To Build a Home

Harvey To The Rescue

In this instance he supposed he didn't have much choice. Harvey was an expert at reading body language; he would know if Mike lied to him about why he needed the money. Not to mention that this had been his first instinct. When Trevor had admitted that he didn't have the money anymore, Mike had instantly known that his next step was to go to Pearson Hardman and talk to Harvey, although he didn't know why exactly. He decided that maybe he should just follow his gut on this one. It was probably about time he started trusting someone else, after all. Grammy was great, but she was getting older and wouldn't always be around for him. And trusting Trevor obviously hadn't been a good idea. But Harvey...well, he tried to hide it, but Mike knew that Harvey had a very firm set of ethics and no matter how much he would protest it, he wouldn't let Mike go out and get himself killed.

Trust, Mike reminded himself firmly. Harvey was sitting directly across from him and was gazing at him with his patented penetrating stare that made it impossible for Mike to look away. It made him want to spill his every secret. And so he did.

The whole story came out and everything happened very quickly from that point on. Mike told Harvey everything— about meeting Trevor in grade school, how they had been best friends and then had drifted apart since high school began, how Trevor's home life wasn't ideal and how Trevor's sister left and never came back, and how he was now sliding down a slippery slope and trying to pull Mike with him. Donna came in the office about midway through the story (toting excessive amounts of medical supplies with her) and handed him an icepack. She sat down on the couch to listen to his story too, and Mike found that he didn't have the heart to send her away. If he was going to trust Harvey he figured he might as well go all in and trust Donna too— she'd find out anyway; it was common knowledge around the office that Donna was omniscient.

Harvey listened silently, getting up and pacing around after awhile. After Mike finished his tale, Harvey continued to pace, occasionally muttering to himself. Mike exchanged glances with Donna, who looked concerned.

"Er, Harvey, normally I wouldn't dream of interrupting you when you have that scary pacing-and-thinking face on, but this is kind of a time-sensitive issue. I only have like half an hour to settle this before they go after Trevor. What're you doing, anyway?" Mike asked tentatively.

He regretted this question, because Harvey then launched into an elaborate metaphor about how there are 146 options if someone is holding a gun to your head— Harvey was "considering the 145 options that narrow-minded young Mike hadn't thought about."

He wanted to protest that he wasn't narrow-minded but he figured that was a conversation for another time. Harvey then went over and had a hushed conversation with Donna, who got up and went to her desk, making phone calls and typing furiously on her computer.

"Let's go," Harvey said, pulling his jacket on and heading for the office door. Mike stared at him, confused as to what was going on. "Well, are you coming or not? You've already bled on my couch; I'm sure you'll have just as much fun bleeding on the upholstery in my car."

"Wait— you're coming with? I thought you were just going to give me the money," Mike said in bewilderment, dutifully following Harvey down the hall to the elevator.

Harvey stopped so abruptly at this that Mike crashed into him from behind and almost fell. Harvey turned quickly and grabbed Mike's arm before he could topple over and glared at him in a mixture of frustration and amazement.

"You seriously think I'm going to send a fourteen-year-old child off to negotiate with a bunch of violent potheads by himself? On his bicycle? Do I look like I want to go to jail for reckless endangerment of a minor?" Harvey asked sharply.

"Er— no?" Mike said uncertainly as they took the elevator down to the parking garage.

"You and I are going to be having a long talk tonight when this is all over," Harvey sighed as they got in the car, sounding even more exasperated than he did every day when he tripped over Mike's shoes in the hallway of the apartment, which meant that he was really exasperated.