Author's Note: Enjoy! I'm working on a couple of stories now so I'm going to need a lot of reviews if you'd like me to update quickly!
I don't own anything but Tiffany.
STSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTST
"You!" My 'master' screamed.
"Yes sir?" He yanked me up by my hair and made me face a man that was standing in the doorway of the cell I was in. I shared this cell with many other young women who were called 'mad'; this was a mad house after all, also known as an asylum. In fact, they would put women in this house for just about anything, my crime was refusing to become the wife of a rather rich foreign traveler who had punished me by putting me in this crazy place.
"This kind man has offered to take you filthy vermin off my hands!" He released my curly black locks from his grip. I breathed in with clenched teeth when he hit me on my butt I had created a hissing sound.
The man in the doorway cleared his throat, he looked rather awkward. He had wild black hair with one white 'stress streak' on the left side of his head. He was wearing a black pinstriped pair of pants, off white long sleeved shirt, with a black vest covering that, and to finish that off he was wearing a black coat over that with an off-white strip of cloth hanging from his neck. He smirked a grim smile that sent shivers up my spine.
"She looks old and strong enough for the job?" My 'master' asked holding onto my shoulder and cutting his unkempt nails into me so hard that it drew blood on my dirty dress that was a dirty brown.
"Aye, she'll do." He beckoned to me and my master threw me at him. The man grabbed me around my waist and placed me back up on my feet. I only came up to his nose so I actually had to turn my head upwards to see him fully in the face. He pulled me along a long hallway and remained quiet. I realized I had been staring at him and when he turned to look at me I avoided his gaze.
"Beg my pardon sir." I said quietly and he nodded appreciatively. He led me to a carriage and opened the door motioning for me to climb in.
"Thank you sir."
"You're scared to death aren't you?" He asked about a half hour into the ride where I had been focused fully on my hands that sat in my lap.
"Yes sir." He nodded understandingly and yet he continued to look at the window.
"What's your name?" He asked me apparently trying to bestow a conversation.
"Tiffany." My answer was short and curt and I saw a bit of anger flash before his eyes.
"Tiffany, that's very…German, is it?"
"It's English."
"Oh! I see and does it have a meaning?" I looked at him with obvious wonder and hopefully it showed him how annoyed I was.
"It means bright valley...and strong." I said biting my tongue so as not to let a sailor's word slip.
"Well that's nice. My name's Sweeney. Sweeney Todd." His voice was gruff but showed he had cared what he was speaking for and about.
"Well that's a lovely name what is it?" I said just messing with him. I saw his hand fling to his belt and his hand twitched over something shiny in a holder on his belt. He caught my eye and looked guilty for even thinking the thought he had thought. My eyebrows crunched in confusion over my deep blue almost purple eyes.
"It's Irish."
"Oh, and does it have a meaning by any chance?"
"Actually, it does. It means small hero." I looked at him shocked he actually gave an appropriate answer not a sarcastic or hurtful one. I nodded again lost in my thought of pure terror until the carriage came to a stop.
"Out ye go lass." He said holding out his hand for me as I climbed from the carriage. He gave the driver a tip and took me by the hand.
"Come." He said in an almost violent way as he held fast to my wrist and practically dragged me down the street. I stepped quickly my brown dress with dark red outer corset dragged on the wet ground and I heard my matching red heels click loudly; I was walking quite fast for a young women in a corseted dress.
"Mr. Todd!" I breathed in deeply and he pulled me faster if to just slightly annoy me more.
"Fleet Street." I breathed the name out loud as I read it off of the swinging side on the street's corner. He pulled me not much farther down the thin street and to the front of a two story shop that read "Mrs. Lovett's" across the middle of it, which must have been the name of the lower store.
"Come on Teresa." He said nonchalantly.
"It's Tiffany!"
"That's what I said isn't it?" He asked crossing the street and stepping in the sewer line, well what had been a sewer line. Apparently this was the Thames River, even I knew that. The Thames River is perhaps the dirtiest river in Europe, raw sewage and industrial waste is dumped into the streets without second consideration. Many of the girls who had been put in the mad house were there because they had been beggars on the streets who had eaten out of the Thames River and caught a disease such as smallpox, the plague, and fever.
"Oh, Mr. Todd! Dear dear. What a lovely pants suit that was too." I shook my head shamefully after he stepped in the dirty water puddle line.
"Really lass? I hadn't noticed!" He said shaking his leg and letting the sewage water drip off of him. I gagged at the raw stench that filled my nose as I bent over to see the 'water' that was more like running gunk. He pulled me by my wrist again and into the building. There were many tables lined up and their wasn't a person in the shop (called Mrs. Lovett's) except, for one woman.
The woman must have been Mrs. Lovett; she was standing behind the counter holding a rolling pin. She was wearing an all brown dress similar to mine except with a black outer corset. Her hair was a little less curly than mine and was pinned up in a huge mess all over her head. She looked at us and breathed in deeply.
