Benjamin...

[saime_joxxers]

Title: Benjamin
Author: saime_joxxers
Rating: PG-13? For violence. And insinuation of violence. And mentions and thoughts of violence. It's Sweeney Todd, what do you expect?
Pairing: Todd/Lovett
Summary:  “Benjamin,” I answer simply. “His name was Benjamin.”
Disclaimer: The usual, with fries on the side. Same applies to Sweeney Todd as with all other fandoms: I regrettably don't own them.
Author’s Note: This is a three-shot, or a three-part one shot. They're not necessarily interconnected except by the line 'His name was Benjamin', though they can be read as a single story line. The last part is AU, but the others could easily have happened within the bounds set by the movie. Told in first person perspective, Sweeney, Lovett, and finally Toby.

Sweeney:

What I feel is not mere anger. It is a rare fury, hot and red and sticky as the blood that runs down my skin in rivulets. It is almost alive in its own right, pulsing within me. There is no escaping it. It disgusts me, but I am past the point of disgust; entrances me, but I am already a slave to it. I can no longer distinguish my blood from that of the unlucky victim I have so recently dispatched because everything hurts. Such pain is hardly unusual. Everything hurts but I feel nothing. I feel nothing.
There is only red in my vision, the slick stains on the floor and the walls and on me affecting my mind so completely that everything - whether it truly is or not - appears to be caked in blood. The moon itself can easily be scarlet instead of silver, bathing everything in a diabolical light. I stand, chest heaving, eyes wild, and stomp heavily down on the pedal. The barber chair contorts and heaves, tipping backwards and dumping so many pounds of human meat down into the trap door. It swings shut and I hear the muffled crunch of bones snapping. The screaming, the gurgling, the spray, and the crunch - it is my own twisted orchestra, a symphony of chaos that I compose every day. It sounds constantly in my head; the sound of death that is my life’s own score. And it always needs another movement.
Breathing so heavily I am nearly panting, I sink down onto my chair, thudding heavily against the back. My eyelids slip shut and black overtakes the red. My temples pound, the exhilaration and sheer wonder that always accompanies the climax of my masterpiece steadily draining away through my feet as it always does. I am hollow, the thoughts and feelings and breath and heartbeats echoing inside of me, floating around without aim or cause. It always feels worse to be so low after being so high, the fall from the pinnacle of existence ending in a destructive crash. Craving it, needing it, I retreat further into the void of nothing. Loving it. Hating it.
There is Lucy, and there is the Judge, and I am going to kill him. That is all there is to life - all there needs to be. The acidic burn of the anger falls away to emptiness, followed by the grief and the hurt. Until I kill the judge, it will be like this. After that... I am not sure. 
Without warning, I find myself lost in a frenzied swirl of words; where there has been only silence and the scream of my jumbled thoughts, now there is noise and speech, and I am being dragged roughly out of my reverie.
“ -all these bloodied shirts an’ all. Well, here’s your laundry anyways, Mr. T.”
There is suddenly a pile of clothes upon my lap. I glance down at them, scowling.
 “No use talking to you,” the voice - now easily recognizable as Mrs. Lovett - complains. “A bloody corpse would be a better conversationalist . Ah well, I take what I can get, I guess. Try to keep your clothes a bit neater next time, will you?”
Clothes.
Blood.
 I leap to my feet, suddenly aware that I am covered in the red liquid. It is caked on my skin, my hair, my room. Everywhere. “We have to clean this up.” What if the judge comes? What if he comes and sees this! Then I will never get to him.
“Why do you think I came up here?” I don’t need to look up to realize that there is a bucket of soapy water in her hands. I can hear the condescension in her voice, the amusement and frustration all rolled into one. And yet there is an underlying... something. A something that is always there, always ultimately more powerful than any other sound. The something is only meant for me, I know, and it only ever grew the closer I got to her. I can hardly care less.
“Of course.” I respond to her blabbing without giving much thought to the words that slipped from either my lips or from hers. I peel off my sodden shirt, opening the trap door once more and throwing it down. Watching the fluttering descent of the cloth until it comes to land upon the recently dispatched customer who also rests below, I then turn to Mrs. Lovett. She looks startled, jumping back slightly as if I had been turning on her with my razor blades rather than to simply grab the bucket from her hands. I clutch the course braided rope that makes up the handle and slosh the water all over the floor. Without another word, I snatch the brush, scrubbing away in silence.
I feel her eyes on my back. They burn like nothing else I have ever encountered. Uncomfortable, I wish she would stop staring at my bare skin with such a strange hunger. Her gaze makes my entire body bristle with revulsion, almost as if she is actually touching me. It takes a moment for me to realize that she is, and I stop my work, frozen beneath her fingers. Anger flares up and I twist about to look at her. Surprisingly enough, she also appears angry. She is speaking again, but I am too distracted to listen to her or to remain furious enough to take action against her. I need her and she needs me and neither of us can succeed without the other. For now.
