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Not to Mrs. Lovett, this never should've been able to happen to her, the kindest, warmest, most maternal woman he had ever known... really the only woman he had been graced by the company and care of... That demonic brute shouldn't have been able to so much as lay a hand on her, Toby shouldn't have let him by cowardly hiding in the sewers with the other rats... the other dead rats... He might as well be dead like the filthy, skyward facing bodies that lay at his feet in a heap, now that he had failed her and his solemn vow to her, the position he had been so grateful to be able to take as her provider and protector... and he would feel like he was dead already, a dead man walking, if it weren't for the sheer agony and loss and grief ripping through him like Mr. Todd's... Mr. T, as Mrs. Lovett had called him with slightly desperate affection... as if he deserved any emotions from her rather than the dismissing disdain normally given to sleazy interlopers... knife thrusting through the exposed neck of one of his all too trusting clients... Collins- Pirelli, it would have been a lashing for sure if he had caught wind of Toby using his non-stage name when he was alive... had met that same fate as the corpses that had been unceremoniously dumped into this basement infested by bodies both rat and human and then Mrs. Lovett, even though he had never been the trusting type, holding his secrets of the trade both real and obfuscations of reality close to his chest, and he had come to Mr. Todd because he had unfinished business with him that he hadn't specified to Toby further, not because he needed a shave.
He had always given Toby the impossible task of attempting to reach his always mounting, always unreachable standards in those matters, moving around as he barked sometimes contradictory orders at him and causing him to accidentally nick him with his blade no matter how hard he tried not to and then taking an eye for an eye approach for the scratches on his face and neck out on Toby with a thousand times added intensity, only in places where his adoring public wouldn't see the marks on his ward, even greater than the ones he dealt him in front of them... Pirelli had been teaching Toby how to be a great barber like him, had taken him from the horrors of the workhouse and taken on the unrelenting, Sisyphean task of making him into someone who could make something of himself and not get trapped in a horrible situation like that with no one to look out or care for him... even as he had often threatened to send Toby back there when he invariably fell short of his lofty standards for him... and Toby had failed to sense the danger that followed Mr. Todd like an awful stench soon enough to warn him and stop that wretch from taking from him what could never be given back, just like how he had failed to do the same for Mrs. Lovett now... What had Mr. Todd even done to her?!
Toby had heard screaming, heart wrenching, agonizing and agonized screaming that had seemed to go on for an eternity and was still reverberating through him, would always be reverberating through him for the hopefully not too long amount of time he had before his miserable, short life on this Earth could end and he could be reunited with her in Heaven... but it hadn't sounded like her beautiful, strained voice had been obstructed by a blade horrifically wrenched into her lovely neck. ...Had... had Mr. Todd... was that strengthening of the nauseating, sickly smell of the cooking of meat that should never be cooked down here because... he... had... oh God no no no he couldn't have, that would even be beneath the infernal Mr. Todd, surely?! Had he... shoved her into the oven?! Toby barely felt himself stagger backwards against the wall in the confined, cramped space of the sewer as the ringing in his ears and the pounding of his heart in his chest only got stronger, only got more intertwined with the echoes of Mrs. Lovett's screams tearing through him. First he had fiendishly tricked the most wonderful woman that had ever lived into... into cooking people that he had killed into pies... because clearly she couldn't have known about this, no woman would ever have it in her to do something so cruel but especially not the angelic... literally angelic, now... Mrs. Lovett... and then he had shoved her into the oven that she had loyally worked with for him and the almost unbelievably safe and nice future she had dreamed of for Toby and him and herself?! That she had unknowingly cooked... human bodies in?
How much pain had she been in, a righteous and kind woman destined for Heaven but not to go there so soon being oh so cruelly forced to experience a taste of the flames of Hell she had never been meant for? ...Hopefully not as much pain as Mr. Todd would be in when Toby made things as close to right as they could be with her gone far before her time, with her gentle grace forever lost to the world except in its ripples and reverberations through everything and everyone she had deigned to bestow her company upon no matter how undeserved... He didn't know how he would do this yet, he would somehow find a way to overpower him and force him into that oven himself if it came to it even with how much bigger Mr. Todd was than him and with how he didn't deserve to die the same way Mrs. Lovett had, but one thing was absolutely certain: Mr. Todd had sealed his fate of meeting his maker and seeing his beastly cloven feet as he whipped him down to the ground and the flames of Hell where he belonged tonight, the second he had sealed the door of the oven on Mrs. Lovett. Toby had failed his vow to protect her like a sniveling, effeminate coward, but he could still protect her memory and the shop she had worked so hard to make into a nice space from any further violations by the demon that had charmed his way into an undeserved position of trust and... even... affection in her life... could still prove himself to not be cut of the same cloth as that demon, only instead of actively committing evil acts he had stood by cravenly as he had enacted them...
