Let Sleeping Dragons Lie Part One
Fic title: Let Sleeping Dragons Lie
Author name: angelzfurys
Artist name: tx_devilorangel
Genre: SPN RPF
Pairing: Jared/Jensen
Rating: R
Word count: 27,433
Warnings: Descriptions of torture, discriptions of male alien body parts
Summary: When Jensen finds an alien in his backyard he wants to help it get home.
Authors Note: This is a completed work but it is book one in a trilogy. Book two and Three to be posted and linked here later. It's a slow burn that will get darker over time. The idea for this story is based on three different books and some ideas borrowed from Stargate-SG1.
Link on AO3 here https://archiveofourown.org/works/33024637/chapters/81970861
A big shout out to my artist tx_devilorangel for the wonderful art! And thanks for understanding my mix up of writing the wrong posting date on my calander, off by one day.
Find the orignial art post here https://tx-devilorangel.livejournal.com/19670.html
Thanks to kinkyqu33nspn for the beta work.
Notes for Part one: This is a completed work but it is book one in a trilogy. Book two and three to be posted and linked here later. It's a very slow burn that will get darker over time. The idea for this story is based on three different books and some ideas borrowed from Stargate-SG1.
DADT - Don't Ask, Don't Tell was in effect from 12/21/1993 until 9/20/2011
For the purposes of Jensen being younger at the time of writing than in reality, I made his birthday 1992, which would have made him 18 in 2010.
I wrote this in the fall of 2020 so he would be 28 in this story's timeline.
Part One
Jared lay on the dirty floor of his cell almost crushed beneath the body of his former guard and torturer. His whole body was peppered with cuts and burns and his breathing was hampered by what had to be cracked if not broken ribs. The weight of the dead body didn’t help and he struggled to push it off of him, succeeding after some painful maneuvering.
He had been held captive for over a month he would have to guess. His meals had been infrequent and his sleep often interrupted to keep him off balance and disoriented. He had also been stripped of clothing to humiliate him, at least that was the intention but he had never minded the nudity before. Right at the moment though he could admit he felt vulnerable. He would need clothes for his escape. The guard was slightly smaller than him but he wouldn’t be needing his uniform anymore. Jared slowly stripped the body and dressed himself taking small breaks to breathe through the pain and rest his stiff and aching muscles. He didn’t have a lot of time before some other guard would come but he couldn’t afford to rush things and tire himself out completely either. Once dressed he checked over the guard’s weapons now his own. A short sword, the blade decently sharp, a hand knife that was very sharp, and a stunning wand. There was a dart gun too but he could find no darts in the pouches or pockets of the guard’s uniform.
Before he left the cell, he managed to heave the guard’s body into the tub. With the body submerged up to the chin and his hair in his face, it was hard to tell the guard wasn’t him. It might distract any other guard wandering by long enough for Jared to complete his escape. He wouldn’t be able to fool the other guards if he ran into one but that was what the weapons were for. He just hoped he would be strong enough to fight. The torture, starvation, and sleep denervation had taken their toll while Jared had first waited for his rescue then planned for his own escape when rescue hadn’t been forthcoming.
The fatal mistake for the guard was thinking Jared was weaker than he was. He had been watching and waiting for this day for over a week now. Any chance to escape he would have and did take as soon as it presented itself. The guard was supposed to move him from the freezing bath to the wall chains that kept him suspended during the night. He had played unconscious until the guard had bent down to lift him out of the tub before reaching up to seize the guard's head and bring it down forcefully on the edge of the tub and under the water twisting as the head went under. Thus, both breaking the neck and drowning out any last cry that would raise any alarm.
With the decoy in place, disguise on and a minute of rest he was ready to start working his way out of this hell hole of captivity. He checked the hall before leaving the cell closing the door behind him and locking it to cover his tracks. The hall was dark with only intermittent lighting. This wasn’t a problem for him as he closed his eyes and drew in as deep a breath as he could calling upon the beast inside him. Jared’s people were of a unique breed in this solar system. They could shift shape into the beast that was every present within them. Golden slitted eyes that were able to see very well in the dark were one of the features of the beast and Jared called up the transformation to help him now. It came at a price of will and energy that he didn’t have much of to spare.
