The scents in his apartment had changed, ever since she had gotten here.
The cool humidity emanating from the tepid shower curtains and the dry odour of the cement ceiling were no longer the main fragrance of the place. A petal had landed on the pavement of a deserted parking lot. A wild flower blooming up through a walkway's cracks.
Benny hadn't quite registered the change until this very moment. Not during their endless hours of endgame study, nor bickering of who made better scrambled eggs (he did). But now the part of Benny's mind that had shoved this realization into a very hidden corner of his thoughts had opened it's frail doors wide. Or was it just the alcohol pushing the lever?
He heard the last of Cleo's steps fade back up to the street, as she and the boys had called it a night. Benny locked the door behind them and his fingers lingered on the handle for just a moment too long.
Fidgety, he was trying to pinpoint what it was that had shifted inside of him, as he turned himself back to the living room. And suddenly he was staring at the answer.
„What?" Beth asked, a kind of feline curiosity tipping her head to one side.
„No one has done that to me - in 15 years", Benny said. He dragged out the words slowly, as if any second of opening his mouth might send others gushing out uncontrollably. It wasn't the answer to her actual question, but it was a truth that was piled in there somewhere with the rest of his thoughts.
„Not even Borgov?"
„Not even Borgov."
He watched as she didn't bother to hide her smirk. There was a wicked spark to her eyes, the shark she was in her attacks reflected his epic defeat in a last wave of pride. And how she deserves that pride.
„And I'm sober as a judge. As Alma would say", Beth added without blinking.
He thought about that for a moment. Nearly five weeks. She had been here for over a month, no pills, no alcohol. Benny wondered when the last time was that she had been sober for so long. Makes her pride even more deserved, he mused. In the same thought he recognized that he himself had been holding back on all these pleasures. In fact, seeing Cleo and the boys had been a long overdue round of socializing for the usually so crowd-hungry Benny Watts.
He gnawed on the inside of his cheek. Another rush of this new scent, her scent, flaired up in his dampened train of reasoning. He sighed.
„I myself am not."
He forced his eyes away from her, fighting the urge to slam his palm against the excited rumbling that was going on behind his forehead.
He mumbled a good night and took a few dazed steps into his room. A petal. A wildflower. A curious little shark. A fucking miracle.
But somehow he dreaded going to bed right now, like this. He knew that he would lie awake, no longer being able to distract himself from the endless chattering thoughts and all their lose ends. All of a sudden they seemed louder than they had been in a while, magnified through the lense of alcohol. He wondered, how Beth could use alcohol to drown them all out. For him, it seemed to have the adverse effect. He wondered, if Beth's sober mind was usually as unendurably restless as his was right now.
The thought made him spin back around.
„Wait. Hey – "
He was gripping her arm, he realized. She blinked at him in suprise and his breath got caught somewhere in his throat.
„Yes?" Beth asked.
In interviews her words were polite, but distanced. A harmonic flow of wellmannered indifference, that made her appear just that little bit alien. Maybe it was the fact that this single word seemed like the opposite, that she had given him a syllable so full of her presence - but something about it made him want to pull her close, to sit down and hold her until he finally understood every secret of her being, every piece to her mystery.
„Do you - still like my hair?" Benny asked.
The words that he had tried to hold back behind bolted doors had finally come stumbling out. Heat flooded through his chest that seemed to pulse from the very place that their skin was touching, his hand on her arm.
She was the first to let go of the breath that they both had been holding. Slowly she raised the arm that he held, and for a second Benny thought that she was shrugging him off. But her finger tips found the side of his face, tingling ever so lightly over his jawline, his cheek.
Benny released his hand from her arm and let her come to him. Neither of them dared to blink. Neither of them wanted to miss a moment.
Beth cupped his cheek, and he had the urge to rest his head in her palm. But then the magic of the moment collapsed back in on itself and Beth recoiled, hugging her arms tightly over her chest.
„You're right, Benny. You're drunk", she said. The words came short, cutting.
„I-", Benny said, feeling at a loss for words. „Are you playing me, Harmon?", he asked, when he found his voice again He felt an incredulous frown digging into his forehead.
„I should go to sleep-"
„Beth. Look, I'm sorry-"
„And what for?"
„Back in Ohio. When you said you liked me- liked my hair…", Benny scrambled for words. Now, he understood how it felt. No one turned down Benny Watts. And no one turned down Beth Harmon either.
