A Thousand Kisses Deep Chapter 3
Take this, stupid eyes. Forgive this chapter for being a little short. I'm not working under the best of conditions, but at least I've managed something. Let me know if there are any glaring errors because it's hard to see what I'm typing and this could be a real mess. Here are links to the previous chapters.
Chapter 1 Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Jensen wakes in the middle of the night, laying quietly for a few minutes, just breathing in the unfamiliar scent of the ocean. He’s managed to wind himself up in the bolster, the chill air blowing through the open windows sending shivers along his uncovered arms and down his back. He’s sticky with sweat, yet his teeth are chattering.
It’s the cold that finally starts to clear his muzzy brain from the cobwebs of a weird dream he was having. Something about sinking ships and a hand raised amid the choppy waves. He’d grabbed it with all his strength, trying to save the one lost beneath the surface of the black sea. Lightning cracked across the churning ebony sky overhead. The banshee howl of the wind bit at his ears. Then-he can’t remember.
Jensen huffs out a breath, the sharpness of the dream fading. He lifts his head from the pillow and sees all the windows are open, even though he vaguely remembers closing them before falling exhausted into bed. A rumble of thunder rolls in across the water, reminiscent of his nightmare. Scrubbing a hand over his face, Jensen kicks his way out of the bed clothes and patters barefoot across the wooden floor to the three windows that form the alcove where the telescope stands.
The scent of a building storm pushes against his bare skin as he struggles to pull them shut. It wanes as he tugs each one down, the wood swollen with humidity and resisting his efforts. Pressing his forehead to the glass, Jensen can see thunder heads limned in eerie green flashes of light far out on the black horizon. They’re moving in fast. Being safe and snug in his new home, he can’t help but grin in pleasure at the approaching tempest.
Goose bumped flesh reminds Jensen he’s naked, towel left behind in the welter of the bed. The closet yields his bathrobe, a comfy and familiar presence he shrugs on, the flannel wrapping around him protectively. Jensen ties the belt with a firm knot, the sense of vulnerability, eyes boring into his back that had abruptly come upon him, somewhat appeased. The darkness presses down on him between each lightning flash.
“A cup of tea,” he whispers, then blinks and speaks louder. “A cup of tea. And maybe some toast and jam. I don’t know why the devil I’m whispering. Nobody’s here besides me.”
His stomach growls impatiently at the prospect of food. Jensen has slept through dinner and with all the physical exertion of chopping down the overgrown rose bush, he feels like a hollow drum.
“Hell’s bells. I’m going!” he mutters as his stomach rumbles a second time.
He takes a step and stops, frowning in puzzlement. Hell’s bells? That isn’t an oath he ever remembers using before. He glances over his shoulder to the mantle where the Captain’s portrait, draped in shadow, seems to be staring down at him in smug amusement.
“Fine. I’m a man easily influenced,” Jensen grumbles, stepping out into the pitch black hall and promptly stubbing his toe.
“Son of a.... Owww.”
He dances around on one foot, holding his throbbing toe, bumping walls, doing what probably resembles the Sailor’s Hornpipe, though he has no damned idea what that would look like.
“Get out of my head, Pada... Pada.... whatever,” he curses, in too much pain to get the tongue-twister of a name right. “You’re nothing but a figment of my imagination. Indigestion! A blob of mustard!” Jensen can’t help grinning at the idea of being haunted by Marley’s ghost.
It’s a nonsensical response, yet it feels appropriate. A ghostly visitation in a supposedly haunted cottage in the middle of the night? He has a right to make fun of himself for being such a pathetic jackass.
Jensen sighs. He’s on edge, and the cottage is very dark. When he gropes forward and flips the light switch on, nothing happens. He’s at a loss, nerves making him shiver, until his addled brain provides him with an answer: burnt out light bulb. He huffs at himself in disgust.
The blackness nudges closer, pressing cold touches to Jensen’s backbone. He’ll have to change the damn thing in the morning. Right now, the idea of searching for a bulb in the dark is less than appealing. The air is charged with an electrical current that makes his scalp tingle and his balls tighten. He’s having some difficulty breathing. It’s psychosomatic, but knowing that doesn’t make it any easier to get air into his lungs.
