A/N - Hello again! I feel terrible that I took so long to update this story; grade 12 is proving to have a huge work load and then I had to nanny my little cousins for a week and then I went to Oregon for a Shakespeare Festival…ANYWAYS, enough about me! Lots of protective!Harvey and scared!Mike in this one. I once again apologize in advance for the cliffhanger, but I promise the next chap will be up either tomorrow or the next day. Love you all, happy reading!
An obnoxiously loud CRASH jolted both lawyers awake and into a frenzied sitting position.
Oliver Reid had knocked the door down and was pointing a gun at Mike.
"You, stand up. S-stand up and close your eyes, right now."
Harvey and Mike looked at each other, both set of eyes wide in terror. Not knowing what else to do, Mike gulped and slowly stood up, placing his shaking hands into the air.
"Oliver…" Mike said slowly, softly. "Oliver, you need to put the gun down. It doesn't have to be like this."
Oliver ran his left hand through his short brown hair, obviously panicky. "Yes, it does! Or else, you're gonna report me and…and I'll go to prison, and my whole life will be ruined…why did it have to be you, the guy who remembers everything?!"
"So, you're the one who jumped Mike?" Harvey interrupted. He asked as though he didn't already know, trying to sound curious rather than threatening. He stood up slowly and put his hands in the air, copying Mike, who glanced at him confusedly and then snapped his attention back to the threat.
"Who are you?" Oliver's voice became higher with nerves and he aimed the gun at Harvey, whom he hadn't even noticed until now. He had hoped Mike would be alone. Another person meant an eye-witness, another threat, another person he had to kill…
"I'm Mike's brother." Harvey lied smoothly. Seeing the doubtful look on the other man's face, he added, "You didn't even know I existed, huh?"
Oliver shook his head rapidly.
Harvey knew it was a long shot, but right now with their black pants, un-tucked white dress shirts, messy hair, tired faces and raised hands, he and Mike easily could have been brothers.
"I was home-schooled. A trouble maker, you could say, so our parents never really let me out to play with other kids. Plus, if I had gone to your school, I would've gotten shown up by the little genius everyday." He gave a you-know-what-I-mean? look and cocked his head in Mike's direction.
The gunman looked back and forth between Mike and Harvey frantically, trying to figure out why the older man was telling him a story and whether or not it was a lie.
"Now, my little brother here tells me absolutely everything. Like, for example, did you know he's still a virgin?" Harvey raised his eyebrows, looked at Mike and shrugged with one shoulder, somehow appearing comfortable with this situation.
Mike didn't know whether to blush or glare or nod, so he just looked at Harvey and furrowed his brow slightly, trying to figure out where the hell this was all going.
"But Mike refused to tell me about you." he lied again. "I harassed him daily and even tried talking to him in his sleep but he would never answer me, so I gave up. What do you think that means?"
Oliver ran a hand over his forehead where a sheen of nervous sweat had just been. "I don't know or care, but I don't like all these diversions. I'm here to ki…ki…to eliminate the threat. I have no other options." Oliver looked like there was really nothing else in the world he wanted to do less than shoot Mike. Harvey took this as a good sign and continued, "But don't you get it, Oliver? Mike was never going to report you."
As Harvey spoke, Mike noticed he was gradually leaving his spot by the chair and approaching the two other men. They made brief eye contact and Mike flashed a warning look but Harvey didn't acknowledge it. "He was always going to keep quiet, weren't you, Mike?"
Mike gulped and said, "Yes…that night was harmless, I've already forgotten about the whole thing. It'll never cross my mind again, I s-swear."
Harvey was now standing right in front of the younger man, and looking Oliver in the eye. "See? All of this is unnecessary. Now if you put the gun down, we'll all be fine. But if you don't, I'm going to be honest, I can't see an easy way out of this situation for any of us…"
"No, no, you don't get to make threats! I'm the one with a gun here!" He waved it in front of him dangerously, his anger and desperation rising.
Mike, completely blocked from Oliver by Harvey, looked around his messy apartment for something, anything, nearby that might come in handy. All he saw were some socks, an x-box controller, sprawled newspapers, a banana, Scrabble…cursing his un-preparedness, he made a mental note to hide a baseball bat under his couch after this was all over.
Then he felt a vibration in his pocket and realized, with a strange feeling, that whoever had just sent him a text had no idea what was currently going on. It was probably Donna checking up on him, or something equally as trivial. It took a whole twelve seconds for Mike to realize - his phone was in his frickin' pocket. As discreetly as possible, he slid it out and dialed 911 without even glancing down. He gave an inaudible sigh of relief; they might just make it out of here safely.
Harvey continued in his soothing tone that even managed to calm Mike down a little bit. "Yes, I see that. You have total control, you're holding all the cards…but you don't want to kill him, Oliver. I read people for a living, and I can tell that you are a good person who just got mixed up with a bad group." Harvey had to bite his tongue to avoid saying what he honestly thought of this douche. As much as he hated it, he understood that affirming and reassuring Oliver were the best shots they had at getting out of there unharmed.
"Yeah, you're right, I am a good person."
"Exactly. You never wanted any of this."
"Right. I - I'm totally innocent." Oliver's face showed a sort of relieved dawning, and he absent-mindedly lowered the gun.
Harvey took a cautious step forward. "Just put the gun on the ground, that's it."
Mike held his breath, unable to see if Oliver had in fact put the gun down. Then his cell phone rang, the intro of Star Wars playing unusually loudly.
It all happened very quickly.
Oliver shoved Harvey to the ground and out of the way, then saw Mike reach for his pocket with a look of horror. Mike scrambled back but Oliver caught hold of his collar and pushed him up against the wall. He placed the gun to the side of the kid's head. "You called the police, didn't you! When was it? Are they on their way? How am I supposed to escape now?!" He had a fearful, despising, hysterical look in his eye, which had Mike speechless and paling quickly.
Harvey had landed face first on a wooden table and crushed it, receiving a nice gash on his forehead in the process. He was dizzy, but he could see the gun against Mike's head and he somehow found the strength to push himself off the ground.
Oliver shouted, "You idiot, you screwed this whole thing up!" at a wide-eyed and shaking Mike. "I was never supposed to get caught!"
The gun cocked. His hand moved from Mike's collar to his neck. The cold metal pressed against Mike's temple and he squeezed his eyes shut. He couldn't move. It was like his arms had been glued against the wall. Why didn't he reach up and hit him? Or duck out of this confined spot and run? Or at least move the gun away…he didn't know. Please don't kill Harvey too was the last thought he had before the gun went off.
BANG.