Benny continued, „I was angry. You had just beat me, alright? You beat me, and I couldn't watch you just getting what you want. I for sure didn't want to give you another victory that night."
Beth realeased her crossed arms from her chest in a stiff motion. Benny could swear that she was supressing a pout.
„Another victory?", she asked, obviously taken aback.
„Come on, you know what I mean - and anyway - you were drunk. I wouldn't take advantage of that, would I?" he added.
Now she wasn't suppressing the pout anymore.
„It's impressive how your ego even fits in this apartment, Benny", Beth spat and twirled around.
Nearly huffing she pranced over to the wall, where her mattress was leaning, flat and uninspiring, against the grey walls. She dragged the limp piece to the side of the coffee table and fiddled with the air-pump clumsily.
„Hey, hey. Slow down. It's not gonna work like that. You –", Benny said and tried to grab the tube and pump from her fidgeting fingers. Beth looked up at him, the fury burning in her eyes made them turn nearly the same shade as her fiery hair.
„I got it", she said.
Benny sighed, when another wave of alcohol rushing through his mind forced him to give up the fight. Tiredness was taking over.
He stepped away and let himself down on the couch, sinking his hips deep into the sat-through springs. He rested his chin in his hand, unconsciously shaking his head while he watched Beth continue to fiddle with the pump.
„You're lucky you don't lose your temper like that on the board anymore", he commented, when Beth's anger made the lose tube spring from the pump again and again.
„You're the one whose lucky, since you are usually sitting across from me nowadays."
„Maybe I just have a calming effect on you?"
Her glare would have killed a man.
Benny laughed into the tension of the situation.
„You know, if you'd stop to let me help you with that for a second, you might even have somewhere to sleep tonight."
But Beth Harmon had to be absolutely desperate to accept any help. And today, she wouldn't let herself sink to that confession.
„Well, aren't you a generous host", she muttered.
Benny watched as she silently inhaled and exhaled before finally being able to get the equipment to click properly. Without meeting his eyes she began rigid pumps to fill the mattress. The whooshing sound was the only thing cutting through the dense air between them.
„What's with the attitude, Harmon? Everything was fine 10 minutes ago, now I ask a stupid question and you turn bitter like a nun on Valentine's day."
Beth scoffed.
„Beating you in Ohio, a month of training day in and day out, a fucking rubber boat to sleep on your highness' living room floor and four rounds of absolutely oblitering you in speed chess – ", she said and pressed her entire body down on the pump, „ - and it's barely enough to impress the great Benny Watts."
„So that's what this is about? Me not being impressed by you?", Benny said. He linked his fingers behind his shaking head in utter disbelief. „So you're mad that I didn't make a move on you like all the other chess-boys? Like Harry? Townes? Is it that?"
„Townes didn't-" Beth growled, releasing her foot off the pump to stand her ground.
But Benny pushed himself off the couch and took a single stride to her side. Without his hat the towering over her wasn't quite as effective, but it sufficed to make Beth's turmoil falter just a bit.
„Would you have rather had me bring you here, have us fuck all day and drink all night? Would you have wanted me to let you slip from everything you barely have a grasp on?"
He noticed Beth's eyes glaze over with furious tears. She batted them away, but her marble expression wasn't as stone-cold anymore. Her gaze sank to her feet.
„You wouldn't have wanted that, right?" Benny asked, his voice softer now.
Slowly she shook her head, defiance turning her sharp eyebrows from lightning bolts back into the delicate frame that crowned her eyes. Benny's fingers found her chin and tipped her face back up.
„Draw?", he proposed.
A faint nod of her head. „Draw."
Back into his usual ease, Benny let out a sigh and lowered his hand from her chin, his eyes remaining transfixed on her.
She shifted to place her foot back on the pump.
„Would you mind?" she asked with a faint smile.
„Sorry", Benny said quickly and gave her space. He felt his fingers flick over the inside of his palm again, like they sometimes do when he is going over a particularly difficult problem. The mattress was gaining volume and it seemed like the tension between them was being pumped away into the insides of it's rubber material. He swallowed and closed his hand over his restless fingers.
„Well-", he started, „glad we settled that." Benny took a step back into his doorway, his rings clacking against the doorframe when he stemmed his hand against the wood. „G'night, Harmon."
Just before he could pull the door closed he heard Beth's voice: „I wasn't that drunk - that night."
