Archive of Our Own

Notes: Written for this prompt in the Suits Kink Meme. Thank you to the lovely OP for the wonderful prompt! Thank you to my dearest Helen for keeping me in line and motivated to finish this even when I wanted to throw in the towel. The title roughly translates to mean 'It is sweet and good (to lie for your love)'

In the end, Harvey will remember the exceptionally creepy and intense look on their client’s “psychic”’s face when she said it, but at the time he was so pre-occupied trying to remind himself that this particularly wealthy and gullible client was actually worth putting up with this shit for. Two weeks of meetings, each and every single one of which the client had insisted her ‘psychic’ attend as her ‘spiritual counsel’ and Harvey was honestly just thankful that the case was closed and he could have the conference room fumigated and would hopefully never have to encounter the nauseating aroma of cloves ever again. So when after shaking hands with the client, her ‘spiritual counsel’ had spent a long moment looking between Harvey and Mike in amused distaste before murmuring something in what was definitely a foreign language at them, he hadn’t given it much thought beyond ‘well that’s weird, thank fuck this is over.’

She leaves, hopefully never to return again, Mike wanders off to bathe orphaned babies or whatever it is that he does in his free time and Harvey goes home and falls into a deep, satisfyingly dreamless sleep.

He’s still cheerful the next morning when he arrives at work - it’s midday, he has a light schedule today and he feels so well rested for once that as he heads toward Mike’s cubicle he thinks he can actually feel and hear his bones humming. A Kings of Leon song. That’s odd.

But he doesn’t get a chance to examine the anomaly further because he reaches Mike’s desk and at the sound of Harvey’s approaching footsteps Mike turns his face to look up into Harvey’s and Harvey has some kind of instant mental breakdown.

One second he’s looking down into Mike’s eyes and the next his vision is swimming, the dull and offensive muted greys and blues of the associates floor spilling over and falling away like escaping liquid and in a dizzying shock of perspective Harvey sees himself, walking towards him, wearing exactly what he has on now, except as he approaches his hands go to his throat and his thumb pops the top button on his shirt and his fingers start to untangle the knot in his tie and -

“Harvey? HARVEY.”

Harvey blinks, and it’s like swimming to the surface. Mike is looking up at him in mild concern now and this is really turning out to be a strange day indeed.

“Dude, are you okay?”

“I’m fine, I must have spaced out for a second. It’s the decor and lack therof down here, sometimes it gives me migraines.”

And then they talk about a meeting Harvey wants Mike to sit in on this afternoon and Mike tries to engage him in what he must assume is witty banter and Harvey puts him swiftly and cruelly out of his misery, reminds him never to call him ‘dude’ ever again and walks away to get on with his day.

Turning around, the scene calls up something of the strange image of himself, but something is slightly off and he pauses, considering until he decides it’s the angle. It had almost been like he’d been looking up at himself. That’s weird. The whole thing is strange, he must he admit, but it’s not like it’d be the first time he had an unexpected fantasy about himself. He’s the most attractive man he’s ever seen, after all.

He goes about his business and thinks nothing more of it.

_____________________________________________________

Three days later they’re in the town car on the way back from the courthouse and it must be Mike’s turn to lose his mind, because he interrupts Harvey mid-lecture to say -

“Jesus, just put me over your knee and spank me already.”

Harvey turns to look at Mike so quickly he almost hits his head off the seat.

“What did you just say to me!?” he demands and Mike turns to face him, looks at Harvey like he’s just grown another head.

He’s genuinely confused and keeps insisting he didn’t say anything and the thing is Harvey wouldn’t believe him for a second because it’s not like Mike doesn’t interrupt him, doesn’t do so to accuse him of a penchant for corporal punishment on occasion, but the way Mike had said it …. his voice had sounded soft and close, like he’d leaned over to whisper in Harvey’s ear. But closer, both so much louder and so much quieter than that. It was like Harvey had thought it himself, in Mike’s voice. But he can’t have, because he knows beyond doubt that he’s never heard Mike’s voice sound like that - reaching for exasperation but falling flat in defeat instead, with a note of …. something that almost bordered on interest?

But that’s ridiculous. And Mike didn’t say it. And Harvey is starting to get just a little bit worried.

__________________________________________

Better make that ‘a whole lot’ worried when an incident the next day sees Harvey literally brought to his knees.

He inadvertently begins his day with an adventure when upon inquiring as to Mike’s whereabouts one of the non-Mike associates reveals that not only is Mike in the break room - but that Pearson Hardman has a break room. Not that Harvey would need to know this, as it’s unlikely things will ever reach so dire a state of emergency that he has to fetch his own beverages, but still. It irks him to think there’s a whole room down here that he didn’t know about.

Maybe this is where Louis hides from him, he’s thinking to himself as he follows not!Mike’s directions down the corridor beyond the cardboard cube extravaganza that he’s never been inclined to stray beyond before and finds himself standing in the doorway of what indeed does appear to be a break room. There are doughnuts and everything. He’s still marvelling at all of this brand new information when his appearance here obviously has just as startling an effect on another associate who is decidedly not Mike. When she moves to pass by him and looks up to see who he is, the shock registers on her face about as unnervingly as the cup of water she had been carrying drenches the front of Harvey’s jacket and seeps down through his waistcoat. She very wisely, very quickly exits without looking at him again and he sighs, before unbuttoning his jacket, taking it and his waistcoat off and rolling his shirt sleeves up over his forearms because the cuffs are damp and he can’t very well strip down to his skivvies in this brand new, now blessedly empty break room.

Or so he thinks.

But he’s proven wrong on both counts when he hears a choked sound from somewhere to his right and first sees Mike tucked in at a corner table half hidden by the door and then sees in stunning, dizzying detail himself doing just that.

This time the colors in the room don’t go all hippie hippie shake on him and it’s a far smoother transition but he’s watching himself from a perspective outside of his own, doing something he is quite confident he has not, is not and would not ever do. Instead of stopping at pushing up his shirtsleeves, this other alien version of himself tugs them right back down and unbuttons the shirt with what even Harvey can admit is impressive and mesmerizing intent. Shirtless then, he stalks across the room toward himself and this is so strange and also anatomically incorrect because his pectoral muscles are far more defined than that and he’s pretty sure these pants are not that tight but the ones before him do seem rather constricting so he idly concludes that if he really were wearing them maybe he would just start to unfasten and step out of them like that and -

And then Harvey is overcome by something else entirely, a feeling this time, if you could call it that. It washes over him in a molten wave, washes over his skin in a blazing caress, tugs hard low in his belly and makes his hands shake, leaves his knees weak.

It’s not this feeling that then brings Harvey to his knees, but feeling it drain away. It’s both easier and ten times more difficult to shake this time because he’s suddenly certain that this is something that is coming over him, taking him over, something resolutely not of his doing, not his at all. It hadn’t been an instant flood this time, not something that was there and gone before he had a chance to see it coming or watch it leave. This time both the image and the feeling (which - that was new) had pushed their way into his head, crowded to the forefront of his mind and then left just as they’d arrived - without Harvey’s involvement or permission.

He steadies himself with a hand on the counter and turns to look at Mike, who he hopes hasn’t noticed his strange and suddenly erratic behavior.

But it’s Mike that looks shell shocked - how Harvey feels written all over Mike’s face, better than he could have thought to describe it himself. The color has drained from Mike’s face and his jaw falls slack and he’s gaping at Harvey like he’s the one who just had his head invaded by outside forces.

And then, as Harvey watches Mike and sees clearly for himself and as himself that Mike’s mouth isn’t moving, he hears Mike speak.

“Oh, shit.”

Exactly.

And Harvey’s knees give out.

_______________________________________

Mike doesn’t realize what’s happening.

He darts to Harvey’s side and helps him to his feet and then he thinks about how worrying it is to see his mentor literally fall apart like that and how terrible Harvey looks and how he’s kind of sick for finding Harvey’s flush attractive and Harvey just stares and stares and stares and stares some more.

He assures Mike that he’s fine, then he goes back to his office and changes his clothes and that makes him feel a little less vulnerable, a little more put together. He sits down at his desk and tries to take stock of the situation.

He thinks of all of these incidents this week. The strange images of himself, the way he’d thought he was imagining Mike’s voice, that feeling that came over him in the break room and definitely was not something he was experiencing at the time. And most importantly - hearing Mike when he could see for himself that Mike wasn’t speaking.

