A/N: This story was requested by C (justanotheranonwriter). Hope you like it!
"Hey," she calls out from his couch as soon as she hears him open the door.
"Hey, babe," he replies as he leaves his keys and suitcase on the side table.
"Did you just call me babe?" she frowns humorously at him as he makes his way towards her.
Harvey stops on his tracks, face blank. "Maybe."
"Harvey Specter does pet names?" she lifts a teasing brow and gets immense satisfaction when she sees a blush creep up his neck.
"Uhm...," he trails off, sitting on the couch a little further from her than she'd like and she feels a pang of remorse for making fun of him, but they've been friends for fifteen years and she finds she sometimes has a hard time switching gears now that they're together. "Not really. It's just... Well, we're a couple now, and I thought that's what couples do."
He's not looking at her, and he seems a bit embarrassed. Warmth floods her; she never pictured Harvey as a relationship guy - maybe because he didn't use to be one - but ever since he showed up at her door he has been nailing this whole thing; he's been caring, attentive, sure, things she never thought he'd be, especially not with her.
"Harvey, we don't have to use pet names just because other couples do," she explains gently, because she loves their new thing but she loves him more, and she doesn't want him to do things he doesn't want to do just because he thinks he has to now that they're dating.
"I was just testing it out, I guess," he shrugs a shoulder, "But you're right, we don't have to, it felt kinda weird anyway." He leans back on the couch and she can't help but think she detects a certain disappointment in his tone.
Her heart skips a bit. That was Harvey, calling her "babe" spontaneously, because he wanted to. It's so basic, so typical, so... predictable that she shouldn't like it. But she thinks - and maybe that's what every other couple out there thinks, but still - there is nothing basic or typical or predictable about her and Harvey. The mere fact that they're here together is the biggest miracle she's ever witnessed. And maybe him calling her "babe" is just another part of that miracle.
Donna bites her lower lip as she sets a hand on the arm that's resting behind her on the back of the couch. "It didn't feel weird," she says after a moment.
"It didn't?" he lifts his brows a bit, slightly surprised.
She shakes her head and maneuvers herself to straddle him. "It didn't."
She thinks he looks so proud he forgets to be smug. "You can even do it again," she says, and it's not meant to be suggestive but their position makes it so.
Harvey seems to snap out of it, running his palms up her thighs, "I can?"
"Not all the time," she wrinkles her nose a little, because she may love him but she is still not the biggest fan of pet names, "But you can."
He grins and she leans in, capturing his lips in a gentle kiss.
"As long as I get to call you honey," she conditions when she pulls back.
"As in, 'Dinner's ready, honey'?," his voice goes higher in a mock-impression of her.
She snorts. "Yeah, right after I finish ironing your shirts."
"That's fine by me, then," he smirks and pulls her in again.
She never really saw Harvey and her as a pet name kind of couple, mostly because they've been in love for so long without being able to say it that they developed ways to show it instead - it was written all over the way he'd go watch all her plays, the way she'd fix his tie or his hair, the way he never really got mad at her for scratching his Miles Davis and never really replaced it either, and in the way they say each other's names. She never needed a pet name because Donna's name on Harvey's tongue is all the endearment she could want.
But there are few things more representative of couples than pet names, and she doesn't think they'll ever be a regular couple but she likes that they can have regular couple things, like date nights and a song that's theirs and maybe even pet names.
She suddenly pictures herself calling him honey when she asks him to pass her the wine, or when she greets him with a quick peck when one of them arrives from work, or when she asks him to tell Mike and Rachel that story from two years ago. And she likes the picture. They have their secret language to show affection to each other but they don't need secrets anymore. It can all be out in the open, unlike it's been for the past decade. And she doesn't want to change them but she can definitely enjoy that.
She knows she's made the right choice later that night, when she's sliding over him and his hands are tight on her hips and she knows he's half out of his mind, and he grunts "Fuck yeah, babe, just like that" in her ear. It's one of the hottest things she's ever heard and it's almost enough to drive her over the edge.
Yeah. She think she loves pet names.