Standing Together

Chapter 52

Castiel heads to bed that night alone. He strips off his shirt and sweatpants and starts to climb into bed, but then the front door opens, and Castiel decides to go out and see who it is.

Dean's sitting at the counter and drinking a beer. He gives Castiel a small, halfhearted wave, then takes another sip.

"Long day?" Castiel asks teasingly.

"God, it really was," Dean mutters.

"Did you at least fix the car?" Castiel asks.

Dean nods. "Yeah. I would've stayed out all night if I hadn't."

"You really care about that car," Castiel remarks.

Dean shrugs and takes another sip of beer.

Castiel walks over and takes a seat next to him. "Are you okay?"

Dean just shrugs again.

"I'm sorry about the tapes," Castiel says.

Dean sighs. "Thanks."

Castiel watches him with a frown. He's really upset about those tapes, isn't he? How's Castiel supposed to cheer him up now? He can't get the cassettes back, but he's sure that's all Dean wants right now. Castiel's pretty much useless.

"You know what pisses me off almost as much as the fact that some asshole has my tapes?" Dean says after a pause.

"What?"

"The fact that there are people making money off it," Dean says. "People are writing articles about it, and they're making money off it. I mean, I'm sure they don't know about the tapes, but at this point, I feel like the whole world has to know that someone graffitied her. Like, it's none of their business, and people are literally using it for their businesses, and that just pisses me off."

Castiel gives him a sympathetic look. "I know what you mean. Unfortunately, it's kinda part of the celebrity lifestyle."

"Well, the celebrity lifestyle is stupid," Dean says.

"Trust me, I'm perfectly aware of that," Castiel says. "Everyone knows your every move — wait."

"I'm waiting."

"What if we just asked for them back?" Castiel says. "Tweet it out. It'll be the first thing I've tweeted in two months. It'll get a lot more attention than my tweets usually do. Whoever took it would have to see it."

"And what if they do?" Dean asks. "What do you think is gonna happen? They'll realize that I actually like them? I'm pretty sure they got that idea from me owning them. It's not going to get them back."

"What if we offer to buy them back?" Castiel asks. "You don't even have to name a price. I'm the richest musician under the age of 30. I'm sure they'll figure out that we can pay a lot."

"Wait, you're the —"

"That's what you take away from this?" Castiel says incredulously. "We could get your dad's tapes back, and you just care that I have a lot of money?"

"Yeah, because that's news," Dean says. "But offering to pay? That's not going to get my tapes back. No one's going to walk up to our house and admit they fucked up my car and stole my cassette tapes. There's not a single person on this planet that's stupid enough to do that."

"That doesn't mean we can't try," Castiel says. "You're not going to get them back by doing nothing. This is pretty much all we've got."

Dean hesitates, then sighs. "Okay, fine, you're right. Let's try it. And since I know it's not going to work, I won't get my hopes up, and it won't be disappointing when it fails."

Castiel doesn't bother trying to convince him otherwise. Maybe it will be better if he doesn't expect it to work. But if there's a chance, Castiel's going to take it.

"Can I see your phone?" Castiel asks. "I want to tweet it now, in case anything happens overnight."

"You mean like someone dumping them on the ground and stomping on them?" Dean deadpans. "I'm sure they've already done that."

Castiel sighs. "Can you try to be a little more optimistic?"

"Tell you what," Dean says. "If someone steals, say, your dad's guitar, then you can talk. Until then, just butt out."

"Okay, okay, sorry," Castiel mutters.

Dean hands Castiel his cellphone. "If you really want to waste your time on this, go for it."

Castiel opens Twitter and logs into his account. He looks at the first tweet on his feed almost subconsciously as he hits the button to write a new tweet, then immediately goes back to his feed, just to finish reading the tweet. It's from Lucifer, of course — he tweets way more than everyone else Castiel follows combined.

"I don't want to make a big deal out of this, but just for the record, whoever destroyed Dean's car, I hope you rot in hell :)"

Castiel almost wants to retweet that, but he knows it won't quite go with the message he's trying to send, so he doesn't even leave a like, just tweeting out his own message instead.

"@ whoever destroyed Dean's car: he already fixed it. The only problem now is the cassette tapes. We'll buy them back from you, and no cops have to get involved. No harm, no foul."

Castiel switches over to Dean's account and retweets it. He sort of wants to go snooping through Dean's Twitter, but he thinks better of it. He probably doesn't want to know what passive aggressive shit's come out of his account these last couple days.

Instead, Castiel screenshots his tweet, then logs out of his Twitter. He opens Instagram next, where he logs into both his accounts just to post a picture of the tweet before logging out.

He hands Dean his phone back. "Done."

Dean puts his phone down on the counter in silence. He glances at the clock, then downs the rest of his beer in one go. "I'm going to bed."

Castiel follows him, standing in the doorway as he watches his fiancé strip down to his boxers and lies in bed in silence. Castiel sighs softly and lies down next to him. Part of him wants to reach over and try to get him to snuggle, but he knows Dean's not in a good mood. Hopefully he cheers up soon. Castiel doesn't want to put snuggles off for too long.