Obviously the common denominator here is Mike and … Harvey can hear his thoughts and feel what he’s feeling. Maybe. Mike had been the only other person in the room at the time so it seems the logical conclusion. The images are a slightly more complex matter. When he thinks about it, he seems to have seen himself from Mike’s position in the room in both cases. But he’s seeing things that … let’s just say they’re not the kind of thoughts he would expect to find on Mike’s mind. And if he assumes that they are in fact Mike’s projected impressions he’s experienced and adds that to the things he’s apparently heard Mike think and what he can reasonably conclude was something Mike was feeling ….. this becomes a whole lot more potentially problematic. Not to mention infinitely more interesting.

Because to recap:
-Mike thinks about Harvey taking off his clothes when he sees him.
-He exasperatedly dares Harvey to spank him in his mind.
-He gets hit with tides of lust strong enough to have Harvey feeling ebbing licks of it even now, almost an hour later, and feels this way upon thinking of Harvey in decidedly unprofessional ways.

Like he said. Interesting.

_________________________________________________________

For the record, Harvey is neither blind nor inclined to overlook the blindingly obvious. He knows what Mike looks like, he’s seen what he’s capable of, and part of his motivation to hire him was thus clearly that at least if it all fell apart, Harvey would have had however long it took until it happened to let Mike realize that he wanted to sleep with him. A super genius by his side or a lithe young thing in his hands - it was a clear win / win.

And then their arrangement had continued to work and Harvey found himself fighting to keep Mike around and make sure their secret didn’t get out and cost him a brilliant if hapless sidekick of sorts.

So Harvey had done the adult, mature, professional thing and put all personal interest in Mike aside. His thoughts were his own business and it’s not like anyone could ever know what he thinks when Mike puts his hands in his pockets and makes the material of his pants stretch tight across that amazing ass, or that anyone who already thinks the way Harvey speaks to Mike is kind of commanding would likely faint if they heard how he finishes the orders in his head. But like he said, his thoughts are his own business. Or at least, he was previously secure in the premise that they were. Now he’s not so sure. What if Mike can hear his thoughts in return? And more importantly - to just how great an extent can Harvey hear Mike’s?

He sets about finding out.

______________________________________________

His fact finding mission begins the next day and Harvey first seeks to establish a field of effect. It’s a reckless move, but he takes Mike outside to the coffee cart under the guise of a mid-morning treat. He wants to see if it really is only Mike’s wavelength he’s picking up, and a crowded New York city street should either prove the point or kill him.

“Harvey, not that I don’t appreciate the thought, but I have like a thousand reports to go through before tomorrow and -”

Harvey takes him by the elbow and ushers him into the elevator. Doesn’t say anything, just looks at him. Stares, really. It’s enough to cut Mike off mid-sentence.

“Do I …. have something on my face?”

Mike looks mildly terrified.

Harvey hasn’t removed his hand yet and tightens his grip now, fingers pressing into the grooves of Mike’s elbow, squeezing gently. Encouragingly. He raises an eyebrow. Invitingly.

“Okay this is weird.”

‘Okay this is weird.’

Harvey lets go and turns away with a sigh. Hearing things Mike is prepared to say out loud is no fun at all.

They don’t talk as they make their way outside and Mike doesn’t think either. Nothing loud enough for Harvey to hear clearly, in any case. He doesn’t pick up on anything Harvey thinks very loudly and pointedly in his direction either, and Harvey is sure now that Mike can’t hear him in return because there’s no way he’d have been able to let that comment about why Harvey really thinks he’s so attached to his bike slide. He can hear Mike, but only sometimes and Mike doesn’t seem to be able to hear him at all. Progress.

He can hear a soft sort of buzzing whenever he steps in close to Mike, he finds. A whirring of what he can decipher at points as words if he really strains to listen and Mike reaches an idea or phrase that seems more important to him, worth stressing and enunciating, although this rarely happens and his thoughts seem for the most part to be a constant thrumming stream that Harvey can’t keep up with. Surprise, surprise, Mike is as hyper active and even more super human than he lets on. But he does make a very lovely noise when he takes the first sip of his coffee, the sound louder and richer than anything he’s thought so far next to Harvey. And he definitely thinks it, doesn’t make an audible sound at all, of this Harvey can be assured, because the two gentlemen standing in the queue behind them don’t drop to their knees or faint or start foaming at the mouth and thus can’t have heard what Harvey heard. A deep, rumbled groan of satisfaction that Harvey hears all too loudly and feels down to his toes. It’s different from everything else Harvey can half overhear going through Mike’s head. It’s pointed, sharp and focused and it sends a shiver through him, resonates in him like it was meant for him and was sinking into his skin, burrowing home.

Harvey is completely silent as they return to the office, half to keep a clear head for anything Mike might think and half because he doesn’t entirely trust himself to be able to open his mouth and say anything other than ‘What would it take for me to make you make that noise again?’.

He thinks he picks up the faint strains of Mike humming something that sounds suspiciously like the theme song from Doctor Who but that’s it until they step off the elevator and head in different directions - Harvey striding back to his office and Mike loping off toward his nest in the file room.

Except in an instant they’re back in the elevator. Completely alone this time, the eight other people they’d shared the ride with in reality now absent. It feels different than it had. The space smaller, air warm and charged. And then the elevator stops, clicks ominously to a halt and the doors don’t open, everything simply freezes. And Harvey notices then that they’re not standing side by side as they really did, but Mike is behind him, he feels the heat of his body along his back, the weight of his gaze making the skin at the base of Harvey’s neck prickle - whether in reality where he stands in the corridor or in this scene that isn’t his doing, he couldn’t say. But there, Mike steps right in behind him, one hand coming around Harvey’s waist and slipping under his jacket to seek the heat of his skin covered only by his thin shirt. He presses his mouth to the back of Harvey’s neck, in the elevator scene that never happened, catches the lip of Harvey’s shirt collar between his teeth and tugs it down, presses his nose into the hair at the base of Harvey’s skull and stills, stays close all around Harvey for a second.

And then someone drops a stack of files, the thwack of paper a startling sound in the space between Harvey and Mike and the scene dissipates as they both turn to look, gazes rising from the mess of paper to each other, across the hallway. Harvey dimly registers that his mouth is hanging open unattractively. Until Mike’s thought process helpfully informs him that it’s not an unappealing look for him at all, in fact quite the opposite and a faint blush rises on Mike’s throat to disappear with him as he hurries away.

Harvey decides that the only downside of making progress in figuring this lunacy out is finding that he has no idea what to do with the information it’s provided.

To blackmail or to torture? Harvey hates having to choose between his favorites.

___________________________________________

Harvey takes a few days to get used to the hum of Mike’s thoughts. He lets it wash over him as they work together, finds that if he concentrates just enough to not be too much, he can effectively replace his own stream of consciousness with Mike’s and still be aware of his own thought process without hearing it. It sounds insane and it feels even more bizarre, but it’s almost like he’s aware of both of them, as one. It’s soothing, he finds. He can’t always hear Mike’s thoughts in distinct words, but he can always tell what he feels, feels it himself like a faint echo when Mike gets irritated or angry or especially pleased.

Harvey also learns to tune Mike out. Sometimes because he just can’t concentrate with Mike yelling in his head about poor punctuation like every misplaced comma is a personal and wounding insult. Sometimes because they’re really exceptionally busy right now and as much as Harvey would like, he doesn’t have ten minutes to recover from seeing the kind of images Mike creates about his hands or his tie or his desk. Harvey can admit that he himself overlooked the last six of those positions and Mike’s proficiency for spatial awareness is absolutely to be commended, but he really can’t deal with the raging libido of a 26 year old while he’s trying to fix half the city’s problems in one afternoon. Even he has limitations.

He takes to sending Mike elsewhere to work, because he has found that the further Mike is from him physically the more distant and obscured his mental process becomes for Harvey. The less Harvey is tempted to tap into it, too. Mike’s thoughts are still there, the hum doesn’t ever disappear completely once Harvey learns to channel it, quiets to background noise that he can’t easily distinguish as noise at all, even though he knows it’s there - like the hum of electricity you know you can feel even when you can’t really claim to hear it.

For whatever reason, Harvey misses the connection after long days when he has to keep it at bay. So if Mike delights in the 'reward' of being permitted to sit in on a high profile client conference, Harvey is happy to let that sense of pride wash over both of them.

