Though I Walk Through the Valley (24/38)
Though I Walk through the Valley
Title:Though I Walk through the Valley (24/38)Series: Still Waters (Run Deep) (Part II of IV)
Author: melody_in_time
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: Through S1 only
Disclaimer: I wish, I wish upon a star... but until that works, not mine and sadly no money made.
Author's Notes: Sorry all, no Greg out trawling for one night stands. He's well into his forties, an expecting father, and a lifelong closet Sub, so doesn't quite work with his character. Wishful thinking, though, wishful thinking.
Warnings: Discussions of past story events and how they fit into the world around them
If you've wondered here by mistake, you may wish to start at Part I of the series, Rarest of the Rare: Chapter 1.
Prologue - Chapter 10 - Chapter 20 - Chapter 21 - Chapter 22 - Chapter 23 - Chapter 24 - Chapter 25 - Chapter 26 - Chapter 27 - Chapter 28 - Chapter 29
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Greg hammered insistently on the door and tried to remind himself that the individuals of this building hadn’t done anything wrong.
Yet.
“Hang on a tick.” Bellowed back a slightly rough voice.
Footsteps thudded across the floor and the door opened to reveal a very rumpled John Watson whose button up was buttoned up the wrong way.
Evidently he’d interrupted.
Greg tried to feel guilty and failed. He was too angry to feel guilty.
“Greg! Are you here about the case file? Only - or just come on in.” John changed his tack as Greg pushed past without waiting for an invitation and threw himself into Sherlock’s chair with a reasonable approximation of one of his sulks. “Would you like a drink? I’m guessing not tea.”
Greg kept scowling off into the middle distance.
“Beer it is.” John fetched one from the fridge and brought it over. “Back in a minute.”
In fact John was ten minutes and when he re-emerged shutting the bedroom door quietly behind him he was wearing a new, correctly buttoned shirt.
“You’re dressed up tonight.” He remarked lightly, fetching his own beer and plopping down in the matching armchair.
Greg grunted.
“Right…” John flicked the TV on, setting the volume low. It gave them both somewhere to rest their eyes that wasn’t each other.
“Glad the shirt fits.” John tried again.
Greg grunted and took a swig of beer.
“I guess that lead Sally called about panned out, cause you didn’t come back for the file.” John took his own drink. “Things get hectic?”
Greg’s shoulders relaxed a little without his say so as he realised John wasn’t going to leap right onto the problem, which even a blind person could see had something to do with Mycroft.
“Yeah it panned out.” Greg’s throat felt gummed up so he took another swig. “Turns out our club murder and our assault on a young Sub were connected.”
“Yeah?” John asked. “Drugs, gangs, revenge…?”
“Overly protective uncle.”
“Ah,” John nodded. “That does happen.”
“Yeah.” Greg let the silence fall, his stomach quivering slightly at the memories. He wondered how long that would last.
“Only this guy,” he eventually continued, “was sick, not protective. I thought… we’ve talked about Alpha protectiveness, even I feel it, so I didn’t think it’d be that different for a Beta Dom.”
“It was?” John sounded slightly surprised, so maybe Greg hadn’t been alone in his assumptions.
“Very.” Greg drank a mouthful of beer to cover his reflexive swallow. “Turns out the Uncle wasn’t meaning in the familial sense when he said mine. More like the biblical.”
“That’s sick.” John said flatly. “That’s just… wrong.”
Greg nodded and said nothing. They both drank their beers.
“Is the kid… how’s he coping?” John asked.
“He’s in a coma.” Greg sighed. “Doctors are hopeful, but…”
“Do you… do you have any idea…” John paused, trying to find a delicate way to say it.
“How far his Uncle went? No.” Greg shook his head. “But it turns out the nephew’s a suppressed Omega, Uncle put him on the suppressants, so I’d say he hasn’t moved things… that far. He’s an Alpha wannabe; he’d want the first time to be during the kid’s Heat. I hope.”
John looked absolutely shocked and revolted, and Greg didn’t miss the way his throat was working, fingers clenching convulsively on the beer bottle.
“Go throw up if you need to.” He said bluntly. “I did. So did Gregson.”
“It’s the automatic response of an Alpha’s body to a…” John stopped and took a few deep breaths. “I’ll be fine.” His voice sounded very full.
