Passing Strange
Eleanor is well aware that the summer has been an usual one, to say the least. Change has been lingering in the air for months and she has been on pins and needles, waiting. But for what, she didn't know. Part of her had been afraid that the change would be Sweeney deciding to pack up and leave again, as he is so apt to do. She'd been so sure of this that she had even tried to prepare herself for it, making Sweeney promise one quiet night in late July that if he ever decided to leave, he had to tell her first. The last thing Nellie wants is to wake up one morning and find him gone, off to who knows where for who knows how long.
Obviously, she'd been wrong about what the change would be. Walking back into the hospital that afternoon, Eleanor tries to convince herself that she had been imagining things. Sweeney had not tried to kiss her only half an hour ago. It had not happened. And she most certainly had not almost kissed her would-be murderer.
The whole idea is utterly preposterous.
But still.
Their mouths had been very close, and his grip on her waist had been very tight. Eleanor shakes her head violently as she washes up for surgery, trying to clear her mind. She'd fallen on top of him, of course they had been close. And he'd been holding her waist to catch her. It is as simple as that.
Hours later however, standing near the coffee maker in the lounge after a long surgery, Eleanor is still thinking about it. She is thinking of how nice and solid his body had felt beneath hers, how warm his hands had been on her waist, how sweet his breath was against her lips. Had it really happened, or had she just imagined it? It seems far-fetched that Sweeney Todd, Demon Barber of Fleet Street, the man who had tried to kill her, wants anything to do with kissing her. And even more far-fetched that she wants anything to do with kissing him.
There is an extent to how long one can delude oneself, and Nellie thinks she has reached her limit. She has to face the facts. If her pager had not gone off, their lips would have met right there on the living room floor. Gripping her styrofoam cup tightly, Eleanor walks over to the empty table in the lounge and sits, unblinking as she processes this newfound realization. It shouldn't be this shocking, considering Sweeney's reaction to Kurtis a few months ago. She knows jealously when she sees it, but she had tried to convince herself that it had just been a natural reaction on Sweeney's part, not a sign of actual feelings for her.
She can't deny that this is what she has always wanted, or rather, it used to be what she wanted. But does she still? She has told herself for years, decades, that she no longer loves Sweeney Todd - that her love for him had died as she had. And maybe some of it had, but not all of it, for she still has a strange fondness for him. Why else would she befriend her murderer, let him live with her again, make him breakfast, lean her head on his shoulder when they watch movies on the sofa together?
A sinking feeling makes itself known in the pit of Nellie's stomach, and she swallows past the tightening in her throat. Does she really still have feelings for that impossible, brutish bastard? She doesn't have much time to think about the answer before Carol comes bouncing into the room, her perky demeanor a stark contrast to Eleanor's mood.
"Where 'ave you been?" Eleanor asks, despite her very confusing inner conflict.
"Maternity ward," Carol says. "They're short on nurses today, so Dr. Garcia asked me to help." Carol sits down at the table with her own cup of coffee and runs a hand through her disheveled blonde hair. She doesn't seem to notice that her friend has already checked out of the conversation, lost in her own thoughts. "It was a boy, ugliest baby I've ever seen. And get this, they named him Hector. The poor kid doesn't stand a chance."
"Mm," Nellie replies, staring fixedly at a spot on the table.
Carol frowns, realizing she no longer has an audience. "His mother was a one-legged she-man and his father was a circus clown named BoBo."
"That's nice, dear," Eleanor says without looking up.
Waving a hand in front of Eleanor's face, Carol clears her throat loudly. "Hello, earth to Ellie!"
Nellie blinks in surprise, and snaps her eyes up to her friend. "I'm sorry love, what were you sayin'?"
Carol groans. "Okay, what's going on with you?"
"Nothin'," Eleanor says just a bit too quickly.
Carol is immediately suspicious, her blue eyes lighting up. "Do you have some nice, juicy gossip for your best friend in the whole wide world?"
Eleanor shakes her head. "No, no gossip. Just tired is all."
"Oh baloney," Carol gives her a look. "This is your fourth cup of coffee by the looks of all of these empty cups on the table here. You're not tired." Reaching out, Carol grabs Eleanor's hand and gives it a reassuring squeeze. "Come on, what are friends for if you can't tell me anything?"
