Chapter Text
Stepping behind the circulation desk after his healthy lunch of a pulled pork sub and a rather large slice of pecan pie, Dean immediately notices the envelope. It’s innocuous enough in and of itself, just there on his seat, but who put it there, and more to the point, why? His first thought is that it could potentially be his payslip, but payday isn’t for another ten days (not that he’s counting down or anything) and there’s nobody else around to ask.
And that realization eclipses his initial thought, because he’s the only one working today and so the library had been closed for his lunch break. He definitely locked the doors before he left because he had to unlock them when he came back.
So the question remains. What the actual fuck?
Maybe it had been placed there before he went for lunch. He was pretty hungry, and nothing gets between Dean Winchester and pie. He could have easily missed it.
Well, whatever. The envelope isn’t going anywhere and so he sets to work on checking out half a dozen mysteries to old Dorothy Wilton. Dorothy is one of his regulars; a mischievous sixty-something with a penchant for Poirot and pinching Dean’s ass whenever he bends over to pick up one of the books that she drops with the express purpose of sexual harassment in mind. Dean isn’t all that bothered, really. Dorothy is harmless and she was the first person to make Dean feel really welcome in his new job as head of the Lawrence Public Library, so he feels like the least he can do in return is play along and allow her a good look at his ass once in a while.
After all, he does have a pretty decent ass. It would be a crime not to share it with someone. Even if that someone is fighting senility and spends at least 90% of her time reading mysteries and the other 10% gossiping about her neighbor Linda Beufort who wears too much make-up.
Dean sighs. He really needs to get laid.
He slips a dated card into the pocket of Dorothy’s last book – a Dick Francis – flips the cover shut, and sets it atop the woman’s stack. “One of his best,” Dean flashes her a bit of the ol’ Winchester charm, smiling wider when Dorothy’s cheeks redden, clearly a little flustered as she hauls out her recyclable bag and begins shoveling the borrowed books into it.
Dean is ready to slip round in front of the desk even before the Christie novel tumbles to the worn carpet, but it turns out that his services are surplus to requirement today, because someone else is already there, bending over, black suit pants stretching enticingly over a rather spectacular ass and Dean is seriously considering upending Dorothy’s entire bag just to keep this floor show going.
“Oh thank you,” Dorothy is suitably ruffled by now and when Dean’s competition for the old woman’s affections finally straightens up and hands her the retrieved book – Endless Night – Dean can most definitely see why. Even his profile is strikingly handsome; sharp jaw with just enough scruff so as to appear artful rather than unkempt, plush pink lips, straight nose and a head full of dark tousled hair. He’s smiling warmly at Dorothy as she muddles her way through their painfully-polite-almost-British conversation, before he turns to Dean, and whatever quip Dean had about this guy stealing his best lady from him dies on his tongue.
His eyes. Blue. So much blue. Like every cliché ever written. It’s almost embarrassing how Dean’s mind immediately jumps to godawful Mills & Boon novels that he would never admit to reading, every lame ocean metaphor there is suddenly crowding out any semblance of cool or wit.
Not that he’s particularly close friends with either of those concepts. More like passing acquaintances that he sees around from time to time, but never really gets past a nod of acknowledgment and an awkward wave.
“Err, yeah. Thanks man. Always nice to have someone else bending over for a change.”
An amused brow-arch is all he gets in response and it takes a second for the double-meaning of his statement to kick in. Dean barely manages to resist the urge to bounce his face off the desk.
Instead, he goes for the marginally less self-destructive route of stammering like an idiot, “So-oo what can I do you for? I mean, do you – do for you?”
Smooth, like crunchy peanut butter.
Dorothy has long since left in a flurry of rosy cheeks and tittering, and at this rate, Dean may not be far behind.
“I’d like to see if you have a book in, if possible.” It’s spoken in a soft deep rumble that has Dean thinking less-than-pure thoughts involving that voice growling out obscenities as Dean does wicked things with his tongue.
