Okay, this first one was kind of originally inspired by one of the perfume prompts from 6impearfics on LiveJournal. I actually don't know if this is allowed, considering I don't actually have an LJ account, but if I'm breaking any rules, just let me know, and I will take this down. Anyway, the prompt is:
Ode on Melancholy: Beauty, joy, pleasure, delight: devastated. This is the scent of hopelessness, torment and despair of love. Lavender and wisteria, heart-wrenching pale rose, desolate white sandalwood and thin, tear-streaked white musk.
For some reason this made me think of what Sweeney might have been like if Mrs Lovett hadn't kept his razors and he hadn't become a killer. So I guess it's a bit AU too. It's sweet… enough to make you gag, but do try to suppress that reflex long enough to review.
It never used to be this grey before. Before, the world had been brimming with colour: the sun centers of papery white daisies, the shatterglass blue sky skimming the tops of the whispery green trees, and of course, there had been her. She, an angel made flesh and fallen into his arms like the most heavenly gift imaginable. His sigh was a wistful kiss on the air as he remembered- her primrose pink dress, only a shade darker than he blushing cheeks, her twilight eyes, and hair like white gold. Oh yes, Lucy had been the most delicately colourful of all his fractured memories.
But now, there was nothing left in the world but the lack of her presence, the sheer absence of colour that wore a cloak of pale grey to cover its horrifying emptiness. Without his love, Sweeney Todd's world was nothing but a blank canvas, completely bare of everything. There were times when, vaguely, he felt that perhaps he should try to fill it, to paint on the canvas, but he could never think of the appropriate colour with which to make his mark. He felt too like a great realization lay just beyond that thought, but he couldn't seem to pin it down, so he let his mind move on to other matters.
Mr Todd turned from the window, rain licking its way down the glass, and let his black gaze sweep once more over the dusty grey room. Perhaps it was better this way, he thought. Simply being in his old home, albeit a changed one brought up enough memories welling like tears in his throat. If everything was as vibrant as it used to be, he didn't know if he would be able to stand it. Yes, grey was better. It wasn't beautiful or poetic, but it helped him endure. He didn't have to close his eyes, he could just look at they grey, let its plainness drown out his colourful memories. It was the colour of forgetting.
But then- why couldn't he? Todd clenched his fist against the windowsill. Why couldn't he just let it go? He wanted more than anything to be rid of these accursed tender memories that tore him slowly apart each and every day. But then he was instantly awash with guilt for even thinking of forgetting his dear Lucy, for even considering betraying her like that. But doubt still scraped at him like cloth catching on a thorn. Surely it wasn't natural to still be heartbroken over a thing that happened heaven knows how many years ago. Surely it would be better to just- "Shut up." Sweeney Todd said to the doubt.
"Mr T?" the doubt said.
He whirled. Mrs Lovett stood in the doorway, her brow furrowed, but her eyes still full of concerned sincerity.
"Oh."
"You alright, love? I worry about you sometimes, up here alone for hours. Don't you ever get lonely?" She realized only after the words were out how tactless they must seem. She winced and waited for his reaction.
The violence and horror that had both destroyed and recreated the man during those fifteen years on Devil's Island told him to lash out at her, to hurt her and make her suffer for her thrice-damned inquisitiveness, but something about the honesty written so plainly in her face stopped him. Lucy used to look like that, so trusting and innocent, (though he knew that Mrs Lovett was anything but that.) Still, the vulnerability in her kohl-smudged dark eyes made yet more painful recollections surge to the surface of his already troubled mind, and he found he couldn't look at her. Todd turned away, and heard her breathe a sigh of relief. She was afraid of him.
But then he felt her hand, light on his shoulder, and he almost admired her bravery as she said softly, "I wish you'd come downstairs, Mr Todd."
He wished she'd leave him alone. He turned again to face her, her hand dropping from his shoulder. Mrs Lovett's eyes shone, as they always seemed to when she looked on him, with tenderness and devotion and a maddening understanding, like she knew what he was going through. She didn't. He narrowed his eyes, but hers remained wide and amorous. Why couldn't her frighten her anymore? Again, there was something in her loving expression that reminded him of Lucy, the way she used to look at Benjamin Barker.
Mrs Lovett… loved him. This realization was hazy, like a shape seen through frosted glass, but it made Mr Todd frown, and take a step closer to the woman before him. Mrs Lovett's eyes were wary now, though still not fearful. He smiled, admiring her for it. There weren't many women who could watch a grinning Sweeney Todd advancing on them and still stand their ground. But when he was just a hand's breadth away from her, Sweeney paused. What had he been about to do? But really, he knew the answer, and hated himself for it.
He had let himself pretend, for a moment, that she was Lucy, let himself imagine that simply because the woman's expression had reminded him of her, that she really was his wife returned to him. Perhaps he had even believed it, too- so intent had he been on seeing what he wanted that the truth hardly mattered.
But it was still there, the truth that Mrs Lovett was not his Lucy, never would be. No one, no matter how devoted, could ever replace an angel. This truth pulsed through him like sluggish poison in his veins, and suddenly, Mr Todd found himself trembling uncontrollably, barely able to stand. He staggered forward and was only aware that Mrs Lovett had caught him when he felt her arms tighten across his chest as she guided him over to her husband's old chair. He collapsed into it, eyes shut tight against the world. What on earth was wrong with him? Why would those memories just leave him alone? His landlady's arms were still around him, and now they softened into an embrace, and he felt her press her face into his chest.
It tore Mrs Lovett apart to see her Mr Todd like this. He shook with tears that couldn't fall, and so she cried for the both of them- for his lost live, and for her lifelong lack of it, for those horrific fifteen years, and all of their memories that haunted the pair like insatiable demons, hungry for blood. Todd felt the wetness of her tears on his shirt, and almost instinctively wrapped his arms around Mrs Lovett, while his eyes remained screwed shut. Perhaps somewhere in his ruined soul, he cared for her as well, in his way. She closed her eyes and buried her face in his chest, as though she was trying to hide from the world. How long they stayed like that, neither could say, but finally Mrs Lovett stood up.
"Come downstairs, love," she said. "I'll make you a cup of tea."
He nodded and stood. She opened the door, and he followed her down the stairs.