by Christy Shorey and you

ARCHIVE: NOV. 10 edited for spelling and grammar

1941 words

As hesitant as Dresden was to leave his housemate alone with the box of shoes that comprised the entirety of his inheritance from his grandmother, Raul had pointed out that Dresden did have a job interview scheduled at the English department on campus.

"Right, thanks," Dresden said, taking his calendar from Raul's hand, who had collected it from his room and had been gesturing and pointing at the circled date frantically while Dresden had watched Guido taking out and examining the individual pairs of shoes, making exclamations at several of the more exotic items.

By the time he had emerged from his room, wearing his only suit, and a tie borrowed from Raul, the shoes had been lined up on the kitchen table, and arranged in some pattern that Guido had determined.

"Right. I've got an interview, but I expect it won't take very long. I figure I'd tell them up front that I'm only suspended, and not really available for the job. But I wanted to show up in person. I'll be back soon," he said.

Guido waved a distracted hand. "Take your time," he said, his attention focused on the notepad he now had in his hand. Dresden suppressed a sigh, figuring it would be in the best interest of his continued health, and headed out to the university.

Realizing the perils of parking on a university campus during a school day, Dresden resigned himself to taking the bus to campus. He arrived ten minutes before his scheduled interview time, and had to rush to make it to the English department across campus. He introduced himself to the boy who was sitting behind the main counter as being there for an interview with professor Thomas.

The boy looked up at him, and gave him a smile. "I'll let him know," he said, his smile falling off his face as soon as he looked away from Dresden, immediately replaced by a bored look.

Dresden ended up waiting for twenty minutes for the professor to be ready for him. When he was finally escorted back to meet him, Dresden had grown sleepy again, and realized he had forgotten to eat breakfast. All in all Dr. Thomas seemed impressed with Dresden's resume, and had even asked what his thesis had been about. They ended up discussing the ramifications of fantastical creatures from literature on the impact of current culture, and the carry forward of literary creatures throughout the ages for nearly half an hour. Dresden was fascinated with the subject, and thrilled to find someone he could have such an intellectual conversation with about the written word. The closest of his colleges at the high school had simply rolled her eyes when he tried to engage her in such a conversation, saying he had better give up his big academic dreams and learn quickly to teach the prescribed curriculum or else he'd end up having to look for a new job.

At the end of the interview, Dresden found himself thanking Dr. Thomas for his time, and inquiring as to when they hoped to fill the position. He was toying with the idea of accepting the position, if offered to him, and just submitting a letter of resignation to the principal. It's not like the high school was suddenly going to turn out students who actually enjoyed discussing English and literature. Hell, it was hard enough to get them to write full words in their assignments rather than the all-too-prevalent text-talk and chat-speak which carried over from their phone and computer conversations.

But then, as a secretary, he doubted this position would really give him the opportunity to butt heads with the true academia. The conversation today would likely be one of few that he would be privy to, and as Dr. Thomas had confided at the end of the conversation that he was late to the interview because he had just gotten tenure, and therefore didn't have to bother coming in early any longer, Dresden suspected that his efforts in literary criticism and study would rapidly decline as he settled into a secure position that didn't require anything more of him than teaching two undergraduate courses and two graduate seminars a semester. Some of his favorite teachers during college had achieved tenure during his time studying, and Dresden had grown depressed at how quickly they seemed to loose interest in the classes and went from being some of the best courses to the worst on the schedule.

Even with his suspension, he would have work, Dresden reminded himself as he headed back to the bus stop. Maybe Margot would have some advice as to what he should do in this situation. He was supposed to stop by her house after she got off work so they could work out what he'd be doing for her, and when he could complete the work.

In thinking about Margot he got excited that he would be seeing her again. He didn't quite understand it himself, but he felt drawn to her as he had not been drawn to anyone before. He pondered it as he waited for the right bus. She was an attractive woman, and mysterious, which added to her charm. But it didn't feel like any of the crushes he'd had before, nor did it quite align itself with the inklings of possibility he had felt at the beginning with his two girlfriends, granting that one had been four years previous, and the other even earlier in high school. Maybe attraction just felt different as one got older. Maybe it felt different when it was "the one." Maybe, he admitted to himself, it was just admiration for her, and not attraction. She was such a strong, independent woman, and she had a way about her that made you believe her when she told you it would be all right.

