He's Not My Type

15

Days pass.
Elijah sits his last exam of the year. He helps Christian record a cover of My Happy Ending and then they make out on the basement sofa afterwards. He and Christian and Richard eat pizzas and binge-watch half a season of Glee in one night. He gets oriented for his summer placement and he continues to avoid Pieter.
And even though he knows that now more than ever, it's time to end things with Christian, he still manages to forget.
At least until one late morning when he pushes open the yellow front door of Vinyl Tap.


There's only one customer inside, a woman in a Burberry coat and heels who's flipping through the shelf of Folk Rock.
She isn't the problem, though. The problem is the two-year-old girl with her.
No, not two. Probably three? Two-year-olds are supposed to be afraid of strangers. Elijah has a whole flashcard on that. And Christian must be a stranger. But just as Elijah walks into the shop, the girl lets Christian lift her up into his arms. And then she clings happily to his shoulders as he points out the memorabilia at the top of one shelf.
Elijah can't even think. All he can do is watch how gentle Christian is with her, how he listens in rapt attention, nodding seriously as she talks. How he laughs when she makes a joke and the girl looks so utterly pleased with herself.
Christian catches sight of Elijah just as he's ringing up the woman's purchases, and throwing in a free Rolling Stones sticker for the little girl. He shoots Elijah a grin and wave.
And it's all Elijah can do to try to breathe around the lump in his throat.


Elijah is curled into the covers of Pieter's bed when he finds him.
"You avoid me for weeks," Pieter says, dropping his rucksack on the floor.
"M'sorry," Elijah mumbles.
"You lie to me about breaking it off with Christian," Pieter continues.
"It wasn't really a lie," Elijah protests. Then he blinks. "Wait, how do you know I didn't? Was it Shawn?"
"I'm the one asking the questions here," Pieter informs him. "You're the one who's going to tell me what's going on."
"There's nothing to tell," Elijah mumbles, burying his face back into Pieter's pillow.
"Looks like there might be something."
"He's just not my type." Elijah takes a long breath and then dares to peek up at Pieter again. "Can we please skip the talking part and go ahead to the part where we eat ice cream and watch romantic comedies?"


Elijah has his first day at the nursery, and all he wants to do at the end of it is tell Christian that nappies are a lot harder to change in real life than the YouTube tutorial made it sound.
He has his second day at the nursery, and all he wants to do is tell Christian that the YouTube tutorial on getting paste out of one's hair was slightly more helpful than the nappy one.
He has his third day at the nursery, and he hovers a thumb over Christian's name in his messages, where the three unread texts from him are still waiting. But then he presses the power button instead.
More days pass.
Pieter tells him to stop sulking but then he goes out and buys him more ice cream anyways.


