For the first time Sweeney could remember, fear sprang into his young friend's innocent eyes. Too innocent. There was nowhere a man could live in so much hope , with so much optimism. The naïve always died. They had to. Like the foolish young barber who had been thrown from the dark hold of a prison ship to the burning sands of Australia fifteen years ago.
He stepped toward the shocked and fearful boy in the chair, smiling faintly as he wondered what sort of Todd Anthony might become if he could have died as Benjamin Barker had. But that could never be allowed. He had to die, now.
"Is everything alright, Mr. Todd?" The boy's eyes leapt from the barber's ghostly face to the silver razor, gleaming eagerly through Sweeney's thin fingers. "Mr. - Oh!" Anthony leapt from the path of the first wild swing as the haunted grin on his friend's face turned to an expression of madness and hatred.
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"I s'pose he'll want you to marry him and all that, then, eh?" Ever busy, Nellie scrubbed hurriedly at the shop's stained counter as she kept one eye on the young blonde. "Trust me, dearie. Never the same once you let them drag you to the alter." Although I don't imagine your Anthony would have to do much dragging…
"Oh, Mrs. Lovett, ma'am," Johanna said, leaning forward. Excitement turned her voice into a sweet warble. "It's already planned. As soon as we arrive in Plymouth…"
"Take my dear Albert. Could've hired three girls to help cook his meals alone, bless his heart. And I would've, if there'd been money…"
"Anthony has family there, and a little house…"
"And there's laundry, and a whole house to clean…"
"Only a simple little cottage, where I can stay until we'll be wed…"
"And with the lad a sailor, gone months at a time, heaven only knows…"
"In a little church. Oh, Mrs. Lovett, he's promised me - It's this darling little chapel, right by the edge of the ocean…"
Mrs. Lovett was suddenly still. "By the…Oh…"
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"Mr. Todd, stop, please!" Anthony raced frantically around the deadly chair, trying to keep that much at least between him and its owner. A nearly full circle brought him to the chair's front-side while Sweeney stood raging at the opposite edge of the high carved back. "Why-" Sweeney, scowling, stomped on the lever in the floor. "What have I -" He staggered back, terrified as the chair's grated footrest flew up at him, its suddenly sinking back letting the barber leap over the chair and lash out savagely with the razor.
Dodging the blow, the sailor raced for the exit, but Sweeney moved with a hellish speed. His fingers dug into the boy's shoulders, driving him into the door. The dingy windows rattled in their frames and the bells gave a musical gasp as the doorknob slammed into his ribs.
Anthony fell to his knees, crying out as Mr. Todd's blade sliced into the flesh of his cheek rather than his throat. Blood poured hot down his face as he scrambled back to his feet and out of reach, darting into the shadows of the corner. He heard the barber's heavy footsteps behind him as he ran.
Sweeney cursed inwardly as he lunged for the sailor again. Why didn't I do it quick, cut his throat as soon as he sat? Why did it matter where they were going? But of course it mattered. It was his Johanna, his dove, his angel. He felt the need to know their plans as much as to stop them. And that he must. Anthony could not escape.
His clawing hand found the back of Anthony's shirt just as they neared the little stove that battled the shop's cod drafts. The boy turned quickly, breaking his grip but also making his throat, already bathed in scarlet streams - an easy target. The razor's silver handle shone as Sweeney swung it high, brought it down with all his strength.
Anthony's arms flew up, in his hand the teapot he had snatched from the stove, and was rewarded instantly with a muffled crash and a strangled noise of pain and surprise as Mr. Todd's wrist met the hot metal. As the barber faltered, clutching his wrist, he tore his seared, blistered palms away from the pot and let it fall to the floor as he ran again.
He had only gained a moment, and when Sweeney turned back to his quarry his face burned with a devil's black fury. He threw himself once more after the unfortunate sailor - mere heartbeats ahead of him - only to lurch forward and fall. He had stepped on the fallen teakettle and lost his footing.
