A/N: You have no idea how long it took me to write this (unless you follow me on twitter). It's two in the morning right now, I've spent two hours finishing it. Please, above ALL ELSE, REVIEW! PLEASE!

Dedicated to: Mariagoner, who also helped write this. Half of the scene where Travis and Wes are really talking, goes to her. THANK YOU!

Disclaimer: I don't own Common Law. I really want Wes though.

"His Fellow Nerd"

Wes Mitchell always told his partner Travis Marks to not date people at work. Don't use the work place as your own personal singles bar. Don't have a one-night stand with a woman you'll be forced to work with in the future. So when Wes found himself starting to maybe-sorta-kinda like the new tech girl Kendall, he knew it would be wrong to actually ask her out. Even though she'd most likely say yes because Travis told him that Kendall must have some sort of crush on him. Wes just chalked it up to Kendall's ability to block out Travis' come-on's.

He kinda admired her for that. The girl must have taste.

He still couldn't ask her out though.

Wes walked in to get his (second) cup of coffee one morning, not really surprised to find Travis with his tongue down a girl's throat. Or maybe it was the other way around. Either way, Wes didn't care. Upon closer look, he thought in the back of his mind that this was a new rookie officer. Poor girl. She probably didn't receive any warning about Travis' many past girlfriends.

"Travis, who are you kissing? I can't tell. Is it Randy? Kelly? Tracy? Oh! You're new here! What's your name?" Wes spoke as he walked to the fridge. Just as he planned, the new girl got the message that Travis was a ladies' man. She gave a scornful look to Travis before she left the room. Travis turned on his heel to glare at Wes.

"What the hell man?" he griped.

"Travis, I've told you half a million times not to date our co-workers. What if we need her help one day? Do you want another Jonelle problem on our hands?" Travis winced when Wes mentioned the coroner.

"Whatever," Travis waved him off and left, and Wes grinned a little to himself because he had won that one. He knew Travis would find a way later to get him back, but Wes knew today was going to be a rather quiet day.

"Hi Wes," a soft feminine voice rang through his ears as he was finishing pouring his coffee.

"Hello Kendall," he greeted back. He had a small smile on his lips when he responded, and unbeknownst to him, she smiled just a little bit wider because of it.

"How does Travis do what he does? Surely there are at least a few girls that can resist him," she spoke, getting her own cup of coffee. Wes felt a small grin tug at his lips and relented, because she had a good point.

"Well, you're able to resist him. In fact, you right now ignore him, and I find that to be a very good quality." Is he flirting with her? Had he not decided not to do that with his co-workers, Kendall or not, period?

"Well maybe I could give you some pointers on how to ignore him. It seems like you need it," she suggested, a tiny smile on her face. Wes stared at her for a small second. She was flirting with him. She was teasing him a little bit. 'Screw the no-dating-co-workers rule, I'm going to ask- no. No, no, no. Harmless flirting is fine, but I can't get into a relationship with a co-worker. I'd be a hypocrite, and I would never be able to live it down,' Wes thought to himself. It wasn't really a full thought, and it went through his head quicker than lightning.

"I probably do. I guess now I know where I can escape to when I need it," he replied, giving her one last smile and leaving the room.

Kendall stared after him, slightly flustered. He seemed to talk a little too fast. Did she come on too strong? She shook her head. No, she came off fine. He must just be uncomfortable flirting. She sighed, disappointed that she may have scared him from having another conversation with her, and left, her coffee warming her hands.

"Man, I've been working on that girl for two weeks! You have no idea how rare it is to get a rookie!" Travis exclaimed. Wes rolled his eyes, and continued to play the Spider Solitaire game he had up, since they weren't working on a case presently.

"Travis, I'm pretty sure she's not the only one. In fact, there were a couple of girls down the hall a few minutes ago that were giggling and whispering while looking at you. I think you need to inform them that you really are as stupid as you look," Wes replied in monotone. Travis was already on his way down the hall before Wes started the last sentence, so he was basically muttering to himself at the end.

Wes had a feeling that this was going to be a long and boringly uneventful day.

He had been right.

The following day was the same. It took a couple days before anything really picked up. It involved a quick open/closed case, once Wes carried their victim's laptop to the technology unit. Kendall was more than happy to help, having gotten bored with no real work to do, and grew tired of Apocalypse Moon. Wes felt like a silly schoolboy when he smiled (just a tiny bit, really) because her entire face lit up with excitement. He berated himself briefly, but explained the case to her when he could focus.

