Prompt by May ( darveyxoxo): Canon Darvey, (9.3. - 9.8.) First heated argument, sleeping separately in their own apartments; Donna can't sleep and pays Harvey a visit in nothing but her underwear and a trench coat; sex happens

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AN: Takes place between 9.4. and 9.5. but may be divergent in terms of season to make it related to the holidays.

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Of all the fucking times to get in a fight, it had to be in the weeks leading up to Christmas. It's actually the worst time they could possibly be fighting and yet…

It's all her fault, apparently, she'd only been trying to make things easier, had made all the arrangements for them, just like every other Christmas, with the exception that she was accompanying him and there was a stopover in Connecticut to spend time with her family as well.

She knew he was annoyed she'd taken charge over their plans, which was frankly ridiculous, because it was what she had done for years and years. He's the one who said things shouldn't change because they were dating, yet balked when she continued with business as usual.

It was work that actually set them down this path though. Things have changed, not just personally, but professionally, and he can't accept that she can make decisions without his approval. It's made all the worse by the fact that they have Faye, and Harvey (rightly) feels like he has no control over the firm, but she shouldn't be punished for that, nor should she be punished for taking control of their holiday plans because he's projecting his anger at Faye onto her. Their work situation is terrible, but that's all the more reason to support and enjoy what she'd done. They all need to blow off some steam, need a break from all of this, and office closures are her thing; she's COO and there was no reason at all for him to get upset that she'd closed the office from the 23rd-27th to allow their hardworking team some much needed time off. Yes, other law firms don't do that, lawyers are lucky just to have the 25th off, but that's not how she wants their firm to be, and she thought he would be on board for that, but she was wrong.

So what if he and Louis as juniors spent their Christmases at the office? That's not something that should be lorded or celebrated, it's indicative of a problem, but of course, god forbid, she comment on anything that could be seen as putting down the firm as it was before, or siding with Faye who approved the closure.

Donna and Harvey don't see eye to eye on work-life balance, never have, but she thought he'd been coming around after his speech about them needing balance as a couple. Harvey is of the view that lawyers should work until they can't anymore, then a few hours more. The ability to grind it out, to work seventy or eighty hour work weeks is seen as some metric of value, something to be rewarded, when really all it shows is those who are willing to give up everything to do the job, coincidentally those most likely to burn out. It was prized and benefited him when he was younger, he and Louis were constantly vying for the highest billables as if that were the be all and end all of practice.

Still, personal decisions were her area, and this was her decision, not Faye's. He had no right to undermine her the way he did and antagonize Faye. It was downright humiliating and utterly insulting how he tried to reverse her decision, leading to a completely avoidable confrontation with Faye where she threatened to fire him, which of course, he now blames on Donna. It's ridiculous because they are taking that same week off, so really the closure decision benefits them as they get to keep those vacation days. But when she mentioned that, things got even worse.

The fight had started off relatively calm, they'd both been pissed, her for him undermining her and him for both her decision and the fact that she hadn't ran it by him. Issues like these make her understand why people say dating a coworker is a bad idea, but it's them, and she'd thought (wrongly) she could get him on her side. He may be the lawyer in this relationship, but she's just as, if not more, skilled at persuasion.

She's Donna, she knows what people need when they don't even know. She'd known the firm needed a break after everything that's happened since Robert left, and that this move would score them more points than any case Harvey or Louis could litigate to give them a leg up with the incoming crop of new lawyers. If they wanted talent, they needed an edge, and a semblance of work-life balance (since she knows she can't pretend they actually offer that, and no one would believe it anyway) was just the edge they could utilize.

Even Louis thought it was a good idea, Louis, king of billables and being married to the job. If that didn't say anything, what would?

Of course, Harvey didn't listen to logic when he was upset, no. Instead, he threw in her face that she was in the role she was because of him, which was bullshit, but still hit her right where it hurt, had her temper flaring and biting off comments she didn't mean about how emotionally immature he was. They've always had a tumultuous relationship, have been in more fights in the fifteen years they've known each other than she can count, but they usually ended quickly, either because one of them apologized or one of them walked away.

They don't usually yell at each other for extended periods, but they are a couple now, and many things have changed, and apparently that has, too.

She's seen Harvey angry many times before, but only a handful of times has the deep, burning rage that's now in his eyes been directed at her, like when she admitted she shredded that memo, when he found out she'd posed as a member of the National Transportation Safety Board, and when Simon Lowe fired them.

Most of those times one of them stormed off right after, so she never got the full brunt of his anger back then, but she's getting it now, right here in her kitchen.

"I am not immature," he hisses, his hands gripping onto the corner of the counter he's leaning against. "You are the one that wanted me to tell you when I didn't agree with what you wanted, you don't get to be mad at me when I do just that."

