Stockholm Syndrome 3 - No Beginning, No End (13 page)

"I'm glad you did that," Valentine says after a minute of giddy laughing and trying to control his breathing, "cos if any of that got on me I bet it would've stung like fuck."

"When does it stop hurting?"
"Dunno, depends. Not long. It stays warm for ages, though."

He can see it from where he is, laying sideways across the middle of the bed with his head resting on Valentine's bare thigh. He'll never get used to this, being so comfortable with somebody. He's still not that alright with the idea of Valentine seeing him naked, he never really was, but Valentine's never had any issues wandering around the house without any clothes on trying to find his favourite pants in the washing machine, cheerfully and enthusiastically drying himself off after a bath even if Lindsay's in the bedroom trying to read a book, using the toilet while Lindsay's brushing his teeth, everything. Lindsay's got no idea how it feels being that comfortable with yourself, but it's weirdly okay being this intimate with him. It never was with anybody else. Valentine yawns and stretches his whole body, he's always wiped out after. Lindsay can see the shift of muscles and bones under his skin, the stark bare patch at the side of his stomach contrasting with the furrier half he didn't take the razor to, and his brain throws it up in absolute surprise as if it didn't know it before:
he's beautiful because he's not and he doesn't care
.

"You sleepy?"
"Yeah. Shit, sorry. Come up here, let me-" "It's alright." "You sure?" "Yeah."

"If you do it yourself I'll make approving noises in all the right places."

That makes him laugh, he can't help it. "You idiot. What do you want me to do with your things? I'll move it, you just lie there like a little prince."

"You'll have to wash me down and bandage me up, Doctor Brown," Valentine murmurs sleepily. He's smiling like he knows this whole night has been ridiculous and loves it anyway. "Use that, that, that. Try and not wipe the pen ink too much cos it wants finishing in the morning. Wear gloves, you dirty monkey, I don't want your germs in me. There's tape somewhere, clingfilm me up like a drumstick, you seen how it's done." He's asleep before Lindsay's even finished cleaning away the dots of inky blood

-and when Lindsay wakes up in the morning it's to Valentine shower-fresh and still slightly damp beside him, breathing noisily and tracing the last letter n with his buzzing needle. He's hard, tenting up the front of the stolen too-big pyjama trousers he's wearing, and Lindsay's not sure whether Valentine's aware he's awake or not when he puts his hand down over the blue cotton and starts gently stroking himself again.

9.

The arguments about whether or not Lindsay should come out partying on Halloween night last for almost two weeks, ebbing and flowing in intensity like waves. Halloween night is the worst. Halloween is like a fucking tsunami.

"I'm not coming," he says. He's standing in the kitchen in his oldest softest brown cords and a cardigan of thick blue and grey stripes Valentine knitted for him six years ago. These are his slob clothes, his noway-am-I-leaving-the-house clothes. Valentine couldn't possibly be more of a contrast if he tried. He's wearing black bondage trousers and a fishnet shirt carefully ripped in all the places he's got tattoos so the words show through. He's got a studded leather handcuffs on with the linking chain unclipped, thick silver necklaces looped around his neck, staggeringly high platform boots with chunky silver buckles all down the sides. His hair is backcombed and reeking so strongly of hairspray it's a miracle he's still breathing. The chains around his neck are fixed to a slippery silk cape. His face is painted deathly grey, smudged black circles around his eyes, and he's wearing porcelain fangs. He looks like a cock. He doesn't belong in Lindsay's kitchen. He doesn't really belong in Lindsay's
life
.

"What you gonna do then, just hang round here all night fapping over Jamie Lee Curtis on telly?"

"I might read a book. I've got paperwork to do. This coffee is very nice." He takes a sip, watching Valentine over the rim of the cup to see whether he's reached giving-up point yet, but Valentine just scowls and pouts like a grounded teenage girl.

"Why don't you wanna come out places with me?" "What, like your ageing chaperone? I don't think so." "Please?"
"No."
"Fuck you, then."

A flash of cruel genius: "If you go and wash your face right now and tell Olly you're not going out tonight, I'll let you."

