The monotone of the speaker's voice was beginning to bore into every fibre of his mind as he sat in the uncomfortably hot conference room. His inexpensive suit clung to his slim frame as a clammy sweat began to radiate through him.

Chancing a furtive glance at the man who lolled beside him, who was not bothering to hide his open boredom, Mike's already dry throat crackled some more. Licking his lips nervously, he focused his gaze down at the pamphlet lying in his lap.

The voice droned on, as his thoughts whirred around his mind.

It was… a bad situation.

…an extremely bad situation.

He'd looked at it from every conceivable angle, he'd paced the floor of his apartment with such an intensity that the wooden floorboards had begun creaking in protest under his onslaught.

No matter what way he dressed it up, looked at it, analysed it…he came up with the same conclusion.

He was screwed.

He so screwed that the dogs on the street would take pity on him should they know of his situation.

Trying, and failing, to ignore the cold trickle of sweat that was making its steady way down his back, his gut clenched in the now habitual bout of panic.

His eyes flickered towards Harvey once more.

Even at the height of mandatory client relations seminar based boredom, the man exuded a confident calmness that the younger of the duo would kill for in the current moment.

The sensible, logical part of him was all but marching around his mind with a placard, neon paint splashed across the canvas spelling out the words "tell him."

The young sort-of-lawyers gut did another somersault.

How could he tell him?

The insensible, illogical part of his was all but marching around his mind with a placard, neon paint splashed across the canvas spelling out the words "never tell him."

His pulse quickened, as the meeting thundered on around him. His breath caught in his chest, as he glanced wonderingly around the room. An army of serene, bored and downright asleep faces stared back at him.

No one else in the room was bordering on heart palpitations, no one else in the room was even aware of the fact that someone in their midst was very close to passing out.

No one else in the room was sweating like a stuck pig either.

…and it was nothing to do with the air conditioning.

Flexing his leg surreptitiously, he felt the plastic vial push against his leg in answer to his now habitual self reassuring gesture.

He barely caught the questioning look that was being directed at him by his boss, before schooling his pale features into a thoroughly unconvincing show of nonchalance.

Smiling a shadow of his usual chirpy smile, he rolled his eyes in Harvey's direction, hopefully passing off his indifference to the seminar for the reason of his fidgeting.

When the closer's gaze slowly drifted off him, he breathed a sigh of relief before sucking back in a lungful of anxiety.

Beside the young man, a mind was once again shuddering into action.

He wasn't being paranoid, he wasn't being cynical…and he wasn't being a hardass.

The kid was hiding something.

He'd been a jittery, stuttering mess for the last five days and no matter how hard he tried to flash that damn toothy smile, Harvey knew something was off.

Seriously off.

He had tried gently prodding and poking. A first for him.

…and given the fruits it had reaped, he could hardly believe that he'd allowed Donna to force him into using the soft touch.

Mike had clammed up tighter than an oyster, and that maddening skinny tie had nearly flapped with the exertion of his head shaking. His reassurances that he was just fine.

His lies.

If he'd had his way he would have just demanded the truth from the kid from the get go. He wouldn't have nearly choked on a vast array of different wordings of "are you ok?"

He sighed inwardly.

His affections towards Mike irritated him.

He always had been aggravated by what he couldn't understand.

…and if there was one thing that he couldn't understand, didn't understand…it was how easily, and how quickly this damned kid had gotten under his skin. How effortlessly he had implanted himself in his life. How seamlessly he had transitioned from a dispensable associate to…well, hell if knew.

More than a dispensable associate anyway.

He groaned inwardly.

A lot more.

As the guest speaker continued to meander on down the intersection of fifth and no one gives a crap, the senior partner and rookie sat in a haze of their individual thoughts.

Another half an hour or so snailed by at a sickeningly slow pace, before mercy finally fell upon Pearson-Hardman, and the guest smiled his last irritating smile and called the hellish meeting to an end.

Clambering up with the surging of bodies and the growing din of chatter, Mike shot Harvey a weak grin before scampering out the door in the middle of a group of associates, riding the wave back down to the bull pen.

A frustrated hand was run through perfectly styled hair, as Harvey slowly got to his feet, his expensive suit falling around his built frame in a way that no other than a three thousand dollar suit could.

Making his way back to his corner office, he was relentlessly plagued by the image he had captured of Mile when he had been off guard.

Pale, clammy… sweaty.

Scared.

