Work Text:
September 1985
The problem is that it started in Moscow.
In the six months between Freddie and Anatoly’s reconnection and the 1984 world championship, they saw each other at three tournaments. Each time, they met a couple of times, to have dinner or drinks and talk, and sometimes to play, under the watchful eye of Anatoly’s muscle-bound babysitters. That was all well and good.
But in Moscow, there was nowhere for Anatoly to run to, which meant the babysitters were nowhere to be found. In fact, no one was. Anatoly wasn’t allowed a team. He was completely on his own.
He asked to spend time with Freddie a lot more often in Moscow. A couple of times, on rest days, they went out to a restaurant or a bar. Mostly, they spent it in Anatoly’s office in the city center or in the chess library. At first, Freddie just thought Anatoly was trying to take advantage of his experience, having already beat Karpov 8 years prior. And while Freddie was incapable of doing the actual work of a second, he also didn’t really like Karpov, so he was happy to provide Anatoly with whatever assistance he could.
The problem was… sometimes they didn’t even talk about chess. It started there, but then they strayed into other topics, losing track of time, and… and then Freddie would leave to take his place in the commentary booth, and Anatoly would just play like that. The lack of preparation would have led Freddie to a nervous breakdown, but Anatoly didn’t seem to mind. And he was holding his own.
Sometimes as they talked, Freddie looked over and Anatoly was watching him in a way that made Freddie’s stomach lurch. But. But.
Freddie can’t—he was probably imagining it. He couldn’t think about that at the time.
Because slowing down enough to think about anything aside from what was in front of him was the road to ruin. Because Freddie was in Moscow, and he was at his least stable in Moscow. Because Moscow was the belly of the beast, and he’d gone there, willingly. Because just about every delusion he’s ever had is actually possible in Moscow, no matter what Diane says. Because Freddie was pretty well medicated by then, and he’d been mentally preparing himself for months, and being there still made him feel like he was on the edge of a cliff, waiting for even the slightest provocation to jump.
So Anatoly was not looking at Freddie in any kind of way in Moscow. And the rare chess book and fancy vodka he sent Freddie home with after he won the championship were only a thank-you for his assistance.
Except, after that, they keep meeting. And Anatoly keeps doing it.
Freddie sees him at Hastings a couple months later, and then repeatedly at tournaments, every two or three months, the next year. Each time, whenever they have the time to spare, they meet and talk and play chess, his babysitters watching impassively from the other side of the room. Each time, Freddie becomes more certain that one of two things is true—either he’s really starting to lose it again, or Anatoly is flirting with him.
It’s—god, but it’s so hard to tell. Freddie knows what Anatoly was like. He knows why the press always loved him, back before his defection became the reigning narrative. Anatoly Sergievsky was polite, charming, the perfect antithesis to Freddie’s brash and insulting demeanor. And Freddie hasn’t seen that Anatoly in a while, but he’d also put a lot of effort into making sure he wouldn’t, so maybe this is just how Anatoly interacts with people who aren’t being actively hostile towards him.
Every time, in the interim between tournaments, Freddie rationalizes it to himself. And then he gets to the next one, and Anatoly smiles at him in a way that makes Freddie feel like he’s unraveling, and that’s really not the kind of energy he needs to be bringing to work trips.
So. Here Freddie is again. Moscow, for another world championship. If he thought he’d get an answer, he would ask the Arbiter what the deal is with the return of the Soviet stranglehold on the championship location, but word on the street is next year they’re going to be doing London. That’ll be a relief. Because even though he’s done this before, and he’s done all the therapy he can possibly do in preparation for this trip, the moment he boards the plane Freddie’s mind is on high alert.
Except now, on top of his certainty that every move he makes and word he says and maybe thought he thinks is being tracked, he’s also really keyed into absolutely everything Anatoly does. And what does Anatoly do?
He meets Freddie at the airport.
“You can’t tell me you don’t have better things to be doing right now,” Freddie says, because the first game is in three days, and Kasparov is no joke.
