by Christy Shorey and you

ARCHIVE: NOV. 28 edited for spelling and grammar

2903 words

Dresden was looking through the books Margot had left stacked on the table for him. When he had arrived after work, he was excited to finally learn about Margot's past. Unfortunately that past had caught up with her, and she'd had to come home during the day to return to an easier form. "She's been working too hard," Kyle confided in Dresden when he arrived, and told him that Margot would be available later. He mentioned that she was in a bad mood because of being forced to change earlier that she expected, and suggested Dresden sit quietly until she was ready "That's what I always do."

So Dresden tried to ignore the crashing and banging that was coming from Margot's room, tried to ignore the ranting that invaded his mind as loud as a shout. When she finally quieted down, he wondered what new repair project he would have in the near future. *Kyle, please come here* came the request, and Kyle got up without hesitation.

A few minutes later he emerged with Margot, in her dragon form, on a harness at the end of a leash. Dresden looked upon the situation with a mix of fascination and horror. "You aren't, you aren't going out like that, are you?"

Margot's voice rang irritably in his head. *I'm projecting an image of a dog, and that's what people will see -except for a select few, and I can't be bothered to find out if more of you are out there before I go out.*

"Oh," was all Dresden said, but Margot snapped at him *I need space, and air, when I'm in this form. Being in this house is like being in a jail cell to a dragon.*

Dresden held up his hands to show he didn't question her reasons, though the thought had crossed his mind. Kyle seemed to be oblivious to the exchange, and only perked up when Margot started to pull him towards the door.

Dresden turned back to the books, idly flipping the pages, and wondered if it would just be better to go home for the day, rather than deal with Margot's bad mood, which watching her as a dragon, was really quite frightening. He decided to stay, partially to ensure her ire didn't turn to him for abandoning her, partially because he still hoped that she would delve into her history, and finally explain what her searching was all about.

A knock at the front door interrupted his thoughts, and Dresden went to answer it. It was a courier with a package for Margot. Dresden explained she was unavailable, and she gave the pen for him to sign for the package. He took the box from her, and wondered if it was more books when the red-haired girl spoke up.

"You're the one who got that big box a few weeks back," she said, and Dresden realized that he did recognize her.

"Yes," he said.

"I hope whatever it was, it was a good thing," she said, still standing on the front step.

"Actually, my roommate took all the shoes from the box, that's what it was, and opened a shoe store."

"Oh. Um, I don't suppose Kyle is here?"

Dresden recognized the look that played across her face, adolescent love; he saw it enough in his classes to see the telltale marks. He gave a small smile, and shook his head. "Sorry, he's out walking...the dog."

The look on the courier's face shifted to one of panic, and she hastily took a step back. "Right, sorry," she said, and quickly scurried down the sidewalk to her vehicle.

Dresden shook his head, and took the package inside. He set it aside for Margot's inspection upon the completion of her walk, and wondered what she had done to make the girl so nervous.

***

Lacey stopped by Dresden's place after work. She was surprised when Lional opened the door. He was equally surprised when she asked for Dresden. She quickly explained that she heard about him from a friend of hers who was a principal, who had asked her to do an informal evaluation of him, as a favor. She explained that parents wanted assurances that the teachers of their children were decent community people, and thus had taken volunteers to talk to teachers at random.

She quickly found out he wasn't home, and returned to her townhouse. When Logan got home, she explained that Dresden had an after-work job that left him out of the house most days of the week. "It may be a little trickier than I thought to find him."

Logan shrugged, and plopped down in the chair, George quickly hoping into his lap and settling down with a rumbling purr.

"Are you okay?"

"Long day at work. After lunch the news came in that the professor I work for hadn't actually completed all the paperwork to achieve tenure, and there was a great fuss the rest of the day, most especially from him. He practically went into hiding, using me as a shield to keep people out."

  Lacey felt her heart sink, "I suppose that means you aren't up to review dreams today."

Logan put a hand over his eyes. "Not really. I just want to lay down."

Lacey smiled, and sprung up from the sofa. "Can you make dinner, I want to try something with the device, but it will take some tinkering."

"Don't break it."

Lacey bounded out of the room, and up to Logan's bedroom. She fitted the necklace into place, and started playing with the controls from the list of dreamers. She was still at it when Logan came in with two plates with sandwiches. He watched her tinkering, and sat down to eat, but didn't bother to ask what she was doing.

