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Gravity	By : JackHawksmoor Category: DC Verse Comics > V for Vendetta Views: 3533 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own V for Vendetta, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1-Gravity
- 2-two
- 3-three
- 4-four
- 5-five
- 2
- 3
- 4
Evey didn't see him again for an entire day. She had no odd thoughts, not the slightest suspicion that she wasn't utterly alone in the gallery. It almost felt like a reprieve.

News on the telly was all atwitter over a food shipment that had been hijacked, purportedly on the way to a public house for children in Bristol. When she'd first heard the news her eyes had shot to the bowl of tangerines on the table beside her.

The tangerines failed to comment on the look of shock and growing amusement on her face. She'd turned up the volume and leaned forward, her hands digging at the peel of her illicit prize. She wasn't an idiot. No orphanage was getting tangerines. Not in England, anyway. It had been a shipment of Sutler's, if anything, but she was interested to see the spin her former co-workers were putting on it.

There were reports of “A man in black” and some mention of it being an act of terrorism, a quick, sorrowful monologue from Jeffrey, BTN's current 'man on the street' about the effects on the poor children, and even a quick interview with one of the drivers.

“Bloody coward,” Snarled the man.

Evey leaned back, moderately impressed. Then Jeffrey mentioned that Chancellor Sutler had vowed to replace the food stolen with his own personal supplies, and she choked on her tangerine.

“Nice touch.” She mumbled, wiping her mouth. She would bet that the supplies sent by the chancellor would be of a quality surprisingly familiar to those children.

V the terrorist stealing food from little orphans. Pretty low-they must be getting desperate.

She heard his footstep on the floor. She heard it all down the back of her neck, and jerked her head in that direction without turning around. The fruit fumbled in her hand and fell, rolling away from her. Escaping.

She watched his feet cross the floor in front of her. Watched his hand reach down and pick it up. She raised her eyes a little, saw him brushing it off. He held it out to her, and she looked him in the mask as she took it.

As if seeing him with new eyes, she thought she could spy some faint remnant of his previous emotions in the line of his shoulders, in the way he pulled his hand away when she accepted the tangerine from him. Was it strange that he was so careful not to touch her?

He might have said something witty, quoted someone long dead and much wiser than either of them. He did not, in the end, do either of these things. Instead there was a silence, like a dead thing, hovering there between them.

She was suddenly quite certain that V didn't know she'd seen him behind her in the mirror.

“I read the book.” Evey said without preamble. His posture relaxed, a little.

“Oh? Which-”

“The Count of Monte Cristo.” She interrupted, and V went quiet for a moment, then sank down onto the couch beside her.

“Did you like it?” There was a cough, a rough spot in his voice that made her want to clear her throat.

Evey looked down at the fruit in her hands, carefully set it aside.

“I found parts of it...familiar.” They both looked away from each other for a moment. They both knew exactly how accurate Edmund Dante's experience with prison life was. Anything else she found familiar she didn't really want to think about.

Evey found herself eying him, finally gave in to an impulse and brought a hand up to his side.

“Are you all right?” She asked, brushing over the area she remembered. V stiffened a little, but took her hand without haste, pulled it from him, holding it in his hands like a bird.

“I'm fine.”His voice was warm, almost pleased. She looked up at him with a sharp eye.

“You said that before.” She leaned closer, a hint of a smile tugging at her mouth. “I'm not sure-” But she hesitated. 'I'm not sure you're telling the truth now. I'm not sure you weren't lying to me then. Or any other time in between.'

He might have guessed what she was thinking, might just have been sobered by the sudden abrupt fade of good humor from her eyes.

“You've cut your hair.” He said lightly, and it was just possible he was trying to change the subject. It was just possible that he wanted to remind her, make her think on why she'd done it in the first place. He was clever enough to figure it out.

She saw a different woman in the mirror now, when she bothered to look. Sometimes she could almost see a flash of her father in her eyes. A spark of her mother in the curl of her mouth. She had never been able to say that before. Ever. Not without feeling sick and weak and inadequate. It was comfort unlooked-for, and she appreciated it. She couldn't remember the last time she had liked herself.

He was staring at her. She could feel eyes she couldn't see. Watching her think. Hoping she would come to the right conclusion?

She wasn't exactly angry at him for that. It didn't feel like anger, and it was strange that she couldn't put a word to the feeling. Impatient? Upset? The uncertainty unnerved her, and she struck back without thought of consequence.

“I saw you behind me.” She said in retaliation, and was pleased to see his head snap up. She lifted her eyebrows and added, not quite apologetically, “In the mirror.”

V leaned back against the cushions and exhaled slowly. She felt him release her hand, felt the tension in his muscles where she was leaning against him, and was suddenly, abashedly sorry.

“Did you.” His voice was very still. Like the rest of him. “Yes, of course you did.” Horrified. She got it like a bolt of lightning from on high. He was horrified with himself.

