A/N, 7/20: Somehow the wrong copy of this document got uploaded, and it was just a draft.

"There were three scandals related to 'loose women' in the Topeka capitol building's art. I know about Fideli's dome mural of nude women that got painted over, and I know about Curry's mural with the short-skirted woman. What was the other?"

"Probably Ceres, the statue that was supposed to go on the top ('Capitol dome dispute more than a century in the making,' Lawrence Journal, 6/17/02). State officials chose her because she was the goddess of agriculture, but the public had problems with her love affairs with her brother, Jupiter."

"Wow, shameful. ;) You're the best, as always, and sorry for making you look up ancient Roman smut at work."

Dean was doing his best to soldier on, fighting through the disappointing confirmation that the odds of his fantasy romance turning into a real-life connection were microscopic. It had been a hopeless thought anyway, he figured. Cas was a genius, apart from how he looked; there was no way he would ever have been interested in a bartender with only a high school diploma. When flashes of messy dark hair and sharp jawlines shadowed with faint stubble would appear behind Dean's eyes at inopportune moments, he fought them down as hard as he could.

It was a losing battle. He knew he was making it worse by continuing to chat with Cas every Monday night, but he just couldn't make himself stop. Dean figured it was a harmless weakness; loads of people must send questions to the librarian every night, anyway. Even if he himself treasured their messages, it was almost certainly a one-sided enjoyment, with Cas probably having forgotten Dean's name after their rocky misunderstanding had been settled. That thought totally didn't make Dean's chest ache at all, either.

He was standing behind the bar at the Roadhouse one night, definitely not remembering how any librarian had once sent him a cocktail recipe, absolutely not imagining how that librarian might grow deliciously disheveled as they shared a few drinks together, when Jo popped out from the back office.

"Guess what?" she said with a grin. "I got Mom on board with adding a new theme night! Karaoke Wednesdays are working really well, so now we're doing to do trivia on Fridays. Right up your alley, Dean!"

He smiled weakly. "Sure, Jo. You know me and trivia." There really was no other response. If Jo had gotten her mom, who owned the bar, on board with trying something new, there was nothing to do but make it happen, even if he was beginning to feel like trivia was taking over his entire life.

"Charlie told me you've been playing that radio station's trivia every week for ages now. She also told me that you cheat by emailing the library, but that's not going to be an option here. No phones, no laptops, no whatever. We'll do teams, though, and keep a roster of winners, maybe give free drink tokens. You guys and whoever else you can drag here on Friday have to play, okay, just to make sure it goes well at the beginning." That wasn't a question; her arms were folded, and her eyebrows challenged him to say anything other than…

"Yes, ma'am."

And that was how he found himself at a table with Sam, Charlie, and Charlie's girlfriend Gilda the following Friday night, choosing a name for their new team. Charlie and Gilda argued fiercely that their team should be an "information division" of their LARP clan's army, and the guys found the fight too amusing to put up much protest. "Team Moondoor," they became.

Dean decided that he didn't really care what they were called, so long as they played to win. Between the four of them, he thought they had a pretty wide scope of experience, with Sam's current events background, Charlie's science and tech know-how, Gilda's work with service animals, and his own growing familiarity with the world of useless trivia. Don't need a sexy librarian for this, he thought. This will be a good distraction.

Within the first hour, his predictions about his team's ability to come out on top were proving mostly correct. There were a handful of competitors, including a couple of Sam's newspaper buddies who were calling themselves "Team Fit to Print," but nobody was coming very close to their lead except one group. "Team Fallen Angels" had been neck and neck with them all evening, passing them and being passed with every round. It might have been frustrating, but the adrenaline of a good fight felt refreshing. His group was practically vibrating in their seats between questions.

As the third round ended, Sam headed to the bar to refresh the team's drinks. His long legs were feeling a bit cramped from sitting, and he stretched himself tall as he waited for the bartender to make her way around the crowd to him. A low whistle sounded behind his back, and he turned to see a short blond man perched on a neighboring stool. The man grinned and winked.

"I'd offer to buy you a drink, but I wouldn't want to be accused of sabotaging the competition," the stranger said.

"What, you're playing trivia? Don't tell me you're 'Fallen Angels,'" Sam said with a roll of his eyes. "Let me guess: emphasis on the 'Fallen'?"

"You know it. More fun down below. And I mean that with every possible entendre."

"Whatever, man." Sam saw the mischievous glint in the blond man's eye and knew that it was all part of the game. He was no stranger to smack talk, himself. "Buying me a dozen drinks wouldn't help. We're still going to come out on top." This time, he was the one to wink and grin.

"Oh, you think? Baby, we're just getting warmed up. And we're doing it with only half the team power you guys have. Just me and my baby brother. But when that baby brother is a professional librarian, with probably most of the library crammed into his melon, you don't need more."

Sam rolled his eyes. "Yeah, and what do you bring to the party? Swagger? You can keep your librarian brother. My brother is the reigning champ of KQRC's Monday Madness trivia contest, and he's been the champ for months. Maybe we'll see who's better in a pinch, huh?" Honestly, Sam wasn't at all sure that Dean could best a trained librarian in general knowledge, but he wasn't about to back down from a challenge.

