#starlingbrook

1.

Nightingale ‘caught’ him the first year in the tech cave, and really wanted to leave him to it, because he knows Peter’s uncomfortable relaxing with him around. But he just can’t bring himself to turn away from that beautiful mess on the screen. His very first reaction to this endless parade of swedes with weird make-up and glittering jumpsuits stumbling their way through the English nonsense-lyrics of an annoyingly catchy song is ‘So that’s where those folks ended up’. He doesn’t know how or why exactly (mostly because he missed the entire disco-era, shame on him), but he distinctly remembers Those Folks from back in the day. Never quite ‘his scene’, as they say, a bit annoying at times, but also immensely fun even when there wasn’t much of it to go around.

He was, he thinks, probably right after all, that first night in Covent Garden.

2.

Beverley endures Eurovision, partly because he always uses headphones the rest of the year as any good boyfriend with awful taste in music should, but mostly because she’s sure that if he can’t pretend he’s watching it for her, he won’t. She can’t help but be baffled at how much he enjoys this, with in-depth opinions on – in her eyes all equally trashy – dance routines and outfits and singers she’s never even heard of. It’s just all kinds of adorable, watching him rant, and she sees him smile so little lately and if it means she has to watch whatever this is with him and have stupid songs stuck in her head for weeks on end then so fucking be it.

Peter is so into it and won’t even admit it to himself, so she just hugs him tighter on their springy little couch.

3.

He’s not back before Christmas, but they bend the rules a little and have an unofficial Team Folly Christmas Party in the Techcave, secret trash santa and all. Peter receives a beat up Best Of Abba collection, with the charity shop sticker only half ripped of for added effect. ‘Hilarious’, he says to the annonymus culprit and waves his beer into the round. ‘You realize I have Spotify, right?’. When he opens them – later at home, thankfully – he learns that there’s no Abba in there at all, only his own old CDs of pirated music. And tugged between them a handwritten note; ‘Dear Cousin. I got these as a birthday present a few years ago and now I’m giving them back, lest more members of our family become exposed to your hazardous music taste. Please talk to your girlfriend. There’s no straight explanation for this.’