The shop stood on a lonely street. The cool of early evening beckoned the clouds to smear across the sunset. Glitter glazed the cobble road, clung like wetness on the roofs.
A trio of young people were the last of Lovett's customers on that Friday, when certain things altered between the short statured and sly baker and the brooding, conniving barber from up the stairs.
The three were watched over by Mrs. Lovett as they conversed, she observed, a most impending matter; the table held a lady sat shoulder to shoulder with her close friend, a boy with three large library books in his lap, and their other friend, a boy with an ill-fitted shirt and curly hair.
Mrs. Lovett left them alone after they were visibly finished their meal, for the selfish reason of not being alone. And though, yes, it was pleasing to have voices of joy and passion and calamities dusting off the usual gloom, ushering the depressive air she's become familiar with out-of-doors, she wondered too when they would finally leave.
Stopping to haul a fallen bowl from the floor, she remarked silently, I'm old now. I'd like to go to bed. These children will stay until sunrise if I don't ask them to leave...
She stiffly straightened, placed a hand on the pulsing base of her spine and sorted the tin bowl among its look-alikes on one of her many shelves.
Just then the barber startled the bell on top of the restaurant's door by passing through so unexpectedly.
"Lovett."
"Yes?"
Halting by her shoulder, Sweeney loomed in the dim light of the shop like a tall, miserable oak. He was as eminent, as crooked and knobbed.
A brief moment was taken to centre herself, for she knew once she looked into those large eyes the distinction she felt between herself and him would vanish, and she'd let him carry in unpredictability. He could quite possibly slit her throat and she'd let him, she'd quite possibly cradle his hand in hers and help him carve deeper...
With a catty sigh she blew off her thoughts. Her sloped smirk refused to relent despite the shade he casts down upon her as she looked up at him.
"Yes, sweet 'eart? How may I assist you?" Teased she. He desired her attention at the most impractical of times. It was endearing, really.
Sweeney swept his hand through the air in a short, terse motion. Silently he wished she would refrain from calling him sick pet names in front of an audience.
...Well, sure, she understood what he meant by the crude wave. Yet she could not resist teasing him once more, saying in a low, attentive voice, "Use your words, love."
She gathered in her hands her small hot teacup and moved further along the shop counter.
She sipped and watched the grumpy barber utilize the freed space. The trio rose from their intimate world inside the bench and chimed their good evenings to a very distracted Mrs. Lovett.
When the door closed behind them she sighed loudly, "What a noisy lot they were!" She smiled, knowing just how deeply she enjoyed any conversation in her shop.
The barber ducked low and pawed inside the counter, before producing a bottle of wine. From deep within the shadows the bottle had lain, forgotten, unopened. The glass was slightly warped around the neck from what he surmised to be poor craftsmanship. Perhaps the most unpleasant detail was that it was coated in a filmy dust. He examined the faded label with raised eyebrows and a withheld nauseous reaction.
"Monsieur Gerdier's premium Red Wine. 1824?"
"It must be very sweet by now. You can have it, love."
Sweeney continued to read the bottle with utmost interest. He slid his thumb over the dog-ears, smoothed out the label so that it clung flat once more.
"Why do you have this?" He asked her. However she was in another room, to his surprise.
"If I recall correctly it is from my wedding. Albert loved the finer things." They snorted together, and she reappeared in the kitchen doorway.
"He wasn't much of a drinker, though. Neither was I with 'im. Doesn't it look like blood? Looks just as thick, too..."
Mrs. Lovett' apron was untied from her waist, the flour was washed from her hands and face. She leaned heavily against the wood frame and dried individual fingers with a thin rag.
"1824. That is the year Lucy and I married as well."
Mrs. Lovett paused, blinking away her incredulousness. "No kidding. Open it, love."
How different their lives would have been had she fled from Albert Lovett and the dusty backwood chapel, and switched places with Lucy, wherever the Bakers had been that day. So long ago. The chance was so lost and buried, and so impossible. Lovett's chest welled with an aching sigh.
"Fine,"
She thought with despair that he might remain frozen in memory, fiddling with the label. But soon he spurred into action. He rounded the counter and briefly glanced down the street through the windows, before locking both doors.
Taking cue, the tiny woman whom sold human pies found two clean glasses and followed him to the parlour.
The evening drew out long and heavy sighs. For the seventh time, Sweeney poured himself another glass. Blurry eyes fixated on the red wine that quietly gathered. He set the bottle down on the fireplace and graciously gave the first sip to his accomplice.
