Fandom: Chess
Pairing: Freddie x Florence
Disclaimer: They're not mine :)
Rating: G to R
Theme set: Alpha
42. Clouds
Life is crazy, life is frightening, life is one great game of chess, but for Demian Vassey the prospect of a child is sun shining through the thickest clouds.
27. Blood
Their childhoods end both in blood on March 5, 1953: Florence’s in the blood of Joseph Stalin, whose death allowed liberalism, allows Hungarians to hope; Freddie screaming for all his tiny lungs are worth as he slips, cold and bloody and frightened, out of his mother’s womb.
25. Devotion
Early childhood teaches them both of loss and, consequently, to hold very tightly to the things and people they loves, which in Florence’s case means holding tightly to her papa until he touches her hair and whispers in Magyar, “I love you, my darling,” istenhozzád, goodbye.
46. Sun
The year he is five Freddie spends his days ducking into the ocean or rolling like a sand eel, and in the evenings his dad rubs ointment on Freddie’s sun-burned arms and back.
01. Comfort
Freddie doesn’t know much about dads, but he readings lead him to conclude that his dad is a failure-at least until he meets his mom’s boyfriends.
02. Kiss
Florence’s neighbor Hannah introduces her to cigarettes and advises, “Pretend you’re kissing it,” when Florence is too shy to admit she has never kissed anyone.
5. Potatoes
One day, one night, one more day and Freddie had been so long in the bedroom he bolted out, timing his footsteps to the thump of the headboard, and grabbed the nearest food, a raw potato he ate hiding under his bed.
45. Hell
Florence’s adoptive parents are church-goers; they leave early one day because Florence can’t stop screaming at the implication that her papa might be suffering.
11. Name
Frederick Trumper falls in love with Florence Vassy in the tenth grade, when other students mock her thick Eastern European accent but he delights in its richness and the way her tongue dances on the second syllable of his three-syllable name.
47. Moon
He wants to impress her, no easy feat for a poor scholarship student in the town’s richest neighborhood, so he takes her for a walk at night and tells her she is beautiful in moonlight and promises that one day he’ll give her everything.
03. Soft
Freddie and Florence dance like chaste Shakespearean teenagers, tease the lines and adopt ‘soft’ as an undefined dirty word.
15. Touch
She kisses him in the back of her parents’ car, strokes him inside his boxers and introduces him to something almost as good as chess.
33. Fear
Florence urges him to play in competitive matches, but Freddie shakes his head because he doesn’t know what he’ll do if he loses.
30. Star
When he wins his first professional match, Freddie buys a star and names it after her.
20. Freedom
He decides to sue for emancipation when he saves up $10000, but she won’t look up from her pillow so he packs his bag and walks out.
07. Chocolate
Walter DeCourcey is waiting to talk to Freddie, and that night they share a double room but Walter gives Freddie both pillow chocolates.
40. Innocence
Walter doesn’t know if he should take, exploit or overlook Freddie’s innocence, and settles instead for ‘all of the above’.
09. Telephone
One day Freddie calls Florence from Stockholm to say that long distance is killing him, and after she graduates would she like to come with him while he travels to matches?
28. Sickness
Walter can’t believe Freddie never learned that the first rule of sickness is, “Employ to weasel out of as much work as possible,” but he can’t deny a fondness for the neediness.
14. Sex
In a hotel in Paris Freddie kisses down Florence’s belly and stares in awe of the center of femininity, unable to believe the fantastic feelings this sparks inside him.
34. Lightning/Thunder
At twenty-three he defeats a fifty-nine-year-old Czech master and shocks the world; that night he holds her a little too tight through the storm.
39. Smile
Florence loves the travel and her time with Freddie, but she hates Walter’s smile.
22. Jealousy
Freddie jokes about the name-Uh-natalie, Anna-doilie-but when Florence pronounces it perfectly Freddie feels not unmanned but envious that she is saying someone else’s name.
37. Technology
“It’s not better than me,” Freddie insists, and proves this to the world in Merano, Italy.
41. Completion
The computer was nothing; Freddie’s opinion of himself as worth anything, his knowledge that he can live without doubting every breath of air, will be established only when he defeats Anatoly.
36. Market
Freddie’s walk takes him to an open-air market fill of fresh spices and vegetables and pasta and things he can use to concoct a romantic evening to make Florence forgive him.
04. Pain
It hurts that she won’t listen, it hurts that she has judged him, but it all stops when he puts his hand through the window of his fifth-story hotel room.
48. Waves
The pain comes, building upon itself as Florence reels with the assault, a rod thrust by the man she loves into her oldest, deepest wound… she thought he was on her side… but maybe not…
16. Weakness
When Freddie is destroyed, when he has lost everything and the strength to move, Freddie sits alone, knowing Walter will find him.
12. Sensual
When the awkwardness fades, in the safety of their bedroom Anatoly strokes Florence’s stomach and she writhes with pleasure.
06. Rain
Florence sits on the porch watching the rain fall so gently and steady she can barely tell when it is no longer there.
29. Melody
After enough cities Freddie no longer carries a map, subtly hearing the song the city tells and sensing the frequency of his hotel room.
35. Bonds
“Why is the man I love-d your sole worthy opponent?”
08. Happiness
When he defeats Anatoly in Bangkok, it is the first time Freddie wins without a shred of happiness.
24. Taste
Freddie enjoys prostitutes with condoms, vigor and great sorrow, longing for the taste of Florence’s mouth.
31. Home
He settles because he is tired, but his feet learn the alleys and turns, his nose learns the smells, and he no longer needs his eyes to navigate-it is home.
21. Life
The thing growing within her is the first of Freddie’s gifts Florence has considered getting rid of.
23. Hands
Freddie’s life is useful, even satisfying, but his hands itch with the knowledge that they are born for greater things.
26. Forever
Florence didn’t count on this and despite attempts feels fully unprepared, but when she holds the baby all she can think is that she loves her child and this is forever.
49. Hair
On Christmas, Freddie walks the crowded streets until he will need a week of showers to wash out the smells of nicotine, sweat and petrol.
13. Death
Florence resolves to go out with a bang; she rents a room over Venice Beach where the sun sets like burning daisies and hordes her pain medication.
43 - Sky
They bask in the beauty of the world, the sunlight drying their henna tattoos, the universe at peace and the glory of de-vowing vegetarianism for cheeseburgers.
19. Wind
Freddie on some level understands the words, to a certain degree knows Florence is gone, but it’s freezing wind howling in his ears.
20. Speed
The plane that takes Álexi from Los Angeles moves too quickly, and the brief respite from life and misery ends with a breath of fresh air.
32. Confusion
She doesn’t care that he doesn’t know about her, that he doesn’t seem to care for her, but she can’t understand when she offers the tale of Florence’s last days and he stares straight ahead and says, “No.”
17. Tears
Álexi only refrains from appealing for emancipation out of her aching need for a mommy.
10. Ears
Freddie doesn’t know how to mean something to someone.
50. Supernova
He finds her lying in a mess of splinters and wreck and vomit and blood of the aftermath.
38. Gift
Florence was alive once, beautiful and young and vibrant, and the constant invasion of reports becomes a gift when Freddie revives her memory twenty years later.
44. Heaven
In a dream Freddie sees himself with Florence and Álexi and has to wonder if he has seen a potential past or a near future.