Work Text:
Notes: I accidentally prompted myself to write this when Helen inspired me with a picture and some really fantastic and creative tags on tumblr and then she also failed to stop me from letting it spiral out of control and into existence, so this is all on her. (title by Fall Out Boy, sort of)
Mike heard it said once, and he doesn’t remember where or who by, but he heard it said that the funniest kind of self-mockery is the one that’s the most brutally honest.
So that kind of explains why he says it.
But it doesn’t even begin to justify the momentum the thing takes on after he puts it out there.
(“Hey Ross, how come Harvey isn’t mad at you throwing the mock trial like a little bitch? Did he take you over his knee and spank it all out of his system?”
“I wish”)
And everyone had laughed.
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#1
He has no idea how it gets back to Harvey, how he managed to pick up on what has become a running joke amongst the associates, but two weeks later Mike somehow manages to rip another suit jacket and Harvey has to lend him his spare for court.
Harvey holds the jacket out, keeps jerking it back just beyond Mike’s reach even though he keeps trying to grab for it, refuses to be defeated by Harvey’s childish ways or distracted by the way his cheeks dimple when he really smiles. His face falls somber when Mike’s fingers close around the collar next to his and he keeps a hold of it and Mike’s gaze when he very seriously says:
“Now, don’t think this means we’re going steady.”
Mike can still hear him laughing, halfway down to the elevators while Mike stays struggling into the jacket.
That wasn’t even funny. It’s not like Harvey just handed him his letterman.
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#2
Mike and Benjamin from IT have struck up an odd sort of friendship since they took down the system together in the name of truth and justice or whatever. Mike still doesn’t think Ben likes him very much, but one day Ben had fallen into some kind of weird geek apoplexy when Louis asked him to ‘SMS’ him the ‘final deets’ of last month’s server bill and Mike had been the only one who could snap him out of it. He did so by chanting binary at him until poor Ben’s world had righted itself again and when he came out of it he grudgingly, surprisedly thanked Mike and they hold hands at lunch ever since.
By which Mike means they sit at the same table and don’t speak to one another at all.
Sometimes Ben doesn’t push Mike’s ipod off the table in the name of his ongoing quest to prove the purposeful fragility of apple products. It’s nice.
It’s especially nice when Mike somehow manages to set his computer to turn off at random times with no discernible pattern or warning to speak of and when he calls Ben to tell him about this, Ben not only doesn’t tell him to stop calling him ‘Ben’, but actually offers to come down to have a look.
And it’s during this miracle that Harvey happens upon them, bent low over Mike’s motherboard and trying to figure out where that hissing noise is coming from and why it sounds like parseltongue.
“I don’t know what that is, but I have a feeling you should keep your tongues to yourself on company time. Just an FYI. Footnote: now that you’ve got a new boyfriend does that mean I’m off the hook? Can I stop shaving my legs again?”
Ben gapes at Harvey like he’s just told him that jQuery is for n00bs.
Mike pats him in what he hopes is a mollifying manner and shushes Harvey in what he knows isn’t half as scolding a tone as he intends.
“Did you need something Harvey? My computer is experiencing some technical difficulties right now, but everything on it is up here anyway,” Mike says, pointing to his head.
Ben recovers enough to snort at this and Mike elbows him sharply.
“You know what, that’s okay. I can see you’re in the middle of a domestic here, come and see me when you and the little lady sort things through.”
At least the laughter from the surrounding cubicles doesn’t start until Harvey has left, Mike thinks.
“At least he doesn’t think I’m the girl here,” he says.
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#3
Three days later he has to drop some files off in Jessica’s office. He’s fervently hoping that she isn’t there when he does, because she terrifies him, and he’s man enough to admit that.
The fates surprise no-one when she’s behind her desk, somehow managing to tower tall and imposing even sitting down, as he approaches.
He tries to do so soundlessly, thinks maybe if she’s distracted enough he can get in, slip the papers onto her desk, and run away real fast before she looks up.
His new, still squeaking shoes sell him out.
“Ah, Mr. Ross. You have those Philson files? Good, thank you.”
And that’s not so painful, this was actually probably the most positive and pleasant exchange he’s had with his boss’ boss yet, and he’s about to skip merrily back to his desk when -
“Oh and Mike? Harvey has been looking for you all morning. He’s getting rather irrate. I’d advise him to handcuff you to something, but from what I hear you’d just enjoy that.”