She shouldn't be able to tell. She shouldn't be able to tell by the way his head was angled down and away from her that she'd nearly killed him. Reached up and smashed the life right out of him. She shouldn't be so certain he was two seconds from bolting to his feet, just as soon as he could get his heart beating again. She shouldn't, but she did.

For some reason, she flashed vividly, blindingly, on those long nights in a cell with her hands clapped over her ears, trying to sleep past the screaming, and hating herself for only wanting it to be quiet.

“God, I'm tired...” She sighed, shutting her eyes tight against sudden tears. She slid down, shifting herself until her head was resting against his leg. He stopped when she touched him, stopped and sat himself back into the leather from where he'd already started to push himself up, away from her. She'd cut it close, but he stayed. She tried not to shiver, even though it was freezing, like the gallery had dropped ten degrees in ten seconds.

After a while, she heard him start breathing again.

Evey waited, not wanting to move lest he leave. It was a long time until she looked, and when she did, it made her ache unpleasantly. She felt it again, sharp as a knife's point, that pull of gravity. It the way his head was tilted, the way the shadows lingered on the dead white face. An echo of some promise, something she needed to understand but couldn't.

She felt his hand on her shoulder before he put it there. She pressed her face harder into his leg in response, ventured a look when the weight of his hand finally disappeared. His fingers hovered, hesitating, before reaching out to touch the smooth skin on her head. She sighed, felt the muscles of his leg under her cheek relax a bit at the sound.

“Oh...” He said like sweet relief, and that seemed to sum up everyone's feelings on the situation.

For a little while, neither of them said anything at all. Off somewhere in the gallery, she heard a clock chiming, and couldn't be bothered counting the time.

She looked up at him as his hand brushed down her neck, felt the quiet intensity of affection implicit in the offering of his touch. The texture of his glove spiked in her mind, drawing her attention. It was oddly, abruptly unsatisfying. She wondered, for the first time, just how long...How long had it been...

She had never touched him.

An ugly thought.

A chill raced down her spine from where the warm leather over his hand was cradling the back of her head. Slowly, she reached up, wrapped small fingers around his forearm. Feeling the soft cloth, the heat of the flesh underneath. He 'hmm'ed in pleasure, the sound reminding her somehow of a cat stretching in the sunlight.

Her fingers worked their way down toward his wrist, and he didn't immediately notice. Not until she'd slid her hand under the stiff leather guard on his glove.

“How long have you been in there?” She wondered softly, comfort making her voice thick. “How long since someone touched you? Really touched you.” How long, she wondered, without the silent implied sympathy in a friendly hand.

“Evey...” He murmured, a languid cat on a windowsill, mixed with the faintest reproach.

Quickly, before he could change his mind, she dipped her fingers just past the ridge of his shirtsleeve and stroked bare skin.

V froze at the touch. A molded statue of himself. His leg wooden under her cheek, his hand stiff at her shoulder. She fancied, for a moment, that he'd shut his eyes. Tentatively, she wiggled her fingers a bit further in, stroking the skin on the inside of his wrist. A bit patchy, alternately smooth and rough.

He inhaled, drawing her eye sharply. She realized, after a moment, that it had caught her attention simply because it been some time since she'd heard him breathe.

His hand tensed at the base of her neck, but he held his arm still. There was something appalling hovering over his shoulders. It reminded her of what she had seen behind her in the mirror the day before, only more...brittle. He looked breakable, she thought, her stomach dropping like thunder in the distance. A faint threat of coming disaster. The smiling white mask tilted forward, gathering shadows. Watching her. Staring at the place where they met.

Her fingers fluttered across the cuff of his sleeve, dawdled over a button. The cloth parted at her touch, and V twitched, as if she'd started pulling clothing in another area entirely. She caught her breath and slid her hand underneath the fabric of his shirt.

Before he changes his mind before he-

“Ahhh...”not quite a word, more a burst of air. Her equilibrium started to teeter at the sound of it.

She shifted her whole body up, closer to him, her hand sliding up his arm and back, catching a grip just above his elbow. His other arm came up behind her, and for a moment, a heart-stealing moment she was certain; he was going to kiss her.

Her eyelids lowered, her head tilting back, and for a moment she forgot, and so did he.

But his mask hovered close to her face, and he stopped, remembering. She felt the soft touch of his breath, escaping through the false smile, spreading warmth over her mouth. She parted her lips, and inhaled. She could nearly taste him, like this.

“'Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge.'” * V sighed, wonderingly, so close to her, so close...she leaned her cheek against his mask, shutting her eyes, denying tears.

“V...” she was asking him, god damn her, god damn it all...

A soft sound, riding a puff of air through the lips of his mask. Want. Need.

“I can't.” V spoke into her ear, clutching her closer, betraying his own words. She tightened her arms as well, gathering him up.

It was worse, she realized immediately. It was worse like that, to be closer to him, but not in the right way.

She was pushing at him then, flushed and agitated. His arms clung tight for a moment before he reacted, releasing her. She broke away with a flash in her eye.
For a moment, they stared at each other. Then, with an exasperated hiss of air, Evey abruptly shook her head and walked away from him.

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*Titus Andronicus
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