Timeline: Consider this before Mike's grandmother died, but extend the amount of month's Mike has worked under Harvey.

Warnings: Angsty H/C / Prostitution/ Mentions of Self-harm

It ends fluffy, promise.

It's been a little over a year since Mike waltzed into that interview and spilt an entire briefcase of weed onto the floor in front of New York's best closer, before it all comes crumbling down. After Jessica found out, Mike was sure he would be exiled from the firm, but he wasn't. He was allowed to stay, learn, serve. Mike was good at what he did, and working below Harvey was, and always will be, an experience he will cling to.

It's about four months after the whole Trevor-Jessica-fake lawyer thing happened when it's actually does come away at the seams, when Mike's life switches directions once again, and he's left standing in the cold. Alone, with a grand in the bank and no one to turn to. There had been an opposition that Mike helped destroy, a very talented private investigator, and some not-so-subtle threats made. In exchange for letting the firm keep its good name, all Mike had to do was leave quietly, he would be accused of leaking information, and no other law firm would ever hire him.

His career was over and his reputation destroyed, but the others were safe, so Mike took the deal, packed his shit and left.

For weeks after it happened, Mike expected Harvey, or Donna, or Rachel to call, but they never did. They also never answered when he called them, or replied to emails.

Any semblance of that life was gone now, and two months later, money became a struggle again. With his Grammy's care to pay for, rent, food and facilities, he had to do something quickly.

Things really fell apart after that.

Harvey was furious, still, five months after Mike had left them. Abandoned them, after turning traitor in favour of some money. Jessica had been encouraging him to take a new associate for three months now, but he couldn't. After Mike, his brilliance and his betrayal, there would be no one who could fill that space, or who he could trust, again.

It's not even something he can understand. If Mike had needed money so badly, why hadn't he come to Harvey? Fair enough- he wasn't easy on the kid and he was a cold hearted bastard most of the time, but surely he was a more appealing option than selling firm secrets to opposing companies. The cold burn of it still curled in his stomach, and sometimes made its way into his chest and through his throat, spills out in angry words towards people he cared about, like Donna and Jessica. Mike, he thought, didn't deserve to have this effect on Harvey Specter, but he did.

The first three weeks after Mike had been fired, both Harvey and Donna had been inundated with calls and emails from him, all that went ignored. Donna deleted the emails, then redirected Mike's email to junk. His number became blocked on both of their phones.

Mike Ross was cut out of their lives for five, difficult, painful months before he appeared again.

Nothing could have prepared Harvey for the change between then and now.

When his Grammy's medical bills needed paying and her care home needed their money, Mike panicked. Trevor wouldn't answer his phone, so there was no way to reconcile there and take him up on years worth of offers to get him into dealing. The bike messenger place wasn't hiring, and it wouldn't have been enough to pay what he needed to pay anyway.

Dejected and terrified, Mike took the six dollars in his pocket into a bar. A dirty, dark bar that had sticky floors that his shoes stuck too, and an advertisement for cheap house doubles.

He was three drinks in, and all his money gone, when a tall man with a wide, disconcerting smile slid into the seat opposite him in the booth he had occupied.

"You look lonely." The grinning man had commented, leaning over the table and swiping Mike's drink, sipping at the vodka before pushing it back. Mike shrugged, pulling the drink towards him and downing the last of its contents.

"I'm lonely too." The man chuckled as Mike raised a questioning eyebrow at him. "And you... you look exactly like the kind of company i enjoy." The grin turned feral, vile and sickening.

"How much?"

"Excuse me?" Mike replied as he put his glass back on the table. "How much for what?"

"Depends on what's on your menu, sweetheart." He could feel the man's foot sliding up his leg in a cheesy, old porn come on move that had him flinching away, pushing to his feet in anger.

"I'm not for sale, asshole." Mike shot over his shoulder, pushing through the crowds to get to the door."

"You keep telling yourself that." The voice echoed after him, humour lacing the guys voice.

Mike had felt sick all the way back to his apartment, was unable to sleep that night in the cold, dark, emptiness of the rooms he inhabited. Most of his unnecessary belongings, and some of the necessary ones, he had sold to get enough for last month's rent and some food to last him. He couldn't pay his for heating, and electricity had been cut off over a month ago.

Wrapped in a blanket, Mike paced the apartment. He couldn't get the smug look on that man's face out of his head, or the offer that he made. The guy had been willing to pay him, probably not much but it would still have been money. He had been willing to give him cash in exchange for a sexual favour, for Mike to prostitute himself.

