Stockholm Syndrome [01] - Stockholm Syndrome (43 page)

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"No he don't. He smells like being sleepy, and hiding under your covers when everybody's pissed off and shouting. He smells like what it feels like being all warm and safe under your covers."

Lindsay brings the thing to his face to give it an experimental sort of sniff. "Wrong. It smells like your spit." And his shampoo, and sort of musty, and something indefinable but unmistakable that makes him think of the way Valentine looks first thing in the morning, when his hair's sticking up every which way and he's frowning slightly on opening his eyes like he can't remember where he is. He reaches over to tuck the monkey back between the kid's knees.

"You keep it. Just go to sleep or something."

"Can't. You know I can't sleep sitting up."

"Do you want your story tape back on? Or music?"

"Nah, I'll just be quiet."

He slips easily back into that drowsy state that's the closest he ever gets to falling asleep in the car. Lindsay usually prods him every ten minutes or so, or asks him a question that demands an answer, just to keep him from falling too deep. He gets upset easily if he's too far gone, but this time Lindsay's too aggravated by the traffic to remember, so when they finally get to a hotel nearly an hour later and he comes back to the car to collect Valentine and their bags after checking in, it feels kind of like World War Three.

"Stop it," Valentine says tearfully when Lindsay opens his door and leans over him to unplug his seatbelt and put his boots back on his feet. "Get off, leave me alone."

"We've got a bed upstairs. Come on. You can sleep."

"
Upstairs
?" he echoes, like Lindsay's suggested walking to Italy. He squirms in his seat, pulling his feet back under him so Lindsay can't get his boots on.

"Come on," Lindsay insists, trying to keep his cool. He manages to get one boot on and zip it closed around Valentine's skinny ankle.

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"No. I don't want to. I can't move, I can't walk nowhere, I'm tired, just leave me alone."

"Don't be naughty, I'm really not in the mood. Give me your other foot."

He forces the other boot on, and tries to make him stand. "Please, sweetheart.

You have to be a big boy for me now, okay? I can't carry you."

"I'm

tired
."

"I

know
you are. I know you are. I'll have you in bed in three minutes max, if you'll only stand up." He won't. Lindsay grits his teeth, and steals the toy monkey. He doesn't know what else to do. It's good strong bait, though, it works immediately, and as soon as they're in the room he sits Valentine on the bed and gives his toy back to him, then races back to the car. When he returns to the room with the suitcase, Valentine's still there in the middle of the bed where Lindsay left him, curled up on his side, crying and exhausted. He's clutching the monkey like he's glued to it, and sucking on its ragged woollen foot again.

"You

are

so
high-maintenance," Lindsay says, standing the case at the end of the bed and sitting down on the mattress to stroke Valentine's hair. "What did I tell you earlier about putting that horrible toy in your mouth, hmm?" That prompts a fresh wave of tears, and Lindsay sighs and moves his hand down from the kid's head to rub in slow, wide circles over his shaking back.

"Please don't, I'm sorry, I forgot, I'm just... I'm so
tired
."

It'll be more trouble than it's worth, trying to manoeuvre him into the bathroom and get him to brush his teeth, so he doesn't bother. He just struggles the kid out of his clothes and into his favourite pyjamas and manages to get him under the covers, then heads to the bathroom on his own to wash up. Valentine's still got his eyes open when he gets back in the bedroom, which isn't a good sign

– it just means he's too worked up to sleep. Too
tired
to sleep, although that never seems to make sense. Lindsay slips in beside him, reaching to gently rub his back again, trying to soothe him into sleep. He's not turned off the lamp yet, and the dim light throws odd shadows over Valentine's face, flickering and jumping in the faint hollows of his cheeks when his thumb creeps back into his

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mouth and he starts sucking, hard.

Unhelpfully, Lindsay's cock decides to wake up, as if it's making up for Valentine's sleepiness. The kid feels it but doesn't say anything at first, only puts his palm over the bulge in Lindsay's pyjama trousers, not moving his hand but just pressing against him.

"You like it when I cry," he says softly, words unclear around his thumb.