Harvey racked his brains, retracing all recent cases in his mind. Did the kid monumentally screw up on one of them and was too terrified to tell him?

A frown crossed the handsome face.

If that was the case…then it was he who'd screwed up. He had a reputation for being an unforgiving asshole, but with Mike…it was different.

He would always forgive Mike.

Letting out a groan of frustration he threw himself down behind his desk and was soon lost in a haze of settlement strategies.

Elsewhere, lost was the very definition of Mike's current state. He sat limply at his desk, watching as if through a lens the hustling and bustling that was going on around him. The stack of briefings lay in front of him, his eyes roving them unseeingly.

The plastic vial in his pocket seemed to be scorching a third degree burn into the delicate skin of his inner thigh.

He could just toss it.

Just toss it and go about his life.

His eyes rolled of their own accord.

His life would be a very short, clipped story if he dumped that infernal vial. For the millionth time he cursed everything even mildly Trevor related.

It all came back to him, just like it always did…like it always would.

Mike swallowed.

No. This was the final straw, the camel's back was well and truly broken, and when this fiasco ended…however it ended, Trevor was no longer a part of his life.

Not even a miniscule piece.

His throat crackled some more as he thought of the advice Harvey had given him regarding his screwed up so-called friend.

He hadn't taken that advice, and it was the not taking of that advice that could now not only cost him his already tenuous career, but his freedom too.

…or his life.

Either or.

A tense ball of fear lodged itself in his windpipe as the scenario that had kept him awake at night for over a week, sailed over his conscious brain.

The "tell Harvey" mantra rattled around his mind again, before he quickly shut it down.

Telling him would mean admitting he'd lied.

Admitting he'd been hanging out with Trevor more and more frequently. Admitting that he'd mumbled straight up lies when Harvey had asked if he was steering clear of his oldest, and most troublesome, friend.

The little ball got a little bit tighter.

Before he could contemplate the complete and utter hopelessness of his situation any further, a vibration began in his pocket.

The surge of dread that erupted through him was not unexpected.

Turning a whiter shade of an already stark pale, the young would-be lawyer groped around for his ringing phone, praying that maybe it would just his grandmother.

The brown eyes reluctantly zoned downwards.

Nope.

Not Grandma Ross.

The little ball was now threatening to cut off his oxygen intake entirely.

Biting his lip with such a ferocity that a small droplet of blood instantly oozed out, the rookie lawyer took a quick appraising glance over his surroundings.

No one was paying him the least bit of attention.

Sucking in a disproportionate amount of oxygen, he swiped a trembling finger over the phone's display and hesitantly brought it up to his ear.

The already ashen quality of his complexion took another nosedive into the whitest of white pallor's as the voice on the other end breathed into his brain.

…and just as soon as his head had resonated with the voice, it was gone.

Dropping the cell out of his now clammy hand, Mike suddenly felt a tidal wave of acidic nausea engulf him.

Clambering out of his chair, he hightailed it out of the bull pen and in the direction of the nearest available bathroom. Barging in, he felt a stab of relief to find the mens room completely empty as he hurtled into the nearest cubicle.

The contents of his lunch were instantly upended into the toilet bowl, as he retched over it, clinging on with a sweaty grasp.

Wiping a shaking hand over his mouth, he least against the cool walls of his cubicle and groaned.

Tonight it was then.

He swallowed.

He would either get out of this tonight for good, or it would change everything, for good.

Standing slowly, he dimly realised that Harvey would be screaming for the briefings in another hour, and he hadn't even started in on them.

He began the slow walk back to his desk, feeling an odd sense of relief from the finality of the situation.

One way or another, the not knowing, would come to an end tonight.

He worked robotically throughout the rest of the day, not even uttering a single witty comeback to Harvey's mixture of frustrated lecturing and dripping sarcasm at his lack of progress. As the clocks shuddered onto the eight pm mark, he wrapped it up.

Stuffing a few files into his messenger bag, the threw it over his shoulder and began the walk out of Pearson-Hardman.

He took his time.

This could be the last time he ever traipsed around the firm.

…the last time he traipsed around any firm.

Walking past the dimmed lights of Harvey's office, he stopped short.

He'd spent hundreds of hours in there. Hours spent learning, laughing…

He shook his head.

He didn't have the time or the luxury of melancholy. If he ever wanted to lounge in that glass panelled room and mock Harvey for his record collection again, he needed to focus.

Walking at a much brisker gate, he was soon breathing in the cool evening air of New York city.

