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threedimensions
threedimensionsDimensions: [1-2]
Timeline: Early March 2012
Title: Check
Summary: Andrew may have found the answer. (So what if no one else knew it was a question yet.)
~1.5k
Andrew studied the board for a good five minutes, thinking that there was no way. He looked and looked and didn't see a way that he could lose now, but as he reached for his bishop and moved it, Admiral Akbar shouted in his head that it was a trap. He glanced up, but the glasses blocked him from seeing where his opponent was looking, as they always did. He slowly removed his fingers from the piece, making his move final.
"Check," he said uncertainly.
Then: "Oh, fuck you." Because the corner of Jack's mouth quirked in his version of a smile.
Sure enough, just as Jack moved a knight to block the bishop's access to his king, this left Andrew's queen open to attack from a rook that had previously been hiding out in the background. He couldn't take the rook with the queen or she would then be taken by Jack's bishop, and the bishop would put his own king into check. Sure, he could then move the king, but without his queen, he was done, and the bishop, a knight, and Jack's queen would all be coming for him. It looked like he was done anyway, but he had nothing else to do today, and Chess Man didn't always agree to a second game.
As predicted, Jack put him into mate within five more moves. Andrew sighed and he tipped his king over. "I was close that time, though," he said.
Jack gave him the side smile again. "If you like."
"I am going to beat you again, Jack man. It'll happen," Andrew promised.
"So you have said."
"Want to play again?" Andrew asked hopefully.
Jack had been reaching for the captured pieces to the side of the board, probably to put them away, but he slowed and considered. "All right."
"Excellent!" Andrew brightened. He gestured to the counter. "I'm going to get another drink. Want anything?"
"No, thank you."
When Andrew returned, the pieces were all back in position. It was his turn to hold and Jack's turn to choose; he selected one of each color pawn and held them behind his back, switching them around until even he didn't remember which was which. He held both closed hands out, and Jack pointed to his left. Andrew opened his hand: white. Andrew was pleased, even though this gave Jack the first move advantage: he much preferred the romanticized version of the black king over the white knight.
"How's the new game?" he asked a few minutes later, when they had made their initial moves and new strategies were dependent on the other player. He'd been blown away to find out that this dude had created one of his all-time favorite computer games, one that a lot his friends also played and re-played to this day (and still, every once in a while, one of them would discover yet another alternate ending or course of events that would happen by just the exact right set of choices that the game offered). He'd immediately bought and downloaded the other three that were available and, so far, two of them hadn't even been touched because he'd been too busy winding through all of the possibilities and story lines of the first one.
Jack had mentioned that he was working on a new one a couple of weeks ago when Andrew brought up how much he'd liked the ones he'd started, and although he still had those untouched two, Andrew couldn't wait to see what else this brilliant motherfucker had in store for the PC gaming world. The only disappointing thing was that Jack refused to consider the idea of cross-platform, as he didn't care for consoles, and Andrew preferred them. That was fine, though—his computer handled the games he currently played well enough, although he had the sneaking suspicion that he'd need upgrades to handle the newer two and whatever else would be finished soon.
"It goes well," Jack said. He was quiet for a moment, then asked, "How is your band?"
"Pretty good. We just secured gigs at two bars this month—one of our guitarists is having a birthday party at one of them." He watched a pawn fall victim to a knight and his eyes flashed across the board, searching for retribution, even though that was how Jack always got him. "My girlfriend actually has the same birthday as he does, so a bunch of us were going to throw them both a party. You should come by—there won't be too many people there. Bunch of cool girls." He glanced up. "You're not seeing anyone, right?'
Jack didn't respond to this for so long that Andrew started to frown, hoping that he hadn't misstepped somehow; one had to be careful with this dude, who reminded him of his brother a lot. One thing would set him off, and Keith would more or less melt down and sometimes not recover for days. Jack moved slowly and hesitatingly over every word, every gesture, but Andrew thought he could tell when he wasn't okay.
"No," Jack said finally. "I am gay."
"Oh." Andrew waved this off, relieved that it wasn't something else. He wasn't too surprised that he hadn't known this yet—Jack kept so much to himself that Andrew hadn't even known his name until they had been playing chess together at the coffee shop at random intervals for over a month. "Well, there will be dudes there too—even ones that like other dudes. Actually."
He suddenly stopped and frowned again, thinking hard. Could this be the answer to his recent uneasiness? That would be almost too easy. Andrew saw a line appear on Jack's forehead and he smiled, not wanting him to think that he had a problem with gay dudes. As if!
