Yes, I've done it again. (I wrote Fanfic #3.)
Title: Not Barker
Fandom: Sweeney Todd
Characters or Pairings: Sweeney/Lovett
Rating: R (for sex, but oddly, only a little blood)
Disclaimer: I don’t own these characters. They belong to Stephen Sondheim, Tim Burton, and whoever else.
Summary: More Sweeney/Lovett sex (much to Sweeney’s disgust) and a few flashbacks.
Author’s note: I wrote this about a week ago and I’m finally posting it now.
As always, comments are very welcome :)
Crossposted to my lj, sweeneytoddfic , stifyouonlyknew, darksidedepp
So weak.
It wasn’t like him to be so weak. Her pestering and needling and insinuating had worn him down until she’d almost had him half convinced that they could have a life, not quite like he remembered and not quite how she’d dreamed-or whatever pseudo-romantic drivel she’d actually succeeded in manipulating him with-and he was getting nowhere with his plans for the Judge, getting nowhere at all. And finally, for some reason, her coercing and cajoling and an entire bottle of gin had led him to behave most passively, and a little brokenly, when she was clutching onto his arm one evening and purring to him about how they could be so cozy by the sea or some such nonsense.
And then it had led him to grab her by the back of the neck, like she was some small animal, and throw her down on the sofa in her quaint little sitting room when she’d clutched onto him once too often-when she’d stroked his leg in her shop or put her hands on his shoulders and said “Don’t you get tired of bein’ so alone Mr. T?” one too many times.
He’d seized the nape of her neck and thrown her down because he’d hated the way that she thought she sounded so innocently compassionate whenever she said things like, “Don’t y’get tired of bein’ lonely sometimes” or “Don’t you get tired of thinkin’ about the past all the time, ‘steada living.” She always spoke to him in an inappropriately familiar tone; ever since he had walked into her shop that day, walked in as Sweeney Todd, she had treated him as if she knew him. It was laughable, really; as if anyone in the wide world could truly claim to know him now. He shared his thoughts, his feelings, with no one. Of course they had known one another, vaguely, in the old days: she was his landlady, he the tenant, and that was as far as it went, he thought.
And now Mrs. Lovett pretended to be so familiar with him for God knows what reason, as if welcoming him home, when he had hardly spared a moment’s thought for her back then; and, therefore, he was sure she’d never spared the slightest thought for Benjamin Barker when it was he who lived upstairs.
So he couldn’t stand that she thought she sounded so innocently compassionate while her true intentions were blindingly clear. Of course, she had her more sympathetic moments when she offered him a glass of gin or a meal with genuine friendliness, or when she concocted that cunning idea of how to run their new business (how to cover every trace of his doings upstairs while simultaneously gaining fresh supplies for her meat pies and all that); and at such times he’d felt an almost, sort of, camaraderie with her….
But why, then, did she have to insist on ruining it and sending that all to hell by constantly touching him and murmuring those stupid little “Don’t you”s in his ear? They wiped out any temptation he’d ever had in his mind for trying to have a life and whatnot.
Couldn’t she understand? He was dead. He was a walking ghost.
Yet she persisted and persisted despite his coldness towards her until it had seemed, in a moment of lunacy, that tossing her down and giving her what she appeared to be pestering him for so relentlessly would be the only way of shutting her up and, maybe, showing her that perhaps it wasn’t all that she thought she desired after all.
He hadn’t been kind. He wasn’t sure he could even recall what it was to be kind in that manner; after fifteen years of hell (purgatory, really, because he had held out hope that his Lucy would be waiting for him someday, and now he lived in a world where she was gone, so now he was in hell) he hadn’t had a reason to keep in his mind what it was to be kind, to be gentle-
But it was of no consequence. Perhaps this would deter her, punish her, show her the truth-
But no. No. She didn’t react that way at all, and a part of him raged at her for failing him once again, for failing to understand what it was he was trying to show her, to prove to her at last.