"It's incredibly frustrating." He confided, continuing his grumbled account of his recent emotions. She listened and responded with a nod of acknowledgement. She swallowed the mouthful and the glass swapped hands.
"Yes..." Replied she.
"... It's as though he's rounding the corner every moment, but it's not real. 'E said he'd never come back... what am I to do? If I can't get to him what will I do? It's frustrating."
His spirit sank into the dark mud of defeat. He slugged some wine. After a prolonged silence he said in full earnest, "He deserves to die."
"Yes." Said she. Her fingers drummed on the mantel, syncopating her thoughts.
Sweeney's dark curls hid his eyes as he nodded twice.
"'Course you needn't trouble yourself so much, Sweeney," was what progressed. "It's the Cattle's way, to fall under your butcher's knife."
Sweeney growled so darkly, she wondered if he would become a fully morphed beast any second now. "Yes. But he was at my blade's end already. Even the simplest bovine will learn to be suspicious of the butcher if given enough chances." He sneered.
"Well it's a good thing we're dealing with Turpin and not a bovine. That man 'as no proclivity for recognizing when he might be overpowered. The pompous arse."
Lovett pushed off the ledge of the fireplace and took a meandering stroll around her parlour. As she passed her small figurines, they cheeked broad smiles.
She heard Sweeney pour more for himself.
The wine was warm in her belly, but she decided the grisly taste was not worth more indulgence.
"I don't know." Sweeney grumbled.
She turned on her heel, found herself sizing up his profile.
"... He'll come 'round, don't you fret." She peeked at his round bum before continuing to tread around the furniture, following the instinctual current.
"You obviously 'ave no idea what you are talking about. I don't know why I bother..." Said he, in much the same manner as before. He was unconvinced and gloomy by the hung portraits.
Suddenly he looked up when a wash of notes were played with halting interest. Her fingers peddled on the stout little piano keys. There was no melody in her peddling until she seemed to breathe in, and exhale a familiar sonata.
"Maybe we can sneak you in to one of 'is fancy balls. Christmas is the closest holiday I can think of... We enter as waiters and then poison the drink. As a plus all the guests choke to death as well as Turpin."
The glass of wine was pushed away by his fingertips. Scraap.
A flurry of eighths prattles forward. She says more, since the idea cannot be lain to rest quite yet. He can see the glossy webs of her mind ensnare the devil and squeeze the life out, long bouncy strings connecting one wall of the parlour to the other perfectly.
He grinned darkly. "You're much madder than I originally surmised, my pet."
The tiny pianist abandoned the sonata and chuckled sarcastically, executing an impressive imitation of Father Dracula as she slowly rose from the piano bench and crept closer.
"Yes but as are you, my love."
"We would have to buy waiter's clothing,"
"You dress like a waiter already!"
"Hush," his mouth frowned underneath his charmed eyes.
An urge welled inside her. How awful to admit to herself, that it felt forbidden, or like some sort of test. His reaction was hard to guess and that alone was frightening...
As if he could be swept away by a breeze she slowly lifted her arm level to his shoulder. He finally caught her gaze when she lowered her palm onto the rounding of his limb; though it had hesitated she saw no resistance to her touch, and brought it down the length of his arm to where his hand began to drip off the limb.
He drank. He set the glass down and placed the whole of his hand around the curve of her exposed neck. Perhaps it was for terror that she fisted his shirt, but unhindered he moved closer.
"If we executed this little scheme of your's..." he grumbled, watching just as closely, the shiver of his breath on her skin, the helpless fluttering of her eyelashes...
"..Would you be careful not to drink the poison?"
She swallowed. "I just might. Once the judge is dead, you wouldn't want me any longer. I'd rather -"
"I can't lose you as well." The gravitas was shocking, it nearly stopped her heart. And, from weeks of close observation, she could see that his admittance shocked him, too.
"...Really?"
Lovett pressed needy lips onto his. The pit of her stomach swooped, like a body down the hatch, just from feeling his genuine acceptance of her affection. Was it safe to assume... reciprocation? Sweeney peppered clumsy, ill-practised kisses, with fingers pressing his warmth into her skin.
A distant noise tugged a frown onto her face. Sweeney's onslaught ceased as from above the pie shop a voice called, muffled and yet still very nasal, "Mr. Todd? Hello?"
Recognition seized them, their embrace stiffening instantly. It was Beadle Bamford, having come for a shave.
A.N. Bloody Beadle! Go home! ;) -Gillies