It's a particularly difficult case. Not anything Mike can actually contribute to at this point beyond his astonishing research and memory skill, so although he's been of immeasurable value thus far (not that Harvey will ever say as much, although he does hint at it by way of wayward pointed pangs of pride that he can't quite suppress fast enough, fierce fond appreciation that Mike can't feel through their one way system anyway) all he can really do is sit at the big boy table and listen and look pretty. He seems to be doing just that, taking strict but quiet stock of everything that's said in a soothing hum that Harvey is not surprised to find still helps him think, paces what he knows with an air of accidental factual support. It's a long and difficult exchange, divorce proceedings waged bitter and cruel like only a couple once in love could ever truly be, and for a time Harvey actually has to distantly resign himself to the idea that they might not win this one outright, may not actually be awarded every single term of their proposed and absolutely unfair 'agreement'. It's a sobering thought. And one he quickly dismisses, because for a split, heavy second his thoughts and Mike's seem to converge, to hone in on a single point and corner it from both sides. They advance, and meet in the middle, although Harvey has to be the one to bring it to conclusion, and it's ... union. There's no other word Harvey could think to describe it with, and Mike can't realize that he's helped, but it's clear and thrilling collaboration. The mental equivalent of someone laying a supportive hand on your arm, multiplied and magnified ten fold, made intimate. It's Mike's words in Harvey's head, gently shaped and cradled by Harvey's cognitive process, and what comes out of Harvey's mouth then is theirs.

It's a game-changer. They have opposing council exactly where they want now, but Harvey won't really realize that for several moments yet.

Caught up in the sheer thrill of thinking with Mike, taking this thing that much further in seemingly subconsciously unlocking the process to allow the merging of their ideas .... something clicks into place and something else falls away entirely and Harvey forgets to keep a general block on the flood of Mike's thoughts, feelings, mental images, everything. What follows is not an instant onslaught like the others have been. It's Harvey pulled suddenly underwater, held there, in it. It's everything, all three at once. Later when he tries to separate it all out, he'll remember the feeling first. Pride. Excitement. Relief. Gratitude. Absolution. All at once, all in a tumble, singing through Mike's mind and straight into Harvey's. It feels like gold – warm, liquid gold licking at Harvey's nerves, spilling out all over his skin. Thoughts, next. Too fast, too happy to decipher. Mike is joyous, ecstatic and encouraging to a point that Harvey himself has never known, thrilled not by the victory in the case, but Harvey's ability, Harvey's skill therein. The fact that Mike had seen the same opening, a clear accomplishment even in Harvey's eyes, barely registers for Mike. Of course it doesn’t. Harvey had forgotten that he couldn't feel him, couldn't hear him in return. It's sobering when he realizes it, the odd dichotomy of such boundless pleasure weighted with regret. And in the second that Harvey takes to feel this, distracted by the introduction of his own feelings, it hits. The image. More solid and tangible, detailed and clear beyond the haze they’ve been before. Impossible to ignore. Inexorable.

Harvey sits where he is, in his seat at the table. But Mike isn’t beside him anymore, not a hand span away to his left. He’s sitting on the table, perched right at the edge, with his feet braced on the edge of Harvey’s chair, his thighs bracketing the long line of Harvey’s body where it pitches forward, so he leans right up into Mike, hands curved up and over Mike’s hips, pulling him in closer, keeping them grounded there. They’re curled together, pushing as far into one another’s space as they can feasibly get and it’s the most intimate thing Harvey has ever felt. He sees it in such vivid, excruciating detail and this time he feels it too, hears Mike’s thoughts both in the moment he’s imagining and as he imagines it and Harvey is lost to it, caught on the quiet content murmur of Mike’s thoughts in the scene he’s seeing, how he leans into Harvey and closes his eyes and just rests his forehead against Harvey’s, sets his nose in along Harvey’s like a soft little ‘hello, hi, I’m here’ and it’s … it’s simple, gratified satisfaction. He’s in Mike’s head, hearing his thoughts and sifting through his feelings and all he finds is quiet pride, fond, fierce admiration and a slightly desperate, aching pang of want. It floors him. Still in Mike’s head, seeing what Mike wants, it undoes Harvey. He shakes with it, inside and out of this space and there, where it isn’t real, where Mike wants it most, Harvey reaches out. His hands leave Mike’s hips and everything stops, the whole scene frozen and poised to shatter. But he can’t help it, couldn’t stop himself now even if he wanted to and he keeps reaching. He leans in, impossibly closer and one hand slips in under Mike’s jacket, finds the slight curve of his ribs through his shirt and holds on, pulls him in. His other hand goes to Mike’s throat, thumb riding the dip of Mike’s adam’s apple, pushing Mike’s chin higher so Harvey can nose in underneath it, press his face into the soft heat of his throat and breathe him in. And he does, he has that, he gets it for a tortuously long, far too short moment, and then it’s gone. Mike quivers under his hands and then he inhales, sharp and loud. His head snaps forward, away from Harvey’s grasp and he looks right at him, sees him, here where Harvey shouldn’t really be, not twice, not real, not touching Mike in ways he didn’t think up himself, and it shatters around them.

The room is silent, cold and distant even though it is the reality. Everyone on the opposite side of the table is otherwise occupied, leafing through sections of the agreement and speaking low and urgent to one another. To his far right the client is watching this, straining to hear. To his immediate right Jessica is starting to turn to Harvey, considering. But he looks away. Turns his head slow like time is molasses in the air and looks at Mike, now a thousand miles away on his left. He looks into Mike’s eyes, huge and fraught like their scene had been, ready to crack apart at a second’s notice and he isn’t far away at all. Too far, but right there in Harvey’s mind, and it isn’t a thought he puts into words or images, but Harvey gets every little detail of it nonetheless. It’s nothing but blind, horrified panic.

__________________________________________

They don't talk about it.

Mike keeps shooting Harvey these petrified little considering glances when he thinks Harvey isn't looking. And Harvey isn't looking, but he's still listening. He doesn't know how he did it – how he was able to get so deep into this that he was able to manipulate Mike's thoughts .... in his own head, he thinks. He experiences things that Mike feels and thinks, in sound and image and pure visceral sensation, but it's all still staying in Mike, behind whatever barriers are generally in place to keep people from spilling over into one another. It's Harvey that is intruding there, has somehow gained access to what was never meant to be his. He knows that now, and for the first time he experiences guilt because of it. Everything before now was ... excusable, understandable inaction. He didn't always try to ignore what was incorrectly made available to him. But now he has reached out, tried to take something that didn't belong to him. It's quite astonishing, considering the kinds of things he's seen and felt and heard Mike want, but now for the first time Harvey feels a little dirty.

Mike starts to censor his thoughts. Harvey knows, because he's paying closer attention than ever. He barely lets Mike leave his side and Donna has started to jokingly comment on their co-dependence. Harvey tells himself it's because he wants to make sure Mike is okay, wants to ensure that he isn't too freaked out by what happened, by what he did. There is an underlying need to ascertain whether or not Mike suspects that Harvey had an active hand in any of it. Deeper still, Harvey's motivations are simply selfish, pure raw greed. This part of him is fiercely satisfied by what he finds all over Mike, all through him. Because for all that Mike worries that Harvey somehow heard and saw what he was thinking, incessantly obsesses about whether or not Harvey can hear him now, or now, or how about now? The fear is tinged with daring, ecstatic shocks of hope. Hope that even if Harvey can for some reason see inside his head, was actually responsible for hijacking his daydream, he was ultimately responsible for what happened in it – it was his decision to reach out to Mike, to pull him in closer, to further this. Mike tries to hide it, frustratingly cuts off his daydreams and doesn't finish thoughts when he remembers why he shouldn't, but the point is – he still wants to think those things, they are habit and instinct and he has to fight that to keep it locked away.

Harvey doesn't know where they go from here.

Mike, whether he really realizes he's doing so or not, takes that decision off the table for Harvey.

They're in Harvey's office in the middle of the night. Well, it's 11pm so it's probably mid-afternoon in Mike's schedule, but Harvey isn't accustomed to staying late. He doesn't have to be here, and they both know it, but Harvey half thinks that he needs to spend as much time with Mike as he can for protective reasons – so he's around to soothe Mike's near-constant worry that Harvey had seen what he saw and is now horrified by Mike's very existence. But the other half of him isn't quite ready to admit (although he acquiesces to the urge) that he kind of wants to be around Mike all the time, whether he's inadvertently winning their cases with unintentional and hopelessly endearing displays of utter brilliance, winning their cases with absolutely intentional and stunningly attractive displays of utter brilliance, or hanging off Donna's desk like a spider monkey, 'regaling' her with truly terrible movie references and impressions while he takes a break from eating highlighters and reading everything. It's becoming a problem. Even at home, when Harvey can still catch the faint hum of Mike's thoughts half a city away, it's not enough. There's never a time when he doesn't want more, want him closer, just .. want him, period. It’s a truth he tries not to examine too closely, even if it’s one he can’t outright deny, even to himself.

