Written for a typo in an anonymous prompt on the Suits meme: "Unrequited Kyle/Mike: Kyle is so dead [sic] in the closet he is in Narnia. He both hates Mike for being so clever/unconventional/bold/witty/Harvey's and at the same time is turned on by all of it and hates Mike even more for that too." The prompter quickly rectified the typo, but not before my brain had gotten hold of it.

It was a bright August day, and Kyle was a zombie.

Kyle was also trapped inside his closet, but that was the least of his problems.

He hadn't been a zombie for very long, almost four days so far. And he was grateful, really, because the alternative was not exactly a pleasant one; but the shaman who'd raised him hadn't been terribly skilled at his craft, and instead of reviving the lawyer that he'd accidentally knocked down the stairs, all he'd managed to do was put some awareness back into his decaying corpse.

Marcus—and really, what kind of name was that for a shaman?—swore he'd figure out a way to fix it and completely restore Kyle to the land of the living, but until then he was trapped inside his closet because his ear had just fallen off and he couldn't find a hat to cover it.

It was all Mike Ross's fault, anyhow.

Kyle wasn't exactly sure why, but cut him some slack, okay? Parts of his brain were missing.

And now he had to go to work while missing half an ear, hoping no one would notice the real reason he'd slathered on deodorant this morning.

He would have just taken the day off, but after calling in sick on Monday Louis had phoned him up and told him that if he didn't show up on Tuesday, it had better be because he was dead.

Hmm…

It suddenly occurred to Kyle that he could just call in sick today.

But no, he had to go. Mike Ross was there, and this was all his fault.

Somehow.

After finally managing to get his ear glued back on, Kyle shambled into a taxi and made his way to Pearson Hardman, where he was immediately assaulted by Louis.

"Proofread these," Louis said, which Kyle knew was code for "Get Ross to do it."

Louis started to walk away, then paused and sniffed the air. "What? What is that smell?"

"I'll go get to work," Kyle said eagerly.

He found Mike at his cubicle, headphones in his ears but highlighter cap oddly absent from his mouth. Not that Kyle liked staring at his mouth.

Okay, maybe a little.

He slammed the papers onto Mike's desk a little harder than was necessary and smirked as Mike started violently. "Louis needs these done," he said.

"Uh, I can't, I have work to do for Harvey," Mike stammered, his eyes wide. They were pretty and blue and full of life.

"Well, it can wait," Kyle said with his best Louis Litt sneer. "Right now you can put those brains to use actually helping the firm."

Mmm, brains.

"Helping Harvey is helping the firm, Kyle, but I don't expect you to understand something that complex." He rolled his eyes as he said it.

Mike probably had a really big brain.

"And anyway, aren't you the one who's been practicing kissing Louis's butt?" he went on.

Kyle bet Mike's brain would taste delicious.

"Why are you touching me?" Mike asked.

"Shh…" Kyle said. He had both his hands on either side of Mike's head, and he could feel how tough that skull was under the soft, smooth skin. He rather liked the feel of Mike's skin; it would be nice to feel it all the time.

He tilted Mike's head up under the pretext of checking out his frontal lobe and stared.

Mike stared back.

"Please stop touching me," he said.

"Brain," was all Kyle could think to say, because his knees were weak and all he wanted to do was devour Mike in every possible way.

"Okay," Mike said, standing and pushing Kyle back. "Judging by the smell, I'm going to assume you slept in a dumpster last night, so I'll cut you some slack for being such a dick today." He picked up the papers Kyle had dropped off and waved them in the air. "I'll get this done for you by lunch, all right?"

Kyle thought that was very sweet of Mike, and decided to let him know that.

"No, really, that's enough touching for today," Mike said, taking another step back. "Just, uh, take this to Harvey for me." He thrust out a very important looking folder as a shield.

Kyle nodded, and used his taking of the Very Important Folder as an excuse to brush his fingers across the back of Mike's hand. He felt so warm and alive; it was amazing how much more alive everyone seemed when you were dead, but for Mike it was so much more than that. He wasn't just a warm body, he was a sweet, delicious brain encased in a sweet, delicious shell. The suit was almost like a candy coating that Kyle really, really wanted to strip off.

"Or I could just take it to Harvey," Mike said after Kyle had spent the next thirty seconds staring and licking his lips.

"No, I'll go," Kyle said. Any excuse to keep Mike away from Harvey.

Because Harvey also enjoyed Mike's sweet, delicious brain.

Something about that thought jogged Kyle's memory. It wasn't Mike's fault he had run into a shaman and fallen down those stairs; it was Harvey's.

