"Somewhere I've Been Before" (Image & Text Copyright Wylddane Productions, LLC)
“Maybe the soul occasionally wanders ahead, just far enough to leave a light burning for us.”
~Wylddane
The dream came to Ethan sometime in his twenty-ninth winter.
He remembered the age because twenty-nine had seemed important then. Not important in the way eighteen or twenty-one had been, with their promises of doors opening, but important in the quieter, less forgiving way of realizing that some doors might never open at all.
By then Ethan had been in love.
Or at least he had called it love.
There had been men whose departures hurt. Men whose bodies he remembered long after he had forgotten the exact sound of their voices. There had been one who might have stayed if Ethan had asked and another Ethan might have followed if fear had not gotten in the way.
There had been affection.
There had been desire.
There had been loneliness.
But there had never been anything quite like the dream.
It began in a house he had never seen.
Snow covered the lawn outside, thick and luminous beneath the yellow glow of old-fashioned Christmas lights. Evergreen garlands framed the windows. Somewhere a fire was burning, and the house seemed filled with the fragrances of pine, cinnamon, roasting meat, coffee, and something buttery coming from the kitchen.
People were everywhere.
They moved through the rooms carrying glasses of wine and plates of food, laughing over one another, interrupting stories they had apparently heard a hundred times before. Someone had put on Christmas music—not the brassy department-store kind, but something orchestral and gentle.
Ethan stood in the kitchen holding a small plate.
There were three empty toothpicks on it.
A fourth appetizer was halfway to his mouth.
“You realize,” said a voice beside him, “that we're having dinner in about twenty minutes.”
Ethan turned.
The man leaning against the counter had wavy dark hair, brown eyes, and the kind of smile that seemed to begin in those eyes before reaching his mouth.
Ethan knew him.
That was the strangest thing.
He didn't know his name.
He didn't know where they had met.
He didn't know whether they had been together six months or six years.
But he knew the slight curl of hair over the man's forehead.
He knew the tiny crease that appeared beside his left eye when he smiled.
He knew what it felt like to wake beside him.
And he knew what those lips tasted like.
“I can't possibly eat dinner,” Ethan said. “I've eaten too many appetizers.”
The man glanced at Ethan's plate.
“You said that three appetizers ago.”
“I lack discipline.”
“You lack nothing.”
The words were teasing.
But the look accompanying them wasn't.
Something warm moved through Ethan.
The man stepped closer, pretending to reach behind Ethan for a wineglass, and his hand settled briefly at Ethan's waist.
It was such a small gesture.
Yet Ethan felt it everywhere.
Not simply desire, although there was certainly that.
Something else.
Something Ethan had spent much of his life wanting without knowing how to name it.
Belonging.
A woman entered the kitchen carrying a platter.
“There you two are. Make yourselves useful.”
The dark-haired man groaned.
“Mom—”
“Don't Mom me. Ethan, sweetheart, take this into the dining room before he eats everything.”
Ethan.
Sweetheart.
No hesitation.
No careful explanation of who he was.
No strange pause before friend.
No lowered voices.
No secret.
The man's mother kissed Ethan's cheek and disappeared back into the kitchen.
The dark-haired man watched her go.
“She likes you better than me.”
“She has excellent judgment.”
“I may have to reconsider this relationship.”
“You won't.”
“Oh?”
Ethan smiled.
“No.”
The man moved closer.
“Confident, aren't you?”
“Very.”
Someone walked past the kitchen doorway.
They waited.
Then the man kissed him.
Quickly at first.
Then not quickly at all.
Ethan felt himself pressed gently against the counter, the man's hand at the small of his back. Ethan's fingers found the soft dark hair at the back of his neck.
A voice called from somewhere nearby.
“You two had better not be doing what I think you're doing!”
They separated, laughing.
“Family,” the man whispered.
“You brought me here.”
“And I'd do it again.”
The dream shifted, as dreams do.
Dinner.
Candles.
Wine.
A dozen conversations.
Someone reaching across Ethan for potatoes.
Someone telling an embarrassing childhood story about the man beside him.
His lover protesting.
Ethan laughing until his eyes watered.
Later there were presents.
And there, hanging from the fireplace mantel among all the others, was a stocking.
ETHAN
His name stitched across the top.
He stared at it.
Such a foolish thing.
