Stockholm Syndrome [01] - Stockholm Syndrome (24 page)

"You got eye bogeys."

"Nice." He rubs at them with his fingertips and turns over to press his face into the pillow, hiding in the scent of sleepy sweat and the kid's girly shampoo. "Don't watch me sleep, it's creepy."

"Only if you weren't my boyfriend."

"Don't call me your boyfriend, either."

"You ain't my
girlfriend
." He starts shuffling about, trying to nudge himself closer, trying to get Lindsay to lift his face out the crack between the pillows and look at him until he finally relents and drapes an arm over the kid's waist, just brushing the top of his arse gently, and puts a clumsy kiss between his eyebrows.

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"Morning."

"Say 'happy Christmas, sweetheart'."

"Happy Christmas, Philip."

"And kiss me properly."

It turns into something lingering, all quiet breaths and sliding tongues and fingers in hair, and that in turn eventually morphs into
cuddling
, of all things. It's strange how often that's been happening recently. Lindsay quickly puts his hand in the kid's pants and kisses him harder, as if that's going to cancel out the horrible soppy stuff, wraps his fingers around Valentine's rapidly hardening cock and strokes him until he's pink in the face and laughing in breathless little gasps; he's scrabbling down to pluck at the waistband like he's too distracted to remember how you strip off, so Lindsay grabs the kid's hand and directs him to stroke himself instead so he can peel the little pants down his legs and lose them somewhere under the covers.

"Don't stop," he murmurs, pressing the words against Valentine's warm skin as he kisses his knee and slides both hands up his legs to spread them open.

He takes the direction, settling in a ungainly sprawl there on the sheets and moving his hand steadily, smiling a bit and biting his flushed lower lip.

"You like watching?"

"Give me a good show and I will."

"Perv." He smirking, though, nibbling on the end of his thumb now and watching Lindsay watch him. Lindsay props himself up on his elbow halfway down the bed there, helping things along with a spit-wet finger slid between his cheeks and circling just enough to make him squirm. He wants to look at the kid's face, but it's like the chewed nails and chipped black paint are holding him fast and he
can't
, he's hypnotised there for what feels like forever with his hair and breath spilling over Valentine's bony ribcage just watching him bring himself off.

"Can I come?"

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"Well, you're kind of setting your own pace there. Sweetheart," he adds softly, just to hear him laugh, and edges up to swipe his tongue wetly over the kid's nipple through his t-shirt, kissing him there but still watching, never looking away, not until Valentine's breath sticks in his lungs and then all tumbles out at once.

"Fuuuck," he says weakly, after a minute, and closes his eyes and laughs again. "Don't be offended it weren't you doing the actual work, but that was..."

"I know."

"Pass me a tissue, yeah?"

"
No
." He doesn't think he's
ever
got himself out of his pyjama trousers so quickly in his life. He grabs Valentine's messy hand and closes his fingers around his own straining cock, holding them there and moving their hands together to show him how fast and hard he needs to go.

"You dirty old man, you
really
liked that." He hesitates, and licks his bitten lower lip. "Can I...?"

"Can you what?" He knows what, he just wants to hear it. Valentine seems to get his game instantly, because he throws a leg over Lindsay's body and gets off the bed then – all the product's been slept out of his hair and it won't stay where it goes when he tries to shake it out the way so he gives up and just kneels there on the carpet looking up at Lindsay through the bits of fringe flopping into his eyes. He looks somehow
more
obscene in only a tight girls' t-shirt than he would completely naked, and even worse when he makes a come-here gesture with his crooked finger until Lindsay's sitting on the edge of the bed.

"Can I have this in my mouth?" He's all wide eyes and grotesque fake innocence, curling his grip back around Lindsay's cock and squeezing gently until Lindsay makes an embarrassing sort of whimper and has to stab his fingernail into the side of his thumb to keep control so he doesn't do it again.

"Weren't you ever taught to say please and thank you?"

