A/N: Hello. Hello. So I have decided to take a dip into the world of Suits. I did not intend for this story to be one of those 'five times…' stories, but it seems to have become that anyway. That's alright. Well I hope you all enjoy this. I have no beta so all mistakes are my own and I take all credit for them.
Disclaimer: You know how it goes. Not mine blah blah blah.
The Absence of Light
Mike Ross had learned a long time ago that he didn't need to be afraid of the dark. It was, after all, just the absence of light; something that could not physically hurt him. But as he got older, he learned that there were things that lurked in the dark that could hurt him.
It started out with simple things, inanimate objects that could not attack him, but could still hurt him in certain circumstances. Then more ominous things came out of the dark; animals and people. People were the worst; they usually came with the intent to harm.
The first time he was physically hurt by something in the dark was when he was eight years old. It had happened one summer in the middle of the night.
Mike had snuck out of his room to reclaim his Game Boy. His dad had taken it from him earlier that night as a punishment for a previous act of defiance.
Mike remembered his carefully thought out plan. He had waited until both his parents had gone to sleep. Then he got up from his bed and crept over to his door. He grabbed the knob, twisted, and slowly pulled, hopping the whole time that the door would not squeak.
A soft sigh of relief left his mouth when the door had opened without a sound. The first part of his plan had been successful, but the more difficult task was still ahead of him. He needed to make it down the stairs and into his father's office, where Mike knew his dad locked away Mike's things when they were taken from him, and he had to get to the locked up game system. And then, of course, he had to make it back upstairs; all without making a single sound. It would be difficult, but he was sure he could do it.
He left his room, closing the door behind him just in case his parents came out of their room, and tiptoed down the hall.
He had been sure to take the stairs slowly. Years of living in this house had allowed him to master this staircase. He knew every stair and, in turn, he knew the best path to take to avoid the stairs that creaked.
Once he made it down the stairs, he headed straight for his father's office. He knew that his father locked things in his desk, where he thought Mike wouldn't be able to get to them. He knew which drawer his Game Boy would be in. He, however, did not know where the key was.
He made it to the office without bumping into anything. Luckily the office door was open, so he didn't have to worry about making too much noise. He entered the room and went straight for the desk, when he reached it he pulled the bottom drawer. Locked. Just like he knew it would be.
He hoped that the key would be somewhere nearby, somewhere it wouldn't get lost. He searched in every hiding place he could think of, on and around the desk, and finally found the key hidden under one of the books on the desk.
He unlocked the drawer and pulled it open. He placed a small hand inside slowly, as if something would bite him if he was not careful. His hand had reached the bottom of the drawer. He moved it around trying to find the game system. It was so dark in the office he could not see inside the desk. He didn't want to turn on a light in fear that his mom or dad would see. His hand brushed against something. He grabbed onto it and pulled the item out of the desk. He smiled when the object was out of the drawer and in his hands. He had found his Game Boy.
The triumphant smile stayed on his face as he closed the drawer, locked it and returned the key to its hiding place. He then turned around and left the office.
Mike was so excited about actually succeeding at his task; he did not think to use as much caution going back up the stairs.
He was nearly at the top of the stairs when his right foot stepped on something. Mike's mouth opened in shock as his ankle twisted and he fell backwards.
He landed with a loud thump at the bottom of the stairs. He landed on his back; his right leg had somehow ended up under him.
Mike tried to move, but the pain in his leg stopped him. He let out a soft cry as his eyes filled with tears.
He heard his parents' door open. As he heard his parents come down the stairs he thought of how much trouble he would be in for taking his Game Boy out of his father's desk.
That incident had led him to the hospital with a broken leg and another of month of being without his Game Boy. After that he avoided sneaking out of his room at night.
OoOoOoOo
The next time he was hurt by something in the dark occurred four years after he had broken his leg.
Mike, at twelve years old, was living with his grandmother. His parents had passed away two years before, and he still found it difficult to live without them at times.
