A/N GUYS I FINALLY FOUND THE WORD I'VE BEEN TRYING TO REMEMBER FOR WEEKS! IT'S SELF DEPRECATING! My gawd, this is such a relief, you don't even understand.

Castiel tosses his suitcase in the back of the impala, barely given a second thought to the pentagram on the trunk. He slides into the passenger's seat, and as soon as the door shuts, Dean starts the car, the music blasting so loud that it blocks out the noise of the engine.

"You know I love Bon Jovi," Castiel begins, nearly yelling to be heard over the music, "but this is a bit loud."

"Sorry." Dean quickly turns it down, just before the song ends.

There's a brief pauses, then, "Shot through the heart, and you're to blame. You give love a bad name."

"Yes!" Castiel says excitedly. "This is the best Bon Jovi song ever!"

Dean chuckles. "Well, lucky you, then, huh?"

As soon as the words start, they both start singing, Dean under his breath but Castiel louder than necessary with excessive excitement.

"You know," Dean says with a glance over at his boyfriend, "if I wasn't driving, I would totally put this on Instagram."

"Ooh, good idea!" Castiel whips out his phone and holds it at an awkward angle so it can see both of them. "Wait, wait, the chorus, and..."

Dean obviously gets what he's trying to do, because as soon as the chorus starts, they both begin singing — or, more accurately put, screaming — the lyrics. He stops the video as soon as the chorus ends, but he doesn't post it until the song is over, because he loves the song too much to not give it his full attention.

Castiel's account has gotten pretty big lately. It's rare that he gets less than 100 likes on a post, and people tend to comment on all of the videos. The fan page world seems to be growing now that word is out that he has an account, which helps.

He's heard that a few people have post notifications on, because, for some unknown reason, they always find these videos on his account before they see them anywhere else. Hmm. Wonder why. Could it be that, gasp, he's the first one to post them?

Dean and Castiel don't speak much on the ride, mostly just jamming out to Bon Jovi. Eventually, they pull up to the airport, and they finally have to leave. Castiel slides out of the car and grabs his suitcase, returning to the passenger's side again to say, "Thanks for the ride."

"Well, you're leaving me, so I want to spend as much time with you as possible before you're gone," Dean replies with a grin.

"It's only three days," Castiel reminds him. "And knowing you, you'll probably sleep through half that anyway."

"That — actually, yeah, that's probably true," he agrees. "Alright, three days. See you then."

Castiel grins at that. "Yep, love you." With that, he shuts the car door to begin the long and annoying process of a flight to Los Angeles.

~~

Castiel does manage to surf Instagram a little bit while he waits for the flight to start boarding. Once again, he's mostly in it for the captions, because the comments on his post are pretty boring, but he likes seeing what's going on in his fans' lives, and their thoughts on him.

"I've been listening to that live recording of the song from Sioux Falls for the last forever trying to learn all the lyrics but it's so hard to understand because people won't stop screaming. Like bisch not all of us are lucky enough to go to Sioux Falls and watch it live. Don't ruin it for the rest of us. (I say as if I wouldn't be screaming my face off if I saw him live.)"

Castiel has to admit, people do get pretty loud at his concerts. He can hear their screams through his headset, which is really saying something, and he loves every second of it.

"I'm hooked on the show Whose Line Is It Anyway? Send help."

Castiel screenshots the caption to remind himself to check it out. He needs a show to watch. He doesn't have anything to obsess over — unless Bon Jovi counts, of course.

"Petition to change the Castiel Novak fandom to the Casdom so I don't have to keep typing it out."

Castiel screenshots it and heads over to Twitter, where he only attaches the picture to the tweet long enough to type the caption word for word until he reaches "Casdom." He takes the picture out of the tweet before posting it and switching back to Instagram. He's sure the original poster will realize he saw their Instagram post about it.

The next fun post he finds is a video of a fan wearing the merchandise from his most recent album. He turns the volume to the lowest it can be while still making noise and holds it to his ear so he can listen, but when he realizes it's just one of his more peppy, upbeat songs, he turns the volume off and watched the video instead. The fan, whom he sees is named Maddie, judging by her Instagram name, @Maddie.Loves.Castiel, is just dancing around to one of his songs. Castiel bites back a laugh, but he can't hide his amused smile. He saves the video, so one day, when people figure out who he is, he can tell her it's awesome as Castiel Novak, not just @StanningMishaCollins.

"Are you Castiel Novak?"

Castiel quickly locks his phone so no one can see his Instagram as he looks up to see a young girl, probably about fourteen, standing in front of him with a hopeful smile. He's pleasantly surprised to see she's wearing a shirt from one of his tours, partially covered by her long red hair. Wait, is that...?

"I am," he replies. "Your name doesn't happen to be Ally, is it?"

Her eyes widen at that. "Oh my god, yeah, how did you —"

"You have an Instagram," Castiel recalls. "Castiel-isn't-playing-the-victim?" He can see in her expression that he's right, so he continues, "Your livestream last night was hilarious. I swear, if I didn't have to worry about Misha, I'd get a cat just for that."

"Oh my god," she breathes. "You saw — oh my god!" She bounces slightly where she's standing, fanning her face, and Castiel can tell she's trying not to cry, which he sees a lot. "I can't believe you actually —" She shakes her head to herself. "I am your biggest fan, oh my god. I know all your songs and I've been to all your tours and I even made it to the Sioux Falls show last year. I love you so much and I can't believe you actually know who I am and..."

She wipes the tears from her eyes, obviously very emotional from meeting him in the way he sees a lot. "Sorry, I'm a mess. Don't mind me." She laughs slightly, a self deprecating sound.

"Gurl, I feel ya, don't worry," Castiel replies, realizing as he says it how much that sounds like something Lucifer would say. "If it makes you feel any better, by the end of the week, I'll be more of a mess than you, anyway."

"Is it the — the 'new era' thing?" she asks.

"You could make that connection, yes," Castiel replies. It's not directly related — it's really the video for the next single that's going to wear him out — but it's close enough.

"I have to know, is it a new music video on Sunday?" she asks hopefully.

He hesitates. Should he tell her? It's kind of unfair, only telling one person, but at the same time, it's kind of the accepted theory, so he might as well.

"Long story short, yes, new single on Sunday," he says finally.

"Can you tell us what time?"

"'22 marks a new era,'" he repeats, emphasizing the age. "Right when I turn 22. 8:29 at night, eastern time."

"I'll be there," she says confidentially. "Livestream and all."

"I can't promise I'll be there watching live this time," he admits. "I've got something to do immediately after it's released. I'll definitely catch the stream afterwards if you leave the video up, though. I wouldn't want to miss that."

It's true, honestly. With any other song, he'd still love to see fans' reactions to hearing it for the first time, but this song is different, bigger, and he wants to watch the chaos unfold.