"No," Lindsay says. He feels sick with himself.

"You like it when I'm pathetic and crap and stupid, then."

"You're not. That's not it."

"So,

what?"

Valentine's holding the toy monkey against his shoulder. He's still breathing crookedly from his crying fit and his eyelids are drooping, but he doesn't close them and he doesn't look away and he doesn't protest as Lindsay finds a bottle of lube in one of the suitcase pockets, slips one of the kid's legs free from his pyjamas, and starts to scissor a pair of wet fingers inside him.

Valentine just goes on sucking, humming gently without words every now and then as Lindsay fucks him. It's not exactly encouragement, but he's not saying no either. Lindsay comes very quickly, shuddering all over and pressing clumsy kisses to the kid's cheek, close enough that he can feel Valentine's hand moving with the motion of the sucking.

"It's okay," Valentine says, when Lindsay lets the kid's legs drop down from where he's hoisted them around his waist and pulls out of him and puts a hand between his thighs to finish him off only to discover that he's not even properly hard, he's only halfway there. "Don't matter. I think I can sleep now. Is that alright?"

"Yeah," Lindsay mutters. He hadn't even taken off his pyjamas either, just tugged the trousers down to his knees. By the time he's sorted them out, Valentine's got his eyes closed and he's breathing steadily through his nose, 349

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thumb and monkey firmly in place. If he's not asleep yet, he will be very soon.

I like it when you need me
, he wants to say.
I like it when I have to look
after you
– but he's not sure he's doing a very good job, really.

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It's not too long before Valentine gets bored. It's nearly Christmas, he's nearly twenty-two, and for nearly a year they've been playing at conventionality and calling it 'hiding out'.

"Can we go on holiday again?" he asks one night, quietly, when they're watching the news on telly and Lindsay's translating the bits he thinks will interest him.

"If you want. Where?"

"Dunno.

Anywhere."

"Not

Disneyland.

Please
."

"Busier."

"Busier

than

Disneyland
?" he says, and Valentine laughs a bit and takes the remote out his hand so he can play with Lindsay's fingers.

"Somewhere with pollution and skyscrapers and traffic jams and Pizza Hut and stuff."

It's so obvious, suddenly. "You miss London."

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He's wearing an old Kinks t-shirt today, long-sleeved with the cuff all damp and full of holes because he chews it compulsively like a nervous schoolgirl gnawing the end of her plaits, and he gestures down at himself with the hand not clutching Lindsay's. "As long as I gaze on Waterloo sunset I'm in paradise," he says, with a half-smile. Lindsay hesitates, then says maybe it's time they moved back to Britain anyway, and Valentine flings his arms around Lindsay's neck and hugs him until he can't breathe.

***

Valentine turned out to have quite a talent for picking pockets, until Lindsay told him to stop.

"It's different when it's personal," he said, and Valentine laughed and told him his logic was fucked.

"Who are you, Robin Hood?"

"Well,

he

was
a Yorkshireman..."

"Arse! He's from Nottingham, even kids know that."

"He's from Loxley. Sheffield way."

"Fuck off. Saying Robin Hood's from Sheffield's like saying the Wombles live on Clapham Common."

This is the kind of argument that can drag on for hours, if not days. Even when it fizzles into a truce, there's always something weeks later that drags it all up again – like halfway through their second week staying in a Leicester Square hotel while they look around for somewhere to buy, Valentine filches a woman's purse out of her open handbag as they're leaving the coffee shop, just so he can chase after her and say, "Scuse me, did you drop this?" because he likes how pleased it makes her look.

"Your brain's on all crooked," Lindsay says to him, when the woman's

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finished saying thank you, and Valentine shrugs his shoulders, half blithe agreement and half don't-give-a-toss.

"Least I ain't thick enough to think the Wombles live in Clapham."

"I never said they did!"

"Yeah you did say that!"

"I... fuck it. You're impossible."

"I ain't impossible, I'm just saying, the Wombles of
Wimbledon
Common, innit? Cos Clapham don't sound right in the theme song."

