The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born must destroy a world. The bird flies to God. That God's name is Abraxas.
sam’s digging through dean’s things and he finds a scrap of paper with coordinates, just like their dad used to leave behind when they were younger. unsure of what it means, sam goes to that very same spot. it’s a meadow, a peaceful one that he’s never seen. there’s a windmill and a brook, too. slowly, a memory floats to the surface of his mind—one of the time when cas just came back and it hits him. this place is where cas’ ashes were spread. he goes back to the bunker only to return the next day with dean’s to spread them there too. it’s peaceful, sam thinks, and dean would like it here. he would like it here with cas.
since ao3 is down and we're all suffering here's chapter 1 of my destiel lighthouse keepers fic (not the prologue. that's a secret)
title: where there is darkness
pairing: dean/cas
summary, written badly, because i did this in 2 minutes: Cas is trying to escape his past by taking a job as a lighthouse keeper. Little does he know the love of his life is waiting for him there. Historical au. Gay sex later. Just read it.
Chapter 1
1949. Autumn.
The bus drops Castiel off on the outskirts of Kittery, just over the bridge connecting Maine and New Hampshire’s borders over the water. He watches the bus as it hisses, lifting its aching joints and meandering down the windy highway 101.
Castiel decides to stand for a long moment, staring out into the empty field.
Behind him is Kittery Foreside, the center of town: beyond it, the harbor, with the lighthouse just a speck in the distance. It’s a clear afternoon, not quite twilight, so he was able to track the dot through the window as they crossed the bridge.
But now, he’d rather stare at the field and the deep blue of the sky as the sun sets.
In his left hand is the official letter detailing his new job. In his right, a leather suitcase containing everything he now owns (three outfits, one wool sweater, a toothbrush—and a stack of letters, stained in the left corners where he dropped them accidentally into a puddle).
He watches a seagull’s trajectory as it lands on the fence post, scratching at a wing with its beak.
A lighthouse keeper—arguably an insane job to take, considering he has no experience. But the sailing portion on his resume (from a handful of times he sailed at his family’s lake house as a boy) seemed to set him apart from the rest of the applicants. And the job was going to put him exactly where he wanted to be: away from society. Away from people.
Taking a sharp breath, he turns on his heel, and follows the road to the town center, street lights illuminating the pavement in the twilight.
There’s only one hotel that took his reservation at such short notice; as he fills out the registration form, the bellhop eyes his lack of luggage suspiciously.
Swallowing a nervous lump in his throat, Castiel takes the key from the woman at the front desk. “Do you have any recommendations for somewhere to eat this time of night?”
“Only thing open on a Wednesday night is the Roadhouse, sir,” the woman says as she files his paperwork behind the desk. She shoots him a smile. “It’s good food, though. Place is almost as old as the town itself. I recommend the lobster rolls, personally.”
“Thank you, uh…”
“Bela,” she replies.
“Bela,” Castiel repeats. “Can you tell me which direction to go?”
Pulling out a map, Bela splays it on the counter, uncapping a pen.
The Roadhouse is clear on the other side of town, across yet another bridge. The amount of islands that the area is divided into baffles Castiel. It’s well past dark when he arrives, pushing the door into the warm embrace of the diner.
A rush of nostalgia hits him as he realizes it’s similar to the one in Boston that he frequented, just a couple of blocks from the parish—their similarities extend even to the paraphernalia on the wall. Whoever owns this diner seems to have an obsession with John Wayne, just like the ones in Boston.
“Be one sec!” a waitress calls as she flies past him, a tray of drinks balanced on her shoulder. “Just pick an empty one!”
Dutifully, Castiel slides into a chair by the window, setting his cold hands on the table. He glances around at the buzzing diner; there are more people than he expected, considering that the town seemed to already close its eyelids as the sun went down. A family with two whining toddlers are crammed into a booth in the corner, another taking up multiple tables shoved together, kids running around and chasing each other as their parents snap at them to sit down and eat. Other tables are filled with men in fishermen’s overalls and boots, a group of women poking at their plates of food, babies in their arms.
One baby, held by a woman in a plaid dress, coos and holds out his hands towards the plate. The woman smiles down at the baby, kissing the top of his blonde head.
Castiel’s heart constricts and he looks away before the familiar tears can prick at his eyes.
“Whaddaya havin’?”
