Work Text:
Words whispered in the dark
The sound of her feet slapping against the dark green carpet echoes loudly through the empty yet familiar hallway. She frantically scans the blank walls for a door, an open window – any way to escape the dark tunnel. Ignoring her burning lungs, she runs deeper into the seemingly endless corridor. Something – or someone – firmly grasps her ankle, pulling her backward, and she barely suppresses a scream as she clumsily stumbles and falls to the ground. The fall knocks the air out of her lungs. Her hands and knees painfully scrape against the rough texture of the carpet, causing the skin to break and burn. Panting, she turns her head, only to find a belt tightly wrapped around her ankle. Could it be… No, even though Beth caused a decent amount of trouble shortly after she arrived at Methuen, she was never forced to endure the belt. In the darkness, the wind whispers her name.
With trembling limbs, She hurriedly picks herself up, only to be greeted by a horrific sight.
Tiny pale little faces belonging to serious-looking girls, emerge from the darkness like ghosts and stare back at her with blank emotionless expressions. They all look awfully similar with their identical haircuts and grey old dresses. Not a single sound leaves their small mouths, but they are crying: silent tears are running down their faces. Thin yet strong threads cover their lips in what appears to be a cross stitch, rendering them unable to speak. They just silently stare at her through swollen, teary eyes which scream for help. A wave of disgust flashes over her.
One of the children throws a small object against her head. The others are quick to follow. She flinches and shields her head with her arms. She recoils and quickly runs in the opposite direction, aware that the group of girls is slowly walking after her. Their screams, raw and strangled, force her to cover her ears. She loses her footing and falls to the wooden floor without feeling the impact. Someone is hovering over her body and she can only glimpse a pale set of legs peeking out from under the plain brown skirt. A far too familiar woman´s voice – gentle but insistent – tells her children should be seen but not heard, while a choir is unenthusiastically singing a song of worship in hushed tones in the background. To her horror, she realises, one of those voices is her own.
“Beth? Beth, wake up! Beth!”
Beth bolts upright with a scream stuck in her throat and freezes. Her heart is violently pounding in her chest. She hurriedly blinks, as she watches the pictures fade beyond her reach into nothingness like smoke.
Pulling her knees closer to her chest, she closes her eyes with an equally annoyed and exhausted sigh and wraps her arms around her legs to shield herself from the cold. This is a mess; she tells herself and lets her heavy head rest on her knees. Her spent body slumps and drops to the side like a house of cards touched by a blow of air, unable to support itself anymore. She wraps the itchy wool blanket tighter around her body in the same manner one would wrap a bandage around a gaping wound.
Beth doesn´t hear the sound of bare feet marching towards her, echoing loudly on the grey basement floor, until it is too late. All of the sudden, a bright light illuminates the room and she is forced to squeeze her watering eyes shut at the unwelcoming sensation. She startles, when she feels the light pressure of a warm hand on her back, touching where her shoulder blades meet. Beth scrambles to sit up and quickly turns around, only to see Benny kneeling beside her, one hand still gently stroking her pyjama-clad back, his expression serious. “Are you okay? I tried to wake you, but…” He whispers and clears his voice which is still rough from sleep. Heat shoots into her cheeks, tinting them in an embarrassing shade of red, and she is left longing for the protective cloak of relative darkness.
“Shit, Beth. You are shaking,” he says, squeezing her shoulder. “I heard a shout. You scared me for a second, kid.”
The worried expression he wears doesn´t suit him at all.
Only then she notices, that his silk robe is absent as well, which leaves him sitting next to her in nothing but his black underwear and a white T-Shirt, cold knees pressed against the unforgiving concrete floor with goosebumps spreading over his bare arms. He almost looks comical. He combs his fingers through his messy hair. It takes all her self-control to avert her gaze from his hair, but eventually, her focus shifts to the hand on her shoulder.
“Are you okay?” Instead of answering, Beth raises herself up on her knees in slight discomfort, tired bones protesting against every move. Her movement is Benny´s sign to reluctantly remove his hand, which allows her to move backward until her back makes contact with the cold, rough brick wall, carefully creating a respectable distance between them. After all, they aren´t lovers anymore – or anything, really.
“I brought you some water.” She isn´t thirsty. She only feels cold and there is a hole in her stomach.
The long uncomfortable silence between them stretches endlessly and, judging by the sound of impatiently snapping fingers disturbing the quietness, Beth isn´t the only one who notices. To her great surprise, Benny crawls towards her and mirrors her position against the wall, his naked arm lightly touching her clothed one, determined to overcome the wide gap between them.