Usually he could get by just fine, but every once in a while he would miss them more then he could handle.
This was one of those days, or in this case, nights.
It was ten o'clock at night and Mike was out on his bicycle trying to clear his head. He rode around neighborhoods he knew well; ones that were not very busy and where he didn't have to worry too much about his safety.
His grandmother had given him a strict curfew of eight o'clock. New York City was not the safest place for a young boy, especially at night. But Mike hadn't cared about any curfews that night. He couldn't stand the thought of sitting inside while he was in one of those moods.
After another half hour of aimlessly riding his bike around town, Mike decided to head home. No matter how he was feeling, he didn't want to worry his grandmother too much.
Mike turned his bike around and started on the shortest path he knew to his house.
He was swerving back and forth practicing bike tricks some of the neighborhood kids had taught him. He liked to add some excitement to his bike rides.
He moved to speed up and then something unexpected happened.
One moment he had been leaning over his handlebars gathering speed and the next he was laying on his back, his bike on top of his left wrist and leg.
Mike blinked a couple of times and moved his head, trying to shake some of the confusion he felt.
How did I end up here? he groaned as he tried to push his bike off of him.
Pain spiked through his left wrist. He gasped and stopped his attempt to move his bike.
Okay, maybe I shouldn't move that arm anymore.
He stopped all movement. He needed to figure out where he was hurt.
He knew his wrist was hurt, he just didn't know to what extent. His whole body throbbed, making it difficult to tell exactly where he was injured.
He wiggled the leg trapped under his bike. He felt a sting around his knee, but moving his leg didn't cause a whole lot of pain. That was good. That meant that he would be able to walk.
There didn't seem to by any sever pain coming from the right side of his body. The brunt of the impact seemed to be on the left.
Determining that he was uninjured, with the exception of his wrist, he decided that it was time to try and move his bike again.
He brought his left wrist up to his chest to protect it and used his right hand to push his bike away. He grunted at the effort.
Once the bike was out of his way he sat up and looked around him. A few feet away from where he sat lay a pothole. His front tire must have fallen into the hole, causing him to flip over the handlebars.
With a pained sigh, Mike pushed himself up. He walked the few steps separating him from his bike and picked up the fallen object.
He knew he wouldn't be able to ride the thing home so he used it as a crutch and began his painful journey home.
OoOoOoOoOo
"Do it Mike."
"Yeah, just run in there, scare him and then come back. That's all."
Sixteen year old Mike glanced at his two friends, Trevor and Jason, and then down the alley they were standing in front of. He couldn't see anything past a few feet into the alley. There were no working street lights around and the moonless night made the visibility low.
The three of them had been chasing Skyler, one their classmates. The guy had given them nothing but trouble since school had started. Skyler and his little gang had made it their mission to make the lives of Mike and his friends miserable.
So when Mike, Trevor, and Jason saw Skyler standing all alone in a scarcely traveled street, they couldn't pass up on the chance to get back at him.
They had chased him to this alley, and Trevor swore that he saw Skyler run into the dark so they believed that he was still there, hiding.
"Why do I have to be the one to go down there?" Mike turned his attention back to his friends.
"It's your turn, Man," Trevor smirked at Mike.
Mike glared at Trevor. He rolled his eyes knowing it was pointless to argue with his friend. He took a deep breath and moved through the mouth of the alley.
His friends said something else, but he ignored them as he walked deeper into the alley.
This is stupid. I don't even know where he went. Mike looked around each dumpster. So far he had not seen any signs of life in the alley. He froze when he heard a noise come from a distance in front of him.
A smirk appeared on his face, Gotcha.
He moved as quietly as he could toward the noise. He wasn't sure how far he had to go, but he at least knew that he got closer with each step.
He stopped walking when he heard the noise again. It sounded close. Maybe ten feet ahead of him.
He moved toward the noise preparing to pounce on the boy hiding behind the dumpster. When he reached the edge of the dumpster he moved into position. He pounced.
