A/N: Hi, guys! So happy to bring you another installment. Y'all have floored me with your enthusiasm and support. Thank you ever so much, loves! (gives out meat pies that do not violate countless health standards) At this point, the plot bunnies have completely taken over the story. Let me tell you, I was NOT happy with the direction that they decided to take this. This chapter, amazingly, contains plot and quite a healthy helping of drama! It's dark and, as usual, graphic. Just fyi. It's also long, too. Hope that's okay. There is more yet to come. Hope you all enjoy this and decide to stick around. Xoxo
It can take years for a person to feel safe inside their own head, let alone risk giving their damaged heart to someone who's had it all along. It only takes a couple of minutes to rip a person's illusion of safety apart and send their small but carefully ordered world crashing down. Unfair? Yes. Cruel? Absolutely.
Mrs. Lovett was beyond pondering these subtleties. All she knew was the pain chewing away at her brain. She couldn't bear its presence in her thoughts. She forced herself to slow each shallow breath as she gripped her dresser with clammy fingers that wouldn't stop shaking. The tiny baker tried to push back the acute sense of rejection and betrayal and pick herself up as she'd done time and again. Her eyes stung. The hurt would not be ignored.
Her strength, frayed from previous struggles, left her and sanity was quick to follow. White fingers found her cleaver and drove its edge into the equally white flesh of her arm. An involuntary keen escaped contorted lips as liquid agony ran down her skin and kissed the varnished wood waiting beneath. The release wasn't enough to compensate for all the times she'd deluded herself into thinking that loving and waiting were going to solve anything. All that she'd done for him, all her fierce and uncontrollable fondness, her best efforts, weren't enough. It all amounted to a pile of shit in the long run.
She was nothing more to Sweeney than free labor and a way to sate fifteen years of deprivation. Red swelled from rent corners of white; it still wasn't enough. The cleaver licked her blood and obediently inched deeper for more…just a little bit deeper…
A little alarm clanged distantly in the back of Nellie's head, telling her that she was getting close to the point of doing serious damage. The dizziness that was beginning to fog her head drowned out its nagging voice. Toby screamed from somewhere in the background as his fist wore itself out on her door. The cleaver dropped to the floor, seemingly of its own volition, as Mrs. Lovett sank onto her bed and curled up in a throbbing ball.
A memory, so fresh as to be still steaming, scalded behind her eyes and the baker bit back a scream, tasting blood as the images assaulted her brain with horrible, glaring colors.
Shop was getting quiet. Dinner hour was almost over and closing was so close that she could nearly taste it. Sweeney was scrubbing down an ale-splashed table, close enough for his hipbone to brush against hers. Customers were staring but she didn't care; for the first time in so long that she couldn't remember, Mrs. Lovett felt like something in the pit of her chest was starting to knit back together. Trying to remember what it felt like to be whole.
She could feel Sweeney's eyes rising from the table to ghost over her in a near-constant rhythm. For the first time since she'd disemboweled and hacked up Signor Pirelli, Mrs. Lovett felt like Sweeney Todd wasn't ensnared by cobwebby photographs and decaying baby toys. She could taste the salty air down by the coast.
Toby's raised, slightly quavering voice and a hoarse squawking began to turn heads. She started to put down her trays, but Sweeney touched one hand to the small of her back, ignoring an elderly woman's scandalized gaping.
"I'll 'andle it."
"Thanks, love."
Both turned to face the altercation on the same heartbeat, and Mrs. Lovett's heart ran dry.
The beggar woman was staring Toby down, her gnarled hands drawn up close to her shiny eyes.
Mrs. Lovett tried to reach out, to scream, to do something, but Sweeney was already stalking over.
As he reached for her arm, the former blonde turned her glassy stare onto him. A hint of clarity poked through the muddy irises. "Don't I know you, Mister?" she rasped.
Halfway to the door, her words sank in. Sweeney's back stiffened. He adjusted his grip on the pitiful creature's bony shoulder and inhaled her with his eyes.
His lips parted but made no sound.
Mrs. Lovett's chest got so tight that she physically couldn't breathe.
The demon barber snapped around to face her, black eyes flaming and lips drawn back from clenched teeth. Before she could squeak one word or even take a single step back, he took the beggar woman by the arm and stormed out of the- - "MUM!" - - shop.