A Christmas stocking.
Yet suddenly the room seemed impossibly beautiful.
The tree lights blurred.
His throat tightened.
The man beside him noticed.
“You okay?”
Ethan looked at him.
And somewhere deep inside the strange certainty of the dream, he heard himself say words he had never consciously spoken before.
I am in love.
Not I think.
Not perhaps.
Not I hope.
I am in love.
And Ethan understood that love wasn't the dizzy uncertainty he had once mistaken for passion.
It wasn't waiting for the telephone to ring.
It wasn't wondering whether someone would stay.
It wasn't bargaining pieces of yourself away so another person might choose you.
It was this.
A hand finding yours beneath a Christmas table.
Someone's mother calling you sweetheart.
Your name on a ridiculous stocking.
Being expected tomorrow.
And the day after that.
And the day after that.
Then Ethan woke.
His bedroom was dark.
For several seconds he didn't understand.
He reached instinctively toward the other side of the bed.
Empty.
The realization came slowly.
There was no Christmas party.
No warm kitchen.
No stocking.
No dark-haired man with brown eyes.
Ethan lay very still.
“Damn,” he whispered.
Then, unexpectedly, he laughed.
But there were tears on his face.
Years passed.
Ethan sometimes thought about the dream.
At first frequently.
Then occasionally.
Eventually it became one of those peculiar memories stored in the attic of the mind—never discarded, merely covered by the dust of everything that came afterward.
Life happened.
There were jobs.
Moves.
Friends.
Deaths.
Birthdays.
Christmases.
There were men.
And then there was Daniel.
They met in October.
There was nothing mystical about it.
Certainly nothing that made Ethan think of dreams.
Daniel was standing outside a neighborhood bookstore in the rain, swearing at an umbrella that had turned itself inside out.
Ethan laughed.
Daniel looked at him.
“Are you enjoying this?”
“Immensely.”
“I'm being attacked by an umbrella.”
“And losing.”
Daniel stared at him for perhaps two seconds.
Then he started laughing too.
They had coffee.
Coffee became dinner.
Dinner became another dinner.
And another.
Daniel had dark hair, although Ethan didn't think anything of that.
Lots of men had dark hair.
His eyes were brown.
Lots of men had brown eyes.
What Ethan noticed instead was Daniel's curiosity.
He asked questions and listened to the answers.
He laughed easily.
He loved old movies, terrible puns, strong coffee, and walking in weather sensible people avoided.
Their first kiss happened beneath an awning after dinner one November night.
Rain was falling beyond them.
Daniel looked at Ethan.
Ethan looked at Daniel.
Neither spoke.
Then Daniel kissed him.
There are kisses that ask permission.
There are kisses that make promises.
And there are kisses that feel as though a conversation begun long ago has simply resumed.
This was the third kind.
Ethan went home with him.
The night that followed was tender and hungry and occasionally funny. A shirt button became temporarily uncooperative. Someone knocked an alarm clock from the bedside table. At one point Daniel whispered something into Ethan's ear that made Ethan laugh and pull him closer.
Later they lay tangled beneath the blankets.
Daniel traced a finger slowly across Ethan's shoulder.
“You're thinking.”
“I do that.”
“Dangerous habit.”
Ethan turned toward him.
Daniel's hair was tousled.
His brown eyes were half closed.
Something stirred at the edge of Ethan's memory.
Then disappeared.
“What?” Daniel asked.
“Nothing.”
Ethan kissed him.
“Absolutely nothing.”
Their first Christmas together was spent separately.
Daniel had already promised his family he would come home.
Ethan had plans with friends.
The following Christmas a blizzard intervened.
By their third Christmas together, Ethan had almost forgotten that he had never met Daniel's family.
Then, one December afternoon, Daniel said:
“My mother has issued a decree.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“You are coming home with me for Christmas.”
Ethan hesitated.
Daniel saw it.
“Hey.”
“What?”
“My family knows about us.”
“I know.”
“They know your name.”
“I know.”
“My mother already bought you something.”
“That is terrifying.”
“She wants you there.”
Ethan looked away.
Daniel reached across the table and took his hand.
“And so do I.”
Ethan squeezed his fingers.
“All right.”
“All right?”
“I'll come.”
Daniel smiled.
And for no reason Ethan could explain, his heart began pounding.