They sat there a few moments before John stood. He didn’t, as Greg had thought, go into the bathroom, but instead disappeared into the bedroom leaving the door slightly ajar, presumably by accident. There was the faint squeak of bedsprings and a sleepy murmur of voices.
The longing to hold his Omega and reassure himself swept through Greg’s body. The empty, lonesome pangs he’d been successfully subverting were back and stronger.
Hold, reassure, protect.
Greg locked his body in place, refusing to curl up and hug his knees like a child.
He blamed pheromones.
John didn’t stay away for long, maybe two minutes, and came back via the fridge fetching more beers.
“I’m glad he was on suppressants.” John’s voice was drawn. “That would have been hell for him.”
“I think being forced into that position would be awful for anyone.”
The idea of it being an Omega was instinctively revolting, but the thought of any kid going through that was just as repellent to Greg’s mind.
John shook his head, fingers holding the beer bottle tight, staring at the TV.
“No, if he’d gone into Heat… just no.” There was a tremor in his left hand, lying flat on the couch. “Everyone knows Omegas need an Alpha during Heat, need a knot, but no one ever thinks…” He took a large mouthful of beer.
“Is it that bad?” Greg asked carefully. There were lines he’d never seen around John’s eyes before, and no matter how John clenched and unclenched it his left hand wouldn’t stop trembling. “Omegas go through Heat alone all the time with no knot.”
“It’s torture.” John’s voice was wooden. “The body reacts to the intercourse, increasing the hormonal levels the way it doesn’t do if an Omega’s alone, but there’s no satisfaction, just constant stimulation for days.”
“You’ve seen it?”
It wasn’t really a question. John was determinedly staring at the TV and Greg didn’t think 2 minute noodles were creating the tight angry look around his eyes.
“In Afghanistan… The Taliban used to... it’s horrific.” John moved his left hand, hid it from view. “They used to use it as punishment for various offences, not even usually by the Omega. Punishing an Omega was viewed as punishing the whole community, so it was usually for something done by their family, someone in the village… They’d do it in gangs so there was no stopping and never any relief.”
Greg swallowed. John stared through the TV.
“Patrols would come across them every now and then, either the victims or in progress. It’s a traditional act; even in the controlled areas it happened just like the honour killings. We couldn’t stop it,” John’s eyes flashed, “but none of the Betas discovered to have been involved ever lived. The army is too full of Alphas for that, if the Afghani Alphas from the relevant village didn’t get there first.”
“I’ll bet.” Greg murmured. He didn’t doubt there had been a number of mysterious deaths of subjects connected with these rapes that NATO commanders had turned a blind eye to.
“Never saw it myself, but Patrols would bring victims in. The ones found During were best off. After the killing frenzy was sated one of the Alphas on the patrol would usually spend time with them. The suppressants generally stopped bloodshed within the unit as to whom, though there were certainly fights about it back at base. Few people got transferred. More than a few Bondings out of it, something about the high adrenaline environment. The ones we didn’t find until After, who never got an Alpha, were worse off.”
“How bad?” Greg croaked.
“2 in 5 to insanity, 4 in 5 to suicide.” John replied flatly.
Greg’s own hands were shaking he realised, as he slopped beer over his t-shirt, luckily missing the silk.
“Thank Christ then.” He attempted another drink and managed to get most of the beer into his mouth. He hadn’t realised how narrow an escape Peter Carson had had.
Cars raced across the screen as buxom women tried to sell them to the public. Cereal was advertised to children. An ad for a new kid’s movie flashed in bright colours. Then the ads finished and some child’s TV program resumed playing.
Greg had forgotten how early it was. It was still light outside.
“Peter, the kid’s, got an Alpha.” He said into the silence watching some sparkly character dance across the screen making flowers light up as she touched them. “Carson, the uncle, was so desperate to remove the Alpha encroaching on his territory he never even checked who it was. Killed the wrong one, just some guy who spoke to Peter at the club. He didn’t, doesn’t, know Peter’s an Omega. Doesn’t know anything actually, I’ll have to tell to him. Seems a good kid, totally devoted despite the fact Peter wasn’t even Subbing for him, not really. He’ll be good to him.”
“If he wakes up.”
“If he wakes up.”
