Chapter 2
It didn't start straight away, not even after the mock trial
In fact, in hindsight, his encounter with Kyle in the break room should have been a cluing in. But, it didn't, not to Mike anyway. Which was was really stupid, and ironic, considering how fucking intelligent he was supposed to be.
Kyle had sought him out, movements fuelled by anger, pushing Mike up against the wall and exposing his teeth in a sneer.
"I don't get it," he says, mouth snarling in disgust. "I won."
"What?" Mike says distractedly, trying to dodge around him.
Kyle's arm raises and blocks Mike's exit as he rests his palm against the wall that Mike is forced up against.
"I won," Kyle repeats, his voice a breathless warning. He darts his face nearer with a thin, dangerous smile which widens when mike flinches. "I won, but Harvey still treats you like he's golden boy."
Mike lets a chuckle roll out of him which seems to anger him even more and he sees the palm, out of the corner of his eye, curl into a fist.
"What ever, Kyle," Mike says with a distinctly bored and unruffled tone. "Let me pass."
Mike makes to try and move again, pushing at the offending arm, but Kyle ends up leaning in, his other hand grabbing at his left arm to keep him in place, and for a second they are too close.
"What do you have to do?"
Mike stiffens and freezes and plants himself back against the wall before anger starts seeping in.
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me," Kyle says, refusing to move, breathing his venomous taunting all over him. "What. Do. You. Do? Anything to get up the ladder, right? Bottom up, huh?" he pauses and dryly chuckles at his words, "Literally."
"Let me pass, asshole."
But he doesn't, hand pinching, skin bruising until someone coughs from the doorway.
"What's going on?"
Louis
Kyle straightens immediately, pulling Mike with him.
"Nothing, Sir." Kyle says, patting Mike against the same arm he had just been abusing. "Mike just stumbled. I was giving him a hand."
Mike wanted nothing more than to grab the hand still resting against the suit material, feeling the slight touch, and break every single one of his fingers. But he wouldn't, because he was Mike Ross, after all.
Louis didn't seem to believe them for a second, but he also didn't seem to care.
"Whatever," Louis sneers at both of them and flicks his head towards the corridor. "Take your little dramas back to your desk and actually do some work."
Mike makes the first move because he can't stand to be near either one of them but has no choice to pause when Louis mutters "Ross."
Mike turns and looks at him.
"I put some new files on your desk. Have them ready before you leave tonight."
That in itself was a loaded and leading order. Mike could very well see himself staying into the early hours of the morning.
He saw Kyle roll his eyes at the injustice of it and Mike inwardly shook his head. He couldn't win either way... the other associates – Kyle especially – thought he was being treated differently because as Kyle had said, he was a 'golden boy' while Louis was just doing it out of spite and not wanting him to give Harvey's cases any due care or attention.
"Already on it," Mike mutters.
Voice, and body, thin with tension.
xxx
It had actually started a few weeks, maybe even a month, after the confrontation with Kyle.
At first it was a few anonymous emails and IM messages... they weren't too hateful or spiteful but they kept trying to remind him that he didn't belong there, that Harvey would get bored of him soon enough, that eventually Mike would realise he wouldn't be able to hack it.
He coped with those... sure it was upsetting that the people he worked with thought of him like that... but he had reminded himself that he didn't actually like these people. The people he liked were the ones that mattered. Harvey and Donna. The rest of the Harvard drones could merrily sit there and think those things but all that really mattered was that he knew better. And Harvey.
But somewhere along the line it shifted from innocuous and childish and actually became malicious.
An email appeared in his in box
WHAT DID YOU DO, GOLDEN BOY?
This time, it wasn't Kyle, because thanks to Donna's intricate knowledge of knowing everything about everyone (but not Mike, not this, he made sure) he knew he was at this very minute in Louis office, Louis 'having his hide' for some irreparable error Kyle had made.
And then he opened it.
Pornographic and crude.
It had his face, someone else's body.
It tells him it's gone viral.
It was just the beginning.
xxx
He'd casually dropped it in to conversation with Harvey – somewhere between loopholes and by-laws and a greasy pizza on the floor of Harvey's office – and he hadn't really been sure how to react to Harvey's disaffected response.
Mike, though, could hardly blame him. He'd said it so casually, so hardly there, a light brush off that it was to be expected that Harvey didn't actually see it as a problem. Harvey, himself, appears to be distracted by the file he's staring into and the errant detail that is eluding both of them that could help them win the case they are currently working on.
"Don't take it personally," Harvey tells him, scanning the paper."Everyone goes through hazing. It's a right of passage."
