[Open] Herzlichen Glückwunsch nachträglich

[silberfuchs]

Who| Albert and anyone
What| It's a few days after Albert's birthday and he's in a rather good mood for once so he's playing the piano
Where| Tribute tower lobby
When| A few days after Eva's blackout
Warnings/Notes| Talk of mental health, suicide.

In general, Albert ignored his birthdays. They sort of lose meaning when you're not really aging and since he'd hit his twenties he'd rarely had one he didn't spend at work, locked in mortal combat for his life, or completely alone. If brought up to others they'd express their dismay, but Albert doesn't much care. It's just another day to him most years.

This year though, he's happy. Their mission to extract information from the Capitol had been a rousing success, he's out of the arena, and in a couple of weeks he should - finally - be able to get married to the man he's dedicated so many years to. So, true, it's a few days late, but in an effort to spread his good cheer, Albert's decided to do something utterly self serving that he hasn't indulged in for over a decade.

It's mid-morning when he steps out into the lobby of the tower with a few books under his arm. He knows he's seen an instrument somewhere around down here... Ah yes, there it is. A little off from the far wall, across from the elevators and partially obscured by a large potted plant is a baby grand piano. What it's doing there Albert has no earthly idea - maybe someone's poor thought on how to make the tower seem less like a prison and more like a high class hotel - but today he's going to take advantage of it.

He settles himself on the bench without much preamble and does a quiet scale to see if its in tune. Either they've improved even that technology or the Avoxes are charged with tuning it, but it plays beautifully and it's not long before strains of concertos and sonatas played from memory are filling the tower, wafting through hallways and any open door, either not noticing or not caring if anyone stops to listen.

Unless they say something, of course.

Comments

[metalicarus]

Jet, for his part, had left after breakfast with just a mention of 'picking something up' and left Albert to his own devices. Ever since their successful mission, they were both in much better spirits in general. It was refreshing. They'd intended to spend the day relaxing and he still intended to do that, but Jet was not unaware of the date, he knew what had come and gone and considering everything that had been going on, he'd chosen not to mention it, but that didn't mean he'd let it go.

Over the years it had always been him and Frannie to remember Albert's birthday and Jet had always made a point of giving something small to the German for his birthday, something to remind the older man that Jet, at least, was glad he'd been born that day.

So he made good time heading to the bakery and picking up the little cupcake he'd special-ordered the day before. He briefly debated a candle but decided one was hardly enough but any others and he'd be carrying a little ball of fire instead of a pastry.

When the blond stepped back into the tower lobby, he paused, listening to the music he was sure hadn't been playing before. It was familiar. He'd already formed an idea of what he'd find by the time he located the piano and the man playing it and the sight made the New Yorker smile. Albert's playing had always been wonderful to him, no matter how much his partner would brush it off, Jet would push him to play more and let Jet hear a bit more of that magic. He hadn't heard it in a lifetime and it was just as familiar, magical and breathtaking as he remembered.

Jet silently moved over to the instrument and sat beside Albert on the bench, the cupcake earning a perch on the unused music rack.

"It's good to hear you play again...by the way, congratulations on turning ten-thousand years old."

[silberfuchs]

"I think you may be off by a few millennia there." He continues to play, though the cupcake meets his eye and he smiles warmly. A decadent chocolate cake with whipped cream and a cherry, similar to the Black Forest cakes he used to insist on for various celebrations with their cyborg team. It's those little remembered details that Jet collects that make a warmth bubble happily in Albert's chest.

His fingers float over the keys for a moment, pausing to turn and allow him to kiss his fiance without being interrupted by his own playing. When he pulls away, he goes right back to playing. It's happier than what he used to draw from memory in those days staying at Kozumi's house, all fugues and dirges. This is a pleasing melody and, as music has always been an extension of Albert's mood, a good sign.

"Any requests?"

[metalicarus]

"Yeah? Math was never my favorite thing."

He took the kiss given to him happily and settled in, elbows resting on his knees as he listened. The music brought a smile to his face, not just for it's sweet sound, but also for the fact that Albert had never played something so light before, as far as he could remember.

"Not really, just keep playing. I'll listen as long as you play."

Of course, even as he sits there listening, his mind travels back to a little theater in Germany whose piano he and the man at his side had played on until those sirens had marked the end of their night out. It brought a serene smile to his face as his arm lightly brushed Albert's.

