Work Text:
January 1988
Anatoly doesn’t need to set an alarm to be awake at 4 AM. On nights like this, he doesn’t sleep well.
It’s also the only time he gets any privacy right now. He isn’t complaining, when he is so generously being given a place to stay while he figures out how to rebuild his life—again. He’s been given far more grace and kindness than he deserves, and he knows he’s lucky to be here, in this country, with a roof over his head and still with his family. It’s just that he’s sleeping on a couch and is always surrounded by some combination of his children, his ex-lover, and his ex-wife in everything but the eyes of the law. And while he loves them all… it’s a lot.
Anatoly grabs the wireless receiver from the phone base and, as quietly as he can, slides the glass door to Florence’s balcony open just enough for him to slip outside. This early in the morning, the air is eerily still, only the occasional car breaking the silence. Light from the street lamps wash over everything washing out all but the brightest stars in the sky. He can see his breath. It’s cold, but he has a blanket wrapped around him. It will do the job well enough for the short amount of time he’ll be out here. He slides the door shut behind him and sits in a camping chair Florence has sitting out here, a stand-in for proper deck furniture. He dials a number.
It rings for long enough that Anatoly thinks he probably won’t get an answer, and he’s almost resigned himself to trying to get some sleep pp when the other end picks up.
“Hello?”
“Hello,” Anatoly greets.
“Oh, thank god. I was worried you were Walter calling to yell at me,” Freddie says. His voice is tinny and distant, distorted by the distance, but Anatoly can still hear a smile in it.
“Have you done something to deserve it?” he asks quietly, still cautious even now of waking one of the children.
“I can’t believe you don’t stay up all night just so you can watch my broadcasts,” Freddie teases. “I just accidentally predicted a whole game in the first 4 moves. Walter wants me to stop doing that, says it ruins the suspense.”
“I’m sure he’ll find a way to forgive you,” Anatoly says. “You seem to be making him a good bit of money.”
“Oh, yeah. Haven’t you heard? Making money is all I’m good for,” Freddie says. “Jesus, I’m exhausted. Why are you awake? Isn’t it like 3 AM?”
“Four,” Anatoly admits. “It’s jetlag.”
“Bullshit. You’ve been there a month.”
Anatoly chuckles. “Tell me about your day.”
“Changing the subject, I see. My day was long. I’m actually jetlagged, it’s only 8 here and I feel like it’s nearly midnight,” Freddie says. “I’m going to tell Walter I need more buffer time for trips like this, it’s getting ridiculous. I’m not as young as I used to be.”
It’s strange, how hard that hits Anatoly in the moment—sitting on this tiny balcony in a country he’d once only barely started to call home, surrounded by utter silence and chill, and somewhere thousands of miles away Freddie Trumper has just admitted to being mortal. When will the world right itself? When will Anatoly feel anything approaching normal?
“What are you doing once the tournament is over?” he asks.
“I don’t really know yet. Probably just working on the book for a while. My editor had a bunch of things she hated about it.”
“Why don’t you come visit? You could work on it here,” Anatoly suggests. He tries to sound less vulnerable than he feels out here in the dark, echoes of something still crashing upon him.
Freddie sighs. “I mean… I’ve thought about it,” he says. “I didn’t want to be in the way. You guys have a lot going on over there right now.”
“Come visit,” Anatoly says. “Florence would be happy to see you.”
“Just Florence?”
So this is how it’s going to be. “We should get a hotel room,” he says. “I’m sure Florence and Svetlana would be thrilled to have me off their couch for a little while.”
Freddie laughs, which is a relief. “Sounds nice,” he says, quieter now. “Look, I’ll see what I can do. What have you been up to today? Or yesterday, I guess.”
“I looked at a couple of flats,” Anatoly says.
“Yeah?” Anatoly sighs, and Freddie snorts. “That good, huh?”
“I don’t know what I’m looking for,” Anatoly admits. “I don’t know how much space I need. I was hoping for somewhere close, but… I don’t think the children would want to stay with me much anyway. Maybe I’m wasting my time trying.”
Freddie makes a sympathetic noise, which is nice of him. It’s enough to give Anatoly the courage to keep talking. “I was thinking.”
“Uh oh.”
“All the places I’ve looked at so far have been too big for just me. And it’s more economical to share anyway.”
“Uhuh,” Freddie says a little stiffly. Not encouraging, but Anatoly is already in it now.
“Well, you travel a lot. And I’ve heard New York isn’t the cheapest place to live, especially if you’re not there half the time.”
“Anatoly,” he protests, but he doesn’t elaborate.
“It’s just something to think about,” Anatoly concludes weakly.
He hears a soft thunk through the receiver, and Anatoly imagines what it could be from—letting his head hit the wall or door of his hotel room, or kicking something. “Anatoly, you—god, that’s a terrible idea,” he says. “We’ve barely spent any time alone together. You have no idea what I’m like to live with.”
If that’s what Freddie’s concern is, then— “Come visit,” Anatoly says again, his voice hushed and pleading.
Freddie sighs, long and slow. “Yeah, okay,” he says. “Look… I have to go. I have five more days in Seattle. And then I’ll figure something out.”
“Alright,” Anatoly says. It’s just as well—he’s going to pay Florence back for all his long-distance phone calls, but there’s still going to be some sticker shock. There’s so much more he wants to say, but it can wait. “Goodnight, Freddie.”
“Night. Sleep well,” Freddie says, and then there’s a little click and Anatoly is alone once again.
His children are fast asleep inside, his ex-lovers in each other’s arms, and the person he would really like to be out here with him is on the opposite side of the planet. A light breeze drifts over him, provoking goosebumps, but not enough to really chill him. No cold weather in England is going to compare to Chelyabinsk winters.
Anatoly hasn’t been back there in years—hadn’t even had any interest in going before this second escape from his homeland. Now, he thinks about it all the time. There is nothing pulling him back. They have nothing they can hold over him anymore. Anatoly may never see the place of his birth again, the place generations of ancestors lived and toiled and died. Depending on the world’s stage, he may never see any part of Russia again. It may never be safe. He was trapped there, and yet, the thought of never seeing it again…
This was the best choice. Anatoly knows this. His children are safe. His wife is relatively happy for the first time in a long time, and Florence seems to be happy too.
Anatoly feels very alone.
It’s closer to 5 AM when he finally gets up and slips back inside the house. Florence will be up before too long, and he would like to be asleep before she starts puttering around in the kitchen. The phone goes back on its base on the wall and he curls up again in his nest of blankets on the cramped couch.