A/N This is a bit of a rant, so you can skip it, but I suggest you read this after the story if you do.
Alright.. Just to clarify so you people don't think I'm going out over an OOC limb here (though technically, I suppose it kinda is) I have to mention a certain view point I got. In the beginning of the movie/play, whatever it is you've seen, Sweeney tells Mrs. Lovett Benjamin Barker it dead. I took that literally, I thought all remnants of Mr. Barker were dead, and all he was there for was revenge. That is of course proven wrong by how maddeningly dutiful he is to Lucy and his past. That always bugged the HELL out of me. Why? 'Cuz Benjamin Barker was DEAD (he said so himself) so why did he care so much about something that wasn't revenge? The reason I'm bringing that up is because it's the basis of my 'fic, and if you view Sweeney as just a severely damaged Benjamin, it'll be very OOC.
Sorry for how long that was, onto the 'fic…
Machine
He had a purpose. He was to take revenge for Mr. Barker. A dieing, crumpled, desperate man had made him. His purpose simple, revenge. Revenge for all the aches and pains of love. Tortured love, torn apart by someone else. He had never truly thought on his task before, only knowing it would bring him great satisfaction.
To achieve his one, ultimate goal would be splendid. Nothing was more anticipated then that one, glorious fountain of rubies.
But the foolish Mr. Barker had not counted on one thing, Mrs. Lovett. Through the long years of imprisonment and hard labor, very few memories had been kept. Though the flat he once rented for his family was one of them, Mrs. Lovett was not. Nor were the affectionate looks she sent the since-deceased barber.
The affectionate looks she had passed onto Sweeney.
Revenge was his one fuel, his goal. Sweeney hadn't seen it in the beginning, his desire to achieve his goal so strong. He didn't understand it.
All that he was allowed to remember about love was the pain, the longing, of what it was like to be separated from one you loved. In the beginning he had thought little on love, thinking it had little to do with his purpose. But it was everything behind it.
It had made him curious, if not frustrated. All his work and pain was for one woman he truly was to never know! How Mr. Barker had plagued him with dreams of Lucy, a Lucy that wasn't his. Because Lucy had never known Sweeney, and he had never known her.
That had caused his anger to flare, and his desire, his reason for existence, his revenge to extend to the world.
They all deserved to die!
Within that was Mrs. Lovett, the oddity, the flaw in his mechanics. It was as if she loved him! Which was foolish, for he was made a machine with one purpose. Revenge upon the Judge.
She helped him exact his revenge, but she did something else as well. She talked about a future, something he had never dared to think on.
Mr. Barker had given him a purpose, not a goal!
Those moments when she would mention the sea, he would do his best to tune her out. Ignore her, her wistful way of thinking, and that strange feeling her dreams of the future brought on him. The curiosity, the interest, the desire of having his own.
The desire of having his own life, his own memories, his own future, his own purpose. His own love!
But those thoughts frightened him, so he shied away from them. Besides, who was he to make such decisions? Was not his true purpose the dieing wish of Benjamin Barker?
Yet the possible future of Sweeney Todd hovered around him, tantalizing, keeping just in sight.
Once the other man's revenge was exacted, maybe then. Maybe then he would gain freedom from his mechanics, and truly become a new man, over a half human machine. Was it really possible that Mrs. Lovett,Nellie, really loved him? And if so, would the future she wanted be just as good for him?
Mr. Barker believed that all his Lucy wanted was all he wanted.
But with or without his purpose, could Sweeney love? Could he really come to share the ideals of a dead man, who had created his tortured existence?
Nellie seemed to think so, and the solitary fact that he listened to her words told him it was true.