fic: take me in, tender woman [TVD/Sandman]
In which one of the Endless takes a shine to a certain vampire of some notoriety; a lady espouses some very atypical opinions that hold true even today; one of the walls in Studio 54 sees a bit more interesting action than any of its fellows; and it is proven that those dabbling in the affairs of others do not always have anyone's best interests at heart but their own.
The title is sort of a giveaway.
take me in, tender woman
by gale
SUMMARY: "This one," Desire says, "is mine." [TVD/Sandman crossover; 2,559 words]
Desire stands at its sister's shoulder and watches her fuss over the child in the crib. She always does that. Desire doesn't understand, and never will; but then, understanding isn't necessary for its function. "He's very small," it says.
Death doesn't startle. Of all its siblings, Death is the hardest to surprise. That doesn't mean Desire's going to stop trying. "Babies tend to be small, Desire," she says patiently. "They get bigger. Form and function, remember?"
"Mmn." Desire peers in, careful not to touch its sister, and runs a pale finger across the baby's forehead. "Small," it says again, "but pleasant enough."
"It's nature's way of making sure the parents don't abandon them on a hillside," Despair says, voice grating and sonorous. She stands at the foot of the crib, never too far from Desire. They are twins, after all. "I mean, more often than they do as it is."
Death's mouth is a thin line. "Ah," she says. She looks irritated, but her voice is nonplussed. "You know, you both don't have to be here. Come to think of it, neither of you--"
"This one," Desire says, "is mine."
Death blinks at it. "They're not tithes, Desire," she says, and there's maybe a touch of sharpness in her voice. "The only ones we can claim come under very strict circumstances--"
"I am aware of that, yes." Desire keeps peering at the child. Delirium takes people later in life, as does its twin; Dream only has eyes for those conceived in his realm, which is rare enough that it's not really an issue. Destruction is still fucked off to the bottom end of wherever, and Death is extremely strict about playing favorites. Destiny has no need for favorites, and if he did, he certainly wouldn't say.
"And since you didn't get this one on his mother, let alone give birth from his father's seed," Death starts, but Desire waves its hand.
"Don't be silly. I neither want nor need a successor. I just want--" It smiles brightly. "Well. I just want."
And it reaches in, perfectly unconcerned, and picks up the child.
He's small--Desire cannot stress that enough--but healthy enough, with a dark fringe of hair and little grasping fists. (Desire is extraordinarily fond of little grasping fists; it bodes well for later in life.) His eyes are the astonishing part, though: a clear, fathomless silver-blue, like there's a trace of Oberon's get a few generations back in his bloodline. It's possible.
He looks at Desire, smiling like the gleam of a knife, and giggles up at her.
"Hello, darling boy," it coos. "Oh, you're going to break hearts, aren't you? But everyone does that. Or almost everyone." She blows hair off his forehead, earning another series of giggles. "No, no, no. You're going to do so much worse than that."
She'd seen that gleam in a woman's eyes, once. Most people want like candle flames, it had told her, but you? You want like a forest fire.
This is like that. A bit. If you can compare a forest fire to those things that wipe out hundreds of acres before it's contained.
"Darling boy," Desire whispers, and tickles his feet. "Darling
."
"Don't hog him," Despair says, and reaches out her greedy hands. Desire has always loved that about her. "It's my turn."
Death just watches them, silent, mouth a thin line.
*
Damon is eight when he sees the lady.
Being eight is extremely dull. He's too short to ride a horse, and his father's always busy with work, so it's up to Damon to amuse himself. This tends to involve reading, or attending to whichever nanny is currently employed, or taking care of Stefan. (The parts with the books and Stefan are all right, though not the nanny. Nannies always think he's getting into something, which irritates him, which makes him want to do something. It's vexing.)
But right now, Stefan's busy learning his letters with Madamoiselle Reinette, and Damon's snuck out to find something to do. He already knows his letters, after all. He is the oldest.
He's just hopping down the steps, wondering if it's worth the probable switching he'll earn to sneak out to Muir Woods and see if he can make a fort or something when he sees her: just walking up to the house like it's nothing, like she's a guest of his father. Which is ridiculous, because Damon and Stefan always get trotted out when their father has guests, but that's not the point.
Damon stops dead and just stares at her.
"Hello," the woman says. She has a husky voice, and her dress is a deep, rich red. Burgandy, his mother would have called it; his memories of his mother are thin at best, but she was very good with colors and numbers and letters. It was one of the reasons his father had married her. "You must be Damon."
