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Monday
Travis groaned as he arched his back and stretched his arms behind his head. It was crazy, he thought, how nothing could exhaust him faster than doing nothing.
Well, he wasn’t exactly doing nothing; he was sifting through phone records, but nothing interesting had come up yet, and that was close enough to nothing to drain all the life out of him. Mind made up, he let out a heavy breath and pushed his chair away from his desk, shoving off hard enough that the rolling wheels carried him a few feet. He met Wes’ raised eyebrow with an easy grin.
“I need a snack, you want me to get you something?” Wes pursed his lips in thought, then nodded. Saying nothing, he just tossed his half-empty water bottle to Travis, who caught it effortlessly. “You got it, buddy.” He strutted off in the direction of the break room.
Practically as soon as Travis was out of earshot, the phone on his desk rang. Wes gave a mental eye-roll at the timing of the universe and leaned across his desk to answer Travis’ phone. “Marks,” he answered without pause. As he listened to the person on the other end, Wes mindlessly twirled the phone cord around his fingers, humming affirmatively when necessary.
When Travis returned, he gently untangled Wes’ hand from his desk phone cord. He peeled the sticker off the peach in his hand and thumbed it onto the back of Wes’ hand with resound, physically turning Wes’ wrist in his grip to show him the peach sticker.
Wes rolled his eyes and gave Travis the sarcastically indulgent smile he used exclusively for him, with his tongue just slightly poked between his teeth and his eyes a little too wide. If the goofy look always made Travis snort and then dissolve into helpless laughter, well, that wasn’t why Wes did it, but maybe it was a welcome side effect, even if it earned them some confused glances from nearby desks.
Tuesday
Typically, in the morning, Wes liked to stop and pick up coffee for himself and Travis. Sometimes they were together, obviously, but even on the days when they hadn’t spent the night together, Wes liked to pick up coffee for both of them, just because it was better than the watery garbage in the coffee maker at the station.
On Tuesday, however, when Wes drove past the coffee shop he frequented, the line was wrapped around the building. He considered for a moment, then clucked his tongue disappointedly and drove away. Today, it seemed, would be a watery garbage coffee day.
Wes and Travis had sort of opposite philosophies surrounding the office coffee; Wes, who typically drank his coffee unadulterated so that he could savor the roast, the aroma, and the slow release of coffee oils, would load up the shitty coffee with as much cream and sugar as he could stomach, to try and mask the coffee itself.
Travis, on the other hand, had a strong weakness for butterscotch syrup and always loved a fancy specialty drink in the morning, a cinnamon roll latte or an iced caramel macchiato or whatever seasonal treat the coffee shop was peddling. Conversely, he would drink the terrible coffee at the station black with no sugar, sometimes even cold, while holding his nose; sacrificing the experience in exchange for the caffeine.
It was the mental picture of the sadness that he knew would pass over Travis’ face if he walked in without two coffees in hand that had Wes driving straight past the station and down the road to find another coffee shop, and it was this detour that had Wes jogging into the precinct twenty minutes later than he typically liked to arrive (still ten minutes earlier than he was expected to be there).
Travis was sitting at his desk with his earbuds in, but when Wes sat the coffee down in front of him, he looked up with a soft smile. Wes only barely caught himself before he instinctively dropped a kiss on top of Travis’ head.
“This isn’t that place we usually hit up,” Travis commented, turning the cup to look at the label.
“No,” Wes agreed, “they had a line all the way around the corner, almost back to the yoga studio, so I thought we’d try this stuff.”
Travis’ smile widened a fraction and he sniffed cautiously at the drink then raised his eyebrows, either surprised or impressed. “What is it?”
Wes took a sip of his own coffee, which was a beautifully crafted Custapec absolutely rife with nutty, expressive tones, before he answered. “A bonfire mocha, it’s got marshmallow, brown sugar, cinnamon, and dark chocolate.”
Travis let out a pleased gasp and immediately took a sip of his drink, wincing when he burned his mouth but humming in delight nonetheless. “I fucking love it,” he said, earnest and happy. Wes couldn’t keep his own small smile at bay and hid it against the rim of his cup instead.
Wednesday
“You want a french fry?” Wes took the proffered french fry without looking up from his computer, popping it in his mouth and wrinkling his nose a little. Travis always over-salted his fries.
“So the car that the neighbors saw actually belonged to his sister-” Travis began, prompting Wes to finish, “-and not his girlfriend, like they thought.”
Wes rapped his knuckles against the aluminum desktop once, then twice. “That still leaves the question, though,” he trailed off, leaving the opening for Travis to finish, “Where was the girlfriend?”
They both paused for a moment, then nodded at almost the same time.
“We need to go back and talk to the victim’s coworkers again,” Wes said. “Ask this time if any of them know anything about who his girlfriend was or where she might be now.”
Travis hummed in agreement and then reached for another fry, startling when his hand touched the bottom of the bag.
