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Harvey Specter believes that you can tell everything you need to know about a person by looking at how they dress.
So it’s no surprise that Harvey thinks everyone should dress well. In Harvey’s world, there are very few people who are excused from this, and even then they don’t escape without his disapproval.
Harvey is fairly excited when he is accepted to be a contestant on Project Runway because there will be people like him, people who love clothes and fashion and dressing well.
When he gets there it is a different story. There are cameras everywhere, and cameramen in baggy sweatshirts and stained jeans. He hasn’t met with the judges yet, but at least he knows that they’ll be fashionable.
And then there are the contestants. Harvey hadn’t been prepared for the heavy aura of competition in the air, and it sinks right down into his bones. He suddenly wants nothing more than to win. Harvey’s always been competitive by nature anyways.
He sidles up to a pretty woman, probably a little older than him, dressed in a floral blouse and business skirt. He feels right at home next to her in his three piece suit.
Slowly he surveys the other contestants. There are a few young people in scarves and skinny jeans and thick glasses, and he brushes over them immediately. They’ll go fast, he thinks.
There is one young woman who catches his eye, wearing brown shorts, a brown jacket, and a shirt with lots of little geometric figures sewn onto it. She obviously made the outfit herself. Clearly she’s a good sewer, and Harvey faintly hopes that he’ll be paired up with her when it comes to the team assignments.
A man sneaks up to him and the woman and introduces himself as Louis Litt. He exudes confidence but doesn’t look as good doing it as Harvey does. The woman calls herself Jessica Pearson. Harvey doesn’t give his name.
They are apparently waiting on one more contestant. The doors open and a young man with tousled brown hair comes in, wearing an outfit that makes Harvey choke. A dark green hoodie and khaki shorts, and—Harvey shakes his head—sandals. It is summer and Harvey is slightly warm in his suit but still.
At least Harvey knows who is going home first.
When they get to the place they’ll be staying and separate for the night, Harvey gives up on keeping appearances. There are no cameras here and he really can’t see himself getting along with any of the guys here anyway.
Actually, the only person he has really tried to form any connection with would be Jessica. She is just as intelligent as her dress sense would suggest, and they have already silently made a pact that they would do their best to get each other to the top three.
One of the guys is taking orders for pizza, and Harvey would normally turn his nose up at the offer, but he really is hungry. He plops down on the couch after requesting a light cheese pizza (though he knows the chances of getting that are next to none, as all the other guys have requested pepperoni) and tries to focus on the football game.
He feels someone sit next to him but can’t really bring himself to give a damn.
That is, until he feels that someone tap him on the arm.
“What do you want?” He asks. And yeah, maybe in retrospect, he should try to be slightly nicer to the people he’s going to be working alongside—and maybe with—these next few weeks.
It’s the boy with the hoodie. The boy with the sandals, Harvey reminds himself, before he can get pulled in by those big blue eyes and puppy dog looks.
“Um, hi,” the kid says. “My name’s Mike Ross.”
Harvey glances back at the game briefly but the score hasn’t changed. “Harvey,” he introduces himself finally. “Harvey Specter.”
The kid—Mike—grins. “Cool name. So why are you here?”
What does he think this is, prison? Harvey thinks. “I’m here to win. Isn’t that why we’re all here?”
Mike’s grin drops a little. “Oh. Right. Well, good luck!”
Harvey wonders what he’s supposed to say now. He hates being unsure of where he stands, as it usually results in him putting his foot in his mouth. “I’d wish you luck too, but I’m more concerned about whether your clothing reflects your design style.”
Yep, like that.
Mike looks down. “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”
“Ever hear about first impressions, kid?”
“Mike.”
“What?”
“Don’t call me kid, my name is Mike.”
“Yeah, okay, kid.”
And really, Harvey needs to stop talking. But this is kind of fun, and when Mike bristles, his eyes light up a very pretty blue.
A moment later, they burst out laughing. Harvey thinks this is kind of a good start.
“Anyways,” Mike says, before they crawl into bed for lights out. “You’re wearing a suit.”
“Clothes reflect a person’s character. This suit says everything it needs to about me.”
Mike hums at that but doesn’t say anything else.
In the morning they are introduced to their first challenge.
It is pretty insane, and clearly made to test a designer’s ability to find inspiration in anything.
Still, Harvey can’t see himself finding inspiration from a weed.