He blinks, startled--this woman knows his name!--but recovers quickly and bows. It's not great, but it's not terrible, either. "Hello," he says, and shakes his head. "Do--do I know you?"
He really shouldn't be so forward to a stranger, especially a woman, but she just laughs. It's a nice laugh. "You don't remember me," she says kindly. "I met you right after you were born."
"Oh." His eyes feel huge. "You knew my mother?"
"I know a lot of people," the woman says, which isn't actually an answer. "But yes, I knew your mother. I know your father, actually, though I don't think he'd remember me." She shrugs, exposing one pale shoulder, lovely and curved and clean-lined. "I'm not very memorable."
"Yes you are," Damon blurts out, and turns bright red. "I. I shouldn't have said that."
Instead of offended, the woman just smiles. "Yes you should. You should never be afraid to feel things, Damon. Good, bad, it doesn't matter. Not feeling is the worst thing you can do." She glances at him, mouth turning into a different kind of smile. This one says she knows a secret. "Of course, there are times to say such things aloud, and there are times to keep that feeling to yourself. But you'll figure that out."
"I know that already." He figured that out the first time he answered back to his father without thinking first and earned a slap to the back of his head. He's little, not dumb. "It's just stupid."
She stops and looks at him, one perfectly arched eyebrow raised. "What do you mean?"
Damon looks at her for a moment. It's not the sort of thing you should say in front of an adult--a lady, no less--and she'd just said there were moments he should hold his tongue. But she'd also said he shouldn't be afraid to feel things. And isn't saying something true just a way of feeling things? Out loud?
"People say stuff they don't mean all the time," he finally declares. "And I know it's polite, and there are things you shouldn't say to people, and that's okay. I know how to talk to ladies and stuff, and adults. But my father says there are times--" he thinks about the wording; his father is very precise "--there are times a small lie keeps the peace better than a big truth, and that's just dumb. If you don't want to hurt someone's feelings, then don't say it, but don't lie, either. That's not any better." He takes a breath, and adds, "Like with Stefan."
The woman crouches down, meeting his eyes. "What do you mean?"
He bites his lip and looks at her. This is so--he's going to get switched for this for sure.
"My mother never got better after she had my brother," he explains. "She stayed weak for a long time and then..." He has to stop and wipe at his face. "And my father tells Stefan it's not his fault, and it--"
Another lip bite.
"It is," Damon says. "A little. Because if she hadn't had him, she wouldn't have gotten so weak and never recovered. But that doesn't mean I'd ever tell him, because he's my brother and I love him, and if I told him he would be sad. I don't ever want to make Stefan sad," he says, staring up at the woman. "So I just wouldn't say anything. That's better than lying." He pauses. "...right?"
"Personally," the woman says, after a few moments' reflection, "I would always advocate telling the truth, even if it's hurtful. But if I had to choose between those two particular option, yes. Yours is far more honest." She gets to her feet, neatly as Damon's ever seen.
"I like your brother," she adds. "Not as much as I like you, and there's going to be a whole swath of years I actually prefer him to you, but that's situational--"
Damon stares at her, brow furrowed, confused.
"Never mind," the woman says, and offers him her hand. "Come on. Tell me more about your mother."
Damon beams at her and takes it.
*
(He doesn't remember the woman later, just that he'd gotten back to his rooms without quite remembering how. He didn't earn a switching. But he'd looked at his father over dinner, watching him lie bald-faced to Mr. Fell, and thought: You are wrong. This is wrong.
Not that he'd said anything. He's little, not dumb.)
*
"How many times have we done this, now?" Desire asks, taking a drag off its cigarette. It and its sister are just beyond the treeline, watching intently as a carriage approaches the Salvatore home.
"Too many times to count," Despair says. "You'd think it'd get old after a while."
"Nonsense. It's like having a favorite book. You know what's going to happen, but that doesn't mean it's any less enjoyable." Desire smiles like winter ice and watches Katerina Petrova step out, eyes adjusting to the sight in front of her.
"Do you think he'll suffer?" Despair asks, head tilted.
Desire's glance catches on the two young men watching her, rapt. Its smile widens: a crack under the weight of footsteps. "They all will."