I cannot kill the judge without her. Or without getting the floor clean.
“Look at the laundry!” she is saying by the time her barrage of words penetrate my defences. “Do you have any idea how long it took me to get these clean! Now they’re filthy again! Next time, don’t stand up when there’s clothes on yer BLOODY lap!” she is almost screaming now, her harsh voice grating against my ears. Her noise echoes around the room, against the walls, taking the place of the symphony I work so hard to create. After a long moment of suffering through her tirade, I stand. “You try washing your own shirts next time, and I’ll soak them in blood, eh?” she yells.
I stare at her for a moment, examining her face. “I’m sorry.” I mutter finally, spitting out the words. I do not mean them, nor do I sound for a moment like I do. But I know that they will pacify her for the time being. They do every time.
Lovett stares back at me; her eyes wandering downward, only briefly, across my bare chest. And then along my belt and onto the razors gleaming from my holster. Back up again and to my eyes. I look away. The eyes are the window to the soul and I know all she will see is black. And red. That’s all I see. “I guess I forgive you,” she says predictably. She always does. “I always do... except for once.”
I am back on my knees. Scrubbing. Cleaning. The judge could come any minute.
“Except for one man. I don’t know if I can ever forgive you for killing him.”
What makes her think I want her forgiveness? All I want is the Judge... and my Lucy. Her face dances in and out of focus. But she still has yellow hair. As always, my thoughts of her are one of the few constants in an unstable world; a vision of my Lucy can at once keep me alive and bring my world crashing down. A constant like my precious silver friends. Beautiful, entrancing, wonderful. And a constant like the infuriating chatter of my neighbour. Except that she has suddenly stopped speaking.
The rhythmic sound of my scrubbing stops. Why isn’t she speaking? I fix the floor with an appropriate scowl, my muscles locking up from the shock of the silence. My world is thrown into a spin. I have wanted her to leave me alone... but now that she has, I am not sure of what to make of it. My gruffness has never stopped her before. What is different this time? I remain immobile for some time, only the sound of my breathing filling the void that she has left. My thoughts and feelings are contradictory and I do not know what to do or what to think, so I think and I do nothing. I feel nothing.
Finally, she begins again and the little normalcy that my world permits is restored.
“He was a good man, you know,” she is saying, though her voice is oddly thoughtful and sincere compared to her usual meaningless chatter. Occasionally it seems if the woman stopped talking the world would stop, so she would just kept going for all eternity. My inability to cope a moment past proved that theory to be all-but true. “A good man.” I am not particularly surprised by the news. I have probably killed many good men, but they still deserved to die. Everyone does. No-one is that good. I need to kill the judge.
“There are a lot of good men,” I growl. This one had been no different than all the rest of the folk. Probably happy, perhaps with a family and a pathetically cheery smile on his face. Pushing myself to my feet, I survey my handiwork. The floor is spotless. I turn to Lovett, planning on telling her to leave. I no longer need her; my work is done and it is fine with me if the world is chaos without her and I can’t move. But she is gone. I hear a noise behind me and whirl around, my fingers brushing the silver tops of my razors. Their feel send shivers down my spine. Lovett kneels on the floor, retrieving all the clothes that I had dropped earlier. “A kind man,” she says, continuing her list of all the things that she would never forgive me for destroying.
“There are lots of kind men,” I respond again. I wonder if this conversation is some sort of veiled condemnation for not being all the things she mentions. A kind man would have helped her instead of blankly watching her gather up the bundle of clothes. Give her some appreciation instead of using her for laundry and food. But that was why the good, kind men are dead, and I am still alive. Lovett stands, struggling to hold all the clothes at once without dropping them. She fails, but eventually she gets everything balanced perfectly well without my help. Dropping the clothes onto my barber’s chair, she picks them one by one and surveys the blood and grime on them with a very displeased eye.
“Look what you did, Mr. T,” she chastises. “These were perfectly clean.”
“Your man sounds perfect,” I say suddenly. The man has been on my mind - not the state of clothes - and mention of him slips out from my lips without my conscious consent. “More like a dog than a person. Like a dog,” I hiss. I am angry at her for throwing my faults in my face.
“Oh, he had his faults, love,” she assures me. I wait, glowering across the room at her, watching her fold laundry for a long time. She is dragging out the moment, ignoring me purposefully. I am not in the mood for games, but neither will I give her the satisfaction of inquiring further into the matter. It is a game of silence, and I am the master. She cannot stand going long without talking, so I know I will win. But it is a horrible wait and I am almost certain my patience will fail. I almost break when she sighs. She seems to sense that she has lost and must speak before her very head bursts from the strain of abstinence. I am thankful, for one moment later and she would have been the victor. “He was too in love,” she admits.
