Chapter 16.
Harvey just left. Mike stood on the sidewalk watching the car drive away. Harvey left him there without even looking back. He clutched his bag closer towards him and tried to not think about it, tried to will the feeling of being abandoned away.
Right where he was standing now had been where they had pushed him inside the van. He couldn't help but look around the street. There was no van there now. He turned towards his building and slowly started to approach it. He felt a bit nauseated as he pulled out the keys. He felt tears in his eyes as he put them into the lock. He felt scared now, scared that someone would grab him from behind. His hands were shaking. He got inside and closed the door behind him. He was standing in the hallway where he had fought with them. He felt weirdly cold and sweaty at the same time.
He wiped his eyes with one hand and then hurried up the stairs. As soon as he got inside his apartment, he locked the door and turned the light on. In fact, he turned all the lights on. He still felt nauseated and wiped his eyes again. He felt angry at himself now. Damn it, he wasn't scared of being at his own apartment. What was that about?
But he really wanted to leave again. He didn't want to be here. He just didn't. It wasn't safe here. It was here that they had taken him. They knew where he lived, and they were still out there. They could come back. They could easily break in and take him again. He wanted to call Harvey and ask him to come back. He was prepared to beg.
He couldn't do that though. Instead he took a chair from the kitchen and placed it in front of the door against the handle. He then took his phone and went into the bathroom. He locked the door and sat down on the floor with his back against it. He cried then. He couldn't hold it back any longer.
He wished it had never happened. He wished that he never would have met those guys outside the court, maybe they wouldn't have known about him then. He felt so damn pathetic now. The feeling was so overwhelming that he didn't know what to do. He was so useless and weak for behaving like this. He knew that logically nothing would happen to him in here, but he was still afraid. He wanted to leave. With all of his being he wanted to get out of the apartment and just go somewhere else. He didn't feel safe here. He couldn't stay here. He couldn't.
But he had nowhere else to go. Harvey had basically kicked him out. He couldn't help but feel both anger and resentment towards his boss. Harvey had told him that things would be fine, but now he just dumped him back at his apartment. Things weren't fine at all. Mike felt like shit. He was scared and lonely and sad. That wasn't even close to fine.
He didn't know for how long he stayed in the bathroom. But he spent at least half an hour getting the courage to leave the room. When he finally did open the door and stepped out, he wanted to return straight away, but forced himself not to.
He went to bed without having dinner. He laid under the cover, but he couldn't relax. Over here he wouldn't be able to hear it if someone came. Eventually he brought the cover with him and sat down on the couch. He was closer to the door then and could both see and hear if something happened.
He didn't get much sleep that night, maybe two or three hours of restless sleep with nightmares. It didn't feel good to wake up from them either just to realize where he was, it was just a different nightmare. Around six a clock he couldn't take it anymore. He packed a bag with some clothes and other things and left for the office. He wasn't coming back here.
It was a terrible day. He fought to act normal, but truth was that he was exhausted, sad and on edge. He declined invitations of lunch and just stayed at his desk. Harvey came to see him a couple of times, but Mike was quite short with him, so Harvey left pretty quick. Harvey had betrayed him, and Mike didn't feel like acting nice towards him. He didn't know if Harvey noticed or not that he was struggling. He didn't say anything about it at least.
He didn't leave that night. He just kept working until he suddenly noticed that he was alone in the office. He looked around a little and went to see if anyone else was around. He found Donna's desk empty, just as Harvey's office. Had they left without even telling him? He shouldn't care about that, they always did that, but he still felt something stab at his chest. Why didn't they tell him?
He realized that he was alone at the office now. It didn't feel that good, but it was better than staying at home. That night he slept by his table with his head leaning against his arms. It wasn't the most comfortable position, but also that was better than home.
During the next few days he worked harder than he had ever done. He immersed himself into work just to push all the other stuff out of his mind. He knew that it wasn't healthy what he was doing, but it was the easiest way to deal right now. He knew that he wasn't right in the head. He knew that, but he didn't know what else to do. Harvey seemed to be please though, he complimented him when he finished something three times faster than Harvey had thought it would take.
Harvey didn't say anything about the fact that Mike was working himself to exhaustion each day. He had tried to bring it up, he had said something about that Mike could leave early if he wanted to, but Mike pretended like he hadn't heard it. Screw Harvey. Harvey didn't give a shit about him anyways. He felt angry at the older man for not noticing how he was feeling. He wanted Harvey to ask. He wanted Harvey to pull him aside and tell him that he could see that something was wrong, and how could he help. But Harvey didn't do that.
Donna was nice to him though. She didn't really speak that much to him, but she would come by his desk with a cup of coffee or a sandwich. She asked him out for lunch as well, but Mike didn't feel like leaving the office. He just told her that he didn't have time. He knew that she probably didn't believe him, but she didn't ask either. He also didn't tell her that he left the sandwiches untouched.
-SUITS-
Harvey looked through the files that he just had gotten from Mike. The younger man was working harder than he ever had seen him. Mike stayed late every night as well. They hadn't really talked much since he dropped Mike off at his apartment. Mike was redrawn and rude when he tried to strike up a conversation with him. That pissed him off a bit and didn't really make him want to talk more to Mike.
"You have to keep trying." Donna told him. "It's clearly something going on with him. He keeps declining my lunch invites. I don't know if he even eats anything."
"Do you want me to ask him about his eating habits?" Harvey asked dryly.
"Harvey, I know you know that something is wrong. Do something."
