Chapter Text
For Mike's sake, he's never been happier to be the one bearing bad news to Jessica. Somehow, it made it easier with Harvey outside of the office, explaining to her that Kyle's attempt at a physical attack triggered PTSD from his Army days, and her previous knowledge of his past made her more sympathetic. Still, she tells him he should remain out of the office for a few days until she can get it sorted and recommends that he sees someone about his problems.
She sounds a lot like Jenny, who proved to be right, so he's feeling more open to the idea. Plus, she didn't exactly leave the instructions open to interpretation.
Mike also doesn't say anything to Harvey after talking to Jessica, nor after the meeting. His boss sends a few questioning words towards Jessica, almost surprised at the lack of punishment Mike receives, but she simply shuts the door.
The drive to his home is silent; this time, Ray doesn't even attempt to break the tension. They walk amidst the tension until the door is closed and Mike's not too sure what to do with himself anymore.
Harvey walks away for a moment, before coming back into the room with a towel and a change of clothes, throwing both at Mike as though he's somehow prepared to catch it all. "There," he says. "You still have coffee in your hair. We'll talk once you don't."
Mike takes his time, trying to ruminate between all the different phrasing he can use to explain his story, to somehow show off the graveness of the situation while still removing all of the details in a way that will prevent him from putting Harvey in an awkward spot. When he changes, though, the loose t-shirt and stretched collar hangs low on his neck, and he realizes that it's not truly a possibility.
Now, with Mike's scar fully in view- something he hasn't let anyone freely see since he's gotten it- Harvey barely even has to gesture towards it in order for the subject of his words to be clear. "I'm sure you didn't get that from a diner robbery."
Mike snorts in response, almost surprised that Harvey remembered his poorly knit cover story. He shakes his head. "Nope."
"There was no diner at all, Mike. You've been lying to me."
"I didn't lie to you just to lie to you, Harvey. I have reasons."
Harvey rolls his eyes. "I'm supposed to be the person you talk to, Mike. I'm the person you tell. I don't give a shit what your reasons are; I can't save your ass if I don't know what is going on!"
"You do care, dude! The same reason you looked at me in fear in the office. You were scared of me, Harvey. You looked at me and saw a completely different person, and that's why I didn't tell you," Mike huffs. "That's what people do. Once they know you're dangerous, they treat you like some untrained circus elephant. You'll take one look at the person I used to be- or the one I've become- and you'll forget all the good things you've ever thought of me."
Embarrassed, Mike keeps his eyes cemented on the ground. Harvey's quiet for a moment, before he's not. He walks away- and if that doesn't make the pit of Mike's stomach deepen to the likes of the Mariana Trench, nothing does- but returns shortly with two small glasses and a bottle. Harvey serves a splash of scotch in each once, slides a cup down the table, and leans back in his chair.
"Really?" Mike asks.
Harvey shrugs. "You're trying to get emotions out of me on a Tuesday night. If you think that's happening while I'm sober, you've completely misjudged me."
The normalcy of it all gives Mike the strength to smile, just a small upturn of the right corner of his mouth, and Harvey takes a sip.
"Your memory proved you as an asset to me, but that wasn't a one-way ticket. You didn't waltz into my interview and secure a shot by memorizing a textbook," Harvey starts, swirling the liquor around the cup. "And I didn't hire you because I expected you to stay the same, Mike. Your meticulous observations, your quick-lipped quips, your well-timed anger- it was all a sign that you could grow. You could become the lawyer I need to shape you into. I could teach you how to be a better lawyer. I wanted to help you change."
"So, I don't give a rat's ass if you sit here and tell me you got jumped for drug dealing in college, or if you went to prison and dawned a new identity on the way out, or if you're a CIA agent who only took on this position to spy on Louis. That's not who you are now, and that's not who you will become. Nothing will change the fact that you're the best damn associate I could have hired."
"Wow," is all Mike can come up with.
The Harvey Specter that adorned the 'first impression' portion of Mike's mind sits in his neat office in the middle of New York City, makes demands of his employees, never takes 'no' for an answer, and wears the title of the city's best closer with pride. The Harvey Specter he sees now, sitting in his living room nursing a glass of scotch, one ankle crossed over the opposing knee, with a single thread worth ten dollars handing off the hem of his dress pants, is nothing like him. This is the Harvey who showed up in his darkest times, who came to his grandmother's funeral and smoked with him afterwards, who put his beloved career on the line for Mike, a man he'd known for no more than a moment.