*
--and yeah, the 1970s were kind of a blur (and the 1980s, and most of 1902, and--look, he's lived a long time, sue him), but one thing sticks out clear enough for all that:
There was a guy in New York. He'd been in town as much to give the city another chance as to ruin Stefan's life--again--and he'd been in 54 when this guy had come up to him, tugged on his hand, and taken him into the shadows, already working at his belt.
His hair was dark, and his skin was pale, and he wasn't--something had been off, but not enough for him to give much of a shit. Off enough for him to not think more than twice about biting him, though, because you don't clear your hundredth birthday by being a total idiot.
"You have a name?" Damon had asked, halfway through.
The guy had just looked at him. "I cannot wait until you quit with this nonsense," he'd said, and then they'd stopped talking.
*
"Sister!" Desire calls. "Good to see you again! And here, of all places--"
"Can it, Desire," Death says, looking irritated. Desire lets itself feel pleased at that. "You know why I'm here."
"I know how often you're here, more importantly." Something a writer once said always sticks with Desire: some houses are born bad. It's strange for a human to be that insightful, but it happens on occasion. By that same token, some places were--not bad, precisely, but. Loose. Untethered.
Fell's Church had been one of those places, and after it had burned, Mystic Falls had risen in its place, like some sort of town-shaped phoenix. The lack of tethers had remained.
"That doesn't explain why you're here," Death says.
"Isn't it obvious?" Desire whistles, briefly, and watches a crow light on the branch above its head. "My boy's coming home."
Death pinches the bridge of her nose. "Desire--"
"You can go," Desire says. "He won't be here for - oh, minutes yet. You'll know when you're needed."
*
It's probably very unprofessional for Desire to start laughing when Katerina shrugs one pale shoulder and tells Damon the truth--that she's never loved him, it's always been Stefan--but never let it be said that Desire is a bastion of professionalism.
It's also probably not politic for Despair to start smiling, but her hooks are already digging into his heart, tugging and ripping things free.
That, at least, is professional.
*
Desire has never quite understood why its siblings don't appear to people more often. Dream, maybe, and Destruction walks among them like he's one of them, which is baffling, but not the rest of them. Not even Death, who genuinely likes people, but that makes sense. Still. People are delightful. Their continued existence means it and its siblings continue as well, and they break in amazing little pieces and shapes.
She slides out of the shadows in the little house (well, "little"; humans undoubtedly consider it a bit on the large side, but Desire has completely different standards) and waits for him to pour himself a drink before it speaks. "That," it says, "was stupid."
Damon, of course, doesn't seem surprised to see a stranger in his house. Anything mortal, supernatural or not, has that reaction to it and its siblings: at worst, vague confusion, more often a dim but steady sense that they know the "person" they're speaking to, if maybe not very well. "She doesn't get it," he says, raking a hand through his hair. "It's a ridiculous plan."
"It really is," Desire agrees. It takes a few steps closer. "Can you really take that risk?"
Damon glances at it. "What do you mean?"
"Your young lady is placing her faith in a creature thousands of years old and a potion he got from a witch five hundred years ago," Desire says. "Both are untested. You'd think she'd choose the more reliable option - the men who love her - but no. A three-quarters stranger and a magic drink." It sighs and shakes its head.
Damon stares into the depths of his drink and doesn't answer.
"If only," Desire adds, "there was another option."
It waits a moment, then scoots past him and down the stairs. It spots the dark-haired girl - not Katerina, which is a shame; Katerina practically sweats desire, albeit more of the "I want to live" variety than anything approaching romance or sexual activity - and touches her shoulder.
The girl turns. Her expression is shocked for a moment, then confused, before it clears. "Hi," she says.
"Hi," Desire says. "You know, he probably doesn't understand why you're doing this."
"Yeah." The girl - Elena! That's her name, Elena - looks a tiny bit worried. "I just--it's the best option available. I don't want anyone to die for m--"
"You don't have to explain to me," Desire says gently. "Might not be the worst idea to go try and explain it to him, though. I think he'd be more likely to listen if you didn't do it in front of Stefan and everyone else."
Elena's expression brightens, just a little. "You do?"
Desire laughs, delighted, and squeezes her arm. "What's the worst he could do?"
a/n: I tend to write Sandman crossovers with everything, but that's okay; Sandman is literally designed to cross over with everything. It baffles me that more people don't write them.