I recoil. It hits very closely to home. Such a fault is a devastating one. A mistake only made by a fool. He deserved to die, then. It is better that I killed him than to let him feel the inevitable pain of loss. Lovett should realize this. “He deserved to die.” I don’t realize that I am speaking until Lovett responds.
“I know, love. We all deserve to die, hmm?” she is teasing now. Not completely, for there is still that light of the something lurking in her gaze and she seems oddly morose, but it is enough for me to bristle slightly at her words. At my words. She finishes folding the laundry, having separated the garments that remained clean from the dirty ones. Silently, which is a strange state for her, she puts the clean clothes away in a large trunk in the corner of the room.
When she is finished, she moves close to me, shirt in hand. I take it from her and put it on at her wordless command, slipping into it without care for how messily it hangs from my impoverished frame. I wonder again why she looks at me the way she does - a sorrowfully abused, scrawny man, hardened from years of labour - but I make no more of it. She is talking again, and this time I am listening. “Ah, he was a bloody fool, he was,” she recollects. Her voice holds fondness and regret. She speaks as if she is just realizing that her words really are true. “He never knew I loved him.”
I frown. So I had killed her lover, had I? The thought makes my pulse race, sending perverse chill down my spine. I did not know that she had a lover after her gross mammoth of a husband had finally gone off and died. Stolid as always, my face does not reflect any of my inner thoughts. Did she bake him into her diabolical pies along with all my other faceless victims? Did she watch as he got devoured by her hungry patrons? She is buttoning my collar, her face nearly buried in the neck of my shirt as her fingers work. She winds a cravat around my neck and tugs on the cloth, straightening it over my throat.
I pull away. It is straight enough. I began to pace, slowly. The rhythm of my boots is soothing.
Who was this man? I am not sure why I care, but I am disgusted at myself and the fact that I do. Lovett crosses her arms and stands, unmoving, watching as I traipse back and forth across the floor. Back and forth. Again, and again, and again. Lovett is moving to the clothes on my barber’s chair, bathed in the silver of the moon, the moon that had only moments ago been as red as blood. Not looking at her, for my eyes are glued to the floorboards, I can hear her move to the door. The quiet jingle of the bell alerting me to her movements. She is finally leaving me, alone with my demons.
“Got eaten up, did he?” I wonder almost silently, lost in curiosity, torn between that and an unfamiliar emotion that could almost have been guilt. 
“No.” Lovett answers simply. I am startled that she had heard me and glance up only long enough to fix her with a smouldering look. Why was she still here? I do not meet her gaze for very long, moving towards the window. I now pretend like she has already left, as she should have. There had been no reason for her to disturb me in the first place. I could live another day without clean shirts, with a bloody room.
No, no I couldn’t. But that didn’t give her a reason to stay.
I hear her speak a name.
My heart nearly stops. “What did you say?” I whisper, feeling the corners of my mouth twitch as my mind processed the information it is suddenly bombarded with. My eyes are hard, blank, and my brows lower to darken them further with angry black shadows. “What- what did you say?” I demand again, voice sharper. I nearly scream, my voice a gravelly roar that explodes from my chest. The power of it rattles the pane of glass that separates me from the filthy air of London.
“His name was Benjamin.” She says it. I knew it! I am pulling air in through my nose, filling my lungs and breathing , slowly. My jaw is tight, my neck is tight and my head feels as if it will burst from the strain. I look about, frantic to find some sort of escape route. I feel caged. She is at the door. I should kill her, but I know I will not. There is only one thing left to do. I fall away from myself, moving mechanically to my barber’s chair and sitting down. I stretch out upon it, a mess of arms hung haphazardly over the arm-rests and legs sprawled out in front of me. I retreat back into my shell, the fire in my eyes dwindling out until I can finally breathe again.
I shut the room out and my lips form the words I had said and believed far too often. “He deserved to die.” Even Lovett herself had admitted that Benjamin had been a fool. The biggest fool of all.
“He deserved to die,” Lovett agrees slowly, “but do you deserve to live?”
It is not a hard answer. “No.”
“No,” She agrees again. “But don’t try to institute justice this time, love. I’m not in the mood for Sweeney pie.” She is gone. There is silence.
And I feel nothing.

Nellie:

For a moment I am confused, lost in the time between waking and sleeping when the world is blurry and nothing inside my head seemed to fit quite properly. Peering through the gloom, I can only spot the barest details of the shadowy figure by my feet, hardly daring to move. My heart thuds in my ears, but after a while that seems to drag out far too long, I finally recognize Tobias. “What is it, love?” I ask him, throwing the covers off and fumbling about on the table beside me for the lamp once the rest of me decides to work again. The little flame springs to life, chasing the shadows away back into the corners. Frowning, I glance about. The horrible mess that had been hidden is now completely visible. Though my room is hardly orderly at the best of times, it most certainly had not been in as bad a state when I had turned in only the hour before.