"Well, then. Let the games…continue," The shorter man said with smirk, leaving the bar with a beer in each hand and heading for a booth in the corner. Sam turned back to his task and tried harder to get the bartender's attention so he could get back to his team and play.


"Hey, Cassie. Your guy who sends you questions at the library, the one who called you Pepper. What night does he send those questions?"

"Monday. Why?" Castiel was slouched in the corner of the booth, resting his chin in his hands. It had been a long day already, starting with a Jane Austen Morning Tea hosted by the Friends of the Library, and he would have preferred to be at home now with a good novel and some popcorn. Gabriel had practically dragged him here to this bar, however, declaring that if his brother could help complete strangers with random questions, he could certainly do the same for his own flesh and blood. Castiel wasn't nearly as good with simple recall as he was when he had all his resources close to hand, but he was doing well enough to have Gabriel snickering with glee.

"I think you're competing against him. Winning, for the moment, so keep it up."

Castiel sat up straight, staring out into the shadowy bar room. Then he felt foolish, realizing that he wouldn't recognize Dean if he saw him. "What on earth makes you think that he's here?"

"I'm pretty sure that the moose I just met at the bar is his brother. Big man, big talk. He's on that 'Moondoor' team, which I know because they've been squealing every time they pass us on the board, and the guy just tried to intimidate me by telling me how his brother has been winning at some radio trivia contest every Monday for the past several months. I've just got a feeling."

"Even if this man's brother does play trivia every Monday, there's nothing to say he's the same man writing to me. It's a radio contest. There are likely to be other competitors." Was it possibly for Dean to have been sitting a few tables away from him all night? Castiel felt a strange sensation in his midsection, for reasons he couldn't explain. He'd definitely begun thinking of Dean as more friend than patron, though only privately, but his enjoyment of the increasingly familiar bantering he enjoyed with him every week didn't justify what felt suspiciously like butterflies in his stomach at the thought of actually meeting Dean in person.

"Little bro, trust me. Are my instincts ever wrong? Hey, if you want, I'll go eavesdrop on them, see if I can catch any names or incriminating details –"

"No. Please don't." Castiel could see this going poorly, very quickly. "I'll…I'll go myself. You just stay here."

"Fine. Hurry back, though. Next round begins in about five minutes." Gabriel leaned back and sipped his beer, gesturing toward a table of four on the far side of the room. Now trapped into action, Castiel stood slowly, gazing toward the group. The butterflies threatened to erupt into his throat as he moved carefully toward them, edging behind the corner of a nearby booth.


"Okay, guys, we need to pull out all the stops for this round. You'll never believe the jackass I just ran into up at the bar," Sam said, carefully placing drinks in front of his teammates. "One of those 'Fallen Angels' guys, only more like the devil. He was so full of crap, bragging about how they're going to beat us."

"Eh, let 'em try," Dean grinned. He was having a good time, and a little more heat to the rivalry was welcome. "We can take them, no problem."

"That's what I said. That guy thinks that just because his little brother is a librarian, he has all the answers in his head. Doesn't work like that, am I right? Right?"

Gilda was nodding, but Charlie's eyes had immediately shot to Dean's face, seeing it tense suddenly. "Dean," she said, knowing what was about to happen.

"I have to go. I forgot a thing." Dean was completely unprepared for the possibility of coming face to face with his librarian tonight. The mere thought that he'd been competing against him all night immediately shot all his confidence about winning to the ground. This was a mistake, he thought in a panic.

"What? No, dude! I just told that guy we were going to destroy them! You can't leave now!"

Charlie grabbed Dean's hand across the table. "Dean, no. Stay. There's no reason to freak out. Even if it's him, you've never met him in person. He won't know you're you." Gilda stared back and forth between the two of them, obviously confused.

Sam was just as mystified. "Never met who? What the hell are you talking about? Dean, what's going on?" He remained standing beside the booth, blocking Dean from trying to exit.

Dean knew he was being irrational, that Charlie was right. His logical brain, however, wasn't in the driver's seat right now. All of the evening's joy had been replaced with a need to escape being forced to confront directly all the insecurities that had been plaguing him. He didn't want to see Cas there in the bar with him, drinking and laughing and existing inside Dean's world as though perfection was a thing that his world could hold without breaking. It was too much.

"No, I'm going. I'm sorry," Dean said, pushing hard past Sam to slide out of the booth. Sam tried to grab him, worried by the pained look he saw on Dean's face.

"Dean, wait!"

Dean shook free of Sam's grasp, momentarily stumbling to the side. His shoulder collided with something firm, and he heard a surprised grunt before realizing he'd nearly managed to knock down another person. Turning to apologize, he stared directly into a pair of wide blue eyes.


Standing in shock, chest covered in splashes of the beer he'd been carrying, Castiel stared into the face of the man he nowknew without question was Impala. He'd heard the other people at the table call him "Dean," erasing any doubts he might have had. He could feel Gabriel's eyes watching him from across the room, practically hear him cackling, and he had absolutely no idea what to say.