They sat there in silence for a bit longer, watching the flowers come to life and join in a happy, colourful dance. Greg felt lighter, despite the heavy press of emotions and the incipient anger smouldering under his breastbone. He hadn’t realised how much the case had been weighing him down, how much he did actually need to talk to someone who could understand on more than an intellectual level.
Slowly the lines around John’s eyes eased and he let his left hand come back onto the arm of the chain. Guilt at stirring up obviously painful war memories conflicted with Greg’s feelings of relief.
“It’s okay.” John toned softly, eyes following the path of the fish that had inexplicably replaced the flowers. “It gets better over time. Talking about it helps a little.”
“It never goes away, though, does it?” Greg asked curiously.
“No. It fades most of the time, the back of your mind, but it never goes.” John shook himself and finally turned his eyes back to Greg. “I wouldn’t want it to.”
Greg nodded. He could understand, sort of. For every letter of thanks stored in his window seat there was an unsolved case file in his desk he kept going back to or a mental record of a time he’d been too late, a list of bodies never identified, of failures to bring closure.
Someone had to remember.
After a while, remembering defined you.
“So is he going to come out?” Greg jerked his head at the bedroom door to change the subject.
John shook his head. “I’d only just got him all the way down when you arrived. Dragging him straight back up would be… bad.”
Greg winced in agreement.
“I brought him up as far as was safe. He’s cognisant, if he needs to be. He’ll safely sleep the rest of it off.”
“Sorry.” The anger had faded enough the guilt could properly edge in.
“It’s okay.” John sent him a weary smile. “These things happen, and you look like you need it.”
Greg slid down in his plush armchair. Sherlock was light and bony enough the padding hadn’t really worn despite the age of the cushions.
“It’s stupid.” He finally said.
“It upset you, though.” John kindly turned his gaze back to the TV. It made it easier for Greg to breathe.
“Yeah, I guess.”
John didn’t snort, but the roll of his eyes was obvious even side on.
“Okay, yeah, a bit.” Greg allowed. “We had an argument. He,” no need to define who, “started in on my job and the danger and how I hadn’t let him know I wouldn’t be home.”
“He is more than capable of finding that out himself.” John commented.
“Yeah, but I should have texted. I admit that. I would have, before, to complain or something, but now we’re living together somehow it seemed less important; that he’d know where I was cause I wasn’t home, which is stupid.”
“Please tell me you’re not-”
“No,” Greg interrupted. “I’m still bloody angry. I should have texted, but he knows my job and had no right to go off at me for doing it. That’s not the… that’s not what hurt.”
“What else happened then?” John changed the TV channel as the cartoon ended and they watched several coming up soon ads, then when the BBC news chime sounded and John flipped back to cable to more ads.
“It’s stupid.” Greg said, watching IKEA try to flog furniture. “I knew going in, I just…”
He trailed off and stayed silent through a coca-cola and a telco ad.
“He said I wasn’t his Sub.” His voice sounded distant.
John frowned in the corner of his vision. It might have been at the tea ad on the screen.
“I’m subbing for him, but I’m not his.” Greg clarified. “I knew that; he made it clear going in. Just with everything, I guess I’d begun to hope.”
John nodded. He didn’t offer any sympathy. Greg was glad.
“It hurt.” By keeping his eyes on the TV it was easy to pretend he was talking to himself. “It made me so angry, him going off about my life as if I was accountable to him and then reminding me I wasn’t.
“I’m still angry.” He paused. “At him, at myself. I shouldn’t have let myself forget.”
He didn’t say anything else and John let him watch the awful soap that was showing in silence.
“There’s a repeat of the football on.” John said quietly when it was done. “Pub or takeaway?”
Greg understood the offer. Takeaway and they could keep talking, John would ask questions, possibly get Greg to think about things he wasn’t sure he wanted to, but probably should.
The pub was public, topic closed, conversation over.
“Pub.” He replied shortly.
“I’ll wake Sherlock and tell him.” John stood. “You might want to…uh…” He waved his hand around his neck.
“Oh, yeah.” Greg unfastened the necklace and laid it on the coffee table. Angry or not, throwing his secret into the open, even in such an obscure hint, was stupid.
It had served its purpose anyway. As much of one as it had.
John nodded and went to tell his Sub he was going out.