She hadn’t made a sound when he threw her on the sofa; it wasn’t the first time he had pushed her onto something or away from him. And that was actually all he had intended to do, but then she had caught hold of his arm as he was turning away and clutched onto him again, asking him what was wrong and was he all right. She thought she sounded so pure, so guileless-and he’d had enough. He whirled around on her and within moments his hands were at the small of her back, tearing at the ribbons that kept her corset cinched so tightly. Best to get this over with quickly. She gave a squeal of surprise, but once she realized his intent, she continued to wear an expression of shock though she made no protest-not that he expected her to. Not yet.
Once he had divested her of most of her dress and pushed her roughly onto her back, she’d managed to get her arms around his neck and was clutching again, most irritatingly. That wasn’t how it was supposed to go. She wasn’t supposed to be beaming at him like that-it was all wrong.
“Mrs. Lovett, you’re a bloody wonder,” he muttered sarcastically, with all the venom he could muster. Here he was, unceremoniously throwing her down and practically destroying her clothes to undress her, and she still gazed up at him with perfect adoration. Had Lucy even loved him this unconditionally?
At the thought of both Lucy and love, he shuddered and then braced himself, determined to continue before he lost his nerve. He entered her quickly and did his utmost to make her uncomfortable as possible, taking her relentlessly-but no. He was overcome by despair at her inexplicable cries of pleasure. He hadn’t ever really wanted to hurt her before, but in mere seconds that had changed. The harder he tried to make her understand, to hurt her, the more she seemed to revel in it, enjoy it, until he began to grow sick at the thought that this would only make things far worse, and that he had made an unforgivable mistake.
And hadn’t he always gone out of his way not to hurt her? Restrained himself at the last second from sinking the razor a little lower and into her throat, that day when he’d threatened her with it because she had been the one who’d told him to wait, to not rush into taking his revenge on the Judge? Hadn’t he always indulged her with his muttered “Of course”s and “Anything you say”s, even in response to her appalling suggestions of marriage? Hadn’t he always done everything he could to keep her from being terribly hurt?
Much worse, in trying to punish her, he had given her exactly what she wanted most. He had only succeeded in further punishing himself. All he could do was dig in his fingers to keep her from moving against him too much and to keep himself from feeling it-from either being revolted by the sensation of her beneath him or, worse, from feeling any pleasure himself. Which wasn’t out of the question. You’re not Benjamin Barker, you’re not him, he repeated numbly to himself; this is your sorry excuse for a life now. Only this and revenge. That’s your life. That’s you. This is you. There was nothing to do but dig in his fingers and clench his teeth and close his eyes and God oh God whatever you do don’t think of Lucy.
***
It hadn’t been every day, or even every week, but it had been surprisingly often. All the years he had been gone, she had remembered Benjamin Barker, lamented his absence, lamented all those lost opportunities. She had hardly spoken to him back then, but it wasn’t for lack of wanting to.
Mrs. Lovett recalled how fond she was of Benjamin Barker back then. She’d watch him come and go from his home upstairs, above the shop. He’d always seemed rather shy, but she had liked that about him. And she didn’t usually care for shy people.
Their closest encounter, she mused, had been over something rather insignificant, if memory served. Why, she began to remember, it had been over something downright silly. A rat, maybe. Yes, it had been a particularly plump rat. She, as the landlady, had been obliged to respond to his complaint about some kind of mouse that was inhabiting the room above, chewing up their bedding and such. It made noises at night. It was bothering the baby. Quite boring stuff, really. When she’d strode up there with her rolling pin to take the obligatory look around, he’d been there alone. Benjamin Barker was standing near the corner of the room, arms folded across his chest, pretty curls of dark hair around his face, looking rather uncertain. The room had been so much brighter then-quite golden-looking, filled with light. He’d thanked her for coming in his polite, stammering way, while she waved him away and began to prowl the area, peering under tables and chairs and cradles and a loose floorboard until, finally, she’d spotted it, skulking under a chest of drawers.
