Title: End of the World
Pairing: Harvey/Mike
Rating: R for violence and gore
Written for this prompt at the Suits meme: It's the zombie apocalypse. Mike and Harvey are up late working on a case and miss the memo...
Mike scrubbed a hand over his face, trying to make the page in front of him come into sharper focus. He squeezed his eyes closed and opened them again, but the words were still a blurry jumble of incomprehensible text.
"That's it; I give up," he said, absently tapping a highlighter against his leg.
Harvey looked up from his own perusal but didn't say anything.
"Come on, Harvey, we've been at it for hours." He waved a hand, taking in the stacks of scattered papers and the dusky-dark cityscape outside, bright pinpricks of light dotting the view. "I can't even see straight anymore."
"Fine." Harvey dropped his pen, stood, and stretched, looking out over the city. Mike winced in sympathy when he heard Harvey's back crack from his seat at the couch across the room. "Go get some dinner, but we have to—" Harvey cocked his head.
There was a rush of running footsteps down the hall followed by Louis barging into his office, suit jacket ripped and tie askew. Mike thought he saw a splash of crimson on his shoulder, but it was hard to tell against the dark navy fabric.
"Ever heard of knocking?" Harvey asked lightly, without turning from the window, as Louis leaned back against the door, breathing heavily.
"I don't—gone crazy-" Louis adjusted his tie and straightened up. "Something weird's going on."
Harvey turned around and his eyes narrowed. "What? Did the associates finally get fed up and gang up on you?" Under the teasing tone, Mike picked up a hint of worry.
Louis doubled over, breathing faster, blood dripping down his arm onto the pristine carpet. Mike scrambled from the couch, scattering papers everywhere, and stepped towards him.
"Harvey, call an ambulance," Mike said as Louis started shuddering, head down, one shoulder hunched and the other sagging, hands on his knees.
It worried Mike that Harvey didn't even hesitate at the order.
"Damn it, I'm on hold," Harvey muttered, "how could they put me on hold?"
"Harvey," Mike said, embarrassed at how his voice wavered.
Harvey hung up and called again.
"Harvey," Mike repeated, backing away from Louis until he bumped into Harvey's desk.
Louis had stopped shaking, tensed, shrank into himself for a moment, and straightened up to his full height, face strangely slack. He tilted his head, birdlike.
"Yes, I need an ambulance at—"
Mike stumbled around Harvey's desk without looking at it and tugged on his sleeve.
"What?"
"There's—there's" Mike pointed through the glass wall of the office where two people had limped into sight. A man with a long row of scratches over half his face and a red stiletto heel through his eye socket pressed a hand to the wall, smearing blood on the glass. A woman, Oh, God, It's Rachel Mike's brain eventually processed, walked beside the guy, hobbling in one shoe, a chunk of meat missing from her neck and blood still dribbling down between her breasts to stain her olive-green blouse.
Harvey swore and dropped the phone.
Mike tore his eyes from Rachel to see the man pressing his face to the glass, the shoe making an ominous tapping (suddenly there came a tapping,/As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. ). He tried to stop creeping himself out and looked to Louis. He wished he hadn't. Louis' face was blank, his eyes empty with pupils blown so wide that the iris wasn't even visible. He bared his teeth and took an unsteady step towards them.
"No way, no way," Mike noticed that he was saying it over and over again. He bit his lip, clenched the highlighter that he'd forgotten he was holding tighter, and shut up, inching a step behind Harvey as he shuffled through his desk.
Louis focused on Harvey, taking another step forward, then another, building up momentum. Mike stared at the highlighter in his hand, then threw it, hitting Louis in the ear. He turned towards Mike mid-step, and rumbling an inhuman growl. Mike backed away quickly, fighting a wave of dizziness as he tried to become one with the window, glancing down at the dark, empty street below.
Mike heard a bang and his ears started to ring.
Louis dropped to his knees, then face-planted in the carpet. Mike fought nausea when he saw that the back of his head was gone, splattered on the glass behind and pooling on the carpet. He looked away quickly to see Harvey lowering his arm and his gun, eyes steely and face pinched in disgust.
Harvey turned to Mike and tilted his head. "A highlighter, really?"
"Hey, it distracted it so you could," Mike mimed a gun and realized he called Louis an it.
"What's—what is this?" Mike refused to let his eyes stray back to Louis' body. He didn't even like the guy that much, so why did he feel a tightness in his chest along with nausea and this-isn't-real disorientation.
Harvey was back on his phone, punching at numbers violently.
