Standing Together

Chapter 78

"How do I get people to stop talking about last night?" Castiel asks his fiancé, as if he has any semblance of control over the people of the internet.

"I don't know," Dean says, glancing over at him from the driver's seat. "As far as I can tell, internet fame is like a hangover. You can try as many different tricks as you want, but the only thing that's gonna stop it is time."

Castiel chuckles. "Interesting analogy. But — and I could be wrong; I'm no expert on drinking — but aren't there things you can do to cure a hangover?"

Dean shakes his head. "Nope. You just gotta pop some pills and wait. Unless you want to get drunk again and have another hangover later. That's always an option."

"Well, I'm definitely not curing talk of an anxiety attack by giving them another anxiety attack to talk about, so maybe the binge drinking won't help." Castiel pauses, then says, with a slight smile on his face, "Unless I give them something else to talk about, instead..."

"Okay, I'm scared," Dean says. "What are you giving them to talk about, and am I going to hate it?"

"You won't hate it," Castiel assures him. "It won't affect you at all."

He pulls out his phone and opens the Wattpad app — conveniently the only social media he has left. He opens the one work he has, an untitled story he wrote at the very beginning of Fame Crazy. He had almost forgotten about this. You guys probably did, too, but I've just been waiting for a chance to bring it back. He's not very proud of it, but he likes it more than pictures of his panic attack, and he's willing to publish it if it will get people to stop talking about last night.

But he needs to change a few things. First, what should his cover picture be? Or does he really need one? He puts a black screen up instead. He'll keep up a mysterious vibe with the whole thing. That serves as the inspiration to change the description from "Stuff happens" to a blank box. But what does he use for a title? Something simple. He wants mysterious, but not random. Something with at least a little relevance to the story without giving away anything. How about...

Twist and Shout

And publish. There, now that's out there. Someone will get a notification for it, and they'll definitely freak out when they realize he just posted for the first time ever. He's never even commented on a story before, so this is a big step for him. Word will get out quickly, and pretty soon, it will be all over his fans' social media. Maybe it will even be as big of a deal as his panic attack last night, earning articles from big-name publishers and backlash from people that hate him.

He debates tweeting about it, but he doesn't want to bring it any extra attention. With his name making headlines already, he's going to have a lot of random people looking at his profile, and he'd rather keep his Wattpad mostly free of trolls.

So he just puts his phone away and waits for the inevitable blast wave.

~~

Dean and Castiel spend the night in a motel, because even though Dean has insisted from the moment they left the house that he doesn't need to stop every night, Castiel refuses to ride in a car driven by someone that's been awake for more than 18 hours.

"Is it too early to go to bed?" Castiel asks at around 8:30.

"Nope," Dean replies. "I mean, I'm not tired, but you do you."

"But I don't wanna go to bed alone," Castiel whines.

Dean chuckles. "Cas, I'm in the same room as you. You're not going to bed alone."

"But I want cuddles," Castiel protests.

"But I want to not be bored," Dean says, mocking his tone.

"What, so our cuddles aren't entertaining enough for you?" Castiel asks, acting more upset than he is.

"No, they're really not," Dean says. "I'm just gonna text Lucifer or something. At least there's some entertainment there."

Castiel crosses his arms and pouts. "Fine. Be that way."

Dean shakes his head at the boy in amusement.

Castiel makes a shot of turning his back to his fiancé, as if his exasperated annoyance is going to make Dean change his mind. When it doesn't, he pulls off his shirt to get ready for bed by himself, tossing it on the floor. He pushes his pants down to his ankles, kicking his legs around until they come off, landing on the other side of the room.

Dean chuckles. "That's a really productive way of doing it."

"I know, right?" Castiel says with a grin.

He climbs into bed, curling up on his side. He reaches an arm forward out of habit, so used to Dean lying there next to him. He sighs softly and pulls his knees to his chest, curling up into a little ball.

"Good night, Cas," Dean says softly.

"'Night, Dean."

~~

The clink of the crutches wake Castiel up that night as Dean hobbles over to the bed. They ring softly as Dean leans them against the wall before slowly sitting down on the bed, obviously trying to be quiet.

Castiel reaches a hand over to him, wrapping it around the first thing he feels. Is it an arm? A leg? He can't quite tell.

"Cas?" Dean says softly, trying to guess whether he's awake or not.

"Mm," Castiel hums. "Cuddle."

Dean chuckles softly. "Hold on, Cas. I'm still dressed."

"Cuddle," Castiel repeats, the word slurred slightly in his half-asleep state.

"Give me 30 seconds," Dean says gently.

"Cuddle."

He feels a pair of lips against his forehead, and a small smile appears on his face.

"In a minute, Cas."

Castiel hums a complaint, but he isn't awake enough to even make an attempt to stop him.

There's a brief pause, and if it hadn't been for the creaking of the bed as Dean moves, it almost would have been impossible to tell that he was still there. Finally, Dean lies down next to him, assuming his position as the big spoon. He wraps his arm around his fiancé, nuzzling his face in the boy's neck.

"Good night," Dean murmurs, and it's already shaping up to be one.

A/N I meant to update a few hours ago but I found a link to all four of Taylor Swift's tours' audio files and I had to download them before they were gone and then I spent three hours looking at old Taylor Swift videos whoops sorry