Then, suddenly, the floor is Mike's. Harvey's mouth is shut as he waits in a way that nearly says the past few months of development weren't enough to make him impatient for answers. Mike finds himself nervous, but not in the worried way he was just minutes before. It's the upcoming confession of things he hasn't admitted happened aloud in years.
"You're right," he starts with, because that's always a sentence Harvey Specter likes to hear, even if he doesn't flash a sly grin at this specific admission. "There was never a diner. Those years of no work, the ones missing from my resume that I told you were odd jobs... they weren't," Mike admits. "I was in the Army."
"With Rich?" Harvey asks.
"With Rich," Mike confirms. "He came in about two years into my term. I got the Army to pay for my college and law school and, in return, had to do six years for them. Um, my friend-" Mike swallows. "Trevor joined me after one."
Harvey nods, a show that he's listening. Mike continues. "I became a Sergeant over the years. Controlled a group of 4-5 men on the regular. Trevor was- he was sort-of my right-hand man. Otherwise, my group rotated between 12 men at our base. You get pretty close to those guys. They become your family."
Mike exhales slowly. "Three months before my return date, I got an order from Staff Sergeant McCormick to invade a small town isolated in the desert. He said it was abandoned, the roads dusted over and unused, and we were just there to take it over as a camp."
Harvey hides behind his glass for a second, before lowering it back to rest on his leg. "Same Staff Sergeant McCormick as our client?"
"Where'd you get a brain like that, Sherlock?" Mike jokes, to which Harvey shoots him a glare. "Same guy. I told him off; it was too sketchy, too risky. The layout of the buildings looked strategic. It was too far for immediate backup if something went south. There was a storm headed in, so there was a fair chance we couldn't get choppers in if we needed them. But... McCormick pulled rank and made us go in."
"He gave me all my men. Two teams, ten men in my command. We went in and, just as I expected, it was an ambush. Had to have been coordinated for months, the way they all rose at the same time, popping out of windows and rooftops and a few fake manholes that lined the streets. One second, we were alone, the next, we were swarmed."
Harvey blinks at him. "You remember every detail," he says, something that should be phrased as a question, but doesn't need to be, because Harvey already knows the answer.
Still, he nods. "The fire was heavy. They- I lost eight of my men that day."
As he takes a moment to regroup, Harvey adjusts slightly, just a simple lift and drop of his leg in nearly an identical spot. It almost makes Mike frustrated, how his discomfort can be solved in such an insignificant twitch, but Mike's is an irremovable mass that's been deposited in his gut for years. "You lost Trevor," Harvey guesses.
"Right next to me. They shot him in the neck," he explains. Mike can almost see him, see the fear that swarmed his eyes, how he didn't even have time to develop tears. "He just... collapsed into me. Gargled on his own blood for the final moments. I tried telling him it would be okay, but he just stared. Squeezed my arm until he was gone. Then, he died."
"I'm sorry," Harvey tells him, earnest and thick with emotion. It feels like the most genuine sorrow he's ever gotten for Trevor's death.
"Three of us survived. They took us all in POW; McCormick and his backup didn't find us for three days." Mike sighs. His cold hands quiver in his lap, trembling fingertips gently running against each unique print. "That's all I told Jessica."
Harvey hums, swallowing the last of the bourbon in his glass. "There's more, I presume?"
"Yeah," Mike lets out with a dry chuckle. "But no one knows, only Jenny and- and Grammy did."
His admission goes unanswered. Harvey places his empty cup down, rises from his chair, and walks around the table to the couch, where he settles only a foot apart from Mike. The cushion dips underneath his weight, but Mike refuses to readjust for comfort, afraid that the rest of his story will come out in a broken slew of words if he twists the wrong way. Harvey's hand provides support like a grounding wire on his shoulder. "What happened to you, Mike?"
He screws his eyes shut. The scar across his throat feels like it's closing in with every passing moment. "It's not like it is in the movies. Torture, that is," Mike starts. Harvey's hand tenses briefly before he gets it back in control, reeling in his reactions to show Mike that this isn't about how the story makes Harvey feel, it's about Mike living with it. "There wasn't any constant pain, no waterboarding, no chains. They kept the three of us who lived in a room. Wouldn't let me wash Trevor's blood off. They used words more than anything, telling me how it was my fault. They took pictures of all the men who died and showed them to me once every hour."
