To Build a Home

Mike Almost Takes Up Knitting

CHAPTER 8: WORLD SPINS MADLY ON

Woke up and wished that I was dead

With an aching in my head

I lay motionless in bed

I thought of you and where you've gone

And the world spins madly on

From "World Spins Madly On" by the Weepies

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Harvey started at the strange noises emanating from the area near Louis's cubicle in the associate bullpen. He had just finished up with all of his work for the day and was on his way to find Mike, who was stilling serving out his punishment doing Louis's bidding for the week. It was Friday, however, so it was Mike's last day of his "imposed sentence to Guantanamo Bay" (Mike's words, not his). He had figured that Mike would be bouncing off the walls in excitement and waiting with bated breath for Harvey to come and get him, looking every bit like the overeager puppy that he so resembled. But there was no sign of Louis or Mike in the bullpen. Just the strange thunking sound.

He cautiously edged closer to the cubicle and peered over the top, rolling his eyes when he realized that Mike was, unsurprisingly, the person responsible for the noise. He was sitting in Louis's desk chair and lightly banging his forehead against the desk, looking bored out of his mind.

"Having fun?" Harvey asked, and Mike jumped about a foot in the air and almost fell off of Louis's swivel chair.

"Jesus, Harvey, don't do that!" Mike exclaimed, instinctually grabbing onto Harvey's arm to keep the chair from toppling over. This resulted in Harvey doing a weird and desperate sort of sidestep dance move to keep his balance. He glanced up and made eye contact with Donna, who was walking by on her way out of the building and saw the whole thing. Donna burst out laughing and he scowled fiercely in her direction, cursing Donna's timing and dreading the jokes that were certain to stem from this the next day.

"Sorry," Mike said, quickly letting go of Harvey upon seeing his frown. "Thank goodness it's you; I thought you were Louis coming to give me more work for a second there," he said lightly. "I've just finished reading the Graham contract and I think I've found Louis a loophole but I didn't want to tell him yet because I knew he'd just give me another project. I'll leave him a note. Thank god this week is over. It is over, right?" Mike asked, looking up from the post-it note he was scrawling on, his expression one of utter concern that Harvey might suddenly decide to punish him for another week.

"I don't know," Harvey said, completely straightfaced. "Have you done anything that merits spending more time with Louis?"

"No!" Mike said quickly. "What could I have gotten into that would merit that? My room— er, I mean the office, of course, is only a bit messy, I swear!"

"Alright, alright. The prisoner will be released on parole," Harvey conceded. "Come on."

Mike stood and gathered his jacket and backpack. "Hallelujah. I swear, Harvey, I don't know how much longer I would have lasted hanging out around here. You know, I thought that you had the worst taste in art and interior decorating out of anybody I've ever met but it turns out I was wrong. Look at this," Mike said, gesturing to the admittedly ridiculous pictures the Louis kept of himself on his desk. "It's much worse than that picture of the creepy doll being eaten by that green animal you have."

"I'll have you know that that is a perfectly respectable piece of art and that everyone loves that picture—" Harvey began defensively as they started walking towards the elevators.

"Everybody hates it, Harvey. I was bored on Tuesday so I took a poll of everyone I know who works here. On a scale of I hate that picture, it gives me nightmares to why the hell does Harvey even own that thing? 100% of the sample population possessed negative feelings towards that doll-girl-thing," Mike chattered as they walked. Harvey let him continue rambling unchecked, allowing Mike's voice to wash over him and take the edge off his exhausted brain. It had been a long week; he had been busy working on a case for the CEO of a bicycle company that had made a faulty bike model and was trying to cover his tracks so he didn't have to pay people off. But people had gotten hurt because of the faulty merchandise (Harvey may or may not have surreptitiously taken a look at Mike's beloved bike just to make sure that it wasn't the defective model he was working with by some obscure chance— knowing Mike's luck it would be the recalled bike and the kid would be riding along one day and both of the wheels would fall off at the same time and then Harvey would be left with the daunting task of explaining to Edith that Mike had died falling off his bike and into oncoming traffic). Harvey knew that he was on the wrong side of the ethics table here. He felt badly about it, but there wasn't much he could do besides what the client wanted him to do. The client had promised Harvey that he hadn't known the bike was defective before it hit the market but Harvey wasn't sure if he could be trusted. Unfortunately that was the nature of corporate law sometimes, however; working with deuschy clients that just wanted money.