Castiel whips up his head at the same waitress from before, blinking. “Oh. I don’t have—”
“Ah, damn it, I didn’t give you a menu did I?” she says with a roll of her eyes, pulling out a plastic one from underneath her arm and setting it on the table. “Sorry, the dinner rush is crazy on Wednesdays. You wouldn’t think it, my brother had the big idea to make Wednesday the day we offer crab at market price, so everyone’s goin’ nuts.”
Castiel stares down at the menu, feeling a little shell-shocked, and realizing he hasn’t had a proper conversation with someone for weeks—especially not someone so energetic. “Should I not order the crab, then?” he asks, solemnly.
“Not order the—?” She lets out something closer to a snort than a laugh, smacking his arm. “Oh, you’re yanking my chain, huh? No, order the crab if you want, damage is already done. I’ll just give you a minute, okay? Oh, and name’s Jo, if you need to yell at me across the room.”
Before Castiel can reply, she’s already walking away at a quick pace, ponytail swinging.
He orders the lobster roll when she finally comes back around to his table twenty minutes later; when he explains it was on Bela’s recommendation, Jo scoffs, “And you trust her?” She waves a hand at his raised eyebrows. “Whatever, she’s right, actually. Lobster was fresh caught this morning, too. Any fries with that roll to keep it company?”
Castiel nods, handing the menu back to her. “And an iced tea.”
She takes the menu, narrowing her eyes. “Say… if Bela gave you the recommendation, does that mean you’re staying at the inn?”
Castiel sucks in a breath. The lines he rehearsed are already slamming into his head like a film playing too quickly. “Yes. I just got into town.”
“Oh, yeah? Well, welcome! What brings you to Kittery?”
“A job.”
When Castiel doesn’t elaborate, Jo leans in, smile conspiratorial. “And what job would that be?”
Castiel considers lying. But he already has enough lies to keep track of. “Second assistant keeper at Whaleback Lighthouse.”
Jo’s eyebrows shoot up her brow, and she says, emphatically, “Oh. The stag light, out on the harbor? Really?”
“I don’t seem the type?” Castiel jokes weakly.
Jo doesn’t even try to hide the way her eyes scrape up and down his suit and trench coat, more tax accountant than sailor. “No, actually. Not at all.”
“I’m trying a career change.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I have sailing experience.”
Jo purses her lips. “Oh. Yeah. Sure.”
It was beginning to feel like he was interviewing for the job all over again. Castiel crosses his arms on the table and stares her down as intimidatingly as he can: the same stare he gave the children when they forgot lines of their catechisms. “Is that all?”
“Hey,” Jo says, hands raised, “just making conversation. I’ll go put in your order.”
Castiel watches as she makes her way to the kitchen, glancing over her shoulder at him as she goes. There’s a small window where the orders are passed between the kitchen and whoever is at the counter: Castiel can see Jo talking to another man through it as they glance intermittently at Castiel.
He scrubs a hand over his face and curses under his breath. Lying would have been the better option.
The news spreads like wildfire: from Jo to the cook to other patrons in the diner to an older woman at the till. They all stare at him with curious glances, sizing him up. When Jo delivers his lobster roll, Castiel can barely eat it, his stomach is so twisted up in knots.
Someone is going to ask questions; investigate. Or, worse, someone is going to recognize him from the papers. His suitcase is still at the hotel; he could run back to his room, grab it, get out of town. He could just ditch the suitcase altogether if it weren’t for the damn letters. He curses himself again for not putting them in his pocket. He begins to fish out his wallet, fingers shaking as he pulls out a few bills because he can’t just add dine and dash to his list of offenses, but the walls are also closing in and everyone’s looking at him and—
A man appears beside the table. Castiel stares up at him, eyes wide, hands hidden under the table.
He’s wearing waterproof overalls and gumboots, like the rest of the fishermen types at the adjacent table. He scratches his beard and narrows his eyes as he sizes up Castiel.
Castiel wonders if he could take him in a fight. Based on Castiel’s lack of fitness and the size of this man’s arm, his guess is a resounding no.
“You the new keeper at Whaleback, huh?” he asks.
Castiel wills his voice not to shake. “Yes.”
The man stares at him for another long moment, frowning, scratching at the dark beard peppering his jawline. Finally, he sits down at the chair across from Castiel, leaning toward him. “You sure that’s a good idea?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?” Castiel asks, frowning.