Glancing down at the table, and then back up into her friend's earnest eyes, Eleanor lets out a resigned sigh. There is no getting out of this, Carol will pester and nag until she breaks down and curls up in the fetal position. "Sweeney - " She stops, looks down and traces her finger over the rim of her cup uncomfortably. "I - We, we almost kissed, alright?" She says in one agitated breath, blushing.
Carol lets out a strangled squeak and bounces slightly in her chair. "Oh-em-gee. You did not!" Eleanor nods, still refusing to look at her. "What happened? How? What do you mean 'almost'?"
As Eleanor slowly recounts the events of the afternoon, Carol becomes more and more excited until she is practically jumping out of her chair with unbridled glee. "I knew it! You kept telling me he was just a friend, but I knew it. I knew there was something there." She puts her chin in her palm. "I'm so jealous, I wish Tom looked like Sweeney."
Eleanor laughs. "That's a terrible way to talk about your fiancè."
"I know," she smiles. "So then what happened?"
Nellie shrugs. "After my pager went off, we sort of came back to our senses. I stood up and left." She sighs, looking down at her hands resting atop the table. " 'E didn't say one word, 'e wouldn't even look at me. I think we've sufficiently ruined what little friendship we 'ad to begin with."
Carol waves a hand at her. "Don't be stupid. He's a guy, he can't just come right out and tell you how he feels. Give him some time and everything will be alright. Trust me."
"Time, eh?" Eleanor purses her lips in thought. She can take all the time she needs to figure out how she feels, and give Sweeney some space. After all, time is the one thing neither of them is lacking in.
--
He sits on the floor for hours after Eleanor has gone, mind blank, not even moving when Louie wanders up to him and licks his hand, as if to check and make sure he is still alive. But when the dog stands by the apartment door and whines pathetically, Sweeney stands up, his joints aching from sitting for so long. Grabbing the leash, he takes the basset hound out to relieve itself. When that's done, he puts down some water in the special doggy dish and leaves him be, retreating to his bedroom. It is dinnertime now, but he has no appetite. He has a feeling Eleanor will not be home in time for dinner anyway.
His thoughts have slowed from a rushing, torrid river to a merely a steady stream, and as he reclines on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, he takes them as they come, mulling them over. What had made him do such a thing? He'd almost kissed Eleanor Lovett. And she had not seemed particularly unwilling to kiss him either. Sweeney is more surprised by this than anything. He has been struggling with his endless denial for months, but Eleanor...How can she still feel anything for him? He knows from her long-ago confession in the bakehouse that she had loved him at one time, but to think she still harbors such feelings is laughable.
He had shoved the woman into an oven for God's sake, she would have to be totally mad to feel anything for him but hatred. But she still smiles at him, hugs him, cries on his shoulder. She claims that he is her friend, and this thought alone is enough to make him shake his head in wonder at her ability to forgive and forget. Sweeney Todd has never been one for either characteristic.
Confusion written all over his countenance, he sighs heavily. His thoughts are all jumbled together, just one polluted stream of consciousness. He doesn't know what to think, what to feel. But in the back of his mind, the moment where their lips almost touched keeps playing over and over. He also feels a growing hatred for pagers.
Counting the tiles in the ceiling, he thinks over things thoroughly, like the professor that he is. On one hand, they have been friends for nearly two hundred years, and a relationship between them seems almost natural. But on the other hand, they had been enemies at one time. She had lied to him. Lucy.
Closing his eyes and determined to put these thoughts to rest for tonight, Sweeney blindly reaches out his hand to feel for a book on the bedside table. He groans in annoyance when he reads the title. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. The book Eleanor had picked up for him when out with Kurtis. His hands tighten on the worn binding of the book at the thought of that day and the unexplainable anger he'd felt.
Anger that someone else could have what he didn't think he wanted. He still isn't sure what he wants. All he knows is the tortuous thoughts of what could have been if Eleanor's pager hadn't sounded in their ears. Perhaps it had been a blessing in disguise. A relationship between them would no doubt be disastrous. Two stubborn, hardheaded, strong-willed people with very different personalities. He hardly wants to ruin a 163 year-old friendship for a few stolen kisses. And his Lucy. How can he betray his late wife's memory by wanting to be with the woman who had assisted in killing her?
