Chapter Text
“One might think, from the expression on your face, that this was a particularly barbaric form of torture.”
The pub was rowdy, everyone taking advantage of the fifteen-minute break in the quiz to get a round in and give a friendly heckle to the team at the nearest table. Trewlove and Strange were up at the bar, but the crowd around it was three-deep so Morse predicted they might be a while.
DeBryn was sat off to the left of Morse, observing the people in the room. After a moment, he spoke again. “How did you get roped into this, anyway?”
Morse finally looked his way, grimacing. “I’d forgotten about it. I’m not actually sure I ever agreed to it, but Strange apparently…”
“Decided on your behalf.” DeBryn’s lips quirked. “I see. Still, better to be invited to such things than passed over.”
“Is it?” Morse asked. “I could be at home with a drink and a good book.”
“I believe you’ll find alcohol is also served in this establishment,” DeBryn said dryly, and Morse gave a brief smile in response. “And hopefully our company is not so dull as all that.”
Morse gave a half shrug in lieu of an answer. “I think Strange thought the questions would be… I don’t know.”
“Ah, rather than a fascinating analysis of the participants of the World Cup in the last ten years?”
DeBryn smiled openly as Morse’s lips curled in thinly veiled disgust.
“It would be boring if you knew all the answers, Morse. This way you might learn something.” Morse snorted. “Failing that, enjoy being in the company of your fellow man. And woman,” DeBryn added with a nod in the direction of the bar.
“You never know,” Morse said, and drained the last of his pint, “someone might still be murdered.”
“Over a quiz? I’ve heard of stupider motives, to be sure, and admittedly things do tend to get quite heated.” DeBryn considered. “Why don’t you just leave,” he said. “I’ll say you weren’t feeling well.”
Someone bumped into the back of Morse as they maneuverered past, and he ducked away too slowly to avoid the slosh of lager onto the shoulder of his jacket. It seeped through, wet and cold. He sighed, and turned back to DeBryn.
“No,” he said. “I’ll stay.” To be honest, for all his objections he wasn’t particularly desperate to go home. His flat had become a place to sit and dwell endlessly on his visit to Joan; it was impossible to be there and not be swept into that mood.
“Good,” said DeBryn, pulling him back to the present. When Morse looked askance at him, “Well, I didn’t come for Detective Sergeant Strange’s company. The girl, Trewlove isn’t it, is nice enough, but she barely speaks two words together.”
Morse frowned at that – he’d always found Trewlove rather vocal with her opinions, not afraid to speak up at all. It was true she’d been quieter tonight - aside from hissed whispers of guessed answers - but he’d assumed she was just a bit off today.
“Usually she’s quite friendly,” he said eventually.
DeBryn assessed him with shrewd eyes. “Is she?”
Morse refrained from rolling his eyes at the mild implication, and instead asked, “Why did you come, then?”
DeBryn settled back in his chair and cast his eyes over the room again. “Oh, I do enjoy a good pub quiz,” he said. “I’ve a regular team, and we go every Wednesday at my local. When DS Strange suggested this, I thought it might be good fun.” Morse stared at him. “Admittedly, my usual focuses a lot more on local and national history.”
Now Morse’s lips twitched in amusement. “Didn’t stop you knowing all the answers about that soap - Coronation Street.”
DeBryn took off his glasses and cleaned them industriously on a cloth he pulled out of his pocket. “My mother,” he said, and Morse nodded. “Oh, look, they’ve made it to the front.”
Morse turned to see Strange’s broad shoulders and the slight blond form beside him as they leaned over the bar to make their order.
“I find,” DeBryn said as Morse faced him again, “that as I get older friends are few and far between. Lack of contact, lack of inclination.”
Morse hmmed.
“So when I find people I can stand the company of, I’m not averse to getting to know them better.”
“We’ve known each other for years,” Morse said, unthinking.
DeBryn gave him a brief, unreadable look.
“There is such a thing as outside the work environment, Morse,” he said.
Morse opened his mouth to make a quick reply and then shut it again, a wave of embarrassment catching him unawares. He suddenly remembered times the pathologist had casually mentioned that he was planning on going to such and such a pub after work, which at the time Morse had taken as small talk and brushed aside. While he got on well enough with DeBryn, he’d never counted him a friend, and had never realised the other man was making an attempt.
He leaned back in his chair, and cleared his throat. “Well. This isn’t so bad.” Morse gestured with his empty glass, as though to encompass the whole situation, and DeBryn’s eyebrows rose almost to his hairline before his face fell into a wry smile.
“If you’re genuinely interested in quizzes, Morse, we’ll try you somewhere else next time.” His eyes moved over Morse’s shoulder. “Here they are, then,” he said, and Strange and Trewlove re-joined them.