RP: Movie Night Who: Astrid and MichaelMickey Michael What: Astrid is taking up Mickey’s invitation to watch Ghostbusters When: Saturday May 18, 2000, evening Where: Mickey’s apartment Warnings: None Completion Status: Complete
It had been far too long since Michael had offered her the chance to watch Ghostbusters without interruptions. Michael? Mickey? Astrid couldn’t still quite pinpoint whether she should call him Michael or Mickey. He had written ‘Mickey’ on the napkin he had given her his number on, but he had introduced himself as Michael, and that had somehow stuck with her. But the napkin? Maybe he preferred to be called Mickey? Instantly, she stopped herself. This circular line of thinking was one she had gone through several times in the past weeks, as she had started working on sending him a text, only to give up because she wasn’t sure what to write and she wasn’t ready yet to let him in on how abysmal she was when it came to something as simple as writing. Every single time, she had been ready to just call him, but had never gotten further before she either had been summoned or or she had realised that the time of day was either too early or too late for him to answer his phone. And then she had gotten sidetracked, and… well…She hadn’t reached out to him.
Then again, he hadn’t reached out to her, either, but she wasn’t the one who had extended the invitation; he was. Now was the time, she decided and sent off a simple text simply asking ‘Are you home? -Sassa before she had gone to shower, in case he was home and up for a visit. Michael’s phone pinged next to him, a new message from Sassa. The only other message being “Call me! -Sassa.” He’d handed Astrid his number on a bar napkin weeks earlier without a second thought, but whether it was his work at the high school, or his over-respect for her job, he hadn’t quite gotten around to following up on his movie night invite. He pulled his phone and worked his way through the text, “Just settling in for the night, movie night?” He assumed she had forgotten about the whole invitation, but found he was smiling after hearing from her again. He moved over to his movie shelves finding the black case with a ghost in a red prohibition circle. The text pinged in just as she was getting out of the shower, making her smile brighten as she read it. She hated texting, there was no doubt about it, but as long as she could keep it to simple phrases, she didn’t mind it too much, not when the message in question could make her smile like this. “”Yes, please,” she typed back, and was just about to send it when she realised she had no clue where Michael even lived. “Address?” she added simply, before she sent it off, and went to get dressed
Looking at the address he sent back, she groaned and let her head fall back. Really? He was less than a 5 minute walk from her place! Why had she waited this long? And how had they never bumped into each other in the area? Oh well, there was nothing to do about that. Instead she texted him that she would be there soon.
15 minutes later, she knocked on the door. Michael scrambled, pulling on a wrinkled button down. How close did she live? They hadn’t exactly exchanged addresses until now. His hair was still a mess, but it would have to make do. Did he have movie snacks?
A deep breath, the click of the deadbolt, and a stupid smile across his face as the door swung open. And nothing, he was standing in front of a woman he’d shared multiple rounds of drinks with and his upbringing at a club, but nothing when she was standing there. “I’m glad you came. Come in.” He moved to the side to let her into the apartment and looking around he wished he’d cleaned up a bit more. There were dishes in the sink and while the blankets on the couch were there for quick access it still made it seem like the apartment had actually just gone through a tornado. For just a beat, when the door opened, Astrid had no clue what she was supposed to say or do. She didn’t know Michael - Mickey? Michael? She didn’t know Mickey - that’s what he had written, other than he liked beer, didn’t feel too comfortable at a nightclub, and that he was the son of Zeus. Then she remembered that she actually did know more about him, that she had liked talking to him and that she had valued his company that evening… and that there was a reason she had chosen to take him up on his invitation. “Me too,” she smiled back at him, and drawing on the same energy that had initially led her to him that night, she leaned in and gave him a small peck on the cheek in greeting, before she went into the apartment.