And ….... what.
Thankfully, Jessica just smiles that smile at him - the one that’s so sugar sweet you just know she’s thinking of all the ways she could disembowel you from across the room with nothing but a coat hanger and her desire to do so - and dismisses him with a nod of her head.
He says ‘thankfully’ because Mike was about to disagree with her, and he’s a truly terrible liar.
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#4
The next time it happens is a little weird, and actually leaves Mike feeling kind of sexually harassed in the work place. And not even by the person he’d like. It sucks.
He calls Donna from the copy room (no, he’s not calling for ‘The Fax Whisperer’ and yes it’s incredibly creepy to refer to yourself in the third person, for the record) to tell her that he’s just found something that cracks the case that Harvey’s been losing sleep over all week.
He’s just striding toward her desk when he hears her voice coming from Harvey’s office.
“Sorry to interrupt, but I pushed your next meeting back thirty minutes, Mike needs to see you, he said he has something to show you.”
Mike can’t believe Harvey’s reply when he overhears it, mournful tone and all.
“I hope it’s not his penis again.”
And Donna, the traitor, laughs like it’s the funniest thing she’s ever heard.
Harvey obviously likes her a lot more than Mike does right now because he gives her the afternoon off, is telling her he won’t need her any more today when Mike strides in, all righteous fury, just in time to catch Donna's response.
“Harvey, it’s times like this that I briefly regret constantly refusing your proposals of marriage. Oh. Hi Mike. Sorry, I forgot you have dibs now.”
What the fuck is in the water at this place.
In hindsight, his “Oh my god I do not want into Harvey’s pants” sounds petulant even to his own ears. And the blush really does nothing for his case.
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#5
Mike has really, really shitty luck with clothes and everything else in life, it seems, because of course he gets the leg of his pants caught in the spokes of his bike and of course it happens when he’s already going to have to get creative with time to make a meeting. Of course it does.
Harvey hadn’t fired him the first time he’d stolen his spare suit, which Mike figures is basically as good as an invitation to do so again.
He doesn’t mean to offer his own kind of invitation when Harvey walks in on him changing in Harvey’s private en suite, no matter what Harvey says.
Mike is standing in just his socks and shirt, hopping on one leg and wrestling Harvey’s complicated dress pants into submission when Harvey pulls the door open.
“Well. I feel like seductions are generally supposed to be a little more …. composed? But you get points for stealth, I suppose.”
“I ripped my pants! That’s why I’m trying to get into yours!”
And under any other circumstances at all, the way Harvey raises his eyebrow and smirks at Mike would have him on his knees begging for mercy (amongst other things) but he doesn’t have time to repress right now so it’s not a helpful look, it really isn’t.
“That’s not helpful, Harvey,” he says, finally getting the pants on and done up and stepping into his shoes.
“Oh so I’m supposed to help you seduce me? That’s not really how it works, Mike. You need to stop getting your dating cues from Justin Timberlake.”
“That’s not what I meant and you know it! For God’s sake go away!”
“That’s no way to coerce me into sleeping with you, just so you know. You might want to consider telling me that my eyes are like chocolate pools and my hair is as soft as spun gold. For future reference.”
Mike doesn’t even have time to think about how his life is so strange and difficult right now, but it’s cool, it’s a regularly recurring theme around here, he’ll do it justice next time.
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+1
And the thing is, Mike barely remembers that conversation. He’s so tired right now that he barely remembers his own name, so tired that he forgets to remember to not do things that he really shouldn’t ever do, so when Harvey hustles him into a cab and says he has to accompany Mike all the way to his front door just so he knows he doesn’t fall down where he stands and get mistaken for a bum in that ‘suit’ of his, Mike goes with it, doesn’t pick up on any of the ‘Danger! Danger, Will Robinson!’ signals his brain is screaming at him. And hey, his brain’s warning system speaks in Ben’s voice! Isn’t that funny!
Mike giggles into Harvey’s shoulder, honest to god giggles and sleep is so stupid, who even needs it anyway, not Mike, Mike has been awake for five days now and he feels fucking g l o r i o u s.
“You know what else is glorious though?” He hears himself ask Harvey, and he hadn’t meant to speak, he doesn’t think, but he’s a smart and capable guy, his brain is super, so he’s gonna go with it.
“Uh, I don’t know what’s glorious in the first place, let alone what’s glorious beside that.”