The man shakes his head. “Just… watch yourself out there. Okay? Place isn’t exactly… normal.”
Something akin to cold water rushes down Castiel’s spine, extinguishing the fire of anxiety freezing his limbs—people aren’t wary of him. They’re wary of his new place of occupation. He almost laughs with relief.
“I can manage,” he says, placing the bills back into his wallet. “Thank you.”
“No, see, there’s—” The man blows out a gust of air. “The Principal Keeper, you see. He ain’t right in the head.”
“I’m sorry, who even are you?” Castiel snaps.
“Cole!”
Both Castiel and the man turn their heads in time to see the older woman from the register approach and cuff Cole over the back of the head. “Spreading rumors again, huh? Got nothin’ better to do?”
Cole crosses his arms over his chest, leaning back in the chair with a scowl. “Not rumors if they’re true, Ellen,” he mumbles.
“Then the next thing you can gab about is how I kicked your ass across this diner and out onto the street,” Ellen snaps, smacking at his shoulder. “Go on, get up and join your buddies, you good-for-nothin’.”
With a roll of his eyes, Cole rises, then points his finger at Castiel. “I mean it, okay, guy? Just watch yourself around that psycho.”
“That’s enough out of you,” Ellen growls, shoving his back as he goes. She hooks a thumb over to the table of fishermen. “Ignore those superstitious idiots. They latch onto a Jonah in town and don’t stop talking about it.”
“A Jonah?” Castiel asks.
“That’s what they call anyone who’s bad luck enough to stop them from getting a catch.” Ellen shrugs a shoulder. “But they’ve had the best fishing around here in decades since Dean Winchester rolled back into town from the war, so it’s just prejudice.” She nods down at Castiel’s plate. “Lobster roll no good?”
Castiel blinks down at it; he’d forgotten the food in front of him. “Just haven’t had the chance to try it yet.”
Smile sympathetic, Ellen nods over to the counter. “If you want, we can move you over there. Then the eyes of the town will be on your back. Easier to ignore.”
Despite himself, Castiel’s lips quirk up into a grin. “I like that idea.”
With a wink, Ellen scoops up his plate for him, holding it aloft as she weaves through the tables. “Sorry about them,” she says over her shoulder to Castiel as he follows. “You’re not exactly the first keeper this year to come into town for the job, so they’re just a little excitable.”
Castiel slides onto the stool at the counter, frowning. “I thought the job just opened up last month?”
“Oh, it did.” Ellen rounds the corner to the other side of the counter, depositing Castiel’s plate. She quirks her lips, thinking for a moment. “You’re the fourth, I think.”
Castiel gapes. “Fourth?”
“This year, at least.”
“I…” Castiel works his jaw to find the words. “Did they—are they…” He doesn’t finish the sentence, too absorbed in the image of his body splayed out onto the rocks as an ending to this story.
“Oh—no,” Ellen scoffs, waving a hand. “They didn’t die. It’s a dangerous job, but people don’t die… often. No, these men quit after a few months. One didn’t even last a week.”
Because she keeps glancing at his plate, Castiel picks up the lobster roll and takes a bite. Perfectly salted lobster and toasted bun explodes flavor in his mouth. He makes a mental note to thank Bela profusely for the recommendation.
He realizes, two bites into his food, that he forgot to pray.
He frowns, wiping his face with a napkin, inwardly chastising himself. That kind of thing doesn’t matter anymore.
Jo skips up to stand beside Ellen, placing her empty tray down on the counter. “What are we talking about?”
“Don’t listen to her about it, either,” Ellen tells Castiel firmly, taking the tray. “Jo’s got fanciful notions about the sea.”
“Oh, we talking about Whaleback?” Jo’s eyes glint mischievously as she leans forward to say to Castiel in a lowered voice, “It’s haunted, you know. That’s why all those keepers quit. Only the Winchesters stay there ‘cause they got used to the ghosts by now.”
“I see,” Castiel says slowly.
“But, hey, kudos to you for trying it out,” another voice says, patting him on the shoulder. Castiel balks at the man who’s suddenly appeared next to him, a hand offered in greeting. “I’m Ash, Jo’s brother, Ellen’s reluctant son. Nice to meet ya.”
Castiel rubs his temples and sighs. “This is beginning to feel like a circus.”
