The next day, to Dean and Cas's relief, Charlie forced Sam and Gabriel out of the bunker with her, insisting that they had to help her sail another ship. 

Sam and Gabriel, of course, remained absolutely clueless to Charlie's plan of making Sabriel sail, now that Destiel was happy.

So, Dean and Cas found themselves alone in the bunker, and Cas knew just what he wanted to check off the list next.

"BOOKS." He declared, bursting into the kitchen where Dean sat, boredly eating cereal.

"Books?" The hunter repeated, raising an eyebrow.

"And WORDS." Cas explained. "That's what we're doing today."

"Well I was just gonna do you, but fine." Dean offered, causing Cas to grin.

"Come on, Dean, books are fun!"

"...Sure." He offered. "But they're just not exactly the way I wanted to spend my day alone with you." 

"What if we read only love books?"

"Okay, but no stealing the steamy romance novels that Sam is supposedly hiding under his bed. He'll get mad if he finds out I know about them."

"Do you read romance novels, Dean?" Cas questioned.

"What? No."

"Then how did you know the ones Sam has are steamy?" Dean looked positively mortified for a moment before fixing his face.

"Well, uh...." He blanked. "Reading porn is better then watching it!" Cas burst out laughing.

"THAT'S your excuse?!"

"Shut up, Cas, like you can talk."

"I've never read steamy romance novels!"

"No, but you've watched a lot of porn, haven't you, Pizza Man?" Cas grinned.

"Whatever, Babysitter." Dean shoved him, and they head for the library.

"I'm telling you, Cas, there's nothing in here but lore." Dean offered. 

"Nah, Sam showed me the section where he keeps all the other books." Cas declared, pausing at one of the bookcases. "Oh, this is a good one!" He insisted, grabbing one of the book and handing it to Dean, who raised an eyebrow.

"Shakespeare? Really?"

"Not just any Shakespeare," Cas insisted. "Othello!"

"Angel, I got all the way through high school without reading Shakespeare crap, and I'm not gonna start now."

"But it's good!"

"Sure it is. You have fun with it." He offered, handing the book back. 

"You don't even know what it's about."

"Enlighten me," Dean declared, hunting the shelf for something more his speed.

"It's about a Venetian moor general named Othello, who elopes with this girl named Desdemona. But there's this guy named Iago, who is mad at Othello for not promoting him Lieutenant, so Iago creates this elaborate revenge plot, and Othello ends up smothering Desdemona to death because Iago manipulated him, and, upon realizing that Iago lied about everything, Othello kills himself out of despair, and he and Desdemona are reunited once more."

".....What ever happened to just plain old Romeo and Juliet?" Dean questioned. Cas gave him a deadpan expression.

"Romeo and Juliet were horny teenagers who didn't get what they wanted so they were stupid enough to kill themselves. THIS," He waved Othello in the air, "Is REAL love!"

"Alright fine," Dean gave in. "But I'm not reading it."

"I could read it to you." Dean paused, imagining the idea of Cas's deep voice reading him poetic Shakespeare.

"I'm in." He declared. 

Several hours later, Dean was completely engrossed with the story, and Cas was positive as they entered the last act of the play, that Dean hadn't blinked since Act 2. Cas paused in his reading, grinning at Dean's rapt expression.

"Go on!" Dean urged. "It's the last scene! Read it!!" The eldest Winchester practically crawled into Cas's lap, like he was an impatient small child. Cas laughed, and then cleared his throat, continuing the story.

"It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul.

Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars,

It is the cause. Yet I'll not shed her blood,

Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow

And smooth as monumental alabaster.

Yet she must die, else she'll betray more men.

Put out the light, and then put out the light.

If I quench thee, thou flaming minister,

I can again thy former light restore

Should I repent me. But once put out thy light,

Thou cunning'st pattern of excelling nature,

I know not where is that Promethean heat

That can thy light relume. When I have plucked thy rose

I cannot give it vital growth again,

It must needs wither. I'll smell thee on the tree.

Oh, balmy breath, that dost almost persuade

Justice to break her sword! One more, one more.

Be thus when thou art dead and I will kill thee

And love thee after. One more, and that's the last.

So sweet was ne'er so fatal. I must weep,

But they are cruel tears. This sorrow's heavenly,

It strikes where it doth love. She wakes."

Dean let out a small cry that was somewhere between a whimper and anger, and he curled up closer to Cas as he continued reading, on and on, until

"It is too late." Cas recited. "He smother her."

"NO!" Dean yelled out. "DAMMIT IAGO, HE LOVED HER SO MUCH!"

"It gets worse," Cas warned.

"How can it get WORSE?!"

Speak of me as I am. Nothing extenuate,

Nor set down aught in malice. Then must you speak

Of one that loved not wisely, but too well.

Of one not easily jealous, but being wrought,

Perplexed in the extreme. Of one whose hand,

Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away

Richer than all his tribe. Of one whose subdued eyes,

Albeit unused to the melting mood,

Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees

Their medicinal gum. Set you down this,

And say besides that in Aleppo once,

Where a malignant and a turbaned Turk

Beat a Venetian and traduced the state,

I took by the throat the circumcisèd dog,

And smote him, thus." 

"He stabs himself," Cas explained. "And dies to be with Desdemona." He glanced at Dean, where the hunter was biting his lip. "....Dean?"

"I'm not crying- you're crying." The hunter declared. 

"....Sure." Cas grinned. "I take it you like it?"

"It was..... Dammit Shakespeare, that was good." Cas shut the book and hugged Dean.

"You should have seen him, Dean. His plays were incredibly preformed when he was alive."

"You MET SHAKESPEARE?!"

"....Well, I wasn't supposed too..." Cas grinned. "But Balthazar and I MAY have snuck out of heaven to see a play or two." Dean burst out laughing.

"Who else have you met?" He questioned.

"Well, that's about it for me- but Gabriel possessed the wrong dude at the wrong time and ended up stabbing Julius Caesar." Dean laughed harder, and, as if summoned by his name, Gabriel, Sam, and Charlie chose that moment to reenter the bunker.

"What's so funny?" Sam demanded.

"Oh, nothing." Cas grinned. Sam grunted and left the room and Gabriel sighed before following his moose. "So, how'd sailing Sabriel go?" 

Charlie shot Cas a deadpan expression and threw her phone at him. It was a blackened, burned crisp.

"Gabriel didn't seem to appreciate my photographic evidence." She offered, storming out of the room.