Written for a prompt on suits_meme. I'm aware this seems rushed..it was! Apologies in advance.

"So what now?"

"What do you mean 'what now'?

"Uh, what now, as in the fact that we just won a huge case that we've been burning the midnight oil on over the past, I don't even remember how many weeks. Don't you think that calls for a celebration?"

"Of course it calls for a celebration, that's why I am going to go home and enjoy a quiet evening away from all things work related. Including you," Harvey said, before climbing into the town car Ray was holding the door open to, and slamming it shut behind him, leaving Mike to rush around to the other side of the car.

"Come on, Harvey. We need to do something," Mike said, as he slid into the car next to Harvey.

"We don't need to do anything. However, you're free to do whatever you'd like to do."

"When did you get so boring?"

"You're confusing boring with being a responsible adult. Unlike you, I win cases all the time, so I don't feel the need to throw a kegger after each one."

"Not even dinner? I'll even pay for it."

"You see, that wouldn't work because I don't do drive-thru dinner."

"What about just drinks? Harvey, please?"

Harvey sighs, if nothing else, the kid is damn persistent, and it was obvious he wasn't going to give this up anytime soon. Mike had put a lot of work into helping him with the case, of course, Harvey could have won without him, but it would have taken him much longer, so he maybe felt like he owed Mike something for making his life easier. "Here's the deal. I will have one drink with you. One. That is all. No 'pleases' or trying to use that stupid lost puppy look on me to get me to change my mind. You got it?"

"Got it," Mike smiled, feeling particularly victorious. "What stupid puppy look though? I don't do that."

Harvey just rolled his eyes at Mike.

"What is this place?" Harvey was already regretting letting Mike pick the place out, as he gave the inside of the building a once over. The bar was poorly lit and had a smell to it that Harvey couldn't quite pinpoint, and wasn't sure that he wanted to. There were a few people scattered about, some playing pool, and darts, but otherwise it was relatively empty for a Friday night.

"This place is great. Me and Tre..well, I used to come here all the time. Bartender makes amazing drinks, and unlike most bars you can actually hear yourself think here."

"Really? Because I feel like I'm catching something right now just by standing in here."

"Quit being such a spoiled baby. Just because it doesn't have valet parking and floors made of gold doesn't mean it's not good. Come on," Mike said, gesturing over to a booth in the corner. Harvey followed, thankful that he only had to be here long enough to polish off one drink.

Harvey had initially planned to finish his drink and be done and back home within the hour, but as he started talking to Mike he found himself nursing the drink, trying to make his time last with Mike as long as possible. Mike was fascinating, and it's not like this was newly founded information, because he had known that from the moment he met him, that he was different from anybody he ever met, it's just that this was the first time they'd really hung out together outside of a work function, and it kind of put a different light on Mike. Harvey liked it, and he actually felt a little, not sad, but, disappointed when he finished his drink.

Mike had just got done laughing at an anecdote Harvey had told about Louis when he noticed Harvey's glass was empty, and the smile quickly ran away from his face. "Guess our time's up, huh?"

"I guess I could stay a little longer. I'll just order a Coke or something."

"We should get shots," Mike interjected.

"No, no, no."

"To celebrate. Just one, Harvey. Come on. It's the weekend. You can sleep in tomorrow morning."

One shot, just to appease Mike, then he would stop, call it a night, go home, that's what he told himself, anyway. However, the one shot quickly turned into two, and thanks to Mike pushing the alcohol on him, slightly tipsy was quickly turning into very drunk, which was negating the whole reason he only wanted to have one drink, because he knew that if he didn't limit himself that things always had a tendency to go downhill, and fast.

Mike thought the alcohol would maybe take the edge off of Harvey, loosen him up a bit, and initially that had seemed to be working, but Mike started to notice Harvey's comments starting to have a little bit of a bite to them, and then they progressed into him saying things that were completely out of character for him, and Mike really couldn't even believe half the things coming out of Harvey's mouth.