“S’all right, Mr. Barker, I see the little bugger. It’s a rat, all right. This one’s quite the looker, too.” He had seemed to pale at the knowledge that it was not the harmless mouse that they had suspected. “The size o’ two rats, he is,” she’d continued, and the only reply was the sound of his boots shuffling across the floor, moving further away from the where she was crouched over the rodent.
She’d aimed and then brought the wooden rolling pin down where the rat had been, but it darted away from her, and she’d chased it around the room, and it had been quite the spectacle, she imagined. She used to be a bit faster then; she doubted if she could outrun a rat or any other animal now. But at any rate, it had all ended with her cornering the beast and flattening it with the rolling pin, smacking it so hard that the sickening snapping of bones was clearly audible in the little room. Mrs. Lovett had then picked up the remains of the thing by its tail, and turned with a smile, oddly glad that she had succeeded in helping him. She presented it to him, that mangled mess of fur and bone, like a prize.
Mr. Barker had promptly fainted.
Now, as he kneeled over her and sneered, scowled, pinning her arms to the sofa cushions and digging his fingers in rather painfully, to merely say he was unrecognizable would be a disservice to the truth. There was a look of madness on his face, his skin was grey rather than the pale rosyness he used to have, his hair was stiff and was sticking out at odd angles-she couldn’t even picture him with that sweet little half-smile he used to get. But truth be told, she didn’t care. She might even like him better this way, she thought. After all, she had never really cared for shy people.
And as for that man she’d been so fond of fifteen years ago, he was still in evidence, but only to her, and only because she’d thought about Benjamin Barker’s face so much that she was able to superimpose some of his features over Mr. Todd’s without really even trying.
And look at her now. True, her arms were sore, as well as certain other parts of her, and she never would have expected this madness from him then-but she had him at last. Not Lucy-but her. He was hers. Good old Benjamin Barker.
She tried to move but he held her down harder and his nails, pressing half-moon circles of red into her arms, began to draw blood. She ignored the sting and prayed that he wouldn’t ever let go. Mrs. Lovett feared that if he did, he might never bring himself to touch her again. It was quite an irrational thought.
Back there, in the golden room, she’d frowned down at him. Rolling pin propped on one hip, she’d given his shoulder one good shake. “Wake up, luv. C’mon now, I don’t ‘ave all day.” Probably the first time she’d ever touched him, that.
Now she licked her lips, tasting more blood-perhaps from where she’d bitten his lip, from where she’d bitten her own lip to keep from shrieking when he pushed brutally into her, from where he’d bitten her lip to keep her from kissing him, from one of his customers or from some of her supplies in the bakehouse? It was impossible to know.
“Ah, no need to thank me, Mr. Barker. ‘S’no problem. It’s me job.” She’d fairly glowed when Benjamin had thanked her, after he’d come to and regained full consciousness, of course. She was cheery, friendly, vivacious Mrs. Lovett, always ready to help.
Her slender frame shook with a wave of pleasure and she wanted to throw her head back and laugh; not quite the reaction she’d expected from herself, admittedly, but the notion of what was happening filled her with a triumphant sort of glee: Look at us now. That barber and that baker from all those years ago, finally together as they should be. She wanted to wrap her legs around his waist, to trap him there so he could never get away, for fear that this would be the last time he would ever touch her, if she lost him now.
Sometimes, after the days of vanquishing rats and of playing his rescuer were long gone, while she was rolling out piecrusts she’d see that Judge standing outside, staring up at that topmost window, clutching his flowers. It was rather pitiful, really. But she wasn’t about to pity the man, because it was all his doing-seeing him out there was another irritating reminder that the room above was short one Barker. And she could do without the two that remained, to be honest.
Well, after years of pining for him, now he was most decidedly back. Or something like him, anyway.
Mrs. Lovett found herself lying back on the grimy pillows of the old sofa, luxuriously, warmly content from being with him, lightly covered with her own, and assorted others’, blood, as well as various other substances. Before this moment, she’d always descended into one big muddle of giddiness and longing whenever she was even in the same room as Mr. Todd. And now…this. She couldn’t recall ever being this happy in her entire life.