What he pounced on was something he did not expect to come across in an alley in New York. Sitting beside the dumpster was four raccoons; one adult and three young.
Mike cursed as the largest raccoon jumped at him, scratching every part of him it could reach.
He backed away from the raccoons, trying to push the one attacking him off. It stopped attacking him as soon as he was far enough away from the three other raccoons.
Mike bolted down the alley.
The adrenaline running through his body distracted him from everything around him, including his own pain.
He ran right past his friends and their questions. He wanted to get as far away from those raccoons as he could.
He decided at that moment that he was done with alleys forever.
OoOoOoOoOo
Mike had been in college for a total of two months. In those two months he had made some new friends and undoubtedly some new enemies.
At eighteen years old, Mike had learned to use his unusual mind to his advantage, but he was only eighteen so he didn't always make the best decisions when using his mind. He was young and easily influenced by others.
One night in late October, Mike was on his way to his friend Trevor's to discuss a new scam that Trevor had come up with. Mike was a little reluctant to start a scam, but Trevor had convinced him to at least hear him out.
Even though it was nearly November, the weather was not too cold, so Mike decided to walk the short distance from his dorm to Trevor's house.
Unfortunately for Mike, he was so caught up in his thoughts about the potential scam; he never noticed the car following him.
Said car sped up and parked in the street, right where Mike was about to cross.
Mike rolled his eyes in annoyance. People were so rude sometimes. He moved to go around the car, but he never made it to the street.
An arm came out of nowhere and snaked around his chest, pinning his arms to his side. He never had a chance to call out for help, for another hand had come out just as quickly as the first and tightly covered his mouth.
Being pulled tightly to another person and having a hand cover his mouth was making it very difficult for Mike to take a breath.
He began to panic as he struggled against the person holding him. His eyes frantically searched for someone, anyone, to help him, but there was no one around to help.
He struggled more aggressively when the person behind him began to maneuver him towards the waiting vehicle.
The person holding him must have gotten fed up with his struggles because the next thing he knew he was being punched in the stomach. The muscles in his stomach began to spasm and Mike found himself unable to breathe.
While he was fighting to pull air into his lungs, Mike's captors took the opportunity to push the young man into the waiting trunk.
Mike did not have the time to react before the lid shut down leaving him in complete darkness.
After what seemed like hours, Mike was finally able to take a breath. He felt unwelcome tears run down his face as he took in deep breaths.
Once he was breathing properly again he was able to think about the situation he had found himself in.
As hard as he tried, he could not think of anyone who would want to kidnap him. Sure there were people who didn't like him, but he didn't think any of them would go this far.
Mike sighed and stopped that train of thought. Trying to figure out who put him in this trunk was not going to get him out of it.
He switched his thoughts to how he could escape. He remembered reading that a person trapped in the trunk of a car could find the wires connected to the tail lights and cause them to go out. There was also the option of busting out the tail lights, but he wasn't sure how much either of those options would help him. They both required someone in another car, or a person on the street, to notice. He didn't know if he wanted to rely on some stranger to help him out of this mess, but he was beginning to think that he had no other choice.
Then he remembered another option. He had heard somewhere that newer cars were supposed to have something in the trunk that would allow someone trapped inside to open the lid.
But he didn't know if he was in a newer car. It was hard to tell what kind of car he was in from the darkness of the trunk, and he didn't exactly get a chance to take a good look at it before he was forced inside.
Mike let out a sigh and tried to keep his growing panic at bay. He just had to search the trunk and see if he could find anything to help him. If he couldn't find anything to get out he might be able to find something to use as a weapon with the trunk did open.
He moved his hand around hoping to bump into something, but he was disappointed to find the trunk empty.
A sob of desperation left him. He gave up on finding something to help him. He needed to get out of this trunk. He turned to where he believed one of the tail lights to be. He decided to find the wiring before he attempted to kick out one of the lights. He wasn't sure if this would help him, but he figured that he didn't have anything to lose.