He looks to the other tables to see which designer got which plant. Jessica is looking pretty pleased seeing as she got the yellow rose, and the young girl who can sew—Rachel, he thinks her name was—got bluebonnets.
Louis is biting his lip over some kind of fern, though its still better than Harvey’s dandelion. Harvey looks back down at the weed and scowls at it. Maybe it will wilt and he can find inspiration in that.
“Cool flower,” Mike says. Of course he would say that.
“Its not a flower, kid, it’s a weed.” He gazes longingly at the pot of poppies sitting innocently on Mike’s workstand.
“Taraxacum. It’s kind of a flower,” Mike says. “It’s more inspirational than my Dendromecon.”
“What?” Is all Harvey can think to say.
Mike blushes. “I read a book on flowers once when I was a kid. It kind of stuck. Um… everything I read kind of does.”
Harvey is still staring at him blankly, and he tries to stop himself, but he just can’t. “What?”
Mike is really red by now. “Nevermind,” he says, and he rushes off to his work station.
It turns out Harvey can find inspiration from a weed—flower. His frilly white skirt and yellow top place him firmly in the safe spot.
Some guy whose name Harvey never learned goes home. He cries a little bit when he comes to the room backstage and everyone pats him on the back, but they never really got to know him so no one is really that upset. Harvey doesn’t even really make it off the couch to say goodbye.
Mike is in the top three. And Harvey realizes that maybe clothes don’t say quite everything about a person, because his poppy-inspired dress is stunning.
Now if he could only dress himself as well. Oh, the possibilities.
“What’s your sob story, kid?” One of the camera guys asks Mike.
They are now a few challenges in to the show and everyone is relatively comfortable with each other. Apparently its now the time they starts sharing their bittersweet back stories.
The cameraman leans in close and the camera on his shoulder almost falls onto Mike. Harvey watches from his workstation. He briefly entertains the thought that maybe he should swoop in and save the kid.
“I… I don’t think that I have one,” Mike replies as calmly as he can, though his stance suggests he is ready to bolt.
“Come on, everyone here has one.”
Not necessarily true, thinks Harvey. He, for instance, worked in a mailroom before coming here, and while not the most glamorous job in the world, Harvey thinks of it more as a success story than anything.
“I’m not sure if I feel comfortable telling it quite yet.” Harvey perks up at that. So there is something.
Suddenly, Harvey really wants to know. Wonders why Mike hasn’t told him. They’ve gotten pretty close these past few challenges, and Harvey would
probably call the kid a friend if he did mundane things like have friends.
“Alright, kid,” the camera guy says, and Harvey thinks that he should really stop calling Mike a kid, because can’t he see that the kid doesn’t like it? “But we’ll come back to you. You’re lucky that you’re probably gonna last a few more challenges.”
And that’s the truth if Harvey ever heard it. Mike is really very good, good enough that Harvey would probably feel threatened if he didn’t know that Mike wasn’t capable of hurting a fly and therefore definitely not finale three material. You had to be cutthroat in order to make it big in this business.
Mike was probably going home in one of the next challenges.
Harvey winced as he pricked himself on the needle he was using to hand-sew a hem. Now why did that thought make him feel… empty?
They are the only two people left in the sewing room at the end of the day. Harvey is sitting a few rows behind Mike, and he can see the blue chiffon blouse that Mike is working on for the avant-garde challenge. It has ruffles down the side. It looks nice.
Harvey frowns at his own denim dress. It doesn’t look bad, per se, but so far he’s not done well during the avant-garde challenges. He needs to break out of his comfort zone.
In more ways than one, Harvey thinks. He shakes away the traitorous thought and looks back at Mike.
“So, kid,” he starts, unsure about what he is going to say. “You’ve got anyone waiting for you back home?”
Mike jumps on it, still all too willing to answer any question thrown his way, and glances back with a smile. He returns to his work in a moment but starts to speak this time.
“My grandma is in a nursing home. I can’t wait to get back and see her.” He laughs. “She has trouble with the video cams that they let us use, so my friends have been helping her. They’re great.” He sighs heavily. “I never thought I’d miss them this much. But I guess everyone’s feeling that way now.”
Harvey isn’t feeling that way. His family doesn’t speak to him anymore, not since he failed to get a job and was demoted to working in a mail room. Scotty, his ex, was in the UK now, and she never called anymore. The only person he has waiting for him is Donna, and she’s… well, she’s Donna. They get along fine without each other.
