Author's Note:Yay I managed to actually get an update out in a week like I hoped :D

For those of you who wants to know I have a cat now, he's a longhaired white cat with the greenest eyes I've ever seen and his name is Tellus.
He is not a fan of my fics though because he always tries to stop me from writing them :P

CHAPTER 12

From the second Donna suggested to take Mike for a shopping trip, Harvey knew that she would spoil the kid.
He was not too excited about Donna buying him a bunch of stuff that he didn't need, partly because he didn't want to have too much clutter in the apartment but mostly because he didn't want Mike to become a spoiled rich little brat, but he also knew that there was no way for him to stop her.
So even if she had posed her suggestion as a question, he knew that she would only accept one answer from him.
Once Donna and Mike had left for the shopping trip, Harvey got the chance to work with the casefiles that he had brought home with him.
Before he had never minded bringing extra work home but now that he had a son to bond with, bringing work home felt like the worst thing ever.
If it hadn't been such a big, important case he would have just said "screw it" and went with Donna and Mike instead.
When the pair returned he was still caught up in work but took a break to look at all the shopping bags and let out a big sigh.
He gave the Playstation a disapproving look, not because he was some boring,old man who didn't like the kids' technology but because it felt like Donna was really spoiling him there and because he didn't want Mike to waste his childhood away in front of a screen.
In the end he allowed the kid to keep it, he really had to learn to resist those puppy eyes, but only if there would be some rules.
Mike set the console up and spent the rest of the afternoon playing it.

The next day while drinking his morning coffee and reading the news, his brain randomly remembered that there was a cinema who used to show older movies on the weekends.
Despite still having a lot of work to do he found himself checking their website and saw that they were showing Gremlins today and by the time Mike got up he had more or less decided that they would go.

"Hey, there's this cinema that shows older movies sometimes and they're showing Gremlins today. Wanna go see it?"
"I thought I was still grounded."
"You're let off for good behaviour."

Mike's face lit up before he looked at all the folders that Harvey had stacked in a neat pile.

"Don't you have to finish that?"
"I'll have plenty of time this afternoon."

The smile returned to Mike's face, and agreed to go see the movie.
They ate their breakfast and Harvey then spent some time working while Mike was sprawled out on the floor, reading some book.
Then it was time for them to leave and they arrived to the cinema a couple of minutes before the movie started.
There was only a handful of people in the movie theater and the people there was very respectful and weren't talking too loud or making more sounds than necessary so all in all it was a great movie experience.
After the movie they started their usual discussion about the quality of the movie and then of course they had their quote-off.
Harvey didn't want to go back home and work just yet so instead he suggested that they walked to the mall that was located just five minutes or so from the cinema.
Mike got way more excited over the idea than Harvey had expected and the reason for that was that there was apparently a small burger place inside that, according to Mike, had really amazing burgers.
They went to the burger place and as it turned out, Mike was right about them having absolutely amazing burgers.
While they were sitting at a table, eating their burgers Harvey heard a voice behind him.

"Mikey!"

Harvey turned around and saw a dark haired boy in Mike's age who was wearing baggy clothes and had a clearly visible cigarette pack in his front pocket.
It wasn't hard for him to figure out that this was Trevor, the best friend who was a bad influence.
Trevor sat down on the chair next to Mike and stole one of his fries before he looked at Harvey.

"You must be Harvey."

He said and held out his hand.

"And you must be Trevor."

He answered before politely shaking the kid's hand.
Harvey had to hold back a chuckle as he saw the look that Mike sent him, it was like he was silently begging him not to embarrass him.
They had just started to get to know each other and his son was already worried that he would embarrass him.
They finished their meal with Trevor as their company.
Harvey asked the boy a lot of questions, just to get to know his son's best friend.
On paper the kid seemed okay but Harvey still had a hard time to see anything behind the bad influence label.

Harvey walked into the bookstore to look for the new book from his favourite author.
He was alone since Mike had ran off with Trevor and Harvey had to admit that he was a little displeased over the fact that Trevor for the second time had swooped in and stolen Mike when Harvey had planned for it to just be the two of them.
Mike had at least asked a million times if it was really okay before running off with his friend.
He suddenly heard his son and his friend, which was not hard to do since the two boys ran into the store and almost knocked over a pile of neatly stacked books.
The other people in the store gave the two eleven-year-olds dirty looks which Harvey could totally understand since he used to do the same when children created a ruckus in public, but now one of the children actually belonged to him so he felt slightly embarrassed.

"Careful."

He told them, suddenly feeling like he was the parent to two energetic toddlers instead of being the parent of an eleven-year-old who should know better than to run around in a store.

"Harvey can Trevor come home with us?"

Mike asked and Harvey didn't miss that he had called the apartment "home".
Trevor tried to do the puppy eyes but it didn't really work out for him but Mike's puppy eyes were powerful enough for them both.

"Sure."

They both cheered loudly, much to the dismay of the other customers.

"Can you please keep it down?"

A middle aged woman asked, giving the two boys an annoyed look.
Mike went quiet but Trevor decided to protest.

"Lady, this is a bookstore not a library."

The woman looked at Harvey, silently demanding him to do something.

"Sorry, that one's not mine."

He told her before grabbing the book he wanted so that he could pay and then leave.
Apparently kids weren't the only ones who had to be worried about getting embarrassed.

Instead of working when he came back home, Harvey ended up just sitting at the kitchen table and observing the boys as they were playing some video game.
He had tried to get some work done but it had been very hard to concentrate with two loud kids in the same room.
Trevor was a very loud kid and his presence made Mike loud as well.
At least he got the opportunity to observe Trevor and his behaviour to try to get a better picture of him.
Eventually Trevor got a text telling him that his older brother was here to pick him up and Mike followed him out.
Now that the distraction was gone, he could finally continue working.
When Mike came back, he walked directly over to Harvey and handed him a cigarette.
Harvey gave the boy a confused, questioning look.

"Trevor gave it to me but I don't want to ruin the relationship we're trying to build up by doing something stupid."

Harvey smiled, Trevor might be a bad influence but at least Mike was still a smart kid and this showed that Mike wanted them to have a good, honest relationship.
He took the cigarette and broke it in half before throwing it away.
The work was still placed on the table and screaming his name, but instead of continuing to do it he asked Mike to show him how the game worked so that they could play together.
In the end spending time with his son was more important than any case, no matter how big or important it was.