It's a few hours later when Castiel wakes up, and he's surprised to see Misha is sleeping in his own bed instead of Castiel's. He must be used to that free spot on the human bed being Dean's. It's been a while since the dog has had the chance to get up there.

Castiel rolls out of bed and sneaks down to the kitchen, careful not to wake up his dog. He just stands in the middle of the room, trying to decide what to eat. Finally, he grabs the remaining cookies — there aren't many; they ate a lot in the last few days, and Dean took most of the remaining ones home with him. It's probably for the best, though. This way, he can't eat thirty cookies at once.

As he eats one of them, he pulls out his phone and opens Instagram, the best app of all. The first post that appears is a picture of him at the Grammys last year, holding the award he won while a bazillion people took pictures. The caption just says, "We stan a Grammy-winning legend."

The next post is two pictures, one of him on Jody's show the first time, and the other is Jody's show the last time he was there, with the caption, "Talk about a glow up."

Next is a video of him performing in his first stadium show, which was so weird. There were so many more people than he was used to, and somehow, he could see every single one of them. It was simultaneously one of the most amazing and nerve wrecking experiences of his life. The caption just says, "I wish I was there."

Castiel sighs. His fans need to up their caption game, because this is just boring. Actually...

He opens his camera and switches it to selfie mode, because he always gets more likes and views when he's in his posts. He records a video of himself speaking mostly to his fan accounts, but also to his more casual fans, if they want to participate in this on a public personal account.

"Hey, guys!" Castiel begins with a grin. "I have a favor to ask you. I feel like all I ever see on here is generic captions about snatched weaves, and I want to add a little pizzaz to this awesome app. I want to get to know you for you, so I'm going to start asking you guys questions, and I was hoping you would post a picture of yourself or your dog or whatever you want, and answer it in the caption with the hashtag 'Castiel Was Wondering,' and we can all make some new friends. Sound cool?

"So, for now, I was wondering if you would just tell me about yourself. I want to virtually meet you guys. And, if you have a moment, go through the tag and make some new friends. There's not going to be a prize or anything, but hey, maybe I'll see your post when I stalk the hashtag."

He ends the video and hops back over to Instagram, where he posts it on his secondary account with the caption, "#CastielWasWondering if you'd help me get to know you."

To pass the time for a little while, he decides to join one of his fans' live streams. It looks like there aren't a lot of people on here, so when Castiel's name shows up and states that he's joined the stream, it's impossible to miss.

The girl — Miranda, according to her profile — squeals, covering her mouth with her hands. "Oh my god, he's actually here!"

Castiel chuckles to himself as he types out, "Fashionably late, as always." He's usually only late when he doesn't want to go somewhere, but she doesn't have to know that. He does want to be here, and that's what matters.

"Oh my god," she gushes. "I'm — this — what?" She seems to be laughing while simultaneously about to cry.

Castiel types back, "Surprise!"

The rest of the live stream's participants are freaking out in the comments around his, which is kind of adorable when he thinks about the people behind the screen being so excited that they might have the opportunity to talk to him, and that even if he doesn't acknowledge them, anything they say, he'll probably see.

"Yes!" she squeaks. "This is — oh my god." She fans her face, which is turning red, probably because she's about to cry. "This is the best day of my life, oh my god. I love you so much, you don't even understand!"

Castiel isn't quite sure how to respond to that, but after a brief pause, settles on, "I love you toooooo!"

It's clear that she's read the comment when her smile grows impossibly bigger. "I can't believe this is actually happening. There are so many things I want to say to you right now, I don't even know where to begin!"

"Take your time," Castiel advises her. "I'm not in a hurry." In a separate comment, he adds, "Don't forget to breathe lol." It's advise he'd like to give all his fans when they meet him, because that concept always seems to slip their minds.

She laughs, despite clearly being in the verge of tears — which doesn't last long before she's actually crying.

"Happy tears, I'm hoping?" he comments.

She nods enthusiastically. "Yes — really, really happy." She wipes the tears from her eyes and takes a few big breaths before saying in a semi-composed way, "Okay, I think I'm good." She fans her face a few more times before saying, "You have no idea how huge this is. I'm such a big fan. I've been to every single one of your tours and I have all your albums and I have merch from every one and look, I have a poster." She turns the camera to show off a poster on the wall, showing him on tour looking way cooler than he probably did, before showing her face again.

Castiel chuckles to himself as he replies, "Omg that's so sweet!" because he's not quite sure what else to say.