But even as he landed hard on the wooden floor, his right hand flew out, his beautiful razor flashing. He felt it tear into the flesh on Anthony's leg, slicing through the veins and tendons behind his knee and sending the sweet crimson surge spraying across Sweeney's face, trickling warmly down his arm…
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Mrs. Lovett felt almost faint. What had she been about to say? Sailors, marriage…
By the sea, Mr. Todd, that's the life I covet… Her dream, sharing the sand and surf with the man she loved, was Johanna's dream, too. And the love of that innocent dream was about to become Nellie's next batch of meat pies. She tried to imagine carving the flesh from Anthony's arms knowing that they had held and comforted this poor soul, the very picture of her mother. She saw the face Johanna kissed in her dreams moldering in the reeking dark of the bakehouse. For the first time since she started grinding up Sweeney's customers, Mrs. Lovett felt sick to her stomach.
"Surely, you don't really want… All that sand…awful mess it makes…" By the sea Mr. Todd, Ooh, I know you'd love it… The pie shop started to spin. If Mr. Todd killed Anthony…
"Mrs. Lovett?" She snapped back to the present to find Johanna staring at her, her blue eyes wide and serious. "Do you think I'll be a good wife?" Nellie looked back, frozen, but didn't see Johanna. She heard another question altogether. Mrs. Lovett, do you think they'll really take Benjamin away from me? She had answered then with remorse only for here beloved Mr. Barker. Why couldn't she be pitiless now for Mr. Todd? The girl before her stared still, almost pleading. "I so want to be, but I've never had to clean, or cook…"
She glanced over her shoulder and stood, tripping daintily to the counter. "Mrs. Lovett…" She truly was all innocence and eagerness. "Would you teach me to make a pie?" Oh, God. The baker's mouth hung open, her mind racing.
Suddenly, the wooden ceiling began pounding with a series of crashing footfalls and muffled cries. One, she was sure, had come from Sweeney, making her start. But the final agonized howl was unmistakably from Johanna's love. Nellie's blood ran cold. She forgot about the girl leaning over her counter.
Until that girl screamed out the sailor's name and ran for the stairs to Sweeney Todd's Tonsorial Parlor.
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Anthony fell headlong, screaming as blood leapt from the wound in his leg. Sweeney lay stretched still at his heels, lulled for a moment by the sensation of the hot, luscious liquid pooling around his outstretched arm, welling up around his skin. But this job, he remembered distantly, was not finished. He could not be calmed yet by the treasured rubies piling up so near his face.
As he rose steadily to his feet, the sailor had already flailed his way to the barber's chair and used it to pull himself upright. He clutched the carved armrests as he stood helplessly. Mr. Todd was nearly there, striding intently towards him. Fear and panic were shining in the younger man's eyes, written on that innocent face.
His former friend drew near and Anthony gave a strangled sound as Sweeney raised the dripping razor again. In desperation, he snatched at the barber's hand, stopping the blade in air so abruptly that his own blood flew from its edge to spatter his face. His uninjured leg wavered beneath him. "Mr. Todd… please…"
"You can't take her away from me! I won't let anyone take her from me again!"
"Johanna!?"
"MY DAUGHTER!" Screaming in rage and desperation, Sweeney tore his hand out of Anthony's grasp and pulled the razor back to strike again. "SHE'S MY DAUGHTER!"
"Johanna!" His eyes fixed on Anthony's throat, Mr. Todd never noticed that the boy was looking at the door of the shop.
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"Johanna - wait - stop!" Mrs. Lovett hurried out from behind the counter and raced for the door but she couldn't beat Johanna. The shop's cheery little bells rang violently as Mr. Todd's daughter burst out into the courtyard, followed hard by his accomplice. "Johanna!" If Anthony's death suddenly seemed like a disaster, Nellie knew it would fall far short of the consequences of the girl interrupting Sweeney in the process of causing it. Please, God, let her trip!
The baker's pounding heart gave a leap for joy as trip she did, perhaps from the unaccustomed weight of the sailor's heavy boots. With a started cry, she sprawled forward across the wooden steps. Mrs. Lovett quickly closed the distance between them as she scrabbled, panting, to regain her feet, and took her by the arm. "Best to wait a moment, love," she huffed franticly. "It'll be alright."
