Disclaimer: I don't own the characters herein.
Author's Note: In the 19th century, cannabis was part of mainstream British medicine, and was available over the counter. I thought it would be really interesting to see what happens between the barber and the baker when they both have aches and pains. "Draw" is the modern British slang word for marijuana.
Summary: Mrs. Lovett and Mr. Todd smoke "Indian hemp," prescribed for pain and anxiety.
Draw
"This bloody damn wet weather," Mrs. Lovett winced as she bent over for the hundredth time to roll a crust. "My back is aching fit to kill."
Mr. Todd, who was in the process of bringing her firewood from around the corner, let out a particularly fierce oath when a log slipped and bashed his foot. She winced and hurried to drag the offending log off of him, saying, "Are you all right, Mr. T? Is it broken? Oh, your poor foot-"
"It's fine," he'd growled, limping just a little bit into the shop. Shoving the load of wood into her stove, he stood, grimacing.
"Are you sure?" Mrs. Lovett asked. She winced a little when he frowned at her.
"Yes," he said shortly.
"My back 'as been twinging as well," Mrs. Lovett sighed as she sprinkled more flour on her baking board. All a labor of love, she thought dreamily.
She gasped when she felt a pressure on her lower back, working at the knot that had been forming just above her hips all day. "Ah, Mr. T," she said, with far more breath and pleasure in her voice than was proper. She felt him laugh a little against her.
"How many pies have you made so far?" he asked her as his hands massaged her back firmly.
"Nigh on hundred twenty," she said, her voice languorous.
He laughed out loud at her reaction this time. "You sound as though it were not your back I'm rubbing," he murmured in her ear. He knew exactly what he was doing. Mrs. Lovett could not help that her cheeks flushed so red, so invitingly. She looked over her shoulder at him.
"You're a scandalous brute," she said affectionately.
His smile was predatory. "Thank you, my pet." He pulled her against him. "I will go to the apothecary and get something to make you feel better," he said, his voice a rumble in her ear. "But it will have to wait until after the rush."
Mrs. Lovett pouted ever so slightly, knowing that it irritated him. "I'll be crippled by then," she said, pushing a lump of dough into a ball and allowing him to run his hands over her body as she worked.
This nonchalant exploration of her person, she felt, was useful in exorcising the memory of Lucy. If he could be made to see that, in memorizing her body, he was leaving Lucy's behind, and that learning to love another woman required that intimacy. So she allowed him free rein over her body. She was his, to do with as he pleased. And please he did, and found her a willing participant.
His hands toyed with the laces of her corset. "You've bought new dresses," he said.
"Yes," Mrs. Lovett said brightly. "D'you like them?"
"Hm," he muttered, his hands roving over her hips. "They're very fancy."
"Well, I'm a successful businesswoman now, Mr. T," she said, bending slightly to fetch more flour and pushing her behind into his groin. "I want to look the part."
Mr. Todd caught his breath at the sudden thick slide of her body against his, his eyes shutting for just the briefest moment. She glanced at him over her shoulder, a quick, cheeky look that made him frown at her again. "Make sure you send me a lad or two," he said. "A law student, perhaps?"
Mrs. Lovett merely laughed. "I guarantee I'll send you the prize ones," she purred, a tone that was crystal with promise.
"Good," he said, and he was gone. She pressed her lips together for a moment. She was buzzing with the impact of his body on hers.
In the glow of her memory of that afternoon, Mrs. Lovett didn't heed her back as she plunged into the lively eating garden with pies and ale. She stood straight and smiled, talking quite at her ease, collecting coins as she went. She'd made herself slightly fancier this evening, in a copper gown with black lace at the shoulders. Her hair was its usual conflagration of curls; it was as if she didn't notice it which, Mr. Todd knew as well as Benjamin did, had been her particular cross when she was young. Perhaps, deciding it had given her quite enough trouble, she had resolved to pay it only the most cursory of attentions.
Sweeping among her customers, she pulled her skirts aside to display a blood red petticoat made of silk and lavishly beaded with jet. She looked macabre and beautiful.
True to her word, she made sure two men went up to Mr. Todd's for a shave, and no one noticed that they didn't return. It was so busy she didn't give them a second thought.