“Um, of course.” Dean turns to the computer at his left, wiggles the mouse to bring the PC out of sleep and readies his fingers at the keyboard. “Shoot.”
“Palahniuk, Lullaby.”
Dean knows it well, but for the sake of conversation as he types, he says, “Have you read it before? Any good?”
“I’m ashamed to say that I haven’t read anything of his, despite my brother extolling the virtues of Fight Club. I thought it was about time that I rectified that.”
Dean silently agrees. He hits enter and a beat later the requested information appears onscreen, “We have a copy in, yeah. It’s upstairs. I’ll just go grab it for you.” He makes to move out from behind the desk, but once more is stopped by the stranger. The tan trench coat he’s got draped over one arm is pretty ugly, but it’s the only thing about him that is. The dark suit he’s wearing is clearly tailor-made and Dean has always been a sucker for waistcoats.
His brother Sam has rather flippantly suggested that this particular fetish is a direct reflection of Dean’s own sense of decorum and taste. Or lack thereof.
“That’s alright. I’m sure I can find it myself. Thank you for your help.” And with that, Blue Eyes is turning away and striding towards the curved staircase that leads to the first floor.
Dean’s bizarre urge to trail after the man like a lost puppy is curtailed by someone else stepping into the space that Blue Eyes vacated – a vaguely familiar teenager – and she pushes a book towards Dean, cover open and holds her library card out for him to take.
It’s probably a blessing in disguise, because Dean’s pretty sure that he’s filled his daily quota for embarrassing himself.
For the rest of his shift, Dean tries to focus entirely on the patrons, getting to know them better, hoping to show them that he’s friendly and always ready to help in any way possible. He smiles at all the right times, makes all the right noises, even as he’s subjected to more sordid everyday insights than the average shrink.
The mysterious Blue Eyes doesn’t preoccupy his thoughts.
Instead, he lingers just off to the side, where Dean’s mind seems to glance at him from time to time, imagining all kinds of scenarios – some PG-13 and some strictly NC-17 – where Dean gets the opportunity to see him again.
“If you like that one,” he tells a lumberjack type looking dude, “we’ve got a lot more by the same author.”
As the blockade masquerading as a man thanks him and heads for the door, Dean sneaks a quick glance at the clock above the door.
8:47pm. Thirteen minutes ‘til closing. He glances at the remaining people lined up in front of the circulation desk. Six. There’s maybe another dozen scattered about the main reading room, with a few on the way out. None of them are Blue Eyes.
By the time Dean is done checking out books, only a couple of people are still loitering in the reading room. Both regulars. The clock shows that there’s five minutes left to go.
He turns to retrieve his keys from his jacket on the back of the chair and that’s when he spies the envelope again. The same one he hadn’t totally forgotten about, but quite possibly hadn’t prioritized due to the whole ‘hot-guy-in-a-waistcoat’ thing.
Understatement. He’d barely given it a thought beyond a few intermittent moments throughout the afternoon where he vaguely wondered how it got there and who it could possibly be from/for.
Holding it at waist level so that the desk hides it from the view of anyone who might be watching, he flips it over. Handwritten in the center, in black ink, is one word:
DEAN
Well. At least the envelope hasn’t been lost by anyone, so he doesn’t need to worry about trying to find its owner. However, it does distinctly narrow down the possibilities of what could be inside. There’s a tiny, optimistic part of him that wonders if it’s a note from an admirer. Blue Eyes would be too much to hope for, but Dean’s always garnered attention for his looks wherever he goes, and so far it’s proven to be no different here.
It’s not entirely outside the realms of possibility, at any rate.
The flap is sealed and the envelope is pretty thin; the contents no thicker than a sheet or two of folded paper. He picks at a corner of the flap, tears it upwards, thrusting his forefinger into the small hole, working his finger along the seam, ripping upward. As he carefully tears, he lifts his gaze.
Nobody appears to be watching. It’s 8:57.
