I'm trying to post a drabble every two days and keep up with the around-1000-words-a-day goal I've set for myself in writing my multichapter Sweeney Todd fic. I'm probably nuts. This is okay.
All these drabbles, by the way, are vaguely inspired by random songs. This one is named the same as its song, which is the epic Les Miserables parody "Act One Finale" from Urinetown the Musical. The drabble is considerably more serious than the source material, although I can imagine Lucy screeching at Benjamin, "Bobby, you'll get Urinetown! Off you'll go to Urinetown! Urinetown! Urinetown!"
Now that would be a weird crossover.
Two days from now expect a drabble about Beadle Bamford's disgusting man-crush, because I have issues.
Act One Finale
"Absolutely not," Benjamin tells her. "It's not worth it, my only. I won't have my guilt on you."
She doesn't tell him it won't be guilt. She won't regret. If he can stay with her, she'll gladly go to hell when she dies. There are words for sins, but not for waking up next to him every morning.
"Just once, and he might change his mind," she says. She doesn't tell him it will be the most horrible night of her life. She's heard the stories. The Judge will strike her and whisper about lust, wrong, and god, then as his breath grows ragged lust and wrong fade out until he's screaming as if the heavens hear him.
And she'll lie back and think of Benjamin. At least she hopes she'll think of Benjamin. She'll probably think of the flowers, those bouquets he brought, the colors rising on the inside of her eyelids and flowing out with her tears.
Benjamin takes her face in his hands. "To have you soiled—I couldn't come home, I couldn't face you."
So she doesn't, then, and she pays.
It is atonement. She knows what's going to happen. She lets the Beadle lead her. She tells herself she can reason with him, she won't have to.
But she does. She's given no choice.
And it's far worse than imagination. Not the night, though it is horrible and she has nightmares still, weeks after. But living with herself and remembering Benjamin's words. He can't come home now. She's gone against him and it's done nothing but destroy her.
One night she wakes from a nightmare. She decides she will have no more of them.