who dreamt and made incarnate gaps in Time & Space
through images juxtaposed, and trapped the
archangel of the soul between 2 visual images
and joined the elemental verbs and set the noun
and dash of consciousness together jumping
with sensation of Pater Omnipotens Aeterna
Deus
"Is he alright?" asks Near, worriedly into the phone.
"His ankle's broken and he's unconscious, but his pulse is good and he's breathing."
"You need to get him out of there." Nervous and wiry, and none of them can stand the thought of L getting hurt, of L being hurt, of him unconscious and unable to sit and help and think and judge and swoop in and save them with his gigantic, overarching intellect.
"Thank you, Near, yes, I did figure that one out on my own."
Chapter Twenty One.
November 4th (barely)
The Underground
London
"Back the fuck away from the bomb, Zorro."
V glances up, just awake enough to feel faintly indignant at the interruption. Not to mention the nickname. Mello stares at him, smiling from behind his gun, and shrugging languidly. It's easy for him, V thinks, it isn't his dream that's been sacrificed on the cruel rocks of L's morality tonight.
The regret is bone deep, but he does not think, even now, that he would undo it.
"I'm dismantling it," he explains, patiently, "you don't have to worry." As though Mello was worrying at all. The young man lifts a chocolate bar to his lips, of all things, and bites off a piece. V feels a little bit more indignant. No one should be that nonchalente.
"It's thirty two past eleven," Mello says, as though this still means something. V stares at him, glad that he doesn't have to school his expressions. Mello promised once to kill him, if they ever met on their own. For what he did to Matt and if he ever hurt L, and he's certainly hurt L some throughout this.
From the glint in the blue eyes, it looks like he's considering it.
"Get out of the train."
Because he has no reason not to, and because curiosity is rearing it's head to war with despair and frustration, V does. The barrel of the gun lowers, as though it made any difference to begin with, and Mello glances through the doors of the train, then back at V. He slips the chocolate bar into the pocket of his jacket, and sidles into the train.
It would be fairly easy for V to take him out from behind as he inspected the explosives, but he does not. He just watches Mello explore, and knows, from the parts he examines and the parts he does not, that the man knows something about bombs.
Probably just as much as V does, if not more. But then, he is L's apprentice. V isn't really surprised that he's just as unorthodox as his bedfellow. He sizes up the way Mello moves, the set of his shoulders, the casual grip on the gun and the singing tension, and tries to contrast it against Matt's peaceful ease.
"These are impressive," Mello observes, emerging from the compartment. He has one of V's long stemmed roses between his fingers, swinging, blossom down, like a pendulum. He's playing with it unconsciously, clever and nimble.
V watches it's progress and imagines a clock. He looks up at Mello's face and half expects to see the time being counted down.
"I'm not going to kill you," Mello says, "I just want to talk to you. To help you, even."
V cocks his head to the side. "That's a rather drastic change of tune," he observes, and Mello shrugs, spinning the rose in a circle, like a baton.
"Is L alright? Is Sutler?"
V considers lying to him, to see if Mello would shoot him or not, but instead answers honestly,
"They both are. I can tell you where, if you need to go retrieve them." He left L stranded up on a beam, didn't he? With his arms bound. The man will have no way of getting down from there on his own, not unless he manages to undo the knots, and V doesn't think that will be possible.
"We already know." Mello shrugs again, and gives him a cocky little grin. "Matt's gone to get them. Near figured out where you'd be meeting Creedy."
Ah, yes. N. V wonders if it's an accident that it's L M N, and decides it couldn't possibly. At least he knows if there's an O, that it'll be practically a preteen. He isn't precisely sure why his mind is wandering. It's probably to avoid facing the truth of the moment; everything he was has come to nothing.
"Eleven thirty eight," Mello observes, glancing down at his watch, "so are we going to blow this shit up, or what?"
For a long, nearly hysterical moment, V isn't even sure that he's heard right. The childish part of him wants to answer 'or what.' But Mello continues.
"Because there's a lot of people out there wearing your face right now, walking for you and relying on you, and those are some very, very pretty explosives and I honestly think that there's a building out there that could do with blowing up."
"Without Sutler, it's just a building," V replies, uncertain. Mello is still twirling his rose. He flicks his hair out of his eyes with the thumb of the hand holding the gun, and slides it smoothly out of sight somewhere.
"Nah," he replies, "that's not right at all." He turns away and sits, on one of the old benches, that used to be commonly used when people moved through here, before it all closed down. V stays standing, watching Mello's curious poise, and bright eyed earnestness. He wonders if, under the anger and itchy trigger finger, and resentment and everything, Mello might not be the tiniest bit naive.
If he is, he probably keeps it hidden. But then, he wears his rosary around his neck, plain as day. So maybe he doesn't. Maybe he isn't, maybe it's all just a figment of V's overstrained imagination.
"Look." Mello leans forwards, resting an arm on his knee and curling a loose fist around the rose stem, "do you have any idea how many people are up there?"
V shakes his head, no. He imagined that there would be thousands, in his grandest plans, but if they're already gone amok then it could be any number.
"Thousands," replies Mello, with acid-washed earnestness, childish excitement clothed in peculiar sadism. "And this is all something you've built. But it's bigger than Sutler, and whether he's dead or not. It's bigger than you, too, whether or not you created it. Not to go all Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde on you and everything, but your creation is knocking on the door and it wants fire."
V has never read Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. It was banned, for being obscene, and he's never got his hands on it, despite his best efforts. That and 1984.
