A/N: An old story I wrote two years ago. It's not brilliant, the quotation format is probably incorrect but meh. It's just a fanfiction. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Sweeney Todd.

Control

Mr. Todd liked to have control.

One of the most delicious aspects of murder was knowing that this one life was, for a few moments, completely in your hands. The power he felt in those few, small moments was dizzyingly addictive. The feeling that he experienced, the feeling that he could play God and so easily snuff out another man's life with such a casual movement across their exposed jugular was compulsive. Such a simple, effortless movement to take someone's whole life in your hands and extinguish it as though they had been nothing.

Mr. Todd liked to have control.

He liked having control over her. He loved hearing her gasp in pain as he forced himself roughly inside of her. He loved hearing her cry out, begging him to take her, because he told her to. He told her to beg. He told her to tell him she wanted it, even though he knew it hurt her, even though he knew she was frightened, was too aware of the razor pushed against her throat, sometimes her thigh, biting at her fair skin. Sometimes it would break the skin. Sometimes he would watch as a trickle of blood seeped from her veins and ran down her skin and he touched it softly with his tongue, tasted her blood and felt her wince underneath him, torn between pain and desire, unfulfilled desire because she never came without him telling her she could. She wouldn't dare to give in to her own pleasure, unless he had finished with her. Her enjoyment mattered very little to him. She was his toy. His object and he would have her, control her, keep her.

Mr. Todd liked to have control.

And when she dared to look at another man. He died. Mr. Todd watched as the blood poured from the man's throat. He sneered as the man gasped for breath, the blood gurgling, spurting from his skin, bubbling like water from a fountain. He watched him die, he watched as his life blood stained his clothes, gushed down into his lap. And then he'd push the peddle and down they'd fall. He'd hear him hit the ground, already dead. Already dead as he hit the ground; broke his neck, his arms, his back, his legs. Like a little broken doll. And he'd revel in the thought that Mrs. Lovett would soon descend to the bakehouse and find the man she had been sparing glances at ruined, broken, destroyed on the stones. She could have no one. No one could have her. Only Mr. Todd. She was his.

Mr. Todd liked to have control.

When she came up in the evenings with his dinner, she knew what would follow. As she placed his plate on the dresser, she could feel his eyes on her, blank and emotionless. His gaze was unwaveringly cold and unfeeling, as though he simply didn't care whether she lived or died, as long as he could do what he pleased with her first.

She turned slowly to the barber and waited at the dresser, his eyes didn't move from hers for a single moment. His steady, cool gaze terrified her but she didn't dare look away. She didn't dare do anything without his explicit permission. She was scared of him. Scared that if she said 'no', he would kill her. In fact, she had almost convinced herself that if she ever dared disobey him, her life was forfeit. This ingrained terror of him, enslaved her even more solidly to his will. She would do anything for him; fear and desire made sure of that. Though she so rarely fulfilled that desire because he seemed intent on keeping her in discomfort and anguish, it seemed to increase his arousal to have her teetering so close to release but not quite being allowed to reach it, chained only to what he wanted, what he desired from her.

"Close the door." He said softly, his eyes never leaving her face.

She obeyed. Walking and closing the door, locking it like she knew he expected her to. For a moment she stood at the door with her back to Mr. Todd, suddenly very aware of her chest heaving up and down in steady breaths.

"Face me." Came his rough voice from behind her. She did so, hands limp by her sides.

His eyes raked over her, he smirked slightly when he saw she was trembling, she was frightened. He liked it when she was frightened.

But he didn't want her to realise it just yet. "No need to be frightened, Mrs. Lovett..." He said softly, coming towards her in his slow, swaggering manner. "I'm not going to hurt you..." The lie fell so easily from his lips, though he could see in her eyes that she didn't believe him, her air of frozen dread remained. He stood in front of her; she looked up at him, her eyes betraying her with the fear so evident in them.

He brought a hand to her face, she flinched. He sneered at her and held the hand to her cheek; it was warm against his cold, clammy hand. She was always warm. It didn't seem natural for such a pale, slight woman to emit so much heat from her skin. He felt a dull throb between his legs. He kept his hand to her face for a few moments and she closed her eyes slightly. As soon as she did, as soon as he felt that she was relaxing, he sharply retracted his hand and brought it heavily across her cheek. Her eyes flew open; she cried out in pain and staggered to her knees from the force. She fell against him, her mouth tantalizingly close to the bulge in the front of his trousers. He had to restrain himself from dragging her against him and having her just there. He had to make her wait. He wanted her to bleed for him. He wanted her to cry for him. He wanted to see how far he could push her before she would break and crumble in his hands.

