Wow, guys, you'll spoil me with all these follows!

kasinka613: Donny chyba nie da się nie kochać! Ona miałaby nie przemówić Harvey'emu do rozumu?

camitake: a warm welcome to you - I hope the update is quick enough :)

Seriously, the past weeks weren't what you might call the most cheerful period in one's life, so it's really nice to come back here and be greeted like that. Thank you and here it is then, Harvey finally not being as repulsive as before (hooray!).

Chapter 7 in which Harvey decides not to be an ass (or a dick)

(Friday)

So Harvey knew he had overreacted.

Mike had, of course, done something disgusting and off-putting, and just simply wrong. But Harvey had been giving him shit since Monday and even if he had deserved some of it, it wasn't Harvey's job to punish him for those kind of mistakes.

Besides, he had just lost his grandmother, the most important person in his life, and needed support rather than guilt. Support wasn't exactly Harvey's kind of thing, but he reckoned he could give it a try someday.

Plus, and yes, Harvey had given it quite a lot of thought last night, sleeping with a married woman or not, Mike was still Mike. His associate. The one he was ready to give up his entire career for. The one he felt this awful urge to protect, rationalizing it with all the crap about being responsible for his employee. Still the same Mike. Right?

It was eight in the morning and he was walking past Donna's desk, deep in thoughts, when he heard her saying in a sing-a-song voice:

'Hello, Harvey'.

There was something malicious in that tone of voice. He broke into a halt.

'Hello, Donna'.

She just stared at him, as if waiting for him to guess what was it that he had done wrong, because that obviously was the reason she was giving him such a sarcastic welcome.

There was a single, red rose in a glass of water next to her computer. He pointed at it, desperate to avoid having the conversation they were about to have. 'Got yourself a new Romeo?'

'It's from Mike' she wasn't even blinking, her eyes were so fixed on Harvey. 'He came here this morning and brought me Swiss chocolates and a coffee. Seems to pay off, you know, being actually nice to him from time to time'.

There it was.

'Look, Donna, you don't know what we were talking about yesterday, you weren't there—'

'Right, I wasn't!' she finally burst out. 'But you know what? I don't care, because whatever he has done, that kid doesn't deserve the shit you've been giving him. He's broken and lonely, and doesn't have anyone to rely on, because the person he should be able to trust is too preoccupied with their love affairs and silly dilemmas to even notice him!'

'Donna—'

'Don't you Donna me' she cut him off. 'I have no interest in your side of the story, because whatever you have to say won't change the fact that I found your dear associate crying in the bathroom yesterday evening—'

'Crying?' his heart sank — he may have been an ass, but he never thought he would make Mike cry. He couldn't even picture Mike crying — sure, there had been a couple of times when his eyes had got a bit watery, but Harvey's imagination refused to produce an image involving actual tears. And why would Mike cry in the first place? It wasn't like he had believed all the crap Harvey had told him yesterday?

'And he was so delighted when I asked him to walk me home' Donna decided to ignore him. 'We were talking about food, Harvey!' she let out a chortle, but didn't sound amused at all. 'What we liked to eat, and yet I haven't seen him that cheerful in the past two weeks!'

Harvey sighed.

'I'll take him out for dinner tonight, fine? Satisfied?'

'Oh, I know you will. I've already booked you a table in that Italian restaurant you like. Mike mentioned liking Italian' he just shook his head, smiling slightly at her foresight. 'I want you to fix the damage you have done. I don't care how, but fix it. And if I see him crying in the restroom again, I'm going to make you regret the day you were born. Clear?'

It was quite amazing how Mike managed to get people to like him — and not even like him, but stand up for him in any situation. Donna had never threatened Harvey for the sake of somebody else. And, come to think of it, he had never thought she would do that, up till now, because this was about Mike and everything that was about Mike was an exception to each and every rule.

He nodded his head and she seemed satisfied with that silent approval, because she let him take a chocolate from the box Mike had given her. She still wasn't smiling though — she must have known, because that was Donna and she always did, that not everything was clear and in order in Harvey's head, and there was still this resentment he felt towards Mike, the resentment he had no idea what do to with. But he would come to terms with it at some point. Probably.

He thought about Zoe. He wasn't very good at coming to terms with stuff.