Desire is maybe my least favorite of the Endless, though the line quoted in the story - "Most people want like a candle flame, you want like a forest fire" - is probably my favorite non-monologue passage Gaiman's written in Sandman.
I defy you to tell me someone better suited to being Desire's than Damon Salvatore.
The title is sort of a giveaway.
take me in, tender woman
by gale
SUMMARY: "This one," Desire says, "is mine." [TVD/Sandman crossover; 2,559 words]
Desire stands at its sister's shoulder and watches her fuss over the child in the crib. She always does that. Desire doesn't understand, and never will; but then, understanding isn't necessary for its function. "He's very small," it says.
Death doesn't startle. Of all its siblings, Death is the hardest to surprise. That doesn't mean Desire's going to stop trying. "Babies tend to be small, Desire," she says patiently. "They get bigger. Form and function, remember?"
"Mmn." Desire peers in, careful not to touch its sister, and runs a pale finger across the baby's forehead. "Small," it says again, "but pleasant enough."
"It's nature's way of making sure the parents don't abandon them on a hillside," Despair says, voice grating and sonorous. She stands at the foot of the crib, never too far from Desire. They are twins, after all. "I mean, more often than they do as it is."
Death's mouth is a thin line. "Ah," she says. She looks irritated, but her voice is nonplussed. "You know, you both don't have to be here. Come to think of it, neither of you--"
"This one," Desire says, "is mine."
Death blinks at it. "They're not tithes, Desire," she says, and there's maybe a touch of sharpness in her voice. "The only ones we can claim come under very strict circumstances--"
"I am aware of that, yes." Desire keeps peering at the child. Delirium takes people later in life, as does its twin; Dream only has eyes for those conceived in his realm, which is rare enough that it's not really an issue. Destruction is still fucked off to the bottom end of wherever, and Death is extremely strict about playing favorites. Destiny has no need for favorites, and if he did, he certainly wouldn't say.
"And since you didn't get this one on his mother, let alone give birth from his father's seed," Death starts, but Desire waves its hand.
"Don't be silly. I neither want nor need a successor. I just want--" It smiles brightly. "Well. I just want."
And it reaches in, perfectly unconcerned, and picks up the child.
He's small--Desire cannot stress that enough--but healthy enough, with a dark fringe of hair and little grasping fists. (Desire is extraordinarily fond of little grasping fists; it bodes well for later in life.) His eyes are the astonishing part, though: a clear, fathomless silver-blue, like there's a trace of Oberon's get a few generations back in his bloodline. It's possible.
He looks at Desire, smiling like the gleam of a knife, and giggles up at her.
"Hello, darling boy," it coos. "Oh, you're going to break hearts, aren't you? But everyone does that. Or almost everyone." She blows hair off his forehead, earning another series of giggles. "No, no, no. You're going to do so much worse than that."
She'd seen that gleam in a woman's eyes, once. Most people want like candle flames, it had told her, but you? You want like a forest fire.
This is like that. A bit. If you can compare a forest fire to those things that wipe out hundreds of acres before it's contained.
"Darling boy," Desire whispers, and tickles his feet. "Darling
."
"Don't hog him," Despair says, and reaches out her greedy hands. Desire has always loved that about her. "It's my turn."
Death just watches them, silent, mouth a thin line.
*
Damon is eight when he sees the lady.
Being eight is extremely dull. He's too short to ride a horse, and his father's always busy with work, so it's up to Damon to amuse himself. This tends to involve reading, or attending to whichever nanny is currently employed, or taking care of Stefan. (The parts with the books and Stefan are all right, though not the nanny. Nannies always think he's getting into something, which irritates him, which makes him want to do something. It's vexing.)
But right now, Stefan's busy learning his letters with Madamoiselle Reinette, and Damon's snuck out to find something to do. He already knows his letters, after all. He is the oldest.
He's just hopping down the steps, wondering if it's worth the probable switching he'll earn to sneak out to Muir Woods and see if he can make a fort or something when he sees her: just walking up to the house like it's nothing, like she's a guest of his father. Which is ridiculous, because Damon and Stefan always get trotted out when their father has guests, but that's not the point.
Damon stops dead and just stares at her.
"Hello," the woman says. She has a husky voice, and her dress is a deep, rich red. Burgandy, his mother would have called it; his memories of his mother are thin at best, but she was very good with colors and numbers and letters. It was one of the reasons his father had married her. "You must be Damon."