“Not really,” Anatoly shrugs easily, and he smiles as he grabs the handle of Freddie’s suitcase, and god fucking dammit.
This is a work trip. Freddie has flown in with his Global Television coworkers. They have a bus already arranged to take them to their hotel. But Anatoly offers to drive him there instead, and even though Freddie is exhausted from the overnight flight, he accepts. They stop on the way and get lunch. They catch up.
It’s maddening. It keeps being maddening every time Anatoly invites him to his office in the morning before a game to talk strategy, every time Freddie looks over at Anatoly’s desk and sees his own books there, every time Anatoly uses something Freddie has suggested in a game. He doesn’t know how much more of it he can take, which is a problem, because the match is neck and neck. There’s no chance of Freddie being able to go home early.
Anatoly stops Freddie in the hallway after a win one evening, when Freddie was trying to make an early exit. He’s clearly very pleased with himself.
“You were right about his mid-game tactics,” he says cheerfully.
“I was wrong yesterday,” Freddie says. “Congratulations, though. That was a really good game. You both gave me a lot to talk about.”
“I’m glad to be of service, then,” Anatoly smiles. “I wish I could listen to your broadcasts. I would like to know what you’re saying about me.”
“Well, it’s mostly good,” Freddie says. He could offer to replay some of the recording for him, but that would put himself and Anatoly in a dark room together, and…
“I’m glad to hear that,” Anatoly says. “I was wondering if you wanted to get a drink to celebrate.”
It seems a little premature, considering he’s not anywhere near out of the woods yet. “I’m pretty beat today,” he tries, but Anatoly jumps in before he can finish the excuse.
“Just one drink. From the hotel bar, so you can go to bed after,” Anatoly suggests. And Freddie doesn’t know how to say no to him—maybe that’s the real problem, in the end—so Anatoly walks him back to his hotel.
They get a drink at the hotel bar, and Anatoly drapes his suit jacket over the back of his chair, and his shirtsleeves are already rolled up above his elbows from the fidgeting he was doing during the game, and they talk chess, and he keeps giving Freddie this look, and—Freddie cracks.
“You know, I have some pretty good scotch in my room,” he says, which is a stupid thing to say because it’s a lie, Freddie didn’t bring any alcohol with him because he wouldn’t get drunk in Moscow if someone put a gun to his head. “If you want to try it.”
Anatoly doesn’t answer right away, but Freddie is pretty sure he doesn’t imagine the way Anatoly glances down at his mouth for just a moment, or the the way he looks like he’s biting the inside of his lip. “Alright,” he says.
Freddie’s heart pounds in his chest as he leads Anatoly back to his hotel room, and it feels like it gets louder with every step. Surely Anatoly can hear it. Maybe Freddie is just having a heart attack—maybe he’ll drop dead before they get back to his room, and then this will become a problem he doesn’t have to deal with anymore.
Except that doesn’t happen, and Anatoly stands way too close behind Freddie when he unlocks the door, so close Freddie can feel his body heat through his shirt—so as soon as they’re inside and the door is closed and locked, Freddie shoves him up against it and kisses him.
And Anatoly kisses Freddie back.
Freddie feels an absurd surge of triumph, a simple joy in the knowledge that he was right, before his thoughts start to melt out of his head because Anatoly’s hands are on his hips.
And then, when they break for air an indeterminate amount of time later, Anatoly wraps his arm around Freddie’s back and says, soft as anything right against Freddie’s lips, “This is… a mistake.”
It takes a moment for the words to connect to anything, but when it does, it feels like someone has dumped a bucket of cold water on him. He feels something angry and ugly bubble up in his chest, and he pushes himself away, because Freddie is many things but a mistake is not one of them—but Anatoly grabs his wrists before he can get too far.
“I just meant,” he says, his voice hushed and urgent, seeming to realize he’s said something wrong, “that you’re an American journalist in Moscow. You must know they’re listening.”
Freddie knows.
