It was burning, this liquor inside his windpipe. Even for him, it was stronger than could ever be termed advisable.
He took another long, suffering draught, his throat eagerly anticipating the harsh but smooth liquid.
The numbing spreading throughout his brain, his nerves, was warmly welcomed.
Cherished.
He caught the mixed look of mild concern and sympathy from the bartender and sighed. Swallowing the last dregs in his glass, he set it down with more force than was necessary and with a pointed look.
More.
He needed so much more. The muting of the pain that seemed to be taking up residence in his body would require more.
The bartender hesitated.
A heated and loaded glare was thrown across the mahogany surface at which he was propped.
The bartender relented.
Within a few moments the glass was replenished, being clutched in eagerly awaiting hands.
As the woody scent hit his nose, he stopped short.
There would be no high end whiskey, where…he was.
No. There would be no luxury at all. His stomach churned at the thought of it, the feeling of helplessness washing over him again. It wasn't a feeling he was accustomed to, helplessness was… not a tolerable condition in his profession. He was always in control, it was what made him, him.
When it mattered most though, he wasn't in control.
Couldn't be in control.
The liquor sailed down his windpipe to meet its fallen brethren.
The deep brown eyes snapped shut in pain. They clenched tighter still in a hopeless line of defence at the writhing guilt that engulfed him.
That kid had trusted him…believed he could do pretty much anything, and he had failed him.
Harvey Specter was not a man accustomed to failure. He found it to be an unacceptable feature of the human condition. He was a man with a reputation, and a man with means…a man who always found a way, when there seemed to be no way.
He threw down the rest of the whiskey.
He was this man to so many people, spanning the years of ludicrously successful career…but when it really mattered, when the client was so much more than a client, he had been but a mere mortal like the rest of them.
He ordered another round, the positively alarmed look of the bartender washing over his consciousness.
His thoughts turned to Mike's… accommodations, contrasting the kid's first night in jail against his own luxurious surroundings.
The guilt soared upwards in his stomach.
He should have known better…he had known better. He hired Mike without more than five minutes hesitation, so enraptured was he with the kid's brain…his obvious talent, his brimming potential.
The potential to have the protégée he never knew he wanted until the young man had come crashing head long into that hotel.
The much debated drink arrived, and he clutched it immediately and with an almost indecent strength.
He was as much to blame for this whole goddamned mess as Mike was.
Scratch that, he was much more to blame.
He was the experienced lawyer. He was the mentor. He was the one who had encouraged Mike to delve deeper and deeper into the fantasy that they would never be caught. He had mocked his concerns when they had spent all those hours in his office together. He had revelled in his own arrogance, sniffing at the idea that Harvey Specter could ever be so common as to be caught in a crime.
The numbing in his brain was becoming stronger, and he drank deeper, desperate to encourage the oncoming state of complete and utter oblivion.
His cell suddenly shrilled in his pocket, and he resolutely ignored it.
It would be Donna.
She had called every half hour for the last three hours. No doubt to tell him that he done all he could, and that Mike had made his choice…that he was capable of making his own decisions. That the kid would be alright, he'd be out in two years, still a young man, with his whole life ahead of him.
The yarn you give guilty people, to make them feel less guilty, when that would be the very last thing they should be doing.
Harvey snorted into his crystal glass. He deserved every ounce of the almost viscous guilt that was hammering its way through every fibre of his mind.
He knew he hadn't done all he could. If he had…he wouldn't be drinking twenty dollar a glass whiskey right now, in a suit that cost more than most people's rent. He wouldn't be chauffeured home by an ever patient Ray in a couple of hours, dragged up the stairs to his penthouse apartment to sleep it off.
Oh no, if he had done all he could. He would be drinking questionable water, in prison overalls that cost less than most people's lunch. He would be chauffeured back to his cell, on foot, by a less than friendly prison guard, thrown into a cramped cell, to sleep off the first of seven hundred and thirty nights.
He snorted into the inoffensive glass again.
Oh he had offered to be the sacrificial lamb, of course he had. He had made that offer, in the full knowledge that it would never be permitted to come to fruition.
The kid was cursed by his own loyalty. The sense of loyalty Harvey had drummed into him, day in and day out, because they were a team.
What a laugh.
If they were a team, he was the captain. Last time he checked, the captain was supposed to be the one you could count on.
He drank deeply again, lost in a vicious haze of self loathing.
Done all he could…what was it with that phrase?
It was so empty, so meaningless and yet it was the damn empathetic catchphrase of the elite professions.
Doctors, who didn't know your father from a hole in the wall, telling you in a somber tone that he'd done all he could. Lawyers, who saw dollar signs in the deepest of sufferings, collecting their share of a settlement, telling you that had done all they could.
He drank.
Rachel's face danced across his eyes. The look on her beautiful face when Mike had walked out of their own wedding, to begin a prison sentence. The look of contempt he was sure he'd seen in her eyes.
Contempt…for him.
He smiled grimly, causing the bartenders eyebrows to shoot up even further and to shuffle away to the other end of the bar.
She could never have as much contempt for him, as he had for himself.
Staring into space, Harvey's insides seemed to constrict.
What a mess…what an ungodly, unholy mess.
Mike in jail, innocent people caught in the crossfire, the firm in complete and utter ruination.
It all came back to him. The great and mighty goddamned Harvey Specter.
It was his fault. He had grown attached to that kid…when he knew better.
Never, ever get attached.
To anything, or anyone.
Rule numero uno.
But he…had. He had felt, and succumbed to the inexplicable and irresistible impulse to nurture, to teach…to help the conundrum that was Michael James Ross.
If he hadn't…he would have cut the cord so much sooner. None of this would be happening, and none of what was coming down the tracks would be on its dreary way.
He grit his teeth, and swirled the amber liquid in his glass.
What was it his therapist had said? About his relationship with the kid, why he just couldn't let go?
Oh yeah.
Paternal instinct.
Harvey laughed coldly and quietly, causing the now highly uncomfortable bartender to nearly wind up on another customers lap in his attempts to create distance between himself and this positively alarming looking man.
Paternal instinct…what a laugh. Look how much he had screwed up the life of a fully grown adult, imagine the havoc he would wreak in the life of a dependent freaking minor.
He stared into his drink.
His heart ached.
For the first time in as long as he could remember, he had cared.
Cared about more than the job, the life…
He had cared about another human being other than Donna, other than Zoe, Scottie…
His eyes watered of their own volition, and he ducked his head in shame.
The solitary tear that escaped and trailed down his cheek was a stark reminder of why he never dropped his guard, never let anyone in.
The tear splattered on the shiny surface in front of him, twinkling up at him in a salty pool of learning, telling him what he already knew, and what he stupidly had forgotten.
Never, ever let anyone in.
Another tear joined the small pool.
He choked on his own breath, the dominating thought that had taken control of his consciousness forcing its way out of his lips, spoken to the thin air in front of him.
Damn it, Mike…I'm so sorry…
A/N: Not my usual style, so please let me know what you think. Just a quick one shot!