Greg finished his beer and resolved determinedly not to think.
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Previous - Next
Title:Though I Walk through the Valley (24/38)Series: Still Waters (Run Deep) (Part II of IV)
Author: melody_in_time
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: Through S1 only
Disclaimer: I wish, I wish upon a star... but until that works, not mine and sadly no money made.
Author's Notes: Sorry all, no Greg out trawling for one night stands. He's well into his forties, an expecting father, and a lifelong closet Sub, so doesn't quite work with his character. Wishful thinking, though, wishful thinking.
Warnings: Discussions of past story events and how they fit into the world around them
If you've wondered here by mistake, you may wish to start at Part I of the series, Rarest of the Rare: Chapter 1.
Prologue - Chapter 10 - Chapter 20 - Chapter 21 - Chapter 22 - Chapter 23 - Chapter 24 - Chapter 25 - Chapter 26 - Chapter 27 - Chapter 28 - Chapter 29
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Greg hammered insistently on the door and tried to remind himself that the individuals of this building hadn’t done anything wrong.
Yet.
“Hang on a tick.” Bellowed back a slightly rough voice.
Footsteps thudded across the floor and the door opened to reveal a very rumpled John Watson whose button up was buttoned up the wrong way.
Evidently he’d interrupted.
Greg tried to feel guilty and failed. He was too angry to feel guilty.
“Greg! Are you here about the case file? Only - or just come on in.” John changed his tack as Greg pushed past without waiting for an invitation and threw himself into Sherlock’s chair with a reasonable approximation of one of his sulks. “Would you like a drink? I’m guessing not tea.”
Greg kept scowling off into the middle distance.
“Beer it is.” John fetched one from the fridge and brought it over. “Back in a minute.”
In fact John was ten minutes and when he re-emerged shutting the bedroom door quietly behind him he was wearing a new, correctly buttoned shirt.
“You’re dressed up tonight.” He remarked lightly, fetching his own beer and plopping down in the matching armchair.
Greg grunted.
“Right…” John flicked the TV on, setting the volume low. It gave them both somewhere to rest their eyes that wasn’t each other.
“Glad the shirt fits.” John tried again.
Greg grunted and took a swig of beer.
“I guess that lead Sally called about panned out, cause you didn’t come back for the file.” John took his own drink. “Things get hectic?”
Greg’s shoulders relaxed a little without his say so as he realised John wasn’t going to leap right onto the problem, which even a blind person could see had something to do with Mycroft.
“Yeah it panned out.” Greg’s throat felt gummed up so he took another swig. “Turns out our club murder and our assault on a young Sub were connected.”
“Yeah?” John asked. “Drugs, gangs, revenge…?”
“Overly protective uncle.”
“Ah,” John nodded. “That does happen.”
“Yeah.” Greg let the silence fall, his stomach quivering slightly at the memories. He wondered how long that would last.
“Only this guy,” he eventually continued, “was sick, not protective. I thought… we’ve talked about Alpha protectiveness, even I feel it, so I didn’t think it’d be that different for a Beta Dom.”
“It was?” John sounded slightly surprised, so maybe Greg hadn’t been alone in his assumptions.
“Very.” Greg drank a mouthful of beer to cover his reflexive swallow. “Turns out the Uncle wasn’t meaning in the familial sense when he said mine. More like the biblical.”
“That’s sick.” John said flatly. “That’s just… wrong.”
Greg nodded and said nothing. They both drank their beers.
“Is the kid… how’s he coping?” John asked.
“He’s in a coma.” Greg sighed. “Doctors are hopeful, but…”
“Do you… do you have any idea…” John paused, trying to find a delicate way to say it.
“How far his Uncle went? No.” Greg shook his head. “But it turns out the nephew’s a suppressed Omega, Uncle put him on the suppressants, so I’d say he hasn’t moved things… that far. He’s an Alpha wannabe; he’d want the first time to be during the kid’s Heat. I hope.”
John looked absolutely shocked and revolted, and Greg didn’t miss the way his throat was working, fingers clenching convulsively on the beer bottle.
“Go throw up if you need to.” He said bluntly. “I did. So did Gregson.”
“It’s the automatic response of an Alpha’s body to a…” John stopped and took a few deep breaths. “I’ll be fine.” His voice sounded very full.
