A/N: Thanks to Emi1yOreo, Sakura Katana, AngelofDarkness1605, lilaclila, F8WUZL8, Sa Satin Amoureux, It'sOnlyForever.x, and linalove for reviewing. You know I suck at review replies. I hope if you've seen Alice in Wonderland that you enjoyed it! I think I'm the only one who hasn't seen it yet?
"Mr T, stop drinking the sea water!" The baker could scold even in a crisis. "You don't know where it's been!"
Not many London women knew how to swim. Mrs Lovett, on the other hand, was the exception. Ever since Albert had tried to drown her in the bath tub fully clothed, she knew how to hold her breath for two minutes and twenty seconds.
While the mighty demon barber spluttered about on the surface like a drunken sperm whale, the baker sunk down into the bakehouse abyss. Her heavy skirts weighed her down like lead, and the moment she was swallowed up by the churning sea, Nellie regretted drinking that bloody teabag. Under water, she could see the glowing fire from the furnace in the room. The heat boiled the water, and Mrs Lovett knew she had a window of about sixty seconds before the fire and water drowned and burnt them both. Unable to scold him underwater, Mrs Lovett dragged her sinking body toward his waist. She clawed his sides, until she found her saviour – the razor. Once she'd ripped it from him and shorn off her skirts, she shot up easily towards the surface.
"Shrunken heads!" Sweeney shrieked, thrashing his arms around.
"Headless heads," Mrs Lovett said, choking, as finger bones and ribcages floated about the surface.
They both had a point. The boiling ocean was shrinking the rotting flesh, and Mrs Lovett had always finished skinning the bodies by decapitating the heads.
"Swim for the door!' Her words were swallowed by the blood and sea water, but Sweeney got the general idea. He threw his shoulders around Mrs Lovett's neck and clung to her as if he were Johanna's dusty old doll upstairs. Mrs Lovett was on the verge of drowning, if it could be said there was a verge. Falling and choking and vomiting up broiling waves qualified as full on drowning for her.
"The stairs!" Sweeney roared, rolling away from her back and scrabbling for the bakehouse steps. Mrs Lovett didn't remember any stairs on the inside of the door, but she was so overjoyed to see them that she might have married them instead of Sweeney. Stairs after all, might prove more useful.
"Still want to go to the sea, Mrs Lovett?" Sweeney said, when they had finished gasping on the edge of the steps. The sea still rocked around with a violence that matched the barber's temper tantrums.
"Not if the weather's anything like your moods," Mrs Lovett snapped, dragging herself to her feet and scrabbling for the door.
"Mrs Lovett –"
"You got us inter this mess," she whirled, eyes ablaze. "If you hadn't tried ter kill me, the sea might've liked us."
This notion set the barber aflame. "Liked us? The sea doesn't have a BRAIN, my pet, not unlike…." He trailed off, mainly because he had lost his razors in the water.
But Mrs Lovett didn't lose his drift. "Not unlike me, you mean?" she accused.
They both yanked on the iron door handle. The door creaked open, and the pair ran for the stairs at the same time. The ocean rushed after them and carried them all the way up to Mrs Lovett's pie shop.
"Five minutes," droned a plump faced holy man seated at the pie shop table, fingers drumming in expectation.
"I don't believe we ordered priest," Sweeney said, turning darkly to Mrs Lovett.
"No, we did," the baker said timidly. "I wished that –"
"I have five minutes to marry you," the priest said, holding a bible up in his hands.
There were certain items and certain types of people that Sweeney could not stand.
"If you don't marry us within the next ten seconds," the barber ordered, picking up Mrs Lovett's spare rolling pin and pointing it at the priest like a duelling sword, "I'll mar you."
"I don't mind, actually," the priest said, coming forward calmly. "I'm always looking forward to new cuts." He smiled at them both, as if he knew intuitively their appreciation of the Art of Skinning.
All in all, Mrs Lovett thought this man was balmier than even Mr Todd.
"Balmy weather, we're having, wouldn't you agree?" the priest continued amiably, as if he'd never been threatened by a cooking utensil in his life.
"Mr Priest sir," bellowed Toby, bolting out from the parlour room, "I've got them rings!" He held the ring box high like the sword Excalibur.
If Toby hadn't been a child alcoholic, he might have made business entrepreneur. As it stood, belt buckles were the only items he could find. His head ached, he was too afraid to steal Sweeney's ring from the barber shop, and so he'd switched them from an old belt under Mrs Lovett's bed.
"Give them here!" Sweeney snatched the belt buckles and shoved one on his ring finger, and one on the baker's. He had a Plan, you see.
"Well?" he sneered at the priest. "I do!"
This was a far cry from how Mrs Lovett had imagined, although she supposed it was a good thing no one was doing any crying or screaming just then. Still, she wasn't sure she liked this new eager Sweeney. "I do," she said breathlessly, "but…" Her curls were dead, her face blood smeared, and her bright red bloomers on display for the world to see...
"Too late, you're married!" The priest produced a mouldy certificate, stamped it, slapped it on the flour stained counter and dashed out the door. "Gin time!" they heard him singing.
"Why did you marry me?" Mrs Lovett demanded, when they were left standing in silence in the middle of the sopping floor.
"I made a split-second decision, my pet. After much careful thought and consideration, seeing as I haven't been able to rid you by murdering you, I'm going to have you committed instead."
"What's committed mean?" Toby piped up.
"It means Mrs Lovett will be put in the mad house and gets to wear a yellow bib every time they feed her her medicine," Sweeney said, with a horrible smile.
~*~*~*~