Lullabyes

Sandman lured them in. With his Cheshire grin and eyes that crackled with the most alluring kind of danger, good looks and enthralling words. He lured them to the land of Technicolor insanity, but he was not the one who changed them, that was all Benzedrine.

Dr. Benzedrine, polite and perfectly kind but the definition of cold. He had pasty-white powdered skin and painted cheeks that gave the illusion of life. Sandman often wondered what the good doctor looked like with a real blush, but he tried his very best not to dwell on it because Benzedrine did not have much capacity for emotion, or the signs of it. Even in this world of garish colour, the man in the yellow suit and bowler stood out to Sandman.

Sandman brought people to him and Benzedrine would give them a honey-sweet smile and a comforting pat on the shoulder, before ruining them, turning them into caricatures of themselves. He condemned them to the fate that he and Sandman had already received, using his beloved brews and poison medicine’s. Sandman would sit and watch him work, try to sit still long enough for the doctor to finish. Mostly because when he did, he usually talked to Sandman for at least a few minutes and Sandman, however much he ached for emotion and sincerity behind Benzedrine’s words, loved those minutes.

He kind of loved Benzedrine, and the calmness he carried for someone so crazy. Sandman missed calm. He himself was alive with energy, buzzing with insanity. Even before he was Sandman, in the life that he remembers only in snatches of muted colour and shades of grey, he had never been so restless.

He had always been energetic yes, but not like this. He looked at Benzedrine and it sparked a memory of another figure from the life had lost. Maybe that was why he loved him so.
Benzedrine is like the ghost of a man he once loved. A name on the tip of his tongue that he could never spit out, but even in his faded, incomplete memory, the man stood out like nothing else. The man had fair skin that was too perfect and seemed closer to Benzedrine’s chalked complexion than he liked. He was almost sure it hadn’t been like that before, that he was starting to muddle the two men in his head.

Mostly, the memories of before were completely soundless, and it made Sandman ache horrifically because he knew how important sound was, how central it had been to his life before. Maybe there was sound, he sometimes thought, but perhaps the constant music of the carousel drowned it out. He often felt that if he could only find somewhere quiet enough and focus he hear it. He could hear his lost love singing.

He remembered that he sung, he remembered it with odd clarity. But he could never hear it and there was very little that frustrated him, what was the point in remembering that he had sung only to never hear him sing? Like most of his memories, he was sure it only existed to torture and taunt him further. He sat now, watching Benzedrine smile contentedly and hum songs that Sandman knows but can’t remember the words of, or quite the right tune. He wonders why, for the fourth time today, why is he stuck here with Benzedrine and the constant reminder of who he was and who he loved, stuck with a man with no love in his bones. Donnie and Horseshoe Crab echoed of memories too, but were far fainter and he was not so sickened by them, nor was he so compelled to be around them constantly.

He spent his life and this conflict and oh how he wished he could sleep again, perhaps dream of a life where he wasn’t so crazy, so lost, so damaged. Still, he has not slept since he first arrived at the carousel. He has begged Benzedrine time and time again for help- to give him something that might let him sleep, even dreamlessly, but Benzedrine always refuses. He just smiles at him sadly, an unusually genuine smile, and tells him no.

Today or perhaps, it is tomorrow already, Benzedrine has not had any “patients.” He spent today refilling his store and so he has finished up early. Sandman takes the opportunity to plead once more for one of the doctors sleeping potions. Benzedrine replies in his usual fashion, tilting his head. “I don’t have any for you Sandman, old friend.”
Sandman felt a lump form in his throat. “Please Doctor, I need…” He took a breath and shook his head desperately. “I’ve seen you give them to other people, I know you can. You just filled you’re shelves.” He gestured to all of the vials and jars of plants and herbs and medicines.

Benzedrine glanced back at his shelves, particularly those of the poisons he prescribed for most people who came looking for a way to sleep- Hemlock and Belladonna and Daphne –all in fatal doses. He was far too selfish to give Sandman that escape, he would miss him too much to bear, even if it was best for the man. “They will not work the way you wish them too.” He informed him, telling his friend the truth for a change. It was so selfish of him to keep him here, he knew how miserable he was, but Sandman meant so much to him, and not simply because of his work.

His face lit up with inspiration. “I know just what you need! Lie down and close your eyes. I have just the remedy for you.” Sandman broke into his first genuine smile in far too long when Benzedrine led him to the mostly unused bedroom. Benzedrine could sleep sometimes, a lot more than Sandman, but it was still hard to come by. Sandman looked so happy and innocent as he curled under the covers and let his eyes flutter shut. It made Benzedrine’s stone heart swell.
Sandman lay in nervous anticipation until a soft, sweet and familiar voice filled his ears, “…It's not what it seems in the land of dreams…” and Sandman’s breathing slowed as he drifted towards sleep at last, “Patrick.” He whispered, barely audible and mostly unconscious.

Benzedrine’s face was etched with genuine sadness as he took Sandman’s hand. “Yes Pete, I’m here.”