[silberfuchs]

"That could be awhile. I'd rather you participate." A smile plays across his lips and he stops playing in order to scoot over and lend Jet access to the upper keys. "I know there's at least one song you know."

More modern music has never been Albert's forte, not unless its contemporary, but he'd dabbled in some rock and roll or similar in his day. It was impossible to escape in the late fifties and early sixties, people even making bootlegged records on old x-rays. It's the simple melodies that stuck with him though, and this one in particular holds deeper meaning just for himself and Jet.

An outright grin at his partner and Albert starts playing the beginnings of "Heart and Soul," exactly like that night they'd huddled together in the closed theater Jet had broken them into.

[metalicarus]

A smile breaks out brighter than before at both Albert's smile and the familiar notes coming from the piano. The younger man quickly re-positions himself on the bench and picks up the melody of the song right on cue.

Heart and soul, rhythm and melody, 004 and 002; the two of them expressed through music. If there was a 'their song,' this was it.

The music filled the air joyfully and Jet quickly forgot there was anything outside of their little melodic corner, just enjoying his partner's presence and mood.

[silberfuchs]

They play for awhile, Albert comfortable and cheerful in his partner's company and lacking any of the self consciousness he thought he'd have in coming down here to play. Initiate was right, there's nothing for denying himself music. It feels good, actually good to play again, even something so simple.

Maybe especially something so simple, given that it's Jet at his side.

With a grin, Albert takes his part and improvises on it, threading his rhythm through the melody part at Jet's fingers, having to literally thread his arms through Jet's in order to reach the higher keys. It likely messes with Jet's ability to play, but that's not really the point. It's the joy of it, playing together, old men being silly. They've earned a little bit of silliness, he thinks.

The resulting cacophony of them both missing keys and striking the wrong ones makes Albert laugh, deep and from his core, then plant an affectionate kiss to Jet's cheek as he withdraws his hands from the keys and wraps them around his husband to be's waist instead.

[metalicarus]

Jet feigned annoyance at his partner's antics, but he couldn't keep it up when he heard that laugh, it brought a smile to his face that rivaled the sun. That laugh made it seem to him like there couldn't possibly be anything wrong as long as it existed.

He'd never heard Albert laugh like that before and it made him realize there were a few things he'd never seen or heard from his fiance before, things he'd been hearing and seeing in the last few weeks more and more. Albert was well and truly happy, happier than Jet had ever known him, it just made him want to protect that happiness. As his arms curled around the older man in return, he made a promise to double his efforts to keep Albert hopeful and smiling if this was the pay off.

"Does this mean you'll play more often? I miss hearing it. Besides...I think you're better now than you were before." Whether or not that was true, he knew it had more to do with what Albert was playing rather than how he was playing.

"Who knows, maybe I'll join you more often too." He could learn more about the piano...or maybe he'd track himself down a guitar, something he hadn't touched in thirty years and a lifetime.

[celebrityskinned]

As with the last time they met, it's music that draws them together, the fishing line being reeled in to bring her to shore.

She didn't want to wake up. When she did, and when she did with that brand still on her face, she felt more cheated than anything the Gamemakers had ever done before, than any of the myriad pieces of her soul they took by the fistful. She spent so long in her bed, staring at the ceiling, stroking the scar on her face with her fingertips, that her Escort had to come in and get her to agree to come out.

You'll have your medicine again, the Escort said. Things will get better.

And so she goes through the motions of a person. She isn't even the shadow of the girl who so peppily put herself in hot pants and tank tops and danced through the gymnasium, lounged on the couch, sang to the coffee maker. That girl's ghost lives everywhere in District Five except in Venus Dee Milo.

She leans against the wall and listens to Albert play, eyes closed, her lashes making awkward smiling faces against her own listless expression. She sways ever so slightly in rhythm.

"You play better than some pros I've met."

[silberfuchs]

"That's kind of you to say," he murmurs over his playing, slowing a bit but not stopping even as he glances up to meet her eyes and find them closed.

"I haven't played in..." He has to pause to think, even his fingers floating over the keys for a moment to afford him the quiet to do so. He returns to playing when he gives up. "Feels like ages. It probably has been, by some calender."

To him it feels like a few years, maybe three, but as a clone he knows he's technically never played and in ages of the world who even knows. He has no earthly idea of the date now, or the date he'd come from when reaped to the Capitol. The last he remembers it was two decades into the twenty first century and even then he played only sparingly. He'd rarely felt the need. Really, he'd rarely felt the need to do much more than go through the motions in those days. Nothing provided much fulfillment, not his job nor his hobbies what few of those there were. He'd been told that was a sign of depression but he'd shrugged it off. What had he had to be depressed about?

