Stockholm Syndrome [01] - Stockholm Syndrome (34 page)

"So you're going to a dollies' tea party instead."

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C H A P T E R 2 4

"Why

not?"

"Don't you think that's a bit sad and weird? Your best friend's an eight-year-old girl you can't understand."

Valentine sticks his head into the living room. "
You're
my best friend,"

he says, with a smile that's all sunshine, then he disappears back to see to the whistling kettle. Lindsay makes sure his long-suffering sigh is loud enough to be heard in the other room. (Secretly, his stomach is doing pleased little somersaults.) A minute later Valentine comes back in with two cups of tea and half a pack of biscuits and stares pointedly at Lindsay's legs until he sighs and swings them down off the sofa cushion so the kid can curl in next to him.

"I've gotta learn French," he says. "I'm getting all claustrophobic, I ain't got no idea what people're saying to me."

"Maybe you should learn adequate English first."

"Fuck

you."

"If you want," he says, then regrets it a bit because Valentine's going to bring it up next time he tries it on and claim it was agreement. "Anyway, you know
some
French."

"I meant I've gotta learn
helpful
French. I ain't saying baise-moi to that sweet old dear in the bakery, she'll have a fucking heart attack."

"You don't know, she might be a right little goer."

"Thank fuck you're bent like a hairpin, then, if that's your taste in women," he says, teasing him with a cheeky grin then leaning over the arm of the sofa to root through his knitting box. Lindsay sighs and opens his book again so the kid knows how much of a prat he thinks he is, but he still watches over the top of his page as Valentine's bony little fingers navigate the five needles like a maestro. He got Ty's nan to teach him when they were hiding out at his family's place after the botched job, waiting for the pins and painkillers to do their job on Lindsay's shoulder. She took a bit of a shine to Valentine, which fucked her grandson off no end. Lindsay said maybe he should paint her nails and watch the

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soaps and take up knitting, too, if he wanted more attention, and Ty scowled and punched him in the injured side, then Valentine walloped him with the rolling pin he was learning to make apple pies with and there was a massive brawl which ended up with everybody except Valentine being severely told off by a very very scary old woman and fucked Ty off even more.

"What the hell are you doing?" he asks.

"Gun cosy. You can't tell me to piss off if it's a present, you have to be all gracious and pretend you like it."

"I fucking well will
not
pretend I like it."

"Don't get your knickers in a twist. Like I'd waste time and effort making something for
you
, you ungrateful cunt." He's got the soft pink wool draped between his fingers and the working needle clicks like a metronome, slow and steady. He's still not perfect, but he's absorbed and determined and he doesn't look up. "It's a hat. For Aurelie, til her hair comes back properly."

"Oh," Lindsay says. He closes his book. "I love you," he mumbles, and the words all tumble out over each other until they're not really three words at all, they're a single word of embarrassed gibberish. Valentine still doesn't look up from his knitting, but he raises his eyebrow to show he's heard. He always sticks his tongue out the corner of his mouth when he's concentrating, and Lindsay can see him silently counting around it as he finishes whatever it was he needed to finish and makes a pencil mark on his pattern chart. He puts the spider of needles on top of the wool and puts the stack on the coffee table between their mugs. He takes a sip of tea, and eats a biscuit. Only then, when Lindsay feels just about on the verge of throwing up his guts, does the kid finally look up and meet his eyes.

"What was that?"

"I love you," Lindsay says again, directing the words in a tiny mutter somewhere in the direction of his own knees.

"One more time?"

"Get stuffed. Are you deaf?"

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C H A P T E R 2 4

"Tell

me

again."

"No. You heard me. I'm not saying it again."

"You have to. It's only true the third time."

"Says

who?"

"Fairytales."

"Are you the pretty princess?" He reaches out to tug one of the ribbons in his hair and Valentine smacks his hand away and frowns.

"You're the ogre, then."

"That's

nice."

"A big stupid ugly fucking stubborn ogre."

"I've just told you I love you. You could try to be a
bit
less abusive."

