Helping
He didn't speak to her further for almost a week, unsure what to say. Odd as it sounded, he missed the demon barber. He missed the rage highs and the apathetic lows. He missed having a purpose and not having to worry about having a wife. He missed having a wife he loved, his Lucy. And most of all, he missed the deep, constant ache he had once carried for his wife and child. It seemed somehow, inexplicably, he had began to heal. Grief faded to a dull, occasional ache, and the fact that he was once passionate about, he now only felt a vague sort of loss for, was disconcerting. It was very very close to being frightening.
She was clearly broken. He wasn't sure whether it was the loss of Toby or if the murders weighed on her. He didn't know what to do with a broken woman. He didn't know what to do with any woman, really. Lucy had been an angel, and a little voice in the back of his head muttered that she had been on a pedestal, but he did his best to ignore it. If she was a man, he would have merely gotten her drunk and let her rage about it. But as she was not a man and they were out of gin—he had checked—it seemed that another plan was in order. Or he could go buy more gin. Yes…more gin sounded like a better plan than prodding her until she either snapped and told him what the problem was, or she did something drastic. You could never really tell what women were going to do.
Sweeny Todd set off to the nearest gin shop, intent on getting his wife stone-cold drunk. Being near a port meant that gin could be imported quickly, and if it was smuggled, cheaply as well. There was a little purse of coins in his inner pocket and he strode out the front door and down the path towards the road. They were hidden behind several rolling hills, invisible from the road. He liked the privacy and even found himself wanting to hum a little tune as he walked our onto the cobbled road. Shrugging off the strange feeling of contentment which had come over him, having a purpose and all, he made his way to the gin shop and bought three bottles of the stuff. For one thing, Mrs. …Todd…could hold her liquor like no woman he had ever seen. For another, it wasn't as if he didn't plan on drinking as well. If she was getting drunk, so was he.
"Got a party comin' up, mate?" the shop owner inquired, face red and jolly, probably from gin.
Todd merely handed him the guineas and scooped the bottles into his arms, recalling that his wife shopped with a basket to avoid this awkward clutching of supplies. The bottles clinked together and the gin sloshed in them, wetly promising of an interesting evening. One of the bolder tourists jovially bellowed,
"Looks like you're in for a smashing evening, eh?" into Sweeny's face. He merely glared malevolently and continued walking. The tourist muttered something rude about him to his other tourist-y friends, but Todd didn't particularly care. He walked back into his cottage and set out a bottle on the counter as he slid two of the bottles into a cupboard, then picked the third up and added it to the cupboard. His wife was outside staring at the ocean, more than likely. He peeped out the back window. Yup. Her dark hair tossed in the wind and whitecaps were visible out past the breakers.
She oughtn't be out in that sort of weather, he found himself thinking. Shaking his head to clear that thought, he reminded himself that she had never had a problem doing what she liked, and left it at that. Seeing as he had nothing else to do, and darkness was beginning to fall, he cooked supper. She usually did the cooking, but he wanted to just hurry it up and get her inside. The sooner she was inside, the sooner they could get to drinking, and the sooner he could work out what was wrong and how to make it stop.
This didn't mean he loved her, he assured himself. It merely meant that the old Mrs. Lovett was more…productive…and also she cooked better than the new Mrs. Todd…and surely she got more work done when she wasn't looking out at the silly ocean all the time. Yes. That had to be it. The cooking and the work and being productive. And her silence was odd; he was supposed to be the brooding one. That was how it worked. He brooded, she talked. Everything was nice and balanced.
"Supper!" He bellowed out the back door, but his words were caught by the wind and flung into his face. Sighing, Sweeny headed down the bluff, fetching his wife. He strode across the sand as rain began to hit his face, bullet-like. It was going to storm.
"I've made supper." He half-shouted to be heard over the force of the next gust of wind, the one casting sea spray and sand into his face.
She turned and walked stiffly back towards their cottage, not saying a word. Todd raised his eyes to the grey sky, wondering if praying for his wife to get drunk was a sin or not.
You know that as Barker he had Lucy on a pedestal and she was no trouble. So having to deal with Nellie's emotional problems is going to be a new one. And come now…wouldn't you all like to see what happens when she's drunk? I know I would! Reviewssss! They make me live!
