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Chapter Text

“Ivanović! Get your ass in here!”

Luka sighed, switching off his phone and making his way to the briefing room. Ana Đurić, his boss, was tapping her suede heels impatiently on the ground. He hurried to his seat and collapsed in it awkwardly. Bojan, sitting next to him, muttered a snarky comment about his frequent tardiness. The rest of Bojan’s strike team, Joker Out, were whispering about office gossip - apparently, Käärijä from Recon had asked Bojan out on a date and Bojan had declined. Riveting rumours indeed. 

“We have reason to believe that the Eurovision Pageant is being targeted by Irish terrorists, the Wild Youth. We aren’t particularly sure why , yet, but we’re sending in some of our best and brightest to represent their countries and give us an opportunity to get backstage. That way, we can keep the contestants and all those involved safe from whatever may happen. Cvjetićanin, Guštin and Ivanović, you three will be tasked with going undercover at the pageant.” Ana explained.

“What? You want me to go prance around in swimwear in front of all of Europe?” Luka was outraged. 

“Don’t be silly. The Eurovision Pageant is famous for being focused entirely on singing and other personal talents, not looks alone.” Jan said.

“Have you seriously never watched Eurovision?” Jure asked.

“No, why would I? I spend my free time-”

“Playing Tomb Raider and League of Legends in a ratty singlet until 3am, spilling Dorito dust all over your setup,” Nace interjected. 

“Hey, I’ll have you know, League is an awesome game!” Bojan protested. Luka rolled his eyes, not even bothering to defend himself. Why would he? Nace’s accusations had been true. Jure, Jan and Nace were guffawing at Bojan’s complaints and Luka’s lack of comebacks, but Kris was deep in thought.

“So I assume Bojan will represent Slovenia, and Luka Serbia? How could I participate if there’s only one person per country?” he asked.

“The Netherlands has been trying to decide between Mia Nicolai and Dion Cooper, but they have seriously injured one another just yesterday and are thus unable to compete. You’re half Dutch, so you’ll take their place.” Ana answered.

“What happened?”

“How about I just play you the security footage?” she said, hitting play on her computer. The screen at the front of the conference room was illuminated as a man and woman were tugging an object back and forth.

“You never let me have sleeves!” he whined.

“That’s because you don’t need them, they look much better on me!” she responded.

“But my shoulders are really tanned because they’re always exposed! I can’t go to the beach because my chest is really pasty and my shoulders are dark.”

“Dion, you never went to the beach before this all started anyway.”

“Yeah, of course not! My shoulders are skinny! I need shoulder pads to accentuate my figure!”

“Just let me have the jacket, Dion! I need it so I look hot on camera!”

“You know, you’d think that one of the richest countries in the world could afford two jackets for Eurovision.”

“Yeah, but we don’t. So stop being a baby, this is why everyone knows Duncan wanted me to go to Eurovision. Jordan made him consider you as well. You’re just the lousy second choi-” Mia’s insult was cut off by her scream as Dion yanked out the tiny braid at the back of her hair, slicing it clean off with the scissors on the table. The jacket ripped in half and Dion wailed as Mia pounced on him, and the scissors went flying. 

The picture cut out as the scissors hit the camera, but the thuds of punches, slaps and kicks making contact and the shrieks of pain were clearly audible until the feed ended altogether. 

“So, that’s a thing now I guess.” Kris said, gnawing on his fingernail. Jan yanked his teammate’s hand away from his mouth. 

“You have to look good for the Turquoise Carpet that kicks off the Pageant.”

“Not to mention the cameras that’ll be on us constantly, Krisko,” Bojan added.

“Oh,” Kris said softly. Luka had only just registered the words ‘turquoise’ and ‘carpet’, but he didn’t know what that meant.

“What’s the Turquoise Carpet?” he asked.

“It’s like a fashion parade,” Jure explained. “It’s a way for people to get to know the contestants. You don’t get marked on the clothes you wear, that would put people from poorer countries at a disadvantage, but still get assessed on etiquette and likeability. The audience votes who goes through to the next round, based on manners and personality.”

“Fortunately for you three, we’ve negotiated with the European Broadcasting Union to guarantee that you’ll make the top fifteen, and at least one of you is guaranteed a spot in the top ten.” Ana added. “Luka, you’ll need quite a bit of help. Luckily, I’ve got some contacts who can help you become Eliza Dolittle at the Embassy Ball.” 

“What.”

“My Fair Lady, only one of the greatest musicals ever made!” Nace said. “Dude, you really need to leave your man cave and touch some grass.”

“I’m actually allergic to grass.”

“Of course you are.”

“They’ll meet us here in about thirty minutes. Use that time to try and put some deodorant on, Ivanović. At the very least, just try.” Ana said, walking through the door and shutting it. Luka made his way to the showers in an attempt to freshen up. He considered shaving, but he couldn’t be bothered. The team would decide what to do with him anyway.

Right on cue, six beautiful women in pink sashayed through the elevator doors. They moved as a collective unit, completely synchronised. It was almost like a cult. One stepped forwards and the others clustered around her. 

“Hello. You must be Luka Ivanović. We are Vesna. I am Patricie, and these are Olesya, Tanita, Tereza, Markéta and Bára. We are here to make you beautiful.”

“Handsome?” he asked unenthusiastically.

“Handsome won’t work at Eurovision unless you have the muscles and the dreamy eyes. You are more… femboy twink.” Tereza said. The others nodded appreciatively. 

“We can make vampire twink.” Bára suggested. 

“Pretty vampire twink.” Tanita agreed.

They engulfed him like he was undergoing phagocytosis, and he was escorted to a taxi as Vesna chatted amongst themselves about what they could do to him. Luka began to feel a sense of dread. He was a perfectly capable agent, but he was far from pageant material. And the words ‘vampire’ and ‘femboy’ were both terrifying and a foreign concept to him. 

They dragged him into a salon and began waxing his legs. He’d never had them waxed properly, barring that one incident in university when his drunk roommate had used those disposable strips to wax an even more intoxicated Luka. It hadn’t gone well, and he’d let his legs stay as is ever since. He had his hair washed and blown out, his nails manicured and for some reason, one single coloured contact.

“Besides the looks, you need to cultivate both your personality and your image. Hold doors open for people, use a knife and fork.”

“I can use a knife perfectly fine, Patricie.” 

“Don’t be emo. You will be goth. Vampire twink, remember?”

“You are no longer gamer incest.”

“Incel, Markéta.”

“Yes, that.”

“How about Luke Black?” 

“What?” Luka said, confused.

“Your Eurovision stage name. Ivanović is too complicated for Anglo-Saxons. Not everyone is a Slav.”

“Yeah, sure, I guess.”

They wrapped him in a robe like he was a child and pushed him behind a purple curtain. 

“Luke, this is your stylist. You have to look impeccable for the Turquoise Carpet and afterwards, and just because you have a guaranteed qualification does not mean you can look sloppy, because otherwise the public will become suspicious and Eurovision will lose its credibility.” Olesya said, winking as she shut the curtain and sailed off. The person in the spinny chair put down the notepad and swivelled around. Luke started introducing himself, but he suddenly found himself unable to make a sound.

His stylist was the most beautiful man in the world.

Chapter Text

“Hey, Luke, I’m Jann, and I’m getting paid to make you look utterly irresistible.” he grinned, looking like a literal angel. Luke thought he was going to spontaneously combust. Jann picked up his sketchbook again, stared deeply into Luke’s very soul , and jotted down a few notes. He leaned forwards until Luke could practically feel Jann’s breath on his eyelashes, and the other man smirked as he rested a hand on Luke’s chest for balance. “Though Vesna seemed to do a pretty good job of tidying you up already, you’re gorgeous.”

“Thanks?” he managed to splutter. Great, five seconds and he’d already humiliated himself twice. 

“I was told to expect a gamer slob with terrible posture,” Jann explained, “but now I see you and I’ve got so many ideas for outfits. I just can’t be too ambitious because we only have two weeks before the Carpet and the start of the contest. We can’t go make you a giant mech… yet.”

“So what are we doing now, then? We’ve got fourteen days and you’re a stylist. I don’t need any outfits until then.”

“I thought I’d handle your coaching personally, save you from Markéta’s grabby hands.” Luke gulped at Jann’s words. “I’ll be the Henry Higgins to your Eliza Doolittle.”

“That name sounds familiar but I don’t know what it means.”

“It’s from My Fair Lady, one of the best films ever made, Luke. Step 1 of our training schedule is to make sure you’ve watched My Fair Lady. Here’s my number and address, I’ll see you at 7pm. Don’t be late.” Jann motioned for him to leave, handing him a hot pink sticky note and turning back to his desk. Luke took the paper and hurried out, thanking Vesna and hailing a taxi. 

He had to try and look presentable for what was apparently… movie night with Jann? Since when was this his life? He still had four hours until he had to leave, having saved Jann’s number in his phone and already planning out the journey with Google Maps. He would arrive at 6:59, just early enough to appear responsible but not so early as to be overeager. He wouldn’t want to scare off his stunningly beautiful stylist. In the meantime, Bojan and Kris were coming over to discuss the mission. 

“So where are the rest of you?” Luke asked as Bojan rudely lifted his feet onto the coffee table and Kris laid down the cups of coffee he’d so considerately brought. 

“Nace, Jan and Jure are playing Uno. They play it in such a weird way, and I hate that. I’m not a numbers person at all. Kris is fine with it but we needed to focus on the pageant so he’s stuck here, aren’t you, Krisko?”

Kris flicked his wrist in their direction to indicate his assent as he chugged his coffee. Bojan slammed down a stack of files, containing information on that year’s Eurovision contestants and the Wild Youth. They divided the contestants into groups based on country of origin and personality for each of the trio to get to know. That took them around an hour and a half, in which time Kris had managed to drink not only both his own coffees, but those of Bojan and Luke as well. 

“Now that that’s all over, what’s your talent?”

“Talent? Singing, duh.”

“Everyone has to sing. That’s what we do instead of a swimsuit challenge. A song contest. Talent show is separate.”

“Bojan, unless modding the Sims 4 is a talent, I have literally nothing that sets me apart. What are you guys doing?”

“Bojan,” Kris let out one of his typical long-suffering sighs, “is playing the kazoo.”

“Hey, I can play the Arrival of the Queen of Sheba on the kazoo. It’s not like I’m gonna stick them up my nose and kazoo the John Cena theme like that one vine.”

“That was the recorder.”

“Shut up. It totally counts as a talent.”

“Well, I am going to do some chemistry demonstrations onstage. Just some basic phenolphthalein titrations and maybe a minor explosion or too. Nothing too flashy, but still good.”

“I did those in school, that’s hardly a talent.” Luke pointed out. 

“It takes a steady hand to complete titrations successfully, and I’ve never messed one up. Plus, those reactions are the ones that get crowds excited, because they’re the ones with easily visible results like a colour change or smoke. The audience is probably expecting TikTok dancing or something. This’ll stick out.”

“You tell yourself that. Anyway, I think we’re done here. I have to go get ready, I’ll see you guys in the office tomorrow.”

“Haven’t you heard? Ana’s got you booked for etiquette training and pageant coaching all day for the next week, and mornings the week after.” Kris supplied. 

“And what do you mean get ready? What do you possibly have on? Oh, is there a hot date you have to get ready for? Do you even own a bar of soap?” Bojan teased. 

“For your information, I do have soap, thank you very much! And I don’t have a date, I’m meeting my stylist… we’re watching a movie.”

“He blushed! Ivanović’s got a crush on the stylist and they’re watching a movie together!” Bojan cackled. 

“It’s actually Black now. I’ve been told to go by Luke Black for Eurovision. Apparently Luka Ivanović is too hard for most people to pronounce?”

“I’m a Cvjetićanin, that’s worse.”

“But Luka-Luke’s being completely reinvented, isn’t he?”

“Yep. And I really need to start getting ready, so please just leave .” Luke pleaded, and the Slovenians stood and gathered their belongings, as well as the files (Kris definitely didn’t trust Luke not to spill something on them). Bojan walked out the door, and Kris followed suit, before sticking his head through the door to add something. 

“By the way, you never denied having a thing for your stylist.”

Luke scowled at Kris, who laughed again and shut the door. Luke pressed his ear to the door until he heard the sound of footsteps fading away, then waited a little longer to make sure they’d really left. He ran to take a shower and attempted to compose himself.

So he had a crush on his stylist and pageant coach. Sue him. Jann was breathtakingly handsome in a way that was both masculine and feminine at once, and the confidence he exuded was just the cherry on top. How could Luke not be attracted to him? Seriously, how? Because if Luke went any further down that particular train of thought, movie night was going to be a gay disaster. Like Luke. 

Having showered, he wrapped his towel around him and began to pull out his nicest clothes. What exactly was one meant to wear to movie night with a complete stranger who happened to be super sexy and also had full control of Luke’s actions for the next month? A suit was too formal, looked like he was trying too hard, and was what he usually wore to work. Unfortunately, as Nace had guessed, most of his wardrobe consisted of singlets, sweatpants and hoodies he wore curled up in his gaming chair until the wee hours of the morning. Luke sighed and took out his phone to send a message to Jann.

hey, this is luke! what’s the vibe for this evening like?

To his surprise, Jann’s response was nearly instantaneous.

hi luke! we’ll watch the movie and then we can discuss your talent

cool. so i don’t need to be wearing anything super fancy, right?

nope, just be here on time. see you soon :)

Luke reached into the back of his closet and dug around a bit, before finding the items he’d been looking for. A pair of jeans, too distressed for work but nice and figure-hugging, and a crisp white t-shirt he hadn’t worn in a while. He threw them on, brushed his hair and put on some deodorant. He grabbed his overcoat and put his right arm through the sleeve, then took it off. He quickly sprayed some cologne and then put the jacket on and made his way outside.

At precisely 6:58pm, Luke knocked on Jann’s door. After a few seconds, Jann opened it and invited Luke in. He’d taken his hair down from the ponytail it had been in that morning, now flowing freely just past his shoulders.

God, this man was going to be the death of him.

Chapter Text

Jann led Luke into the living room to watch the movie. Well, room was a relative term. Jann’s apartment was considerably smaller than Luke’s, given that part of his rent was paid by the agency, but it was immaculately decorated. Luke gazed at the pictures on the walls, most of which had Jann in them covered in chains. It felt almost inappropriate to be so fixated on the photos, but if Jann didn’t want people looking at them, he wouldn’t have displayed them in his apartment.

Luke sat down on the loveseat as Jann disappeared. He returned a minute later with two plates of pasta. Jann must have noticed Luke’s bewildered face, because he smiled warmly and said “did you really think I’d invite you over for a movie and not give you dinner?” 

“I mean… would you get upset if I said yes? I barely know you and now you’re dictating my entire personality for the next month. How would I have known you’d give me food?”

“That’s fair. Anyway, I hope you like the pasta, I got the recipe from my old roommate. We used to learn opera together in Poland. He actually represented my home country in Eurovision last year, Krystian Ochman.”

“Whoa, you made this? It tastes incredible!”

“Thank you,” Jann said, and Luke could swear he saw the faintest hint of a blush colouring his cheeks. Jann looked away and found the remote, switching the movie on. How was Luke going to survive a whole movie sitting so close to Jann?

It was a musical, and Luke wasn’t particularly invested in the genre as a whole, because singing and dancing couldn’t solve anyone’s problems. He’d tried. But by ‘I Could Have Danced All Night’, he was thoroughly hooked on the film. And it definitely didn’t have anything at all to do with the fact that Jann had finally cracked and started singing along to the songs. No, it was because Eliza’s transformation into a high-society lady, capable of convincing people that she was a princess, resonated with Luke. And maybe a little bit related to the Jann thing. He was an excellent singer.

“Hey, Jann, I’m just wondering. You’ve clearly got a talent for singing, so why haven’t you ever participated in Eurovision?”

