Title: Born to Die
Summary: This is how the entire course of a life can be changed - by doing nothing.
Pairing: Harvey/Mike
Rating: PG-13
Notes: Summary from On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan.
Warnings: Death fic. As such, much angst. I cried while writing it.
And he would imagine her vividly, only a few feet and forty years away, intent on finding him.
Ian McEwan
For as long as he can remember, Harvey's been having these dreams. He wakes in the night, gasping or sobbing, his heart a tiny nut rattling about in his chest and the faint recollection of blond hair and blue eyes and a clawing sense of utter despair.
The day after such dreams are difficult. He snaps at anyone who dares to breathe in the same room as him, his focus is shot to he'll and he has this itch in the back of his mind that he refuses to pick at. It doesn't help that Donna, Jessica, even Louis let him away with it with nothing more than a quiet nod and pursed lips.
It's after one such dream that Harvey finds himself at Lake Kanawauke. He sits and watches the wind whisper across the surface of the water and there's a sense of peace that he's not entirely sure is simply the work of his surroundings. The ache in his chest (constant now and he wants to know why) lessens slightly and he closes his eyes behind his sunglasses, enjoys the feel of the sun on his skin, the wind in his hair.
It's a peace that doesn't last long.
He has one of the dreams again and when he goes to work the next day, he's functioning on four hours of sleep and multiple shots of caffeine. His desk seems overly full and he can't concentrate long enough to make anything make sense to his mind. He groans, runs his hands over his face, through his hair. That's when Donna comes in, her eyebrow raised and Harvey looks at her through his spread fingers.
"What?"
"Are you okay?"
"Busy. Why don't I have an associate?" He groans but Donna doesn't answer and when Harvey looks up, she's still, her lips drawn between her teeth.
"You... I can set up interviews?" Her voice is quiet, strained and Harvey doesn't like it. He nods and Donna mirrors it. "Okay. Um..."
He watches her leave, his brow furrowed in confusion. When he shakes himself, he finds he's idly playing with the skin on his left ring finger. His breath catches slightly, and he pulls his hands apart, clenches his fists at his side. He looks over the couch, imagines he sees a shape there for a moment before he shakes his head.
He's far too tired.
He dreams about the kid again, with the blond hair and blue eyes. He doesn't wake this time, except when his alarm goes off. He's crying.
"Donna," Harvey says in the car on the way the hotel for the associate interviews. She hums in response, barely lifting her head from the file she's reading. "Is there someone at the office about the same height as me, blue eyes, sort of blond hair called something like Matthew Ryan?"
Donna stills again, then shakes her head.
"No."
Harvey frowns.
He wonders if he's losing his mind.
In the condo he hears a voice, the voice from his dreams, and he hears it mocking him fondly, hears it tell him it loves him, hears it argue with him in bitter rage, hears it begging for forgiveness and asking Harvey to promise to love it forever.
Each time he hears it, Harvey's whole world stops and he strains, listening but the faint echo dwindles away when he concentrates on it too much. The first few times it had happened, he'd torn the apartment to shreds trying to find out where the sound was coming from.
Julia had found him the next morning in the closet, gripping suits that remind him of the ones he's seen on the man from his dreams, his face tear stained and voice sob choked.
She'd pried the suits from his grasp, bullied her way into his arms and held him as he sobbed and sobbed and sobbed, mourning over something he's not even sure he's missing.
Now when he hears it, he just sits, listens to it, wonders if it was ever real, if it ever will be, whether he's losing his mind.
Donna's worried about him, he can tell. He doesn't like to worry her but he doesn't know how to tell her he thinks he might be going crazy. Doesn't know how to tell her he's been dreaming about some blond haired, blue eyed kid living in his apartment. Doesn't know how to tell her that he feels like he's in mourning, all because he can't find the source of the voice that haunts every moment of his life.
"I'm fine," he tells her when she refuses to leave his office. He can only imagine what he looks like, since he's had a cumulative seven hours sleep in the last four days.
"It's all right if you're not, you know."
Harvey frowns, wants to either cry or throw things.
"What's going on, Donna?"
She looks close to tears herself, looks like she wants to flee but she stays, blinks a few times and breathes.
"I think it's something you need to remember by yourself."
"What do you mean something I need to remember?"
She looks away and shakes her head.
"Aren't you missing something, Harvey?"
She leaves then and Harvey's stunned into immobility, though he's not sure why.
It's several weeks later when he finds the rings tucked in the back of his drawer.
He dreams about the voice, the face, the stupid skinny ties. He wakes one morning and rolls over to throw his arm over someone who's not there.
He closes his eyes, palms the empty bed and lets out a breath that sounds an awful lot like a name.
He's in the office with his associate, scouring through files trying to find the loophole that will win them the case (if there is one, Harvey's not sure there is because he knows that Stacey Kidman does wonderful work, damn it) when he turns to his associate, hand out and says,
"Mike, pass me the accounts file."
His world suddenly pinpoints down to nothing other than his outstretched arm and that name on his tongue and Donna calling his name, over and over again.
"Harvey!"
He snaps his eyes open, looks up at her and feels like his entire world is fraying around the edges. He glances beyond Donna but Alex isn't in the room and he's thankful that only Donna will get to see this meltdown.
"Donna... Is Mike... Who..."
But he knows, if only because his heart is screaming at him so much that it hurts. Knows, if only because Donna is on her knees beside him with tears streaming down her face. Knows, if only because he's known for the past fourteen months that something has been missing and just the name 'Mike' seems to fill all of those spaces right up, fills the empty voids in the condo, in the kitchen, in his bed, even the space on the couch in the office where he's always been sure someone should be sitting.
"Oh Harvey."
And Donna's grabbing onto him so tight it manages to hold him together, even as parts of him threaten to splinter off, to break away and he feels like he's shattering into a million pieces because Mike is gone and Harvey had forgotten him and tried to live his life like Mike never existed and that hurts, that hurts but it's nothing compared to the fact that Mike is gone.
That night when he sleeps, he dreams. He dreams of Mike, as he was in those final moments with blood smeared over his face, Harvey's hands cradling his head, trying to hold him there, alive and real and in love.
"I love you, Harvey." He smiles but it's weak and Harvey knows, he knows but he can't, he doesn't want to believe it because it's Mike, it's his life and if Mike dies, if Mike dies. "Remember that. Remember me."
When Harvey wakes, he's crying.
He remembers.
He preferred to preserve her as she was in his memories...
Ian McEwan