Movie Nights
Children of Men
A/N – This is where the story starts to deviate from the movie a bit. In the movie they didn't see each other 'til the fifth, but I've decided to change that up a bit AND I HAVE ADDED A SUBPLOT!
Evey was looking through the new batch of fiction that had arrived that morning, a nonsense tune ambling though her head. It had been a pleasant day, not wonderful, not exciting, but not horrible. She trailed a finger along the spine of Twelfth Night when a movement caught her eye. The door to the shop opened, the overhead bell tinkling as a young girl of about eleven in a pink sweater and pigtails hesitantly slid in. She looked up with expectant eyes, and Evey knew exactly what she wanted.
"Do you have anymore cans of red?" the young girl asked, anxiously shifting from foot to foot.
Evey nodded and walked behind the counter, shuffling a few boxes aside to reveal a crate of red spray paint cans, tucked away inconspicuously in a flat screen tellie box. Handing it over, she looked at the girl sternly. "Where did you get it?"
"Mister Coolie at the cinema."
Evey nodded. "Good girl. Off with you." The doorbell rang again as the girl scampered off, leaving Evey to continue searching through her new shipment box. Lovely Bones, Joy of Cooking, Scarpetta, all of them repeats, she sighed to herself. Pulling out the books, she found the false bottom her supplier would stick in all the crates. Beneath it could be anything-books, academic dissertations, journals, poetry, and by far her favorite, movies.
Feeling like a kid on Christmas, she gently pulled out the false bottom to find, to her surprise, ten DVDs smuggled from the US and a copy of The Anarchist's Cookbook. She couldn't help but stifle a laugh at that, thinking of the only anarchist she knew. Satisfied with the new shipment, she picked up the more controversial material and moved it into the rather claustrophobic storage space behind the staircase that led up to her flat.
The front bell tinkled once again and she turned to see a sight that struck fear in the hearts of Londoners.
A Fingerman.
Gloved hands dropped the blinds at the front of the shop as she let her hand slide inconspicuously to the pistol she had under the counter just for these circumstances.
"I am open right now, but don't let me stop you."
He smiled, flipping the window sign to 'closed, 'flashing a black and red double cross badge. "Not anymore you're not, Evey Hammond." I know that voice, she thought as relief washed over her.
"V!" she said as she dropped her hand from the pistol under the counter.
He bowed regally to her.
"Shit! I almost shot you, you bloody man!"
"And one day a Fingerman will shoot you too if you keep dispensing spray cans to children." He retorted, the latex mask he wore crinkling around his mouth and the corner of his eyes as he frowned.
"Now, where is it?"
She quirked an eyebrow at him. He sighed.
"Your false bottom crate. Where is it?"
"How-"
V cut her off, "You're hardly the only book keeper in the city that gets them, Evey."
Letting off a puff of frustration, she led him over to the storage area, pulling back the curtain. V dropped to his knees while nodding his approval, looking over her impressive collection of contraband. Evey looked down at the kneeling vigilante and noticed his disguise wasn't quite complete; the makeup covering his neck had begun to come off, revealing raised red and white scars crisscrossing the nape of his neck.
Without realizing it, she reached down to evenly distribute what was left of his makeup and found her hand crushed in his tight grip, his whole body wheeling around to face her, eyes locking on hers. His eyes, she thought, looking into their golden hazel the color of tiger's eye before he averted them from her gaze.
His free hand drifted to his neck absently before examining his makeup caked hand. "Do you have a room where I can touch this up?"
She nodded before leading him up the stairs, his hand still clutching hers. "Makeup's in top right drawer of the counter if you need it. Try not to make a mess." He thanked her before gently shutting the door, and she had to hold her laughter at the thought of V going through and using her own makeup supplies.
After much shuffling and drawer shifting, V emerged from the washroom with his skullcap pulled further down his neck, the top of the cap resting precariously close to the fringe where latex met skin. "That's better." He exclaimed lamely. "Now, back to rummaging?" Already slipping down the stairs and away from her.
She watched with amusement as he meticulously piled his finds around the floor, stopping every now and again to consider if he had that particular book or movie, the dissertations and journals left untouched. When Evey saw him pause for a prolonged period, she walked over to see what had so fully captivated his attention.
"I think I have the book for this back in the Gallery," he said no louder than a whisper. It was a DVD from last week's shipment, entitled Children of Men.
"What's it about?"
He handed her the case before pushing himself up from the ground. "Everyone in the world becomes infertile except for a single woman and a group of rebels take great pains from letting the government get to her or her unborn child." He gently plucked the DVD from her hands, stuffing it under the bulletproof vest he wore under his jacket. His other hand flew to his breast pocket, pulling what looked to be a credit card.
"Should you wish, the Gallery is always open to you," he said, taking her petite hand his large gloved one, placing what she now identified as an electronic key in her hand before folding her fingers delicately over it, "Take the Victoria tube station and follow it for about a kilometer. Turn left at the end, and slide this horizontally between three yellowed bricks to the right of a steel plated door at the first emergency exit tube." With that he left, turning the business sign to 'open' as he did so.
At precisely ten that evening, an hour before the real Fingermen began their prowling, Evey locked the shop and grabbed a small flashlight, running across the street to the Victoria tube station before anyone could spot her.
Jumping down onto the tracks, jogging onwards at a light pace, her flashlight beam bouncing along in time as she moved further into the decommissioned underground. Finally she came to the junction of which V stated, hanging a left along the gentle curve of the tracks, looking for the emergency exit tube.
