Sweeney Todd #48: Whisper
Title: Everything You Ever
Author: hlfbldprincess
Pairing: Sweeney Todd/Nellie Lovett
Rating: T
Fandom: Sweeney Todd
Promp 30 Kisses #16: invincible/unrivaled; fanfic50 #48: whisper.
Word Count: 1,011
Disclaimer: All I own is a computer.
Sometimes she wished that Sweeney Todd was one of the bodies lying on the stones of her bakehouse.
Not because she wanted the man dead - that part of the arrangement she could do very well without - but because she wanted to know him. She knew the men she made into pies so well. People revealed the most of themselves, all the deformities and lies, all their reality, in the moments just after they no longer possessed their own bodies and just before decomposition claimed their meat forever.
She wanted to know Sweeney as she did those men. She wanted to observe his physique with the reverence that he was due and that he never allowed her to give during their hasty, impersonal nights together. Delve her fingers into the crevices of skin and the slopes of flesh. Turn his every tendon and organ inside out until she knew the intricate details, the shape of all of his sinews, the locations of his fat and of his muscle, the pathway of each vein that once carried blood to a heart he no longer felt.
Sometimes she wished that Sweeney Todd was one of the bodies lying on the stones of her bakehouse. It wasn't actually a wish she wanted her mythical fairy godmother to grant her, or that lie of a God to bless her with, merely one that she was fond of in the hypothetical sense.
But perhaps fairy godmothers weren't as mythical as she believed.
Or maybe God wasn't a lie.
Her knees gave out beneath her and hit the ground. Her palms followed, smacking limply against the stones and aching with an ache she couldn't feel. Her spine curled, nudging her palms further along the ground until her body was posed on all fours, palms and knees pushing into the floor, head hanging down between her raised shoulders, like a base animal. Her right palm slid forward as her left knee did likewise, then her left palm slide forward with her right knee, then again, again, again, crawling across the floor.
Her body stopped moving. Her palms slide backwards and her spine pulled her from all fours onto twos, just her knees now. Her fingers curled into fists and her nails gnawed at her skin. Her neck dripped with sweat and her eyes dripped with tears and her heart clenched like a fist and stopped the drip of blood through her veins and brutalized her body like a thousand knives underneath her skin and, even though her lips could not open, tore from her lungs a savage keen.
He was beautiful even in death, the canonic profile still and refined, tranquil in a way it never had been when possessed with life: the high brow, the curve of the nose, the sealed eyelids, the gently parted lips. The bloodied slit across the throat. She touched her fingers to it. They came away sticky with blood and her throat keened again.
Shut up. This is what you wanted. This is everything you wanted.
She curled her fingers into a fist, branding his blood into her skin.
He is truly yours now.
There was only one thing to do, then. Only one path to traverse from here.
She stood, walked to her table filled with butcher tools, retrieved them, returned to her former position, and began to hack away at the meat of Sweeney Todd.
She chopped him up like all the others. Stripped off his clothes with a more professional demeanor than a whore, put her knives into his flesh and watched the blood drip out without a flinch, didn't bother to avert her eyes from his nude form for modesty's sake. Fisted her hands inside his entrails and learned every crevice and path within him and pretended she wasn't crying even though she was the only living person in the room, even though there was no one to pretend for.
Stop it. This is what you wanted.
Hadn't she wanted to know him like this? And hadn't she wanted herself to survive?
I wanted him to survive with me.
But this scenario was nearly just as good, was it not? He had not had to kill himself, after all. He could have killed her instead. He could have thrown her into the oven last night - God knew he very nearly had - rather than retreating at the last moment, stumbling away, whispering onl "It wasn't your hand that did it," he released her waist.
Instead, he had killed himself. Instead, he had granted her deepest wish: to know him on the most personal level possible. Surely to give her what she wanted most proved that he loved her?
Or just that he couldn't continue to live after you murdered him.
Her hands shook and she clenched them tighter around his viscera. No. She had not murdered him. He had been the one to slaughter all those hapless men, his wife, and himself with those damned razors that she'd been stupid enough to return to him; she had slaughtered no one.
The act of murder is not always physical.
For the first time in sixteen years, Nellie Lovett stopped trying to hide her tears. They dripped from her eyes down her cheeks and landed upon the stripped flesh of her lover, her life, sizzling softly as salt water met raw meat.
She bent over, hands still fisted in his offal, eyes still leaking tears, and placed a kiss upon his lips. They were still slightly warm and she shivered against them.
Slowly, she pulled away.
For the first time in sixteen years, Nellie Lovett whispere "I'm sorry," d meant it.
For the first time in sixteen years, Nellie Lovett allowed someone else to know her as deeply as though her skin too had been ripped open to reveal all her intestines and organs and truths.
Then she finished hacking at his meat, put him through the grinder, and baked him into her next batch of pies, the last batch Mrs. Lovett's Meat Pies at would ever contain human flesh.