"This should just take a few minutes to crack into…and you're obviously anxious to get this case over with-" He really was- "so why don't you sit here, and I can relay information to you when I see it," Kendall suggested.

"Well," Wes debated, "I guess it really couldn't hurt."

There was slight chatting while Kendall was loading up the laptop, and the way Wes put his elbow on the table and leaned into it a little, his chest facing her side, Kendall couldn't help but think of it as flirty body language. He was doing this without any real conscious thought, she knew this, but the subconscious never lies. So, giving him what he really wanted, she decided to do a little flirting herself.

"So what's Travis doing?" she asked, trying to remind them of their conversation the other day. Wes laughed once, a simple "ha" coming from his chest. It sounded weird, like half the noise was muffled by his lips being together, and in the middle of it they opened.

"I think you mean who is Travis doing," Wes joked. "I told him I could handle the laptop and that I'd be back in thirty minutes."

"This won't take that long," Kendall reminded him, already pulling up several windows for them to see. Wes stared at his thumbs as he twiddled them for a few seconds.

"I know, but I'm not sure I want to see what I could walk in on," Wes replied. Kendall made an amused "O" face.

"Well my social skills are a bit rusty since I'm typically alone in here, so I don't know what we'll do for the last couple of minutes. Any possible thing we could talk about?" Kendall slid the laptop over to Wes, so he could take notes on some of the very important information on the screen. Kendall cautiously put her elbow on the table, and rested her cheek on it, her smile faltering, as she wondered if she looked completely stupid.

"Well then we're two in the same- I apparently don't have the best social skills in the world either," Wes pulled the side of his mouth of to show he was joking, but otherwise focused on what he was writing down.

"How often do socially inept people turn out to be close friends? I mean, it'd be a little hard to get to know each other wouldn't it?" Kendall pondered this thought while visualizing shy school children. She had to smile a little bit.

"Well if they want to get to know each other, one of them is going to have to ask the other out." The words that came from Wes' mouth startled the both of them- since that was an easily inferable sentence that nobody had predicted he'd say, and he shifted in his seat once he did say it- but Wes wasn't about to back down.

"So, as two socially inept people who would like to get to know each other better, will you join me for dinner tonight?" Wes asked, flashing those pearly whites of his. Kendall blinked several times, taking a second to fully understand that yes, he did ask her out. She smiled back at him.

"Yeah, sure. Absolutely," she breathed the last word, once again smiling inconsistently, because she didn't want to come off as desperate. Then again, she didn't want to come off detached either. He tore the bottom corner off the paper he was writing on, and handed it to her.

A phone number, and the time he would be picking her up. There were also the words, Your Address: and a line beside it, indicating that she would have to write down her address and give him that half of the parcel back. She laughed and rolled her eyes, because that's what she would have done as well.

Or maybe she would have something just a little less nerdy.

Kendall made an effort to slip him her address without it being noticed by anybody. Wes, who was planning to go back to the digital technology unit to thank her for her help, had to keep himself in check and resist smiling like an idiot. After all, he was sitting at his desk, which was right next to Travis'. Travis would badger him to death if he saw Wes smiling.

There was just a little worry though. Wes always scolded Travis about dating people at work. So what the hell was Wes doing asking out a co-worker? He felt like such a hypocrite.

'You don't have intentions to date her just so you can sleep with her. You genuinely like her,' he reminded himself. 'Besides, you don't even know for sure if you have real connection. You won't even know until the date's over with.

"Somethin' on your mind, man?" Travis interrupted Wes' thoughts. Wes looked up, having been absorbed into his head.

"Just reviewing the case," Wes answered with a shrug. Travis nodded, and looked back down at a file, but snapped his head up and to the side. He nodded at a girl as she walked past, and they exchanged flirtatious smiles. Wes rolled his eyes, watching the interaction.

'Yeah, I have nothing to worry about,' he thought finally. Now all he needed to do was decide where he would take her to dinner.

Knock knock…knock. Wes was hesitant as to how many times he should knock on her door. He kicked himself mentally after the third knock, because he really should have stopped at two. 'This date's going to be a disaster.'