Harvey pauses to step back and look at his garment. He looks up at Mike’s back, at the thin body but strong shoulders, at the hair that is ruffled in the back like he never actually combs it.
Maybe he’ll call Donna when they’re done here. Suddenly, he finds himself very much in need of her wise words of Donna-ism.
Harvey loves the runway. He loves seeing his finished product up there, seeing it compared to the other contestants’ work. He hasn’t fallen apart on it yet.
He hasn’t been in the bottom yet.
But now as he sees his high-waisted denim dress with green accents coming down the runway he has a flicker of doubt. It still doesn’t look bad, but it just looks good. That’s it.
He doesn’t want to be safe this week. But he doesn’t want to be in the bottom either.
He feels his palms begin to sweat, and rubs them on the pant leg of his suit. In any other situation he would be disgusted with himself, but right now he’s too nervous.
Suddenly he feels a pressure on his hand and looks down to see another, paler, smaller hand covering his. He turns and finds Mike smiling at him.
“Your dress looks great,” he says. Then he grins cheekily. “I’d wear it.”
“You’d look terrible in drag,” Harvey finds himself replying, mainly on autopilot.
But his hands are dry now and his heart is racing for an entirely different reason.
Mike is safe. Harvey is in the top. Louis Litt wins.
Harvey curses his luck—the judges liked his design but he had used the wrong color for the accents. Louis’s drab red pencil skirt and black blouse had been “innovational enough”.
Louis of course only latched onto the first word, and then had latched on to Harvey to brag about it once they were backstage.
Gregory had gone home. It wasn’t Louis, but Harvey was glad to see him go. Gregory had spent the past few challenges glaring at Mike.
Mike and Rachel were arguing. They had been paired together for this challenge (Harvey was with Jessica, and he was pretty pleased about it) and although they had the same design style usually, Rachel was worried about the time limit.
“We won’t have time to do the weave all the way down the skirt,” she said. “I can make a pair of shorts as a back-up, and we can do the weave on that.”
“No, I can do the weave. I’ve done a longer one in less time before.”
“Oh really? Where?” Rachel asked bitterly. It was no secret that Mike had never had a real design job before this, and yet his portfolio had stunned the judges into a respectful silence.
It had bothered the others, but it had never bothered Rachel before. She must be letting the stress get to her.
“Rachel,” Mike said calmly. “Let me do the skirt. You can make the shorts if it will make you feel better, but I want you to trust me.”
The cameramen who had been drawn to the fight like sharks to blood looked eagerly at Rachel. She glanced at them briefly before sighing.
“I do trust you, Mike.”
Louis Litt clapped obnoxiously beside Harvey. He was probably there to sneak a peek at their project while everyone was focused on Rachel and Mike. “Isn’t puppy love adorable?”
Harvey was about to ask Louis what he meant when he saw it—Rachel leaned over and gave Mike a peck on the lips. The kid froze at first, but a moment later the grin on his face was anything but shocked.
“Harvey!” Jessica cried. “You’re wrinkling the fabric!”
Harvey looked down at the fabric in his clenched hand and sighed. He was in big trouble.
As it turns out, Rachel had made the shorts in secret, without the weave. When it came down to the last hour and Mike was no more than halfway done with the weave, she called the project off. Mike had glared glumly at her as she stripped the skirt off the model and replaced it with the shorts. They were well-made, but absolutely dull. Even Harvey—who never allowed anything unfinished onto the runway—had to admit that half a woven skirt looked better than the shorts.
On the runway, Harvey was deemed safe. Mike and Rachel were in the bottom. There was a chance that one of them would go home.
In this situation, all you had to do was throw someone under the bus. Harvey was capable of it; even though he had nothing but respect for Jessica, he would send her home if he had to. But Mike would never be capable of something like that.
Rachel, on the other hand…
And so Harvey sat on the couch next to Jessica, watching the door to see who would come through. One by one the remaining contestants filed in, until it was only Rachel and Mike left.
And then Mike stepped through the door. Harvey let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding and ran up to him.
The stupid kid was crying. “I didn’t want Rachel to have to go.”
Jessica came up from the side and patted Mike on the arm. “You are a good designer, Mike. Rachel cracked under the pressure.”
Mike looked up and smiled big at Jessica. Harvey wished he had said something, so that maybe he could be smiled at like that as well.
“My mother was a designer,” Mike tells him one day when they’re back in their rooms.
Harvey waits for him to continue.
