Harvey and Donna don't do pet names. Not really.
They've been moulded by years, decades, where the most they could offer each other was the tilt of a head, the bigger serve of whisky, the look that lingered only a half second longer than it should have. They learned to show affection in the 15 inches between them on the sofa, in the 15 feet between their desks, in the 15 years between them sitting in the air, unspoken and hovering. Affection which they'd hidden in flirting they made so overt that it was able to be read as a joke, in proposals of marriage couched as the banter of old friends, in bagels and coffees and just now and then, just every so often, when they touched.
Ex-lovers, playing at friendship, burying passion, tossing the word 'soulmates' into drawers and texts and in the way she fixed his tie.
So when it happens, and it's floodgates, everything changes. Almost. Touch becomes touch and marry me becomes marry me, the same but different - only really in that it means what it always meant, just out loud.
He still calls her Donna. She still calls him Harvey. Almost always.
Harvey's never been so sure about what he thinks about pet names but with her it's different. She calls him sweetie like she calls everyone sweetie, passing by him in the kitchen and patting his ass affectionately while she looks for creamer or cookies, depending on what time of the day it is. She calls him honey, every now and then, usually when she's drunk from whisky or sleep. She calls him handsome like it's his prenom, a hint of irony making it just teasing enough to be in the same category of affection as when she used to tell him he looked like a pimp, before he stopped slicking his hair back because she said she fucking hated it. She calls him an idiot, which counts, because they both know it was the only way she could say she loved him for years and she holds onto it like it means something, because it does.
Donna's never been so sure about what she thinks about pet names but with him it's different. Sometimes he calls her 'Donna' but with so little emphasis on the back syllable that it sounds like he's testing out ways to tell her he loves her just by the way he says her name. Sometimes he says, hey beautiful, when he's waking up or she's getting home. But he's shy with it, calling her anything other than Donna. He says it like he's not sure he should - because the word 'Donna' from his mouth has been home, for him, for so long, and he's afraid he might spin off and away from gravity if he says anything else.
Something changes when they're in bed though.
Something about it shifts him. He's not scared, he's not shy, and he manages to find some thread through vulnerability and confidence that has him in all the places he always used to shy away from.
He stretches his frame along her, skin on skin, warmth sliding into heat and sweat, kissing at the corner of her mouth while he lays a hand between her legs and presses his palm down until her back arches up, and he says, "Donna," like a prayer.
He breathes out long and slow in a cross between a sigh and "honey," when she slides her hand from his neck, down his spine and to his hip, to ask him closer. His sigh and hushed word bottoms out against her skin as he drops his mouth to her breast, plays over her nipple lazily with tongue and teeth.
Donna loves the way he finds the corners in the night or the morning to mix her name with other words, like he's just grabbing the things he knows about her and speaking them out, like he's too overwhelmed to just say "Donna," and like he's free associating everything she is to him.
He kisses loose along her jaw and neck, hands on her skin, on her breasts, down her ribcage. He tickles goosebumps over her sides with his fingertips and the slight scratch of his nails. He slips his fingers under her knee to hitch her leg up and press his hips flush against hers, loosing the yes of the friction against her mouth with a sigh.
He bites his breaths off against his diaphragm when she reaches between them to find him and take him in hand, to stroke solidly along his length, to guide him to her entrance. He says, "Donna," again, the first syllable masking the second like he does when he says her name instead of love.
He pushes in, and when she holds his hips in between her knees, squeezes down, he lets his head fall to her neck, laying his mouth on her skin more than kissing.
He hitches his hips, strokes out, then back in, settling his weight heavy against her, and as he does he finds a rhythm, and as he does that, he picks it up. They can flip from tender to rough in bed on a dime, or find the thread in between and ride it, Harvey pulling Donna's hands up over her head and locking her wrists down with one palm while he snaps his hips against hers, looking at her like she's porcelain while he grips hard enough to bruise.
Or he curves his body over hers, says, "baby," in her ear, his teeth catching her lobe while she gasps arousal against his neck and grabs onto him like he's gravity. He says it once, or he says it over and over like a mantra, while he cracks his body against hers until she orgasms wordlessly, spelling it out in the way her breath stops short against her groan and her stomach flutters against his, and he says it until her unconscious clenching around him tips him after her.
He says, "hey, beautiful," again when they're both back to themselves, touching lazily just because they can and stretching out the dopamine.
She calls him 'honey' and lets the rhythmic press of his fingers against her skin lull her to sleep.
They keep Donna and Harvey, but the other words slowly become them as well.
A/N: Thanks to Isa for the tweet that inspired this one! Just a little emo!smut to get us through the wildness of 2020.
As always, reviews are deeply appreciated.