Notes:
My first story of this pairing so I'm kind of playing with it. Please be gentle with me.
I have a Vague idea of the direction this will go... Vague... But if you have anything you'd like to see, just ask and I'm sure I can fit it in somewhere :)
The next chapter *should* be longer (and with an actual plot, hopefully), but if not, feel free to swing punches.
Enjoy x
He needs air, and a lot of it. Quickly. He buttons closed his coat with unneeded force, and almost gets angry at the white smoke of his breath that can disappear into thin air, but he can't.
He feels the stamp of his soles on tarmac as he jogs to the one place where it's dark, solitary and more importantly, solitary.
It's the need to get away that propels him, given that his muscles have generally given up and are a little more than numb. Before he knows it, he's crossed the road, and the ringing of raucous football games and clinking glass is now just a rather unwanted memory, for the moment.
The shadow of the alley greets him with it's cold but welcomed fingers, running it's smooth skin over his agitated nerves, and settling them, if a little.
Away from prying eyes.
So in a lack of motivation, he leans his whole body against the wall, head full of plump black hair hitting blotched brick, fingers pulling out the last cigarette in the pack and the same near empty lighter he's had for the past month.
His mind is sweating, his eyes clenched shut, refusing stubbornly to open.
It's been a very long day... Well, year. God, It's only February.
He plays with the cigarette in his hands, not able to muster the care to light it. It's not like he's in a rush to get back. He's in anything but.
But eventually the cry for nicotine overwhelms the need for divorce, and with a flash of flame it is lit and at his lips, poison filling his mind with as much joy as he'll at present ever manage.
One puff down and already the tension is eased at his shoulders, and as the toxic fumes massage his muscles, his breath slows, and by the third pull, it's almost leisurely.
It's only when the white is half burnt down and the grey ash has stained the foot of his shoes, that his eyes wander from behind his lids.
Only one side of the gap between then houses is lit. All he sees in the view of a pub that looks so innocent from outside, and a lamplight, as dim as Lestrade felt. But the light crawls in a little way to show just beyond him, uninvited. The lazily scattered puddles reflect the neglected walls, and a slice of a packet of discarded crisps can just be seen. Salt and Vinegar, by the looks of things.
I'm starving.
He looks away, and at the jerking of his neck he sees nothing but the pitchness of the long alley. He takes another pull of sweet cigarette, and savors the feel of it between his teeth.
But then the tendrils of tax-payed light reach the end of the man-made depression, and leave a silhouette there, of someone crouching, hugging their knees. Silent and still the shape is. But it's a little unnerving to a man who knows first-hand what potential intent that shape might have.
Another poor chap. He thinks. What is it? Homeless? Drink? Evasion?
But he can't answer it in his head, and his well-meaning mind calls out.
"You alright?" His voice his scratchy from the smoke, but the figure is startled, head jerking up as if it'd been awoken. It's head shoots round, the darkened features staring at him. "Need anything?"
The form doesn't answer, only continues to look at him in that illustrious way. Training tells Inspector Greg Lestrade not to get any closer, knives, needles, guns, and he's got half a mind to dial 999 on him. But something in the shadow seems to click, and suddenly it relaxes.
"I'm fine." The voice was not the old, worn out tunes of some overweight, mid-life druggie. It was male, yes, but young.
"You sure?" The voice this time doesn't answer, but looks back down. "Well if you do, I'm a police officer. I can..." Help? Buy you a drink? Get you arrested?
"Please officer, I'm fine." The voice is gravelly, obviously he was asleep, and obviously he's not too pleased about being woken.
But with his lack of attention, the cigarette is nearly down to the filter, and with a tap, all that he would've smoked is now grey, and falling to the floor.
He drops it, grinding it beneath his feet.
That training then takes over again, this time for a different reason.
"You can't sleep here, sunshine." He says, reaching the boy.
"Why not?" Now there's a 'matter of fact' quality to the tone, one that seems to suit him in a weird way that weird things suit complete strangers.