“The camera guys asked me if I have a sad story. Turns out I kind of do. My parents died in a car crash when I was nine. I guess it was enough time for my mom to instill some sort of desire to design in me.”
“Have you always wanted to be a designer?” Harvey asks. He can’t imagine staying on one path his whole life—his inability to have focus in his life when he was young was one of the reasons he’d ended up in the mailroom.
“No. I went to law school but… I had to drop out. To take care of my grandma for one, and… other reasons.”
“Oh. Well, maybe it was for the best,” Harvey hears himself saying. “You wouldn’t have made a good lawyer.”
He doesn’t mean it that way. He knows he doesn’t mean it that way. Harvey’s known lawyers—Scotty is a lawyer, for God’s sake. And they’ve all had a certain—quality—about them that Mike just did not have. They weren’t afraid to push people down and get their hands dirty, and he just could not see Mike doing that.
But he realizes his mistake in word choice when Mike shuts off, glares at him. Turns his back and heads to the kitchen.
He calls back to Harvey, “You know what? You would’ve made a great lawyer.”
Huh. Come to think of it, maybe he would’ve made a good lawyer. Maybe he should have chosen a mailroom in a law office.
Harvey disapproves of Trevor the moment he sees him.
The show had let certain family members and friends come visit the contestants. Harvey was surprised when he saw a familiar bundle of red hair come through the door. It turns out he really had missed Donna, if the ache in his chest he got when he saw her—happiness is probably what other people called it—meant anything.
He envelops her in a hug, breathing in her Donna scent (expensive perfume that he probably had bought her and vanilla shampoo).
Then a shout; someone yelling “Trevor!” He looks over Donna’s shoulder and sees Mike throwing himself at a young man.
Harvey freezes. The man is definitely Mike’s age, and he was dressed rather similarly—torn jeans and gray hoodie—and, if Harvey was threatened at gunpoint to admit it, reasonably attractive. And Mike was still hugging him.
“Harvey?” Donna asks, raising an eyebrow that says so much. Right now it says I’m here for you so why aren’t you giving me your full attention. Honestly, some things never change and probably never will.
And then she turns around and, oh no, Harvey didn’t want her to do that, because now she’ll know everything because she’s Donna.
And of course, she turns back to him and says, “He’s cute.”
Harvey sniffs. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
And he can smell it in the air as Mike gets closer, and he hates the smell, and he hates Trevor, and he can see that Mike is worried about it too.
That night, he talks to Mike for the first time since he made the lawyer faux pas.
“Who was your friend?”
Mike looks at him, his mouth open in an ‘o’, before giving in. “His name is Trevor. He’s been my friend since forever. We almost went to law school together.”
And suddenly everything snaps into place in Harvey’s mind. The smell, the smell was that of pot. And he wonders if Mike ever did that, if that’s why he couldn’t go to law school.
It seems reasonable, and yet horribly unfair. But he doesn’t know what to say.
He never knows what to say to Mike.
They are coming to the last stretches of the competition. It turns out there was a reason their family and friends were allowed to visit—they were the next models.
Donna, of course, was thrilled about this.
“Make me something pretty,” she ordered Harvey.
“Of course, my dear,” Harvey said, because really, when did he make anything not pretty.
Even while he was sketching, though, he felt his gaze drift over to the table where Mike and Trevor were planning their outfit. Every time Mike leaned over Trevor to reach a pencil or Trevor moved Mike’s hand off the pad so he could see, Harvey felt sick to his stomach. It was messing with his head, which, unfortunately, messed with his design.
“What about ribbing on the blouse?” Donna asked. She wasn’t stupid about design either, of course.
Harvey sighed and studied the sketch. “That could—.”
A bubble of laughter interrupted him, and he spun back around to glance at Mike’s workstation. Trevor was snorting some kind of stupid laugh, and Mike was smiling that big smile. The one Harvey wanted turned on him.
Suddenly, Mike’s blue, blue eyes flicked up and caught Harvey’s gaze. Harvey froze, felt like time had stopped, and it was all so cliché and he hated it.
And then he got it. He didn’t hate it. Not at all. He wanted Mike to look at him, to watch him, the way Harvey had watched Mike these past few weeks.
He wanted that more than winning.
“Donna,” he said. And something in his voice must have said it all, because she patted his hand and nodded.
“You’re the boss, Harvey. If you feel this is right—”
“I do.”
“Then I’ll trust you.”
And that was all Harvey needed to hear.
“He’s straight, you know.”