Dresden sighed, picturing her again, and trying to remember her smile as he tried to sort out his feelings. He didn't notice until too late that the latest bus to pull up to the shelter was the one he had waited for. He stood up as the doors closed, and he watched the bus pull away. Sitting back down he tried to keep his thoughts elsewhere as he waited for the next bus.

****

Logan woke up to the sound of an unfamiliar radio program. The curtains in his room had been closed, and the blinds lowered, making the room quite dark, though light emanated up from the lower part of his loft, where the windows were still open to the daylight. He felt frustrated and disoriented, and it took him several moments to remember why.

He had only fallen asleep a few hours before, after a night-long run of failures in getting into Lacey's dreams. He wasn't sure if that meant that she was the one he had been compelled to look for since he became aware that his previous lives were guiding him somewhere by means of the undesired, and sometimes untimely flashbacks. If she was, what did it mean?

Looking at the clock he realized it was ten minutes past noon, and that he hadn't awoken when the alarm had started to go off. He had promised to call Lacey at noon, and from what he knew of her, she would be anxious for his call. Mentally preparing himself to be berated for the tardiness of his call, he retrieved the phone from beside his bed. He dialed her number, and as the phone rang, retrieved the necklace from the nightstand.

Lacey answered after the second ring. "Logan?" she said, clearly trying to put on a tone that didn't sound too eager, and failing. "It is you, right?"

"Good morning, Lacey," Logan said, suppressing a yawn. "Sorry I'm late in calling, I just woke up."

"Really, I've been awake for hours. But then, I have work, so of course I've been awake for hours. Did you see me? In your dreams? I did, I saw you, only you kept running away from me like you used to. I thought maybe since we had met that would change." Her disappointment was clear even over the semi-static line.

"Oh, no. I didn't see you in any dreams last night," Logan said, his mind racing. If she had been dreaming of him, why hadn't he been able to capture any of those dreams? "Did you have a lot of dreams with the mystery man?"

"Oh, you were in almost all my dreams, all night. Some of them were new, but most of them were old ones I've had again and again. I could tell you about them, and see if maybe you remember them from other times."

Logan shook his head, confused. "No, I doubt I would remember them. Maybe I'm not the mystery man in your dreams."

There was a pause so long that Logan feared that Lacey had hung up. He was about to ask if she was still there when she finally said, "It had to be you."

Logan rubbed his hands over his eyes. He was still so tired, and it he wasn't sure if he would be able to handle a complex conversation over the probability, or rather improbability, of shared dreams. "Listen, I didn't really sleep well last night, honestly." He said.

"Oh, well maybe that's it. If you didn't make it until REM while I was there, maybe we COULDN'T have shared dreams last night. I was looking forward to seeing you, though."

"And I, you," Logan said.

There was a pause, then "That's really sweet. Thank you." Lacey then started to explain the efforts she had made to make herself visible to him in the dreams she had hoped to share with him. Logan stifled another yawn. "Do you think that would have worked?"

Logan had only been half-listening. He was still exhausted, and was trying to figure out if Lacey were the person he'd been seeking, if it was better to confront her, or to avoid her. "I really don't know. I don't really have expirence in -"

The phone in his hands was no longer the cordless black receiver, but was a strange looking device that felt awkward in his hands. Logan's bedroom had dissolved and instead of the simple black furniture and textured tan walls of the loft he was surrounded with elaborately carved wood furnishings and stone walls. Lacey's voice carried over the line "Logan, are you there?" but blended and almost merged with another voice, a male, who, from the sound of it, stood just behind Logan in the room. "You have to do something about him. It's gotten out of hand."

"What-?" Logan uttered, trying responding to the masculine voice, realizing his own sounded more feminine this time.

"Logan?" Lacey's voice was more distant, but he could hear the tinge of panic in them.

"Please, you are the only one who is anywhere near the level he is. You know that, and so does he."

"But he's got some sort of grudge against me," Logan found himself responding, as his past self had. "It's too dangerous."

"Logan! Are you all right?" cried a distant female voice. "You're scaring me."

Logan moved the device in front of his face, looking at the small screen on it. "Please seek out someone else."

"There is no one else," the male voice said.

Then exhaustion caught up to Logan, and both the stone walls and the normal tan blurred to gray. He could swear he heard someone calling out to him, but he was unable to answer as his perception faded to black.