Read Stockholm Syndrome 2- 17 Black and 29 Red Online
Authors: Richard Rider
"What are you thinking?" Lindsay says, quietly. Pip looks up, and his face feels hot because he didn't know he was being watched. He fakes a little laugh, fakes a yawn.
"Stretched my ear as well, since there was nobody telling me I weren't allowed." That was stupid. He curses himself, drinks half his beer in one go, tries to blunder on to make it sound less like an accusation or a plea. "I can put my little finger right through, wanna see?"
Silence again. He tries not to rush his beer because then he'll have nothing left to do except talk, and talking's when it gets excruciating, but the silence drags on and then his bottle's empty and he's not sure what to do. He blows across the end like a flute, but then he stops that as well because he always used to do it every single time he drank from a bottle, it was like a compulsion, and Lindsay always used to get annoyed. It's horrible. It's too weird. There's
nothing
that doesn't have pages of memories attached to it, and it's too much. He's just about to make his excuses and leave when Lindsay speaks.
Lindsay shifts closer, onto the empty cushion between them, and Pip doesn't realise he's holding his breath until it escapes him in a quiet little sigh, when Lindsay slips the buttons at his cuff through and starts rolling the sleeve up above his elbow so he can get at the words. He holds Pip's wrist in his hand and tilts his arm towards the dim light from the floorlamp, and as he's reading he follows the words with a fingertip like it's Braille. Pip squeezes his eyes shut but he still knows what Lindsay's reading, all the song lyrics and book quotes all in different fonts and different sizes, trailing up from his wrist and covering every bit of his forearm in words and numbers and playing card symbols,
want an axe to break the ice
and
curiouser and curiouser
and
burn burn burn like fabulous yellow roman candles
and
don't dive shallow in deep dark water
and
so it goes
and
the silent guns of love will blast the sky
and
"This one," Lindsay says. His voice sounds strange, like he can't really remember how you're supposed to move your mouth to make the right sounds. It's trembling, hardly more than a whisper, and Pip's still got his eyes closed because Lindsay's stroking his arm with his thumb and he can't bear it. "Tu deviens responsable pour toujours de ce que tu as apprivoisé."
The next he feels is the gentle bump of nose and tickle of whiskers, Lindsay softly kissing the domino inside his wrist just like he always used to. A tsunami of goosebumps rushes across Pip's skin and he puts his other hand over his face, over his eyes even though they're already closed, because this is a
good
thing, or it should be, but he feels sick and exposed and completely flayed open. Stupid, considering everything in the past.
Really
stupid, considering how much he wants it.
It gets easier after a minute. Lindsay isn't rushing, he's just ghosting those tiny little kisses all over his arm, following the inked words again. Pip moves his hand off his face, up into his hair to push it out the way at first but then he's not sure what to do with it so he leaves it there, curling long bits of black around his fingers and just watching.
"Do you want me to stop?" Lindsay says, a muffled murmur against his skin. Pip nods his head for yes but his mouth misbehaves and says no in a tiny cracked little whimper, and that's the turning point, that's when it gets better. He pulls his arm out of Lindsay's grasp and kneels up on the cushion, swinging a leg over and straddling him, sliding fingers into the back of his hair, not brave enough to kiss him
yet
but now he knows that's going to happen he doesn't feel so sick. Lindsay's the first one to actually stop staring and make a move; he leans in to press a scatter of kisses on Pip's neck, soft and hesitant and then with a bit more confidence when Pip can't hold back a pathetic little moan any more, kissing the hollow at the bottom of his throat and yanking him closer at the hips.
"You old charmer." Now they're laughing, moodswinging like crazy, and Lindsay traces the waistband of Pip's jeans round to the front and starts working on his shirt buttons instead.
"Yeah," he says, whimpers, but he doesn't do anything about it himself, he lets Lindsay undress him and slip the shirt down off his shoulders to drop onto the backs of his legs where he's kneeling, and then there's more kissing, following the line of one collarbone, sweating fingers pressed into his waist to hold him still and then the tickle of breath against his chest when Lindsay finds the tattoo above his heart and reads it
Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt
- and then kisses him there as well, shaking and clumsy until Pip tugs on his hair to make him turn his face up and leans in to nuzzle at his cheek like a cat. The scent of his beard is startlingly familiar, cigarette smoke and hints of soap and coffee, and he kisses him there because it's an excuse to breathe him in. Lindsay's breath is warm and damp against his cheek and ear, coming too quickly and threatening to turn into a whimper, and that makes Pip's heart race because he always had to really work at getting Lindsay to make these desperate noises before. Lindsay was always such a control freak, he was always the one making Pip lose his mind a little bit, and now they haven't even kissed but Lindsay's falling apart and it's terrifying and incredible.
"Do you-" he starts, breathlessly, but then Pip kisses his cheek again, snuffly and lingering, and he breaks off with a tiny sighing gasp and slips his fingers into the long black hair to hold Pip where he is.
"Hmm?" Another kiss, and then more, working down Lindsay's jaw, down to his chin so his nose is brushing Lindsay's mouth and he can feel the breathed words.