Forcing himself to move, Jensen finds the staircase, flashes of lightning guiding him, throwing his silhouette into a grotesque shadow that resembles a stalking giant unreeling from the bottom of his feet. Jensen’s whips his head around, but there is no one there. His teeth chatter when a draft curls icy tendrils around his ankles. Gripping the banister, he begins the descent to the floor below. A frisson of unease slides along the knobs of his spine. Behind him, a riser creaks softly, then again, as though something unseen is following him down the stairs.
Jensen’s fingers clench on the railing. He moves faster. Certainly not out of panic, but the way the air saws in and out of his lungs is a goad in itself. Light is what he needs. Light to fill up all the empty spaces around him and ease his queer fancy that there is someone just behind him, coming closer with every second.
Reaching the entry hall, tiles chill under his bare feet, Jensen tries again, flicking the light switch up and down in frantic disbelief. Nothing. Evidently it isn’t a burnt out bulb in the upstairs corridor. The electricity is out all over the cottage, more than likely a byproduct of the soon-to-hit squall. He calms himself with that rational thought, slowing his breathing, getting a grip on his lurid imaginings.
With a hint of bravado, Jensen opens the door to his right and moves cautiously down the steps into the kitchen. He starts to whistle but the notes die on his lips, echoing as they do, with an unfortunate loudness. The blackness nuzzles closer, a solid shape at his back. Jensen clears his throat, muttering softly to himself in reassurance.
“Food. That’s what I need. A hot cup of tea. Something to warm up my empty stomach. It’s no wonder I’m all nerves. A man can’t go without food after working his ass into the ground. I’m just hungry.”
There is no sun or moon to give illumination through the window Jensen spent all afternoon clearing. He might as well be at the bottom of a Stygian pit. The memory of matches and an oil lantern he’d noticed earlier returns. Brailling his way along a counter, he finds them, exhaling a breath in relief. He fumbles the small matchbox open, extracting a long wooden match. Striking it on the side of the box, it flares eagerly into life. The flame wavers and then goes out.
“Okay. Fine. If at first...”
The air around him is pregnant with anticipation. A second match follows the fate of the first. On the third try, Jensen turns away, cups a hand around the flickering glow, shielding it from any drafts coming in from under the warped back door or equally out-of-kilter window frames. Jensen hunkers over the tiny flame. Behind him, he feels the air stir. Then the flickering column is doused, a soft whoosh of breath feathering over his fingertips. Jensen doesn’t know why he’s suddenly not frightened anymore. Maybe it’s because he’s too full of anger as the match dies, leaving him in the dark again.
“You’re a coward,” he says loudly, straightening to peer at the dark corners of the room. “Nothing but a damned coward. And a cheesy one at that. Blowing out matches. Not very inventive.” There’s a moment of utter silence, as though the very cottage itself is holding its breath at the shocking insult. Then a voice speaks, deep and irritated.
“Light the goddamn match, boy.”
The hair on Jensen’s arms stands on end. He stumbles back, match box still clutched in his hand by a spasm of his fingers. Tremors pass over his skin and make his knees feel like jelly. He stands there shaking, his defiance gone.
“Go on. Be quick about it. Or maybe you’re the coward,” the voice drawls.
Jensen’s spine stiffens. He ticks a match against the abrasive flint and holds it up. Across from him, leaning against the counter, a figure takes shape. At first mere tendrils of gray fog, then coalescing into the solid form of a man. Jensen recognizes the captain’s hat, the wide pea-coated shoulders. He gasps and takes a step back.
“No! No, no, no. I’m hallucinating. Tell me I’m hallucinating. I’ve gone crazy.”
The ghost, because that’s what he is, though he looks stark and real enough leaning casually against the kitchen counter, long legs crossed at the ankle, lifts an eyebrow.
“You’re hallucinating,” he says, copying Jensen’s inflection. “You’re crazy as a bed bug. Belong in the nearest Bedlam with all the Napoleons and Lord Nelsons. Peace be to his brave soul. But that, sonny Jim, doesn’t mean I’m not real.”
“It’s Jensen not Jim,” Jensen says automatically, then blanches when the ghost’s face settles into a scowl.
The apparition picks up the oil lantern at its elbow and carries it to the table where Jensen’s sits in stunned collapse. Teeth gleam palely as he snaps a match and lights the wick. A warm circle of gold spills across the dark kitchen, pushing back the shadows so that Jensen can see him clearly for the first time. The sight is rather daunting. The ghost appears to be eight feet tall. Jensen yelps as the match he’s holding goes out, burning his fingertips.