It's something that, even in his darkest moments, he had never considered as an option.

Then again, Mike had never been this broke before, and his Grammy's care had never been quite this expensive.

It took two more days of not being able to afford food, and two nights of cold sleeplessness, before Mike got rid of the last of his dignity, pride and self-worth, and went back to the seedy bar.

The same man, smug grin and all, slipped into the booth opposite Mike again just five minutes after he had sat down. Mike hadn't ordered a drink, unable to afford one, but it wasn't what he was here for anyway. The man just sat there, watching him with his sly smile and a dangerous look in his eyes.

"$20 for oral and $50 for sex, money up front." Mike gathers about as much force as he has left in him to lift his eyes to meet the man's gaze, as his grin widens. The guy fishes into his pocket, pulls out a wad of notes and counts them gleefully. Mike has a moment to wonder why a man with this much cash spare is slumming it in a bar like this, before $70 is pressed down in front of him, and the guy is up and heading out the door.

Mike folds the bills, choking back the whimper of horror at himself that rises in his throat, and goes to follow.

It's a back alleyway, dirty and cold. The guy, still no name, pushes him roughly to his knees. After that, Mike tries to block it out, focus on reading books in his mind and humming old songs to himself in the hopes that the guy will get off quicker.

It doesn't work, he feels every thrust in his mouth. Is distantly glad the man doesn't let go in his mouth in the end. Is then a whole lot less glad when he is dragged up, turned and pushed against a wall. The feel of fingers, spit, hard, painful pressure makes him sick to his stomach and causes his head pound. He is terrified, hopes somewhere in the back of his mind that the guy is using protection. He cries as it happens, and sobs when the guy finishes, smacks him on his ass and then leaves.

Mike has given away all he has left for the sake of seventy dollars, but that's probably okay, he feels like he's worth none of that amount right now anyway.

It's the first real night out he's gone on in a while, going to drinks with old Harvard friends who are in town for some function or another. They keep it classy, expensive scotch in fancy bars that have old mahogany table tops and jazz in the background. They laugh over old stories, and listen to each other's new experiences, and luckily no one knows about the catastrophe that was his ex-associate. It's maybe one am when he calls it quits, much to the disappointment to the guys who think they're still twenty one and able to keep going all night. He laughs them off, shrugs on his jacket and sets off on the half-block walk to the nearest taxi rank.

There is a section, a small cross roads between where he is and where he needs to be, that is the only shadow on this area of the city. Where the higher priced whores wait for drunk, rich men to stumble along, and robbers wait for the same. He keeps his hands in his pocket, fingers hovering over his phone and the emergency speed dial, the other hand wrapped around his wallet, as he gets closer to it. Its not, he knows it isn't, but the area seems darker. Like there are more shadows, an increased amount in places to hide. There are woman and men leant against the walls, grinning at the people that walk past. Some are brave enough to proposition without being asked. Others are leaning into car windows, sliding into the backseats of limo's and town cars. As he passes one alleyway, there is a sickening sound of flesh on flesh and Harvey hurries past that part.

It's a relief when he passes that cross roads, stepping back into what seems like his real world. Bright lights and sophisticated people, and the last thing he ever thought he'd hear.

Harvey is coming up on a row of fast-food joints and bars, close to the space between two of them, when voices echo along the back of the shop and towards him. It would be something he would normally ignore, something that he is contemplating ignoring and hurrying past, but the voice is familiar. Hauntingly so. It makes anger, and deep down concern, spike in his chest as he pauses at the entrance to the alleyway and listens.

"How much do you charge for a night?" A slurred voice, an older man, it seems, asks.

"Listen man, i already told you. I'm off duty, no longer working for tonight. I'm sorry." The voice echo's down to him, tired and cold, empty of what he remembers. There is the sound of people moving, and then a grunt as someone's body hits a wall.

"Man, what the hell?" The voice is indignant. "Let me go, i'm not available right now." There is more movement, what sounds like a struggle.

"You're a paid slut." The slurred man laughs out. "You're always available."

The voice isn't even halfway through asking, begging, the man to not do this when Harvey intervenes.