Funny that here he should find small measures of happiness, enough to play again, enough to make friends again. Maybe that says something about him as a person, or maybe it says something about Jet. About his dependence on his partner that makes him want to not just move forward for its own sake but actually live, let the colors bleed in over the blacks and grays and the static noise turn to rhythm and song. If there's anything comparing then and now proves to Albert, it's that Jet - that love - makes all the difference in the world, no matter how terrible that world may be.

He realizes he's been frowning down at the keys for several minutes and catches himself, looking up again at Venus. Or no, Delilah. She'd entrusted him with her name, he feels he should think of her by it. The whole person, not just the persona. She needs something too, something to bring the color and music back, only he's not quite sure what it is. He fails in that, unknowing of it when his thoughts are maybe not as progressive as they could be, but he was brought up to believe that some things were just a weakness in character, at least for himself. Depression as a condition wasn't recognized until he'd woken up abruptly in 2001 and the world had turned and left him behind four decades before.

But maybe talking is something. Knowing she has a friend is something.

"Sit with me, will you?"

[celebrityskinned]

"Sure. Long as you keep playing."

She slides in next to him, taking up not much space on the bench so that she doesn't hinder his attempts to get towards the higher keys. She's been around pianos this nice, before - recording studio pianos, where she laid down some demos, frilly little dance tracks about deep kisses and strong drinks and things she didn't have much experience in at all. She's learned that she's the vocalist, and she's not supposed to touch the instruments.

She's wearing a cardigan - dressed modestly, by her standards - and she pulls it tight around her even though there's no chill. She's small in her body, she's just a wire deep on the inside that's wrapped in stuffing and a face, and if she could really be the size she feels she could fit inside the palm of Albert's hand.

There are few places where she'd trust herself to be, but that might be one of them. He's explained hopelessness to her, but knowing how deeply he understands it hasn't been something she's learned through anything he's explicitly said - it's a feeling, it's the kindness. She hasn't had to say 'bipolar' for him to understand. He hasn't had to say 'depression, despair'.

"Did you stop playing, or did you just not have a chance?" There's a difference, and she knows it.

[silberfuchs]

"I stopped. I convinced myself I didn't have the time, but things like this, if you want to do them, you find the time." The classical melody he'd been toying with slowly starts to become something more modern, or at least more modern than Baroque composers. It's a little more somber and has the smokey air of an underground dive bar. It makes him want a cigarette but he's left his pack upstairs. Tough luck.

"Initiate got me thinking about it before this last arena, actually. I made some excuse to him about it feeling wrong to play here, but he put it in perspective. Music's not something you do for others, not the sort I play anyway. It's for yourself." He tinkers in the middle range thoughtfully. "It's too easy to forget to feed your soul, especially in a place like this."

Not that he's sure he believes in a soul, per se, but there's certainly something at the core of people that makes them up and in Delilah he can see it decayed like his once was, like it still feels sometimes when he's sure he's broken and can't find the joy others seem to be able to take in small pleasures, much less large ones. It's a shriveled feeling and as she pulls her sweater closer around her shoulders, Albert feels as if she's echoing that sentiment through some ephemeral vibe he has no name for.

So maybe she needs her soul spoon fed.

"What sort of music do you like?" She'd had some popular thing he'd never heard on in the salon, but that could have just been the only thing on. He has no idea.

[celebrityskinned]

She sways on her hips, ever so gently, in time with the music, almost like a young tree in a hint of wind. She reaches up and pushes a lock of hair behind her ears (her Stylists permed and dyed it with blonde streaks even before she woke up, and she realizes it was probably around the same time they affixed the brand back to her face); she isn't wearing earrings, and something about how uncharacteristic it is for her to not be dolled up is more striking than any fluttering gold or pearl.

"Anything," she says, and then pauses. "No, that's a cop-out answer. I hate metal. I like a lot of dancefloor stuff, but I'm guessing that you don't listen to much Deadmau5 or Pharrell. Do you know any Nina Simone? Or, I guess, um, Gershwin, or I don't know, actually."

She shrugs. "I mean, you don't have to take requests from me. You can play whatever you want. I liked what you were playing earlier, too."

