DON'T CALL ME BABY (UNLESS YOU MEAN IT)
A/N: Happy Valentine's Day! And welcome to the first installment of this oddly named fic. Blame Ed Sheeran and his song, Dive.
Just a few things before you get going. This is based on a prompt submitted to darveyfics on Tumblr. I've noticed a similar plot on the FF feed earlier today, with a different pairing, but I haven't clicked on it, so I can honestly say that any similarities are pure coincidence. There's nothing new under the sun, right?
A big thank you to michaelfmx for tirelessly fixing my grammar, making suggestions, asking questions, and generally encouraging me to write. Also to quistie64, my favorite librarian and romance writer, for the words of advice. And to Spectographer for going over the chapter as well.
Disclaimer: I don't own Suits. Please don't sue. I never finished Law School, and don't have Mike's brain. I also borrowed a few lines from Laws of Attraction.
Timeline: This fic is set in season 3, and this prologue is set right after Endgame, and will follow canon from Bad Faith onwards, with a major plot twist.
Prologue
Donna carefully pries an eyelid open and shuts it again fast when a harsh sunbeam shoots right in, awaking an encore performance by an out of sync bongo drummer band between her temples. When it tapers off slightly, she swallows, desperate to lubricate her dry throat. Her mouth tastes evil and she swears her teeth are cramping. She's a giant ache from her knees to her forehead. She rolls over to her side, groaning as she curls into herself, and pulls the duvet over her head.
"I'm never drinking champagne again."
"Don't say things you don't mean."
Her eyes snap open and, though the goose feathers dim the natural light, she regrets the action immediately when her surroundings come into focus.
Harvey Specter is laid out in front of her – in all his naked glory.
She doesn't need to take stock of herself to confirm that the silk draped against her skin is all sheets.
"Oh shit." She slides out of bed, taking the covers with her. The throbbing in her head increases tenfold when the world is suddenly brighter again. Peering through one eye, she locates the remote control on the nightstand and hits the button to close the drapes. The runners scrape against the metal rail like a freight train on rusty tracks and she holds her breath, not daring to add to the noise.
"Donna, what the hell?" Harvey grabs one of her pillows and covers himself, flinching before making the necessary adjustments to get comfortable.
And that's when she sees it.
"Holy shit."
He smirks at her from his position against the headboard, his hair sticking up at odd angles like it had been raked through and tugged at. Vigorously. "Is that a good holy shit or a bad holy –"
"Look at your left hand."
She watches him as he does what he's been told, turning his hand in front of his face to inspect the ring from both angles, his expression sobering. Then he looks up at her, his gaze landing on her chest. Instinctively she clutches the bedding tighter.
"You have one too."
Her heart pounds in rhythm with her head when she glances down, spotting the gold band on her finger. She already knows the answer, but asks anyway, "Harvey, did we get married last night?"
"That seems to be what the evidence suggests."
"And we…" She finishes the thought by waiving a hand between them. The lace bra hanging from the lampshade on his side of the bed is another obvious clue, but her brain is stubbornly refusing to put the pieces together.
"It's fuzzy, but I remember…" He trails off, searching the area in his immediate vicinity. Spotting what he's looking for, he leans over to grab something from the floor, inadvertently exposing a side-cheek. Her eyes dart away, and fall on the shiny object he's holding, similar to the one she keeps in her top desk drawer.
"You've got to be kidding me."
"I never joke about the can opener."
Donna's face flushes when his comment triggers a very vivid memory. Her stomach starts to flutter, and it quickly turns violent, causing her whole body to shake.
"I think I'm going to be sick."
He frowns at her, but she misses it when she sheds the duvet, clinging to the sheet as she rushes to the nearest bathroom.
Harvey is beside her moments later, clad in his boxers. Without a word he gathers her hair, lifting the strands from her face as she empties the contents of her stomach down the toilet bowl. She tries to wave him away, mortified that he is seeing her like this, but he ignores the gesture and drops a hand to her back, rubbing soothing circles across her exposed skin as he waits for her to finish. When she finally straightens with a shuddering breath, he reaches around her to push the flush button. He gets up and returns with a wet washcloth. She takes it from him and wipes her mouth.
"Better?" he asks.
She nods, despite the acrid aftertaste in her mouth threatening to trigger a second round. Keeping track of him in her peripheral vision, she notices him turn away again and rummage through the cabinet over the sink. He finds a bottle of mouthwash, twists off the cap and hands it to her. She takes a big mouthful, swirls, gargles, and spits into the bowl beside her before passing it back blindly, refusing to look at him now that he's borne witness to one of the most intimate unpleasantnesses a person could endure.