Drowsily, she smiled a little. Out of the corner of her slitted eyes she could see him, sitting up, leaning slightly forward, hands on his knees, not looking at her-not that he ever did, although she was a bit dismayed to find that this had not changed. He was breathing deeply, and that edge of madness remained on his face.
She was a bit disgruntled that he still looked so feverish, so on edge. After such a wonderful thing, something that put her dearest fantasies to shame, he ought to look more…more like she did. Happier.
With half-closed eyes, she shifted her weight until she was able to prop her elbow on one of the flattened old cushions and cup her cheek in her palm. “C’mon now, Benjamin, why can’t y’just relax a little and let the bloody world go for once?” she drawled, stifling a yawn.
His razors, or his nails cutting her, or him shoving her about, had never perturbed her as much as the way his eyes suddenly snapped over to her. Then he stared at her, really at her, rather than through her. Despite the little warm glow she had built around herself, she shivered. She pushed herself up on her elbows, looking back at him warily. His dark eyes had become abruptly hollow, burning into her. Instances where she’d actually succeeded in making eye contact with him were few and far between, so why was he behaving like this?
When he lunged at her and grabbed her by the shoulders, he did it more roughly than he had any time before, if that was possible. The sofa seemed to drop out from under her as he started shaking her, his face up in hers and only a blur to her, as he screamed-it took her several seconds to make it out-“You are NEVER to use that name, NEVER. Do you understand? Do you understand me?”
Mrs. Lovett was too addled to reply, realizing far too slowly that, Oh God, she’d called him Benjamin, hadn’t she. Oh God. That was the first time she had ever slipped up, had ever even had the slightest little urge or inclination to call him by his former name. Usually it never seemed to fit, and she’d had no trouble putting it from her mind and focusing solely on Mr. Todd, who she supposed she preferred.
She hadn’t taken his initial warning lightly. When he’d first told her that his name was no longer Barker, she’d known instinctively not to question it, known it from the look on his face. She’d never seen him direct quite that same damaged, sinister look at her again-until, she realized, a few moments ago. What in God’s name was it about him shagging her that made her think of him as Benjamin Barker? She should think that would be the last thing that would ever remind her of the man he was. That man never would have dared to touch her like this; that man was far too devoted to his wife, to Lucy.
Then again, so was this man. So was Mr. Todd.
He was still yelling at her; “You do not know that man. He is dead. You do not remember his face.” Her ears were ringing from it.
“Don’t you understand? Don’t you understand anything?” His voice shot up an octave on the last word and, for a second or two, a haze of despair replaced his formerly murderous look. It was totally gone before she could be certain it had ever been there at all. Relinquishing his grip, he let her drop back onto the sofa before flinging himself off of it, grabbing his coat from where it lay crumpled on the carpet and disappearing out the door.
Struggling to a sitting position, she put a hand to her chest, as if the pressure from her palm could slow the pounding of her heart. She was breathing harder now than she had even at the height of it. This-this snapping, this breaking of a fine red line in his head, this railing at her and shaking her with his eyes so wide and bulging-so that for once they were actually more white than black-had terrified her more than anything else had he ever done, or tried to do, to her.
She wondered if she hadn’t been right that this would be the last time Mr. Todd would allow her to touch him-the last time Benjamin Barker would allow himself to touch her.
I had him!
She leaned back limply, covering her eyes. She didn’t know why one little slip up would cause all this. With a quiet moan, she knew he was right about one thing: she didn’t understand.
No, I had him!
She kept her hands over her face, though it wasn’t like her-it wasn’t like her to simply lie still and give up hope. She was a survivor. It wasn’t like cheery, friendly, helpful Mrs. Lovett to feel so hopeless. She’d had him, he was hers, and to keep him for that brief moment had taken all her strength. And now he may never be mine again. Mrs. Lovett buried her face in a bloodied pillow, feeling so tired, so….