One has to feel they are worth something to put some oomph into making a request. She doesn't feel she's earned it, with the black marks on her record from good intentions landing flat and broken on the floor like birds too young to leave the nest. As kind as Albert is, as generous as he's being of his own volition, Venus doesn't know how to handle something being given to her from kindness and not with the expectation of something - a performance, a sexual favor, a nice word of mouth in whispered into the ear of a producer - and she feels as if she's taking advantage of him.

[silberfuchs]

On the contrary, she's giving him something he doesn't feel he's ever received from anyone else - understanding. A real, deep understanding. Jet tries, and he does get what to do, but the underlying thoughts, causes, feelings that make Albert want to leave the world on bad days, he doesn't understand those. He can't, and something in Albert is so grateful that he can't because it means he's never experienced it. Jet's despaired before, but his reaction is to get up and try to do something anyway because what's the sense in laying down and not trying? He may hate himself sometimes, but he always strives to improve, do something, be something better.

But Delilah and Albert, they're two of a kind. They can see how easy it would be to just lay it all down, and what's worse is, sometimes, they can see it as a viable option.

"I know some Gershwin, Nina Simone too. I actually have a favorite of hers." He pauses for a moment, trying to remember how it starts with his fingers gliding carefully from key to key around the middle C. "I had to catch up on forty years of music all at once, but this stuck with me."

A short allegro to start, and Albert lays down the beginnings of Feeling Good at a lazy, plodding pace. The music rolls from his fingers and seems to crawl along the bench, coiling around them both and pulling at least a little bit of a hum from Albert. His voice is untrained and low, furtively quiet and completely overshadowed by his playing. It doesn't even seem as if he realizes he's making any other noise than through the piano at all.

[gladiayyygirl]

Music. Music is not something Gannicus has ever really been familiar with. In his own lands, music consisted of drunk gladiators shouting songs at each other about blood and cocks. Gannicus knew the words off by heart - he'd sung enough of those songs himself. But actual music? It was a Roman thing, he thought. A pleasant, boring fuss of noise. Delicate harps and pretty little bells, designed to be cover Roman ugliness with a charming distraction.

But this sound? He has never heard anything like it at all. The piano's notes have a depth of soul he had never thought a sound could ever achieve - even from across the lobby, he finds himself stopping in his tracks to listen. He moves automatically toward it - the strange wooden table and the man seated behind it - until he is almost within touching distance of the black veneer.

Not that he dares to try and touch it. He doesn't want to break the spell.

"You possess skill," He says in a murmur of admiration.

[silberfuchs]

He'd been so engrossed in his piece, something he'd learned in his more advanced lessons as a child and managed to find a book that contained it, that Albert hadn't heard the other man approach. He stops for a moment and looks up at his sudden company, smiling a little at the compliment.

"Thank you. It's not what it once was, but I haven't played for quite some time." Years. Decades. He's lost count ad he has to wonder why he ever stopped for how much peace and joy he finds in it now. "You're a music lover?"

[gladiayyygirl]

"A lover of many things," He rumbles in reply, lips pulling tight in a thin smile of amusement. It would almost be a poetic declaration were it not for the undercurrent of bleakness that cut through his words - he loved alcohol, he loved the black darkness of drinking in to oblivion, he loved losing sight of himself.

The smile turns wry as he adds: "Music never stood in their number."

Before now is the implication behind his words as he takes a step closer to the piano and reaches out to ghost a calloused finger against its lacquered curves.

"Was that the music of your homelands?"

[silberfuchs]

The implication is not lost and Albert thinks that if he were a woman, he might have been getting flirted with. Even like this he wonders a little, what with his personal life on display view the entire network for everyone in the Capitol to see, but he's engaged and he simply smiles and takes the compliment gracefully.

As the question is asked, he turns back and picks at the keys again, a slow improvised melody coming from under his fingers as he responds. "That one, yes. Germany produced many great composers from before my time."

He'd hoped to be one of them, once upon a time, but the Nazis, the Communists, and Black Ghost had all seemed to conspire against him.

[gladiayyygirl]

Gannicus faintly nods his understanding but there's a word amongst there that catches his attention. His brows knit as he tries to think what it is about it that feels so strangely familiar and yet so wrong; there's a pause of a moment before he suddenly realises --

"Germania?"

The man had said it wrong, or perhaps it had been some strange trick of whatever devilry had been placed in Gannicus's ears and mouth that had united them all under the same common language. But Germania was the word he knew, a slight variation of the place the man at the table had said. He takes a step forward and lightly rests a hand on the piano now that it's music had fallen in to something lighter and simpler.