What with all the things that go on in those so-called workhouses after dark, it shouldn’t have come as a shock to find that Toby wasn’t accustomed to sleeping if he went without a good drink for very long. However, I was not in the mood to wake up and find him dead one morning from guzzling too much of the filthy stuff, so once he had finished off what was in the house, I had been in no hurry to replace it. Because of that, it shouldn’t have gave me so much of a fright to find him in my room, rummaging through the box at the base of my bed at some unearthly hour of the morning.
It is painfully obvious that my poor bedroom had suffered under another’s less than careful touch; the shame stamped across the boy’s face is enough to name him as the culprit. The contents of trunks and turned out drawers are strewn across the floor, a stack of papers falling from his fingertips to add to the chaos that has invaded my space. “What’s all this, then?” I demand, scowling. Exiting my throat in a hoarse whisper, my voice is as bloody annoyed as the rest of me to have been woken up.
 “Couldn’t sleep,” he offers sheepishly, staring at the floor. Though his shoulders are slumped, speaking of his guilt, I can’t read the emotions in his eyes.
“What is it you were looking for, eh?” Placing the lamp on the top of the dresser, I bend down to pick up a pair of my bloomers that I was standing on. My bones ache and I express my irritation in a breathy grunt that is the best I can manage at the moment. I briefly wonder if it is money that he was searching for, but I don’t have the heart to entertain the notion that my Toby is stealing from me. I hope that he has a decent explanation, or I will have to be cross. Placing my hands on my hips, underwear still clutched in my fist, I wait impatiently for an answer.
He scuffs his feet on the carpet uncomfortably, but he finally shatters beneath my stern gaze. Nearly tearing up, his eyes meet mine and he throws his arms around me, offering me a gigantic hug. He buries his face into the cloth of my nightgown like the child he is - however mature he may seem - and sniffles. “I’m so sorry,” he whimpers in a way that just about breaks my heart. I drop everything to return his embrace, smoothing his wild hair. “I didn’t mean to wake you up, mum. Honest I didn’t.”
“Hush now,” I sooth. “There’s no harm done. Now, sit right here on the bed with me.” Once we are settled, my arm thrown affectionately across his shoulders as he stares up at me, I remind him of my earlier command. “Now, how about telling me what this is all about.” I’d get him to help tidy the room in the morning, before the shop opened. There was no way I could be angry with him now; I am simply too tired.
“I was just looking for some gin,” he admits. “Thought you might have some. Be hidin’ it from me.” He speaks with perfect sincerity; his heart’s on his sleeve as he relates his motive. Nothing he was feeling is hidden from me. His explanation is perfectly innocent; the only thing he seems ashamed of is waking me. The poor boy probably feels the victim himself, being denied the sole comfort he had been able to rely on for years. And yet he does not complain, though his eyes speak of the hope that I did have a secret stash somewhere.
“You don’t need that filthy stuff, love. Not right now, at least.” His face falls. “And it’s not nice to come into other people’s rooms without permission,” I remind him gently. “It’s an invasion of privacy.”
“Yes ma’am,” he automatically answers. I ‘m not sure if he is really listening- it is possible he was taking a leaf out of Mr. Todd’s book - but he is a good boy and I doubt I’ll have much trouble with him in the future. At least not of the same kind. Allowing me a moment of silence to prove that he had heeded my words, he moves on to his defence. “But I know your husband’s gone and there weren’t any other gentlemen in tonight, so at least I made certain that I wouldn’t have been interrupting anything.”
I blink. I shouldn’t be surprised, but to hear such things out of his mouth in so frank a manner is admittedly a little unsettling. I had been going to chastise him for his implications, but there is no point. Upholding trivial social niceties is hardly my highest priority, especially considering how unsocial everything what was going on with Mister Todd and the pies happens to be. Instead, I just keep my mouth shut for once and give his hair a good ruffle. “Next time just check anyway, love.” He nods. “Now come on, off to bed with you. If you’re good, I’ll pick you up some more drink tomorrow when I go in to market.”
“Please,” he implores, “can’t just stay here with you? Just for tonight?” He clings tighter to me, staring up into my face, searching for a scrap of pity.
“I don’t think so, love.”
“Don’t make me go back,” he pleads.
“Calm yourself, Toby. There’s not anything here what’ll harm you, silly boy. I’m just down the hall and Mister T’s upstairs if you ever need anything.” The mention of the barber makes his little body tense up even more and he clutches tightly to the sleeve of my nightgown, though I hardly notice over the immediate thunder of my heart and flush of my usually pale skin. It is embarrassing how I react to the very mention of his name. “He’s a right protector, he is,” I mutter softly. If not for Toby being beside me, I would have sworn under my breath. Those words were not meant to come out.