"No food. A few teaspoons of water every now and then. The worst part-" Mike swallows. "It all went to hell on the day McCormick got there."
He pauses. Mike's eyes fly open, hand careening through the air towards his untouched drink. He shoots it up to his mouth and downs it all in one go. He barely feels the burn against the irritation in his throat, but tightly presses his lids together, nonetheless. Despite the sudden movement being jarring, Harvey's hand travels from his shoulder to his back, and when he leans into the sofa again, rests on his leg. "I'm listening," he promises.
"They set off some sort of alarm on the way in, alerted all our captor that they were there. By the time they barged in, their leader... he already had the knife to my throat," he explains. "I remember looking at Rich standing beside McCormick as they tried to negotiate, and he just looked... horrified. That's how I knew there was no getting to through to them, and that I was going to die."
"By the time our sniper took the shot, he had already started cutting me; the only thing I have to thank him for is that he didn't get the knife deep enough. Rich rushed to me, held my throat closed. I just dug my fingers into his wrists, trying to pull him off and let me go. But he kept saying, "I'm not leaving. I'm not leaving you, Mikey." And I just wondered if all the fear and comfort and lifelessness I felt in that moment was how Trevor died feeling."
Mike's curling in on himself at this point, but Harvey's presence doesn't fade. "He died knowing you were there. You were going to make things okay. That's how he died. Not scared."
Despite all his emotions, Mike wonders where Harvey is pulling these words from.
"Thanks," is all he answers with, even if it doesn't add up to the pure gratefulness he feels towards the way Harvey is listening to him. "I, uh- I woke up three weeks later. They airlifted me to some hospital in another country, and I never heard from McCormick- or anyone- again. All the doctors kept telling me what miracle is was that I was alive, but I had never felt more regret and pain in my life."
"Those years that followed- the ones where I was actually doing odd-jobs and bike deliveries- it was all trying to figure out how to... live a life I chose. One that made me happy."
Harvey's relatively quiet, though Mike hasn't opened himself back up to see any physical reactions. He clicks his tongue. "You found that in Pearson Hardman," he assumes, to which Mike nods. Harvey snorts. "Most first-year associates come to the firm and have the most miserable few years of their life."
Mike huffs in response. "Most of your first-year associates' biggest nightmares are of the cube farm, not a knife to the throat," he retorts. "Believe me, I hate when you overwork me, I hate getting extra add-ons from Louis, I hate staying up at my cubicle on my fifth cup of coffee and biking home at 2 a.m., but it's the best thing that's ever happened to me, and I wouldn't trade it for anything."
After that, there's a silence that settles over the entire apartment. There's not been enough experience for either of them within the realms of such emotion-driven confessions for a smooth exit to their conversation. Mike simply excuses himself to the restroom, but he just spends the entire time splashing his face with cold water in a weak attempt to convince himself it's all real, and he only flushes the toilet for show.
By the time Mike gets out of the bathroom, there's a collection of pillows and blankets on the couch. Harvey tells him that he 'didn't know what he prefers,' and when Mike teases him about caring about a measly associate, he gets promptly smacked in the back of the head with said pillow. Not long after, Harvey excuses himself to his bedroom, and Mike flicks off the only lamp left on in the living room.
Twenty minutes pass of Mike laying restlessly on the couch, and he still hasn't fallen asleep. It's not uncommon; he tends to have trouble settling his mind when he encounters stark, unexpected reminders of his torturous past, and he sort-of fears the dreams he'll have once he gets there.
Then, in the quiet of the apartment, there's the gentle pattering of feet across the floor, a quiet creak of a door, and the formerly mentioned footsteps growing in volume. It's quiet for a moment. Despite Mike's back being turned, blanket tucked neatly across his shoulders and face digging into the cushions, he can feel the way Harvey stares at him from a few feet away.
"Mike?" he asks, voice uncharacteristically timid, as though he's actually scared to wake Mike up. And, though Mike can hear him, he doesn't answer.