That was where the third nature of his species came in. What he had been captured and tortured for. His symbiont, a life force made of minerals and metal that somehow was alive. They lived in harmony swapping energy back and forth that was beneficial to both in the long run. Right now the symbiont was doing all the heavy lifting and the giving and Jared was taking all he could without killing it. Without it Jared would never have survived more than two weeks of the torture. He had done everything to keep his transformation and his symbiont at bay during the torture but at night the symbiont came to him healing what it could without giving itself away.
Jared needed to get to it now and he started navigating the maze of the fortress he was in. He knew some of the passages from when he had been brought here barely conscious and some of the passages he had been dragged down to different torture or interrogation rooms. When he wasn’t sure which hall to take he let more of the beast out and with its sensitive nose and raw skin before scales took over he could smell and feel the fresher air that had to come from outside.
As he shuffled along he tried to think again how and why he had been captured and not rescued right away. First was that his captors were Gohules, a species in the solar system under his people’s rule. They had been causing problems as of late. It was on their neighboring planet where Jared’s father and uncle had died just two years ago. Their king whom Jared had met had died nine months ago and Jared had yet to meet the new king. He had figured there would be time later as the Gohules were on the brink of civil war and therefore should not have been of much trouble to his kind. But he had been wrong. A group of warriors had captured him while he had been on one of the pleasure planets on the outer rim of their solar system. Lured into taking a drink laced with some kind of sedative by one of the women whom he had bought favors of in the camp he was staying in. His people were powerful and ruled over most of the system. Something like this was unheard of. After all, Jared was king of the Drakon, ruler of their planet and of most of their solar system. No one had ever dared to even think of intentionally hurting one of his kind in over five hundred years. That was part of the how. He still needed to find out who had betrayed him, because someone had. There was no way to get him off of the planet otherwise without starting a war. Also, the Gohules would need to be told what drug to use that his symbiont couldn't fight off easily.
As to why they had taken him, his captors had told him as much. They wanted to know about his symbiont. How did it bond to him, how did it live, how did it make the armor and ships the Drakon used for war, and where did it come from? They wanted their own symbionts to become a more powerful race. Either to use in the upcoming civil war or on other species or both. Whatever the case was, Jared would not answer. He had been lucky that whatever drug he had been given had temporarily stunned his symbiont and that by the time it caught up to Jared, he had warned it to stay as far away as it could and be unseen when parts of it came to him in the dead of night when no one else was around. If they couldn’t see it or find it and he resisted its aid the Gohules could not get what they sought. Jared would rather die than give them such a creature and weapon. Besides even if they could capture his symbiont, he had no idea about the rest of what they wanted. He had been bonded to his symbiont as a baby and the rest was lost to time. No one could remember a time when the Drakon didn’t have symbionts, only legends and myths existed about symbiont free Drakons. Other myths had symbionts on other planets living with other races. But there couldn’t be any truth to it since it wasn’t in any written records or living history besides the myths told to children. In the end, it would be a moot point if Jared somehow lost his symbiont to the Gohules, they could never hope to bond to it and it would die without Jared within a few weeks depending on the care it received.
Jared had been lucky not to run into any guards on his way to find an exit since he had been distracted by his thoughts, but when he was within sight of the doors leading to his freedom, he heard voices. He now focused all his attention on his surroundings. There were guards at the doors but Jared couldn’t see them. He stood frozen staining his eyes, ears, and nose to find where they could be. He was sure that they could not make themselves invisible like his symbiont or the species known as the Mirren. After a moment the voices spoke again and Jared moved towards the door where the voices were. There were at least two guards and they were outside the doors. They were waiting for someone to come and expected him soon. The male whose name was not mentioned was coming for Jared. He needed to leave before the unknown male arrived.