Author: hlfbldprincess
Pairing: Sweeney Todd/Nellie Lovett
Rating: T
Fandom: Sweeney Todd
Promp 30 Kisses #16: invincible/unrivaled; fanfic50 #48: whisper.
Word Count: 1,011
Disclaimer: All I own is a computer.
Sometimes she wished that Sweeney Todd was one of the bodies lying on the stones of her bakehouse.
Not because she wanted the man dead - that part of the arrangement she could do very well without - but because she wanted to know him. She knew the men she made into pies so well. People revealed the most of themselves, all the deformities and lies, all their reality, in the moments just after they no longer possessed their own bodies and just before decomposition claimed their meat forever.
She wanted to know Sweeney as she did those men. She wanted to observe his physique with the reverence that he was due and that he never allowed her to give during their hasty, impersonal nights together. Delve her fingers into the crevices of skin and the slopes of flesh. Turn his every tendon and organ inside out until she knew the intricate details, the shape of all of his sinews, the locations of his fat and of his muscle, the pathway of each vein that once carried blood to a heart he no longer felt.
Sometimes she wished that Sweeney Todd was one of the bodies lying on the stones of her bakehouse. It wasn't actually a wish she wanted her mythical fairy godmother to grant her, or that lie of a God to bless her with, merely one that she was fond of in the hypothetical sense.
But perhaps fairy godmothers weren't as mythical as she believed.
Or maybe God wasn't a lie.
Her knees gave out beneath her and hit the ground. Her palms followed, smacking limply against the stones and aching with an ache she couldn't feel. Her spine curled, nudging her palms further along the ground until her body was posed on all fours, palms and knees pushing into the floor, head hanging down between her raised shoulders, like a base animal. Her right palm slid forward as her left knee did likewise, then her left palm slide forward with her right knee, then again, again, again, crawling across the floor.
Her body stopped moving. Her palms slide backwards and her spine pulled her from all fours onto twos, just her knees now. Her fingers curled into fists and her nails gnawed at her skin. Her neck dripped with sweat and her eyes dripped with tears and her heart clenched like a fist and stopped the drip of blood through her veins and brutalized her body like a thousand knives underneath her skin and, even though her lips could not open, tore from her lungs a savage keen.
He was beautiful even in death, the canonic profile still and refined, tranquil in a way it never had been when possessed with life: the high brow, the curve of the nose, the sealed eyelids, the gently parted lips. The bloodied slit across the throat. She touched her fingers to it. They came away sticky with blood and her throat keened again.
Shut up. This is what you wanted. This is everything you wanted.
She curled her fingers into a fist, branding his blood into her skin.
He is truly yours now.
There was only one thing to do, then. Only one path to traverse from here.
She stood, walked to her table filled with butcher tools, retrieved them, returned to her former position, and began to hack away at the meat of Sweeney Todd.
She chopped him up like all the others. Stripped off his clothes with a more professional demeanor than a whore, put her knives into his flesh and watched the blood drip out without a flinch, didn't bother to avert her eyes from his nude form for modesty's sake. Fisted her hands inside his entrails and learned every crevice and path within him and pretended she wasn't crying even though she was the only living person in the room, even though there was no one to pretend for.
Stop it. This is what you wanted.
Hadn't she wanted to know him like this? And hadn't she wanted herself to survive?
I wanted him to survive with me.
But this scenario was nearly just as good, was it not? He had not had to kill himself, after all. He could have killed her instead. He could have thrown her into the oven last night - God knew he very nearly had - rather than retreating at the last moment, stumbling away, whispering onl "It wasn't your hand that did it," he released her waist.
Instead, he had killed himself. Instead, he had granted her deepest wish: to know him on the most personal level possible. Surely to give her what she wanted most proved that he loved her?
Or just that he couldn't continue to live after you murdered him.
Her hands shook and she clenched them tighter around his viscera. No. She had not murdered him. He had been the one to slaughter all those hapless men, his wife, and himself with those damned razors that she'd been stupid enough to return to him; she had slaughtered no one.
The act of murder is not always physical.
For the first time in sixteen years, Nellie Lovett stopped trying to hide her tears. They dripped from her eyes down her cheeks and landed upon the stripped flesh of her lover, her life, sizzling softly as salt water met raw meat.
She bent over, hands still fisted in his offal, eyes still leaking tears, and placed a kiss upon his lips. They were still slightly warm and she shivered against them.
Slowly, she pulled away.
For the first time in sixteen years, Nellie Lovett whispere "I'm sorry," d meant it.
For the first time in sixteen years, Nellie Lovett allowed someone else to know her as deeply as though her skin too had been ripped open to reveal all her intestines and organs and truths.
Then she finished hacking at his meat, put him through the grinder, and baked him into her next batch of pies, the last batch Mrs. Lovett's Meat Pies at would ever contain human flesh.