“Do you want to talk about it?” asks Benny carefully in the same manner one would approach a deer; as if she would run off any second.
Her averted gaze tells him what he needs to know. For a while, they sit next to each other unmoving, listening to each other’s breath until Beth´s voice echoes through the room. “You don´t have to do this,” she says and upon seeing his eyebrows drawn together in confusion, she adds: “You don´t need to sit here.” With me.
“I think I do,” replies the older chess player softly, and with the same certainty he explains chess moves.
“Well, I don´t want you here.” As Beth spits out the words, she thinks of Harry´s sad eyes and sees Townes run after her as she leaves the hotel. She pictures herself in a hotel room in Moscow, alone. And Mexico, without Alma. She thinks he is going to leave, maybe scoff and answer something nasty to mirror her words. A back-and-forth game of who can be the nastiest, one she has won before. He doesn´t fall for her carefully laid-out trap. Instead, he stays seated next to her and she can´t decide whether she finds his presence irritating or soothing. She hates that she doesn´t hate it. It is not like Beth can destroy whatever is going on between them any further, so perhaps if she insults him, hurts him just like she hurt Harry and Townes and even Alma, he will leave. Or make her leave. And then she will be alone again, just like she should want.
“Don´t be like that, Beth.” He probably wants to call her a brat again. “We don´t have to talk, just let me sit here. It´s my apartment, after all, I can sit where I want.”
“You don´t have to pretend you like my company,” says Beth so softly she isn´t sure he properly hears her, but the silence carries her words to him.
“What? Of course, I like your company, Beth. You wouldn´t be here if I didn´t.” He sounds genuinely confused, yet she only huffs in annoyance. “Well, you have a funny way of showing it.”
His frown deepens.
“I´m here, aren´t I?”
Beth has no retort to that. Benny Watts, the arrogant and proud former US Champion, is seated next to her on the dusty, cold floor in his cheap New York City basement apartment. He could´ve gone straight back to his warm bed and saved himself some trouble. That´s what she would´ve done. They always had a similar way of thinking, so she knows him sitting here means something and the implication terrifies her.
Beth decides to target the elephant in the room. “You told me not to call you again.”
Benny hums in agreement. “I did.”
“Then why did you call me in Moscow?” She scowls at him. Why are you helping me, Benny Watts
He huffs in amusement. “I told you not to call me, that doesn´t imply I can´t call you”
Beth rolls her eyes.
Seconds tick by, then a long minute during which Beth chews at her lower lip until she tastes iron. Benny lets out a long sigh.
“I won´t pretend I wasn´t angry at you Beth… If you had shown up in Moscow drunk and out of your mind, I never would´ve spared you another glance.” Her stomach sinks, a punch would´ve hurt less than the hard truth. “When I heard you were going to Moscow, I didn´t know what to expect. Would you be drunk? Would you suffer a humiliating defeat against a lesser opponent? Then I read the first articles about you and I knew you were back. I knew you could beat him, I´ve always known. And as always, I was right.”
Wetness gathers in the corner of her eyes and the small giggle that escapes her almost sounds like a sob.
“Careful Benny, one might think you are humble.”
He grins. “Never.”
His hand reaches towards her and he gently takes her hand in his. She looks down at their intervened hands. A perfect fit.
Quietly, he mutters: “I´ve seen plenty of players come and go. I don´t view any of our friends who don’t play chess professionally anymore as inferior. But the reason why I wasn´t able to stomach watching you fail is because I can´t stand to watch you throw away your talent. And you were doing exactly that when you kept pushing me away. And…” He pauses, unable to continue. She hears him swallow and take a deep breath. “I like you, Beth. Watching you destroy yourself hurt me too.”
Embarrassed, Benny looks away, as if he fears he said too much. Maybe he did.
Beth nervously squeezes his hand with shaking fingers. Neither of them will apologize. She doesn´t want to think about the weeks before Moscow. Of all the people she disappointed and let down. Benny is just one of many.
Don´t call me again.
The bottles in the garbage. The green pills.
I´m worried about you
Dancing through her living room, drunk and alone until she passed out.
I´m not the one that´s supposed to be in college, not working in the supermarket. She closes her eyes in shame. Oh, Harry.
You need help. Yes, she does.
“You know, I… I used to take my mother´s pills. I had known them from Met- from the orphanage. They gave us a lot of tranquilizers until the government declared the pills were harmful. One day, shortly after I was adopted, Alma´s husband went to Denver and never came back. The doctor prescribed her pills. She didn´t leave the house much at that time. I picked up the pills for her and every time I did I took half of them for myself.”