He actually considers it. Lindsay sees it swoop across his face like a bat:
oh my god
followed by
but I look fucking ace, I can't not go out
followed by
but holy weeping christ is this ever gonna happen again?
followed by
but we already got tix and they never ever come to London
with maybe a little hint of
bet I could talk him into letting me fuck him with my teeth in and my boots on
. Of course, that's when Olly stumbles downstairs and Valentine chews on his lower lip, teeth sliding through his black lipstick and scraping lines of pink there as he makes his reluctant decision.

"This is
well
gonna get on my tits by the end of the night, this fucking tail," Olly's muttering, swishing his hips around and watching over his shoulder as the cat tail sewn on his skintight trousers moves.

"What the fuck are you?" Lindsay says, trying to keep his roaring brain in one piece and drink his coffee like he's
not
noticed how tight Olly's black velvet trousers are or the way his black and white stripy silk jumper clings to the lines of his chest. It's so flimsy and ridiculous you can see his nipples jabbing at the fabric. It's not like he's interested... he's just not entirely convinced
Valentine
isn't interested, especially when he makes a wobbly wolf-whistle around his unfamiliar sharp teeth and he and Olly both crack up laughing.

"He's Catwoman."

"Get fucked, I'm a cat burglar." He tips his head down and touches his fingertips to the pointy ears nestled in his hair, smirking like he's doing something wonderfully clever and original.

"You'll freeze to death. You both will. You do know it's November tomorrow, don't you?"

Valentine gives him such a disgusted look, as if it's alright to be a stupid boring miserable old man when they're alone together but
not
in front of his arsehole of a friend. "Lindsay ain't coming, he'd rather just wank himself off with books and bank statements than maybe actually dare risk ever having a good time."

"Ah, well. Ain't your scene anyway, mate, is it?" Olly says. "Like you wouldn't expect him to come to some boring grey dinner full of librarians." Smirking little cunt wart, Lindsay wants to throw the coffee right in his eyes but Olly only bothered to give him the tiniest most fleeting passing glance and now he's looking at Valentine again and holding up a strip of black material. "Tie my mask on, yeah?
Don't
crush my hair, I used like all the shit in your bathroom getting that right..."

Lindsay makes a ridiculous throaty snorting noise he immediately hates himself for because it sounds stupid when it's supposed to sound cutting and derisive. He swallows back the rest of his coffee and goes to put his cup in the dishwasher. That's the end of it, he thinks, the brainless vain young peacocks are going out to see some band of posers he's never heard of and he's going to get a rare few hours of peace, happiness all round. Not so. He slams the dishwasher closed and turns round to see why Olly's suddenly laughing to find Valentine pressed up behind him with his mouth clamped over the side of Olly's neck. "Back off, princess, you get dribble on my shirt you're a fucking dead man," he's saying, forcing the words out even though he's laughing. His voice isn't entirely steady. Not surprising, the way Valentine's sucking on his neck, pinching the skin with his teeth and coaxing beads of blood up to just under the surface.

"Left my hat upstairs, won't be a sec," Valentine says suddenly. He goes striding out the kitchen like he's already forgotten the last five seconds. Olly scowls after him, wiping spit off the side of his neck with his palm then wiping his hand on his skinny thigh. Lindsay's still staring, not angry, not really anything, just staring with his hand still frozen in place on the dishwasher door.

"Did that actually just happen?"
"What?"
"You've got a..."

"What?" It's hard to tell if his eyes have suddenly gone comically wide because he's got a mask tied over half his face, but he
seems
shocked. "Oh my god he's such a fucking
prick
sometimes, he ain't bruised me?"

"Mmhm."
"Shit. You got a mirror?"

It happens quickly then, strange and unreal like it's happening to somebody else, like it's not really Lindsay's hand on Olly's suck-bruised neck, steering him viciously into the hall and slamming his head back hard against the wall mirror. "There."

"Get your fucking hands off me!" The more he struggles the tighter Lindsay's grip gets. Olly is obviously smarter than Valentine, he realises much sooner and goes still, breathing hard and glaring hatefully at him, defiant and unafraid. "
I'm
the victim here, mate. Don't kick off at me just cos your boyfriend's a slag."

"You weren't exactly fighting him off."

 

"I got play-bit by a vampire on Halloween, what the fuck's the problem?"