"It's a good thing that Donna called in sick today, huh?" Mike asked, trying to fill the silence. Harvey's hand clenched on his phone, knuckles white, and Mike's blood ran cold. He grabbed his own phone from his pocket.
"You don't think she's—I'll call." He twitched nervously, pacing while he waited for her to answer. Harvey's low, steady voice as he relayed what had happened to whoever he was on the phone with calmed him a little. But that didn't stop him from dropping into Harvey's chair with relief when a very congested, irritable Donna answered.
"Oh, good, you're still alive," she said, then sneezed and blew her nose.
"Are you okay?"
"I'm wonderful. It's the zombie apocalypse and I've got a headcold, but other than that, I'm just chipper."
"Zomb—are they really—"
"The people on the news won't use the z-word," Donna said, followed by a banging sound, a crash, and "I never liked you, Mr. Walters!"
"Donna?"
"I'm here, sorry." she said, breathing heavily, "I just had to throw my neighbor out the window."
"Is there anything I can d-"
"Harvey okay?" Donna asked, businesslike.
"Yeah, he's fine."
"Just keep him that way, Mike."
"Okay." He snaked a glance at Harvey, still on the phone.
"And don't get eaten."
"I'll try not to. Are you-"
"I'll be fine. My apartment's secure now. I'm just going into lockdown now. Stay as quiet as possible. Be careful."
"You too."
Donna hung up without saying goodbye. Mike was oddly thankful.
"She's fine," Mike said when Harvey looked up from his own call.
Harvey sighed and a little of his tension eased.
"So, what do we do?" Mike asked, trying to ignore scuffing footsteps and ragged breathing from outside the office.
"Help should be on the way," Harvey said, pocketing his phone. "Apparently this is happening all over the city. We've just got to get to the ground floor and wait until the Guard gets here."
"Right," Mike nodded, "right." He eyed Shoe-eye and Rach—the two zombies, noticed other awkwardly-shifting shadows cast on the walls. "How do we do that?"
"Hell if I know," Harvey said, checking his gun. "Three bullets."
"Save them." Mike said.
"I will." They didn't look at each other, refusing to acknowledge the shared thought.
"We're going to get out of here," Harvey said quietly, reloading the gun, clicking the safety, and sliding it into the waistband of his pants at the back.
"I know," Mike said just as quietly, proud that his voice didn't betray him.
Harvey nodded, started slowly for the door where Shoe-eye was scrabbling for the handle. Apparently hand-eye coordination flew by the wayside once one was zombified.
Mike lurched to his feet--I'm so not ready for this-grabbed one of Harvey's autographed basketballs and—
"What are you doing with that?"
Mike tossed it from one hand to the other. "Weapon."
Harvey gave him a pained look but didn't say anything else.
"To the elevator." Harvey said, "If you fall behind I'll kick your ass."
Mike nodded. Harvey took a deep breath and shoved the door open. He knocked Shoe-eye back with the door, but the noise made Rachel crane her head around and rush at them.
Mike threw the basketball and hit her square in the face. Then he winced, "Sorry!" as she flailed her arms and fell backwards, easy to topple in her single shoe.
He heard a muttered "idiot" as Harvey grabbed his arm and pulled him along, hoping that speed would keep the zombies from—
"Fuck," Harvey spat and stumbled to a stop when a balding man with blood dribbling from his lips down onto his sky-blue tie blocked their path. Harvey peeked in the nearest doorway, then dragged Mike inside as the man stalked forward.
"Weapons, weapons, weapons," Mike kept muttering to himself, disregarding the file cabinet, flipping open the copier as if there would be a baseball bat hiding inside (There wasn't. Damn it. No ax either.) then started searching the cabinets underneath the mostly-empty counter-top. He found a lot of paper, but not much else.
The zombie shouldered through the door into the room, and the room suddenly felt a lot smaller. Mike redoubled his efforts, found a can of Pledge, and held it out at arm's length.
"Paper, Mike, the paper thing!" Harvey's voice was higher than normal and he seemed to be having trouble finding words.
"You want me to give him a paper cut?" Mike asked, spraying the thing in the face (At least he smells nice now.). He was starting to get scared. Er. If Harvey lost his marbles, then Mike was royally screwed.
The zombie's eyes rolled lazily from one of them to the other, solid black and haunting with no iris. It didn't even notice its mew lemony coating.
"No, the—" Harvey pointed and Mike saw the paper-slicer-thingy as the zombie decided that it wanted to have Harvey for dinner.
