Chapter 25

Mum screamed.

Seville and I gasped.

Grandma... wait, where did she go?

As I turned, I found her missing from her spot.

But only moments later, the sound of footsteps in the shop told me she had already left before any of us thought to. I quickly hurried after her, breaking into a run to keep up.

We exited the shop and rounded the building. Grandma reached Sweeney faster than I did, and she was already knelt beside his shaking figure by the time I approached.

She was leaning down to speak quietly - incisively - to him, sympathy and comforting apparently long forgotten about.

"Is he okay?" I stammered, remaining standing and looking down at them both carefully.

Geoffrey was gone completely. He just... vanished.

Mum was still inside, watching us with fear in her eyes. Seville was rapping his arms around her, his expression suggesting he wanted to be out there with us, but decided to stay for Mum.

Sweeney just grunted as he gradually came to sit, holding up the arm that was only bruised from the fall to grip his bloody, wounded shoulder.

"'S'that where, love?" Grandma murmured, reaching out to stroke his non-injured arm with a gentle hand.

"With every bloody bone in my body, I swear to you." Sweeney grumbled, pain still evident in his voice.

"What happened?" I asked, my eyes round.

"Isn't it obvious?" Sweeney turned his glare on me. His eyes were squinting and his teeth were still bared. Drops of blood were beginning to trail down his face like tears. "I dodged it, Valerie." His fingers tightened their clamp on his shoulder as more blood seeped through them.

"Alrigh', Mr. T, that's enough." Grandma lifted his arm over her head to rest it upon her shoulders. "Val, 'elp me, would yeh?"

I obediently rushed over to kneel down and grab his other arm, copying what Grandma had done and throwing it over my neck. Together, we got him to his feet.

Sweeney growled. "Who said I couldn't walk on-" He grunted - this time in pain - and interrupted his own speech. Then he went on weakly. "my own?"

"We can drop yeh so's you can experiment, hm?" Grandma offered.

He just huffed grudgingly in response, then turned his head away from her. Therefore... looking in my direction instead.

"Hey," I smiled up at him as we began walking. "At least it wasn't your fault this time."

Yeah. He finally just settled for looking straight ahead.

After a brief disagreement by the stairs, in which Sweeney insisted we leave him be so he can take care of his injuries himself, to which Grandma replied snippily, "If we do that, we can just as bloody well say goodbye to yeh for good.", we finally made it back inside.

"God, how did you even survive this?"

Sweeney stiffened.

Whether it was from the question, Grandma pulling shards of glass from his arm, or me pressing a wet wash cloth against his shoulder, something had abruptly displeased him.

"I unfortunately don't believe in magic, Valerie," He sneered the words. "So you'll just have to ask a doctor... or perhaps a specialist in guns."

Grandma scowled as she, shard by shard, ridded the barber's arm of glass. She appeared to be in a whole different world, muttering to herself. When she heard what Mr. Todd had just said, however, she bared her teeth angrily and quite sharply ripped another sharp piece from his skin.

He hissed and yanked his arm away, glowering at her. "Must I be the one to advise you go a tad gentler, woman?"

I rolled my eyes; They were bickering almost as much as Seville and I had been, most recently.

I now knew why Grandma wanted me to take to caring for the gunshot wound - the most dire of all his injuries - rather than taking out the glass; It didn't matter on the person, Sweeney would bite their head off if they caused him pain, accidental or not.

Judge Turpin's death proved that.

But anyway, it was still really amazing and, dare I say it, relieving, that Mr. Todd had actually survived the gunshot. I mean, I know a shot to the head or chest was much more fatal than a shot to the shoulder, but still.

So... we sat on the couch in the parlor. Sweeney had pushed his sleeve up all the way so Grandma could work on his arm (because he had defiantly objected to taking his shirt off), and his shirt collar was tugged down to rap around his upper arm so I could dab at the still-pulsing wound of his.

Normally, had I not known someone that well, I would tell them to go help themselves - lick their own wounds. And sure, I suppose I had come to care for Mr. Todd's well-being... a bit. It was easy to consider him one of us. He didn't share the family name, and he hardly ever spoke to us unless we spoke to him first, but nonetheless, he could easily be a member of our family. I'm pretty sure Grandma had accepted him in long ago anyway.

Though I think he'd be getting help from us, in this case, whether he liked it or not. Grandma had confirmed that.

While we were doing this, Seville was currently sitting by the window, trying to find something temporary to block it with for the night. Mum was lighting the fireplace.

"Well, I don't know what to tell yeh, Mr. T," Grandma ran her fingers down his arm, looking for any more stuck out pieces. "Besides, perhaps, that you wash it before it gets infected. I trust you won't need my 'elp with that, eh?"