They arrived late on Christmas Eve afternoon.
Snow had been falling for hours.
Daniel turned onto a narrow residential street lined with old houses and towering evergreens.
“There,” he said.
Ethan looked.
A large white house stood back from the road.
Christmas lights glowed beneath the snow.
Evergreen garlands framed the windows.
Something moved inside Ethan.
A whisper.
A disturbance.
He ignored it.
Daniel's mother opened the door before they reached it.
“There you are!”
She hugged Daniel.
Then Ethan.
Not politely.
Not cautiously.
She hugged him.
“Ethan, sweetheart, you're freezing. Come inside.”
Ethan stopped breathing.
Sweetheart.
Somewhere.
Somewhere he had heard--
“Come on,” Daniel said.
The house was filled with people.
Laughter.
Music.
Food.
So much food.
Someone handed Ethan wine.
Someone else introduced themselves as Daniel's cousin and immediately told Ethan an embarrassing story about Daniel at age nine.
Ethan laughed.
But beneath the laughter something was happening.
Recognition without memory.
A hallway.
A staircase.
The angle of a doorway.
He had seen these things.
Impossible.
“Hungry?” Daniel asked.
“Starving.”
They entered the kitchen.
Ethan stopped.
On the counter sat a small ceramic Christmas tree.
Green.
White-tipped branches.
Tiny colored lights.
And suddenly--
Everything returned.
The dream.
The entire impossible dream.
The kitchen.
The snow.
The music.
The man.
Ethan stared at Daniel.
Wavy dark hair.
Brown eyes.
The crease beside his left eye.
Daniel picked up an appetizer.
“What?”
Ethan said nothing.
Daniel ate it.
“What?”
“I—”
Ethan looked around the room.
His heart was hammering.
He reached automatically toward a tray.
One appetizer.
Then another.
Then another.
Daniel watched him.
“Careful.”
Ethan froze.
Daniel nodded toward the food.
“We still have dinner coming.”
The room disappeared.
For one extraordinary second Ethan was twenty-nine again, waking alone in darkness.
Then he was here.
Standing inside the dream.
“Ethan?”
Daniel touched his arm.
“Where did you just go?”
Ethan looked into those brown eyes.
And somehow, despite everything happening inside him, he smiled.
“Somewhere I've been before.”
Daniel frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“I'll tell you later.”
“You're weird.”
“You have no idea.”
Daniel kissed his cheek.
His hand settled at Ethan's waist as he reached behind him for a wineglass.
Exactly there.
Exactly that gesture.
Ethan closed his eyes.
And somewhere deep inside himself, he heard the voice from years before.
I am in love.
Only this time it wasn't a dream.
Dinner passed in a haze of happiness.
And later, after presents had been opened, Ethan stood before the fireplace.
There were stockings hanging from the mantel.
Daniel.
Mom.
Dad.
Rebecca.
Michael.
And one more.
Ethan stepped closer.
ETHAN
His name was stitched across the top.
Daniel came up behind him.
“Mom made it.”
Ethan touched the letters.
“She made me a stocking?”
“She makes everybody stockings.”
Everybody.
Ethan swallowed.
Daniel saw his face.
“Hey.”
Ethan turned.
“I'm okay.”
“You sure?”
Ethan nodded.
“I think I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be.”
Daniel smiled.
“Good.”
He took Ethan's hand.
“Because you're expected back next year.”
Much later, the house became quiet.
The two of them climbed the stairs.
Daniel closed the bedroom door.
Ethan leaned against it.
Daniel looked at him.
“You've been strange all evening.”
“I've always been strange.”
“Stranger.”
Daniel stepped closer.
Ethan could smell wine and soap and the faint evergreen scent that seemed to permeate the entire house.
Daniel kissed him.
Ethan pulled him closer.
The kiss deepened.
Daniel's hands slipped beneath Ethan's sweater, warm against his back.
“Your family is downstairs,” Ethan whispered.
“They're asleep.”
“You don't know that.”
“I know this house.”
Footsteps sounded in the hallway.
They froze.
A door closed.
Silence.
Ethan began laughing.
Daniel buried his face against Ethan's neck to keep from doing the same.
Eventually clothes found their way to the floor.
The bedcovers became hopelessly tangled.
And sometime afterward Ethan lay with his head against Daniel's chest, listening to his heartbeat.