Finding the door, she slid the key between the bricks, hearing the electronic chirp of whatever security system he installed and the sliding of the many locks that kept outsiders where they belonged.
The warmth and light of the Gallery enveloped her as she stepped over the doorsill; the sound of a cello seemed to vibrate through her chest as she stepped to the center of the Gallery. More art had accumulated in the halls, but with no space on the walls V had resorted to stacking them up behind one another with a small slice of foam to keep the frames from grinding against each other.
The music stopped behind her as a chair creaked and boots clicked against stone. He stood by the piano, much like their first encounter in the Gallery, though this time she was here by her own choice and his own invitation.
"Evey."
"I never knew you could play the cello."
"Ah." He breathed, and for just a moment she could almost see the thoughtful expression beneath Fawkes's smile. "That would be because I just acquired one last week.
"But please," he stepped aside with a hand held outward towards the tellie room, "I was just about to start the movie if you would care to watch it with me."
"Just like old times?"
He pulled her to him, draping her hand over his arm and leading her towards the tellie room. "Even more so."
A book copy of Children of Men sat on the coffee table that Evey grabbed, settling down next to V as he propped his feet up, his arm resting on the back of the sofa as was his ritual.
She read over the synopsis, "You didn't tell me this took place in England."
"I believe just about every movie taking place in a near or post-apocalyptic world takes place in England." He drawled in his uniquely scholarly way.
"Name one."
"28 Days Later, 28 Weeks Later, Day of the Triffids…need I go on?"
She rolled her eyes and considered before finally agreeing. The damn man always has to be right, she thought.
"Don't looked so miffed, Evey. In the future, you will get to be the know-it-all." He said mysteriously, pressing a gloved finger to her lips to prevent a retort.
A world of crumbling infrastructure and social deterioration unfolded before them, set in a world twenty years ahead of its time. It was a world of dreadfully solemn people, where the last form of hope against human extinction came in the form of an eighteen-year-old Brazilian man who had been stabbed outside of a bar.
"People have never been able to think of a future without themselves at the center of it." V said beside her after a while.
"No, I suppose not." She said as a very familiar face came on screen, "I've seen that man before."
"Certainly not alive seeing as he is obviously a black man."
"No, no, not in real life. When I was staying with Gordon we watched a movie about a drag queen and he was the drag queen." Yes, she was quite certain now that she kept watching. The same voice, the same scars across his forehead. V shrugged next to her, focused more on the motorcyclists shooting at the transport car.
Evey flinched slightly when Julian was shot in the neck and she could feel V tense slightly as his arm dropped slightly, holding her around the shoulders almost…possessively? Was that what she would call it?
By this time in the movie, Evey was beginning to lose interest though V was entirely engrossed in it. It was by her luck that when they finally met the pregnant woman they were all steadfastly trying to protect that Evey winced and V just happened to see, chuckling.
"What?"
"You flinched."
"The idea of pregnancy does not hold much charm for me. You spend nine months waddling around, vomiting and having a sore back, when in the end-"
"You could have a devil of a child." He finished for her.
She smiled seeing that he understood. "Yeah. Exactly." He chuckled softly, squeezing her shoulder as she leaned into his, happy he didn't flinch away from the contact.
"V."
"Hmm?"
"One day we should watch The Salt Flats together."
He remained silent for a while and she wished she could at least see his eyes just to see what he was thinking, or at least staring at while doing so. "I regret to say I do not have a copy of it. It was already a small independent film with not many copies around, so it wouldn't surprise me if Sutler managed to truly destroy all of them." He hung his head sadly. Evey sighed softly, also saddened that she would probably never see the true face of the woman who had brought the both of them so much freedom.
All out war waged on screen now; the Fishes had launched their attack on the refugee camp Theo and Kee had slipped into, the fact that they were running around carrying a newborn child was not aiding in their escape as the British Army tanks crawled closer. It made her wonder what it would be like after the 5th. Would the military stage a coup? Would the people rise up and take back their country? Would nothing change? Somehow, she thought V was thinking the exact same thing and she squeezed the gloved hand that rested on her shoulder tenderly in acknowledgement of his unsaid thoughts.
They watched Theo died quietly in the rowboat as screen faded to black. Movie over, the two of them stood in unison, the clock in the center hall signaling that it was now one in the morning. Ejecting the disc from the media player and placing it back in its case and handed it back to Evey.
"Am I a video rental service now?" She said as she placed it safely in her shoulder bag.
"No. More of a video borrowing service; renting implies I exchange it for money, which I did not."
"But borrowing implies that you asked for permission, which you did not. So V, I do believe you stole it from me."
"And I nonetheless returned it back to you, hence borrowing." She heard a genuine smile as wide as Guy Fawkes from under the mask. He walked with her towards the entrance, pulling his hat, cape and knife belt from the coat stand next to the door as if to follow her out.
"V you don't have to-" he waved her off.
"I completely insist," he said as he propped the door open for her, "You would be surprised by how much activity there is in the tunnels at night." He gripped her hand as he led her down the pitch-black tunnels he had memorized over the years. His pace was steady, almost leisurely, but he remained completely silent. Walking beside him, Evey couldn't help but feel like an elephant with heavy footsteps while V seemed to make none.
Escorting her to the very end, she opened the door to the shop, V remaining outside, his cape and large frame hiding Evey from any prying eyes that might come upon them.
"Until next time, sweet Eve." He bowed and touched the lips of the mask to her hand, the both of them quite certain there would be a next time.