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words-with-wren · 5 months

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@chrumblr-whumblr day three: Carrying

Fandom: Endeavour. Four and a half years and I am BACK I missed these boys even though they break my heart <3 kinda bad but all of these are. Barely any editing OR even proof reading I'm ready 20 minutes late and posting from my phone woopsies

Word count: 2,170

It was raining. Morse hunched in his coat, squinting bitterly up at the water coming through the trees. The sun hadn’t even started lighting up the area, and the whole morning had an air of misery about it.

“Morning, Matey.” Strange’s greeting was altogether far too cheerful for the early hour of the morning and Morse turned his glare onto the other man. Dimly, he found himself for the first time a little envious of the uniform Strange sported--the hat and coat looked altogether far more suited for the weather than Morse’s own clothing.

Morse just nodded in response, risking a hand from the safety of his pocket to wipe wet hair out of his face.

“You really think we’re going to find something in this?” Jakes joined the two of them, an unlit cigarette between his fingers, looking positively damp. He was holding a torch in his other hand, the light illuminating the falling rain in a narrow beam. Morse found some small vindication that the sargent looked about as miserable as he felt.

His vindication disappeared a moment later when Jakes flashed the light of the torch directly into his eyes for a split second. Morse squinted abruptly, blinking at the momentary blindness. He decided he wasn’t in the mood for a fight and assumed that was an accident.

“If there is anything, we should start looking soon,” Morse muttered. He hunched his shoulders, trying to find some comfort in his soaking coat and staring at a single point while waiting for his eyes to readjust. “The rain’ll wash it away soon.”

“If it hasn’t already,” Jakes muttered. He put the unlit cigarette between his teeth. It sagged disappointingly, wet through. Deserved.

“The doctor said it’d be a knife, ‘bout so large.” Strange held up his hands as he was speaking, indicating a length about five centimetres long. Morse nodded, turning his attention to the woods.

The chances were low that the murder weapon was still in the woods where the body had been found, but DeBryn had said there had been some kind of struggle, and likely not all of the blood found splattered across the scene was the victim’s.

It was possible the weapon was still lying somewhere in the woods. Morse was of the opinion that their efforts could be better spent chasing other leads, but orders were orders and now here he was, standing soaked in the rain.

“Right then,” Jakes said, taking charge of the situation. A few other uniformed officers mingled around and it didn’t take long for a search to be organised, starting from where the body had been found that morning and steadily branching further out.

Morse found himself trudging through the wet forest, mud on the ground sticking uncomfortably at his boots, sweeping his torchlight over the muddy ground. At least he’d thought to pick up some wellys before heading out--his feet were about the only part of him not soaked through.

He scanned the ground as he went, hoping something would come up soon so they could all go and get warm and follow more useful branches of inquiry. The route he was following started drifting steadily downhill, and Morse had to withdraw his hand from his pocket to keep his balance, grabbing onto tree branches and trunks as he went, torch held tight in his other hand.

The mud was slippery and he almost lost his balance more than once, grabbing onto a tree to catch himself. His hair was back in his eyes and he wiped it out of his face again with frustration.

They wouldn’t even be able to get anything useful out of any evidence they found--a murder weapon would be one thing, but after this rain there was no way they’d be able to get any prints off it. This was all a useless waste of time.

Something flashed in the light his torch cast and he paused, one hand resting on a nearby tree trunk. He aimed the beam of the torch towards whatever it was, making out something sliver dangling from the branch of a tree. He stepped forward and suddenly a sharp pain bust through his foot.

He was on the ground before he realised what had happened, face pressed uncomfortably into cold mud. Pain flashed through his foot and he gasped, pushing himself up onto one hand.

Great, now he was wet and muddy. Not to mention his foot was throbbing in a concerning way. He shifted to sit but had to gasp out in pain, vision flashing white as he moved his foot.

He managed to catch himself before he fell back into the mud, but the world twisted and spun around him dizzyingly. HIs torch lay on the ground nearby, a beam of light illuminating the mud in an almost golden hue, sparkling dots of rain flashing through the light.

A root was jutting out of the mud just beside his feet and he glared at it--clearly the culprit that he’d missed in the wet and mud.

He managed to awkwardly shift into a sitting position and retrieve his torch, eyes watering with pain every time he moved his leg. Supporting himself with one hand, he glared at his foot as though that would make it stop hurting.

He wasn’t going to be able to walk on that he realised a moment later. With a groan, he started digging in his pockets with one hand, finally withdrawing the whistle Jakes had given him before they left the station.

He blew sharply on it, automatically blasting out three short bursts, three long, and another three short. Someone would be near enough to hear and come to his aid. While he waited, he turned his torchlight onto the silver thing, still caught in a tree. It looked like some kind of locket, sparkling in his torchlight, and he hoped that whatever picture was in it hadn’t been ruined by the rain. That could be an important clue.

“Morse?” Strange’s voice called from the trees a few paces away, and Morse could make out the flash of his torchlight.

“Over here,” he called. “Twisted my ankle.” His voice carried a note of bitterness as he spoke, trying not to think too hard about how this was going to take a few days to come right again.

Strange appeared through the trees a moment later, still looking positively dry. Morse, sitting propped up against a tree, his leg stretched in front of him, covered in mud and rain, glared up at him.

“You alright, matey?” Strange asked. Morse scowled.

“I will be. Just give me a hand up.” Strange moved towards him but Morse spoke again. “Wait, before you do.” He flashed his torch at the locket again. “I found that.”