“Let me give you the skinny,” Ash says, pushing back his hair that’s somehow short in the front and long in the back—something Castiel can barely get his mind around. “Lighthouse used to be totally normal, right? Besides the normal rumors that lighthouses just always have. Daddy John Winchester and little brother Sam Winchester looked after it while older brother Dean Winchester was off fighting the Nazis—he came back and that’s when things started getting weird.”
Weary from traveling and the overall conversation, Castiel decides to tuck into his lobster roll, hoping that if he doesn’t reply, they’ll all go away.
“Tell him what happened with his uh, uh—what do you call it?” Jo asks, snapping her fingers.
“Oh, yeah! Dean’s agoraphobia,” Ash says. “Shifts at the lighthouse are usually 25 days on, 4 days off, right? Well, Dean stopped going to shore more and more, until he just stopped leaving the lighthouse altogether. Don’t think that kid’s been out since—what? ’47?”
“Of course he has,” Jo says with a roll of her eyes. “He stopped coming to the mainland when his dad died last year, remember?”
Castiel lifts his head at that one. “He died?”
“Yeah,” Ash says, shaking his head. “John Winchester—he was the Principal Keeper for, what, twenty years at least. Fell over the railing on a clear day. Since then, people keep sayin’ they see weird things—like a woman in a white dress walking up and down the landing, lights flickering on and off during a power outage… Weird things like that. But people are jumpy after the war, they need something to talk about. Get their minds distracted.”
Castiel sipped at his water, mulling over the information. “Who was on shift with Mr. Winchester when he fell?”
Jo grimaces, exchanging a look with Ash. “Dean was in the kitchen when it happened. Saw his dad falling past the window.”
“He’s Principal Keeper now,” Ash adds. “So you’ll be serving under him. Sam Winchester is the first assistant. And Adam, their half brother, still in high school—he helps out from time to time, picks up shifts if Sam needs it. But now, with you here…” Ash lets out a chuckle. “Well, as long as you last, anyway.”
Castiel takes another long gulp of water, wishing it was beer so he could calm his jangling nerves. “The Coast Guard didn’t tell me I was walking into a situation.”
Ellen, who stayed on the sideline of their conversation, comes back to lean against the counter. “Officially? You’re not.” She points her finger at Castiel. “Loyalty runs deep in this town. No matter how weird Dean gets, he still fought for this country and he’s done a lot of good for the town since. So any sideways look or word against him, and people will sooner run you out of here than take your side. Got it?”
Castiel sets down his iced tea. He nods. “I got it.”
“Good.” Ellen leans back, arms crossed. “That all being said—if you last after a shift, be sure to visit here while you’re on shore, okay?”
“Yeah,” Ash chimes in, “we’re placing bets. So last at least two shifts so I can stay low, okay?”
“Or at least three,” Jo adds. She nudges his elbow on the counter with her own. “Don’t worry, champ, I got faith in ya.”
Incredulous, Castiel scoffs into his water. “Yeah. Right.”
The bell to the diner door rings, heralding a group of sweaty children in baseball uniforms and their parents. The sudden flood of people distracts Ash and Jo long enough for Castiel to finish his lobster roll in peace. When he’s done, he places a ten dollar bill, enough to cover the meal and then some, beside his plate as he shrugs on his coat, winding around the crowd clamoring for a seat to sit.
He hunches his shoulders against the damp shock of cold, blowing warm air into his hands. Living in Boston was cold, but not like this: here, the very air feels hostile, stealing your breath to toss into the harbor’s winds. Castiel paces down the main street, past the dark windows of a flower shop, antique store, and a movie palace. At the end of the road, nudged up a slight hill, is a drug store—and a payphone tucked in beside it.
It’s a bad idea. He knows it’s a bad idea. But then he thinks of the letters in his suitcase, and the answer is made for him.
Picking the phone off its cradle, he dials for the operator and asks to make a collect call to Boston, fighting the tremor in his voice.
The line trills once. Twice. Castiel’s palms spring sweat despite the cold. On the fourth ring, the receiver is picked up.
“Hello?”
Hearing his sister’s voice releases the vise that’s constricting his chest. “Anna,” he chokes out.
There’s a long silence on the other end. Then: “You have to be kidding me.”
“I know I shouldn’t be calling—”
“I told you not to. I’m hanging up.”
