To Build a Home

The Christmas Panda

The next day Harvey talked to his three clients and fulfilled his legal obligation to present Tanner's shitty offer of $200,000 to them. Much as he had hoped, all three of them agreed to reject it. And so it was later that weekend on Sunday night that he found himself dialing Tanner's number and struggling to find a place to talk where he could be heard over the raucous chaos happening in his apartment at the moment.

In a Donna-sanctioned attempt to make up for some of the damage he had caused the week prior— Mike still seemed a little confused and hurt over the whole ordeal (and rightfully so, in Harvey's opinion) — Harvey (firmly ignoring the little voice in his head that was shouting "bribery!") had given his credit card to Donna and Mike and the two of them had gone shopping that afternoon for a Christmas tree and decorations. It had paid off and Mike was in high spirits because apparently he and Edith had only had a small fake tree the past few years and this was his first live one for a long time. He and Donna were currently trimming the tree and boisterously singing along to Christmas carols on the radio. Harvey had even allowed himself to get dragged into some of the decorating— he drew the line at the singing though, and he refused to cut out paper snowflakes because he knew he'd be finding the tiny scraps from them in the couch for months afterwards. But he had passed Donna and Mike some ornaments and figured out how to untangle the strands of lights, which was downright cheery by Harvey Specter standards.

Mike and Donna were now singing an extremely passionate version of 'All I Want for Christmas Is You'— Harvey suspected that Donna was going to wind up having to spend the night and sleep on the couch. She had indulged in a couple of glasses of wine and had alarmed both Mike and Harvey earlier by singing a very tearful rendition of 'The Christmas Shoes.' Then she had attempted to get Harvey to tango with her to 'Feliz Navidad' and had seemed genuinely confused when he hadn't immediately agreed to this brilliant idea.

Harvey dialed and listened for a few rings, wincing as Donna tipsily began to toss paper snowflakes all over the room as she sang along to 'Let it Snow'.

"Travis Tanner speaking," Tanner's voice said coolly over the line and Harvey quickly ducked into his bedroom so that he could hear better (and to avoid the tinsel that Mike was trying to throw in his hair).

"I presented your offer to my clients and they all rejected it immediately. We're taking this thing to trial, Tanner," Harvey said without preamble.

"You're making a mistake, Harvey," Tanner sneered. "You'll pay for this, in more ways than one," he threatened implicitly, and Harvey knew that he was referring to Mike. "You know you're not going to win this. Not without proof that McKinnon had prior knowledge of the poor working conditions— and you still don't have the alleged reports as evidence."

"No, I don't— yet," Harvey said confidently. He had listened to Tanner once with disastrous consequences. He wasn't going to make that mistake again. "I'm going to find those reports Tanner. And then I'm going to kick your ass in court. I'm done with your pansy threats— bring it, Tanner. I'll be waiting with those reports on January 15th." He hung up then, wishing that he had made the call on a landline so that he could slam the phone back onto the receiver with appropriate theatricality.

He smirked to himself as he listened to Mike and Donna in the other room. He had no clue how he was going to track down those reports. But I'll get it done, he promised himself as he listened to Mike's laughter drift through the apartment. And come January 15th, Tanner wouldn't know what hit him.

Mike was freaking out a little bit. It was already December 23rd and he still didn't have a gift for Harvey. He had already scraped together all of his money and bought Grammy a sweater, Donna a small plant for her desk, and Rachel a coupon to her favorite restaurant, but Harvey... well, he only had 13 dollars left and he was pretty certain that Harvey would laugh at him if he tried to give the older man a gift that had cost anything less than a small lake house. And he really wanted to get Harvey something amazing to show the older man how grateful he was for all that he had done for him the past 2 months. Despite the weirdness of the past few weeks, Harvey was still the only person besides Grammy who had taken an interest in his life. And now that the whole Harvey-pulling-a-mute-trick ordeal was over, Harvey seemed to be trying really hard to make things up to Mike and well... it kind of seemed like Harvey was settling in for the long run. Mike hardly dared to even think it, but he got the impression that Harvey was planning on sticking around in Mike's life after the trial was over and Grammy was all better. And if that was true then it would be the best Christmas gift ever, quite honestly. It was what had instantly popped into his head when Grammy had asked him what he wanted for Christmas. He had lamely responded that he wanted some new socks, not quite meeting her gaze, but he knew that she had been able to read his face because she had just smiled knowingly and said that she was pretty sure that he would get what he wanted for Christmas this year.