"Right," Mike nods, body and couch strewn with paperwork. "Of course, it's just... you know-"
"You can't take it?"
Mike startles at Harvey's choice of words, momentarily stung until he realises Harvey's not even thrown a glance in his direction, head down and reading.
"I can take it," Mike snaps quickly and Harvey chooses that time to look up at him from his desk, and then says more softly- "... Just someone else, might not..."
"Do you want me to talk to them? Tell them to knock it off?"
Mike bristles. He doesn't want Harvey to tell them to knock it off. He wants to put a fist into Kyle's face, and anyone else who thinks the same, for implying he is sleeping his way to better things. He'd like it even better if Harvey bruised his hand doing it, but Harvey charging his way to his rescue – defending his honour – did nothing to shake off the image of him being Harvey's golden boy or shift the 'little bitch' status he seemed to have found himself in.
Mike laughs loudly. Too loudly. Sardonically. A little bit unhinged.
Harvey raises an eyebrow and quirks a confused smile on his lips. Mike knows Harvey's trying to read him and finding it hard because Mike is firing confusing signals. It leaves a bitter and warm feeling in his stomach, somewhat satisfied that he can still knock Harvey off his game.
Mike waves him off dismissively and grins at him.
"Why?" Mike asks, parroting words back at him. "It's just a little hazing. I've had worse."
Harvey's eye crinkle in confusion. Definitely not concern. Mike feels his hand tighten.
"Okay..." Harvey says after a pause before his eyes drift downwards. "Got a issue with the Elkin's financial records?"
"Huh?" Mike asks, blinking.
Harvey nods down towards Mike's lap and he follows it down to realise he has the file clasped tightly into curled fingers, the edge of the file bending and crinkling with the force.
"Sorry." Mike says and releases the file onto his knees.
Satisfied that his associate has stopped abusing potentially goldmine paperwork, Harvey nods and settles back against his chair and looks back down at his own paperwork.
"Straighten it out," Harvey tells him, and for a second Mike thinks – no, he's sure – that he means him. "We got to present these in court."
xxx
Harvey had managed to palm a stricken Mike off onto Louis to both their confusion.
"Why are you giving me Ross?" Louis asks suspiciously. "What are you trying pull?"
Harvey grins, despite his building worry, and can't resist baiting the junior partner.
"Just giving you a bit of style, Louis. You want the meeting to go successfully, right?"
He sees Louis tense reflexively and can't help but widen his grin and wag his eyebrows.
"Harvey..." Louis grinds out.
"-Okay, okay..." Harvey says, hands rising between them. "I just need him out of the way for a few hours. You can do that, right?"
Louis seems to settle a bit and rocks back on his feet, neck craning to see out through Harvey's office window. "Why? What's he done?"
"Nothing-" Harvey says, too quickly and immediately hates that Louis thinks that Mike's got himself into some type of trouble again. Of course, Harvey's cloak and dagger routine did nothing to say the opposite. "... Look, I just need him out of the way. You're always wanting him for your work and I'm giving him to you for free for the afternoon. Can't say fairer than that."
Louis doesn't blink at all and just looks at Harvey with his annoying and tilted stare. Normally this type of stare off involves vying for his associate's time.
"Paperwork, Harvey. Not very important meetings with very important judges..."
Harvey raises an eyebrow. He sees Donna hovering outside the office, tapping at her watch.
"Just take him, Louis," Harvey says softly, distractedly as he stares down at his blinking phone. When he looks back up again Louis has folded his arms and has a petulant look plastered across his face that says 'why should I?'. Of all the times for Louis not to want Mike.
"Louis, Louis, Louis..." Harvey says, shifting easily into smooth lawyer voice, "I need someone who can keep him in line. Someone who can play him. I need a player."
Louis straightens at this, lifting his tiny shoulders, and looks partially appraised until he realises – seconds too slow than any decent lawyer should be – that he's actually being played. And then he's looking at him with that pathetic little smug grin because he knows now that Harvey really needs him.
"Use him, don't use him-" Harvey says, wincing at the obvious imperativeness to his voice. "Just get him out of here for a few hours."
Louis' smugness grows and he unfolds his arms, dropping his hands on to his hips. He can't wait to get his preening ass out of his office so he can get on with the more important tasks and terminate feeding Louis ugly ego.
"Okay... you only had to ask," Louis says, smiling, preening all over him and his desk. He really needs to Louis-defumigate after this. "I could use him, he might be handy."
He doesn't offer a thanks and Louis doesn't ask for it.
He can practically hear Louis' voice from his open door – voice rich from a freshly stoked ego – telling his associate 'You're with me, Ross."
xxx
tbc