Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or settings from V for Vendetta; they belong to Alan Moore and David Lloyd.
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Enjoy!
Chapter Three
Some Things With Vehemence
Evey had been standing at the jukebox for hours it seemed, listening to song after song. Many of them were slow and sad and sometimes significant. She thought of V and his plan to destroy Parliament. She thought of how much energy and spirit he dedicated to making things right in his eyes. She knew he had to be more than a man who looked around and saw things weren't right. Men did that every day. There was something that pushed V past that point of seeing and choosing to ignore; something she feared she was without.
She thought of the methodical way he moved and talked, knowing that behind that mask, underneath all those layers of black, there was always more going on that she couldn't see. It beat at her, the uncertainty, the constant wondering.
"How did you get here," she murmured. Her voice was smothered by the music as she repeated the question over and over.
-----
V sat in his room, listening to the muffled music through his closed door, knowing that Evey was out there waiting for him to show himself again. He wasn't reading, or sleeping, or writing, or planning. He was sitting in the darkness, his mask off and settled by his thigh. He thought of Evey. He thought of Sutler, of the ones he'd killed and the ones he had to kill. He thought of his vendetta, and of the eternity he had spent locked up in a cell, losing himself, forgetting everything.
His fingers came up to his face and he explored his own features, the still-foreign casket in which he was forced to subsist. He wasn't in a cell anymore, but he was locked in his body, locked behind the mask. All that was left of the man he once was were his eyes. He didn't want to think of what color they were; all they saw was blood…and her. They saw her, even when they were closed in the middle of the night and he was at the mercy of his unconscious. She was almost always there, her mocha gaze pleading for something he couldn't quite recognize.
He was anxious. His body wanted to move, wanted to do something more dynamic than sitting in bed in the darkness. He considered asking Evey to dance with him, but didn't think she would accept.
He considered sitting Evey down and telling her all he could remember about Larkhill; tell her why it was vital for him to do what he was doing; defend his actions.
And yet, he felt he didn't need to defend himself, even to her. The moment he felt the need to defend himself meant the moment he doubted his intentions. There was no room for doubt anymore; no room for hesitation.
He thought of the conversation from that morning, how much he admired the Marquis de Sade for being a patron of freedom – something so lacking in the world they lived in now. Evey couldn't understand the parallels between his life and the Marquis'; She didn't realize that they were both kindred spirits, both revolutionaries of their time, both unrepressed by the law, by the government, by the world. He so wanted her to understand.
Finally, he switched the lamp on beside his bed. The light was dim and weak, struggling to blanket every wall, every surface – not quite strong enough to fill every crevice. V took his mask in his hands, cradling it in his scarred palms.
It was rare for him to have an irresolute moment. He was so set in his ways, so sure of the present and the future. But Evey threw him off balance, made him feel vulnerable. She turned his heart against his mind and shoved him off course.
The ambiguity of the tension that hung between them made him want to be rid of her and be near her all at once. Bit by bit they discovered more about each other, and still she gazed at him as if trying to solve a riddle. He needed her to stop gazing. He needed her to recognize who he was. He needed her to understand what he was.
There was no living with her otherwise.
And if it meant telling her about Larkhill, he would have to quell his misgivings and face her judgment. She had to know about what they had done to him. She had to know what haunted his dreams, drove his vengeance, fueled his ideals.
"You will not be defending yourself," he whispered, his eyes fixed on the mask in his hands. It smiled at him, lifeless yet evocative. He stared at it. It had become so much a part of his identity that he felt eerily as if he were gazing upon himself.
With a sigh, he secured the mask on his face. "No point in hesitating further," he said, moving for the door. "'If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly.'"
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Evey was finally tired of staring at the jukebox and getting no answers. It was much like staring at V's grinning mask. She turned away from the contraption and was startled to see that the object of her thoughts was standing a few feet behind her, still and silent and watching.
"How long have you been standing there?" she asked, her hand coming up to her chest, her fingers clutching the silky area of skin right above her breasts.