"If you might be interested, I know someone that you might like," he said. "Brandon, our lead guitarist? He's gay, too, and I know he's not seeing anyone." Not officially, anyway. Jack didn't respond to this, so Andrew picked up his phone from where it sat next to his macchiato and selected the folder of pictures of their band that his girlfriend had taken, settling on one of just Brandon on stage, looking out to the crowd instead of at his guitar. He held out the phone, knowing that Jack wouldn't take it, but hoping that he would look. "You should come meet him," he said. "You'd like him. He's really smart and creative, and he's good with computers and shit like you are. I don't think he plays a lot of PC games—he likes consoles, like me—but he's done a lot of shit with, like, recording and demos and shit just by himself."
"He is attractive," Jack allowed. As he had leaned forward to see the picture and his head was titled down, Andrew could see his eyes from above his glasses and could tell that he was studying the picture closely.
"Sure," Andrew agreed. Well, he was, there was no denying that. "I'm sure he'd be willing to meet you somewhere quiet, even here. Then it would be up to you to decide to pursue it or not. He's good at respecting other people's boundaries when they have them."
That may have been the clincher. "All right," Jack said.
"Great," Andrew said, meaning it. Now if only he could get Brandon to agree. He thought he could, if he handled it just right. He'd definitely have to find him alone, which was going to be tricky just lately; Mark almost never left his side in the last few weeks.
He was distracted and didn't mind very much that he fell into three more of Jack's traps before conceding the game, having decided that if Brandon balked at this, for just about any reason, he was just going to have to ask him about them straight (well...) out, and demand that they either do something serious about it or knock it off. They thought they were so secretive, but Andrew had seen Luke and Kylen giving them long contemplative looks too, so he was, like, ninety-five percent sure that he wasn't making it up. The Something that was going on was either good or bad, nothing in between when it was two people that were already as close as they had been, and if they let it ride before deciding themselves, it was going to be bad, because that's how shit like that always turned out when it was more than just friends fucking around a couple of times: it had been going on for over a month, he was almost positive.
Maybe Brandon had been bored. It had been a long time since he'd had anyone to fuck around with, at least that Andrew knew of—it had been, like, half a year since he'd broken up with Johnny, maybe he missed having a boyfriend. Maybe this is what he needed, like taking away a shoe from a dog and giving it a bone instead to focus on. Whatever worked—and whatever those two had been doing wouldn't keep up for long. If Andrew was playing the master of puppets again, as Keith had warned him repeatedly before was not his place, at least it was for a good cause.
All hail the black king!, he thought, grinning and moving a rook to protect his king and to leave open his queen to menace the white knight.
Jack immediately moved the other white knight into position. "Checkmate," he said.
Timeline: Early March 2012
Title: Check
Summary: Andrew may have found the answer. (So what if no one else knew it was a question yet.)
~1.5k
Andrew studied the board for a good five minutes, thinking that there was no way. He looked and looked and didn't see a way that he could lose now, but as he reached for his bishop and moved it, Admiral Akbar shouted in his head that it was a trap. He glanced up, but the glasses blocked him from seeing where his opponent was looking, as they always did. He slowly removed his fingers from the piece, making his move final.
"Check," he said uncertainly.
Then: "Oh, fuck you." Because the corner of Jack's mouth quirked in his version of a smile.
Sure enough, just as Jack moved a knight to block the bishop's access to his king, this left Andrew's queen open to attack from a rook that had previously been hiding out in the background. He couldn't take the rook with the queen or she would then be taken by Jack's bishop, and the bishop would put his own king into check. Sure, he could then move the king, but without his queen, he was done, and the bishop, a knight, and Jack's queen would all be coming for him. It looked like he was done anyway, but he had nothing else to do today, and Chess Man didn't always agree to a second game.
As predicted, Jack put him into mate within five more moves. Andrew sighed and he tipped his king over. "I was close that time, though," he said.
Jack gave him the side smile again. "If you like."
"I am going to beat you again, Jack man. It'll happen," Andrew promised.
"So you have said."
"Want to play again?" Andrew asked hopefully.
Jack had been reaching for the captured pieces to the side of the board, probably to put them away, but he slowed and considered. "All right."
"Excellent!" Andrew brightened. He gestured to the counter. "I'm going to get another drink. Want anything?"
"No, thank you."
When Andrew returned, the pieces were all back in position. It was his turn to hold and Jack's turn to choose; he selected one of each color pawn and held them behind his back, switching them around until even he didn't remember which was which. He held both closed hands out, and Jack pointed to his left. Andrew opened his hand: white. Andrew was pleased, even though this gave Jack the first move advantage: he much preferred the romanticized version of the black king over the white knight.
"How's the new game?" he asked a few minutes later, when they had made their initial moves and new strategies were dependent on the other player. He'd been blown away to find out that this dude had created one of his all-time favorite computer games, one that a lot his friends also played and re-played to this day (and still, every once in a while, one of them would discover yet another alternate ending or course of events that would happen by just the exact right set of choices that the game offered). He'd immediately bought and downloaded the other three that were available and, so far, two of them hadn't even been touched because he'd been too busy winding through all of the possibilities and story lines of the first one.