Returning his attention to the envelope, he removes a folded sheet of paper. He can see the raised dark scribble of handwriting in the other side, and a darkness within. A darkness caused by an extra layer of paper. Paper the size of a bank check or a dollar bill.
And suddenly he feels ridiculous. For the eighty-ninth time today.
It’s clearly nothing more than payment for a lost book or an overdue fine.
He unfolds the paper. Inside is a stiff, unwrinkled fifty dollar bill.
Holy shit. Was the book bound in freakin’ gold?
He sets the bill aside on the desk and reads the carefully scrawled note.
Dear Dean,
Come and play with me. For further instructions, look homeward, angel. You’ll be glad you did.
Warmest Regards, J.
Dean reads it again. And again. Then he looks around. The regulars are still in the reading room, but paying him no attention whatsoever.
It’s 9:01.
“Hey folks, we’re closed now.” He announces a little unevenly, refolding the note around the bill and tucking it back inside the envelope. He slides it into the front pocket of his slacks. “Time to go home to your families.”
When the last is gone – grumbling under their breath like twelve hours isn’t enough time to find a book – Dean locks the front doors behind them and begins the trudge up the stairs to turn off the lights and check that nobody is still skulking in the stacks. Not necessarily in that order. Usually, he doesn’t have much of an issue with it; sure it’s a little creepy, but tonight he’s feeling unsettled by the weird note and just how it got on his chair without him noticing.
And what precisely it means. Clearly, the sender is familiar with literature. The ‘look homeward, angel’ business is almost certainly an allusion to the Thomas Wolfe novel – a book Dean enjoyed in school, but hasn’t looked at since. Though, that said, the ‘come and play with me’ has an eager sort of immaturity to it; the kind of request that a child might make.
Alternatively, there’s the decidedly less innocent way of looking at it; the sexual implications of ‘come and play with me’ are hard to ignore.
Maybe that’s what the fifty bucks is for?
Dean has been propositioned in many different ways – a gym shower being the most memorable – but this is a new one. He’s not entirely sure how to feel about it; there’s the initial hit of revulsion, followed by humiliation, and then finally anger. There’s also an unexpected hint of desire mixed in there somewhere, but he ignores that for the moment and focuses on the anger, mostly because it’s easier to explain and quantify.
Then there’s the whole, ‘For further instructions…’ bit. Further? The sender sees this note as the initial instruction? Maybe the further instructions will be given face to face?
Maybe not.
Maybe he’s supposed to go home and look home in his mailbox for further instructions. After all, ‘look homeward’ could be taken at face value.
However, it’s also entirely possible that the further instructions are tucked inside a copy of Look Homeward, Angel. The library’s copy, if not checked out or misplaced, should be on a shelf in the fiction section in the upstairs stacks.
Right where he’s headed.
Dean sighs. There are a metric fuck-tonne of reasons that even considering this is a bad idea.
At best, the note is a seriously weird, misguided attempt to be playful.
At worst, it’s a creepy-as-fuck come on that alludes to Dean either being a hooker, desperate, or easy. None of which are exactly flattering.
He’s so preoccupied with his own thoughts that it takes him a few too many seconds to respond to the door at the top of the stairs bursting open.
As Dean flinches and grapples for the banister with his left hand, a man appears through the open doorway, charging straight for him, only managing to stop inches away from collision.
“Shit, sorry.” The man blurts, clamping a hand to Dean’s shoulder, holding him steady, “Are you okay?”
It’s Blue Eyes. He’s wearing the ugly trenchcoat. Dean barely resists the urge to be rom-com corny and say something like, “I am now.”
“I’m good,” Dean pants instead, pulse jack-rabbit quick, as if he’s just run a marathon, “I’m like a cat; I always land on all fours.”
He doesn’t even have the energy to cringe at that one. Blue eyes manages a small wry smile though, as he steps away, releasing Dean’s shoulder. He turns around and opens the door for Dean and gestures for him to go through. Dean’s expecting Blue Eyes to leave him and wait by the desk or something, but he follows Dean into the room, the heavy door thumping shut behind them.
