chesspolitik | Sixtyfour squares, the reason you know you exist

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Sixtyfour squares, the reason you know you exist

The weather might change from brisk snow to unbearable heat but it couldn't keep Anatoly from taking his place at his usual spot and setting up the chess board. Whether he found someone to play a game with or whether he played on his own made no difference at all. It was his well-established routine and there was simply no reason to change it, even if now he often had to share the place with his nemesis.

He was going back to the very best of the grandmasters today - Capablanca. His own particular style of play owed a lot to the man, and he could think of no better way to pay him homage then to review his matches and reaffirm the strategies that had brought him victory.

A shadow fell over the board and he looked up, stifling a groan when he saw who it was before him. He had promised Prior to behave, even if he had yet to follow through it. "You. Can I help you?"

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"Playing two, you mean," Freddie muttered under his breath. He was playing chess and he was playing something decidedly different.

"There is only one game and I am playing it." Anatoly moved his chosen piece impatiently as he tried not to consider how satisfying it would feel to throw a knight at him.

"It is not my fault that you think everything is a conspiracy against you."

"It's only a conspiracy when they're not actually against you. Unfortunately, I know that you are against me. What do you say about that?" He waited for the next insult. Baiting Sergievsky was almost as much of a fun time as playing chess. Almost. It was why it was frustrating to be able to do one and not one or the other. He couldn't seem to taunt him and play the game.

Anatoly sat back with a glare and crossed his arms. "I hope you are not suggesting that I would waste my time by actively trying to destroy you. I do not like you at all, but I have better things to do with my time."

"Like what? Walk along the beach? Go swimming?" Freddie couldn't help the slow smile that spread along his face. "Fuck your boyfriend?" He leaned in. "Or are you the fuckee?" He was curious, but just the idea of seeing that was creepy. He didn't want to think about it. Not in a million years.

Anatoly stared at the board. If he didn't, he might have given in to the temptation to leap across and strangle Freddie. It would surely be justified homicide no matter what anyone might say.

"My personal life is my own business," he said coldly. "Now make your damn move."

"And your neighbors business, I'm sure, if you're loud enough," Freddie said with a small smirk. He did make his move and then, instead of watching the board, he watched Sergievsky.

He loved this chess board and its unique pieces very much. He loved them so much he was not going to risk damaging them by throwing the board in Freddie's face. Anatoly told himself this over and over but it still took him a few moments to reach a state of mind where he could answer in words, rather than deeds.

"I did not realize you spent so much time considering this question. Have you driven Prior away already?"

Freddie narrowed hie eyes. "You make it sound like breaking up is inevitable." There was absolutely no way that he was telling Sergievsky about the drunken conversation about fidelity that he'd had first with Trixa and then with Prior. That would only goad him into saying something worse.

"Prior doesn't strike me as the kind of person to stand your kind of nonsense for long, let alone say seven years," Anatoly answered nastily. It was a cheap shot but from his perspective, it was true. It took a special kind of person to love a grandmaster and stay with him.

Freddie's fists clenched. "You mean like your wife?" he asked coldly. "I'm glad that at least someone saw through your lies in the end. You have everyone convinced." He gave a smile that was almost more of a sneer. "I bet I'd like her. The two of us have a lot in common."

Anatoly flinched and looked away for a moment, willing his shaking hands to still. Svetlana hadn't understood his ambition but the fault was not hers but his. He had not tried to help her to understand and had chosen to run away rather than deal with a difficult situation.

"I rather doubt it," he said slowly, trying to keep his English in place. "She despises chess and grandmasters."

"Does she despise chess and grandmasters or has she just learned to because she despises you? I'm sure she must have married you for some reason, but I can't figure out why." Freddie smirked at Sergievsky's reaction. He did love the way that he could get to the other man. It was so easy sometimes, even if he didn't really understand much about the man's past. It didn't matter. It didn't.

"Perhaps if she comes here, you can ask her," Anatoly said without thinking in the heat of his anger. If Svetlana did come here, the last thing in the world he would want was for the two of them to talk. The two of them in collusion would be far worse than any living hell he could imagine.

"But I doubt she would even speak to you. The only thing she despises more than me is a greedy, money-grabbing American."

"Keep telling yourself that and maybe you'll even believe it one of these days. Personally, I think it's just you. Who would want to stay with you?" He asked the question before he provided himself with the answer and his look just dared Sergievsky to give the answer they were both expecting.

"Florence." It was a dangerous subject, but Anatoly was annoyed enough to conveniently ignore the parts of his brain that told him not to engage. If Freddie wanted a fight, he was going to get one. "In fact, she chose to stay with me over you."

Freddie's jaw clenched and he had to struggle with himself not to just throw the chessboard at Sergievsky's head. It was a harder struggle than he'd like to admit. "Really. And remind me again just what you did for her?"

He hated this part, mostly because it seemed so wrong. Sergievsky shouldn't have lost. He should have won. "No, wait, please. Let me. You gave up. You gave in. You compromised the only thing that means anything for a pack of lies."

"She meant more to me than a game." Anatoly had meant to shout but the words had come out quietly. "And I could not live with myself if I had won a game and in doing so, kept Florence from seeing her father again. Perhaps it was a lie, perhaps it wasn't. But I loved her and I could not take that risk."

"Pathetic," Freddie spit out, shaking his head. "You know as well as anyone that it wasn't going to do any good. You tell yourself that it might have made a difference and I'm sure you pat yourself on the back like you saved her life, but you really don't know. You don't know whether he was there or whether all you did was lose your integrity for a figment of Walter's imagination."

"Pathetic? What would you have done? No, never mind. I know the answer to that," Anatoly retaliated angrily. "You would have ignored her and her happiness, like you had for the last seven years. You would have played without thinking about her, without considering there might be something more important then you and your desires."

Freddie, who had one hand raised in an effort to think about moving a piece instead of stewing over Sergievsky's words, slammed his hand down on the board, scattering the pieces everywhere. "You don't get to assume what I would or would not do."

He could still hear her words, the ones that had sounded so much like laughter, and it made him sick.

"Well?" Anatoly challenged him, arms crossed. "What would you have done? Am I wrong to say that you would have played and won regardless of what she felt or anyone else said?"

The words, exactly what he had asked Sergievsky to do all those months ago, struck a chord now. It was a discordant sound and it had him out of his chair before he could even think. "Fuck you," he growled. His fist flew before anyone, least of all him, could think about stopping him and his first cracked against Sergievsky's jaw.

Anatoly staggered back, gingerly touching his jaw. He wanted to respond in kind, hit Freddie until he finally stopped talking but he remembered what happened the last time the two of them had gotten into it in public and he rather wanted to avoid the humiliation of being dragged into the lock up this time.

"You say this and I am the one who disrespected the game? You can go and get out."

"This has nothing to do with the game," Freddie managed, "and everything to do with you being an arrogant asshole who thinks he's better than everyone. To think that I ever thought you'd care."

He stood his ground. "I'm not leaving. You can go."

"I was here first," Anatoly retorted, not even bothering to respond to any of the other nonsense from Freddie. He was an unfeeling, cold bastard - it was useless to expect him to think of anyone but himself. "And I am going nowhere."

Freddie settled back in his seat and decided that he was going to annoy Sergievsky until one or the other of them decided they'd had enough. Russian-baiting was always his favorite pastime, after all.

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Sixtyfour squares, the reason you know you exist

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