“He doesn’t like me,” the boy offers as an explanation, trying to stall my decision to send him off to his own room. Thankfully he seems to have missed the true weight of meaning in my voice, too focused on his own fears to notice my emotional outbursts.
I laugh bravely. “You’re hardly alone there. He doesn’t like anybody.” I cut his attempt short, shooing him off the mattress. “Now get going. I won’t have you coming down with something because you’ve stayed up so late. Off with you!” I stand behind him and usher him out of the door, peering down the hall after him and waving him onwards. Only going back into my room once I was fairly sure he isn’t going to try to weasel out of it, I am relieved when my return to my bed is greeted only with the peaceful silence of the night.
However, my slumbering mind is my own undoing. Once my control over my thoughts slip beneath the sea of sleep that claims me, I can hardly help but to recall how utterly frightened he had seemed. He had made the quiet return to his own room looking more like a lamb to a slaughter than the easy jaunt to a bed it should have been. In fact, if I had worried about him at all it is simply made far worse in my dreams, so much that before I can truly recognize my own actions, I am slipping out of bed again, shaking off exhaustion as I stalk down the shadowy hallway. My heart tightens when I heard him quietly sobbing, and I knock hesitantly on the door. “Toby? Are you alright, love?”
The door opens in a second and his arms are wrapped around my waist in a tight embrace. “Mum! Don’t leave me again.”
“Course not, love. I’m here. I won’t leave.” I lead him back to his cot drew up an uncomfortable old armchair, plopping my weary body down in it. He scampers up onto my lap. “I’m sorry,” I offer, smoothing his hair and wiping the tears from his eyes. He hasn’t once demanded an apology, but I can hardly stand it otherwise. “I didn’t know you were this scared. Of course I’ll stay.” He had been shaking like a leaf, but he steadies a little as I spoke. “Just hush down.” His breathing levels out as if he is determined to obey me in spite of his fears.
After a moment, he speaks. His voice quavers, but remains strong. “Tell me a story?”
“What kind of story?” I ask. I can read fine enough, but I only own a handful of books, none of which are particularly suited to a bedtime story.
“Tell me your story, mum. I want to know all about you.”
“I don’t think you do, love.”
“Yes, honest! Sometimes I believe you came straight from heaven itself.”
I almost laugh. Offering him a small smile, I shake my head. “Hardly the case at all, love. And I don’t know why you’d want to hear about boring old me.”
“You’re not boring or old!” he assures me, frantic at the idea that I should somehow think myself less than perfect. Though I have a sense that he knows perfectly well I have my faults, as does everyone else, he seemed to pretend like I am an angel anyways. Maybe it is a way of making up for whatever he has suffered through before. “You’re the finest lady I’ve ever known. The very best there is!”
His enthusiasm convinces me. Plus, if my life’s story can’t send him to sleep, nothing can - short of a miracle.
“Well, what would you like to know?” I inquire, unsure of where to begin.
“Everything.”
He looks patronized when I laugh. “I hardly think we’ll have time for all that,” I inform him solemnly. Nearing on forty years of history is a pretty broad general topic and I do still want him to sleep at some point. To tell the truth, I want to sleep.
“Well, you can try to get through as much as you can, can’t you?” he wonders, settling himself more comfortable on my lap.
Sighing, I concede. The tale of my childhood is nothing particularly interesting in and of itself, only a dusty collection of memories from more carefree days. My youth had been a pretty boring affair, as far as it could have been. I had never been particularly innocent, a bit of a scamp from birth, but there had only been a few occasions in which the trait got me into enough trouble to actually make an interesting story. Or even to bother remembering at all. But to Toby, my every syllable is like food or water and he soaks it up like a plant.
I tell him of the dreary winter days sewing stockings with my mother and the daily ritual I had adopted during the warmer months of fishing for treasure on the banks of the Thames. I had only ever found a few pence at a time by the river but it hardly would have been more exciting for a child like me if I had discovered a gold mine. As I speak, I can feel Toby begin to nod, the constant hum of my voice lulling him in to a comfortable sleep . I keep talking with that goal in mind. My thoughts wander as I spin a familiar tale of how one of those summer hunts had - in a roundabout way - led to finding myself a husband, which in turn led to an autumn wedding; it flies to my failures, every mistake and foolishness coming to rest in the image of a dark haired barber with a pretty blonde wife hanging from his arm.
The barber... “I lost him,” I am saying, hardly registering my own words. I barely notice that Toby is no longer drifting off, but perfectly alert. Hanging on every word I utter, he seems in danger of forgetting to breathe when I stop to compose my thoughts.
“Go on, he urged,” his small hand resting on my arm to offer me the strength I lacked.
