The man was irrevocably queer.
His face – gaunt, sickly, made up like a circus clown's, yet the coal had run, the white flaked, the red lips were smeared wide across deep, curling scars. "I'd like a shave," his voice was high, strange; his eyes shifted, tongue darted as he hobbled towards Sweeney Todd. His brilliant lavender coat left his shoulders and hit the wall behind him with a snap.
"Of course, sir," Todd's mouth attempted to twitch a smile. "Have a seat."
The clown plopped down, stretched out; purple pants rode up to reveal soiled argyle socks. His head fell back, filthy, grease-sodden curls the color of piss caressing the polished leather headrest of Todd's faithful chair. The barber within him silently retched. The streets of London already crawled with more than enough pestilent, wicked swarms of vermin, lowly criminals and men who hid their filth behind velvet and leathers; they did not need this foreigner, this erroneous clown, and Sweeney Todd certainly did not need him leaving grease marks on his chair. He would make this quick.
On with the white chair cloth, the shaving cream applied with deft, rapid strokes. The clown began to hum. His eyes drooped closed, lips fixed in a complacent smile. Todd turned to the heavy bureau behind him, unlatching a small smooth wooden box. Within it gleamed his beauties, his closest friends; the set of silver razors positively smiled in the dim light, their beautifully engraved handles humming with anticipation. Todd picked a long one, a particularly thick blade. Yes, this would do -
Something was wrong. The man had stopped humming. Todd glared into the cracked, dingy mirror before him, and the clown stared back.
"Barber, if you're, ah, going to cut me, I think-uh, you should do it –" an arm curled around Todd's neck and pulled, compressing, choking, and a knife, thick and cold, pressed deliberately, sharply between his lips " – more. Like. This."
Todd couldn't speak without drawing blood against the blade shoved in his mouth; his breaths came shallow, harsh through his crushed throat. He struggled, attempted to claw at the clown's unexpectedly strong arm, feet kicking out as the man pulled him up and back, off the floor and he was dragging him, sniggering and humming a little as he did.
"Now. Now, Swee-nee, Swee-nee Todd," he licked his ruby lips, clearing his throat, "Mistah Tee," he shrilled. Black specks had begun to appear before Todd's eyes.
Suddenly, Sweeney Todd remembered he still held a razor in his hand.
Todd rammed the razor into the clown's thigh and he howled, dropping Sweeney and nearly cutting out his tongue in the process, throaty, bloody yelps escaping his twisted mouth as he rocked on the floor. Todd wasted no time, grabbing a second razor from the bureau and falling on the man, trapping his flailing limbs beneath his weight and pressing the razor into his throat –
But the man's howls had dissolved into wet, murky giggles; throaty chuckles that rose in pitch and octave until he was once more howling, howling in laughter. He shook, rocked with mirth beneath his attacker, the fine skin of his neck chaffing against Todd's razor blade.
"What's so funny?" Todd bellowed.
Laughter was his only answer.
"HA HA HA HA AH hee hee heehee hooo –" the man's eyes darkened, his shrieks quieting to mute chuckles that shook his belly.
As the clown shuddered, something audibly clicked against Todd's knee.
"Misterr Todd, why so serious?"
In an instant, Sweeney Todd's Tonsorial Parlor exploded in red hot flames.
