He's Not My Type

11

Elijah may have led Pieter to believe he'd stopped seeing Christian. And, since he is going to stop seeing Christian any day now, there was really no need to correct him. In the meantime, it's easy enough to find somewhere else to be on the days Pieter gives lessons at Vinyl Tap. Or to just duck into his room whenever they're home at the same time.
But that means he must find someone else to complain to about Christian's black skinny jeans.
"You're wearing black skinnies right now, love." Leigh-Anne looks down pointedly.
Elijah sighs as he dips the brush back into the jar of red polish and reaches for her hand again. "Well, yes, that's my point."
"That there can only be one person wearing black skinnies in a relationship?" she asks. "If you were talking about matching tops, I might agree, but jeans are hard to clash. Do I need to make a post about that?"
Elijah does love Leigh-Anne's fashion blog, but she's missing the point.
"It's not the jeans. It's what they symbolize," he informs her as he spreads the nail polish over her delicately trimmed nail. There's no chance Christian doesn't know how good he looks in them. And, so, by choosing to wear them knowing that — well, it's the hair all over again. "If he's the twink in this relationship, what does that make me?" He adds as an afterthought, because he can't let himself forget this: "Also we're not in a relationship."
"Okay? Reckon there's a lot I don't understand about gay men." She tilts her head. "Is it like having a top and a bottom? A butch and a femme? There can only be one 'twink'? That all sounds rather reductionist to me, you know."
Elijah feels his cheeks flush, feeling chastised even if he knows he's right.
"That's not what I meant." He screws the nail polish cap back on and reaches for his phone. "But just look at me and look at him and tell me what you think."
"Is that Christian?"
Elijah nods.
She frowns. "Why is he on your lock screen? I thought you weren't in a relationship."
"We're not," Elijah says.
She raises her eyebrows.
"It's just a nice picture!" he protests. "Don't tell me his cheekbones don't look amazing in that lighting—" But she's still looking incredulous. "You know, never mind that." He holds up the phone against his own face so she can see them side by side. "Just tell me who the bottom and who the top is here."
"I don't think I can tell by one picture of his face," she says. "Seriously, though, love. Why does it matter?"
Elijah sighs. It matters because he's not a top. It matters because those extra few inches he'd put on in a late teenaged growth spurt, combined with how he doesn't think he's imagining that his shoulders have grown broader this past year, means that everyone thinks he is.
Once Leigh-Anne's nails are dry, she raises up the bottle of nail polish. "Want me to do yours now?"
Elijah hesitates, but then says no. He's sure Christian is under the impression he's more masculine than he really is. And if he's ending things with him anyways, he doesn't see the need to prove to Christian quite yet that Elijah isn't his type.
So instead he drops his laptop onto her white lace duvet and opens Christian's YouTube. He decides to start chronologically with an old video of the Lost Boys where Christian croons into the microphone, voice raspy, eyes half-lidded and circled in dark liner. From there, he works his way through to his last from two weeks ago.
Elijah tries to skip to just his favourite parts but, really, she needs to hear the whole song to get the full impact of how Christian's voice cracks on the chorus of Collide and his commentary at the end of the Time-Bomb video was brilliant.
"He is rather fit, isn't he?" she comments early on. "Those eyes and the cheekbones and that arse—"
Elijah frowns at her reproachfully. "Don't objectify him."
"Here I thought we were doing this precisely so I could objectify him," she says with a laugh. "Or am I just supposed to stereotype him? Is that different?"
"Well, just. I mean." Elijah's stymied. "Don't forget he's gay, at least."
When they get to the end of the last one, Drop of Jupiter from two weeks ago, she sighs and says, "I still don't see the problem. He's fit and he's funny and he's a decent singer—"
"He's a brilliant singer," Elijah corrects her. She raises her eyebrows at him. "Look, maybe you just need to see him in person to understand." When she opens her mouth to speak, he quickly adds, "But you're not allowed to see him in person."

So, naturally, Leigh-Anne shows up at Vinyl Tap the next afternoon.