chesspolitik | The Ever-growing Suspicion... (Dated 3/17)

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The Ever-growing Suspicion... (Dated 3/17)

For a moment, Anatoly considered being the better man and letting Freddie walk away. He could pick up the pieces and continue the game as if it had never been interrupted - he had certainly played against Freddie long enough to be able to have a sense of his move patterns. This was the best thing to do, the right thing to do.

He considered all of these things then got up and angrily followed Freddie out of the room. He would come back later for the board but this was more important. It wasn't as if it could get up and walk away, after all.

"Trumper!" he shouted once they were outside. "You are walking away and you call me the coward?"

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Freddie just laughed. "I'm not walking away. I'm leading you away, there's a difference." He was absolutely not about to get arrested a second time, especially since he was planning on deliberately getting into a fight with Anatoly instead of unintentionally like they had the last time.

"Also? Fuck you."

"A difference?" Anatoly repeated skeptically, his fists clenching as he got closer to Freddie. "In what part of your insane mind is there a difference? Why don't you just go to hell and make people there miserable?"

"In the part of my mind where I let you get the first shot in for free. After that? I fight back." Freddie looked around. It wasn't the best place for this, but neither was it in the middle of the compound. He smirked. "You know what? On second thought, you don't even get that first one free. You don't deserve it."

Anatoly glared and crossed his arms. "And why would I want to waste my time hitting you?"

He did, though. He very much wanted to hit Freddie right in the center of his smug face and bring him down to the ground, pretend he was Molokov and just vent. It would not help anything but he would feel so much better afterward.

Freddie said nothing. He just smirked. The longer the silence between them lasted, the thicker the air would feel with repressed anger and frustration. He could already feel it. He wanted to punch Anatoly despite the fact that there was a reason he'd pushed the situation. Now that he was here, he just wanted to beat the everloving shit out of the other man.

Naturally, Freddie would choose this moment to stay silent. Nothing infuriated Anatoly more then that stupid insipid smirk and he hardly knew why he was even trying not to give in and punch him. "You are such a child, you know this?"

"I'm only acting like my opponent." Freddie smirked at him. It didn't matter that they weren't competing over anything at the moment. Anatoly was and always would be his opponent and he would crush him as much as he was able. It would only make him stronger, after all.

"You say this as though you don't act like a child every waking moment," Anatoly rejoined, stabbing a finger into Freddie's chest. "No one is fooled by you."

Freddie grabbed Anatoly's arm and dug his thumb into the inside of his wrist, hoping it would make Anatoly cry out. Even if it didn't, it was likely to be painful. "You say I act like a child, other people think I act fine. Maybe it's not about how I act and it is about what you see."

Anatoly yelped at the sharp pain and tried to pull his arm out from Freddie's grasp. "I look at you and see a petulant child who does not want to grow up because that would mean you would have to take responsibility for your actions."

"Oh and what actions are those? Seducing away some other man's girlfriend? You keep claiming you didn't, but then...who did she leave to England with? Planning on losing to--" He cut himself off before he could go down that line. No, no this man hadn't done that. He'd done something worse. "Losing deliberately to me because of politics? What made you think Molokov or Walter could actually be trusted? No, you claim I'm not grown up, but I think you're just talking about yourself."

There were many things Anatoly could have said to this but there was only one satisfying response. He swung at Freddie with his fist, aiming for the side of his jaw. He was tired of talking, tired of explaining the same things over and over to him. Perhaps this time he could get Freddie to be quiet once and for all.

Freddie stumbled back a few steps and had to resist the urge to grin. This was what he'd wanted. If he was honest with himself - something he rarely was - he wanted it for more than one reason. Sometimes when he was pissed, when he was sick of the island or wondering about his own relationship because the last time he'd been monogamous had gone so well last time or just plain old sick and tired of the tentative relationship between himself and Anatoly.

He didn't grin, but he did flash a smirk before balling his hand into a fist and smacking it into Anatoly's stomach. See him come back from that quickly. "At a loss for words?" he taunted.

The sounds of scuffling down the hall was enough to catch Florence's attention. At first she didn't know who it was, she just headed in that direction to see if there was anything she could do to stop the fight before someone needed the clinic. Soon, however, that uncertainty faded as she could make out the individual voices.

She'd like to think that she couldn't believe it, but truth be told, she was somewhat surprised that she hadn't stumbled over a fistfight sooner.

She entered the room just in time to see Freddy's last shot and she stood, momentarily struck dumb at the sight. Had it really come to actual fistfights, really? How on earth did this happen?

Anatoly grunted with pain and doubled over, taking a few steps back as his hands covered his stomach. It was his fault for forgetting the cardinal rule - in fighting, as in chess, he couldn't give Freddie an opening and think he would not take it.

"Why don't you go to hell?"

And what if I'm already there, he wanted to say. Maybe he had Prior, but if he had a chance to go home, he'd take in a heartbeat. Maybe. Here, at least, he knew he had a chess player who was at his level. He had his opponent, the person glaring at him. Well, if he was glaring, it was for a good reason. He was doing this for Anatoly's own good.

"Not before you. So, what? Just going to stand there and take it?"

She couldn't let it continue, it was just... ridiculous, it served no purpose but bruised fists and egos. "Enough! What is wrong with you two?!"

Coming into the room, she intentionally and deliberately placed herself in-between the two. If they wanted to continue the fight, they'd have to do it through her. "I can't believe you're fighting like children. Now, stop!"