"
There
it is," Valentine says. He's smiling like a halfwit, and he clambers carefully into Lindsay's lap and kisses him. "Was that so difficult?"

"Savour it. It's like Christmas. Once a year, if you're lucky. I'm not saying it again."

"It's only been, what, eighteen months? We could've cultivated a couple of babies in that time."

"Fuck off. We could not."

"Well, you know, not
actually
."

"Not

ever
."

"Well. No. Can we get a dog, though?"

Valentine's not bored yet. It's a bit amazing. Lindsay expected him to be bored and restless and miserable stuck here in the tiny town in the middle of nowhere. Actually, he wakes up every morning like it's the first day of a wonderful holiday. It's not going to last, Lindsay won't kid himself, but this strange easy kind of happiness has already lasted longer than he thought it would, so maybe it's not completely doomed after all. Maybe.

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"Maybe," he says, and Valentine laughs and kisses the top of his head and says their ridiculous little domestic pet-owning setup is 'genius'.

It is, really. It's pretty good, anyway, and that's close enough.

There's a dull, thudding ache in his shoulder, so he uses the other arm on its own to pull the kid closer, draping around his waist. Valentine rests his pointy chin on Lindsay's head, and everything's quiet, and everything's genius.

Of course, the kid ruins it before long by opening his big mouth and speaking.

"So, run it by me again."

"What?"

"The

plan."

"What

plan?"

"Liiiiindsaaaaayyyyy."

"Don't whine, I hate it when you whine like that."

"Liiiiiiiindsaaaaaaaayyyyyyyy."

"
Stop
it." He's laughing and trying to pretend he isn't.

"Come on. Come oonnn. What've I got to do,
suck
the information out of you like fucking snake poison?"

"Might."

Valentine grins and slithers down off the sofa and makes short work of Lindsay's button and zip, pinching at his thigh until he lifts up and helps get his jeans shoved down around his ankles.

"
So
," he says again, with his expert fingers stroking Lindsay hard and his wet, licked bottom lip just touching his cock, "tell me again how you think we're gonna take the Louvre."

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C H A P T E R 2 5

Valentine's lying on his front on the living room carpet with his books.

The miserable little kitten he found yesterday and decided to adopt is curled up asleep on the small of his back, nestled into the gentle curve between his arse and the slope of his body where he's propped himself up on his elbows.

"Is your book good?" Lindsay asks.

Valentine doesn't even look round. He sounds sort of frustrated when he answers. "I'm only two pages in, I have to look every other word up then I forget what's happening."

"It
is
for children, you know."

"Yeah,
French
children, be fair."

"Have you been learning your verbs too?"

"Yeah." He shifts a bit; the kitten makes a pitiful little mewling sound at being disturbed and jumps off him to go wandering into the kitchen, and he takes the opportunity to scramble to his feet for a stretch, cracking his knuckles with a horrible popping sound. "Aw, Lindsay, look, there's a Peter rabbit in the garden."

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"Where's my gun?"

"Lindsay!"

"Mr. McGregor wants a rabbit pie."

"He's only a little rabbit." Lindsay uncurls himself from his place on the sofa and goes over to the window, where Valentine's got his face pressed against the pane. He rests his chin on the kid's head and slips an arm around his waist, and Valentine immediately reaches up to hold on to him, to trap him where he is and keep him from moving away again. "See, just there, near the fencepost. He's a brave little sod, he was right up close til you scared him off."

"What's French for rabbit?"

Valentine stills his fingers, where he's been brushing the tips gently across the fine hairs on the back of Lindsay's hand. "Lapin?"

"Put it in a sentence."

"Umm... un petit lapin brun qui m'appelle Peter-" He breaks off suddenly, twisting his words into a harsh gasp when Lindsay pulls his hair. It's not a sharp tug, it's a slow, deliberate drag, winding his fingers through the long black strands and clenching his fist and forcing the kid's head backwards and to the side so he can look him properly in the face.

"What have I told you about reflexive verbs?"

"Oh fuck, sorry, uhm, il
s'appelle
Peter."

"I'm going to get you speaking
one
language correctly if it kills us both."