“Oh, last one, man, here.” Travis held the last of his french fries out to Wes. Wes frowned and shook his head.
“Not if it’s the last one,” he hedged. Travis wiggled the french fry at him and made a cajoling noise. “No, really, Travis, you can keep it. You didn’t even put enough salt on them, anyway.” Patently false, but Travis didn’t need to know.
“Oh! If that’s all,” Travis laughed, and reached into his desk drawer. Wes balked as Travis pulled a salt packet from god only knew where, and watched with trepidation as he loaded a truly gut-wrenching amount of salt onto the poor, already-too-salty french fry, then extended it to Wes once again.
Wes swallowed nervously, smiled, and tried not to gag on the french fry.
Thursday
Thursday was shaping up to be a heavy footwork day for Wes and Travis, as they spent their morning preparing to head out and chase down the only lead they had as of yet.
As Travis patted at the pockets of his jeans and jacket, counting to make sure he had all his stuff, he suddenly stopped and looked expectantly up at Wes, who was putting on his suit jacket.
“Yes?” Wes said distractedly as he fiddled with his cufflinks.
“You forgot to put on sunscreen,” Travis said. He stepped around to Wes’ desk and fished a bottle of sunscreen out of the second drawer, shoving it into Wes’ hand.
Wes grumbled softly, probably not even real words honestly, and squirted a little dollop of sunscreen onto his hands. He rubbed it onto his face and the back of his neck quickly, then rubbed his thumbs along the tops of his ears; annoyingly, this was the innocuous little place where he always seemed to burn first, and if he missed his ears Travis would notice and say something.
Seemingly satisfied, Travis held his hand out for the bottle, but Wes squeezed more sunscreen out of the tube before he handed it over, then gestured Travis closer.
“Aw, dude,” Travis whined, like a child. “You know I hate the way that stuff smells.”
“Don’t care,” Wes said shortly, and Travis huffed and stepped closer so that Wes could smear the sunscreen onto his face. “ You know that it’s good for you.”
Travis pouted as Wes’ thumbs gently stroked over his cheekbones, only a brief moment before Wes caught himself and quickly finished applying the sunscreen. “This is like my flu shot all over again.” Wes just rolled his eyes.
Friday
When Travis slid into Friday morning’s department briefing twenty-two seconds before nine, nobody was surprised. Not even Wes, although he was irritated, because they were supposed to speak first and Travis continued to have no respect for anybody’s time, including his own. While Travis flung himself into place next to Wes and cast a winning smile around the room, Wes rolled his eyes so hard that it must have set a new record and reached into his jacket pocket, tossing a package of wasabi peas onto Travis’ lap.
Travis gasped audibly. “Man, these are my favorite!” he said, scrambling to rip open the package. Wes rolled his eyes again.
“I know. Obviously. They had the big pack on sale at Costco this week so I got them for you.”
The smile on Travis’ face then was soft, authentic, and just for Wes. “Thanks, man, you’re the best. I didn’t eat breakfast, either, so this is great.”
Wes made an affronted sound. “ Wasabi peas are not breakfast, Travis, they are an ingredient in trail mix. We’ll go get you some actual breakfast when we’re done here.”
Travis laughed and popped a small handful of wasabi peas into his mouth. Suddenly, he made a surprised sound and patted his leg, kicking his chin in the direction of Wes’ feet. Wes glanced down at his own feet, then wordlessly twisted around and popped his left foot onto Travis’ knee so that Travis could tie his shoe. It took both of them a second to realize that all of the conversation in the room had stopped, and they simultaneously looked up.
The looks on their colleagues’ faces ranged from bewilderment to irritation, to the deliberately impassive expression Captain Sutton was currently leveling them with.
“Are you serious?” Watson asked incredulously.
Wes opened his mouth to take offense, since Travis’ mouth was still full of peas, but then Dietz complained, “Could you two just get this over with and bone already?” and Wes’ jaw dropped.
However, before Wes could formulate an appropriately cutting rebuttal, Travis chimed in, mouth still full of half-chewed snack, “Been hitting it for close to a year now, actually, thanks.” Wes immediately turned the full force of his affronted ire onto his partner.
“ Hitting it?” he demanded, and Travis at least had the good grace to look sheepish, then hold up one finger and carefully swallow before continuing.
“By which, of course, I mean that we’re in a committed monogamous relationship and we’re furiously in love,” he said brightly, and Wes squeezed his eyes closed.
“How was that worse?” Wes muttered. “Why was that so much worse?”
Before he could examine that thought too much further, and before the conversation could devolve any further into chaos, Captain Sutton heaved an incredible sigh and, with every one of his years of authority behind his voice, said, “Let’s just get started, and I’ll get everyone involved the appropriate paperwork this afternoon.”
Wes took a mental tally and decided that, while it could have gone better, that also could have gone far, far worse, and he supposed that an awkward conversation and a little paperwork for external fraternization were a small price to pay, ultimately. Even if he was also going to end up doing Travis’ paperwork for him.