“I ran you off with your tail between your legs the first time you crossed my bow. Why did you come back? Or were you too stupid to get the message? This is my ship. I want you out of here first thing in the morning or I’ll have you keelhauled.”
The handsome face leans in closer across the pine table separating them. The brows are well-defined, the eyes beneath, cat-slanted hazel reflecting the lantern’s glow. Jensen swallows deeply. The picture upstairs has come to life in front of him in all its vivid glory. For a moment, he’s speechless, his gaze hanging on the curve of a sneering mouth. Then the threat penetrates.
“Keelhauled? What?”
Jensen’s lost the thread of the conversation, staring in wonder, but this brings him back. He touches a hand to his throat aware the specter across from him is watching him with intense concentration, expecting capitulation. Jensen’s head jerks up.
“You can’t scare me,” he manages around the knot of indignation building in his chest, because up until now the thing has done a bang-up job of scaring him.. “I’ve put all of my savings into buying this cottage. Every last pound, except the few I’ll need to live on. It’s mine now. You’d better get use to it. I’m not letting some moth-eaten ghost chase me out. You’re the one who has to go.” Jensen’s voice echoes loudly.
There is a long silence broken only by a crash of thunder and the first spatter of rain against the glass of the kitchen window. Outside, the wind picks up, whining through the less-than-airtight walls. Green eyes lock with hazel.
“Damn me if I don’t like your spirit,” the ghost says suddenly. A pair of dimples bloom on the Captain’s cheeks. He slams a palm down on the pine table, making Jensen jump. “You’re not like the others. I can see that now. My mistake. Might even make a proper cabin boy with some training.” His smile is wolfish.
Jensen takes the remark for the insult it’s meant to be. He draws his shoulders up, aiming a finger at his antagonist. “Look, I’m not a boy. I’m a grown man. So I’ll thank you to stop calling me one. I don’t know what you think you can do to make me leave, besides creeping around corners and yelling, “Boo,” at inopportune times. And that’s plainly failed. You’re nothing but a ghost. You can’t affect the physical world.”
“Is that so?” One long arm reaches across the table. Before Jensen realizes what its about to do, the ghost takes hold of a lock of hair and pulls sharply. “How’s that for affecting the physical world?
“Ow! Ow! That hurt, you bastard. What do you think you’re....,” The words dry up. The legs of Jensen’s chair shriek on the tiled floor as he skitters backwards, heart thundering in his chest. “You touched me! You’re a bloody apparition. You can’t touch me.”
The Captain’s chuckle is a complacent goad to Jensen’s anger. “I’m not your average ghost, boy. You’d better believe I can do more than say boo if I want to.”
Jensen has launched himself so far across the kitchen he’s hit the big old Aga that takes up most of one wall. The iron door handles gouge sharply into his spine. He stares at the figure confronting him, then turns away, hands groping for the tea kettle on the front burner.
“I’m perfectly sure that I’m still up in bed having a dream,” he says, switching a knob on, watching the burner come to life. “But if I’m not, this is just my empty stomach getting back at me. I’m going to have a cup of tea, and when I turn around, you’ll be gone and I’ll laugh myself silly for making you up.”
It’s eerily quiet after that save for the kettle, hissing and rumbling to itself, clinking in its usual fashion. Jensen stares at it steadily, his incantation banishing the ghost still ringing in his ears. When steam finally begins to hiss from the kettle’s spout, he shuts off the burner and faces back into the kitchen.
The oil lantern’s wavering glow warms the room, illuminating the box of matches beside it on the table and the tipped over chair laying on the black and white tiles. There is nothing and no one else. Outside, rain beats against the glass.
“Yes. Well. I knew you weren’t real.”
Jensen quietly fixes his tea, toasts a piece of bread and spreads it with preserves. He eats and drinks, not tasting either, his eyes restlessly roaming the darker corners of the room for that tall, slim figure. They are empty. He can feel the desertion in his bones. He is alone now, the troubling hot stitch of wrongness gone from his skin.
Instead of cleaning up after himself, which is a very un-Jensen like thing to do he admits, he snatches the oil lamp and hurries back to bed when he’s finished-not wanting to linger downstairs. The bedroom is unreasonably cold. Jensen climbs under the covers still wearing his bathrobe, tucking the duvet in place over a shoulder. The tension leaves his tired limbs gradually and the continued roar of the storm serves as a kind of lullaby easing him into sleep. It’s only at the last second as he lets go and sinks into peacefulness that he feels the sharp lick of cold air brush across his cheek.