He threw the blade back as Harvey punched the zombie in the jaw and shoved him towards the slicer. Another fist to the gut and it was in place, so Mike slammed down the blade. It crunched on bone but wouldn't go through, so Mike slammed it with his palm until he felt an arm round his clavicle, pulling him back.
"I think it's dead," Harvey said, breathless, lips brushing his ear.
Mike felt a drop of sweat slide down his cheek and swiped at it with his sleeve.
Harvey let go and handed him his handkerchief.
"Thanks," Mike muttered, wiping his face and staring at the wide smears of blood before handing it back to Harvey.
Harvey wiped the mix of blood and Pledge from his hand, crinkled his nose, and tossed the handkerchief in the trash.
They eased out of the copier room, Mike in the lead, and started for the elevator. Mike spotted a zombie heading their way from between two cubicles. He grabbed a letter opener and three-hole-punch off a desk as the zombie, an elderly lady, wig askew and blood down the entire front of her floral-print dress, hobbled over, one foot twisted and head drooping awkwardly to the side. Mike steadied himself. It's not a human. Just looks like one. She's like an alien or something that can look human.
"I'll hold you in contempt," Mike gave it a wack to the gut with the three-hole-punch, making it double over, "of corpse!" He hit the zombie over the head and she dropped to the ground. He eyed the letter opener, wondering how it'd got bloody, and dropped it.
"I can't believe you just said that." Harvey stared at him.
"What? I just—"
"What does that even mean?"
"I don't know! I was in the moment, okay."
Harvey stepped over the zombie, eying him reproachfully.
"Mike." Harvey's eyes had gone from narrowed with judgitude to wide and scared. His voice was choked.
"What?" Mike rubbed at his forearm.
Harvey just pointed.
Mike looked down at his hand. There was blood on his palm where he'd been rubbing his other arm. "Um."
Harvey was suddenly there, tugging off his suit jacket, showing a growing red splotch in the white fabric of his shirt. Harvey ripped the small hole wide, baring the wound to air. It was a deep gouge, nothing life threatening.
"Oops."
"Oops? Harvey's laugh was utterly devoid of humor. "You should have waited a half-second, let me help, instead of—"
Harvey waved a hand at the zomb—At the zombie that, if it'd bitten him, would probably turn him.
"Shit," then got a closer look at his arm as Harvey used his sleeve to wipe away blood. The cut looked clean, not ragged like he'd expect.
"I'm an idiot," Mike said.
"I know."
Mike pulled his arm out of Harvey's grasp to a muttered complaint, and stooped over to pick up the blooded letter opener. Harvey didn't even look at the thing; he was too busy unknotting his fancy-pants silk tie, grabbing Mike's arm like it was his property, and looping the tie round to stop the bleeding.
"I think I stabbed myself," Mike said, and Harvey went still.
His eyes flicked up to Mike's and he asked quietly, "You what?"
Mike showed him the letter opener and bit his lip to hide a smile at Harvey's utterly relieved sigh. The letter opener was snatched from his hand and flung across the room. And there was suddenly a finger in his face.
"You are no longer allowed to so much as look at sharp, pointy objects. Understand?"
Mike nodded and followed Harvey, ripping his dandling sleeve the rest of the way off and admiring his sleek bandage.
"I like this tie."
"So did I," Harvey said quietly, "now shut up and get over here."
Mike trotted a few steps to catch up, trying to ignore the nagging fear that his injury might actually be a strange-looking bite. If he started to feel odd he'd just have to go for Harvey's gun and take care of it. As much as he liked Harvey, he didn't want to have him for dinner. He'd probably be really tough.
"Try not to trip over your own foot and break your neck," Harvey huffed, jabbing the elevator button repeatedly, as Mike kept his eyes peeled for movement at their back.
The elevator opened and Harvey backed up into him.
"What's the—oh my God." Mike was fairly certain that it had started off as human, but the thing in the elevator was all ripped meat, patches of bloody cloth, and gnawed bones.
"No." Harvey backed another step and Mike stumbled. "I am notgetting in there."
Mike heard movement behind them, and turned to see zombies coming towards them from different directions. No escape. The damn things were attracted by loud ding of the elevator, no doubt. Mike gritted his teeth. This is not going to be fun. He shoved Harvey inside, mashed the close door and lobby buttons. He tried to ignore the way his feet squished in blood (He was not going to throw up.) and looked at Harvey.
Harvey kicked away part of the...thing that Mike made him step on and stared at the mess at his feet, eyes wide and wild.
"Harvey? Harvey!"
He dragged his eyes away. "You bastard."
Mike felt his face crumple, but fought it off. "It was this or die, Harvey."