“That’s the thing. I’ve always wanted to get my designs out there in the world, and even the songs I used to write when I was younger. I tried being a singer but I never had any breakthroughs, and I just kept coming back to fashion. I even submitted an expression of interest for this year’s pageant, but the committee didn’t think I was a great fit. Back home, people are really conservative, so I moved to London and I’ve never looked back. Sure, I miss my friends and family, but here I’ve got so many opportunities.”

Conservative. Not necessarily homophobic, but that could come into it. Was Jann gay too?

Luke felt terrible for focusing on that one word in Jann’s emotional monologue, so he instead decided to ask about talents. Jann brightened considerably at Luke’s question, hopping up off the loveseat and offering a hand to Luke. Luke took it, hand tingling at the physical contact, and Jann pulled him up. The Polish man took out his phone and started playing the Embassy Waltz from the My Fair Lady soundtrack, and Luke realised what was going on. 

“So you say you have no talents, but I’m sure we can find something. What about dance?” he asked, as he led Luke around the too-small apartment with his hand on Luke’s waist. Luke, devastatingly, was too uncoordinated, and when Jann twirled him outwards and spun him back in to dip him, their faces were far too close together for any sort of coherent thought besides the voice in Luke’s head urging him to kiss Jann. 

“Your turn!” Jann smiled, adjusting their positions so that his hand was on Luke’s shoulder and Luke’s around his waist. Luke had to focus very hard on not embarrassing himself so that he could lead. That blocked most of the brain space designated specifically for gay thoughts, which was excellent news. What was slightly less than excellent was the fact that Luke was terrible at the waltz. He tried to mimic the dip that Jann had done, but his twink arms hadn’t been prepared for Jann and they both crashed onto the floor. Mercifully, only their upper bodies were touching; Luke’s legs were splayed at an odd angle, but at least he wasn’t crushing Jann, who was significantly shorter than him. That would have been painful. 

Their lips were so close they were practically touching. Luke was utterly transfixed by Jann’s beauty up close, and the two of them were panting. That irritating voice was still telling him to go for it but before Luke had any time to react, Jann had flipped them over and was standing up. 

“So waltzing was a bust. I don’t suppose you have a secret skill for the Argentine tango?” Jann asked.

“Do I look like I’m harbouring a passion for tango?” Luke raised an eyebrow.

“No, but I still had to ask,” he clarified, extending his hand to Luke again and pulling him up. 

“I think I may have an idea for a talent, but I haven’t used it since high school.”

“Great. You can practise it in your own time and we can go work on fabricating some responses to the questions.”

Luke and Jann sat back down on the loveseat and the latter pulled out yet another notebook filled with questions typically asked at the Turquoise Carpet. After asking some questions related to his political opinions and coaching him to answer them in a respectful way (which Luke was somewhat decent at, having grown up gay in Serbia) and about what Eurovision means to him [“nationalism,” “no.” “fine…  what about cultural unity?” “now we’re going somewhere!”], they started picking questions about Luke’s personal interests. Eventually, the two of them found a television show they both enjoyed and so Jann put on the first episode and continued asking the questions with their show playing in the background. They’d been at it for about two hours when Luke’s eyes were starting to drift shut and he whispered ‘samo mi se spava’ to Jann. Jann was still asking questions robotically from his current position leaning against Luke’s side, head resting on the Serbian’s shoulder. His answers to the questions were considerably less thought out now [“who would you dedicate a potential victory to?” “lobter”] so he told himself he would just close his eyes for a second and get back to answering Jann’s questions.

When he opened his eyes again, it was morning, and Jann was lying on top of him completely. It was an oddly comfortable and domestic situation for someone he’d only met less than 24 hours ago. Luke’s left hand was completely numb, sandwiched between his back and the couch cushions, and his right hand was currently threaded through Jann’s hair. Shoot . 

Luke definitely liked Jann. Jann definitely liked him. It had only been a day, but they both seemed to have fallen head over heels for one another. Thankfully, Jann had the self-control Luke lacked and made sure their relationship stayed at least somewhat professional. Or, at least, it had been for all of yesterday. This morning they were in one another’s arms. 

Luke tried to extricate his hand from underneath him, but he accidentally jolted Jann nuzzled between his shoulders and head. Jann lifted his head sleepily and sat up, Luke’s hand falling to his side as Jann moved. 

“Hey, Jann,” he said awkwardly. Jann grinned as he took in Luke’s face.

“Good morning, my little lobter.”

“What’s a lobter?”

“Yesterday you said ‘lobter’ when I asked who you’d dedicate victory to.”

“You can’t hold that against me, I was drunk.”

“No you weren’t! All we had was pasta. How could you get drunk off pasta?”

“Don’t you put red wine in the sauce?”

“Luke, it was an alfredo. There’s no red wine in alfredo.”

“Oh. I guess the full-body wax really took it out of me.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“And possibly the fact that I pulled an all-nighter because I was streaming.”

“That’s almost definitely the reason why. You stream?”

“Forget I said anything, Jann.”

“No can do, my lovely lobter.”

“Shut up!” Luke laughed, throwing something from underneath him at Jann. He paused and took in the object that had hit him in the face.

“You know, I don’t think that’s why they call them throw pillows.”

“That’s exactly why they’re called throw pillows.”

“You’ve got work today, right? Do you want me to make some coffee before you go?”

“Oh, my boss said I’ve got etiquette training all day today, so I guess I can get that coffee, but it looks like we’re stuck together a little longer.”

“Wonderful, I’ll go get that started. In there’s my closet, help yourself to one of my shirts if you want. They might be a little small, because you’re taller than me, but it’s better than having to wear the same thing two days in a row.” Jann said, resting his hand on Luke’s shoulder for maybe a second too long as he got up to go to the kitchen. Luke refrained from saying that when he wasn’t at work he was quite capable of wearing the same shirt for multiple days in one go. He went into Jann’s closet and looked at the shirts. The vast majority of them were cropped and fitted, and those that weren’t were hoodies. He quickly selected the largest looking one and it fit perfectly. 

“Wow… that’s a sight I could get used to.” Jann said, leaning against the doorframe with two mugs of coffee. Luke was startled and moved to cover himself with his shirt, before realising he was fully clothed. Jann held out a mug and Luke took it, before they made their way to the living area again.

“I put your phone on charge, by the way, because we fell asleep before you could plug it in.”

“Thanks, Jann. That’s very sweet of you.” Luke said. He turned on his phone and saw several messages from Bojan.

how was ur date w the stylist?

answer me, luke.

luke it’s been two hours does it really take that long to watch a rom-com?

Unless…

Carry on, i’ll c u tmr evening. 

Luke rolled his eyes at Bojan’s antics, before typing out a reply.

yeah yeah, i’ll see you tonight

HES ALIIIIIVE

sorry my phone died. didn’t see ur messages

were you with him all night?

…maybe

LMAO TELL ME EVERYTHING

LET ME SUFFER THROUGH TODAY FIRST, BOJAN

“All good, lobter?”

“Jann, I swear to God, I will not hesitate to dump this coffee on your head.”

Chapter Text

The next two weeks were a blur for Luke. Between fittings for his outfits, practising his talent, working on his interview responses, streaming thrice a week and also keeping tabs on the Wild Youth, he was absolutely exhausted.

“Here are the designs I’ve got planned for the Turquoise Carpet. You can choose between these three, lobter dearest.” Jann said, holding up his sketchbook.

“Wow! These are all so cool. Just wondering why there are so many ruffles?”

“Patricie says you need to look like a vampire femboy. Her words, not mine.”

“...right…”

Nace, Jan and Jure were currently in Liverpool, as they’d been able to sign up for security at the pageant. The contestants were due to arrive the evening before the Carpet, where they’d have a party and get to know one another. Luke had only a few hours before he’d be there too, and so he was enduring the horrid cleansing. He felt like he was being prepared for sacrifice. In a way, he was. He, Kris and Bojan had to get close to the contestants and save them from a terrorist attack, and if even the smallest thing went wrong-

“Today you take nap. No more stressing, you have bags under eyes big enough to fit me,” Tanita said, buffing his nails. “Flight is in three hours. Nap now.” 

“But Tanita, I have to focus on the plan!”

“Today, plan is get rest and look good for Carpet. You are meant to dress like vampire, not look like one. No more arguing.”

Luke sighed and kept quiet. Bára came by to put cucumbers on his eyes like he was in some sort of movie and he shut his eyes to sleep properly. Some time later, Olesya shook him awake gently and the six women ushered him to the taxi. He’d had his legs and arms waxed again - curse his Balkan genes - and he spent the ride to the airport listening to a Eurovision podcast Kris had recommended. 

He’d been devastated to discover that Jann had arrived in Liverpool with all Luke’s event clothes earlier that day, because he’d wanted them to sit together on the plane. Instead, he was sitting next to Kris, with Bojan on Kris’ other side. Bojan was listening to a demo of Käärijä’s new song, because apparently Käärijä made music in his spare time and of course Bojan knew about it even if he wouldn’t just go out with the Finn already. 

Luke was not a fan of planes in the slightest and his teammates were aware of this fact. So it was probably a good thing that Jann wasn’t here to witness Luke embarrass himself. Though Bojan’s ticket had placed him in the middle, Kris had taken a look at Luke’s face and told Bojan plainly that they were switching seats. So Bojan stared dreamily out the window listening to Käärijä’s song while Kris wordlessly handed Luke some sweets to keep in his mouth. During the takeoff, they sat in silence, Kris and Bojan with their headphones on and Luke rotating the first piece of confectionery in his mouth. He didn’t like having in-ear headphones in during a flight and he forgot his over-ear set back in London, because of course he did. Once they were safely in the sky, Kris turned off the music and struck up a conversation with Luke. 

“Did you listen to the podcast I sent you?”

“Yeah, actually, on the way to the airport. Can you believe they crowned four winners in 1969?”

“I know, right? It’s so funny, how they never thought they’d need a tiebreaker and BOOM , four-way tie. What about Switzerland winning because they voted for themselves?”

“Oh, I didn’t know about that. When was this?”

“The very first Eurovision, in 1956. Did you know they had a swimsuit competition back then?”

“Really?”

“Yeah, nobody liked it so they got rid of it for 1957.”

“Oh, that’s actually pretty interesting. It’s cool, seeing how much this contest has evolved over the years.”

“Yes, so if you have any questions ask me and I’ll do my best to answer-” Kris trailed off, turning his head to the side. Bojan had abruptly dropped his head onto Kris’ shoulder. Kris sighed softly, easing Bojan’s headphones off his head and switching off the music. Luke managed to catch a snippet of the recording blaring through the headphones; how Bojan managed to fall asleep listening to that, he’d never know. And Luke was the King of Sleeping. 

Bojan burrowed his head deeper into Kris’ neck and Kris responded by reaching an arm around to gently stroke Bojan’s upper arm. Kris tilted his head to rest it on Bojan’s and closed his eyes, and Luke couldn’t help but think of how he had woken up with Jann that very first morning on the sofa. 

Infuriatingly, over the last two weeks their relationship hadn’t really changed that much. Luke hadn’t stayed over again and everything had been slightly professional. There were some minor progressions, sure, but nothing major. He still hadn’t given back the hoodie, and Jann showed up to their meetings with coffee for Luke every single time. And not the mass-produced garbage Luke kept at home. Jann had fancy coffee in his kitchen and without fail brought some for Luke whenever they met. In fairness, they hadn’t really established much of a bond before their working relationship had begun straying into dangerously homoerotic territory. So it was natural for Luke to be worrying about what was appropriate and inappropriate. 

And when this was all over, he was asking Jann out on a date, professionalism be damned. 

Luke was snapped out of his daydream by Bojan letting out a monstrous singular snore. Kris’ eyes widened and he turned to Luke with a startled expression on his face. They made eye contact for a few seconds before devolving into giggles - quietly, so as not to wake Bojan.

Before Luke knew it, the announcement came that they were entering their descent. Kris fished around in his bag for more sweets and somehow Bojan managed to sleep through it all. When it was time to leave, Kris was trying to wake up Bojan.

“Come on, Bojči, we’re in Liverpool now. We’ve got to go.”

“Mm, I just want to stay with you because you’re so nice and warm.”

“Well maybe if you wore sleeves once in a while, you’d feel warm too. Let’s go.” Kris dragged Bojan out of the plane and Luke, mildly amused, followed suit. 

Jure, Nace and Jan were waiting for the three of them, Jure hiding behind Nace and Jan to burst out and initiate a huge group hug. Luke stood awkwardly to the side before Kris grabbed Luke’s sleeve and dragged him into the embrace. Jan whispered to him and Luke swivelled to see Jann holding a sign further along. It said “lobter 🦞” at the top and “BOTTOM TEXT” below it. Luke sighed, asking whatever lobster deity was out there to give him strength, and ran to Jann. There was a brief moment of awkwardness when Luke reached out a hand for a handshake and Jann went in for a hug, so they compromised with a bro hug, clasping their hands together and leaning in. Luke dropped Jann’s hand after a second and wrapped his arms around him completely, and Jann froze in Luke’s arms. Luke began to panic but mercifully Jann reciprocated the gesture.

“You finally made it, lobter. Eurovision, we’re coming for you!”

Chapter Text

“Oh my gosh, guys, I’m so excited to meet you! You must be Kris for the Netherlands, Bojan for Slovenia and Luke from Serbia, right?” a bubbly girl with a fringe said.

“Right,” Bojan replied. “I’m Bojan, he’s Luke, he’s Kris.”

“I’m Alika! I’m representing Estonia. Come over here, get your name tags.” she said, gesturing to a table with labels that had names and flags on them. The party was strictly for contestants; no delegations allowed. Much to Kris’ irritation, the rule meant that both Luke and Bojan were moping around - Luke because of Jann and Bojan because of Jere. Because of course Jere showed up, saying he was able to secure a role backstage involving the props. Because Kris couldn’t catch a freaking break for once.

The plan was for them to mingle with everyone throughout the party; then backstage and during rehearsal days, Kris would monitor Western Europe, Bojan Northern Europe and Luke Southern and Central Europe. Some of the lines were technically a little messy but they had to divide them up evenly. Tonight, however, there were no such rules and Kris planned to make a bunch of new friends.

He, Nace, Bojan, Jure and Jan had all bonded over their love for Eurovision back when they’d first met, but he was the most dedicated to the history of the show. Bojan could name more facts from recent history and knew the most individual talents but Kris could name every single winning contestant and the country they’d represented. So meeting Loreen, who’d won for Sweden in 2012, was a dream come true. 

Many of the contestants had flocked to Loreen, because she was so charismatic and well-known amongst the Eurovision circle. Kris decided to hold off on speaking with her because there were so many people around her. Instead, he moved across the room to chat with the Croatian man. He was rather old looking, easily the eldest there. 

“Hi, I’m Kris. I’m representing the Netherlands, but my father’s from Slovenia.”

“ŠČ! I am Zoran. My friend Mrle was meant to participate for Croatia but they did not accept his talent in the application. Also I am more beautiful than him.”

“Hang on, Mrle? Like from the rock band Let 3?”

“Yes, I sing for Let 3.”

“Oh my goodness, I can’t believe I didn’t recognise you! It’s wonderful to meet you, my father showed us your music when I was a child.”

“You do not recognise me because I am wearing so many clothes. Mrle’s talent was to be shooting corks from his anus but broadcaster said no.”

“Oh… that’s probably it then. Good luck at the Carpet tomorrow!”

“Same to you, little Kris. You must gather your friends and then we can all have group sex.”

“That’s… definitely an idea. I’ll see you around.” Kris said, somewhat hastily making his way towards Bojan instinctively. Bojan was chatting with Alika and La Zarra, the latter of whom was representing France. He was about to go and join in their conversation but then the Danish and Cypriot guys started talking to the trio as well and Kris didn’t want to talk to that many people at once. He looked out the window of the building and saw a familiar face. Jere was standing outside and waving furiously at him. Kris waved back hesitantly, and Jere motioned towards Bojan. Kris nodded and turned to go find his friend. As usual, Bojan was the life of the party, completely at ease in a crowd with a drink in his hand. He yanked on Bojan’s sleeve somewhat impatiently but Bojan was gesticulating wildly telling the story of forming a band in high school. Kris continued his tugging like a child trying to get the attention of their mother in the store but it just wasn’t working. He started tapping Bojan on the nose and running his fingers through his hair. Finally, Bojan acknowledged him.

