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Deine Seele, die die meine liebet,
Ist verwirkt mit ihr im Teppichtibet.
The roses in the garden are blooming nicely when Max first thinks about Morse’s hands, that always flutter close to his face.
All the creamy white petals and the heady, almost heavy scent remind him of those ridiculously large and sad eyes, he can’t say why.
Maybe because it’d been them that had been in bloom when Morse had first sat here, twitchy and anxious, with the moustache and all the steel in his eyes.
They’re in bloom now, as well, but the years have made them… he doesn’t know. Stronger, more mature and prettier than back in the day, but, and he can’t even pretend to ignore it, thornier and rigid in their base.
Sturdy, perhaps, but he doesn’t dare taking a more tactile look at what’s going on at the grafting.
It’s a fitting metaphor, Max thinks, while he prunes what is to be safely pruned.
Never cut too deep although the rose would certainly profit off of it.
The days, long and sunny and slow and lovely, where Morse sat here, drank iced tea and pretended not to be disappointed with the lack of booze in it, are long gone.
When was the last time he saw Morse, that was not leaning over a body?
Somehow he thinks of old and battered carpets, Morse’s own?, so maybe it had been his housewarming.
They’d all been appropriately drunk, late that evening, sitting on said carpet and gazing about the empty and rather depressing living room.
The ever-persistent Wagner had been played, Max can’t remember whether it’d been Lohengrin or the Meistersänger, and he really can’t be bothered; neither is much to his taste.
Had they talked about opera? Probably, Jim next to them had passed out somewhere between a heated argument about whether Rusalka was the last drab or maybe worth listening to and Morse lamenting his fate of being an underpaid police officer. Max, deemed a terrible romantic by Morse had tried to convince him seeing the piece and changing career paths for the likes of a critic.
„Why should I?“, he’d asked, words slurred almost past decency and Max would have maybe revealed himself or proverbially bitten his head off if Jim had not chosen this exact moment to wake up and announce that he was about to be sick on the carpet.
They’d circumvented the certain obliteration of Morse’s only visible furniture (really, where did the man sleep?) by removing a peaky and antsy Jim Strange to the back garden.
Just to drown out the noises from the outside (the large eyes were already darting around again), Max had cited some poetry.
Morse had listened in, closed his eyes and turned on his back.
„German, is it?“
Max had hummed an affirmative and talked on.
Rilke.
Lovely.
„You don’t understand a single word, right?“
Morse had chuckled softly. With closed eyes he’d looked a bit less like a ghost, a bit less devastated.
A bit less ‚you don’t say‘.
„I think Stille is silence, but beyond that… I’m thoroughly clueless, doctor. But it sounds beautiful.“
Max had smiled a wan little smile and turned to Morse who hadn’t moved an inch.
How peaceful he had looked; Max knew he’d never forget that soft upward curve of Endeavour Morse’s lips in the low streetlight-lamp.
He thinks of this evening, of starlight, Rilke and the taste of cheap beer on the back of his tongue.
Of Morse, his warm breath close to Max’s ear, a smiling tone in his voice that he’d never heard again.
So long ago.
And now?
He’s still pining for the aloof and beautiful and lovely and lonely Endeavour Morse, as unobtainable as the moon. Thinking of him whenever he prunes his roses, whenever he has a seed cake in the oven, whenever he looks in the mirror and notices the faint scars from back when.
He tells himself that Morse is disaster in and out, is not worth the trouble, is too good for him. Depending on the day, probably.
Strahl in Strahl, verliebte Farben,
Sterne, die sich himmellang umwarben.
As soon as the roses lose their leaves (the rosehips will soon be mellow for that jam-recipe he’s found) Morse shows up on his doorstep. He’s ruffled, looking pale and worn, even more so than is his default.
The creases in his shirt scream at Max and it’s all he can do to clench his hands to keep himself from smoothing the frayed cotton into shape.
Ah, the eyes.
Still storm coloured, still disquieted by the slightest noise, but once they find his own, Max thinks he’s calming.
„Morse“, he says and purses his lips.