“How’ve you been?” she asked him as she shrugged out of her jacket and draped it over her arm before she turned to him. “You know, you’re literally just five minutes down the street from me, right?” “Good,” that small peck giving him the slightest boost in his own confidence. “I didn’t actually, and now it seems like we should’ve crossed paths before this.” He didn’t make a habit of slipping out of his apartment unseen, but he would’ve noticed her, right? Tarrytown wasn’t that large of a town. He pulled a couple of beers from the fridge, “I know I didn’t call, do you prefer calling over texts?” That should’ve been the first question he’d asked after they’d gone their separate ways. There were a couple bags of microwavable popcorn in the cupboard that he could prepare for when they finally sat down for the movie. “How long have you lived in Tarrytown?” “Hmm,” she considered. This wasn’t supposed to be a difficult question to answer, but it wasn’t exactly a simple answer either. “I prefer calling,” she started out - so far, so good, “but I don’t exactly have any regular hours that’s best for calling, so a text to ask me to call back? Or simply call, and if I can’t answer, I’ll call back as soon as I can?” Following him to the kitchen, she draped her jacket over the back of a chair. “It’s not like I’ve called either,” she chuckled, “so I think we’re both to blame here.”
Leaning against the counter, she took the offered beer. “Three… four years?” Mentally she did a quick count, tallying up the number of birthdays she had had her. “Yeah, been here almost four years. You?” “Maybe a couple?” He tried to remember when he accepted the job at Sleepy Hollow. “I tried my hand at the symphony circuit, but it wasn’t a good fit. I stuck it out in Queens with my mother, she still lives there, but when the position at the high school opened up I jumped at the chance, way less politics.” He remembered being to performance parties, a bunch of stuffy socialites pretending they knew about music even if they had never picked up an instrument or stayed up late into the night composing a movement. It was all posturing and he hated it. People that had lost their own creative spark and thus needed to comment on others.
He mirrored her movements leaning on the counter, “I haven’t regretted leaving Queens, or that lifestyle. I think I’ve already waxed poetically enough about my passion for those kids and music.” There was a time and a place for it and tonight wasn’t it. Astrid honestly had no idea how politics in the symphony circuit worked, nor was she completely certain what the symphony circuit was, though she was reasonably certain that it had to do with the symphonics, though how many of them there were, that she didn’t know. It didn’t matter either. What mattered was that Michael hadn’t found it to be the right fit, and had moved on. Not unlike herself.
“I came down here from Phoenicia,” she told him. “I could have stayed, worked at dad’s garage, but it just…” she shrugged, and picked at the label on her bottle - not unlike Michael had done at the club. “Phoenicia’s not exactly a place that’s big enough for people to forget you, and since I kept leaving at odd times without being able to explain why, I couldn’t really do anything but feel stuck.”
She looked back up at him. “So I worked a year at the garage, saving up until I had enough money to move to a tiny, cheap apartment in Valhalla, of all places.” This time when she looked at him, she rolled her eyes before she laughed. “No, not the Valhalla, but the Valhalla five or six miles in that direction.” She gestured towards the east. “Not exactly original, but somehow it just seemed like the right place to start. Spent a couple of years as a bike messenger, and then one day, I was at the gym, and this lady asked me if I could help her get defined muscles.” With a small shrug she held out her beer so he could open it for her, since she didn’t see a bottle opener anywhere. “A month later, I’m training her husband, too, and all of a sudden, I have a legit business going. Making an okay living, with good arrangements when it comes to having to leave for the Valkyries. And then I see an ad for the apartment I’m currently in, and moving here kinda felt like coming home.” He chuckled watching her pointing out the direction, “We have a few students from Valhalla. I can see the draw. If there was an Olympus, or Olympia anywhere near I probably would have focused there.” He had looked at Athen, NY but it was too far away in the wrong direction. For a large family, not many had stayed in the New York area. There was a softness in her words when she spoke about her job and the niche she found in the community. Her passion was infectious and if he was honest, attractive. He took her beer, rummaging through a drawer for a bottle opener. He despised twist offs, the sound of carbon dioxide popping was much more satisfying. “It sounds like you found a passion and a community.” He slid her beer back over to her, noticing the small tears in the label. Was she nervous? Or was talking about her dad difficult? He motioned towards the common area, he could always grab popcorn for them later. “Do you get to see him often? Your dad, I mean.” “I wouldn’t call working out a passion as much as a necessity,” Astrid laughed softly. “Not just for me, but for everybody in my vicinity. I don’t do well with sitting still, and it just so happens that it’s a way I can make a living.” She pursed her lips to bite back the comment that though there were other ways to blow off steam, they weren’t ways she would want to make money from.