"Not in a bloody mob way, but man, I was out there, and these people really, really need a boom to rally around. You can't disappoint them."
Pyromania clothed in revolutionary idealism, V thinks, and nearly laughs. Mello smells the scarlet carson, inhaling deeply and glancing back at his train. At London's train, as he should probably be thinking of it.
Mello really is right.
"How long will it take?"
"We should set it off the moment the bells strike." Yes, they should. No doubt they will, too, because Mello has convinced him. And he knows it, too, given the grin V receives.
"Fuck yes."
Now, all there is to do is to wait. Mello picks up a cell phone, and starts talking into it in Japanese- he's fairly sure they're all communicating in this language because L is most comfortable with it, or perhaps because V's uncomfortable with it. He catches Matt's name, and Near's, he thinks, but can't be sure.
The call doesn't take more than two minutes. They sit in silence for a little while longer, until eventually, V finds it in him to ask;
"So why again, is it, that you aren't trying to kill me?" Mello had been very specific, after all, and while there is no barbed wire on hand, V has no difficulty imagining that Mello would be able to come up with some sort of grizzly alternative.
"Oh," replies Mello, breezily, "Matt thinks you're cool. Matt's always a better judge than me about that kind of thing. I do plans, he does people, I do intimidation, he does negotiation. We've got the yin yang thing going on, I know better than to fuck with it. I'm really a very zen person, in my own way." So earnestly said that it can't possibly be anything but tongue in cheek. Mello will never be described as 'zen.'
V is fairly sure that this isn't the real reason, but is prepared to let it drop. He watches instead Mello's hands, continuing to play with his rose.
"What will you do once this is over?" Mello asks, curiously, and V is drawn up extremely short. He doubts very much that Mello is going to let him ride that train, no matter how much he might want to. That leaves him stuck with having to come up with an answer.
"Catch up on my reading," he eventually manages, "tend my roses, probably aid whatever government rises out of the ashes in sticking to the straight and narrow. Probably with a different face, and as much from the shadows as possible, but... it might be nice to see England's first few steps."
"Yeah," Mello agrees, "hey, if you're looking for something good, pick up Brave New World. Or, um, Sherlock Holmes, or 1984."
V just has to laugh. Mello, he can tell, isn't quite sure why, but grins in return.
The deep sound of the bells rings through the room. The time has crept up on them, sudden and swift.
"Hickory dickory dock, baby," Mello jumps to his feet, and gestures sweepingly at the train, "you do the honours. Then let's get up high where we can see the show."
V, breath in his throat, walks to the train and throws the switch, stepping out with only the tiniest bit of regret. Mello grabs him by the hand and starts dragging him up to a reasonable vantage point.
This is what it feels like to be poised on the brink.
About three minutes previous.
Matt stands up, climbing out of the chair at the side of L's couch. He's set the detective's foot, back in the apartment, because they can't very well go to a nurse and hope to find one on a night where all the city is out walking. Not to mention one who would take care of someone who isn't technically allowed to be within the country.
But that's alright, he's more than competent enough at medicine to set a bone. He learned as much as he could after figuring out that Mello was never, ever going to stop getting nearly blown to smithereens and the only thing to do was to know how to stitch him back up..
L's eyes open, slowly, and Matt hears Near shoot out of his chair, and to L's side. He turns and watches, as L's face breaks in a tentative, triumphant smile. His eyes slip past Near, and to the clock on the wall, and Matt follows his gaze and reads the expression on his face.
"I'll carry you," he says, walking forwards, rather than wasting time on an argument he won't win. "Near, get the door. We've got two minutes to get onto the roof."
They make it with seconds to spare, stepping out onto the gravel top as the first bars of 1812 begin to flare. Matt sets L gently on his good foot, keeping an arm around him to take most of his weight. Near claims his other hand, because it's been a year. The music swells, the tension stretches, and L feels his breath catch painfully in his throat.
So does V, buildings and ages away.
The first crash echoes through the very ground. Music and explosions, in unison. Near feels it rocking through him like a frenzied heartbeat, and Matt feels something in his heart soar. Mello whispers a small 'yes,' under his breath, and V grins behind his mask.
L has to close his eyes, and the glow of the flames paints his face orange, even from this distance. Matt watches the explosions and Near watches L, just for a moment, before turning back to the fireworks now shooting into the sky.
It's so beautiful, think thousands of people, lost in a colossal, moral unison. Standing together, spirits lifted, hearts echoing with the music. Their minds resound together, and even miles away, Evey Hammond tosses in her sleep and dreams of fire.
V slips out while Mello watches the explosions, filled with a peculiar heat and pride and awesome, powerful joy.
L sags back into Matt's arms, and lets himself be carried back inside without protest, ankle throbbing, heat in his cheeks. He swallows the chalky pill he's given, and closes his eyes, sure that he'll be able to sleep, even through the noises of the glad mob racing haphazardly through the streets.
Freedom has come back to England.
V has gone back to his Shadow Gallery.
L is properly unconscious, not just napping or drowsing, for the first time in a month.
Mello is on his way home, and Matt is waiting anxiously for him on the doorstep, wanting a cigarette and not having one, because he's racing Mello to twenty five.
Near is slowly and deliberately making ants on a log.
Evey is waking up, slowly and with a smile.
November Fifth has dawned, and the that morning sun rises through the smoke of the explosions and on a changed world.
[AN: I feel the need to mention again at this point how beautiful Allen Ginsberg is and how in love I am with that poem, and how creepily it has sometimes fit this humble plot. Also, how freaked out I am at the word count of this beast. It's HUGE.