So weak.
Fandom: Sweeney Todd
Characters or Pairings: Sweeney/Lovett
Rating: R (for sex, but oddly, only a little blood)
Disclaimer: I don’t own these characters. They belong to Stephen Sondheim, Tim Burton, and whoever else.
Summary: More Sweeney/Lovett sex (much to Sweeney’s disgust) and a few flashbacks.
Author’s note: I wrote this about a week ago and I’m finally posting it now.
As always, comments are very welcome :)
Crossposted to my lj, sweeneytoddfic , stifyouonlyknew, darksidedepp
So weak.
It wasn’t like him to be so weak. Her pestering and needling and insinuating had worn him down until she’d almost had him half convinced that they could have a life, not quite like he remembered and not quite how she’d dreamed-or whatever pseudo-romantic drivel she’d actually succeeded in manipulating him with-and he was getting nowhere with his plans for the Judge, getting nowhere at all. And finally, for some reason, her coercing and cajoling and an entire bottle of gin had led him to behave most passively, and a little brokenly, when she was clutching onto his arm one evening and purring to him about how they could be so cozy by the sea or some such nonsense.
And then it had led him to grab her by the back of the neck, like she was some small animal, and throw her down on the sofa in her quaint little sitting room when she’d clutched onto him once too often-when she’d stroked his leg in her shop or put her hands on his shoulders and said “Don’t you get tired of bein’ so alone Mr. T?” one too many times.
He’d seized the nape of her neck and thrown her down because he’d hated the way that she thought she sounded so innocently compassionate whenever she said things like, “Don’t y’get tired of bein’ lonely sometimes” or “Don’t you get tired of thinkin’ about the past all the time, ‘steada living.” She always spoke to him in an inappropriately familiar tone; ever since he had walked into her shop that day, walked in as Sweeney Todd, she had treated him as if she knew him. It was laughable, really; as if anyone in the wide world could truly claim to know him now. He shared his thoughts, his feelings, with no one. Of course they had known one another, vaguely, in the old days: she was his landlady, he the tenant, and that was as far as it went, he thought.
And now Mrs. Lovett pretended to be so familiar with him for God knows what reason, as if welcoming him home, when he had hardly spared a moment’s thought for her back then; and, therefore, he was sure she’d never spared the slightest thought for Benjamin Barker when it was he who lived upstairs.
So he couldn’t stand that she thought she sounded so innocently compassionate while her true intentions were blindingly clear. Of course, she had her more sympathetic moments when she offered him a glass of gin or a meal with genuine friendliness, or when she concocted that cunning idea of how to run their new business (how to cover every trace of his doings upstairs while simultaneously gaining fresh supplies for her meat pies and all that); and at such times he’d felt an almost, sort of, camaraderie with her….
But why, then, did she have to insist on ruining it and sending that all to hell by constantly touching him and murmuring those stupid little “Don’t you”s in his ear? They wiped out any temptation he’d ever had in his mind for trying to have a life and whatnot.
Couldn’t she understand? He was dead. He was a walking ghost.
Yet she persisted and persisted despite his coldness towards her until it had seemed, in a moment of lunacy, that tossing her down and giving her what she appeared to be pestering him for so relentlessly would be the only way of shutting her up and, maybe, showing her that perhaps it wasn’t all that she thought she desired after all.
He hadn’t been kind. He wasn’t sure he could even recall what it was to be kind in that manner; after fifteen years of hell (purgatory, really, because he had held out hope that his Lucy would be waiting for him someday, and now he lived in a world where she was gone, so now he was in hell) he hadn’t had a reason to keep in his mind what it was to be kind, to be gentle-
But it was of no consequence. Perhaps this would deter her, punish her, show her the truth-
But no. No. She didn’t react that way at all, and a part of him raged at her for failing him once again, for failing to understand what it was he was trying to show her, to prove to her at last.