“-and so Martin, he was the bassist, said- Kris, for the love of God, what do you possibly need from me now? Can’t you see I’m in the middle of a conversation?”

Kris could have been irritating, pointing out the fact that he had deliberately settled for non-verbal methods of getting Bojan’s attention, but he wasn’t petty enough for that and simply pointed at Jere hopping around at the window. The tension immediately faded from Bojan’s body and he excused himself from the group to run to the window. Kris was prepared to continue the conversation in Bojan’s place, but the group dissipated immediately. Of course they did. Kris wasn’t as popular or cool as Bojan was. It was no wonder Bojan didn’t reciprocate Kris’ stupid crush. Instead, Bojan had run off to Jere as soon as possible.

Don’t be ridiculous, he told himself. Jere asked Bojan on a date and Bojan said no. He may not like you back but he may not like Jere either. That was Kris’ hope at this point.

“Hey, are you alright?” the Icelandic representative was standing over him, because for some reason he was now on the floor. Diljá , her name tag said. His non-answer was clearly enough for Diljá, who plonked herself down next to him. 

“It’s nothing. I’m Kris, by the way. I’m representing Slov-the Netherlands. Sorry. I’m half Slovenian, half Dutch and my best friend is representing Slovenia.”

“Hey Kris, I’m Diljá. Is… said friend… the reason you’re on the floor in the middle of a party? Literally, there are so many other places you could have chosen to have your quarter-life crisis and you picked the exact centre of the room.”

“Partially? I don’t know. With all the worrying I do this is probably my midlife crisis at this point.”

“Please don’t stress yourself into a premature death, you’re too pretty to die early.”

“That’s very kind of you.”

“So what’s up? You dodged my question. Girl trouble? Boy trouble? Luggage lost by the airline trouble?”

“The holy trinity, huh? I’d say you’d have to get to know me better before I can give you the answer. And maybe I need to figure it out before I tell you.”

“It’s not the airline, is it?”

“No, Diljá.” Kris smiled as they both stood up. The Estonian girl ran up to them, flailing her arms around like a windmill. 

“Fire! Fire! Everyone run!” she shrieked. Could the Wild Youth have already started their attacks before the pageant even happened? Every single contestant was here, with no crew or delegations in sight. It had been the perfect opportunity for an attack, and like an idiot, Kris hadn’t even considered that tonight would be the night.

No crew or delegations in sight… except Jere.

“Has anyone seen Bojan Cvjetićanin? Please, have you guys seen Bojan?”

“The Slovenian guy? Yeah, I saw him in the garden outside. I think he was talking to some guy in green there. I don’t think he was paparazzi but they seemed to be arguing.” the German contestant told him as he pulled out his phone to call emergency services. Kris, dismayed, ran outside. Flames were slowly but surely licking their way up the back portion of the building. He shouted desperately for his friend, trying to hear a response over the screams.

“Help…” a weak voice came. Bojan was trapped in one of the gardens, the hedges surrounding him ablaze. Jere was nowhere to be seen. There was a gap in the hedges that Bojan could easily fit through, but Kris knew he was terrified of fire. So Kris steeled himself and carefully squeezed through. Bojan was whimpering in the centre of the inferno and Kris rushed to him, nearly suffocating him with the intensity of the hug.

“I’m here, Bojči,” Kris reassured him, kissing the top of Bojan’s head softly. Normal stuff, the five Slovenian men did that sort of thing with one another frequently. “But we need to go, right now. It’s only going to get worse and it’s not safe to stay here.”

“I’m sorry.” Bojan coughed as Kris lifted him up and carried him out. Hysterical strength, the chemistry portion of his brain supplied. The stress of the fire had given him a boost of adrenaline, enabling him to bring Bojan to safety. Once they were clear, and back in front with the rest of the contestants, Kris lowered Bojan so he could stand on his own. 

“You saved me, Krisko.”

“Of course I did, Bojči. I will always come back for you.”

“I’m so sorry I was rude to you, I was missing Jere. And when you found him I was happy, I told him I liked his music, but then he asked me on a date and I thought we agreed to be friends. So I told him to leave. I don’t want to be with Jere, I want to be with you, Kris.” Bojan panted, hands tightly clutching Kris’ as they stood in front of the burning building as if there were no other people in the world but the two of them. Kris leaned down and kissed Bojan, moving his hands to Bojan’s waist as Bojan threw his hands around his neck. Kris opened an eye when someone whistled. It was Diljá, giving him a thumbs up and cheering. He laughed into Bojan’s mouth. 

Luke came up behind the two and cleared his throat, causing Bojan to jump and grab onto Kris. 

“Not to detract from… whatever you two are doing, but they determined the cause of the fire. It wasn’t the Wild Youth at all - it was the representative from Cyprus, Andrew Lambrou, trying to show off his talent to impress one of the other contestants.” Luke explained, and Bojan and Kris moved back to join the rest of the contestants. The police approached them, and Luke quietly flashed them his badge. One officer was questioning the aforementioned contestant, Noa Kirel.

“And so he was trying to put the moves on me, and I wasn’t that interested, but I heard him out anyway because that’s who I am, and so he goes ‘my talent is swallowing fire’ and of course THAT got my attention, so I ask for a demonstration and the next thing I know the building’s on fire!”

“Okay, everyone, if there are no injuries, please go back to your hotel rooms. The fire department is currently extinguishing the blaze and there’s no point continuing this event tonight.” the other policeman said. 

Luke smiled knowingly at Kris and Bojan, who farewelled the other contestants as they all returned to their hotel rooms, knowing that the first eliminations would take place tomorrow at the Turquoise Carpet.

Chapter Text

“It is my utmost pleasure to welcome you to the 2023 Eurovision Pageant’s Turquoise Carpet! It’s a lovely sunny day at St George’s Hall, Liverpool and the crowd is going wild. I’m your host, Måns Zelmerlöw, and today we will be meeting all this year’s competitors. Unfortunately, Cyprus’ Andrew Lambrou has had to depart the contest early due to injuries sustained during last night’s tragic fire. Fortunately, his injuries are non-fatal and we’d be happy to see him back next year! Or, whenever. No rush, take your time, Andrew! Now, check out these runway looks! Up first, we have Luke Black from Serbia! To kick things off, Luke, tell us about yourself and your outfit.”

This was it. He could do this. What was it that Jann said? Don’t be obscene, just don’t make a scene.

After the fire, Luke had gone back to his room to get a full night of sleep before the stress of the Carpet in the morning. He hadn’t expected Jann to be pacing back and forth in front of his room holding a garment bag until at least 8am the next morning.

“Hey, Jann, are you okay? What are you doing here?” Luke asked. Jann swivelled around on his heeled boots, registered Luke standing a few metres away from him and without hesitation ran and launched himself at Luke, sobbing into his shoulder.

“I heard that there was a fire at the party and I tried calling you but you never picked up! I thought you were hurt, or worse, dead!” Jann wailed. Luke rubbed his shoulder reassuringly.“I’m safe, so you don’t need to worry.”

“You can’t tell me not to worry when the man I love most could have sizzled to death, Luke!”

Well. That escalated quickly.

“Luka.”

“What?”

“Not Luke, Luka. Luka Ivanović. Don’t say you love me when you don’t even know my name, Jann.”

“Luka Ivanović, I love you, and you nearly killed me out there.”

“I love you too. I didn’t want to say anything before the pageant, but I guess we’re past that point now, huh?”

“Janek Rozmanowski. Can’t kiss me unless you know my full name too, Luka.”

Luka smirked, wiping away a tear from Janek’s cheek and bringing their lips together gently. Janek responded more forcefully, seizing fistfuls of Luka’s shirt, and letting the garment bag fall to the floor.

“Oh, no.”

“Oh no is right, Luka.”

“Do you want to hang that up in my room? And then… maybe pick up where we left off?”

“Please.”

“Hello there, I’m Luke, and I’m thrilled to be representing my country in a pageant like this one. I love video games, singing and sea life, and I’m wearing this lovely ensemble designed by Jann from Poland, a dear friend of mine who’s a huge fan of Eurovision. This is called a poet shirt, which is like the male equivalent of a blouse, and it’s got lots of ruffles because he always says that ruffles add elegance to any garment.”

From behind him, Jann gave him a thumbs up, and Luke beamed.

“Wonderful, Luke. Now, you can take a photo with your delegation if you wish.”

“Jann, come on up here!” Luke laughed, and Jann quickly jogged up to the cameras, posing with Luke. The rest of the delegation joined them after a few photos, before they moved on to make room for the next contestant, Diljá for Iceland. 

From a hotel room, Jan, Jure, Nace and Jere were carefully monitoring the Turquoise Carpet. Jure was listening to the radio Luke wore, Jan to Kris’, Nace to Bojan’s and Jere was watching the live broadcast. 

“Oh, thank goodness he didn’t say something stupid.” Jan breathed a sigh of relief.

“Or do something stupid. You were worried he’d give himself away, I was worried he’d fall down the stairs and knock down the paparazzi like they were just bowling pins.” Nace laughed. Jure cackled too, but Jere was still devastated after the previous night’s events.

EXCERPTS FROM EUROVISION 2023 OPENING CEREMONY: TURQUOISE CARPET

MÅNS ZELMERLÖW: Which contestant would you say has made the biggest impression on you thus far?

DILJÁ PÉTURSDÓTTIR: You know, I’d have to say Kris, the Dutch representative. He’s so sweet and we really connected yesterday.

MÅNS: Wow, Diljá, that’s a glowing recommendation! Could sparks be flying between the two of you?

DILJÁ: Oh, not in that way, and certainly not this early on in the contest! I will say I’m keeping my eyes on a few participants in particular but I’ll have to spend more time with them to really know. But you didn’t hear that from me!

MÅNS: Carry on, Diljá, and go get your photo taken. Best of luck in the talent portion!

DILJÁ: Thank you Måns! Enjoy the rest of the Carpet.

MÅNS: Now we’re meeting Austria’s Salena! It’s a pleasure to have you here.

SALENA EDBAUER: It’s a pleasure to meet you.

MÅNS: What’s one thing that you can’t live without, in Liverpool or back home?

SALENA: I’d have to say my partner. We make a great team and have a lot of common interests, and we balance one another out.

MÅNS: Is your better half here with you?

SALENA: Absolutely, I couldn’t possibly be at Eurovision without their support.

MÅNS: That’s very romantic. Good luck, Salena. Our next contestant is Kris from the Netherlands!

KRIS GUŠTIN: Good morning, Måns. I’m so thrilled to be here, I’ve dreamed of this moment for years.

MÅNS: But you never thought you’d be representing the Netherlands, did you? Because you’ve been living in Slovenia for most of your teens and have recently moved to London, is that right?

KRIS: Absolutely. My mother’s Dutch, and it’s my first language, but my father’s a famous musician in Slovenia and so even though I would watch Eurovision with my mother every year as a child, I always assumed if I had the chance to participate it would be for Slovenia. But I’m so grateful to have been gifted this opportunity by our wonderful broadcaster, AVROTROS, and I’m ready to make the Netherlands proud.

MÅNS: Well said, Kris. Now, are you by any chance familiar with the Slovenian representative for this year?

KRIS: Actually, yes, I do. Bojan [Cvjetićanin] and I went to school together and we are very close. He is probably one of the people I trust most in the world, and we talked about going to Eurovision together. It’s so surreal that we’re both here together on this incredible journey.

MÅNS: OK, final question from me. The Icelandic participant speaks quite fondly of you. Is there something deeper between the two of you?

KRIS: Oh, no. At the preparty yesterday, we had a lengthy conversation. Diljá and I are both huge Eurovision nerds. I also struggle with anxiety and I wasn’t feeling my best last night, and Diljá was a very reassuring person to talk to. I wish her nothing but success, but we have only known one another long enough to be friends, and I’m quite attached to someone else.

MÅNS: Oh, of course. And like Salena, are they here in Liverpool supporting you?

KRIS: You could say that, yes. 

MÅNS: Thank you for your wonderful contributions, and good luck in the talent contest!

KRIS: Thank you!

MÅNS: Please welcome Alika from Estonia!

“Looks like everything’s going well for now, the people seem to love Kris and Luke’s making a good impression too.” Jure observed.

“Nothing is good. Life is miserable. Liverpool is miserable. Love is a lie.” Jere moaned, flopping onto Nace’s bed. Nace flipped him off as Jan rolled his eyes.

“Jere, just because Bojan said he doesn’t want to date you doesn’t mean he hates you. He just wants to be your friend and listen to your music.”

“He’s been giving me mixed signals this whole time! I send him love song and he says well done, sounds good.”

“Bojan can’t speak Finnish, Jere. He wouldn’t know it was a love song, would he?”

“But I send him melancholy ballad! Listen.” Jere said, shoving his phone in their faces and blasting his music. There was a lot of screaming and some excellent bass lines, but by no means could it be considered a ballad. Jan opened his mouth to explain the concept and features of ballads but was distracted by Luke punching the door open and T-posing in the doorway like stuck Sim in the Sims 4 or a scarecrow in a field.

“That. Was. Exhausting.”

“So when’d you get with Jann?” Jure asked, swinging his legs back and forth over the edge of his bed like a child.

“I’m not sure I follow.” Luke said, stiffening.

“You had a mic. Those ruffles were actually useful, I’ll give an honest review to Jann. We heard everything you two said to each other on the Carpet. ‘Ooh, Janek, you’re so hot, I want to have your babies.’ ‘Oh, Luka, I can’t wait to husband the living daylights out of you and attack the government with hairdryers because I can’t think of a better weapon’.”

“Jan, what are you going on about?”

“Look, my room is next to Teya from the Austrian delegation. She said that she saw Jann coming back this morning before the carpet in the same clothes he wore yesterday.”

“So? Maybe we had a sleepover.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time, huh?” Jure giggled. Nace guffawed, slapping his knee like the old man he was. Luke was older than Nace. Nace just acted like he was fifty.

“The fact that Teya had to tell you instead of you noticing yourself speaks volumes about where you spent last night, Jan.” Luke pointed out, as Jere started crying at Bojan’s Turquoise Carpet outfit.

“The audience has voted, and unfortunately, ten contestants are going to be finishing their Eurovision journey here. They are: Albania, Czechia, Finland, Greece, Ireland, Latvia, Malta, Portugal, Romania, and San Marino. Thank you so much for your participation and we hope you go on to achieve great things! I’m Måns Zelmerlöw, and you’re watching Eurovision 2023!”

Chapter Text

TRANSCRIPT: EUROVISION TALENT CONTEST 2023

PROPERTY OF THE BRITISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE EUROPEAN BROADCASTING UNION. DO NOT DISTRIBUTE.

MÅNS ZELMERLÖW: Welcome back to the 2023 Eurovision Pageant, held in the wonderful Liverpool! I’m one of your hosts for the evening, Måns Zelmerlöw, and I’m here with my co-host, Eurovision legend himself, Johnny Logan!

[Applause from the audience, cheering as JOHNNY LOGAN enters.]

JOHNNY LOGAN: It’s so wonderful to be back here. If you aren’t already familiar, Måns here won Eurovision for Sweden in 2015, and I won for Ireland in 1980 and 1987. Tonight, our remaining twenty-five contestants will be showcasing their talents on stage. Historically, these have ranged from contortionism to figure skating to running in a hamster wheel, and boy, do we have an interesting showcase for you this year! The contestants will participate in alphabetical order by country. 

MÅNS: Then, the voting window will open for forty-five minutes so you can all support your favourites. You can vote up to twenty times and you can vote multiple times for one artist, but you cannot vote for your own country.

MÅNS & JOHNNY: Let the Eurovision Talent Contest 2023 begin!

JOHNNY: Our first contestant is Elen Yeremyan, representing Armenia. Take it away, Elen!

[Elen walks on to the stage. She is wearing lots and lots of jewellery. So much jewellery that it’s a marvel she hasn’t fallen over from the weight of it.]