“I lost him, though he was never truly mine to love. I lost him to another woman... to time, distance, to a greater love... and finally, to death. It was my own foolishness, loving him so whole-heartedly when I knew it was hopeless.”
“He died then, the barber.”
“Yes,” I whisper. It is all true. I have lost him to a new, greater love and to death; it is just that they are one and the same for the man who now called himself Todd. One and the same, and there is no room left in his heart or his thoughts for anything else. I suppose I am no worse off than before he had been transported. It is hard to have less than nothing: that is all I have ever possessed of him and likely ever will. Bu there is hope; each day I speak to him, there is a little more
“Is that why you look at Mr. T the way you do?”
“Like what?” I ask artlessly, pretending ignorance. Really, I know the look he was talking about. It is probably on my face even now as I think of the handsome Sweeney, a look of desire and the devotion I can’t help but offer fully to him. The years have only strengthened the raging inferno coursing through my veins and it is really no shock that it showed through on occasion. Or more than simply on occasion. “And is what why I look at him like that?”
“He reminds you of that other fellow. Doesn’t he?” he asked.
“Well yes - and no. Mr. Todd isn’t anything like he was...” except for when we had danced, his arms pressing me close and his growling voice tickling my ear, or when those long, spider-like fingers made a sharp piece of metal a beautiful thing. When those blades are in his hands, the title of a barber is something royal, above even a king in how powerful and wonderful he makes it.
“What was his name, that man who lived upstairs?”
“Benjamin,” I answer simply. “His name was Benjamin.”
“Do you miss him?”
“I used to. Every day.”
“And now?” he asked.
“Now? No, not anymore.” That is what I tell myself at least, and partially, it is true. Now I have Todd instead. “Now I have you,” I tell Tobias. “And a right fine lad you are.” He seems content at that and hums his approval as he rests his head against me, curling in close.
A few minutes after the silence has overcome the room, I hear, “Will you ever love again, mum?” asked through a gigantic yawn. I smile down at him, unable to keep from sighing when he rubs his eyes drearily. I hope that the signs of weariness he displayed means that he might finally be falling asleep.
“Oh, in time, I’m sure.” I laboriously stand with him in my arms and deposit him into the bed, sitting on the edge of the mattress. I start to sing a quiet lullaby, stroking his hair as I finally accomplish what I had been hoping for for quite some time now. He is asleep within minutes. Heaving a sigh of relief, I return to my chair and lean back, letting my weighted eyelids finally shut. I know he is asleep; I am almost asleep, but my mouth seems to forget as I continue to speak. He can’t hear me, but I just need someone to listen. Everything has simply been inside too long for me to be able to cut off its escape route now.
“It’s been fifteen years, Toby. Fifteen years is enough time to start again, hmm?” I ask absently, barely moving my lips enough to form the syllables. “He’s hardly the same man, but I love him, I do. For who he was - who he is -, and maybe because I never learn from my mistakes. “Loving Todd is a mistake, I knew, just as loving Benjamin had been. “But I wouldn’t have it any other way. He’s a fine man. Times is hard, and we both know it better than anyone. Maybe that’s why I love him. Misery loves company,” I let out a quiet chuckle. “I s’pose that’s it.”
“Who are you talking to? The boy’s clearly sleeping.”
I start, jerking violently. I place my hand over my heart, listening to my pulse pound away like drums in my temples. “You just about bloody killed me, Mr. T. What were you thinking, sneaking up on me like that?” I swallow down my pride, straightening my nightgown and running my fingers through my mane of tangled locks, trying not to show how ruffled and indignant I truly am. “Plus,” I assure him, “I can talk to whom I please, awake or not.”
“Why aren’t you asleep?”
“I could ask you the same question. If you must know, I ran out of gin and the boy doesn’t sleep so well without it.” Todd swears under his breath. “I thought maybe a little comforting presence would help, and so it did. But love, what’s got you all riled up?” I ask, though I have a feeling that I know, judging by the placement of his curse. He has also come down for gin.
“Nothing.”
I quirk an eyebrow. “Stop sulking just because you can’t get what you want. I’ll be buying more gin tomorrow; you can either wait until then, or go out and buy your own.” He looks edgy. “We have ale,” I offer, affecting a slightly less teasing tone. He is not in the mood for teasing. I wonder what is bothering him.
“Keep your bloody drink.” The way he utters the words - as if each syllable weighs a ton so that he can hardly get them out of his mouth - sends wonderfully painful shivers down my spine, the edge of malice creeping over them only adding to the influence of his growling speech. He seems to say that ale would not satisfy, and by tomorrow it would be too late.
“What do you want then?” I demand, my emotions wavering between curious and frustrated. I wonder how long he has been standing there, listening to a conversation that I never meant to be heard.