"I've been waiting for so long for the new album," she adds. "Please tell me it's coming out soon!"

"I'm sorry I'm slacking off but the next music video I film is hopefully gonna make it worth the wait and thennnnn you can have a long overdue album."

She takes a moment to read it, the asks, "But how long is that going to take?"

"Hell if I know. It's, what, July now? So I should have the album out by 2030." He adds a smiley face at the end to show that he's joking around. It's not going to take over five years. Hopefully. He would assume. If it does, there's clearly something very wrong happening.

She laughs a little, so it's clear she understood it's a joke. She starts to say something else, but it's interrupted by his phone ringing. His first thought is it's Dean, who still has to call to tell him he's gotten home safely, but to his surprise, it's actually Taylor Swift, whose newest album reputation has been out for over a month and you should all listen to it in its entirety if you haven't already.

Confused, Castiel accepts the call, turning it on speaker because it's just easier. "Hey, Castiel here," he says as if it's not obvious.

"Hi Castiel, it's Taylor," she replies, because she always introduces herself despite being super famous to the point where just about everyone knows her. "I know this is random, but I just wanted to make sure we're still good."

She's finally questioning the rumors, it would seem. He's surprised she hasn't called earlier, honestly.

"Yep," Castiel says. "It's just the media being the media. You know how that is." That's the nice thing about celebrity friends. They know the struggles just as well as he does. "I figure nothing I say will convince them otherwise. I say just ignore it."

"Or, remember that song we wrote together, like, a year ago?" she asks, as if anyone remembers 150 chapters ago. Hell, even the author totally forgot about it until now. "We could record that and drop it soon."

"Well, it can't go on my album," he tells her. He already has that whole thing planned out, and a duet like that would be really out of place. "But you could release it. We could play it up a bit, too, for the surprise factor; make people think we're really fighting and then boom, random collab."

They decide that she'll post about a new single on all her social media, and Castiel will make some remark about how he's not happy about it in the least. They'll both go down to Nashville, where she typically records her songs, and sneak in the studio together just long enough to record it and put the song together, and after it's released under her name for her next album, they'll check out the response before thinking about whether or not they'll film a music video for it.

Castiel silently adds that if they can have this done within a week, he can give it a week to possibly hit number one (not likely but still plausible) before releasing his next song, when he stops being a dick. He doesn't want to block their song from number one, but it's more than likely that if anything, their duet will outpeak his next promo single by a mile. But that's okay, because nothing can be as bad as his third and final promo single for the album. That's going to suck so much, it probably won't even be in the top 1000 on iTunes, and the odds of it making any of the charts anywhere are slim to none.

When their phone call ends, Castiel returns to the live stream he had been watching and explains as quickly as possible, "Agh sorry, didn't mean to disappear on you. Big important business phone call thingy. Did I miss the party?"

He and Miranda chat for another hour or so, until Castiel finally decides to call it quits, saying, "Alright, I've gotta go, but this has been a lot of fun. I'll chat with you later. Love you, Miranda!" He makes sure to say her name, because he knows it will make it feel more special to her, and he wants his fans to feel special. They deserve it.

Castiel flops down on his bed and stares into the mattress. He really didn't have to leave. He just got a bit bored. He just wants Dean to call and say that he got home safe. It's been so long. He has to be home by now. What the hell is taking so long?

But he doesn't want to call first, because he's paranoid that if Dean is still driving, he'll get distracted by the phone and something will go wrong. It sounds stupid, but he's heard some ridiculous true stories before, and he wouldn't doubt this is possible.

But, thankfully, Dean does call him eventually. It's about half an hour after Castiel gave up on life when his phone rings, and, obviously, he answers it immediately.

"Hey, you make it home okay?" Castiel asks.

"In theory," Dean replies. "Traffic sucked, though. It's ridiculous. Fortunately, though, both me and Baby made it home safe and sound."

"Awesome," Castiel replies, feeling a wave of relief wash over him. His family is chilling at home, he has plans to fix his reputation, and, most importantly, Dean is doing fine. Life is pretty good at the moment. He just has to hope it lasts.

A/N MERRY CHRISTMAS, FRIENDS! (And, if you don't celebrate Christmas, MERRY 25TH OF DECEMBER, FRIEND!)

Have an extra long update just because I'm feeling generous on this fine Christmas Day (lol jk it's 11:16 pm on Christmas Eve and I just can't sleep so I decided to write instead.)