Brother from another mother

Asthama Attack

He hadn't really noticed it at first; it certainly wasn't one of his biggest concerns at the moment. He'd been so involved in the Anderson lawsuit that the annoying tickle in the back of his throat was nothing more than a minor irritation as far as he was concerned. It had started last night, just barely noticable and easy enough to forget. He thought it would have gone away by now but he wasn't about to drop what he was doing to worry about it. Besides, if he had to tell Harvey that he didn't finish the case files because he felt like he needed to cough all day he was pretty sure he would get fired. Mike pushed it to the back of his mind and kept reading.

As the day progressed, the tickle became worse and much harder to ignore. Mike kept clearing his throat, coughing quietly into the back of his hand when no one was looking, and downing water like a fish that had found itself on dry land. He still wasn't too concerned; he'd seen Douglas, one of the other Associates, coughing the other day and figured he'd picked something up from him. With as hard as he'd been working combined with the lack of sleep, he wouldn't be surprised if he was coming down with something. He didn't feel feverish but he'd read a sign on the back of a bathroom door several months ago that said a fever wasn't always the first sign of a cold.

He made a mental note to get a gallon of orange juice on the way home later that night and chug it before bed. It had always worked in the past. He couldn't worry about it right now though; it was just barely 3 o'clock and he had at least eight more files to go through before he could leave tonight.

Mike cleared his throat again, a bit more irritably this time, loosened his tie a bit, and went back to work.

By 5:30 it was getting to the point where he couldn't ignore it anymore. His chest felt tight and he could mentally picture the fluid and mucus building up in the linings of his lung. It was a disgusting thought and he shook his head to rid himself of the mental image. He loosened his tie a bit more, noticing belatedly that it was now nearly halfway down his chest. It still felt like it was strangling him though, the silky fabric forming a very pretty Italian noose around his neck. He unbuttoned the top button of his shirt and coughed.

The coughing had gotten worse over the past few hours to the point where it was hard to diguise it anymore. He was glad Louis hadn't walked by or he mightv'e had some kind of snarky comment to add to Mike's distress. Rachel had passed by earlier, give him a once over and asked if he was alright but that had been about the extent of her concern. Mike was silently glad she hadn't made a big deal about it; the last thing he needed was to be publicly sent home because he was feeling a bit under the weather. God, between Louis and Harvey it would be social suicide in the very small social standing he'd earned while working there.

He coughed again and finished the third bottle of water he'd had since 2:45. Stay hydrated, wasn't that the biggest part of fighting a cold? He just needed to make it through the rest of day and he could stop by the drug store to get medicine. Just a few more hours...just a few more files.

By 7:15 nearly everyone had left and Mike still felt like he was the victim of manual strangulation. It was hard to concentrate and even harder to focus on the file that demanded nothing but his undivided attention. He'd re-read several paragraphs, something he hardly ever had to do, and was going back over another with with a highlighter when Rachel appeared by his desk.

"Try not to take too long, Harvey's-" She stopped when she saw him, her eyebrows drawing together just a bit. "Hey, are you okay?"

Mike nodded, covering a cough. "Yeah, just allergies I think." He said, noting a very slight wheeze as he spoke. Well, that was new.

Rachel frowned and didn't move. Mike wished she would leave so he could done a bit faster and be on his way as well. "Maybe you should head home-"

"I'll be fine." He said quickly, cutting her off before she could finish and interject anything else. "I'm just trying to get all of this done and get out of here before midnight so I don't have to come back to it tomorrow." It was mostly true because he knew there would more than likely be another stack of files on his desk identical to this one in the morning.