He blinks, startled--this woman knows his name!--but recovers quickly and bows. It's not great, but it's not terrible, either. "Hello," he says, and shakes his head. "Do--do I know you?"
He really shouldn't be so forward to a stranger, especially a woman, but she just laughs. It's a nice laugh. "You don't remember me," she says kindly. "I met you right after you were born."
"Oh." His eyes feel huge. "You knew my mother?"
"I know a lot of people," the woman says, which isn't actually an answer. "But yes, I knew your mother. I know your father, actually, though I don't think he'd remember me." She shrugs, exposing one pale shoulder, lovely and curved and clean-lined. "I'm not very memorable."
"Yes you are," Damon blurts out, and turns bright red. "I. I shouldn't have said that."
Instead of offended, the woman just smiles. "Yes you should. You should never be afraid to feel things, Damon. Good, bad, it doesn't matter. Not feeling is the worst thing you can do." She glances at him, mouth turning into a different kind of smile. This one says she knows a secret. "Of course, there are times to say such things aloud, and there are times to keep that feeling to yourself. But you'll figure that out."
"I know that already." He figured that out the first time he answered back to his father without thinking first and earned a slap to the back of his head. He's little, not dumb. "It's just stupid."
She stops and looks at him, one perfectly arched eyebrow raised. "What do you mean?"
Damon looks at her for a moment. It's not the sort of thing you should say in front of an adult--a lady, no less--and she'd just said there were moments he should hold his tongue. But she'd also said he shouldn't be afraid to feel things. And isn't saying something true just a way of feeling things? Out loud?
"People say stuff they don't mean all the time," he finally declares. "And I know it's polite, and there are things you shouldn't say to people, and that's okay. I know how to talk to ladies and stuff, and adults. But my father says there are times--" he thinks about the wording; his father is very precise "--there are times a small lie keeps the peace better than a big truth, and that's just dumb. If you don't want to hurt someone's feelings, then don't say it, but don't lie, either. That's not any better." He takes a breath, and adds, "Like with Stefan."
The woman crouches down, meeting his eyes. "What do you mean?"
He bites his lip and looks at her. This is so--he's going to get switched for this for sure.
"My mother never got better after she had my brother," he explains. "She stayed weak for a long time and then..." He has to stop and wipe at his face. "And my father tells Stefan it's not his fault, and it--"
Another lip bite.
"It is," Damon says. "A little. Because if she hadn't had him, she wouldn't have gotten so weak and never recovered. But that doesn't mean I'd ever tell him, because he's my brother and I love him, and if I told him he would be sad. I don't ever want to make Stefan sad," he says, staring up at the woman. "So I just wouldn't say anything. That's better than lying." He pauses. "...right?"
"Personally," the woman says, after a few moments' reflection, "I would always advocate telling the truth, even if it's hurtful. But if I had to choose between those two particular option, yes. Yours is far more honest." She gets to her feet, neatly as Damon's ever seen.
"I like your brother," she adds. "Not as much as I like you, and there's going to be a whole swath of years I actually prefer him to you, but that's situational--"
Damon stares at her, brow furrowed, confused.
"Never mind," the woman says, and offers him her hand. "Come on. Tell me more about your mother."
Damon beams at her and takes it.
*
(He doesn't remember the woman later, just that he'd gotten back to his rooms without quite remembering how. He didn't earn a switching. But he'd looked at his father over dinner, watching him lie bald-faced to Mr. Fell, and thought: You are wrong. This is wrong.
Not that he'd said anything. He's little, not dumb.)
*
"How many times have we done this, now?" Desire asks, taking a drag off its cigarette. It and its sister are just beyond the treeline, watching intently as a carriage approaches the Salvatore home.
"Too many times to count," Despair says. "You'd think it'd get old after a while."
"Nonsense. It's like having a favorite book. You know what's going to happen, but that doesn't mean it's any less enjoyable." Desire smiles like winter ice and watches Katerina Petrova step out, eyes adjusting to the sight in front of her.
"Do you think he'll suffer?" Despair asks, head tilted.
Desire's glance catches on the two young men watching her, rapt. Its smile widens: a crack under the weight of footsteps. "They all will."
*
--and yeah, the 1970s were kind of a blur (and the 1980s, and most of 1902, and--look, he's lived a long time, sue him), but one thing sticks out clear enough for all that:
There was a guy in New York. He'd been in town as much to give the city another chance as to ruin Stefan's life--again--and he'd been in 54 when this guy had come up to him, tugged on his hand, and taken him into the shadows, already working at his belt.