"Stand up." He snarled, dragging her up to her feet by her chin, hearing the breath catch in her throat as he did so. She stood opposite him, shivering and not daring to look away. He roughly pushed her against the wall, she hit it painfully and her head snapped back against the surface. She inhaled sharply in pain. Mr. Todd dragged her forward, so easily she could have been a doll and snapped her back again, wanting to hear her cry out. But she held her tongue. She managed to keep herself from making a sound. The pressure between his thighs heightened as he watched her heave in pain against the wall, his hands pinning her firmly where she stood. He wanted her so badly. And that want infuriated him; that he should feel such intense lust for a woman as her. He hated her for it and he would punish her for it.

He suddenly released her and her knees buckled slightly underneath her. She fell forward against him, he pushed her away and she managed to struggle upright.

"Get my razor." He said in a low voice. Her terrified eyes flickered up to his and she didn't move. His lip curled in contempt, he snatched her wrists roughly and pushed her with force away from him towards the dresser. "I said... get my razor." He spat. "Do my bidding like the whore that you are." She flinched as though he had hit her again. He liked to insult her when he was having her; he liked to tell her she was worthless, she was a whore, his whore. She knew better than to point out that he didn't pay her. In that sense she felt lower than a whore, she felt like a sex doll. His sex doll.

She took the razor slowly from the dresser and turned to him. She was feeling an increasing sense of panic. She didn't want him to hurt her. She was afraid of him hurting her. She could feel tears threatening to come to her eyes. No, she wasn't going to cry. She wasn't going to give him the pleasure of seeing her cry for him. She held the razor to him in a trembling hand. But he didn't take it from her, his lips curled into a cruel, sardonic smile.

"Oh no, Mrs. Lovett... I'm a man of my word... I'm not going to hurt you."

Nellie felt the colour leave her face and a cold release of dread rush over her. No, please not that...

"Mr. Todd..." She managed to croak. "Please..." It was a mistake to attempt to appeal to his sympathy, he had none for her, he only wanted to see her bleed. His engorged manhood was throbbing for her, begging for release. Watching her handle the razor in her slender hand was driving him insane with lust. Watching her cut herself would be so... intoxicating. He didn't know if he'd be able to handle himself.

He looked steadily at her, his eyes cold and hard. "Put the razor to your thigh and cut yourself." He said it so tonelessly, as though it were the most natural thing in the world to ask her to harm herself for his own viewing pleasure.

The hand holding the razor was shaking visibly, the fear was so apparent that she seemed almost drenched in it. But she didn't move, she seemed frozen where she stood, she couldn't bring herself to obey his sadistic request. Her failure to obey sent a sharp swell of anger through Mr. Todd, her audacity to ignore him, infuriated him. He strode towards her and brought her sharply into the wall, she cried out this time, more from dismay than pain. There was more anguish in that cry than in anything he'd ever heard emitted from her lips, but he didn't soften. It only increased his arousal to hear her trapped in such terrified distress; the thought of the emotional agony she must have been suffering in sent a shudder of pleasure up his spine and a surge of warmth through his already throbbing lower appendage.

He forced her dress up, she struggled slightly underneath him but he was too strong for her. Her pale thigh was revealed; he clasped his own hand over her hand still clutching the razor and forced it to her exposed thigh. She was trying fruitlessly to throw him off her. He pushed himself squarely onto her, pinning her to the wall completely under his weight with her skirts pushed up between them. She couldn't even look down as he placed the razor on her skin. He had kept his eyes on hers up until that point, and then he had to look down, see the blood spill down from her leg, in little rivers over her pale, milky skin. With his teeth gritted against his growing arousal he pressed the razor into her leg and she inhaled roughly, throwing her head back in pain.

"That feels good doesn't it, Mrs. Lovett." He hissed, pressing his mouth to her ear. "Tell me it feels good, tell me you like it and I might not do it again."

Mrs. Lovett was trying so hard not to cry, not to betray herself by letting her weak tears fall but it was hard. She was in pain, the pain in her thigh was so acute, stung so fiercely that she could barely believe that she had beared it before.

"It feels... good..." She sobbed, eyes foggy with tears of agony.

"That's right." He muttered into her ear. "You want to do it to yourself again, don't you?"

She gave a small, shuddering breath. "N-no..." She moaned. "Please..."

He snarled at her insolence and, with sadistic pleasure, brought it sharply over her thigh again, blood forming droplets on the slit left by the blade and sliding down her skin. She gave a cry and he rolled himself against her, to intensify his own pleasure at her pain.

"Say it." He hissed. "Say... it..."

For a moment she did nothing. She stayed frozen against the wall, with her head thrown back and her damp eyes staring at the ceiling. Finally, she forced herself to grit her teeth and she slowly looked down to his eyes. "That. Felt. Good." She whispered, eyes wet with tears but determinedly on her assailant, her violent lover's face.