There it is, the secret Benny was never supposed to know. She doesn´t want him to view her as an addict, the thought makes her throat feel tight.
“I had a suspicion, you seemed too calm when we played sometimes.” He rubs his chin in thought. “Were you on the pills in Moscow?”
“No,” she is fast to reply. “I flushed them down the toilet, I promise.”
He smiles. “Good.”
“I don´t ever want to take them again. I don´t want to lose myself to them again, I just can´t.”
“Then you won´t,” declares Benny confidently.
“Do you want to come to bed with me?”
“Benny I –“
“Just to sleep. The air mattress is broken anyway.” She glares at him.
“What?”
“One of the boys fell on it when we celebrated your win.” She has a feeling they weren´t even drunk and still managed to destroy it. She halfway wants to know which one of the boys is to blame.
“Oh.”
“Yeah. So, are you coming?”
She contemplates only for a short moment. “Yes.”
“Well, come on then, kid,” says Benny as he stands up. Beth, who shoots him an annoyed look at the nickname, is still slumped against the wall and Benny is quick to gently nudge her shoulder with his outstretched hand. After pondering for a second, she grabs the hand offered to her and lets him pull her up. He doesn´t let go and neither does she. He guides her towards his bedroom, and she lets him. Neither of them speaks while Benny fixes the blanket under Beth´s watchful gaze.
She is standing in the middle of the small bedroom with her arms awkwardly crossed in front of her chest and Benny, who by now has finished fixing the pillows, scratches the back of his head and raises both eyebrows at her. “Well, get comfortable,” he tells her and lazily gestures towards the bed. Beth nods and is about to lie down, but a thought runs through her head, making her halt her movement. “Give me a second," is all she says before she scurries out of the room, heading for the small bathroom. She comes face to face with the dirty mirror and swallows the instinct to feel self-conscious about her messy hair and the dark circles framing her eyes. Relieve floods through her, as the cold water touches her face, and she feels a little more like herself. After one last look of affirmation in the mirror, she exits the bathroom, only to come face to face with Benny, who slides a pair of comfortable-looking pants up his legs. “I don´t want to make you uncomfortable… or distract you,” explains Benny.
“So you admit you wanted to distract me when you walked around shirtless all the time when I first stayed with you?”
“What can I say? I find myself pretty handsome.”
“Of course you do.” She rolls her eyes.
“You don´t?” She only shakes her head at him. “Well, keep lying to yourself, Harmon.”
“Lay down, I´m turning off the light.”
The bed creaks under her weight as she lays down. Her body is facing the wall, and she makes herself small to ensure she doesn´t invade his space. She breathes in the light scent of cigarettes and something that is purely and entirely Benny. The mattress dips beneath his weight as he lays down beside her. She almost forgot how small the bed is. It´s a tight fit; they can feel each other’s movements and body heat, only a few inches separate them. Time passes by, and nothing happens. Beth is tired, exhausted even, and Benny´s bed is much more comfortable than the floor. She doesn´t think Benny is asleep yet. He wouldn´t admit it if his life or title depended on it, and since she shared a room with plenty of other girls she doesn´t mind, but he is a light snorer. She even finds this little habit more comforting than bothersome, yet this is something she would never admit to him. Right now, she can only hear him breathe quietly next to her and lets herself be lulled in by the silence. Just as her thoughts have drifted off and she is about to fall asleep, Benny´s voice, careful yet insistent, reaches her ears. “Beth? Are you awake?”
No answer.
“Beth?” He whispers again, more persistent.
“Hmm… What?”
There is a small pause before he quietly asks: “Do you want to move closer?”
Suddenly wide awake, Beth opens her eyes and looks back at him over her shoulder even though she can barely see him. She frowns, the wheels in her head are turning.
“What?”
“Do you wanna move closer?”
After a small pause, she asks: “Why?”
Now it is his turn to let out a long breath. She can practically feel the way he rolls his eyes at her in playful annoyance as he half-heartedly demands: “Just… do it, Beth. Trust me.”
And she does. She does trust him.
Holding her breath, she carefully moves closer to him and she can feel him turn, as he wraps his arm around her waist before he wraps himself around her back. It´s… nice. She has never done this before, no one has ever hugged her like this and she feels taken aback by their first night together – this time she isn´t going to push him away.
Touching her, inviting her to his bed – these are his attempts to overcome the distance between them. He has left her an opening, and maybe she should take it. Screw it, she thinks and collects her thoughts. Before any doubts fill her head, her voice breaks through the silence:
“I had a dream about the orphanage where I lived after my mother died. I wasn´t allowed to play chess for five years."