Sweeney pulled his arm away from her a bit more gently now and rested it across his lap, a faintly amused glint in his eyes. "I promise you, I won't."

Still meaning to keep my eyes pinned on his shoulder, I couldn't help but take a small glance down at his battered arm. I won't hold back in saying that it definitely looked as though it had went through some tough hardships in its life of... being an arm.

I was preparing to ask where exactly the scars were from, noting the older-looking lines that weaved all around the newly formed cuts. His hand looked pretty bad too, actually.

But then I considered that perhaps it was from, as I said before, hardships. Hardships mainly being prison. In his life, anyway.

I didn't want anything about his story brought up when Mum was in the room. If she found out about the not-so-content story of Sweeney Todd, she'd leave this shop and never come back. On top of that, she'd drag us with her.

And I wasn't quite ready to leave yet.

It was early in the morning when me and Sev were up the next day, pondering at the booth. The sun had just come up to a full. We were surprised Grandma wasn't up yet, actually. But we supposed last night must've tired her out.

It was her who helped Mr. Todd back upstairs so she could talk to him about something for another hour afterwards. Something that my brother and I couldn't hear about, apparently.

"So..." My voice broke through the silence of the shop. "Geoffrey knows where we live now..."

"Yep." Seville agreed. He had a blank expression on his face as he shook his head, his eyes lingering on the table's surface.

"I... I was thinking," I faltered, letting visible worry travel across my face. "D'you think Mum will take us back home? I mean..." I paused to steal a glance at the threshold into the parlor, then went on. "... I figured if she found out about Sweeney, she'd want to leave anyway. But now, we have a real reason."

"Sweeney Todd upstairs isn't a real reason?" Seville raised a brow.

"Of course he isn't," I snapped. "Especially not now. He has a friggin' bullet lodged in his shoulder, Sev. I'm just glad it wasn't his razor arm."

"Why?" Seville looked away from me, refusing to meet my eyes. "Maybe a little vulnerability will be good for him... for a while."

I partially agreed; Sweeney was a difficult person to faze, and he knew this. He hardly ever spoke of it, but he was pretty self-assured when he needed to be.

No fear.

It was almost admirable, really.

But admiring how tough he was was nothing compared to hating his arrogant side.

Somehow, he was able to make others feel incompetent and small without even having to move a muscle, or speak for that matter.

Puh. I wish I could do that. Maybe teach Dakota a lesson or two.

On the other hand though... Sweeney was the closest we'd come to protection around here...

"Like I said," I lifted my chin a little. "At least it wasn't his razor arm."

"Whatever, Val," Seville had a faint glare present on his face. "I just think that he needs to learn to live like someone who actually has a breaking point. No one's invincible." As he said this, he motioned with his head to the ceiling.

As if on cue, the pacing, creaking noise had begun.

I sighed and rolled my eyes. "A bloody shoulder full of lead, and he's still on his feet. Can you believe him?"

The words flew out of my mouth so fast, I didn't even realize I added on another "bloody" to my sentence.

I didn't pay Seville or his weird stare any mind as I pushed up from the table to stomp for the side door.

"Are you crazy?"

Those were the first words out of my mouth the moment I walked through the door. Sweeney turned his head to stare at me, his expression seeming to ask me as to whether or not that was a trick question.

"Define 'crazy', lass." His voice was deadly serious, but I could easily see him fighting back a smirk.

"Crazy: As in, like, acting completely stupid." This response made him frown.

Ugh. I think I pissed him off.

Who's the stupid one here?

I softened my tone a little as I went on; He had no reply to that. "You're injured. You should sit down."

He snorted and turned his head away from me as he continued to pace. "Nonsense. It's my arm and shoulder - my legs aren't broken."

"Well," I crossed my arms. "my Grandma will have the right mind to come up here and break your legs herself if it meant you'd just sit down." I pressed my upper back against the wall and slid down to sit beside the chest, staring up at Mr. Todd intently. "She cares about you a lot, y'know?"

"Yes," He sighed, finally settling for stopping by the window's side and lifting his arm to rest his hand against the pane. "Too much."

"Don't say that," My eyes widened. "She knows as well as anyone what you've been through."

"No one of this time knows what I've been through," He hissed, startling me. "No one knows the multitude of undying agony that I was put through. I wouldn't say otherwise if I were you." He took a few steps across the room at me, his hand reaching for the razor that rested against his hip.

I immediately got back up to my feet just in case he intended on doing any harm. "Well, I know then."

