Stockholm Syndrome [01] - Stockholm Syndrome (52 page)

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because it's too much to hope that he's here to make up, isn't it?

He feels the shift of the mattress as Lindsay sits down, and then Lindsay's hand on the back of his neck – just a firm, warm pressure at first, before the fingers slip up and start stroking gently, curling in his hair and smoothing out the sweaty tangles. It's a weird, hesitant kind of touch, like Lindsay's forgotten how to do it. Maybe he has. Pip has forgotten what it feels like, so it makes sense.

"What were you dreaming?"

"Can't

remember."

"Can't remember, or don't want to tell me?"

"I can't remember." He turns over onto his other side. It's too dark to see anything more than a silhouette so he does what Lindsay's doing, he reaches up and finds his face, the ends of his hair and the creases between his eyebrows and the stubble that's getting long enough to be soft again. "Just something horrible.

The sea... I can't remember." Over his nose, over his lips, cupping his cheek. His jawbone rests in Pip's palm like that's how they're meant to be, like the east coast of Brazil and the west coast of Africa. Pip closes his eyes again, and his wet eyelashes catch on Lindsay's fingertips.

"You were crying."

"Sorry."

"What

for?"

"I'm meant to be a grown-up. It's stupid."

"It's

not."

"
You
don't do it."

"You make me want to. And... scream. And pull my hair out, and shoot you in the face, and shoot
myself
in the face. And... run. Just, run. Go away forever."

"But you're still here."

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"It's

my

house."

"But you've not kicked me out or killed me."

"No."

The bed's smaller than the other one but that's okay. It just means they
have
to be close, when Lindsay lies down. They can't be all silly and awkward and take it slow, edge together a little bit at a time like teenagers. They're just close right away. Pip ends up with his head on Lindsay's shoulder and Lindsay's arms around him. His nose is burning like he wants to cry again, but his eyes won't cooperate. Probably best.

He wakes up a bit later. He didn't realise he even fell asleep, but he did.

It's still not getting-up time, but the greyish dawn light is just enough to see by.

He twists and wriggles in Lindsay's arms, but gently, trying to look at him without waking him. He looks exhausted and old, frowning slightly even in his sleep. Pip wonders what he's dreaming about, and whether it's horrible or just really sad. He wonders how he can make Lindsay smile again, and whether he'll be allowed to try.

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The next time Pip wakes, Lindsay's not there any more and the space on the bed is cold so he must have been gone for a while, but he doesn't rush to get up and look for him. He just stretches and yawns, scrubs the sleep from his eyes with his knuckles, pulls his sock up where he must have kicked it loose in his sleep. He can smell burnt toast – the toaster's on the blink and he's not sure whether Lindsay knows, because they've not been talking so Pip couldn't tell him he keeps turning the dial down for a
reason
and not just to try and annoy him into making some contact. The kitchen's empty when he feels awake enough to go down, except for the smoke that's already being dissipated by the open window.

He flicks the kettle on and calls out. "You want a cup of coffee?"

"Got one." Lindsay's voice is coming from the living room. "You know what, I think the toaster's knackered."

Pip laughs at that, and half fills his cup with a thick muddy mixture of Nescafé, milk and sugar ready for the boiling water. "Yeah, I know."

"I want to talk to you," Lindsay says suddenly, and Pip instantly forgets 419

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he's making coffee and goes into the other room. Lindsay's in his armchair, still in his pyjama trousers and t-shirt with sleepy rumpled hair and no glasses, balancing a crumb-strewn plate on the arm. He's got a couple of crumbs caught in the whiskers at the corner of his mouth, and Pip brushes them away with his fingertip before he kneels in front of the chair again, like he's been doing for
weeks
trying to get Lindsay to talk to him.

"Okay." Lindsay doesn't say anything, he just looks awkward, so Pip prompts him. "What do you wanna talk about? The... thing, Danny and Ty?"

"No," Lindsay says firmly, immediately. He puts his elbow on the chair arm so he can rest his forehead in his hand, and Pip grabs the plate when he knocks it and puts it safely on the carpet.

