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

[chesspolitik]

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?"

Comments

[chesspolitik]

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."

[pitythetrumper]

"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.

[loveofmasters]

"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.