It took some adjusting, but she finally figured out how to do what she wanted. Only then did she take the sandwich, and settled in to eat.

"Are you done?" Logan said, indicating to the device. "I want to go to sleep soon."

Lacey nodded, and took their plates, she used the last bit of crust from her bread to mop of the stray bits of peanut butter from his plate, and the few flakes of tuna that remained on hers. She found after she had opened up to Logan, she felt comfortable telling him about more than just her past. He had been hesitant to the Jiffy and Star-Kist sandwiches at first, but she made him try one, and he had agreed that the combination was a satisfying meal.

"Don't worry, I want to get to sleep too. Hopefully we'll both have a good dream."

"After that meal, I'm not so sure," Logan joked, but he lay down and fell quickly asleep.

***

Lacey stood in her townhouse, but it was different from the real world one. Remnants of the apartment she and her mother had lived in after her father had died were overlaid in the rooms. She wandered into the townhouse kitchen, which was decorated with the colors from her mother's kitchen, rather than the sterile white of her current house.

There were two sandwiches at the table, and Lacey sat down, wondering who the second sandwich was for when her mother walked in the room. It didn't seem strange for her to be there, though. "You need to eat up, dear," her mother said, pushing one of the plates to her. Lacey saw the telltale texture of the peanut butter, and realized that it was the brand her mother insisted on buying, Peter Pan, not the Jiffy she had come to prefer. She suspected the tuna to be bumblebee, and not Star-Kist, as well. She looked at the other sandwich, and told her mother "This one is not mine," Lacey reached for the other sandwich, and had almost pulled the plate to her when the sandwich hoped off and skittered back towards her mother.

Lacey pushed the plate with the offensive sandwich away from her, and the sandwich likewise skittered off it's plate, this one towards Lacey.

"Eat your sandwich, dear," her mother said, but she protested that she didn't want that one. The sandwich in front of her said "What, I'm not good enough?"

The sandwich in front of her mother said "Of course not. You shouldn't exist, mother is gone."

"Don't say that," said the bumblebee sandwich, and it leapt across the table, engaging the Star-Kist sandwich in fierce battle.

Lacey watched, enthralled, and she realized with horror that the Star-Kist had gained the upper hand, and was gnawing at the other. At that moment, Lacey's father's typewriter landed with a thud on the table. It typed furiously, and words appeared on the page. "Can't we all just get along?" It protested, but the sandwiches wouldn't stop. The typewriter finally succeeded in pulling the Star-Kist off the bumblebee, and Lacey turned to her mother to see if she had seen the oddity of the fight, only to find her mother had been replaced with a giant peanut butter and tuna sandwich herself.

"What's wrong? I my brand not good enough for you Lacey?" The sandwich spoke with her mother's voice, and was waving generic peanut butter in one hand, and throwing cans of off-brand tuna at her like throwing stars with the other. Lacey managed to dodge the first, but the second one struck her in the head. She shrieked, and the typewriter hoped up to intervene, but it was knocked down by the next can of tuna.

A flood of smaller sandwiches piled into the room, and started their own battles. Lacey tried to escape, but one of the sandwiches won over the others, and blocked her way to the door. The sandwich took the form of her mother, and said, "I'm hungry Lacey, and I'm tired of tuna and peanut butter."

Her mother's hands were covered with peanut butter, and Lacey felt as if she were shrinking as she tried to run away. Sticky hands picked her up, and thrust her into a slimy, fishy mouth. "Albacore!" Lacey yelled, certain she faced her final doom. A rumbling shook the floor, and shook her free from her mother's hands. The earthquake split the floor of the kitchen, and Lacey fell in, hitting her head, and blacking out.

She sat up, and saw that she had been in bed the entire time. She slipped out of bed, and fell through the crack in the bedroom floor. She fell and fell, but landed on something soft after a while. It took her a moment to realize it was a creature, a mammoth to be exact. She looked around, and noticed the mammoth was equipped with some sort of device on its sides. She was looking at the gun-like devices when she heard a loud roar, and saw the form of a giant t-rex over her. She mashed the trigger on the gun, and a laser shot out of the barrel, stunning the dinosaur. She went to move away, and saw another T-Rex behind her, "Now that wasn't very sporting of you, lassie, was it?"   Lacey wondered at the English accent on the beast, wondering why it sounded like Cary Elwes from that Robin Hood movie. As if he could read her thoughts, the dinosaur said, "It makes us sound sophisticated, doesn't it? It's hard to kill in cold blood a creature that sounds as if it is from your mother land."

