Thank you for your reviews! V for Vendetta fan fictions seem to be gaining popularity.
By the way, the title "The Vicious Cabaret" is actually the name of a song that V writes in the graphic novel. If you're lucky, you can find the V for Vendetta soundtrack as performed by David J. If not, you can find his "On Glass" CD up for download somewhere, and it will contain this song. I just found it interesting.
Check out: EV: Ever Vigilant, Verbose Variations of V and Evey. (If you want VxEvey, Verbose is awesome.)
Italics would be a memory/flashback.
Sorry I haven't updated. Kept getting timed out last time I tried.
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Across the town, in a rather humble apartment complex, there lived a man in seclusion. Despite the fact that he had lived there for a year, hardly a soul knew his room was occupied. Most of his neighbors didn't know he existed; give for the landlord collecting rent through the mailbox on the first of every month.
Some often wondered if he worked, for he never seemed to leave the house. Never once could a neighbor recall seeing him walk out of that apartment. His necessities were always ordered by phone. In the morning, on every second Tuesday of the month, an envelope would be placed taped to the front of his door. By the late afternoon, it would be replaced by two bags of groceries. All of his bills were paid in this fashion. Rent, groceries, and the like.
As a matter of fact, he ordered in very small quantities and requested very little in the way of living conditions. The only request that he had was that his room be the one in the corner, the one with the window overlooking the quiet streets below. He wanted to make certain that it was just opposite of a specific street corner. A corner where, on some sunny afternoons, a certain girl operated a flower stand in her spare time.
The landlords only knew him as Vincent, the man in room number five. The man who demanded so little of the world as to hardly make a dent. Little did they know that just two years before he had made much, much more than a dent. In fact, he pretty much created a crater where Parliament once stood.
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The sound of the old train engine roaring through the vacuous Victoria street tunnel overpowered the usual silence. One second, V would feel himself shaking back and forth on the makeshift platform which Evey had assembled to be his final resting place. Then the next second, he would feel nothing at all.V had not known how much time had passed in this fashion, dipping in and out of life as simply as one dabbles in passing thoughts, but he knew the end of the tunnel would be nearing soon.
He lifted his form slowly, and tilted his head ever so slightly as he observed a cascade of Violet Carsons being shed from his body. She had placed them there.
He had no time to waste.
V struggled as he slid off of the platform on which Evey had so meticulously prepared for his death. Most of his body lacked any sensation, and what was not numb was overcome with pain. Stumbling to this door, he reached out to grab the emergency exit handle on the right side. His fingers were stiff, and refused to splay themselves in order to grab and trigger the bar.
Uttering a dissatisfied "Uhn." V lent his left shoulder against the doorway as he used his left hand to trigger the emergency release. Perhaps the damage on his right hand was so substantial that he had lost control over it entirely? Upon triggering the emergency exit the doors instantly swung open, and falling victim to his own misplaced weight V tumbled heavily out of the quickly speeding train and onto the nearby platform.
So he found himself, sprawled across a cold tile floor in a long abandoned subway line. His train, his grand masterpiece was just mere minutes away from success. A success long in the making. However, it was not without a bittersweet tinge.
For once Parliament had been destroyed, Evey would know in her heart that he was truly no more. V himself did not know if he would survive the night, bleeding heavily on the subway pavement, but even if he would, Evey could not know. So V lay there in utter silence, waiting for death's verdict, for even if he shall live he would know Evey no longer.
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Two years had passed since that night, and V now found himself a recluse in the center of a society in which he chose to disassociate himself with. He had lived that night. He had dozed off shortly after hearing the roaring echo of the explosion half expecting death to await him in his sleep. But no. He barely remembered the moment he regained consciousness. He had not known how many days had passed, but he felt the pang of a semisweet victory.
Creedy, Sutler, all of them. They were all dead while he had survived. He understood well that he could not return to Evey. For she would be far better off if he were to not return. When he had left her, despite her tears, he knew her resolve would be strong and unwaivering. He knew the courage by which she would face his death, and had no desire to go back on that.
The only thing which tied him to this world now was Evey. For the year following the aftermath of Parliament's destruction, he took several lodgings using provisions which he had stored during his years as a vigilante. He kept a distant, yet watchful eye over his successor. This fashion of loosely observing Evey had lead him to his current lodging.
On some lucky afternoons, he would spy through the folds of his blinds and find the precious girl he left behind selling his favorite roses. Valerie's roses. Silently he would observe as she chatted with passersby, smiled, or received visits from now familiar faces.
Faces such as Dominic. A man that he only recognized as the man who conked Evey with the butt of his pistol just after she pepper sprayed him. How odd it may seem that they have become friends, when after all, the boundaries that once divided them was deliberately broken down by V. Evey was no longer a fugitive, and Dominic was no longer the lapdog of the government.
Though some days V would silently observe her through the slits of his blinds, on many days he fancied pretending that she was in his company. He might watch a movie, or read a book aloud, pretending as if he heard him and would share in a conversation. V contented himself with this lifestyle. He convinced himself that they were both rather well off in this fashion, and that since he had already resolved himself to die that he had equally resolved to live without her.
And that since she had faced his death, she had been resolved to continue on without him as well. A thought that V had pondered on many a sleepless night.
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Its getting late, so I must sleep. Next chapter I'll start responding to individual reviews and comments.