Harvey would like to be able to think that that excuse might act as adequate cover for what happens then, that it even begins to explain why he not only lets it happen, but pushes it, makes it worse. But really, it doesn’t come close.

They barely have enough work between them to keep one of them here late tonight. Harvey is repeating every sentence he reads twice, to drag the evening out, and Mike is only reading about five pages per minute so Harvey knows he’s doing the same.

They’re looking for suspiciously absent monetary transactions in the financial files of a consulting company that is trying to screw their client out of money for work that actively advises said client to play directly into a competitors hands. It could wait until tomorrow. It could wait until early next week. But Mike had spent all day cutting off almost every single thought, feeling and visual instinct he found himself starting. And when he’d mentally begged Harvey to give them a reason to stick around, stressed the ‘them’ … Harvey couldn’t resist that kind of temptation, couldn’t refuse Mike much at all these days. He’s starting to get it - the masochistic streak Mike has shown Harvey the light of. There is nothing quite like the aching, delicious torment of testing yourself like this - keeping what you want and yet know you can’t really have on hand at all times - on hand but never under hand, there for you to constantly look at, and know you can’t touch. It’s the best kind of foreplay and the fact that it probably won’t ever be more than that just makes it all the better.

And so Harvey has already had to jerk off four times today. And that’s since arriving at work, no mention at all of the leisurely thirty minutes he’d spent in the shower this morning, fucking the soapy slick grip of his fist and thinking it was something - someone - else entirely.

The point is - Harvey’s self restraint is strained to say the least right now, and Mike picks a terrible, perfect time to test it.

Because when Mike’s next visual escapade reaches the point at which he’s been cutting them short all day - namely the point at which Harvey starts to get really, really interested in where this is going - Mike lets it play out.

He pictures them rising together to leave, filing everything away for the morning, grabbing their bags and putting on their jackets and at first Harvey thinks that Mike just wants to get out of here, that all he’s longing for right now is freedom. But the image plays on and Harvey makes it sharper, tunes it closer, grateful for the chance to stay here in Mike’s mind for the moment.

There, Harvey stops by his desk to switch off his computer and then follows Mike to the door, where Mike pauses just ahead of him, unmoving, so Harvey has to reach around him and in front of him to flip the light switch. And then they’re paused there, just outside the light, Harvey’s office suddenly pitch black but low lights out in the empty corridor creating soft shadow around the lines of their bodies, reflected as one on the floor next to Donna’s desk.

There, Harvey doesn’t step back out of Mike’s space, presses in close instead. Stands a little taller than Mike, just an inch or so until Mike melts back into him, slumps back in against Harvey’s chest. Harvey’s hand stays in front of Mike, he leans in against the hold, and they stand balanced like that - Harvey pushing forward and Mike falling back into him, into his touch. For just a second, it’s still. Safe and familiar. Until Mike slips a little lower, drops his hips just right and grinds his ass back against Harvey, rubs back against Harvey’s cock, instantly hardening under the touch.

Why is Mike letting Harvey see this? Why isn’t he stopping it short like he has all day? Why is he pausing in his mind, stilling against Harvey like he’s waiting for him, daring him to do something.

And Harvey didn’t mean to do it the last time, doesn’t mean to do it now. He makes no conscious effort to further Mike’s fantasies, but he sees what Mike wants and instantly knows what he wants and the sheer force of that sets it in motion, pushes it into action. Even if only in Mike’s mind.

There, Harvey snaps into action when Mike lifts both hands to the glass door in front of them and pushes back against Harvey, pushes him too far. Harvey reacts. He grabs Mike’s hips in his hands and pulls him back, yanks him back into Harvey’s space even though that’s where he’s trying to go anyway. He uses the hold to manipulate Mike’s movements, to drag Mike’s hips low so Harvey’s cock can ride the dip of ass, close as he can get with all of these clothes between them. He groans against the back of Mike’s neck when he thinks about what it might be like to get closer. He pushes the collar of Mike’s shirt lower with his chin and sets his teeth just under Mike’s hairline, bites gently and then not gently at all when Mike moans, low and obscene and Harvey feels it against his lips.

This has already gone so far past the point of anything they’ve done here, like this, anything Mike has even unknowingly let Harvey see, and he isn’t stopping, isn’t pushing Harvey out, isn’t freaking out about what’s happening, what’s passing between them.

He drives it on. He reacts to Harvey and goes further, lets it spiral in his mind.

There, Mike reaches back, gets a hand on Harvey’s ass and tries to control what they’re doing, how they’re rutting against one another greedy and rough and impatient. And then he turns, twists his head up to the side and Harvey can see the silhouette of his mouth, fallen open and slick, bottom lip shining when his tongue leaves it. Harvey can’t resist that, couldn’t resist it here or there or anywhere at all, and he leans in, catches Mike’s mouth with his own, tastes the wet shadow of his mouth where it taunts him and ….

He feels it. Harvey really feels it when he slips his tongue inside Mike’s slack, inviting mouth and tastes the way Mike is panting, gasping as he struggles to keep his breathing under control and suck on Harvey’s tongue at the same time. Harvey feels it, the promise of Mike’s mouth closing around him, keeping him right where he wants and god, the things he wants to do to this mouth, this man.

“Harvey!”

It’s whispered, sharp and deafening and slicing right through the visual.

Harvey can barely understand the fact that they’re back in the same office, too bright and too quiet, far too much space between them. He can’t stand it at all. His head is spinning and he could swear he can feel the kiss still, can actually feel it on his lips.

“HARVEY!”

He doesn’t look at Mike. Can’t trust himself to do so right now.

“What!”

“Did you feel it that time?”

And Harvey forgets to ache for the taste of Mike that he’s never had, because ….

“This time? Feel what?”

The question is predictably, naturally a little hysterical and Mike’s eyes are wide now, but not wide like they’ve been all week, his gaze steady.

“When you kissed me just now. When I thought it.”

Neither of them flinch, but the color drains from Harvey’s face.

“I … I didn’t mean to … Mike I haven’t … I wasn’t trying to … I don’t know how this happened. I didn’t do this on purpose. I don’t want to know what you’re thinking!”

Harvey says it in a rush, spills his words like they might mop up the mess he’s likely making, like if they’re fast enough they might staunch the flow of Mike losing his mind and running from this, running from Harvey.

But Mike’s mind goes from quiet to deathly silent, and for the first time in almost two weeks, when Harvey reaches out to hear him, all he gets is cold empty silence. Nothing. Less than before. It’s like Mike has curled in on himself, mentally and physically as he turns away from Harvey on the couch, starts to gather his things.

“I see. I’m .. I don’t understand it either, but I’ll do my best to see that it stops. I’m sorry.”

And then he’s gone, and Harvey is still stuck on the fact that he just kissed Mike in his mind and felt it on his lips and now everything is too quiet, Mike’s thoughts and feelings and everything, all of it, has gone static and loud and why does he feel so alone, so agonized by simple silence and he means to further assure Mike that he wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, wasn’t trying to invade his private thoughts, that he didn’t mean for any of this to happen but.

Mike is gone.

__________________________________________

They go back to not talking about it. Except now it feels more like Not Talking about it. It’s always there, heavy around them, pushing into the space between them and forcing them further apart.

Mike seems to have figured out a way to block the connection. Harvey tries not to reach out, tries not to seek the sound of comfort, and never does so consciously. But sometimes he can’t help it, sometimes he doesn’t even realize he has sought the contact until the cold shock of something made of steel and pure wrought determination shuts him out and sees that he stays there. It’s worse than finding nothing. It’s the painful, aching knowledge that Mike is keeping Harvey as far away as he can push him and Harvey is miserable.

Naturally that means everyone is miserable.

Mike is as tense and jumpy as he’d been during their first really serious set of depositions together, now known as The Week Of Ten Thousand Red Bulls. What’s absent though, is the jittery exuberance. He stands so stiff it’s like he’s trying to physically keep himself together, his mouth a constantly tight drawn line, the same force of effort bleeding his lips white like the knuckles of his clenched fists.