"I travelled those lands, in my past."

I am so sorry but this CR might go a bit sour thanks to Nasir in the last arena

[silberfuchs]

"Ah, yes, but in the future." He gives his full attention to his company, leaving off playing in favor of eye contact. "If you know it as Germania, you must be either Greek or Roman. Am I correct?"

He clearly doesn't recognize Gannicus, even from the amount of arena coverage he can stand to watch. There are just so many tributes and he so much prefers to meet people face to face. "I'm Albert Heinrich. What is your name?"

[aboveangrybees]

Steve is entering the tower, having spent the day drawing in the park, but as he enters the lobby, the sounds of notes strung together in a beautiful melody catch his ear. His attention drawn away from his task of going back up to his floor, Steve makes his way over to the piano, following his ears to find it.

Seeing Albert play, his fingers moving across the keys like a man who knows exactly what he's doing, he can't help but stand and watch for a long moment. The artist in him wants to remember how hands look as they shift and press to create music.

Eventually, as the song seems to wind to a close, Steve moves closer hand coming to rest on the side of the piano. "You play beautifully."

[silberfuchs]

"Thank you. It's been so long I feared I'd forgotten how." He smiles a bit, glad to see Steve. He respects the American, even after such a short amount of time knowing him. After all, it takes a supreme amount of guts to try and spread a message of peace in what's supposed to be a violent blood bath, and after you've been held and tortured to boot.

"How are you?" It's clear he expects something of a brush off and wouldn't blame him for it in the slightest. Talking about the arena is rarely something people are willing to do. He'd rather not address it either, but to ask is only polite and he wants Steve to know he does care about his well being.

[aboveangrybees]

"I know how that goes, senior citizen problems," he can't stop the small amused smile, but it's almost more self deprecating than not. There's a lot he felt he lost in his time of ice, he remembers trying to do thing that while seemed like yesterday, he knew was a life time ago.

It was a strange transition period for him.

For a long moment, Steve seems to think about the question - and he is. He debates the merits of not brushing it off, to answering honestly, openly, but instead he decides for a happy medium. "My actions didn't really put me in a good light, but can't complain about the lack of media attention," his tone treats it like it's nothing to note, like it is the brush off answer Albert is expecting. "How about you?"

[silberfuchs]

Albert just smiles a little, something with surface amusement and a deep undercurrent. He hadn't played not because he was frozen, but because he lost the will. But Steve doesn't need to know that. If anything he irrationally feels as if Steve would be disappointed in him somehow for having the thoughts he'd had that prevented his playing. He's not sure why he so readily cares what Steve thinks, but he's not going to explain his years of just barely keeping his head above water because he's ashamed. He should have been stronger. He doesn't want to expose his weakness just like that, even if he's already had a panic attack in front of the man.

Pride is a strange thing.

"I'm surprisingly well," which is surprising given he had run Jet through in the arena - at Jet's request - and then been tortured and drowned by a twelve year old girl. There are definitely things he's choosing not to deal with. Even though all that is common knowledge, broadcasted on television as it was, Albert smiles as if it never happened, instead continuing to play softly. "We've set a date for the wedding. Actually, I feel almost guilty for being as happy as I am."

[aboveangrybees]

"Don't feel guilty, you deserve to be happy, you're marrying the man you love. I think it would be concerning if you weren't happy," he gives him a warm smile.

"Besides, honest happiness isn't found around here all that often, you should grab hold and not let go of it for as long as you can," Steve's voice is honest and encouraging, there's nothing but an understanding of what it must feel like to be so happy in this situation. He knows at a moments notice it could all be stolen away from the man, so he should hold on to it while he can.

"So, when's the big date? Am I invited?" His smile edges on playful at the second question.

[silberfuchs]

"In roughly a month." He wasn't allowed to pick just any date, too many other things to be organized around it, but at least they let the two choose among a few dates. "And of course you're invited."

He smiles, just as playful as Steve's. "Actually I was hoping you'd be at the ceremony, not just the reception. It seems the entire Capitol is invited to the party, but we're at least allowed the ceremony as something more private, for friends."

He shrugs and his smile grows even more teasing. "That is, if I can trust you won't distract Jet too much."

Jet's gone on and on about 'Captain America' in the time he's known him, but when faced with actually meeting the real Steve Rogers, Jet has been almost comical about it. Shy like a boy with a crush, and Albert finds it incredibly amusing.