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It wasn't that he disliked Morse Jakes thought somewhere between his first and third cigarette, smoke curling around him like a pungent angry cloud. It was just that – Christ, it was just that Morse was Morse. All long limbs and sharp lines, brain so pointy it could cut them all to ribbons if they weren't careful, and he couldn't afford that sort of thing – that sort of focus – around him.
Not without consequences. Dire and unavoidable consequences, ones he wasn't willing to face. Not if he wanted to keep his job. Not if he wanted to keep his promotion and have the boys down at the nick ever bloody speak to him again and not around him like they sometimes did with Morse.
He might not be an Oxford boy, full to bursting with academia know-how, but he'd worked that out well enough on his own. Had seen it firsthand a time or two, even, over the years since he'd joined up, watched it play out in front of him like some sort of bloody awful nightmare come to life. Everyone had at some point, even if they didn't want to acknowledge it, and the thought of losing any of that – his job, his promotion, or even the shared fags and jokes and throwaway pints down the pub with some of the other lads – well, it wasn't worth it.
He'd worked far too long and far too hard to throw it all away for an awkward bloke with pretty eyes and a mind so quick he sometimes wondered if it ever bloody stopped. Wondered if Morse – Endeavour – ever got tired of the damn thing churning and chugging away inside his skull, beating at him until he found the solution to whatever problem facing him – them – that day.
Jakes would have, were he to have the same kind of smarts, and that made him wonder even further: did Morse ever do something – anything – to make the damn thing stop? Did he drown himself in pints sometimes? Smoke illicit fags when nobody was looking? Find someone down the pub or public library or wherever the hell blokes like him went and just – just lost himself in the warm press of skin on skin like Jakes did from time to time?
It was strange to think about that: Endeavour Morse, modern day Sherlock bloody Holmes, doing anything as pedestrian as having a good long hard shag at the end of a trying day. Tosser probably went home and wanked to sonnets or something equally as scholarly. Not that he was in any place to judge.
His one-night stands followed him as thickly as the cloud of cigarette smoke that usually trailed behind him. Not that anyone knew exactly or would ever know. He'd made a point of being discreet about it, even if he did edit out the important bits when the lads got together. Like the fact that it wasn't a bird who'd given him the love bite on his neck or the scratches on his back.
And that was all right as far as he was concerned. None of them, the fidgety lads with quick dirty hands and warm agile tongues that he usually went with after a hard day ever lasted more than one night or, sometimes, even a few hours; just long enough for a quick furtive shag in a dirty alley behind a shitty pub or a sticky public convenience the other side of town where he wouldn't be recognized as a copper of any kind.
Even so, though, who he had a bit of tumble with or how long they lasted was hardly the point. The point was that they helped him shut things off for a while. Helped him distance himself from the worst aspects of his job when the quick cash from the papers wasn't enough or the cases they worked were too horrifying.
Which brought him back to wondering about Morse. Did the man have the same kind of safety net around him for when his big brilliant mind tried to swallow him whole? Did he even bloody know he could have one?
Not that it mattered to Jakes – or shouldn't have anyway – because Morse was off limits to him and his wondering thoughts in a big way. Bigger even than some of the other willing lads at the nick who wouldn't have said 'no' to a quick and friendly tumble just to relieve stress after a long day. Not that he'd ever take them up on that.
He might've once upon a time, back when he was on general duties and no one, not even Inspector Thursday, would have given him a twice over for it. But things were different now. He'd been punted up in the world after his sergeants' exam.
No longer was he just one of the lads and he couldn't do the things he once might have done. Couldn't take the chances he once had. There were certain lines in the sand now, ones that had been drawn with a heavy and knowing hand, and he wasn't going to cross a damn one of them if he could help it. Not for tantamount to a mutual wank session in a disused loo in the basement of the station.
All the same though – god, all the same Jakes couldn't help but occasionally wonder about crossing one or two of those lines and tumbling into that disused bathroom with someone like Endeavour Morse. How much would it take to get that brilliant maddening mind to shut down for a while? Not a lot he thought.
Morse didn't strike him as the type to be able to handle much in the way of stimulation. Bloke was wound tighter than a bloody steel-trap and twice as dangerous to play with. Not that he ever would, Jakes told himself firmly, heel crushing down on what was left of his fourth and final cigarette.
He'd never do anything with Morse. Work with him, of course. Take the piss out on him every chance he bloody got, naturally. But never anything more than that, even if he wanted to, because Morse wasn't worth it. Not by a long shot.
At least, that's what he'd keep telling himself, every single bloody day if he had to, until he really did believe it.
END