The petite redhead became aware of a pressure being applied to her arm. Toby's light brown eyes floated inches from hers, glistening with anxiety.
"Yeah?" she whispered, staring at a hole in the knee of his pants.
"What didja do to yourself, m'am?" the boy whispered back.
Mrs. Lovett parted her lips to answer him and a sob escaped. As she struggled to choke off more, the boy soothed, "You're alright, Mum- things're going to be alright."
She laid her pounding head down and gave up fighting the tears. Toby curled up close to her and pressed a fresh towel up against her arm. Mrs. Lovett cried into the crook of Toby's arm until she felt sick to her stomach. Toby used gin and bandages and an old shirt and did a fair job of cleaning up and patching the messy wound. That being done, he held her and rocked slowly. He probably didn't realize he was doing so, but it helped a little nonetheless.
The baker wiped her swollen eyes, feeling the sting in her bloated cheeks. "Toby-love, I'm so sorry."
"Shh." The boy stroked her ruined bun. "You don't 'ave to 'pologize, Mum."
She pressed her lips and squeezed her eyes shut tightly. "I'm the one wot's s'posed to be takin' care a you- not the other way 'round."
"Everyone needs carin' for sometimes, m'am."
"I let ya down-"
"Please don't be too hard on yerself, Mum.-"
"I promised ya…"
"Mum, don't upset yerself more."
"Oh God, Toby- I'm sorry, love."
"Shh, Mum- I believe ya."
He rocked her some more, and Nellie closed her large eyes. The rocking felt nice. She was worn down from the long day (complete with an early start and several trips up and down the knee-murdering bakehouse stairs) and emotionally exhausted. She nearly nodded off once and then sat up and patted her legs. Toby curled up in her lap and she took a turn stroking his hair. Bless the lad, he could tell that she didn't want to talk about what had happened with the beggar woman, and he was keeping quiet about it for her sake. Mrs. Lovett was incredibly grateful. The silence between them was comfortable.
She broke it a couple of minutes later by asking, "You 'ungry, dear?" The boy shook his head. "Me neither." The baker replied. Pushing a salt-stiffened curl away from her cheek, she proposed, "Whaddyou say we clean up the shop and 'ead straight to bed?"
Toby agreed with that proposition, and they did just that.
Soft footsteps were nearly inaudible above the shrieking of the teakettle. Without turning around, Mrs. Lovett asked, "Toby, 'ow's that table of lawyers? They need any more ale?"
"I wouldn't know."
The baker's eyes popped. She gasped and whirled round. Her elbow found the kettle and sent it splashing to the floor at her feet. The gasp sirened up into a yelp. Swearing, Mrs. Lovett danced away from the boiling puddle and plowed into Sweeney Todd at a decent speed. The barber's breath escaped in a grunt. Each instinctively attempted to steady the other. They reached a sort of uneasy compromise and clung teetering to each other as Sweeney braced his shoulder against the wall.
The sense of unease deepened once the initial moment of panic was past. It was the first time that they had been in a room together in nearly three days. Mrs. Lovett felt that she sould say SOMEthing but was not sure what. Their eyes met and the baker's mouth went dry. Her precious Mr. Todd had not returned from Australia a sane man. He was every bit as unpredictable as he was unbearably attractive. Much of the time, this wasn't a problem for Mrs. Lovett: she could match his passion, talk him down from his maniacal rants, and either cuddle in his lap or get some work done while he was zoned out from the rest of the world. But as she stared at him now, the tiny redhead found herself both at a loss and genuinely frightened.
Sweeney was paler than candlewax. His face was drawn; his eyes so empty that they reflected quiet desperation back at her.
"Sweeney," she whispered; it escaped in an exhale of pure concern. The demon barber directed his stare down to the raw fingers that were steadying her shoulder. His hands retreated from her shoulder and waist as if he hadn't been conscious of their still being there. The introverted psychopath strode past Nellie and, as she looked on with growing unease, went straight for the cabinet where she kept the liquor and proceeded to down half a bottle of gin in under a minute.