Harvey had been sneaking a snack in the kitchen—even he had his weak moments—when Mike found him.
“Wha’?” Harvey said, his mouth full of cold pizza. He swallowed quickly. “I mean, what?”
“Trevor. He’s straight. He’s dating my friend Jenny. In case you were interested in him.”
Harvey was speechless. Mike thought that he was interested in Trevor? And Harvey thought he had been clueless when it came to feelings.
“I’m not.”
Now it was Mike’s turn to look confused. “What?”
“I’m not interested in Trevor. I hate him,” Harvey realized that Mike did not, though, “no offense.”
“I, uh, none taken.” Mike looked a little lost. “So you are straight? I’m sorry, I just thought…”
“Not straight either. Not completely, if that makes sense. It all depends on who catches my eye.”
He tried to look meaningfully at Mike, but was a little afraid that it came off as glaring.
Apparently, it worked though, because a second later Mike gasped. “Oh,” he said.
“Yeah,” said Harvey, finishing off his pizza. They stared at each other a little longer before Harvey excused himself.
He was still awake when Mike crawled into his own bed a half hour later.
It wasn’t a disaster, of course. Harvey would never send something down the runway that was a disaster.
But it was clearly not his best work, and the judges were confused about what went wrong. Harvey couldn’t exactly go out and say he had done it for Mike.
Still, it was hard to see how disappointed they were.
In the end, he was going home. He saw Heidi walking toward him, kissed her goodbye, and then walked back to the room. His legs felt like gelatin. He had faced the judges, and now he was going to have to face Mike.
Now there were only three left—Louis, Jessica, and Mike. But he wasn’t worried. As long as Louis didn’t win, Harvey could relax in the fact he had done the right thing by going home now.
No one said anything for a while when he stepped through the door. Jessica looked sad, Mike looked close to tears, and even Louis was frowning like he didn’t understand what exactly was happening.
Tim Gunn came to send him packing, and he looked a little stunned at the silence of the room.
“Well Harvey,” he said. “You were an incredible designer, and I hope you won’t let tonight faze you. You’re going to go far.”
“I hope so,” Harvey said, and he let himself glance over to Mike. The kid had that lost puppy look again, and right now he looked as if he didn’t know whether to glare or smile at Harvey.
Harvey secretly hoped that it would be the latter.
“I’ll give you five minutes alone without cameras if you want, before you get your stuff,” Tim offered. Harvey had seen him do this before, with the people who were too hysterical to go to the workroom without tripping over something. Harvey wondered if Tim thought he was going to cry.
“That would be good,” Harvey said, and Tim ushered the cameramen out into the hall.
Louis left afterwards too, because he really didn’t have that much to say to Harvey. Harvey really didn’t mind.
Jessica gave him a quick hug and peck on the cheek. Harvey whispered “good luck” in her ear, because he really did like her, even if he was now rooting for Mike.
Finally, it was just him and Mike left. Suddenly, Harvey felt very nervous, and after holding Mike’s gaze for a few heartbeats, he had to look away.
“Why did you do it?” Mike asked finally. “I am assuming you did it on purpose.”
“I don’t really want to say, because it’s embarrassing.”
“Was it for me?”
Harvey looked up and felt the corners of his lip turn up. “Maybe.”
Mike sighed. “You like me that much? I thought you were only here to win.”
“I thought so too.”
“Then why?”
“Because that changed.”
And there it was. What Harvey had been waiting for this whole time. That big, beautiful smile, and the subject of it him.
It was worth everything.
“You’re an idiot,” Mike said.
“And you’re just a stupid kid who can’t dress himself. But you can dress other people, Mike, and you’re incredible at it. So maybe that’s what its all about.”
“What what is all about?”
“Maybe for you, its not the clothes you wear that reflect you, but the clothes you make.”
“And what do those clothes say about me?”
Harvey quirked his lips into a smile. “I don’t know that yet. I’ll have to spend more time with you.”
Suddenly, he felt his face get hot. “T-That is, if you’d like to—”
Mike cut him off with a kiss, and Harvey wished that he had done that long ago, when Harvey said those stupid things to him.
“Yes, Harvey. I’d like that a lot.”
Harvey grinned and swooped down to capture another kiss, ignoring Mike’s squeak when he deepened it.
“Then go off and win this, kid. Then come find me.”
“Okay Harvey,” Mike said, and Harvey would never get tired of that smile. “I’ll do it for you.”