Evey didn't care that her jaw dropped when V began to ease the gloves off of his hands. It was too intimate. Too graphic. She had never seen him take the gloves off of his own volition. Before, the gloves had been taken off by her, or at her request. He had never initiated that, even in the moments when he was already pressing his body against hers. This was unreal.
'V?' She couldn't place the tremor in her own voice.
'Yes?' he replied, his tone bizarrely conversational.
'Your gloves.' Evey had no idea how to otherwise express her alarm.
'Yes,' he agreed with a soft, humorless chuckle. He neatly folded the gloves on top of his desk. Then he clasped his bare hands together and regarded her once again. Evey looked around the room, as if expecting an explanation from the piles of books surrounding them. They offered no clue.
'Why?' she finally asked. V gave her the tiniest shrug.
'They have ceased to have a point at this juncture.' He looked down at his mottled, uneven hands. Evey stared at them, trying not to remember those hands all over her body.
'Do you want to talk?' she asked reluctantly. He had no fingernails. She had known that for ages, but never had the opportunity to to examine them in detail. V didn't seem to notice, or mind.
'Not particularly.' V moved his gaze to his hands. It was an unusual situation; he found his hands to be the most disfigured part of his entire body. The colors alone still gave him pause every once in a while, even after twenty years. Yet they were the only part of him she had ever seen, or would ever see. He had come to loathe them so much that they didn't seem to belong to him. But they were the only part of him she could see and identify. He bit back the beginnings of a nervous giggle.
'So, we'll just sit here.' Evey's voice cut through the panicky thoughts that were threatening to overwhelm him. V nodded.
'Apparently.' He was in no mood to fight with her. Not now. Unfortunately, Evey didn't share this sentiment.
'Are we not talking about something in particular?' Evey was surprised when V let out an abrupt snort.
'That is a problematic question.' He tried to speak again, but was trying not to lose himself in hysterical laughter. Evey raised an eyebrow, unnerved.
'I'll take that as a yes,' she muttered. V regained control of himself, and tapped his folded fingers together absently.
'Concurrence and silence do not imply the same thing,' he retorted. V mainly said it to make Evey give him that exasperated look. She did.
'It's a bit late for riddles, isn't it?' Her tone was sadder than he had expected, or could explain. It sobered him up immediately.
'Yes. It is.' He sighed. 'You look very beautiful tonight.' Evey barely let him finish.
'Don't.' V tilted his head, puzzled.
'I was simply stating a fact. Nothing more, nothing less.' Evey sighed, running her hand over the short stubble on her head. The gesture fascinated V.
'Do you want me to leave?' Her voice had taken on a softer, weaker tone.
'I don't know,' he replied honestly. Evey gave him that same weak smile.
'I meant -'
'I know what you meant,' he snapped, with more intensity than he had intended. Evey regarded him intently.
'You seem angry,' she noted quietly. V paused, pondering her words.
'Perhaps I am,' he admitted reluctantly. 'I have no interest in determining such a fact, however.'
Evey wanted to touch him. He seemed so far away, so small. She clenched her hands into fists.
'What happened?' She had once again lost the anger that kept her whole and separate from him. Now she merely wanted the answers.
'I tortured you.' His tone was fierce, his words final. Pronouncing his own death sentence.
'You think it's as simple as all that?' Evey was amazed. She knew V could be cheerfully oblivious, but this was flat denial. Almost aggressive ignorance.
'Yes.' V really wanted to change the subject. But Evey had that hard glean in her eyes that he had come to know so well in the past few days. And short of throwing her back into that cell, she would not be deterred.
'That explains everything else that's happened?' Her voice was becoming shrill.
'The influence of your experience cannot be overstated.' V hoped that Evey would not ask why. He was not ready to tell her about his own experiences. He would, before she left. But V wasn't quite ready.
'It can be overstated,' she snapped. V cracked his knuckles. Evey jumped.
'How so?' he inquired, adopting that mild tone that meant he was severely uncomfortable.