Lestrade crouches down, still far enough away that if there is a knife in the boys grip, he's got a decent chance to get away before it'll swipe him. He can't smell alcohol. and he's well dressed and clean enough to suggest he's got a home. The only alternative makes his brow crease.
He might just be relaxing. He reasons, foolishly even to himself.
"Why are you here?" The boy looks up again. "And what's your name?"
"You can't arrest me for sleeping."
"But I can move you on."
"But you're off duty, and your friends are waiting. They'll be wondering where you are."
"What the-" A spark of frustration brought out of surprise scratches along his features. But the calmness needed to deal with civilians returns soon enough. And with a deep breath he continues. "How'd you know?" Really, who goes to a pub on their own. Lucky guess. The boy gives a shrug.
"Same way I know your getting a divorce and hate your boss, who is presumably the person your wife slept with."
Lestrade's fingers find the tarmac.
His wife. His cheating, lying wife.
'Rage' was a murderous downplaying of what was brewing in his stomach and up into the back of his mouth, giving it a bitter, and heavily sour taste.
"How?" It's a simple question, but the boy takes an age in answering. His eyes off and seemingly unaware he was being asked a question by an man of the law who was about to get very, very wrathful.
"Gossip." It's a lie, a goddamn lie, but in a second, Lestrade can't find the effort. He accepts that maybe yes, Anderson isn't exactly trustworthy when it comes to office woes.
The prodded fury is still there, burning away at him like the very cigarette he had smoked, turning his chest into hot, grey ash ready to be thrown to the floor, but he can't bring himself to be angry at the boy, no, not the boy. At himself, plenty, and at his wife, well...
But the boy?
There is but for a second silence, and in said interval, the boy reaches for his pocket. Lestrade braces.
But it is not a knife that is produced, as expected, but a lighter. The boy hands it over with brief explanation. "Looks like you need one, and I'm trying to get rid of one."
Greg's not sure what to do, the gesture being somewhat unexpected, and so takes it, it falling into place beside his other lighter in his pocket.
So whatever this boy's back story, Greg gets that he's not going to be able to squeeze anything else out of him. He's not in Inspector mode at the moment, he's more in 'curl up or or punch something' mode. If he's really the new sprout of trouble in town, he'll turn up a another point in some other alley, when Lestrade's not thinking of his wife with another man, which makes for a rather distracting image, in the worst of ways. He only needs the lad's name.
'But how did he know?', still plagues his mind, but the clouds are resurfacing, and he needs another drink, pronto.
Nicotine refueled, and just enough confusion to care, he gets back up with ease, muscles that work perfectly holding him with perfection.
He dusts off his knees, and waits for a moment.
"Well it was nice to meet you..."
"You too, officer." Smart, he thinks, but suspicious.
Nothing about that meeting wasn't suspicious.
He turns away, looking dead ahead into the gates of hell.
He builds up the will to walk back through those intimidating wooden doors, and face those friends who are there for him, yes, but just don't seem to get it.
"Oh and officer-" He spins back round, the muster he had built pooling back round into the puddles under his feet. Defeat and fatigue is laced under his voice.
"Yes?" The boy sits up straighter against the wall.
"What's your name?" Lestrade's eyes take a second to widen, before his chest deflates at last.
"Lestrade." The boy takes no further acknowledgement of him, and his neck jolts back down between his knees, and in seconds it seems like he's fallen back asleep.
Lestrade takes his eyes back up to the pub, bright and terrible, and although without meaning to, his lips have a sly hint of a smile to them.
It's not 'till he's lying on the couch back at a house he somehow calls home, - and after another hour of pretending to enjoy himself with friends who pretend to 'know how it feels' - while he's snuggled warmish beneath a blanket, and head resting awkwardly on a rolled up shirt that it dawns on him.
He never told Anderson about the cheating.
He opened his eyes and the blackness of the living room filled them.
Tomorrow, he decided in the throws of confused unconsciousness, he was finding that boy.