Snow brushed softly against the windows.
“Daniel?”
“Hmm?”
“I need to tell you something.”
And Ethan told him.
Everything.
The dream.
The kitchen.
The appetizers.
The stocking.
The hand at his waist.
The brown-eyed man he had loved without knowing his name.
Daniel listened quietly.
When Ethan finished, the room remained silent.
“Well?” Ethan finally said.
Daniel ran his fingers through Ethan's hair.
“You dreamed this?”
“Years before I met you.”
“This house?”
“Yes.”
“My mother?”
“I think so.”
“The stocking?”
“Yes.”
Daniel was quiet again.
Ethan lifted his head.
“You think I'm crazy.”
“No.”
“You think I'm making it up.”
“No.”
“Then say something.”
Daniel looked down at him.
A smile slowly appeared.
“What took you so long?”
Ethan stared at him.
Then laughed.
And somehow the laughter became tears.
Daniel pulled him closer.
Neither man tried to explain them.
Many years later, Ethan would still occasionally wonder about that dream.
He never found an answer.
Perhaps the mind performs strange tricks with memory.
Perhaps coincidence sometimes arrives dressed as destiny.
Perhaps we reshape old dreams to resemble the lives we eventually live.
Ethan could accept any of those explanations.
But on certain winter nights, when snow fell softly over the cedar cottage near Lone Pine and Stillwater Gleam disappeared beneath moonlight and ice, he allowed himself another possibility.
Perhaps time is not always the straight road we imagine.
Perhaps once in a very great while, some hidden part of us wanders ahead.
It finds a house glowing in the snow.
It hears laughter through the windows.
It sees the person waiting inside.
And then it returns to us carrying a small piece of the future.
Not enough to tell us how to get there.
Only enough to whisper:
Keep going.
There is something ahead of you.
For years Ethan believed the dream had been about finding Daniel.
Age taught him otherwise.
The dream had been about something larger.
It had shown him a place where he would no longer have to explain himself.
A table where someone expected him.
A family that knew his name.
A hand that reached for his without hesitation.
A ridiculous Christmas stocking hanging among all the others.
The dream had not promised Ethan that someday he would fall in love.
It had promised something much rarer.
That someday--
he would belong.
~Wylddane
~Wylddane
The dream came to Ethan sometime in his twenty-ninth winter.
He remembered the age because twenty-nine had seemed important then. Not important in the way eighteen or twenty-one had been, with their promises of doors opening, but important in the quieter, less forgiving way of realizing that some doors might never open at all.
By then Ethan had been in love.
Or at least he had called it love.
There had been men whose departures hurt. Men whose bodies he remembered long after he had forgotten the exact sound of their voices. There had been one who might have stayed if Ethan had asked and another Ethan might have followed if fear had not gotten in the way.
There had been affection.
There had been desire.
There had been loneliness.
But there had never been anything quite like the dream.
It began in a house he had never seen.
Snow covered the lawn outside, thick and luminous beneath the yellow glow of old-fashioned Christmas lights. Evergreen garlands framed the windows. Somewhere a fire was burning, and the house seemed filled with the fragrances of pine, cinnamon, roasting meat, coffee, and something buttery coming from the kitchen.
People were everywhere.
They moved through the rooms carrying glasses of wine and plates of food, laughing over one another, interrupting stories they had apparently heard a hundred times before. Someone had put on Christmas music—not the brassy department-store kind, but something orchestral and gentle.
Ethan stood in the kitchen holding a small plate.
There were three empty toothpicks on it.
A fourth appetizer was halfway to his mouth.
“You realize,” said a voice beside him, “that we're having dinner in about twenty minutes.”
Ethan turned.
The man leaning against the counter had wavy dark hair, brown eyes, and the kind of smile that seemed to begin in those eyes before reaching his mouth.
Ethan knew him.
That was the strangest thing.
He didn't know his name.
He didn't know where they had met.
He didn't know whether they had been together six months or six years.
But he knew the slight curl of hair over the man's forehead.
He knew the tiny crease that appeared beside his left eye when he smiled.
He knew what it felt like to wake beside him.
And he knew what those lips tasted like.
“I can't possibly eat dinner,” Ethan said. “I've eaten too many appetizers.”
The man glanced at Ethan's plate.
“You said that three appetizers ago.”
