Summary: Five times Travis ended up at the hospital, and one time it was Wes. Oneshot.
Warnings: Set pre-series, pre-divorce. Non-descriptive acts of violence and injury.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters or ideas associated with Common Law. If I did, I would have made a second season, that's for sure.
I wanted to get back on the writing horse, and this plot bunny hit me all at once. I ended up writing it in two sittings during my sister's graduation ceremony. Also, I love 5+1 formats.
Edited and beta'd only by myself.
OOOO
AMA (Against Medical Advice)
"The most frequent lie in a hospital: it won't hurt."
-Gerhard Kocher
1. Motorcycle
"I told you that damn motorcycle was going to kill you someday."
A smile crosses Travis's face, and he hops to his feet. Well, as much as he can 'hop' anywhere with his entire left leg in a brace and swaddled in bandages and antibiotic cream.
"Wes! You came! Do you have my pants?"
The blond steps into the room, holding out a pair of baggy grey sweatpants. "Yes, I came. Since when am I your emergency contact?"
"Since that time I threw up in your car and you only yelled at me twice for it." Travis guides his feet into the pants and up his ankles; it takes a bit of twisting and no end of pain, since he can't really bend his left leg, but he gets it done. The pain he can deal with if it means getting pants on and getting out of here. "That's when I knew you really cared."
Wes looks unimpressed with this logic. "Are you sure you should be leaving now? That's an awful lot of bandages."
"Could have been worse," Travis says cheerfully, easing the pants over the brace on his knee.
"You wrenched your knee and scraped the top few layers of dermis right off. You could have easily cracked your skull open," the doctor says, bustling into the room. She takes in the scene, frowns at the sweatpants, and makes a note. "I see you're still intent on checking out AMA."
"What?" Wes turns on Travis, wearing his What do you think you're doing right now Travis face. "Why are you checking out against medical advice?"
"Because I don't need to be here." Pants on, Travis makes a valiant attempt to hop towards the door and freedom, sweet, glorious freedom.
Wes unerringly catches him and pushes him back to the bed.
"We-e-es," Travis whines, drawing it out because it's never not funny to see Wes's face twitch like that. "They've done all they can do. They only want me here for observation. Observe. I'm fine." He holds out his arms to demonstrate.
Wes looks at the doctor. "Is that true?"
The doctor sighs. "Technically, yes. But the risk of infection—"
"Wes can take care of that," Travis volunteers eagerly. "Wes loves avoiding infection. It's one of his life goals."
"It is not," Wes hisses, utterly uncharmed by Travis's beseeching gaze.
Another sigh leaves the doctor. "As long as he understands the risk, I can't actually keep him here." She looks at Wes. "You're the partner, then."
"Yes," Wes says, and Travis grins. Wes is worried/upset/annoyed enough that he doesn't even clarify they're police partners. The correct insinuations cross the doctor's face, and Travis bites back a snicker. Don't want to give up the game too soon. It's always hilarious to watch Wes's face go red when he realizes.
"Alright, then, let me tell you what you need to know, since my patient certainly won't listen…" The doctor leads Wes into the hall, and their voices fade to a murmur.
"Get me some coffee, Wes!" Travis calls, which gets him the bird in response. Travis just laughs and leans back on his hands, waiting for Wes to finish up so he can get a ride home.
XXXX
2. Crowbar
"How are you doing?"
Travis looks up with a grin. "I'm doing great. I feel fantastic. Check this out." He taps his right wrist against the bed rail, and the cast clangs dully. "Hardly even hurts. They've got me on the good stuff."
Wes chuckles a little and moves into the room. "Well. As long as you're on the good stuff, it's all better."
"Heck yeah, it's all good. We should legalize this stuff. The world would be mellow and nobody would ever commit crime again."
"Yes, but then we'd be out of a job," Wes says, shuffling on his feet by the bed.
"But this stuff would make it better." Travis gives his partner a huge grin. It takes him longer than it should to realize that Wes's answering grin is half-hearted at best. To be fair, they're really good drugs.
"You're upset," he observes.
"No I'm not," Wes denies in the most unconvincing voice ever.
"You are." Travis leans forward a little and squints, trying to determine what's wrong with Wes. "You're wearing your guilty face."
"I don't have a guilty face." Mildly offended is better than upset and guilty. It's encouraging.
"Do too." Travis pats the bed beside him in invitation. "It's not one I see a lot, so I can understand why you'd have trouble recognizing it, but that is definitely your guilty face."
With a sigh, Wes sinks onto the bed. "I'm sorry," he says, which is not exactly what Travis was expecting, but is not altogether unsurprising.
"For what?"
"For this." Wes waves his hand at Travis's arm and doesn't quite look at Travis's face.
"This?" Lifting the cast and laughing only gets him an annoyed glower. "Wes, this isn't your fault. Also, I've had worse."