"Might it help?"

"I want to talk to you."

"Alright. But what about?"

"Nothing. That's not it. Just, I want to talk to you again. This is stupid, not talking, it's like being back in fucking school."

"Talk, then. I'm listening, I ain't going nowhere unless you make me."

He waits and waits, and Lindsay takes a couple of deep breaths like he's about to start verbally spewing up his guts, but nothing actually makes it out so Pip kicks things off himself. He's been meaning to plan something to say, write and learn a little speech to make everything better, but could never make himself actually
do
it – and anyway, the more he thought about it the more ludicrous it sounded. It sounds ludicrous now, blurting out, "It was a proxy thing. Like when kings used to send their servants off to marry the foreign princesses cos they were too busy to go themselves. He was so fucking mean to me, all the time. It's alright for you, it's easy saying laugh it off, ignore him, he's only pissing around, it's easy saying that when you ain't having him go on at you all the time, but there's no way even
you
wouldn't crack under Chinese water torture and I've had wankers like him having a go at me since I can remember, and I'm sorry it went that far cos I honestly never meant it to, and I'm really
really
fucking sorry I upset you and the

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girls so bad, but I never thought about nothing sensible, I just wanted to get everyone back and he was closest. I know that's fucked up. I wish I could take it back if it meant it'd fix you, I wouldn't care no more, I'd just take it and let him say what he wanted so long as you weren't sad all the time cos it's fucking killing me, Lindsay." He makes himself shut up. He rambles because he's terrified of awkward silences, and that's what Lindsay's been best at lately. "You know you can come in any time," he adds tentatively. "You're the one who wanted to talk."

"I said
not
about that." Lindsay's voice is small and tight, and without any warning his hand flicks out and smacks Pip twice on the cheek. He just closes his eyes and breathes through the shock of pain. It's not even that hard –

and it's a reaction, and it's better than a silence. "That's a ridiculous explanation, anyway. You must
like
it when people treat you like dirt or you wouldn't keep on pushing me."

"It's different when it's you," he tries to explain. Lindsay smacks him again, but still not very hard.

"You never make sense."

"I make sense, you just don't listen." He's expecting the slaps this time; they're still not hard, but starting to get annoying like a fly buzzing round his head that won't be shooed away. He vaguely wonders whether he put the idea in Lindsay's head by talking about Chinese water torture. "You must like me pushing you, anyway, else you wouldn't get such a massive hard-on every time you hit me." It's not every time, not really – sometimes Lindsay really does hit him just to make a point, or to tell him off when he's done or said something he's not supposed to, but just as often as that it seems like Lindsay hits him for the hell of it. He doesn't
mind
it, they've always played rough ever since they stopped awkwardly dancing round each other's boundaries right near the beginning, but that only means there's a blurring of lines sometimes, a hard cock pressed against him when Lindsay's supposed to be telling him off, or he gets sulky and doesn't feel like it any more because he spent a long time getting his hair right and Lindsay's pulled it all out of shape.

He doesn't duck away quickly enough and Lindsay's fingers catch him 421

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on his jaw. "What, murdering my friends is foreplay now, is it?"

"Lindsay, stop it."

Another light slap on the cheek, but it's really starting to hurt now because it's all in the same place, sting laid on top of sting until it makes his eyes water. "Why?"

"I said I'm sorry, what the fuck else am I meant to do? I can't fix it, I ain't got a TARDIS.
Stop
it." He manages to catch Lindsay's wrist out the air this time, but then he gets a harder smack on the other cheek from his other hand, and it's too much. "Like you're perfect," he spits out, and flings Lindsay's hand back at him. "How many people've
you
killed? Don't tell me you never killed no one, you think any jury in the country's gonna care you never actually pulled the triggers? You ain't some snow-white saint, you're a bankrobbing murdering thug so will you fucking
stop
acting on like I'm the worst person in the world and get some perspective?" It's there in his head, suddenly, this perfect little bit of cruelty, and he regrets it as soon as he's said it but he can't make his mouth stop.