The door slid open and Mike whirled around. They were on the third floor.
Harvey started out, stumbling over the corpse again, and Mike made a grab for him, but he didn't need to. Harvey froze as a trio of zombies looked up from their meal—probably the person who had called the elevator—and cocked their heads in unison, black eyes focusing on fresher meat.
Harvey stepped back into the elevator, clamped a hand tightly on Mike's shoulder, and took a deep breath before the doors slid closed again.
Second floor, the doors opened again, this time to a pair of hunched shoulders in expensive business suits and and the sounds of a fight. The two zombies started to twist around as something crashed and broke out of sight, getting their attention. Dull black eyes turned from them as a voice growled "You are not going to mess with my boys."
They saw Jessica grab a heavy-duty stapler by the handle, expression fierce and even more frightening than the zombies'. She separated the sections of the stapler and swung it like a club, getting a clear head shot to the first and taking it down.
"I've seen," she said with a brutal hit to the neck of the second, knocking it to its knees, "enough," the zombie grabbed her by the foot and she hopped a step to keep from falling, "death." she kicked it hard in the face and it let go to cradle its broken nose, blood streaming.
She looked up, running a hand through her hair. "Oh, for the love of—" the steady thunk-thunk-thunk of clumsy feet echoed down the hall at her back.
A wide-eyed young man ran past Jessica, too fast and frightened for a zombie.
"Get him to the elevator," she ordered, but Harvey was already at her side, Mike right behind him.
The guy skidded to a stop right behind them, a mantra of "Oh God, oh God, oh God," keeping him from getting a deep breath.
"What's your name?" Mike asked, trusting Harvey and Jessica to alert him when the zombies got too close.
"Adam," he said, taking a shaky breath.
"Adam," Mike said, "find something, anything, that can do some damage and wack the hell out of the people trying to eat us, okay?"
Adam nodded. Mike noticed he was still shaking, but he started fumbling through desks. Then he paused, pulled an entire drawer out of a desk, dumped it in the middle of the floor, and gave a practice swing. He grinned, eyes still way too wide, and Mike nodded at him.
Mike turned back around to see that Jessica getting a better grip on her stapler, and Harvey had found a broom somewhere.
Crap, he really needed—he scanned the immediate area. Electric pencil sharpener? Of course! He could scare zombies away with the noise, except they seemed to be attracted to noise. No go, then. He threw a glance over his shoulder and saw a slack-jawed brunette with a missing arm and red, manicured nails on the other hand, reaching as she saw them. A few hulking shadows came into sight behind her.
Shit, shit, shit! He reached and grabbed the first thing that came to hand. Another hilighter, really? Mike threw it and grabbed the desk lamp, yanking the cord from the wall. That'll work.
"To the elevator," Jessica said quietly as three more rounded the corner, following the others. She started backing slowly. "Too many."
They all followed her lead, but the brunette broke into a lope and the other zombies followed suit.
"Run!" She yelled, twisting around and shoving Adam towards the elevator. He took off like a shot and mashed the button, then waited anxiously for the door to open as Jessica caught up to him.
Mike was frozen, staring at Harvey, who had slid on a pile of pens and post-its in the floor, as Zombie-Lawyer-Bitch approached. He threw the lamp and hit her hard enough that she stopped and blinked before hissing at him and moving again.
Mike gave Harvey a hand up when he heard the elevator doors whoosh open behind him. They were still too far away, damn it. He heard a heavy thud and turned to see Adam out of it, in a dead faint.
Jessica grabbed the poor kid under the arms and was pulling him into the elevator, yelling at them to hurry. Then she glanced to the side and dropped Adam into the gory mess in the elevator, his legs not quite over the threshold.
Mike faltered to a stop, then ducked as Harvey swung the broom and broke it over the woman's head.
"Get to the stairs!" Jessica yelled, snatching her handy stapler from the ground and taking out a zombie that blocked their escape.
Mike was dragged to the left, craning his neck to make sure Jessica was okay, and pulled through a doorway into the stairwell before he knew for sure.
"What just happened?" He asked as they leaned against the door to catch their breath. Harvey turned his head without straightening up, but didn't say anything. Mike jumped when the door vibrated at their backs. "Is it-" he asked as Harvey opened the door and peeked out.
"Run."
And they did, as best they could, exhaustion and adrenaline warring as they stumbled down the stairs to the ground floor and out into the-
"Holy mother of fuck, but aren't they persistent bastards," Harvey said as the stood in limbo. Above they heard a half-dozen sets of feet clomping down stairs, but straight ahead—there was no escape.