„Doctor“, comes the hoarse answer and a breath that’s whiskey and Capstan’s Navy Cut. It’s lovely somehow but then again Max can’t help but raise a disdainful eyebrow at the sight.
„Come in, I’ll make you a cuppa."
Morse nods and follows him, his steps are still soft and careful.
„I’m…“
Max turns around, can’t help the near-fury rising in his chest that’s battling whatever softness, fondness, tenderness he holds for this fallen creature.
„Don’t even start“, his voice is still calm, „you go and sit by the fire, I’ll get you something to drink that wouldn’t double as a disinfectant.“
He obeys, which in itself is a little marvel.
Max fetches the nice china cups, the tea he’d bought a week ago, loose leaf, expensive and delicious and a treat for one hell of a week.
He’d thought of sharing it with Morse, but that was just another little daydream he’s had for ages.
A daydream that smells like roses and summer.
Even on a drab November night.
Max loves precision.
-It’s probably what makes him a rather good pathologist.
Now it buys him time. Steep the tea exactly three minutes after the water had cooled down to 85°C.
Morse probably wouldn’t notice the difference, but Max… he does. And he wants the difference to matter, never mind Morse’s taste buds.
Morse does, in fact, not notice anything about the tea, except its temperature and the obvious burn he inflicts on himself for trying to gulp down almost-boiling water.
„What brings you to my doorstep, Sergeant?“
He perks up, as if violently torn from a daydream.
Maybe he is, Max thinks, the stormy eyes have not yet returned to their alert and clever state and Max can’t say he’s ever seen anything more beautiful than Endeavour Morse, enveloped in the residues of daydreams, sorrow and/or slight drunkenness.
„Missed sitting next to you“, it’s a mumble, nothing more and Max doesn’t believe what’s being mumbled anyways.
Morse is drunk, and while drunkenness can embolden and provide one with honesty, it’s not always truth they’re speaking.
„Well, then, go ahead“, it takes strength to not at least believe a little bit. Not to fall back in those languid daydreams of roses and sunlight.
„Missed you“, another mumble, even less intelligible, and the stormy eyes find shelter, calm and close and don’t open for another ten hours.
Max never got to know what Morse had come here for; eleven hours later, on a cold, darkish morning, Max finds the sofa empty, the comforter neatly folded and Morse gone.
The last sip of Max’s special tea still sitting in the nice china cup.
Unsere Füße ruhen auf der Kostbarkeit,
Maschentausendabertausendweit.
They meet again in Max’s garden.
No corpses, no beer, no summer or roses.
Instead, Max has produced a cuppa for each of them, painting little curls of steam into the cold February evening.
„I still remember you citing poetry on my housewarming“, Morse whispers.
Why is he whispering?
„And I hope you have furnished your home beyond that Tibetteppich in your living room.“
„What?“
Max smiles and finds himself looking up at Morse.
„The carpet Strange nearly thrown up on.“
Morse wrinkles his adorable nose and the crow’s feet that cradle the blue eyes (nothing stormy about them today) make Max fall in love even more.
He startles.
Sure, he knew somehow. Knew about his love for this complicated man, but never thought about it so… clearly.
It must have been years, maybe even decades since he last deemed himself in love with someone. Certainly before his temples had greyed so significantly.
„I’ve got an equally awful sofa now“, Morse tells him and Max can’t help but chuckle, „No, really, it’s become quite comfortable. The carpet’s still there, though.“
„Wouldn’t do to ruin the ugly sofa with a tasteful carpet, hm?“
Max had loved the faded Persian pattern from the start.
„What was that poem you recited while Strange…“, another wrinkle and crinkle in the face.
„I think Rilke maybe. Like him a lot. Though I am unsure which one it was.“
The silence between them is not uncomfortable; Max watches Morse and his frozen garden in turns and thinks with increasing shame that he’d love to get a blanket from inside and wrap the two of them in it.
He can’t bear this.
„Why are you here, Morse?“
Still there is no storm in his eyes, merely a wide and somber blue.