"It's a fucking good thing your dad pegged it when he did, cos imagine how ashamed he'd be if he knew how his little golden boy turned out."

The night of the ambush is fuzzy and distorted like a fever-dream, but he clearly remembers Lindsay escaping into the other room and smashing furniture and shouting anguished swears at himself, breaking all the draining crockery on the floor and kicking holes into the wall, and he remembers how glad he was that Lindsay wasn't crying, because even the
thought
of Lindsay crying was so absolutely, profoundly wrong that it made him need to throw up.

He needs to throw up now looking at the movements in Lindsay's face, the way his throat is working and the clenching muscles in his jaw, how he tips his head back and blinks furiously and the ugly way his face twists up with this immense effort not to have a breakdown in front of anybody. Pip half wants him to go for it, just let go and bawl like a toddler with a skinned knee, because when it gets you like that, when you have to try
that hard
to hold it in, then surely it's best to come out, like leeching bad blood – but even more than that he wants this terrible nausea to pass, and it's not going to until Lindsay's breathing stops being

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all ragged and wet.

"Fuck," he says, desperate and miserable and far more sorry for this than he is about anything else he's done. "Please don't. Please,
please
don't, I'm sorry." He's not sure whether trying to touch him is a good idea now, he's bracing himself for a broken nose or something, but when he gets up off his knees and slips onto Lindsay's lap all he gets is the fiercest most clinging hug he's ever had in his life, Lindsay's arms around his back and crushing him so close he imagines he can feel both their bloodstreams pulsing through all the points of contact.

Lindsay gets himself under control almost immediately, steadying his breathing to a warm, gentle touch against Pip's neck, but he doesn't let go for a long time.

"I don't want to talk about that," he says eventually. His voice is calm and quiet, just like always. "I worked out we only have two ways to go from here. One, I kill you and get over it. Or two, I just get over it."

"I fucking hope you're picking number two." Lindsay actually smiles at that, and now Pip feels like sobbing as well. He darts in quick and puts a kiss on Lindsay's cheek because he doesn't know what else to say, and Lindsay reaches a hand up to thread fingers through his hair and hold him there close, so when he speaks again the words tickle his ear.

"I'm getting over it, which means I'm not thinking about it, which means if you ever bring it up again I'm going to kill you. I don't want to kill you, but I'm not kidding around. We're never going to talk about this again, is that clear?"

"Yeah."

"I've never hated anybody in the world like I hate you."

"Yeah, I know." It's hard to get the words out, because Lindsay's kissing him. He shifts round in the chair, knowing there's no possible way to get any closer but trying anyway, pressing against him and clutching at the collar of his t-shirt and kissing back until his jaw aches. It seems pretty inevitable that it's going to go a bit beyond kissing now, after so long just existing in the same place and creeping around the thrumming tension – and it's not the best they've ever had it, it's just awkward uncomfortable fumbling handjobs in tented pyjama 423

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trousers, but when Pip comes he buries his face in the side of Lindsay's neck, in his hair, breathing his soap and whimpering his name in stuttery little pleas, and knows he's never going to feel this glad to be alive again.

"Talk to me," he says, a long while later.

Lindsay sounds sleepy, like he's been drifting off as he plays with Pip's hair. "Hmm?"

"I want to talk. Not even about nothing, really. Just... talk. I wanna hear your voice. You can read to me if you want. Read me one of your shitty boring books with no pictures if you have to, I don't care, I just wanna hear you talking.

House is too quiet. Talk to me."

"My mum took me to see the Clash when I was little," Lindsay says, after a moment's thought. "We pretended we were going round my granny's house for the weekend so my dad wouldn't want to come, but she managed to smuggle me in backstage because my Uncle Terry was working on the door. My dad
hated
them, but my mum would've divorced him for Joe Strummer in a second. Maybe that's
why
he hated them, it's nothing at all to do with how he was twice the jazz snob I am." Pip can't stop laughing – not because it's funny, although it is a bit, but because he's happy, because it's something new he didn't know before.