He squatted, leaning against the wall, and brushed a hand over the part of his symbiont laying on his wrist. He relaxed and let his mind connect with it. He wasn’t sure if it understood his words or just acted on his feelings and mental images but they could communicate. He told it in words and images to come close but stay unseen and be ready to leave the planet, that he needed help getting to it and to contact his brothers who were no doubt looking for him that he was coming home.
It was a tense few minutes before he felt the arrival of the main body of his symbiont humming through their connection. The guards outside did not raise an alarm so it remained unseen. He knew it was very close from the strength of their mental connection. Another minute and he could feel some of the symbiont circling his ankles. He stood up as it snaked up his body brushing against bruises, abrasions, burns, and cuts before wrapping itself around his chest. Warmth flooded through him as well as a renewed energy and strength. It wasn’t much as the symbiont would need all its reserves to get him off the planet but it was very welcome. He crept towards the door and paused to listen for the guards again. He wasn’t sure he could fight off two of them and prayed to his gods that there weren’t more of them waiting outside. He took the stun wand in one hand and the knife in the other before cracking the door open enough to peek out and hope the guards didn’t notice immediately.
He could see one of them almost directly in front of the crack in the door. He pressed against the crack and leaned from side to side to see as much as he could in both directions. The other guard was just feet away from the first. They had their backs to him and were just feet from the door. He didn’t see any other guards and there was a wide-open space beyond them for small ships to land. If he was quick and the door was quiet, he could make it to them before they noticed and attacked. The one farthest away he would have to stretch out to stun and he would sever the spinal cord of the one closest to him. Then he could finish off the one he had stunned and get to his symbiont.
He took as deep a breath as he could, crouched to help launch himself into a run, and flung the door open. It was all over in less than a minute just the way he had hoped. He moved on as soon as he finished cutting the second guard’s throat leaving the weapons behind, there was no time to waste and their weight and presents would slow him down and make his stumbling gait more awkward. As he loped across the open ground towards where he could feel his symbiont calling to him an alarm began behind him. He stumbled and it saved his life as the ground where he would have stepped formed a small divot and dirt puffed into the air. The guards in the fortress were shooting at him with phasers. He began to zig-zag as he jogged so he would be a harder target to hit. As he reached the edge of the clearing his symbiont appeared out of thin air. It was oval in shape, just tall enough for him to hunch over in and hovering a foot off the ground with an opening just wide enough for him to duck inside. He dived inside and almost ran head first into the far side. Immediately the opening closed and a soft glow illuminated the inside so he could see as many silvery tendrils came out of the walls to grab onto him. He could feel movement and pressure as it lifted into the sky and then into the atmosphere. It rocked violently once and he felt a jolt of pain through his whole body signaling that it had been hit. Still, it moved upwards as the pressure built and more tendrils moved to engulf him. It sent images of planets to him but they flashed too fast for his mind to process and he couldn’t focus in his spent and battered condition. The pain from the hit on the ship had taken the last of his strength and he wouldn’t take any from his symbiont for fear it wouldn’t have the energy to get away. All he could do was tell it to get somewhere safe and as far from this planet as it could, sending it images of the mountains and forests of their home and the feeling of comfort and a hazy image flashed back before he passed out.
**********
Jensen huffed out a breath as he stepped back and used his forearm to wipe the sweat from his forehead. He was almost finished with his work for the day. He had been putting the finishing touches on his latest masterpiece over the past few days and he was looking forward to the weekend when he could rest. Or at least attempt to between cleaning and resupplying the cabin for winter and taking care of Molly and Pauly. Speaking of Pauly he had just started barking and Jensen knew that Ellen had arrived with Molly.
