A/N: This was actually the first ever Darvey fic I ever came up with! I really hope you guys enjoy this silly and short one-shot that parallel's a How I met Your Mother episode- ish. Reviews and critiques are always welcome Xxx
A Room(mate) With A View
Harvey was elated. It was Saturday night, he'd just gotten an A in his Torts class, and he had finally gotten around to scheduling his date with Sydney, a brunette who was five foot feisty and had certain… assets Harvey was quite keen on exploring. (She had a fantastic rack that was one of, if not the main thing Harvey was initially attracted to.) She seemed like a fun girl who could easily be a highlight of his weekend after a grueling week of law school. He was right on time, running up her staircase to greet her and pick her up so they could go to a movie and then dinner. A surprisingly easy date night plan that he was looking forward to.
Harvey quickly smoothed out his navy blue sweater before knocking on Sydney's door.
The door opened revealing Sydney clad in skin tight dark jeans and a flowy white top that was dangerously low cut, revealing her best assets. "Hey, you look great!" Harvey greeted her as he kissed her on the cheek. "Ready to go?" He asked as he took her hand in his ready to guide her out of her apartment, when she hung back. "Just give me a sec to grab my jacket and purse. Come in!"
Harvey reluctantly stepped into her space, closing the door behind him as he noticed her wander further into her apartment, signalling a longer than one second search for her items.
He stood in her living room that was surprisingly impressive in size and decor. She had a fireplace and spacious room for two couch seats, a sofa, and a plasma tv. It was definitely a better upgrade than Harvey's own shitty apartment that bled the kitchen into the living room and had a bedroom the size of a closet. "Nice place you got here. You rent this place on your own?" Harvey asked as he further perused the area. "No! I have a roommate thank god, otherwise I'd never afford a place this nice." Her response echoed out from her bathroom or bedroom, he wasn't sure.
Harvey hummed as he kept inspecting the place, he suddenly noticed a jersey haphazardly thrown onto the back of the couch seat. A baseball jersey- specifically, a genuine merchandise of the mets. He raised his eyebrows in surprise as he touched the material. He couldn't believe Sydney was a mets fan, his night might just be even more entertaining than he thought.
Sydney came back into the living room clutching a jacket. "Just need to find my keys now-"
Harvey turned around with the jersey still in his hands. "I can't believe you're a mets fan too! Will you put this on after I pass the date with flying colors?" He teased her with a smile on his face. He expected a snort or an eye roll in response, but got a hesitant tight lipped smile instead.
"That's not mine. It's my roommate's, her dad gave it to her I guess for some game that was playing this week." Harvey flinched inwardly at her putting one of the biggest season's game in such placid terms. "Oh." Harvey shrugged trying to get over the awkward moment by finding some other common ground with Sydney. "Well…" His eyes lit up suddenly as he caught a glimpse of a stack of DVDS on her coffee table. They were going to see the 40 year old Virgin, a movie she had suggested, and he was on board with a laugh out comedy versus a shitty chick flick, so he was hoping for similar tastes in her stack -which he found. "Holyshit you like Top Gun and Startrek? I'm always telling my friends that the ideal girl would have the same-"
"-also my roommate's. I've never watched either." Sydney seemed perturbed and annoyed at the same time.
Well shit. He had to clamp his idiotic mouth shut from making an ill-advised joke about perhaps dating her roommate instead of her. Although that was what popped up in his mind. This was not a good start to their date.
He scoured the living room once more looking for anything that could possibly be Sydney's he could gush over. He eliminated any items that could be her roommate's, the rest of the Star Trek trilogy on DVD, the Pink Flloyd CD on the side table- and bingo. He found a book of Shakespeare sonnets. Harvey figured there's no way it could belong to the roommate. "Oh, Shakespear sonnets! To be or Not to be, I loved reading him for my Lit class."
Sydney eyed him warily, almost as if she couldn't believe him, huffing in further annoyance. "Again, not mine. I can not believe you just chose the only three things my roommate has lying around." She snapped, seemingly upset. Shit. He already had a feeling Sydney was the slightly jealous, insecure type from the first few times they hung out.
"Well thank god the book is not yours. I hate Shakespeare, who does that guy think he is, he is way overrated." Sydney let out a laugh at his response, seemingly calming down after his continuous slip up with her.