He held his breath. Slowly he turned back to the living room.
„And I wasn't trying to gloat about winning. Or rub it in your face, by giving you a compliment", came her next words.
Benny scratched his collar bone with a ringed finger. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the doorframe, not sure what to make of that.
But Beth wasn't offering further explanation. All calm again, she fluffed out a pillow and placed it on the stark blue of the mattress.
Without a glance in his directions she added, „I guess, I might have reacted the same. If you had won that day".
Then she picked her neatly folded pyjamas from the shelf that Benny had cleared for her.
„Beth-", he started.
„I'd like to change now", she said softly, hugging the clothes to her body, their eyes meeting again.
But Benny was still stuck on her last words. That's probably as much of an apology as one could expect from Beth Harmon, he mused.
„Guess we're both no good at losing."
„Guess we're both not used to it."
Benny bit his lip trying to supress a smile, but failed miserably.
„It's tough being a grand master, isn't it?", he said.
Now both of them grinned.
Beth dropped herself to the mattress with soft flop. Her hair bounced around her face and Benny suddenly realized that it wasn't feline grace that Beth portrayed. She was a swan. Delicate and fierce, graceful and strong.
In fact, she was exactly the opposite of the filthy mattress so many of his friends had already crashed on after drunken nights of very theoretical discussions. He could see the cigarette burns and wondered if her smell would be as difficult to remove from the material as the nicotine. Or if he would even want that.
He blinked when he noticed that she was still smiling.
„What, Harmon?"
„Nothing", she said but the smile didn't leave from her eyes.
Benny popped his lips.
„'Aight.", he said and nodded faintly. Somehow he couldn't make himself turn around. His bed felt a million miles away from the girl sitting there, smack in the middle of his living room.
„You… wanted to let me change?", Beth asked with lashes batting in his direction, slightly amused.
„That's what a good host would do now, wouldn't he?"
With that Beth layed the pyjama down from her thighs and pushed herself off the mattress again, a mere arm lengths seperating the two of them. Beth placed her hands to her hips, a gesture that always highlighted her shape.
„But you're a terrible host, Benny", she said, her voice soft like mist on an autumn morning.
Their eyes stayed fixed on one another.
„So I've been told, yeah", Benny said. He took a step away from the doorway and towards her.
„It's a pity, really", Beth said closing in with similar innocence.
Oddly enough, Benny felt his heartrate increase quite intently. In demanding situations during matches he was aware of this happening. An increased heartrate, more stressors flooding his system were an impairment to his game. Causing players to make thoughtless moves, mistakes that they would regret as soon as they had calmed back down again, forever demanding how they could have been so blind. Perhaps, this was a similar situation, but right now his mind was vapid, and there was no room to think of all the mistakes that were being made.
Things had been said, games had been played, they had been won, been lost. Been played to a draw.
This time it was Benny's hand that rose to Beth's face fixing a lose strand of hair. He felt her breath on his palm, the warmth of her body. She watched calmly, lips slightly parted as his hand trailed from the lose strand, to her ear, carefully tucking it away. But then his fingers continued down the side of her soft jaw, her chin and finally found the curve of her porcelain neck. Swangirl, Benny thought.
There was a moment of pondering, both holding their breath as they took in this intimate touch. It was too late to reconsider, to think it over, to make a different move. They had chosen their piece and it was time to press down on their clocks.
He heard Beth gasp slightly, when his other hand found her cheek, his thumb grazing over the snow-white skin.
He held her that way for a moment longer. Then the metallic jingle of his necklaces was the only noise that filled the breathless space between them, as he leaned in and arched her neck just a little bit closer. His lips found her lower lip and she relaxed into their kiss. He felt her head move in the cradle of his palms as their lips waved, slowly over each other.
When they toppled over into his bed their kiss became less timid, his hold on her neck, her shoulders, her waist a little firmer. Her pulling his hair, a little less patient.
A victory, he now understood, was a blatant underestimation of how kissing Beth made him feel. And it was a cruel phrasing too. This wasn't her winning over him, him finally letting her get a piece of what she so desired. It wasn't the other way around either. It was two proud, stubborn heads, too competitive for their own goods finally letting their guard down. Finally stepping away from a one-on-one match and allowing the chance for a second player. This wasn't a game to be won, but a board where they both sat on the same side.
The question remained, who they would be playing against.