They sat there a few moments before John stood. He didn’t, as Greg had thought, go into the bathroom, but instead disappeared into the bedroom leaving the door slightly ajar, presumably by accident. There was the faint squeak of bedsprings and a sleepy murmur of voices.
The longing to hold his Omega and reassure himself swept through Greg’s body. The empty, lonesome pangs he’d been successfully subverting were back and stronger.
Hold, reassure, protect.
Greg locked his body in place, refusing to curl up and hug his knees like a child.
He blamed pheromones.
John didn’t stay away for long, maybe two minutes, and came back via the fridge fetching more beers.
“I’m glad he was on suppressants.” John’s voice was drawn. “That would have been hell for him.”
“I think being forced into that position would be awful for anyone.”
The idea of it being an Omega was instinctively revolting, but the thought of any kid going through that was just as repellent to Greg’s mind.
John shook his head, fingers holding the beer bottle tight, staring at the TV.
“No, if he’d gone into Heat… just no.” There was a tremor in his left hand, lying flat on the couch. “Everyone knows Omegas need an Alpha during Heat, need a knot, but no one ever thinks…” He took a large mouthful of beer.
“Is it that bad?” Greg asked carefully. There were lines he’d never seen around John’s eyes before, and no matter how John clenched and unclenched it his left hand wouldn’t stop trembling. “Omegas go through Heat alone all the time with no knot.”
“It’s torture.” John’s voice was wooden. “The body reacts to the intercourse, increasing the hormonal levels the way it doesn’t do if an Omega’s alone, but there’s no satisfaction, just constant stimulation for days.”
“You’ve seen it?”
It wasn’t really a question. John was determinedly staring at the TV and Greg didn’t think 2 minute noodles were creating the tight angry look around his eyes.
“In Afghanistan… The Taliban used to... it’s horrific.” John moved his left hand, hid it from view. “They used to use it as punishment for various offences, not even usually by the Omega. Punishing an Omega was viewed as punishing the whole community, so it was usually for something done by their family, someone in the village… They’d do it in gangs so there was no stopping and never any relief.”
Greg swallowed. John stared through the TV.
“Patrols would come across them every now and then, either the victims or in progress. It’s a traditional act; even in the controlled areas it happened just like the honour killings. We couldn’t stop it,” John’s eyes flashed, “but none of the Betas discovered to have been involved ever lived. The army is too full of Alphas for that, if the Afghani Alphas from the relevant village didn’t get there first.”
“I’ll bet.” Greg murmured. He didn’t doubt there had been a number of mysterious deaths of subjects connected with these rapes that NATO commanders had turned a blind eye to.
“Never saw it myself, but Patrols would bring victims in. The ones found During were best off. After the killing frenzy was sated one of the Alphas on the patrol would usually spend time with them. The suppressants generally stopped bloodshed within the unit as to whom, though there were certainly fights about it back at base. Few people got transferred. More than a few Bondings out of it, something about the high adrenaline environment. The ones we didn’t find until After, who never got an Alpha, were worse off.”
“How bad?” Greg croaked.
“2 in 5 to insanity, 4 in 5 to suicide.” John replied flatly.
Greg’s own hands were shaking he realised, as he slopped beer over his t-shirt, luckily missing the silk.
“Thank Christ then.” He attempted another drink and managed to get most of the beer into his mouth. He hadn’t realised how narrow an escape Peter Carson had had.
Cars raced across the screen as buxom women tried to sell them to the public. Cereal was advertised to children. An ad for a new kid’s movie flashed in bright colours. Then the ads finished and some child’s TV program resumed playing.
Greg had forgotten how early it was. It was still light outside.
“Peter, the kid’s, got an Alpha.” He said into the silence watching some sparkly character dance across the screen making flowers light up as she touched them. “Carson, the uncle, was so desperate to remove the Alpha encroaching on his territory he never even checked who it was. Killed the wrong one, just some guy who spoke to Peter at the club. He didn’t, doesn’t, know Peter’s an Omega. Doesn’t know anything actually, I’ll have to tell to him. Seems a good kid, totally devoted despite the fact Peter wasn’t even Subbing for him, not really. He’ll be good to him.”
“If he wakes up.”
“If he wakes up.”