Harvey grinned sheepishly at her. "Let's get out of here already."
The rest of the date goes smoothly, with them laughing over Steve Carell and sharing popcorn and Maltesers like juvenile kids instead of twenty year olds. They made their way back to her apartment, through her living room, ripping the clothes off one another, as she directed him to her bedroom.
They had sex, and it was good. Exactly what Harvey needed. As she fell asleep, he quietly went back out to the living room to grab his jacket and put on his shoes. He sat on the couch as he got dressed. He looked at the coffee table that was directly at eye level. He spotted the sonnets once again and wondered what type of girl is into baseball memorabilia, movies he was into, and weirdly also be a literary geek. He shook his head, mystified at the coincidence, got up, and headed towards the door. From the back, he heard a sudden squeak of steps across the floor. He turned around and from the coroner of his eye he spotted a slim freckled calf jolt into his date's opposing bedroom- supposedly the alleged roommate. She must've snuck in when he and Sydney were inside her room.
.
He always did like freckles.
…..
"So Paulsen, give it to me."
Donna laughed into her scotch tumblr, feeling the buzz of the night in her system. Harvey and her were at a jazz club they'd recently discovered in Seattle. It was date night, and despite the fact they hadn't been at their new workplace for a full week, they still banned the conversational topic of work, knowing their lives will soon blend into one another yet again, tangling work and personal soon enough. He'd just finished sharing a story of his infamous Specter ways, how he hadn't even dropped his own name into the conversation, but had a frenemy do so in front of a graduate student at some bar that had her immediately gunning at him, dropping her company for the night in favor of a night with him instead. Donna had rolled her eyes and snorted as he told her the story smugly.
"Give you what?" She asked confusedly.
"Give me the story of an incident where your mere name or existence got you a man. You know, a time where you first discovered the power of Donna Paulsen." Harvey's voice turned teasing at the end, citing her infamous ways.
"Ohh, you mean when I found out I was practically god?"
Harvey chuckled at her antics and slight rib towards his attitude when it came to his own prowess, waiting eagerly to hear about her past. One of his favourite ways to pass time with Donna nowadays was glimpsing into her past. He always prided himself in knowing her just as well as she knew him, but he was also aware of how very limited his background knowledge was of her; because Donna wasn't as forthcoming as people expect her to be with her own past. And prior to them finally being a them the idea of talking about her past exploits felt too charged of a notion after The Other Time, when jealousy and hurt feelings were all he was familiar with.
Donna thought back to the million different times she'd used her charms to get a man, or when a mere glance in her direction sent the boys her way. She didn't have a powerful name like Harvey. Sure, she was praised and revered within her own circles- her secretary and assistant network, the various law firms of New York, and even a few theatre companies here and there. But she didn't have a reputation of being a successful lawyer to boost her, nor a past of sexual exploitations that followed her around like an urban legend of great sex. (Though, those who knew, those that were lucky enough to hear- definitely thought of her that way.)
Donna's eyes suddenly sparkled in memory. "Well, there are many different stories to pick from," she paused in a rehearsed tactic of building momentum, "but one story that really stands out is the one time, way back when I was first living in Manhattan with a god awful roommate, Sydney. She had some guy I guess come over to our apartment and-" Donna chuckles at the memory recalling something funny.
"What?" Harvey asked around a laugh already amused with her reaction.
"I wasn't even there, but I guess I caught his eye with all my stuff around the living room. It made Sydney so mad and freakishly jealous despite the fact I wasn't physically doing anything. I mean it was such a bizarre situation, he gravitated towards all my stuff. My Mets memorabilia, my top gun dvd, even my-"
"- Shakespeare sonnets." Harvey finished her sentence in a breathy reply, finally puzzling together the details she gave with the girl he briefly went out with twice. He looked at Donna mystified, genuinely wondering if she was placed on Earth just for him because all of a sudden he felt the need to call her his goddamn soul mate when he didn't even believe in that stuff.
"-yeah." The penny dropped in Donna's mind after half a second. "Oh my god. You were Sydney's date that night."
"And you were her mystery roommate I wanted to get with instead."
"Holy shit." They both exclaimed at the same time realizing they had inadvertently crossed paths three years before they actually met through the D.A's office.