Harvey wants to soothe the strain from his body. Wants to pull Mike into his arms and feel the tension fall away and take that stupid wall between them with it, needs to feel it crumble like bricks of sand.

Harvey doesn’t know what to do. Has no idea how to even begin trying to win Mike’s trust back. He feels like everything he starts to say, every deliberate and considered nicety he forces into conversation sounds like nothing more than hollow, cheap platitudes. He doesn’t know how to tell Mike that he’s truly sorry, that he doesn’t even want the closeness he stole back, he just needs them to be like they were before, comfortable around one another even if they can’t be comfortable with one another any more. He can’t begin to imagine a sentiment that could accurately reflect how much he just needs Mike back. There, at least, if he can’t have him closer.

It kills him to think that that’s gone forever, somewhere he can never be again because he took it before he earned it and broke it before he ever even had it. But he thinks maybe that’s what he deserves for letting himself believe that it could be real. Mike didn’t mean for him to see it. Probably didn’t really mean it at all. And Harvey deserves whatever he suffers for letting himself start to hope otherwise.

So he mopes. Silently and stoically.

Mike winds tighter and tighter until Harvey’s sure he’s bound to snap.

Donna says Harvey has to write a botox rate into her contract because they’re both giving her frown lines deeper than any natural remedy can combat.

Even Jessica calls Harvey into her office to ask if Louis has been stealing his lunch money.

The real measure of the severity of all this is that Harvey doesn’t then launch into his usual tirade on The Incompetence of Louis Litt.

The situation looks set to prove fatal for the entire floor.

And then it gets worse.

______________________________________________

Mike needs his help. And Harvey knows the situation has to be truly dire because when Mike calls him and says he needs him the words are only half panicked, pressed into his ear like Mike is physically dragging them out of himself, couldn’t coax them free otherwise.

He quickly and concisely explains the situation and Harvey hears everything he leaves out, louder than anything he says, almost as loud as his thoughts had been in Harvey’s head. Harvey doesn’t remember a single thing he says in response, but his promises to fix this are instant and vowed and taste like blood on his tongue.

Mike is in trouble and Harvey is going to fix this.

He doesn’t remember getting downtown, doesn’t remember calling Donna to dig up everything she can find on every security guard that works in this building, isn’t aware of any choice to memorize this information but here he is forty minutes later, standing in the lobby reeling off researched threats to make this man’s life a misery if he doesn’t forgo any and all intention he has to do anything that could hurt Mike and Harvey will never know how his voice and his hands stay steady when he feels like every nerve in his body is being twisted apart by fear and stale ferrous regret.

He can’t look at Mike until he’s sure this is handled, sure he’s as safe as Harvey can keep him and when he finally can he wishes he hadn’t. Mike’s head rises from where he’s been cradling it in his hands, heavy like it weighs a tonne and the second their eyes meet everything that Mike has been working so hard to conceal rushes forward, falls over into Harvey’s head, his hands, his heart.

Relief. Shame. The same thick regret that’s making it hard for Harvey to swallow. A wave of resigned, dull pain that cuts like a rusted blade - not deep or lasting but slow and relentless and swimming slick through all of Mike, coating everything. And then, last and least and maybe even more painful than the rest - veneration. Fierce admiration and wretched, stubborn awe, heaving sobs of grateful trust and quiet gasped faith that makes Harvey turn on his heel, walk away and out of the building and out into air that isn’t so full of Mike’s feelings that Harvey can’t breathe it in without drowning, his lungs flooded with bitter anguish.

He has taken cruel advantage of Mike. Even though he didn’t set out to do so, he has abused the most basic level of trust Mike could ever have had in him. And now that he sees (feels when he shouldn’t, even now when they both know he shouldn’t) how far beyond that it stretched, how endless and steadfast it really is, the reality of what he once had the chance to earn and keep is devastating as loss.

Mike follows him, several long paces behind, out to the town car and they head out to bring Mike home in silence so fragile Harvey barely dares to move in it.

Mike’s thoughts flow freely, and now that he isn’t trying, Harvey can feel the toll that keeping the wall steady and sure between them has taken on Mike. He’s exhausted. Frayed and raw and at first Harvey can’t even hear his own thoughts over the roar of Mike’s surging tides, though he tries so hard to keep it out. Eventually it tapers off, dries up and starts to wane.

Then, Harvey prays for the flood. Begs any deity that might be listening to make it pour again.

Because when Mike’s thoughts and feelings pitter patter out, they come as hiccoughed notes wrenched from his very belly, soft sobs that feel like pleas.

The second Mike slips inside the front door of his building Harvey opens his door and dry heaves into the gutter.

__________________________________________________________

Harvey didn’t sleep that night. The gentle, low hum of Mike thinking is back and it torments him. He keeps it at bay with nothing but the force of a will that isn’t entirely his own, not really. He still wants to hear it all. Wants to slip inside that space just beyond himself where it isn’t just him anymore, it’s more than that because it’s him wrapped up quiet and cool and new with Mike all over him, with him - in his head and on his mind and now soft memories along his skin, everywhere.

Harvey can’t do it. It’s all he wants and it’s right there all the time now, back with a force that wasn’t there before and if he lets himself have it again …. he won’t be able to let it go.

He stays away from it, never further than just beyond deciphering the words, his hands across the layers of Mike’s feelings but not dipping inside to pull them apart and tell them one from the other.

It’s always there, just within his reach, but Harvey never stretches out to touch.

That gets more difficult to do, impossibly so, when Mike starts to push.

Harvey can tell from the force, the lack of control behind it, that Mike doesn’t mean to. But his thoughts and his feelings are rolling off of him in thick waves, filling corridors now where they were curled whispers in Harvey’s ear before. It’s an unfocused, angry buzz and it doesn’t sit exactly right with Harvey, doesn’t feel like a pointed reaction to what he’s done which is what he expects Mike to be feeling, what he thinks Mike should be feeling. It’s more like blind frustration. It feels like a struggle. Like Mike is at war with everything around him, caught in the very centre of something that’s driving him mad, making him rapidly lose any control he might once have had.

Harvey assumes it’s simply another problem. Something else entirely that’s making Mike like this. He’s maybe a little relieved, half hopeful that this will be somehow worse than his sins, something he can fix without getting too close, some way he can say he’s sorry. A chance for penance.

He doesn’t know how to ask what’s wrong without having to explain how he knows something is wrong in the first place and he doesn’t feel like he’s earned the right to have Mike trust him if he says that he didn’t pry, didn’t look deeper than the palpable surface.

But Mike saves him the trouble of having to figure out a way to broach the subject by laying it out like a fresh kill at his feet.

Not that he means to. It’s an accident of sorts. Anybody could have been rounding the corner at just the right time to catch the tail end of Mike’s conversation with Rachel. They weren’t lowering their voices, speaking at the doorway to the file room where anyone at all could have passed by and picked up the threads of their exchange. But that conversation isn’t the one that tells Harvey how stupid he’s been, and no-one else at all could ever know what he hears. He’ll realize afterward that it’s a clear invitation. Thoughts voiced ringing and clear, gift wrapped and offered up for him alone, scattered loaves always meant to tempt him closer, drag him in. The return of Mike’s presence around Harvey was never an accident, never tired surrender or bitter refusal to play a part in something not his doing, not his fault.

It’s wrecked resignation. Reckless honesty to answer a question that Mike thinks Harvey already refused.

“.............. it’s not like that, Rachel,” Mike is saying, hushed and bristling.

“Everybody breaks that particular rule a time or two, Mike, don’t be so naive. Besides, this isn’t like that. Don’t you see the way he looks at you?”

“He doesn’t look at me at all, now. Now that he knows.”

“It’s not like that. He doesn’t want me like that,” Mike insists, but the

“He doesn’t want me at all,” is soft, lodging deep and thick in Mike’s throat, Harvey can feel it, can hear and feel and see it all now that he sees the hand extended to him. Now that he’s finally paying attention to something besides all of the things he’s been trying to ignore.

Mike slumps against the doorway, one shoulder catching his weight and he feels drained. Empty and rejected, inside out and not enough and sore for that, raw and angry and hurt.

Harvey is an idiot.

An ecstatic idiot.

He takes what’s always been offered to him and follows it home.