ELEN YEREMYAN: Hi everyone! I feel so honoured to be here, opening the show tonight. I’ve come to show off my culture alongside my talent, creating beautiful jewellery incorporating traditional Armenian elements. 

[Elen picks up some chains and pliers and begins to churn out bracelets and earrings like it’s nobody’s business. She periodically throws them out into the audience, who are delighted at receiving free accessories. When the display is over, the remaining crowd members not fortunate enough to receive gifts are devastated.]

MÅNS: Thank you, Elen! Up next, Austria’s Salena Edbauer!

[SALENA EDBAUER confidently struts on stage. A very young stage crew member hurries behind her with a covered rectangular box, sets it down and rushes back offstage.]

SALENA EDBAUER: Hello Liverpool! I’m sure many of you have wondered what it’s like to be possessed by a ghost. [The audience gasps.] Some of you may even communicate with the devil. [SALENA whips off the cloth cover to reveal an Ouija board.] But I am here to tell you that there is a ghost in my body. And today, we go on a beautiful journey together. 

“Oh, honey, yes!” Teya drew out her vowels. “That’s my girl!”

“That’s quite an inappropriate thing to be doing at a family-friendly show,” Nace pointed out. 

“Cover your eyes, Victor.” Jan said to the teenager sitting next to him. Victor Vernicos was a half-Greek and half-Danish member of the stage crew, and was grimacing at the Austrian talent display. 

“But if I cover them, how am I supposed to read the questions?”

“He’s got a point there, Jan.”

“Shut up, Jure. This is too much for him, he’s just a kid.”

“I’m not a kid, I’m sixteen!”

“Kid, that’s exactly what every movie protagonist ever says, before proceeding to act like a kid for the duration of the movie. Trust me, stay a kid as long as possible.” Nace sighed. 

“I can’t believe you’re helping Victor do algebra while my girlfriend’s literally up there giving everything she has!” Teya shook Jan back and forth.

“Quite literally everything.” Jure smirked, purring at Nace who ruffled his hair.

“But mathematics!” Jan said passionately.

“But lesbianism!” Teya retorted with equal vigour.

“Can someone please just show me how to derive a logarithmic equation?” Victor cried.

JOHNNY: Well, that was certainly… a show. Austria’s Salena, everyone! Once we get the stage mopped up, it’s time for Azerbaijan’s Turan Bağmanov! But first, a quick word from our sponsor, Moroccanoil. All our contestants, both tonight and on yesterday’s Turquoise Carpet, looked absolutely fabulous with their Moroccanoil makeovers. You too can look like a pageant winner with Moroccanoil. Did we mention this was an advertisement for Moroccanoil? If not, I’ll say it again for the cameras. Moroccanoil. Now, back to the 2023 Eurovision Pageant’s Talent Contest, sponsored by Moroccanoil! This is Azerbaijan!

[TURAN BAĞMANOV appears onstage in a cloud of smoke. Some overeager stagehand, probably VICTOR VERNICOS, has turned the fog machine up a bit too much. TURAN is wearing a sparkly outfit, reminiscent of one seen on circus ringmasters. But sequined. There is a huge wooden box behind him.]

TURAN BAĞMANOV: Growing up in Zaqatala, my brothers were always fond of close up magic. I preferred music to magic, but when Jamal and Emin died in a car crash when I was a teenager, and my father passed away too, I decided to learn the art of illusion and carry on their legacy. It was too painful to continue making music with my father gone, because he was the one who supported me, so my remaining brother kept making music and I switched to magic. Today, I will disappear and reappear elsewhere, before returning to my box. 

[The audience, deeply moved by TURAN'S words, watch in awe as TURAN shuts himself into the huge box. A different stage hand opens the box to show that TURAN is missing. There are three knocks at the entrance of the theatre and TURAN is standing triumphantly at the top of the stairs. The audience goes wild. Unfortunately, the excess smoke means there’s a coughing noise from inside the box. TURAN? is revealed to be inside a secret compartment in the box, which means that there’s a second TURAN standing on the other side of the hall.]

TURAN (THE ORIGINAL): [sheepishly] My twin brother, Tural!

TURAL BAĞMANOV: Thank you!

[Chaos erupts as JERE PÖYHÖNEN escorts TURAN offstage and NACE JORDAN escorts TURAL offstage.]

MÅNS: Um, Eurovision, right? There’s nothing like it. Up next is Belgium’s Gustaph!

[GUSTAPH, a middle-aged man in a very impressive hat, comes onto the stage in platform boots.]

GUSTAPH: Hello Eurovision! Growing up queer has been difficult, but I’m lucky to have such a loving and supportive community. I know that not every LGBTQIA+ person has the same opportunities as I do, especially since I am a cis white man living in a free and democratic nation, so this performance goes out to everyone across the world who can’t express themselves authentically but deserves to sparkle anyway!

[GUSTAPH begins voguing to ‘Dancing Lasha Tumbai’, by 2007 Eurovision runner-up Verka Serduchka, Ukrainian drag queen. The song is a crowd favourite and the audience, particularly middle-aged white women, are loving every second. When the song finally draws to a close, more than half the audience is dancing too.]

GUSTAPH: Thank you Europe!

JOHNNY: Wonderful, how nostalgic! Time for our next act, Croatia’s Zoran Prodanović!

[ZORAN PRODANOVIĆ, in a ridiculously impractical outfit and some bizarre fake moustache with nails at least six centimetres long, slowly shuffles on stage.]

ZORAN PRODANOVIĆ: I will sneeze 483 times in a row, once for each and every child killed in the Russo-Ukrainian war. [And he does exactly that. Or, at least, he attempts to.] ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! 

[ZORAN, exhausted, collapses to the floor. MÅNS rushes to him.]

MÅNS: I think he might have died! [The audience is shocked. Never before has a Eurovision contestant simply dropped dead on stage. ZORAN, however, is not about to be the first. He stands up, gasps a few times, and resumes his sneezing.]

ZORAN: ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ! ŠČ-

CUT TO COMMERCIAL.

Chapter Text

JOHNNY: Hasn’t this just been lovely! Our next contestant is Reiley from Denmark!

[REILEY, in a cropped pink jacket, skips on the stage looking like a children’s television program character.]

REILEY: Hey guys! I’m so hyped to be here! Imma need some audience participation!

[the audience is mildly confused by REILEY’s odd blend of slang from different generations. And also his face. Brits can be very judgemental sometimes. Nevertheless, several hands go up, including that of a certain member of security, JERE PÖYHÖNEN.]

REILEY: You there, in the green! Come on up! [JERE runs to the stairs with glee as the audience cheers for him.] Introduce yourself, please!

JERE: I am Jere from Finland, yes yes.

REILEY: Please give a warm welcome to Jere! [the audience claps enthusiastically.] And do you have any… romance in your life?

JERE: I thought there might have been something. But I was wrong. So no.

REILEY: Aww, that’s such a shame. What if I told you I could perform a love spell so that they can be with you?

JERE: I am not sure, is mean to meddle with magic and love.

REILEY: Worry not, I have an affinity for romance.

JERE: [hesitating] OK!

REILEY: [reaching out to take JERE’s hands] I can sense a deep fire burning within you. You are deeply in love, and I know who it is. You are in love with, drumroll please, [the audience obliges] Bojan from Slovenia!

[JERE takes a step back, tears forming in his eyes and shaking his head furiously. It was never meant to come to this. REILEY had gone too far.]

JERE: No, you cannot say these things! This is not kind!

REILEY: But you can do anything for love! 

JERE: This has, how you say, criss-crossed lines. I do not want your spell.

REILEY: All is fair in love and war!

[At the very mention of war, something that they are not meant to be mentioning at a strictly apolitical event, and also because JERE looks far more uncomfortable than ZORAN did when he referenced the war previously, JURE MAČEK and JAN PETEH rush onstage to handcuff REILEY for misconduct. REILEY struggles, and his curly hair falls off, revealing it was a wig. The real REILEY struggles with male-pattern baldness. JERE runs off crying and TEYA ŠPIRIĆ replaces him at his post.]

REILEY: I wish we could go back to the start!

MÅNS: [sarcastically] This night just gets better and better! Up next is Estonia’s Alika Milova!

[ALIKA MILOVA, NACE JORDAN and VICTOR enter the stage with a computer, a projector and a wooden box with metal sticking out of it.]

ALIKA MILOVA: Good evening Europe! I spent a lot of time trying to figure out a talent to show to you guys, and then I remembered I’ve always had an interest in building and designing bridges. So, rather than slap some LEGO together on stage, tonight I will be using a theremin to construct diagrams and drawings of classic European landmarks.

[The audience, whilst slightly confused, goes absolutely wild. This is the loudest they’ve been all night. A few kids are disappointed at the lack of LEGO, especially the Danes in the audience, though most of them are simply shocked at their representative’s previous display and trying to distance themselves from what’s just happened. ALIKA begins to play the theremin, moving her hands slowly and surely. The vibrations from the music are plugged into the computer, which projects the drawing onto the wall behind her. She starts off with the Fontana di Trevi, before moving onto the Eiffel Tower and finishing with a magnificent drawing of the Old Town in Tallinn. The crowd has gone nuts.]

ALIKA: I love you Europe! Aitäh!

JOHNNY: [looking slightly relieved to have a perfectly normal entry for once] Spectacular, wasn’t it? Next, it’s La Zarra representing France! Oh lá lá!

[LA ZARRA enters with a cart filled with glasses of wine.]

LA ZARRA: Oui oui, la baguette.

[LA ZARRA drinks varying amounts of wine from several of the glasses, before dipping her finger in one and playing La Marseillaise. It’s enchanting, but perhaps too similar to the theremin played immediately beforehand. Nevertheless, the audience automatically loves something that seems authentically French, and the national anthem of the French Republic played on wine glasses by a woman in a beret is sufficiently patriotic, even if LA ZARRA herself is Canadian.]

MÅNS: Excellent, La Zarra! Now, those of you familiar with Junior Eurovision should recognise this next face. The 2011 victor, Iru Khechanovi of Georgia!

[IRU KHECHANOVI walks onstage excitedly in a pinstriped frock leading a wagon.]

IRU KHECHANOVI: Hi everyone! It’s so thrilling to be here again in front of you all! It’s been my dream my whole life to be up here in the big leagues! Today, I’ll be making a chocolate sculpture.

[IRU tempers the chocolate and slowly it begins to take shape. After several minutes, IRU proudly stands next to her life-size sculpture of a Georgian wolf. A small child in the front of the standing section tries to reach out and break off a leg, but his mother is quick to pull him back.]

JOHNNY: How sweet! Thank you Iru! Now, get ready for Chris Harms from Germany! 

[CHRIS HARMS wheels a trolley onstage. He is wearing a racy red leather outfit that shows off one of his legs in its near entirety.]

CHRIS HARMS: My talent is a very special skill I discovered during an incident in my university dorm room. I was born with the ability to remove glitter from any surface using a small amount of my blood mixed with industrial strength detergent. Let’s do a comparison.

[From the trolley, CHRIS takes out two carpet swatches and some red glitter. He sprinkles an equal amount of glitter onto both pieces of carpet, which he sets on a display stand so that the audience can see better. He then pulls out a bottle of cleaning spray and drenches the first carpet sample. Very little glitter is removed by the ensuing scrubbing.]

CHRIS: Now watch as I take a sample of my own blood and add it to the detergent!

[Several audience members, particularly younger ones, wince or outright start wailing as CHRIS takes a syringe to his exposed leg. He withdraws the needle and deposits the blood into an empty spray bottle. He then adds some detergent to the blood-filled bottle. The adults watch with bated breath and tap their children on the shoulder to get them to watch again. He sprays the bloody detergent onto the second sample, and both the blood and glitter are gone completely. Several women swoon at the sight of the easy removal.]

CHRIS: Thank you! Enjoy the rest of the evening!

MÅNS: And danke Germany! Next up, Iceland, with Diljá Pétursdóttir!

DILJÁ PÉTURSDÓTTIR: Hello everyone! Today I’ll be doing some weightlifting for you!

“That’s your girlfriend, isn’t it, Kris,” Nace teased. Kris swatted at him as he put on his lab coat and personal protective equipment. Diljá was definitely not his girlfriend but they were starting to get really close and he was enjoying her talent display.

Unfortunately, weightlifting did not seem to be as impressive as some of the entries that had already passed, and Kris had the sudden realisation that it was highly unlikely Diljá would make it through to the next round.

Luke, Bojan and Kris were chatting with their teammates, waiting to go on for their turns. After Reiley had been forcibly removed, and Jere had run backstage crying, Bojan and Kris had gone over to talk to him. Kris sat on Jere’s left with Bojan on his right.

“That was a horrible thing he did to you, Jere. It’s okay to feel violated or upset.” Kris reassured him, patting his colleague on the back. 

“I don’t hold it against you. He outed you on international live television! That’s unforgivable.” Bojan said. 

“Just breathe deeply for a bit. It’ll be fine.” 

“Besides, you never technically confirmed anything. So that’s a small consolation.”

“I am sorry, Bojan. I embarrassed you.”

“You didn’t embarrass me! I don’t resent you for having feelings for me. Hey, I had a crush on Noa Kirel! Now I’m here competing against her and I don’t feel that way about her at all. Feelings come and go, especially when they’re unrequited. Eventually you’ll get over me. And I’m still your friend, Jere. Tell you what, when we go back home I’ll record a duet with you. Is that good?”

“Yes yes, good. I feel better now. Thank you Bojan, and thank you Kris.”

“Great. Now I can go and embarrass myself for real,” Bojan said as he made his way back over to the others to sit and wait. He wanted to watch Noa Kirel dance for Israel. Kris, however, stayed back with Jere.

“Look, Jere, I know we’re both in love with Bojan. For months I thought he liked you and it killed me watching you guys chat and have fun together because I could see the way you looked at him. I was just too afraid to see the way Bojan looked at me. But the point is, whether he’s in love with you or not, he still loves you deeply as a friend.” Kris said, handing Jere a tissue to dry his eyes. Jere embraced Kris tearfully and they stood in the greenroom together. 

“Um, Jere?”

“I make it weird now, right?”

“Yep.”

“I let go now.”

The next few performances passed by quickly. Italy’s 2013 entrant, Marco Mengoni, did some trampoline acrobatics to a tearful male ballad. It was a bit odd, but the audience seemed to like it. Lithuania’s 2015 participant, Monika Linkytė, opted to showcase meditation, the very talent that won Loreen the 2012 contest. And speaking of 2012, the very next entrant was Moldova’s representative from that year, Pasha Parfeni playing the pan flute. It was a tough act for Kris to follow, but he took a deep breath and walked out onto the stage as the crowd’s cheers nearly deafened him. Despite all his enthusiasm, he was suddenly struck with terrible stage fright. 

Great.

“Hello, today I will be conducting some chemistry experiments for you.” Kris said, arranging his glassware neatly, exactly the way he liked it. 

He could do this.

Chapter Text

JOHNNY: Here we have Kris Guštin from the Netherlands!

[KRIS GUŠTIN, already a popular favourite from the Turquoise Carpet interviews, because it wouldn’t be Eurovision without a widely-beloved femboy, walks on nervously as the audience goes wild. He has a lab trolley with several beakers, test tubes and starts to rearrange them as he looks up at the audience with fear in his eyes.]

KRIS GUŠTIN: Hello, today I will be conducting some chemistry experiments for you. First up, a titration with phenolphthalein. I won’t bore you with the details, especially since I’ve already prepared the solutions beforehand, but titrations are used to find the concentration of an unknown substance by combining it with a liquid of known concentration. Then we measure the reaction’s endpoint when the solution turns pink, because I’ve added in the indicator phenolphthalein. If you add too much, it goes too dark. You want to get it exactly ballerina pink. Like so.

[The audience is deeply, deeply confused. Those familiar with high school chemistry are frozen in horror at the terrible memories of over-titrating the solution. Those who are not are simply bored. The children have no idea what is happening. KRIS sees their lack of interest, and as he finishes the titration perfectly he begins to panic, because he’s losing them. From the back of the room, despite going on in four turns, BOJAN CVJETIĆANIN appears, blowing a kiss to KRIS. KRIS instantly relaxes and decides to pour all his chemicals into one beaker.]