He throws his hands in the air then, like she's done something horribly offensive, like he's not twisting her words to make her a hypocrite to fit his narrative. "That has nothing to do with this."

"It has everything to do with this."

Good god, he is infuriating. "No, Harvey, it doesn't, and the fact that you think it does just illustrates my point."

She takes a step back, putting even more distance between them as he yells, "Are you fucking serious?"

Oh, no, no, he doesn't get to act like this, he wronged her, this is all on him. She loves this man, but he is a fucking moron sometimes. She's normally the one to talk some sense into him, but she's far too annoyed right now to try and calmly reason with him. "Yes, I am. Now, listen to me because I'm only going to say this once. There is a difference between voting against something I agree with, and going out of your way to tell everyone to undermine me and my authority, and antagonize the woman who has the power to fire you—"

"No—"

"Godammit Harvey, don't interrupt me—"

"I'll interrupt you if I damn want."

What a fucking jerk. "Wow, glad to know how you really feel about me."

He takes a step toward her, trying to close the distance, but she also steps back, flinching away from him. "Now wait just a minute—"

He doesn't get to talk his way out of that, she heard him loud and clear, he's not lawyering his way out of this one on some technicality. "No, you've shown me that you do think you are better than me and for that, fuck you."

"Donna, stop right there—"

She holds a hand up firmly, stopping him from getting any closer. "No, you don't get to speak. You are being an asshole, pissing me the hell off. I have had it up to here with this behaviour." They said they wouldn't let Faye get between them, but that's what this is about and it makes it even more infuriating. "Stop taking your anger about Faye out on me, it's not fucking fair and you know it."

"What are you talking about? This has nothing to do with that."

"Yes, it does, just admit it!"

"I know you think you always know what's going on with me, but dammit Donna, you are wrong, and if you'd just listen to me—"

"Oh, like you've been doing?"

"You know what, fuck this. If you don't want to listen to me, fine, I'll leave. Is that what you want?"

No, that's not what she wants, but it's clearly what he wants. "Why would that matter? You'll just do whatever you think is best anyway."

Then he throws his hands in the air again, as he tells her, "You know what? I'm done."

He starts to make his way to the door and she follows yelling, "Yeah, go, get the hell out of my apartment."

He makes his way toward the door, and she watches as he snatches up his coat so clumsily he drops it. She feels a lick of satisfaction over his small failure, but that fizzles out when he turns toward her, shaking his head as he clutches the doorknob in his hand. "I never wanted tonight to end like this."

It cracks right through all of her burning rage, makes her want to whisper, "me neither," and work to soothe all the wounds they've opened tonight with their harsh words, but he's already gone.

She pours herself a glass of wine and makes her way to her bed, the one she thought she'd be sharing with him tonight before he went and blew that up. She sits, reeling for more than enough time to finish her glass, then flicks off the light.

She's cold, has to get up and get another blanket because she doesn't have Harvey's body heat to keep her warm. He's a little furnace when she is always cold and she clings to him, but this will have to do. She tells herself it's enough, that she doesn't need him in her bed, she's been sleeping alone for the majority of her adult life, she doesn't need someone else to warm her up, she can do it herself.

She grabs a pillow, pulling it close into her chest as she tries to settle her mind, but all she can think of is how angry he was and his face when he left, so pained and broken. Just a couple of weeks ago he'd near proposed, told her they were going to be together forever, and for the first time, she doubts that. If they always fight like this, they will burn their relationship into the ground. They both have nasty tempers, and a tendency to lash out instead of taking a second to calm down. She knows Harvey has felt the ramifications of that in the past few years, but it's been a long time since she has (also a long time since she's been this uncomposed as he is the one person who can get under her skin). She will not let their tempers cost them their relationship, she won't.

She's still quite pissed, though a lot of it faded with the realization of how offtrack they'd gotten, and how stupid it was overall. Harvey does stupid things, he always has, and while she did not at all appreciate how he tried to reverse her decision, she knows how he gets when he feels like he has no control. She's seen him winding up and up with each and every thing Faye changes and she should have talked to him about this first, that she can admit.

The reason she hadn't was she wanted to avoid this, and frankly, she wasn't sure if Faye would go along with it, and if she hadn't that would have been the end of it.

She hadn't counted on Faye immediately agreeing and telling her to issue an office-wide memo ASAP. She'd done as asked because she is trying her damn hardest not to piss off Faye while they figure out how the hell they are going to get rid of her. No one likes her presence but they'd all come to an agreement to do things her way for now, until they could oust her, in order to save them all the grief and the infighting that came from battling her at every turn. Harvey had gone against it, which shouldn't have surprised her, it was bound to happen eventually, but he did so in a way that went against her, and that was what was not alright.

