And the city don't know that the city is getting [Anatoly and Freddie]

[loveofmasters]

[Dated September 12, 2011]Tapping the key nervously on the counter, Florence Vassey looks around the hotel lobby. The press isn’t here which is a blessing right now because neither Anatoly or she have anything to say to them, but looking around she's struck by how... foreign it is to her, so strange. At least in Merano she had been able to guess at

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[pitythetrumper]

It had become something of a habit, these games of theirs. Even now, half of the time one of them would say something that would set the other off and they'd have to leave a game half-played until the next time they came back to the board and finished that game only to start another one. It's strange. He can't really call them enemies and he will not call them friends. Compatriots, maybe. Not - never - comrades. Rivals

[whoneedsadream]

Anatoly heard Freddie's words but didn't register them at first. His attention was focused solely on the board and how he could get himself out of the hole in which he had found himself. He had stupidly made a few careless errors which Freddie had rightfully taken advantage of and there were few viable options left.

"Hmm? Why?" He glanced up in confusion. Freddie looked... he looked scared, almost, and that was an expression that Anatoly had never thought he would see on his rival's face. His heart pounded, he glanced around the room. There were a few people who might be able to cause such an expression and if it was Molokov or de Courcey, he was going to hit him in the face with a chair.

He only saw a familiar dark-haired woman and in flash, knew who she must be. Not his Florence, but Freddie's. If there was ever a moment where he wished he could be swallowed by the island, this was it and naturally the damned place would not oblige

[loveofmasters]

"Anatoly, I...." She paused in her question, looking at them. Something was horribly wrong, moreso than walking in on the two of them playing a civil game. There was a look of... fear on Freddie's face and he steadfastly ignored her. If anything, she'd have expected insults by now, a dig at her relationship with Anatoly, perhaps another allusion to treason, the old favorites, but this silence from him was unnerving. And then there was Anatoly, her Anatoly, not standing, not greeting her and looking like he was surprised to even see her.

Swallowing hard and taking a deep breath, she looked from one to the other, trying to regain a sudden loss of mental balance as she tried again. "Anatoly, I thought you were heading up to the room, I said I'd be right behind you. What is... what is all this?"

[pitythetrumper]

"I warned you," Freddie muttered. He looked between them. It had been a long time since he'd felt this way. Since he'd felt like he should be the one who needed to leave. Like he was the third wheel between Anatoly and Florence and that they didn't want him there. "Do you want to be the one who crushes her dreams or should that be left up to me, since I seem to crush all the rest of them?"

Of course, what he wanted to do was to walk out and pretend that he hadn't seen her. That he didn't know she was here.