He massages his temple briefly, feeling the beginnings of a headache at all of this pondering and brooding. He hasn't truly brooded in quite a while, and he feels secure enough in himself to admit that he does not miss it. Cracking open his book to a random spot, Sweeney begins to read, hoping for an escape from his vexing thoughts.
Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety. Other women cloy
The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry
Where she most satisfies. For the vilest things
Become themselves in her, that the holy priests
Bless her when she is riggish.
Snapping the book shut, Sweeney puts it on the nightstand, jaw clenched tightly. Vengeance, boat rides, spying, baseball and now Shakespeare. Must she ruin everything? Deciding his best bet is to just turn out the lights and go to bed, Sweeney stands and walks to the window in his bedroom, sliding it open so that the wind rustles the curtains and the sound of New York traffic lulls him to sleep.
Hours later, when Eleanor finally makes it back from the hospital, he awakens when she shuts the apartment door behind her. Lying awake, he listens to Louie's paws on the hardwood floor as he runs as fast as his short little legs will carry him to greet her. He hears Eleanor's soft laugh, followed by her footsteps down the hall as she and Louie head off to bed. The last thing he hears before he falls back into a dreamless sleep is the sound of Eleanor's bedroom door shutting.
The following morning, after a painfully awkward breakfast that consists of Sweeney staring glumly at his waffle, and Eleanor nibbling uneasily on an apple before scurrying out the door, Sweeney makes his way to class for the first time in three very long months. As his students begin filing in one after the other, taking their seats, he stands behind his desk and breathes in the familiarity. The smell of pencil shavings, new leaflets of paper, chalk dust, and best of all, freshmen.
Last semester, he had discovered the joys of tormenting the freshmen students, as they are the youngest and therefore the most vulnerable. It doesn't occur to him that this is also the way lions select their prey. He sees lots of new faces as they all take up a desk, but he also sees some old ones. Kurtis - He sneers and turns away from the boy. Sarah - the girl who wears low cut blouses and stares at him with a dreamy smile on her face for the entire class period. But he isn't interested in the students who are already used to him.
He is momentarily distracted from searching out fresh meat when Jenny walks through the door talking to a girl he vaguely remembers from the previous semester. "How could he do that? After everything she'd done for him?" Jenny looks annoyed, and Sweeney is just about to write it off as Ex-Boyfriend Talk when what she says next stops him dead in his tracks. "Giving him a place to stay, covering up his murders, giving him back his razors. She loved him and he repaid her by burning her alive."
"That's sick," the other girl wrinkles her nose as they take their seats in the front of the class.
"It's twisted," Jenny agrees, adjusting her books. "But it was beautiful. I've been depressed since I watched it last night. And I can't get Little Priest out of my head!"
"Oh man," Kurtis looks disturbed. "Are you still talking about that damn movie?"
"What movie?" Asks a small, thin girl behind Sarah.
Sweeney distantly recognizes her as a freshman, but he is too busy trying not to look faint to be pleased about this.
"The Demon Barber of Fleet Street," Jenny says. "We rented it last night."
Kurtis leans back until he is all but slumped in his seat. "Why are you so worked up? It's only a movie."
"I know," Jenny moans miserably. "But it felt real. They felt like real people to me." She sits up straighter in her seat suddenly. "Is it weird that I was rooting for the murderers?"
"Murderers are people too."
Jenny looks up at her professor at the mumbled words, surprised to see him looking more pale than usual and gripping the edge of his desk. She frowns, eyeing him worriedly.
"I didn't like his wife anyway," Sarah interrupts, making a face. "She seemed like a bit of an airhead. And she was just going to kill herself and leave her daughter all alone! How selfish is that?"
Sweeney turns his eyes to her, giving her a vicious glare and Sarah looks taken aback at the fierceness in his eyes. Sarah had voiced the thoughts he used to have all the time, he still doesn't understand how Lucy could just abandon Johanna, but to hear someone else say so is unacceptable.
"I can't believe he killed her," Jenny sighs, ignoring their silent exchange and looking utterly depressed, nothing like her usual bubbly self.
"She lied to m-him," Sweeney points out, sounding defensive as he turns his attention from the now meek-looking Sarah. He doesn't want to give himself away, but he also can't just sit back and be a spectator while his past is being dissected and judged by a bunch of college students.
