As always many thanks to my beta Stefanie
October 8th
Harvey looks at the clock on his office wall. It's 7pm. He hasn't been home this late on a Friday night since they moved here. He and Mike had some paperwork that needed to be sent to court before five but once Mike left his office, he found himself grabbing a motion from the associate pile on his desk.
He knows what's happening. He is not turning into Louis by enjoying writing down punitive and vindictive remarks in the margins. It's far worse than that. He's dreading going home.
"Harvey?" Rachel's surprised voice interrupts his thoughts. "What are you doing here this late on a Friday?"
Harvey sighs and swivels his chair in the direction of the window instead of meeting her eyes. "I don't really feel like going home," he admits.
The brunette's eyes grow wide and she proceeds to enter the room.
"But Friday is Donna's day off. I gave her a pasta recipe that is easy to follow. She'll be waiting for you."
"I know." Harvey turns around and shows her his phone's home screen. It had several notifications from Donna asking when he'd be home. "That's the problem."
"I don't understand. Did you guys have an argument?" Rachel is confused. Harvey adores Donna, worships the ground she walks on, and now this?
"I wish we did." He runs a hand through his hair. "I would know how to handle that." He looks Rachel in the eye and contemplates if he should tell her. Wife of his best friend and best friends with his wife. He decides what the hell and goes for it.
"As soon as it is October first, Donna goes into full Halloween mode."
Rachel chuckles. "That I know."
"Well, she found this store, somewhere around this area, with all this weird Halloween stuff."
"Uh huh," Rachel nods. "Orange Dracula. I figured she would LOVE that one."
Harvey glares at her. "So this is all your fault?"
"What is?" Rachel replies innocently.
"She brought home a ton of weird candy and has me try them every night after dinner. It needs to be tested to see if it is suitable for kids."
"Is it?"
"Of course not, none of it is!" Harvey exclaims a bit too loud.
"Right." Rachel brings up the files she was holding so that it partly covers her face. "Was it really that bad though?" She snickers behind her documents.
If looks could kill she'd have been staked, buried, dug up, and then staked again for good measure. Harvey's eyes are spitting fire.
"Oh, I don't know. Let's see shall we." Harvey growls. "There was the red and yellow pizza flavor, white and green kale, brown and yellow fried chicken, yellow and white mac and cheese flavor, red and white bacon, orange and white lobster." He counts them on his fingers.
"Lobster, that's one fancy candy."
"More like disgusting candy." Harvey practically shudders at the thought. "It had no smell at first but after sucking on it for a bit, it exudes this fishy odor. Now I may not be a foodie like you." He gestures at Rachel. (Who is surprised that Harvey even knows what a foodie is.) "But I have done the 'wear a bib and use that fancy lobster claw crushing' thing in the past. The taste of this candy did not bring me back to any of that." He grimaces. "Rather what I imagine a lobster would taste like if you left it in the fridge for a month."
Rachel can barely keep her face straight. His distaste is so evident in every word and the faces he makes.
She almost feels sorry for him. But not quite. This man orders everyone around in a courtroom but doesn't want to go home to his wife because she makes him taste weirdly flavored candy.
If her former associate self had told her she'd be in this situation 3 years later, with her then-boss, she'd think she had gone mad.
"Have you considered telling her this?" she points out the rather obvious.
Harvey squints his eyes. "I make a beeline for the trashcan every night. But she is having fun tasting it and it's our first Halloween together," he trails off. "You know how much she loves this holiday. This year I wanted to share in her enthusiasm but we seem to be on a different wavelength on what fun entails." He reclines in his chair with a sigh, shaking his head.
Rachel bends forward and places her elbows on his desk. "Let me tell you a little marital secret." Harvey leans in and she bites her cheek to keep the straightest face possible. "If you don't want to tell her the truth, you're just gonna have to suck it up."
"Suck it up," Harvey repeats.
"Suck it up," the brunette says again. "Both your discomfort and the candy."
Harvey gives her the evil eye and Rachel stands up and heads for the door.
"Gee, thanks you've been a real help," he says sarcastically.
"My pleasure, Harvey." She smirks.
"Do you and Mike have a spare seat at your table?" he tries.
"Sorry, it's date night," she lies and steps into the hallway.
"Just when I thought we were becoming friends, you know," Harvey calls out but Rachel just waves at him through the window.
….
"I'm home," Harvey says when stepping into his living room. He rounds the couch his wife is sitting on and sits down on the edge of the coffee table while planting a kiss on her lips. He trusts forward the flowers he has in his hand. "Sorry I'm late."
"That's okay, Rachel texted me saying you were finishing something for her." Donna smiles. "There was no need to bring me flowers for that. But I do love them, thank you." She inhales the scent, gives him a lingering kiss, and walks off to the kitchen for a vase.
"I kept dinner warm," she hollers through the open space. "So why don't you sit down and I'll bring it in?"
Harvey sheds his suit jacket and starts rolling up his sleeves. He'd prefer to take a shower first, his muscles feeling tense, but he had kept his wife waiting long enough so he obeys and sits at the dinner table.
"So, pasta?" He cocks his head to the side when she sits down too.
A nervous look shoots across her face but it is gone as quickly as it came. "Did Rachel blab?" she questions.
Harvey shrugs. "She told me to hurry home because she gave you a good pasta recipe."
"It's pasta and vegetables, what's not to like?" And she lifts the lid of the pan with a flourishing gesture.
