Author's Note: New series! So soon! I am very excited, so I wrote a fic to help tide myself over. I hope you enjoy it – and the new series too! :)
Scare Bear
It has been a very long and busy day at Cowley Police Station.
CS Bright has been at work since shortly after three this morning, dealing with a sudden influx of rowdy occupants in the cells due to a protest that had turned unexpectedly nasty. The number of complaints against the Force as a result is vast, and Bright has spent most of the day so far dealing with each one individually.
DI Thursday is taking advantage of a day that as of yet is thankfully homicide-free to catch up on a bit of dull paperwork, and is thus sealed up in his office. The only sign that he's there at all is the occasional puff of smoke that escapes through the top of the door.
DS Jakes is one of only two sergeants left in the CID (the others are attempting to keep order down in the cells), and is currently sifting through the property of everyone who's been arrested so far today. Every so often he disappears, only to return with another armful of cardboard boxes.
DC Morse is typing – he does that quite a lot. His typing has improved since he first arrived in Oxford, and that is thanks mostly to Jakes, who has him typing up anything from a hit-and-run report to another page to be slipped into the file labelled 'Batty Old Mrs Glossop' (the woman rings the station almost every day, complaining that her garden gnomes are alive, and scaring the cats at night with all their singing and dancing).
"Here, Morse," Jakes suddenly says, "I bet you can't get this into Bright's office."
Morse looks up to see him holding a battered, brown teddy bear with a wonky nose from one of the cardboard boxes, Jakes with a mischievous glint in his eyes.
"Why would I want to do that?" Morse asks, not especially in the mood for one of Jakes' silly games that no doubt would leave Morse in trouble with the Chief Super – or worse, looking like a stupid clot.
If anything Jakes looks slightly disappointed that Morse isn't up for 'a laugh'. "I bet you can't do it," teases Jakes like a five-year-old schoolboy. He smirks. "I bet you're scared."
Despite his best intentions, Morse bristles. "I'm not," he protests stubbornly, and the infuriating smirk on Jakes' face widens as if he knows he's won. "I bet you can't do it either."
"Me?" Jakes asks calmly, even though Morse can see the smirk flicker.
Morse nods. "It's not our bear, is it? It's only fair that we have it returned to that box once we're done."
Jakes visibly rallies himself. "Alright, you're on. Loser – that'll be you – can buy me a pint."
He unexpectedly throws the bear at Morse, who fumbles to catch it much to Jakes' amusement. As Morse begins his journey towards CS Bright's office, Jakes lights up a cigarette and sits down at his desk, arms crossed. He looks smug already.
There are no windows that face the station in Bright's office so Morse has no way of telling if he's inside or not. He takes a deep breath, straightens his tie, and knocks lightly on the wooden door. When there's no answer Morse breathes a sigh of relief. If Bright's not here it makes Morse's task that much easier.
Still, it's best to be cautious. Morse pushes the door open slowly with one hand, the teddy bear's paw clutched in the other. Morse freezes when he catches sight of Bright's desk, the man himself slumped over it and snoring gently.
Morse has always had an ability to slip into the background, so his footfalls are light on the carpet as he creeps to the desk. He decides to be bold – there is a pint at stake, after all – and sets the bear down carefully in the space between Bright's face and his arm. At the movement Bright mumbles something incoherent in his sleep, and his arm curls tightly around the bear before he settles again.
Morse doesn't dare breathe, let alone giggle, as he makes his way out of the office again. He closes the door behind him, and only then does he allow himself a quiet chuckle. When he returns to Jakes, Morse's smirk his perhaps even smugger than the Sergeant's.
"All yours," Morse says, sitting at his desk. He takes pleasure in the fact that Jakes hasn't had time to finish his cigarette yet, and that he looks surprised that Morse actually did it.
"How do I know you didn't just hide the bear somewhere?" Jakes questions with his eyes narrowed, undoubtedly desperate to stall now that his cigarette has almost reached the filter.
The upper hand, for once, is Morse's, and he finds that he quite likes the feeling. "You don't," Morse casually resumes his typing, "but you'd better go and find out, hadn't you?"
With that Jakes' cigarette is finished, and with only a fraction of the reluctance he clearly feels showing on his face, he heads for Bright's office.
The crazed shouting that begins not five minutes later has Thursday poking his head out of his office with a slight frown. "Everything alright, Morse?" he asks, wincing along with Morse when the shouting reaches a new, even higher pitch.
"Yes, sir," Morse says. "Sergeant Jakes is just visiting Mr Bright."
"Oh."
Thursday makes a note of the empty desk, taking a puff of his pipe that has the smoke obscuring his face. Morse knows that if it were him currently getting yelled at by the Chief Super, Thursday would be coming to his rescue.
"As you were, then," is all Thursday says, before disappearing into his office again.
CS Bright makes an appearance in CID a minute after the shouting stops, red-faced, to put the teddy back in its box. Morse wisely keeps his head down as Bright scans the room, looking for someone else to shout at.
No one hears nor sees Jakes for a few hours after that, and it's needless to say that Morse very much enjoys the pint that Jakes eventually buys for him.
THE END