"So what?" Jenny asks, incensed. "She did what she did partly for him, and partly for her own selfish reasons, just like any other human being. I mean, would he have really wanted to see his wife that way?"
"Totally," the girl next to Jenny looks up from filing her nails. "I mean, all he did was talk about how beautiful and pure and virtuous she was. She definitely wasn't like that anymore."
"Exactly," Jenny agrees. "All the things he loved about her were gone. There was only madness left. She hadn't been his wife since her lips touched the bottle of arsenic."
"Plus," the girl cuts in again. "She was freaking crazy."
Taken aback at their strong opinions and the fact that everyone seems to be siding with Eleanor, Sweeney begins pacing in front of the chalkboard, his mind racing. The movie had come to theaters months ago, and just recently had come out on DVD, but he and Eleanor have been avoiding it like the plague. The legend has been around ever since they left Fleet Street that fateful night, but they'd never expected their past would be made into a musical for the masses. Neither of them is particularly eager to see their crimes play across their television screen.
"You know," he finally says, trying to sound calm and collected. "Some people think she could have been nursed back to health, and that the baker knew that and just wanted the barber to herself."
"No way," Kurtis Russell speaks up and Sweeney tries not to let his disgust show outwardly. "The woman was loopy. She took the poison fifteen years ago, and when he returned she was still nuts. There's no coming back from that, especially not without the medical advances we have now."
Sweeney is quiet, thinking over this new information, and Jenny sighs again, putting her chin in her hand. "I just can't believe he shoved her into the oven. That was so heartless."
"He killed his wife because of her," Sweeney grits his teeth, trying not to snap at his student.
"She may as well have been dead already!" Jenny reasons. "She wasn't his wife anymore. In fact, I think his wife would have been afraid of him. He wasn't the same guy, he was damn scary. I think the baker was perfect for him, she was the only one who loved him for who he was."
During this fiery debate between teacher and student, the other occupants of the classroom watch the two closely, their heads swiveling back and forth between them like a tennis match, stunned at the ferocity of a conversation about a movie. Jenny doesn't notice, and Sweeney can't bring himself to care.
"She shouldn't have lied," he says softly, one last weakened point in his argument. The passion is gone from his voice.
"No," Jenny agrees, lowering her voice as well, confused at her favorite professor's reaction to their debate. "She shouldn't have. But she was doing what she thought was best. You can't ask for more than that." He is staring at his desk, looking a million miles away, a wistful expression on his face. "You okay, professor?"
He nods quickly, turning his back to the class and reaching for a piece of chalk. "Let's begin. No interruptions today, children."
As he begins going over an outline for the semester and everyone scrambles for notebooks and pens, Jenny watches her professor closely. His movements seem shaky, anxious. She gets the distinct feeling she has hit a nerve in their little discussion. But she has no idea why.
--
It is time. They have been avoiding it for quite a while, but now, as they stand there in front of the elaborate display, with shelves upon shelves of entertainment, they know. There is no getting out of it, no making excuses. It is time to watch The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
When Eleanor had come home from work, things had been strained between the two of them. Neither of them knew what to say or how to act around the other person, they were like bumbling pubescent teenagers. When two people almost kiss but don't, it leaves a certain amount of tension between the two parties. It is the thing that no one talks about, the big elephant in the room everyone is trying to ignore. But they can't. After all, who can ignore an elephant?
Instead of talking about it like well-adjusted people, the two had simply ignored the apprehensive atmosphere. Sweeney had clumsily informed her of his students renting the movie, and suggested that perhaps it was time to take a gander at the footage. And so, they find themselves buying a copy of the movie and taking it back to the apartment in the silence that comes easily to those who have much to say, but don't say it.
Eleanor sits as far away from his as possible on the sofa as The Demon Barber of Fleet Street begins, and he frowns as he compare it to all the other times when she is practically glued to his side. No Place Like London is the first scene, and when the fair complected boy onscreen opens his mouth, Eleanor quite literally, bursts out laughing.
Sweeney turns to look at her with raised brows. "Care to share with the class, my dear?"
She smiles, wiping tears from her eyes. "I'd forgotten 'ow girly Anthony was."
He glances back at the screen. "I don't know..."
