Author's Note: The beggar woman in this story is NOT the same one from the movie. Just thought I should point that out now.
Disclaimer: I do not own Sweeney Todd or any of its related characters etc.
Life was good.
Benjamin Barker stood at his window, smiling the warm smile of a man whose world is perfect. The rooftops sprawled across his view of London seemed to shimmer under an eternal sunlight. Lucy sat to his left, feeding Johanna, their child, their baby girl. He looked over toward them and they seemed even brighter to him than the London midday scene.
He strode over to where they sat and grasped Johanna's tiny hand lightly. "She really is beautiful," he said, glancing at his wife and showing teeth in a smile.
"So you keep reminding me," she replied with a laugh.
It was a Tuesday, a slow day for barbering, and so a day the three of them could spend together. Sometimes on Tuesdays they would go out to plays or operas, but usually a shining Tuesday meant a day strolling around the market for a special treat or a present for Johanna, who, at the moment, was finally done eating. Benjamin held Johanna while Lucy got together herself and her things, but refused to relinquish her for a short time after his wife was ready.
They walked down the stairs together and greeted the nice, while eccentric, Mrs. Lovett as she bustled around her near-empty meat pie shop. Mr. and Mrs. Albert Lovett were an odd couple, but they were nice to the Barkers and often referred customers to Benjamin for a shave. He, being kind, returned the favor by referring his own customers down to Mrs. Lovett for a nice meat pie. It was a business/friend relationship, but while the barber and his wife weren't ultimately sure how they felt about the Lovetts, they knew that the two could be trusted, if only with some minor things.
They continued to the market and their day turned out to be a good one, spent entirely laughing, talking, and playing with Johanna. The baby girl fell asleep once or twice while they were there, nestled against Lucy's warm chest. They bought a little bit of toffee to last a long while and a matching pair of flowers, one big and one small, for Lucy's and Johanna's yellow hair. Benjamin had smiled at the both of them when he had put the flowers behind their respective ears, and the two had looked a lovely sight.
Now the three of them were on their way home. Johanna was asleep again, curled up in Lucy's arms. Smiling, and unable to stop doing so, Benjamin walked beside them.
"Alms!" cried a poor woman. "Alms for the sick on this chilly day!"
The woman looked so weak and malnourished, Benjamin and Lucy decided to give her a pound, which she took with a great many thanks and bows, looking up at their giving faces in gratitude.
But when she saw Benjamin's face, her smile fell.
"City on fire," she whispered. "City on fire! A demon's hell awake!" She hurried away from the Barkers, crying loudly, "Sign of the devil! Smoke rise up from the mouth of Hell!"
"Poor woman, must be mad," Lucy mused. "Hope she remembers to buy herself some food with that money."
Benjamin nodded, keeping it a secret from his wife that the woman's outburst shook him. She had looked into his eyes and recognized him, even though he had never seen her before, and then began crying about demons and devils.
He shook his head and walked with Lucy, but his smile was a little faltered.
Later that night, Johanna slept soundly tucked up in her crib and Lucy slept with an arm around Benjamin, who did sleep, but not so deeply as mother and daughter.
His home was weathered, cracked and grayed. The world seemed tilted on its side, and the view from his window was smothered with black smoke. He was watching an odd dream-version of himself clean a razor as he stared into the smoke-covered window.
When he turned around, Benjamin discovered that his face was shock-white, his eyes sunken in as if the life had been sucked out of them. His hair was disheveled and even had a thin scream of white off to the side.
There was blood on the razor, which dream-Benjamin was calmly cleaning off as he stepped on a hidden pedal. The barber's chair, which, to Benjamin's surprise, contained a reddened, bloodied body of a man with shaving cream smeared on his face, tipped over backward and deposited the half-shaven man into a trapdoor.
Benjamin Barker woke with a startled gasp, his heart pounding. He looked over to Lucy to make sure - he wasn't sure what he was making sure of, but Lucy was fine. After a couple of deep breaths, Benjamin rose from their bed into the cold, creaking house. He checked on Johanna, for what, he wasn't sure, to find that she was still asleep as well.
Arms wrapped around himself, Benjamin stepped from their bedroom into their main room, where he did his barbering and where they spent most of their time. He put a hand on his barbering chair, as if to make sure it was real. He stooped down to inspect it; it was just a normal chair, no secret pedal, no gears or hidden joints. Then he walked over behind the chair and poked at the ground with his foot. No trapdoor, leading to Hell or a black pit or whatever it may have led to.
Sighing, Benjamin sunk into the chair, putting his head in his hand. He was still shaking a little, as if his dream had been real and he had really been trapped in that Hell-dimension where he was some murderous barber with no family and no heart. Even sitting in this chair, his trustworthy old barber's chair, made him feel uncomfortable, as if any moment it would tip over backwards and damn him to an eternal nothingness...
Immediately he got up from the chair and shook, wrapping his arms around himself again. It wasn't real, he had to remind himself - after all, you think you'd notice if you were a murderer. He would never take another living soul, especially not in such a heartless way, slicing their throat open when most vulnerable. He put his hand over his own throat as if feeling a barber's razor slice through it.
One more thing he had to see. Benjamin reached for his razors, the tools of his trade, the third thing he was most proud of in his life. He opened their box. They were sterling silver, handcrafted by his request. Stroking one, he lifted it from its place and flicked it open.
He had been half-expecting to see it crusted over with blood.
A close inspection detailed that none of his gleaming silver razors were tainted with blood. They felt right and good in his hand, but at the same time he was wary of them, as if they had actually committed the foul deed he had dreamed about. He placed them carefully back into their velvet-lined box, putting it back where it belonged. He still felt on-edge, as if it were his eyes that were lying, and his dream that showed reality, even though his dream had been matted by gray mist and black smoke and that odd quirk of unreality.
Slowly he returned to his warm bed, looking around at his warm, yellow home again, as if it somehow would convert back to the dark, twisted version he had seen in his sleep, as if it was watching him or waiting for the return of his dream-self.
He climbed under the covers and put an arm around his dear Lucy, and all of his fears seemed to melt away with a sigh. So long as he had her, nothing could go wrong, and all of his nightmares would fade and turn to long-forgotten dreams.
Author's Note: If you want me to finish this story - and I know you do when you press Story Alert, which shouldn't happen when a story is marked 'Complete', but does anyway - then please review with ways to do so. There's a reason it's marked 'Complete', that reason being that if there is a way to continue this story, I haven't thought of it.
Thanks for reading!