“Just—” Castiel clutches the phone tight to his ear, his body a taut string. He can hear forks clinking in the background on Anna’s end. They’re probably having dinner. “How is she?” he asks, unable to hold the words back. “Her and—”
“They’re fine,” Anna says with a sharp sigh. “Listen, someone could be listening in. It was stupid to call. Don’t do it again.” She pauses. “You get in okay?”
“Yes.” Castiel closes his eyes against the sudden tears that spring into his eyes. “I start the job tomorrow.”
“Good.” Anna’s voice is gentler as she adds, “They’re fine, little brother. Just—don’t call again. Okay?”
“Okay.” Castiel can hear a familiar laugh over the line. He quickly slams the phone back into the cradle; an instinctual reaction.
Panic, fear, sorrow—it all mounts in his chest as he stumbles away from the payphone, blindly down the road. His feet find their path away from the downtown, toward a cluster of trees and green overlooking the harbor.
The lighthouse is on now, its lens bright and twirling across the water like a ballerina suspended on a string. Castiel follows the movement as he breathes unsteadily, desperate to catch his racing heart.
Eventually, as it always does, his pulse slows. The fear, the panic—it all leaves his body like water trickling off a ledge. Regret and shame remains, pooling sourly in his gut.
The water below is dark, murky. It would be so easy to get lost in, with one step in the wrong direction.
He stares at the lighthouse for a moment longer. Then, with a straight back, he turns away and walks back toward the town.
****
As with most things in his life, Dean has a love-hate (but mostly hate) relationship with this lighthouse.
It’s easy to take care of on sunny days and clear nights, but it’s grueling during a storm or fog. Sun shines through the window in the midday, providing warmth, but it’s ever-loving cold the rest of the time.
It provides him with shelter from the outside world.
But it traps him in, like a caged animal.
Love, hate—day in and day out. And right now, standing against the railing of the balcony with an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips and the wind whipping at his back, it’s hate.
The light’s ready for the dusk that’s beginning to settle on the harbor. Dean’s cleaned the lens and brewed the meths. He turned on the tap, set a match to the mantle. The routine is so familiar, he could do it in his sleep. The light rotates behind him, illuminating his back briefly before turning its watchful eye to the rest of the harbor.
Bright, dark. Bright, dark. Around and around like a carousel.
Him and this lighthouse go way back, like a bad relationship that he can’t quit. When John moved him and Sam to Kittery and started work on this light, Bobby would bring Sam and Dean to visit during the fortnightly supply runs. Every visit was like a further punch to the gut to remind him of what he’d lost. It wasn’t like the light they’d all lived at when Dean’s mom was alive, with a cozy house that always smelled like freshly baked bread. This was a cold, sterile environment that smelled like three guys living in close quarters. And John—
He could barely look Dean and Sam in the eye when they visited.
After a few months at Whaleback, John seemed to relax into the work and his smile came more easily, but Dean would smell the whiskey on his breath.
After a while, Bobby stopped taking Sam and Dean at all.
The lighthouse took John and swallowed him whole. During his brief few days of shore leave, he’d just sit with a bottle at the table. Dean came to dread it, since it meant that the money he’d squirreled away in the coffee can on top of the cupboard would inevitably be pilfered for booze money.
Dean doesn’t know why he’s thinking about all of this, or about John. Maybe it’s because of where he’s currently standing.
Muttering a curse, Dean pulls the zippo out of his pocket and lights the cigarette.
“Got you.”
Dean turns as his brother comes onto the walkway, collar popped and hands deep into his coat pockets. His cheeks are already pinched red from the cold.
Dean adopts an easy posture, arms settling on the railing as he leans back with a grin. It hides the bitter taste of nostalgia still on his tongue. “I said I wanted to quit, not that I was going to quit.”
Sam rolls his eyes, then joins Dean at the railing. “Light all set?”
“Yup. Everything’s good. Go get some shut-eye.”
“I thought it was my shift tonight.”
Dean shrugs a shoulder. “Not tired. I can take the whole night.”
“You took the whole shift last night, too,” Sam says with a frown. “What about that chamomile tea Bobby brought last week? Did you try that?”
“Not drinkin’ a flower. I’ll sleep the old-fashioned way.”
“Clearly that’s not working.”
“I’ll take the shift tonight.” Dean levels his brother with a stare. “Okay?”
