Almost Human is Michael Ealy's next buddy cop show coming out in November (the trailer is out! :D) featuring a cop with issues being partnered with an android with feelings set in the near future. So logically the next step is to write an AU of that for Common Law.
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Perfect fit for the ill Souls
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Wes hasn't always been like this. But he hasn't been happy for a long, long time either. And it is almost understandable at this point. He has been in a coma for 17 months too long, and Alex has been gone for just as long.
Detective Wesley Mitchell is back on the force for half a day before he finds himself in the basement of the LAPD headquarters, stepping over synthetic body parts to get to the technician.
000
In retrospection, nobody could have been surprised.
They label him and it is all so laughable. Cap lists off a bunch with barely a raised eyebrow only because he has been there from before Wes has been lying on a bed for close to a year and a half. (He doesn't play well with others, like that is any surprise. He shows signs of mental illness, suspected of obsessive-compulsive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder, among others, like the bottles of hand sanitizers and his clutter-free desk are any indication.) Eyes closed and barely back from stepping over the edge to follow the rest of his team, he almost expects them to let him go back to the field on the conditions that he agrees to therapy and talk about his feelings.
But they don't.
They assign him an android (Synthetic, sir) for a partner instead.
And make sure he knows that it is mandate.
It works with him for a better part of the morning until he pushes it out of his passenger side door on the highway, and watches from his rear view mirror, with a twisted sense of satisfaction, as the truck behind him crushes it into tiny pieces of metal scraps, beyond repairable.
In his defence, he prefers a partner that is actually human.
000
Wes meets Travis on a rainy afternoon.
But before that, he meets Kendall with her short hair, near-crazed eyes, and a lab coat that looks just a size too big on her. She looks too young but she does her job, and no one has ever appreciated that more than Wes. He goes as far as to give her a professional half smile that doesn't even look manic, or murderous.
But he clicks his pen a few too many times when he fills out the forms she passes him.
"So you're telling me that it just fell out of a moving car?" She ignores his attempt of a smile and asks, voice flat, as she skims over the official documents Wes hands her in a trade.
He nods, "yeah, just opened the door and fell out. Must have been something wrong with the… wiring, or something."
She doesn't buy his bullshit and he doesn't care less.
But he is still relieved when she merely gives him a shrug and gestures him pass another pile of spare parts. "Whatever, I never liked those mass produced things anyway. You would think that the newest model would be great but they just have no character… Lucky you though, Detective, you're getting something special today."
"…oh, lucky me." He echoes back at her, feeling the start of a headache already at the base of his skull. She brings him around another controlled mess and stops abruptly.
What follows is something he isn't sure he can forget when the sound of the zipper unravelling is so loud. Or when the sound of the Synthetic waking up is even louder.
"Meet Travis, Detective Mitchell."
Kendall smiles just as the TRVS opens its eyes for the first time in years.
000
Wes doesn't know about their histories but he does know the TRVS is a discontinued line of Synthetics. He doesn't know exactly what went wrong, but he can probably guess at the way Travis is poking at his radio buttons.
Because god, are they irritating.
"Quit doing that!" He snaps and slaps the offending fingers away with one hand and grips the steering wheel just that much tighter with his other. Wes watches with half a mind as the TRVS sinks down in its seat and gestures at the air with its hands like it is the kind of person that talks with their hands.
"But you like jazz."
Wes refuses to acknowledge that to be a mildly valid insult.
"My car, my opinions." Wes takes the next exit and pulls off of the highway. "When you get your own car, you can choose what we listen to."
He doesn't bite his tongue but it comes close. Because when he doesn't think about it, he can brush it off. But when he does, there's a lot of thing in those two sentences that doesn't make sense coming off of Wesley Mitchell's tongue.
"Synthetic, off."
"…I don't like that word."
"What? Synthetic?" Wes wants to laugh, something cruel and unexpected, and it is just his luck to be stuck with the android with just as many issues as himself.
"Yeah, that." The TRVS turns to face the windows and that desire Wes has to laugh at the robot in front of him has disappeared faster than he ever thought possible. "I have a name, Detective."
So Wes being Wes, he deliberately doesn't think about the slight warmth in the fingertips he slaps away, or the way the android is sinking further into its seat like it is capable of feeling sad. But it is also Wes' disbelief in how a robot can make an insult sound like an opinion that he hasn't opened the car door on the passenger's seat and kicked the Synthetic out.
000
"Detective Mitchell—" Travis starts.
"Wes." He corrects, like it's second nature, like anyone else aside from their Captain and his ex-wife cares.
"…What's that short for?"
"Didn't you read my file?"
"Of course, I did."
"Then why are you asking?"
"Because I want to hear you say Wesley."
Wes doesn't look to his passenger seat, he doesn't need to, he can hear the smirk over Travis' lips (because the Synthetic has a personality, the kind that grates in all the wrong places).
But when they fit, they fit perfectly.
000
Their first case together ends up being plastered in the newspaper as the Gentleman Caller Serial Killer. And while it is a win, there is still one too many working girls that have finally turned up dead. It smells like decay, and it is also the final clue they needed to bring the murderer to justice.
Wes doesn't look away when they find all the missing girls in one giant pit on the outskirts of Los Angeles.
But Travis does.
(Wes isn't impartial to seeing dead girls dumped like garbage but he can bring himself to be objective, looking only at the bodies as evidence to point him in the right direction. He pretends this doesn't remind him of all those homicide cases he has worked alongside of Paekman before he ended up in a coma.