The scraping of his chair suggests there is a lot not to like apparently.
"What the devil is that?" her husband exclaims.
"Toxic waste Mac and Cheese!" she announces cheerfully.
His clenched jaw and narrowed eyes tell her he doesn't share the cheery sentiment.
"Donnaaa," he groans.
"Harvey," she replies innocently.
She takes a look at her husband again. He's scowling like a little child that doesn't want to eat his veggies.
"It's pasta, spinach, cauliflower, parsley, and lots of cheese," she elaborates. "There is not one weird ingredient in there."
"Except for the fact that it's green and looks like snot?"
"Oh my gosh, don't be such a baby," Donna guffaws. She grabs the serving spoon and starts loading up his plate.
"So you're saying you actually enjoy eating this booger colored pasta?"
"Oh speaking of boogers—-" Her eyes twinkle.
Harvey pulls back his plate quickly, gives her another death glare, and all but screams, "NO! It's bad enough it looks like it. We are NOT going to talk about it. I'm drawing the line."
It's a major constraint on his wife's side to not erupt into a fit of giggles but she bites her lip and manages to suppress it. "Come on, it tastes normal," she muses while digging in.
"Nothing about this is normal," he mutters back and pushes the pasta shells around on his plate.
"Many people make creepy food for their Halloween party and everyone enjoys it."
"It's the eighth!" He looks at her indignantly but his wife just shrugs and he knows he's fighting a losing battle.
He finally takes the plunge and puts a fork in his mouth. He's hit with a taste so salty that he starts coughing and his eyes start to water.
"Something wrong?"
He shakes his head and squeaks, "Just a piece of pasta that went down too quickly."
"I'll get you a glass of water." Donna pushes her chair backward and gets up.
"Yes please," he squeaks. Then mouths OH MY GOD to the retreating form of his wife. It's like the pot of salt has fallen into the pan and she's happily eating it? He doesn't want to hurt her feelings but there is just no way he can finish his plate.
He shoots a glance at his wife and grabs the dish spoon. She's not looking so he loads the spoon as full as possible with the green goop and dumps it back into the pan. He manages to stash a few pieces of cauliflower into his folded napkin as well before she's on her way back to the table.
He practically pulls the glass from her hands before she can place it in front of him and he gulps it down.
She raises her eyebrows at his behavior and he feels compelled to give an explanation. "Sorry, my throat still itches." He adds a cough for good measure.
He puts down his glass very awkwardly with his arm across his plate, hitting his fork and the whole thing is clattering to the ground. Green pasta and cauliflower rolling underneath his chair.
"Oh shit." Harvey fishes it from the ground. "Well can't eat that anymore." And he swoops the remains into the napkin already filled with more of his dinner.
Donna is about to comment when the doorbell rings. "Saved by the bell, Specter," she says staring at his napkin while walking to the door.
Harvey heaves a sigh when spotting the amount of food left on his plate. He contemplates if it is an option to dump more food back in the pot but he's pretty certain she will notice. He grabs his phone to set up a notification to suggest take out tomorrow. He plans it for early in the morning so he can beat his wife to it.
He looks up when he hears her talking. To his surprise Rachel is standing in his house, handing something to Donna.
"I thought you had date night?" Harvey calls out.
The brunettes cheeks flush. "I cooked and now it's on to board games, movies, popcorn," she quickly replies.
"Uh huh," Harvey says unconvinced, and Rachel leaves, waving goodbye.
Donna sets down two plates at the end of the table before returning to her seat.
Harvey cranes his neck. "What is that?"
"Dessert."
"Rachel made dessert?" His eyes start gleaming. "Can we just skip straight to that please?"
Donna shrugs. "Take a look."
He pulls the plate in front of him with an enthusiastic motion. Then his face falls.
"Noooo, not again," he grumbles.
One look at it tells him Rachel is in cahoots with his wife to make his life a living hell. Three more weeks till Halloween. He's seriously considering calling Louis to ask if he needs help with a case.
The plate holds a panna cotta with a slice of kiwi and a Malteser on top, surrounded by something that is probably raspberry coulis. But the whole thing just looks like a giant eyeball to him.
"It's a bloody eyeball," he states with a sour face.
Donna is still eating her mac and cheese, nodding at him. "Isn't it fantastic?"
"It's an eyeball. Nothing fantastic about it." Harvey stares at his wife. Trying to figure out if she is friggin kidding him? He shifts uncomfortably on his chair and tugs at his collar. "We dissected a cow's eyeball at school once."
Donna's eyes grow wide. "No way! That is so cool. I wish we did that. We only did a fish once to look at its gills." She pouts. "That was boring."
"It was so gross. The smell, the blood, the feel when cutting through the muscles." The chills run up his spine again. He reaches across the table and grabs her hand. "Please let me off the hook with this one."
"But Rachel put a lot of work into creating this for us."
"Please." He looks at her with his best puppy eyes and squeezes her hand.
A huge smirk appears on her face. "I'll tell you what." She looks in his brown orbs. "If you eat everything in here, I'll let you do anything in there." And she gives a small nod to the ceiling where their bedroom is located.
Eyes darkening, his voice deep and low, "You'll let me do the thing, with the thing?"
"I'll let you do the thing with the thing." Shooting him a mischievous look.
"Then get me another glass of water." He grabs his spoon and starts shoveling food into his mouth.
She gets up and walks off with sauntering hips. "Your wish is my command, Sir."