Never Know Courtly Love
This is just a little drabble piece I wrote during a bout of insomnia. One shot V/Evey, nothing too special, but hey, I like it.
"Love me, love me, say that you love me. Fool me, fool me, go on and fool me. Love me, love me, pretend that you love me. Leave me, leave me, just say that you need me. I can't care about anything about you"—The Cardigans
Heartache, it was a luxury he afforded himself in such small snippets. V believed, for a time, that he could no longer feel anything, not pain, joy, regret, sorrow…love. Devotion was all he had, devotion to his cause…and to Valerie. Now there was a love, and unconditional love that had been given to him when all he had know was hate.
It was a borderline obsession, and he was too far gone to even realize it, but he didn't care. His life was meaningless, he need only accomplish his goal; need only to avenge the life he had lost, avenge the life of the only person to love him unconditionally.
But then he'd met Evey. He stood, standing in the doorway, his tall black outline barley visible against the darkness behind him, looking at her.
She had fallen asleep in one of the many high back, red velvet chairs in the gallery. In her outstretched hand she held a book, The Complete Works Of Edgar Allen Poe. A fitting choice given the storm raging on above them, through the layers of concrete and soil he could hear the thunder.
Once upon a midnight dreary, he though wryly, and not without a small sense of irony, while I pondered weak, and weary.
There was a loud crack as a stray bit of lighting hit the rod on the tower above them, Evey shifted ever so slightly, her forehead knitting in concern, she murmured in coherently. It was cold in the gallery and growing colder as the ground around them chills with the rain, and she curls up tighter under the blanket.
There it was…he could feel it…that dull heartache. He felt it every time he looked at her, every time he thought about her. His mind had wandered through a dark limbo for so long, single minded in everything. There was just the need to accomplish his goal, and then the heartache. At first it had been painful, almost as sharp as little needles pricking at his chest; he didn't know how he could live with the feeling. But, then he realized the source, Evey. Now it was a dull throbbing that refused to leave him unless they were together. Did she not realize how he suffered for her? Probably not, he suspected she viewed him as more of a father figure than as a friend…or anything else. He did not mind it, though, in truth he preferred it; this silent adoration, this courtly love. That was what it was, wasn't it?
Courtly love was the idea that a noble man (himself) would dedicate his life to the love of a lady (Valerie, Evey, London, or even Madame Justice). Such a love could not exist within marriage (obviously), it was believed, but had to be love from afar. He loved from a far, Valerie and now Evey…both equally unattainable.
He moved to the chair she was in, and considered taking her back to her room, but that would risk waking her. He instead decided to take the book out of her hand so she might be able to position herself better. Then he saw that she was sitting on another book, Le Morte d'Arthur. He couldn't help but smile.
Evey stirred in her sleep, and rubbed one sleepy fist against her eye. She yawned and stretched, scratching the back of her neck. "V?" She asked groggily, "Is it storming?"
The mask smiled warmly, "You powers of observation never cease to amaze even me."
"Were you teasing me so early, or is it late?" She looked sleepily around the gallery as though to snatch some answer out of the darkness. "My perception of time it so warped down here."
"Ah, so the great detective Evey is at last stumped," he said, appalled in mock melodrama. Evey couldn't suppress a giggle at his antics; he always made her smile with his psychosis. "I must confess myself surprised at this turn of events. I'll have you know, that it is 5:12 in the morning."
"How in the world did that happen?" She wondered, saying out loud just to hear her own voice.
"Well a very long time ago a roman named—"
"Oh that's not what I meant and you know it. I mean I don't usually wake up at random like this—Oh! I remember…I was having a dream." Her still sleep clouded mind raced with the detail of the dream: a smiling face, bullets, and there had been blood, lots of blood. Her breath caught in her throat, no dream; a nightmare.
V stepped to her, concerned, "What sort of dream, Evey?"
"Well, I can't remember a lot of it, it's just that…" she trailed off sheepishly.
"Yes?"
"You were in it."
A black gloved had stroked the painted goatee, "Why, madam I am flattered to have graced you slumber."
Evey waved at him dismissively, now fully concerned with unraveling the detail, "Murder!" she yelled, V stepped back as though she had struck him. Evey saw his reaction, and was surprise. She amended quickly, "No, not you! I'm sorry, I meant there was a murderer, and someone killed you!" She gasped. "V it was terrible!"
He relaxed visibly and knelt down in front of her. He never believed in coincidences. He cupped her small chin with his black gloved hand and said as soothingly as he could, "Evey I can assure you, I do not plan on being murdered any time soon." V never lied.
Evey looked into the dark eye slits of the mask, "But it was terrible," she shivered and drew the blanket around her shoulders. "There were these men wearing uniforms, and they were all lined up…Creedy was there and he yelled something, and the just starting shooting you. All I could hear were the shots, they were deafening…and you just stood there and shook with the bullets, but you didn't fall…and I was screaming your name, but I couldn't do anything, and you didn't even look at me. And then you fell and there was so much blood and I--"
V put a finger to her lips to interrupt her narrative, mostly to stop her from upsetting herself further. "There is your flaw there," he said as if pointing out the easiest answer in the world. "If you ever were screaming my name, there wouldn't be a single thing on this earth to stop me from getting to you, save death itself."
Evey looked the smiling, masked face, there was love in her eyes as she regarded him; he saw it there. It might as well have been written on her crooked, closed lipped smile. I love you, the look said, and kept saying it and kept saying it. It was almost too much for him to bare.
"Thank you, V. You've no idea how much I appreciate that."
The smile seemed almost sentimental, "Think nothing of it."
I love you, I love you, I love you, the gaze said to him. I love you, but I can never let you know it.
And he believed that his gaze however covered it was by the many masks he wore, said the same: I love you, I love you, I love you, but I can never let you know it.
--End