Standing Together

Chapter 2

It's Friday night, which means they're about halfway through their vacation. They've been to every park, but they've only been in Epcot for a few hours, and, as it's their first time here, they decide to head off and explore — "they" being just Dean and Castiel; the rest of the group decided to ride things. Castiel opted to walk around the pseudo countries instead, and Dean seemed more than willing to come with him.

They walk hand in hand, as they've been doing a lot these past couple days. Every time Castiel opened social media, usually just to kill time in long lines, he would see new pictures of the two of them, usually accompanied by either a congratulations to both of them or a "There's no way this is going to last" message that Castiel just ignored. Social media hasn't gotten to him at all these last couple days — not with Dean here.

Right now, they're just aimlessly meandering though the streets, not looking for anything in particular, until Castiel brings up something he's been curious about.

"Are you going to get an engagement ring?" he asks.

Dean shrugs. "I don't know. I wasn't planning on it. Should I?"

"I would say yes," Castiel tells him. "I know it's usually just the girl who gets one, but this isn't a boring, heterosexual wedding, and I think we should break stereotypes and get you a ring. And maybe it'll get people to stop cracking jokes about how I'm secretly a girl, because this isn't helping."

Dean chuckles. "I don't know who's making those jokes, but honestly, thank you to them. That's great."

Castiel scoffs. "Rude."

"Yes, I am pretty rude, thanks for noticing," Dean replies with a teasing smile.

"Wow, Dean, I can't believe — hold on a second."

Castiel stops abruptly, trying to listen to the music playing. All he knows is he's in the fake America within American Disney World — talk about American-ception — so hearing this American singer shouldn't be too surprising, except that it doesn't sound like the studio version Castiel knows by heart.

"What is it?" Dean asks, puzzled.

"C'mon." Castiel pulls him through the streets, following the sound of the music until he finds the source.

Thank god for being tall, because so many people are crowded around the small American pavilion, Castiel wouldn't have been able to see if he couldn't look over their heads. But, sure enough, his all-time favorite pop act is performing live onstage.

Castiel pulls out his phone and catches a quick video of the performance, which he posts on his Instagram story with the words, "I spy with my little eye @Jack8Kline."

"Who's he?" Dean asks, confused.

"Just another pop singer," Castiel replies. Of course, Jack is a bit more than that — he's one of the only pop singers Castiel would listen to in his free time, for example — but he's not different in a way that Dean would understand.

"Is he one of your friends?" Dean asks.

Castiel shrugs. "I guess it depends on your definition of friend. We've only met once, a few months ago back at the Grammys when we spent most of the night chatting, but we haven't spoken since then."

"Do you have his number?" Dean asks. "We could stick around until his thingy ends, and you could text him and ask if he wants to hang out."

"Nah." Castiel waves the suggestion off. "I'm sure he has better things to do. Maybe we'll bump into him later and I can introduce you then."