“Nothing,” he answers again. I watch him by the light of the moon streaming through the curtains. He is fidgeting with the razors in the holster at his side, running his fingertips over the ornate handles. They glow, more alive than his pale skin. He looks like a white and black spectre, sternly and beautifully carved out of alabaster and ebony. Only his keen eyes glitter with life, and sometimes not even quite that; merely existing does not make him alive. He is beautiful. He captivates me.
“If you say so, love,” I manage to choke out, though my voice is only a little louder than a whisper. He grits his teeth together and nods. He remains rooted to the doorpost, leaning heavily against it and watching me as I make a show of settling back again and closing my eyes. The romantically striking agony that lingers at the back of his shadowy eyes burns into my mind, and for a moment, I can see the very nightmare that haunts him in the lines of his beautiful face. “You can leave now, if you want. I’m done talking.”
“I can leave when I want,” he snaps. A little too harshly to truly convince me.
“You’re not - afraid, are you, Mr. T?” I ask, sitting up and looking at him again. He is afraid. His fear is not one of vulnerability, though, like the kind I had only seen in him briefly when he first returned to his old barber’s shop. Since getting those razors back, he has managed to hide all evidence that he even possesses a helpless side. He is like a caged beast, relentlessly pacing... only now he is backed into a corner, and he is either going to be pacified, or he will certainly strike. It is an entirely new kind of weakness that is rooted in trying to have too much strength.
“Of course not,” he responds, and he sounds drained and emptied of all feeling. Like usual.
“Then why are you still here?”
 Long seconds pass by. He doesn’t answer.
“Mr. T, why are you still here?” Not that I particularly mind his company. It isn’t like he offers much to the conversation - and true, he is about as lively as the wall... but he is close to me, and that in itself is enough. “You listening to me?” My breath is coming hard now, shorter and sharper. Trying to remember to breathe is a chore. He does not seem to be listening, and I don’t think that I can sleep with him hovering around like a hawk. Pushing myself to my feet with a grunt, I rise from the chair and brush past him, starting down the hall.
He grabs my sleeve and I freeze. “I was curious,” he finally says.
“Mmm? ‘Bout what, love?”
“That man you were just talking about. The one you said you loved.” He lets go of my sleeve suddenly, as if he hasn’t noticed that he is the one detaining me.
“What about him?” Is he intentionally playing the deuce, or does he really not know the answer? Not remember the answer?  I have as much as told him of my feelings on plenty of occasions, though maybe he suspects that I am simply trying to further my pie business. If only that were the case.
“What was his name?” this question is hardly a whisper. I frown, digesting his words.
“Don’t you know?” I ask. He doesn’t respond. I take that as a no. “Well, I’ll give you a clue.” I place one hand flat on his chest and slip the other over his shoulders. Forcing a winsome smile over my features, I rise up on my tip-toes to plant a gentle kiss right on the corner of his mouth, the tiny edge that is flipped downwards into his customary glower. My common sense recites a tale of a vengeful murderer and I feel him tense. “His name was Benjamin,” I whisper. And then I walk away, just like that.
I turn the corner into my room and shut the door, leaning against it, panting. It had been hard not to remain to see his reaction, though in my mind my lips twisted his up into a handsome smile. I wait by the door, simultaneously hopeful and frightened until I hear his footsteps from the shop upstairs. They fall into a rhythmic beat; I know the familiar sound and his pacing lull me to sleep better than any lullaby ever could. And in my dreams, we dance.

Toby:

Mum is screaming.
The sound scares me more than any other noise ever has. I shout too and slap my hands over my ears so hard that for a moment all I can hear is ringing. But her screams are still there, I know. She’s still being hurt. I sink down into my bed, taking my hand away from my ear for just long enough to grab the blanket. I pull it over my head and curl into a little ball, the sounds of my sobs still not enough to block it out. And the even scarier thing is that I knew this day was coming, and I can’t stop it now that it has arrived. I had tried before, I had tried to warn her about him, but she hadn’t listened. She had smiled and offered me toffees, but she hadn’t listened. I wish she had.
He is responsible for hurting her, I know. It is obvious. He has always hurt her, even when he had ignored her. But now he is hurting her again and this time it is worse because his attention is on her. This time she is screaming.
There is a moment that’s perfectly quiet in which I can hardly breathe. I’m listening closely now and I can hear her quietly whimpering, his voice commanding her to do things in an angry tone. Mr. Todd is there with her and he is hurting her, he is yelling at her, whispering to her. They’re both talking now, but I can’t make out the words. The noises they make are muffled by the walls that separate their room from mine. If only the walls were thick enough to mute out everything, because the screaming is back.