She's still angry about that, but in thinking it over she knows why he did it. He thought she was taking Faye's side, which was never going to happen, and was wound too tight to let a major decision like that stand without a fight. It's all been bubbling under the surface, he'd been pushing it all down, suppressing it, but it was waiting to explode.

All it took was her "betrayal" by siding with Faye "against" him, for it to all come rushing to the surface and his anger to erupt all over her.

He needed to let it all out, he needed an outlet, and if she'd dealt with it sooner, this might not have happened.

It's not her responsibility to cure his frustrations, it's his, but she knows him more than well enough to give him the push when he needs it. She hadn't, and if she's being really honest with herself, she needed this too. Submitting to Faye's authority has been killing her and she's needed somewhere to channel all that energy, somewhere that isn't yelling at her boyfriend no matter how deserved it was.

Fuck, this is all so messed up. They both said hurtful things, have apologies that need to be made, and work tomorrow is going to be awkward as hell if they don't get that out of the way.

Donna Paulsen is not a woman who comes crawling back, no sir, but she is not about to let this Faye Richardson bullshit fuck up her relationship. She's not going to be able to sleep until she knows they are okay, she does not want to go to bed with all that hurt still hanging between them.

It was different when they were just friends, they could let it sit and fester and still be okay—not that they'd ever had a fight before that got this nasty. They probably could get over this, even with letting it sit, but she's not about to take that chance.

She opens her call history and taps the most recent one, her phone displaying Harvey Specter as she raises it to her ear and hears it start to ring. It rings four times before his voice message starts, and she hangs up as soon as she hears his, "Hi, you've reached…"

He's ignoring her calls, great, just fucking great. For a second she thinks she should just go over there, tell him how stupid they both were, but no, she can't do that.

She calls again, and this time the voicemail kicks in after two rings and she knows he's hit the ignore button.

Dammit, what is she supposed to do?

She does not want to leave this until morning, won't be able to sleep until it's resolved and doesn't trust herself on no sleep to smooth this over. That makes her decision for her, has her jumping up out of bed to put her plan into action.

She feels stupid as she approaches his door, is second-guessing this plan now that she's about to try and make it work. Showing up in just a trenchcoat always goes well in the movies, but this is real life, and what if he doesn't let her in? There are a thousand things that could go wrong and all of them flood her as she approaches his door.

She knocks, loudly but not so loud as to wake up the neighbours. She'd texted him she was coming, but hadn't heard back, and god, what if he's asleep?

This was a terrible idea, she should have…

The door opens and there he is, looking haggard and worn in a way that tugs at her heartstrings and makes her feel even worse about how things went down. He asks, "What are you doing here?"

"Do you remember when you said to me that you didn't want something that happens at work to be the reason we don't spend the night together?"

He doesn't know where she's going with this, that much is obvious by the way he says, "I do…"

And crap, words aren't her friend tonight and that's really all she had. There's no one else in the hall, so she decides to let actions speak louder than words, telling him, "Well, I don't either," as she opens the coat.

His jaw drops at the sight of her dark blue, lacy, barely-there lingerie, then he's pulling her inside, which she's grateful for because she does not want to give the neighbours a show.

When the door shuts, he plants a passionate kiss to her lips that has her melting into him and almost forgetting what she needs to say. When things start to get hot and heavy after a few moments and he's pushed the coat all the way off of her, she breaks the kiss to tell him before she forgets.

"Harvey," she breathes, sighing as his lips find the good spot on her neck he'd uncovered the other week, "Mmm, I'm… god, I'm sorry, Harvey."

He stops what he's doing then, looks up at her, his face as serious as she's ever seen it. "You have nothing to be sorry about, I'm so sorry, Donna."

That's not exactly true but as he connects their lips again she decides that can wait until after. She needs to feel him, needs him to ravage her, to burn off the rest of that rage in the best way possible, by fucking her into oblivion. She needs him, needs nothing held back, needs nothing between them, needs to be joined with him and…

"Oh, god," she pants as he takes the sensitive skin behind her ear between his teeth and pulls. It's a move that makes her breath go deep and knees weak every single time, and this is no exception.

"You are so hot," he rasps into her ear, his hot breath making her shiver as his hands fiddle with the clasp of her bra.

Normally, she'd respond with something sassy, but he's shorting her brain out with what he's doing with his mouth, so all she says is, "Mmph," as she works at ridding him of his pyjama shirt.

Once he has her bra undone, she gets his shirt off the rest of the way and scours her nails down his chest, delighting in his pleasured hiss. He likes her hands on him, likes the subtle bite of pain her nails can provide, and she's desperate, is craving it to be a bit rougher, so she does just that with him.