Johanna struggled for a moment, then at the sound of muffled shouting inside, broke loose, calling out to the doomed sailor as she cleared the final steps to the barber's door and barged into the dark shop. Nellie was only a few steps behind her as the girl froze. Behind the devilish barber's chair, Johannas's intended, bloodied and visibly terrified, stood at the mercy of Mrs. Lovett's own beloved.
"Johanna!" Anthony looked into her eyes through the dark, his hand held out to her.
Sweeney Todd struck, quick and clean. Mrs. Lovett saw the flash but could barely believe that was all, even as the sailor let out one final, gurgling scream and fell. Only then did the killer notice Johanna, who still stood, graceful even in fright, like a trembling statue.
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Sweeney forgot all else as soon as he saw her. Her skin was pale, glowing in the moonlight like his own. His own daughter. In his own shop. He stared as he stepped around his chair and came towards her.
There was a barber and his girl,
and she was beautiful.
A foolish barber and his girl,
The only remnant of his world,
And she was beautiful…
He actually smiled.
Johanna screamed.
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The sight of Mr. Todd drenched in blood set Mrs. Lovett on edge. For the second rime that night, fear tinged with excitement coursed through her. The brutality it must require to make a man's life rain onto the barber's face and hair and clothes made her shudder, but she always dreamed that someday he's climb down the stairs to the bakehouse just like that, leaving a trail of crimson drops along the cold stone steps, and whisper in her ear that…
At the sound of Johanna's shriek, her fantasies shattered. So, she saw, did Sweeney's smile - the first she could recall without something darker behind it. Replacing it was an expression of hurt. The precious silver razor fell to the floor. Nellie could almost hear his heart beating, breaking, in the silence that followed. Then Johanna began to sob.
Mr. Todd came forward, slowly, his arms open to comfort his lamb, his sweet daughter. But she turned and fled, giving a breathless cry as she ran. No. Bracing herself, Mrs. Lovett blocked the doorway and flung her arms around the poor, wailing creature as she tried to leave the shop. "No, Johanna, please!" She was all but screaming to try and reach her. "You have to stay!" Struggling, the girl forced her back onto the narrow landing. "It's not - Wait! Johanna!" With a piercing cry, Johanna tore away from her captor, sending Nellie reeling back into the railing.
She glanced back through the door. Despite the gloom, she could see that torn expression plainly on Sweeney's pale features. He was too still, scaring her. "Johanna!" She had to make her stay. "Johanna!" Already at the foot of the stairs, Johanna moved slower, her legs weakened by grief and terror. But Mrs. Lovett knew she'd never catch her. "Johanna, please!" She shot another uncertain glance at Mr. Todd. "Johanna - JOHANNA, HE'S YOUR FATHER!"
The figure in the shadows below stopped, turning her pale face up to Mrs. Lovett. The baker felt relief wash over her, until she looked down and saw that her pretty little features wore an expression of pure horror.
In a flash, she was gone again. Nellie ran down the stairs after her, but she was already winded. She arrived only to see the coach Anthony had hired pull away at a full gallop.
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Johanna was gone.
He had seen her. She had been all he had dreamed of. And she ran from him.
Sweeney fell to his knees in the pooling blood on the floor. He had fought so hard to have her back and she would not have him.
His shop seemed to lean and loom over him. Had Mrs. Lovett left him, too? He heard her shout and then she ran after Johanna.
He was alone, in the dark and cold of the London night. Even his razor was no longer in his hand. Even the blood had begun to cool around his knees.
This isn't how it was supposed to end.
Suddenly, a figure filled the open doorway. It came nearer.
"Mr. Todd?" It was Mrs. Lovett.
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"Mr. Todd?" He looked up at her like a lost child, his dark eyes stricken. She felt tears welling up in her own as she knelt in the blood and wrapped her arms around him. To her surprise, Sweeney returned the embrace, clinging tightly to her. Almost desperately. "We'll get her back, love." She looked across the floor, staring into the sailor's glazing eyes. "I promise."
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To BeBopALula and MrsMargeryLovett, the only reviewers with pity in their hearts, sorry. And thanks to everybody.
Haha! I feel like kind of a bastard now. Stay tuned!