A/n: Here's part 2! To any of my true blood fans (if any of you are reading this) I'm in a bit of a writing stalemate right now, but I'll get back to it.
Harvey/Scotty, and I suppose some Harvey/Mike if you spin around 7 times really fast and then squint really hard, with one eye.
Part 2: Hallelujah – Rufus Wainwright
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
Harvey went home alone that night, the night that Scotty left to return to her fiancé. Her fiancé! He hadn't stayed in the bar long, having decided that staring at the barstool where she sat was just pathetic. How many times had they done this in the past? Harvard had been a wild ride, for more than one reason, but mostly because of her. He'd be helping her study and ten minutes later her legs would be wrapped around his waist as she parroted back everything they had just covered. When she got something right, she was rewarded. When she got something wrong, she was corrected and…punished.
To Harvey, it was all a win-win situation.
There was no other woman he did as much with, no other woman that he let get away with as much as he did her. She had become a part of him, a part of his routine. The sex… it was different with her than it was with anyone else, because she was Scotty. She was smart and feisty and just…so much like him. He would never say he cared about her, because that was taking things too far. They were friends, rivals, and fuck buddies – nothing more. Of course, the only reason they weren't anything more was because of her.
He felt his heart twist and his stomach knot at that particular thought. He didn't like thinking about it, that point of time in his life. If he had been fucked up before he met Jessica and went to Harvard, Scotty did one hell of a number on him. He had always had his charm, it wasn't something he learned or practiced – it just was – and he used it no matter what the situation was. But back then, he had been a lot more like Mike was now; naïve, idealistic, carefree. Scotty had taken that from him. Scotty had taken that from him, like Harvey feared Mike's new girl would take it from him.
He and Scotty had struck an unlikely alliance from the start; he was halfway to getting his degree and she had only just begun; they both came from backgrounds that were less Kennedy and more Clinton; they both had something to prove, but had very different ideas on how to prove it. She had caught his eye at a party and held it, even after she refused to sleep with him and called him a 'conceited lowlife nobody who thinks he's God's gift to women – like Chlamydia – and isn't any better'. He was infatuated instantly. For over a year, they were nothing more than friends and study partners. Then, in his final year of law school, everything changed.
They got into a fight over where they were going to love – being best friends for over a year and brought them to the foregone conclusion that they should room together until they got their careers underway. Harvey wanted to buy in to this condominium place that was ideally located in downtown and had a fantastic view, even if it was a little more expensive than what they had planned on. Go big or go home, right? Scotty disagreed. She liked a more moderately priced apartment in the same area that would serve as a good starting point until he got higher in the food chain, and she actually got her degree. There was the bone of contention.
That particular fight ended with Scotty being taken up against a wall in an empty classroom; their first time together. She didn't argue with him after that, especially when she saw how big the bathroom was in the Condo.
And for awhile, everything was fine.
Jessica took him under her wing and showed him the ropes, curried him favor among the senior partners and helped him work his way up the ladder. Scotty got her degree and got a job at a different firm, telling Harvey that she didn't want to be mollycoddled and actually work for her position. The only thing that they had to show for the aftermath of that fight was a broken box-spring from their bed, and several broken dishes from the kitchen table that had been swept clean to clear some space.
For a year after that, everything was perfect. They talked to each other as equals, because they were both brilliant and could talk to each others as equals. They took turns with the chores, and on more than one occasion did Scotty come home to find a candlelight dinner waiting for her. Harvey always went to work first, and always had a cup of coffee made just the way he liked it waiting for him on the end table by the door, where she waited to straighten is jacket and tie and kissed him goodbye.
Everything was so perfect that when Jessica told him to let Scotty go he was nearly fired for misconduct in the office. Scotty wasn't perfect, by any means, and she had a problem that she had picked up in college; alcohol. Sometimes their fights took a violent turn, and not by him, and he would go into work the next day with bruising on his face or even stitches. Jessica tried to make him cut Scotty loose, but he wouldn't hear it. He was stubborn, and believed that they could overcome her problem
Regardless, Harvey took her opinion into consideration. He considered the fact that Scotty was younger than him. He considered the fact that she still wanted to travel. He considered the fact that she was still a little immature. He considered the fact that she had an alcohol problem. He considered the fact that she was brilliant and witty. He considered the fact they had known each other for four years, and had been together for three of them. He considered the fact that there were programs to help people with an alcohol problem, and that Scotty was surely smart enough to see that there was a problem. He considered the fact that he was willing to do almost anything for her.
So, practical, logical Harvey Spector came to a conclusion that would solve Jessica's insistence he get rid of Scotty, Scotty's drinking problem, and his complete devotion to her: He would marry her.
The Harvey Spector of then, even despite his arrogance and charm, still clung to the idea of a white picket fence and 2.5 kids and a wife who would straighten his tie and hand him his coffee on his way out the door. His logic was simple and straightforward: They already lived together; they already acted like they were married, what with the chore schedule and tie-straightening every morning; they had the same personality and complimented each other; Scotty would find a stable and sympathetic partner while she recovered and eventually overcame her alcohol problem.
The only thing that wasn't included in Harvey's logic was Scotty herself. The night he proposed had been disastrous, to say the least. He had pulled out every single trick he had up his sleeve – her favorite music, her favorite home cooked dinner, candlelight, privacy. She was a little late coming home, but she said she had to work a little late and that she had big news to share with him. He had arrogantly thought that whatever it was, it couldn't be as big as what he had planned. Boy was he wrong. She had been touched by his romantic gestures and even went so far as to refer to him by a pet name – something that either of them exclusively did when they were in a one-hundred percent happy mood.