Florence witnessing their brawls was the last thing Anatoly had ever wanted to happen and yet here she was. The only consolation he could take from this was that at least she had seen Freddie behaving childishly too. Freddie could no longer take the moral high ground.

"I am sorry," he said, looking down at the ground. "I did not mean for you to see this, Florence."

Freddie cursed inwardly. He'd wanted Anatoly to actually have a chance to vent and now that Florence was here, it looked like he was going to bottle it all up again. It figured.

"I should say that he's not sorry for hitting me, just that you caught him in the act."

He looked past Florence to Anatoly and snorted.

"I wonder if either of you are sorry for anything." She really did. All the fighting and all the hurt and anger, she wondered if they ever regretted it at all as she looked back from one to the other.

"I am so tired of the both of you fighting. Can't you ever just get over it?"

For a moment, Anatoly looked over at Freddie, resignation in his face. Florence did not understand why the two of them were locked in their constant cycle of arguments and fist fights and he did not think she ever would. It was wrong of him, he knew, and if he were a better person, he would make every effort to stay clear.

The truth was that he needed Freddie as much as Freddie needed him. They were bitter rivals, they were each other's benchmark. They were two great grandmasters in a titanic battle and no one could come close to matching them. They were tied together because of Florence and all the other things that had happened and if they didn't go up against each other, they might go mad.

"You know him," Anatoly said to Florence, deliberately ignoring Freddie. "When have you ever know him to get over anything?"

Freddie nearly choked in an effort not to laugh. He and Anatoly understood each other, that was the real problem. It had been one thing when they'd just been bitter rivals. It became something else when they saw each other's lives played for them out on screen. Freddie leaving the game. Anatoly intentionally losing, the bastard. Now, Freddie didn't want to destroy the other man. Oh, there were definite times he did. There were times when he was royally pissed at something Anatoly had done. Then destruction certainly entered into the picture. Mostly, he just wanted to push. On and off the board.

Their conflict...it was just a part of who they were. He had a temper; she knew that. Did she not know that Anatoly had a temper to rival his own?

"If you're tired of it, you don't have to watch it." He shot Anatoly a glare at that last remark. Oh, he'd get what was coming to him for it, no doubt about that.

"You know, Freddie, you're right." Florence actually laughed, feeling what might be the last of a series of weights leaving her. She looked from one to the other, barely believing she was actually about to say this, but she was. "You're absolutely right, I don't have to watch this, I don't have to watch either of you ever again."

Taking a step towards the door, she'd completely forgotten what had brought her up here in the first place. "I'm done, I'm moving on. You can hang yourselves for all I care."

Anatoly's first instinctive response was to run after Florence and cajole her back but he restrained himself. As much as it hurt, she was absolutely right. They were no longer her problem and she was well within her rights to leave them to murder each other.

"No, you should not have to watch," Anatoly called out to her. "It must be very old watching him act like a spoiled child."

He turned back to Freddie and crossed his arms. "Which you are."

Freddie had to tense and tell himself that this was for the best. He didn't need her. He didn't want her in his life and he certainly hadn't asked her to come. He didn't love her anymore. He was in love with someone else. Someone who loved him back. He watched her as she began to walk away and forcibly reminded himself of their conversation in the bar. It didn't matter how much he tried, she was always going to reject him. He just needed a thicker skin.

There was a particular glint as he looked at Anatoly. He'd come here to help the other man get out a little aggression, maybe figure out what was going on with him, but now he was beginning to lead toward just beating him senseless.

"I think you can do better than calling me a child."

Florence stopped cold, turning to face them both again. "You should be locked up, both of you, until you learn how to behave like adults? What are you even arguing over anymore?" She threw her hands up in exasperation. She didn't understand it, she really didn't.

"You don't have a championship to fight over, we all have our separate relationships that we're all happy with, and yet here you both are, ready to beat each other up over what? Old times' sake? Tell me, please, why I don't go find the IPD, Prior and Lex to drag you both apart and keep you separated."

Anatoly glanced at the two of them for a moment then laughed bitterly. He had not wanted to tell Florence of their arrest but it hardly seemed to matter at this point. She had seen them at their very worst, tearing into each other as they could do so well, there seemed to reason to hide this any longer. "They tried that, Florence. We got into an argument and were both of us arrested by the IPD. As you see, this changed nothing."

"Lex? Lex would just join in." Freddie sighed and shook his head. "You don't understand it. You can't. You were the one who started it. Besides, what proof is there that we were doing anything?" That was why he'd taken Anatoly out of the compound. He didn't want some random person walking in on them. It would have to be some nonrandom person walking in on them.

"We fight because it's what we do." It was their relationship. They hated each other, they grudgingly liked each other, they needed each other, they couldn't stand to be together.

"And you're both so old and crochety and set in your ways to better yourselves, is that it?" She arched an eyebrow. "Never figured you that lazy, Freddie, something else I missed."

Florence headed back to the door, pausing one final time. She was frustrated, defeated. Right at this moment, she wondered what she'd seen in either of them. "I really don't know what I thought was going to happen. What I expected. I guess I expected better. From both of you. Beat each other up, I don't care anymore. I've moved on. Pity you couldn't do the same." And with that she left. Regardless of what she'd been doing earlier, she just wanted to go find Jack, curl up, and maybe cry over the last death of what had been her life.

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The Ever-growing Suspicion... (Dated 3/17)

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