Work Text:
Tiptoe to your room, a starlight in the gloom, I only dream of you... and you never knew
It felt like they had been walking together, alone, for a hundred years, and Lucienne felt their pace slowing, heard Dream's ragged, whispered plea to stop, to leave him and save their crumbling world instead.
"You damned fool, don't you know I've been watching over you for ages? And don't you know I'll be watching over you for countless more?" Lucienne cracked a smile, desperate to bring some levity to this terrifying moment, somehow. But the reality was grim- the lord of dreams had been weakened to a point that he may not survive, and Lucienne was alone in caring for him.
She managed to lead them a few more steps before she felt Dream's knees buckle. She held tighter to him to keep him from falling, and gently lowered him to the ground. Together, they rested there, her sitting and her endless dream lord sprawled out before her, half in her lap.
"Lucienne." Her name was barely a breath, so soft and weak that she might have imagined it. The smile on Dream's face as he gazed at her was just as soft, and just as weak. His eyes could barely focus on her. "The most beautiful of all my creations. The most important, too."
"I'm here, my Lord. We're going to get you better," she said, embarrassed by the tremble in her voice and the shaking of her hands, by the quickening in her chest at his praise. She needed to be strong right now, for both of them.
He said her name again, like a child reciting his beloved bedtime prayers. The smile remained on his pale lips even after his eyes fluttered closed and his hands fell slack at his sides.
Lucienne brushed a few strands of Dream's impossibly soft hair back, the black wisps sticking to his skin as she did. He felt clammy and cold, already a half forgotten memory of a man; the last seconds of a dancing morning mist on a gray lake. A ghost. And she was afraid. For the first time she was afraid, truly, that he may not wake up and bark orders at her. That was their pattern, of course. He blustered and bumbled his way about, brat prince of dreams, the one who always knew best, and she quietly waited for him to notice that she actually knew better.
And she did. Lucienne knew it, everyone knew it. Even before Lord Morpheus' forced exile in the land of the living, Lucienne had been the one watching over everything, taking careful notes, answering questions, and putting out whatever fires popped up. She was the voice of reason, the dazzling mind, the nimble fingers that turned the frail pages of the Dreaming.
But this? Now? This threatened to upset their comfortable, friendly balance of authority, their roles in the Dreaming. This threatened to change everything, and Lucienne was certainly not ready for that. Not yet.
"My Lord," she said, brushing her fingertips against his face. "Please, my Lord, come back. I can't look after all of this on my own." That was a lie, she knew it, could taste the bitterness of it in her mouth. She /could/ look after all of this on her own, but she didn't want to. "You can't leave me here, not again."
The Dreaming ached and sighed around them, light bending and then fading into darkness in shining obsidian pools at their feet. Their world was in pain, decaying and mourning its own demise as surely as it mourned Dream's. Lucienne knew she would have to tend to it soon, or risk losing it forever.
"Please, my Lord." Quieter. "Dream." Lucienne pressed a kiss to his brow, and another to his cheek. And then, closing her eyes, her voice faded to a whisper as she spoke against his lips. "My love. You must come back to me."
Lips are turning blue, a kiss that can't renew... I only dream of you, my beautiful