Harvey waits approximately fourteen seconds and congratulates himself on a sincere and taxing effort before he strides up to Mike intent on fixing this. He pauses between Mike and Rachel in the doorway and looks at Mike, can’t look anywhere else, even when he’s bluntly but not unkindly informing Rachel that she needs to be somewhere else now. Out of the corner of his eye he sees her grin and toss him a little mock salute and that’s nice, she’s an incredibly under-appreciated paralegal and Harvey’s going to see about getting her a raise just as soon as he does something about the swell of panic and dread Mike is sending his way. Harvey can’t take his eyes off him, can’t understand how he didn’t see it before, can’t even begin to imagine how he can hear Mike’s fucking thoughts and still managed to make such a mess of all of this. Mostly, he can’t believe that he is ever able to look at Mike and look away because even in mild terror he is utterly gorgeous and impossibly more so now for the fact that when Harvey looks he knows he can, knows he isn’t doing anything wrong. Knows that all of those things Mike thought about, all the things he felt and saw when he looked at Harvey … they weren’t idle curiosities or brief meaningless fantasy. He meant it all and he thinks Harvey knew that and he thinks ….

Everything falls into place for Harvey. He thinks back to the conversation they’d had after that not-kiss, thinks back to how he’d tried to explain that he didn’t mean to trespass into Mike’s private thoughts. He thinks about how he said he didn’t want to know what Mike was thinking. He thinks about how he didn’t mean that at all and how it must have sounded.

When Harvey reaches this particular nugget of horrific realization, everything collapses into a kind of sonic boom.

He’s still looking at Mike but then he’s looking at himself and then he can’t really see anything at all because he’s so close it’s like he’s in Mike’s thoughts and it’s so loud and so brittle and panicked that Harvey doesn’t even have time to think about it himself, let alone say something to clear this whole thing up once and for all out loud - it’s instant reflex for him to reach out and they’re together now, together here, together in the middle of a tumble of everything that’s happened between them lately and Harvey is showing Mike. He shows him the moment he realized he could hear Mike’s thoughts, pushes the inexplicably warm and comfortable fit he’d found there over into Mike. He shows him how he felt when he realized Mike was having debauched thoughts about him - the automatic hot heat of god, yes. He shows Mike what he meant when said he didn’t want to hear his thoughts, shows him how terrible he’s felt for all of this and then Mike starts pushing it back, spreads soothing reassurance through everything and a softly chanted ‘it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay’. They go through these past few days together, still not understanding how this is possible, and stitching together the timeline, the potholes and pitfalls of where they went wrong instantly obvious and redundant and filled in then, full with understanding and paved over with quiet apologies.

When it ends, when Harvey comes back to himself, he finds he’s standing with his hands on Mike’s shoulders, thumbs stealing up over the pressed edge of his shirt collar to find skin. Mike’s eyes are closed and Harvey has never felt so sure of anything, so close to anyone, so understood by another human being. They’re themselves and alone in that like everyone is but they have this extra thread of there, them now and it’s so full, so perfect it makes Harvey’s heart ache with the weight of it all, makes his knees threaten to buckle under him in overcome relief.

Mike opens his eyes and looks right into Harvey’s, face so open and honest and hungry that Harvey gasps and then Mike’s jaw sets and he bites his bottom lip like it’s taking everything he’s got to not jump Harvey then and there and Harvey dips into his mind and finds the stark, detailed image of Mike jumping Harvey then and there and his knees do buckle at that, just slightly, but it doesn’t matter because he has moved one hand to the wall behind Mike’s head to support the fraction of his weight that isn’t currently focused on pushing Mike up against the wall so Harvey can tip his head back and kiss into his mouth all of the things they’re both thinking right now and don’t have the patience to stop and say. Mike opens right up for him and when he’s sucking on Harvey’s tongue he’s thinking about something else entirely. Harvey’s hips jerk up into Mike’s and nothing is better than this, nothing compares to being flush against Mike’s body and Mike’s mind with Mike’s hands fisted in his jacket and Mike’s mouth under his. Harvey distantly wonders if it’s possible to physically fall apart under the strain of simple want and then Mike pulls away, pushes Harvey away with firm hands on his chest and the way he says Harvey’s name makes him shudder against the distance and Mike has to repeat it because Harvey forgets to not think about all the things he wants to do to Mike right now.

“Harvey!” Mike is stern now, a little scandalized.

Harvey struggles through the haze of his lust to remember that Mike hasn’t always been able to see his thoughts, hasn’t had weeks to get used to it like Harvey has.

“Sorry, sorry,” Harvey murmurs and he tries to move in closer again, slides his hands in under Mike’s jacket and tries to pull his shirt up out of his pants but Mike is slapping his hands away and why is he doing that -

“Because we have to meet a client in five minutes! Don’t … think at me like that, one of us has to be responsible!”

It’s not often that Harvey thinks Mike is wrong, but he disagrees with him vehemently on this, and says as much. He ‘says’ so with helpful images illustrating just how much he’d rather push Mike back into the file room and up onto a table so Harvey could maybe get their pants down, maybe take both of their cocks in his slick palm, he’s seen the thoughts Mike has about his long, tanned fingers and he could -

“Harvey!!!!”

Mike is thinking in hysterical punctuation now, so Harvey concedes maybe this is not the best time to explore the extent of this mental connection and all the fun they could have with it. But he does so grudgingly, and under great duress, let that be known.

“Yeah yeah, you’re so put upon. Jesus. This is going to be the worst hour of my life, isn’t it?”

Mike is straightening out his clothes and scrubbing a hand through his hair and he shoots Harvey one last dark, promising look before walking away.

Harvey just smirks and follows him, all the while decidedly and loudly thinking about Mike’s ass.

It’s about time this telepathy thing started paying off.

________________________________________________________

It should be awkward. It should be messy and confusing and downright weird. And it is messy, because they haven't quite got the many complicated nuances of a mind meld down just yet, so even when they're very pointedly focusing on keeping their thoughts pg-13 they can still hear everything the other thinks or feels and anything they say out loud echoes like church bells through the room. They overlap and intertwine and Harvey wonders if this is what Mike felt when it was a one way thing. Mike absentmindedly informs him that that was a fraction of this, nothing nearly so consuming. It was kind of like the feeling you get when you suspect someone is staring at you, a distant focus of awareness that Mike felt from the inside out, hiding along his nerves and cradling his mind. Before Harvey can finish asking, Mike answers that he started to recognize the presence as Harvey when it noticed it felt familiar, welcomed like no-one but Harvey would be to Mike's thoughts.

And that part is a little difficult for both of them. The first integral drawback of this. Mike can't hide anything. Everything he thinks and feels is on offer. And it's the same for Harvey now and they each assure the other at the same time that they have nothing to hide from them and marvel at how often that happens – how often it is the case that their instincts and urges overlap and come identically. They have no idea how long this is going to last, to what extent if any it will remain between them, but even if it were to die out tomorrow they'd still know that right now they want the same things, when it comes to them their thoughts and desires and intentions are identical.

It feels like shared consciousness in far more ways than the most instant and obvious.
Although they doubt the client would be any more relieved to know that they're finishing one another's thoughts just as often as they're finishing one another's sentences and doing both completely by accident.

As meetings go, it's fine. It's a preliminary welcome meeting for a brand new client, a quick and easy introduction to the fact that Pearson Hardman are the best and with Harvey on their team they can boast the best of the best. Assured of this, the client leaves satisfied and most importantly – leaves.

And then they're free to peel back the insulation and spark like live wires again.

Walking back to Harvey's office they pass Louis, who is so perplexed by and suspicious of the way Harvey tries and fails to shush Mike's surprised bark of laughter because he's too busy struggling to stay composed himself that he forgets to make snide comments about either of them.

“A donkey, Harvey!? Seriously?”

“He uses that pony thing way too often. And have you seen his teeth?”

Mike's most immediate associative memory of Louis' teeth is the horrific recollection of Louis thinking he'd sold Rachel out, and he shudders when he remembers Louis' hands on his shoulders, his teeth close enough for Mike to hear the faint snap of them as he'd spoke.

Harvey growls beside him, a hint of a hiss that roars thunderous in Mike's ears. He reaches out and puts a hand on Mike's shoulder and to anyone they pass it looks like a normal gesture between conversing colleagues but only because no-one could possibly know that Harvey is digging his fingers in hard enough to pinch and thinking about setting his teeth at the base of Mike's throat, sucking sharp above the swell of his collarbone until all Mike can fill is a singing rush of blood vessels breaking open to spell out Harvey's name, signed sore on the dotted line. Mike shudders again, for an entirely different reason then, and it quiets the indignant roar of Harvey's instincts, channels them to sated, rumbled satisfaction.