Ellen had been a friend of his mother’s although he couldn’t quite figure out how or when they had met and she nor his grandparents would say. Ellen was American and his mother had immigrated from Russia as a baby and been brought up by parents who had kept a tight grip on their old home. They hadn't grown up together as far as he had been able to piece together. His mother had died when he was five shortly after giving birth to his sister who hadn’t lived much longer than the weekend it took to bury their mom. His sister had been buried beside her but they shared a headstone since it would be too depressing to see the tiny one the undertaker had offered. His father had left a few months later unable to cope with the depression of losing his wife and daughter on top of PTSD and trying to raise a toddler. His grandparents had raised him with Ellen doing her best as godmother to help out without intruding on his grandparents' claim to him. They had been living in their modest cabin on the mountain that he had been raised in which Jensen found out later they owned most of when he had been born and they saw no reason to leave when he became their ward. He spent most of his time with them and the occasional night at Ellen’s as he got older. His father died when he was a teenager and they brought him home to bury him next to Jensen’s mother and sister instead of the military cemetery the government had offered since he had been a war veteran. Ellen had been there for him when his grandmother got sick and died from cancer. She had again been there for him last winter when his grandfather had a heart attack and died not long after the first spring thaw. She was all he had left now of his family even if she wasn't blood-related, and he didn’t really have any friends. He was friendly with the people in town when he had to go for supplies but he wasn’t really close with any of them.
His childhood had been quite unorthodox by modern standards but he liked it. The town had a school but few kids and those he was close to as a boy had moved away. He had moved away himself for a while to go to college but found he didn’t like the city and had come home right after graduation. None of his school friends had come back and he lost touch with them over the years. Also being so isolated and only having small towns around within driving distance didn’t lead to a lot of romantic choices either. He was bisexual with a heavy lean towards more male partners than female ones. A few people in town knew but thankfully they respected his privacy and kept it to themselves and let life go on unlike the usual cliché of small town bigots that could be found all over the US, hating what wasn't "normal" as categorized by the 1940s and '50s which they commonly got stuck in or willing portrayed. It was one of the reasons he hadn’t joined the military like his father and grandfather. Besides his occasional trips into town for supplies, Ellen was the person he saw the most since his grandfather's passing. The local sheriff, Mark, was the second person he saw the most of since he made the once a month trip up to check on him even if he had just been into town. The sheriff had a crush on him and was always asking him out when he came to town. As the years passed Jensen had hoped Mark would lose interest but he only got more aggressive about it. Jensen could never seem to avoid him no matter when he went to town. He had begun to consider going on a random date with some woman Jenny the postmaster was always trying to set him up with just to get Mark to back off.
His thoughts were interrupted by the honk of a horn and a fresh round of barking. He took off his work gloves, shoving them in his back pocket as he went to the door of his workshop to see Ellen’s truck come to a stop in his driveway. He waited for her to get out before coming over least he get knocked over by Pauly who was running back and forth between the workshop and the truck unsure of which person he wanted to see more. Ellen won the contest when she pulled a dog biscuit out of her shirt pocket. He sat on his but and lifted his front legs in the air begging for the treat she would never deny him. Once his mouth was full he had no interest in either of them and went off to eat his treat.
“How goes the work?” Ellen asked as she brushed a stray strand of greying brown hair that had escaped her usual braid behind her ear. When he reached her, she slipped an arm through his and pulled him towards the back of the truck to the small horse trailer containing Molly.
“Almost finished, I think I’ll be done by next weekend.” He hoped getting everything ready for winter didn’t take too long so he could get back to work. The piece was already bought and paid for with the understanding that there wasn’t a fixed date on when it would be completed just that it would be very soon.
“When do I get to see it?” Ellen let go of him to start opening the trailer.
“When I’m done” he helped her with the latches and lowering of the ramp. Molly looked over her shoulder at them and brayed. He laughed, “hello to you too Molly.”