“I lack discipline.”
“You lack nothing.”
The words were teasing.
But the look accompanying them wasn't.
Something warm moved through Ethan.
The man stepped closer, pretending to reach behind Ethan for a wineglass, and his hand settled briefly at Ethan's waist.
It was such a small gesture.
Yet Ethan felt it everywhere.
Not simply desire, although there was certainly that.
Something else.
Something Ethan had spent much of his life wanting without knowing how to name it.
Belonging.
A woman entered the kitchen carrying a platter.
“There you two are. Make yourselves useful.”
The dark-haired man groaned.
“Mom—”
“Don't Mom me. Ethan, sweetheart, take this into the dining room before he eats everything.”
Ethan.
Sweetheart.
No hesitation.
No careful explanation of who he was.
No strange pause before friend.
No lowered voices.
No secret.
The man's mother kissed Ethan's cheek and disappeared back into the kitchen.
The dark-haired man watched her go.
“She likes you better than me.”
“She has excellent judgment.”
“I may have to reconsider this relationship.”
“You won't.”
“Oh?”
Ethan smiled.
“No.”
The man moved closer.
“Confident, aren't you?”
“Very.”
Someone walked past the kitchen doorway.
They waited.
Then the man kissed him.
Quickly at first.
Then not quickly at all.
Ethan felt himself pressed gently against the counter, the man's hand at the small of his back. Ethan's fingers found the soft dark hair at the back of his neck.
A voice called from somewhere nearby.
“You two had better not be doing what I think you're doing!”
They separated, laughing.
“Family,” the man whispered.
“You brought me here.”
“And I'd do it again.”
The dream shifted, as dreams do.
Dinner.
Candles.
Wine.
A dozen conversations.
Someone reaching across Ethan for potatoes.
Someone telling an embarrassing childhood story about the man beside him.
His lover protesting.
Ethan laughing until his eyes watered.
Later there were presents.
And there, hanging from the fireplace mantel among all the others, was a stocking.
ETHAN
His name stitched across the top.
He stared at it.
Such a foolish thing.
A Christmas stocking.
Yet suddenly the room seemed impossibly beautiful.
The tree lights blurred.
His throat tightened.
The man beside him noticed.
“You okay?”
Ethan looked at him.
And somewhere deep inside the strange certainty of the dream, he heard himself say words he had never consciously spoken before.
I am in love.
Not I think.
Not perhaps.
Not I hope.
I am in love.
And Ethan understood that love wasn't the dizzy uncertainty he had once mistaken for passion.
It wasn't waiting for the telephone to ring.
It wasn't wondering whether someone would stay.
It wasn't bargaining pieces of yourself away so another person might choose you.
It was this.
A hand finding yours beneath a Christmas table.
Someone's mother calling you sweetheart.
Your name on a ridiculous stocking.
Being expected tomorrow.
And the day after that.
And the day after that.
Then Ethan woke.
His bedroom was dark.
For several seconds he didn't understand.
He reached instinctively toward the other side of the bed.
Empty.
The realization came slowly.
There was no Christmas party.
No warm kitchen.
No stocking.
No dark-haired man with brown eyes.
Ethan lay very still.
“Damn,” he whispered.
Then, unexpectedly, he laughed.
But there were tears on his face.
Years passed.
Ethan sometimes thought about the dream.
At first frequently.
Then occasionally.
Eventually it became one of those peculiar memories stored in the attic of the mind—never discarded, merely covered by the dust of everything that came afterward.
Life happened.
There were jobs.
Moves.
Friends.
Deaths.
Birthdays.
Christmases.
There were men.
And then there was Daniel.
They met in October.
There was nothing mystical about it.
Certainly nothing that made Ethan think of dreams.
Daniel was standing outside a neighborhood bookstore in the rain, swearing at an umbrella that had turned itself inside out.
Ethan laughed.
Daniel looked at him.
“Are you enjoying this?”
“Immensely.”
“I'm being attacked by an umbrella.”
“And losing.”
Daniel stared at him for perhaps two seconds.
Then he started laughing too.
They had coffee.
Coffee became dinner.
Dinner became another dinner.
And another.
Daniel had dark hair, although Ethan didn't think anything of that.
Lots of men had dark hair.
His eyes were brown.
Lots of men had brown eyes.