"The
problem
," Lindsay snarls, italicising the word by cracking Olly's head back against the glass again, "is you, uninvited, in my house, all the time."

"You think he ain't told me every single last detail of all the sick shit you and him done together?" Olly snaps back, spit flecks flying. Lindsay's got the urge to laugh at how much like a hissing cat he actually is, whiskers drawn on his face and yellow contact lenses and long black false eyelashes poking out through the holes in his mask, but he only wants to laugh because he's so incandescent with fury it's laugh or genuinely rip this bastard's skin off his skeleton. "You wanna see a head doctor, you need help, your issues ain't getting better on their own and if you don't sort yourself out you best not think he's hanging round to put up with you slapping him round like his dad no more, cos he's better than that and he knows it now. Don't get pissy cos your boyfriend's got a best mate and yours is fucking
dead
."

Lindsay slaps him full force across the face, so hard his palm rings from the impact. Olly just stares at him for a moment in openmouthed disbelief, then his face scrunches up with rage and he takes two handfuls of Lindsay's cardigan and drags him into a violent headbutt. He's only an inch taller than Valentine so the blow smashes into Lindsay's cheekbone instead, though that's probably worse; the pain is immediate and immense, blooming up into his eye and making it stream. He's ready to snap Olly's head right off like a flower but that's when Valentine comes thundering downstairs shrieking, "You're
both
fucking wankers, why don't you just fuck each other's faces?" and slams the front door behind himself.

Screeching car tyres. Silence.

"Bet you never missed him being a fucking brat," Olly mutters. He's rubbing his forehead where already there's a mark Lindsay can tell is going to swell up and bruise. He manages to wrench his tiny red mobile out of his tight back pocket and holds a button to speed-dial, scowling at the phone and hitting the end call button after a few seconds. "Ain't turned off, he's just letting it ring to answerphone."

Lindsay's rage seems to be leaking out of his watering eye. It was always the same with Valentine – sometimes things went too far and then his anger disappeared like it was never there, things just got awkward instead, confusing and painful and unpleasant but he never stayed
angry
once they'd left that invisible Do Not Cross line a mile behind. "Get out of my house," he says again, but he says it tiredly and without any threat.

"He's nicked my car, I know what my car sounds like." "So get on the bus."
"I ain't going on the
bus
!"

"You're not staying here. I'm going to find him, you can sit on the doorstep if you want but you're
not
staying here."

Ten minutes later he's multitasking like a champ, driving his car and trying to phone Valentine and keeping an eye out for jobsworths in police cars waiting to dish out fines
and
trying to recall exactly what it was he said that made Olly think he was invited along on this manhunt. Olly's sitting there in the passenger seat, pulling the sleeves on his cobweb-thin jumper down over his hands. The neckline is low enough anyway, but now he's stretching it all out of shape and dragging it halfway down his chest. Lindsay accidentally looks at him when he's checking the road to the left is clear and sees the top half of a tattoo peeking out from behind the fabric on his right pec: two curves like back-to-back parentheses and a swooping line crossed through the middle. Pisces, for the second of March, when in 1988 the most impossible person in the world was born. Lindsay doesn't remember the date but Olly's birthday was recent, about a month ago, and Valentine's got a Libra symbol in the exact same place. He's never made the connection until now. He tries to loosen his grip on the steering wheel because his fingers are starting to cramp.

"Hampstead's too fucking far away," Olly says sullenly, staring out the window. "What if he ain't even
gone
to his mum's? What if he's drove to Edinburgh in a sulk?"

"Don't be ridiculous."

 

"Obviously you don't know him as well as you think you do if you don't believe he would."

"Shut up."
"I-"
"
Shut up
."
"No wonder he walked out on you, you overbearing fucknut." "Am I talking in my head?"

"I wish you were." Amazingly he
does
shut up after that, folding his arms and pouting. It'd be almost bearable, totally ignoring each other, if not for Lindsay's throbbing cheekbone. He can't stop thinking about things he's spent all this time trying to lock a door on. Valentine punching him in the same eye when he found out about Ellie. All the endless spitting raving jealousy they can't get over no matter how much reassurance they get and give. Ty and Danny slumped on the cold concrete and spewing blood, dead too quickly even to realise it was happening.