Harder to Breathe (Common Law Fanfic)

Okay so you’re thinking, “Wait, what?  The subject line says fanfic?  What the hell?  Yeah, well, I’ve got to admit that, honestly, I’m thinking the same thing.  However, it was fun to dabble this one time.

If you’ve never seen/heard of the show, you can find out more about it here. 

If you’re living under a rock and haven’t a clue as to where I got this title from, you can find the video here.

And now the breakdown:

Title: Harder to Breathe

Fandom: Common Law

Pairing: Travis/Wes

Rating: NC-17

Word Count: a plump 2k (a little over 2,100 if you really need to know)

Warnings: Language, Bumpless grind, Crack head author

Sorta-Kinda Beta: Skye.  Thank you for laughing at me.  That must mean this is okay, right?

Spoilers: None that I can think of offhand, but you now officially know that I’m a dork of epic proportions

Hate mail: asphaltcowgrrl@aol.com

Author’s Note: All because of this prompt here. I hate you. But I don’t, not really. But I do have to wonder what’s wrong with me now. Title from a song by the same name by Maroon 5. It’s my newest obsession, this song. And it fits.

---

Harder to Breathe

He watched silently as the two uniforms cuffed and manhandled the suspect into the back of the cruiser. "Love potions," Wes scoffed. "Seriously." Shaking his head, he wandered off to find his partner. In all his years on planet Earth, never would he have guessed that someone would actually make and sell love potions in the form of colognes and perfumes on the internet. It was only slightly less believable that someone might possibly murder the maker of such items when the potions failed to work as promised. Go figure.

Wes spotted Travis standing a few feet off from the arrest scene, rubbing his neck with the palm of his hand. “Can you believe this guy?” He pointed at the man in question, still unable to get past the facts of this bizarre case. “I mean, who is gullible enough to believe in this kind of thing?”

Travis continued rubbing his throat with one hand, beaming brightly. “Believe in what? That a bottle of whatever can make someone fall for you? Or the murdering of the producer when it doesn’t work? What’s not to believe in? Skeptic.”

Refusing to be baited, he pressed his lips tightly together, watching his partner curiously. “What are you doing?”

“Trying out Dr. GoodLove’s potions.” Travis grinned broadly, knowing Wes’ initial reaction was not going to be good. “Do I smell good yet?”

“What?” Wes raised his hands in mock surrender. “No. Please tell me you’re joking.” With one look at his partner’s goofy grin, he knew that there was no way he was joking. For once. “You’re riding in the backseat for the rest of the day.”

He watched his partner stalk off towards their transportation, his usual grin transforming to a satisfied smirk. “Wait, does this mean I don’t smell good? Wes? Wait up, man!” Laughing, he trotted after him, managing to only just get to his place in the passenger seat before Wes roared off down the road.

They hadn’t made it very far down the street before Wes began tugging at his collar. Travis, ever aware of his partner’s many quirks, picked up on this new one almost immediately. “You okay?”

Wes glared at him with half-squinted eyes. “I’m fine,” he insisted a bit too vehemently, unbuttoning a second button, exposing a larger swath of pale flesh.

Settling back into his seat, Travis sighed. “If you say so, buttercup, but you sure don’t look okay to me.” He absently rubbed his throat with the tips of two fingers, thinking. “Hey Wes, ya think…”

“No, Travis, I do not think that that absurd love potion cologne thing is having any affect at all. It’s the unseasonable heat getting to me. It’s getting hard to breathe with all this weird humidity in the air.”

Travis’ tongue poked out of his mouth, cruising the length of his bottom lip. “If you say so, Wes.”

“I do, now drop it and let me drive. Where are we headed again?” He only half listened as Travis recited the address of their next stop before heading back to the precinct.

The disturbing truth was Wes couldn’t deny it. Something had a hold of him and was refusing to let go. Being near his partner hadn’t ever had this affect on him before and they’d been a lot of sticky situations over the years landing them in much closer quarters than the front seat of his car. Even considering how small cars were these days. So, why now?

