Ok, turns out it WASN'T a one-shot after all - who knew? (and apparently I've got Lloyd-Webber playing a sound track somewhere deep in my subconscious to boot!)

In Dreams, He Came

Crisp cotton sheets, high thread count, plain white, no patterns, no frills.

Handmade patchwork quilt. Handmade, homemade, made by hands he can barely recall.

Made by hands he can never forget.

He dreams.

He knows He dreams. The world is splashed with moonlight and candlelight and the light of a million stars.

He floats in darkness, surrounded by, yet not touched by the light.

Crisp cotton sheets

He feels the bed give ever so slightly, as if a light weight, perhaps the muscular frame of a lithe young man were resting there, beside him.

Beside him on his crisp, white sheets

In the logic of the dream world, for he knows he dreams, the moonlight and the darkness and the million stars coalesce into a form he knows so well, and yet has never seen before this moment.

A creature of shadows and starlight lies beside him.

In his dream He hears the music of the stars, he hears the breathing of the beautiful, familiar stranger, he hears every song they have sung together, he hears every song they have yet to sing.

He hears the rustle of his crisp, white sheets as he turns in his dream, his sleeping body perhaps trying to dance to the music it does not really hear.

He hears the soft sigh of a soul in rapture, so near, so very near to him.

He feels the warm glow of the other's body, across the cooling distance of his crisp, white sheets.

He knows this warmth, he knows this smell, this gravity of souls.

He knows he is dreaming, and now he knows he must awake.

His ears tell him that it is still night, no morning noises, no distant radios or passing traffic.

He hears the soft sighing of a person breathing near him, he feels their warmth, their breath upon his chest, upon the bare chest where the collar of the soft warm t-shirt he wears sags and gapes.

He smells lavender and coffee and hair gel and mint and nutmeg and pencil shavings and soap and sweat and expensive cologne and crisp, white, cotton sheets.

Still half dreaming the boy of starlight and shadow, the child of his dream begins to solidify.

His heart pounds as he feels and hears the blood surge within his body, as if the moon and the stars of this boy he feels so near pull at the essence of his being stronger than any tide has ever touched any ocean.

His eyes finally part, slightly, and he sees moonlight and starlight and candles and shadow that are NOT a dream.

He sees a boy who most definitely is.

He sees and feels and smells and hears a boy who is a dream made real.

He sees the dark eyes beneath their expressive brows meeting his gaze.

The dream bursts from him, and into the world, fully formed, fully real, fully his.

I've been looking for you forever

His sigh sings as he watches the other smile and melt before his gaze

Oh, HERE you are.