"Huh! Customers! Wait! What's your rush? What's your hurry? You gave me such a fright I thought you were two ghosts! Wait don't you have a minute? Have a seat! Sit!" She said dropping the rolling pin and wiping her hands before pushing us into seats. Sweeney looked at her unfazed by this reaction.
"I haven't seen a customer in weeks! Did you two come in for pies sir? What is that?" She crushed a large bug with the rolling pin. Sweeny cringed and I gagged.
"Right you are sir. Here you go! Would you like a drop of ale? No you don't!" She said stepping on another bug as she took a pie crust and ladled some gross looking fillings on it before serving us each a pie and a glass of ale.
"Here you go here's an ale trust me you'll need it! These are the worst pies in London after all. It looks like revolted and it tastes like…well…pity." She said shrugging. She turned her back to put the raw meat pies into the oven and Sweeney took a bite of his pie and encouraged me to do the same. Our reactions were the same, we both spit it out in the direction of the door and took some ale before practically choking on that as well.
"What are you here for sir?" She asked finally sitting down next to him.
"I'm looking for a one Benjamin Barker." Suspicion was the first thing that lifted into her eyes but soon I saw that she had realized something.
"He's gone."
"Gone?" He asked sounding worried; he must really need this guy.
"Gone. He was sentenced by a one Judge Turpin…" And so Mrs. Lovett told us the sadly cruel story of Benjamin Barker and his beautiful wife Lucy and daughter Johanna.
"Has no one showed her mercy!" He interrupted her story in an angry yell. She had been telling the part where Lucy Benjamin had been raped.
"So it is you…Benjamin Barker." She whispered. I attempted to scoot back from the piano I was sitting on next to the spot Benjamin had just risen from.
"Where's my wife?"
"Poisoned herself with arsenic, was off her feet for two months."
"15 years is along time to be dreaming to come home to a wife and child…"
"Mr. Barker?" She asked.
"No. Not Barker anymore. It's Todd now." I shivered when he put his hand on my practically bare shoulder because of my low cut dress.
"Come on dear. Let me show you to the room you'll be sharing with me. Mr. Todd will have his own…? Right Mr. T?" He nodded absently sitting down at the piano and playing a melancholy tune.
She held out her hand as if I was a young child, being at the age of 17 myself made me realize that they could send me back to that horrid place yet again. I took her hand willingly still quite scared to the fact that she was leading me upstairs, where it was said that the second floor of this building was haunted.
"Not to worry dear, there's nothing to worry about up here." She must have realized my panicked faze. I felt my blood run cold when one of the stairs creaked under out weight. I sucked in quickly and she smiled at me kindly before leading me down a hallway. She pulled a ring of keys out of her top and winked at me before unlocking a room.
"This'll be our room to share; you can have that bed there." She said pointing to a dusty bed next to a window and desk farthest away from the door we had she walked in from. I nodded at her appreciatively.
"Do you happen to know what Mr. Todd wants with me?" I asked trying to get all of the dust out by patting it. She stood next to me and nodded.
"Wanted you to become his apprentice is the best guess I could give you dear."
"Apprentice?"
"You know a young helper…"
"I know what it means. I just…apprentice for what?"
"Well I can only imagine you'll be helping me with making the meat pies and then of course you'll be needing to help Mr. T with his barber business." I nodded acceptingly, of course I knew I would be put to work, there is no way I would just be put into a happy home for no reason.
"It's fine for tonight dear. Why don't you just head off to bed?" I wanted to glare but I knew I would have been punished if I had.
"Yes mam." I was about to lay down but she pulled me back up by the shoulders.
"What are you doing dear? You can't wear that to bed." I looked up at her.
"Well what do you propose I wear?" I asked smartly she gave me a grim look and I muttered an apology under my breath.
"How about your shift?"
"Yes mam. After all, it's much better than wearing a corset." She nodded and helped me untie all of my many layered dress wear before she scrunched her nose in disgust.
"Darling, when's the last time you've changed outfits?"
"I haven't since I was first sent to the asylum, I wasn't aloud to change, and we didn't have clothes to change into."
"Humph. I see, well then we'll just have to make due with my clothes on you."
"Yes mam." She walked across the room and pulled some clothes out of a trunk.
"Here ye go love." She handed me a black dress with a black outer corset, it had red tuffs of material coming out of the top.
"Wear that tomorrow I'll be into bed later."
"Yes mam. Thanks very much." She nodded dismissively and I had no choice but to lay down on the old dusty bed and listen to their footsteps below me. I heard Sweeney screaming in apparent anger and my stomach jumped, things didn't sound good for poor Mrs. Lovett. I heard them walking up the stairs I had just came up and I held my breath. They walked up another set of stairs that I hadn't realized before, and up into another room I could only assume.
I heard Sweeney talking about his 'only friends' I believe he was saying something about knifes as well but I was soon dozing off.