They glide past Donna, who can’t even close her mouth long enough to snap a retort at Harvey when he airily informs her that he and Mike are leaving shortly and that unless someone dies he isn’t to be contacted. She’s shocked, and they get it. They feel it, so if anyone picks up on the slightest hint of what that must look like, crackling hot in the air around them, it’s only Donna who notices the change. It’s always been there, they’ve always had crazy kinetic chemistry, but what was force and argument is now flowing in a loop, feeding off itself and winding hot around them.

Even when they’re not explicitly thinking about it, it’s there now, the hot, heavy knowledge that just as soon as they can get behind closed doors, they’re going to fall into this headfirst. They’re going to shut everything but each other out and get lost.

Harvey worries that they won’t find their way back. Won’t want to return from a place that’s just them, together without distraction.

Mike is worried that it won’t be what they think, can’t possibly be more than it already is.

Harvey looks up sharply when he feels that.

He’s all the way across the room, behind his desk, sorting away open files while Mike sits and patiently waits for him. But when Harvey looks up, looks at Mike, they have a split second of eye contact and then he’s instantly kneeling before Mike instead. A solid, straining force pushing Mike’s thighs apart and leaning up to kiss him breathless. His hands slide back to cup Mike’s ass, to pull him forward in the seat. Mike lifts his legs and locks them tight around Harvey’s hips, lets his weight shift down to line them right up, both of them halfway to hard in their trousers since Harvey had Mike up against the file room door. Harvey groans at the contact, presses up and in and his mind unfurls around them, lets loose a hushed flow. He’s thinking about all the things he wants to do to Mike, telling him all the things he’s thought about them doing together.

“Want to drag you down onto the floor and peel every stitch of clothing off you, push your hands up over your head and press your hips down into the carpet and taste every inch of your skin, listen to you lose your mind under my mouth. Lick into you till you’re dripping wet and begging me to fuck you. Curl my fingers up into you, get you nice and slick and when you think you can’t hold on any longer, when all I can hear is your thoughts and your words and the sounds you make for me, all I can feel is you and your body telling me how much you want it -”

Mike pushes him away. Channels everything he has to force Harvey out and away, shakes with the effort of closing his mind against the onslaught.

When he opens his eyes Harvey has slumped forward, palms flat against the desk and his head hanging low between his shoulders. He lifts it to look at Mike, questioning.

“Consider me convinced, but I’m not letting you make me come in my pants at the office, Harvey.”

His tone brokers no argument and Harvey raises an interested eyebrow at it.

“You are unbelievable, and I don’t mean that as a compliment. Hurry up, we’re leaving right now.”

The ‘I’m not doing this anywhere that doesn’t have four non-transparent walls and a bed with sheets that I can completely defile you on’ is unspoken, and deafening.

Harvey’s concerns remain to be addressed. But really, there’s only one way to do so.

________________________________________

They go to Mike’s apartment because it’s closer. Because it’s quicker, and because Mike thinks that if they have to wait one unnecessary second longer to get their hands on one another, they might accidentally cause an earthquake or shift the whole world off it’s axis or something. Harvey wordlessly agrees, smooths a hand down Mike’s spine and fervently tries to keep his racing thoughts under control, tries to keep the desire that’s been building in the pit of his stomach for what feels like forever from spilling over into Mike, from getting loose and taking both of them under.

It works, barely, and they make it to Mike’s apartment, up the stairs of his damp, crumbling building and in beyond the creaking scrape of his rusting door and into his crappy, cold apartment that might just be Harvey’s favorite place on earth because it has a door and it has walls and it has Mike and when that door slides home it’s just them, finally free to let go.

Mike takes Harvey’s hand and leads him to his bedroom and they stand for a second like that, hand in hand at the foot of Mike’s unmade bed, and don’t look at one another. Mike takes a deep breath and lets it go, lets it take every remaining barrier between them when he breathes out slowly.

The rush of want sears through them, burns through the air and lays waste to the silence, the air, the space.

They turn to one another in unison and when Mike starts to push Harvey down onto the bed Harvey is already reaching to tug Mike down on top of him. He reaches blindly behind him to shove the covers away, off the bed and onto the floor and out of their way. He pushes Mike’s jacket off his shoulders as he kicks off his own shoes and Mike does the same. He gets his own jacket off when Mike sits up on his knees over Harvey to start ridding them both of their pants and their socks and shirts quickly join everything else on the floor, minus most of their buttons.

They’re both thinking about one another naked, cycling through all the images they’ve stored up, thoughts they couldn’t get rid of and it’s shocking to have it there in front of them, the reality, at last, better than either of them imagined.

Harvey has Mike, really has him, achingly close to naked and squirming in his lap and the relief he feels is devastating. Mike shushes him, soft little sounds that he brushes across Harvey’s mouth and presses into his skin with kind hands slipping over his shoulders. Harvey arches up into him blindly, closes his eyes and feels it to his bones when Mike kisses him, explores his mouth languorously, like he could do this and just this forever. And that’s what he’s thinking, then, that he could stay like this with Harvey, and not ever need anything else. It’s nice and Harvey mostly agrees, but only for a few minutes and then he has to get his hands under Mike’s ass and tip him over onto the bed, lay him out across his sheets.

Mike thinks then that having Harvey in his bed makes him feel weirdly, fiercely possessive and Harvey answers that he likes that, answers that he approves with his hands anchoring Mike’s hips to the mattress so he can pull Mike’s boxers down with his teeth and Mike’s brain actually cuts out at the sight of that, goes honest to god offline for a second when he looks down at the image of Harvey biting at the waistband of his underwear. Even Harvey can appreciate that he looks pretty great like that, but he confesses that it wasn’t intentional, that he didn’t think to drive Mike crazy, he simply couldn’t bring himself to take his hands off of him. Mike laughs at that, out loud but quiet and fond and Harvey rests his chin against Mike’s hip, looks up along the shaking line of him and thinks that he’s never seen anything so gorgeous in his life. Mike stops laughing. He looks down at Harvey and his mouth falls open on a gasp and everything he does is the best thing Harvey has ever seen. So far. He reaches out and reels Harvey in with a hand around his bicep, urges him up with insistent little chanted thoughts. Harvey goes willingly, stretches out over Mike with his elbows holding his weight on either side of Mike’s head and thinks that he’d do anything Mike asked of him.

“Don’t say things like that,” Mike begs, and Harvey laughs.

“I didn’t,” he says, and the words are a soft buzz against the flushed skin of Mike’s throat.

Harvey drops his hips down, gets a hand between them and curls his fingers tight and low around Mike’s cock, feels the spike of pleasure that shoots through Mike when he jacks his hand, uses his thumb to collect the pre-come beading at the head and spreads it down along his shaft like slick teasing relief. He feels the way Mike’s breath catches in his throat when he presses in against him, lets his own cock nestle in alongside Mike’s, hot even through his boxers. When he remembers to look at Mike, he curses himself for letting the pursuit of thoughts and feelings distract him from this. Mike is staring up at him, his eyes wide and almost pained, like the pleasure is too much, like he can barely take it. Harvey kisses him, dips his tongue down into his mouth and tastes the stutter of his breath when Mike thinks that he can’t take this. His hips rise up off the bed and he tries to fuck up into Harvey’s fist, scrabbles to try and drag Harvey’s boxers down, struggles to keep his mind functional when he thinks about how good it’d feel to press together with nothing in the way, thinks about licking his palm and taking them in hand together, jerking them off till he’s covered in their come.

Either something about that thought in particular inspires the surge of action or Harvey just gets distracted by the image long enough for Mike to make his move because he somehow manages to roll them over before Harvey has a chance to react, has his boxers down and off before he can even think to try to help and then he’s climbing back up to sit astride Harvey. He pins him to the bed with his hands holding his weight to Harvey’s shoulders, and Harvey smiles when Mike thinks that he hadn’t thought Harvey would be this muscled, hadn’t thought he’d find it as ridiculously hot as he does. Harvey is tanned and gorgeous beneath him, all straining, taut muscle that Mike wants to follow the stretch of with his fingers. Harvey thanks him profusely for the compliment but politely requests that they leave that for another day when he isn’t about to lose his mind and Mike is giddy, so excited and happy and eager for all of this, already beside himself by the mention of tomorrow and next week and all the time stretching out ahead of them to do this and have this and be like this, together.

