he saw Harvey Specter shirtless and decided it was the best thing he'd ever seen.
So, of course he has to pay extra special attention to him. Not to ogle him or anything but because he's the one who could probably end up in real trouble with that gigantic fish tail that looks like it weights half a ton.
And well, when he's training without the tail... he doesn't have many excuses for still watching him so closely.