Elijah is having his nails painted a light, shimmery pink when Pieter comes through the front door, guitar case in hand, Canadian exchange student in tow.
"Like it?" Elijah holds out his hand for them to see. Leigh-Anne nudges him and he obediently offers up his unpainted hand for her.
"Yeah, just haven't seen you paint your nails in a while," Pieter remarks.
"I mean, I know what people see when they look at me. And I liked being with Christian. Too much. So I figured I'd just not... let him realize that I'm probably less masculine than I look."
Pieter is just staring at him, but Leigh-Anne makes an encouraging sound as she moves onto his next nail, so Elijah continues.
"I know it's just a stupid, small thing and it's not like I paint my nails that often anyways. But I suppose it was more what it represented?"
Leigh-Anne says, "And you can't change yourself for someone else. That's not healthy, is it?"
"What the fuck are you talking about?" Pieter demands.
"Um, my nails?" Elijah glances down at them.
"And you didn't paint your nails because you didn't want Christian to think you liked wearing nail polish?"
"Um, yeah?" Elijah's seen the chipped black nail polish Christian had on in one of his Lost Boys videos, but that's a bit different from a neatly manicured pink.
"And so that's why you did the right thing when you broke things off," Leigh-Anne says soothingly.
"Did Christian tell you he didn't like nail polish?" Pieter demands, seemingly still hung up on this. "I'll kick his arse if he did, but did he actually tell you that?"
Elijah frowns at him. "No, but, I mean, why would something like that even come up?"
Pieter looks like his eyes are about to pop out of his head. "Because you were wearing it when he first saw you?"
Elijah was certainly not wearing nail polish on their first date.
"At my party?" Pieter prompts.
"What? I never saw Christian there." And Elijah would have remembered if he had, he's sure of it.
"Well, Christian sure saw you," Pieter lets his rucksack drop heavily down onto the floor. "And, you know what, it was because of some lad slagging off about your nails and-"
"What?"
"And Christian schooled him on it," Pieter finishes. "Said they were sick and that the other lad only wished he'd look so good with pink nails."
Elijah stares.
"Why wouldn't you tell Elijah that?" Leigh-Anne demands.
Pieter throws up his hands. "How was I supposed to know it was so important he'd break up with him over it!"
"But you didn't even tell him that Christian knew him." Leigh-Anne turns to Elijah. "Did he?"
Elijah shakes his head.
"Well, Christian didn't know him. He'd just wanted to be introduced but I told him Elijah had a boyfriend and he and Nick had already left by then anyways." Pieter drops down into the armchair and shrugs at Elijah. "And then you and Nick broke up and he wanted to meet you."
"You're saying that Christian wanted to go out with me," Elijah says slowly. "All based off seeing me with pink fingernails?"
"I suppose?" Pieter says. "Told him a bit about you, too, just because he kept asking."
"Why did you lie, then?" Leigh-Anne demands.
"I didn't."
"You told Elijah it was a blind date."
"And it was. Elijah was blind."
"It only counts if they've both never seen the other," she insists.
"I think it still counts," Shawn pipes up loyally from the kitchen.
Elijah had forgotten he was there. He twists around and narrows his eyes at him. Shawn holds up his hands innocently.
"You agreed with me that I shouldn't go out with him again," Elijah tells Pieter. He can't believe this. "You kept telling me I had to stop seeing him."
"And was I wrong?" Pieter shoots back hotly. "I think I've been pretty nice about all this seeing as you were leading on my friend, Elijah."
"That wasn't - I wasn't leading him on," Elijah protests. "It wasn't anything serious for him."
"Are you actually going to try that excuse?" Pieter demands. "You were going to go to Leeds together."
"What? How did you even know that?"
"Why would you go to Leeds?" Shawn asks. He sits down on the floor next to Pieter's chair with a bowl of cereal.
"Do you mean the Leeds Festival?" Leigh-Anne asks. "That's months from now."
Pieter, ignoring them, tells Elijah, "What? You thought just because you stopped talking to me that he did, too?"
That... hadn't actually ever occurred to him at all.
"You know, sometimes I can't tell if you're deliberately being an idiot or you're just this slow." Pieter crosses his arms over his chest. "Do you honestly think it was so easy going to the shop every time and hearing all about how much he liked you and how happy you made him and then coming home and having you tell me all the reasons he isn't good enough for you?"
"What? No. That's not." Elijah's voice cracks. "No. Don't say that. Just. Stop." He tries to wipe at the confused tears springing to his eyes but Leigh-Anne grabs his wrist to stop him with his still-wet nails. He takes a ragged breath. "Pieter, you're the one who - I can't do casual hook-ups. You know that. Why would you even set us up?"
Pieter's indignant expression falters. "Who's talking about casual hook-ups?"
"Yeah," Shawn says. "Who's talking about that?"
Elijah spares a glare for him and then turns to Leigh-Anne for support.
But she's looking at him with a frown. "Have you even hooked up with Christian?"
"What? No. You know I haven't." Elijah's chest is tight, and everything hurts all over again.
"Elijah, for weeks you spent almost every day together," she says gently. "You texted all the time. You made each other your lock screens."
"They did what?" Shawn asks.
Elijah looks down at his hands, the pink shimmer of polish catching the ceiling light, and he bites his lip.
But Leigh-Anne isn't stopping. "You helped him film his song covers. He made flashcards with you."
"He kept the sticker from some orange you gave him," Pieter puts in.
"Also-"
"Wait, what's that about the orange?" Elijah interrupts her.
"He kept a sticker from an orange?" Pieter says. "Said you gave it to him?"
Elijah stares at him.
"Also, you apparently made plans to go to Leeds together which is months from now?" Leigh-Anne continues, seemingly unaware that the ground underneath Elijah is in the process of disappearing. "I'm still not sure what in all that makes you think he just wanted to hook up with you. Especially when you never did, you know, actually hook up."