His hair was dark, and his skin was pale, and he wasn't--something had been off, but not enough for him to give much of a shit. Off enough for him to not think more than twice about biting him, though, because you don't clear your hundredth birthday by being a total idiot.
"You have a name?" Damon had asked, halfway through.
The guy had just looked at him. "I cannot wait until you quit with this nonsense," he'd said, and then they'd stopped talking.
*
"Sister!" Desire calls. "Good to see you again! And here, of all places--"
"Can it, Desire," Death says, looking irritated. Desire lets itself feel pleased at that. "You know why I'm here."
"I know how often you're here, more importantly." Something a writer once said always sticks with Desire: some houses are born bad. It's strange for a human to be that insightful, but it happens on occasion. By that same token, some places were--not bad, precisely, but. Loose. Untethered.
Fell's Church had been one of those places, and after it had burned, Mystic Falls had risen in its place, like some sort of town-shaped phoenix. The lack of tethers had remained.
"That doesn't explain why you're here," Death says.
"Isn't it obvious?" Desire whistles, briefly, and watches a crow light on the branch above its head. "My boy's coming home."
Death pinches the bridge of her nose. "Desire--"
"You can go," Desire says. "He won't be here for - oh, minutes yet. You'll know when you're needed."
*
It's probably very unprofessional for Desire to start laughing when Katerina shrugs one pale shoulder and tells Damon the truth--that she's never loved him, it's always been Stefan--but never let it be said that Desire is a bastion of professionalism.
It's also probably not politic for Despair to start smiling, but her hooks are already digging into his heart, tugging and ripping things free.
That, at least, is professional.
*
Desire has never quite understood why its siblings don't appear to people more often. Dream, maybe, and Destruction walks among them like he's one of them, which is baffling, but not the rest of them. Not even Death, who genuinely likes people, but that makes sense. Still. People are delightful. Their continued existence means it and its siblings continue as well, and they break in amazing little pieces and shapes.
She slides out of the shadows in the little house (well, "little"; humans undoubtedly consider it a bit on the large side, but Desire has completely different standards) and waits for him to pour himself a drink before it speaks. "That," it says, "was stupid."
Damon, of course, doesn't seem surprised to see a stranger in his house. Anything mortal, supernatural or not, has that reaction to it and its siblings: at worst, vague confusion, more often a dim but steady sense that they know the "person" they're speaking to, if maybe not very well. "She doesn't get it," he says, raking a hand through his hair. "It's a ridiculous plan."
"It really is," Desire agrees. It takes a few steps closer. "Can you really take that risk?"
Damon glances at it. "What do you mean?"
"Your young lady is placing her faith in a creature thousands of years old and a potion he got from a witch five hundred years ago," Desire says. "Both are untested. You'd think she'd choose the more reliable option - the men who love her - but no. A three-quarters stranger and a magic drink." It sighs and shakes its head.
Damon stares into the depths of his drink and doesn't answer.
"If only," Desire adds, "there was another option."
It waits a moment, then scoots past him and down the stairs. It spots the dark-haired girl - not Katerina, which is a shame; Katerina practically sweats desire, albeit more of the "I want to live" variety than anything approaching romance or sexual activity - and touches her shoulder.
The girl turns. Her expression is shocked for a moment, then confused, before it clears. "Hi," she says.
"Hi," Desire says. "You know, he probably doesn't understand why you're doing this."
"Yeah." The girl - Elena! That's her name, Elena - looks a tiny bit worried. "I just--it's the best option available. I don't want anyone to die for m--"
"You don't have to explain to me," Desire says gently. "Might not be the worst idea to go try and explain it to him, though. I think he'd be more likely to listen if you didn't do it in front of Stefan and everyone else."
Elena's expression brightens, just a little. "You do?"
Desire laughs, delighted, and squeezes her arm. "What's the worst he could do?"
a/n: I tend to write Sandman crossovers with everything, but that's okay; Sandman is literally designed to cross over with everything. It baffles me that more people don't write them.
Desire is maybe my least favorite of the Endless, though the line quoted in the story - "Most people want like a candle flame, you want like a forest fire" - is probably my favorite non-monologue passage Gaiman's written in Sandman.
I defy you to tell me someone better suited to being Desire's than Damon Salvatore.