"Thanks, sweetheart," he said with an evident slur, as the waitress placed another round of drinks on their table. "Ya know, I could totally fuck her if I wanted to," Harvey said to Mike once she was out of earshot.

"Harvey."

"Well, I could. Problem is, she probably already fucked half this bar."

"Come on, Harvey. Knock it off."

"Knock what off?"

"You don't even know her."

"I read people, Mike. That's my job."

"Not when you're drunk it's not."

Harvey laughs, and then tosses back another shot, and slams the glass down on the table. "Of course you'd stick up for her."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It's just that the only person more desperate than her to sleep with me in this bar is you."

"You really are wasted if you think that."

"I don't think it, I know it. Christ Mike, you didn't even know me more than 30 minutes and you were already looking at me like I hung the god damn moon. Think about it. It was actually pretty pathetic."

Mike definitely felt the sharp sting of those words, but did his best to act unfazed by it. "If I was so pathetic, then why did you hire me?"

"I felt sorry for you, I guess. Figured you'd crash and burn in those first few weeks, but I'd at least get to fuck you before you realized you weren't cut out for it and quit."

"Don't say things like that to me, Harvey. I'm serious. It's not funny."

"Sorry we can't sugarcoat things like your dear old Grammy."

"Just shut the hell up. You don't know shit about her!"

"Wow..somebody's touchy."

"Go fuck yourself, Harvey. I'm going home," Mike said as he stood up and started walking to the door.

"Wait," Harvey said, standing up and grabbing Mike by his arm, stopping him in his tracks.

"Let go of me," Mike demanded.

"You can't leave. I drove your ass here."

"I don't care. I'll walk," Mike said, yanking his arm away from Harvey and leaving the bar.

He had only gotten a few steps out of the bar, when he completely comprehended what Harvey had last said to him, I drove your ass here, which meant that Harvey was most likely going to attempt to drive himself home, and he was definitely in no state to being doing that. Even though it felt like Harvey had ripped his heart from his chest, Mike wouldn't ever want anything bad to happen to him, so he realized he had to go get the car keys from Harvey.

Mike waited a few minutes before heading back into the bar. He peaked around the corner and realized that Harvey had moved from the corner booth to one of the bar stools, where he was in the middle of downing another drink. His move to the bar stool made it easy for Mike to walk up behind him unnoticed and pick the keys from his pocket. It was a skill that he hadn't used in ages, but he was glad he still had it.

With Harvey's keys in hand, he left the bar again, and called a cab to take him home. He wanted to crawl into bed and just stay there forever.

He had settled for staring at the ceiling, chest tight, and thoughts racing in his head, he figured he probably wasn't going to get much sleep tonight. His mind and the world felt like they were spinning off their axis.

He was startled back to reality by the sound of his phone ringing. He reached over and picked it up, and saw Harvey calling flashing across the screen, so he immediately clicked ignore. A few more rings of the phone and Mike decided to turn it off completely for the night and focus on trying to get even the slightest bit of sleep.

Harvey wakes up with a headache he has experienced in years, and a sinking feeling of regret. He glances at the clock and almost jumps out of bed when he realizes it's almost 2 in the afternoon, before realizing that it's also Saturday, so he doesn't have to be at work. He lets his head fall back down on the pillow and groans before rolling over and letting his memories of last night come back to him in waves.

He remembers agreeing to go out with Mike. He remembers drinking a lot, and then he remembers fighting with Mike. He can't remember what about at first, but a hot shower, and a strong cup of coffee have him remembering every shitty detail of last night, and he hates that he even attempted to remember that, because now he'd give nothing more than to just forget it all.

He digs out his phone and dials Mike's number, he doesn't even know what he can begin to say to make things right between him and Mike, but he knows the first words out of his mouth should be 'I'm sorry,', that's if Mike would even agree to talk to him, and by the way the phone goes straight to voice mail, it doesn't look like he's going to have any luck.

Mike..I am so sorry about last night. Call me back when you get this.

There's so much more he wants to say, needs to say, but he settles for just leaving that message and hoping Mike calls him back.

