"There's still one part I don't get," Cas said, polishing off the last of the slice of cherry pie Dean had insisted was a crucial part of their meal.

"Oh, yeah? Which part?" Dean leaned back in his seat, appreciating the sight of the gorgeous man across the table thoroughly enjoying his dessert. It had been a perfect evening, particularly in light of the string of mishaps and misunderstandings that had led to it. Amazingly, there had been no first-date awkwardness, which was probably thanks to the fact that they'd gotten it out of their systems already. When you've already embarrassed yourself repeatedly in front of a person, Dean figured, there's not much worse left to worry about.

"Well, the trivia contest," Cas explained. "The one that started this whole thing. You said it was for movie passes, right? And you told Charlie you'd compensate me with concessions candy? How come I never got any of that?"

Dean snorted with amusement. They had both been laughing so much all night that his cheeks were feeling sore. "I thought you were a little old lady back then. You should thank me for caring too much about your blood sugar to just show up with chocolate."

"But I still have all my own teeth! You can bring me Milk Duds without fearing for my dentures." Cas nodded solemnly, lips twitching with a barely suppressed grin.

"I'll just have to bring you extra candy now, or maybe you can choose it yourself at the theater," Dean said. The idea of more dates with Cas made him feel warm and tingly. Images of sitting next to him in a dark movie theater, arm around his shoulders, leaning in close enough to brush his lips behind Cas's ear…Dean's cheeks lit with a blush and he had to tear himself away from his fantasy scenario before his face betrayed his thoughts. The slight lift of the librarian's eyebrow said that perhaps he was a bit too late.

"I'm certainly not opposed to that," Cas replied simply, choosing not to inquire into Dean's sudden color shift. "But I've been helping you for months now. I think we're talking more than a few handfuls of candy at this point. We may be into popcorn territory. Maybe even with extra butter."

"Well, aren't you just Mister High Maintenance?" Dean teased, matching Cas's feigned seriousness. "Popcorn is a major investment, you know."

"But would you even be in the theater if it wasn't for me?" Cas narrowed his eyes playfully.

"Hey, you were a big help, don't get me wrong," Dean chuckled, lifting his beer in a salute to Cas. "But I didn't send you all the questions. I'm a big boy; I can do my own work."

Cas returned the salute with one of his own. "Oh, I don't doubt it. I'm sure you're quite capable."

"Damn right."

"It's just unfortunate that the Roadhouse trivia got cut short, you know, and so I'm really just giving you the benefit of the doubt."

"Hey!"

Castiel smirked, taking a pull from his beer bottle. "And, of course, those were all general knowledge questions, plus you were on a team of four. I only had Gabriel, so apart from the questions about alcohol, desserts, or sex, I was mostly on my own."

Dean was loving this confident, cocky side of his librarian. It reminded him strongly of the self-assured tone he had sensed in the Monday night message bantering. Seeing it in person now was so much better than just imagining it. He was going to give as good as he got, though. "So what you're really saying is that for all your fancy library training and experience, you were pretty much breaking even with a few bar rats? C'mon, Cas, I thought you did this every day." He smirked back.

"As I said, general knowledge questions. Scire ubi aliquid invenire possis, ea demum maxima pars eruditionis est." Cas intoned the Latin syllables as though they were a prayer, and Dean had to suppress a groan as his Hot Librarian fantasy gained a new chapter. "Roughly translated, 'To know where to find a thing is the chief part of learning.' When you sent me those questions, I wasn't pulling answers from my ass."

"Hey, no arguments from me there," Dean said. "You are definitely a bad-ass with the research."

Castiel hummed, suddenly thoughtful. "I propose a rematch."

"What, more trivia?"

"More questions, anyway. Hard ones like those you've been sending me. That way we can see who should really be taking whom to the movies."

Dean felt nervous; the glint in Castiel's eye said that he knew exactly how such a rematch would go. "Okay," he stalled, "but we need to make this fair. You have a ton of books and databases and stuff that you can use, and I've got, what, Google? Feeling a bit uneven, here."

Cas reached into his pocket and pulled out a key ring. "The keys to the kingdom. We have the entire library at our disposal. Perks of the position," he said with a satisfied wink.

