A/N: I haven't actually watched the film Sweeney Todd, so I have absolutely no idea how the characters act.
"Garson. Garson!"
Dr Henry Jekyll burst through the door into his laboratory, his shoes clanging on the raised metal truss. His assistant, a young man named Garson was sitting with his heavy-booted feet up on a experiment table, holding a meat pie.
"Garson, get your feet of the table," Jekyll snapped.
"Yes, Doctor Jekyll, sir. Sorry." Garson said, his mouth full of pie, and removed his feet from the table.
"What have you got there, anyway, boy?" asked Jekyll, as he set some equipment up again that Garson had knocked over.
"Meat pie, sir." replied Garson, swallowing quickly, and started a hacking cough. Jekyll sighed, made his way round the table, and thumped Garson hard on the back. He coughed once more, and then took a deep breath.
"Thank you, Doctor Jekyll, sir."
"Don't mention it."
The Doctor began to flick valves on his science jars, allowing a emerald-green liquid to flow through.
"When's the next package from Sir Danvers due, Garson?" he asked, watching as the liquid drained into a bottle.
"Tomorrow, or the next day after, sir," said Garson, taking another mouthful of pie, "Are we running out?"
"Yes," Jekyll replied, "This is all that is left." He held up the bottle to the light, "0.01 litres of Monocane. That's it."
"Should I run over to Piccadilly Circus and see if it's ready early?"
"No, Garson. If we're lucky, I won't need to use this. He hasn't been so active lately." replied Jekyll.
"Good," grunted Garson, and began to devour another slice of pie.
"You'll make yourself sick, Garson," Jekyll commented, his face magnified due to the bottle he was holding.
"Unlikely, sir. This pie is great, it is." Garson picked up another slice of pie and handed it to his master. Jekyll bit into it and promptly spat it out, crying is disgust.
"This is horrible! It tastes as bad as the sewers smell."
"It 'aint that bad, sir, surely?"
"Maybe not to you, Garson, however I, having been raised on more civilised meals, am not used to it. Where did you get it?"
"Fleet Street, sir," Garson replied, running his finger around the edge of the now-empty pie tray, collecting the remains of meat, "Little place called 'Mrs Lovett's World Famous Meat Pies.' Underneath a barber's salon."
Dr Jekyll swept his hair back and scratched at his sideburns, absent-mindedly, thinking.
"That reminds me, sir, you could you with a visit to the barber's. You're hair's getting a bit long," proclaimed Garson, dropping the pie dish with a clatter.
Jekyll was not listening. He was staring at the piece of discarded pie on the table, looking intently at the meat. He was sure he could see the remains of a thumb. A human thumb. A human thumb in a meat pie. No, no, he was imagining it, he was just tired. Overworked.
"Yes…thank you, Garson." Jekyll said, pulling his glance away from the disgusting pie, "I'll pack up the equipment. Why don't you go down to the Empire and see Maggie for a bit. Hasn't she got a new dance routine?"
"Thank you, Dr Jekyll!" said Garson, jumping up onto the metal truss that led to the raised door, "I'll see you later, sir!"
He practically sprinted out of the room, his voice dying with every step. Jekyll smiled to himself as he folded up his equipment, pushing it away from the table. He picked up a black pen and wrote, in his slanting handwriting:
Garson,
I hope you enjoyed your time with young Miss Kendall. Young love is such a sweet thing, and I I am confident you two will go on to enjoy your life together. I have departed to the address on Fleet Street of which you informed me, to trim my ever-lengthening hair. I may not return for some time, or I may arrive before you, depending on how much you've had to drink. But I wish you the best, and good luck with Maggie.
Yours sincerely,
Doctor Henry Jekyll
He folded the letter up and placed it on the laboratory table, where he knew his young assistant would find it. He made his way up into the grand living room, grabbing his long coat from a stand, and pulled it on. Garson had left the door ajar, which he pushed open. The day was dismal, with dark clouds and very little sunlight. Dr Jekyll locked the door and slid the key under the crimson doormat, and set off down the road. It was not far to Fleet Street, so he decided to walk. He needed the air, albeit bad air. He had spent too much time cooped up in his laboratory, working on his next experiment.
He arrived at Fleet Street not long after he set off from his house. He easily saw the pair of shops Garson pointed out to him. Mrs Lovett's was a funny little place. Cleaner than some of the shops in the street, but nonetheless, the windows were dank and grimy, and the sewage stench mingled with the disgusting smell of meat pies. Above Mrs Lovett's was another shop marked Sweeney Todd's Barber Salon - 'The Closest Shave you will ever know!'
Remembering the thumb in the pie and feeling slightly uneasy, Dr Jekyll pushed open the grisly door and stepped in the pie shop. His first thought was he wanted to run out, vomit, run back in, have an ale to wash out his mouth, then vomit again. Fighting the impulse to do exactly that, he squeezed past several high-class gentlemen devouring a pie each, and stepped up to the counter. A woman bustled over to greet him.
"Nellie Lovett, darling, what can I do for you?"
Jekyll was surprised by the cheeriness of who must be the owner. He glanced at her for a moment. She must've been a bit younger than him, middle or late forties, roughly. She had greyish-black hair pulled up into messy bun that hung loosely behind her. She was quite pale, and had the look of someone once-beautiful, who age & London had not been too kind too.
"What can I do for you?" She repeated.
