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“Nicky,” Erik says, knocking on his door but not waiting before stepping inside his small room. “What are you doing tonight? Actually, don’t worry about it because you’re no longer doing it.”
Well, as per usual Nicky wasn’t planning on doing much. The Kloses had family board game nights on Saturdays, and after that, he would usually carefully wait and see what Erik’s plans were. He’s not interested in exploring why he seems to have imprinted on Erik. It’s just a thing he hopes no one else has noticed. And if they had, they’re very kind in not mentioning it.
Just like Erik is very kind in pretending Nicky would have plans, especially ones he wouldn’t know about. His weekend plans so far just consist of feeling anxious about tomorrow’s phone call with his parents, wondering if they would mention his birthday. And if they did, if they would congratulate him. If he wants them to. He remembers his birthday last year when he wasn’t home either, but time stood still back then.
“Nicky?”
Nicky’s name sounds different when Erik says it. It sounds warmer than his parents ever pronounced it. He never realized the difference in Erik’s tone until a phone call with his parents made him feel cold inside from the moment they said his name.
Erik’s hand lands on his shoulder, tentative not to startle him, but doing it anyway.
“I’m sorry,” Erik says with a smile, and clearly means it. “Are you okay? If you do have plans you don’t have to cancel them, of course.”
“No, I—” Nicky laughs at his own awkwardness. “Of course I don’t have plans. Why, what’s up?”
He appreciates that Erik talks to him in English on days like these. He wishes he could escape into a different language full time, but his vocabulary is too limited to express himself fully, and the time it takes for him to think of the right word starts pressing him down, and makes him feel worse, and then he’s on the verge of a panic attack, and anyway. Erik saw it happening one too many times and started speaking in English more.
Erik looks at him like he sees right through him. Then he smiles kindly, and a sparkle enters his eyes. “It’s Eurovision tonight!”
Nicky sits up in bed and pulls his shorts further down his thighs. “What’s that?”
“Oh my God,” Erik says, and Nicky fights his wince. “It’s only the most fabulous time of the year.”
Nicky blinks.
“It’s a singing competition. Except it’s not really. It’s a song contest, you can be bad at singing. In fact, for some acts that’s the entire appeal.”
This is getting more and more confusing. He tells Erik as much.
“Right, so a bunch of European countries compete for an award, they each send in an act with a brand new song for the competition. They all perform, and then everyone in Europe can vote for who they want to win.”
Nicky isn’t entirely convinced of the concept, or the fact that it’s “the most fabulous time of the year” but if Erik says it’s a great thing to see, well, Nicky’s sold.
He gets told to dress up for the occasion, because Mama Klose bought snacks and drinks to last for hours. Apparently, he’ll need it to survive the long, long night ahead.
The show only starts at nine, but the Kloses make it into a big event, watching the pre-show with pizzas Lisa, Erik’s sister, picked up in her little beat-up car.
Nicky watches in awe at tv showing the crowds gathered at locations all over Germany ready to experience the show together. This thing is a lot bigger than he expected, and it hasn’t even started yet.
The Kloses take their seats in the sofas while Erik and Lisa settle on the carpet around the coffee table with a bunch of assorted nail polishes. Naturally, he joins them, but keeps his nails to himself.
When the show finally starts, the ambiance in the room changes, and Nicky is shocked to find his chest expanding with nerves too. Something feels epic about this already.
It doesn’t take long for Nicky to realize that Erik wasn’t actually exaggerating, like at all. The songs are… interesting, mostly. The singing is sometimes fantastic, sometimes… less so. The outfits are… blinding, as if the participants weren’t sure the forty million spotlights pointed at them would be enough to stand out.
There is still an inherent fear to show his true reactions to things, easier and safer to wait and agree with how the rest feels. He feels proud when he likes a song, and the Kloses are praising it, whether it’s for the quality, or for the stage presence it holds.
When Germany performs, he checks everyone’s reactions out of the corner of his eyes. He’s not very impressed, but it’s catchy enough to bop along to.
Erik nudges his shoulder. “So,” he whispers. “Do you think we’ll win?”
Nicky’s heart sinks a little, because he so hates lying to Erik. “Uh, I like it?”
“Stop teasing the boy, Erik,” Mama Klose says and playfully taps Erik’s head.
“No, it was good—” Nicky starts protesting before she shushes him.
“Don’t worry about it, honey. I doubt this is our year, and that’s okay, too.”
Nicky is unfamiliar with the concept of ‘being okay with losing’. Even when they explain some countries participate, fully expecting, even hoping to lose.
“Why are they there, then?”
“Well, they can’t not participate! That’d be a scandal.”
Nicky’s doing a lot of confused blinking tonight.
Lisa’s been writing a list on a notebook, and when Nicky gets up the nerve to ask about it, she tells him it’s to rank the act’s gayness.
“Oh,” he says, trying hard to give nothing away. “How do you, like, decide on that?”
Lisa shrugs. “How camp is it, what are they wearing and why isn’t it more sparkly, how hot are the backup dancers and why aren’t they wearing less, stuff like that. Also, if Erik likes it, it’s automatically gay.”