With shaking arms and legs that he could barely feel with his mind elsewhere and almost entirely divorced from his body... he was almost thankful for that, in spite of everything; it was a mercy to not have to feel his weakness physically as well as mentally... Toby exited his hiding spot, leaving his company of the dead rats Mrs. Lovett had told him about hours that felt like years ago behind. And there that treacherous demon was, slumped over pitifully... as if he deserved anything even resembling pity, especially from someone as amazing as Mrs. Lovett, with... was that the old woman he had thrown out of the shop on many an occasion for Mrs. Lovett? in his arms. So he had killed another woman as Mrs. Lovett and he had been talking about… how could even he have done this?! This wasn’t nearly as much of an abomination of justice as him killing Mrs. Lovett, obviously, and she had been interfering with her business, but the extinguishing of the inherent, outwardly shining light of any such pretty, fascinating, wondrous creature was even harder to believe, even less justified than the killing of men with their sometimes warranted but still painful cruelties. He was somehow even more sure that he had to put a stop to his reign of terror now; Heaven knows what he would do next if he was able to have its light shining on him for any longer, even if the peak of his unjustified cruelty had already passed with the horrific passing of Mrs. Lovett no matter what atrocities he committed after that.
He wouldn’t commit any more atrocities, Toby would make sure of that, with… with the blade he saw clutched in his hand, the dank light of the basement glinting off of it… he would have to get it from him first, and then find the courage he had been lacking thus far to send it straight into his heart if he even had one and send him straight to Hell where he belonged. Toby managed to step closer to him, already reaching for the blade while trying to tread as lightly as possible on the dirty, uneven basement floor… what a place to be Mrs. Lovett’s final resting place… despite the trembling in his legs and entire body and stopped in shock and fear as Mr. Todd addressed him without looking away from the woman under him or even seeming to fully process that he was there, only processing what he had said in his usual low, monotone voice and what Toby had barely heard over the ringing in his ears and the pounding of his heart in his chest and the echoes of Mrs. Lovett’s screams tearing through him several seconds later. “Do it.” Toby felt himself answering him in spite of himself, his voice far shakier and quieter than he would have liked. “...What?” After a moment that felt more like a year… more time than Toby had been graced with Mrs. Lovett’s company and care… he slowly, staggeringly stood up, almost seeming to hesitate to let the body in his arms gently fall out of his grasp and to the floor, and turned around to face him, still towering over him even as he almost seemed to be being pushed towards the ground and the Hell he would inevitably and hopefully soon end up in by the Heavens, by the sheer weight of his sins and… grief? if he was even capable of that emotion, and this wasn’t just a mocking farce of it or the equivalent of a kettle letting out steam and a high pitched hissing noise because of the pressure and heat building up in it as it had been designed to do.
“Well, come on then, do it.” Toby barely felt the knife… the knife that he had used to kill Pirelli and that woman and so many others, that he could easily use to kill him in spite of the righteous fury surging through him with the echoes of Mrs. Lovett’s screams being unceremoniously pressed into his hand, and he found himself instinctively clutching it like Mr. Todd had been doing, like it was a lifeline rather than something that had been used to oh so cruelly take away life before its time. “You’re a strong, strapping lad, at least, that’s what Nellie always said about you, so stop trembling and do it! If she can take the Judge and my rightful vengeance from me, you should be able to take my life easily!” Mr. Todd… Mr. Todd wanted him to kill him?! That wasn’t the desire of a cruel, demonic automaton in the form of a man, that was… oddly human in the emotional devastation and loss it implied? That Toby also felt? Toby felt his mind tear itself apart even further as he desperately scrambled for a realization of what dastardly trick this was, what ulterior motives that would probably be obvious to a more clever and capable mind lurked beneath the surface of this seemingly almost humanizing command. He still hated him more than he would have even begun to guess he was capable of hating anything minutes that felt like years ago, he still wanted him to burn in hellish flames that made those he had oh so cruelly shoved Mrs. Lovett into look like pathetic little flickers of a candle that was rapidly burning out and soon wouldn’t be sparing even the small area that it currently was from the quickly encroaching darkness, but… he realized now no matter how much he didn’t want to, how fervently he was resisting and trying to deny it that the eyes he was staring into, that had clearly carried a passionate blaze long ago but had only contained ashes for some time now, were those of a fellow human, not of a demon or an automaton of cruelty.
