episode #8

[robling_t]

We met on the L.

It's trite. But there's a moment of startled recognition, of forgetting not to make eye contact when this stranger smells stranger than most. It helps that we're both going past the end of the line, easy to fall in casually beside one another when we pass through the combs of the gate. You're different, he says a block later.

You're were, I say. -- No, I'm not going to -- Not even going to nick your wallet, I add and he laughs.

It turns out that we're both on our way to look at the same flat. Down-at-heel but clean, if one doesn't mind the orange wall in the lounge or the inexplicable upright piano, and the elderly woman who owns the building doesn't seem the sort to enquire too deeply into questionable credentials. Appalling to the middle-class pup but exciting in its very squalor as only the promise of rebellion can be at that age, to me it represents a vast improvement over continuing to impose on Max's hospitality so indefinitely, and I think for a few moments that I may still end up getting into it with this were over the bloody flat, of all things; but then he says, hesitantly, I think I'd need to find a roommate to help with the rent though. And the mad thought enters my head that to have a flattie wouldn't be an unreasonable arrangement for my situation either.

At least we'd start off knowing the worst.

We find something resembling a cafe to discuss the matter. And... other matters. "I didn't think you, um, people like you, um... the daylight thing, you know?" Jason stirs his coffee with the little straw. "Sorry, um, dunno if that's racist, or something."

"Most of what people think is bollocks," I say. (Noticing that he's granted me the status of people straight off. Is that because he's were, or because he's not quite white?) "Well, s'ppose that's true about everything, isn't it. Wouldn't think you should be drinking that, for example."

The were looks at his coffee. He's bigger than a dog, of course. "Just don't tell my mom," he says, as if he's been lectured before.

(He won't touch chocolate, though.)

The smoke leaking in from the hookah-lounge is making me want to rub at my nose. Across the way there's a shop with hijabs in the window, cheek-by-jowl to the burlesque theatre. Bit like parts of London, I remark.

"'I have sailed the world, beheld its wonders, from the Dardanelles to the mountains of Peru, but there's no place like London'." He has a strong baritone, not unpleasant. It's startling booming out in this tiny cafe. The djinni behind the counter is looking over at our table as if weighing how dangerously mad we both are. (But then, he's a djinni. I doubt he'd like to call in the authorities, on us.) "Your accent's kind of... different. But I suppose you've been around, a lot."

Unspoken questions there, unusually tactful for this boisterous country. "Originally?" I admit to one of them. "Swansea." Half bracing for the old reflexive sneer --

But improbably blue eyes light up, and the were says, "Cool. Swansea's near Cardiff, right?"

Of course he's a geek. Hard not to be weird when you're a ridiculous thing yourself. I have to stop him peppering me with questions over what he's seen on telly; "Don't know. Haven't seen it in... Well, longer than you've been alive, probably. Or nearly."

An expressive face goes downcast. "You must really miss your family. If, um, you still had one, or whatever."

Sometimes I want to go home like a physical ache, sharper than the desire to feed. Home to places and people already too many years gone. "Depends how you'd define it," I say.

Jason rolls his eyes. "Don't worry. You'll probably end up with mine."

(But that's in the future, the three new weres looking about at a jumble of boxes with covertly puzzled expressions, as if they can't quite believe their noses. It's okay, Jason says. He knows, he's a... he's cool.) "We're going to give this a go, then?"

"Well, y'know. This or fucking Craigslist. Least you don't smoke." The sort of thing you can't hide from a were, true. Not that he could hide it from me, either.

I rather like him.