Title: Meeting and passing
Pairing: Angier/Borden, Angier/Fallon
Rating: R
Summary: I'm Alfred Borden. I'm Alfred Borden's. I'm Alfred Borden's darkest secret.
Disclaimer: Not mine
A/N: This wouldn't stop nagging at the back of my head.
He's on a dark street on the worst side of town, following Alfred Borden as if he was his shadow. But he's not a shadow. He's Alfred Borden. Or, if you want to be accurate, he's his reflection.
He's not a shadow. He's Alfred Borden, just not right now. He keeps chanting that as he walks faster.
He's the first one to kiss Angier, though only by chance. It's the first day he's ever meet him, and suddenly he's against a wall, soft, insistent lips against his own, and he thinks he should have been warned.
He gasps on surprise, and watch Angier's eyes, a blue so dark it's almost black, and gaves in.
He sees Albert's eyes go almost as dark as he tells him what happened. He gives the details on a detached, casual way, and pretends not to notice the way his brother won't look at him until he changes his shirt and the marks are covered again. It doesn't matter. What Albert doesn't understand is that it wasn't mean for Freddie, but it wasn't mean for him either; the name Angier uttered was Alfred, and that's theirs both.
The inn is small and he would have missed it if he hadn't been given the directions beforehand; he walks in and asks for a room, though he does not intend to stay inside it. He walks the narrow hallway and finds the right one; his own voice is hard to miss, as well as the other one he knows so well.
He does not need to be there when he's with Sarah, but this is theirs, more than anything. The room, as Albert made sure, communicates with the next, empty one, and then Freddie stands, hears the murmurs and the sighs and the whisper of flesh on flesh.
He does not need to see to know how Angier's eyes will stare into his the whole time, and will not close until the last possible second; or how they will shine, like the darkest sea (he saw the sea at night once, when he was a child, and was terrified. Then he meet Angier, and finally drowned on it). He hears the silence later, the rushed sound of clothes been put back in, and the final, inevitable, roughly murmured question.
And, for that, he's not there, because he could answer that one; but he will keep that particular torture for himself. He silently opens the door and goes away the first this time.
He'll be the one looking away tonight, but that's how things are meant to be for them. He goes again into the darkness, whispering to himself. I'm Alfred Borden. I'm Alfred Borden's. I'm Alfred Borden's darkest secret.