A/N: This is a story that I started writing before I saw the movie, so I didn't know that Sweeney's shop was right above Mrs. Lovett's. I didn't know how to change the beginning without throwing the story out of whack. Mea culpa! Hope you enjoy! It was so much fun to write. (By the way, the upcoming 'Whac-a-Mole-game brain' reference is taken from an article by a hysterically funny humor writer, Dave Barry. He talks about a crazy guy and says that where most people have a brain, THIS guy has a Whac-a-Mole game.)
Ignorance Is Bliss
A Sweenett
Sweeney Todd had woken at five, gotten psyched up enough to go out and face the vermin by seven-forty, and serviced bed-headed customers from morning till late afternoon. In this space of time, Eleanor Lovett had not once hung on his shoulder, joined in on one of his songs, or attempted(attempted.) to seductively eat a piece of fruit without getting any juice down her chin or looking like she was looking at him and trying to see if he was watching- not that she cared whether or not he noticed, of course. Clearly, there was a disturbance in the force. The messy-haired psychopath carefully tucked his friends away for the night and swept up his workstation. Stupid vermin shedding everywhere. Did they think this was easy on his back? Well, it wasn't. Friggin' vermin. He walked briskly through the cobbled streets, his coat and unruly locks tugged every which way by a cool rising wind that promised rain. Pausing only briefly to kick a few puppies, he beat the storm and closed the pie shop's door firmly behind him.
Sweeney had one foot on the stairs when he heard the weeping. It was quiet but charged with great upsetness. As he listened, the weeper took a shuddering breath, snuffled, and let loose a very unladylike honk. He could be up those stairs in thirty seconds, forty if he tiptoed. One step. Two. Thr- CREAK The whimpering stopped. A quavering croak: "Mr. Todd?" Oh, bugger me. Taking one last glance up at the loft where he knew his cozy bed waited, the demon barber descended. Oh, sure- did the traitorous step make a sound this time? Noooo. Rotten thing. He gave it a good hard glare as he headed into the back of the shop without responding. A thin ray of light peeked out from Mrs. Lovett's room; her door was ever so slightly ajar. As he was wont to do, Sweeney pushed the door open with three knuckles without knocking, only murmuring, "Eleanor?" when his head was halfway into the room. There was a muffled yelp. He got the briefest glimpse of the kooky woman lying prostrate on the floor as is she'd been trampled by multiple carriages. She'd made a nest out of every pillow in the place.
She was wearing only a nightgown and one sock. Mrs. Lovett yanked a dingy blanket over her frame and tried in vain to wipe running eyeliner off her face without smudging it every which way. Given that and her wild locks, she looked like an overtired chimney sweep. "Mr. Todd! Oh! You didn't—" "You called me." He reminded her simply. "I just wanted to know if you were home." Already she'd laid her head back down. Another alarm bell sounded in Sweeney's Whac-a-Mole-game brain. Her skin, he noticed, was several shades chalkier than usual, obvious even from where he stood hesitating in the doorway, to the point of making the circles under her eyes purple. Her lips looked dry and almost cracked, and she was trembling as if she'd recently been violently ill. Judging from the lingering tang of vomit in the vicinity, that wasn't an outlandish guess. Resisting(but just barely so) the urge to tell her that she really shouldn't sample her own batter while she was working, Sweeney took three silent strides and knelt next to his landlady. She closed her wide eyes as one of his big, cool hands pushed away some of her mane's frizz and settled on her white forehead. She was clammy and just a touch warm, not enough to be feverish. Still, she was clearly ailing.
"What's happened to you?" Specks of color rose in her cheeks, shockingly stark against the rest of her ashen face. Mrs. Lovett's involuntary shivering made her stammer as she mumbled, "Y-y-you d-don't want t-to kno-know." Had someone hurt her? Poisoned her? Alarm flared in the musically talented nutjob's gut. "Yes, I do." He insisted, with more force than he'd intended. The specks grew into tiny splotches. Her glazed eyes wouldn't meet his. "Ohhh, Mr. T…" "Tell me!" he barked, startling himself nearly as much as her. Wincing and holding one deceptively delicate hand to her temples, the baker muttered something so low that Sweeney couldn't catch it even in the otherwise empty room. "Mrs. Lovett," he growled. Her head snapped up. Eyes sparking, she hissed each word of her reply like its own interjection: "I'm on my stinkin' period!" The tension left Sweeney's neck and shoulders as heat washed up his neck and ears. Oh. The admission hung heavy in the air between them, like a big slab of dead cow. A moment later, a snicker escaped the barber's pursed lips.