"What the hell is going on here?" He demands, sliding his phone out of his pocket to use as a torch. Before him, there is a balding, overweight man in an expensive suit, pinning a pathetically thin, badly dressed kid against a wall chest first. He has one hand on the button to the kids jeans, the other on the back of his neck, keeping him pinned with his body and the wall. But he's frozen now, like deer caught in the headlights.

"Nothing for you to see." The guys mutters, eyes blown and drunk.

"He said no." Harvey all but growls out, stepping forwards angrily. "Get your hands off him." The man scoffs, pressing the kids head harder into the wall so that he whimpers.

"What do you care? He gets paid for it." The anger that washes over him trumps anything he's felt in months as he surges forward, grabbing the man by his collar and yanking him away. He faintly hears the kid sliding down to the floor, but is too preoccupied with dragging the drunk idiot out into the light of the street and pushing him away in disgust.

"No means no. Get the fuck out of here." Harvey hisses, and the man is much more terrified out here in the open, stumbling away quickly and hopping into the first cab that will pull over for him. There is the sound of shuffling feet behind him, and Harvey has to take in a deep breath, try to reign in whatever he is feeling and slide on his cold facade. The kids voice is tiny behind him.

"Harvey?" He sounds so lost, alone and afraid, and so empty. Harvey turns, gets a look at the kid in the false light of a street lamp.

"Mike."He replies, coldly.

He lost himself after that first time, figured it was the only way and gave himself over to the cold, empty feeling that will over taking him. For maybe three weeks, he kept going back to the bar. He never ordered a drink, just sat in the booth and waited for someone to approach him. Someone always did, a guy willing to pay for his time in an alleyway, or the toilets. Some of them even paid him extra so they could take him home and play with him a little while longer.

It didn't take long to figure out that he wasn't earning enough where he was to keep up with everything he needed to pay for. No matter how little he ate, he still needed thousands of dollars to keep himself and Grammy afloat, and there was no way he was getting that in this seedy area of the city.

Mike didn't want to risk it, really. All those rich, corporate people, it would be easy to run into someone he knew, and it was only a stroke of luck that he managed to avoid them all at one point or another. In the end, the risk paid off. The rich guys were still depraved jerks, and a lot of them wanted weird things from him. They had kinks that they paid him to act out, things they couldn't do with their nice, respectable significant others. They paid him good for it though, enough that he could set up a regular payment plan for the care home, and could make his rent on time most months. Sometimes, he forwent things like food, or electricity, but these days he always had hot water.

It had been months, he thinks it's about five, since his life disintegrated into nothing. There is very little of that Mike left. He is a body now, even thinks of himself as just a warm, available hole to be filled on nights when he is at work. There isn't a day when he isn't sickened by himself, by the rough bruises on his skin and the days-old aches in his bones, the gravel or carpet burns on his knees, and most recently the restraint marks on his wrists and ankles. He is empty, and cold. Hollow, unable to fill that space inside of him where Harvey, Pearson Hardman and his Grammy's approval used to sit. He hasn't visited her since this started, just calls once a week and pays her fees. He had contemplated drugs, but he made a promise to Harvey all that time ago, and he isn't going to break that one last thing.

So Mike has scars now, for each disgusting night that passes. A mark on his thigh, or hip, or stomach. Each one a reminder that he is still, somehow, alive inside of this body. That somewhere there is blood that flows, a heart that beats, a brilliant mind. His clients don't seem to mind them, in fact, some of them laugh when they see them, remind him that he's a worthless whore now.

They pay good, most of the time, though. So he sticks it out in rich man's town and hoped to god he wouldn't run into anyone he knew. And that plan was going well, until some drunk dick cornered him in an alleyway as he was heading for a taxi. Mike had been sure that this was it, the eventuality of every street whore. But then a familiar voice was there, and the glint of danger in eyes he had not seen in a long time. The pressure against him went away, the man hauled off him. He sinks to the floor and gasps, pulls what's left of himself together, watches as the drunk man is thrown away and the familiar voice collects his self at the entrance to a filthy back alley. On shaky legs, feeling tiny and lost, Mike stands and approaches him. There is horrible hope flickering in his chest. Tears in his eyes.

"Harvey?" Mike whispers, standing barely behind the man. He wishes he hadn't, wishes he had stayed on the floor of that filthy space and let him leave. The face that is in front of him now is cold, angry, and unfamiliar. Just like the voice that goes with it. It gives him chills, freezes him from the inside out.

"Mike."

