A/N I have the rest of the story roughly planned out. There are still a few in-book years, so it might take up another book depending on if there's a chapter limit, and then there's going to be a much shorter sequel.

I've literally been writing this for a year. It's so weird to think it's actually going to end one day. *wipes away a single (wo)man tear*

"You need more food," Dean whines, closing the closet door with a frustrated groan.

"If I buy more food, I'll eat more food," Castiel replies. "And then I'll get fat and then I'll lose all my fans."

"That logic makes no sense," Dean tells him, seeming genuinely lost.

"You're lucky it makes no sense to you." It means he's not held to the same standards as Castiel is. People act like being a female artist is hard, but at least they have the whole feminism, body positivity thing going for them, which is more than men can say.

"Well, can we go buy food?" Dean asks. "I'm starving and you have nothing to eat."

"Have an apple."

Dean groans. "Wow, you suck. C'mon, let's go grocery shopping."

"Then we have to deal with the groupies." He's long since learned that they aren't his fans. Some of the people he's signed autographs for in the middle of the city are probably the same people tweeting at him that he sucks. They see him there and want their five seconds of fame, and he's not oblivious to the fact that being able to honestly say they met Castiel Novak is a big deal. It really shouldn't be a big deal — he's no Jon Bon Jovi; he's just his boring self — but it is.

"Then I'm gonna go by myself," Dean tells him. "I can't survive off this rabbit food."

"M'kay, have fun," Castiel says with an exaggerated smile and a wave.

"I'll have fun when I have food."

So Dean leaves, and Castiel and Misha are alone again. Castiel takes a seat on the floor with his dog, who instantly rests his head in his lap.

"Just like old times, huh?" Castiel murmurs.

Misha just sighs in contentment.

Because there's going to be quite a while until Dean comes back, Castiel decides to pass the time on social media. He almost opens Twitter, but decides against it. He wants to see if his fans are getting sick of his Twitter wars yet, and the best way to do that is to check out his fans' accounts, and that's easiest done on Instagram.

Apparently, they aren't. There are way too many posts praising his jabs at Bela. From "karma" to "self preservation," the feedback all positive. It's nice that his fans remain loyal, but on the other hand, their mindset should be that no one deserves these cyber attacks. It's hypocritical to defend Castiel like they do while cheering on the same behavior they fight against when it's directed at someone else, even if it does come from the one they want to protect.

He chats with fans in the comment sections for a short while, mostly consisting of hardcore fangirling (and fanboying), and Castiel laughing to himself because his fans are adorable.

He does find one post of interest. There's a screenshot of an article titled, "Bad Blood Between Taylor Swift and Castiel Novak?"

Castiel sighs. Well, there Cosmopolitan goes, making ridiculous assumptions yet again. He saves the post so he'll be able to comment on it after he's looked at the article, then searches up the name. It's not hard to find, and it only takes a moment until he has it open and can begin to read it.

"Is there some bad blood between Taylor Swift and Castiel Novak?

"That's the question fans have been asking since Castiel released 'Fallen Angel,' the first single off his new album, which has yet to be named. In it, he makes numerous jabs towards an unnamed female.

"Many people have interpreted it as an ode to Bela Talbot, who has been seemingly subtweeting him for months, until he finally fired back with some shots of his own.

"Other speculate that it's actually about Taylor Swift. Her name is always the first one to roll of Castiel's lips when he talks about his friends. Some even think he moved from South Dakota to New York City to be near her. But for the last year, the two have been surprisingly silent on their relationship. Did the long-rumored snake finally strike? And is everyone's favorite gay angel dropping the innocent facade? No one knows for sure, but between Taylor's vivid songwriting and Castiel's loose lipped interviews, it's only a matter of time until one of them lets it slip."

Castiel scoffs. What the hell did he just read? First if all, he and Taylor are fine. Second, "gay angel" just sounds stupid. It should be "gayngel" instead.

And third, how are his interviews "loose lipped"? He shares what's going on in his life just as much as anyone else, and frankly, that comment was rude. Hell, it was almost homophobic. It's obviously about the guys. If he was talking about girls as much he talks about boys, no one would bat an eye, but because it's guys, he's somehow oversharing?

Maybe they were just trying to find a way to write their article, and they didn't want to talk about a song battle, because that would take a very long time, but still needed something for a concluding sentence. No one else thinks he overshares, right?

Just to be sure, he googles, "Castiel Novak interview overshares." The first few articles are just about his interviews in general — most notably the articles on his lack of interviews lately and on his most recent interview, when he came out as suicidal — which he hasn't felt in a while, now that he thinks about it.