“Er, thanks. Weren’t you on your way down?” Not that he’s trying to get rid of the strange, ridiculously attractive guy, who he’s now alone with in a deserted library. Because that would be insanity.
Or would insanity be him alone with a stranger in a deserted library late at night, after having received a creepy-ass note and not wanting to high-tail it outta there?
Eh. Potay-to, Potah-to.
Blue eyes barely nods. “I shouldn’t have been in such a hurry. I didn’t realize that it had gotten so late; got caught up in a book.” He raises said book for Dean to see. It’s a copy of Bukowski’s ‘Pulp’. When Dean looks at him questioningly, the other man lets out a self-deprecating chuckle, “What can I say? I tried to be intellectual with Palahniuk, but –“
“It’s a good book,” Dean interrupts. “One of my favorites. Lullaby is great if a little preachy, but Pulp? Talk about a very good example of bad writing. I love it.”
Blue eyes regards Dean with a calm kind of detachment, but there’s the barest hint of a smile pulling at his lips. “Castiel Novak.”
C.N. So not J, Dean’s mysterious letter writer. Of course, he could be lying or have a middle name starting with J. Though, Castiel doesn’t immediately strike Dean as the kind of person who needs to proposition others through sexually suggestive letters, nor pay for it.
It takes Dean a few seconds to realize that he really should respond rather than staring blankly at his new acquaintance, so he quickly reaches out and shakes Castiel’s proffered hand, “Dean Winchester.” It’s a firm, warm grip and Castiel’s hand is smooth. Dean lets go before it becomes too awkward. “I’ve just gotta finish up here and then I can check you out.”
He doesn’t need to be facing Castiel this time to see the smirk threaded through his response, “Of course, Dean. I’ll accompany you if you don’t mind.”
Dean isn’t quite sure whether he minds or not yet, so he says nothing.
From the door, an aisle stretches the length of the room. To the aisle’s right, study carrels line the wall. To the left stand row after row of bookshelves that reach the ceiling. Castiel stays at Dean’s side as he starts walking, but half a pace behind, allowing him to lead the way.
Except for their footsteps and the creaking floorboards, there’s silence, until Dean asks, “Nobody else up here?”
“Just now? I don’t believe so, but I was reading. I tend to block everything out when I’m in a good book,” he gestures towards several books that have been left at one of the carrels, “would you like me to move these?”
“They can wait till morning. Thanks, though.”
They continue on their way down the aisle, Dean checking between the rows of shelves, Castiel keeping an even pace beside him.
As they make their way toward the end of the room, Dean can feel himself growing more and more tense. It isn’t until Castiel asks, “Is everything alright?” that Dean realizes why.
They’re almost at the W’s.
Wolfe, Thomas. Look Homeward, Angel.
Dean’s spent enough time re-shelving books up here to know the exact location of the Thomas Wolfe novels. In a few seconds they’re going to be walking right past them.
What about Castiel, though?
It’s not like Dean can casually explain the creepy note currently burning a hole in his pocket, now is it? Or can he?
Of course, there’s always the option to wait until tomorrow, but patience has never been a Winchester virtue. There’s no way he’d be able to sleep. Not having come so close.
“Maybe I’ll just pick something for myself,” he mutters, sidestepping out of the aisle. He finds himself facing shelf after shelf loaded with hardbound novels. He crouches down. Wolfe is lower still; level with his knees.
“Are you going for Wouk?” Castiel asks.
“Wolfe.”
“As in The Bonfire of the Vanities, or…?”
“Thomas.”
Scanning the shelf, he spots two copies of Look Homeward, Angel, followed by an empty space, after which is a single copy of The Web and the Rock, another open space, then two copies of You Can’t Go Home Again.
