A/N: Not my characters

Pretending

The man before him was dead, and Sweeney Todd couldn't help but to admire him for it.

A flicker of guilt coursed through his stomach, and the demon barber grimaced before stomping harshly on the ejection panel behind the chair. Once the body had been deposited and the chair had gone back to its normal position, Sweeney sat down, a troubled frown stretching his bloodless lips.

His thoughts turned, as they always did, to his beloved Lucy, and his lost Johanna. Lucy is as dead as Benjamin Barker, and Johanna is as lost as happiness in this pisshole. It felt like a minute did not pass where the barber couldn't help but to think this.

As he sat, frowning at the thoughts of his lost life, a flicker in the corner of his eye caught his attention.

Sweeney Todd leapt up and whipped around, his trusty friend glistening silver and bloody in the mid-afternoon light, and froze.

Before him stood Benjamin Barker.

He blinked.

Benjamin Barker, looking flustered, stared back at him.

He blinked again.

Still there.

He shut his eyes and took a deep breath before looking again.

Benjamin still stood before him, but now he seemed to have regained his composure. He raised an eyebrow as he surveyed the beaten reflection of his future.

"You're dead." Sweeney stated blandly.

"So are you."

Sweeney looked down at himself. He was covered with blood, but his pale, long fingered hands still held his razor steadily. After taking another breath, he looked back up at his past, lips slightly pursed. "I don't think so."

Benjamin brushed his shining black hair out of his tanned face, and sighed. "I have been beaten out of you by an unjust sentence and your own hate. I may be dead, but at least I'm not pretending to be alive."

"I'm not pretending; breathing tends to be a good indication of life."

"Oh? Tell me... 'Sweeney'… what do you feel inside?" the young apparition asked.

Sweeney opened his mouth, but paused.

"Well?"

"I feel," Sweeney whispered, "nothing." The sadness of losing his life as Benjamin Barker had hollowed him, and even the hatred that had compelled him to kill was gone.

I am a dead man.

He looked at his younger, happier self. "What do you want from me?"

Benjamin shook his head. "I wish only to know why you have abandoned me to hold this charade of life. I wish to hear why you kill every man but those who hold the life you once held. I want to know why you have damned yourself!"

Taken aback, Sweeny hissed, "They all deserve to die. They are pigs, wallowing in the filth of London, and they killed my Lucy. Do you need a better reason? They all deserve to die! Every last one of them!"

"Why do you kill?!"

"Because it is the only thing I have left! It…" Sweeney paused, and thought of the brief flicker of guilt that had turned in his stomach earlier. "It makes me feel alive."

What about Mrs. Lovett?

Sweeney couldn't tell if Benjamin had asked the question, or if the question had come from inside, but that didn't matter to him. He thought of her kindness, putting him up, and of how she disposed of his kills, feeding the bodies to all of London.

"You know that she cares for you," Benjamin said, "she's said so. She shows it. Why do you let her think that?"

The elder man shook his head. "She should know better." Even as he said this, his mind was flooded with snatches of memories: a soft caress of his wild hair, a consoling hand on his shoulder, a whisper of lips on his neck.

Still, he felt nothing. No arousal at the memory of her gentle kisses, no warmth towards her advances. Nothing got through.

"Why, 'Sweeney Todd', do you kill?"

"I KILL BECAUSE I LIKE IT!" Sweeney bellowed, and a wicked smile curved his lips.

Mrs. Lovett's voice came from behind him. "Well, isn't that just the cheeriest thought of my day. Now, you probably shouldn't be announcing that to all of London. Might hurt business a bit, love."

He turned to her, then turned back to where Benjamin had been standing.

Instead of the late Benjamin Barker, he saw only himself, dark with drying blood, empty eyes, and a wicked razor in his hands. There was no hint of the man he had once been in his reflection.

I am a dead man.

A/N: Comments?