Mr. Todd watched her for a few moments, painfully conscious of his throbbing erection pressed so agonizingly against his lover's thigh. Suddenly he took the razor, forced her around and slit each of the stiches on her bodice. It slid limply downward; he yanked it roughly off her.

"Step out of it." He said curtly. She obeyed, standing in her underwear in front of him, shivering in the icy evening air. Blood was still dribbling down her thigh, staining her underclothes with rich redness. He gripped her by her chin again and pushed her to her knees in front of him, she knelt wordlessly before him, fully knowing of what was coming. She seemed resigned to giving him what he wanted, resigned to the unavoidable pain and humiliation he was determined to inflict on her.

He looked down at her with a sneer she detested. She looked up at him, wondering vaguely how such a beautiful man could be so impenitently cruel. How someone could become as ruined as he. She felt a small pang of longing for him to hold her not as his 'whore' but as his lover, as his equal. He forced her head down; her eyes were level with his crotch, a lovely, degrading touch just to illustrate her position. He fumbled with his trousers, his arousal very evident, as he pushed them down to his ankles. Mrs. Lovett stared blandly forward, not acknowledging his obvious attempt to degrade her.

"Do you want to pleasure me, Mrs. Lovett?" He said tightly, gripping her hair in his hands to keep her from pulling away.

Mrs. Lovett knew what was expected of her. "Yes, Mr. Todd." She said in a low voice. "Please..."

"Beg. Me." Mr. Todd said through gritted teeth, his grip painful on her scalp.

Mrs. Lovett was struggling with her feelings of resentment at his treatment, but she did want to pleasure him, just not in the ways he insisted on forcing her to.

"Please." She whispered.

He gripped her even more tightly in his hands. "Again." He groaned, in obvious need for her touch on his exposed hardness. "Tell me you want to pleasure me... tell me..."

"I want to pleasure you..."

"Louder." He threw his head back, seeming to be in growing ecstasy.

"I want to pleasure you."

"LOUDER." He snarled at her, dragging her head forward sharply.

She never had a chance to obey him, he forced himself into her mouth and she choked slightly in shock. He dragged himself in and out of her while she knelt in pain and discomfort, feeling like he was fucking her mouth. She could hear his groans, his lustful, fierce cries of pleasure and it made her sick to think he was taking so much from her and giving her nothing in return. She wasn't even responding to his forced entry into her mouth. She did nothing but kneel and be humiliated and humbled.

Finally he came, hot and fast in her mouth and she choked on it, disgusted by him, hating him, not wanting to be used by him. Contrary to what she knew he wanted, she spat it on the floor and stumbled to her feet, staggering to the window and wiping her mouth in vehement revulsion. "Bastard." She said in an undertone.

"What?" His voice was sharp from behind her, she didn't know quite what he would do to her if she confronted him about his mistreatment, but she was almost numbed completely by anger and disgust at herself and him.

"You're a bastard." She said, not turning to him. For a moment there was silence then, suddenly she heard him come from behind her and, gripping her by both elbows, he whirled her around and pinned her to the window with his entire body, his newly donned trousers still feeling somewhat tight even after Mrs. Lovett's forced pleasuring.

"What did you say?" He said in a dangerous tone, his face very close to hers.

"You heard me." She whispered, not completely sure if she was in control of her mouth any more. It seemed to be moving on its own accord, saying stupid things that could quite possibly get her killed...

For half a moment, Mr. Todd simply seethed at her audacity to speak to him thus and then, before she had even caught her breath, he had pushed himself onto her, dragging her so roughly to him that for a moment she thought that he intended to strangle her. But she instead found herself engulfed by Mr. Todd's body, his lips finding hers and claiming them roughly. Her mind was spiralling wildly; on the one hand she was fearful that he might be considering killing her after violently having her, on the other though he seemed to have passed the worst of his sadistic tendencies, though she could never be sure. He pushed her to the window and she found herself reacting naturally to his advances, his body pressed to, entwined with hers. His mouth was still on hers; her nostrils were full of the pungent tang of alcohol and cologne, his mouth tasted like gin, his tongue especially.

He released her lips momentarily; while he strayed one hand to removing his only recently donned trousers, Mrs. Lovett, having the advantage of being already barely dressed, found her arms snaking around the barber's neck, pulling his lips back to hers for a lasting kiss. His iciness was melting away beneath her lips. His maliciousness was being consumed by this new, burning lust and passion. His hands found her waist, pulling her, if possible, even closer to him and letting his trousers fall beneath him to the floor. He had lost control, he didn't like losing control but he hadn't been able to keep himself from Mrs. Lovett any longer and her impertinence, her defiance had intensified his arousal to the point where he thought that he'd die from the unfulfilled sexual need pounding away beneath his belt, now against Mrs. Lovett's pelvis. He realised he still had the razor in his hand and used it to cut away (rather roughly, what being somewhat preoccupied) Mrs. Lovett's remaining layers. She didn't cry out even when he 'accidentally' cut her flesh, though he couldn't help getting a thrill from her little, sharp inhalations of pain when the razor slipped and nipped her skin.