Mike is not the man he remembers. The kid is hunched, in just jeans, a thin shirt and worn sneakers. He is thin, too thin, with protruding cheekbones and sunken eyes that have little to no emotion reflected in them. The shivering is easy to see and he wraps his arms around himself, as are the tears he is obviously trying to subdue.

Harvey can't deal with this, pitiful and weak as it is.

"Selling yourself out wasn't worth it in the end then?" He asks snidely, watches with a sick pleasure as Mike flinches at the tone, but is baffled by the hurt, confused look the kid gives him.

"I didn't-" Mike starts, but Harvey cuts him off.

"Save it. Jessica told us what you did, selling firm secrets to Oilman and Sons." Mike's mouth opens and closes, like he's looking for something to say. He deflates before him, even further, looks like he's in actual pain.

"I can't believe you believed that." It's barely a whisper that reaches Harvey, muttered under breathing that is quickly becoming laboured with the effort of subduing sobs. It makes Harvey pause, because the kid looks broken and lost, so young. The old, suppressed need to protect Mike flares slightly in his chest. There is a voice in the back of his head, one that he tried to forget existed, that tells him that this is important. Do not let your anger rule this,the voice tells him, this is the truth you've been searching for.

"It's the truth, is it not?" His voice is still just a shadow of what they used to have between them. Mike looks up, hurt, tears gathering in the corners of his eyes as he shakes his head.

"I wouldn't- after everything.. How you could think that i would.. to you. I would never." Somewhere, inside, Harvey knows this is what he has been looking for. He hadn't wanted to believe that Jessica would lie to him, but this scene in front of him makes no sense otherwise. Surely, if what had been said was true, Oilman would have swooped in and claimed Mike and his extraordinary mind, the kid wouldn't be.. selling himself to get by. He takes an involuntary step towards Mike as the kids arms tighten around himself, and he flinches before him. It makes Harvey's breath catch painfully in his throat.

"Then tell me. Tell me what really happened?" He can hear the pleading slip into his voice, his tone filling with desperate warmth.

"Can we get out of the street first?" Mike asks him softly. Harvey nods, turns to lead the way towards the cabs mere feet from where they are, hoping that Mike will still follow him like he used to.

He does, climbing in behind Harvey, saying nothing when he gives the address of his apartment. They are silent on the way there, the short drive much longer through the tense atmosphere building between them.

Harvey pays the guy, ignores the looks the other people in his building are giving Mike and himself, and leads them both to his glass elevator. Mike is still shivering beside him, too thin and too cold, but the tears have stopped and he seems to be pulling himself together enough to have a reasonable conversation with Harvey.

"Okay, talk." Harvey instructs him as soon as they're seated at his dining table.

"That last case we worked?" It's posed like a question, as if Harvey could ever forget. He nods anyway.

"The opposition, Mr. Threadson, he was angry. Really angry. He began investigating me, and he figured it out. Figured everything out. The lack of degree, the internal disputes. He got a private investigator to put together a file and he brought it to Jessica." Mike coughs, arms around himself again. Harvey doesn't say anything, lets the kid gather his thoughts again until he picks up the story.

"He.. he threatened to destroy you all, and the reputation of Pearson Hardman, if- if Jessica didn't fire me with a story that would ruin my job there and any future prospects. He wanted me ruined, because i helped ruin him. And it worked." Mike chuckles mirthlessly, refuses to meet Harvey's gaze. "Even you believed i was capable of the things she said i did." He adds under his breath.

Harvey is silent, making attempts to control the rage, the horror, he can feel building inside of him. He can't. It builds and builds, crashes over him in a wave and before he knows what he's done, he's stood, swept an arm across his breakfast bar where a bottle of scotch, some books and glasses were. He swears loudly, paces with his hands in his hair, only stops when he see's Mike trying to make himself as small as possible in his seat, arms squeezing around himself, eyes wide as they track Harvey's movements around the room.

"I'm sorry." The words are thick and painful as they claw their way up through his throat. Harvey slumps back into his chair, hands still pulling at his hair.

"God, Mike. I'm so sorry." He wants Mike's forgiveness, needs it, but he knows he hasn't earnt it.

"Of all the people," Mike's voice is barely a whisper. "To believe the lies she was selling, i didn't think you would be the one to believe them so wholly." The guilt sits in his chest, heavy and suffocating. He has nothing to say to that, decides to switch subjects instead.