Lips twisted into a frown, wind sweeping at his hair, Sam suddenly looks like a younger snot-nosed version that had that same miserable look when Dean tried to tell him that Dad volunteered himself for a double shift that month. Before the Coast Guard took over during the war, things were more relaxed—less regulated. John was able to take all the double, triple shifts as he pleased, drinking himself stupid with all the bootlegged liquor in the cellar.
It always upset Sam, when their dad didn’t come home. He was a sensitive kid.
Just like all those years ago, Dean’s heart is punched out with a desire to make that frown leave Sam’s face.
“You wanna sneak back with Bobby tomorrow when he comes for the supply run? Go see Eileen? I can cover things here.”
Sam rolls his eyes with a scoffed laugh. “That’s a pretty terrible first impression to make on the new keeper Bobby’s bringing in.”
Fuck. Dean had forgotten about that. “That’s tomorrow?” he asks with a wince.
“Yes, and we need him to last more than a week, unlike the last guy. Otherwise the Coast Guard is not going to let us have a say in who comes or stays anymore.”
“Last guy was a pansy,” Dean grumbles around his cigarette.
“You punched him in the face, Dean.”
Dean glares out at the thin line of the distant shore and doesn’t reply.
“Since you’re a vet, they’re taking it easy on us,” Sam continues, “but Bobby was talking to someone up in a higher rank the other day and—I think this is our last chance.” He clears his throat. “Your last chance.”
“The hell you mean?” Dean asks, drawing up to a straight back. “They’re gonna sack me?”
“Move you, I think. To a solo light on the shore.”
Dean throws up a hand. “Well, fine. Let them. What’s the problem?”
There’s that miserable look again. Sam won’t raise his head as the unspoken words hang between them. Dean stays silent, challenging Sam to say it.
“You know what the problem is, Dean,” Sam quietly says.
Yeah. Dean knows. He knows that without Sam, Dean at a solo light would probably end with him hanging from the rafters.
Blowing out a drag of smoke into the wind, Dean hunches back over the railing. “I’ll try,” he concedes. “But if he’s a dumbass—”
“Then I’ll train him,” Sam interjects. “You don’t even have to be in the same room as him. We’ll put him on the early morning shifts, make him sleep in the afternoons.”
Dean huffs out a laugh. “Make him stay in the service room listening to the radio.”
A grin forming on Sam’s face, he adds, “Tell him that shore leave is ten days instead of four so he stays off the lighthouse for longer.”
“Yeah, the Coast Guard won’t notice that.”
“Whatever it takes for you to cohabitate with this guy, I say we do it,” Sam says with a shrug. “Get creative.”
Dean makes a move to flick the stub of his cigarette away; Sam grabs his arm to stop him. “I just cleaned the gallery, Dean.” With a scowl, Dean tosses it into the ocean instead.
Sam runs a hand through his messy hair and sighs, the disapproval evident in his frown. “Need anything before I go down to the bunks?”
“Nah. Get some sleep, Sammy.” Dean gives his brother a smack on the chest in dismissal. “I’ll wake you for the morning shift.”
“Okay, but actually wake me this time. Don’t let me sleep in until nine.”
Dean taps out another cigarette from the carton he fishes out of his pocket. “No promises.”
“And let me actually make breakfast tomorrow, too!” Sam calls before he disappears through the door.
“I would if your eggs weren’t shit!” Dean barks back. His words are snatched up by the wind. He turns back toward the ocean, clicking the lighter as he holds it up to the cigarette butt. “Seriously, who raised you?”
Blowing out another puff of smoke, the cigarette still caught between his teeth, Dean eyes the shoreline. Their new keeper is probably staying at Bela’s place, if it’s still even running. The inn nearly went under last year after her parents declared bankruptcy. He ran with her a few times in high school before he cut town—she was sharp around the edges. Misunderstood. Just like him.
He remembers the new guy’s resume. It had stood out to him among the rest, mainly because he seemed the least qualified. Didn’t make sense at all why the Coast Guard chose him as the new rookie, when five men before him—way more experienced, to boot—didn’t last.
No family, no money. Maybe that’s why they took him. That’s better, for these stag lights—bunch of single men with no families means there’s a better chance of them staying. It’s why the Coast Guard is itching to get a new keeper for the light, what with them eyeing recently married Sam, and Eileen, who’s in the family way.
It would make more sense for Sam to leave, get a position at a light with a house. Where he could see his family every night.
What Sam and Dean used to have, before Mary died.