…He would be killing a human, just like he had done… Did he regret what he had done to Mrs. Lovett, to Pirelli, to all the people he had killed, or just the woman that lay at his feet? Did the pain tearing through him, that Toby couldn’t deny now, that was evident in his every faltering movement and slumped body part even through his impatient anger approach his? …Or was it for the Judge, for the vengeance he had wanted to enact upon him but hadn’t been able to because Mrs. Lovett had apparently finished a job that he had left undone as usual… That didn’t sound right, she unlike him, unlike… them… would never be so cruel as to kill someone, Mr. Todd must be mistaken about that like he had been mistaken about so many things pertaining to her and the treatment she deserved… Mr. Todd cast his hand slightly to his side exasperatedly, the movement apparently taking a significant amount of what little energy he still had. “What, do I need to show you how?” Toby instinctively stepped back slightly as he half collapsed, half knelt in front of him before harshly grabbing his arm that was holding his knife, his grip tough even as he could barely feel it in his dissociation from his body and it felt like the strength and force of will was ebbing away from it, from him. He unhesitatingly brought it so that it was at… that was probably where his heart was… without taking his determined but crumbling gaze away from Toby’s. “Do I need to spit on Nellie’s grave more to get you to avenge her? Not like a little bit of spit would do much for her with where she is now…”
White hot rage, hotter than the flames that had engulfed the most wonderful woman that had ever lived and those that would soon be engulfing Mr. Todd, that he had somehow dared to imply were engulfing her now filled and quickly spilled out of Toby, leaving him a tiny insignificant speck of kindling in their self sustaining inferno. He wasn’t aware that he had done as that disgusting, wretched demon had wanted him to, that he had thrust a knife that he could practically feel as well as any of the rest of his body that he had long since dissociated from deep into him, that he was now gasping and writhing with a satisfying and oh so deserved agonized desperation on the floor of the basement that he had made into Mrs. Lovett’s final resting place and that would probably be Toby’s as well for several seconds that felt like years, until his senses were gradually afforded back to him by the blaze surrounding him and taking the place of every fiber of his being. Mr. Todd’s slow, drawn out agony was clear, and Toby didn’t regret that he was the cause of it, didn’t feel almost demonic for forcing it upon him like he had thought he would for that brief moment where he had dastardly tricked him into thinking that he was a fellow human and not a demon sent from the depths of Hell to extinguish the truest, warmest, most angelic light that had ever graced the Earth along with God knows how many others. He deserved this fate richly, deserved to be dragged through Mrs. Lovett’s torment at his hands tenfold by his own body’s refusal to give up and let him die and face an even worse fate. Wait, why was he… he was grabbing at the knife’s handle weakly now, struggling to make his hands grasp it but clearly desperate to…
The knife was a little higher on Mr. Todd’s chest than he had initially positioned it, Toby realized; maybe that was why he was taking so long to go back to where he had come from. Maybe he had subconsciously done that on purpose for that very purpose. He never wouldn’t thought he would be capable of that kind of darkness, but then again he never wouldn’t thought that even Mr. Todd would’ve been capable of the darkness of killing Mrs. Lovett, or even of treating her cruelly. Toby watched, alarmed now as he realized too late what he was doing, as Mr. Todd managed through his agony to grasp the knife’s handle and drive it lower, to where he had originally positioned it. While the sheer shock and agony and guilt of that unwelcome revelation was still coursing through him worse than the waves of deserved pain through Mr. Todd, they stopped, and he was still, slumped over at an extremely awkward angle on the floor and looking skyward with uncomprehending eyes just as the dead rats in the sewer and the woman he had been holding were. Toby felt the blaze around and in him be extinguished by Mr. Todd’s last drawn out, agonized breath as if it had been doused by a flood of water, leaving a harrowing, all encompassing emptiness in its wake. …He… he hadn’t actually killed him, he hadn’t avenged Mrs. Lovett like he had solemnly vowed to, he had afforded him the mercy of being able to cut his pain short and have one last expression of personal agency before he went back to where he came from with his cowardice, just like he had let him kill her and Pirelli by failing to protect them like he should have… as was his place to do so… Oh God…
Mrs. Lovett wouldn’t have given him a lashing for this if she was still alive, she was far kinder than even Pirelli, who had taken him out of that horrible washhouse and put up with his ineptitude, just like she had… and her divinely maternal, affectionate nature made his failure to do even this small right by her even worse. Toby vaguely felt himself stumble over to Mr. Todd on shaking legs and half collapse, half kneel by him, slumping over him pitifully like he had been slumped over that woman. He stared at the blood stained knife sticking out of his chest through the blurriness of his vision for… seconds? minutes? hours? before grasping at it with the same weak, pained desperation that Mr. Todd had in his final moments in the mortal plane and slowly managing to wrench it out of him, sending even more horrible blood shooting out of him and to the floor. …Well, Toby reflected as he numbly turned the knife over and over in his hand while slowly bringing the other one into position next to it, catching glimpses of his pale, harrowed expression in the polished surface of its blade where it wasn’t stained with blood, there wasn’t anything standing in the way of him doing what needed to be done this time, not even his own cowardly hesitance.