The light had gone out of them. All of it. What one could mistake now for some echoed luminescence was little more than reflection of the vengeful brushfire of his lashes. Long gone were the warm sensations of his heart, where blood meant life and life meant love, and all of that meant Benjamin Barker. Here now was an empty tin--nay, a chrysalis--the winged thing gone escaped, the shell left to breathe and work for two. No, Benjamin was no butterfly. His colors had been taken from him those dark, twilight years, thick like a wet, poison bath. It had bleached him, scoured him, unpetaled the rose from his complexion and hung it overturned to dry. He could not fly, though he dreamt of it so often as the fat greenish caterpillar would. And never could he drink from bright-faced flower, nor unfurl his tongue and speak wonder unto its center.
He would dwell in a chamber of ashen recollection. A musty roof-cellar with but one executioner's chair. Never would he sit there, for the temptation to sever his pulse was intoxicating and far too obtainable in that moment. It was the window he would frequent, empty gaze scanning the dull fogged street and seeing nothing of it. Out of tears, his irises ran, leaked black ink into the faint wrinkles of his under eye. He blinked. Lucy was on the back of his lids, if only for the vague pink of sunlight through thin flesh. It was as close as he could get to her now. His memory was dark, beaten and estranged for his purpose. His purpose... he breathed.
Mrs. Lovett was a bother. Her scent like abandoned, dry places, palms perhaps more calloused than his own. She would have been beautiful some decade or two ago. He knew this because she still cried over him. She was his best friend now, his dark accomplice, his undead partner. Her flesh as white as theatrical powder, eyes redrimmed, lips drawn, throat gaunt. She was the closest Benjamin came to seeing a reflection of himself outside the looking glass. It was pathetic. It was comforting. It was home.