Standing Together

Chapter 86

When Castiel wakes up, Dean is sitting on the floor in front of him, his head in his hand. It takes Castiel a minute or so to see the phone in his hand. What's he looking at that has him so down?

"'Morning," Castiel says, just to get his attention.

Dean looks up immediately when he hears the voice, and he gives the boy a small smile. "Hey, Cas."

"Whatcha looking at?" Castiel asks.

"What? Nothing." Dean puts his phone facedown on the floor and looks up at his fiancé.

"What is it?" Castiel asks cautiously, crawling off the couch to catch a peak at his phone.

"Nothing you need to worry about," Dean assures him.

"I can tell by how fast you put your phone down that it's about me in some way," Castiel says. "That makes it something I need to worry about." He sits down in front of his fiancé and holds a hand out. "Can I see it?"

Dean sighs and hands him the phone silently. It's open to a Twitter Moments, and he scrolls back to the top. It's simply titled, "Jack Kline receives backlash after I Heart Radio Awards phone call."

"What phone call?" Castiel asks, then says, "Wait, no, he called me. I remember that."

Dean raises an eyebrow. "How did you forget that?"

"I was really, really tired," Castiel says.

The description for the Twitter Moments is, "Singer called out for putting friend and co-writer Castiel Novak on the spot."

"Literally what the fuck?" Castiel says.

"Thank you for verbalizing my thoughts so elegantly," Dean says.

The first two tweets in the Twitter Moments are from the I Heart Radio Awards official Twitter. One is about the show in general, and the second has a clip of just the phone call. Castiel decides to watch the video, just to see if there was something before or after the call that would have pissed people off.

"Thank you guys so much!" Jack says, beaming as he holds the award. "But you guys have already heard my thoughts about this a billion times. How 'bout I call Castiel and let him talk to you instead?"

The audience goes wild at the idea, and Jack grins. He pulls out his phone and calls Castiel. The phone rings and rings and rings, but he doesn't get an answer. Instead, his voicemail starts.

"Yo, this is Cas' phone," Dean's voice says. "He's either not here or he's ignoring you, so unless you think he's ignoring you or you're Gabriel, leave a message!"

Castiel has to pause the video at that, because he, just like the audience, is laughing. He looks up at Dean, then holds up a finger until he calms down enough to ask, "When did you change my voicemail?"

"Great question," Dean says. "I genuinely don't remember. I don't think it's been too long, though, don't worry."

Castiel shakes his head at the boy. "Dean, Dean, Dean. What am I gonna do with you?"

"Something sexy, I hope," Dean says with a smirk.

"That would be the wrong answer," Castiel replies before resuming the video.

"Okay, now I'm gonna feel awkward if he doesn't pick up and I just wasted everyone's time," Jack says. "I'm just gonna call him one more time, 'cause sometimes he's not at his phone."

So that's what he does. The ringing resumes, until finally, it ends.

"It's Dean, totally not hacking Cas' phone," Dean says, and the audience cheers. "What's up, kiddo?"

"Hi, Dean," Jack says. "Is Castiel there?"

"As a matter of fact, he's right next to me," Dean says. "He's just not awake. Is this something I should wake him up for, or should I just take a message and try not to forget to tell him later?"

"Well, we just won an award and now I'm standing onstage and was kind of expecting him to be here, but I don't think people would be too upset if he didn't actually talk if you just want to hang up."

The audience starts booing at that, and loudly, too.

"I was wrong," Jack says. "It looks like people would be upset."

"I genuinely couldn't care less about what people think, but I feel like Cas would get mad if I didn't wake him up, so I'm gonna do that. Hold on."

That's where the events of last night begin, all audible through the phone. Castiel skips to the end of the conversation, after they hung up.

"Well, that's didn't go as planned," Jack says, and the video ends with the audience cheering.

"Aw, that was cute," Castiel says with a smile.

"I thought so, too," Dean agrees.

But Twitter doesn't seem to agree, and Castiel scrolls through all the tweets of the Twitter Moments to verify that.

"Castiel's been so far off the map, he hasn't even been online in months, and Jack decided to call him up unannounced on live tv?"

"Castiel seemed so uncomfortable. That wasn't cool, @Jack8Kline."

"Is anyone going to mention how rude it was to literally make Dean wake Castiel up and talk to him, especially without even telling him he was on tv?"

"I bet we would have seen a completely different side of Castiel if he had known that was going to happen. Jack should have asked permission first."

Castiel doesn't read the rest, just skipping all the way to the bottom to read the last tweet, because sometimes the end is a bit more off topic, and he'd like to see confirmation that there are people looking at the positive side of this. Instead, all he gets is, "Castiel Novak not knowing when the I Heart Radio awards were is the ultimate roast to awards shows."

Okay, not quite what he was hoping for, but at least they seemed to enjoy the phone call, which is better than most people.

Castiel logs into his own account and finds the video from the official I Heart Radio account, retweeting it with the simple caption of, "Imagine being this pure and innocent. Your fav (me) could never."

He tweets it before he can talk himself out of it. He hasn't been on his own Twitter in ages, so tweeting about something so small is probably going to seem weird to most people. It will make a point, though. If he resurrected his Twitter after so long, it's obviously something important to him. The fact that he's using this moment to clear his friend's name, even in such a light and fluffy way, is going to make it clear that he doesn't approve of the slander.

He logs out of his account and hands Dean his phone back. "This is why I don't like the internet. Everyone's so freaking dramatic about all the wrong things and I hate it."

"Me too, Cas," Dean says. "Me freaking too."