He strode down the hallway to Specter's office with renewed life, which, considering that he was still technically dead, was quite a feat. He was going to march in there and demand to know why the great Harvey Specter had made Kyle accidentally kill himself, and he was going to march in there now.

"Oh, you're not going in there," Donna said, without looking up.

Kyle held up the Very Important Folder. "I'm taking this to—"

"No," Donna said.

"But I—"

"No," Donna said again. She looked up. "Oh hi, Kyle. How's your trip to Egypt going?"

Oh God, she knew.

"I've never been to Egypt," Kyle said. No way, she couldn't know.

"Judging by your behavior with Mike this morning, I'd say you must have a pretty nice view of the pyramids," Donna went on. "I hear that river in Egypt is great this time of year."

He held out the Very Important Folder as a shield. "I have to give this to Harvey."

She rested her chin on her hands and smiled. "No."

Kyle fidgeted.

Donna waited.

Kyle opened his mouth again. Donna raised an eyebrow. Kyle closed his mouth.

He probably would have waited there all day, fidgeting and not quite saying anything, but fortunately for him Fate intervened; Kyle sneezed, and his nose fell off.

The absolutely stunned look on Donna's face was worth every bad thing that had ever happened to him in his life. Sadly, he had no time to savor it; he took advantage of her temporary speechlessness to slip into Harvey's office.

"I told you not to come back until you put that folder together," Harvey said. He was staring at something on his desktop. "And would it kill you to shower before you come into work? You smell like a rotting corpse."

"Mike wanted me to give this to you," Kyle interrupted. Harvey's head snapped up.

"You're not Mike," he said flatly. "You do what Mike tells you to? What's his secret? I've got to find a way to use that on Louis."

Kyle stood his ground and held up the Very Important Folder. If Harvey wanted it, he'd have to come get it, and then Kyle would make his move.

At that moment, though, his brain wasn't capable of thinking out complex plans, so he still hadn't quite figured out what his next move would actually be.

He was certain his current zombified state was somehow Harvey's fault. He'd had a reason for seeking out an Egyptian shaman in the middle of New York City, after all. He'd wanted something done, something that was Harvey's fault, something that had seemed logical at the time but now was all sorts of murky…

"Well, this will shed some light on my case," Harvey was saying as he flipped through the pages of the Very Important Folder. Kyle had no idea when Harvey had taken it from him. "Now get out of my office and tell Mike to get in here. And tell him that next time he screws up to just come himself instead of sending a lackey to deliver his paperwork."

Harvey sounded annoyed.

Kyle liked that. If Harvey was annoyed with Mike, he wouldn't be having any other feelings about him. And Kyle didn't want anyone to have any sort of positive feelings about Mike; that was why he'd gone to see the shaman, after all.

Oh yeah.

Had Kyle wanted some sort of curse to be put on Harvey? That didn't sound right. It sounded kind of petty, actually.

Okay, Kyle was definitely petty enough to do that.

But, when he thought about it, he remembered that he was far too lazy to go to all that trouble just to annoy Harvey Specter. There were much easier, more fun ways to do that without invoking ancient magic rituals.

Like standing in his office and ignoring everything he said, for instance.

"Donna, could you get this guy out of my office?" Harvey said into his intercom.

Donna appeared at the door, apparently recovered from her shock. "So do you grow a new one every time you tell a lie?" she asked, holding up Kyle's shriveled nose. He made sure to pocket it as he went out.

"Let me know when you become a real boy!" Donna called as he left.

Kyle couldn't focus. He was hungry, and confused, and it was getting harder to fight the rigor mortis.

He wanted Mike.

That thought brought him up short, because he realized as he thought it that he wanted more from Mike than a meal; he wanted to hold him, and cherish him, and kiss him and cuddle him. He wanted to stare at Mike all day not in hopes of devouring him, but in the hope that Mike might want to stare back.

Oh God, he was in love with Mike.

And just like that, everything fell into place.

That was why he'd gone to see the shaman. He hadn't wanted to curse Harvey as part of some diabolical scheme to keep Mike for himself. He'd wanted to curse his own self. Kyle had wanted nothing more than a cure for this horrible affliction wracking his body, the terrible, dizzying feelings he got whenever he looked at Mike, the soaring sensation whenever he heard Mike's voice. He'd wanted to get rid of those horrifyingly delightful dreams he kept having where Mike was so impressed by Kyle's win at the mock trial that he pledged his undying love to him.

Kyle had wanted a cure for love, and got death instead.

And that still hadn't cured him.

He had to find Mike. This whole thing was Mike's fault, really. If Louis hadn't made that comment last week—

Wait.

