A.N. Okay, this story was supposed to be a one shot at first (Honest!) and then after I realized it had more potential than that I decided, okay, three chapters should just about do it! And now...well, I've let my mind run wild with things once again and this will definitely be longer than three chapters, so get ready, yeah? :) Anyway, I've lost my voice...and when I do attempt at speaking I sound raspy/throaty, so it just sounds weird and jazzy...but yeah! I am getting better (no more stuffy nose or constant sneezing and headache!), so that's awesome :) Thank you guys so much for all the reviews! Cannot tell you enough about the awesomeness of each and everyone of them :o In fact, if I get the time (I lack time in a ridiculous way -.-) I'll start replying to all your reviews instead of reading them and going "D: YOU LIKE MY STORY? I LOVE YOU!" and virtually hugging each and every single one of you in my head. :) Any how! On to the story! :D ALSO! For all of you who like Dante, thanks :D, for all of you who don't xD don't worry! It's just bromance (really awesome bromance that makes Harvey jealous :D) between those two! It's Harvey&Mike (I don't like Marvey or Hike...it's blegh...so stick to...idk, Harke?) all the way for me! :) Sorry for the longness of this A.N -.-!
Chapter Three.
"Mike, love, are you sure you're alright?"
Mike felt like throwing up again. His stomach was twisted into knots and his vision was clouded. His meal sat untouched, in front of his place, at the dinning table for two which Dante had selected for them. Mike had looked down at his plate once, and what would have been quite appetizing a couple of hours ago was only making him want to get up and run to the toilet, now.
Before he could do so though, a quiet settled in the banquet dinning hall. The lights dimmed considerably and Jessica Pearson appeared on the platform stage a few tables ahead of them, with several other veteran senior partners seated pristinely behind her, with the anomaly of Harvey, a relatively new senior partner. She took the mike, smiled at the crowd of associates and clients, and began her speech, thanking everyone for coming to the banquet, thanking all of their clients for their loyalty and business, and so on.
It would be impossible at this point to get up discretely and run off to the bathroom and barf again. Everyone would notice and he'd end up making the horrible impression of not wanting to listen to the head of the firm on all the partners, associates and their super wealthy clients; and God forbid he make Harvey look bad. As that last thought popped into his head, his stomach churned, but for a different reason. Did Harvey really not care? And why did he care that Harvey didn't care?
A sharp sudden pain shot across his stomach and Mike just barely kept himself from hissing, one hand clutching at his stomach, in vain hopes of making the ache quit.
Dante, who'd been feigning paying attention up until then, heard a very faint grunt from the seat beside him, and turned to face Mike, who was practically hunched over the table, eyes shut tight, in what seemed to be obvious pain. Dante wasn't a very social-conscious man. He often ignored the wrong people on his social status, said the right things at inappropriate moments, and his gestures rarely matched the way he felt. But even he knew to whisper his next words, not wanting to alert the entire room of his new companions' distress, as Mike looked to be hiding it from his co-workers. "Michael, what's wrong?"
Abruptly, Mike stood up, attracting everyones' attention, and started vomiting all over the table. Humiliation made him break out in a cold sweat, or was it the intense agony in his abdomen? Mike wanted to hide under a rock. Everyone who was anyone at their firm was basically here, and they had all just watched him yak on a table mantle with a higher thread count than his own bed sheets, he bet. Harvey was going to murder him and let Donna finish him off with a nail filer.
Instead of hearing murmured "Oh my, how uncouth." from any of the clients, or "Way to go Ross." from any of his co-workers, and no sort of disapproving mutters from any of the higher-ups, like Mike expected, as he continued to cough up bile, he heard words of concern. Which in turn, concerned him. Did he really look that awful?
"Holy shit." he heard Dantes' faint accent next to him, and realized he was the only thing holding him steady at the moment-for the second time that day. "Somebody call an ambulance, stat!" he demanded, and Mike was shocked to see almost every single one of the persons in the banquet, including several of the waiters, start taking out their cellular phones to dial 9-1-1.
He then heard Harveys voice, "Not everyone! You'll block the signal if you all call at once." He pointed at a woman in a navy blue dress to his side and said, "You, call an ambulance, tell them to hurry to this address, and if dispatch asks, his symptoms consist of vomiting and hacking up an indecent amount of blood."
The woman nodded nervously, but swiftly dialed the number and waited for her call to get through.
Blood? It was then that Mike noticed the iron after taste in his mouth, and all the dark red color splattered across the table like a prop straight out of a horror movie. His vision blurred significantly, his head pounded mercilessly, his stomach was attempting to consume itself and a couple of his intestines, as well, and his world was tilting again. Before he reached the ground, though, two strong pairs of arms caught him mid-air.
"Love?"
"Mike!"
The two distinct and different voices were the last things Mike heard before everything went black.
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"You don't need to be here."
"There's no law against being here for a good friend, is there?" Dante spared the lawyer a brief look, before his eyes went back to the OR doors, where Mikes' stomach was being pumped right now.
"You only just met Mike a few hours ago." Harvey pointed out, his sights also targeted directly at the door where soon the doctor would come out and tell them everything was alright and Mike was out of danger and not coughing up blood anymore...it had been an enormous amount of blood.
"Quality over quantity." Dante replied indignantly, "What is it that you're doing here? From what I garnered in the bathroom so long as the boy doesn't ruin your image, anything else concerning Michael shouldn't be of consequence to you; or am I wrong?"
