A/N: It's been so long! I'm sorry! So here's a chapter for you. I should be posting more – since I'm no longer working seven days a week… but I still have classes so… And also! Updates. I will probably be moving to ao3 (if anyone has any opinions or insight into that please do message me…) and ALSO, I've got a new story in the making! Yes, I know I haven't finished the others, but don't you worry. And I think I might be trying my hand at a smuttier story for that too…
To Love a Ghost
"Well you could always-"
"Tried that."
"Well what about-"
"That too."
"How do you always know what I'm going to say?"
"I know you, Mike." Harvey grins, flashing a quick, seductive, glance at the associate across from him.
"You know, sometimes I think you don't actually know what I'm thinking, but you're arrogant enough to assume you've already done it."
"You love me anyways."
He hadn't expected the words to hold such an emotion effect on the room. But Mike's stirring in his seat, fixing his papers in his lap, and clearing his throat.
"Mike?"
"No, you're right." He nods, not looking up.
"Mike."
"It's fine, Harvey. Just go back to work."
With a sigh, Harvey complies. He knows better than to push when Mike is avoiding something. The kid used to be so good at communicating with him, but recently he's been getting more and more irritated by repeat questions. Not that Harvey can blame him.
"Morning, Sunshine." A sassy voice calls from the doorway. And there she is - the main source of tension that Mike's been building up – swinging her hips as she takes strides like a runway model in her seductive stiletto heels.
"Morning, Donna." Harvey barely pays her a look as she walks toward him, knowing what was coming – like every day recently.
"How's Mike doing?" She sits down where Mike had been, before he quickly got up and out of the way. He doesn't like when people go through him.
"You tell me." He grunts, staring down at the papers he barely notices. He wants her to leave. He wants to be alone with Mike. It's the usual now. He barely speaks to anyone else unless it's work related. Even then, he'd rather just deal with it with Mike.
"Harvey, you have to go see him." She sobered, smile a little less bright, eyes a little more concerned. "It's been over a month. You know they say that coma patients know when you're there. He needs to know he's not alone."
"He knows."
"Harvey-"
"Donna, I don't want to hear it!" Finally, he loses it. Normally he'd feel guilty by this point, having yelled at her, but the pressure he's feeling is a first around his heart, and a cement block pressing down on his lungs. He needs her out. "You work for me, and work is exactly what you should be doing."
She nods, pursing her lips, and straightens her skirt as she stands. "Fine, Harvey. I'll let this go. But it's only because you and I both know that you know I'm right."
He hangs his head in his hands as she walks past him, unable to deal with the strange reality – the one that seems so unreal to him as of late – she brings with her. Mike's closed the blinds already – a patented tradition by this point – like he does every time someone harasses Harvey about Mike's condition, and he's walked back and is pulling Harvey up and onto the couch with him. They don't speak. They don't need to. Everything that could be said has been, time and time again. Just feeling each other is enough. Knowing the other is there.
"You know, this can't go on forever."
"Shut up, Mike."
"I'm just saying, Harvey. We have no leads. We don't know where this is going."
"Mike." His tone is a warning, Mike knows, but he's too riled up by his anxiety to stop himself.
"I don't think I'm ever going to get back in my body. Even lying down inside of myself didn't work. Harvey, there isn't anything to do at this point."
"Mike!" He snaps. "That's enough!"
Mike bites his lip, unable to reign over his emotions like Harvey seems to do so easily. He concedes though, biting his lip, thoroughly shutting himself up, and tucks himself beneath Harvey's chin, holding onto the other man for dear life.
"You trust me don't you?"
"This isn't a matter of trust." Mike mutters, relaxing into Harvey's chest as he tries to get a grip on himself.
"Do you?"
"Yes, Harvey. I trust you."
"Then trust that I'll find a way to fix this."
Mike nods, unsure whether it's in agreement or to get Harvey to just let it go – as hypocritical as that is. Harvey's absolute blind faith hurts him the most in this situation. It's bad enough that he has a sense of overwhelming and impending doom hanging over him at all times. But to know that Harvey is setting himself up completely to get his soul crushed…
"Come on." Mike looks up quizzically at his boss when he moves him off his lap and stands. "We're going home."
"We're not finished with the-"
"I know." His voice softens, and Mike melts. How can he ever say no to Harvey when he does things like this? "I just need to be with you right now."
They're quiet in the back of Ray's car. Since learning that Mike can't be seen, heard, nor touched by people who aren't Harvey, they've been keeping their communications to a bare minimum in front of others. Somehow, it drives Harvey much crazier than it drives Mike. How he could be so at peace with everything, Harvey doesn't know.
They're barely inside the apartment when Harvey's setting his briefcase down and pulling Mike into him, protecting him from the world, and shielding himself from heavy reality all at the same time. "Please, kiss me." He whispers ever so softly, already undoing the buttons of Mike's shirt.
"Don't have to ask me twice." Mike chuckles, brushing his lips against Harvey's before taking them with his own, slowly, pouring too many emotions into him.
SUITS SUITS SUITS
"Harvey."
He nearly hits the ceiling when the voice calls from behind him. "Jesus Christ!" He's standing before he knows it, facing Donna with an expression that gave away the mini heart attack he's still recovering from. Mike doesn't seem to be doing any better, having grabbed onto Harvey's arm the second they'd heard her.
"Sorry." She smirks, walking into his kitchen to poor herself a glass of deliciously rich scotch.
"Remind me why I gave you a key?"
"So that I could come and talk sense into you when you need it." She says pointedly, taking a small sip of the amber liquid without taking her eyes off of him.
"Donna-" he warns, but she hushes him with a wave of her hand.
"Harvey, you need to see him. I called the doctor. They say he isn't getting any better."
The only thing keeping Harvey grounded now is that Mike is leaning into him from behind, playing with his fingers in an attempt to keep them both calm. Harvey squeezes them gently before grabbing onto the hand tightly. "There's something you should know." He says, suddenly much more confident with the situation. Mike seems to have other ideas.
"What's that?" She raises an eyebrow as she walks over to him, taking a seat on the couch and folding one long leg over the other.
"Mike's here."
She blanches for softening her features into a look of careful befuddlement. "What do you mean?"
"Show her." He says over his shoulder after a moment of silence.
"Harvey, I don't think-"
"It's ok."
He feels Mike's sigh against his neck, and almost takes his words back when he feels the other let go of him.
"Harvey, what's going on?" Donna's looking at him like he's escaped from a mental hospital. A clear did you take your meds thing going on. He can't help but roll his eyes at her. "Harvey," she begins again, speaking as if he were a small child. "Have you spoken to someone about all this? I know it's stressful-" Her words drain from her as fast as all of her colour. She's looking away from him now, towards the other man who she can't see. Harvey's papers are moving around his coffee table, until a black one is found. The pen moves next, scribbling something down on the paper before it's floating towards her. She can't move. She can barely remember how to breathe when it falls in her lap – having given up on her taking it from him. I'm here. Is all it says.
Of course, he should have chosen something a lot less cliché. A lot less ominous and scary movie sounding. Honestly, he could have just stuck to hi or, let him explain or anything other than that. But what can you do?
"Oh my god." Her lips tremble almost as bad as her hands while she picks up the paper. "Oh my god, Harvey."
SUITS SUITS SUITS
Harvey returns to his penthouse after putting Donna in a cab, and it takes him only seconds to grab Mike hard, drag him to his bedroom, and demand that he take his clothes off now.