This is based off of the musical, rather than the movie. If you just got home from the movie theater and are staring at the screen saying, "Whaaat?! That didn't happen in canon!", it probably did.

"By the sea, Mr. Todd, we'd be comfy-cozy,
By the sea, Mr. Todd, where there's no one nosy."
- Mrs. Lovett, Final Sequence, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

Chapter One: Tobias Ragg

I have to get out of here, was my first disgusted thought. Oh, God, I had to get out, because the best pies in London, that everyone loved so much, were…

No! Why was the door locked? Mrs. Lovett would never lock the door on me—Mr. Todd must have done it! I knew he couldn't be trusted; this horror in the bakehouse was his fault.

But there was a nagging thought attacking my mind. Mrs. Lovett made the pies. She had to know what was in them…but she would never serve human pies. Mr. Todd must be deceiving her, like I'd said!

I had to protect her. We would run away from here, escape London, and we could go live the way she wanted: by the sea. Like a real family, like a mother and her son.

But first I had to get out of the basement.

Thud. The sound came from above, but what was it? There was a creak of hinges right over me; I dove out of the way just in time. Something hit the floor where I had been standing. Trembling, I crept over to examine it.

Oh, God. Oh, God, it was a body, it was the corpse of Beadle Bamford. I had heard him singing with Mrs. Lovett upstairs just a moment ago—I had joined in. He would do no more singing with a slit throat; there was no question that he was dead.

I had to hide, now. Mr. Todd was a murderer, and I needed to stay safe to protect both myself and Mrs. Lovett.

They called for me—as if the barber's lies would lure me out! Hearing Mrs. Lovett repeat my warning back to me nearly broke my heart, but I didn't dare to reveal myself—I couldn't! Shock paralyzed me in my hideaway in the cellar; fear roared in my ears, drowning out all feeling except my heart's desperate beat.

When their last cries ("Toby…? Where are you, lad?") faded into echoes' ghosts, the fear still kept me locked in position. I freed myself in time to see Mr. Todd waltzing Mrs. Lovett around the bakehouse. But I could tell something was wrong; the barber was a demon, even if I was the only one who knew.

"Not to worry, Mum."

The oven door was open. I realized a second too late.

"I may not be smart, but I ain't dumb."

Her screams froze the blood in my veins. The bakehouse reeled dizzyingly around me. Lightheaded, I bent down to steady myself.

He was cradling the old woman's body. How many times had Mum told me, "Toby! Throw the old woman out!"?.

I had made a promise to Mum.

"Nothing's gonna harm you, not while I'm around."

"Patty-cake!" It was my voice, but it seemed disembodied, out of my control. "Patty-cake, baker-man! Bake me a cake!" My eyes darted around the bakehouse wildly. "No—bake me a pie!" If he heard me, the demon did not respond. "To delight my eye…and I shall sigh if the crust be high!" I was close now, and it struck me to examine the beggar woman's face—I had never paid much attention to her.

I bent over the two, and Mr. Todd suddenly shoves me away. I stumbled back, stepped on something that slid out from under my foot, and fell to the floor. I turned around, propping myself up. My hand brushed the cold silver handle of one of Mr. Todd's razors.

"I'll send them howlin', I don't care…"

I didn't have to decide to pick it up.

"…I got ways."

The blade glinted, gilded with the oven's light. Mrs. Lovett was burning in there. "Mr. Todd…" I growled, approaching vengefully. The beggar woman's neck was cut like the Beadle's…Mr. Todd's neck, then, was my target.

"Pat him," I hissed the nursery rhyme, "and prick him," I was behind him, "and mark him with a B." Very slowly, he tilted his head back, exposing his neck for me. "And put him in the oven—" I glanced at it and gritted my teeth, "for baby and me!"

A factory whistle drowned away any screams, but I doubted the demon cried out or felt the cut; he sensed merely the frozen hands of death on his neck. His head slumped over the dead beggar; his blood blanketed her.

There would be no life by the sea. In the room filled with murder, I stood and stared at the much-used weapon in my hand. My hand was gloved with the blood of another. There was a bang, and the door was forced open.

A blonde woman dressed as a sailor stood with a man behind some constables. I glanced at them, seeing my stretched reflection in one of the officers' badges. There was a blur that I recognized as myself, but it was white-topped. Dropping the razor, I raised a bloody hand to my head. Beneath blood's thick crimson film, the hair I held was white.

I stumbled back to the meat grinder; these other people were insignificant. Three times through, she had said. That's the secret that makes them juicy and tender. Three times through.