Harvey sighs. Instead of retreating back to his bedroom, he walks around to the chair beside the couch, even going so far as the pull it closer as he sits. He stays there for minutes just surveying the environment. "I had things to say to you, back when you were talking, but... but for some reason, I can't stand to tell them to you. Not when you're awake, anyway. Somehow this just feels... easier."
Mike's heartbeat increases far more than it should in his near-sleep rhythm. "I'm sorry," Harvey whispers. "And... I don't know, Mike. I'd never thought anything like that had happened. I just- I ran you to the ground with work over the past few months, and if you had just told me..."
He pauses and lets out another shaky sigh. Harvey's hands run back and forth over his legs. "I know I'm Harvey, and I don't do emotions, but-" he gulps, shaking his head. "Just... just know that you somehow- only god knows how you've managed this- broke into this... little barrier I created. It's not just me in my mind anymore. By some grace of god, this puppy just weaseled his way into my- well, Donna would call it my heart, but I'm not sure I can get that sappy."
Harvey sighs. His words hang in the air, echoing in the silence that shrouds them. "I care about you, Mike. And I'm sorry."
That's where Harvey stops, even if it's not everything that's in his head. Some of those thoughts, the ones that hold more emotion than he could stand to vocalize, will simply never be shown to the light of day. But, to Mike, that doesn't matter. Everything he's needed to hear has been said. Those last eight words, the ones that Mike's been teasingly begging to hear for over a year calm his nerves more than any of the general coping mechanisms he's ever been taught.
Harvey doesn't get out of the chair. He stays next to Mike, like he's watching him, like hearing his even-breathing is enough to keep his emotions at bay. And, unknowing to Harvey, his speech and his presence are exactly what Mike needs to fall asleep, faster than he has in months.
"There," Rachel says, adjusting the formerly crooked knot in your tie. "Now it doesn't look like you were napping on Harvey's couch before presenting your own court win to a group of senior partners."
"Thank you," Mike rushes. "You're a life savior, seriously. If I got up there and my tie was out of place, then my collar would be crooked, and-"
"Relax, Mike," she smiles. She squeezes his shoulder with her hand. "I know you won't forget your lines, but if you get nervous, remember who's a senior partner."
"Harvey?"
Rachel grins. "Exactly. If anyone's in your corner, it's him," she explains. Rachel glances back at the window-lined room around the corner, where there's only four open seats waiting for their corresponding partners. "Plus, Louis is right next to him, and they've actually been getting along for the past week."
Mike nods. "I'll be fine."
"You will be," she agrees. "I'll give you a few minutes to review. Good luck."
"Thanks," Mike tells her, and even if it's not enough words to properly encompass his gratitude, Rachel takes it in stride as she leaves. Mike takes his own look at the room and judges that he has about five minutes till he has to go inside, which is just enough time to do exactly what he needs to prepare. To let go, in a way.
Jenny's number has remained untouched in his phone; it's been a year to the day since she left, she they've last spoke. When it rings, Mike learns that he's no longer blocked, but voicemail is still where he's sent.
"Hey, Jenny," Mike starts. "It's been a while, I know. I just... I just wanted to call and say that you were right."
Mike cuts himself off with a chuckle, running a hand through his hair. "Guess you didn't expect to hear that. But, uh- you were. Harvey knows now. A lot of people do. Well, maybe not a lot, but Jessica, Donna, and Rachel know, too. And- and it's definitely more helpful than scary."
"I've got a therapist again. I visited Trevor's grave last Sunday and left flowers. I won my biggest case two weeks ago, and I just..." Mike looks down to the floor. "I'm doing better. And I haven't heard from you, but I hope- well, I know you're doing just as good as I am."
His phone buzzes in his hand. Mike pulls it away from his ear, where a new notification from Harvey reads, 'Get your ass in here, Robin. I'm fending for myself here.' He all but chuckles and says. "Gotta go. Love you, Jenny."
One deep breath later, and Mike is surrounded by higher ups who are all looking at him with a newfound respect and attention. Six years later, this time, and Mike decides that he's doing better. At the end of his speech, when the room is shrouded in claps, and the first person to stand up and clap is Jessica, Mike's eyes fly to Harvey, who gives him the proudest, most reassuring smile he's gotten since Grammy died. Two years after he was given the opportunity of a lifetime from none other than Harvey, Mike decides that everything that's led him to this moment has been worth it.