Eleanor looks at him skeptically. "Darlin', that boy is gayer than a bloody fruit basket. Perfectly wonderful though, even if 'e did 'ave a penchant for interruptin' things."
The more he watches of Anthony, the more he realizes she is right - Anthony was quite feminine for a sailor. "You're right," he says, sounding reluctant to agree.
"Of course I am, I'm always right," she says flippantly.
He begs to differ, but the moment has broken the ice between them. She moves from the other end of the sofa to sit closer to him, and the hostility between them seems to melt away at this small peace offering.
"I told you ya look like Johnny Depp," she says. "Bloody frightenin' resemblance."
He narrows his eyes at her. "And I seem to recall telling you that you resemble the woman with the strange clothing."
She makes a childish face at him. "Touche, love." Sweeney seems to draw away from her when Lucy appears, but Nellie won't have it, putting her hand on his arm until he relaxes beneath her touch. "Beadle Bamford, that slimy git," she sneers when the man first shows himself. "Bugger still gives me the creeps."
Sweeney snorts lightly at this. It feels oddly wrong to watch what they had been through from the outside, but it is like a train wreck in the sense that they cannot look away, no matter how badly they wish to. When the little boy playing Toby first comes to the pie shop and whips off his blonde wig, Sweeney watches Eleanor's eyes fill with tears, and he cautiously reaches out, placing his hand over hers.
She lets out a choked laugh and hurriedly wipes at her eyes. "I think I need a cigarette," she confesses. Pulling her hand out from under his, she stands up and makes for the study, fishing a pack of cigarettes from her back pocket.
Sweeney watches her go and sighs, turning back to the movie just in time to see Signor Pirelli meet his end. A brief flicker of a smile crosses his lips at the sight of all of that blood. Pompous bastard had deserved it. After this, he becomes so absorbed in watching the movie, so engrossed in seeing his history displayed for the world, that he doesn't notice Eleanor's prolonged absence until the credits roll.
He rewinds the scene where he kills the judge to watch it again, glances away as he slits Lucy's throat, and looks on in discomfort when he shoves Eleanor into the burning oven without a second thought. When he'd done it all those years ago, he'd only felt happiness, knowing that the woman who had assisted in the killing of his wife was gone forever. Now, as Toby leaves him in a pool of his own blood, the only thing he feels is a sick tightening in his stomach.
For a moment, all he can do is stare at the television screen. There had been some inconsistencies, but for the most part, the script is accurate. So accurate that he had been waiting for the moment when he wakes up over his dead wife's body and Eleanor begins pounding on the oven door, screaming to be let out.
He is relieved when no such thing occurs, and shaking off the remnants of disbelief, he looks around the living room. No Eleanor. Where did she wander off to? He walks into the study and finds her sitting on the ledge of an open window, cigarette hanging loosely between her fingers as she stares down at the city below. It has been nearly two hours, and there is a pile of cigarette butts lying on the sill next to her.
He stands beside her, leaning against the window frame, waiting for her to speak. Taking the burning cigarette from her, he snubs it out on the sill and tosses it out the window, ignoring her reproving look.
The silence is on the verge of becoming tense when she finally speaks, and her voice sounds too soft, too tired. "I couldn't watch it. It's too much. I already lived it, I don't bloody need anyone to remind me."
Nodding in understanding, Sweeney joins her in staring out the window. "Would you like me to dispose of it?"
She shakes her head. "Maybe one day I'll stop bein' such a pussy cat an' be able to sit through it." Eleanor sighs, tilting her head up. "Was it pretty close to the truth?"
He hesitates. "As...close as it could get without showing you crawl out of the oven with not a bit of singe."
She winces at this. "Wonder who started the legend to begin with?"
Sweeney looks at her quizzically. "You mean you haven't figured it out? In all these years?" She gives him a befuddled look and he tsks in disappointment. "Why, Eleanor. I'm surprised at you. There was only one person there with us, only one person went through the whole ordeal and lived to tell about it apart from ourselves."
Eleanor gasps, covering her mouth with her fingers. "Toby."
"Congratulations my pet," he says condescendingly. "And it only took you over a century to put all of the pieces together."
She swats at him and manages to make contact with the side of his head. "Kindly keep your scathin' remarks to yourself, Mr. Todd."
