Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Let me be your armor, let me be your shield
Let me take away the pain you feel.”
—Assemblage 23, “Let Me Be Your Armor”

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“I saw what you did there,” Wes says without looking away from the stoplight ahead.

Travis curses and dives for the floor, for once using the napkins Wes always shoves at him. “It’s not that much, really,” he says, picking the biggest crumbs up. “When we stop I promise I’ll shake out the floor mat and get the rest.”

“What?” Wes glances over with a frown, then waves a hand. “Oh, no, that’s not what I meant. But you will get those crumbs out of my car.”

“I already said I would, didn’t I?” Travis snaps, twisting the napkin so the crumbs won’t fall out and shoving it in his cup holder. Crisis averted for the moment, he goes back to his cookie. “So wha’re you talking about?” he asks round a mouthful of chocolate chips.

“Every time,” Wes grumbles, “must you talk with your mouth full every time?”

Travis will never admit he does it because it’s funny to see Wes’s face get all scrunched up and annoyed. Annoyed face received, he swallows and repeats, “What are you talking about?”

Wes keeps his eyes on the road and doesn’t look at Travis. “I saw what you did there. At Kendall’s office.”

Travis takes a second to think about it. “…which part?”

“At the beginning.” The demon’s hands tighten on the steering wheel, and his eyes flicker-flash black. “You stood in front of me.”

The thing is, they’ve been partners long enough Travis knows most of Wes’s tics now, and that little flicker-flash of his eyes generally means Wes is annoyed. Not face-scrunched-up annoyed, but like, seriously cheesed off. Only Travis can’t imagine why.

“Yes?” he says, and takes another bite from his cookie.

Wes squeezes the steering wheel again. “You did it the other day, too. When we went to talk to those guys in Vice. And last week, when we met those detectives from across town.”

Travis chews thoughtfully, thinking back. “Okay.” He’s still not seeing the problem here, or why Wes is so annoyed. “And?”

Another little flicker-flash of Wes’s eyes, and Travis is starting to get a bit worried about the integrity of the steering wheel. “And you should stop. I don’t need your protection.”

“Okay, one, everyone needs protection sometimes, and two, I’m totally not gonna stop.”

“It’s not your job, Travis.”

Travis sits up, outraged, the remains of his cookie momentarily forgotten. “Are you saying it’s your job to stand in front of me all the time? Because that is not what I signed up for.”

“I can take it a lot better than you can,” Wes retorts.

“Bullets, sure, and I’ll let you stand in front of as many of those as you’d like.” Travis waves a hand. “But the little stuff? Holy water and salt? I can take that a lot better than you can.”

“There wasn’t ever a threat,” Wes snaps, glaring at Travis briefly before turning his eyes back to the road.

Travis just rolls his eyes. “Look at me, masterfully not bringing up how your overprotective ass gets in front of me without verification of a threat.” He takes a breath, tries to see this from Wes’s point of view, tries to figure out why Wes is so ticked off right now. Which, admittedly, is not the easiest thing in the world—he’s gotten good at predicting Wes, sometimes, but Wes is a demon and his thought process is way outside Travis’s realm.

Maybe he’s just pissed because his squishy human is standing in front of him, instead of the other way around. Putting himself in harm’s way, and Wes doesn’t appreciate that, even if the harm is minimal.

And then Travis realizes that’s exactly it, except the real problem isn’t that Travis is protecting Wes, it’s the why.

“Wes,” he says slowly, twisting in his seat to face his partner. “You’re my partner.”

Wes’s eyes glance at him, that black fog sweeping momentarily across his sclera, flicker-flash. “I know that, idiot.”

Except Travis doesn’t think Wes does, not really, not in all the ways it counts. Sometimes Travis can’t help but be amazed that for all the things Wes thinks he knows about humanity, there’s always still something simple, something basic that he needs to learn.

“Wes,” he says again. “Being partners doesn’t mean I use you as my shield all the time. It means I’m your shield sometimes too. It means we’ve got each other’s back. And maybe I’m not so great out in the field, I’m not as great at taking bullets as you are. But I can protect you in other ways.”

Like standing in front of a water pistol that, admittedly, only had tap water in it, but could have been full of holy water. Or putting himself between Wes and new people, people Travis can’t guarantee aren’t assholes.

“Paekman hated you before he ever met you,” Travis points out. “Gave me all these tips and trinkets that were supposed to protect me from you. There are a lot of people out there like that, Wes. People who are gonna hate you just because you’re a demon, without taking anything else into consideration. If I can stand between you and them, I’m gonna.”

Wes mulls this over for a few minutes, long enough that Travis returns his attention to his cookie and finishes the whole thing off. Man, that was a good cookie. He should have grabbed another one.

“I don’t like it,” Wes finally says, with a stubborn jut to his jaw.

Travis rolls his eyes. “Well, I don’t like you jumping in front of every bullet that comes near me, but I have to live with it and so do you.”

“I’m basically bulletproof, Travis.”

“Still doesn’t mean I like it.” Because there’s always that split second, when he sees the bullets slam into Wes, where Travis forgets, a heart-stopping moment when he waits for his partner to fall and not get up again. And no matter what Wes does to remind Travis he’s not human, no matter how many times it happens, Travis still expects it.

He’s just never bothered to say anything because it’s not like Wes is just going to stop throwing himself in front of bullets for Travis. And maybe Travis can’t do the same, maybe Wes won’t ever let him go that far, but he can damn well stand in front of a water pistol.

“You’re my partner, babe,” he says, cheerily rooting through Wes’s glovebox in search of more snacks. “I got your back. You just gotta live with it.”

“Hmph,” Wes grumbles, glaring out the window, but he’s got his thoughtful face on, and Travis grins to himself.

Wes may not really understand it now, but he’ll get it eventually. Travis will make sure of that.