KRIS: Kids, don’t try this at home. [The contents of the beaker explode, leaving KRIS with a faceful of smoke. An eyebrow or two may have been singed. He splutters as the crowd cheers. He’s won them back. BOJAN winks at KRIS from the back of the crowd, before turning to go.] I call that ‘Krispy’.

[The audience laughs as MÅNS jogs back onto the stage.]

MÅNS: Thanks, Kris! Put your hands together from Norway’s Alessandra Mele!

[ALESSANDRA MELE comes onstage with two large sticks.]

ALESSANDRA MELE: Hi guys! It’s so nice to be here!

[ALESSANDRA nods once and royalty-free EDM music starts playing as the sticks light up and she begins to twirl them impressively. It’s like a lightsaber battle but without copyright infringement, which the BBC loves, as does the crowd. At the end, she does a backflip and ALESSANDRA finishes in the splits with the batons in the air. The audience can’t get enough of it.]

ALESSANDRA: Thank you Europe!

JOHNNY: Thanks Alessandra! Next we’ve got Blanka Stajkow from Poland!

[BLANKA STAJKOW, a former model, is working the television cameras as she sashays onto the stage. She whips out her headphones, not bothering with an introduction, and decides to let her talent speak for itself. The music begins.]

BLANKA STAJKOW: Y’all ready? Let’s get it. 

[BLANKA is a DJ, mixing various tracks effortlessly. However, the songs she’s chosen all feature the same horrid female vocalist singing terribly off-key even with an overuse of autotune. It becomes clear that BLANKA herself is the featured voice on the song. The audience is not impressed. Perhaps BLANKA should stick to being a disc jockey rather than a singer.]

MÅNS: Thank you, Blanka! Our next contestant is Luke Black, representing Serbia!

LUKE BLACK: It’s so exciting, being up here for you all, and representing my country tonight. I hope you enjoy what I’m about to do for you.

[LUKE stands in the very centre of the stage, arms outstretched, and his eyes roll backwards into his head. The audience gasps as he begins to shudder. LUKE begins chanting in Latin and after about a minute and a half, lobsters start to scuttle in through the open doors. One by one, sixteen lobsters, including a baby lobster, are encircling LUKE frantically as he continues. He stops chanting and embraces all the lobsters in turn.]

LUKE: Be free, my lovelies! [the lobsters leave in single file. The audience has no idea what they’ve just witnessed, but it’s far from the strangest talent that evening.]

JOHNNY: Thank you, Luke! I know that’s put me in the mood for some Lobster Thermidor! [he laughs insincerely in that typical pageant host manner.] Next up is Slovenia’s Bogan Svetikanin!

MÅNS: Bojan Cvjetićanin!

JOHNNY: What he said!

[BOJAN takes to the stage with a spring in his step. This is what he’s made for, entertaining people. With great fanfare, BOJAN reaches into the pocket of his shirt to pull out a hot pink kazoo.]

BOJAN: You may be wondering: how can a kazoo cost only 1 pound if it sounds as good as a saxophone?

[Riotous laughter from the audience. Perhaps it is due to the dreadful British accent he’s put on to connect with the Scousers. Perhaps it is simply the hilarity of a man playing the kazoo in an international pageant.]

BOJAN: [coyly] I don't know the answer to that question. 

[Music begins to swell throughout the hall. It is the Arrival of the Queen of Sheba, by George Frideric Handel. BOJAN takes a deep breath and begins to kazoo the melody. It’s surprisingly impressive how well he handles the rapidly ascending sequences and octave jumps. His staccato notes are incredibly precise and when he finishes, red in the face from the strain, the entire audience is on their feet chanting ‘SLOVENIA, SLOVENIA, SLOVENIA’.]

BOJAN: Hvala, Liverpool! Thank you Eurovision!

MÅNS: Wow! That was quite an interesting performance from Slovenia! Give it up for Blanca Paloma from Spain!

“You were amazing, Luka!” Jann said excitedly, throwing his arms around his boyfriend’s neck. Luke, somewhat miffed at not being able to find the rest of the lobsters, kisses Jann’s cheek and sighs. Just because there wasn’t a Wild Youth attack at the Turquoise Carpet or at the party doesn’t mean there can’t be one tonight.

Bojan comes back, somewhat out of breath from the intense baroque on the kazoo. Kris is awaiting Bojan’s return eagerly and as soon as Bojan sees him they run to one another like they’re in some romance movie and Kris lifts him up enthusiastically before spinning Bojan around like a ragdoll. 

“You’ve got a little something on your face,” Bojan says, indicating the results of Kris’ little explosion. 

“Can you get it for me please?” Kris asks, without thinking. Big mistake. Bojan cackles gleefully, before leaning in and licking Kris all over his face. Kris groans at his boyfriend’s ridiculous antics, but lets Bojan continue nevertheless. 

Not to be outdone by the Slovenians, Jann tips Luke over onto the ground and straddles him before kissing him again. Luke lets out an indignant squawk as his back hits the wooden floor but Jann quickly silences his protests. Not that Luke’s complaining. 

Jere walks in on the two couples competing to see who could get the closest to being fined for indecency and walks out immediately. He steps in again a few seconds later, having retrieved his sunglasses to shield his eyes. The four of them have disentangled themselves from their paramours and are all standing in a row. Jann has the decency (or perhaps the audacity) to salute Jere, before walking away.

“Have you seen Jan and Nace? Jure can’t find them.” Jere asks.

“Wasn’t Jan helping Victor with his maths homework?” Luke suggests.

“Kris and I can go look for them.” Bojan offers.

“Fine. But no kissing in storage rooms. Bad idea. Waste of time.” Jere instructs, before returning to his post.

Hand in hand, Bojan and Kris run through the M&S Bank Arena trying to find Nace and Jan. They come across Teya and Salena watching the live feed of the contest, Salena in tears after the catastrophe that had been her talent display. Bojan wanted to go and say something to her but they had to find their teammates as soon as possible. They also see Victor chatting with the entirety of Vesna, a rather odd combination that they don’t have time to process. 

They run past a storage room and Bojan wiggles his eyebrows, clearly attempting to look seductive but mostly just looking like an idiot. 

“Bojči, Jere specifically told us not to kiss over here.” Kris sighs.

“Reverse psychology. He should have known we would.”

“I’d like to think he has some faith in me, sweetheart.”

“Come on,” Bojan urges. Kris gives in, letting Bojan drag him into the closet. What neither of them expect is to find out that Jan and Nace have had the same idea as them. The four men scream at seeing the others there.

“Aren’t you with Jure?” Kris asks Jan.

“Don’t you have a girlfriend?” Bojan asks Nace.

“Yes.” Jan responds.

“Not anymore,” Nace answers.

“You’re dating Jure?” Bojan turns to Jan, even more confused.

“Wow. Um.” Kris says, nearly completely speechless.

“I knew it!” Jure says, bursting through the open door.

“Knew what?” Bojan asks, still bewildered.

“Knew you two would sneak off somewhere,” Jure laughs, high-fiving Nace.

“So it’s the three of you,” Kris says, raising an eyebrow.

“I mean, it can be,” Jure says, leaning on Nace. Nace takes Jure’s chin in his hand and tilts him in for a kiss.

“I guess so.” Jan says, not taking his eyes off Nace and Jure. Bojan’s eyes dart back and forth between the newly-established triad.

“Well this is great, but we should probably get back to work.” Kris opens the door and gestures that they should leave. The five of them run outside and unfortunately Bojan slams right into Jere.

“We, uh, found Nace and Jan.” Bojan says, quite embarrassed at having Jere find them walking out of the very place they said they wouldn’t be. He doesn’t seem too fazed, however, because his facial expression shows exactly what he feels; unadulterated fear.

“All the exits and entrances are locked, security feeds have been cut off and there’s screaming from inside the hall. The attack’s begun, and we have no way of stopping it.”

Chapter Text

Loreen holds her gloved hand out so that her peregrine, Cornelia, can land on it safely before engaging in the falconry display for her talent. The audience, unfamiliar with what Loreen is about to do, watches with bated breath as Loreen stands there in the same position. It’s a bit odd, because nothing happens for a solid fifty seconds or so, until a distinctly avian screech sounds from the wings and Cornelia emerges haphazardly. Loreen looks up in horror as two bloody feathers drop from Cornelia’s wing. The falcon makes a beeline for the exit but the doors have been shut. 

Cornelia is enraged at the fact she’s injured and so she begins to circle the hall as best as possible given her damaged wing. Suddenly, she sees something of interest and dives for it. Loreen watches helplessly from the stage, whistling and clicking to try and recall Cornelia, but nothing seems to work. People get up from their seats and begin running around frantically to no avail. The repeated pounding on the doors does absolutely nothing and when Cornelia finally returns to Loreen she nearly claws an eye out. Scratches and cuts litter Loreen’s exposed skin and she howls as Cornelia’s talons dig into her arm. The blood loss causes Loreen’s eyes to blur, and the last thing she sees is Cornelia’s injured wing crumpling as the bird collapses on the stage.

Käärijä from Recon picks up some of the decor and tries to use it as a battering ram as the Slovenians rush to help him. Jann is trying to call the authorities but the arena has no reception, and, as Luke reminds him, the authorities are already present. Luke is busy trying to get all the contestants and delegations to safety, because whatever attack is going on has been organised by people that could still be in the building. Soon, everyone who had gone before Bojan and who hadn’t yet had their turn was safely inside their dressing rooms. 

Once the battering ram manages to break through, they find a bird on a rampage and several audience members deeply traumatised. Luke rushes into the wings to find Blanca Paloma, who had gone on between Bojan and Loreen, and had thus been forgotten by Luke altogether, unconscious on the floor with an arrow through her arm and a bow clenched in her hand. 

“Jure! Nace! Bring the first aid supplies!” he calls, trying to get the Spanish woman to wake up. Käärijä comes by, carrying the body of Loreen to set it down next to Blanca’s. Jure runs up to them with the medical kit and Nace attempts to resuscitate them. Luke turns around, frantically looking for any sign of whoever did this to Blanca and Loreen. With the Liverpool Arena on total lockdown, there’s nowhere they could possibly have gone unless the attack on the bird was premeditated. But surely Loreen would have noticed beforehand if her bird had been acting uncharacteristically aggressive, and someone had to take out Blanca in the wings in order to get to the bird in the first place.

“I want the perimeter searched. Someone has snuck in and potentially fatally injured the Spanish and Swedish contestants and with the whole arena on lockdown it’s only a matter of time before we find out who it was.” Kris declares. Nace and Jure stay with the bodies, Jere and Jan go to calm down the audience and Bojan, Kris and Luke go to investigate the delegations and backstage crew.

“What’s going on?” Victor asks as they open the door. Bojan explains the situation to him, asking if he saw anyone unfamiliar in the wings before the attack.

“This one guy, I think he said his name was Martin? He had brown hair, and I know that’s not super helpful, but he was over that way. He also had a really bad camel toe.” Victor says. Bojan curses and Kris pales.

“I know exactly who’s done this. It’s Conor, leader of the Wild Youth.”

“If his name’s Conor, why did he say his name was Martin?”

“Our best friend in high school was called Martin. He was killed in an attack by the Wild Youth last year.”

“Oh my God,” Victor murmurs. “He should still be in the arena though, right?”

“I’m going to kill that son of a-” Bojan growls, running off.

“Bojan, wait!” Kris shrieks, following him. 

“Stay in here, Victor. We don’t want anything else happening to someone tonight.”

“It’s my fault we’re even in this situation, Luke! I should have known I’d met everyone already, but he had one of those volunteer badges so I just let him through.” 

“You had no way of knowing he was a terrorist, so just hang tight and stay safe. We’ll take care of it.” Luke says, running in the opposite direction.

“An act of sabotage on a peregrine falcon belonging to Eurovision 2012 winner Loreen raises questions of a terrorist attack on the pageant. Sources within the contest imply this may be connected to the terrorist organisation from Ireland, the Wild Youth, whose leader Conor O’Donohoe, wanted for the murder of Martin Jurkovič, attempted to represent the Emerald Isle at Eurovision with a false alias but failed a background check. The Spanish and Swedish contestants are in urgent care, but are expected to recover fully. More at 7.”

“The Talent Contest of the Eurovision Pageant 2023 has concluded, following the arrest of Conor O’Donohoe. The final three contestants for the evening showcased their talents, and the audience has voted. From twenty-five, only ten will continue tonight. That’s right, everyone. Instead of fifteen, due to the attacks tonight, the top ten will advance to the final. They are… Spain’s Blanca Paloma, Norway’s Alessandra Mele, the Netherlands’ Kris Guštin, Lithuania’s Monika Linkytė, Estonia’s Alika Milova, Slovenia’s Bojan Cvjetićanin, Moldova’s Pasha Parfeni, Sweden’s Loreen, Serbia’s Luke Black and Armenia’s Elen Yeremyan!”

“Well, that was a relief,” Jure sighs, switching off the television.

“We knew they’d be in the top fifteen, Maček.” Jan noted. 

“But not the top ten, only one of them would be guaranteed to get that far.” Nace pointed out.

“That’s fair. They did good job. At least they don’t have to go on stage again to wait for elimination. They do that last year.”

“They do that every year, Käärijä. Just not this time, because of the attacks.” 

“You can call me Jere, Jann. You do not have to say Käärijä.”

“Luka calls you that, I had no idea what your real name was.” Jann admits.

“Luke is vampire twink. Do not listen to him.”

“Where did you hear that?” Nace laughs.

“I heard it from Victor who heard from Olesya. Olesya is like new mother for Victor.”

“It’s great that he gets this experience so young.” Jan interjects.

“Yes, yes. Should we go find Bojan and Kris and Luke?”

“That sounds great to me.” Jure replies.

The five of them stand to go and find the three contestants. They knock on the door of the Serbian greenroom and Luke answers the door with a blank expression on his face. Bojan was standing next to a suspiciously fist-shaped dent in the table and Kris was whispering in his ear with his arms around Bojan.

“I still can’t believe he dared to show his face here after what he did to Martin,” Bojan was saying.

“It’s horrible, I know, but we caught him, Bojči. He’s in prison now, and we’re going to have the rest of Eurovision. We all made it through to the finals and it’s all fine now.”

“Fine? How can you say this is fine? He killed Martin! Do you even care? Or do you just want to win this stupid pageant?” Bojan fumes, pushing Kris’ hands off him and storming out. The moment was ruined slightly by Bojan storming back in to slam the door in Kris’ face, but the subsequent thundering of his footsteps in the corridor indicated that he was still indeed storming off. 

Kris stays in place, swaying back and forth slightly, having no idea what state he’s in. 

Jan, Jure and Nace are staring in shock and Luke is whispering to Jann.

“Since I don’t have anything to do tomorrow morning, would you like to go on a date?” Luke asks.

“What, like every single one of our sleepovers and coffee meetings wasn’t a date?” Jann smirks.

“Not officially, ljubavi.” Luke whines.

“Okay, it’s official. Tomorrow’s our first date. What will we do?”

“I’ve got something in mind…”

Chapter Text

“Good morning, Lu,” Jann says, having broken into Luke’s room the night before.

“Morning,” Luke sniffles, nose blocked and words slightly slurred by drowsiness. He sluggishly brought a hand to cover his mouth in shock. “That’s what I sound like?”

“So much for our first date.”

“Nonononono, ljubavi, we can still do that.” he says, bursting into a coughing fit as soon as he finishes his sentence.

“Lulu, look at you. You need to rest.”

“We can have our date right here in my bed.”

“Bit forward, don’t you think?” Jann raises an eyebrow.

“I meant, we can just stay here and do fun things.”

“Like what? Watching a movie?”

“We could, or we could play some video games.”

“I thought I wasn’t allowed to know anything about your Twink streaming.”

