A/N Happy birthday to Jensen Ackles, the only member of J2M to never have played Lucifer!

Eventually, Castiel has to leave, and he heads over to Jody's show. He spends way too much time on instagram, scrolling through posts about the album. Apparently, it's the general consensus that track six is the best track, but he can't actually remember what track six is. The only reason it's even occurred to him that everyone likes track six is because someone made a joke about track six always being the best on every album, thinking Castiel was going for a "666" joke.

Eventually, he's forced into going onstage, and has to abandon his phone. He's been told before to leave his phone in the dressing room, but, as always, he takes it with him because he's a rebel.

The crowds cheer as Castiel walks on, and he waves, just prompting them to scream louder. He takes a seat on the small fancy bench across from Jody. He's vaguely aware of the fact that it used to be a chair, but he doesn't mention it, because then everyone would know that he actually doesn't make a habit of watching the show.

"Hey, Jody," he says with a grin.

"Hey, Castiel. So, your new album's out now." She holds up the copy of it that's sitting on the little table between them. "Tell us about it."

Castiel raises an eyebrow. "You're jumping into this really quickly like you have something else planned for later and I'm kinda scared. But, yeah, new album. I know people were getting really impatient because it's been well over a year since my last one, but I think it was worth the wait.

"I started the album out with, like, twenty-five tracks to choose from, and it was basically just going to be another one of my albums. Then I started going through my fans' Instagram accounts — which sounds kinda freaky but it's not, I promise — and the person they kept talking about just wasn't me. They'd talk about this badass, overly-gay, super happy person who gives homeless people cats in his free time and —"

"What would a homeless person do with a cat, though?" Jody asks.

"Exactly!"

The audience bursts into laughter, and Castiel pauses, waiting until they calm down to finish speaking.

"And that was kind of what sparked the idea of 'what if I became this person?' I basically scrapped the entire album and wrote a whole new one in a week, and each track represents a different personality trait that for some reason, people think they see in me that isn't really who I am."

She nods. "Right. And I'm sure I'm not the only one who noticed this, but there aren't a whole lot of love songs on his album. Is this something we should be expecting for now on, or is it just a one time thing?"

Castiel pauses, trying to think of an adequate answer. Finally, he says, "I don't know. The nice part about not having had a boyfriend in the last seven years was that no one was able to pin my songs on someone. I know people tried to figure out what had happened in my past relationships, but that was all on me, and no one really based their opinions on someone else off of my music. Now that I do have a boyfriend —"

The audience cheers at that. Castiel isn't really sure why. No one likes Dean, so that can't be it. It's probably just because the gay guy is talking about his gayness in action.

"Now that I do have a boyfriend," Castiel repeats once people have quieted down, "I know any love song I write, people are going to assume it's about him, when it's honestly just as likely that I'm writing about, like, Jesse from The Mediator or whatever. I just don't want to affect anyone's reputation with my music, ya know? And I can see him sitting over there and laughing at me and I'm not entirely sure why."

Dean gives him a wave from his spot in the front of the room.

"Oh, is he here?" she asks.

Castiel nods. "Yeah, apparently." He was never given a heads up about it, but there he is.

"Well, let's get him up here," she suggests.

Castiel grins at that. "Ooh, yeah! C'mon." He gestured for Dean to join him on stage, but he shaker his head. "No, really, Dean, it'll be fun! C'mon!"

Dean mouths the word, "No!" very clearly.

Castiel sighs. "Come here or I'll set Misha after you. How 'bout that?"

Dean laughs, but the sound is drowned out by the rest of the audience. He does reluctantly get up, and the audience cheers when they see it on the monitor. He joins the two on stage, giving his boyfriend a brief kiss on the lips as he sits down on the bench next to him, holding his hand.

"You know I couldn't actually set Misha after you, right?" Castiel tells him. "He just kinda lies down and stares at people."

"Yes, but you were getting into the inventive threats and I was scared," Dean replies with a teasing smile.

Castiel chuckles. For the audience's sake, he says, "You guys know Patriots quarterback Dean Winchester, right?"

The audience screams, and Dean just awkwardly waves at them. When the noise quiets down, one guy yells, "Patriots suck!"

Without missing a beat, Dean says, "Say that to my Super Bowl ring."

The audience laughs, as they tend to do a lot. Castiel himself can't help but chuckle, too. Leave it to Dean to protect his team's honor at all times.

"What are you doing here?" Castiel asks. "Not that I'm complaining, of course."

"I've got a game nearby tomorrow, figured I'd pop in," Dean says with a shrug.

"Seems legit." It's got to be more than that — it's not that simple to score tickets to see Jody live — but he doesn't question it. He can ask later, when they're not on tv.

"Are you ready for it?" Jody asks.

"Eh, yeah, sure. I've always considered Garoppolo one of the best quarterbacks the NFL has seen in a long time, but we've beat 'em before, so it could go either way."

"I've heard people say the same thing about you," Jody remarks.

"You mean one of the best quarterbacks?" Dean asks, seeming incredulous when Jody nods. "What? No! I love what I do, but I'm far from the best, and that's all I'm gonna say about me because this is Cas' interview and I'm just kinda stuck up here."

"Well, tell ya what," Jody says. "Instead of having you talk about yourself, how about you talk about Castiel, instead?"

"I feel like there's a catch here," Dean says slowly, and Castiel has to agree.

"Maybe," she says mysteriously. "But first, Castiel, remember a few years ago when you came on the show, and you said this?"

The monitor on the stage changes to show a clip from a previous visit here. She must have asked about a potential boyfriend, because he said, "I can't really see myself in a relationship right now. I know my whole thing is that I'm that gay person, but at the same time, I don't want to be that person who falls in love with every guy they meet. I want it to be something special, something that doesn't happen a lot, because if I want to be with someone, I want it to be someone I'd be willing to spend my whole life with, and right now, I can't see myself settling down with one person for so long. I'd rather just focus on my music, and if one day I meet someone special, it really will be something special."

The audience makes that "Awww!" sound, as if they had just watched a video of a kitten learning to swim. Castiel looks down at his lap awkwardly, knowing exactly where this is going.

"So?" Jody says. "Do you think you've finally found that 'someone special' you want to spend the rest of your life with?"

Castiel hesitates. He doesn't want to hurt Dean's feelings by saying no, but he can't say yes if Dean doesn't feel the same. Either way, his fans would go insane, and neither answer would make it a good insane.

Finally, he just says, "There's really no good way to answer that, is there?"

"Maybe not, but not answering it isn't a good way, either," Jody replies.

That's one of the things Castiel hates about being a celebrity is everyone seems to think it's okay to put him on the spot like this. That's the reason he's never gone back to The Ellen Show. She asks the personal questions that he can't answer comfortably. This question just happens to be an Ellen-style question.

"Um... I don't know? I'm not sure how to answer that?"

"I think what Cas means," Dean substitutes, "is that it's irrelevant. We're together now, and the future doesn't matter yet."

Castiel looks over at him, trying to hide his surprise. "You're actually good at this. Give me some of your social skills."

Dean chuckles. "I don't think it works that way, but nice try.

"That was almost poetic," Jody remarks.

"Oh god, no, don't say that," Dean says immediately. "That's Cas' bit, not mine."

"No, he exists for the sole purpose of throwing a football around, and has no other qualities whatsoever," Castiel says sarcastically.

"Exactly!"