No sooner does he get down on one knee, she stops him mid-proposal and tells him she's received a job offer in London, and that she's taking it.
They stare awkwardly at each other for a few moments before Scotty tries to tell him that she still wants to be with him, just at a long distance. She tries to tell him that he could come with her. She tries to tell him that she loves him. But he's heard enough. He can't find his voice to respond, to cry or yell or react. He just… sits. Scotty tries to mend what passed between them. He's plied enough with the wine at this point that he doesn't resist when she pulls him to his feet and begins to unbutton his shirt. He kisses her back and unzips the back of her skirt, letting it pool at her feet, before making short work of her shirt as well.
She smiles against his mouth, clearly thinking that everything is alright now. Harvey is slow, this time. It's a new experience for her, Harvey being slow and purposeful instead of impassioned and strong, but she enjoys it just the same, if not more so than before. His kisses take her breath away, and she thinks of how much she'll miss this. How much she'll miss him. Harvey is in a different frame of mind. He kisses her to cover up the tears that are escaping his tightly controlled mask. He worships her body and gives her what she wants, all the while knowing that this had to be the last time. Every breath they drew was hallelujah, a thing of God and beauty. Every time he moved within her, the darkness moved with him, wrapping around him like a security a blanket. He loved her. He could acknowledge that, if only to himself.
She had broken him well. She took from him everything that was left of Harvey Spector pre-Harvard. Love was for suckers and fools, he decided in the morning when she left for her last day at work. Their condo was sold before she returned home from work. His drawers were empty. The pictures were gone. So born was Harvey Spector; the best closer in the city; realistic; cynical; heart-broken; gun-shy; arrogant prick. She didn't call him before she left for London, or after she returned three years later for temporary position within her firm. They met by chance and it was Harvard all over again; heated, rushed, meaningless.
She was just as fucked up as before. She still had a problem with alcohol. She was still the most goddamn beautiful thing he had ever seen. She was still brilliant and witty. She still wanted him, so she had him. But he never opened up his heart to her again. The titanic had already sunk, and no amount of wishing and regretting and maybe's was going to save all the people that died. She came, they had sex, and he tried not to care. He got damn good at it too, for awhile – that whole not-caring thing did wonders for his career.
And then Mike Ross came. This little punk-ass pot-head who was a certifiable genius, who held a certain spark inside him that could burn down all of Manhattan with the proper teacher. This kid who cared so much about everyone and everything, that Harvey couldn't help but feel wistful. It was weakness, to care and show people that you care, and it would only get him taken advantage of. Harvey had tried to explain that to him, had tried to warn him, but was met with the same stubborn nature that Harvey himself had. And then that fucking idiot friend of his, Trevor, had gotten him in trouble.
Harvey shouldn't have cared. Mike Ross was a danger to Harvey's career, and a method to subtly tell Pearson and Hardman to fuck off about recruiting and implying that he, Harvey Spector, needed help. He didn't care, really. He just didn't want to have to go recruiting again. But seeing Mike so upset and distressed at his friend's betrayal, inadvertent or not, had stirred something that Harvey had buried deep, deep inside his chest. The reason he liked Mike in the first place was because he reminded Harvey of a younger, more naïve version of himself. Harvey couldn't shield him from all the troubles in the world, and nor should he, but that didn't mean he didn't want to. He saw Trevor doing the same thing to Mike that Scotty had done to him, and he was helpless to stop it.
Of course, Mike was never going to have to worry about Trevor fucking his brains out one night and then informing him that he was engaged the next. Dick move, Scotty, dick move. Harvey wondered whether or not to be thankful that he hadn't married her – would she have just slept with some other guy while she was in London, even engaged to him? His ego wants him to say 'No,' but Harvey is much more humble when he's not putting on a good face for everyone else. He knows the truth. But he can't say no to her when she comes calling, because he never could. Even when she thinks she's pulled a fast one, Harvey is, and always has been, faster. It doesn't make a difference to their relationship.
They still banter, and screw, and banter some more. She returns to London, to the man she chose to marry over Harvey, even as she screws him every time she's in New York. And that hurts. It hurts that she agrees to marry another man, when she clearly still feels something for him. It hurts that she comes and goes as she pleases, taking little pieces of him with her every time. But it's been better lately. Perhaps by some miracle, or Mike's increasing influence, it starts to hurt a little less. He knows that he will have to say 'No,' the next time she comes in town, even knows that she will ask – married or not. He subconsciously wishes her the best, and returns to his now familiar lifestyle.
He mentors the kid as best he can, trying not to pass off his own issues while simultaneously fortifying Mike against them. He tries not to think of how, if he and Scotty had ever married and had those 2.5 kids, Mike could have easily been one of them. Some days he succeeds. Others he does not. But Harvey never lets himself be down for long, and Mike seems to be of the same frame of mind, so he praises God, whomever He may be, and thanks Him for sending Mike and giving him the time he had spent with Scotty, short and messed up as it was. A broken hallelujah was still praise of God, just a little bent by the pain and anguish that accompany humanity.
Maybe some day, Scotty would get her act together. Maybe Mike would listen to Harvey more often and stop letting Trevor and people from his past hold him back. Maybe, one day, Harvey wouldn't hurt anymore from Scotty's betrayal, and would believe in love again.
Maybe.
But then again, maybe not. Only time would tell.
A/n: Whew! Second one in a 24 hour period (though technically over two days). Sorry for the mistakes. It's 2 am and I really want to get this posted so, no Beta or anything better than a once over from my tired eyes. I'll go over it again tomorrow, when I'm actually awake and fix all the mistakes. Please review!