"Hi Wes!" Kendall chirped excitedly when she answered the door, wearing a casual sundress. Both people immediately blushed, and Kendall looked down, pressing her lips together in a line. That seemed a little eager didn't it?

That entire exchange lasted an entirety of a second and a half, and Wes picked the conversation right up.

"You look lovely. It's nice to see you like this," he complemented her, shoving his hands in his pockets and showing her a half smile, just like an awkward teenager. She blushed even harder, and her smile widened at the small praise.

"Why thank you. You look very handsome yourself," she returned. His normal smile grew much larger.

Wes held out his elbow, and bent forward a little like a gentleman. She took his arm, and with her other hand shut her door, and locked it.

'Maybe the date won't be so bad after all.'

The next day Wes was already leaning back in his seat, working on a game of Spider Solitaire, when Travis walked through the doors of the precinct. Wes didn't even look up when Travis arrived at his desk, and plopped down in his chair with a sigh. He began to fire up his computer.

"You're late. Again." 'The ever so cheery greetings of that one warms my heart,' Travis thought sarcastically. He looked up, almost too tired to really come up with something good enough to make Wes back off. He was slightly stunned to see Wes seem so…relaxed. It wasn't a normal relaxed, it was a…slightly relaxed after a few hours off duty of being a tight-ass, but still slightly…what was a good word…annoying. Weird.

"You know," Travis half mumbled half spoke, "if you just got, I don't know, laid more often, you wouldn't need to be this much of a jerk-ass."

The atmosphere changed. The battle of wits had commenced.

"Jerk-ass?" Wes questioned. "Travis, first off, that's not a word, and second, my being punctual and respecting the rules has nothing to do with how often I get laid. You should actually be learning from me."

Travis cocked his head slightly, and got the ghost of a calculating expression on his face. Those words definitely seemed like words that would come out of Wes' mouth. (They probably had before, too.) This time, it was slightly different. Wes still had the scorn he had for Travis' creative vocabulary, but it was different. The tone…was that it? The tone? Yes, it was the tone of the words that fell from Wes' mouth that made it different. It was…just different.

Normally, Wes tended to stare straight ahead, a tight-ass, constipated look on his face, because maybe he really did feel somewhat smarter than Travis. This time…Wes looked…normal.

How in the hell was that even freaking possible?

Something was going on here, damn it, and Travis Marks the wonderful detective would die before he let himself let go of this.

"Yeah," he said, finally gathering his thoughts. Then he paused again, for dramatic effect or what, he wasn't sure himself, "I guess you getting laid really should teach me something."

When Wes' eyebrows rose, and he scratched his chin the way he normally does when Travis is on to him, Travis smirked.

Oh yeah, Travis got him.

"I did not get laid last night. I…went on a date." Wes felt like he was purposefully not describing the girl, or even saying her name, and Wes hoped that Travis didn't catch on to his short, evasive answers. The last thing Wes needed was Travis knowing he went on a date with a co-worker. He would never live it down. As much as Wes hoped though, luck wasn't really on his side.

Ha. Wes went on a date? What, with some girl from that Date-Salon website? Nah, Wes wouldn't go for that. Now, for some teasing.

"Oh, really man? Some poor desperate girl went in for you? What did you pick her up at that hotel you stay in? At the bar?"

"…Sure." Damn, was he hesitating? He went on. "She came on to me. I don't think she was in there long before she saw me. We started talking, and that led to us going on a date." Wes gave Travis a grin, it wasn't completely forced, but it wasn't completely natural either. Years of being a lawyer and then a detective helped him nearly perfect it, and nobody knew the difference between this one, and a real one.

So obviously, Travis knew. (I mean, did you really think being a detective for so long, and then knowing a guy for seven years wouldn't make him aware of the difference between his partner's grins?) The real question was when the hell did Wes get the heart to actually go on a date with someone?

"Okay…so there's this girl that picks you up. Describe her." Wes shifted in his seat a little.

"She was smart, petite, and sweet. She also had some class, and definitely would've shot you down had you been the one to come on to her." Wes cleared his throat. The woman he was talking about had shot down Travis, but he didn't need to know that. Travis raised his eyebrow suspiciously.

"Right. So a smart and sweet woman happened to pick you up in a bar, you being the first guy that she saw.

