Standing Together

Chapter 39

Castiel is just staring at the wall as he plays guitar later that day when his phone rings. His first thought is it must be Dean — he's probably leaving the stadium about now, right? — and he doesn't want to miss a call from his fiancé, so he puts down the guitar and searches for his phone.

To his surprise, it's actually Jack Kline calling. Castiel answers it after a moment of hesitation. Why's Jack calling? They may text each other fairly often — more than Castiel texts any of his siblings besides Lucifer, not that that's saying much — but they don't usually call. What's this about?

"Hey, what's up?" Castiel greets him.

"Hi, Castiel!" Jack says, sounding as bright and cheerful as ever. "I didn't see your email until this morning, but I love the song you sent me!"

Oh, that's what this is about? That's actually sort of relieving. At least it's nothing bad. He sort of assumed they'd have this conversation through email, but Jack's too social for that, apparently — not that Castiel can complain. Jack's cheerfulness is contagious.

"That's great!" Castiel says. "Is it the type of 'I love it' that means you're going to use it, or the type of 'I love it' that's supposed to soften the blow when you turn it down? Because I'm honestly fine either way."

Jack laughs. "I definitely like it enough to record it. I just have a couple questions, and I kind of need answers soon-ish, if you don't mind, because my next album's almost done, and I don't want to put it on hold for too long."

"Ask away," Castiel replies. "I'll probably be able to answer them all right now."

"Awesome," Jack says. "Is there, like, a fee for using your song?"

"Nah, it's not like I'm going to make money off it if you don't take it," Castiel says. "If you want it, it's yours for free."

"Really?" Jack asks excitedly. "Then I'm definitely gonna record it."

Castiel chuckles. "I was hoping you'd say that."

"And I just have one more question," Jack says. "You're completely allowed to say no, and I won't be offended, but would you be interested in recording the song with me?"

"What?" Castiel says, too surprised by the offer to really process it at first.

"It wouldn't have to take too much time on your part," Jack continues. "You could fly up, record it, and be gone the same day, or, if you wanna be more hands on, you could come a day or two earlier and you could help me give it a more pop-ish sound instead of just acoustic — or you could just leave the song with me completely and not come up at all. Either one."

Castiel doesn't even want to leave the house, never mind take a damn airplane — and over to Los Angeles to record a song? There's no way he'd get through any period of time in the land of the paparazzi unnoticed. It would start rumors, and his fans would get their hopes up that he'd be doing something fun for them, and it would just be a single song with Jack.

But Jack sounds so excited at the idea that Castiel can't just turn it down.

"This is going to sound completely unrelated, but I swear it's not," Castiel says. "Do you use Twitter a lot?"

"I love Twitter," Jack says. "It's basically the only place I get to talk to my fans. Why?"

Strike one.

"Do you care what people say on there?" Castiel asks. "Is Twitter's opinion more important to you than sales and streams?"

"Um..." Jack hesitates. "I don't know?"

Well, that's no help. Strike 1.5?

"Are you thinking of releasing it as a single?" Castiel asks.