Title: And Then There Was One
Fandom: Sweeney
Todd
Author: T. Axile
Characters: Todd
Genre:
Gen, Angst
Rating: PG
Summary: Hope kept Benjamin Barker alive. Vengeance made Sweeney Todd alive. And then there was one.
Somewhere in the spaces between each pain-drawn breath, the pause between the whip-lashes and the too-short nights flanked by the too-long days, he slowly forgets.
It begins with her face, the color of her eyes, the baby—smearing like paint beneath a wet brush into some chaotic landscape of emotion and impressions, until all he remembers is love, gentleness, a golden time—the caricature of a perfect woman, a silhouette that he fills with dreams and horror and hope. Sometimes he knows that she still waits for him and he can't tell whether the thought brings him more comfort or pain. Other times he sees her together with the Judge, and some animal anger will leap forth from within him, some dark and secret place unearthed by the hellhole that is Devil's Island, and he will long for the Judge's throat in the circle of his clenched hands.
Hope keeps him alive, keeps him clinging on to the shreds of his sanity during the years when any sort of salvation seems as far away as his home. If she waits, then he will wait too for his chance, for any time when their eyes are off him just slightly too long or when a gap in the foliage beckons. Anger makes him keep himself alive for the day when he can finally meet the Judge again and show him the true meaning of vengeance. In his dreams he kills the Judge over and over, his thirst for revenge unsatisfied by mere imagination. In the beginning Lucy stands in the background and he kills for her, to bring the smile back to her blurry face, until she fades to grayness and all he can see is the glorious shadow of her yellow hair.
It is hope and vengeance that keeps him stubbornly alive after he has escaped, tossed and spun like flotsam by the capricious sea and seared by the glaring sun, as though all the world is against him. It is a familiar feeling. He hears the Judge's voice in the roar of the sea and wind, sees his face in the dizzying blue of the sky, and holds on to his raft as though it is the Judge he is strangling to death with his unyielding hands.
He almost doesn't feel it when the hands grab him, propel him gently through the water and haul him overboard. Their voices are the buzzing of meaningless insects. All he understands that he is alive, and must stay alive if he is to see home one last time.
And it is time to wait again (he is patient now; he has endured fifteen years). He waits until he steps through the door of the pie shop and hears Mrs. Lovett's story, until he has no one left to wait for, and all that is left is revenge.