She nips at his neck as he pushes off her bra, his hands cupping her breasts, thumbs rubbing over the stiffened peaks in a way that has her throwing her head back and moaning. The delicious pleasure shoots sparks down into her belly, has heat flaring where she's already wet. She snakes her hand down to his crotch, finding him hard and ready and strokes him a few times through his pyjama pants.

God, she needs to feel him, he's so hard already, is as desperate for her as she is for him, if the way he's now attacking her neck while groping her chest is any indication. She loves when he's like this, loves to bring him up to the brink, to have him need her so fiercely he starts to lose his composure. She loves that she can make the great Harvey Specter so extremely aroused that he'll beg her.

As much as that would satisfy her now, and god would it ever, she's far too turned on herself to hold back her desire to get him there. As is, she's removing his pyjama pants, jerking him firmly in her hand, clenching when he lets out a low moan because of how much he wants her.

"Want you…" she means to finish that with inside me, but he sucks a nipple in his mouth, his teeth coming into play, and she grasps at his head, keeping him there, as her clit starts to ache with how badly she needs him. It feels amazing, and when she guides him over to her more sensitive one, she cries out, her hips bucking toward him as she shudders.

She is a wet pool of need, and judging by his ragged breathing and oh so hard erection, he's about the same.

Screw any more foreplay, she's going to screw him, now. The tension and all of the emotion from earlier is making this all so much more intense, and she doesn't want to wait any longer. Her back is against the wall and she pushes off her thong. He groans as she tells him to fuck her as she turns, planting her hands against the wall and arching her spine so he has just the right angle to slip inside her.

He sinks two fingers inside her, which go in easily, and he moans at how wet he's made her, before pulling out his fingers. He rubs himself against her, slickening himself and making her whimper. When he finally sinks inside her it's downright magic. They both moan as he slowly enters her, and she groans as he presses himself deep, allowing her to feel all of his slick length inside her.

He gives her two more slow testing thrusts, his hands gipping tightly against her hips, then she's bucking back into him, urging him to fuck her faster, which he does, making her gasp and moan as the pleasure builds. He's hitting right up against her g-spot, making the delicious pressure grow with each and every thrust. It feels incredible, she feels it in deep, satisfying flushes, and when he starts to tease her ear again she nearly loses it.

She's close, just need a bit of stimulation to her clit to set her off. She had wanted to wait, to let herself build even higher before she succumbed to the need, but when he rasps in a sexy as sin tone right in her ear that he wants to hear her come, she can't hold back any longer.

The pleasure is immediate as soon as her fingers make contact with her clit, sensation radiates out and she clenches on him, which only makes him feel even better and drives her up even further. God, she's so close, this is perfect, she never ever wants this feeling to end.

She manages to brokenly tell him how good he's making her feel before it swamps her, and she squeezes her eyes shut as pleasure shoots out from where they are joined. She rides the wave up and over, and it crests again making her cry out as ecstasy consumes her. All she can do is shake and moan, as relief rushes through her.

After a moment, she has to let her hand fall away because it gets to be too much. She's left barely able to hold herself up as she starts to come down, little aftershocks still pulsing through her. Harvey's head rests against hers, his breath deep and heavy, and it's only then she realizes he's finished too, the intensity of her own orgasm leaving her completely unaware of his.

"Wow," she breathes, when she regains her breath, turning over her shoulder to kiss him softly. It's awkward at this angle, and as she turns a bit more he slips from her, causing both of them to whimper at the loss.

He kisses her languidly, the soft intimate kisses they save for these moments, as she whispers words of affection he returns in kind. She always feels so close to him after sex, and even more so this time.

"I love you, Donna Paulsen," he whispers into her skin, "and I don't ever want to lose you."

"I love you, too, and I don't want to lose you either," she tells him, meeting his lips for another soft peck.

He tries to stifle the yawn that springs out, but it triggers her own. She looks down at his watch and grimaces. It's two-thirty in the morning, and they have to be at work at eight. She had wanted to talk it all out, but now being here, snuggling in his arms, she decides it can wait.

"Let's go to bed," she tells him, and he eyes her curiously. "We can talk in the morning."

He nods, stepping away and taking her hand in his as he leads her to his bedroom, leaving their strewn clothes in the hall.

When they enter the threshold she knows they are going to be just fine because he jokes, "You know, now that I have an extra vacation day, I think I'll take tomorrow morning off."

She laughs, glad they can now joke about it, and borrows his phone from the nightstand once he's done to compose her own I'm not coming in until after lunch email. Then she snuggles up into his arms, basking in the warmth of him against her, and lets it lull her to sleep.