Eager, though. Really really really eager. So much so that he doesn’t even think about it when he reaches over into his bedside table to grab lube, doesn’t realize for any kind of adequate warning that when he settles back where he wants the position lines Harvey’s cock up to ride along his ass and Harvey bites down on his own lip almost hard enough to draw blood.

“Sorry, sorry,” Mike mumbles, leans down to kiss Harvey and suck gently at his raw bitten lip in apology.

He slicks up his fingers and reaches behind himself, starts to prep himself with two fingers while he leans forward to kiss his way down Harvey’s throat, breathing in the warm, familiar smell of him when he buries his nose in his neck, has to gasp open-mouthed against Harvey’s collarbones when he adds a third finger.

Harvey kind of needs to catch up because he still hasn’t gotten past the point where he’s lost in the thankful haze that fills his mind at all of this. But he makes admirable strides when Mike starts to plead brokenly at his throat. He slides his hands up Mike’s thighs where they quiver against his waist and hauls Mike higher so he can tug at his wrist, tug his hand away so Harvey can feel the slick mess he’s already made, can push into him with thicker, longer fingers that find Mike’s prostate easily. Harvey feels it himself, feels the instant wave of pleasure like it’s rising in him too and it is, at the way Mike pushes back onto his fingers, sits up to writhe down onto Harvey’s hand.

This is so overdue, they’ve been on the precipice of this for so long and it’s building impossibly higher, taking them further than they’d believe if they could stop long enough to think about anything besides one another.

Harvey levers himself up on one elbow, gets Mike’s attention with a twist of three fingers and then the complete loss of them. Mike looks down, confused and dazed and Harvey grins up at him, so fucking here that he can barely look at Mike, couldn’t possibly look anywhere else.

“Ready?” he asks out loud, with words, and it’s jarring. They’ve been communicating mostly without words at all, instincts and half formed thoughts finding one another and syncing effortlessly. But Harvey wants more now, wants it all.

Mike reaches out, cradles Harvey’s head and then slides his hands down the length of Harvey’s body, dips his fingers into the cut grooves of his abs and drags his nails lightly over his abdomen, thrills at how the muscles in Harvey’s stomach clench under the touch.

Harvey’s hands are still holding him open and Mike shifts back, grinds his ass against the hot press of Harvey’s cock. Harvey groans and his hips move restlessly, rise to push his cock up and in until the head slides against Mike’s hole, wet and open from their fingers.

“Mike,” he grits out between clenched teeth.

“Are you ready?”

“Yeah, yes, god yes.” Mike says, and he nods, fervent and sure and he wants it so bad, wants Harvey so bad that they both feel the hunger of it ripping through him, spurring him on.

Harvey reaches for the condom Mike dropped into the sheets next to the lube and gets it on, slicks himself and lines his cock up.

Mike rises up a little higher on his knees, and he feels both shaky and then impossibly powerful when he feels how Harvey looks at him, when he watches Harvey watch him sink down onto his cock like this is what he wants most in the world, like Mike is all he wants.

He pauses once Harvey is all the way inside, gives himself a second to adjust before he starts to rise up again, but he doesn’t get the chance. Once he bottoms out, Harvey sits up, leans up to keep Mike exactly where he is with hands digging bruises into his hips. He kisses him, almost chastely, and keeps them still.

“You are all I want,” he says, and he’s looking at Mike, thinking it and feeling it so loud that it fills the room with the sound of it, the weight of his heart, heavy with the pure honesty of it all.

Mike returns it, takes what Harvey gives him and shares his own right back and pitches forward in his lap to kiss him deep. In the middle of Mike’s bed, with Harvey’s cock in his ass and his tongue in Harvey’s mouth and both of their thoughts and feelings like infinite possibility all around them, they’re closer than any two beings have ever been before, in one another in ways that no-one else will ever know. It’s so dense, so thick and loud and hot through them that they can barely move in it, barely function under it.

But Harvey rises to the challenge magnificently, as always.

He kisses Mike back, sucks on his tongue and lets his hands rise along the stretch of his waist and then they tighten at Mike’s ribs, pick him up and carry him over onto his back across the sheets and Mike is already so lost to the ecstasy, so heady with it that he barely notices beyond a quick succession of thoughts and feelings - a corkscrew of lust for how Harvey can just manhandle him like this, indignant displeasure at the loss of Harvey’s cock, longing when Harvey looms over him, presses down over him.

Harvey pushes Mike’s knees up onto his shoulders and starts to press in again, holds the head of his cock against Mike’s hold and just hints at the pressure, ever a teasing bastard, it seems.

“More,” Mike complains, trying to shift down into it, trying to draw Harvey in.

“Shhhh, stay still,” Harvey whispers, “let me do it,” he says and it’s filthy, it’s dirty and hot in ways that drive Mike utterly insane when Harvey presses into him so slowly that Mike feels every minuscule shift, every single second of it unmistakable in its intent. By the time he’s all the way inside again, Mike’s eyes are rolling up into his head and his hands are white knuckle tight in the sheets and his thighs fall open around Harvey’s shoulders, fall down to plant his feet on the bed so he can drive himself down, try to get Harvey further inside him. It’s the single hottest thing Harvey has ever seen, far beyond anything he could ever have imagined, and they groan together when he starts up a punishing rhythm, so slow and so deep that Mike is pushed up into the pillows, has to brace his hands against the headboard.

Harvey fucks him like that, never speeding up, never letting him feel anything other than either the unmistakable weight of Harvey inside him or the aching loss of that. His hands trace every inch of Mike’s skin they can reach, follow the straining muscles in his thighs up to the gorgeous jut of his hipbones, he flattens his palms along Mike’s waist and pushes his thumbs up over Mike’s nipples, digs his fingers into the splay of muscle across his shoulders.

Mike reaches down to touch himself, almost gets a hand around his cock before Harvey is knocking it out of the way, dropping a warning ‘ah-ah’ thought on him that makes him clench down around Harvey’s cock just as Harvey gets his own hand around Mike, still slick with lube and perfect relief.

“I knew it’d be like this,” Harvey says, and his eyes are closed and he’s moving like he was made to do this, because Mike has never seen him look so beautiful, so sure. Mike ‘hmm?’s and reaches for him, reaches to drag him down, to have him near.

Harvey’s hand speeds up around his cock, his fingers tightening and catching up under the head every time he drives into Mike’s prostate and he looks down into his eyes, leans down to kiss him before he pulls away to answer.

“I knew you’d ruin me, that nothing else could ever compare after this,” he says, and Mike whimpers, actually whimpers under the strain of all of this and he worries, stupidly, that he’s going to die, that he can’t survive all of this at once.

“Never wanted anyone as much as I want you,” Harvey says, and Mike knows then, knows exactly what Harvey means, knows he’s right. Knows he’s his, then.

Mike comes, and it’s like an afterthought, it’s perfect and blinding and he cries out and feels his mind fall away in bliss, but Harvey’s still moving in him, still all over him, all around him and it’s rapturous.

Harvey feels Mike fall apart under him, fall to pieces for him and then he’s following him, coming in a rush of heated waves, shocks of pleasure that pull him under until all he knows is Mike tight around him, in his head and in his heart and in his very veins, the near-painful, blissful force of them together, his hands grounded on Mike’s hips and Mike’s fingers around his wrists, both clinging tight enough that they’ll be bruised tomorrow, marked forever for one another.

The silence afterwards startles them both, and for the few seconds it takes to half-heartedly clean up and collapse next to one another, hands linked and hearts racing, they worry that it’s gone, they wonder if the connection has ended. And then they feel their relief echoed when they hear one another reach the same conclusion - that even if it is, it doesn’t matter. They don’t need it, not really.

And then Harvey listens closely to Mike’s thoughts, strains to check he’s okay, and -

“Seriously? Already!? I’m not sure that’s even physically possible, but we can try. Give me fifteen minutes, whipper snapper.”

Mike laughs and rolls over, curls into the crook of Harvey’s arm around his shoulders and calls him names he’d never be brave enough to say out loud.

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Across the city an amateur Wiccan is left shaken by the force of her mistake and wondering how on earth she’s going to explain to the high priestess of her coven that she accidentally set a telepathy spell over an existing, now unearthed soul bond.

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