Ellen got into the trailer and untiled the lead holding Molly steady before backing her out of the trailer. “Thanks again for taking care of her on such short notice. Pauly too although he makes his way here often enough.” Ellen had gotten Pauly when he was still a puppy but didn’t know his true age since she had found him on the side of the road on the way to the big city dump. She guessed that whoever had abandoned him hadn’t realized how big and what a commitment a Bernese mountain dog would be and put him out with the trash. Jensen had loved him at first sight and when he got a little older, he had left Ellen’s one day and turned up late the next day at his cabin. Now that he was a few years old he came and went between the two properties as he pleased. He visited Jensen a few times a month in the late spring, summer, and early fall, not so much in the winter.
“It’s no problem and I can use her to help bringing in some wood from the back pasture before the rainy season hits” Jensen patted Molly’s side.
“You really ought to get yourself a new horse” Ellen handed Molly’s lead to Jensen before going back into the trailer and coming out with a small bucket. “Or even a mule like Molly, something to help around the land and keep you company.”
“I’m not quite ready yet” Jensen looked down at his feet. The past year had been a hard one, besides losing his grandfather he had lost his horse Impala when she had broken her leg too badly to be fixed and had to be put down. She had been getting on in years, having been a present from his parents when he was a toddler. It hurt all the more that she was one of the last things his mother had given him.
“All right” Ellen’s voice was slightly sad but she didn’t say more and they moved together by unspoken agreement towards the barn.
They worked in silence to get Molly comfortable in the stall Jensen had prepared earlier that morning. It was in the middle of the barn as Impala’s stall was closer to the door and Jensen didn’t want to use it just yet. Ellen gave Molly the oats from the bucket she carried and they watched her eat for a moment. Pauly started barking again and they both went out to see what had set him off.
They both scanned the yard but couldn’t see anything out of place. They did both notice that the sky was turning a dark purple with grey-black clouds moving in on a swift and growing chilly wind. The weather forecast yesterday had predicted mild weather for the week But an unexpected storm was moving in and by the looks of it was expected to be big.
“Will you be able to fly out if the storm is early?” Jensen felt a little apprehension as a faint rumble of thunder came from the far distance.
“If I leave now I think everything will be okay” Ellen looked around at the tops of the trees to gauge the wind. It was blowing infrequently and not too hard yet meaning the clouds and storm wouldn’t come on too fast and ruin her plans. Ellen had a pilot’s license and would be using the small local airport to fly out to a bigger airport further east. It would cut travel time by a third and Ellen wanted to get there and back in the shortest time possible. She still had to get her property and cabin ready for winter too in the next few weeks. By unspoken agreement, they moved quickly back to Ellen’s truck and worked quickly to remove the horse trailer and move it aside.
“Be careful and call me when you land” Jensen said as he hugged Ellen goodbye. He had a bad feeling in his gut but he wasn’t going to voice it. Ever since his grandfather had died he’d had anxiety over the thought of anyone else leaving him, not that he really had much of anyone left anyway. But even his closer acquaintances made the list of people he feared would leave him. He was so used to seeing the familiar faces of the people he’d grown up with, many of them of an older generation.
“Don’t worry I’ll be careful” Ellen patted his cheek, “I don’t plan on leaving you any time soon.” Ellen gave him a small sad smile and got in her truck starting the engine as Jensen backed away so she could leave. Jensen watched her truck until she honked and waved out the window before turning a corner and was gone.
Pauly barked from the porch of the cabin and Jensen turned back towards his workshop. It was time to lock up for the day. There would be a little time to play with Pauly in the pasture before he had to start cooking dinner. He might have time to make a fire and enjoy a radio program before falling asleep if he was lucky. Molly would be fine till morning when he’d be up with the dawn.
Pauly followed him into his workshop but knew to stay out of the way least he be banished for getting underfoot and causing an accident. The middle of the workshop was currently an open space which held his latest project. A giant silhouette of a dragon, European style, stood on hind legs, front legs outstretched clawing at air while its neck extended out and skyward, its horned head thrown back and flames shooting outward. Large wings on its back were unfolded but curved forward at the dragon’s sides. The whole thing was constructed of small pieces of cut out flames, each tempered to be various shades of copper, red, orange, gold, and brown. Each of the pieces had also been hand beveled and ball hammer cupped to look like scales from a distance. All he had to finish was the tail which would wrap around the legs.