Lacey shook her head, and shot this t-rex with a laser. "I never liked that accent" she said, and found that the dinosaurs were reviving. She directed the mammoth out of the area as she tried to figure out the controls on the laser, to make them deadly. Many English voices cried up in protest, but she ignored them, mashing buttons at random now.

The mammoth made good time, and soon they were far enough away that Lacey could take the opportunity to see that the creature was taking her through her hometown.   Then, on the roof she saw a familiar figure in black, watching the proceedings. And she knew that she had to reach him, that the fighting, the dinosaurs and sandwiches, even her mother, had been distractions to keep her from noticing him. Flinging herself off the mammoth, she ran closer to the mystery man, whose face was still hidden, even though she knew that she should know what it looked like.

As always the man seemed to be getting further away from her. She cried out in frustration, and woke up to her own scream.

Logan woke up from the dream, and was shaking. He made his way to Lacey's room, and saw her just sitting up herself. He could see the relief on her face as she saw him, though she was clutching her stomach.

"I guess the sandwich didn't sit right with you?" Logan said, and watched as she turned slightly green. He fetched a bottle of Tums from her bathroom, and handed them to her.

When she had taken one, and a big sip of her water, she looked at him. "I still couldn't reach you."

Logan shook his head. "Are all your dreams that weird?"

Lacey shook her head, still looking slight green around the gills. "No, but I did it, right. You saw the dream, and I kept it. We should check if the device caught it."

Logan blinked down at her. "I'm not sure I want to ever experience that one again."

Lacey hit him, "That's not the point," she said, and excused herself to the bathroom. Logan stood up and headed back to his own room, confident in the fact that their supply of tuna would quickly be disposed of, and perhaps all the peanut butter as well. He lay back down in his bed, and reached over to pull the necklace from the holder on the nightstand. He was ready for a night of dreamless sleep.

***

Margot got back to the house in as foul a mood as when she had left. Margot had spent too much energy on the database project for work, only to find that Rose was back, and was now filtering the records that were being used in the trial. Rose had also been assigned to supervise the temp workers and interns when they started on the project, meaning that Margot's actions were hindered.

Dresden met her at the door, but she pushed out some of her mood on him *Not now* she thought at him, and he retreated into her room. She curled up on the bed, but it was no good. She kept hearing the voice of the first intern who had arrived, a friend of Rose's named Trevor. He had a way of speaking that made his breath seem uneven. He also had poor control on the pitch, each sentence rising at the end, as if he was an endless question. Everything else he spoke was in his breathy monotone, interspersed with snorts and wheezes. Just thinking about it made her mad again.

She stormed out of the room, and went to find Kyle. Usually he had a way to make her feel better. She found him sitting at the table across from Dresden, looking at a box on the table.

*What's that* Margot asked, walking over and putting her head on the table. Dresden looked up, but didn't startle this time, as he had when he saw her earlier. She considered that a good sign. With the way things were going, she couldn't afford for him to be scared of her in this form.

"I don't know. Courier dropped it off while you were out. Did you get more books?"

Margot shook her head. *No*

Kyle spoke then, "Don't be mad. I order them for you."

Margot turned her small eyes to the blond youth. He looked ashamed, and she wondered what he had managed to do this time. *Well, I can't open it in this form, so will you do it for me?* she said, and Kyle was bouncing off the seat to reach the box.

He tore it open the box, but held his body between Margot to hide the contents. He turned to look down at her again. "Are you sure you won't be mad?"

*What is it Kyle?*

And then he was holding his hands with a box set of DVDs, awaiting her approval. It was season four of Xena. Margot blinked at him, then looked at the set again.

*Does that one have Ides of March?*

Kyle nodded, and Margot sent out a wave of warm feelings to him. *Thank you*

"Do you want to watch it?"

*Yes, that would be nice.*

Kyle left the room. Margot could feel the disbelief radiating from her other pet. She turned to look at the gray haired man. *Yes?*

"You... You watch XENA?"

She glared at him, and turned her head away. *Let's just say I started to study them for my own reasons, but found that I can really relate to some of the episodes*

"You watch Xena?"

*Look, I'm in a bad mood. You can either stay and watch with me, or sit here and work, or you can go home. But don't expect me to humor any more stupid questions.* she thought at him, and stormed off to the living room where Kyle was waiting.