Donna barked out a laugh of hysteria shaking her head at the realization. "That is insane. Insane! Do you realize we could've met before I ever worked at the D.A's office?"
Harvey shook his head equally shocked. "You know we probably would've been together way sooner in that situation."
"And what makes you say that?"
He gave her a look. "Donna, C'mon. It's me and you. There's no way we could've resisted our sexual chemistry back then with no lines to cross."
"I wouldn't be too sure about that Cassanova, I hear you were a real prick back then."
"I was a prick when you met me."
"I have it on good authority that was a more softened version of you at 21, cocky Harvard law student ready to prove himself in every which way." She raised a cajoling brow and tilted her head in response.
They shared humor filled smiles at the truth in her statement. A minute of comfortable silence fell between them as they both thought of the scenario.
"I wonder how it would've all turned out… if we actually had crossed paths that night. I remember seeing your calf that night when you ran out from the bathroom to your bedroom."
Donna's eyes widened at his addition to the memory. "I can't believe you remember that."
"Guess your Donna ways really are godlike because even a glimpse of the back of your leg had me reeling for a moment there."
"You think we would've still ended up in the same place here?" Harvey asked softly after Donna spent a minute looking at him in awe.
She let her arm that was already resting near his, graze his own, her slender fingertips gliding across his forearm as a way to anchor herself to him physically.
"Maybe not here here," she admitted out loud, the likelihood of them ending up in Seattle to be COO and Senior Partner at Mike and Rach's law firm seeming incredibly far fetched in a scenario where Donna was never his secretary and he never had her to sway him to leave the D.A's office and pursue Jessica's offer at Pearson Hardman.
Harvey briefly wondered what her career would've looked like if she wasn't a secretary turned COO. "But I think you were right. This, us two together?" She said as she gestured between the two of them. "Yeah, we would've ended up here anyways."
Harvey feels his entire being light up from the inside. The notion of Donna having an infinite amount of faith in them to end up together in various multiverses making him feel content and at peace as much as her saying I do had given him. Because that's what she was saying, in all the different forms of forever they could've had- they would have always been a sure possibility.
"You're right. We were inevitable from the beginning." He hoarsely replied, clearing his throat from the sudden turn of emotional event he was feeling inside him. Donna sent him a look that told him she was feeling the same thing.
"Would you change it? The way we met, I mean?" Donna asked half heartedly, knowing the answer but wanting to hear it from him anyways.
"No," he shook his head softly, clasping their hands together, "I mean, it might've been nice to get together before a decade passed between us, but I don't think I'd change our story. What we went through… it's really the only way we could've been ready for each other."
Donna smiled at his astute exclamation. "So long story short, you're the reason I never got another roommate again, Hotshot. Your lack of control around the mere hint of the ever amazing Donna, led to me finding a shitty studio apartment at the end of my lease to avoid crazy psycho roommates."
Harvey smirked in reply, recalling a story she'd told him once about how borderline hazardous her living situation was around the time she first got a steady paycheck. "I think you mean you're welcome because if I remember correctly, that shitty neighborhood you lived in was how you found your love of that shitty Thai place down the street."
Donna rolled her eyes fondly at him. "Ok. Drink your drink and shut up. I'm going to the bathroom." As she got up and swayed her hips tantalizingly in a beeline to the restroom, Harvey thought of their impending plans to go back to their rented out Airbnb, take off their date night clothes, and spend it cuddled under the bedsheets with a laptop between them to look at house listings. He pictured them searching for the perfect apartment like they did everything else - efficiently, with a dose of entertainment and heartfelt love he always felt when doing anything with Donna. He knew an hour or so into their research Donna would inevitably pass out from the mix of margaritas and scotch so late, her head lulled to the side of his shoulder, fingertips no longer at the ready to type in more searches. Harvey would gently pry the laptop off her lap and solely onto his, making Donna subconsciously cuddle further into him, as he kept looking for their future home together.
Yeah, Harvey thought to himself as he took another sip of scotch waiting for Donna to come back, he wouldn't change a single thing about his present right now. Or their past.
P.S.A: Incase anyone was curious, the episode this fic was inspired by is Season 5 Episode 12 Girls vs. Suits- credit goes to the creators and writers of the show and episode. Loose plot based on 'Cindy' who is on a date with Ted, who liked his future wife's items around his current date's bedroom, and said date gets mad/jealous.