He's Not My Type

9

And another problem with Christian," Elijah tells Pieter, stealing a crisp from the bag in his hands. "Is he calls everyone love and babe and darling."

"So pet names are a problem now, why?" Pieter slaps Elijah's hand away when he goes for another.

"Because what would he call someone he actually liked? He should at least save something," Elijah complains agitatedly. He may have had one too many cups of coffee while working his way through his teaching strategies essay topics that morning.

Pieter stuffs the last of the crisps into his mouth and eyes Elijah as he chews. "I thought you weren't seeing him anymore, anyways."

"I'm not," Elijah lies.

Elijah gets a text from Christian to meet him at Falafel Feast just as his group-study is wrapping up. The shop's only a few minutes' walk from the campus library, which is the only reason he says yes. The only reason he replies immediately and with more than one exclamation point is how hungry he is and has nothing to do with having resigned himself to not seeing Christian for the next two days he'd had off work.

"The extra's for David," Christian explains at Elijah's questioning look at his second portion of chicken shawarma.

"Who's David?" Elijah asks.

The more relevant question, it turns out, would have been where's David.

Because Christian, apparently, doesn't actually know. And David, apparently, doesn't have a mobile.

They find a stray cat, who Elijah feeds some chicken, underneath the railway bridge, but no David. They find teenagers skiving off class for a smoke behind the skate park, but no David. They pass a half dozen alleyways towards the town centre, but no David.

Elijah is starting to get hungry and would be quite irritated at Christian's inconsiderate friend except it's not clear if David was even expecting them to bring him food in the first place.

They find a man spray-painting graffiti onto the side of an off-license in a run-down car park, but no David—

"Oi, Oliver!"

Elijah stops and glances at Christian, but Christian tugs him forwards by his hand.

The man turns around as they approach and, with a weary sigh, sets his spray paint down to join the pile of others on the cracked pavement.
His black hair is tied back in a short ponytail and his jaw is so sharp it's visible under his thick scruff. He has only a vest on and his body's all angles and tattoos. He has five earrings in one ear alone, including a big black circle that stretches out an earlobe.

"I know you," Elijah blurts out.

The man raises a his eyebrow, the barbell that's pierced through it raising as well.
Christian looks surprised, too. "You know David?"

"I mean, no, I don't know him," Elijah says. "I just saw him on your YouTube." He turns back to David. "You were in The Lost Boys with Christian, weren't you?"

David looks older than he did in the few low-quality recordings of Christian's old band. He'd had a quiff with a bleach-white streak in it and his nose was missing its current septum piercing.

Christian looks different, too, though. In one video, his hair had been dyed a bright red and spiked in a small attempt at a mohawk, in another it was black. He'd had fewer tattoos, but more piercings. Elijah doesn't think he's seen him with even a single piercing in real life.

"Um, you guys were really good?" Elijah offers once he realizes neither of them are going to say anything.

"I told you to delete those," David says stiffly.

"You didn't mean it," Christian tells him.

David just narrows his eyes, but, instead of arguing, his attention turns back to Elijah. "This is Elijah, then? Not as curly as you said he was."

"Oi, don't be rude," Christian snaps.

"It's curlier when it's shorter," Elijah protests at the same time, hand going self-consciously to his almost shoulder-length hair.

"Your hair's gorgeous, darling." Christian reaches up to tug at a curl, giving him a soft smile. He adds pointedly, "And very curly."
Then he turns back to David and thrusts one of the take-away bags at him. David gives it a suspicious look. "That's food," Christian says. "You might not be familiar, but it's how us mortals sustain ourselves day-to-day."

"I'm not hungry."

"Eat it anyways."

David takes the bag in a hand splattered in blue and green paint."Richard says hello, by the way." David just grunts.

Elijah glances up at the graffiti over the brick side of the building. Now that he's paying attention, the giant half-painted tiger actually looks a lot less like graffiti and more like proper street art.

"This is really good," he blurts out.

"Oh." David looks startled by the comment. "You think so?"

Elijah nods. "Are you allowed, though?"

David draws himself up and says cryptically, "Don't ask questions you don't want to know the answers to."

But Christian just laughs. "Mate, you're set up out here in the middle of the day, sun's shining, all the shops are open. Stop acting like you're some dangerous thug." He knocks his shoulder into Elijah's. "This lad even gets paid for this. Sometimes."

"Getting paid for art reduces its intrinsic value," David says.

Christian rolls his eyes. "Good thing I bought you a meal, then, isn't it?"

At Christian's pointed look, David sighs and starts to extract the shawarma from the bag. He hesitates before unwrapping it. "Did, er, did Richard say anything else?"

"That lad says a lot of things," Christian says. He sits down on the ground and props an elbow on Elijah's shoulder when he comes down to sit beside him. David bends down to sit on his step-ladder. "You know I don't have the attention span for it. You could ask him yourself if you just came home."

David looks down. "You know I can't do that."

"No, babe, don't reckon I do know that." Christian gestures to David's shawarma. "Now, eat."