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Notes: A crack-y little adventure in the Friends? I'd Say Family 'verse (Harvey has a son). Spoilers for S01 E09 'Undefeated'. Written for this prompt in the Suits Kink Meme: Thank you to the OP for the lovely prompt! ♥ References to 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. Wholly and always for my bff Taelor.
Harvey Specter hates kittens. Puppies, turtles, goldfish, guinea pigs - if it’s a commonly kept household pet, Harvey has nothing but palpable scorn for it. He’s a grown man, for god’s sake. He has no time for tiny time wasters, neither human nor animal nor dancer. He is far too Busy and Important for pets, this capitalization is not optional and that fact is nothing to do with age, as he’s assured Garrison since well before he could argue with Harvey or simply babble back at him in intelligible agreement that it’s true for him too - they are Specter’s and they don’t need toys.
Of course, that doesn’t mean they can’t appreciate the finer things in life.
When Harvey was a little boy, just slightly older than Garrison is now, his next door neighbour and best friend William had had a lionhead rabbit named ‘Patch’. So called because it had patches of black fur on it’s ears and paws and a snow white body besides, it was a terrible name for a magnificent creature and Harvey learned very early in life that those who do not appreciate their good fortune accordingly do not deserve it. He’d given ‘Patch’ (considerately renamed ‘Artemis’ during his brief but magical stay at the Specter Manor) back eventually. Not to stop William’s inane wailing, but because Harvey’s brother’s slobbering hound had picked up Artemis’ scent, and canine detection evidence was sadly admissible in a court of law.
The point is - Harvey has one weakness. And it’s fluffy bunnies.
Mike teases him mercilessly about it, but Garrison gets it, because Garrison was raised right - by Harvey. Garrison has never really shown an interest in having a pet, besides asking if he could keep Mike, which Harvey naturally acquiesced to, personal interest in the arrangement just a small deciding factor.
So the topic of pets is not one that they concern themselves with and it doesn’t come up again, after the week when Mike finds out and talks of nothing else, and Harvey will never forgive his mother - never.
And then Harvey has the week from hell.
Jessica makes him lie to Louis and say he ‘respects’ him. He has to work a case with Louis. He has to spend time with Louis. Louis kills someone, and worse than that - almost loses their case in the process. No-one is sympathetic to the horrors of Harvey’s working week, the sheer injustice of it all, and Mike gets pissy with him when he complains. When he tries to explain to Garrison how Mike basically had the cheek to tell him to ‘man up’, he gets a lecture on misogynist sentiment and is then told to ‘be better’ and fix his damn case. The really disturbing part is that this conversation takes place over the phone not ten minutes after Mike has said the exact same thing to him.
And so in short - the world is conspiring against him and Harvey kind of wants to stay home and hide under the covers until everything goes back to normal.
He more or less gets his wish when after they finally win, with a shocking display of honest to god adequacy from Louis, there’s a hurricane warning issued. It comes through while they’re still at the office and he has a moment of panic, thinking about Garrison who right now should be getting ready to meet Ray, who is due to pick him up from school and take him to his flying trapeze class. He gets a call to say that the class is cancelled and he’s about to drop everything and go to Garrison himself when Mike comes in, takes his phone out of his hand, pushes him down into his desk chair with a firm hand on his shoulder, and says he’s going to take care of it.
“I’ll go with Ray to pick up Garrison while you finish up here and then we’ll come back for you and we’ll all go home? Everything’s fine, it’s not due to hit until tomorrow, relax. I’ll be back in thirty minutes, okay?”
He distracts himself tying up the loose ends of the settlement and when he looks up again, Mike and Garrison are there and both the band of crushing pressure around his chest and his death grip on his cell loosen.
Harvey is so instantly relieved and focused on the prospect of taking his boys home and keeping them safe that he doesn’t notice what Garrison is carrying for a second. It’s only when he hops up onto Harvey’s desk and starts “Now first and foremost don’t get mad and do that thing where you try to keep it together but I can hear your teeth grinding. And also, please remember that I’ve read our lease agreement in full. And also, bear in mind that on December 3rd last year you solemnly swore to me that there are certain circumstances under which legal agreements can and should be broken for the sake of a greater good.....” that Harvey realizes the bundle in his sons arms is moving. Squirming. And doing so in a large intricately patterned china teacup, padded with what looks suspiciously like Harvey’s favorite scarf.
“It was in the car.”
“Ah. And the rabbit was - ?”
Harvey puts up a good front of confusion and calm, collected interest. It does nothing to hide the fact that he is freaking out, because it’s a lionhead bunny and it’s so small and it’s so cute and he needs to have it in his hands like ten minutes ago. His fingers twitch around his pen and Mike hides his smile in a cough.
“Harvey, uh, Garrison’s teacher asked if any of the kids could take White Rabbit home for the weekend because they weren’t sure he’d be okay if the weather got bad and since none of the other kids were picked up by anyone that wasn’t a driver or nanny, G’s teacher asked me and I said it was okay?”