"I'm sorry," Dean said, frozen in place. Neither of the two men moved an inch. Green eyes, Castiel's brain unhelpfully chose to observe. They were the most fascinating green Castiel thought he'd ever seen, and there were tiny lines around the corners of his eyes that suggested that he was often smiling. He was not smiling now. He looked petrified.

"It's all right. I didn't see you coming this way," Castiel replied, completely confused about how to proceed. He knew he'd never seen Dean in the library; he definitely would have remembered. Dean wouldn't know what he looked like, though, so he had an unfair advantage. Should he introduce himself? This was far from any circumstance in which he'd have preferred to meet Dean. Those green eyes looked positively humiliated, far beyond what bumping into a stranger in a bar should warrant.

"No, I…I shouldn't have been…I should have watched where I was going," Dean mumbled, still staring into Castiel's eyes. He glanced downward briefly, and his already visible discomfort seemed to heighten. "And you're all wet now. Your drink…"

"It was an accident," Castiel tried to reassure him. Seeing Dean this way, in contrast to the confident voice he projected through his text messages and emails, made Castiel feel terribly unhappy. He wanted to fix this, to make Dean smile and laugh, but he had no idea where to begin.

"I'll get you a new drink," Dean abruptly announced, breaking eye contact and practically running for the bar. Castiel stared after him, wondering whether he should follow or stay where he was. He didn't want to make things worse than they already were. Glancing around, he saw that the other three members of Dean's team were watching him with a strange mix of expressions; the taller man looked bewildered, but the women were looking at him with something softer and knowing. He nodded and smiled feebly. Turning to look back at his brother, who had apparently not stopped watching with enjoyment, he saw a server approaching.

"Here, this is from the guy who spilled yours," she said. Castiel quickly looked toward the bar and saw that Dean was gone. He was nowhere to be seen.


Charlie watched the obviously dejected librarian walk back across the room to his table. Witnessing him and Dean stare each other down had been painful; Dean had obviously been star-struck, and Castiel had seemed more than a little dazed by the encounter as well. If only Dean hadn't been in such a complete panic and had been able to work with the situation, she thought that the librarian might even have been open to a bit of flirting.

But how would that have worked, she mused. Dean would have had to admit that he already knew who he was, and that he was the one who'd been chatting with him for months. Not weird or stalkery at all.

Nobody felt like competing any more, though Sam was a bit miffed both at having to forfeit to "that jackass Angel" and at Charlie's reluctance to tell him what was going on with Dean. He paid and left, while Charlie decided, upon glimpsing the librarian's continued forlorn expression from across the bar, to make at least a stab at helping. Telling Gilda she'd be right back, Charlie approached Castiel and his brother.

"Hi, I just wanted to say congratulations to you guys. You'll obviously be winning now, what with our team breaking up for the night." She smiled at the men, but only Gabriel smiled back.

"Sorry, my baby brother's spirits have been a bit dampened," he said with a small head shake. "Was good playing against you guys. Maybe we'll do it again some week, if your fourth man comes back."

"Yeah, I think he'll be back." I hope. "He just had an emergency at home." Castiel's head lifted, looking up with concern. "I mean, he's fine, everything's okay. Maybe a little embarrassed about crashing into you," she said, offering a friendly smile.

If anything, he looked even more upset. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to make him uncomfortable again." He dropped his head into his hands.

"Again?" Charlie cocked her head to the side, beginning to feel a bit suspicious. "When did you –"

"For the love of God. Cassie, I love you, but this drama is beginning to make my brain hurt. I'm doing this for your own good." Gabriel turned to Charlie with a determined expression, ignoring Castiel's small intake of breath. "Just nod if I'm right. You know a man who has been corresponding with a certain librarian on a weekly basis for some time, without ever actually meeting him in person. Correct?"

"Gabriel, please," Castiel begged.

Catching on quickly, Charlie grinned, nodding. "Counterpoint. You know a librarian who's been talking with somebody for a while, too, and maybe that librarian is now a little more familiar with the person in question than the person realizes?"

"The librarian is sitting right here, you know."

"Point to the redhead," Gabriel beamed. "Now, if there were only a way for our semi-anonymous librarian and friend to be brought together and forced to talk like real people…"

"Gabriel, this is none of your business!"

Charlie frowned in thought. "Tricky. Once he reaches this level of awkwardness, hauling my friend out again is difficult. I'm on board, though." She patted Castiel's shoulder comfortingly; he just shook his head and sighed.

"Charlie, you almost ready to go?" Gilda came up beside Charlie and took her hand. Charlie swiftly made introductions, realizing that she had yet to share even her own name. Gabriel shook hands with them both, then pointed at the button on Gilda's jacket. "'Ask me how my dogs can serve you!' Okay, I'll bite. So long as they don't, anyway."

"Gilda trains dogs as service animals. Some guide dogs for the blind, but also companions for people with all sorts of special needs. Some go to hospitals and care facilities as regular visitors, too. It's amazing work," Charlie said fondly, hugging her girlfriend with one arm.

Gabriel's smile spread slowly across his face as an idea began forming. "Okay, I can work with this."