"How did you end up.." Harvey waves towards his window, at the city below them. Mike chuckles without humour again, fingernails scratching harshly at the skin of his upper arms.

"There was no where hiring. Or, at least nowhere that paid the kind of money i needed. Trevor is gone, so dealing was out of the question. This was all there was." Harvey feels sick, the knowledge that he helped turn a bright, amazing young man into this shell, this imitation who allowed himself to be used. That the one person he was supposed to protect was broken down and torn apart right before his eyes and he did nothing. The missed phone calls, ignored emails, they settle like heavy weights in his mind.

"What-" Harvey coughs, tries to dislodge the lump in his throat. "What did you need the money for?" He manages to choke out.

"The same things i've always needed money for." It dawns on Harvey that he forgot about why Mike needed the job that brought him to Harvey in the first place. His grandmother probably still needs the same care, if not more, and that will still be the same price. Not to add on rent, if Mike still has an apartment at this point, and food, although it doesn't look like there has been much of that.

"Grammy's care is more expensive now, she had a minor heart attack about two months ago. I'm about two weeks away from losing my apartment because her medical bills came in last month."

"When was the last time you ate?" Harvey asks gently. He feels like he drowning under his guilt and Mike's pain. Mike shrugs, dragging a hand down his face.

"Maybe two days ago? I kind of.. lose track of time these days." Harvey sighs, digging his cell out of his pocket.

"Chinese okay?" Mike nods, but then looks up sharply.

"I can't- I don't have the money to pay you back for the cab or dinner.. i wasn't actually working tonight.." Harvey shakes his head.

"This is on me, don't worry about it. Just- can we just forget the shit for right now. You look like you need a shower, some food and a warm night's sleep." Harvey tells him. "We can talk in the morning, i promise, but for now just go shower while i order food." Mike looks like he is about to argue, but the fight drains from him, a visible wave of exhaustion descends on him and he just nods instead.

"Good, i'll leave you some sweats and a shirt outside the door." Another nod and Mike disappears towards the bathroom.

Harvey lets out a breath, pained and tired himself. He can't believe he let this happen to the kid when he was supposed to be protecting him. When he'd promised, time and time again, that he wouldn't let anything happen to him. Now, finding him selling his body on the streets, almost homeless and starving just to keep his grandmother cared for, it's like the guilt and the weight of his actions and the actions of others is trying to bury him.

For now, though, Harvey makes an effort to press it all down into the deep part of himself that is self-deprecating and hateful. He calls the nearest restaurant still open, hopes Mike still likes the same things he used to, and then goes in search of clothes for the kid to wear. It's the least he can do, for now.

When Mike wakes up it's because he can feel someone's eyes on him. The memories of last night rush him, so he recalls being at Harvey's and falling asleep on his sofa. The light in the room tells him he slept through the night for the first time in months, and he's fairly certain the only reason he woke up is because of that prickling, tense feeling of being watched.

He is. By Harvey, who is staring at his hips where the sweats slipped down a little and the shirt rode up. There is a mix between horror, confusion and benign understanding in his eyes.

"God, Mike." Harvey chokes out. Mike moves quickly, dragging the shirt down.

"It's.. don't worry about it." He sits up, pulls his knee's into his chest and rests his head on them so that Harvey can take the space at the end of the sofa.

"Why?" Harvey's voice is so soft, Mike almost misses it.

"Why what? Why the cuts?" Harvey nods. "I.. lose myself when i work. It feels empty, hollow. They remind me that somewhere i'm alive, that i still bleed, still feel pain." Harvey looks horrified, but he nods in understanding.

"What happens now?" Mike asks tentatively when the silence stretches out too long to be comfortable. Harvey turns to him, pulling one leg up underneath him and giving him his full attention.

"There will be nothing. Absolutely nothing, any of us will be able to do to fix what we've put you through." Harvey starts, fingers twisting in his old Harvard sweatshirt.

"But i can help you, if you will let me." Mike considers Harvey for a moment, the pained, earnest look on his face. Mike nods, and Harvey lets out an audible sigh.

"How?" Mike asks, still curled up at the other end of the furniture.

"Move in here, i'll change the office into a spare room and you can have that. Rent free, and i'll pay your grandmothers medical fee's, as long as you need me to. I'll talk to Jessica about creating a new fake story, a wrongful investigation that gave false results. It's been months, i doubt Threadson is even paying attention anymore, but either way any proof he had will be null now that everything has been even for so long. Your credentials are still on the Harvard website, even if you didn't come back to Pearson, other firms would hire you. You could get back on track." Harvey looks so earnest, honest and desperate to alleviate some of the guilt that Mike can see haunting his eyes, the lines of his face taunt with it.