'You think everything I've done is because of what happened in that cell,' she stated flatly. V averted his eyes. She seemed like a damning angel.
'It is a compelling argument,' he responded quietly. Evey swallowed, reining in her anger.
'What if I told you I'd been having those thoughts for ages?' The question struck V dumb for a moment. He was tempted to ask her to describe what thoughts she was referring to. But that would have been merely procrastinating; he knew all too well.
'Are you likely to say such a thing?' he inquired politely. Evey sighed, and actually moved closer to him. The gesture was meant to capture his full attention, but it merely drove V to further distraction.
'V. I'm trying to be serious.'
'I would doubt the sincerity of such words,' he said gravely. Evey felt a bit dizzy; the reflection of the mask was staring at her just as intently as the definite article.
'Why would I lie?' she shot back. V had to admit, at least privately, that she had a point. She could not benefit from claiming such affections - at least in no way he could perceive.
'The question of 'why' is one best not applied to the current circumstances.' V couldn't tell if she was getting closer, of if he was leaning towards her.
'You're quite fond of euphemisms, aren't you?' Evey had meant for her words to be harsher; instead, they came out as an almost affectionate statement. V's smile could be heard in his every word.
'At the moment, they seem to be quite useful.'
'Would it be that bad to talk about what's happened?' Evey asked plaintively. V considered the question.
'Yes.' Evey wondered for a moment if this was what it felt like to pound your head repeatedly against a brick wall. She decided that this was worse - at least if you hit your head hard enough, you lost conscious.
'You're certain?' she asked, defeated.
'Do YOU want to talk?' V offered reluctantly.
'No!' Evey exclaimed. V nodded.
'Nor do I.' Evey put her head in her hands. V's eyes raked over the exposed flesh of her neck and arms.
'So we'll just pretend it all away,' she sighed. V made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a snort.
'That would be an exercise in impossibility,' he replied dryly. His hands unclasped, and began to draw absent circles on the shiny surface of the desk with his fingertips. Evey's eyes followed them.
'Then what are we doing?' Evey almost begged.
'Accepting.' V's eyes met hers through the mask. He felt that need, that urge, to possess and claim, bubbling up inside him. He looked away without moving the mask.
'Accepting?' Evey sounded doubtful.
'Some things cannot be explained by anything, no matter how the parties involved might wish otherwise. I cannot perceive a point in analyzing such futility.' V was put off when Evey laughed.
'This from a man who's planning on changing the world.' Evey smiled faintly as she spoke. V found the gesture extremely distracting. Still, he managed a soft chuckle.
'There is no ambiguity in revolution,' he stated with finality. Evey was not convinced.
'Not to you. What about everyone else? Some people think you're a hero. Some people think you're the antichrist.' V nodded at her words.
'I know. An intriguing ambiguity.' Evey smacked the desk lightly, annoyed.
'And that's not ambiguity?' she challenged.
'Of course it is. However, it is an ambiguity that I am quite comfortable with.'
'So it's about comfort!' Evey exclaimed triumphantly. V cocked his head.
'What are you trying to accomplish?' His voice was like a caress. Evey was torn between screaming at him until he broke, or tackling him and grinding herself against him on the cold stone floor. Instead, she answered him.
'I'm looking for closure, I guess.'
'You are looking in the wrong place,' he warned quietly. Evey nodded.
'No happy endings, right?' V shook his head, his bare hands tracing an unconscious 'v' on the table between them.
'No endings at all.' Evey couldn't deal with the enormity of that. That perhaps this fucked-up disaster would never stop. That her whole life would be defined by these few months was hard to accept. Particularly because she suspected he was right.
'I've never seen you without your gloves for so long,' she said. It was a weak attempt to change the subject, but V seemed quite eager to let the previous topic drop. He raised up his hands and looked at them critically, as if seeing them for the first time.
'Do they offend you?' He tried to make the question almost humorous, or at least disinterested. But Evey seemed depressed by the question.