Wes laces his fingers together and looks down at his hands. He's turned his guilty face up another level. Or maybe it's the pain killers messing with his vision. Either or.
"If I'd been watching your back the way I should have…"
"That's stupid." It's a little gratifying to see Wes look so completely flabbergasted. Travis can't get that reaction very often. "The guy snuck up on me. You gave me enough warning to get my arm up." He raises his case in demonstration, blocking his face with his arm. "Which would you rather I have? Crowbar to the arm, or crowbar to the face?"
Wes is quiet for a moment. Then he gives a feeble attempt at a smirk. "I don't know. It might have been an improvement."
"This face has charmed countless women, asshole. No improvement needed." Travis nudges Wes with his shoulder. "Seriously, man, I'm fine. But if you really feel that guilty, you can write my reports until the cast comes off."
Wes snorts, sounding like himself for the first time since walking in. "Yeah. No. Keep dreaming." He relaxes, losing some of the guilt and pushing playfully back into Travis's shoulder. "Though, maybe just one report. Since your writing hand is broken, and all."
"That works too." Travis grins at his partner, feeling perfectly fine.
Yeah. It's all good.
That could just be the painkillers talking, though.
XXXX
3. Virus
"You're an idiot."
Travis licks parched lips and squints at the doorway. Wes looms, arms crossed and a scowl on his face. He's too far away for Travis to determine exactly what particular flavor of Wesley Mitchell Scowl (TM) he's being treated to today, but judging by the acid in Wes's voice, it's a doozy.
He licks his lips again and says intelligently, "Whu?"
Wes sighs and enters the room, grabbing a pitcher of water and a paper cup. He settles in the chair besides the bed and pours a cup, and Travis is too busy sucking down sweet liquid relief to say just how much he loves his partner.
Up close, Wes looks horrible. His suit is wrinkled, and he's clearly worn that shirt for at least two days. The gel has long since worn away, but it looks like Wes has run his fingers through his hair, over and over and over again until it's sticking up on its own. As Wes passes another cup of water to him, Travis sees a mysterious orange stain on his cuff, which in other circumstances would be taken care of immediately.
On anyone else, the look would be classified as 'slightly rumpled'. On Wes, that's a sign of the apocalypse, pretty much.
Travis takes his care sipping the second glass of water, letting it sit in his mouth and savoring it. "Who died?" he croaks. Who knew water could taste so good.
He is unprepared for the way Wes's face goes from weary worry to rage in a second.
"You almost died, you idiotic asshole. If you're sick, you tell someone, you don't swallow a few aspirin and hope it goes away."
"Uh…" Travis blinks at his partner. "I honestly have no idea what you're talking about." He's not sure why he's in the hospital. In fact, the last few days are pretty fuzzy. So yeah, pretty sure he has no idea why Wes is mad.
Wes leans forward. The look in his eyes is rather terrifying. "Do you know how long you've been here?"
"No." Judging by Wes's face, that wasn't the right answer.
"Two days. Do you know why you're here?"
"…No?"
Wes manages to loom while sitting down. "You didn't show up for work." Travis is alarmed by the white-knuckled grip Wes has on the arms of his chair. "I went to get you, and what do I find? You. Collapsed in your bathroom. Sweating and shivering, at once, vomit all over the place, it was a mess. I thought you were having a seizure or something." With effort, Wes forces his hands from his chair. It looks like it hurts. "When you were admitted, you had a fever of 104.3 degrees." He levels that glare at Travis again and still looks like he's about to blow a gasket. "I'm pretty sure 105 is when brains start cooking."
Travis feigns a sip out of his empty cup to stall for time. If he could come up with something witty and Travis-like to assure Wes that he's fine…
He's got nothing. He settles with a simple, "I'm sorry, Wes."
Like a popped balloon, Wes collapses all at once, the anger washing away only because Wes is too tired to keep it up. "Don't do that again." He slumps in his chair, drooping so much his upper body is practically laying on the mattress. "Don't you ever do that to me again. Tell me when you get sick."
Travis sets the empty cup aside, resting his hand on Wes's hair for as much comfort as he can give. The locks are soft, gel-less, and definitely in need of a shower, which shows just how out of sorts Wes was. "Did you even go home?"
"No," Wes grumbles, slumping completely and pillowing his head on his arms.
"You could have gotten a change of clothes and a shower, at least. It wasn't like I was complaining."
Wes sounds like that never even crossed his mind, and he's offended that Travis thought of it. "You were sick."
Maybe it actually didn't cross his mind. Travis knows he probably wouldn't have left if Wes were the one in the hospital bed.
Travis is flattered.
He pets Wes's hair again. "I'm alright now. I feel way better. You can go home if you want to."
"Can't. You're sick, you idiot."
