I don't own Sweeney Todd.

Primarily movie-verse, since that's the only format I've actually seen. Borrows at least one element from stage productions, however. Also, credit for the title goes to my dad.

Toby's Inferno
by misaoshiru

Toby had always had nightmares.

As far back as he could remember, in his early days at the workhouse, he woke up in a cold sweat hours before the wake-up call, sometimes with the scant bedding around him damp. He hurried to put the sheets with the wash when they were wet, hoping no one would notice. There would be a whipping if they did, and more often than not, they did. Still, he preferred waking to sleep even when he was beaten; better this pain than seeing his mother's face in his mind's eye – a sight that eluded him in the day but was ever-so-clear in these night terrors – contorted in death, marked with its telltale pink-brown splotches. She had been a strict, harsh woman, but what resentment he'd once born her had quickly faded to longing.

Worse still were the dreams of the last days at the old orphanage, when it burned to the ground. He'd been blamed and nearly sent to the gallows, but the judge who had presided over his case, old Judge Whitman, had shown him mercy. It wasn't his fault he'd knocked over the lantern, he had cried. The judge nodded solemnly and had him transferred to the workhouse in lieu of imprisonment, though in reality it felt much the same. That should have been the end of it, but...a little girl, Prudence or Florence or something, had died, and he couldn't free the image from his mind of her gnarled, blackened arm trying to claw its way out from some far level of Hell.

When Pirelli had taken him as his apprentice, Toby's nights improved in many ways. No longer did he have to worry about the other boys stealing his meager possessions, or worse. And he had grown out of wetting the bed, even after his worst dreams. But the nightmares only worsened, if that was possible. He cried out sometimes, and woe to him if that should wake his master! It got so bad that he tried to stop sleeping altogether.

"Boy, why you-a no sleep-a?" Pirelli had asked him groggily when he woke up to Toby sitting on his bed defiantly at an indecent hour.

"I just don't want to."

"Well, just-a don't let it interfere with your work-a."

It hadn't lasted for long. Toby had dozed off one day while Pirelli was with a customer, and the beating he'd received afterward was enough of a deterrent to keep him from trying again, though only just.

Only after Mrs. Lovett took him in did the nightmares begin to slacken off. He'd been whimpering in his sleep, and she took his hand and whispered, "There, there, love. No need to fret. I'm here for you."

"Make 'em go away, Mum. Don't let them hurt me."

"No worries, Toby dear. Hush. No one's gonna harm you, not while I'm around."

And he'd smiled in his sleep, and for the first night in as long as he could remember, he felt safe.

The night terrors came back with a vengeance after they sent him to the asylum. No surprise, he supposed; it was normal there, or as normal as anything was. But it was no comfort. There was no comfort.

"Make 'em go away, Mum. Please! Please, don't leave. Don't let him hurt you. I...I won't let him hurt you, Mum. No one's gonna harm you."

And Toby fell into a fitful sleep. Come morning, he'd claw his way free from this level of Hell, but for now...there was no comfort. Not now. Not ever.