The inspiration had come to him in his dreams as many of his ideas often did. He had made a few dragons before but nothing like this one. He had made other odd creatures of fantasy too along with many sculptures of abstract art. Some were creatures that were half myth and half flowing abstract like thin streams of smoke on the wind. When he was young he had drawn his dreams and when he got older he had tried to paint them. He was decent at it but it just didn’t feel right to him and he had taken many an art class to try and find the right medium to work with. He had stumbled across metal smithing by accident and everything had immediately clicked into place. He loved the feeling he got from working the metal and the energy that went into shaping the metal just so made him feel like nothing else. He could and often did lose himself in his work and that was when his best creations came to life.
He had sold most of his pieces to private owners but he had a few in galleries and small museums across the US and Canada. He hardly ever worked on commission but this time was different. The client, Mrs. Rhodes had seen most of his works that were available to the public and a few that weren’t. She had been very persistent in her quest to get Jensen to create something for her wife. As long as it was a dragon of some kind, she was willing to wait out Jensen’s timetable for finishing the work and pay a very hefty price. When he had dreamed up and drawn out the concept for this piece he had called her. She had flown out to meet him at his next gallery opening to look it over and negotiate with him. She had liked the design and they had talked about how and what he would make it out of. She had made one change to his plans that he could live with since it involved another artist and wouldn’t affect his work until delivery. She had also paid him almost double what he thought it would be worth in advance on the condition he deliver it himself when it was ready.
Pauly whined and he shook his head looking over to the clock to see that he had zoned out for almost five minutes. “Sorry boy, just a minute” he called to Pauly as he hurriedly started cleaning and replacing his tools in their designated spots. He tried to clean as he worked when he knew he wouldn’t need a certain tool again so there wasn’t too much to do. Then he made sure his heating tools and small forge were cool enough to cover and that all the gas was turned off. He took a large cloth cover and a ladder and carefully covered the dragon. Last he made sure all the windows were closed and locked before turning off the lights and locking the door on his way out.
He went into the house to wash his face and hands before grabbing a tennis ball from a basket by the door he kept just for Pauly’s visits. Pauly seeing his favorite toy in Jensen’s hands was ecstatic and danced around Jensen getting in his way in his eagerness to play as they walked out into the yard. Jensen in an effort to save himself threw the ball and Pauly was off like a shot to get it leaving him free to walk unmolested. He had thrown the ball three times before he made it to the entrance of the big pasture where he stationed himself for the next twenty minutes of fetch. It became harder to play as the wind picked up and Pauly became more hesitant to drop the ball as more thunder began to reach them, louder and louder with each boom. When the first dim flash of lightning lit the dark clouds Pauly was done and eagerly followed Jensen back to the cabin.
Once inside he settled down with his second favorite toy a large red Kong™ that he could roll around himself and Jensen often filled with treats. He made sure he had enough dry wood inside for the fire before he went into the kitchen to start dinner. The kitchen was a mix of old and new appliances that went surprisingly well together. In a corner was a small old wood-burning stove that his grandmother had used mainly for making bread. It did have two burners on top but he hadn’t really used them and he didn’t make bread all that often now that his grandfather was gone. Long counter space ended in a newer gas-powered stove with four burners and a decent oven and broiler. There was an old butcher's block island table in the middle of the kitchen with a pan rack hanging above it. All the newer pots and pans hung there, the older cast irons and molded pans hung on the far wall over a smaller counter with a refrigerator that was only a few years old on one side and the door to a small step in pantry on the other. The intersecting wall held a large double sink and old dishwasher that was hardly ever used. Outside the back door was an old root cellar that was almost empty of food and where he had begun to stack up his overstock work supplies and the belongings of his grandparents that he couldn’t yet part with but didn’t need or want to keep in the house.