They sat there in silence for a bit longer, watching the flowers come to life and join in a happy, colourful dance. Greg felt lighter, despite the heavy press of emotions and the incipient anger smouldering under his breastbone. He hadn’t realised how much the case had been weighing him down, how much he did actually need to talk to someone who could understand on more than an intellectual level.
Slowly the lines around John’s eyes eased and he let his left hand come back onto the arm of the chain. Guilt at stirring up obviously painful war memories conflicted with Greg’s feelings of relief.
“It’s okay.” John toned softly, eyes following the path of the fish that had inexplicably replaced the flowers. “It gets better over time. Talking about it helps a little.”
“It never goes away, though, does it?” Greg asked curiously.
“No. It fades most of the time, the back of your mind, but it never goes.” John shook himself and finally turned his eyes back to Greg. “I wouldn’t want it to.”
Greg nodded. He could understand, sort of. For every letter of thanks stored in his window seat there was an unsolved case file in his desk he kept going back to or a mental record of a time he’d been too late, a list of bodies never identified, of failures to bring closure.
Someone had to remember.
After a while, remembering defined you.
“So is he going to come out?” Greg jerked his head at the bedroom door to change the subject.
John shook his head. “I’d only just got him all the way down when you arrived. Dragging him straight back up would be… bad.”
Greg winced in agreement.
“I brought him up as far as was safe. He’s cognisant, if he needs to be. He’ll safely sleep the rest of it off.”
“Sorry.” The anger had faded enough the guilt could properly edge in.
“It’s okay.” John sent him a weary smile. “These things happen, and you look like you need it.”
Greg slid down in his plush armchair. Sherlock was light and bony enough the padding hadn’t really worn despite the age of the cushions.
“It’s stupid.” He finally said.
“It upset you, though.” John kindly turned his gaze back to the TV. It made it easier for Greg to breathe.
“Yeah, I guess.”
John didn’t snort, but the roll of his eyes was obvious even side on.
“Okay, yeah, a bit.” Greg allowed. “We had an argument. He,” no need to define who, “started in on my job and the danger and how I hadn’t let him know I wouldn’t be home.”
“He is more than capable of finding that out himself.” John commented.
“Yeah, but I should have texted. I admit that. I would have, before, to complain or something, but now we’re living together somehow it seemed less important; that he’d know where I was cause I wasn’t home, which is stupid.”
“Please tell me you’re not-”
“No,” Greg interrupted. “I’m still bloody angry. I should have texted, but he knows my job and had no right to go off at me for doing it. That’s not the… that’s not what hurt.”
“What else happened then?” John changed the TV channel as the cartoon ended and they watched several coming up soon ads, then when the BBC news chime sounded and John flipped back to cable to more ads.
“It’s stupid.” Greg said, watching IKEA try to flog furniture. “I knew going in, I just…”
He trailed off and stayed silent through a coca-cola and a telco ad.
“He said I wasn’t his Sub.” His voice sounded distant.
John frowned in the corner of his vision. It might have been at the tea ad on the screen.
“I’m subbing for him, but I’m not his.” Greg clarified. “I knew that; he made it clear going in. Just with everything, I guess I’d begun to hope.”
John nodded. He didn’t offer any sympathy. Greg was glad.
“It hurt.” By keeping his eyes on the TV it was easy to pretend he was talking to himself. “It made me so angry, him going off about my life as if I was accountable to him and then reminding me I wasn’t.
“I’m still angry.” He paused. “At him, at myself. I shouldn’t have let myself forget.”
He didn’t say anything else and John let him watch the awful soap that was showing in silence.
“There’s a repeat of the football on.” John said quietly when it was done. “Pub or takeaway?”
Greg understood the offer. Takeaway and they could keep talking, John would ask questions, possibly get Greg to think about things he wasn’t sure he wanted to, but probably should.
The pub was public, topic closed, conversation over.
“Pub.” He replied shortly.
“I’ll wake Sherlock and tell him.” John stood. “You might want to…uh…” He waved his hand around his neck.
“Oh, yeah.” Greg unfastened the necklace and laid it on the coffee table. Angry or not, throwing his secret into the open, even in such an obscure hint, was stupid.
It had served its purpose anyway. As much of one as it had.
John nodded and went to tell his Sub he was going out.
Greg finished his beer and resolved determinedly not to think.
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