Harvey spends the next few hours waiting by the phone, and trying to nurse the lingering hang over. It's going on eight o'clock and he still hasn't heard anything from him, so he picks up his phone and dials again. Voice mail again.

It's Harvey again. We really need to talk about what happened last night. Please call me back when you get this.

It's more waiting, and it's killing Harvey to have not heard from Mike by now. He would even settle for Mike just picking up the phone and telling him to go fuck himself, because he's starting to worry if Mike's okay, or if he even made it home okay last night. The thought even crosses his mind to drive over to Mike's apartment, just to check to see if he's okay. He talks himself out of it for now, and settles for calling one more time for the night.

Mike, I understand you don't want to talk to me, and I don't blame you at all for that, but could you please just let me know you made it home safe last night.. I'm worried about you.

That was the last voice mail Harvey was going to leave for the night, if Mike didn't respond back he had every intention of going over there in the morning. As it turns out, he wouldn't need to go over in the morning because he heard the sound of his phone vibrating, and picked it up immediately. It wasn't a call like he had hoped, but it was a text and that was better than nothing. He noticed his hands shaking slightly as he opened the text up.

Just leave me alone. Please.

Harvey involuntarily swallowed hard when he read it. Not exactly the message he wanted to receive, but he'd do as Mike asked. For now.

Mike didn't contact Harvey on Sunday, and Harvey didn't contact Mike, so it wasn't until Monday at work that they saw each other again. Harvey called Mike into his office to give him a case he needed help with. As Harvey was explaining things, he noticed that Mike wasn't even making an effort to make eye contact with him.

"Mike..listen, I'm sorry about what happened on Friday night."

" I just want to get to work. I guess that's a foreign concept since you're expecting me to fail at what I do, but I really like this job, and I plan on keeping it, so could I just go now?"

"You know I di-"

"Harvey. Please, " Mike interrupted.

"Yeah. Of course. You can go."

The next few days were more of the same, Mike came in, did his work, there was no banter between them, no fist pumps, just nothing, and Harvey was starting to miss Mike, which was a strange feeling to have, since Mike was still right there, except he wasn't really there at all anymore.

Harvey decided that it couldn't go on like this. He needed to talk to Mike, but he didn't want to do it in the office setting where Mike could use work as an excuse to not talk to him, so he waited until he had went home, and decided he would swing by Mike's apartment. He figured Mike must have taken his keys to his car that night, so he was going to use that as his excuse to be there.

Mike was slouched on the couch, eating a bowl of ice cream and watching tv when he heard a knock at the door. He wasn't expecting anybody, but he sat down the bowl and got up to answer the door anyway. When he swung it open he was surprised to see Harvey standing on the other side of it.

"Hey," Harvey all but whispered.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"I was wondering if you have my car keys."

Mike sighed and gently pushed the door shut, not enough for it to latch, but enough so that he was no longer visible to Harvey. When he came back, he swung it open and practically tossed the keys at Harvey. "There," he said before moving to shut the door.

"Just wait," Harvey said, catching the door before it went shut entirely. "Can you please let me in?"

"Why?"

"You know why, so we can talk."

"I don't have anything to say to you."

"Then could you just listen to what I have to say?"

"Fine. Come in," he said, turning and heading back instead. Harvey followed him in, shutting the door behind him.

"You can, uh, sit down if you want," Mike said, motioning to an empty chair across from where he was sitting.

"Thanks," Harvey said, walking over and sitting down. There was a drawn out moment of silence before Harvey decided to speak again. " I'll be honest with you, Mike. I really don't know how to apologize for what I said to you. I did not mean a single word of it and I would take back every word if I could."

"I like the way those words sound coming out of your mouth, I just don't know how I'm suppose to believe them. People have a tendency of telling the truth when they get drunk."

"Nothing about that was the truth though. I hired you because you're brilliant, and unlike anybody I've ever met. Christ, Mike. You got me to put my own career on the line for you,. If anybody ever told me that I'd risk throwing away my career for some kid who came stumbling into my office with a briefcase full of pot, I'd have the person committed."