"Donna."
She curses inwardly. After more than a decade he is still capable of melting her resolve so easily with the way he says her name. She glances up at him, surprised that he doesn't seem fazed by what just happened. Then she remembers that he picks up women at bars quite often. She wills her mind not to go there.
"Why are you not a mess?"
"I've had a lot more practice than you."
She rolls her eyes at him. It hurts. "Please. I can drink you under the table."
"Maybe that's what I've led you to believe."
With a disbelieving snort she pushes to her feet on shaky legs. She reaches for the basin to balance herself, but then the sheet starts to slip and, before she can decide whether it's better to be bared, or sprawled across the floor, Harvey is at her side again, steadying her with a hand under her elbow and one low on her back. She really needs to find some clothes, she thinks, because he's touching her too much, and it's difficult to keep her wits about her when her skin is on fire and her insides feel like they're liquefying under his intense gaze.
"Maybe I've led you to believe a lot of things."
For a moment she's sure she misheard him, his voice so low she wouldn't have caught the comment had he not been standing so close to her. She opens and closes her mouth, at a loss for how to respond, but he's already retreating, taking a step backwards as his hands drop to his sides.
"Will you be okay in here by yourself?"
She nods, ignoring the hot pulse making its way down her spine as he gives her a once over, then watches him leave. It's what he does, and for once she doesn't feel the need to call him on it. What she does need is a shower and a chance to clear her head so she can try to make sense of their predicament, but despite her best intentions, she suddenly finds her voice again when he's almost out the door.
"Harvey?"
He stops and turns, his expression a mixture of anticipation and apprehension.
"Thank you."
His bare chest rises and falls with a deep breath, momentarily distracting her. "Anytime, Donna."
When Harvey hears her turn the shower on, he pads to the other bathroom. A glance at the clock confirms that they have about an hour before Mike and Rachel are due to arrive for the private breakfast that Donna arranged for them, at Mike's insistence, before they all head back to New York. Harvey suspects the kid just didn't want the pool table in their Penthouse Suite to go to waste, but he was happy to indulge him. The main reason for the impromptu trip was to celebrate Mike's birthday – his first since his grandmother died.
He makes quick work of his hygiene routine, a little put out by the fact that he has to use the products supplied by the hotel, as his are in the bathroom Donna is currently occupying. The Palazzo doesn't skimp on quality, but drawing the line at using products not recommended by his personal stylist, he runs his fingers through his towel-dried hair, taming it the best he can. Dressed in clean boxers and a robe, he makes his way back to his bedroom.
The shower in the en suite is still running. He welcomes the reprieve from the conversation with Donna he knows they can't avoid, but at the same time he's anxious to get it over with. For the moment, all he can do is distract himself by picking up the clothes they discarded the night before. He tries hard to concentrate on the task, and not dwell on what led up to the evidentiary trail between the door and the bed, but when he holds up the midnight blue dress, he distinctly remembers the moment Donna stepped out of her room, ready for their night on the Strip. The Versace number that poured over her curves, ending just below her knee, was enough to make his mouth go dry. That was until he spotted the hemline slit and his heart nearly stopped. The memory of sliding his hand up said slit, tracing the smooth skin of her thigh, flashes through his mind, and he starts reciting the fundamental principles of civil procedure to get himself under control. He crosses the room to hang the dress in the closet next to his suit. He leaves their shoes by the door, side by side, and gathers his shirt and Donna's underwear, piling it up on the chair in the corner.
The door to the bathroom opens just as he grabs the can opener, half hidden under a pillow, and he jams it in his pocket before sinking down onto the foot of the bed. Donna emerges, her wet hair hanging off one shoulder. Her freckles are no longer in such stark contrast against her fair skin. He knows she has to be naked under her robe, but shuts down the thought quickly as he leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees and lacing his fingers together.
They stare at each other for a full minute, the silence bearing down heavily on them.
Harvey inhales slowly as he tries to decide which situation they should address first. It doesn't help that the hours between post show drinks at Drai's and stumbling through the door to their suite are a complete blank. What followed is still mostly sketchy too, but if his recall is anything to go by, neither of them had any regrets at the time. This morning that doesn't seem to be the case anymore, and suddenly an all too familiar fear grips him.
"Donna," he starts, and that's apparently the catalyst she needed.
"We have to find the guy who did this and tell him we didn't mean it."
He sighs and shakes his head. "You know it doesn't work that way. Besides, we can't even remember what the guy looks like, or where we actually got –"
"How did we let this happen?" She starts pacing, gesturing wildly. "And shouldn't there be some kind of law against letting people get…do that when they are clearly drunk out of their minds?"