And Travis knows Wes is a stubborn bastard who won't go home until the doctor comes in and pronounces Travis healed (or, at least, mostly healed). So he just huffs a quiet laugh through his nose and pats Wes's shoulder. "Alright. Then take a nap, at least. I'll wake you if I need you."
Wes sighs, the last bit of tension easing out of his shoulders. Travis swears he hears a muffled, "You idiot," right before the blond's breathing evens out.
Travis smiles fondly at the top of Wes's head and lets his hand linger.
XXXX
4. Window
"Ow! Ow ow ow ow!"
"Travis, stop being a baby." Wes doesn't even look up from where he's perusing the How To Avoid Influenza pamphlet he grabbed on the way in.
Travis scowls over his arms at his partner. "You try having a thousand pieces of glass dug out of your back so I can tell you to stop being a baby. It hurts!"
Another chunk of bloody glass drops into the metal tray, to join its painful little friends.
"Well, if you'd avoided getting defenestrated by the suspect, we wouldn't be here." Wes sounds so matter-of-fact. It's incredibly annoying.
"How is this my fault? I totally didn't get defensed or whatever."
Wes flips to the next part of the pamphlet and doesn't look up. "It means 'to throw someone out a window'."
Travis lifts his head, ignoring the pain as glass grinds in the skin of his neck. "Bullshit. They do not have a word for that."
"They do." Wes frowns down at the pamphlet, probably mentally planning some major life change to avoid the next strain of influenza. "The word is 'defenestration'. Unlike some of us, I don't make up words for kicks."
The nurse hisses an admonishment and pushes Travis's head back down, and a pair of tweezers digs all the way to his kidney. "Ow! Are you digging for gold back there?"
"Stop being a baby."
"It hurts." Travis directs his best glare at Wes. If his partner was even remotely facing him, it would be super effective. Or not. Wes is fairly immune to any and all of Travis's myriad looks. It comes from knowing him so well.
"Suck it up."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. See if I show you any sympathy next time you get hurt. Jesus, are you dipping those things in lava?" Travis twists to direct his glare at the nurse. She glowers at him and pushes his head back down. He sighs and drops his face into his folded arms.
"So how is this my fault?" he grumbles, words muffled.
"You should have gotten out of the way. If you weren't defenestrated in the first place, you wouldn't be here."
"Okay, first, I'm still not convinced that's a real word. Second, you try diving out of the way of a three-hundred pound juggernaut in a rather narrow hallway. Third, you're an ass."
"Uh-huh. You keep telling yourself that." Wes folds the pamphlet shut and slips it into his pocket. "How's he doing?"
"He'll survive with nothing more than a dozen or so stitches," the nurse says dryly, dropping yet another chunk of glass into the tray. "Though if he keeps whining, I can't guarantee his continued survival. I don't think I can be held accountable for my actions."
Wes snorts. "Believe me, I totally understand. He has that effect on people." He shifts in his seat and pulls out another pamphlet. "Since we're going to be here for a while, because you are an idiot, I grabbed this for you."
Travis lifts his head enough to peer at the glossy paper in Wes's hands.
How To Avoid Sexually Transmitted Diseases.
He drops his head with a groan.
XXXX
5. Ladder
"Wes, I'm fine," Travis protests. The way he doesn't try to break free as Wes drags him into the emergency room suggests that he may be lying.
"Sure you are," Wes grumbles, pulling Travis to a stop. "That's what you said twenty minutes ago. Let's see, has anything changed?" He pulls the sodden dishcloth away from Travis's head and stares at it for all of half a second. "Huh, fancy that. You're still bleeding. You're getting stitches." He starts moving again.
Travis stumbles after –not like he has much choice, way Wes is yanking him around. So maybe he's a little lightheaded and maybe that was an awful lot of blood on that dishcloth but he's totally fine.
"I'm fine."
Wes just snorts derisively and drags Travis to the desk.
The nurse looks up, eyes widening. Possibly because of the blood soaked into the dishcloth. It's an impressive amount of blood.
"What happened?" If she is in fact impressed by the copious amount of blood gushing out of Travis's head, none of it shows in her voice, which is all brisk professionalism.
"This idiot fell off the roof."
"Not my fault," Travis grumbles. The nurse and his partner both ignore him.
The nurse makes a note on the page in front of her. "What was he doing on the roof?"
"He was helping me clean the gutters." Wes repositions the dishcloth, pressing down with more force than strictly necessary. Travis hisses and tries to get away. Wes holds his head in place and glares Travis into submission.
"Apparently, there was a bird's nest," Wes continues. "And instead of moving the ladder like any sane person, Travis decided to climb onto the roof to get it."
"Where he fell off," the nurse finished, making another note on her clipboard. There is just a teeny weeny hint of Wes's You're such an idiot Travis you should have just moved the stupid ladder you dumbass tone in her voice. "How long ago?"