Around eleven o' clock the last drunk students went out unsteadily into the damp London night, and Mrs. Lovett let her breath out. She shut and locked her door, and Mr. Todd came heavily down the interior staircase holding a small pouch. She followed him as he went into her apartment as if he owned it, heading straight for the kitchen, at the little table in the corner. "Come here," he said to her. From her position in the doorway, she observed him. He was lean, thin but solid. Sitting at her table, she could imagine him as her husband. He gestured at the chair across from him. She sat, and he overturned the pouch.
What looked like three large buds fell out. "What is this?" Mrs. Lovett asked, picking one up. It weighed nothing, but seemed very dense. Its mottled green and brown color made it look like an old rosebud.
"It's Indian hemp," Mr. Todd said. "They gave it to me on the ship when I was ill. It cures almost anything, even backache." He glanced at her, just quickly, and she smiled.
"Thank you," she said warmly. She looked down at the plant in her hand. "Am I meant to make tea with it?"
"No," Mr. Todd said, taking it from her. He crumbled it onto the tabletop and drew out a pipe, made of dark, polished wood. "It's to be smoked, like tobacco." Filling the pipe with the green and brown leaf, he struck a match and inhaled. It glowed orange, and he exhaled and handed her the pipe. She took it and took a deep drag, which impressed Mr. Todd. He regarded her with an amused expression. "Have you smoked a pipe before?" he inquired.
She exhaled the smoke around the pipe and regarded him insouciantly. "It's not very ladylike," she said, utterly facetious, "I am loath to admit it." Her gaze was one of such louche abandonment Mr. Todd couldn't help the momentary twitch of his lips.
Mr. Todd's lips curled upward in a subtle smile. They traded the pipe back and forth between them, the conversation slowly seeming to unstick itself from both their throats. The words came to him easily, his eyes seemed to animate and really look at her. She couldn't help her smile. Mrs. Lovett felt like her old self for just a moment, as Mr. Todd coughed hard and actually laughed at something she'd said. Not loudly, mind, but still a laugh, and it thrilled her.
She found it such a wonderful thing that he laughed around her. In the beginning he'd been quietly emotionless, neither laughing nor crying. At least he smiled now, though it was rare and usually only in front of her. She liked his laugh.
"Oh, come off it," she said affectionately, in response to his query as to whether or not she'd considered remarrying after Albert's death. "I'm flesh and blood just like you," she said, "but I didn't want to try again. Too much work." She played with a match with idle fingers. "We never expect to be separated from those we love," she added thoughtfully, her eyes cast to the ceiling. "Nor do we expect to be reunited with them, once lost." Her gaze fell on the barber's face, flickering in the lamplight. "Life's a bloody wonder," she commented.
Mr. Todd was very still. He looked into the lamp, at the oil, strangely, as though he were contemplating drinking it. Then he looked at her, full in the face. "I came back to it," he said finally.
"I think you did," Mrs. Lovett said simply. "But you say Benjamin Barker is dead."
"He is." Mr. Todd was vehement suddenly.
There was a silence, and then Mrs. Lovett said, softly, "I owe Benjamin Barker a debt of gratitude, for he delivered you home safe to me."
The pipe clicked against the wood of her kitchen table. Mr. Todd regarded her with a frank stare, and she met his gaze with quiet resolution. They almost looked as though they were adversaries, across the table from each other. But it was he who took a deep breath and said, "You are the most familiar thing in this existence." He was still. "One can't deny the impact of seeing something they know, and being known..." His eyes drifted away from hers and down to the pipe, which he refilled and lit again. He was pensive, and Mrs. Lovett let him be silent. She took the pipe when it was handed to her and smoked thoughtfully.
The oil in the lamp burned down. The three buds disappeared into the pipe, the aches and pains of their hearts and bodies dissolved, at least temporarily.
He came to her that night and bore her down into the mattress, pushing her shift up her thighs and pulling it down off her shoulders. He moved as though for once he had lost the perpetual stiffness of his body, and even as she threw her head back in pleasure Mrs. Lovett marveled at the efficacy of modern medicine. Surely they were living in a great age.