'You know they don't.' There was the thin edge of a warning in her voice, an unspoken suggestion not to pursue this.
'No, I don't,' said V sharply. 'Your perception of what you see does not have guaranteed accuracy.' Evey glared at him.
'You've never given me a chance!' The words burst out before Evey could stop them. V answered with anger in his own voice.
'What would the purpose be? There is no future!' V stopped, taking a long breath. 'Not for what has happened here.'
'What happened here, V?' Evey asked quietly.
'A temporary reprieve, for one of us.' The anger was gone; Evey could see it slip out of his body, to be replaced by a sort of weary acceptance.
'And the other?'
'Exorcism of demons.' Her demons, he added silently. Let her spend all her hate on him, and enter the real world clean. If she would not carry him on her outside, he did not want to sully her insides.
'You're using a lot of words and not saying anything,' she chided gently. V watched her slender shoulders tense up.
'There is a point...' V stopped, shook his head as if clearing some of the cobwebs, and started again. 'There is a point at which language is useless. We are beyond that point.'
'You think there's a point where there's no point in talking? YOU?' Evey sounded supremely amused.
'Yes,' V answered. Evey was quiet, digesting this. When she spoke next, she knew how dangerous a line she was walking.
'Do you think Valerie would be happy with what you've become?' The question required V to sit in silence for nearly a full five minutes. Evey waited patiently. Although towards the end, she began to wonder if perhaps V was simply not going to speak until she left.
'That is what one would call a 'non sequitur,'' V finally answered. Evey nearly hit him.
'Don't change the subject! Tell me. How would Valerie feel about all this? How would Valerie feel about the killing and torture and me?' V hesitated again, but not nearly as long. His tone had become mechanical, robotic.
'Valerie would feel nothing. She's dead.'
'She's also a figment of your demented imagination,' Evey snarled. V leaned back in his seat. His fingers began tapping out the notes to Beethoven's 'Fifth.' He didn't seem to notice.
'Ah.'
'So that exempts you from responsibility?' she persisted. V was developing a headache.
'I am responsible for everything.' He knew he was being terse, but as far as he was concerned Evey was now verbally assaulting him. And oddly enough, it wasn't making the idea of her leaving any more comforting.
'You really mean that, don't you?' And once again, her voice had swung back from rage and disgust to concern and sorrow. V didn't know how people could deal with such extreme emotions on a daily basis. In the few months he had experienced them, they had nearly killed him.
'I rarely say things I don't mean.' His voice was trailing off. He was far more interested in the way the light glinted in her eyes, and the soft fullness of her lips.
'But you often say things that don't mean anything,' Evey pointed out. V was amused.
'My answers used to frighten you.' Evey stood up and began pacing. V watched her, fascinated.
'So you're doing this for my sake?' The sarcasm in her voice was thick enough to slice through.
'Yes.' V decided brevity was wise under the circumstances.
'Don't give me that shit. This is about you. About what you think I need.' Evey spun sharply, the dress spinning around her slender hips.
'This is about doing what is necessary. Emotions do not come into the equation.' If he had expected this to calm Evey, V was sorely disappointed.
'This is ALL about emotions, V!' Her voice echoed through the Gallery.
'It should not be so,' V said softly. Evey closed her eyes for a moment, willing herself to be calm.
'But it is.' V nodded in agreement.
'And soon you will leave, at which point the argument will be purely academic.' He did not sound remotely pleased with the idea.
'Do you believe that?' Evey was suddenly close to him again, close enough to touch. She leaned over him, her face flushed with emotions, her hands palm down on the desk.
'I can hope for such an occurrence.' Evey's hand was suddenly on his, lightly caressing his knuckles. V watched the diseased, damaged flesh respond underneath her long fingers.
'What are you doing?' he whispered, pushing his hand against hers. Evey's fingers dug lightly into his wrist, continuing to run her fingers over his like he was a finely-tuned machine.