"I never said
anything
about the fucking Wombles." He's gritting his teeth and trying to stay calm because it's such a stupid thing to fight about, but the kid never knows when to shut up.

"Alright, alright, let's just leave it, shall we? Don't have a stroke."

"I don't like you today."

"That's okay. You liked me yesterday and Tuesday. Two out of three ain't bad."

They're walking without really having anywhere to go, they're just walking. Valentine keeps trying to hold his hand and no amount of shaking and pinching can get him to leave off. Eventually Lindsay snaps, "Don't
touch
me,"

and Valentine rolls his eyes and hooks his thumbs through his own beltloops instead.

"Nobody cares, you know. It ain't the nineteen-fifties no more, no one gives a shit if two blokes wanna hold hands."

"Two

don't,

one
does, and he'll get his hands shot right
off
if he doesn't pack it in."

"You're

such
a closet case," Valentine mutters. He's slyly looking sideways to get Lindsay's reaction, so Lindsay fights to keep a poker face. He's obviously in another one of those fucking annoying moods he gets in every now and then. Poker face is the only way to deal with it; he gets bored if he's ignored 353

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and quietens down, like a bratty child.

"It's nothing to do with that. I just don't like people flaunting affection in public, okay? Makes my skin crawl, all those saps walking round with their hands in each other's back pockets, it's vile."

"Oh. Well, there goes my plan to take you up on the Heath later, then."

"Don't be perverse."

"Says the man who gets his kicks training my gag reflex with a gun barrel."

"Keep your voice down. And perverse isn't always the same thing as perverted."

"Oh my god, it's like fucking my
teacher
." He starts jumping down the steps into Trafalgar Square, feet together like his ankles are tied, racing a little girl who's doing it already. He lets her win and she laughs in triumph and runs off to catch up with her mum, then he waits there at the bottom for Lindsay to come down a bit more sedately and carries on talking like the pause never happened. "Is that what you want? I'll wear little grey shorts and a stripy tie and write out 'I must swallow, not spit' five hundred times while you sit there and slam your cock in the dictionary?"

Lindsay snatches at his wrist and squeezes hard enough to hurt. "I said keep your voice down, you little shit," he hisses. "Don't be perverse
or
perverted, just shut up or you're going in the fountain." He does shut up, unbelievably. Even more than that, his whole manner's changed and he's being all meek and docile, just walking quietly at Lindsay's side with his eyes turned down and staring at the paving in front of them, occasionally glancing up at him but mostly just walking and behaving himself. They're halfway across the square before Lindsay realises the kid's probably being so good because he's still holding his wrist – his hand, really, just like he wanted, or close enough for the difference not to matter.

He hates him for winning yet again. Every tiny little victory adds up and it's fucking infuriating.

Still, it's difficult to stay in a bad mood for long. Valentine keeps

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catching his eye and smiling brilliantly for no apparent reason other than it's nearly Christmas and they're in London in the shadow of the biggest fir tree he's ever seen, so he relents, as their aimless wandering takes them to one of the fountains, and slips his hand down to wind their fingers together properly, squeezing gently once and letting him go.

"Love you," Valentine says, because that's just what he says to fill in any and every break in conversation. He drops his bag at his feet and jumps up to sit on the wall round the water, tugging at the pocket of Lindsay's coat until he's standing close enough. It's a beautiful day, bright and clear even though it's freezing, and the place is as busy as it ever is. Lindsay feels like everybody's staring when he reaches to sort out the kid's windswept hair but he does it anyway. Valentine leans into his hand like a fussy cat so Lindsay doesn't stop; he stands there between the kid's dangling polka-dotted legs just stroking and playing and pulling at the bits of dyed black hair until Valentine's making breathy little laughing sounds and slipping his arms between Lindsay's coat and jumper for a cuddle, resting his head against Lindsay's body. "You can tell me,"

he says. He doesn't pull away, just tips his head back and looks up. "Cos it's Christmas. You can say it." Lindsay huffs and rolls his eyes but he still does it, he gets his mouth as close to the kid's ear as possible and says it as quietly as he can.