Castiel sets his alarm for seven o'clock the next morning, and even though he was in bed by nine the night before and easily asleep by half past, he's still exhausted when the obnoxious intro of Bon Jovi's "It's My Life" starts blasting through his phone.

His only motivation to get out of bed is that he knows exactly how long until the lyrics start, and that's how long he has until he can start jamming out. It's what convinced him to get out of bed in middle school, and it still works at 21 — almost 22, he realizes with a start. His birthday is tomorrow, isn't it? How did he forget that?

He rocks out silently in his room until the song ends, when he turns off his alarm and digs through his suitcase for any shirt, finally just throwing on his Bon Jovi t-shirt and a pair of jeans. He doesn't have the motivation to do anything with his hair, so he just smooths it down slightly as he throws everything in his suitcase carelessly. As long as it zips, it works.

He pretends not to notice all the cameras at the airport, both from paparazzi and random people walking by. As he waits for boarding to start, he rests his head in his hands and closes his eyes. He knows better than to let himself fall asleep — it would be really awkward to miss his flight because he slept through it. It's almost worth it, but he can wait another half hour until he gets on the plane before he takes a nap. Hopefully.

Thankfully, he only half falls asleep, conscious just enough to hear the boarding call. By the time the plane takes off, he's already asleep, and stays asleep for the entire flight back to Sioux Falls, only waking up during the bumpy descent.

He manages to find Dean soon after he gets off the plane. He gives the boy a small smile when their eyes meet, but even when he approaches him, he doesn't say much, just a simple, "Hey."

Dean gives him a simultaneously amused and confused look. "Well, aren't you just a bundle of excitement today," he says sarcastically.

Castiel just shrugs. He's too tired to really converse with anyone. He gestures vaguely for Dean to follow him as they head to get his suitcase. As they wait for the conveyor belt to start moving, Castiel takes Dean's hand and rests his head on the boy's shoulder. He has to fight to keep his eyes open. He's not used to having an actual sleep schedule, and definitely not one as hard to follow as this one. His eyes literally feel like they're burning. If tomorrow wasn't his birthday, he might set out to sleep the whole day away.

"That one?" Dean asks, snapping Castiel out of his tired trance.

Castiel follows his gaze to his suitcase, and quickly snatches it off the conveyor belt. He covers his mouth as he yawns, then pulls out the handle to roll the suitcase around the airport for the next five minutes until they finally get out of the place because airports are too big and complicated for a tried Castiel to navigate.

"You good?" Dean asks.

Castiel just shrugs again. "I just wanna go home," he mutters.

"M'kay," Dean replies. He quickly snatches the suitcase from Castiel's hands, holding the handle with one hand with the other arm wrapped around his boyfriend's waist, gently pushing Castiel with him as they leave.

As soon as they reach the impala, Castiel sits shotgun, resting his head against the window and closing his eyes. Once Dean has put his suitcase in the trunk, he slides in the driver's seat. There's a few moments of silence, in which Castiel expects the car to start, but it doesn't.

Finally, Dean asks, "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Mm hmm," Castiel replies halfheartedly.

"Are you sick or something?" Dean asks.

"No, just tired," Castiel mutters, not opening his eyes. "I just wanna go home and take a really long nap."

"You know what? Go for it, Cas. You deserve it."

~~

But between the flight back to Sioux Falls and the drive back to their house, Castiel's "long nap" is shortened considerably, and he's awake again within two hours of falling asleep in the comfort of his bed. Dean seems to have disappeared, though he could conceivably be in another room and just quiet enough that Castiel can't hear him, and he's too lazy to actually get out of bed and check. Instead, he opens Instagram, rather hesitantly because he hasn't used it since he first arrived in Los Angeles, and he can only imagine the notifications he has.

Instead of going through all ten thousand new followers and nineteen thousand new comments, he decides to just look through his feed, leaving the hard stuff for later and letting himself have some fun for now.

The first post on his feed is somehow a picture of him at the airport today, because apparently there are already pictures of that circulating. With his face in his hand, he can really understand where the caption of, "He looks so upset. What do you think happened?" comes from.