"Can I suck your cock, please and thank you?" His own come is 193

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smeared all over the both of them but he doesn't seem bothered in the slightest; he leans in and licks a delicate line from base to tip then closes his lips around Lindsay's cock and sucks gently for a moment, still looking up coyly. There's a string of spit when he pulls off and he laughs a bit and brushes his hand through it before he says anything else. "Can I make you come? You know I'll make it good, I can take it
all
. Can you come in my mouth, though, not down my throat, so I can taste you?"

"I'll come in your face if you don't shut up talking," Lindsay says hoarsely, fighting for breath and control. Valentine just laughs and keeps on kissing him, stroking gently and watching him.

Then there's a tap on the door and a cheery, "Good morning, boys! Are you awake?" that makes Lindsay very glad he doesn't have his gun because regretful split-second decisions might have been made. Valentine looks horrified for a moment and starts scrambling to his feet, but Lindsay shoots a hand out to hold him there by the hair. He nods his head across the room, where he's wedged the doorstop in tight between the carpet and the bottom of the door.

"Old trick," he whispers. "A speeding bus wouldn't get through that door." A bit louder, faking sleepiness: "Morning, Mum. Happy Christmas."

"Happy Christmas, love. I'm making breakfast in a bit. Who's hungry?"

Now Valentine's trembling with silent laughter. "I am," he calls, and slips his mouth back down over Lindsay's cock, just like he promised, swallowing around him and sucking him gently right down to the base. Lindsay bites his fist and can't think up a revenge that's good enough.

"How do you like your coffee, Pip?"

"Oh, er... about forty-three percent sugar, thirty-one percent milk, and twenty-four percent coffee."

"That's only ninety-eight, you genius," Lindsay mutters.

Valentine pulls a face. "And two percent hot water," he says, then smirks and adds, "Please and thank you."

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"Little
bastard
," Lindsay mouths, but it's wasted on the top of the kid's head because he's really going for it again, sucking messily and using his hands and tongue and the vibrations in his throat from his little moans to drag out a spinemelting orgasm in less than a minute. Thankfully Lindsay's mum is gone by then. He hauls the kid up by the t-shirt, then throws him on the bed when Valentine kisses him with his mouth full and spills it everywhere.

"You're in
so
much trouble when we get home," Lindsay hisses, leaning over him, but it's hard to sound that menacing when you're dripping with come and fighting panic-hysteria from almost being caught
again
.

"Nice trouble?"

"Depends how good my Christmas presents are."

"Mmm.
Now
can you pass me a tissue?" He does a pretty good job of mopping them both up, then he adds, "Showertime. You wanna go first?"

"You take longer doing your hair, you woman, you can go first." That, and he still feels too wiped out to move. He lounges in bed for a minute after Valentine's pulled yesterday's jeans on and kicked the doorstop out the way so he can get out, then realises the room
reeks
of sex and hurries up to open the window, even though it's freezing. He just catches the edge of his old classical guitar as he's going back to bed and has to grab at it to stop it toppling over – and then when it's in his hands what else is there to do but strum across the strings?

They're horribly out of tune, all of them. Lindsay yanks his pyjama trousers back on, and socks and a jumper against the December sea breeze, and just stands there for a moment looking at the guitar, all itchy-fingered. He has to fix it. It's like walking past a crooked picture frame, or finding a shirt with an inside-out sleeve. He
has
to fix it.

Nearly half an hour later he cracks his stiff knuckles and stops playing because it's hurting his fingertips, it's been that long – then he starts up again anyway. Just chords first, just to see if he remembers, then picking out notes, then putting them in the right order to make a tune. He starts playing some Bach, then slips into Stairway To Heaven without realising it, then stops abruptly and 195

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laughs at himself a bit. His foot's gone dead, sitting there cross-legged on the bed, so he stretches out and shuffles back against the pillows, goes back to mindless random chords.

From this new position, he suddenly realises he can see Valentine lurking just outside the half-open bedroom door.

He feels hot and sick for a moment, it almost feels like he's been caught wanking or something. Valentine just looks at him. Lindsay takes a big trembling breath in and starts playing the Mario theme – and that's what snaps the tension, as he'd hoped, like an over-tightened string. Valentine bursts out laughing and comes over to sit on the bed. Lindsay's smile feels less forced than he expected.

"How come you ain't a rockstar?"