"Do I need to go over the company fraternization policy?" Louis had asked.

"I was just talking to Ross."

"I don't really care what you call your flirting, but it needs to stop," Louis had said. "It's sloppy, and it's creeping everybody out. That is not the sort of reputation this firm needs. So pull yourself together and pull on somebody else's pigtails."

So he'd gone to see Marcus, hoping that a modern day shaman might have the cure he needed.

And he'd fallen down the stairs.

So, Louis's fault, then.

"Kyle?" Mike asked. Kyle could hear his voice from behind him. "I got those papers proofed for you."

"Thanks," Kyle said in a strangled voice. He wanted to turn around and face the object of his affection, but how could he, knowing that it was forbidden?

Well, that, and the fact that his nose was still missing.

"Are you okay?" Mike said, and Kyle could feel the concern he was emanating from every pore.

"I just…" Kyle struggled to find the right words. "I had a really bad day."

Mike's hand was on his shoulder then. "It's okay," Mike said softly.

If his heart were still beating it would have burst out of his ribcage. But he felt nothing, couldn't even cry, only let a sad sort of longing wash over him. He was nothing but emotions without sensation, and through it all, even after everything he'd been through, he still just wanted Mike.

He turned around. Mike gasped, and Kyle lunged.

It turned out that not having a nose did not make kissing any easier. Mike's nose jabbed into the space where Kyle's had been, and while the undead couldn't feel pain they could most certainly feel discomfort. On the plus side, the force of his lunge was enough to rip his other ear off, making Mike's sounds of acute distress pleasantly muffled.

Kyle really hoped his tongue didn't fall off; that would certainly kill the mood.

After about ten seconds of groping he started to wonder why Mike was going limp. He suddenly remembered that living humans needed to breathe, and released him.

Mike sucked in a big breath of air and fell to his knees, gasping.

"This is the worst day of my life," he wheezed.

"Worse than the time I beat you at mock trial?" Kyle asked.

"Yeah, this is a little worse," Mike said. He glanced up. "How long have you been a zombie?"

"A few days."

Mike stood and brushed himself off. "And, uh, how did it happen?"

"I fell down some stairs."

"He fell down some stairs," Mike muttered. "Well, thanks for resisting the urge to kill and eat me."

"…Yes. That is what I was trying to do."

Several seconds passed.

"I'm going to go," Mike said. "Don't, uh, don't follow me."

Kyle resisted the urge to snark and contented himself with staring at Mike's ass.

You know, it really hadn't been that bad a day after all.

…

"Welcome back to the land of the living," Louis said drily.

Kyle grinned. "It's great to be back, sir." It really was.

"Good. Now get this subpoena filed," he said, which Kyle knew was code for "Get Ross to do it."

He found Mike at his cubicle, headphones in his ears and not one but two highlighter caps in his mouth.

Kyle liked staring at Mike's mouth.

He slammed the papers on Mike's desk a little harder than was necessary and enjoyed the sight of Mike starting violently. "Louis needs these done."

Mike ripped the headphones out. "Yeah, I'm on it, right away," he stammered, his eyes wide. They were pretty and blue and full of life.

Kyle's eyes were full of life now, too.

"I'll take those briefs to Harvey for you," Kyle offered, feeling generous.

"That's not necessa—okay, please, thank you," he said as Kyle approached.

Kyle scooped up the papers and sauntered down to Harvey's office. He knew Mike's failure to make an appearance would irritate Harvey, and in his opinion anything that drove a wedge in their relationship was a good thing.

Because Kyle didn't want Harvey getting too close to Mike.

"Still dead?" Donna asked, without looking up.

"Not anymore," he told her.

"I can wait," she said.

"I have to bring these to—"

"No," Donna said.

Kyle decided to ignore her and walk in anyway.

That was a mistake.

"Donna, who the hell just walked into my office?" Harvey asked.

"That's Kyle. He's the first in Louis's attempts to clone himself," her voice came on the intercom.

"Just wanted to give you these," Kyle said amicably, holding out the Very Important Briefs.

Harvey stared. "Weren't you in here last week?" he asked. "How'd you get by Donna?"

"He took me by surprise," Donna said. "His nose fell off."

Harvey raised an eyebrow. "His nose fell off," he repeated.

"I was a zombie, but I'm fine now, here are your briefs," said Kyle desperately.

"Don't you remember?" Donna asked cheerfully. "He was missing half his brain!"

"Oh," Harvey said, with a look of genuine confusion. "I didn't notice."

Some days, Kyle really wished he could just crawl in a hole and die.

But only some days.