"Heh," He let out a harsh, sharp exhale that I guessed could only have been a rough attempt at laughter. He allowed that crooked smirk to play across his lips when he spoke. "You know nothing, girl. And if you did, you wouldn't last with the knowledge much longer." His shoulders untensed, and he flipped around on his heel to continue peering outside, obviously dismissing the argument.

I felt my brows furrowing together, anger welling in my chest. I wasn't finished. "You were bleeding over your wife." I threw the words out there in a careless manner.

This made him freeze, but he remained with his back to me. He didn't speak.

"There was a draft near the floor. You were trembling from blood loss. Lucy's face was covered in your blood."

Sweeney glared over his shoulder at me. The rise and fall of his chest was increasing in speed. This was definitely a new borderline, and it was awaiting my crossing.

"You killed her yourself, obviously," I pressed on anyway. "Or else you wouldn't have had such a guilty look on your face."

"You aren't proving anything," Sweeney growled, his voice shaking. "Stop it."

He sounded angry... but also a tad bit desperate. He really wasn't comfortable with where I was choosing to strike him.

I sighed, sympathy kicking the previous irritation out of me. I strolled over to stand beside him, my hands on my hips as I rested my eyes upon the wooden floor. "I'm sorry. That wasn't fair of me."

"How do you know these details as clearly as I do, Valerie?" He murmured, his voice meek. He seemed to have forgotten about his rage as well.

I shrugged, keeping his gradually turning head in the corners of my eyes.

I hadn't meant to mention these odd dreams I had been having so soon. Especially not to the Demon Barber himself. But I supposed then and there was as good of a time as any.

"I've been having weird dreams about it," I admitted. "And they're... they're very clear. I remember exactly how everything looked - how I felt."

Sweeney was silent for a moment. When he spoke, he sounded perplexed. "You've never been... down there. How could you have dreamed so vividly of it?"

I merely shook my head. This was all so messed up and strange. Why I ever let myself get subjected to this sort of confusion was beyond me.

"When I find out, you'll be the first person I tell. I promise." I got down on the floor again, my back against the wall just below the window. There, I looked up at him with a sheepish smile.

Sweeney glanced down at me in turn, lightly shaking his head in a "I can't believe I'm actually tolerating you" sort of manner. Then he turned away from the window to sit down in his chair, huffing heavily the moment his upper back hit the leather.

He was tired.

I could tell.

"You're aloud to sleep, y'know. I won't draw on you... that's another promise." A small laugh escaped me.

Gosh. I was funny today.

Sweeney obviously didn't think so, though. "I take it you'd rather be drawn on as an oppose to getting a nine inch dagger dragged down your back, eh?"

"What?" The smile I wore didn't stay for long.

Hurt flashed across the barber's eyes so quickly, I had momentarily questioned as to whether or not I saw it.

But it was there.

"Are you okay?" I stared at him, but he was merely looking straight ahead now.

Hey - no fret. I think I knew the answer anyway: No.

The answer was always no.

Eh.. not a very uplifting ending to this chapter.

BUT... stay tuned for an excessively uplifting author's note. c:

Christmas was great! It went way better than Halloween. :D And as much as I'd rather go on about the family instead of the presents... I simply cannot hold it in.

I got a Sweeney Todd replica straight razor. 8D *spazzes*

It's so life-like and heavy, and the markings on the handle look exactly like they do in the movie! And (and this is what really made me happy), I actually managed to cut myself with it. XD Like, the moment I opened it up, I brushed the sharp edge of the blade against my finger on accident, and it... it hurt. O.o Then it wouldn't stop bleeding for the longest time, as small as the cut was (I don't think I've ever been so happy to bleed before. I was staring at the blood and smiling like an idiot. XD).

Along with the razor, I also got the "Penny Dreadful's Sweeney Todd" video game. Puzzle-solving and such. :P And it came straight from England, so... *interested*

And I also got partially see-through fingerless gloves that go all the way up to your elbows... sorta similar to Mrs. Lovett's. If I hadn't mentioned it before, I'll mention it now: I'm happy.

I'm also hopefully going to be getting the Sweeney Todd locket and messenger bag (you should look up a picture of the bag. it's cool), because it didn't come in time for Christmas, according to my Mom (it was all a big mess. too much of a mess in shipping for me to explain).

But yes... the other stuff that I got - clothes, mostly - have nothing to do with Sweeney Todd, so... you probably wouldn't be interested. Unless, of course, you asked me to go on in my next author's note. But you probably won't. Lol.

Review, if you will. I left a nasty cliff-hanger last time, and - most likely - the only reason why you read through this chapter was because, somewhere to the side of your brains, you considered the possibility that Sweeney might've been a goner. But he's not, so... yay.