“‘White Rabbit’?”
Garrison sighs, scoops the little precious thing into his hands and holds him against his chest. Harvey has to bite his tongue to keep from squealing, and it’s a close thing.
“Cliched, I know. I tried for ‘Bibwit Harte’ at the very least, but pre-schoolers have very little appreciation for attention to detail. And not even always an ability to read.” He adds, thoughtfully.
Like it genuinely perplexes him to think that four and five year old children generally haven’t, like him, been reading adult novels for over a year at this point. Harvey’s little genius is nothing if not self-depreciating of his astounding talents. The fond little turn up of Mike’s mouth says he finds this just as endearing as Harvey does.
Harvey pretends to take all this information in, even though his thought process is a spiralling litany of ‘bunny bunny bunny tiny bunny let me have it’.
“I suppose we can keep him, but only because it’s just for the weekend.”
This would generally be when Mike and Garrison shout ‘score!’ and engage in some kind of complicated high five, but today they both just smile at Harvey, like he’s done something cute. He narrows his eyes at them.
“Can I ask why he’s in a tea cup?”
Garrison tosses it to Mike, who zips it carefully inside Garrison’s backpack.
“It’s where he sleeps. I don’t know why, he just likes being in things. Maybe it has something to do with how the porcelain heats to his body temperature?” but Garrison doesn’t seem particularly concerned with figuring it out further and jumps down from the desk, tips White Rabbit carefully into Harvey’s waiting hands and departs, saying something about having promised to help Donna beat her top score at what Harvey assumes is a game called ‘Bouncing Balls’.
All things considered, Harvey is really really grateful that that leaves just him and Mike in his office, because although anyone walking by can clearly see that Harvey’s clutching a fluffy bunny to his chest and that’s odd enough - thankfully only he and Mike hear the way Harvey coos at it. Well, they and White Rabbit, who looks up into Harvey’s face at the sound and then Harvey has no choice but to say out loud “D’awwww!” and wow, he is never going to live this down.
He holds White Rabbit closer and pets his soft fur, looks up at Mike expecting to see him beside himself with amusement, but Mike is just shaking his head, eyeing Harvey and the bunny with what can only be described as fond affection.
“Come on, Alice. You can chase White Rabbit back home.”
And Harvey knows already that Monday is going to be awful, because he never wants to not have this rabbit in his hands.
But he lets Mike collect both of their things and herd him out of the office, Harvey petting the rabbit and whispering to him about how adorable he is, how well they’re going to take of him this weekend, how he can have a new teacup if he’s good, how Harvey is going to look online for cashmere rabbit blankets but that if no such thing exists White Rabbit can absolutely keep his favorite scarf. That last part might have been murmured to the tune of ‘Hush, Little Baby’ but Mike isn’t going to call him on it, Harvey knows.
Donna also wisely chooses not to comment when they step out to collect Garrison, but that’s probably only because she’s distracted posting what looks to be ‘SUCK IT, LOSERS’ with plentiful exclamation marks all over her facebook feed. Any other day Harvey would jump at the chance to rib her about her addiction to social networking and the odd competitive pastime she’s turned it into, but he’s got plans today, he’s got a very important date.
Mike and Garrison bid Donna a fond farewell and Harvey manages to pull his fingers from White Rabbit’s fur for a half hearted wave and then they’re off.
Garrison and Mike spend a very interesting weekend holed up with Harvey and White Rabbit, following them around cleaning up the debris they leave because Harvey can’t seem to concentrate on anything else when he has White Rabbit in his hands, which is always. He falls asleep on the couch on Friday night, White Rabbit with his head burrowed down into the folds of his sweater, both of them snoring softly. On Saturday night Mike has to forcefully tug Harvey away after he spends twenty minutes in the doorway of Garrison’s room, attention training back and forth between Garrison asleep in his bed and White Rabbit curled up in his teacup on the bedside table. On Sunday night Garrison wants to have a slumber party with White Rabbit and Mike doesn’t know how he feels about having to talk Harvey out of both agreeing to this and taking part.
On Monday morning, the three of them stand huddled together at the steps of Garrison’s kindergarten, taking turns saying goodbye to White Rabbit (Mike), quietly thanking him for eating an appointment card for the dentist (Garrison) and making him promise to visit again (Harvey).
Harvey is subdued for the rest of the day, but he’s no longer moping and snapping at the paralegals, so Mike counts the exercise as a resounding success.
On Monday afternoon at 3pm Mike promises to buy Harvey his own lionhead rabbit, just as soon as they get a bigger place. And then he realizes what he said, and blushes and adds “Uh, if you .. decide to move, I mean.” and tries to leave, but Harvey backs him into wall, kisses him quickly and asks Mike to move in with him and Garrison before he can.
On Monday afternoon at 3.10pm Harvey has Donna email him the folder of property he’s had her compiling for over a month now.
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