He thinks he can understand what might be going through Travis' system though, but only partially, because he has always been terrible at being human.)
But being human leaves a lot to be desired.
At least that's what the TRVS seem to be saying without repeating the exact words when he turns away from the bodies to look at Wes.
000
The paperwork that follows every case is tedious but necessary. And Wes understands that. It doesn't make him hate it any less. But there is one thing he hates more and that is when Travis stands by his desk, hovering just behind him, like he is waiting for a command or something just as insulting.
Wes lets out a snarl, and spins his chair around.
Travis looks down with a raised eyebrow, the corner of his mouth threatening to tilt into the beginning of a smile. Wes bites down on another infuriating rush of frustration, like how he managed to get himself saddled with a robot with a personality, and stands up on a whim.
He takes a hold of the TRVS' sleeve, how Travis manages to wear a worn leather jacket into work is beyond him, and bodily drags him over to the adjacent desk. Wes pushes him into the chair and stalks back to his own desk in an annoyed huff.
He pointedly doesn't look at the other. It isn't until he finishes his last report does he glances over. Travis doesn't look taken back, not in the sense of how other people would appear to look, but he does seem pleased when he runs his hands over the top of his desk.
"Want to get lunch, Wes?"
"You don't even eat."
"Aren't you lucky then?" Travis grins, standing up and giving a stretch like he needs one, like the sliver of dark skin from where his shirt rides up is something real. "You get to pick where we go."
000
Wes doesn't stop looking for Alex.
He also doesn't stop investigating the death of his ex-partner, Paekman.
He doesn't know if Travis figures it out, but the TRVS hasn't tried to stop him, so he keeps going.
000
Call Wes old fashion but he likes cars with four wheels that actually touch the ground. So he will fix up classic cars in his driveway and water his lawn when he gets home, when he isn't busy chasing all the dead ends he has stumbled into during his off-the-books investigations. And when the weather doesn't permit, Wes stays in the office later than necessary until even the Captain leaves and Travis' insistent on and off staring, broken only by talking, has worn him out.
He goes home to his and Alex's house, falls asleep in the dark and vows not to think about anything else, until the next day.
Wes doesn't know what Travis does in his off hours. He might wonder, but he isn't about to ask because that's just the way it works between them.
000
Cap gives them cases, one after another.
And Wes watches as Travis' smile gets wider.
"You enjoy this."
Wes states, clicking his pen, a one-two, one-two, one-two that has to be repeated exactly three times. Travis doesn't blink at the sounds, too used to Wes' ways, his smile only gets vicious. The kind that Wes recognizes as the prelude to an argument.
Because if Travis is annoying when he has only been awake for five minutes, he is downright aggravating when his true personality shines through the layers of synthetic skin and the messed up wiring underneath.
"Don't deny it, I make a great detective. Only reason why you're solving these cases so fast is because of me, Wes."
His partner of a TRVS even gives him a wink before he opens up the next case file that Captain Sutton has just sent them.
"Travis." He bites out in warning but the android isn't listening, when is he really, because he is passing over his touchpad with their latest case, of a John Doe that appears to have overdosed and then stabbed with a Scouts knife.
Wes scoffs at the irony before heading for the doors, knowing Travis isn't far behind.
000
They argue, Travis over Wes' methods and Wes over Travis', but they both agree that it can't be the brother when no one else thinks so. And they almost even manage to get themselves kicked off their case. But they cuff the right man in the end, and.
(It wasn't the brother.)
000
The first case they are both addressed as Detectives when they are interviewing a suspect, Travis is wearing suit because of an awful competitive streak that, Wes finds, to be a trait they both share.
In Wes' eyes, he doesn't look any different.
But neither does Travis' smile when their suspect calls them both Detectives, like he doesn't know Travis is a Synthetic, like he doesn't know every cop must partner with a Synthetic by mandate. Actually, he probably doesn't.
The suspect thinks dressing up as a human-sized hot dog is the greatest gig he will get in life. (He probably isn't wrong about that though.)
Travis' smile doesn't look any different when they turn to go but Wes may be insane because there is just something in his ridiculously blue eyes that makes him seem human.
000
He doesn't know how he gets talked into this.
(Or how the one of the two that doesn't actually need to eat ends up choosing what they end up eating.)
But he is sitting at a food stand, after working hours, with Travis, barely two feet away from the rain. He has a napkin in one hand, a fork in the other, and he is halfway through his plate of chicken parm before Travis feels it's apt to ruin the evening.
"You are looking into SIS."
"I don't think that has anything to do with you, Travis."
He pushes his plate away, his entire posture stiffening, like he is expecting an incoming blow. Travis only drops his shoulders lower like he is still struggling with some kind of decision Wes doesn't know about.
"I should advise you to stop and, stuff." Travis breathes in, like he needs to, before continuing, "…but I found something I think you should see."
Wes opens the file and the picture isn't one he has seen. Though, it is of the things he has seen before, both in files he has reviewed a thousand times over, and once when he has lived through it all but lost his entire team for it.
The photograph is not grainy, he sees the familiar broken formation. He sees his team's blood and the Synthetics that have refused to save Paekman because it would do more harm than good. It is a surveillance photo taken from an angle Wes doesn't know was on record with this case.
And in the top right corner he sees a woman standing at the edge of the building, at a vantage point no member of his team could possibly make out from the ground.
He sees Alex.
000
(At least now Wes knows one thing that Travis does in his off hours.)
XXX Kuro
It is open ended because I fail at plot, maybe I will continue this when the show actually airs. But probably not.