Instead of really acknowledging this at all, he checks the comments on his most recent post, just to see where he stands. It seems that most of the "Casdom" has agreed that he runs the account, though there are a few nonbelievers who think the idea is stupid. The fact that he hasn't been active since the allegations came out isn't helping his case, because now people think he's been avoiding the subject. It's not something he feels the dire need to correct, but he figures he might as well make the big reveal.

He heads over to the Instagram live feature that he's never used himself, but he's certainly stalked other people's live streams under the guise of a fellow fan. It's easy to figure out how to use, though, and within moments, he has a live video going. He watches as people immediately start joining, and the comments are full of people going crazy.

Castiel grins. "So, jig's up, huh?" He knows better than to expect any sort of organized response this early in the stream, so he keeps talking, a teasing tone to his voice. "It took you guys long enough. I've only been posting never-before-seem footage for over a month.

"So, yeah, this is me. I'm not actually named Cassius. That's just the douchebag from Julius Caesar. I haven't gone through most of the comments yet, but I'm sure someone's already made the connection there."

He chuckles at one of the comments, lagging slightly, so it's from a few seconds earlier. "I knew it was you! I knew it for weeks! Fucking bow to me, bitches!"

Because he can, he says, "Props to you, then, @Dont-Call-Him-Cass." The double "s" makes him cringe on the inside, as it does every time he sees it, but he doesn't mention it.

"So, like, what do I do now?" Castiel asks. "I know there's, like, a ten second or so delay, so while I wait for your answers, I'm gonna sing the best song in existence, in case you guys wanna join in." He starts singing "Living on a Prayer" by Bon Jovi, because he knows that just about everyone knows that song. He stops fairly quickly to read the replies.

"Keep your account like it is!"

"You post way more now than you ever did. Don't change!"

"Now the haters are gonna come back :("

That last comment has a good point. He's made it very clear that he doesn't want to block people, but he really is sick of the hate. So maybe...

"Alright, here's the deal," he begins. "What if I make an account like my old one, just for, like, album or single release information and info on tours and stuff, and then I'll keep this one as a side account for fun stuff?" And he can block people on his side account without feeling guilty at all, which is nice.

The response to this seems to be fairly positive. He mentally starts brainstorming possible account names that wouldn't have been taken already. Unfortunately, with so many fan accounts out there, it will probably take a lot of trial and error to find something that will work.

"I'm gonna go do that now," Castiel tells them. "See ya in a few." He tosses them a wink before ending the livestream. He spends about two minutes trying to figure out how to add an account, and he eventually does, which brings him to the struggle of picking a username. Every possible thing he can think of is taken. Unless...

@CasNotCass. Perfect.

He sets his profile picture as him wearing a sock monkey hat and winking over dramatically. He's not quite sure when it's from, but he saw it on Instagram a few days ago and loved it. He gives his real name this time and sets his bio as, "Whoop, I'm back!" He adds his YouTube Vevo account as his website to get more views on his videos. He'll switch it to the link to his new song when it comes out tomorrow.

Following people takes a while. He follows his other account, his family, friends from high school, various people involved with his record company, and a few celebrity friends — including the wonderful Jody Mills, of course.

His first post is something he whips up in about a minutes. It's a plain white square that just says, "Cas. Not Cass." His caption is more descriptive, saying, "@ Fanfic writers, Dean spells my nickname with one s, not two. With that being said, hi, friends! I'm back! (Yes, trolls, I know you don't care, so save yourself the trouble of commenting it.) Let's just hope I don't get hacked and deleted again, because I'm running out of usernames."

He screenshots his page and switches back to his fan account, where he follows his new account before posting that he has this new account. He switches over to Twitter and posts it there as well, so all his fans can be informed.

He lets out a content sigh. Well, back to his old social media life, now with one more account to love.

A/N No offense intended to the people who spell it Cass. I used to spell it like that before I started reading fanfics. I'm just thinking of that mug Shirts sold a while back that just says, "Cas. Not Cass."