This time I can’t take it anymore. I spring from my bed, wearing nothing by my nightgown, and make my way slowly out of my room. It’s dark and I can’t see, but I know the house well and I make it down the hall without a problem. Slowly, I creep towards the room they are in. A pool of light creeps from beneath the door. I can see Mr. Todd’s feet through the space. It’s so loud in there. He screams something at her again and mum screams even louder in return, though hers is a moan without words. I swallow a sob and press myself to the wall beside the door.
Todd swears, violently, using words even I have never heard before. Seconds later, the door slams open, filing the hallway with light and forcing me to shade my eyes against the glare. When I can see again, he is looming above me. I am too scared to move. There is blood all over him. Specks of it are all the way down to his bare feet, splattered on his pale skin. The floor in there must have been a puddle. His face is filthy too, sweat and streaks of red marring his already terrifyingly harsh features. I stare at his hands and his arms. His sleeves are rolled up and there is not an inch of skin from his elbows to his fingertips that is not red.
Without thinking, I throw myself on top of him, the surprise of my attack spilling him to the floor. I beat frantically at his face with my hands. I am winning for now, but I know it won’t last long. I am only a boy and he is far bigger and stronger than I am. A split in his lip mingles his blood with my mum’s, and I scream at him when he pushes me off of him and I topple hard to the floor. My eyes are shut now and I’m rolled up into a little ball. All my weight suddenly depends on my collar; he grabs me by the shirt and hauls me to my feet. I have not seen him so angry in a long while. I whimper.
His eyes frighten me more than I can manage to say. They have always been empty before, whenever I had looked at them in time passed, but now they are dark pits that are full of raging emotions I have never seen before. There are things I am expecting there, anger, rage, hatred, and yet there is something else. A fear. A fear that in its own way is bigger than my own. Confusion adds to the jumble of feelings bottled up inside of me.
“Get out of my way and mind your own business,” he snarls in my ear, shoving me roughly against the wall. “Stop interfering or your mum will pay for it.” It will never be my fault; it will always be his... and yet I believe him. Unless I want her to get hurt more, I have no other choice. Even though I am breaking my promise. I had told her that nothing would harm her while I was around, and I stand immobile beside the door as he walks right back in again, having washed up quickly in the other room. I promised her and I do not deserve to be forgiven for breaking such a vow. It hurts to know that I cannot do anything to help.
Minutes pass by like hours. I am still outside the door, but now I am sitting down, leaning against the wall because I am too spent to do anything else. They are still in there; she is still yelling. There has been no change at all. It has not gotten better. It has not gotten worse. It just is, and I wonder if this night will ever end. I have my doubts. Maybe this is hell and it will go on forever.
“TOBY!” Her hoarse scream is now directed to me, whereas before she had called out to everyone else. To God. To her mother. To Mister Todd himself, imploring all of them to help her in her plight. To stop her pain. But now she is calling to me and I know I have to go. I leap to my feet without a second thought and plunge into the light, pushing open the door and running through into the room. But when I get there I freeze. She is down on the bed, gripping the posts with white-knuckled fingers. I have never seen her look more scared, more sick. I can hardly recognize her voice as she cries. She is covered in sweat and blood, and Mister Todd is looming above her, dangerous. His razor is in his hand. I swear like a sailor, not even caring how badly I may be chastised for such language later.
I grab onto the lunatic’s arm and try to pull him away before he can cut her, but I am too late. And there is so much blood. Crying fills the silence left by the screams, but it is not mine or mum’s. It is not Mister Todd’s. This is a high pitched wail, pathetic and tiny, and I know that the entire ordeal is over. I stare at the writing bundle of flesh in Mister Todd’s arms, severed so cruelly from its lifeline only moments ago, yet somehow still living. It seems to be at home in the redness, for it is pink and wrinkled and fiercely ugly. Even the sheen of fuzz on its head is red, the same colour as mum’s hair. I know when it is clean it will have pale skin and dark eyes and it will be hers. Hers and the man responsible for her pain. When it is clean, it will be beautiful.
I had told her that he would hurt her when he had proposed marriage those many months ago, but she had only shook her head said that he’d make her happy. That she loved him, and always would. It seems that we both were right. I can see the happiness and love through the exhaustion in her face as Mister T hands her the little baby, the weak smile overtaking her features. She looks relieved that the end result was worth her suffering. She grabs Mister Todd’s bloodied hands and holds him close. I can’t stop looking at them. A family. Do I belong? Mum is lost in the moment with her husband and her baby.
“Boy, come here.”
I am surprised that I am noticed, especially by Mister Todd. His gruff tone is more of a death sentence than a beckoning. I don’t move.
“Toby, come ‘ere, love.” Now she is calling me and I am beside her in a flash. I can’t help but to catch her smile, my lips pulling up into a similar expression. I place trembling fingers on the baby’s forehead. “Say hello to your brother,” she commands quietly.
“Hello,” I murmur. I am awed by how small he is.
“Benjamin,” Mum whispers. “His name is Benjamin.”