Well, I wrote another one… I started out with one thing in mind, and then sort of changed halfway through, so if it seems rather disjointed, that's probably why. It's also not quite as Sweenett-heavy as "Rainwater" but if I continue it, it may get a bit more so.
It was very still, and that was perhaps the thing that disturbed Mrs Lovett most about that night. The silence filled her dark room to the brim and rang horribly in her ears. She was afraid to move for fear that the rustling her bed sheets would make as she shifted might offend the silence, anger it, turn it against her. She was afraid to close her eyes, knowing that when she did, the faces of Mr Todd's victims would once again appear in her mind to haunt her, staring at her with dead eyes, blood dripping from the corners of their mouths. She knew that she would see again their limp bodies, unable to protest as she bent to her gruesome task, slitting open their skin, gutting them, cutting their flesh into pieces and throwing aside the bones.
No, Mrs Lovett knew she couldn't close her eyes. So she stared at the ceiling, her head full of demons, trying to ignore the taste of blood in her mouth. Suddenly she sat bolt upright in bed, her previous fear of silence forgotten. The door! The door, she had forgotten to shut the bake house door! Panic rose in Mrs Lovett's throat. They would come for her. All those dead men whose corpses she had butchered. They would come for her, dripping blood as they lurched up the stairs, and she would be powerless against them.
Mrs Lovett scrambled quickly out of bed, smoothing the skirts of the dress she hadn't bothered to take off when she had retired that evening. She had to go. Now. She had to close that door before it was too late. Before they came for her. She stumbled to the door, wincing at every creak her stockinged feet extracted from the old floorboards. The doorknob clicked agonizingly when she turned it and stepped out into the hallway. With no moonlight to stream through the wide windows in the front of the shop, it was pitch black, but Mrs Lovett didn't dare light a lamp.
She widened her eyes uselessly against the thick darkness and, with one hand trailing against the wall for support, tottered like a blind woman to where she knew the top of the stairs to the bake house would be. Her hand was unsteady on the wall, now that she was once again nearing that place which caused her so much terror, and that, ironically, was also the the place in which she spent so much time. It was with a somewhat shaky resolve that Mrs Lovett forced herself down the rickety stairs. She held one hand out in front of her, groping about in the blackness, and gasped when it came into contact with rough wooden planks.
Using her other hand to explore the strange surface, Mrs Lovett felt across the boards until suddenly, with a sigh that escaped her lips like mad laughter, she realized that the thing in front of her was really the very bake house door that she had been convinced she had forgotten to shut. Silently cursing her own paranoia, the baker made sure the heavy iron bolt was securely in place and then made her weary way back up the stairs.
She was about to move back down the hall to her room when something made her stop. The faint whisper of breath in the dark, in and out, made her go cold. She froze, her palm still pressed against the wall for support. There was a tapping noise, growing closer. Footsteps. Images of demons were flashing through Mrs Lovett's terrified brain, their slashed throats dripping, their arms encircling her, pulling her down to their hungry, fanged mouths.
In the oppressive blackness, every sound was magnified, the approaching footsteps crashing onto the floorboards, Mrs Lovett's own heartbeat echoing thunderously in her ears. Slim fingers circled her wrist and she closed her eyes, waiting for the demon to strike.
"Mrs Lovett?" The sound of her own name startled the baker, but the voice that said it startled her even more. Mr Todd. What was he doing here? For a moment she was relieved, but then it occurred to her that perhaps she should still be worried. While one hand gripped her arm, what if the other was curled around one of his beautiful silver razors? She tried to pull away, but his fingers tightened on her wrist. "Wait."
Something in his voice made her obey. Mr Todd stepped closer, so near now that Mrs Lovett thought she could feel the warmth of his breath on her face.
"What are you doing here?" His voice was its characteristic monotone- neither hostile nor friendly. She couldn't tell if this was normal, or if there was bloodlust bubbling just below the surface.
She answered slowly "…I couldn't sleep."
A low breath, almost a sigh passed his lips and his once-painful grip on her arm loosened slightly. "Oh." Mrs Lovett too breathed a sigh of relief and let herself experience the quiet joy of standing so close to the surly object of her affection. She breathed in his scent- metal, and the Eau de Cologne he kept in glass bottles on the bureau in his shop.
Plucking up her courage, she gazed at where she imagined his face might be in the dark and said, "I had… horrible dreams. D'you ever get those, Mr T? Demons in your head?"
There was a long pause, and Mrs Lovett wished she could see the barber's expression. Finally, "Yes," he whispered. "Yes, I do." Then his hand left her arm, and she heard his footsteps receding back upstairs.