Chapter Text
You don't know how it happens, or what possesses you. You're only in the library for a book you need for a class, honestly you could easily complete the work right there, but you're checking it out to save yourself from sitting in the library for an extended period of time. Nothing against libraries, but prolonged silence really skeeves you out. So you're really only stopping by for a second, and you intend to be out of there, but something stops you. It's not like there's anything particular about Castiel at the moment (though there's plenty peculiar about Castiel Novak at all times), and it isn't like it's socially required of you to stop to say a few words to him. At most, you'd consider the two of you maybe casual acquaintances. You'd stop to chat if there was something to stop and chat about, but it wasn't like you ever had plans, and you never really thought about making them.
But today you walk up to him without much in particular to say. You wait for him to look up from his book, but he doesn't. Instead he waits a few moments before asking, "is there something you need?" without even sparing a glance up. You're a little offended, but not when you recall how many times you off-handishly addressed him while still looking at one of your friends.
You decide "what are you reading?" is a good enough opening line, then.
"He had green eyes,
so I wanted to sleep with him
green eyes flicked with yellow, dried leaves on the surface of a pool--
You could drown in those eyes, I said.
The fact of his pulse,
the way he pulled his body in, out of shyness or shame or a desire
not to disturb the air around him.
Everyone could see the way his muscles worked,
the way we look like animals,
his skin barely keeping him inside.
I wanted to take him home
and rough him up and get my hands inside him, drive my body into his
like a crash test car.
I wanted to be wanted and he was
very beautiful, kissed with his eyes closed, and only felt good while moving.
You could drown in those eyes, I said,
so it's summer, so it's suicide,
so we're helpless in sleep and struggling at the bottom of the pool."
He reads it straight from the book, and you grow uncomfortable with the comfortable rythme of his voice. He reads it like a biblical verse, like it's something he grew up to believe, and after the last syllable falls from his lips, there's a pause where you nod, even though he isn't looking at you.
It takes a while before his cloudy eyes snap up to you, like he'd forgotten you were there. "Crush," he says, and you shift, "by Richard Siken," he adds, like this is all an after thought.
"Oh! Oh," you nod, realization settling over you. "You like it, I take it?"
"Very much," he answers, a small smile dancing at the corners of his lips.
"Maybe I should give it a read," you offer. You're not big on poetry, personally. You've barely read more than whatever was school-required, if you were being honest. But the way Castiel read the poem like it was worthy of being sung by a heavenly chorus was certainly enough to make you consider giving it a chance.
"Would you like to?" He asks, his expression serious.
"Well, yeah? I guess. Is that the library copy or...?" Before you can give an alternative, he holds the book out to you, and you slowly take it.
"It's my personal copy. Borrow it, I've read it many times. I ought to move on, anyway," he gives you a smile, like you're familiar with rereading a book so often you can't even consider reading anything else (you are, but you sense not to the same level as him). You decide not to argue with him about it, and take it home that day.
(You read it in a single sitting, and if that weren't bad enough, you read it again the next morning, before you can see Castiel to return it.)