Sixtyfour squares, the reason you know you exist

[chesspolitik]

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?"

Comments

[pitythetrumper]

"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."

[chesspolitik]

"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."

[pitythetrumper]

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.

[chesspolitik]

"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?"

[pitythetrumper]

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.

[chesspolitik]

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."

[pitythetrumper]

"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."

[chesspolitik]

"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."

[pitythetrumper]

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.