"So what made her approach you? Not that you're ugly or anything…but you aren't exactly givin' off a lot of welcoming vibes, either." Of course, if Wes looked stressed out, and was wearing a suit…he may have been a victim of…

"She wasn't a prostitute, was she buddy?" Wes rolled his eyes.

As if he would ever get a prostitute. That was absurd. Wes shifted in his seat once again. Maybe he would play off the "I was vulnerable and desperate" card to get away from the possibility of Travis finding out about his date with a co-worker.

"I don't need happy vibes, and I don't need a prostitute. I wasn't talking to any other girls, and even the smarter, pretty girls can be desperate." Wes said that this girl had class though. Classy girls weren't really that desperate.

"So she was desperate?" The way Travis spoke made it look like he believed Wes was the desperate one. Wes had to bite back a grin, and settled for shifting in his chair, which helped him in his lie. He cleared his throat again and nodded quickly, twice.

"You're absolutely sure you weren't a little bit drunk last night buddy?" Wes didn't move. Travis knew he was getting to him- or at least, thought he knew.

"I'm sure."

"So a beautiful, classy, intelligent woman at a hotel bar, and since she's the desperate one and not you, you guys just…go on a date?" Well, Wes didn't realize how truly stupid that lie was, but it helped him out in the end, didn't it?

So, how was he going to play this now? Travis had badgered him a little, and Travis knows that Wes is smart enough to give up, so…he'd have to be straightforward. It was risky, but Wes wanted this over with.

"Fine. I was a little…dull, I wasn't completely aware of how much alcohol I'd consumed. She was intelligent to me, but I guess that's not saying much given that I was…drunk off my ass. I guess even a drunk me doesn't put out on a first date. Last night wasn't really a shining moment in my life, okay?" Wes pulled off a slightly steamed, slightly confronted tone. All he had to think about now was…was Travis buying it?

Travis wasn't completely buying it. Wes is a guy. He likes women, and cars, and some manly things. His ability to cook and his fussiness over others' cleanliness like a mother may suggest otherwise, but Wes was still a man. So a "classy, pretty, and smart" woman just happens to approach a drunken Wes, and he turns down sleeping with her? Right, like Travis would believe that.

Still, Wes had gone to all this trouble to lie, and he was still being stubborn tight-ass mule, Travis leaned back in his seat, and sighed, hiding his still raging interest.

"Dude, you are the only man I know that'd turn down sex that was almost literally brought to you on a silver platter. You keep that up, and next time you hop into bed you won't last very long." Grinning, Travis added, "I hope the poor girl you've been dating knows this. Tell her not to be too disappointed."

Well that gave Wes something to think about. He wasn't about to rush into sex with Kendall, but he really hadn't had sex in a while. He wouldn't be very impressive their first time together. Maybe he should be thinking about a prostitute.

No. He would not use a hooker as a practice doll.

Towards the end of a long, paperwork-filled day, Wes traveled into the break room for his final cup of coffee. Travis had left the precinct about five minutes prior, which was unsurprising for Wes, since Travis was normally the one to leave first.

"Hey there cutie," a sweet voice chimed behind him. He turned around, grinning from ear to ear, and leaned against the counter, coffee in hand.

"Hello, beautiful," he murmured, when she'd walked over to him, her toes nearly touching his. She wrapped her tiny arms around his waste, and he stood up straight, only to bend his neck down, to kiss her. Nobody else in the room, Wes still felt a little dangerous kissing her where anyone could see them.

"I'm almost ready to leave, I just have to finish up something- I just wanted to give you that before I did. I'll see you later Wes," she whispered, backing away slowly, not letting go of his hand until she was out of reach. He was smiling lazily at her.

"I'll see you later Kendall," he replied. After she left the room, and began back down towards the technology unit he watched her until she went past the glass wall of the break room. He stood still for a second, and then began walking out of room, staring at his shoes, until he opened the glass door. He looked up, over at his desk- which obviously had a good view of the break room- and froze when he saw Travis grinning at him, holding his almost forgotten coat, shaking his head.

Oh shit.

A/N: Haha-ha-ha-haaa. Wes got caaaaauuuught! So, seriously, two in the morning right now, and I've got an orthodontist appointment at noon-thirty. Please review.

Again, thank you to Mariagoner, who helped give you readers some (hopefully) nice Wes/Travis interaction.

Also, could you please answer the question on my profile? The question's random, but harmless, and blind.

~RosesAreForWriters