Well, here you have it !
I feel i have rushed it, and that this is turning into a very weird downward spiral. So... I think that with REVIEWS haha, i will be able to slow down and change some things.
I do not, and will never be able to own Sweeney Todd.
Any questions with the story, or ideas, feel free to poke in my little workshop : ]
"You let him go…just like that?" Mrs. Lovett rushed up the stairs, irate.
"He knows the judge. He knows me, he knows everything." Sweeney said, taking long strides toward the pale woman. His razor was clenched tightly in his hand.
"Oh no… Oh god," She blinked back tears of frustration and anger.
"Call the boy up here." He growled.
"He is just a lad Mr. Todd!" She snarled. "I would give my life for that boy, just like I would give my life for you. I sold my soul to the devil himself helping you! Cleaning up your bloody mess's day in and day out, lay one hand on him and all that goes away."
She had a point. A very big and logical point, but he was enraged just as she was. He held his silver friend close to her neck, making sure she would hold her place.
"Do you want to know Mr. Sweeney Todd, what happened the very same day Lucy tried to kill herself?" She was not going to let up; if she died here then it would be by her one and only love.
"Tried?" He muttered.
"Oh the little dainty thing wasn't strong enough. Different methods she used, but one finally caught up to her. I searched all over Bloody London looking for your wee little bonny. I searched high and low, looking for wheat colored hair and porcelain skin, and a beauty like no other." She took a breath, pausing and pushed him lightly aside. Sitting down on the barber's chair, she continued.
"Yet, there was no beauty, there was not wheat colored hair, no porcelain skin. All there was was skin and bones. I found her lying behind my shop, I did. I took her in, washed her up good and proper like. Like a lady should be." She paused again, watching the Demon barber's face, yet he showed no emotion. "I told you she took arsenic, I never told you she died. I kept her under my wing the best I could Mr. Todd, I did! I did my very best. All for you, I did everything Benjamin Barker would have wanted me too. Keep Lucy safe and out of harm's way, make sure she eats and bathes, and that she never becomes ill. She left me, 14 years ago, and wanders the streets to this day, making money from the houses and feeding from the bins."
A pregnant silence filled its way into the little barber shop.
Then Sweeney smiled; his dark, deadly and evil smile. "Come here my love." He opened his arms, and took a step forward. The baker's eyes widened with fear, and she quickly leaped out of the chair and took a step back. "There's nothing to fear my love."
She shook her head, and took another step back. She was going to die, and she felt it. She could already feel her heart stop beating, and her breathing lessen. He could smell her fear, and saw her love for him in her eyes still burning.
Briefly she wondered if she would be made into a pie and served to her own customers by Toby himself.
Sweeney being fast and strong took her into his arms, dancing in circles, blade pressed tightly against her throat. "Mrs. Lovett, appropriate as always."
From far away, it looked as if couple were merrily dancing around the room. A celebration all their own, yet the people passing by were dead wrong.
They danced to the song of death, circling around the room. Her breath was caught in her throat, the woman felt as if death was holding her.
"Appropriate as always," He sang quietly "Such a bloody wonder, lied to me all this time…"
"No…no, I never lied, told you she poisoned herself, never said that she died." She said in a quick rush. "I was only thinking of you."
He smiled even more, and they danced closer; faster. "You have a point my pet, never told, and never lied,"
"Oh Mr. Todd forgive me. I was only thinking of you, of us. We could be a family you know," She rushed again as he narrowed his dark eyes at her. "Johanna missed out on motherly affection all those years, and Toby is like my own. It won't be how I dreamed, or how you remember."
"But we'll get by." He finished. Sweeney Todd let go of her as they ended their dance. He kept a hand on her the back of her neck as he put his friend away. They walked down the stairs and into the Meat Pie Shop, one thinking how she barely escaped death and of the other, a new plan.
"Toby," Mrs. Lovett called. Tobias quickly ran to his warden, fearing the worst.
"Yes ma'am?" His voice was hoarse, and rough. Not what a child should sound like. Mrs. Lovett's heart nearly broke.
"How would you like to go to the sea again?" she sat behind her counter, and rolled some pies, while the demon sat on the booth sipping gin. The two murderers had a plan brewing, and Toby wanted in, even if he didn't know it yet.
Toby looked down, and both the baker and the barber heard a whimper. "Ma'am, he told me awful things, dreadfully awful things. He told me a story, about a barber."
Sweeney's eyes twitched, his eyebrows lowering over his eyes as he glared past the boy. "What did he tell you?"
"He said there was a handsome couple, with a precious and beautiful daughter. Said they had a perfect life, filled only with love and kindness," Toby looked off in the distance, wondering what the family looked like.
"Go on dear, tell us everything." Mrs. Lovett walked past the counter, and placed a hand on Toby, leading him over be the barber.
Toby looked over at Sweeney Todd cautiously, than continued. "Mr. Turpin said he knew the barber by name only, Benjamin Barker, and his wife Lucy Barker. He told me; one day another man saw the perfect life from afar. Said he was jealous of the barber getting the most beautiful woman in all of London," He took a deep breath. "He said the man plotted a murder of the poor barber, and he succeeded. Benjamin Barker died somewhere in Australia, in prison for life." Tobias shuddered. "Mr. Turpin said, that Barker may have died tragically but his spirit is haunting London."
That was true, for the most part. Sweeney was haunting London but in a different way, he was still alive and he was still Benjamin Barker somewhere deep inside his heart. A knock on the window made them all jump slightly from their thoughts.