"Donna, it's not a big deal."
She stops in her tracks and spins around, gaping at him, one hand still half-hanging in the air. It was clearly the wrong thing to say, but he's had little practice with this side of her. The only other time he's seen her this unravelled, it ended with her telling him that perhaps he shouldn't be her boss anymore.
"What I mean," he says, "is that this is a legal issue. I can fix it."
He holds his breath as he watches her consider his words, her lips pursed as she thinks it over. Then her arms drop to her side as the tension leaves her shoulders.
"Of course. You will take care of it. We'll go back to New York, file for an annulment, and it would be as if this never…" She trails off with a frown as her gaze lands on his hands. Only then does he realize he's been subconsciously twisting the wedding band around his finger. He clasps his fingers together again and looks up at her. "…happened," she adds, almost inaudibly, tearing her eyes away from him. She spots the clothes on the chair and grabs them. "We should get ready. Rachel and Mike will be here soon and they can't see us like this. And we are not telling them, or anyone else. You'll just…make this go away quietly. Right?"
He nods slowly when she ventures a glance in his direction. Family law isn't his area of expertise, but the law in general is, and he's sure that, with a bit of research, he'd be able to figure out what paperwork to file.
"Okay, good." Donna starts to head for the door, but he calls her back.
"I have a condition."
She turns around slowly, eyeing him warily. "What kind of condition?"
He debates with himself on whether or not to let that particular issue slide, but he can't risk leaving any loose ends that can come back to bite him in the ass. Swallowing down the nerves that suddenly threaten to overwhelm him, Harvey tilts his head towards the tousled sheets.
Donna takes an instinctive step back, her perfectly sculpted eyebrows nearly hitting her hairline.
"You want breakup sex?"
His head shoots up. "What? No!"
She flinches, either still suffering some after effects of their eventful night, or taking his response as a rejection. He wants to tell her that that is the furthest thing from the truth, but he has already failed to keep himself in check earlier. He can argue circles around opposing council, pick up any woman who strikes his fancy with the Specter charm, and negotiate his way out of a lose-lose situation, but when it gets personal with Donna, he always seems to find himself out of his depth and following her lead. As that is not an option now, he decides to rely on their tried and trusted fall-back.
"Technically it would be annulment sex." His quip renders her speechless for a moment and he takes the opportunity to cut straight to the point. "We slept together last night."
"We don't have to talk about it."
The words fall from her lips too quickly for him to be fully convinced that she means it.
"Are you sure? Because you said if it ever happened again, you'd no longer work for me, and I don't want to lose you."
Her expression softens when she realizes what he's getting at. "You're not going to lose me, Harvey. It was a one-time thing. We can still work together, as long as we –"
"Put it out of our minds and never mention it again." He's familiar with the loophole in her rule. It wouldn't bother him so much if she hadn't changed her policy not too long ago – for someone else. Given how that turned out, he's not surprised that she's reinforcing it.
"We don't remember most of it anyway," she says, pulling him back to the present.
"So, we're okay?"
She nods. "We're okay."
Harvey scans through the finance section of the New York Times, but after rereading the same paragraph for the fourth time without taking in a word of it, he folds the paper and tosses it on the coffee table. He glances over his shoulder at Donna's bedroom door, which is still shut. Though they've reached an agreement over the unexpected turn of events they were faced with when they woke up, he still can't shake the feeling that he's missing something. Turning back, he rubs his hands down his face, pausing when his eye catches a glint. He pulls the ring off, weighing it in the palm of his hand. Then it hits him full force.
He is married.
To Donna.
His best friend, his confidante, his secretary, is now also his wife, albeit for the time being, and in name only, and he's not sure how he feels about any of that. He is so used to putting his feelings for her in a box, but it's been harder to keep a lid on it since she told him about her and Stephen, to the point where he actually tracked her down and told her it bothered him.
"Rachel texted. They're on their way."
He almost jumps when she speaks behind him, and curls his fingers around the ring, hoping she didn't spot it. "They can't just take the elevator up and knock like normal people?"
Rounding the couch, Donna is about to say something, but three raps on the door divert her attention.
"That was a waste of a text." Harvey rises, slipping his fist into his pants pocket, and let go of the ring.
With a hand on the doorknob, Donna looks over at him. "Not a word," she mouths.
He nods, taking a step closer when the door swings open. Mike has an arm securely around Rachel's waist as his eyes dart from Donna to Harvey. Then a grin practically splits his face in two.
"Look, Rach," he says, "it's the honeymooners."
A/N: Thanks for reading.