He thought about going out to get some of his favorite canned fruit but as he got to the door a loud crack of thunder shook the house and it started to rain. He could hear it on the roof as well as see it through the window. It seemed that fruit was not on the menu tonight since he didn’t fancy getting wet to retrieve it. It was a soup kind of night he decided and got about to making a fresh pot. He always had a little chicken thawed in the fridge and combined with onions, carrots, some barley and spices made a nice base that cooked quickly as he made some dumplings from scratch. The living room had a well-sized fireplace as the focus of one wall and he started a fire as he waited for the soup to finish simmering. He had a good size blaze going when he went back to add the dumplings. He filled Pauly’s bowl with kibble and dribbled some broth in to entice Pauly to eat and not beg him for his soup while he ate. When the dumplings were done and his bowl filled, he put Pauly’s bowl down. Pauly dug in while he stood leaning against the butcher block island watching Pauly while he ate.
When they were both done he poured the remaining soup into a bowl and let it sit to cool and put the pot in the sink filling it with water for future washing. He would finish in the kitchen before bed but right now it was time to relax. As he walked back to the living room a blast of thunder shook the house and a bright flash of lightning was on its heels. A second later the power went out and he could really hear the rain and wind without the hum of electricity. Pauly whined and he sighed and headed for the fireplace which was the only thing illuminated in the now dark cabin. On the mantle were two oil lamps and he lit one for extra light. There would be no radio tonight and he looked to the far wall where an old bookcase stood filled to bursting with paperback novels. He picked one at random and went to settle on the couch in the middle of the room facing the fireplace to read. Once he was settled Pauly joined him and he gave Pauly’s ears an affectionate scratch before starting in on the book. He read until he began to feel tired, the storm raging on outside with no sign of letting up.
“Okay boy let’s get ready for bed, I have a feeling we’ll need lots of rest for the clean-up tomorrow,” he gave Pauly’s ears another scratch. He put the book on the coffee table and went into the kitchen to clean the pot and put the soup in the fridge. He had a small solar generator hooked up to the kitchen power grid that was programmed to run for hour intervals every two hours after the main power shut off. His food would be safe until the regular power could be restored hopefully sometime tomorrow. If he timed it right he could have a hot shower in the morning too. The task of cleaning up the debris from the storm would likely take all of his time tomorrow. Getting the cabin stocked for winter would have to wait another day. The only good news was there would be more wood to stock up on if any trees came down close by. Molly would be helpful in hauling the logs he cut back to the barn for drying and splitting.
He put out the fire and taking the oil lamp he headed for bed. It was bound to be a cold night with the storm and no heater so he dressed in worn sweats and took an extra blanket down from the closet shelf. “Come on Pauly you can help keep me warm tonight” he patted the bed once he had the extra cover on. Pauly gave him a doggy grin and jumped up circling a few times before laying down. He went over to the window to close the curtains when a clap of thunder and a flash of lightning simultaneously shook and lit the cabin. Outside something large and dark appeared to fall from the sky. A second boom and flash from nature shook the cabin and had his heart pounding like he’d run a marathon. Had he really just seen something crash to the ground or was it just his eyes playing tricks on him? He leaned closer to the window his face almost pressing against the glass and stared hard into the darkness. He couldn’t see any light, no fire from any wreckage, no trees burning, and no smoke or downed trees were illuminated in the next flash of lightning. All he could hear was the rain on the roof and the wind making the trees creak and whistle as it whipped around the cabin. One more boom of thunder and flash of lightning and he was convinced his mind and eyes were playing tricks on him. Pauly whined from his bed and he sighed before closing the curtains and joining Pauly in bed. He blew out the oil lamp and snuggled into the blankets and was asleep in moments.
Part 2 https://angelzfurys.livejournal.com/36710.html