Things Mike Ross Wanted To Say To Harvey Specter But Never Did.

Harvey learns about Mike. (1)

The thing about living in the middle of New York City is that it's expensive. The kind of expensive that someone like Mike couldn't afford all that easily. The kind of expensive that led to scrimping and saving, to skipping meals and wearing socks that already were more holes than fabric.

How was it that he was making less money since working at Pearson Hardman? Before, when he'd taken the LSATs for struggling or lazy law school hopefuls and done other odd jobs, he'd been able to get by, been able to eat, and been able to take care of his grandmother's ever-rising bills.

But now…now it was like the world was conspiring against Mike Ross. He was not usually prone to paranoia, but how else to explain the fact that his rent and his grandmother's bills had gone up astronomically in the space of a couple of months?

He was working ninety hours a week, more if you counted the amount of work he was doing from home, but he couldn't live like this anymore. Even Harvey had pointed out that he was losing weight (his exact words were "are you trying to work on your figure, princess? Because the emaciated prison look was so ten years ago.)

And it wasn't like his second job was difficult. Okay, maybe there were better places to work than a twenty-four hour convenience store in a truly shitty part of town, but he needed a new bike and he needed to eat and he needed to keep his grandmother in a good home. He needed sleep a lot less.

"Why is your face like that?" Harvey asked one morning when he and Mike stepped into the elevator together.

The younger man sighed, tugging his bag tighter across his shoulders, "That's so sixth-grade, Harvey. Can't think of better insults?"

"What? No, let me use small words. You look tired. I do not need tired associates."

"I was up late doing the Jefferson brief." Mike defended, and it was most of the truth. He had been up late, and he had done the Jefferson brief, he'd just brought it to work and done it in the hours-long lulls between customers. And he'd been standing for six hours, which is why his legs felt like they were going to give way.

"Then drink more coffee. Appearance is everything."

"Really? I didn't know that. You should definitely remind me of that more often," Mike groused, and Harvey hit him with a don't-be-a-smart-ass glare. Mike kind of smiled, though, sensing the subject being dropped.

With any luck, he might have gotten away with it. Moonlighting wasn't so much forbidden as unheard of. Not many people could work fourteen or fifteen hours, rush home for an apple and a two-hour nap, work for six hours, and then, if he was lucky, catch another hour nap and a shower. It was wearing him down, and Harvey's comments about his weight continued because, ironically, the job he'd taken to help pay for food was seriously crimping his eating habits.

But he only needed to do this until his grandmother's newest therapy, an eight-week session of drugs, finished. He would quit the convenience store job and was hoping that by the time she needed the therapy again he'd get a small raise from Pearson Hardman. It was only for eight weeks. He could keep a secret for that long.

"Tell me you're not selling drugs." Harvey had said unexpectedly one morning a month into his two-month plan.

"I'm not selling drugs," Mike said, caught off guard, and maybe the sincerity in his voice was what made Harvey look up and scrutinize him carefully.

"You need to sleep more."

"According to recent studies, about a third of American adults get less than the recommended eight hours of sleep." Mike pointed out, raising an eyebrow so that Harvey knew that Mike was including him in this number.