Dean pulls out a copy of Look Homeward, Angel. Elbows on knees, he opens the book and flips through it. He tries to discreetly make sure that nothing is hidden in the dust jacket, but Castiel obviously notices his not-so-subtle movements and asks, “What are you doing?”
There’s not really a good explanation beyond the truth.
Dean sighs, swivels as gracefully on his haunches as he can, to look up at Castiel. He tries his best to not think about how this position could be put to so much better use. “I got a note this afternoon. Somebody left it on my chair. It’s errr,” Dean struggles to find the right words, “a little weird, maybe? Either way, the note had fifty dollars with it and instructions to ‘look homeward, angel’. I’m just checking these books, ‘cause it’ll bug me if I don’t.”
He waits for Castiel to say something, anything. Tell him he’s crazy, tell him that he should go home, take a shower, get a good nights’ sleep.
But Castiel simply says, “Anything in there?”
Dean returns his attention to the book in his hands, angling his body away from Castiel again. “Not this one, no.” He slides it back into its place on the shelf before dragging the second copy forward. As soon as he removes it, he spots a strip of white paper protruding from between the tops of the pages like a bookmark.
“Aha.” Castiel murmurs, sounding pleased.
Dean opens the book. Tucked into its gutter is an envelope. It looks identical to the one left on his chair earlier. Even his handwritten name looks the same.
He plucks it out and shuts the book.
Castiel makes a strangled noise.
“What?”
“Maybe it was there to mark a passage or page number.”
Fuck. Dean hadn’t considered that. Probably not many people would. Unless…
Unless they have prior knowledge.
Dean suddenly feels a little queasy. He doesn’t turn to face Castiel again. Isn’t sure he can right now. “What makes you say that?”
“In any good mystery, the minor details are often the most pertinent.”
Dean isn’t buying what Castiel is selling. “Was it you?”
There’s a pregnant pause before Castiel replies, “Was what me?"
“The note. Was it you who left the note on my chair this afternoon?”
The answer comes in the form of an unwavering, unequivocal, “No.”
Dean straightens up, the book and envelope still in his grasp. He turns and flashes Castiel what he hopes is a normal rather than panicked smile. “I mean, it’s all right. I’m just curious. It’s not often I get mysterious notes with money in them.”
Castiel looks impatient, “Dean, I assure you I didn’t leave a note on your chair. And whilst I consider myself generous enough, I’m certainly not in the habit of giving away fifty dollars to strangers.”
Dean’s about to concede the point, when Castiel adds, with a wry expression, “Then again, I suppose I could make an exception for you. If you needed it very badly. Maybe.”
If Castiel is his mystery letter sender, then he’s got an odd way of lying.
“Okay,” Dean says slowly, mostly convinced, “Maybe it wasn’t you. I don’t suppose you noticed the page number then?”
Castiel looks genuinely apologetic. “I didn’t, no.”
“Shit.” Dean mutters. “Neither did I. Let’s hope it doesn’t matter.” He returns the book to the shelf before turning his attention to the envelope.
It’s sealed.
“Do you want me to leave?” Castiel asks.
“No, that’s alright.” Dean looks at Castiel. “Are you sure that you don’t have anything to do with this?”
“Pretty sure.”
“Only pretty sure?”
“Almost one hundred percent sure.”
“You mean, like you don’t want to rule out the possibility of temporary insanity or sleepwalking or alternate personalities?”
“Exactly.”
Dean takes a deep breath, “Okay. Well, here goes.” He tears into the envelope, being mindful of the contents. Inside is a folded sheet of lined paper. He removes it, unfolds it.
“Wow,” Castiel mutters. “Looks like you’ve earned a raise.”
Dean slips the hundred-dollar bill aside and reads the handwritten message aloud. At this point, he’s almost glad to have a witness to this weirdness.
“’My dear Dean, Congratulations! You’ve taken your first, minor step on the road to fun and riches. More is waiting. Do you have the will to proceed? I hope so. At midnight, horse around. You’ll be glad you did. Yours, J.’”