Mrs. Lovett slowly sat up. "You're laughing at me." He got his expression under control and gazed evenly at her. His eyes must have given him away, though, because indignity replaced her disbelief. "It ain't funny! I feel like I'm dyin'!"But the situation was all too amusing. Sweeney found it nothing less than hilarious that such a living hurricane could be leveled by an organ that could fit neatly in his fist. "You're not dying," he told her, unsure how he did it but managing to keep a straight face. "Oh, THANK you!" she snorted, throwing the hand that wasn't cradling her temples into the stuffy air in exasperation, "I feel much better now!" "Lie down, you silly creature." The psycho barber quitted the room and picked his way down the stairs with an effortless grace. He went into the kitchen and retrieved what he wanted. He picked a few toenails off of the floor and dropped them into the wastebasket on his way out. * * * *
Two big brown eyes slid partway open as Sweeney re-entered the room. They stared at him, empty with pain, and he had to admit that she did look a little pathetic. Whether or not(and you can bet your bones that, with this guy it'll be the latter) he would admit it even to himself, Sweeney was relieved that her assailant was her own womb. (On the other hand, now that he thought about it, that did mean that he couldn't punch one of her blades through its throat. Oh well.) "I've brought you something that's sure to help." She pressed her pallid forehead into one of her frilly sleeves, dabbing away a fresh sheen of perspiration. "I 'ope it's some of your friends." She mumbled, turning one of her wrists to face him. Baring his slightly pointed teeth in a momentary one-sided grin, Sweeney let the bottle of wine catch her eye. "No- it'd spoil their appetites for tomorrow, my pet." He sat down on the room's one queen-sized bed, uncorked the bottle, and took an appreciative sniff before pouring a finger of its contents into a glass. This glass he extended to Mrs. Lovett. The redheaded baker took the glass…only to set it on the floor. Before Sweeney could blink, she took the bottle and drank straight from its neck.
He watched with uncertainty and a little awe as a quarter of the bottle disappeared in several good gulps. As the level of wine headed rapidly for the halfway, then the one-quarter mark, Sweeney reached out and caught the bottle in one fist. Mrs. Lovett sank back onto the pillows with a sigh of contentment." "Ah, that's better, love." Sweeney was still staring at the finger and a half sloshing in what had five minutes prior been nearly a full bottle. To his further amazement, she picked up the previously spurned glass, toasted the air, and drank that back in a single go. "That's good." He blinked slowly a couple of times, then decided that keeping her mollified during this most unfortunate time was the important thing. She couldn't be any worse completely plastered than she was all hormonal and weepy…right? * * * *
"Mmm- I love you soooo much, Mister T." Sweeney tried in vain to extricate his torso from Mrs. Lovett's embrace. The woman had a grip like…he didn't even know what. All that meatgrinding had given her upper arm strength that any man would envy. That was great for her business; not so much for those she hugged! "Ooh, give us a kiss," she crooned, crawling into his lap and craning towards his face. Gah- too much touching too much touching entirely too much touching! "Stop breathing my air, woman!" he snapped, pushing on her chin and wrinkling his nose in order to pinch his nostrils off from her breath, which was almost pure alcohol. She kept twisting her face and trying for his lips. Abruptly, Sweeney hit the tail end of his extraordinarily short fuse. He planted one hand firmly over her heart, muzzled her mouth with the other, and shoved hard. "Uff!" She landed on her bottom with a satisfying squeak. He glared down at her, dark eyes shooting fire, poison filling his tongue.