He knows, he knows, he knows, he knows, he’s spent the last two weeks hyper-aware of every sound he makes in his room, making himself as silent as possible because he knows. He spent the first day he was here tearing the room apart, and he couldn’t find anything that looked like a camera but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one, and microphones are so much easier to hide. He unplugged his room phone until the production manager banged on his door and gave him a fit for not answering.
Breathing exercises—remember all the breathing exercises Diane made him practice in preparation for this trip. Focus on what’s in front of him. Where is he? What’s around him? What is he doing?
He’s… well, he was kissing Anatoly Sergievsky. Jesus Christ.
“Okay,” he says, exhaling a little shakily. He can acknowledge that maybe he should be a little more forgiving on matters of phrasing when coming from a guy whose first language isn’t English. More importantly—Freddie took a huge risk to get here, it’s too late to turn around. There has to be a solution.
He slips out of Anatoly’s grasp and meanders over to the desk, where a radio sits among the clutter he unpacked from his suitcase. He considers it for a moment, running his fingertips over the top of it before turning it on and cranking up the volume. It’s a trick he used all the time the previous year—a double-edged sword, because while it theoretically would make him harder to listen to, the constant noise would get so grating to his ears that he approached a full-on meltdown more than once. Freddie didn’t get much sleep that trip. Diane made him promise not to do it as much this year, and he’s been doing pretty well, but this is a special occasion.
When he looks back at Anatoly, he’s still leaning against the door for support, looking at Freddie like—
They meet in the middle. And then for a while everything is sort of a blur, floaty and surreal—is any of this really happening? It seems like it’s happening. It sure feels like it’s happening. Freddie just wasn’t expecting it to be happening to a Russian talk show.
He’s rudely yanked out of the moment some time later by the telephone ringing, so unexpected that he narrowly avoids elbowing Anatoly in the gut. It takes a second for his mind to reconnect to everything outside his and Anatoly’s bodies—why is the phone ringing?
Anatoly just shrugs at him, so he goes over to answer it, because the last thing he needs right now is someone banging on the door.
“Hello?” he asks, his voice shakier than he would like. The Russian talk show is still blaring in the background, and it’s getting to be a bit much.
“Hey, I’m just finishing the reel to go out. Where did you want the commercial breaks to go in today’s game?”
Freddie exhales harshly through his nose at the sound of the Global film editor’s voice. “I literally could not give less of a shit about that right now,” he says.
“Okay, well last week you bitched at me for two days for putting one in between a ‘good play’ and ruining the flow,” the woman says flatly. “So you’re going to tell me where to put them, or you’re going to keep your mouth shut about where I choose to put them.”
Freddie huffs, running his hand through his hair. He glances back at Anatoly, who is leaning back on his elbow on the bed and playing with the edge of his open dress shirt, which—okay, looking at the wall now. Freddie needs to focus. He thinks back on the game.
There shouldn’t have to be commercial breaks, because it does ruin the flow. But then, Freddie knows that’s how the money is made—for the players, which Freddie used to be, and for everyone else, which he is now. The least objectionable place to put commercials…
“You can put one early on right after Kasparov walked back his bishop, and another one later when Sergievsky castled,” Freddie instructs. “Don’t you dare touch the midgame.”
“You know I have no idea what that means,” she says, because there are a sad lack of chess people on this crew.
“It doesn’t matter, just—don’t call me again tonight, okay?”
“Why, do you have a hot date?” she asks, sounding just about as bored as a human could possibly be.
Freddie hangs up on her. That just leaves himself, Anatoly, and the grating voices of the Russian talk show in the room. Freddie squints back at Anatoly, suddenly feeling like there is a mountain between them rather than a few feet.
“…so. You have a big day tomorrow,” he says, his voice tight and strained. He tries to stay focused on Anatoly’s face, but his gaze keeps sliding downward.