“Of course you did,” Strange said good naturedly. He followed Morse’s torch beam and carefully tugged the locket off the branch it was stuck on. Tucking it safely into a pocket for later inspection, he turned his attention to Morse, in the process flashing the torchlight into his eyes.

He squinted, holding a hand up and Strange apologetically dropped the light.

“Sorry Matey,” he said, clicking the torch off and slipping it into another pocket. That unform coat really did have a number of pockets.

“You’re as bad as Jakes,” Morse grumbled. But it was noticeably lighter now, and the torches were beginning to not be needed. Morse kept his on regardless--he didn’t want Strange tripping on an invisible root and joining him on the ground.

“Up you get then,” Strange said, holding out a hand. Morse grabbed it with his free one, but the moment he tried to pull himself up, he jostled his leg and let out a scream of pain. He sagged back, eyes squeezed shut against the flash and steady throbbing coming from his ankle.

“I’m okay,” he said, waving away Strange’s anxious hovering. “Just let me catch my breath.”

“I don’t think you can walk on that,” Strange said. Morse just groaned in response. At least his boot was doing a better job at keeping his ankle tight than his usual shoes. Though taking it off was going to be a nightmare.

That was a later problem, now he had to figure out how to stand up so they could get out of this miserable forest and somewhere dry.

“Everything alright?” Jakes appeared through the bushes, the morning light strong enough to illuminate his pale face. Morse didn’t have the energy to glare up at him, his foot was hurting too much and his irritation at being seen in such a state by the sargent a secondary matter right now. “No time to be sitting down on the job, Morse.”

“He’s twisted his ankle,” Strange explained. Morse just nodded.

“Touch luck,” Jakes said. “Best be getting you to Casualty then.”

“I would if I could stand,” Morse muttered. He shut his eyes as another wave of pain flushed through his foot.

“I’ll carry you back,” Strange offered. Morse opened his eyes again, his pride battling for a moment with the pain emanating from his foot.

“Morse is a skinny blighter but I dunno if you can carry him yourself,” Jakes said, staring down at Morse with a critical eye. Then he flicked off his own torch and tucked it away--it was more than light enough to see by now--and moved to Morse’s side.

Before Morse could really process what was happening, he found himself wedged in between Jakes and Strange, one on either side of him. Both of them tucked an arm under him and their other behind his back and Morse found himself lifted between the two of them. He instinctively threw an arm over each of their necks to stop himself topping forward.

“Easy goes now,” Jakes muttered. Morse gritted his teeth as their movements jostled his foot, determined not to show any more pain.

It didn’t take long to get back to where the cars had packed on the edge of the forest. The rain had slowed to a steady drizzle, and Morse felt bone wearily exhausted. He was lowered to the ground and somehow managed to remain standing, leaning almost all of his weight on Strange and holding his foot up. Jakes ducked forward to open one of the cars.

“You finish up here,” he said to Strange. “I’ll get him to Casualty. And then home.”

Both of them fixed Morse with a long stare at that, but Morse just nodded. He was too exhausted to protest, and right now he wanted nothing more than to sleep off the pain.

They managed to manoeuvre him into the back seat of the car, where he could stretch his leg out over the seats and Morse only briefly blacked out for a second.

“Oh, here,” Strange said, fishing out the locket he had tucked away safely. “I’ll see you back at the nick,” he added to Jakes. Jakes nodded from the driver’s seat, a lit cigarette alright between his lips now he was out of the rain.

Jakes didn’t say anything as he pulled away from the forest, moving quickly along the road. Morse bit down a groan of pain as the movement of the car jostled his foot, but it faded to a bearable dull throbbing soon enough.

(He kept catching Jakes glancing in the rear mirror. There wasn’t anyone behind them, so he didn’t know why almost every time he looked up he made eye contact through the small glass.)

“What’s the locket?” Jakes asked, finally breaking the silence. Morse couldn’t help be a little grateful for the distraction.

He pulled it out, examining it closely. It had initials on it--F.C. The letters seem familiar to him, but he couldn’t quite place it yet. Carefully, he pried it open.

The image inside was of the victim--a young man named Joseph Ethans.

“It’s got Ethans in it,” Morse reported. He caught Jakes’ eye in the mirror again. “Doesn’t seem like something he’d own though.”

“A girlfriend’s?” Jakes asked. Morse frowned, biting down a hiss of pain as Jakes took a corner a little too sharply.

“F.C.,” he mused. Jakes made a questioning noise. “The initials on the locket.”

“That’s the girlfriend’s name, right?” Jakes said. “Felicity Clarke.”

“What’s her locket doing out in the woods then?” Morse asked, closing it again and tucking it safely into a pocket.

“Maybe he was going to give it to her?”

“I think we may need to question her a little more closely,” Morse said quietly. “DeBryn did say the killing wounds were weaker than one would expect from a grown man.”

“You think the girlfriend offed him?” Jakes asked.

“Maybe--aah!” He said the last as Jakes skipped a curb.

“Sorry,” Jakes said. “Almost there.”

“We’d better be,” Morse muttered. He shut his eyes, feeling strangely satisfied despite the throbbing ankle. Maybe the morning hadn’t been a complete waste of time after all.

The rain outside finally made way for a weak winter’s sun.

#wren writes #chrumblr whumblr challenge #carrying #endeavour #endeavour morse #endeavour fanfiction #GOSH i missed writing him #hopefully more coming soon hehe i have PLANS #anyway everyone say a big thank you to my laptop #she did a valliant job at Not Dying until id finished writing this and was about to post #round of applause please #i need to be better at feeding her

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