"Drop the razor." She breathed into his ear, hitched up on his hips and pressed against the (mercifully darkened) window. Mr. Todd hesitated, she had forgotten in the heat of the moment about his dislike of being told what to do, especially by her. But, to her immense surprise, he dropped it. Obviously more interested in the proceedings with Mrs. Lovett than punishing her any longer with the razor. He pushed himself squarely against her and, with a smooth movement slid himself between her slightly parted legs. She gasped momentarily at the initial pain but, not long after she found herself moving rhythmically with Mr. Todd, the pleasure surpassing the momentary pain by far. Mr. Todd was, admittedly, in heaven, though he never would have admitted it aloud. He had always derived a fierce, violent pleasure from his violent sexual dealings with Mrs. Lovett in the past but never had he experienced such raw satisfaction as when he could enjoy her responses to his own body movements inside of her. The roll of his hips, the slight buck of her thighs against him, the tilt of her head, the movement of his lips to her neck to breath in her scent while he fucked her.

"Uh..." He found himself growling into her hair as he rocked gently against her, her own heaving breath hot on his ear. "Uh... Gods..." He groaned, throwing his head back slightly. "Mrs. Lovett... Gods..." She threw her own head back slightly and he pushed his lips to her throat, nipping slightly at her skin, goose bumps appearing where he touched. He could feel her thighs between his, it was alarmingly, intoxicatingly pleasurable; perfectly so, as though every curve of their bodies had been created especially for the other to align to. Mr. Todd could feel the pressure building and the speed of his rocking against her, fastened slightly, as did the grunts, gasps and groans emitting from them both in increasing regularity. "Mrs. Lovett... oh... God..." He kept repeating, the words barely having any meaning at all as they spilt from his dry lips. Mrs. Lovett lowered her head now, as the heat came close to its climax, and gently licked the lobe of Mr. Todd's ear, more to see his reaction than anything. His shuddering groan was enough to convince her that he liked it, she did it again and his groans continued though she couldn't be sure whether it was from her tongue on his ear or his being so close to release inside of her. She was close as well, she wanted to be as close to him when it happened as she could, she all but dragged herself down to him; she was wrapped around him, arms and legs, entwined so perfectly on his slim figure. Her corset was somewhat restricting her breath but she could feel it become deeper and harsher as he pulled quicker from her, thrust harder to her, his pleasure clearly mounting. She pressed her palms against the glass, unable to keep herself locked to him when the pleasure was so close to consuming her, she needed to grasp onto something to keep herself from screaming. She had to keep herself from letting herself lose control just yet. Then, almost in perfect unison, they reached their peak.

"Mr. Todd!" Mrs. Lovett cried, throwing her head back and hitting it on the window but not caring,

Mr. Todd couldn't even muster the control to say his lover's name; he was too consumed by the rapturous release he was experiencing.

"Oh! God! Yes!" He cried out with a passion she hadn't seen in him before. He thrust roughly upwards as he came, feeling as every inch of his tension, anger, frustration poured out of him, along with the warm dampness now between his thighs and hers.

For a moment neither of them moved. They stayed where they were, heaving with fatigued breaths, feeling like their limbs had turned to jelly. Then eventually, the couple clambered weak-legged from their stance at the window, too stunned by the amazing perfection of making love with each other to speak. Mrs. Lovett was the first to move, stooping to recover her bloomers and pull them onto her sex-shaky legs, damp and sticky from Mr. Todd's release. Mr. Todd then tugged up his trousers, before realising that the button had snapped off in his passion and he had to hold them up with one hand to retain what little dignity he had left. Mrs. Lovett wasn't looking at him, whether to spare him the steady condemnation of her gaze or because she was bashful herself, he wasn't sure.

After what felt like an age of stiff silence, Mrs. Lovett spoke:

"Mr. T?"

"Yes." He replied hoarsely, surprised by how painful his throat was from his guttural groaning.

Mrs. Lovett smirked ever so slightly. "You come like a whore."

...

Mr. Todd liked to control things. He liked to control people's lives. He liked to control Mrs. Lovett and who she could spare her attention to. He liked to know he was the one who would determine what would happen to her and what she could do.

But some things, as Mrs. Lovett knew only too well, could not be controlled. There were some things that could only progress naturally. This, Mrs. Lovett knew only too well.

She reflected contentedly on that sentiment as she glanced down with a slight smile at her lover's head nestled fast asleep in her lap.

Mrs. Lovett had never much cared for control.

End