"About thirty minutes." Wes gives Travis another glare. "He said he was fine, but the bleeding won't stop."
That maybe explains the way the room keeps spinning under Travis's feet if he moves too quickly. And maybe why the dishcloth feels all wet on his forehead. Wet with blood.
Travis giggles.
The nurse looks mildly alarmed and stands, gesturing for them to follow her back. "I'll get someone over here right away to stitch that up," she said once they're settled, pulling the drapes closed.
Travis slumps and rubs his chin on Wes's shoulder. It's comforting. It also has the added benefit of smearing blood on Wes's grungy cleaning-the-gutter shirt, and Travis snickers at Wes's disgusted face.
"I deserve a raise," Wes grumbles in his Why do I keep putting up with you voice. But his eyebrows aren't angled at that I'm so pissed at your shenanigans slant and his mouth is more I wish you would stop worrying me than I want to punch you in the face.
It says something that Travis can read Wes so well even when he's lost so much blood.
Luckily, he's lost a ton of blood and can justify not thinking about it now or ever.
"Not on the job now," Travis says, nuzzling again and smearing more blood. Wes pushes his head away.
"Then I deserve overtime," Wes grumps, pressing the dishcloth down again until Travis hisses. "Taking care of you is a twenty-four/seven job."
Travis laughs a little. "I'll make it up to you, next time you need to go to the hospital, 'kay?"
Wes snorts, and Travis is unreasonably reassured by the confidence in Wes's voice when he says, "I never go to the hospital. You're the one who gets injured all the time."
The doctor bustles in before Travis can say, Keep it that way.
XXXX
6. Bullet
"How long have you been here?"
Travis snorts awake, groping blindly for his gun and spinning towards the voice. His exhausted feet trip over themselves, and he collapses back in the chair. About the same time, his fingers close on empty air, and he sluggishly recalls that oh, yeah, the captain took his gun when they arrived. Just in case Travis got jumpy.
He hasn't slept since he got here. Jumpy is an understatement.
Alex smiles a broken smile from the doorway.
"How long have you been here?" she asks again, not looking at the bed.
Travis runs a hand over his face and blinks crusty eyes. "What time is it?"
She checks her watch. "A little after nine. AM," she adds, seeing the blank look on Travis's face.
"Right." He smacks his lips, grimacing at the rank taste on his tongue. Like something crawled into his mouth and died. "What day?"
"Tuesday."
"Oh." Travis looks to his left. Frowns. Looks back at Alex. "Then…just a day? Since he got out of surgery." It feels like longer.
She still doesn't look at the bed or the still form lying in it. "You could go home," she says softly.
Travis slumps, running his hand over his face again. He needs coffee. He needs sleep. Possibly both at once. "Needed to be here more. I don't want him to wake up alone."
It's not an accusation. Alex flinches like he made it one.
For the first time, Travis really looks at her. She looks even more exhausted than Travis feels, which is saying a lot. She looks…defeated. Resigned.
Broken.
Travis pushes himself to his feet, holding out his hands to her. "Alex?"
"I can't." She hugs herself and steps away from his embrace, staring out the window. Her eyes are bleak. "I can't, Travis."
The floor lurches beneath his feet. Travis drops his arms and stares at her. "Alex, he's fine. They got the bullet out, there's no infection or risk. He's out of the woods. Now we're just waiting for him to wake up."
She clutches her elbows, and Travis flounders when he sees tears in her eyes. "It's not that, Travis. I heard it all from the doctor, so I know…" She swallows and closes her eyes, like she can erase the past few days if she just doesn't look. "It's everything. I can't keep doing this anymore."
"Doing what?"
"He leaves, and every day I wait to get that call, that knock on the door, and I can't—"
"No, Alex." Travis can see where this is going, and his hands come up to ward the words off. If he can keep her from saying it, then it isn't happening. "Alex, don't say that."
There a moment, a single moment where the world stops, waiting with baited breath.
Then she opens her eyes and gives Travis a watery smile that means nothing. "You're right. This isn't the time, and you're not the one I should be having this conversation with." She steps back, out of the doorway and into the hall. She still doesn't look at the bed. "Let me know when he wakes up?"
"Of course," he responds automatically, feeling lost. She manages another empty smile and disappears down the hall. Travis sinks into his chair, blindly reaching out.
He finds his partner's hand and clutches it; he's not sure if he's trying to draw strength or impart it.
"This is going to kill you," he whispers to the still form.
Wes doesn't answer. The room is silent apart from the beep of the heart monitor and the slow, steady breaths of the man in the bed.
OOOO
I really do like Alex. However, I am under the impression that she left Wes because he got shot, which…may or may not actually be canon. If it is, then it couldn't have been easy for her. Please don't hate her too much.
Any reviews or constructive criticism is always welcomed.
Until next time~