"Sincerest apologies, Mrs. Lovett," he taunts.
He doesn't get the response out of her he had been hoping for, her thin smile disappears instantly, replaced by a pinched, guilty look. "Speakin' of apologies...I've been thinkin' since I watched that lil' bit of the movie and...I'm sorry I lied," she says softly, eyes downcast. "Shoulda told ya 'bout Lucy. 'Twas only doin' what I thought was right."
Her abrupt confession takes him by surprise. They've spent their lives not talking about it at all, and now she is admitting her own wrongdoing in the whole affair. He knows it must have taken a lot of courage to be the first to speak of it. It is a big step, and it doesn't go unnoticed by Sweeney Todd. One good turn deserves another.
"And I...may have been overreacting when I threw you into the oven," he says, sounding pained. He hates apologizing for anything, almost as much as he hates being wrong.
She snorts at this. "No, killin' someone is a perfectly understandable reaction to bein' lied to."
Frowning at her sarcasm, Sweeney turns his eyes out the window, observing people on the sidewalk beneath them. "I like to think I've changed a little, Eleanor. At least to the point where I do not relish the death of a friend. I just watched you, or rather, another version of you, die on our television set." He gives a soft sigh. "I didn't get the same sick satisfaction from it that I did the last time, if it makes any difference to you."
"D'you mean it?" She asks. She sounds hopeful to his ears and he thinks that only Eleanor can find what he had just said touching.
He nods silently, eyes distant, as if he is seeing the past once again. The present is brought crashing down around him when Eleanor leaps up and throws her arms around his neck. The scent of her perfume overwhelms his senses, and he barely feels her press her face into the crook of his neck. Sweeney isn't even aware of his own actions until he feels his arms move of their own accord to wrap around her smaller frame. She feels delicate and fragile in his arms, and though he knows she is anything but, he is afraid of holding her too tightly.
The air between them feels lighter than it has in years, and he knows it has everything to do with addressing their unseemly past. He feels free, almost light hearted, at least, as light hearted as Sweeney Todd will ever get. So when Eleanor pulls away ever-so slightly to look up into his eyes, there is no doubt in his mind that things are going to be very different between them from now on.
She peers up at him with big brown eyes, a tiny smile gracing her lips. Their gazes lock, and as their faces draw closer together, Sweeney doesn't try to stop it. He thinks it has been a long time coming, some universal pull is forcing them together and they are powerless to stop it. Their lips touch for the first time in 163 years, their very first kiss, and at first, it is gentle, almost hesitant brushes of their lips. Eleanor's eyes flutter shut as her mouth lingers on his. But it isn't enough, and she longs to be closer. Her hands are on his shoulders, her fingers fisting the fabric of his shirt as she pulls him nearer, melting against him.
She opens her mouth against his, and no longer afraid of hurting her, Sweeney brings his hand to the back of her neck, eagerly plundering her mouth with his. Their kisses are no longer sweet, but fierce and harsh, years of pent up emotion pouring forth. Sweeney pushes her roughly against the window sill, biting at her bottom lip and she clutches at him with a soft whimper. She tastes like his dream, he realizes. Soft, cool and warm. It is only his first taste of her, but he is already addicted to it. To her.
When they pull away to breathe, he trails his warm mouth along her jaw line, his tongue slipping out to sample her skin. As he nips at the soft spot beneath her ear, Eleanor presses herself against him with a moan, and if he had not been so distracted, he would have marveled at how well they fit together. Like two long lost puzzles pieces finally coming together to create a masterpiece.
"Sweeney," she breathes, and he responds by tightening his hold on her waist. She presses her hands to his chest and pushes lightly, making him stop what he is doing to look down at her questioningly. "Maybe we shouldn't - " She looks up and sees dark eyes clouded over with lust, that muscular chest rising up and down with his every measured breath, and she can't resist him anymore. After all, isn't 163 years long enough to wait? "Oh, bugger it." She stands on her tiptoes, snaking her arms around his neck, and he brings his lips crashing down on hers in a rough kiss that takes her breath away.
Heat floods her stomach as her lips move against his with surprising familiarity, like they have been doing this for years. It feels raw and animalistic, her eyes water and her knees buckle. Eleanor grips his shirt, no longer trusting her own legs to hold her up.
