Title: Sweet Morpheus
Author: Amy Fortuna
Fandom: The Sandman
Pairing: Lucifer/Dream
Rating: PG-13
Archive: Please ask.
Summary: Lucifer longs and plots.
Notes: Set just before and during "A Hope In Hell," from "Preludes and Nocturnes."
Dedicated to the person who pimped Sandman at me ;), not that it needed much help to conquer me.

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Sweet time crawls. I stare in silence out of the window, aching. Peace is nowhere near me today, and life has slowed down to endless duty.

I yearn for him. The heartache bites me under the breastbone with a fierce intensity and my skin longs to touch. My hands are restless. I clench them together and place them against my lips, as if to shut out the silent scream building in me.

I hate him. I love him. It is all one in the end. I am tortured by the sweetness of cold Dream, with his somber ways and morbid dramas. I'd love to get my lips over his, and find out whether or not that mouth is as delicious as it looks. And find out whether or not he is really as innocent as he sometimes appears to be.

Probably not. The Endless are anything but innocent. That Death, now. Pretty, but doesn't miss a trick. Ever. Time won't burn her up or wear her out the way it's doing me.

I'm tired of this. The endless torture of mortals is really no fun at all, once all the inventions for screaming have been invented. And just once I'd like someone to kiss me back because they wanted to, not because I'd slow-fry them if they didn't.

Morpheus has been silent, caught by mortals, they say. The world of dreams has been chaotic without him. Even my own realm has felt the disturbance.

Despair has made her silent way inside to speak with my prisoners many times. Death has glanced at my realm with a laugh as she waved souls into my dominion. Delirium has burned her way past me, hair trailing silver stars in her wake. Desire has winked in my direction. Destiny has regarded me with a cool calm stare, the kind of look someone gives you who knows exactly what's going to happen to you and really doesn't give a damn about it. Destruction, of course, is gone, and Dream is trapped.

Of course Dream wouldn't look at the Prince of Darkness as a potential lover. He would only frown. A puzzled look would write itself across his face, and he would become cold and still suddenly.

He'll never know. Ironic that. He'll never know *my* dream. I don't want this silly realm and its tortures and screams and agony. It's not any part of my heart as I stand here wanting.

I want him. To capture him, keep him here, ah, wouldn't that be a coup for me? To make him learn to love me?

If only I could....

I turn toward the door, sensing sweet presence there, and a rush of dark passion fills me. He does not, quite, take me by surprise.

I smile.

"Hello." He does not answer. My smile turns cold and my tone dangerously sweet.

"We hear you were caught by mortals, like a newly fledged demon, sweet Morpheus." I look at him, thin and weary, and I determine to show no mercy.

"We expected better of you," I chide, as he continues to look at me with resigned pain in his eyes.

This is going to be interesting.

END