Standing Together

Chapter 12

"Welcome to my humble abode," Dean says, flinging the car door open for his fiancé. "I would ask if you want a reintroduction tour, but my house is small and I'm sure you'll figure it out just fine on your own."

Castiel climbs out of the car and silently follows the boy into the house. The first thing Dean does is head straight for the food pantry, where he pulls out a bag of graham crackers and a container of chocolate frosting. Castiel leans against the wall, just watching as Dean frosts his graham cracker and eats it, then frosts another and holds it out to his fiancé.

"Want one? They're really good."

Castiel waves it away. "I'm just... I'm gonna go take a shower."

Dean points him to the bathroom, and Castiel doesn't waste any time getting there, closing the door behind him and leaning against it, sliding down to the floor with his knees pulled into his chest.

What does he do now?

He doesn't even know what he wants to do. There's no "ideally, it would be nice if this happened, but it's way too unlikely." There's no positive outcome to this situation. There's just pain and death and there's nothing he can do. He watched these people die, and he can't bring them back.

He's sure the internet is a mess right now. Some people are wondering if he's okay, some hoping he's not, and it's doubtlessly already been used as a ploy for someone's political gain, as if this is a game instead of a life-changing event for thousands of people. He's sure he doesn't want to see what people are talking about, but he just has to know how many people died.

He knows he should consult google for this, but he takes to twitter instead, partially so he can tweet the link to Luke Bryan's "Most People Are Good." He doesn't know what type of response he'll get for this, and he's almost scared to find out, but it's been a comforting thing to listen to, and he wants to share it.

If it was Muslim extremists, he's sure his fans will empathize with him and call this a beautiful statement of diversity or whatever bullshit they want to throw at him for not using this to add to any anti-Muslim hate out there. If the bombers were white men, he's sure he's going to get a lot of hell for this, because everyone seems to enjoy finger pointing when straight white men are involved. He's not sure which is worse.

He searches his name, knowing it will show tweets of the Louisiana bombing first, because that's what's popular right now. He expects a news article to show up first, but it's something else entirely.

"Will you all just shut up about Castiel Novak for one goddamn second? Over 250 people were hurt or killed, and you're going to worry about the one guy who could afford any type of life saving treatment he could possibly need?"

He just stares at that for a minute. 250 people were injured last night? How is that possible? And how many of them died? Does he even want to know? And the Superdome was one of his bigger shows, with over 75,000 people, and there's no way any of them are leaving without psychological scars. Not to mention the family and friends of all the victims, who will all be affected by this, too.

Castiel puts his phone down on the floor and buries his head in his hands. He tries to fight back tears, but the more he thinks about it, the more it hurts, and before he knows it, he's crying — for those who lost their lives, for those whose lives were ruined, and even those who made it out safe, but are still and always will be haunted by the memories.

There's a soft knock at the door, followed by a cautious, "Cas? Are you okay?"

When there's no answer, Dean tries to open the door, but it doesn't get very far with Castiel in the way. The boy slides a few feet forward, just enough for the door to open and let Dean in.

"Hey, Cas, what's wrong?" he asks, sitting down next to the boy.

Castiel just shakes his head. He's in no position to complain. He made it out just fine. He never got hurt. But those 250 people... some lost their lives. Some lost limbs. Some —

"Cas, sweetie, look at me," Dean says, putting his hands on the boy's shoulders. "You're okay. You're going to be okay. Just calm down, or you're going to have another panic attack."

Castiel sniffles and nods. He's not sure if that's how panic attacks work, and he's sure Dean doesn't know, either, but better safe than sorry, right?

"And you probably shouldn't leave this on the floor," Dean adds, picking up his fiancé's cellphone. He's about to hand it back, but pauses just long enough to read the tweet at the top of his feed. He sighs and exits the app. "Cas, you — I'm deleting your twitter, okay?"

"But —"

"For a week," Dean adds. "I'm deleting the app for a week. And your instagram. You don't need this right now."

He doesn't pose it as a question, but Castiel is sure he could stop the boy if he tried. He doesn't want to get rid of social media, but if Dean thinks it's the right thing to do... well, he must be in a better place mentally than Castiel is right now. It's probably best to listen to him.

After a few moments, Dean holds the phone out to him. "You have over three thousand messages right now. You don't have to answer them right now, of course, but if you want to do it soon, I'm sure people are worried about you."

Castiel pushes his phone back to his fiancé. "I don't want that right now."

"Alright, that's fine." Dean puts the phone in his own pocket. "Can I do anything for you?"

Castiel shakes his head. "I'm just gonna take a shower. For real this time."

"Alright, I'll leave you to it," Dean says. He presses a kiss to the top of the boy's head. "If you need anything, just yell."

Castiel nods silently. He can definitely take a shower on his own, but it's comforting to know that he has Dean here if he needs him.