“First off, it’s Twitch. Not twink. Second, yeah, you aren’t, but I’m not streaming. We’re just going to stay here all day and play games together.”

“Like what?”

“Usually I play Mortal Kombat, but I’m not in the mood for that. How do you feel about Animal Crossing?”

“I’m not sure. I’m more of a Dance Dance Revolution kind of guy. Besides, I don’t have a Switch so I can’t play with you.”

“If I had my PC, we could play the Sims 4 together. I made a really cool mod for Dine Out that works with Cats and Dogs where you can steal lobsters from restaurants and take them home to keep as pets.”

“That sounds cool, but why would you do that?”

“I’ve always dreamed of rescuing those poor majestic creatures.”

“Lobter.”

“No, Janek.”

“I’m never letting you live that one down.”

“Unfortunately, the pack is so buggy the restaurant always ends up being set on fire every time you steal the lobsters. But hey, at least I’m not using Wicked Whims.”

“From the name alone, I’m getting the impression that I don’t want to know what it is.”

“If you value your sanity, you do not want to know.”

“Great. So what games do you have on your Switch?”

“I mean, we could play Mario Kart 8 Deluxe?”

“That’s a bit more up my alley. I’m going to destroy you.”

“Take me out to dinner first, ljubavi.”

Luke wins the races, rightfully so, because he spends so much time playing the game he knows every single tip to win. He also has the advantage of frequently playing 200cc, whereas Jann only played the Wii version and isn’t familiar with either the courses or the speed. However, when they switch to battle mode, rather than racing, Jann comes out ahead. After Jann has thoroughly wiped the floor with Luke, he suggests they play on the same team this time. 

Every time they get a point, Jann leans over to give Luke a kiss. This quickly becomes a stupid idea, because they get far too involved and end up losing most of the battles. Luke unenthusiastically suggests victory kisses only, and Jann pouts before agreeing. Then they stop playing altogether, and Jann decides to call for room service. In about twenty minutes, in which Jann explains the concept for a musical he wants to create, chicken piccata and creamy fettuccine have been delivered to Luke’s room.

“Very citrusy.”

“I really like it. This was a really fun date, Lulu. Even if we didn’t go anywhere I had a great time with you.”

“Mm hm, I was going to take you to the aquarium. For lobsters.”

“That would have been great. We’ll have to do it back in London. For now, though, you should rest up. You have to sing tonight.”

“See you soon, Janek.”

“We’re here tonight for the Grand Final of the Eurovision Pageant. Tonight’s event is the singing contest! From these ten final contestants, our winner will be crowned.”

“I’m one of your hosts, Johnny Logan, and I’m here with Måns Zelmerlöw. Where the Turquoise Carpet and Talent segments were scored purely based on public televoting, tonight’s show also features five music experts judging each of the contestants. They are, 2016 winner Jamala of Ukraine, 1997 winner Katrina Leskanich of the United Kingdom, 1991 winner and three-time contestant Carola Häggkvist of Sweden, 2017 winner Salvador Sobral of Portugal and UK commentator Graham Norton! Give them a hand!”

The audience goes absolutely wild. The anticipation within the arena is practically tangible. People are waving flags around and have hand-made banners with the names and faces of their favourite contestants. The twenty-five participants who have been eliminated are seated in the very first row.

“After the last act has performed, the voting lines will open for ten minutes, and ten minutes only. During this time, all thirty-five contestants from this year’s edition will perform a final number for you all, as is tradition. Now, first up is Moldova’s Pasha Parfeni!”

The finalists are all processing their stress in the green room, albeit in different ways. Elen leaves halfway through Pasha’s performance to get ready, and Pasha returns with a huge grin on his face as Alessandra leaves. Moldova, Armenia, Norway, Serbia, Spain, Estonia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Slovenia, Sweden. Bojan and Kris are sitting on opposite ends of the room, Kris talking to Alika quietly and Bojan interrogating Luke about his date as Luke furiously downed glass after glass of warm water in an attempt to fix his throat. Blanca, Loreen, Pasha, Monika and Alessandra are making casual conversation as they all flit in and out of the green room, and Elen is fiddling with pliers making friendship bracelets for the finalists. 

Pasha seems happy, Elen content, Alessandra in the middle of a breakdown, Luke relieved, Blanca cheerful as usual, Alika shy but happy and Kris never gets to find out how Monika feels because he’s backstage watching her sing live. She sounds incredible, as expected, and Kris realises that he’s completely out of his depth on this stage.

Back in high school, when they’d been in a band and Martin had been with them and they’d had the greatest experiences of their lives, Kris had never been much of a singer. Bojan had always tried to coax him into singing a solo, or even a duet, but Kris had always refused. Eventually, they’d compromised on Kris singing backing vocals. Now Bojan isn’t even speaking to him.

Tonight is Kris’ debut as a soloist, and he can’t breathe. Everyone is standing there expectantly, waiting for him to sing, but he’s never done it before. 

In hindsight, it was a terrible idea to think he could have a shot at winning when he couldn’t even sing for a few minutes without a panic attack. With a guitar in his hands, he could make a decent attempt, but Eurovision forbids live instruments in the singing portion (to prevent contestants having an unfair advantage) so he’s on his own.

The lights are ridiculously bright and he has no idea what he’s going to do. He’s let down the entirety of the Netherlands, who already weren’t keen on a half-Slovenian representative in the first place. As he nervously clenches and unclenches his fists, he sees Diljá in the front row of the audience - the one row he can actually see. She forms a heart shape with her hands and he grins back. He still has no idea what to do, fingers itching for a guitar to hide behind, when a hand rests on his shoulder.

He whips around to see Bojan standing next to him, staring lovingly at him. He pulls out his own microphone and begins to sing, lowering his hand slowly to reach for Kris’.

Končno te vidim spet

Hitro mine čas

Spremenu sem pogled na svet

Ti pa barvo las

It’s Kris’ least favourite song of theirs for a reason, self-penned after a nasty breakup, but all their fans had adored it and Bojan especially had always tried to get Kris to sing it with him as a duet. Bojan would finally get his wish, manipulating Kris into singing a song he hates in front of most of Europe. Kris rolls his eyes affectionately as Bojan squeezes his hand, before singing the second verse completely on his own.

Kaj te nese v Ljubljano

Zdaj, ko vse cveti

Nazadnje si sedela z mano

Ko bil sem brez moči

Bojan looks upwards and raises his eyebrows twice. Kris responds with a small nod, understanding what he means, and takes the upper harmony whilst Bojan takes the melody.

Ne govoriva več o tem.

Ne govoriva več o tem.

Me le odrivaš stran, ko s tabo sem iskren.

Still with their hands joined, Kris turns to the audience and sings the second half of the chorus to them.

Ne govoriva več o tem.

Ne govoriva več o tem.

A ne vidiš, da razpadam, ker ne vem?

Kris looks back at Bojan who is smiling encouragingly at him. Kris then sings the next verse whilst looking at Bojan.

Lepo, da še pomisliš name, včasih se mi zdi,

da si mе zakopala v jame pozabljenih noči.

Bojan joins in with a lower harmony for the second half of the verse.

Ignoranca ti pristaja, lajša ti skrbi.

Tvoj pogled mе še zavaja in fasada še stoji.

The two of them go back to Bojan on the melody and Kris on the harmony for the chorus. Diljá in the audience takes out her phone, switches on the flashlight and begins to wave it slowly. Soon, as they sing, the entire arena has their lights on.

Ne govoriva več o tem.

Ne govoriva več o tem.

Me le odrivaš stran, ko s tabo sem iskren.

Ne govoriva več o tem.

Ne govoriva več o tem.

A ne vidiš, da razpadam, ker ne vem?

Ne govoriva več o tem.

Ne govoriva več o tem.

Me le odrivaš stran, ko s tabo sem iskren.

Ne govoriva več o tem.

Ne govoriva več o tem.

A ne vidiš, da razpadam, ker ne vem?

Kris drops Bojan’s hand to draw him in for a hug; Bojan takes it a step further and brings their lips together. All their friends in the first row coo at the display of affection, and Kris is so imminently grateful for what Bojan has done for him. Standing up in front of hundreds of people, with millions more watching from home, Kris feels elated, despite his less-than-ideal vocal performance. He’s done the best he can and he’s proud of it.

Chapter Text

Kris and Bojan run offstage as the lights switch off, hands still joined. They hurtle through the greenroom as the others watch in bewilderment, still in shock over what happened on stage. Bojan leads Kris into his dressing room, and they take a seat on the bench together.

“I’m sorry I hurt you after the talent contest.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you about Martin.”

They speak at the same time. Bojan gestures for Kris to start.

“Look, I know it was hard for you, losing Martin. It was hard for us too. I know he was in your old band, and I know you think it’s your fault he’s gone, but you had no way of knowing what Conor was, or what he would do.”

“But Martin wouldn’t even have been in Dublin if it weren’t for our gig, Kris.”

“And you were there too. It could have been you instead. Hell, it could have been both of you that night, and then what would we have done?”

“You would have eventually moved on.”

“Moved on? The very thing you refuse to do?”

“Kris, it’s only been a year.”

“And I’m not saying you should forget Martin’s death ever happened. I’m saying you need to stop blaming yourself for it, and stop acting like the rest of us weren’t affected by losing him.”

“I know, I’m sorry. I just saw red when Conor used Martin’s name as an alias. He knew that would get to me and I let myself react exactly the way he wanted. Worse, I completely ignored you guys when I probably needed your help.”

“And what’s important is now you’ve acknowledged your feelings and your shortcomings. We’re all here for you, and we’re still hurting too. That’s why we took the job. Justice for Martin, and all the others killed by the Wild Youth.”

“And now we’ve got Conor locked up, and the rest of them will be put away soon, right?”

“Right, Bojči. But we weren’t just here to catch the Wild Youth. We’re also here to represent our countries in a huge televised competition.” Kris says, leaning into Bojan and twisting their fingers together.

“You do realise we’ve probably both been disqualified for that little stunt, right?” Bojan throws his head back, laughing uncontrollably.

“Oh, without a doubt. Let’s hope they don’t cancel us on Twitter.” Kris smirks.

“So sorry to interrupt, but I wanted to speak to you two.” Katrina Leskanich says, sticking her head through the door. “They’re currently deciding whether they’re going to disqualify you two or not. I’m inclined to vote no, I’ve always loved love, even when others don’t feel the same way. My partner and I, Sher, have faced more than our fair share of discrimination, and it’s such a relief to see same-sex relationships so normalised. Because you heard it, the crowd loved you guys. And sure, technically, you weren’t meant to have two people on stage at once, but does that even matter? Your point scores will be halved regardless, so it’s not like we’re giving you an unfair advantage.”

“Thank you, Ms. Leskanich. Regardless of the outcome, I’m happy with what we did on stage, and I think Kris is too.” Bojan says. Katrina Leskanich smiles as she walks away. The two Slovenians sit in silence for a few seconds, hands together, when Blanca staggers in, bleeding profusely once again. This time, however, it’s from a gaping wound on her shoulder. 

“Loreen… panini press… stop them…” she gasps, before crumpling to the floor.

“That was the Netherlands, and also apparently Slovenia.” Måns says, somewhat confused but refusing to let his face betray his emotions. “I suppose we’ve got Sweden up next. Give it up for returning champion Loreen!”

Loreen takes to the stage, wearing something out of an adventure film, with sharpened talons that could rival an eagle. Her scars, still not fully healed, are fully on display. She’s survived a terrorist attack, and is here to perform. Hopefully, she can make history as not only the second person to win Eurovision twice, but the first woman, person of colour and member of the LGBTQ+ community to do so. 

The stage has been cleared and two horizontal platforms are in the spotlight. As she reaches out her hands to crawl between the parallel platforms, an arrow pierces the wires suspending the upper platform, crashing down onto Loreen’s nails and snapping them off. Fortunately, her fingers aren’t injured, but she is reeling from the fact that if the arrow had made contact even a second later, she would have been killed. Or at the very least, severely maimed. 

Nevertheless, the show must go on. 

Loreen takes a few deep breaths, then circles her finger to indicate the start of the music. As the opening notes of her song play, she begins to sing. Not even halfway through the chorus, something pierces her back and she is suddenly in excruciating pain. She stops singing to howl in pain, turning to see the arrow protruding from her body, and recognises it as not only identical to the one that sabotaged her staging, but also as belonging to Blanca Paloma.

“It appears that Loreen of Sweden has been maliciously attacked by Spain’s Blanca Paloma!” Johnny says. Yet again, the audience is in chaos. This year’s Eurovision has been so hectic, from accidental arson to a terrorist attack to someone nearly sneezing themself to death to sabotage to gay kissing. 

Bojan stays with Blanca as Kris runs to get help. Could they not catch a break for two days? Had they become complacent after Conor’s arrest, or was it normal to believe their job was done? Thoughts swirling in his head, Kris bumps into a distraught-looking Alika.

“We couldn’t find you and Bojan, and they’re blaming Blanca for Loreen being attacked! I thought the terrorists were those Irish guys. The one with the camel toe who got arrested. What’s going on now? Why would someone do this? Do you think Blanca did it? Shouldn’t the police be here? Is it another group of terrorists?”

“Alika, take a deep breath. The authorities arrested Conor O’Donohoe, and Blanca’s been attacked by someone too. That’s what we know. We don’t know who’s done this to Loreen and framed Blanca, but we’ll figure it out. We just need to make sure everyone else is safe.” Kris explains. “Come with me.” Alika nods, following Kris out. He hands her some water and they pause for a minute to recuperate. 

“We should go, who knows what else there is?”

They both burst onstage, where Loreen indicates for the music to restart and is stumbling through her song as blood drips onto the floor. Alika produces first aid supplies from her pockets, yelling for the music to stop so she can tend to Loreen. It doesn’t, however, and she begins flailing her arms around so that she can get the attention of the audio technicians.

“Please! She could die if we don’t help her!” she cries desperately in the direction of the judges. Loreen swoons in her arms and Kris leaps over the barricade to get to the tech box between the doors at the back of the hall.. He manages to get in, asking Andrejs and Mārtiņš for help. Mārtiņš turns off the music, and Andrejs whirls around on his spinning chair to complain.

“We can’t hear you guys down there at all. It’s like someone’s cut the connection. We just saw Loreen stand up again so we started the music. We don’t even know why she stopped! Besides, it’s chaos here. All our cues are messed up thanks to the delay with the Netherlands and then Slovenia not going on at all, and-” Kris has the decency to blush as Andrejs continues. “-seriously, you’re lucky your boy toy was nice enough to ask politely for a second microphone, otherwise that would have been a disaster for you.”

“That’s horrible, and the tech crew should get more appreciation, but if you’ve said something’s cut out your audio then there’s been a deliberate act of sabotage. Loreen’s been shot by an arrow and needs urgent medical care.”

“Then what are you even doing up here? Go be useful already!” Andrejs says, winking at Kris so he understands it wasn’t intended to be rude. Kris nods and sprints out of the tech box. Blanca is now onstage too, leaning heavily on Bojan. 

“Loreen! Not her fault! Not my fault!” Blanca wheezes. Bojan holds her steady.

“Where is your mind? Humanity cries!” Jamala yells from the judges panel. 

“Get that Russian brat away from Loreen!” someone in the audience shouts. 

“She’s Estonian, dumbass!” someone else retorts.

“Let her die! What use is another Swede in the music industry?” an elderly voice spits.

Chapter Text

Johnny rushes onto the stage, Måns in tow. 

“I was framed! They want her dead!” Blanca shrieks, pointing at the Eurovision hosts. The crowd devolves into madness at her words. People are on their feet, hurling abuse at Måns, Johnny, Loreen, Blanca, Jamala, Carola, for some reason, Alika and the tech department. Iru stands up and shrieks “Diljá has a crush on Alessandra and very much wishes she would date her!” and the Icelandic girl tackles her to the ground. 

“Johnny, is this true?” Katrina asks, tears in her eyes. Johnny was an inspiration to her, the reason she’d participated in the pageant to begin with.

“For thirty-six years, I’ve been the only two-time winner of Eurovision. Do you really think I’d let some non-European woman do the same thing?” Johnny growls. 