Wes glanced over at the passenger seat and watched Travis thoughtfully rubbing his throat. Those long, dark fingers slowly stroking the smooth skin from chin to collar bone and then back up to his chin. Up, down. Up, down. The fingers slid up to his chin, over and rested lightly on his full lips. He’s thinking about something, Wes realized.

“Wes?”

“Hmmm,” he replied, eyes still fixed on his partner’s fingertips.

“Light’s green, pal.”

“Oh.” Then, “OH. Right.” He guiltily shifted the car into gear and drove onward. Oh dear God, he thought frantically, what’s wrong with me? Taking a deep breath to steady his rapidly beating heart, it hit him. Something smelled so good it was distracting him. He sniffed again, tentatively. And that something appeared to be Travis. “It’s those fucking pheromones,” he muttered. A little more loudly, he grunted, “I’ll be damned.”

“Aren’t you already,” Travis teased.

“Huh?” Wes was distracted again. “Aren’t I what already?”

“Damned.”

“I must be, you’re my partner, aren’t you?” That must’ve been the secret, Wes thought suddenly. Inhaling a second time, getting a good, deep breath, he realized he was right. It was Travis and it had to be because of that damned cologne he was playing with at the scene. It certainly wasn’t that eau du frat boy he usually wore. And he smelled so good! Letting out a shuddering breath, Wes took the next turn and pulled into the nearest parking lot, surprising his partner with this detour to a convenient convenience store.

“Uh, Wes? What are you doing? Not that I couldn’t go for a Coke and a Slim Jim right now but…”

“Hey Trav, I think I know why the love cologne didn’t work for that idiot.”

Travis felt like he had whiplash from the sudden shifts in their conversation this afternoon, but he decided to play along for fun. “Okay, I’ll bite. Why?”

Wes pulled into the first spot he found near the side of the building, hidden from both foot traffic and street view. Unbuckling his seatbelt, he fixed his blue eyes on his partner. “The pheromones need contact with the user’s skin to be effective. That loser was wearing enough of that crap – on his clothes – to choke a horse…”

“But he didn’t actually wear any of it,” Travis finished for him. “Brilliant!” And then blanched. Like I am. I slathered that mother-loving crap all over my neck. It certainly did explain a thing or two.

He opened his mouth to relay this thought to Wes, but was too late. Before he could form the words, Wes had turned off the car, climbed over the parking brake and wedged himself between Travis’ legs, pushing on the lever responsible for seat position. When the seat clicked into its furthest back position, Wes did his best to climb into Travis’ lap, hands curling into his partner’s hair, mouth locking onto mouth.

He was shocked for a moment, before giving in with gusto, wrapping an arm around Wes’ middle and using the other to lower the seat back. The sudden drop forward forced a startled laugh out of Wes but didn’t slow his efforts any. His fingers untangled from Travis’ hair and moved to the waist of his jeans, tugging at the t-shirt tucked into them.

“This cologne is making me crazy,” he breathed into the other man’s mouth. “I can’t stop myself and, even if I could, I’m not sure I’d want to.” He succeeded in getting one hand under Travis’ tee, feeling skin on hot skin.

“I can’t say that,” Travis bit back in between kisses, “I’d honestly let you, even if you wanted me to.”

That was all it took. Wes devoured Travis’ mouth with his own, biting, licking and sucking at his lips and teeth and tongue. Travis fought back with his hands and hips, moving and grasping and pulling on his partner. “We really should go some--…”

“There’s no time, I can’t…”

“Fuck it,” Travis growled, grabbing hold of Wes’ hips and thrusting his own upwards as he drew the other’s down against him. “We’ll figure this out, somehow.”

Wes showed his agreement by grinding down onto his partner’s lap, roughly, eliciting a groan of desire out of him. Hard bodies moved against one another, increasing in speed and desperation as the minutes wore on. Travis frantically worked at the buttons on Wes’ shirt, exposing as much skin as he could, just enough to get his teeth into, just once.

He pulled the starched white collar away from his partner’s neck, breaking the kiss and smelling the stretch of bare flesh before him. His clean and no-nonsense scent invaded Travis’ senses, overwhelming him, consuming him. Drawing his tongue along that piece of landscape, he claimed it for himself, tasting the essence of Wes.