Slow shambling shapes, rusty-red and crimson-splattered and soaked suits and skirts were shone in sharp relief by the florescent glare. And they were starting to notice that Harvey and Mike were there. Slow, pointless shuffling (Mike swore that one of them had been walking in a circle) suddenly had purpose.
But the group from above had already come into sight, one flopping bonelessly down the stairs and crawling towards them.
Harvey grabbed Mike by the tie and pulled him aside, slamming the door closed on them. He pressed Mike to the door and reached for the gun at his back.
He stopped, suddenly still, even as scuffing steps slid their way.
"If we're going to die," he said quietly, "there's something I want to do first." He held Mike's face in his hands and kissed him, fingers curling round his neck.
Mike smiled against his lips, finding the entire situation hilarious for some reason he couldn't fathom. He was probably just hysterical.
"I knew you cared."He grinned.
"I never said that," Harvey said, as calmly as if they were discussing the weather on an especially temperate day. "I just happen to know that I'm an exquisite kisser, and who am I to deny—"
"Shut up." Mike pressed their mouths together, sliding his tongue across Harvey's lower lip, and was rewarded when Harvey opened to him with a sigh.
There was a crush of breaking glass and a pepper of gunshots before armored men slid into view like ghosts from the dark street outside into the too-bright glare of the lights.
Mike broke away as they gunned down the zombies heading towards them. Harvey slumped forward, letting out a relieved sigh against the crook of his neck.
"Oh good, we're saved," Mike breathed, throwing his head back against the door and closing his eyes.
Mike heard the crack of a gunshot and felt the impact as Harvey grunted and went limp against him. The world went gray-edged and unreal as Mike crumpled to the floor under Harvey's lifeless weight.
One of the army guys skidded to a stop next to him, throwing her helmet to the side. "How badly are you injured?" she asked, patting Mike's cheek to keep him from passing out.
"M'not," Mike said groggily as she checked his neck and saw no wounds. "Harvey's shot," he said as little pinpricks of light spotted his vision, then everything tunneled down to black. The last thing he remembered was hearing the soldier swear colorfully.
Harvey fidgeted and whimpered (which he would deny when fully conscious, Mike was sure.) in his sleep.
Mike slid his chair closer to the bed, ducked his head down, and dropped it onto his clasped hands while he waited for Harvey to wake up.
Harvey blinked a few times before Mike's bright blues came into sharp focus, a few inches from his face.
"What happened?" he asked, lifting his head and stretching a little, then wincing when a sharp pain shot through his—
"My ass hurts." He lifted himself up off of his stomach and looked over his shoulder before dropping back down with a groan.
"You got shot," Mike said far too cheerfully for Harvey's peace of mind.
Harvey sighed and lifted his head enough to peek at Mike.
"In the butt." Mike bit his lip as Harvey's eyebrows flew up in surprise, then quickly scrunched down in anger. "They thought you were trying to eat me," Mike said apologetically.
"I don't give a-" Mike pressed him back firmly to the bed with a hand between his shoulder blades.
"They saved our lives."
"What about-"
"Jessica's fine. So is that Adam kid."
"What-"
"Donna's good. Just recovering from her cold. Actually, the outbreak has been 'contained'," Mike used air quotes, "whatever that means. Probably that all the zomb-ified have been rounded up?"
Harvey hummed noncommittally and let his eyes slip closed again.
"But I do have bad news," Mike said.
Harvey looked up, "What happened?"
Mike held up his freshly-bandaged arm. "Your tie—it couldn't be saved."
Harvey rolled his eyes and they sat in silence for a few minutes.
"So, are we gonna talk about it or pretend it never happened?"
"Hmm?" Harvey's pain meds hadn't quite worn off and he was a little drowsy.
"That thing where you kissed me passionately when you thought we were gonna die." Mike said, voice too even, eyes downcast.
Harvey reached and curled a hand around the back of Mike's neck, then lifted his head to give him a slow, clumsy kiss.
He let his eyes close and lowered his head back to the bed.
"That answer your question?" he asked.
"I knew it,"Mike's voice was so smug that Harvey cracked an eye open again, drugs be damned.
"I can't believe those bastards shot me in the ass," he said, skillfully changing the subject.
"You love me." Or maybe not so skillfully.
"I like my ass," Harvey said, meds making the room tilt at awkward angles.
"It is a glorious ass," Mike agreed, ruffling his hair in a way that would be supremely annoying in normal circumstances. "Now go to sleep."
Harvey drifted, felt Mike brush fingers through his hair, and let sleep overtake him.