„Because I can’t bear the world right now. And here…“, he gestures at the mud, the ice and the residues of snow, „Here the world just feels like it’s alright. You stand next to me, always properly spaced, always prim. When I come here I have lost all my senses and that memory of you and me lying on my battered carpet while Strange is puking his brains out which you try to drown out with German poetry isn’t enough anymore. It’s when I need to see that you’re alright. It’s when I need to feel you next to me.“
Max stays silent for a while.
Maybe he’s in a bit of a shock, maybe he’s just surprised, he can’t really say.
„Because“, Morse’s voice is closer now, „I think about you more often than I should, and I miss you more often than is wise, and I…“
A Hand.
On his shoulder. Warm and heavy and, oh, so longed for.
„Don’t say it, please“, Max interrupts him quickly and turns away, „You can’t mean that“
He is aware of how strained his voice must sound. Of how mixed this is what he’s sending Morse’s way.
„Why?“
Max feels a bitter laugh rising in his chest.
Bit like heartburn, actually.
He doesn’t answer, nor does he lean into the touch.
„Max?“
„That night I almost showed you another poem.“
Morse comes closer, just a tiny step, but now Max can hear the wrinkles in his coat.
„Which one?“
Max can’t help but smile.
It would be futile to tell him, of course, it’s not as popular and not as… accomplished maybe. Written by a woman, no less.
He’d stumbled upon it years ago in an anthology in a bookshop, buried under several old periodicals from the twenties. It proved to be distracting enough to get him past the wave of anxiety he’d felt haunting him all day.
His German wasn’t too good, he’d thought, and all those endocentric compounds had had his head spinning- in a good way, though.
„You wouldn’t know it and translating it doesn’t seem to make much sense. But it would have fitted. It’s about an old carpet.“
Morse huffs amusedly.
„I’m almost sure that’s not all there is.“
„It’s never all there is, that’s the beauty of poetry“
His voice… Max takes a deep breath. He could be brave, courageous, virtuous, for just a moment longer, couldn’t he? Stay here, maybe remove himself a little from Morse’s orbit. Stay out of trouble, out of this beautiful mess that is Endeavour Morse.
He can’t. He has to turn his face a little, feet firmly planted where they are, meet that gaze of somber blue and see the smile that’s creeping in.
„Why can’t I mean it, Max?“, the low rumble sends shivers all over his body.
Max wants to be witty, desperately so, but he finds his voice to be thin and wanting when he answers: „Because I know you.“
Morse kisses his neck, right where his collar stops and skin begins and Max thinks he is melting from that spot.
Something, Morse’s nose most likely, brushes past his earlobe, ruffles the hair that he had so diligently combed this morning.
They can’t work, can they?
Is this arousal or genuine?
Dream or reality?
Max can’t tell anymore and he doesn’t care because he now turns, he now cradles Morse’s face in his hands and kisses him.
Deeply, desperately.
Teeth clashing and tongues all over the place.
It’s the best and worst kiss he’s ever had, but his heart misses all the important beats only to fetch them later at double speed.
They break that kiss eventually, gasping, panting.
I know you, Morse, Max wants to say, and: I love you but I can’t do this.
He wants to pour out truths and painful ones at that, wants to finally give that rose the pruning it deserves and needs.
But his hands and heart still hesitate.
He’ll need leather gloves, thick ones, he’ll need…
What tumbles out of his mouth, though, is nonsense; horny nonsense and want.
It’s true, truths as well, and maybe they’re even painful, because they reveal what is there, the base to the pretty grafting: a wild rose, wild and plain and beautiful and thornier than even that ruddy rose.
„I want you“, that is what tumbles out of his mouth.
And Morse just nods and kisses him again, here, in the icy February garden.
They may not work, or they will, but Max can’t be bothered.
Not now, not here, where there are two bodies lining up so perfectly and balancing their cooling cups of loose leaf tea; just so.
It’s years later, when they’re both way past their prime and Morse has to renovate that he thinks about throwing the carpet out.
Max prevents that, actively barring his… whatever they are… from entering the living room and rolling the old and battered piece up.
It’s then when he first recites the poem, his poem as he thinks of it, to Morse.
Süßer Lamasohn auf Moschuspflanzenthron,
Wie lange küsst dein Mund den meinen wohl
Und Wang die Wange buntgeknüpfte Zeiten schon?