She stared back at him. As she did, her lower lip trembled. He watched in disbelief as his goony business partner's chocolate brown eyes grew even more enormous and started to leak. Mrs. Lovett's lips jerked to emit a sob that was quite shortly followed by many friends and relatives. The demon barber watched, uncomfortable as if he were sitting on barbed wire, broken glass, and several of his friends. He held up one finger, then curled it back down. "Oh, why'd ya have t' be so rough, Mister T?" Mrs. Lovett wailed. He opened his mouth to say something, but she cut him off with a fresh wave of bawling. Sweeney stared up at the ceiling. Took a deep breath through his nose. And let it out very slowly. The introverted psycho leaned forward and offered her an arm up. "I'm sorry, N-" She buried her big reddish eyes and running nose in his neck and hugged him until he worried for several of his internal organs. Giving up on any sort of peace till she was pacified, Sweeney patted her shoulder with the very tips of three fingers. "I don't feel good," she whimpered, curling into a surprisingly tiny ball. He could smell the faintest rusty hint of blood under her perspiration and breath. "I know," he told her, not gently but not too gruffly either. The cannibalistic redhead sniffled into his damp collar. "My head's alllllll tingly and I'm so warm, but it still 'urts-" "Hush-hush," the demon barber hastened to cut her off. Without thinking, he began to rock her.
Soothed, she sighed. It tickled and warmed his skin. "Try and get some sleep, Mrs. Lovett." She nuzzled his neck and shoulder, gave him a squeeze, and kissed his collar. "It'll be better in the morning." With the hangover that you're going to have, unlikely. "That's right." He humored her. Mrs. Lovett stopped kissing and mumbling quasi-intelligibly for a couple of minutes. Taking a break for the next wave of unsolicited affection, no doubt. Sweeney smirked humorlessly and craned his neck in order to gauge her expression. She was fast asleep. * * * *
Once he'd gotten past his initial shock, Sweeney made several attempts to wake her. When that proved futile, he tried to extricate himself. Gah, the woman had a grip like a corset. There would be no freedom for him tonight. He was thankful that he'd relieved himself before poking his head in here. He hadn't had dinner, but that was alright- he wasn't hungry, and now his landlady couldn't pick at him to eat something anyway. A small smirk quirked up one corner of his lips. The pallid barber closed his eyes for just a minute. He was more tired than he'd first thought. His bloody eyeballs felt like they'd been dipped in lye when he opened them again. He was asleep in a matter of minutes. * * * *
Sweeney woke to a small voice exclaiming insistently. "Mum, Mum! The breakfast crowd's here!" "Unghhh," grunted Sweeney. "Mmf," mumbled Mrs. Lovett. Both opened their eyes to a fairly disconcerted Toby. "Oh- uh, sorry, Mr. Todd." "S'alright." The demon barber murmured, still muzzy with sleep but becoming more aware. "The breakfast crowd?" Mrs. Lovett realized, sitting up and pushing a mess of bedheaded curls out of her face. "Aagh! Start the fire, love, and get out some flour!" "Already did, Mum," the boy replied, still staring at the mass of pillows where his adoptive mother and the scary upstairs tenant had been…snuggling. "Oh, bless you, sweetheart. …ugh, my head. I'll be down in a minute!" "Right, Mum." Not needing an excuse, Toby shuffled out the door and fairly bolted down the stairs. Blushing, Mrs. Lovett got up on one knee and rolled off her tenant. Sweeney stood up and offered her his elbow.
Murmuring a soft thank you, the nutty baker slid a hand into the crook of his arm. He effortlessly pulled her to her feet and told her, "You're on your own today, Mrs. Lovett.," in what he hoped was a tone that left no room for interpretation. Her blush, if possible, grew brighter. "Oh, don't worry, love. The first day's my worst anywa—" "Woman! Enough!" Sweeney's neck and entire head felt as flushed as if they'd just been sprayed with fresh blood. He'd already gone far above and beyond the bounds of his comfort zone(or ANY man's, for that matter), and enough was enough! She grinned and raised her sleep-wrinkled hands in surrender. The demon barber gave her one last hard look and turned to leave. She had to get dressed, and he needed to open up his shop. Two arms abruptly snaked around him and tightened to a squeeze. He stiffened in surprise. "Thanks, love," whispered the vivacious baker, pressing her cheek to his. Sweeney felt like he'd been chucked into an oven face-first. He gave her curly head two quick pats and escaped. She looked after him with a fond smile. Sheesh. He couldn't decide if she was more annoying on or off her unfortunate week. Still, one thing was certain…life with Nellie Lovett was certainly never boring.