What Ethan noticed instead was Daniel's curiosity.
He asked questions and listened to the answers.
He laughed easily.
He loved old movies, terrible puns, strong coffee, and walking in weather sensible people avoided.
Their first kiss happened beneath an awning after dinner one November night.
Rain was falling beyond them.
Daniel looked at Ethan.
Ethan looked at Daniel.
Neither spoke.
Then Daniel kissed him.
There are kisses that ask permission.
There are kisses that make promises.
And there are kisses that feel as though a conversation begun long ago has simply resumed.
This was the third kind.
Ethan went home with him.
The night that followed was tender and hungry and occasionally funny. A shirt button became temporarily uncooperative. Someone knocked an alarm clock from the bedside table. At one point Daniel whispered something into Ethan's ear that made Ethan laugh and pull him closer.
Later they lay tangled beneath the blankets.
Daniel traced a finger slowly across Ethan's shoulder.
“You're thinking.”
“I do that.”
“Dangerous habit.”
Ethan turned toward him.
Daniel's hair was tousled.
His brown eyes were half closed.
Something stirred at the edge of Ethan's memory.
Then disappeared.
“What?” Daniel asked.
“Nothing.”
Ethan kissed him.
“Absolutely nothing.”
Their first Christmas together was spent separately.
Daniel had already promised his family he would come home.
Ethan had plans with friends.
The following Christmas a blizzard intervened.
By their third Christmas together, Ethan had almost forgotten that he had never met Daniel's family.
Then, one December afternoon, Daniel said:
“My mother has issued a decree.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“You are coming home with me for Christmas.”
Ethan hesitated.
Daniel saw it.
“Hey.”
“What?”
“My family knows about us.”
“I know.”
“They know your name.”
“I know.”
“My mother already bought you something.”
“That is terrifying.”
“She wants you there.”
Ethan looked away.
Daniel reached across the table and took his hand.
“And so do I.”
Ethan squeezed his fingers.
“All right.”
“All right?”
“I'll come.”
Daniel smiled.
And for no reason Ethan could explain, his heart began pounding.
They arrived late on Christmas Eve afternoon.
Snow had been falling for hours.
Daniel turned onto a narrow residential street lined with old houses and towering evergreens.
“There,” he said.
Ethan looked.
A large white house stood back from the road.
Christmas lights glowed beneath the snow.
Evergreen garlands framed the windows.
Something moved inside Ethan.
A whisper.
A disturbance.
He ignored it.
Daniel's mother opened the door before they reached it.
“There you are!”
She hugged Daniel.
Then Ethan.
Not politely.
Not cautiously.
She hugged him.
“Ethan, sweetheart, you're freezing. Come inside.”
Ethan stopped breathing.
Sweetheart.
Somewhere.
Somewhere he had heard--
“Come on,” Daniel said.
The house was filled with people.
Laughter.
Music.
Food.
So much food.
Someone handed Ethan wine.
Someone else introduced themselves as Daniel's cousin and immediately told Ethan an embarrassing story about Daniel at age nine.
Ethan laughed.
But beneath the laughter something was happening.
Recognition without memory.
A hallway.
A staircase.
The angle of a doorway.
He had seen these things.
Impossible.
“Hungry?” Daniel asked.
“Starving.”
They entered the kitchen.
Ethan stopped.
On the counter sat a small ceramic Christmas tree.
Green.
White-tipped branches.
Tiny colored lights.
And suddenly--
Everything returned.
The dream.
The entire impossible dream.
The kitchen.
The snow.
The music.
The man.
Ethan stared at Daniel.
Wavy dark hair.
Brown eyes.
The crease beside his left eye.
Daniel picked up an appetizer.
“What?”
Ethan said nothing.
Daniel ate it.
“What?”
“I—”
Ethan looked around the room.
His heart was hammering.
He reached automatically toward a tray.
One appetizer.
Then another.
Then another.
Daniel watched him.
“Careful.”
Ethan froze.
Daniel nodded toward the food.
“We still have dinner coming.”
The room disappeared.
For one extraordinary second Ethan was twenty-nine again, waking alone in darkness.
Then he was here.
Standing inside the dream.
“Ethan?”
Daniel touched his arm.
“Where did you just go?”
Ethan looked into those brown eyes.
And somehow, despite everything happening inside him, he smiled.