When he lifts his head, he sees that all three windows are open again.
Chapter 1 Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Jensen wakes in the middle of the night, laying quietly for a few minutes, just breathing in the unfamiliar scent of the ocean. He’s managed to wind himself up in the bolster, the chill air blowing through the open windows sending shivers along his uncovered arms and down his back. He’s sticky with sweat, yet his teeth are chattering.
It’s the cold that finally starts to clear his muzzy brain from the cobwebs of a weird dream he was having. Something about sinking ships and a hand raised amid the choppy waves. He’d grabbed it with all his strength, trying to save the one lost beneath the surface of the black sea. Lightning cracked across the churning ebony sky overhead. The banshee howl of the wind bit at his ears. Then-he can’t remember.
Jensen huffs out a breath, the sharpness of the dream fading. He lifts his head from the pillow and sees all the windows are open, even though he vaguely remembers closing them before falling exhausted into bed. A rumble of thunder rolls in across the water, reminiscent of his nightmare. Scrubbing a hand over his face, Jensen kicks his way out of the bed clothes and patters barefoot across the wooden floor to the three windows that form the alcove where the telescope stands.
The scent of a building storm pushes against his bare skin as he struggles to pull them shut. It wanes as he tugs each one down, the wood swollen with humidity and resisting his efforts. Pressing his forehead to the glass, Jensen can see thunder heads limned in eerie green flashes of light far out on the black horizon. They’re moving in fast. Being safe and snug in his new home, he can’t help but grin in pleasure at the approaching tempest.
Goose bumped flesh reminds Jensen he’s naked, towel left behind in the welter of the bed. The closet yields his bathrobe, a comfy and familiar presence he shrugs on, the flannel wrapping around him protectively. Jensen ties the belt with a firm knot, the sense of vulnerability, eyes boring into his back that had abruptly come upon him, somewhat appeased. The darkness presses down on him between each lightning flash.
“A cup of tea,” he whispers, then blinks and speaks louder. “A cup of tea. And maybe some toast and jam. I don’t know why the devil I’m whispering. Nobody’s here besides me.”
His stomach growls impatiently at the prospect of food. Jensen has slept through dinner and with all the physical exertion of chopping down the overgrown rose bush, he feels like a hollow drum.
“Hell’s bells. I’m going!” he mutters as his stomach rumbles a second time.
He takes a step and stops, frowning in puzzlement. Hell’s bells? That isn’t an oath he ever remembers using before. He glances over his shoulder to the mantle where the Captain’s portrait, draped in shadow, seems to be staring down at him in smug amusement.
“Fine. I’m a man easily influenced,” Jensen grumbles, stepping out into the pitch black hall and promptly stubbing his toe.
“Son of a.... Owww.”
He dances around on one foot, holding his throbbing toe, bumping walls, doing what probably resembles the Sailor’s Hornpipe, though he has no damned idea what that would look like.
“Get out of my head, Pada... Pada.... whatever,” he curses, in too much pain to get the tongue-twister of a name right. “You’re nothing but a figment of my imagination. Indigestion! A blob of mustard!” Jensen can’t help grinning at the idea of being haunted by Marley’s ghost.
It’s a nonsensical response, yet it feels appropriate. A ghostly visitation in a supposedly haunted cottage in the middle of the night? He has a right to make fun of himself for being such a pathetic jackass.
Jensen sighs. He’s on edge, and the cottage is very dark. When he gropes forward and flips the light switch on, nothing happens. He’s at a loss, nerves making him shiver, until his addled brain provides him with an answer: burnt out light bulb. He huffs at himself in disgust.
The blackness nudges closer, pressing cold touches to Jensen’s backbone. He’ll have to change the damn thing in the morning. Right now, the idea of searching for a bulb in the dark is less than appealing. The air is charged with an electrical current that makes his scalp tingle and his balls tighten. He’s having some difficulty breathing. It’s psychosomatic, but knowing that doesn’t make it any easier to get air into his lungs.
Forcing himself to move, Jensen finds the staircase, flashes of lightning guiding him, throwing his silhouette into a grotesque shadow that resembles a stalking giant unreeling from the bottom of his feet. Jensen’s whips his head around, but there is no one there. His teeth chatter when a draft curls icy tendrils around his ankles. Gripping the banister, he begins the descent to the floor below. A frisson of unease slides along the knobs of his spine. Behind him, a riser creaks softly, then again, as though something unseen is following him down the stairs.