As if sensing her sudden weakness, Sweeney instantly lifts her and she wraps her legs around his waist. He breaks the kiss and tastes the corner of her mouth, slowly moving them away from the window. While he is intent on guiding them out of the study, Eleanor trembles against him, her mouth on his neck, raking her teeth against his ear. Her hands bury themselves in his hair, twisting locks of it around her fingers.
Sweeney finds it immensely difficult to direct his steps with her distracting him so, and he growls lowly when he feels her tongue on the skin of his collarbone. She smiles into his neck at the sound. When he makes it to her bedroom, miraculously without dropping her, he stumbles to the bed and lets her fall to the mattress. Her head hits the pillow, and he moves to hover over her.
"Are you sure, love?" She gazes up at him, expression ardent, cheeks flushed a charming shade of pink and her chest heaving. She looks so enchanting then that he doesn't think he could stop if he truly wanted to.
He almost grins at her, gingerly moving an auburn curl from her eyes. "Not at all, pet."
Eleanor's lips curl into an indulgent smile and she pulls his head down to hers, slanting her lips against his in a deep kiss. They fumble with clothing and bed sheets, their bodies finally pressed together in a dance as old as time itself. And as the world narrows to encompass only the two of them, they cannot help but think that it feels very much like coming home.
--
What fates impose, that men must needs abide; it boots not to resist both wind and tide...
As the Wyrd sisters watch the two humans sleep, curled up beneath the sheets of Lovett's bed, Urd is not quite sure what to feel. Her sisters however, have no problem feeling absolutely ecstatic. She watches in distaste as Skuld and Verdandi link arms and dance about like preteen girls.
"Your idea was exquisite. Imagine, all of this because his students watched a film!" Skuld says to Verdandi, grinning broadly. "They shall be confessing their love on the morrow as surely as the sun will rise."
Verdandi smiles winsomely. "Well I can't take all the credit." She pauses, rethinking. "It was a rather wonderful idea though, wasn't it?"
"It was positively devious," Skuld reassures her, taking her hand and twirling her about. "I'm so proud to call you sister."
Urd rolls her eyes at the display and looks back at the sleeping couple, doubtful. "You celebrate too early, sisters," she says above the din of their chatter. " 'Tis not love. Not yet."
"What do you mean?" Skuld stops her prancing about to look at her sister.
Urd gestures to the sleeping two. "This is not love. They're confused, they feel something, they just don't know what." She lifts her face heavenward in exasperation. So close, and yet so far. "Lord, what fools these mortals be."
Skuld and Verdandi look adequately put out, and both stand with their arms hanging limply at their sides, no longer feeling the urge to dance around in triumph. "But..." Verdandi looks sanguine. "They're close. Right?"
Urd sighs. "Aye. They are close." Lovett shifts sleepily, resting her head on Todd's bare chest and he wraps an arm around her waist in his sleep. Moonlight spills into the room, revealing their similar expressions of content. "At least, closer than they have ever been before."
"What do we do?" Verdandi whispers, as if speaking any louder will waking the slumbering pair.
Skuld shakes her head, sighing. "There is nothing more to do. Right now we can only watch, and hope they can figure things out on their own."
"We can't interfere?" Verdandi looks distraught. "They'll never make it!"
Urd smiles soothingly. "No need to fear, dear one. We can intervene when need be, but all of the hard work is up to them now." She glances at Todd and Lovett once more, glad to know that at least for tonight, they are not alone, plagued by demons of the past. "They can handle it - I have faith in them."
A/N-There you have it, the chapter most of you have been waiting for. I'm completely nervous about that last rather intimate scene between Todd and Lovett, so feedback would be much loved. Before you mention it, I know the previous chapters said 162 years, but don't forget that several months have passed. Just want to get that out of the way before someone speaks up:) Also, in this twisted version of reality, there is no Sweeney Todd play or anything, only the movie. The selection Sweeney reads from is from Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra and the quote from the section with the Fates is also Shakespeare. Props to TwistedIngenue for spoiling the next chapter title before I could post it.LOL Props to her also for guessing the Rear Window reference. Sorry I forgot to mention that to you in my review reply! EclipseValkyrie made a music video for this story, which is amazingly done and I'm so horribly flattered that I could blush. So check it out on Youtube and tell her how fantabulous she is!