Agony
Title: Agony
Author: adina_anne
Rating: PG/K+ (for implied death)
Spoilers: Through the last moment of The Prestige.
I didn't slow down as I opened the door, not even when I nodded at the man wrapped in the thick jacket. He walked past me and into the decrepit theater without hesitation. He too had lost his humanity.
"Cutter?!" Came the faint call from the depths of the theater. A few moments later, a gun shot. I sighed quietly, ignoring the last words I would hear from a man I had once considered a life-long friend and partner. After Julia's death, he was the only one who could save my career, and he did. Willingly. But he tricked me into helping him avenge her death.
Yes, I had seen Alfred Borden steal below stage that night. Yes, the lock on the tank in which Julia had died had been real the night in question. And yes, I had seen Robert Angier's body lying in the morgue. Everything I said in court that day had been the truth to the best of my knowledge, but it had all been lies.
Obsession will destroy a man. This time it had destroyed two, or three or several depending on how how many top hats lay on that hill in Colorado. Part of Alfred had always been rogue and wild, but I should have seen that same beast which grew uncontrollably in Robert and I should have killed it then. None of this would have come to pass. Let sleeping dogs lie, or see how ferocious they truly can be.
I suppose had I just walked away from that table, had the card fallen off the bottom of the glass before it was handed to Robert, not much would have changed. Sarah would still have discovered Alfred's secret. My trifling did not cause her death. But Alfred would still be alive. Robert wouldn't be lying on the theater floor with a bullet in his chest, nor would he be floating in his wife's grave a hundred times over.
Obsession will not just destroy a man; it will destroy the lives of everyone around them. Alfred, Sarah, Julia and Robert are all lifeless in one sense or another. My career is over as it should have been ten years ago. Jess is the least affected, but growing up without a mother, and with a father who was killed by the state... That is still no life for a child.
Alfred walked out of the theater rather quickly but then stood, looking through the rusted bars crossing the front entrance. His face was a mask of confusion. He must have discovered how dirty Robert's hands have gotten in the name of magic. Alfred was the magician, Robert the performer. Both of them were obsessed. He ran off, the obsession finally having run out.
I helped Robert kill Alfred. And I helped Alfred kill Robert. I twice told Robert about a sailor who had described drowning to me. He said it was like agony. Whatever the past ten years of my life were, they were not like going home.
Author: adina_anne
Rating: PG/K+ (for implied death)
Spoilers: Through the last moment of The Prestige.
I didn't slow down as I opened the door, not even when I nodded at the man wrapped in the thick jacket. He walked past me and into the decrepit theater without hesitation. He too had lost his humanity.
"Cutter?!" Came the faint call from the depths of the theater. A few moments later, a gun shot. I sighed quietly, ignoring the last words I would hear from a man I had once considered a life-long friend and partner. After Julia's death, he was the only one who could save my career, and he did. Willingly. But he tricked me into helping him avenge her death.
Yes, I had seen Alfred Borden steal below stage that night. Yes, the lock on the tank in which Julia had died had been real the night in question. And yes, I had seen Robert Angier's body lying in the morgue. Everything I said in court that day had been the truth to the best of my knowledge, but it had all been lies.
Obsession will destroy a man. This time it had destroyed two, or three or several depending on how how many top hats lay on that hill in Colorado. Part of Alfred had always been rogue and wild, but I should have seen that same beast which grew uncontrollably in Robert and I should have killed it then. None of this would have come to pass. Let sleeping dogs lie, or see how ferocious they truly can be.
I suppose had I just walked away from that table, had the card fallen off the bottom of the glass before it was handed to Robert, not much would have changed. Sarah would still have discovered Alfred's secret. My trifling did not cause her death. But Alfred would still be alive. Robert wouldn't be lying on the theater floor with a bullet in his chest, nor would he be floating in his wife's grave a hundred times over.
Obsession will not just destroy a man; it will destroy the lives of everyone around them. Alfred, Sarah, Julia and Robert are all lifeless in one sense or another. My career is over as it should have been ten years ago. Jess is the least affected, but growing up without a mother, and with a father who was killed by the state... That is still no life for a child.
Alfred walked out of the theater rather quickly but then stood, looking through the rusted bars crossing the front entrance. His face was a mask of confusion. He must have discovered how dirty Robert's hands have gotten in the name of magic. Alfred was the magician, Robert the performer. Both of them were obsessed. He ran off, the obsession finally having run out.
I helped Robert kill Alfred. And I helped Alfred kill Robert. I twice told Robert about a sailor who had described drowning to me. He said it was like agony. Whatever the past ten years of my life were, they were not like going home.