"Because you keep telling me I look like a geography teacher."

"Jimmy Page is ugly as fuck, never held him back."

"Jimmy Page is a hack. BB King and Robert Johnson, that's where it is.

Jerry Garcia, Ry Cooder, Chuck Berry-"

"Hey. Don't tell
me
what's rock and roll and what ain't." Valentine runs his finger across the strings, very gently. "How come you don't play no more?"

"I told you why."

"Yeah, but..."

"What?"

"Nothing."

"No, what?"

"Just... if I was good at something and liked it I'd do it all the time. I
do
, I'm always doodling on newspapers and stuff, ain't I? It's a stupid reason you don't. 'Cos my dad made me'." He puts a stupid cartoony Yorkshire accent on for that last bit. "So what if he wanted you doing music? You can't hate it
that
much else you'd've burned the guitars the second he was dead and you wouldn't slag

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off Kirk Hammett all the time."

"Your logic is fucked."

"I got you a present."

"I should hope so, considering what day it is."

"Shut up. I heard you when I come out the bathroom, so I went down and got this one out from under the tree." He hands it over, a small cube wrapped in silver hologram paper with one of those loopy ribbon bows stuck on top. It looks disturbingly like a ring box. It
is
a ring box, Lindsay realises when he's got the paper off, and he frowns, but Valentine quickly says, "Oh, seriously,
shut up
, I ain't asking you to marry me, the box was just the right size cos it's too small to wrap up on its own. You gonna open it or not?"

There's a plectrum inside, on top of the little velvety insert.

"I proper stalked Bowie's Reality tour, I was at
all
the shows in the UK

and Ireland and six of them were first or second row cos I'm a creep like that, like HI, DAVID, IT'S ME – AGAIN. But I went in disguise, I wore different hats and tied my hair back sometimes and stuff cos I didn't want him
thinking
I'm a creeper even though I am. Anyway, that's his, I caught it when he threw it.

That's like, you know them god-botherers who swear blind they've got a bit of the crucifix or Noah's boat? Or like dead saints' bones and stuff, that pick's like that, it's fucking sacred and I dunno if you'll understand or what cos you think he's a tit but forget him a minute, just think about it sideways. You don't even have to use it, just... the only better thing I could give you's my monkey and you hate him even worse than Bowie, so..." He shuts up and looks uncomfortable.

"I've got you other stuff as well. I knew you'd think it's a twatty present."

"Don't put words in my mouth. You've not even stopped for breath so I can say thank you." They're kissing again, then, with the guitar caught between them and making odd noises where bits of bodies press against the strings.

Valentine winds a hand through Lindsay's hair, twisting there and holding him close.

"You still taste like-"

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A cough from the doorway halts him mid-sentence, thankfully.

"Can everybody
stop
sneaking up on me?" Lindsay yells. He shoves Valentine away roughly and tries to straighten his hair, not looking at his mother.

"Are you
ever
getting dressed or are you staying in your jims all day like a tramp? Breakfast's only waiting for you, now." She sounds like she's smiling, though. He pushes past her to get to the bathroom, and hopes she heard the guitar.

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They struggle in through the back door with bag after bag of shopping until the kitchen's a mass of bright orange plastic all over the counters and the table. Valentine's being helpful now, as if he knows he's in trouble and he's trying to put off the consequences. Of course it makes no difference. It never does. He takes the last bag in and dumps it on the counter while Lindsay slams the boot and locks the car, then he waits there in the middle of the room, nervously toeing the lino and twisting his fingers together behind his back.

"I'll help you put it away," he says.

Lindsay shoots his hand out and digs his fingers into the kid's shoulder, hard, until he gets the message and goes down on his knees. "You will not," he says, harsh and cold as he works the fastenings of his trousers and pulls them down a little bit, just enough. Valentine licks his lips and starts to move forwards like he knows exactly what it is that Lindsay wants and he's determined to do a good job of it so he'll be forgiven, but he makes a squeaky little whimper like a wounded puppy when Lindsay yanks on his hair to stop him, to hold him in place, and starts to stroke himself briskly with a spit-wet hand. It's over quickly –