"Sorry, hello, My name is Jekyll. Doctor Jekyll. I'm here to see Mr Todd from upstairs. I would rather like a hair cut."
Mrs Lovett looked frighted for a moment before the Doctor added the last part. She smiled and pushed past him, and took off up a flight of stairs. Jekyll could here feet pacing upstairs, and dimly-audible voices, difficult to make out. Jekyll heard the clatter of feet again and Mrs Lovett returned from the stairs.
"All ready, deary. Go on up."
Jekyll ascended the flight of stairs into a room build into the roof of the two buildings. There was a single chair in the middle of the room. The door creaked shut and Mr Sweeney Todd stepped out from behind it.
"Doctor Jekyll, I presume?" he said, smiling coldly. Like Mrs Lovett, Mr Todd had the look of a once-handsome man, in only half his former glory. His face was also pale, and he had a shock of wild black hair with a single white strip running through it. Jekyll was reminded unpleasantly of his best friend and lawyer, Gabriel Utterson.
"Now, my friend, what can we do for you?" asked Mr Todd, gesturing for the doctor to sit down, and he obeyed. Jekyll leant back in the surprisingly-comfortable chair, and closed his eyes.
"A little trim off the sideburns, please. And maybe some off the back."
Sweeney Todd grinned, pulling out one of his knife-like razors and examining it.
"No trouble. As is my motto, I will give you the closest shave you will ever know."
Todd stepped over to Jekyll. The man was, thankfully, completely relaxed, blissfully unaware. He lifted the razor.
Jekyll was drifting off into sleep, hardly aware of the fate that was to befall him. But something inside him stirred, and he felt a sudden disturbance in the air around him. He snapped open his eyes. But it was too late. Todd swung the razor down in a large arc, slicing Jekyll's throat. Todd relished the moment as he heard the man choking and gurgling as blood sprayed from the wound. He reached towards the hidden lever that would sent the chair down to the basement, reading for the victim to be baked into Mrs Lovett's pies, but suddenly he heard something that made his blood run cold. He spun round, and watched in terror as Jekyll emitted a unearthly roar, and began a horrific transformation. His hair lengthened and became matted, his teeth elongated, pushing out of his gums. His skin twisted and bubbled, becoming pale, cracked and dry. The faint veins on his face lit up as blood coursed through them, and his iris momentarily flashed a blinding blue, and the cut on his neck shone white and the skin instantaneously sowed back together. This was no longer Doctor Henry Jekyll. This was Mister Edward Hyde.
Sweeney Todd froze in horror as Hyde sat bolt upright, grabbed the barber, and, with immense strength, hurled him over the chair. Todd crashed into the wall, and hardly stirred. Hyde laughed darkly, and turned to go, placing his hand on the doorknob. He didn't notice as Todd rolled himself over, pulled out his razor sent it spinning through the air. It hit Hyde squarely in the chest, but it did not deter him, for he simply laughed and pulled it out, turned away from Todd, and threw it back over his shoulder. Todd scrambled to his feet, and attempted to dive out the way, but the razor pinned him to the wall. Hyde sauntered over to him, his teeth so long that his mouth hardly shut. His twisted face morphed into a horrific smile as he grabbed Todd by the shoulders. He slammed down on both, and Todd screamed in agony as he felt one shoulder fracture, and the other dislocate. With the hand that was not popped out of place, he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out another razor. Hyde was unaware, and Todd studied him for a moment, before deciding the best course of attack.
He pulled away from the wall, ripping his coat down the middle, ducked under Hyde's right hook that probably would've taken his head off, and brought the razor up into his groin. Hyde's unearthly roar shook the building again, and Todd heard Mrs Lovett reassure the customers with some excuse. In due course, Todd realised this was not the best thing to do in the present situation, because it made this man, who was practicality a demon, even more enraged. Hyde grabbed Todd again, wrenching his shoulder back into place, causing the smaller man to scream again, and, without even letting go of Mr Todd, hurtled himself out the window. They crashed onto a collection of crated outside, and several people inside the pie shop screamed. Todd was winded and struggling for breath, whilst Hyde seemed like an immortal. In his fuzzy period of semi-consciousness, Todd reckoned that this man could throw himself from Big Ben into the street and stand, without so much as a scratch. Too tired to fight back, he felt himself picked up and hurled through a cellar door in the street. He had just enough energy to open his eyes and look at his surroundings. He was under the Pie Shop, lying on a pile of corpses, all with a single slice upon their throats, and a monstrous oven in the corner. And after that, he blacked out.
It was nightfall when Hyde returned to the house. He rapped fiercely upon the door, and Jekyll's assistant Garson answered.
"Sorry, Doctor Jekyll, sir, I was just…," his voice trailed off when he saw who he was looking at, "My apologies, Mr Hyde, sir, I was expecting the Doctor."
"Most are," Hyde spoke in a deep, guttural growl, "As was the barber, and he ended up in the cellar with his other cadavers."
"I'm sorry, sir, I don't understand," Garson said.
Hyde slumped down in a chair, throwing off his coat. "The barber was a murder. That horrific woman, who worked with him, baked the victims into her disgusting pies."
"So I was eating…?"
Hyde simply growled as Garson rushed out of the room, and vomited. Clearing himself up, he came back into the room.
"Oh, and I have a message for the Doctor."
"Give it to me," said Hyde, grinning, "I shall pass it on."
"Someone came to the house earlier, he wanted to meet with Dr Jekyll."
"And he was?"
"Victor Frankenstein."