He unchained his bike, dragging the cold metal frame to him with some difficulty. Looping the lock round the saddle, he hesitated.

He could get on this bike, and cycle home.

He breathed deeply.

Or, he could get on this bike, and cycle where he had been told to cycle. Go where he had been told to go, and to be there when he had been told to be there.

A lifetime seemed to pass him by as he stood rooted to the spot, his hands resting on the handlebars of the stationary bike. Hurrying New Yorkers passed him at an agitated gate, cursing this asinine fool for standing in the middle of the street with his eyes closed.

Those same eyes fluttered open a few moments later, the usual warm brown quality being replaced with a hardened sense of purpose.

Swinging his leg over the bike, he set off in a northerly direction.

He wasn't going home.

…and that would be the start of the unfortunate chain of events that were to unfold from that moment on.

Hours later, and he was once again looking down the barrel of his own stupidity.

The chair beneath him reeked of hard hitting, low budged chemical cleansers. The occupant in the chair beside of him reeked of quite the opposite. His nose wrinkled in distaste as he leant as far away as possible from his new acquaintance.

The shrill of ringing telephones and the stench of inexpensive coffee washed over him as he sat.

Sat and thought about how good it had been while it lasted.

About how moronic he had been to believe it could last.

About how much of a self fulfilling prophecy he was.

His acquaintance was moving now, being hauled up by two sets of well worn hands. With a final belch, he was gone, leaving Mike all alone.

…and that's exactly what he was, alone.

How long he stewed there, he didn't know. There were no clocks in his line of sight, but judging by the beginning stiffness that was forming in his joints, it was quite a while.

He didn't even bother trying to sleep.

Staring at the less than clean floor, with his mind whirring a hundred thoughts over and over, he was suddenly pulled from his haze of regrets.

"Hey! Are you deaf?"

Jerking his head up, he focussed bleary brown eyes on a heavily irate looking officer. Blinking rapidly, he sat up a little straighter, the shackles binding him to his chair causing him appreciable difficulty.

Licking his dry lips, he managed to murmur a small "not that I know of."

The feral grin that bared back at him was not encouraging.

"Oh a smart ass" the mid forties cop drawled, "we just love those around here."

He paused , running an eye of the slim frame and the obviously lacking in experience look of the young man in front of him.

"You got a lawyer, smart ass?"

Mike stared for a moment, and tried to swallow down the bile that rose in his throat.

"I am a lawyer" he eventually stated, forcing himself to be calm. To seem calm. He sat up a little straighter.

The hearty guffaw that floated around the holding area of the precinct he was ensconced in made the hairs on the back of his neck stand.

"Let me rephrase that" the officer sneered, "not that I give a rats ass if you've got a lawyer or not, the boss around here is a real stickler for the rules. I don't feel like wasting my time on you only to have a judge toss whatever we get because you didn't have representation."

He paused to suck some air into his expansive gut.

"So, do you have a lawyer who isn't…you know…twelve?"

Bristling, but seeing the man's point, Mike thought rapidly.

He was coming into his own in the technical side of the law, hell he was born into his own…but the procedural? Did he really know enough to properly defend himself in an interrogation room with this goon and his ilk?

The placards were back.

With the neon paint.

Screaming "no."

He felt the room swoon in and out of focus slightly as he battled with himself. It was an easy decision, but a hard choice.

…but really, he had no choice.

Looking up at the rapidly glowering cop, he nodded his head and cleared his throat.

"Yeah…" he gulped, "yeah, I have a lawyer."

An expressive eye roll made its way to him.

"Great" the older of the two drawled, "would you like to tell me their name, or do you want me to sit down with you and play twenty guesses?"

Mike drew in the last breath he was sure he would ever breath. Calling this man would probably save his neck, but it would also probably cost him his life.

He ran a hand through his hair, and parted his lips with considerable difficulty.

"His name is…uhh…Harvey…"

He paused, reaffirming his potentially self destructive decision in his mind. Swallowing, he continued on the path to an early grave.

"His name is Harvey Specter."

…

TBC

...

A/N: So, I hadn't really thought of writing a multi chaptered Suits fic, but watching promos for season six coupled with a few requests, and here we are! I always find Harvey and Mike the hardest to write out of e.g. Gibbs/Tony et al or Peter/Neal so please bear with me!

Hope you guys enjoyed the start. I have no particular plot for this one in mind, just writing and seeing what happens, so if you want to see something in particular, just shout!

Thanks for reading!