“You were born in Australia! Loreen was born in Sweden, even if her parents weren’t from there originally.” Alika points out. This does little to deter a sixty-nine-year-old with a mission to accomplish. Johnny pulls out a gun and points it at Loreen.

“Isn’t that illegal?” Loreen groans from Alika’s arms. 

“Not in Ireland, it isn’t. You just need to fill out an application and get approved and why am I telling you this when I could just be killing you?” 

The gun goes off, but Johnny is far away enough that Alika is able to dive to the side and shield Loreen with her body. The Estonian pulls out a rice cake and offers it to Loreen to bite down on as Alika attempts to treat the wound. Johnny grunts in frustration, aiming to hit Loreen this time. He’s about to pull the trigger when he feels something poking into his back.

“Johnny, this isn’t you! You don’t want to kill Loreen! That would be terrible publicity.”

“Shut up, Måns, we’re on live international television. This is already awful. At least I can get what I want this time.”

“Don’t you remember those late nights in the BBC headquarters, planning out our interval skits and writing our speeches? Just the two of us sharing everything?” Måns asks. The implications are clear, despite the Swede having a gun digging into the Irishman’s back.

“Of course I remember,” Johnny says, his voice softening. “I remember you whining about how Loreen was going to beat you as the most recent Swedish winner and how you’d fought so hard to be as iconic as her, but a second victory would cement her position as the Swedish Eurovision queen. But you’ve taken too long for us to pin it on the terrorists! They’ve done their part and I need to do mine. Now, if you’re done being a baby, I have a job to do.” he growls, spinning around to point his gun at Måns.

“But what about us?”

“Can’t you see, you incompetent buffoon? You showboating harlequin toad? I’m doing this for us, for our legacies!” 

The two of them circle one another, firearms in position, and it seems as though this could go on forever. Just when it looks like one of them is about to make a move, Luke and Jere emerge from backstage with tasers. Johnny and Måns go down almost instantly, but the convulsing on the floor causes one of the guns to go off, nicking Alika in the shoulder. Alika, the third person to be injured this evening, still continues to shield Loreen through her tears until Jan, Nace and Jure arrive with stretchers to carry them both off. Jere helps them take the two women away and drive them to the hospital, along with Blanca.

Luke, Bojan and Kris escort the two handcuffed conspirators to a car, where they are taken to prison immediately. Alessandra follows them out and tells them to come inside again as soon, because the judges are about to deliver an announcement.

Carola and Graham are standing in front of everyone as Victor frantically mops up the blood that’s splattered everywhere. Once the thirty-two remaining contestants are seated, the cameras switch on, conveniently zooming in on the new hosts to avoid the mess on the rest of the stage.

“After the events of this evening, the jury and the BBC have made the joint decision to postpone the announcement of the results until tomorrow, so that our contestants have some time to recover.” Graham says, eye twitching slightly as he plasters that false television smile on his face for the cameras. 

“Voting lines for the televote will open for one hour now, and the jury will vote tomorrow morning. The results will still go ahead, because we are dedicated to the Eurovision pageant, and tomorrow will also feature a readjusted version of the thirty-five contestants and their collaborative performance piece.” Carola adds. 

“Take care, stay safe, and we’ll see you again tomorrow evening!” Graham finishes. The cameras switch off and he sighs. 

“The BBC will not be covering the costs of therapy after these traumatic events. I’m sorry, everyone.” he says, mopping his brow with a handkerchief.

“Well, that was anticlimactic.” Bojan whispers to Kris as the contestants make their way back to their rooms.

“What were you expecting? We already caught the terrorists, this was just meant to be the final. A normal Eurovision final.” Kris says.

“But it wasn’t, was it?”

“I mean, a terrorist attack during the talent show should theoretically be peak drama, shouldn’t it?”

“I guess so, but something just feels weird. Krisko, where’s your room key?”

“Probably because it’s a pretty weird situation. In my pocket, where it’s meant to be. Where’s yours?”

“I can’t remember.”

“It’ll turn up eventually.”

“Yeah. Can you let me in?”

Kris opens the door and the two of them sink against the wall, utterly exhausted. 

“Maybe we should shower, you’re covered in Blanca’s blood.”

“Kriiiis!” Bojan groans, drawing out the name. He’s far too tired to make himself get up and take a shower, but Kris won’t let either of them fall asleep on a random hotel room floor. 

So Kris lets Bojan stay on the floor a little longer, going to the bathroom to turn on the taps in the bathroom and run him a bath. Fortunately, their hotel room’s bathtub is ridiculously big, and he mentally thanks the agency for getting them a nicer room. He finds some bubble bath solution and tips the entire lot in. It’s way too much but he can’t bring himself to care. He can feel the weariness in his bones as he undresses and takes a quick shower, because he can’t stand the idea of soaking in his own filth and grime. 

Bojan eventually opens the bathroom door once Kris has settled in the lavender-scented bathwater. The bubbles have a faint mauve hue to them, and Bojan is seriously considering switching his favourite colour from pink to purple, purely because Kris looks so adorable playing with the bubbles. The job was important, but it could be confronting and draining. After a stressful week, it warms his heart to see Kris completely relaxed. Kris covers his eyes as Bojan rinses off and gets into the tub, but Bojan can see that Kris’ fingers aren’t blocking anything. He rolls his eyes affectionately, the way Kris does so frequently for him.

“Krisko, what are you doing?”

“Admiring the view?” Kris asks, feigning innocence. Bojan splashes him and Kris retaliates by dumping a handful of bubbles on Bojan’s head. 

They dry off once their fingers closely resemble prunes, and Kris leaves Bojan’s bloodstained shirt to soak. Bojan clambers into bed and Kris follows suit, their limbs tangling together awkwardly but comfortably. The week has been truly hectic and they’re both relieved to have a night off. At least, until the results are out. 

“So you caught the other other bad guys. Good job, lobter. I’m proud of you.” Jann says sincerely as they sit in the back of the taxi. Luke is acutely aware of Käärijä scowling next to them, headphones on and music blasting. Luke briefly wonders if he’s still listening to ‘sad ballads’, because he can hear the music through the headphones.

A large number of the contestants and delegations are heading out to a club before the results are out. Bojan and Kris declined, Jure had reported gleefully, and naturally Loreen, Blanca and Alika were in the hospital. Club night was a sacred tradition before the final, and since the semis had been cancelled due to the removal of the top 15, the final had been pushed ahead without club night. However, since the points had been delayed, it could go ahead as planned, to the relief of the contestants.

Much to his irritation, Nace, Jan and Jure had taken a taxi together, leaving Luke and Jann with Käärijä. Luke had nothing against the guy, but the language barrier and the fact that their departments had little overlap outside of field work meant that they didn’t interact very frequently. Also, the Finn seemed very uncomfortable being the third wheel. Not that Jann and Luke were being gross, or anything. That’s what Teya and Salena are for. 

They get to the club and Käärijä immediately goes for a piña colada. Surprisingly, the Austrians aren’t engaging in a public display of affection. Teya and Jan are arguing about mathematics and lesbianism, some inside joke amongst the crew that Luke must have missed. A sick-looking Salena is cheering Mae on as Mae is doing shots. The ouija board incident must have taken a lot out of Salena, Luke thinks.

Jure offers Jan a bottle of something Luke can’t identify, and they share it. This wouldn’t be particularly notable if it weren’t for the fact that they’re both drinking from it at the same time. Luke could have sworn he saw Jure making out with Nace the night before. Oh well.

Diljá is avoiding both Iru and Alessandra, instead talking to La Zarra and Blanka at the DJ booth. The music tonight is mercifully much better than what Blanka had shown as her talent display, and Alessandra yells “conga line!” before slamming her hands on the shoulders of someone in a Peppa Pig costume. Gustaph and Zoran join in, as well as Mrle, who accompanied Zoran to Liverpool. Thankfully, the Croatian men are both wearing clothes. Kris had told him about the group sex offer back at the pre-party and they’d both laughed at it and then refused to speak of it again. Blanka joins the conga line and Jimoh takes over the music. Soon, the line has pretty much everyone but Luke in it, and Jann shoots pleading eyes at him. Luke holds his ground, refusing to join in such ridiculous activities. Remo takes one hand off Elen’s shoulder to whip out one of his water pistols and douse Luke. Shirt nearly transparent, Luke groans and enters the conga line before his leather pants are next. The torture goes on for about fifteen minutes, until Pasha puts several napkins down and stands on a table, making sure his feet aren’t directly on the table. Because that’s considerate. He’s had a bit too much alcohol to consider not standing on the table at all, but oh well. Can’t win them all. He grabs a glass and taps it aggressively with a fork.

“No matter what happens tonight, I just want you guys to know we’re all winners.”

“Where’d you get that mouthful of propaganda from?” Reiley asks, slurring his words somewhat sarcastically.

“The posters, of course!” Marco laughs, and the party continues.

Sometime around two, Nace lets Luke know that he, Jure and Jan are going home. 

“Take care of Jere, make sure he gets in the same taxi as you.”

“Who’s Jere? Jure’s going with you, isn’t he?”

“He literally rode with you on the way here!”

“...Käärijä?”

“That’s his rapper name! You seriously didn’t know his name was Jere?”

“Why would I? He’s in recon!”

“Do you even know what that means?”

“No, because I’m not in recon!”

“Right, that’s it, I’m done. You can go do your boyfriend or whatever, I’m going to sleep.” Nace says, holding his face in his hands and stumbling out.

“Jere?” Luke asks himself quietly, once Nace’s been gone for a while.

Chapter Text

“Welcome back to the voting of the 2023 Eurovision Pageant! I’m your new host, Graham Norton, and I am pleased to announce that the jury and televote results have all been verified. Now, I will present my votes. My twelve points… go to… Sweden! Loreen!”

2: Lithuania

3: Serbia

4: Moldova

5: Estonia

6: Norway

7: Spain

8: Armenia

10: Netherlands/Slovenia

12: Sweden

“Over to you, Carola!”

“My twelve points go to… Loreen of Sweden!”

2: Spain

3: Lithuania

4: Netherlands/Slovenia

5: Serbia

6: Moldova

7: Armenia

8: Estonia

10: Norway

12: Sweden

“Thank you Carola! Next to present their votes is Salvador!”

“My twelve points go to Spain! Blanca Paloma!”

2: Sweden

3: Serbia

4: Norway

5: Netherlands/Slovenia

6: Moldova

7: Armenia

8: Estonia

10: Lithuania

12: Spain

“Wonderful. Jamala?”

“My twelve points are going to… Alika! Congratulations Estonia!”

2: Netherlands/Slovenia

3: Sweden

4: Serbia

5: Norway

6: Moldova

7: Armenia

8: Lithuania

10: Spain

12: Estonia

“Thank you, Jamala. Our final judge is Katrina!”

“Thanks, Graham! I’ve chosen to award my twelve points to… Slovenia and the Netherlands!”

2: Norway

3: Lithuania

4: Estonia

5: Moldova

6: Armenia

7: Spain

8: Serbia

10: Sweden

12: Netherlands/Slovenia

“As you can see, our point totals are as follows. In ninth place, Serbia’s Luke Black. Eighth is Lithuania’s Monika Linkytė. Our equal sixth-place finishers are Moldova’s Pasha Parfeni and Norway’s Alessandra Mele. Fifth is Elen Yeremyan from Armenia, fourth are Kris Guštin from the Netherlands and Bojan Cvjetićanin from Slovenia.  Our bronze medallist is Estonia’s Alika Milova. The jury’s silver medallist is Blanca Paloma of Spain, and our jury vote winner is Sweden’s Loreen!”

Loreen, Alika and Blanca, unable to physically be present due to their injuries, are on a video call from their hospital room. Loreen blows a kiss to the camera and thanks the jurors for their votes. Blanca and Alika, as the remainder of the top three, wave appreciatively. 

Luke shrugs in the greenroom, not particularly caring that he’s in last. Better him than someone who actually wants to be there. Kris and Bojan are still giving each other sappy looks after Katrina Leskanich gave them the twelve points. Luke wishes he had Jann with him, but it’s just the seven of them and the camera in the greenroom.

“And now, the twenty-five non-qualified contestants will perform for us before we announce the televoting scores!” Graham says, and the camera switches to the stage.

They’re performing an elaborate routine to ‘Walking on Sunshine’, which Katrina lets out a hearty laugh at. Diljá and Reiley perform acrobatics and Noa leads the group in a dance break. They all finish in a nine-part harmony on the final note, which they hold as pyro that constitutes a significant portion of the BBC’s budget explodes around them.

The seven of them cheer excitedly at the conclusion of the performance. Initially, the thirty-six participants would have done it together, but after the disqualification of Andrew Lambrou and the injuries of three further contestants they decided to remove the finalists altogether. Once the applause dies down, Graham takes a seat and Katrina stands instead to present the televote results. 

“With nine finalists, the total number of points given out by the jury, two hundred and eighty-five, has been divided up proportionally based on the number of televotes received. Televote points will be announced in order of jury rankings from lowest to highest. Serbia, from the public, you received 25 points, bringing your total score to 48.”

Luke smiles good-naturedly, the way Jann taught him, and he shapes his hands into a heart at the camera. 

“Next was Lithuania, who received 21 points, bringing your total to 47 points.”

Monika realises that her score is lower than Luke’s, placing her in last place, but she still puts a smile on her face.

“Norway, you received 25 points, and finish with 52 points.”

“Thank you Europe! Diljá, I love you!” Alessandra cries. Monika thwacks her with a book because she’s just embarrassed her fellow Nordic contestant on international television, and did you not pay any kind of attention to what Reiley did to Jere?

“Moldova, you also received 25 points, and similarly you finish with 52 points.”

Pasha stands and bows. At least he isn’t on the bottom of the scoreboard.

“Slovenia and the Netherlands. From the public, you have received 53 points. You now have 86 points, and it looks like we’ve got a new leader on the leaderboard!”

Bojan turns to Kris in shock. They’re coming first for now somehow, when they thought they’d been disqualified. The 12 from Katrina had been shocking enough, but this much televote support is unprecedented. Kris is mentally calculating the number of points left to see if they have a chance of winning.

“Armenia, the public has given you 17 points, meaning that you are also on 52 points."

Elen tosses bracelets to the rest of the finalists and blows a kiss to the camera.

“Estonia. The public has given you… 63 points! You are now first overall, with 100 points!”

From her hospital room, Alika squeals and waves at the cameras. 

“Spain, from the public, you have been given 10 points! You finish with 48 points!”

Blanca groans with the effort of sitting up, thanking the public graciously. 

Kris looks at his boyfriend and whispers Loreen’s televote score to him. He has figured out how many points are left, and thus who the winner of Eurovision 2023 is. 

“Loreen, the public has awarded you 46 points! You have 85 points, and that means that the winner of the 2023 Eurovision pageant is Alika Milova from Estonia! Congratulations!”

The trophy is wheeled out in the hospital room on camera. Alika stands shakily to collect her prize and Loreen and Blanca applaud her excitedly. She leans onto the cart and smiles for the camera. 

Back in the greenroom, Bojan and Kris are processing the fact that they’ve not only finished in second place, but ended one point ahead of living legend Loreen.

“Do you think they voted for us because they love love?” Bojan whispers.

“Maybe. I think Alika getting shot trying to protect Loreen probably contributed to her 63 points too.”

“Maybe. This is why we need the juries, the televotes are too unpredictable.”

“But without the televote, Luke would be last and we’d be fourth, Bojči.”

“So I guess it’s good that we’ve got that balance.”

“Definitely. Can you believe we came second?”

“It’s so surreal. Can you imagine how Alika feels right now?”

“Congratulations, darling! Your talent was incredible and your voice is beautiful.”

“That means so much coming from you, Loreen. Thank you. I probably only got so many points because I got shot.”

“You got shot protecting me, Alika. I’m forever in your debt. Or at least, I will be when I’m out of this hospital bed.”

“Yes, congratulations on first place!” Blanca chirps.