Jensen’s fingers clench on the railing. He moves faster. Certainly not out of panic, but the way the air saws in and out of his lungs is a goad in itself. Light is what he needs. Light to fill up all the empty spaces around him and ease his queer fancy that there is someone just behind him, coming closer with every second.
Reaching the entry hall, tiles chill under his bare feet, Jensen tries again, flicking the light switch up and down in frantic disbelief. Nothing. Evidently it isn’t a burnt out bulb in the upstairs corridor. The electricity is out all over the cottage, more than likely a byproduct of the soon-to-hit squall. He calms himself with that rational thought, slowing his breathing, getting a grip on his lurid imaginings.
With a hint of bravado, Jensen opens the door to his right and moves cautiously down the steps into the kitchen. He starts to whistle but the notes die on his lips, echoing as they do, with an unfortunate loudness. The blackness nuzzles closer, a solid shape at his back. Jensen clears his throat, muttering softly to himself in reassurance.
“Food. That’s what I need. A hot cup of tea. Something to warm up my empty stomach. It’s no wonder I’m all nerves. A man can’t go without food after working his ass into the ground. I’m just hungry.”
There is no sun or moon to give illumination through the window Jensen spent all afternoon clearing. He might as well be at the bottom of a Stygian pit. The memory of matches and an oil lantern he’d noticed earlier returns. Brailling his way along a counter, he finds them, exhaling a breath in relief. He fumbles the small matchbox open, extracting a long wooden match. Striking it on the side of the box, it flares eagerly into life. The flame wavers and then goes out.
“Okay. Fine. If at first...”
The air around him is pregnant with anticipation. A second match follows the fate of the first. On the third try, Jensen turns away, cups a hand around the flickering glow, shielding it from any drafts coming in from under the warped back door or equally out-of-kilter window frames. Jensen hunkers over the tiny flame. Behind him, he feels the air stir. Then the flickering column is doused, a soft whoosh of breath feathering over his fingertips. Jensen doesn’t know why he’s suddenly not frightened anymore. Maybe it’s because he’s too full of anger as the match dies, leaving him in the dark again.
“You’re a coward,” he says loudly, straightening to peer at the dark corners of the room. “Nothing but a damned coward. And a cheesy one at that. Blowing out matches. Not very inventive.” There’s a moment of utter silence, as though the very cottage itself is holding its breath at the shocking insult. Then a voice speaks, deep and irritated.
“Light the goddamn match, boy.”
The hair on Jensen’s arms stands on end. He stumbles back, match box still clutched in his hand by a spasm of his fingers. Tremors pass over his skin and make his knees feel like jelly. He stands there shaking, his defiance gone.
“Go on. Be quick about it. Or maybe you’re the coward,” the voice drawls.
Jensen’s spine stiffens. He ticks a match against the abrasive flint and holds it up. Across from him, leaning against the counter, a figure takes shape. At first mere tendrils of gray fog, then coalescing into the solid form of a man. Jensen recognizes the captain’s hat, the wide pea-coated shoulders. He gasps and takes a step back.
“No! No, no, no. I’m hallucinating. Tell me I’m hallucinating. I’ve gone crazy.”
The ghost, because that’s what he is, though he looks stark and real enough leaning casually against the kitchen counter, long legs crossed at the ankle, lifts an eyebrow.
“You’re hallucinating,” he says, copying Jensen’s inflection. “You’re crazy as a bed bug. Belong in the nearest Bedlam with all the Napoleons and Lord Nelsons. Peace be to his brave soul. But that, sonny Jim, doesn’t mean I’m not real.”
“It’s Jensen not Jim,” Jensen says automatically, then blanches when the ghost’s face settles into a scowl.
The apparition picks up the oil lantern at its elbow and carries it to the table where Jensen’s sits in stunned collapse. Teeth gleam palely as he snaps a match and lights the wick. A warm circle of gold spills across the dark kitchen, pushing back the shadows so that Jensen can see him clearly for the first time. The sight is rather daunting. The ghost appears to be eight feet tall. Jensen yelps as the match he’s holding goes out, burning his fingertips.
“I ran you off with your tail between your legs the first time you crossed my bow. Why did you come back? Or were you too stupid to get the message? This is my ship. I want you out of here first thing in the morning or I’ll have you keelhauled.”