A completely and utterly out of control Wes. Something Travis didn’t think had ever existed before this moment in time. And he liked it. He liked it a lot. Especially the way his tongue on salty skin caused his fellow detective to make helpless sounds of surrender. Lightly, he nipped at Wes’ collarbone, relishing the other man’s instinctive thrust forward at the first touch of teeth. A deep rumble of appreciation rolled out of Travis’ chest, muffling the halfhearted protest from the man straddling his lap.

“Like that,” he purred, nipping at pale skin again.

“Trav, don’t,” Wes protested weakly. “Don’t… oh God… don’t mark me. No one can...”

“Shut it,” Travis gently ordered, biting down onto that sweet spot where shoulder met neck. That spot where Wes’ fingers always wandered when he was deep in thought. That spot where the sweat glistened in the sunlight after chasing down a runner. That spot that had always attracted Travis’ unwanted attention at the worst possible times. That spot right there where Trav had his mouth stationed. Wes moaned despite himself and Travis bit harder, evolving that moan to a grunt of satisfaction.

Wes’ hands gripped Travis’ hips, pulling him up and against him, encouraging the behavior he just forbid and not caring. Travis loosened his grip with his teeth and fastened onto Wes’ body with his whole mouth, nipping and sucking. Wes thrust against his partner, his friend, whatever they were becoming, not wanting or caring for anything but relief from the intense, incurable hard on he had.

“Damn it, Trav,” Wes whimpered. “Do it again.”

“Do what, Wes, tell me.” His voice was breathy, strained.

“Bite me.” He licked his lips, the friction between their bodies becoming too much. “Please.”

Travis obliged. He pressed his swollen lips against his partner’s skin once, pulled back to within a breath of touching, swallowed hard, and buried his teeth in the curve of Wes’ neck. He bit and held on, hands tightly gripping Wes’ firm backside as he bucked against him.

“Oh dear God,” Wes groaned, grasping desperately at Travis, pressing his mouth to any available skin he could find, over and over and over again. He ground down harder, meeting every rise and fall of his partner’s hips, unable to get enough body to body contact to satisfy his touch-starved self.

Travis squeezed Wes’ ass as he gave one last, hard bite to that spot he loved so much. With a grunt, Wes shouted, “God, Trav, yeah,” and collapsed, boneless and panting. He peppered the other man’s face and neck with butterfly kisses encouraging him to use his body for what he needed it for. Never one to let an opportunity pass, Travis complied, rocking Wes against him, until his head fell back and his hips jutted forward into Wes one last time. Regretting having let go of the blonde’s neck, Travis bit down on his bottom lip.

“Yeah, baby,” Wes encouraged, giving him a good dose of body contact. “Just like that.”

Travis knew just what he meant. Leaning forward, he closed the gap between them, claiming Wes’ mouth with his own. Holding him against his chest, Travis ground up and into Wes, briefly wondering what it’d be like to have him naked and riding his body just this way. The thought of being pressed fully against his partner’s bare body pushed Travis over the edge. With a cry into his lover’s mouth, he finally found some kind of relief.

Wes pressed a light kiss onto Travis’ mouth before muttering, “Fucking pheromones.”

Travis laughed despite himself. “If you say so, man. But, between you and me?”

Wes raised an eyebrow, waiting for whatever smartass reply Trav had waiting on the tip of his tongue. “Yeah?”

“I think we need to make a pit stop for some um, less sticky clothing.”

The blush that flushed Wes’ face was unexpected and rather adorable, as far as Travis was concerned. “Ya think?” He always got cranky when he was embarrassed.

“Yeah, I do on occasion, although I must admit, this wasn’t one of them.”

“You’re not the only one,” Wes grudgingly admitted, kissing Travis’ face one last time before returning to the driver’s seat. “So um, where were we headed again?”

Travis grinned. “Back to your hotel?” He pulled a face to show Wes he was kidding, but when his partner pulled out of the parking lot and headed in the wrong direction, he wondered if Wes really knew he’d been joking.

Or if he knew and didn’t care.

He supposed he’d find out soon enough.