Harvey is so smart. He doesn’t use big words because he doesn’t even need to, his rumbling voice takes such masterful command of the English language that his tone says it all, he’s totally got this. ‘This’ being absolute control of every thing he thinks to let fall out of his mouth and god Mike wants to let something fall into that mouth, but wait, what was he saying?
Harvey is looking at him like he was maybe saying everything he was just thinking out loud, actually, and fuck.
“Fuck.”
“So it would seem.”
and Harvey is laughing at him, but it’s not mean, it’s like it’s surprising even him, wide smile breaking across his face like the sun on sandy shores and stuff.
“Note to self, don’t let the toy power down unless you need to get information out of him.”
“Hey! I’m not a TOY! And you couldn’t make me talk, no way could you, I’ll never tell you anything.”
“So you might say, but you’ve actually been telling me all along, haven’t you?”
Harvey says it like he’s speaking to himself, murmurs it while he looks at Mike like whatever he’s talking about is written across his face.
Mike doesn’t know what Harvey is trying to say, but he’s wrong.
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+
The next day is Saturday, and Mike wakes up after sleeping for fourteen hours straight to a gentle knocking at his front door.
He stumbles out of his bedroom, blinking into the early afternoon light, wearing just his boxers and his shirt from yesterday and tries to scrub the sleep out of his eyes as he shuffles to answer the door.
It’s Harvey.
It’s Saturday.
He’s wearing jeans and a dark jacket zipped only halfway so Mike can see the v-necked white tshirt he has on underneath, the stretch of it across his chest, the slice of golden collarbones it offers up. His mouth goes dry and he almost whimpers because he just woke up and his brain is still struggling to connect to the server.
“Hi …. Harvey … did I … did you tell me you were coming over? Do we have something to do? I .. don’t remember a lot of yesterday. Hey how did I get here?”
Harvey is smiling at him again, half laughing at him in a way that seems weirdly familiar and Mike pouts, confused, until Harvey’s smile turns sharp and it’s like he’s both really happy to see Mike and at the same time thinking about tying him to things. Wishful thinking, though. Server connectivity issues, Mike is sure.
“I brought you, sleeping beauty. Aren’t you going to invite me in?”
“I … thank you … yes?”
It shouldn’t really be a question because Mike is stepping aside to let Harvey in even before he says it and then before he can even get the door all the way closed he’s being spun around and pressed up against it, Harvey stepping in with his hands on Mike’s hips so warm through the shirt, his thumbs sending soft shivers through Mike when he starts to stroke Mike’s sides gently.
He leans in and nuzzles at the side of Mike’s face, presses his nose up into the hair at his temple and lets his mouth brush Mike’s cheekbone.
“Your hair is as soft as spun gold,” he whispers, and Mike can hear the smile in his voice even before it comes into view again when he pulls back, tilts his head at Mike and looks at him like he’s waiting for something.
Mike lifts his mouth to the smiling curve of Harvey’s and presses their grins together.
“That’s my line,” he says, and Harvey laughs, chuckles low and Mike feels it against his lips, feels it between their chests and in the slight shake of Harvey’s hands on his sides.
“We can share,” Harvey says and then neither of them say very much for quite a while.
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++
Lying in Mike’s bed that evening, lounging sated and naked across his sheets and one another, they’re arguing about Mike’s ‘game’.
Harvey says he has none, and Mike says this is true, but only because Harvey is missing the point - he didn’t ever intend to have any, because he wasn’t ever actually trying to get into Harvey’s pants.
“You were painfully obvious, Mike. It was a terrible hardship for me to reward your efforts like this, it really was.”
“I made no ‘efforts’! I admit nothing. Not until you swear under oath that this is somehow all your fault and doing. Did you ….... oh my god. You pulled a misdirection on me! You kept implying that I was hot for you because you were hot for me. Oh my god, I can’t believe I fell for that. You goaded me into this! You are such a terrible person. I can’t believe I just slept with you. I can’t believe I’m going to do it again.”
“There is no shame in admitting that you needed me to step in and handle things myself, Michael. Everybody needs a helping hand sometimes. You were taking too long. I had to do whatever necessary to bring this situation to fruitful conclusion.”
“I still don’t hear admission of guilt in there, Harvey. And ‘helping hand’? Seriously? Just say you’re sorry and I won’t have to take this any further.”
-twenty minutes later-
“Thank you, Harvey. Your heartfelt apology really means a lot to me.”
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