Dude, i really need some destiel fluff to calm my anxious ass. Maybe a librarian!cas and researcher!dean? Thank you!
~1.5k of librarian!cas x researcher/student!dean
also, if you don’t know maurice by e.m. forster, you should look it up to know why any blushing is involved at all ;)
“Excuse me,” Dean whispered, forcing his voice to sound as quiet as he could without falling completely silent. He meant to show the librarian he approached that he had good library manners and only spoke up because he had to, to get his attention, but maybe he had been a bit too diligent in his efforts. The guy didn’t even look up from his computer when Dean addressed him, even though Dean was standing right in front of him or, to be more precise, in front of the monitor that was separating them. All he could see of the guy was shock of unruly dark hair, his ears, and the sides of his glasses. Dean waited patiently for a couple of seconds, thinking that maybe the librarian just needed to finish something he was working on and would help him out afterwards, but nope. He stayed hunched over and glued to his computer instead, so Dean decided to try again.
“Excuse me?” he tried again, a bit louder this time. Close to his talking voice, really, but he was already on edge for several reasons, so reining in his voice didn’t rank too high on his list of priorities.
The librarian must’ve thought differently, though. He finally looked up and, wow, but the guy was hot. Like, seriously frickin’ hot. His glasses framed a pair of pretty blue eyes, drew attention to his cheekbones and to his pink lips, and man, had Dean known that the library was staffing such eyecandy, he would’ve asked for help much, much sooner.
Unfortunately, though, the guy was also frowning at him in disapproval. Dean had been so distracted by his face that he forgot why he even approached him the second he had been graced with the sight of his face, but the librarian obviously hadn’t. He put his index finger against his lips in a shushing motion that made him look less like a serious librarian and more like an absolute dork.
“Keep your voice down, please. We are in a library,” he said, and the deep of his voice timber made it pretty hard for Dean to keep certain other parts of himself down, too.
“Sorry,” Dean said, more quiet now and maybe a bit hoarse.
“It’s alright,” the librarian graciously allowed, “now, how may I help you?”
Dean’s brain provided him with a multitude of scenarios he would have liked the guy to help him with, starting with tasting those pink lips, but as he was a proper adult now - or at least ought to be -, he responded in an adult-like manner. “I was wondering if you keep the books of the same author at different places in the library sometimes? Like, uh, if one work fell into two different categories, could you technically have two copies of it on two different shelves?”
The librarian kept frowning, but it seemed to of contemplation and not of disapproval now. “No, I am sorry, but we would not do that. The books are sorted by their dominant categories, which is usually their academic field, their country of origin, and then the period they were published in. This leaves little room for any other sort of categorization.”
“I see, yeah. No chance, then? ‘Cause I looked up this one book online and it said that it should still be on the shelf on the library page, but I’ve checked the last few days and it hasn’t turned up nor officially been checked out, so…” He shrugged.
“Ah, yes, I see.” The librarian nodded a couple of times, then sighed. “That does happen from time to time. There can be various reasons for that, such as people taking the book off the shelf to work with it while staying at the library but never checking it out, sometimes the books are placed incorrectly and are difficult to be found again, and sometimes, the books are simply stolen.” He considered for a moment, then turned back towards his computer, his fingers poised above the keyboard. “What is the title of the book were you looking for? And what is the author’s name?”
“Uhm,” Dean said as heat crept into his cheeks and he could not help but squirm a bit. Which was dumb, really, the guy just wanted to do his job and had probably read all kinds of stuff, but Dean was still a bit shy about… those interests he had only recently begun indulging himself in. “It’s– I don’t know if you even know it, but– uhm, it’s by E.M. Forster and it’s called,” he made a thoughtful noise, as if he actually had troubles recalling the name after searching dozens upon dozens of shelves for it in the last few days, “a guy’s name. ‘Maurice’, I think?”
Despite applying his best efforts, Dean believed the librarian could look right through him. He shot Dean a quick glance over the rims of his glasses when Dean was finally done with his whole song-and-dance and had given him the title. He didn’t look judgy or anything, though, just looked at him, almost as if reassessing some part of him, then turned back towards the monitor and started typing.
It took him only a few seconds and some more clicks to sadly shake his head. “I am sorry,” he said once more, “but the novel is only on the shelf for British Literature of the 20th century, no place else. If you could not find it there or in the vicinity of it, then it might be lost. For the time being, at least.” He looked genuinely sad at that, and Dean suspected that that had less to do with disappointing Dean and more with his probably abiding love for literature. He was a librarian, after all.
“Aw, man,” Dean said, bummed out. He had finally taken the plunge and actually asked someone about the book, and now it had all been for nothing.
“I could,” the librarian began, strangely hesitant, which immediately drew back Dean’s attention, even if not the guy’s gaze, since his eyes remained firmly on the monitor in front of him, “help you look for it. I most likely know the library better than you do, and there are some common mix-ups regarding certain authors and labels that I know of, so there might be a chance that he was simply sorted incorrectly.”
“You’d do that? That’d be awesome, man.”
The librarian nodded in quick succession. “Yes, and– given the chance that we do not indeed find it, I–,” he finally looked back up at Dean, and despite a light blush dusting his cheeks, his gaze was resolved, “I have a copy of my own at home and could lend you mine, if you like that.”
And yeah, that could probably mean nothing, in no sense at all. Dude’s a librarian, so it’s only natural for him to have all sorts of books, and maybe he goes around lending books to library users all the time, but going by the look in his eyes and the way he nervously licked his lips, Dean was hoping that there might be something more behind this offer.
“Yeah, sure, that’d be awesome,” he repeated dumbly. “The next time you work, I could just come by and…?” He made a gesture that only vaguely resembled a book-shaped object as well as him being handed something.
“Yes, the next time I– tomorrow, that would be then. I will work tomorrow.”
“Oh, great,” Dean said, going for a little variation in his positive exclamations, “so, then, I’ll just come by tomorrow and ask for you and you’ll lend me the book.” He knew he was babbling, but there was nothing he could do about it. “I’ll just ask for, uh, what’s your name?
“Castiel,” the librarian replied. It was unfair how much smoother than Dean he sounded, despite this whole awkward situation.
“Okay, Castiel, nice. Nice to meet you, um, I’m Dean.”
“Hello, Dean,” Castiel said, with a soft smile and the hint of crinkles around his eyes and, yeah, Dean never even stood a chance.
“Right, so, I’ll just ask for Castiel and you’ll– you’ll give me the book.”
Castiel’s lips were curved up into the smallest of smiles by now, and he nodded in agreement. “Yes, I will give you my copy of the book if we don’t find it on the shelves, or in case you simply prefer to use mine. Feel free to choose either; I would not mind lending you mine at all.”
Dean’s cheeks were burning, and he Castiel must have been able to pick up on it. Honestly, anyone would’ve been able to pick up on it. He was sweating, too, which added a whole nother dimension of embarrassment to it. “Okay, yeah. Then, you wanna go search the shelves now?” Dean asked, hoping against hope that that might actually calm him down. At least a bit.
But the now full-fledged smile Castiel sent his way let him know that he was already hopelessly lost.
“I most certainly do,” Castiel agreed, still wearing that smile, and got up with a pleased hum.