Title: Musically Speaking
Author: amazonqueenkate
Category: Fluffiness, really.
Spoilers: None!
Rating: G
Summary: They have many, many musical differences.

If music is the food of love, Nick figures he and Greg are eating in entirely different restaurants.

Greg likes the hard-hitting, heavy punk Nick could never even start to tolerate. Black Flag, the Ramones, and a bunch of smaller, more local groups that he’s never heard of and doesn’t ever remember. Or, if it’s not punk, it’s something harder – heavy metal – that fills up the lab and reverberates off the walls and his teeth. At home, he’s constantly fighting the War of the Stereos, turning the volume down when Greg’s not paying attention between songs and seeing if he can’t at least regain the ability to hear himself think.

Greg just turns it back up.

Nick, himself, loves country music. From Garth Brooks to Tim McGraw to Faith Hill to Rascal Flatts, if it’s country, he will wrap himself in the soothing guitars and the story-telling melodies and listen to it all night, every night. If he can’t have his country music – though he would never admit this to anyone else, and Greg hasn’t been sardonic enough to share, yet – he’ll listen to Broadway showtunes. Whenever he plays either, though, Greg putters around and mocks it, singing along in a false Southern twang or, if he’s feeling playful, covering his ears and singing punk over it. And if they’re in the car, well, let’s just say they’ve almost driven off the road more than once, just because they were fighting over the radio.

Not only are they eating in different restaurants, but they don’t really care for the other cuisine at all.

The good news, at least in Nick’s mind, is that he’s wearing Greg down. He’s caught the sight of spiked hair over the back of the couch and snuck up on Greg to see him rummaging through his collection of showtunes. Occasionally, he’s even inspired Greg to sing along with him in the car, though when that happens, it’s some smoopy ballad that Greg’s singing just to be goofy. And once in a great while, Greg will drop suggestions of new CDs Nick should buy, and they’re always CDs with songs on them that Greg has expressed an interest in. So, there’s hope yet.

The bad news, for Nick, is that Greg’s wearing him down, too.