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Given that it’s not his first or unfortunately his second drunk tattoo, Mike really doesn’t think much of the new, half dollar-sized shape on the inside of his left bicep besides shit, not again .
At least it’s not a name this time (Trevor’s, small enough that he’d been able to take a chunk out of his first few paychecks and get it lasered off pretty easily) or the blown out heart stick-and-poke he’d gotten as a dare that still lives on his ankle. It’s simple, easy to hide, just clean lines in black ink stark against his skin: an ampersand in Times New Roman. It itches, still covered in cling wrap.
He’s brushing his teeth to get rid of the tequila on his breath when his phone rings. Harvey calling him on a weekend is also not too shocking, albeit about as unwelcome as a surprise tattoo, but Harvey’s voice sounding rough and slow with sleep is.
“I’m going to goddamn sue you,” Harvey hisses at him before Mike can say something about them needing better boundaries.
“Good morning,” Mike spits toothpaste into the sink, “I’m hungover, too, but you don’t hear me making threats. Besides, I guarantee you I did something I regret way more than anything you–”
“I got a fucking tattoo.”
Mike chokes, hacking up the water he was using to rinse his mouth out.
“If you’re laughing –”
“I’m not,” he gets out, grip tight on the sink. There’s no way. No fucking way. “Um. What is it?”
“How could that possibly be–”
“It’s relevant.” Mike swallows. “I swear on my left arm.”
There’s a pause on the line. Then,
“You have it too.”
“Don’t sound too excited.”
More silence. Mike’s about to throw in the towel and hang up when Harvey finally breaks it.
“It itches,” he says, “a lot. Is that normal?”
“For the first few days, yeah.” Mike twists his arm to look at the ink again. Honestly, it’s neat work, the script delicate and sharp. Really wouldn’t be that bad if someone else didn’t have the same one. In the same spot. If Harvey didn’t have the same one in the same spot.
If him and Harvey didn’t have matching goddamn tattoos.
So much for boundaries.
They don’t talk for much longer. Harvey finds a receipt crumpled in the pocket of his pants, barks at him to be ready in ten, and hangs up. Mike pulls on a sweatshirt in fucking July and is in the process of choking down a piece of toast when Harvey texts him a short “outside”.
Harvey’s in long sleeves, too, his frown etched deep.
“What’s the plan here?” Mike asks, sighing at the cold blast of AC when he steps into the car. “Tattoos are pretty permanent. That’s, like, their whole thing.”
“We’re taking them to court for uninformed consent.”
Mike gapes at him.
“I mean,” he manages, when of course Harvey doesn’t do him the courtesy of elaborating at all, “I’m ninety-nine percent sure we had to sign a waiver. Those things are pretty airtight.”
Harvey looks unfazed, eyes on his phone.
“I know I haven’t read everything yet but I’m pretty sure we don’t have precedent to sue for a drunk tattoo.”
Nothing.
Mike wipes a bead of sweat from his forehead. Ray gives him a sympathetic little half-smile in the rearview mirror before turning up the air higher.
It’s so hot that his sweatshirt starts sticking to him in the five minutes it takes to walk up to the shop, which shares a wall with the bar Mike knows the night began at. It makes him wonder where the idea came from: did they see the bright, neon sign on their way in and it got them talking? Or worse, was it serendipitous, because the universe thought that the two of them should definitely be even more inextricably linked?
The guy at the counter looks up at them, bored, more of his skin covered in ink than not.
“Remember us?” Harvey holds up the receipt.
“You’re definitely not my typical clientele,” he says, ignoring it, “don’t tell me after all the ‘we’re a team’ shit last night you’re here to get your money back.”
The guy turns on him next.
“And you ,” he says, “you’ve really got this asshole wrapped around your finger, but even you couldn’t talk him out of this.”
“Bullshit,” Harvey snaps, but the venom isn’t as strong as usual, “no way this was my idea.”
It takes a second to register. The artist looks amused, folding his arms and leaning back in his chair.
“Hold on,” Mike says, indignantly, “why did it have to be mine?”
Harvey ignores him, which for some reason stings more than it pisses him off.
“Show me the waivers we signed.” Harvey demands. The guy just shrugs, pulling a file out of a drawer and flipping through it, dropping two pages on the counter. Mike snatches one and realizes too late it’s Harvey’s.
He reads through the standard fine print, Harvey’s initials signing off on receiving the tattoo willingly and voluntarily, approving the placement, releasing the shop from liability, etcetera.
Then, there it is. A little HRS next to the statement: I am not under the influence of drugs, alcohol, or any other mind-altering substances.
“There,” Harvey slams his, technically Mike’s, waiver back onto the counter, stabbing at the clause with an accusatory finger, “we were blackout drunk. That won’t hold up.”
The guy shrugs, coolly.
“You seemed fine to me. Plus,” he points at the following line, “you had a witness.”
“Who, goddamnit?”
“Him.” The artist points at Mike. “And you,” then back at Harvey, “had him.”
It holds water. Mike doesn’t have to say it, Harvey squeezing the receipt in his fist until it starts to tear tells him he knows.
“Too many drunk assholes come in here wanting ink,” the artist says, turning back to his sketchbook, “so we cover everything. Can’t let you see the security footage without a warrant, but trust me, it’s real cute.”