"What if Jessica won't?" Mike questions, hardly daring to let the hope flare any further in his chest.

"She will." Harvey's voice is hard. "But even, in the event that she didn't, i'll still help you. I won't let this happen again, okay? You don't need to worry anymore." He outstretches one arm, but doesn't look like he's quite sure what he's going to do after that. Confused as to whether is is trying to comfort, or just talking with his hands.

Mike tries not to, tries so hard, but it's been so long since someone has cared for him, since someone has shown genuine concern. There is an itching need in the back of his mind, and he can't resist it, the lure of Harvey's surety, the promise of security and safety and warmth. It's too much, and Mike takes that outstretched arm as an invitation. Lets go of the emotions so tightly coiled inside of him, throws himself into Harvey as he begins to sob.

"Thank you." Mike chokes out. Harvey's hands flutter uselessly for a moment before settling on Mike's back, rubbing circles gently. "Thank you. Thank you." Mike cries into Harvey's shoulder.

Mike tells him he isn't ready to get back into any real, honest work yet. He needs to get himself back, pull the wreckage of himself into something human again, something more than the empty body that he was. Harvey offers to pay for therapy, but Mike cleans up and visits his Grammy a couple of days later instead. When he comes back, the kid has a smile, it's small, but it's genuine.

It's not much, but it's the first of the old Mike he's seen since he found the kid a week ago, and it's like sweet relief.

Harvey still goes to Jessica, takes Donna along with him. He hasn't told her yet, wants her to get the full effect of it when he spells it out to their boss. He, secretly, is happy that they will burden this guilt with him.

Jessica is angry at first, spluttering and indignant, when Harvey tells her he knows she used Mike as a scapegoat for the company's incompetency. She is still angry when he tells her that he knows about Threadson, that Mike told all.

She is less angry when he tells her how he found Mike.

The anger fades completely when he tells her of the state he was in, of why he was doing what he was doing to survive, of the parts of his body torn up just to feel alive sometimes and of the nightmares he has of people's hands on him, taking the things he didn't want to give but had to anyway.

"I didn't know." She whispers, sliding into her chair. Donna is crying behind him, he can hear the soft hitches of her breath as she sobs.

"It is not an excuse, for any of us. What did you think would happen, when you let him be ruined like that?" There is no answer, just Jessica lost inside her head and Donna still crying behind him.

"He lost himself, everything he had left, to keep his grandmother safe and himself barely alive. You owe him, Jessica. Fix this, make the lies go away."

"I can't.. The file that Threadson has would ruin us."

"Our reputation is sound!" Harvey slams his hands down on her desk. "There is no evidence of internal disputes anymore, and he couldn't prove by physical records that Mike's degree isn't real." He hisses. "So fix it."

He turns on his heel, leaving her open mouthed and alone, taking Donna with him. They'll go to the apartment for lunch today, and Donna will still be crying.

Mike will forgive her, because that's what he does, and Donna will still be crying, apologising, drowning under the same wave of guilt that Harvey is when they go back to the office.

Two weeks later, Mike's grandmother is waiting for him in his office when he comes back from court. She smiles sweetly at him, asks if he is 'Mr. Specter' and when he nods, she slaps him. Hard. Both he and Donna stare at her, stunned, as the smile disappears and something more feral, more protective morphs onto her face.

"He's getting better." She tells them evenly, all they can do is nod. "If you do anything, one single thing, to screw any part of him up again. I will destroy you from my hospital bed. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, Mrs. Ross." He agrees, with more respect than he's had for a person in such a long time, besides Mike. The expression on her face changes back into a sweet smile, what Harvey later comes to believe is her version of a blank stare, and she passes by them smoothly, latching onto the arm of a gentlemen waiting just outside the room and heading out towards the lifts.

Both he and Donna are still too shocked to do anything other than stare after them.

Things are different, now.

Mike has trouble eating, and kicking the urge to dig into himself with something sharp whenever a wave of apathy hit him is close to impossible. It feels like he is taking advantage, and not taking enough advantage at the same time, as he stays with Harvey and lets the man pay for everything.