Jack had mentioned that he was working on a new one a couple of weeks ago when Andrew brought up how much he'd liked the ones he'd started, and although he still had those untouched two, Andrew couldn't wait to see what else this brilliant motherfucker had in store for the PC gaming world. The only disappointing thing was that Jack refused to consider the idea of cross-platform, as he didn't care for consoles, and Andrew preferred them. That was fine, though—his computer handled the games he currently played well enough, although he had the sneaking suspicion that he'd need upgrades to handle the newer two and whatever else would be finished soon.
"It goes well," Jack said. He was quiet for a moment, then asked, "How is your band?"
"Pretty good. We just secured gigs at two bars this month—one of our guitarists is having a birthday party at one of them." He watched a pawn fall victim to a knight and his eyes flashed across the board, searching for retribution, even though that was how Jack always got him. "My girlfriend actually has the same birthday as he does, so a bunch of us were going to throw them both a party. You should come by—there won't be too many people there. Bunch of cool girls." He glanced up. "You're not seeing anyone, right?'
Jack didn't respond to this for so long that Andrew started to frown, hoping that he hadn't misstepped somehow; one had to be careful with this dude, who reminded him of his brother a lot. One thing would set him off, and Keith would more or less melt down and sometimes not recover for days. Jack moved slowly and hesitatingly over every word, every gesture, but Andrew thought he could tell when he wasn't okay.
"No," Jack said finally. "I am gay."
"Oh." Andrew waved this off, relieved that it wasn't something else. He wasn't too surprised that he hadn't known this yet—Jack kept so much to himself that Andrew hadn't even known his name until they had been playing chess together at the coffee shop at random intervals for over a month. "Well, there will be dudes there too—even ones that like other dudes. Actually."
He suddenly stopped and frowned again, thinking hard. Could this be the answer to his recent uneasiness? That would be almost too easy. Andrew saw a line appear on Jack's forehead and he smiled, not wanting him to think that he had a problem with gay dudes. As if!
"If you might be interested, I know someone that you might like," he said. "Brandon, our lead guitarist? He's gay, too, and I know he's not seeing anyone." Not officially, anyway. Jack didn't respond to this, so Andrew picked up his phone from where it sat next to his macchiato and selected the folder of pictures of their band that his girlfriend had taken, settling on one of just Brandon on stage, looking out to the crowd instead of at his guitar. He held out the phone, knowing that Jack wouldn't take it, but hoping that he would look. "You should come meet him," he said. "You'd like him. He's really smart and creative, and he's good with computers and shit like you are. I don't think he plays a lot of PC games—he likes consoles, like me—but he's done a lot of shit with, like, recording and demos and shit just by himself."
"He is attractive," Jack allowed. As he had leaned forward to see the picture and his head was titled down, Andrew could see his eyes from above his glasses and could tell that he was studying the picture closely.
"Sure," Andrew agreed. Well, he was, there was no denying that. "I'm sure he'd be willing to meet you somewhere quiet, even here. Then it would be up to you to decide to pursue it or not. He's good at respecting other people's boundaries when they have them."
That may have been the clincher. "All right," Jack said.
"Great," Andrew said, meaning it. Now if only he could get Brandon to agree. He thought he could, if he handled it just right. He'd definitely have to find him alone, which was going to be tricky just lately; Mark almost never left his side in the last few weeks.
He was distracted and didn't mind very much that he fell into three more of Jack's traps before conceding the game, having decided that if Brandon balked at this, for just about any reason, he was just going to have to ask him about them straight (well...) out, and demand that they either do something serious about it or knock it off. They thought they were so secretive, but Andrew had seen Luke and Kylen giving them long contemplative looks too, so he was, like, ninety-five percent sure that he wasn't making it up. The Something that was going on was either good or bad, nothing in between when it was two people that were already as close as they had been, and if they let it ride before deciding themselves, it was going to be bad, because that's how shit like that always turned out when it was more than just friends fucking around a couple of times: it had been going on for over a month, he was almost positive.
Maybe Brandon had been bored. It had been a long time since he'd had anyone to fuck around with, at least that Andrew knew of—it had been, like, half a year since he'd broken up with Johnny, maybe he missed having a boyfriend. Maybe this is what he needed, like taking away a shoe from a dog and giving it a bone instead to focus on. Whatever worked—and whatever those two had been doing wouldn't keep up for long. If Andrew was playing the master of puppets again, as Keith had warned him repeatedly before was not his place, at least it was for a good cause.
All hail the black king!, he thought, grinning and moving a rook to protect his king and to leave open his queen to menace the white knight.
Jack immediately moved the other white knight into position. "Checkmate," he said.