“Somewhere I've been before.”
Daniel frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“I'll tell you later.”
“You're weird.”
“You have no idea.”
Daniel kissed his cheek.
His hand settled at Ethan's waist as he reached behind him for a wineglass.
Exactly there.
Exactly that gesture.
Ethan closed his eyes.
And somewhere deep inside himself, he heard the voice from years before.
I am in love.
Only this time it wasn't a dream.
Dinner passed in a haze of happiness.
And later, after presents had been opened, Ethan stood before the fireplace.
There were stockings hanging from the mantel.
Daniel.
Mom.
Dad.
Rebecca.
Michael.
And one more.
Ethan stepped closer.
ETHAN
His name was stitched across the top.
Daniel came up behind him.
“Mom made it.”
Ethan touched the letters.
“She made me a stocking?”
“She makes everybody stockings.”
Everybody.
Ethan swallowed.
Daniel saw his face.
“Hey.”
Ethan turned.
“I'm okay.”
“You sure?”
Ethan nodded.
“I think I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be.”
Daniel smiled.
“Good.”
He took Ethan's hand.
“Because you're expected back next year.”
Much later, the house became quiet.
The two of them climbed the stairs.
Daniel closed the bedroom door.
Ethan leaned against it.
Daniel looked at him.
“You've been strange all evening.”
“I've always been strange.”
“Stranger.”
Daniel stepped closer.
Ethan could smell wine and soap and the faint evergreen scent that seemed to permeate the entire house.
Daniel kissed him.
Ethan pulled him closer.
The kiss deepened.
Daniel's hands slipped beneath Ethan's sweater, warm against his back.
“Your family is downstairs,” Ethan whispered.
“They're asleep.”
“You don't know that.”
“I know this house.”
Footsteps sounded in the hallway.
They froze.
A door closed.
Silence.
Ethan began laughing.
Daniel buried his face against Ethan's neck to keep from doing the same.
Eventually clothes found their way to the floor.
The bedcovers became hopelessly tangled.
And sometime afterward Ethan lay with his head against Daniel's chest, listening to his heartbeat.
Snow brushed softly against the windows.
“Daniel?”
“Hmm?”
“I need to tell you something.”
And Ethan told him.
Everything.
The dream.
The kitchen.
The appetizers.
The stocking.
The hand at his waist.
The brown-eyed man he had loved without knowing his name.
Daniel listened quietly.
When Ethan finished, the room remained silent.
“Well?” Ethan finally said.
Daniel ran his fingers through Ethan's hair.
“You dreamed this?”
“Years before I met you.”
“This house?”
“Yes.”
“My mother?”
“I think so.”
“The stocking?”
“Yes.”
Daniel was quiet again.
Ethan lifted his head.
“You think I'm crazy.”
“No.”
“You think I'm making it up.”
“No.”
“Then say something.”
Daniel looked down at him.
A smile slowly appeared.
“What took you so long?”
Ethan stared at him.
Then laughed.
And somehow the laughter became tears.
Daniel pulled him closer.
Neither man tried to explain them.
Many years later, Ethan would still occasionally wonder about that dream.
He never found an answer.
Perhaps the mind performs strange tricks with memory.
Perhaps coincidence sometimes arrives dressed as destiny.
Perhaps we reshape old dreams to resemble the lives we eventually live.
Ethan could accept any of those explanations.
But on certain winter nights, when snow fell softly over the cedar cottage near Lone Pine and Stillwater Gleam disappeared beneath moonlight and ice, he allowed himself another possibility.
Perhaps time is not always the straight road we imagine.
Perhaps once in a very great while, some hidden part of us wanders ahead.
It finds a house glowing in the snow.
It hears laughter through the windows.
It sees the person waiting inside.
And then it returns to us carrying a small piece of the future.
Not enough to tell us how to get there.
Only enough to whisper:
Keep going.
There is something ahead of you.
For years Ethan believed the dream had been about finding Daniel.
Age taught him otherwise.
The dream had been about something larger.
It had shown him a place where he would no longer have to explain himself.
A table where someone expected him.
A family that knew his name.
A hand that reached for his without hesitation.
A ridiculous Christmas stocking hanging among all the others.
The dream had not promised Ethan that someday he would fall in love.
It had promised something much rarer.
That someday--
he would belong.
~Wylddane
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