Harvey glared at the man. "I'm his Boss, he's my responsibility, so f-"
"Harvey Specter?" A doctor in scrubs came out of the OR, calling for the senior partner, whom quickly stood from his plastic, uncomfortable chair.
"That would be me."
"You're listed here as Mr. Ross' emergency contact and next of kin." she read from the clip board in her gloved hands.
Harvey tried not to awe at that. He was listed as the kids next of kin? Since when had that happened? He could have lived a lifetime without having learned that tidbit of information if it guaranteed Mikes' health. "What's wrong with him? Why did it take so damn long in there?" He was well aware of Shailor standing behind him, his face a mix of worry and curiosity.
"Mr. Ross had severe abdominal swelling, the lining in his stomach tore, very common to a stomach ulcer-it's why he was throwing up so much blood-internal bleeding. It took so long because we had to perform an appendectomy-meaning we removed Mr. Ross' appendix, and clot the bleeding by suturing the tears in his stomach. The appendicitis alone would take about three days to heal, but due to the severe bleeding his recovery time is an estimated two to three weeks." she concluded.
"It was appendicitis then?" Dante peeked over Harveys' shoulder, which really didn't take any effort, as he had about two inches on the man where height was concerned.
"You could say so," the doctor replied vaguely, then explained, "Originally we'd planned to pump his stomach for whatever toxins may have caused the rupture and internal bleeding, but the appendicitis and tearing of the lining became first priority. However, we did find out that in his system, is a drug called ipecac; what that is, is basically vomiting inducing syrup substance that is used primarily for riding the body of poisons, if ingested. It usually works within the half hour after taken, and you must be careful with the dosage, because in a lot of cases, it has caused internal bleeding if the user consumes a large dose."
"So you're saying Mike took ipecac and that's why all this happened?" Harvey asked incredulously. "That makes no sense, Mike wouldn't-"
The doctor nodded, interrupting the Harvard grad. "It doesn't make any sense that he would take this specific drug at all, because as it states in his medical file here," she referred to the clip board in her hand, and continued speaking, her brow creasing with lines. "He's allergic to two of the three primary ingredients used to make ipecac, and this drug was actually taken out of the market when Mr. Ross was a teen, probably, because it caused more harm than it did any good."
"Somebody spiked Mikes' drink, then?" Harveys eyes immediately lead to the taller man next to him, and realized with a dash of disappointment that it couldn't be him. Yes, Mike had been with the man all day, practically, but the emotion Dante was displaying right now was too real for Harvey to over look as pseudo acting-Harvey read people for a living; it was his thing.
"I don't want to start pointing fingers just yet, not until Mr. Ross is awake enough to tell us his side of the story, but in confidence, yes, I believe your associate was drugged unknowingly." The doctor confided to the two men, both of who wore dark expressions now.
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It was nearly midnight, well past visiting hours, when Mike stirred.
He was hooked to a breathing machine, a heart monitor, and an IV, keeping him hydrated and medicated. He looked tiny in the large hospital bed with only a gown and a thin sheet to keep him warm.
Harvey sat on the chair next to the heart monitor, next to his associates' bed, doing monotonous paper work Donna had bought him earlier, when she'd come to visit the unconcious young man, being a mother hen, fluffing his pillows, tucking him in, demanding a more spacious room for her duckling. She was a regular Martha Stewart, that woman.
On the opposite side, sat Dante, who'd refused to leave the room on the grounds that he donated yearly to this particular wing of the hospital and was fairly acquainted with the staff. Harvey hated him so much. 'Go home already,' was at the tip of his tongue when Mikes eyelids fluttered and the two older men were at attention in an instant.
Mikes' eyes opened slowly, he looked around the room dazedly, felt Harveys hand suddenly touch his, and startled. "Harvey?" he called out softly, his voice a mere whisper.
"Yeah, Mike, I'm right here; how do you feel?"
Mike was looking elsewhere, but answered none the less. "Ev'rythin' hurts." he admitted. "S'dark in here, turn on th'lights." he requested, tugging weakly at Harveys shirt sleeve.
Dante and Harvey both froze, mirror stricken looks on their faces for a dreadful minute.
Harvey opened his mouth, shut it, opened it again, and shut it again. He couldn't say it, and Dante saw his dilema.
Dante took Mikes' other hand in his, "Michael, it's me, Dante."
Mike turned in his general direction, smiled gently, "Dante...wha' happened? Where am I? How long have I been out? It's pitch black in here." Mike wondered, and Dante clenched his hand, bit his lip. Oh dear God, somebody had to tell him.
"Love, the you're in the hospital, you had minor surgery this afternoon to repair the tears, stop some internal bleeding, and remove your appendicitis." He stopped, looked at Harvey, who looked as stricken as if he'd been told his mother had just passed, and decided he had to continue. "Michael, is it dark in here?" he quired.
Mike frowned, still semi-conscious, the drugs in his system mellowing him out in a way all that weed with Trevor had never really accomplished. "Yeah, s'dark. Can't see an'thing." Why couldn't someone just turn on the lights?
"The lights are on. They've been on this entire time, love."
A.N. Quite frankly, I made up the allergic reaction/bad side effect to ipecac myself, since I couldn't find anything that suited this fic, and I hope you guys liked this chapter so far! Don't worry, for anyone who's wondering, I don't like permanently injuring my characters in any major ways, so yeah, be ready for some major comfort from Harvey, Donna, Rachael (maybe?), & Dante, some competition between Harvey and Dante, and just awesomeness in general? Heh heh. :) More chapters to come soon! Please please review! :o Thank you so much! :D