She walked out of his office before he had a chance to reply. She was right though; he knew that Mike wasn't acting like himself. Not that Harvey blamed him, considering what he had been through. He also knew that Mike was his responsibility and that she right, he needed to do something.
He tried later that evening to talk to Mike. He stayed longer than he usually did and went over the associate's cubicles to find Mike sitting with his head bent down, alone in the room, by his desk.
"Hi Mike." He said and Mike jerked a bit. He quickly looked up though and Harvey was a bit taken a back of what he saw in Mike's eyes. At first, he looked scared but then it changed to something that Harvey only could interpret as hope. What was it that the kid hoped for?
"Shouldn't you be at home by now?" Harvey asked and watched as the light in Mike's eyes died and his expression became hard.
"I have some things I need to finish." He muttered and looked back down at his work.
"No, you don't. Go home Mike. You don't need to prove yourself or whatever you are doing right now." Harvey tried, but realized almost immediately that it had been the wrong thing to say. Mike flew up from his chair.
"Shut up Harvey!" He almost screamed. "I'm not going anywhere, and you can't fucking force me!"
He then stormed away in the direction of the bathroom and Harvey stood there and just looked after him. What had happened? He considered going after Mike, but he didn't know if he would be able to keep his cool if Mike yelled at him again. He knew for sure that things wouldn't get better if he yelled back at the kid. So, he left and headed home.
Mike haft expected Harvey to follow him into the bathroom. He had just cursed at Harvey and yelled in his face; the older man wouldn't let that go. He quelled an impulse of hitting the bathroom mirror on the wall in front of him but managed to control himself. Harvey didn't come though. He washed his face and stared at his image. He looked terrible. Pale and somewhat skinnier than before. He had lost weight these last few weeks. He could see the difference in his own face.
He was so angry at Harvey. He had felt pretty shitty ever since the last associate left the office, he felt uneasy when he was there alone. He had wondered if Harvey was still in the building. Maybe he could go and check and see if maybe they could work together for a while. They could even talk some. But then Harvey had been standing by his desk so suddenly that he hadn't been prepared for it. He freaked out a little but hoped that Harvey didn't see it. What was Harvey even doing there? Mike hoped that he would suggest that they had dinner or something. But instead Harvey had told him to go home. Mike had lost it a little then.
When he had collected himself enough, he walked out again and back to his desk. His heart sank a little against his will. Harvey was nowhere to be seen and yet again he was alone. This would be the third night in a row he slept here. Not for the first time he wished that he had anywhere else to go. It was pathetic to stay like, sleep in an office, and brush his teeth in an office bathroom.
Last night he snuck into Harvey's office and laid down on his couch for a couple of hours. He had an alarm set so that his boss wouldn't come and find him there. He had woken up two hours before the alarm from a nightmare so bad that he seriously considered if he was about to have a heart attack. He had ended up on the floor with his back against the couch, just sitting there waiting for his heart to slow down and for his breathes to slow down. The dream had been about when the kidnappers had force fed him. He was never going to eat sandwiches again.
He remembered the way they had held him, fingers digging into his arms, a hand over his nose and mouth. Himself then agreeing to open his mouth and eating the sandwich they had picked up off the floor.
When the alarm went off, he had walked back to his cubicle and forced himself to start working again. Now, the day had passed, and it was dark again. He didn't know how he was going to be able to keep this up. He didn't know what would happen when he couldn't do it anymore. Would he collapse or something? He was getting so little sleep now, so it was a possibility. What if he fell asleep during a meeting or something? What if Harvey fired him?
What if Harvey was pissed at him? Things didn't feel okay between them. Harvey was awkward around him, and Mike couldn't help but feel annoyed when Harvey kept asking how he was doing. That was all he did, and when Mike said that he was fine Harvey just accepted it. He didn't ask Mike if he thought about the kidnapping, or anything about it. He also hadn't said anything about the whereabouts of the kidnappers. Mike didn't want to ask either, but he wanted to know. Were there any leads? He hadn't heard anything from the police since they had been to the police station and the sketch artist.
Maybe no one else cared about this. Maybe they all thought that he should forget about it. Move on or whatever. The other associates hadn't bothered him at all after his little incident with Carl, who even seemed to avoid him. In fact, they all seemed to do that. No one spoke to him, except Harold that one time. He wondered if someone had told them not to, but he didn't know when that would have happened. He had been here the entire time. Maybe they had gotten an email.
The thought about Harvey being pissed at him returned. Mike didn't know if he could handle that if it was the truth. He couldn't stop thinking about the fact that Harvey had paid a million dollars for his return. What if Harvey was angry about that? What if he blamed him for that? It was a stupid thought; Harvey couldn't blame him. It hadn't been his fault at all. They had taken him by force. He had resisted them. Harvey knew that. It hadn't been anything he could have done to stop it.
But maybe Harvey thought that he should have escaped or something. There hadn't been any chances for that, Harvey knew that too. He had been there when Mike told the police about everything that had happened, so he knew. But then he thought about the way he had reacted afterwards. He was embarrassed about that, how he had cried and begged Harvey. He hadn't wanted to be alone; he had held on to Harvey and had cried. Just the thought of that made his eyes burn again. What if Harvey thought that he was weak?
"Stop it, stop it, stop it." He mumbled to himself and rubbed his eyes so hard that his eyes hurt a little. It didn't help though, and he sniffed and cursed himself.
He got up and went to the bathroom. He sat down in one of the stalls and locked the door. He sat there a couple of minutes until he went out and splashed some cold water in his face. It helped a little and he went back to his desk and started working again. That night was much like the previous two. Terrible.
-SUITS-