“Congratulations on second place in the jury vote! I can’t believe you got so few points in the public vote, that’s ridiculous.”

“That’s okay, my voice type isn’t exactly televote-material. I know that, and I’m satisfied with my performance.”

“And, you know, maybe the fact you were framed contributed a little,” Loreen grins wryly.

“I think that’s the morphine talking.”

“Quite possibly.”

“So, now that you’re Miss Eurovision, what do you think you’ll do with the prize money?”

“Definitely donating most of it to charities. Record deal wouldn’t hurt.”

“That’s a good idea.” Loreen says.

“Talking hurts. Can we go back to sleeping?”

“Sure.”

“You weren’t last! I’m proud of you.”

“Thanks, ljubavi.” Luke says, staring into the distance.

“What’s wrong?”

“You know, I didn’t think I’d care this much about a stupid pageant. And maybe because it wasn’t like your typical run-of-the-mill sexist swimwear show, or maybe it was the friends I made on this journey, but I feel a bit disappointed by the result.”

“I mean, you did what you came here to do. You caught the terrorists and made sure nobody died. The pageant was just an unfortunate step in the process.”

“And hey, I got you because of this, didn’t I?” Luke chuckles, nudging Jann playfully as they walk across the arena.

“True. But I’m worth more than a pageant, aren’t I?”

“Most definitely.”

“Where do we go from here?”

“I mean… I guess we could go back to my hotel room…”

“I’m liking where this is going.”

“And we can steal lobsters in the Sims 4!”

“Done. Let’s get out of here.”

Chapter Text

June, 2025

“Congratulations! I can’t believe you guys finally managed to tie the knot!” Alika laughs, wrapping both Jann and Luka in tight hugs. She still looks the same, albeit with a different hairstyle. Alika has just returned from a European tour after recording an album that went platinum in 16 different countries. She’s trying to convince her manager to let her feature on Käärijä’s new single, because they hit it off well at Eurovision. Käärijä’s pretty popular in the local Finnish music industry, his most recent song ‘Cha Cha Cha’ going viral on social media. He’s considering quitting his job to focus on his music career, but he hasn’t worked up the courage to tell anyone yet.

“Thanks, Miss Eurovision 2023!” Jann says.

“Right back at you, Mr Eurovision 2024!”

Jann had applied to represent Poland in Eurovision with fashion design as his talent. Despite conservatives in his country hating him, to the point where he still continues to receive hate mail today, he’d won the jury vote by a landslide and garnered significant televote support. 

As he’d hoisted the trophy above his head, he’d thanked everyone who voted for him and supported tolerance and love through music and culture. During the winner’s press conference immediately after his victory, he’d gotten down on one knee and asked Luka to marry him. Of course, the Serbian had agreed, and they’d planned the wedding to take place in just over a year.

Now, Jann sips on his Bacardi and coke at the table for two at the head of the room. He looks so beautiful in his suit, carefully accessorised with chains that he’d spent hours painstakingly attaching in his studio. Luka had nearly cried when he’d seen Jann at the altar. Not wanting to cry again, Luke casts his eyes over to Teya, Salena and the Slovenians on a table nearby. He gets up and goes to see them. It’s been far too long since he’s seen the Austrians, and he hasn’t had a chance to speak to Kris since he got promoted.

Kris has taken over Ana’s position after the success of the Eurovision investigation, and Ana retired to go and travel through rural Argentina. He’s married to Bojan, they chose to have an intimate ceremony on the beach back in Slovenia. Luka hadn’t realised that there were beaches in Slovenia, but Kris had sighed (at least something hadn’t changed in the last two years) and pulled out a paper map from his back pocket to show Luka that Slovenia actually did have a forty-seven-kilometre-long coastline. Their family, closest friends and coworkers had travelled to Izola around ten months ago for the wedding and Luka had staunchly refused to go in the water. 

“Hey! Enjoying the meal?” Luka asks. Bojan yawns and Nace immediately nudges him before turning away. Salena, Teya, Jan, Nace and Jure continue their prior conversation, where Jan and Teya are still extolling the virtues of lesbianism and mathematics. Two years of them arguing non-stop every time they meet.

“Hmm? Yeah, it’s delicious. Sorry, I’m just exhausted.”

“Katenka keeping you up?”

“Yep. She’s teething now and I can’t go five minutes without her trying to eat my fingers.”

At their wedding, Bojan and Kris had eagerly announced that they were expecting a daughter with the help of their surrogate and former coworker, Marisa. Alika and Diljá had both offered to be their surrogate, but Alika had obligations to her record label and couldn’t afford to be pregnant on tour, whilst Diljá was participating in the 2024 Olympics for Iceland. Diljá had won Iceland their very first gold medal in weightlifting, and was the talk of the country.

Marisa, or as she preferred being called, Mimi, was currently minding Bojan and Kris’ daughter back in their home. They’d named their daughter Katrina, after Katrina Leskanich, who had been so kind to them at Eurovision. Katrina had immediately bonded with Mila, the daughter of Teya and Salena conceived via ouija board during the talent show. Everyone chooses not to talk about that incident. Mila was also with Katrina and Mimi so her mothers could go out. Surprisingly, Mila’s first word had been ‘Jan’. Whether she was referring to Polish Jan or Slovenian Jan remains a mystery to this day. 

Speaking of Teya, she competed at Eurovision 2024 like Jann, finishing in third place. Teya had found out about her selection whilst in the delivery room with Salena and the resulting scream, a combination of labour pains and excitement, had nearly deafened the midwives. 

Mila was now fifteen months old, and her vocabulary was expanding to include ‘mama’ and ‘mum’, the names of her parents’ friends, ‘rina’ to refer to Katrina, ‘no’, and, curiously, ‘edga’. Salena wondered if she was trying to say ‘Edgar’, and Teya had asked ‘Who the hell is Edgar?’

“That’s adorable. Janek won’t let us get one of those.” Luka coos.

“A baby? You don’t just ‘get one of those’, Luka.” Kris says, putting air quotes around the repeated words. “They’re a full-time responsibility.”

“That’s why I handed in my official resignation from field duty last week.” Bojan adds.

“What? Why didn’t I know about this?” Luka asks.

“Probably because I gave the forms to my supervisor, who is also my husband.”

“Oh. But why would you do that?”

“Katja’s getting older, and I’d like to spend more time with her. She won’t be a baby forever.”

“Baby? Did someone say baby?” Diljá squeals, appearing from behind Luka and startling him.

“I was talking about Katr-” Bojan starts, before Diljá jumps up and down and giggles.

“Is she here? I haven’t seen bapy in months!”

“No, she’s with Mila and Mimi.”

“Oh. That’s a shame.”

“Mm hm. How have you been, Dils?” Kris asks.

“Alessandra and I are going to the Bahamas for a week! It’ll be a fun holiday, and Iru’s meeting us over there after a few days. We’re going snorkelling and we can see some sharks!”

“Speaking of Iru, how’s she going?”

“Oh, she’s great! She’s opening up a store with the Azeri girl who went to Eurovision 2021, Samira Efendi! Samira decorates cakes and Iru makes chocolate sculptures. You should come visit them someday, it’s called Candy Music.”

“I’ll be sure to check it out,” Jure cuts in, and they all laugh at Jure’s sweet tooth.

“Really, Luka, this wedding’s been great. I’m so happy for the two of you.” Kris says, and the rest of the group nods vehemently.

“Thanks, guys. It’s been so stressful, planning all of this, and I’m just so ready to go home and say hi to my babies.” Right. Jann and Luka had adopted the very same sixteen lobsters Luka had summoned on stage [Luka swore they remembered him and listened to his calls], keeping them in a pond in their garden. They’d moved into a real house with a yard several months ago, using the prize money from Jann’s Eurovision win as a down payment. Someday, they wanted to have a family of their own [“lobsters ARE family, ljubavi!” “I meant a human child, serce.”], but the time wasn’t right yet. Soon.

“This is only the best wedding I’ve been to because we can’t legally have the best wedding ever,” Jan proclaims. Jure high-fives him and Nace rolls his eyes at the shenanigans of his boyfriends.

“If we could, you know Bojan would pop out of a cake and play the Macarena on the kazoo.” Jure adds.

“Why me?”

“You’re the only one short enough to fit in the cake.” Jure explains, as if this was common knowledge.

“Why not Mila or Katrina?”

“That wouldn’t be as epic or funny as a grown man emerging from the cake in a tutu and playing the Macarena on a kazoo.” Nace finally gives in.

“Hold on, when did the tutu get involved?”

Luka gets up, deciding to take a walk, and Diljá follows suit. As they move, Diljá updates him on the contestants he hasn’t kept in touch with; she talks to everyone regularly.

“So you didn’t hear this from me, but I heard from Noa Kirel that when she released a new dance video, Andrew Lambrou had a, um, an accident of sorts at a McDonalds in Engadine.”

“What’s Engadine?”

“Some place in Australia. He’s from there, you know. He just represented Cyprus because that’s where his parents are from.”

“Didn’t he set fire to an orphanage?”

“Don’t think so, that might have been Blanka.”

“What?”

“...I’ve said too much.”

“Can we circle back to Andrew Lambrou?”

“It made the national news there! Attempted Eurovision Star Soils Pants at Engadine Maccas! Didn’t you see?”

“Diljá, do I look like the kind of person who follows the Australian news? And what is a Maccas?”

“It’s what they call McDonalds down there. Adorable, isn’t it?”

“What else have I missed?”

“Oh! Tural and Turan went back to making music. I guess magic didn’t work out for them after all.”

“No. No it did not,” Luka thinks back to the disastrous illusion attempt.

“In other news, Monika’s a Pilates instructor, Blanka’s on the run from the authorities, Mae and La Zarra are alcoholics involved in a pyramid scheme, and Reiley runs an online matchmaking service. It’s terrible, don’t try it. Not that you’d need it, though, this is your wedding. Uh, Gustaph headlined Brussels Pride, Noa’s touring Japan, Jimoh got deported, Remo got drafted. Blanca Paloma’s still making music, as is Loreen, and Loreen’s also both engaged and going on a North American tour in two months if I remember correctly.”

“Wow, that’s a lot to take in. You’ve got a great memory, Diljá.”

“Oh, that’s nothing. You should see me list my family tree!”

“Maybe some other time.”

“Yeah, probably.”

“Still, it’s so cool to see how much our lives have changed in just two years. I still can’t believe I participated in this, even if it was just a part of my job.”

“I’m glad you did, because then we wouldn’t be here having this conversation today.” Diljá smiles earnestly, before moving away to find her girlfriend as the music begins to play. Nearly everyone couples up as Luka and Jann take to the centre of the room for their first dance together as a married couple.

It’s the Embassy Waltz, from My Fair Lady - a movie Jann has made Luka watch over and over and over again several times. Luka’s suit is inspired by Eliza’s dress from the Ascot Gavotte, with lace detailing over his jacket and black and white stripes on the cuffs and pockets. Luka leans in to kiss Jann sweetly and all the guests coo at how adorable they are. When the song ends, everyone else streams in to join them on the dance floor.

Some of the configurations are rather interesting. Jure is sitting on Nace’s shoulders as they both hold Jan’s hands. It’s a disaster waiting to happen, but thankfully they’ve already finished food and speeches so it’s not like they can topple into the cake, Red White and Royal-Blue style. There are already enough gay people here.

The entirety of Vesna have clasped hands with one another and are rotating in an anti-clockwise direction like some bizarre cult. It’s vaguely reminiscent of Luka’s lobster summonings. In the centre of them is newly-adult Victor Vernicos, who’s an intern with the agency now after graduating as valedictorian. He’s about to start a film production degree and dreams of one day going to Eurovision himself. 

Bojan and Kris are waltzing with dreamy expressions on their face - they haven’t had time out without their daughter or work for months and seem to be savouring the moment - until Salena and Teya bump into them as they tango completely out of time to the music. Perhaps they’ve had too much to drink.

Pasha and his wife, Yuliana, are teaching Monika some traditional Moldovan dances and she’s eagerly learning. Alika and Iru have partnered up for this dance, as have Loreen and Blanca Paloma. Everyone seems to be having a great time, and Luka is so happy to be celebrating with his friends. Life hasn’t been easy, but they’re all together now and he can hardly believe he’s standing there, married to the love of his life.

“What’s that, ljubavi?” Luka asks as he comes out of the bathroom. Jann is sitting on the bed, examining a large black box with a royal blue ribbon - Luka’s favourite colour - on it.

“It’s some kind of wedding gift, I think. There’s no return label, no indication of who it could be from, it just says ‘To Janek and Luka Rozmanowski-Ivanović’ on it. I wonder who it’s from.”

“We already counted gifts from all our guests, didn’t we? I could swear we did.”

“I hate to say it, but there’s someone else we might have forgotten about.”

“Who are you talking about?”

“There’s a certain Polish person that we neglected to invite to our wedding and who knew it happened. You know, someone who is known for less-than-legal activities…” Jann explains, trailing off and looking at the box.

Something suddenly clicks in Luka’s mind and he flings the box off the bed before jumping on top of Jann.

“Ljubavi, this isn’t the way we usually get things started,” Jann starts to say, before Luka hisses at him to shut up.

“Blanka could have sent us a bomb!”

“I mean, I was thinking more like some kind of gag gift, like a t-shirt that says ‘future MILF’.”

“Janek, that shirt would go to Kris. Not to us.”

“Oh, true.” Jann says, pushing his husband off him and getting off the bed to go investigate the box. He presses his ear to it, but he can’t hear anything. So he picks it up and rattles it, but he can’t figure out what’s inside.

“Anyway, I don’t hear ticking, so it’s probably not a bomb.”

“You’re a fashion designer, not a bomb expert. That’s literally part of my job.”

“Ok, then you go look at it.”

“Fine. I’ll go look at it.”

“That’s exactly what I just said.”

“I know. I’m doing it.”

“...”

“...”

“You’re scared, aren’t you?”

“Terrified. We just got married. I don’t want to explode on my wedding night.”

“Really? I thought-” Jann is cut off by Luka throwing a pillow in his face. 

“Shut up or I’m not looking in the box.”

“Okay. I’m going.”

Luka hesitantly creeps over to the box and pulls off the ribbon in one go. The lid comes off and there’s a letter on top of a package wrapped in tissue paper. He tells Jann to come over, and they open it together.

Dearest Luka and Janek,

I knew that you two would be a wonderful match from the moment I met you both, and I needed an excuse to bring you both together. Eurovision was simply a means to an end, coming at a convenient time for you two to meet. That is why, Luka, you needed to go with Bojan and Kris, who I certainly did not expect to become an item. I must confess, I assumed that Bojan would end up with Käärijä from recon. 

I regret not being able to attend your wedding, but alas, I have obligations to society that you would not understand. Perhaps your Swedish friend could shed some light on the situation, but no matter.

I sincerely hope you enjoy my gift to you, and that in your new home Luka is finally able to touch some grass that he is not allegedly allergic to. We all know you just hate the outdoors.

With love,

Ana.

“That was so sweet of her,” Luka says, wiping the tears from his face with the sleeve of his nightshirt. He leans into his husband, and Jann is holding back tears of his own.

“I can’t believe she managed to reach us. Isn’t she in rural Argentina?” Jann asks, taking the letter so Luka’s tears don’t stain the elegant script on the letter.

“Yeah, I think so. God, I miss her. I miss her so much. Kris is great, but Ana’s the one who got me the job in the first place. I’ve known her since I was little, and I wouldn’t have moved to London if it wasn’t for her giving me a job when my parents kicked me out.” Luka sobs. Jann kisses his husband’s head softly.

“Come on, let’s go see what she’s got us.” Jann says, unwrapping the deep blue tissue paper. Inside are handmade soaps in the shape of lobsters. Luka and Jann take out the sixteen tiny lobster soaps. How had she even known about the sixteen lobsters?

Underneath the soaps, there is a business card, a bottle of bleach and some various hair dye boxes. Luka reads the text on the top, ‘Konstrakta Artisanal Soaps’. He flips it over to read the text on the back.

Mens infirma in corpore sano, i šta ćemo sad?