"Did you hire me because you felt bad for me?"

"I hired you because I thought you deserved a chance and I saw the potential."

"That's why I looked at you like you hung the moon."

"What?"

"Back at the bar..you said I looked at you like you hung the moon. You sort of did. Nobody ever took a chance on me like that or believed in me like that. So hearing you say that you did it because you felt sorry for me, or because you wanted to sleep with me…I mean..fuck, Harvey. That hurt so bad."

"I didn't mean it."

"You keep saying that.."

"And I'll continue saying it as long as it takes to make you believe me. Look, there's a reason I only wanted to have one drink with you. It's because when I drink in excess, I just, I'm an asshole. I say things that I know will hurt the people I care about."

"Did you just admit to caring about me? Sure you haven't been drinking tonight?"

"Completely sober here. I swear."

"I forgive you."

"What?"

"I said I forgive you."

"You didn't talk to me for almost a week, and now you forgive me. Just like that?"

"Just like that. I didn't talk to you because I was mad at you, and needed time to just cool down, anything I would have said to you beforehand would have been something I regretted. You're a good person, Harvey, I never once doubted that, and everything you've ever said and done for me up until that point had proved opposite of what you said to me back at the bar. Also you can't take all the blame, I was pushing the alcohol on you, and I was wrong for doing that. So, whatever this was, whether we file it under drunken idiocy, a mistake, whatever, I just want to move past it. "

"Let's file it under something I'll never ever do again."

"That sounds good to me. But..hey, before I completely forgive you, there is something else I need you to do first."

"Anything. Just name it."

"The waitress from the bar that night..You were kind of being a...well, you know, but what I'm getting at is that I happen to know that she happens to have a ton of student loans.."

"Right. No, I understand you completely. I'll get on that first thing in the morning."

"Thank you."

"Definitely do not need to thank me. I owe it to her. And you." Harvey paused for a moment, "So, I guess I should probably get going. It's starting to get late."

"You can stay if you want. I actually have a ton of ice cream in the freezer that needs eaten."

"You sure?"

"Well there's no way I'm going to eat that all myself."

"Not about the ice cream, I meant are you okay with me being here? We just.."

"Harvey, I meant it when I said I forgive you. Now, can we move on to more important things? Like what flavor ice cream do you want? I've got Vanilla, Cookies and Cream, Rocky Road.."

"Definitely Rocky Road."

"Very fitting for this past week, huh?" Mike pulled the container from the freezer and grabbed an empty bowl from the cupboard.

"Or you know, I could just have the vanilla if ice cream flavors are going to start being indicative of our lives."

"Please, no matter how hard you tried, you know you could never just be a plain vanilla guy. It just wouldn't be you," Mike said, as he handed the bowl to Harvey.

They settled down on the couch with whatever movie the channel was on, never bothering to change it, eating ice cream and talking as whatever tension that had been there slowly melted away like the ice cream in their bowls. Things felt normal again, and 'normal' with Mike felt like anything but. Normal with Mike was something extraordinary that couldn't be put into words.

Maybe Harvey had said what he said to Mike because he knew he was falling for him, and had been from the very start, and it was an attempt to push him away, but once he succeeded in pushing him away, he realized he hated how it felt without him, and he wanted nothing more than to just reel him back in and hold him close with everything he had.

Or maybe it really was just alcohol induced idiocy. Whatever it was, Harvey was never going to let it happen again.

"That was a pretty good movie," Harvey said as the credits rolled on the tv screen. When he didn't get a response from Mike he glanced over and noticed that Mike had completely fallen asleep. He pulled himself up off the couch and found a blanket to drape over Mike. He then walked into the kitchen to look for a paper to jot a note down for Mike when he woke up in the morning.

Thank you for the ice cream and movie, but most of all thank you for the forgiveness and for allowing me to be a part of your life. - Harvey

Harvey turned out the lights, and exited the apartment as quietly as he could.