(This is actually an older, longer story, but I cut it down to 495 words
for the SSC.)

Butterflies in Leather
by Tasha
(the missing scene from Neil Gaiman's 'Sandman')


    Morpheus sprinkled sand over the face of the sleeping mortal, who
smiled as the dream took hold.
    "Not your usual gloomy style," Death said, grinning. "But nice."
    Death peered at the photograph the sleeper was clutching - a young
girl with multicolored hair and mismatched eyes. Death turned to
Morpheus. "But I thought this was Desire's mischief."
    "No," came Destiny's deep voice. "It is our youngest sister's
doing." He peered at his dusty book. "The pages of this night are
changing."
    Morpheus gazed at the sleeper. "I gave him the dream so he would
think it ALL a dream."
    "It's too late," Destiny said. He plucked a turquoise fish from the
air, where it had been swimming dizzily. "She has changed things."
    Death knelt to retrieve something. It was a small whip with
butterflies on the handle. She smiled. "She certainly has."
    "She can't interfere with others not of her realm," Morpheus said.
    Death wiped a smear of wine from the dreamer's lips. "In this state,
I think he does belong to her."
    "Yes, he's mine! I made him fly and he begged me to let him eat my
shoes!" Delirium drifted out of a swirling psychedelic haze and sat
cross-legged on Stefan's chest. "But he thought I was Delight," she
pouted. "He wanted to take the butterflies out of my head. So I did the
most cruellest, most awfullest thing. I made him love to be hurt."
    Stefan sighed.
    "See? He's loving it even as he sleeps! I'm still in his head!"
    "I gave him that dream," said the Sandman. "It's not your doing."
    "It is!" Delirium insisted. "You wished for him to dream good stuff
and good stuff to him now is pain. Look!"
    She flipped through Destiny's book and showed them.
    On the pages they saw Stefan, entangled in fishnet. Butterflies
covered his eyes with their wings. The ends of the whip were tipped with
words that meant two different things at the same time and each time it
struck he shrieked with ecstasy and agony.
    The Endless watched, fascinated, as Stefan's body was covered with
butterfly-shaped welts. The mortal had dissolved into erotic hysteria by
the time Delirium let him eat her shoes.
    Destiny closed the book. "You have created a paradox that cannot be
undone. Very few can experience pleasure and pain as one. Those who can
may know true euphoria. And they will all belong to you, Delirium.
Because only in your realm may two opposite things coexist. Those who
cannot surrender, at least in part, to madness, may never experience
it."
    Delirium cocked her head. "I did all that?"
    Death beamed. "You've made my day."
    Morpheus frowned, puzzled.
    Then they were gone and Delirium was alone with Stefan. She swung
the butterfly whip around to strike her own bottom. She giggled. Then
she put on a tartan skirt, white blouse, and saddle shoes. Placing a
wooden hairbrush in Stefan's hand, she sat on his chest, to wish him
awake.


© 2004 SSC by Tasha