Anatoly considers him for a moment, before rising and crossing the chasm so easily. How is it so easy for him? He slides his hands over Freddie’s hips and the small of his back, and kisses him—first on the lips, then to the right of his nose, between his eyes, on the edge of his eyebrow. Freddie suddenly doesn’t really know where to put his hands, but Anatoly is right there with his shirt still hanging open, so… one slips under it and settles on his shoulder, the other coming to rest against the skin of his ribcage.
“If I didn’t know better, I might think you were trying to distract me from the match,” Anatoly says, so softly Freddie can barely hear it over the radio.
“I’m distracting you? I’m distracting you?” Freddie repeats, incredulous. “You—”
He only stops because Anatoly laughs at him, light and breathy against his temple. “Will you help me prepare again in the morning?”
“I don’t know, I wouldn’t want to distract you,” Freddie huffs.
“I will manage,” Anatoly says. He pulls back just enough to press a kiss to Freddie’s forehead and then rests his cheek against it, and it feels—it’s far too tender. Freddie feels as if he’s been cut open and left to bleed all over the floor.
“You know if you don’t win this they’ll never let you out again,” he says. It’s what he keeps coming back to, every time Kasparov gets a win. Anatoly has clung to the world championship so far, but as soon as that’s gone, all he will be is a traitor. Freddie may never see him again.
“So I’ll win,” Anatoly says, as if it’s the easiest thing in the world.
“He has an entire team behind him,” Freddie protests.
“You didn’t need an entire team,” Anatoly points out. And he isn’t wrong. But Freddie needed one person—the right person, and without her, everything came crumbling down around him.
(They aren’t talking about Florence. Freddie can’t be here and think about Florence. Two months ago she won herself a spot in next year’s Candidates Tournament, and neither of them have said a word about it.)
“I’ll keep helping you, but I’m not cut out to do what a second does,” Freddie warns. Not that it matters much—he’s been talking through Anatoly’s strategy with him the whole match. Anatoly knows what he’s getting. “Now, you should go home and get some sleep.”
“Alright,” Anatoly says, but makes no moves to release him. Freddie’s eyes slide shut, and he tries to block out the grating sound of the radio that gets harder to manage with each minute that goes by. Any second, Anatoly’s touch will become unbearable. “On the next rest day, would you come to my house?”
Freddie freezes. “Your house,” he says slowly, and Anatoly nods against his forehead. Anatoly’s house—where there will be no one listening in. Where they can be truly alone. “…where your wife and kids live?” He isn’t proud of the panicked note he ends that sentence on, but such is life.
“They aren’t around during the day,” Anatoly says.
Freddie laughs desperately, unable to do anything else. That’s it, that’s—he pushes himself away and goes to shut off the radio. He stands there for a moment, sighing in relief as the silence rings in his ears. “Go home, Anatoly,” he says, his voice still hushed. Even that noise makes his ears ache.
Anatoly complies, buttoning his shirt back up and stuffing it back into his unzipped pants—jesus, Freddie isn’t looking down there. He is studying the wallpaper. He’s going to be in hell tomorrow. Maybe he’s already there? Anatoly grabs his suit jacket, but before he heads for the door, he stops by Freddie and kisses him again, taking his time. Freddie has to catch his hands before they touch him again. Instead, he just holds them until Anatoly finally pulls away.
“See you tomorrow?” he checks.
“Yeah,” Freddie agrees. And Anatoly smiles at him.
Once the door is closed and locked, once Freddie is safely alone in his room—except he’s never truly safe, he’s never alone while he’s in Moscow—he lies flat on his back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, willing the nervous energy tangling in his gut away. He goes through a few rounds of Diane’s breathing exercises to get there, but they do help.
He was right, he thinks smugly, once he can think anything at all. And it’s kind of a disaster—they have far too much history for anything good to come of this. Unfortunately, it’s not a disaster Freddie is going to be able to steer clear of. He’s just going to have to see what happens.
And what’s happening, apparently, is that he’s going to Anatoly’s house. In four days. There are three days of games between then and now.
Freddie doesn’t get much sleep that night.