Oh, that's not playing fair at all, Dean thought, having visions of an empty library, dimly lit, and a hot librarian in a naughty mood. "I…uh, I can agree to that."

"There are a number of quiz books there in the 030s. I can't possibly have memorized any of them, but I'll let you pick one from which we can draw the questions." Cas gestured toward the shelf. The library echoed with their voices, making Dean feel as though they should be whispering and walking on tiptoe, but Cas was comfortable in his element. He unbuttoned his shirt cuffs and rolled up his sleeves, ready to get down to business; Dean shivered, wondering just how aware Cas was of the effect he was having.

He grabbed a nearby volume. "'World Quizzing Championship Questions.' Ten questions, you think? First one finished is declared the winner."

"That sounds reasonable."

"But you know this place better than I do," Dean said. "You know where all the subjects are without having to look them up. How about this: you take the print materials, and I'll use the computer."

Castiel frowned in suspicion. "Dean, that's a sizable handicap."

"I know, but, hey, you're still the librarian. I'll give you those things over there, too."

"You mean the microfilm readers?" Cas chuckled. "All right, fine. It'll be more competitive this way. More satisfying to win, too."

"And what's the prize, other than bragging rights?" Dean felt his pulse beginning to race in eager anticipation.

Cas took the quiz book and began flipping the pages. "Well, we might have a few leftover Summer Reading Program tote bags," he deadpanned. "But I'm sure we can come up with something better than that, if we think about it."

The questions were chosen by Dean picking ten page numbers, followed by Castiel choosing a number that corresponded to a question on that page. Once the pages were bookmarked, they grinned at each other for a moment, then turned to the first question and read. "What do the death of Abraham Lincoln, the sinking of the Titanic, and the Chernobyl nuclear disaster have in common?" A moment later, they were off.

Cas seemed to know exactly where to go, moving with determination and control, and Dean had to remind himself that this was a competition, so he should really stop staring at the way Cas stretched high for an almanac on the top shelf, back muscles evident under the thin white cotton of his shirt. Running a hand over his face and trying to clear his head, he focused on the screen in front of him. He might not be a librarian, but he'd had a few friends who had taught him some tricks about how to get around the internet and find what he wanted to know. Thanks, Charlie, he thought as he dove into the Stanford University digital library, to which she had easily constructed a "VIP access pass" a couple of years ago.

A moment before he'd found the answer ("They were all in April!"), Cas was scribbling his solution on a paper and grabbing for the next question. "Just a bit too slow, Dean. Is the pen mightier than the Siri?"

"It ain't over 'til it's over!" Dean shouted, forgetting to whisper.

Castiel was having the time of his life.

He was dashing from shelf to shelf, fingers flying over the pages, pushing himself as he hadn't had to do since grad school. Beyond the thrill of the contest, though, was the way it seemed to both ease and concentrate the tension between himself and Dean. Gone were any lingering traces of nervous hesitancy; now the energy between them had transformed into a heady struggle for power that made his soul vibrate. Cas wanted to win, wanted to dominate, wanted to have Dean on his knees in submission…well, metaphorically. Or not. Well.

"Name the 13th century collection of over 1,000 songs, poems, and plays on topics of love, decadence, and faith. Provide the words to verse 12 of song 70."

Oh, that was hard. Obviously, the collection was the Carmina Burana, but he was almost positive he had no complete compilation here in the library. He could try searching, in the hope that some book would happen to reference the particular song, or…Cas glanced at Dean, then felt the lump of his cell phone in his pocket. The temptation was strong, but he decided that winning that way wasn't winning at all. He would play fair.

Dean, meanwhile, was having a similar struggle with himself. Cas had grabbed the question book several times ahead of him, and Dean feared he'd never be able to make up the lost ground. It was becoming apparent that a quick wit and a give-'em-hell attitude wasn't quite going to measure up to experience and training in this case. He wasn't ready to admit defeat, though. Scanning the room, he saw that Cas was in the far corner, paging through a pile of heavy old tomes. Crossing his fingers that he wouldn't be caught, Dean pulled out his phone and fired off a text message.