She hadn’t made a sound when he threw her on the sofa; it wasn’t the first time he had pushed her onto something or away from him. And that was actually all he had intended to do, but then she had caught hold of his arm as he was turning away and clutched onto him again, asking him what was wrong and was he all right. She thought she sounded so pure, so guileless-and he’d had enough. He whirled around on her and within moments his hands were at the small of her back, tearing at the ribbons that kept her corset cinched so tightly. Best to get this over with quickly. She gave a squeal of surprise, but once she realized his intent, she continued to wear an expression of shock though she made no protest-not that he expected her to. Not yet.
Once he had divested her of most of her dress and pushed her roughly onto her back, she’d managed to get her arms around his neck and was clutching again, most irritatingly. That wasn’t how it was supposed to go. She wasn’t supposed to be beaming at him like that-it was all wrong.
“Mrs. Lovett, you’re a bloody wonder,” he muttered sarcastically, with all the venom he could muster. Here he was, unceremoniously throwing her down and practically destroying her clothes to undress her, and she still gazed up at him with perfect adoration. Had Lucy even loved him this unconditionally?
At the thought of both Lucy and love, he shuddered and then braced himself, determined to continue before he lost his nerve. He entered her quickly and did his utmost to make her uncomfortable as possible, taking her relentlessly-but no. He was overcome by despair at her inexplicable cries of pleasure. He hadn’t ever really wanted to hurt her before, but in mere seconds that had changed. The harder he tried to make her understand, to hurt her, the more she seemed to revel in it, enjoy it, until he began to grow sick at the thought that this would only make things far worse, and that he had made an unforgivable mistake.
And hadn’t he always gone out of his way not to hurt her? Restrained himself at the last second from sinking the razor a little lower and into her throat, that day when he’d threatened her with it because she had been the one who’d told him to wait, to not rush into taking his revenge on the Judge? Hadn’t he always indulged her with his muttered “Of course”s and “Anything you say”s, even in response to her appalling suggestions of marriage? Hadn’t he always done everything he could to keep her from being terribly hurt?
Much worse, in trying to punish her, he had given her exactly what she wanted most. He had only succeeded in further punishing himself. All he could do was dig in his fingers to keep her from moving against him too much and to keep himself from feeling it-from either being revolted by the sensation of her beneath him or, worse, from feeling any pleasure himself. Which wasn’t out of the question. You’re not Benjamin Barker, you’re not him, he repeated numbly to himself; this is your sorry excuse for a life now. Only this and revenge. That’s your life. That’s you. This is you. There was nothing to do but dig in his fingers and clench his teeth and close his eyes and God oh God whatever you do don’t think of Lucy.
***
It hadn’t been every day, or even every week, but it had been surprisingly often. All the years he had been gone, she had remembered Benjamin Barker, lamented his absence, lamented all those lost opportunities. She had hardly spoken to him back then, but it wasn’t for lack of wanting to.
Mrs. Lovett recalled how fond she was of Benjamin Barker back then. She’d watch him come and go from his home upstairs, above the shop. He’d always seemed rather shy, but she had liked that about him. And she didn’t usually care for shy people.
Their closest encounter, she mused, had been over something rather insignificant, if memory served. Why, she began to remember, it had been over something downright silly. A rat, maybe. Yes, it had been a particularly plump rat. She, as the landlady, had been obliged to respond to his complaint about some kind of mouse that was inhabiting the room above, chewing up their bedding and such. It made noises at night. It was bothering the baby. Quite boring stuff, really. When she’d strode up there with her rolling pin to take the obligatory look around, he’d been there alone. Benjamin Barker was standing near the corner of the room, arms folded across his chest, pretty curls of dark hair around his face, looking rather uncertain. The room had been so much brighter then-quite golden-looking, filled with light. He’d thanked her for coming in his polite, stammering way, while she waved him away and began to prowl the area, peering under tables and chairs and cradles and a loose floorboard until, finally, she’d spotted it, skulking under a chest of drawers.