Once he's passed those, he finds various articles about people's opinions on his interviews. He eventually taps one of them, then endures the painfully long process of opening a website on an iPhone, and starts to read.

His general consensus after reading a few articles is that people seem to agree that he talks too much. It's nice that he gets credit for no longer stammering and being awkward in interviews like he used to, but people seem to be torn between awkward Castiel and chatterbox Castiel.

After a while, he switches over to Twitter, because he's essentially seeing the same thing put in many different ways in those articles, but at least Twitter criticism is more varied.

Looking up his name in the search bar, he finds a lot of tweets from people replying to his not-so-friendly conversation with Bela. He can't see exactly what they're replying to, but he can get the gist of what it's about from the tweets themselves.

"KING OF ROASTS!"

"DRAG HER BY THE WIG AND SNATCH IT!"

Castiel has to laugh at that one. He's not quite sure what it means, but he knows it's something positive, so he gives it a like. His likes are rare these days, not wanting to fuel his fans' hatred of Bela, but there are some exceptionally entertaining tweets, and he genuinely enjoys remarks about snatching wigs, despite not really knowing what it means. He would pick wigs over tea any day. It's weird that that's a sentence that makes sense to him.

The next tweet is the article about him and Taylor Swift from Cosmopolitan, which, judging by the number of likes, retweets, and comments, is apparently going viral, especially among the fandom.

"Waiting for Castiel to come back with some snappy comeback like..." There's a video of a boy slightly younger than him staring at a clock, then looking down at his watch, then back to the clock, and so on for a long ten seconds. Castiel gives him a like for creativity.

"I've never been a huge Castiel stan, but this new song is trash. He needs to get back to what he's good at — which is anything but writing diss tracks and starting Twitter wars."

Okay, in his defense, he didn't start this war. He just finally chose to participate in it. There's a big difference there.

"This whole Castiel Novak/Bela Talbot fight is so childish. I feel like I'm watching a couple of preschoolers having a slap fight."

Part of him wants to give this a like because it's exactly how he feels, but he knows he can't without raising questions, so he doesn't.

The next tweet is an article from Bossip — which Castiel chooses to think means "bullshit gossip" because it's rarely if ever correct — called, "Is Castiel Novak's new boyfriend really all he could ask for?"

Curious, Castiel opens the link, waiting an annoyingly long time for it to load before he can read it.

"It's common knowledge that singer-songwriter Castiel Novak has been dating New England Patriots quarterback Dean Winchester. As this is the first boy Novak has publicly stated that he is dating, fans should have been thrilled when word came out that he has a special someone, but he remains a very controversial topic for speculation. After a video that came out of their breakup showed they had been together at all, Winchester was immediately thrown into some harsh criticism from his then-ex boyfriend's fans.

"Since revealing that they're back together when they performed together during Novak's most recent concert nearly a year ago, fans seem to have warmed up to him, earning him over one million new followers on Instagram in the last twelve months.

"But should they? All we've seen from Novak since then is a long delayed album, a very out of the ordinary first promo single, and, most notably, an unfinished suicide attempt.

"Some fans want to give him the benefit of the doubt, but does he really deserve that? If he really is as bad of an influence as it seems, should someone try to save him before he ruins himself and his career?"

Castiel bursts out laughing. Oh, God. What a joke. He legitimately cannot believe Bossip is still in business with bullshit articles like these. This is such a stupid theory.

Although apparently, he realizes when he looks at the replies to the tweet, not everyone agrees with him. In fact, it seems most people don't, judging by the fact that the most liked reply is, "I bet he's just using Castiel for attention. He ditched Castiel until he realized our angel is way more popular than he'll ever be."

Castiel scoffs. Seriously? That's as ridiculous as the article was. His fans are supposed to be better than this.

Fortunately, the first reply, though it has considerably fewer likes, says, "Or maybe things just didn't work out between them until recently. We don't know Dean did anything wrong. Innocent until proven guilty."

Castiel gives this tweet a like. At least some people have common sense. As a celebrity — and, consequently, someone who has been on the bad side of many rumors — he's a firm believer in the concept of  "innocent until proven guilty." If everything that he's read about himself was true, he'd be the biggest asshole in the world.

He retweets the link to the article with the words, "Y'all gotta chill. Dean's pretty cool. I can assure you, if he wasn't, Lucifer would have kicked his ass to hell and back."

And god knows that's true, too. Lucifer may not be overprotective in the traditional sense, but when it comes to relationships, he always gets his way.