Mike avoided him like the plague for the rest of the morning and Harvey had no intention of chasing him over the premises, so, having in mind the undisputable fact that they had a trial at noon, a fact his associate could not do anything about, he patiently waited. It wasn't before they were in the car together, Mike pulled into one corner, trying to be as far away from him as he could manage, that they finally got the chance to speak. Then again, there appeared the question of who was it to swallow the pride and break the silence first, which was thankfully soon resolved by the simple truth — Mike had a physical incapability of staying shut.

'Nice weather'.

He would have so mocked him for talking about the weather if it had been any other day. 'True'.

The return of the awkward silence. That was no way to lead this conversation.

'I can't imagine you were desperate enough to bring up the weather' Harvey said with a smirk after two awfully quiet minutes had passed. He studied Mike's face carefully. Will he smile or won't he smile? It did not seem like a lot to go with, but Harvey knew very well the answer to that question was to determine whether or not Mike had believed his words last evening.

It took some time, but the kid granted him with a little smile at last.

'Yeah, me neither. So, what are you doing tonight? Any plans for the Friday evening?' Harvey couldn't tell if it was Mike trying to find something neutral to talk about, or Mike trying to learn something about his personal life all of sudden; no matter which of those, it still sounded very artificial, and Harvey feared that no matter what the kid chose to say, it would all turn out to be just as unnatural, as if after last evening they had forgotten how they used to talk with each other.

'Yes, actually. You?' Harvey said carefully, thinking hard before pronouncing every word.

'Nah, I'm just going home' Mike shrugged, a certain sadness to that shrug making it obvious the evening was not something he anticipated. 'What are you doing then?'

'I'm having dinner'. Why did it still feel like they were walking through a swamp, each step being a risk of falling in?

'Oh, alone or with a client? Or a woman maybe?'

Okay, that was definitely Mike trying to learn something about his personal life. Or maybe it was an attempt to find out more about what stood behind his hostile behaviour? But Mike couldn't have known about Zoe, he couldn't have suspected anything. 'Neither, in fact. I'm meeting with a friend'.

He said that without thinking much, something that didn't happen to the great Harvey Specter quite often, and was bewildered with the outcome. Had he really said 'friend'? God, he should go and hide somewhere to get his shit together now or he'd start to babble like Mike late in the evening, when he was so sleepy he could control only a quarter of what was coming out of his mouth as opposed to the regular seventy percent.

'A friend? Well, wish you a good time then' there was his silver lining — Mike was soon going to get even more embarrassed than he was, and maybe that little bone he had mindlessly thrown at him would somehow make up for he had to listen to last night and they would find a way to go back to where they went off.

The driver pulled off by the impressive monument of the Supreme Court of Justice and before Mike began to get out of the car, Harvey sighed and informed him drily 'I'll meet you outside the office at half past six. Keep your suit decent throughout the day, it's an elegant restaurant'.

And after that, because he had always been keen on good finish lines, he got out of the car, which wasn't that majestic or final after all as the disoriented kid was already on the pavement, asking questions.

'Wait, what do you mean? You want me to come over to dinner? But won't your friend mind? Is it a table for three people and that's why you're taking me, because there's some weird rule in expensive restaurants that you can't have two people sitting by a table for three?'

How did he even come up with such ridiculous ideas?

'And here I was, thinking you can actually use that freakish brain of yours. It's a table for two, why would I book a table for three if there were just one person coming along?'

'Wait, do you mean it'll be just the two of us?'

'Congratulations, smart-ass. I knew you would get there eventually'.

'And that's what you meant—' Mike fell silent when his face suddenly turned red. That totally made up for the embarrassment Harvey had experienced himself, while in the same time being so Mike that for a moment he could not recall how on earth could he ever lay his eyes upon that face and not recognize his associate in it.

Maybe it really was going to be okay soon.

Just when he thought that, he felt something heavy on his back and was almost knocked over by his associate; he managed to turn around just in time to catch him. His hands gripped the skinny arms with a force he had never suspected having, and he had to fight his instincts to make them loosen the grip a bit so that he would not leave marks on the ironed suit — or on the skin. Mere seconds later Mike regained his balance and stepped back, looking even more embarrassed.

'Wow' Harvey uttered finally. 'What was that?'

'Nothing' he refused to look him in the eye. 'I've stumbled, sorry'.

Harvey just shook his head and waved it off, but continued to eye Mike cautiously throughout the trial.

Ha, I guess I'll leave you at this point for a day or two, what do you say? :)