"You spaz." They're laughing, but they stop when they both reach hands down between their bodies to brush fingers softly over straining zips. Pip bumps his nose off Lindsay's again, and just looks at him. He's close enough to see the faint outline of Lindsay's contact lenses. Now he's noticed he can't stop looking. Lindsay's cock is hot and familiar under the palm of his hand, and Pip strokes the other over his cheek again and up into his hair, all the while just
looking
at him, not breathing, relearning the colour of his eyes.
"No, shit, what time is it? I was meant to meet Olly out of work, shit..." He finds his phone in his jacket pocket, where he slung it carelessly over the arm of the couch, and hits the button to answer before the wait gets long enough to seem guilty. "Hey! Yeah, sorry, I lost track of time, I'm just leaving now. See you at home? Yeah, bye.
Fuck
!"
Pip stands up and gets his shirt from where it's caught in his waistband and tangled round the back of his legs, but he can't put it on when he tries because then Lindsay's standing up as well, wrapping his fingers round Pip's wrist so he can't get his arm in the sleeve.
"I love jazz," Pip says, quiet and desperate. Lindsay stops breathing for a moment but he doesn't let go and Pip feels panic stab him in the guts like a knife then because it always worked before, always, that was the rule and now it's not working. "I said the words," he whispers, trying not to be shrill and sound like he's freaking out, trying to keep calm. "You have to let me go cos I said the words, you have to."
"But you to, that's the rules, please-" There's no point trying to pull away, Lindsay's stronger, and now he's got Pip's other wrist as well, gripped tight and immovably. He tries anyway, yanking himself backwards but Lindsay won't let him, he just pulls him closer and Pip's about to knee him in the balls when he talks again, devastatingly intense and pressing his fingertips into Pip's arms like that's going to make him think he means it more.
It stops being scary, then. It's just horrible. He's got his eyes shut and he leaves them like that, because he can't stand seeing Lindsay's face so close any more.
"I waited in Toulouse for
two weeks
," he says, trying to keep his voice steady and very nearly succeeding. "I thought, yeah, he'll phone, let him have his sulk then he'll phone tomorrow, but then it was tomorrow and you never phoned or emailed or nothing, then it was tomorrow again and still nothing, and I waited there in this hotel like a mug cos I thought you were gonna phone and tell me to come back and you never did. And... this is stupid, and I
can't
no more."
Nothing, for an eternal second, then Lindsay lets him go. Pip puts his shirt back on and focuses all his attention on the feel of the fabric and the little buttons slipping through the holes because if he's concentrating on something that isn't the burn in his nose then maybe he won't bust out crying like a stupid little girl.
It's half an hour in the cab driving home, and Pip spends the time with his eyes closed and his forehead resting against the cool glass of the window because he doesn't want to see the pounds ticking past. It's not like he can't afford it himself, but Lindsay insisted on using his cab account and Pip was too tired to argue any more. He's tired all round.
Maybe there's something a bit psychic in him, maybe the streets feel familiar or something, because when he opens his eyes the car's right near home in Shoreditch. The driver slows to let somebody cross the road and when the man waves a thank-you Pip sees it's Olly. "Just pull up here, mate," he says, going for his wallet before he remembers and then feeling stupid and awkward. He has to run a bit to catch up, then he puts his arm round Olly's waist and sort of hugs him hello as they're walking, trying not to loathe himself quite so much. "Good shift?"
They get inside and Pip promptly trips over a remote-control car that's parked just in front of the door. He sprawls against the wall, swearing under his breath because the kids are asleep upstairs, Olly's sister is probably asleep upstairs. Olly just laughs, very quietly, and clicks the door shut, very quietly, then they fall easily into their nighttime routine - Olly puts the telly on softly, one of the music channels, and collapses on the couch with his arm flung over his face while Pip rattles around in the kitchen capping two bottles of beer.
"Their loss, ain't it?" Olly takes his arm off his face and looks at Pip, but he doesn't seem angry or upset even saying what he does. "So did you fuck him, is that why you left late?"
"I don't mind." He sits up and gestures for Pip to park himself next to him, taking his beer and drinking half in three long swallows. Pip just watches him, waiting for... something. He's not sure what to say or where this is going but he feels like shit about it all, like the world's spinning away from him and he can't hold on any more.
This is impossible. He's gearing up for a fight, until Olly reaches over with his free hand to push a bit of Pip's hair out of his eyes and says gently, "You know since we was tiny the only thing I wanted was for you to be happy?" and then, sudden as a gunshot, Pip's crying. It's completely pathetic and helpless, shocking in its intensity because he didn't feel anything building up, he just broke. He used to cry so easily over everything in the world just like a girl, but there's no room for that when you're playing at being four people's extra dad. Now he can't stop. He twists his face up like a gargoyle and bites his tongue and tries every trick he knows not to break down but nothing works and it just keeps coming. Olly takes his beer bottle off him and puts it on the coffee table and there's no noise for a moment except his miserable sniffling and hitching little breaths. He hates that it's happening, he hates that he can't stop it, he hates the reasons for it and he fucking
hates
Olly being so nice about it. He's stroking Pip's hair again like he doesn't know what else to do, then he shuffles closer on the cushions and puts both arms around him and that's enough to make him dissolve all over again.