Pieces
Blake," he says.
I move a piece, then realise it's the wrong one. So does Deva.
"What about him?" I asks, as he takes yet another of my trooper pawns.
"Blake'll go first." He looks up at me with tired, always mildly fretful grey eyes. Blake's right, he does worry too much, but then I think it's a nice change from people who never worried enough.
"A hundred credits says you're wrong," I try again, and this time trap one of his FSA knight pieces. "Avon is just about ready... well, to be honest, he was just about at the point three days ago."
"Exactly." His hand moves toward one of the High Councillor-Bishops, then away again. Damn - if he'd done that, I could have taken his Sleer.
On the other hand, taking any Sleer is an image that I can do without, thank you.
"It's all a matter of self-control, Vila," he says, moving another trooper instead, "which he seems to have an impressive store of."
"So did Blake."
"Exactly. So did Blake." That sad, slightly sour emphasis stings. "As I told you, he's probably not the man you remember. I'm amazed he's held out this long - three weeks since..."
He stops. Neither of us talk about The Fiasco unless we have to. No one does, to tell the truth. Least of all...
"A hundred credits, then?"
Deva pauses, and looks up with that small, thin, slightly mouse-like smile of his. "You don't have a hundred credits, Vila. Unless you've stolen them."
"Who, me?" Well yes, me - but there's no way I'll admit it, or that it was from one of our rescuers dressed up in Federation uniform. I mean, I didn't know, did I? "D'you want to bet or not?"
"It's really a pity, you know," he says, a touch of peevish amusement in his voice, "that we're both so sure they can't keep it up. It's so... peaceful as it is."
He's right, of course, but it can't last. Our two leaders dancing around each other (Blake doing it from a medical bed, which takes skill), all guilt-ridden sweetness and light, and being so damn nice and polite and helpful to each other, as if to make up for the whole Fiasco that Blake blames no one but Blake for, and Avon blames anyone but Blake but mainly himself... it warms what's left of the old heart, and it's kind of cute, in an unsettling, watching-the-helium-core-about-to-blow way.
But sooner or later, but probably sooner, the core's going to go, one of them is going to explode, and life might - might - get back to snarky, snarling, spiteful normal. They'll get there - Deva and I both think that, even though he never knew Avon and I don't know his Blake. They have to get there.
Deva takes yet another of my trooper pawns, checkmates my President, and smiles, tentatively. He's good at this game, cheats almost as well as I do.
"Hundred credits it is."
Easy money, I think, looking over to where Avon is sitting beside Blake's bed. Deva and I both think they've got the remains of a - well, if not a beautiful friendship, definitely a magnificent one. They need to work to get it back, but they need it, so they'll do the work.
Better them than us, than Deva and me. But we've got the beginnings of a beautiful friendship right here.
-the end-