With a soft “thank you,” she took the beer from him and went ahead of him into the common room. Sitting down on the sofa, she took a drink of her beer, and drew up her leg and turned so she could look at him. “Yeah, I do,” she said, the thought of her dad bringing a fond smile to her lips. “He’s still up in Phoenicia, working his own kind of magic on the cars that are brought in. He’s the only reason I have a car at all, since I only use it when I go up there to see him, but he comes down here, too.” No, she wasn’t nervous talking about her dad, what had made her uncomfortable was the memories of how it had been living in Phoenicia after she had turned fourteen. “Maybe you could show me sometime.” The idea of being surrounded by heavy machinery didn’t do great things for him, but he was sure Hera wouldn’t put him back in physical harm after what she tried to pull a few years ago. “I would do well not to stay sedentary. Can’t remember the last time I was in a gym? I mostly stick to running.”
He could see the spark she’d spoken about in her smile, infectious. The care she showed for her father mirrored his own for his mother though he couldn’t make it into the city as often throughout the school year. Maybe one day he’d move her to Tarrytown with him, a house somewhere in the Heureux Lake community where she could still work in her own studio. “He sounds like an amazing person.” A smile ease across his face. “Oh, are you popcorn with your movie person? I think I have a few bags I can make up or we have dollar movie candy.” “Only if you promise to play for me sometime,” Astrid smiled at him, and took a sip from her beer. She loved music, sure, though she hadn’t a clue how to play it, unless playing it consisted of pressing play on a stereo, but since Michael obviously played and had made a career out of it, she was curious about how he was when he was doing what he, supposedly, was best at. “Just say the word, and we’ll figure something out. Or if you would like a running partner at some point…”
“Mmm, he is,” she said, finding herself drawn to Michael’s easy smile. It was charming and it suited him. “He’s a big pappa bear with a healthy dose of mamma hen.” His question had her eyebrows shoot up, before her eyes widened at his offer. “I love popcorn,” she admitted. “Not just for movies, mind. They are… well, food for the gods.” Then again, she had never had popcorn in any other realm than here on Earth, so maybe it wasn’t. In her opinion it ought to be. “D’you need help with them?” “It’s a deal, and a promise.” He glanced at the upright piano against the far wall, there wasn’t much he’d made a point to bring from his childhood home in the city, but the piano came even if it now stood on the far wall collecting minor dust on its case. There was an ease to their conversation he’d only shared with his demigod, sibling?, roommate who was thankfully absent tonight. The idea of a valkyrie, son of Zeus, and son of Hades sounded like the start to a bad joke. “My runs start at like 4 AM if you’re up for it.” He still wasn’t sure how she found time to sleep.
“Sounds like mom. Well after she found out about dad,” the term still didn’t feel right coming out. “I had to remind her that he was a literal god a couple times. Still don’t know where she was expecting to ‘have that talk’.” Ambrosia, he thought to himself. He’d seen the terms scattered throughout the myths. “I could if you’re up for it.” The movie could wait a little longer. “Have you ever made it on the stove before?” “I can do 4 AM,” Astrid grinned at Mickey. She could do just about any time of the day, as long as she could get some rest at a later point. She had years ago learned to rest when she could, and had somehow managed to figure out how to live with a schedule that was in constant flux.