"Frank, buddy, you around?"

"What would be in it for me if I was?" Frank, an old friend of the family, was always grouchy and didn't beat around the point.

"Free drinks next time I'm tending. No time to explain, but I need to know the name and code name of whatever double agent faked an attack on a mosquito factory in World War II. No, I don't know what that means, hope you do."

"You mean the Mosquito bomber plane? What do they teach you kids in school these days? It was Eddie Chapman, British secret service agent posing as a Nazi spy. They called him Zigzag on account of how he was a wild-card conman. I'll be at the Roadhouse on Thursday; make sure the top shelf is stocked."

Dean felt a twinge of conscience as he copied down the answer, but he rationalized it away, telling himself that he would have found the answer in another minute, anyway. Cas was still digging through his piles.

The race was frantic. Castiel lost most of his headway in his search for the elusive song verse, but the triumph he felt at discovering it in the appendix of a Latin anthology that he had almost weeded from the collection last year made him feel that the effort was worth the cost. Now, searching for the last answer alongside Dean, he decided that whether he won or lost, he felt happier than he could recall feeling in a long time.

"I've got it! The Thirty-Nine Steps, by John Buchan!" Dean threw down his pencil and thrust his hands into the air as he jumped up and strutted around the desk. "Yes!"

"I graciously concede the victory," said Castiel, smiling broadly as he ran his tired hands through his hair, now extremely disheveled from the number of times he'd done so throughout the evening. "If I'd had access to all of my resources, I still think I'd have come out on top, but rules are rules, and you won, fair and square."

Dean couldn't repress a fidget. "Yep. Fair and square." His smirk faltered the tiniest bit. Cas didn't miss the slip.

"Dean? Is there something I should know?"

"Um. We said I was using the computer, right?" Castiel nodded, waiting and feeling wary. "And, well, my phone is a computer, right? So I did technically follow the rules…"

"Dean. Tell me you didn't text another librarian for an answer."

"No! Not a librarian! Just…my friend Frank." Dean bowed his head and looked so sheepish and ashamed that Castiel had to fight to maintain his severe expression. It would never do to let him think that such blatant cheating was going to be acceptable, particularly not when he himself had chosen to resist that urge. But the flush rising along Dean's neck was so damn irresistible that Cas just wanted to reach out and grab it to feel the warmth.

"Well. It seems we have a dilemma," he said slowly. "It doesn't seem quite correct that you should be declared the winner, since you had outside assistance. In some races, you'd perhaps be penalized for that." He felt his stern mask cracking as desire warred with exasperation and won handily. "Made to stand in place while the race continued, forced to remain still. You'd be at the mercy of those you defied; you would stay…where…you…are."

With those last words, Cas advanced on Dean, eyes dark with intention. Dean's head had lifted, his own eyes gone wide, but nothing about his expression said that he was at all unhappy about the situation. He licked lips that suddenly seemed dry, Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed.

"Dean." Cas lowered his voice beneath its usual gravelly baritone, noting the small whimper that barely escaped Dean's throat as he did. He put his one hand on Dean's chest, gently but deliberately walking him backward until his back was against the shelf. "Do you remember the question about the song from the Carmina Burana?"

Dean shook his head slightly before nodding. "Latin words," he murmured.

"'In trutina mentis dubia fluctuant contraria lascivus amor et pudicitia,'" Castiel rumbled, lips almost touching Dean's ear. He felt the shudder of the man's chest close to his own, and he felt almost intoxicated with the power he was holding, the way Dean seemed happy to give that power to him. He ran his hand slowly across Dean's chest as he finished the verse. "'Sed eligo quod video, collum iugo prebeo: ad iugum tamen suave transeo.'"

Dean couldn't hold back a groan as Castiel's fingers found a nipple and tweaked it through the cotton. "You're giving me a Latin kink." Cas chuckled and began using both hands to play gently with the hem of Dean's shirt.

"And do you know what it means?" he said, fingers finding flesh and beginning to stroke gentle circles. Dean gasped and shook his head again. "It's a love song. The singer says, 'In the wavering balance of my feelings, set against each other are lascivious love and modesty.'" Dean's eyelids, which had lowered as Cas had traced patterns above his hips, shot upwards as, without preamble, his shirt was abruptly yanked upward. A hot mouth pressed itself to his sternum, and he cried out.

