temporary heroes

chapter 1

A/N: I know I haven't been active on here lately and I'm sorry to everyone who's been waiting for an update on my other story, so this is a repost of a finished story I wrote on AO3. Names are changed from the AO3 version, but if anyone can guess based on character descriptions what pairing this was a ridiculous AU for, you're a real one (and you have good taste). The entire story is 30,000 words, so if you guys like it, let me know and I'll post it all! To anyone reading this and thinking 'a Eurovision Song Contest romance set in 2005 has to be the stupidest, most obscure concept I've ever seen,' yes, that was the point.

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"I'm competing as a solo act," Tori insisted, earning a terse look from her manager, Agnes.

"You're talented, Victoria," Agnes admitted, and Tori waited patiently for the other shoe to drop, "but —"

"And there it is," Tori muttered.

"But you will not win with a solo performance. I know that's not what you want to hear right now, but it's true."

Tori was fuming, her hands balling into fists at her sides. She'd never heard of this happening before. Bands came as bands and soloists came as soloists and yet here she was getting thrown into a group she'd never met, probably days away from being tossed aside to be a glorified set piece for a few electropop idiots who could barely carry a simple melody without autotune or dance without winding themselves.

She was twenty-five years old now and she'd been training for something like this her whole life — dancing since she was old enough to walk, singing since she learned how to speak. At nineteen she'd moved to the States from Sweden fuelled by the grief of losing her mother and a possibly delusional feeling of being a big fish in a small pond. Over the years her career had become another of her life's many disappointments.

Every day she went to work — reception at a real estate agency in Laguna Beach she'd always quietly suspected had loose ties to money laundering — and fantasized about hanging herself from the ceiling fan as a respite from the mind-numbing boredom of it all. On the weekends, she'd play a couple of sets at local dive bars and pretend something didn't shatter inside her every time someone drunkenly told her she could be a star someday.

So yeah, maybe Tori was counting on some industry hotshot seeing her on TV — not as that one blonde from Sweden's band, but as Tori Lundin. The gravity of quitting her job outright and jumping on the first flight home to Stockholm to potentially end up with nothing to show for it was rapidly sinking in and it terrified her. If Tori even wanted to get on stage at Eurovision, this stupid band would have to win at the national song selection and the submission deadline for Melodifestivalen was rapidly approaching.

"Agnes, please," Tori begged, "You know I can pull this off. I just need you to give me a chance, okay? Please just give me a chance."

"Victoria," she crossed her arms and Tori was already beginning to regret having resorted to begging, "From a technical perspective, you'd have the vote, but this competition isn't about picking the best artist. You have zero stage presence. You look like somebody is standing behind you with a gun to your head every time you perform."

Oh, I'll show you a fucking gun to your head, Agnes. Tori sucked in a sharp breath and tried to calm herself, uncurling her fist and tapping her leg with her index finger, letting the sensation distract her from the overwhelming urge to haul off and punch her in the throat. In the few short months she'd known Agnes, she'd figured out pretty quickly that arguing with her never worked in her favour. She was an insidious cunt, a pain in Tori's ass, and unfortunately, her only hope.