The handsome face leans in closer across the pine table separating them. The brows are well-defined, the eyes beneath, cat-slanted hazel reflecting the lantern’s glow. Jensen swallows deeply. The picture upstairs has come to life in front of him in all its vivid glory. For a moment, he’s speechless, his gaze hanging on the curve of a sneering mouth. Then the threat penetrates.
“Keelhauled? What?”
Jensen’s lost the thread of the conversation, staring in wonder, but this brings him back. He touches a hand to his throat aware the specter across from him is watching him with intense concentration, expecting capitulation. Jensen’s head jerks up.
“You can’t scare me,” he manages around the knot of indignation building in his chest, because up until now the thing has done a bang-up job of scaring him.. “I’ve put all of my savings into buying this cottage. Every last pound, except the few I’ll need to live on. It’s mine now. You’d better get use to it. I’m not letting some moth-eaten ghost chase me out. You’re the one who has to go.” Jensen’s voice echoes loudly.
There is a long silence broken only by a crash of thunder and the first spatter of rain against the glass of the kitchen window. Outside, the wind picks up, whining through the less-than-airtight walls. Green eyes lock with hazel.
“Damn me if I don’t like your spirit,” the ghost says suddenly. A pair of dimples bloom on the Captain’s cheeks. He slams a palm down on the pine table, making Jensen jump. “You’re not like the others. I can see that now. My mistake. Might even make a proper cabin boy with some training.” His smile is wolfish.
Jensen takes the remark for the insult it’s meant to be. He draws his shoulders up, aiming a finger at his antagonist. “Look, I’m not a boy. I’m a grown man. So I’ll thank you to stop calling me one. I don’t know what you think you can do to make me leave, besides creeping around corners and yelling, “Boo,” at inopportune times. And that’s plainly failed. You’re nothing but a ghost. You can’t affect the physical world.”
“Is that so?” One long arm reaches across the table. Before Jensen realizes what its about to do, the ghost takes hold of a lock of hair and pulls sharply. “How’s that for affecting the physical world?
“Ow! Ow! That hurt, you bastard. What do you think you’re....,” The words dry up. The legs of Jensen’s chair shriek on the tiled floor as he skitters backwards, heart thundering in his chest. “You touched me! You’re a bloody apparition. You can’t touch me.”
The Captain’s chuckle is a complacent goad to Jensen’s anger. “I’m not your average ghost, boy. You’d better believe I can do more than say boo if I want to.”
Jensen has launched himself so far across the kitchen he’s hit the big old Aga that takes up most of one wall. The iron door handles gouge sharply into his spine. He stares at the figure confronting him, then turns away, hands groping for the tea kettle on the front burner.
“I’m perfectly sure that I’m still up in bed having a dream,” he says, switching a knob on, watching the burner come to life. “But if I’m not, this is just my empty stomach getting back at me. I’m going to have a cup of tea, and when I turn around, you’ll be gone and I’ll laugh myself silly for making you up.”
It’s eerily quiet after that save for the kettle, hissing and rumbling to itself, clinking in its usual fashion. Jensen stares at it steadily, his incantation banishing the ghost still ringing in his ears. When steam finally begins to hiss from the kettle’s spout, he shuts off the burner and faces back into the kitchen.
The oil lantern’s wavering glow warms the room, illuminating the box of matches beside it on the table and the tipped over chair laying on the black and white tiles. There is nothing and no one else. Outside, rain beats against the glass.
“Yes. Well. I knew you weren’t real.”
Jensen quietly fixes his tea, toasts a piece of bread and spreads it with preserves. He eats and drinks, not tasting either, his eyes restlessly roaming the darker corners of the room for that tall, slim figure. They are empty. He can feel the desertion in his bones. He is alone now, the troubling hot stitch of wrongness gone from his skin.
Instead of cleaning up after himself, which is a very un-Jensen like thing to do he admits, he snatches the oil lamp and hurries back to bed when he’s finished-not wanting to linger downstairs. The bedroom is unreasonably cold. Jensen climbs under the covers still wearing his bathrobe, tucking the duvet in place over a shoulder. The tension leaves his tired limbs gradually and the continued roar of the storm serves as a kind of lullaby easing him into sleep. It’s only at the last second as he lets go and sinks into peacefulness that he feels the sharp lick of cold air brush across his cheek.
When he lifts his head, he sees that all three windows are open again.