“S’all right, Mr. Barker, I see the little bugger. It’s a rat, all right. This one’s quite the looker, too.” He had seemed to pale at the knowledge that it was not the harmless mouse that they had suspected. “The size o’ two rats, he is,” she’d continued, and the only reply was the sound of his boots shuffling across the floor, moving further away from the where she was crouched over the rodent.
She’d aimed and then brought the wooden rolling pin down where the rat had been, but it darted away from her, and she’d chased it around the room, and it had been quite the spectacle, she imagined. She used to be a bit faster then; she doubted if she could outrun a rat or any other animal now. But at any rate, it had all ended with her cornering the beast and flattening it with the rolling pin, smacking it so hard that the sickening snapping of bones was clearly audible in the little room. Mrs. Lovett had then picked up the remains of the thing by its tail, and turned with a smile, oddly glad that she had succeeded in helping him. She presented it to him, that mangled mess of fur and bone, like a prize.
Mr. Barker had promptly fainted.
Now, as he kneeled over her and sneered, scowled, pinning her arms to the sofa cushions and digging his fingers in rather painfully, to merely say he was unrecognizable would be a disservice to the truth. There was a look of madness on his face, his skin was grey rather than the pale rosyness he used to have, his hair was stiff and was sticking out at odd angles-she couldn’t even picture him with that sweet little half-smile he used to get. But truth be told, she didn’t care. She might even like him better this way, she thought. After all, she had never really cared for shy people.
And as for that man she’d been so fond of fifteen years ago, he was still in evidence, but only to her, and only because she’d thought about Benjamin Barker’s face so much that she was able to superimpose some of his features over Mr. Todd’s without really even trying.
And look at her now. True, her arms were sore, as well as certain other parts of her, and she never would have expected this madness from him then-but she had him at last. Not Lucy-but her. He was hers. Good old Benjamin Barker.
She tried to move but he held her down harder and his nails, pressing half-moon circles of red into her arms, began to draw blood. She ignored the sting and prayed that he wouldn’t ever let go. Mrs. Lovett feared that if he did, he might never bring himself to touch her again. It was quite an irrational thought.
Back there, in the golden room, she’d frowned down at him. Rolling pin propped on one hip, she’d given his shoulder one good shake. “Wake up, luv. C’mon now, I don’t ‘ave all day.” Probably the first time she’d ever touched him, that.
Now she licked her lips, tasting more blood-perhaps from where she’d bitten his lip, from where she’d bitten her own lip to keep from shrieking when he pushed brutally into her, from where he’d bitten her lip to keep her from kissing him, from one of his customers or from some of her supplies in the bakehouse? It was impossible to know.
“Ah, no need to thank me, Mr. Barker. ‘S’no problem. It’s me job.” She’d fairly glowed when Benjamin had thanked her, after he’d come to and regained full consciousness, of course. She was cheery, friendly, vivacious Mrs. Lovett, always ready to help.
Her slender frame shook with a wave of pleasure and she wanted to throw her head back and laugh; not quite the reaction she’d expected from herself, admittedly, but the notion of what was happening filled her with a triumphant sort of glee: Look at us now. That barber and that baker from all those years ago, finally together as they should be. She wanted to wrap her legs around his waist, to trap him there so he could never get away, for fear that this would be the last time he would ever touch her, if she lost him now.
Sometimes, after the days of vanquishing rats and of playing his rescuer were long gone, while she was rolling out piecrusts she’d see that Judge standing outside, staring up at that topmost window, clutching his flowers. It was rather pitiful, really. But she wasn’t about to pity the man, because it was all his doing-seeing him out there was another irritating reminder that the room above was short one Barker. And she could do without the two that remained, to be honest.
Well, after years of pining for him, now he was most decidedly back. Or something like him, anyway.
Mrs. Lovett found herself lying back on the grimy pillows of the old sofa, luxuriously, warmly content from being with him, lightly covered with her own, and assorted others’, blood, as well as various other substances. Before this moment, she’d always descended into one big muddle of giddiness and longing whenever she was even in the same room as Mr. Todd. And now…this. She couldn’t recall ever being this happy in her entire life.