Choosing to take him up at his word, she picked out one of the pans she could see and set it on the stove. “Have I ever made it on the stove?” she chuckled with a shake of her head. “How about you point me in the direction of where everything is, and then you can provide the music while I pop?” She had seen his glance at the piano, and figured there was no reason to wait. She had meant it when she had asked him to play for her at some point, and that point might as well be now. His eyes followed her as she disappeared into the kitchen, a gasping chuckle radiated from his chest. There were very few songs that he could call upon on a moment's notice, but lifting the keyboard cover his hand settled on the familiar starting position for Autumn Leaves, a personal favourite while he was working his way through his jazz composition courses. There was a lightness to his touch that had him channelling Vince Guaraldi's playing with spaces filled with quick runs. A slow waltz of a bassline playing the back of his head as he moved effortlessly across the piano. His heartbeat took the place of the percussion, the light tap of a high hat. Just like the night of at the club the room melted and he was back on the performance stage feeling the notes fill the small space of his apartment like the Tarrytown Music Hall, sold out. No children to conduct, just himself and a piano. A small, relaxed sigh came easing out of him. He'd hoped she would like it. There weren't many that could hear it and not, but he knew it was different for the musician and the listener. In the kitchen, Astrid easily found the pot, the oil and the popcorn, right where Mickey had indicated, and as she started pulling them out, she could hear the first, fairly straightforward notes of a tunes she somewhat remembered from… somewhere, but barely a beat later, a sped up improvisation had her stop in her tracks, just to listen for a moment. It made her smile. Was he showing off? Because honestly? It sounded like a riff - or what it was called - that had been tossed in, just for the hell of it. But then he stopped. A pause. A beat. And she got curious. The small joke that he was skimping on his promise to play for her on the tip of her tongue, because the music began. Same melody, but somehow different; smoother, freer, more.
She set the pot on the counter and went to the door opening, wanting to watch him play, just for a little bit. Crossing her arms, she leaned against the doorframe as she watched, watched how his long fingers danced across the keys, how the ligaments in his hands stood out and shifted as he played the chords. She couldn’t see his face fully, but she could see his shoulders and the way he held himself, and it was beautiful. Jazz hadn’t ever been a thing she had paid any particular attention to, but as she listened, she found herself captivated and unable to turn away. She wanted to go to him, reach out, touch him, but she didn’t want to stop him. So, she just listened and watched. As his fingers hit the last notes he realized the space wasn’t filled with the rapid popping noise of kernels from the kitchen. An anxious thought crossed his mind that she might not know where everything was and he should probably check, but as he turned his head he saw her leaned up against the doorjamb watching him play. A rush of confidence came through him at the idea of an audience. He readjusted his starting position remembering another old standard he’d heard primarily from the movie Casablanca. He was no Dooley Wilson, but the piece was beautiful in its simplicity even if the context was a tragic war story. As Time Goes By. Astrid had watched and listened, captivated by the way Michael moved when he played, the confidence, so when the last note rang out, she couldn’t bring herself to move just yet. But then Michael turned around and looked at her, and though she couldn’t be certain, she was pretty certain she saw a touch of relief immediately followed by a more confident gleam in his eyes. Soon after, a melody she knew well started playing. It made her smile, thinking about how he hadn’t simply pulled out the standard classical piece or the famous pop-song when she had asked him to play for her, and the fact that he seemed to have actually considered what to play for her?
Rather than going back to the kitchen to get the popcorn started, she crossed the room and took a seat next to him on the bench. She wanted to watch him play, wanted to see his fingers dance across the keys, and she wanted to be able to turn her head and see the look on his face. So she did. And he looked confident and at ease. “Play it once, Sam,” she said, quoting the movie she had watched quite a few times with her dad, and leaned against his shoulder. “For old times’ sake.” A smile eased across his face with her words. "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine," he quipped with a laugh. The movie had been an easy favorite of his growing up and something about bantering with quotes he had memorized as much as the music reminded how relaxed Astrid made him feel. He finished the piece and sat there enjoying the closeness between the two of them, "I guess we can try for Ghostbusters another night." He wondered if they were ever actually going to watch the movie at all. His fingers hit the keys again, nothing in particular something to fill the space. He didn't really care if they ever watched the movie if it meant nights like this. The soft laughter came easily and on its own volition at Michael’s quip, and as the music faded out, Astrid enjoyed the calm that seemed to settle on them. Glancing up at him, her first thought was to quote Ilsa, when she wasn’t sure she and Rick would make it out of Paris when the Germans invaded, but almost immediately she wheeled that thought back. It didn’t fit, not now, not at this point. She liked this closeness with him better, and any progression that might happen at some point, shouldn’t happen because of a silly dare, even if it came in the form of a famous quote.
”I’m not in any hurry to watch Ghostbusters,” she admitted softly and rested her temple against Michael’s shoulder, still mesmerized by the easy way he created this music that was so soothing to listen to. “I like this much better.”