He says it like he's pissed off, but he's stroking Valentine's hair now, smoothing it down where he's messed it up. Valentine hesitates, like he's not sure whether to believe the angry bit or the tender bit, but then he settles back against him and whispers okay. Lindsay smiles and moves his hand down from Valentine's hair, around his skinny body with the other arm. "Conjugate parler."

"Je parle, tu parles, il parle, nous parlons, vous parlez, ils parlent."

"Plus-que-parfait du subjonctif?"

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C H A P T E R 2 5

"Lindsay, I don't even know what subjunctive means in
English
."

"I'm kidding."

"Oh."

Valentine's wearing one of Lindsay's cardigans, far too baggy on him and rolled up at the sleeves – not because he's cold, he said, but because it smells of familiar soap and cigarettes – and Lindsay touches the top button with his fingertip, tracing round its circumference. "Can you do être?" he asks, fake-casually, and Valentine stumbles all over his words trying to get them out.

"Je suis, tu-"

"Futur?"

"Je serai, tu seras, il sera, nous serons, vous serez, ils seront."

"Good boy." He slips the button through, and presses the palm of his hand against Valentine's heart, thudding hard under the thin fabric of his old t-shirt. "What about aller?"

"Je... um."

"You'd better know this one."

"Or what?"

He puts his teeth on Valentine's neck, just at the curve where it becomes his shoulder, and bites.

"OW, fuck, that's gonna bruise!"

"So wear a scarf. Je vais...?"

"Yeah, je vais, um, tu... vais." He catches his breath in his throat, then, when Lindsay snatches his hand out of the cardigan and slaps him sharply on the side of the thigh. "I swear I knew it, you're putting me off!"

"This a basic verb, you can't learn the language if you don't know the basics. Don't
lie
to me about what you know and what you don't, how am I supposed to help you if you lie?"

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"I ain't lying, it's tu
vas
, alright? And il va, nous allons, vous allez, ils vont."

"Are you getting it wrong on purpose because you
want
me to put you over my knee?"

That makes him laugh, a little breath of a sound fogging up the window by his mouth. "As if I would..."

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C H A P T E R 2 6

When Lindsay goes upstairs with a mug of hot chocolate, Valentine's already in bed. He thought he'd been keeping a bit quiet. Slightly baffled, he closes the bedroom door behind himself and puts the cup on the desk. The room is dim; it's still not completely dark outside, and Valentine's left his computer on, glowing feebly out into the room because the desktop picture is too dark to be any good as a lamp. He watches Lindsay from under the covers but he doesn't say anything.

"What are you doing?"

"I had enough. I was tired."

"Why aren't you in our room?"

"Don't know."

Lindsay's trying to think of
any
remark he might have made, however innocent and slight, that the kid could have taken as a insult, but there's nothing.

He wouldn't let him watch High School Musical 2 earlier, but surely he can't
still
be sulking about that?

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He rolls the spinny desk chair over to the edge of the bed and sits down.

"Have I upset you?" he asks carefully, then screws his face up because he sounds so pathetic and clingy. It makes Valentine smile, though – just barely, just with one side of his mouth, but it's there.

"Things ain't always about you."

"Don't talk rubbish, I'm the axis of your world." That one actually makes him laugh. Lindsay reaches out to touch his face, as if he can coax the smile to stay, stroking his cheek gently with his thumb. "That's better. What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"Even
you
don't sulk over nothing."

"Sometimes I do. Like when you get the giggles and you can't stop even when there's nothing funny. You're allowed to be happy or sad for no reason."

"Okay," Lindsay says slowly, even though it's not. "So what's going to make you happy again?"

"Don't know. Nothing. Morning. Like waiting for Christmas. I thought I'd sleep through it but I ain't sleepy."

"You just said you were."

"I said I'm tired. I ain't
sleepy
, they're different."

He never knows what to do when Valentine gets in one of his difficult, quiet moods. It's annoying, sometimes, and he just leaves him to it – other times, like now, it makes
him
feel all crooked and wrong as well. There's only ever one thing to do about that.