The Cobra's Gaze and Bite [Cobra Commander x OC]

Entry 06 : Best Friends

Entry 06 : Best Friends

09 | 1330 | Z | JAN | 21

A month later found Rex and I sitting in the Patient Common Area of the Underground Hospital. It was a spacious area, a small cafeteria on the east side and long tables with benches for seats with some plain plastic-on-metal chairs at round tables. There were snack and drink vending machines against a wall too, a popular stop for both staff and patients. That side was a drab grey-colored theme and not incredibly inviting.

The west side however, the side that took up the most space, was a little more so. There had been a dominant grey color on the walls and the carpet, but there were landscape paintings hanging up and about half of the cushioned chairs were a deep red while the other half were a lighter grey color than the floor and walls. It was an interesting series of choices on the designer's part, to say the least.

It had been an hour since our last physical therapy session and Dr. Pershing had given us an improved prognosis'. We could tell for ourselves as this month came to a close, impressive progress had been made by the both of us.

With his improving posture, Rex's gait has become smoother and straighter, but not quite as the average man. After over a month of working with a speech therapist, spending more time talking instead of using gestures his overall body language and his voice no longer sounded as hoarse as it did early on. Sadly, according to both Dr. Pershing and the speech therapist, Rex would never lose that raspy edge to his voice, and because of the accident, his throat had been severely damaged by the smoke and fire, leaving him scarred.

I had given Rex a worried look, but he gave me one that said he wasn't upset by the prognosis. He hadn't expected to return to what he looked like before his accident at all.

Concerning myself, it was getting easier to maintain a grip on a pen with my right hand, writing for longer periods of time. My shoulder would go stiff often if I kept it in a position for too long, and it would start to hurt if I got too stressed in a situation. The exercises Dr. Cox had given me to do helped with that, as did the normal over-the-counter painkillers, and I had been off the prescription ones for over a week now. Everything was going well for Rex and I, and it felt good to finally be seeing real, noticeable progress.

But now we were relaxing as Rex and I sat across from each other at the end of one of the long tables. Well, one of us was relaxing anyway and I was damn sure that Rex had a smirk under that mask of his and he definitely had a smug look in his eyes.

I was regretting that I ever agreed to play chess with him.

Sighing, I looked at where our pieces currently were on the board, his white, mine black, and I tried to figure out what he was doing and how I could counter what he might do.

It started out with his pawn from E2 to E4. I countered with my pawn E7 to E5. His next move was his bishop from F1 to C4, and mine was my knight from G8 to F6. Rex then moved his queen from D1 diagonally to H5. And now, it was my move and I stared at the board like it was going to give me an answer anytime soon. Another sigh and I moved my other knight from B8 to C6. I looked up at Rex, seeing if I made a right move and I hoped I could finally make him nervous about potentially losing a game to me.

It looked like my winning streak would never have a beginning as there was a very victorious look in his brown eyes. Rex then calmly picked up his queen and said, "Queen to F7," placed it on the intended white square and returned his gaze to me. "And checkmate."

"Why are you so good at this?" I groaned, leaning back in my chair and throwing my left arm over my eyes.

"Practice Lefty," He chuckled, calling me by the nickname he decided to give me after I called him Darth Vader. He said it was because of all the times I've complained about having to write with my non-dominant hand. "And years of practice."