As the barber half-coughed, half-gagged and made to finish the rest of the gin, the baker sidestepped the cooling puddle and hastened to his side. "Mister T, you're going to make yerself sick- slow d-"
He raised those horrible empty eyes to her face, and her spine went as cold as Judge Turpin's eyes. Fighting the urge to shudder, she murmured, "At least let me get you a glass."
He blinked apathetically, like a lizard, but kept the bottle raised partway to his lips and brought it no closer. Nellie quickly fetched him a glass. Once she'd cleaned up the water and picked up the kettle, she hovered awkwardly by the counter. At length, the plucky accomplice decided to serve a few customers to give the man some space but not too much. Lord only knew what he'd do in a state like this, and she wanted to be ready…especially if the boy got involved.
The barber's presence seemed to swell to fill the entire shop. Nellie was painfully conscious of it as she brewed a fresh pot of tea and gathered a few fruit pies onto a tray. It took every ounce of willpower that she had to not ditch her customers entirely and take Sweeney's head into her hands and breathe a spark of life into the flat black pits that she felt watching her go.
It was just as surprising to Sweeney Todd as it was to Mrs. Lovett when he took her wrist as she turned to leave his room once she'd set his dinner tray down on the infamous chest. When her round eyes peeked up at him, the demon barber saw hope and wariness in equal parts. He could not meet those eyes for long. Her lips parted then, for once, closed.
Before she could ask (or read him from the inside out, as the bloody woman was wont to do frighteningly often), Sweeney told her, "She's dead." He delivered this information without a thread of emotion, keeping his eyes on the cooling plate of chicken. A gasp escaped his landlady's lips. Her free hand touched his shoulder, then cupped it in a reassuring squeeze.
"Oh, love…" she breathed.
"It happened in her sleep," he heard himself say, unsure why his brain had decided to divulge such information.
He remembered how he'd led the bedraggled creature to a local inn. Gently brushing off her pawing, Sweeney had bought an enormous late-night supper and had sat with her until her painfully flat stomach had been distended. After supper, they'd retired to a room on the third floor.
He'd braided and brushed her hair, feeling her eyes darting uncertainly up to his like a wild bird's. He'd poured out what was left of Benjamin in his black heart to her and had held her grimy hands while she'd stared vacantly into the veil between two lifetimes. She'd smelled like garbage and unwashed blisters. He'd whispered that he loved her, feeling the weight of fifteen years of not being able to tell her as much.
She'd responded with an uncertain frown and "Lucy who?"
When it became clear that he wasn't going to utilize her services, she'd wanted to go find one of her regulars. He'd quelled her anxiety by offering her ten times what she usually made to stay and get a good night's rest. She'd stroked and cradled the coins like they were children and agreed, though she'd been baffled by his request.
The ragged, labored breaths rasping in her poxied lungs had sawed on his intestines until the wee hours of the morning. He remembered pressing the pillow over her head until the gasping had given way to silence. She hadn't woken.
He remembered holding her in his arms until he'd lost all track of time.
He remembered shutting the blinds against the damning sun and washing her sore-riddled body.
He'd buried her under her favorite tree in Hyde Park once the sun had gone down, and had left with dry eyes.
Sweeney Todd told none of this to his landlady. It felt wrong to let those details pass his cracked lips.
Instead, he addressed her, still in that even voice, "You sound surprised, Mrs. Lovett."
Instantly the spell of quiet was broken and the baker began to babble. "I told ya that she poisoned herself; never said that it killed 'er…"
He gripped her free wrist and drew her close enough to taste her breath. "That's deception, Mrs. Lovett." His voice lowered into a snarl. "And I despise it just as much as outright lying."
Her words rushed out despite the intensity of his hardening gaze. "I didn't tell ya she lived 'cause I knew it'd kill ya… I deceived ya 'cause I love you-"
"Bullshit," he ground out, pulling her into the barber's chair with him.
"Wh-what? Mister T…"
"You wanted me all for yourself."
One of his arms wound around her waist, preventing her retreat. The demon barber's fingers splayed across her neck.
"That was part of it," the baker admitted, with typical candor, "But I was tryin' to protect ya too." She rolled her eyes up to meet his desperately, as if she was trying to convince herself of this as much as she was him.
