Standing Together

Chapter 128

"Whatcha doing?" Castiel asks his fiancé, sitting down on the couch next to him and looking over his shoulder at his phone.

"Checking Twitter," Dean replies, just as he opens the app.

"What were you doing two seconds before I sat down?" Castiel asks.

"Looking at gifs of Benedict Cumberbatch."

Castiel chuckles. "I love how you just kinda admit it."

"What, you want me to lie about it? You know I'd die for Benedict Cumberbatch. This shouldn't surprise you at all."

"Yeah, okay, that's fair."

The first tweet on Dean's feed is, as always, from the constantly-tweeting Lucifer. "Not to be dramatic but I'd die for @Jack8Kline's dog. That is all."

"Me too, Lucifer," Castiel says. "Me freaking too."

The next series of tweets are Adam and Samandriel's countless attempts to get into Jacksfilms' next YIAY video. They've really upped their game since Castiel's last Twitter visit.

Next only appears on his feed because four people he's following liked it, as did about 10,000 other people. It's a very short video of Jack on the Graham Norton Show from the day before. Dean decides to watch it without hesitation.

To John Mulaney, the other guest on the show, Jack says, "Do you know Dean Winchester?"

"I've never met him, but I know of him," John Mulaney says.

"Well, I was talking to someone else about what I was up to, and I mentioned this show, and Dean somehow heard me say your name from halfway across the room, and I swear to God, he ran over to me and he was like, 'Oh my god, you're meeting John Mulaney? The John Mulaney? 'Horse in a hospital' John Mulaney?' I've never seen him more excited in my life."

"I feel exposed," Dean says.

"But look, John Mulaney knew who you were!" Castiel says.

"Yeah, that's a bad thing!" Dean says. "That would be like you telling Benedict Cumberbatch that I spent the morning looking at gifs of him! No! I would much rather think Benedict Cumberbatch has never heard my name before!"

"Okay, yeah, that's fair," Castiel says. "Well, it has almost 100,000 views. The world already knows you love John Mulaney. You might as well use it to complain to Jack that he exposed you."

"You know what? That's exactly what I'm gonna do. But first..." Dean taps the likes to see who of his followers liked it, and though seeing Lucifer, Adam, and Samandriel aren't surprising, the fact that Jack liked it is a bit unexpected. "Okay, I gotta complain to him."

Dean retweets it, saying, "He conveniently left out the part of the conversation with 'Do you want me to tell him you said?' 'Don't you fucking dare.'"

"Can we look at the responses?" Castiel asks.

"To my tweet or the original?" Dean asks.

"The original."

"'Kay, but I have to right to call it off whenever I want."

Castiel rolls his eyes. As nice as it is to know Dean is looking out for him, trying to protect him from tweets he won't want to see, he'd like to be able to look at them without the constant threat of Dean closing the app.

"Tag yourself I'm Dean fangirling over someone he's never acknowledged in real life or online."

"I live for Jack talking about Dean and/or Castiel in interviews."

"Is this as close to Dean getting political as we're gonna get?"

"How the fuck is that political?" Castiel asks.

"The horse in a hospital is supposed to be Trump," Dean explains. "It's weird out of context — actually, it's just weird in general. But it's hilarious. You gotta watch it."

Dean scrolls through the responses to that tweet until he finds one calling him out for supposedly being a liberal — "The thing I respected most about Winchester was him not getting political. He's really gonna ruin that over some dumb skit? Fucking liberals."

Dean retweets that, just saying, "That's what i thought you'd say, you dumb fucking horse."

Castiel bursts out laughing. "What the fuck, Dean?"

"It's a John Mulaney line," Dean says. "I didn't just decide to can someone a dumb fucking horse for the fun of it — but that's definitely something I would do, actually."

Dean continues skimming through responses, leaving a like on only one — "I don't even think he meant it politically. Horse in a Hospital is fucking hilarious for both Democrats and Republicans who can take a joke."

"Just so they don't get any ideas," Dean says. "I refuse to get involved in anything even remotely political."

"And that's exactly why everyone hates you," Castiel says.

"Hey, how dare you confine the reasons for people to hate me into something that small?" Dean asks. "I'll have you know that people hate me for many, many reasons, and not just my political silence, thank you very much."

A/N Don't forget to head to Taylor Swift's insta or twitter bio for the link to her petition for congressional support of the Equality Act, focused around prohibiting discrimination against the LGBT+ community :)