"A few moments," V answered. He walked over to the jukebox, stood very near to her, and chose a song.
"Aren't you ever tired of music?" Evey asked wearily as she looked up at him.
"'If music be the food of love, play on,'" he replied quietly – so softly she hardly heard him. Then louder, and facing her, he said, "I like her," as a woman's sensuous voice filled the room.
Evey glanced at her watch. It was past noon.
"Pressing appointment?" V asked.
"Life canceled on me," Evey replied bitterly.
"Isn't she fickle."
Evey smiled. Somehow he understood her sometimes, or at least what she was feeling. She wanted to ask him to take her through the tunnels again, but he spoke first.
"Will you sit with me, Evey?"
His voice was sober, slow. Evey nodded and followed him to the couch in front of the television. They each sat on one side, V positioning himself so that he was facing her. Evey crossed her legs as she settled onto the cushion, and they sat for a still moment staring at each other as she waited for him to speak.
"There's a lot I cannot say," he said. The tone of his voice told Evey that something valuable was about to transpire, something she had to take to heart. And for the first time, she was sure he was looking into her eyes. "There are names I cannot give. There are many things I don't even remember. But I can tell you about Larkhill."
He told her everything he could remember about Larkhill. He told her about the poisons, the torture, the cells, the soldiers, the doctors, the roses. He told her about the pits.
He told her about the pain.
He told her about the men and the women and the way they screamed, reached out with their cries for something to hold on to, something to keep them from falling forever into the darkness. How each day was always quieter than the last, as one by one, the voices were ultimately silenced.
How time passed like a liquid, taking all shapes and sizes, molding into itself sohe couldn't tell where it began, where it ended, or how much of it was falling through the cracks.
"How many were there?" she asked. "How many victims?"
"There was a long line of them," he answered, his voice jaded and slow, "Before they all wasted away. Walking cadavers, their eyes a long time dull, their hearts tick-tocking 'till their time ran out."
"How did you escape?"
Slowly, with some hesitance, he told her about the fire; how he had caused it;how he didn't really feel anything but anger and hatred and desperation.
He told her that the man he was born to be died at Larkhill. That the man he was now was simply an idea trying to permeate the hearts of other men, and women, and children – the multitudes who were themselves more powerful than poisons and cells and governments.
When he could say no more, they sat for a long while in silence.
V was weary. He could feel the anger welling up inside him. He could feel it yanking at his heart – the fury, the desire to hunt, to satiate his thirst for vengeance.
But all he could do was sit there and stare at Evey's feet, small and bare and somehow calming.
Evey wanted to tell him she was sorry, but she knew it wouldn't change anything. He was sorry, she was sorry, but nobody else was.
"What happened to them," she asked, "The people who did those things to you?"
V looked up at her with a heavy head. "What eventually comes to all people who commit crimes against humanity," he said, suddenly getting up from the couch.
Evey watched him as he walked away from the couch, toward the main hall. "And what is that?" she asked.
"Justice."
Her eyes narrowed. "Not from the law," she said knowingly, "Not for them."
V stopped in his step and turned to her. They looked at each other in silence, neither of them sure they wanted to voice what they were thinking.
Evey looked away, and heard his boots against the floor as he resumed his path. She stared at her feet and tried to not think or wonder about anything.
Then the footsteps stopped.
"Ask yourself, Evey…" V said, his voice farther away.
She looked up. He was at the piano.
"If you were Beowulf, what would you have done when the dragon came prowling into your land and devouring your people? Would you have sat and watched, let it all happen? Or would you have picked up your sword and fought the fight?"
Without waiting for her to answer, he turned his back to her and sat on the piano bench. A moment later, their underground haven was suffused with an ancient melody, and anything Evey would have said was washed away by the music.
The quote "If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly" is from Shakespeare's Macbeth.
"If music be the food of love, play on" is from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.
(Is it obvious I love Shakespeare? I call him Will sometimes, it's ridiculous)
As usual, thanks beforehand for any reviews or criticisms. Many many thanks :)