Erik nods. “This is true.”
There is a sparkly drag queen with a disco ball on her head dancing on screen, but Nicky is staring right through the carpet with the impact of this newfound discovery.
It’s not like it comes completely out of the blue, so it’s not like Erik has been hiding anything. Nicky’s just very used to explaining the gay away, shooting down hope, and ignoring the things he liked in Erik, refusing to call his interest what it actually was.
Nicky startles when his hand is grabbed and squeezed silently.
“All acts have performed. You wanna help me get the refills?” Erik asks with a kind smile.
Nicky nods instead of trying to locate where his voice went and collects the empty glasses, trying hard to remember which is whose.
“You doing okay? I’m sure it’s all very overwhelming.”
Nicky downs a glass of ice-cold water, hoping it’ll calm down his burning skin.
“Yeah, fine,” he squeaks. “It’s fun. I don’t know what’s going on, like even a little bit, but it’s fun.”
“Good,” Erik says proudly.
“So what happens now?”
“Now we can vote for who we liked. Tell me who to vote for and I’ll do it from my phone, I don’t wanna put that on your phone bill.”
Nicky shrugs. “That’s okay, I don’t really have an opinion.”
“Sure you do,” Erik says. “Come on, they do recaps while we get to vote, so you can pick one. Or more, if you like. For you, I’ll allow multiple votes.” He winks.
He ends up asking Erik to vote for the disco ball drag queen because he thinks it’s funny, and, in a way, rebellious.
While the voting ends and apparently, last year's winner comes to sing a medley while votes are being counted, Nicky eats more chips than he would normally allow himself, drinks a beer under strict parental supervision, and lets himself be talked into painted nails after all, with the promise that Lisa will hand over her bottle of acetone if he ends up hating it.
He loves it, of course. He’s not taking it off until it chips off.
He’s surprised when it’s midnight already, and they finally start announcing results.
“Don’t get too excited, this will take another hour at least. Every country gets to announce their own points.”
“Jesus,” Nicky swears before clasping a hand before his own mouth.
Erik just snorts. “Yeah, I know. Plus everyone who comes on screen wants to introduce themselves and give congratulations on the show, and basically, it just takes forever. Only the weaklings go to bed before this.” He winks.
Mama Klose hits the back of his head again as she’s getting ready to head upstairs.
“Mind your tongue, little boy.” Nicky chokes on his drink. Erik is at least a head taller than him, and two heads taller than his mom.
They all wish each other goodnight until it’s just Erik, Lisa and Nicky left. Lisa drapes herself on the recently deserted couch, and Erik stays on the carpet with Nicky.
There are around forty countries to get through, and it sure is a boring affair, but the acts Nicky likes all seem to be getting points, so he’s still happy and strangely proud of himself.
For right now, the UK seems to be the only country without any points, but when he points it out, Erik laughs.
“Don’t worry, that happens every year.”
“Isn’t that sort of sad?”
Erik shrugs. “It’s more like a tradition? I doubt they ever expect to get a lot of points, to be honest. None of the five paying countries do.”
“You know, when I finally thought I started to understand...”
Erik grins. “I think that only comes after a couple of years. You’ll learn.”
Nicky blushes at the possibility of doing this every year. Not just with Erik, with all of them. But then he thinks about just Erik. Blushes even more. Looks to the screen even though it’s far less interesting than Erik’s face.
Erik’s hand nudges against his in between their thighs, and he links their pinkies.
When they finally announce the result (Nicky’s silver drag queen sadly ends up taking second place), Lisa groans behind them. “Fucking finally.”
Nicky startles and pulls his hand away, scared she saw, scared of what that would mean, but then she continues. “I’ll never understand why it has to take 5 hours to arrive at this result, but alright. Well, I’m off to bed. Night, losers.”
She gives them a strange salute and trudges up the stairs, leaving Nicky and Erik alone.
Nicky clears his throat. “What time is it?”
“Just past one,” Erik says, turning the tv’s volume down a little, still loud enough not to make it awkward.
Nicky nods and hugs his thighs close to his chest.
After a quiet moment, Erik mirrors his pose in front of him and smiles at him overtop his knees.
“Happy birthday, Nicky.”
Nicky’s heart feels like it just stopped for a few seconds.
“Oh,” he whispers. Then, a bit louder, “You knew?”
“Hm, yeah. I was wondering why you didn’t mention it, but I figured if you wanted us to know, you’d tell us.”
Nicky shrugs. “Birthdays aren’t really special to me, not anymore.”
“Is that what you want?”
Nicky laughs softly. “I don’t know what I want,” he says, far too honestly.
Erik seems to understand, even if just a little. He reaches out his hand and grabs hold of Nicky’s. Squeezes it again, and surely he doesn’t realize just how comforting that feels to Nicky.
“You have time to figure it out,” he says. “I can help you if you want.”
Nicky takes a deep breath and holds it for a minute. He lets the excitement of the night —along with the one singular beer— guide his actions when he says, “I’d like that.”