Drowsily, she smiled a little. Out of the corner of her slitted eyes she could see him, sitting up, leaning slightly forward, hands on his knees, not looking at her-not that he ever did, although she was a bit dismayed to find that this had not changed. He was breathing deeply, and that edge of madness remained on his face.
She was a bit disgruntled that he still looked so feverish, so on edge. After such a wonderful thing, something that put her dearest fantasies to shame, he ought to look more…more like she did. Happier.
With half-closed eyes, she shifted her weight until she was able to prop her elbow on one of the flattened old cushions and cup her cheek in her palm. “C’mon now, Benjamin, why can’t y’just relax a little and let the bloody world go for once?” she drawled, stifling a yawn.
His razors, or his nails cutting her, or him shoving her about, had never perturbed her as much as the way his eyes suddenly snapped over to her. Then he stared at her, really at her, rather than through her. Despite the little warm glow she had built around herself, she shivered. She pushed herself up on her elbows, looking back at him warily. His dark eyes had become abruptly hollow, burning into her. Instances where she’d actually succeeded in making eye contact with him were few and far between, so why was he behaving like this?
When he lunged at her and grabbed her by the shoulders, he did it more roughly than he had any time before, if that was possible. The sofa seemed to drop out from under her as he started shaking her, his face up in hers and only a blur to her, as he screamed-it took her several seconds to make it out-“You are NEVER to use that name, NEVER. Do you understand? Do you understand me?”
Mrs. Lovett was too addled to reply, realizing far too slowly that, Oh God, she’d called him Benjamin, hadn’t she. Oh God. That was the first time she had ever slipped up, had ever even had the slightest little urge or inclination to call him by his former name. Usually it never seemed to fit, and she’d had no trouble putting it from her mind and focusing solely on Mr. Todd, who she supposed she preferred.
She hadn’t taken his initial warning lightly. When he’d first told her that his name was no longer Barker, she’d known instinctively not to question it, known it from the look on his face. She’d never seen him direct quite that same damaged, sinister look at her again-until, she realized, a few moments ago. What in God’s name was it about him shagging her that made her think of him as Benjamin Barker? She should think that would be the last thing that would ever remind her of the man he was. That man never would have dared to touch her like this; that man was far too devoted to his wife, to Lucy.
Then again, so was this man. So was Mr. Todd.
He was still yelling at her; “You do not know that man. He is dead. You do not remember his face.” Her ears were ringing from it.
“Don’t you understand? Don’t you understand anything?” His voice shot up an octave on the last word and, for a second or two, a haze of despair replaced his formerly murderous look. It was totally gone before she could be certain it had ever been there at all. Relinquishing his grip, he let her drop back onto the sofa before flinging himself off of it, grabbing his coat from where it lay crumpled on the carpet and disappearing out the door.
Struggling to a sitting position, she put a hand to her chest, as if the pressure from her palm could slow the pounding of her heart. She was breathing harder now than she had even at the height of it. This-this snapping, this breaking of a fine red line in his head, this railing at her and shaking her with his eyes so wide and bulging-so that for once they were actually more white than black-had terrified her more than anything else had he ever done, or tried to do, to her.
She wondered if she hadn’t been right that this would be the last time Mr. Todd would allow her to touch him-the last time Benjamin Barker would allow himself to touch her.
I had him!
She leaned back limply, covering her eyes. She didn’t know why one little slip up would cause all this. With a quiet moan, she knew he was right about one thing: she didn’t understand.
No, I had him!
She kept her hands over her face, though it wasn’t like her-it wasn’t like her to simply lie still and give up hope. She was a survivor. It wasn’t like cheery, friendly, helpful Mrs. Lovett to feel so hopeless. She’d had him, he was hers, and to keep him for that brief moment had taken all her strength. And now he may never be mine again. Mrs. Lovett buried her face in a bloodied pillow, feeling so tired, so….
So weak.