Work Text:
I.
Drunk Beth was a monster on the chess board: a violent, dreadful thing teeming with untapped, unbridled power and raw strength. This was the deviant who had no care to read footnotes, to analyse the history of her opponents and use it to her advantage; instead she relied solely on her own wits and attacked to her fullest.
Beth was eighteen when she first lost to Borgov: an international grandmaster, the world champion, the Master of the Sicilian. She played black to his white, though that didn't make the loss taste any better in her mouth.
There's talk she's a drunk, his chess comrade had spoken in the elevator down to the match. Her game is nearly all attack, he added, and Beth wanted to rage rage rage against the accusations, that she had been so easily figured out, that she had been shamed and reduced and treated as lesser.
But then came: She's like us.
Maybe Beth wasn't so alone in the world as she always assumed.
~
Even still, Borgov did not share his vodka with her. Truth be told, Beth doubted she would have accepted his offer, still smarting from the comments she received and the loss she endured, both in terms of chess and the death of her Mother. Alcohol was the last thing on her mind.
Librium, on the other hand. Well, that may be her saving grace.
II.
Hungover Beth was merely a shade of her greatness; all stilted movements and aborted endings, and all-too-obvious attacks that barely gave Borgov pause for consideration.
She never hated herself more.
Afterward, Beth fled the scene of the crime, a single tear drying along her cheek. Borgov could hardly stand to look at her; not that she blamed him. She could hardly face her reflection in the mirror that morning, already her mind knew how the match would play out: like in the books where you know the outcome, but you play it out just to see how it would happen, and–
Except this wasn't in the books. This was new territory; award-winning, record-breaking, world-champion-making territory, and Beth... oh, Beth.
In her bid to be extraordinary, she had become ordinary.
~
Beth left before Borgov shared his drink with her. If she hadn't, she feared she would have taken it and then the next and then the next andthenthenext. It would never end.
III.
Sober Beth did not bear thinking about. She was ordinary, human, boring. There was nothing unique or interesting about her – just a girl playing chess in a basement with the janitor.
But after Mr. Shaibel's funeral, she made several strides to sober up: she made the arrangements to go to Moscow sober; she flew to Russia sober; she stayed in the hotel sober.
And she played – sober.
(That was the most surprising thing.)
She had burned every bridge she owned except the path to sobriety.
Russia fell to her, one by one, and she collected their gratitude and compliments like the finest of trophies.
And then it was decided: Beth v Borgov for the third time.
Her friends came to her aid, and she was so shocked she started to cry. After the pills and the booze, she feared she had forgotten what it meant to rely on something good and true. Now she knew the value of friendship. It felt good.
Even so: nothing compared to the moment she visualised the chess board.
After that, the whole game passed in a blur. A state of disbelief befell her when Borgov took his king from the board, and gently offered it to her with a warm, “Take it.”
Later, once all the fanfare and celebration died down and she could finally steal a few precious moments away from her trusted guard, she was offered a chance to talk with Vasily Borgov.
This is it, a part of her giddily thought; a chance to drink. Just one. I'm sure you can handle it.
Beth didn't know what to think, but she made her way up to him all the same.
Borgov was a much less intimidating in person. He was man, first and foremost; no longer a king she had to conquer. Maybe he could even be a friend.
Her eyes fell to the half-empty bottle of vodka there on the counter.
“No,” he said. Instead, he poured a glass of water: one for her and one for himself. He gestured toward the chess board.
Beth smiled. “Sygrayem,” was her reply.