Sweeney's pointer finger slipped under the baker's chin, stroking an imaginary line across her throat. "And how do I know that I can believe a single word you say?" His words dropped to a whisper as his black eyes, devoid of sanity, drilled into her skull. The candle that she'd set on the chest made the very tip of his razor wink in its holster. Her pulse fluttered beneath his fingertips, giving them frantic little feathery kisses.
"Think of our history," she pleaded.
He stared at her with a combination of disbelief and a failure to fully understand. "Our history?" the introverted psychopath echoed.
She reached up and touched his chin, gazing at him with distress but not fear. "If your ruination was my goal, I'd a turned you in the day you walked into my shop." Mrs. Lovett cupped his jaw, which was as tense as piano wire. "If me own interests were first 'n' foremost, I'd charge you rent for staying and make you wash yer own blood-sprayed shirts."
She barked a bitter laugh. "I most certainly wouldn't spend the better part of me waking hours 'iding and 'acking up your customers!"
"My arrival- and, subsequently, my customers- have brought in more money than you ever could have dreamed of, Mrs. Lovett." He reminded her, coldly.
The baker gaped at him, her lips forming a vague 'o' shape like he'd just buried his fist in her stomach. When she was able to speak again, her voice-though steady- trembled. "You think our arrangement is about the money?"
Her damning eyes were pits of pain. He cut her with one of his iciest gazes, wanting to share the unfathomable pressing ache in his chest.
"Nah, love." The petite redhead curled closer to him, looking and sounding profoundly tired. Sweeney noticed a nest of fresh bandages on her upper arm. "The money's useful, Mister T, but I'd give it up. Can't say the same about you. Even when yer at yer worst, all catatonic-like or bein' insufferable cruel…this is your home, and you 'ave my heart. I love you, Sweeney Todd, however much I muck things up tryin' to show it."
She licked her full lips. "No matter how many times you stomp on my heart."
The baker had more to say, but Sweeney shifted his fingers from her neck to her lips, touching them just enough to shush her. He couldn't think. Couldn't breathe. His Lucy, his purpose, had been ripped from him a second time. Their last hours together gave him no comfort. All he could think of were the sores that had pocked her disease-racked body, and the way she'd treated him like he was any other customer.
Just the thought of Lucy having customers made him want to vomit up the gin that was burning up his otherwise empty stomach all over the floor The agony was far too much for him to contain or ever hope to suppress, and the thought he understood why his accomplice occasionally resorted to spilling her own rubies. He would slit his own throat if only he could feel some shade of numb again.
His grip on Mrs. Lovett loosened, and he kneaded his brow forcefully enough to cause pain in both his brow and the unfortunate fingers. The barber's eyes burned. He bit the inside of his lip until iron overpowered the potent cocktail of gin and regret. Benjamin Barker had cried in another life. It had earned him ridicule and extra lashes.
Sweeney Todd did not cry.
Ever.
He felt Mrs. Lovett holding him, and choked on the impulse to lose himself in her comfort. He hated and needed the rotten little spitfire both at once, and that only added to the storm building to hurricane force inside him.
"S'alright, my love," she murmured, her lips caressing the top of his ear, "You're safe 'ere."
It had been so long since Sweeney Todd had felt safe.
When the first drops came, he swabbed them away ferociously. Then Mrs. Lovett took his hands away from his face and guided them down into their laps. Sweeney didn't recall the moment that he lost it. The next thing his brain registered was that he was sobbing in a muffled but uncontrollable manner into his elbow and the crook of his landlady's perfect neck, and she was rubbing his shuddering back and whispering incomprehensible groupings of words that sounded soothing.
It took a humiliatingly long time for him to be spent. His baker never once let go of him or told him that he should get a grip on himself. Her pale fingers sifted through his hair, tenderly guiding his head down to her bosom. He laid his cheek over her heart and listened to its steady, purposeful throb. As she stroked his hair and skritched the nape of his neck, the demon barber closed his eyes.
He was not yet ready to forgive her, but it no longer seemed out of the question.
Mrs. Lovett's soft kisses saw him off to badly-needed sleep.
(Sorry for the s-words. They seemed to fit here, and I tried to tone down the rest of the chapter. At least they aren't OOC for the movie, right? Up next: our favorite baker tends to our favorite psychopathic barber. And he probably won't be too happy about her hurting herself again… )