Three weeks after Harvey found him, there is very public redaction of the claims made against him. It's all over the media, his email account is bombarded. He doesn't leave the apartment for another week after that, tries to avoid the storm that follows and the possible repercussions of such a statement.

A month and a half after Harvey found him, they set up a meeting with Jessica. Mike has long since forgiven Harvey and Donna for being sucked into the very convincing lies being fed to them. Facing Jessica though, that is a different ball game altogether.

She looks cool, collected and in charge when they enter the room, but there is an emotion close to regret lingering deep in her eyes, etched into the stress line between her eyebrows.

"I am willing to reinstate you at your position here, at Pearson Hardman." Jessica tells him with a fake smile, which he returns. Things like that still make him feel empty, and Harvey knows that. Mike knows that Harvey knows, because the man's fingers brush oh-so-lightly against his forearm as he shift positions. To anyone else, it would be a casual, accidental touch, but between them they know what it means.

Comfort. Support. Backup.

"That's nice of you, Ms. Pearson." Mike returns to false smile again, fingers curling tightly around the arm of the chair he is sat in.

"But if i'm to return to your firm. The conditions of my employment need to be re-discussed." Jessica deflates a little, nods for him to continue.

"Given the false nature of the accusations brought against me." Mike starts pleasantly, the dark edge in his voice just barely perceptible. "I want back pay, including any bonuses, for the twenty six weeks in which my employment was wrongfully terminated." He would use more informal, harsh conversational techniques, but Norma is the one taking minutes of this meeting and they don't need to let their dirty laundry air too publicly. Jessica grits her teeth but nods.

"Agreed, anything else?" This is the part Mike is nervous about, really. The back pay, he could justify asking for that because he can start paying for things himself, begin paying Harvey back, but this part, the part that's all for him. The empty, self-deprecating part of himself still lingering just under the surface tells him he doesn't deserve it for himself.

Harvey though, he disagrees with that part, and gives Mike a small smile and a nod of encouragement.

It's enough to push down those empty parts of himself, for now.

"I will no longer be considered an associate. The title of my employment will be declared officially at a later time if we can find a reasonable name for it, but i will work solely for Harvey as a superior, or on my own cases. I have discussed this with Harvey, he agrees. And, for reasons we do not wish to disclose at this time, i will be moved to the empty office three doors down from Harvey's." Jessica looks close to thunderous, but her voice is controlled when she speaks.

"You're asking for quite a lot, Mr. Ross." She grits out.

"I'm afraid those are the make or break condition i would like put in place. I'm sure, after everything, you would agree those are satisfactory." They have her backed into a corner, and winning like this feels amazing, like worth building inside of that hollow space in Mike's chest. Harvey's mouth is twitching at the corners, the way it does when he is trying to hide a grin. Jessica looks between the two of them for what feels like a very long time, before sighing heavily, reaching over the desk to take the contract Mike had set down as soon as they walked in.

"I'll sign this contract and have Norma messenger your copy by tonight." Mike nods, gives her a tight smile, and he and Harvey leave the room quickly. They head for Harvey's office- and Donna goddess that she is, already has the blinds on the inter office windows drawn shut- Mike collapses down onto Harvey's office sofa, burying his head in his hands and trying to breathe through the emotions assaulting him.

"Hey." Harvey whispers, sitting next to him, wrapping an arm around Mike's shoulder and drawing him into the secure curve of his body. "You're okay. It's all okay now." Mike nods into Harvey's neck, breathing out softly as the familiar comfort of this soothes him.

Whatever this was between them, the familiar touches, the brushes of mouths, the curling up in Harvey's bed to sleep close together, it's good. It's helping.

Mike can feel now, without the pain, without the physical evidence that his heart is indeed beating, that his blood is still flowing. He puts that down to Harvey, to the way he broke him apart, but then put him so carefully back together again. The patients he has with the reactions Mike has, to the way he shies away from other people, won't function in a crowd, terrified that someone will remember him from the bad, dark days. Mike can feel now because when someone has a gun to your head, there could be 146 options for everyone else, 146 ways to get out of the situation, but Mike will only even need one now. Number 147. The one solution pressed against his side, who smells like cinnamon and expensive aftershave. The single most influential person, the one with the ability to ruin or create, make or break Mike. Harvey Specter, who pulled him out of exile, filled in some of the empty spaces, and is helping him figure out what else fits in the places Harvey can't reach.

He feels like home, and safety. And it's the best thing he's felt in forever.