Dean runs a hand down his face, letting out a curse. Whatever the word is for wishing for a time that he can’t get back to, ever—that’s what tonight is. Memories he didn’t ask for turning around and around in his head like a wheel. That’s what the sea does when you look out into it: shimmers back at you, showing you what you want to see. And sometimes what you don’t.
The door behind him creaks open again. With a grumble, Dean lets out a breath of smoke, a reprimand on his tongue for Sam to get the hell to bed.
A bang echoes through the air.
Dean drops his cigarette in surprise, whipping around to face the door. It yawns open, mercilessly blowing in the wind, banging against the side. Dean strides over to it and pulls it firmly closed before it breaks one of the windows.
The lens, green and opaque, flashes across his eyes; he squints as the light rotates away. Turning back to the railing, spots dotting his vision, he sees a shadow.
One taller than him, broader; stumbling toward the railing with a groan.
Dean closes his eyes, briefly; chest constricting. A trick of the light. It happens.
“It’s haunted!” one of the failed keepers had shouted as he stuffed his clothes into a carpetbag, stumbling down the stairs. “This place is fucking haunted!”
But that keeper had got it wrong—it wasn’t the lighthouse doing the haunting.
DESTIEL TROPE COLLECTION 2023 | DAY 14 | First Responder AU
Open my eyes to you | @malicmalic
Rating: Teen & Up
Word Count: 2,884
Main Tags/Warnings: Car accidents, Rescue, Meet cute, homeless Castiel, homeless Jack, Castiel is Jack’s parent, Happy Ending.
Summary: Dean had no idea that choosing to take the first actual walk in his life would change it forever. Based on a discord Server love & winchester writing challenge - Same Sentence Start: “He watches the tail lights flicker as the lake swallows the car.” (Fear not, the Impala was not injured during this story. Can’t say the same for good old Lincoln).
Emergency Call | @peanutbutterjelly-pie
Rating: General
Word Count: 4,686
Main Tags/Warnings: Alternate Universe, Hurt/Comfort, Dispatcher Dean, Single Parent Castiel, Hurt Castiel, Toddler Jack
Summary: As a 911 dispatcher Dean gets a lot of emergency calls every single day.
But the one he receives on this particular Friday afternoon might turn out to be different than anything else before.
Six Greys Exposure | @aaronthe8thdemon
Rating: Mature
Word Count: 15,268
Main Tags/Warnings: Major Character Death, Alternate Universe, Firefighter Dean Winchester, Soldier Castiel, Tragic Romance, Graphic Depictions of Illness, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Medical Procedures, Hospitals
Summary: Dean’s starting to feel sick, like stomach flu sick, but he doesn’t say anything. There aren’t enough rapid intervention crews, so now Benny, Dean and Aaron are assigned to that. Less than ten minutes later a mayday is called and the three of them have to climb the roof with a stretcher.
It’s not easy to get where they need to go. There’s a metric fuckton of weak spots in the roof that they have to pick their way around, so it takes longer than Dean would like for them to reach the victims. It’s a two-man attack line crew, the one who called the mayday is sitting beside the hose and her buddy is lying down practically unconscious. Aaron helps the first firefighter stand up and head for the ladder. Dean and Benny haul the second one on the stretcher. Dean almost pukes into his mask, but he doesn’t, because he’s busy and it would just slow him down. He refuses to become a casualty.
Don’t Let Go | @envydean
Rating: Mature
Word Count: 28,578
Main Tags/Warnings: EMT!Castiel, mechanic!Dean, alcoholic!Dean, Alcoholism, Car Accidents, Hospitals, Recovery, PTSD, Descriptions of Injury, Angst with a Happy Ending, Angst, Trying to fall in love, Hurt/Comfort
Summary: Dean Winchester’s life is a mess. Ever since his father’s death, a downward spiral has seen his occasional beer become something of a crutch. Then, a revelation has him going to see his brother in California—except he doesn’t make it and ends up in a nasty accident, destroying the Impala.
Air rescue paramedic, Castiel, and his partner Benny are the ones to pull him out of the wreck and that’s just the start of it. He forms a tentative friendship with Dean and manages to convince him he needs help and that he can be there for Dean.
It should have been all uphill from there—because getting sober is easy, right?—except it isn’t and their relationship is thrown into turmoil at the wrong time. Slowly, they learn to accept each other once again.