If Mike has learned anything from Harvey, it’s that there’s always a secret second option. Here, that was a hundred dollars and Harvey’s really nice sunglasses, which Mike had noticed the guy eyeing when they’d walked in. They leave the store with at least part of their missing night in mp4-format on Mike’s phone and Mike feeling like they had still lost, somehow.
“Get in,” Harvey tells him, opening the car’s door. It would have been chivalrous if he didn’t all but shove Mike inside.
“Look, I’m sorry about the glasses, but threatening that guy with legal action didn’t really seem to be getting us anywhere—”
“Home, Ray,” Harvey says, then finally turns to him, “hope you don’t have plans.”
“Would it matter if I did?”
Harvey folds his arms and looks ahead, gaze hard, but the bounce in his leg gives him away. Harvey’s visible irritation bugs him, and Mike doesn’t know why.
“It’s just a tattoo.”
Harvey scoffs.
“And it was your idea, apparently, so I don’t know what old-fashioned shit you’re hung up on that’s making you take this out on me,” Mike shoves his sleeve up, “but I have one too.”
Harvey’s eyes drop to his arm, to the shock of black still covered in cling wrap. Mike braces for him to respond, but instead Harvey just rolls up his own sleeve and holds his arm out.
He’d taken the plastic off and Mike can see the skin’s a little red, raised around the ampersand like a halo.
“I‘m not admitting to anything until we evaluate the evidence,” Harvey says, finally, “but given we’ve got a piece of punctuation instead of matching ninja turtles, I’m inclined to think that asshole in there was right and it was my idea.”
Ray snorts from the driver’s seat and pulls up smoothly in front of Harvey’s building.
The stiff, sticky tension between them had dissolved a little by the time the elevator dings on Harvey’s floor. He’d left his sleeve rolled up, cuffed right above the tattoo, and Mike can’t tear his eyes from it even though his own is just a glance away.
“Let’s get this over with,” Harvey settles on the couch, “Put it on the TV. My nephew set up the Air-whatever last time he was here.”
“AirPlay?” Mike offers, sitting on the opposite end of the sectional and pulling the video up. “You can’t be that ancient, right?”
“Just didn’t grow up surgically attached to an iPad.”
“This generation,” Mike mocks. There’s a flicker, and the video plays.
It starts in the middle of a laugh, Harvey’s. They’re bent over the little table in the shop’s lobby, shoulders touching, and Mike says something that makes Harvey throw his head back in stitches.
“Volume up,” Harvey demands, leaning forward, “what in the hell could you have said that was that funny?”
Mike ignores him in favor of dragging the slider higher, his voice all of a sudden loud and everywhere, thanks to Harvey’s stupidly awesome sound system.
“—a movie quote would be too long, can you imagine? Matching Top Gun tramp stamps?”
That gets a proper cackle out of drunk-Harvey. Really drunk-Harvey. His cheeks are red, eyes shining, hair a little tousled and the top two buttons of his shirt undone. Sober Harvey, despite being more dressed down, looks like there’s a metal rod fused to his spine.
“Tramp stamps would be easy to hide,” Harvey says, wiping his eyes, “not the worst idea.”
“If we’re getting these, no half-assery,” Mike drops a stencil book between them, resting on their knees, “a serious tattoo in a serious spot.”
“My name,” Harvey says. Mike snorts.
“I owe you, but not that much.”
“And your name,” Harvey bumps their knees, “wouldn’t they look good together?”
Silence. On the screen, in the living room. Mike steals a glance to his left to see Harvey watching, stone faced.
Drunk-Mike lets out a startled little cough. Sober-Mike wants to melt into the floor.
“Maybe we’re too fucked up for this—”
“Specter Ross,” Harvey gesticulates, “Specter & Ross. Hey, guy!”
The artist from this morning ambles over, still disinterested. Mike matches his own jump when Harvey grabs his arm and holds his own out to match.
“Our names, right here.”
The artist snorts.
“Try again.” He says, “maybe something with a less than ninety-nine percent regret rate.”
“I won’t regret it.”
“ Harvey. ”
On the TV, Harvey turns to him, eyes a little unfocused. His hand drops from Mike’s bicep to his wrist. Mike feels his pulse thud, blood rushing in his ears.
“Mike.”
He thinks for a second it’s from the video, but drunk-Harvey’s mouth hadn’t moved. On the screen, they’re still just looking at each other, a breath away. The space next to him shifts and Mike turns. He has just enough time to inhale, then Harvey’s kissing him, firmly, buzzing with something that lights a match under his skin.
He’d wanted this, dreamt of it for so long that his body moves before his mind does, and Harvey sighs softly when Mike threads his fingers through his hair and kisses back.
He hears their own voices, ambient, bickering with no bite.
Harvey pulls back to laugh when drunk-Mike says, “buy me a ring and then we’ll talk about tattooing your name on me.”
“I’d tattoo your name on me .”
Petulant, a little whiny.
It’s Mike’s turn to laugh and kiss the blush off Harvey’s face.
Sometime while the afternoon light fades into dusk, the TV screen times out.
They’d taken a break, just long enough for Mike to catch his breath and get a glimpse of Harvey’s tattoo when he shifts, turning his own arm out and matching up the twin punctuation marks.
Specter & Ross. Mike & Harvey. &.
Harvey cups his cheek and brings him back to reality, if you could even call this that.
“Wait, wait,” Mike gets out when Harvey moves in, “we never found out who—”
“Me.” Harvey kisses him again, smiling into it. “My idea. I’m a goddamn genius.”