He pulled back some of the material lining the trunk and began to pull on the plastic covering behind it. It didn't take much effort to break the plastic away. He put his hand where the plastic had been and smiled to himself when he felt wires.
He couldn't actually see any of the wires, so he just began to pull on anything he could get his hands on.
After pulling out everything he could, Mike let his head fall back. He didn't know if his efforts amounted to anything, he couldn't tell if the tail light had gone out. He could feel the panic starting to rise up and he was unsure of what to do next.
He was saved from coming up with a plan by the sound of police sirens behind the car.
At first he thought the sirens were just going to pass them, but then he felt the car speed up and the loud sirens stayed with them.
He began to feel a bit of hope. The police will help him—if they all survive the chase first.
At that moment he realized that the police probably didn't know that he was in the trunk. He didn't know if the police would try to wreck the car they were pursuing, but he really didn't want them to ram into the car while he was back there. So Mike positioned his foot, used all the strength he could muster and kicked out one of the tail lights. He heard the light breaking and he knew that he had to turn around and get the police officers' attention.
It took some effort, but he was able to turn around. He stuck one of his hands out the hole and waved in around frantically hoping one of the men following him would notice.
He quickly pulled his arm back in when he felt the car swerve dangerously. It seemed as if the driver was losing control of the car. His thought were confirmed when he felt the car swerve again and crash into something—hard.
The force of the crash caused Mike to slam into the side of the trunk. His head his something and everything went black.
He was unaware when the police arrested the men who kidnapped him and when one of the officers opened the trunk and discovered his unconscious form.
When he woke up he was lying in a hospital bed with and IV in his arm and his grandmother sleeping next to his bed. He lifted his hand not connected to hospital equipment and felt the bandage around his head. An involuntary groan escaped his throat.
Next time Trevor was coming to his place.
OoOoOoOoOoOo
Mike Ross, now twenty-four years old and working his dream job as an associate at Pearson and Harding, did not have the best luck in the dark. He had broken his leg, sprained his wrist, been attacked by a raccoon, and had been kidnapped. Now none of those things happened because of the dark, but all of them had occurred in the dark. It wasn't that he was clumsy; trouble, in all forms, just seemed to follow him.
Mike tried to be extra careful in the dark after his kidnapping. So one night when he stayed a little later than usual at work and the power went out right as he was about to leave, he knew he was in trouble.
He knew he should leave, but the elevators wouldn't be working and he was worried that he would somehow fall down the stairs.
He decided that he really didn't want to spend all night alone in the pitch black office, so he gathered the files he had been working on and took them to Harvey's office.
He had walked this path so many times that he was able to walk to his boss's office with no incidents.
When he walked into the office he was shocked to see that all of New York City was dark. It was a strange site to see. New York was never this dark.
Getting over his awe, Mike walked over to Harvey's desk and deposited the files on what appeared to be and empty space. He turned to leave, but he underestimated the length of the desk. He tripped and went crashing to the floor. His body, however, did not make it to the floor right away. His head crashed heavily into the corner of the same desk he had just tripped over.
His body hit the floor with a soft thud. The knock to his head did not cause him to pass out, but it did daze him. He lay on the floor for a few minutes trying to get his bearings.
When he felt that he had recovered enough he pulled himself up and, once again, attempted to leave the office.
He did not anticipate the pain he felt in his right ankle. He tried to walk, but the pain almost sent him back to the floor.
He stood up straight, took a deep breath and hopped on his good leg to one of Harvey's couches. He knew that he would not be able to get out without help and the pain in his head was beginning to make him feel nauseous.
He needed to lie down and he figured resting on a couch for a little bit wouldn't hurt anyone.
He sat down then adjusted himself so he could lie down without hurting his ankle anymore than it already was.
He didn't intend to fall asleep there, just rest for a bit, but the late hour and his recent injuries knocked him out.
He did not wake up until the next morning when and amused Donna and an annoyed Harvey found him sleeping silently on the couch demanding to know what he was doing there.