"Cas! Fuck!" Both Dean's hands grasped for Castiel's hair, gripping and twisting as his lips found their way along his breastbone. He groaned and threw back his head, dislodging a book behind it. Cas glanced up, pulling back slightly.

"Be careful of the books, Dean." Then he returned to his task, slowly licking and kissing his way down Dean's abdomen.

"This…does not feel like any kind of penalty, man. Ah!" Dean gasped as the librarian's hands moved from his hips to his ass, gripping hard.

"The person being punished does not choose the forfeit," Cas said. "And your penalty is to not move." He yanked at Dean's buckle, pulling it free, before pausing briefly over the button of his jeans. Glancing at Dean's face, he felt a moment of hesitation. "Is this all right?" he said, needing to make sure he wasn't being swept away by the heat of the moment into something for which the other man wasn't ready.

Dean rolled his eyes. "Trust me, I've been 'all right' with this since you brought up the skirt thing. I've only gotten more 'all right' ever since."

Castiel grinned. "Good." Uncertainty gone, he swiftly opened Dean's fly and reached in, palming his cock through his boxers. The rigid heat felt almost scalding against his hand.

"Cas," Dean moaned, trying to reach for Castiel's pants. Cas pushed away Dean's hands, grabbing his wrists and pressing them to the shelf over his head. His eyebrows lifted in challenge, and Dean clenched his jaw in visible effort to obey. Satisfied, Cas released his hold and used both hands to push Dean's jeans and boxers down to pool around his ankles.

Dropping to his knees, he stroked Dean firmly, gazing upward with an angelic expression of sweetness. "The songwriter made his choice. 'But I choose what I see, and submit my neck to the yoke.'" He bent his head and licked a wet stripe from the base of Dean's cock to the tip, then spoke again, finishing the verse. "'I yield to the sweet yoke.'" And then he was taking Dean deep into his throat, teaching Dean the very definition of submission.

Cas was merciless, making Dean tremble and shake as he swallowed around him, then pulling back to give almost gentle licks around the head that had Dean begging for more. Finally, when Dean seemed in danger of knocking the bookshelf over with his juddering movements, despite his efforts to keep still as directed, Cas stood and dragged him into a rough kiss. "We'll call the contest a draw," he said. "You are free to move."

Eagerly, Dean grabbed at Cas's hips, rushing to have Cas free of the fabric between them. In moments, he had them both bare, and he wrapped his hand around both cocks. The slickness of saliva and the combined precome they were both spilling created a delicious slide in the tunnel of Dean's fist, and they were gasping together, lips claiming each other, as they chased a shared climax. Dean came with a shout that only barely resembled Castiel's name, and it was enough to push Cas over the edge behind him.

Sliding to the floor together, slowly regaining coherency, it was several minutes before Castiel was able to look around and laugh. Dean, arms gripping tight around Cas's shoulders, looked up in question. "What's so funny?"

"We're in the religion section, and I'm going to have to make sure none of the books got stains on them."

Dean snorted. "Well, I think I just had a religious experience, so it's sort of appropriate." They grinned at each other. Then, strangely hesitant considering the circumstances, Dean said, "You know, I really wouldn't have texted another librarian for help. It would feel weird and wrong. I think I might be a one-librarian kind of guy."

Cas kissed his neck and smiled. "I'm glad to hear that. Maybe the analogy doesn't quite work in reverse, but I can assure you that you are the only patron to whom I'm interested in giving this level of service."

They found each other's lips once more, bathed in the soft glow of "Exit" lights and the warm feelings of new beginnings.

A/N: The questions were all adapted from sample "World Quizzing Championship" questions and from the King William's College General Knowledge Paper. The idea of "books vs. computer" came from the way a fellow librarian and I used to actually pass the time on boring evening shifts, racing to see which of us could find patron answers first, me on the computer or him with the reference books. I miss that game.

I'm on Tumblr as Carrieosity; come find me.