Simple Comfort
A letter … That's all he had was a letter -- familiar words and phrases strung together in her familiarly graceful but humble scripture. He fingered the soft curls of the A's, E's, and Y's and cut down the middle of his name, before sliding the leather tip further down the page as he read, passing over the creases where the yellowed paper had been folded; it had been folded and kept that way for a long time. V rarely took it out let alone to read it but this time he felt he needed some form of past comfort for unstable uncertainty of the present.
He swallowed as his eyes passed over familiar promises speaking of forever, of joys not yet experienced, and tomorrows that vowed completion. A sad smile pulled at his lips beneath the eternal grin that safely hid his true expression from the outside world and swallowed the sadness down. He would always have her words, the one thing he, for now, abstractly connected with and was the most tangible thing in his possession. He brought the page up and inhaled deeply, breathing in the smell of old paper and the far off dream of her scent when she had first written it. He reverently brought it back down to the table and read over it a final time. Her words were venerated above any literary work, famous or not, someone else's or his own. The story behind the letter was even more enchanting to recall.
The object that came with the letter lightly clamped over his heart and it instantly chastised the swiftly retreating shadows of his mind. He swallowed again but concentrated his focus upon the parchment beneath his gaze and hands. The shadows kept persisting with their pessimist while his heart was ever at war with them. He feared he would always be divided. A deep sigh passed from the slit in the mask's mouth as V bowed his head despondently. Sometimes, he feared what he was becoming, what he was swiftly turning into but there was no harm in reveling in secret fantasies in solitude's sanctuary -- no one to catch him off guard or exploit his secret desires. And that's where he felt safe -- far away and yet so near, a substantial figment keeping watch in her mind as she more than kept watch in his.
He picked the letter up and carefully folded it back and tucked it away. Taking a breath, he hardened himself, locking away the one weakness deep within the miniscule corners of his heart that still felt remotely human and not completely dead of affectionate emotion. He welcomed the shadows back in his mind that soon ran rampant across the metaphorical cobwebbed floors. He couldn't rid himself of such malignant intent completely. After all, he would always remain more idea than man, no matter how much he secretly wished differently.