As soon as the door to his limo opens, he's blinded by the bright, flashing lights of the cameras. He steps out onto the red carpet, stone-faced. It's what a lot of the other male artists do, and they look damn good doing it.

Usually, Castiel would be standing out by making funny faces at the cameras, but he really just wants to blend in today. Hopefully, if people don't pay any special attention to him, they won't notice how nervous he is to be here. He's back in a crowded place, and he wouldn't be able to see if anything's wrong. Any one of these camera people could have brought and left a backpack on the ground, and no one would notice until it blew up —

Stop it, he chides himself. He goes through this every time he leaves the house. It's about damn time to put his foot down and tell himself to quit worrying. He's going to ruin his life if he keeps freaking out like this.

If only it were that easy.

In other news, the most boring part of the Grammys is definitely getting pictures taken. He stands against the backdrop and looks at the cameras amidst the yelling that he can barely make out. He looks in various directions and turns his head in different ways so they get a bunch of different pictures, which is the stupidest thing he's ever done, but he has to do it. Occasionally, he'll catch snippets of what the people are yelling at him from behind the cameras to entertain him.

"Over here!"

"Look at me!"

"Give us the weird faces!"

"To your left!"

"You're not looking!"

Castiel rolls his eyes, exasperated. "No shit, I'm not looking. There are seventy different people here. I physically don't have enough eyes to look at all of you at once."

He goes back to his picture taking, but there's a brief pause in the flashes as the camera people laugh. That's kind of nice. He's sure he'll get crucified online for it, but if they laughed, his fans will laugh, so at least there that.

Next comes the interviews. Going into detail about all of them would take far too long, so let's just take a sneak peak into the first interview, and then the last one.

"Castiel, it's so good to meet you," the interviewer, Leah, says.

"You, too," Castiel says politely. "And I love your hair!"

She pats her artificially curly brown hair almost instinctively as she says, "Oh, thank you!"

Castiel can't help but smile to himself. He always compliments the interviewers on the red carpet. If they like him, they're usually a bit nicer to him.

"Well, welcome to the Grammys!" Leah says. "We haven't seen you at anything in, what, six months?"

"Just about," Castiel agrees. It's been a little longer — the terrorist attacks were in June, and it's February now. The number of pictures the paparazzi have gotten of him in that time period probably makes it feel like it's been less time, though. They know pictures of him have been in high demand lately, so they catch him every time he leaves the house.

"What have you been up to?" Leah asks.

"Pretty much nothing, honestly," Castiel says. "I know that's a boring answer and I should probably lie to sound more interesting, but I haven't really done anything lately." He hasn't been able to, if he wanted to avoid the paparazzi.

"Well, you do have a new-ish song with Jack Kline out now," Leah says. "It's in the running for song of the year. How's that feel?"

"It's honestly amazing," Castiel says. "The original version of 'Remember' that I sent Jack is absolutely nothing like what you hear on the radios. He put such an interesting spin on it, and it worked out so well. It's just nice to see that work is being recognized, because he really is the reason it got so big." It's a bit of an exaggeration, but he wants Jack to get all the credit for this, and he honestly deserves it.

"It's no secret that you write all your songs by yourself," Leah says. "Why did you decide to work with Jack on this one?"

"Well, I was really just trying to get rid of my old songs," Castiel says. "I sent a few of them away to various artists, and he's the only one that I got a definitive yes from. We were just kinda talking, and decided hey, why not work on it together? And then he ended up doing all the work, and I just sat there quietly for a few hours because he's way better at it than me. And his mom brought us pizza, so it was pretty great."

Leah laughs. "Pizza makes everything worth it, huh?"

"Oh, definitely," Castiel agrees.

"Were you expecting 'Remember' to take off like it did?" Leah asks.

"I never really expect my songs to take off," Castiel says. "And when I sent it to Jack, I thought my fans and his fans would enjoy it, and that would be it. And then we recorded it and we filmed the music video and all that and I didn't know what to think because it just sounded so much better."

"Well, good luck tonight," Leah says. "I hope all that hard work pays off."

~~

"Hi, Castiel!" the final interviewer of the night, Melissa, says with a grin.

"Girl, your eyeliner is on point right now," Castiel says. What a flawless wing she has there. It almost makes him want to wear makeup.

She laughs. "Thanks!"

"Sorry, That was really random but I just had to say it," Castiel says.

"No, no, it's totally fine," Melissa says. "I have a bit of a random question, too. We've been taking a survey from everyone we've gotten the chance to talk to, and that includes you."

"Ooh, surveys," Castiel says with a grin. "Fun, fun!"

"Just one question, so it's not super big," Melissa says. "What do you do in the limo on your way here?"

Castiel chuckles. "You're right, that is random. Are we talking in general, or today specifically?"

"It's up to you," Melissa says.

"Well, today, I spent the ride texting my fiancé," Castiel says.

"Oh, that's cute!" Melissa says. "Can I ask what you were texting about?" With a teasing smile, she adds, "Do I want to know what you were texting about?"

Castiel chuckles. "Yeah, no, I was basically just complaining about the drive home, and he was laughing at me." It's not a lie, exactly. He just neglected to mention that there was a lot of flirting and sexual remarks involved.

She laughs. "Not a road trip fan?"

"God, no," Castiel says. "It's, like, three days away, and we ate all our road trip cookies on the drive up so we don't have any to eat on the way home."

"Guess you'll have to buy some more," Melissa says, amused.

"They just won't be the same," he says with obviously fake sadness.

"I'm so sorry," she says with exaggerated sympathy. "Where is your fiancé? I'm guessing he's not here if you were texting him."

He shakes his head. "No, he's back at the hotel, watching on the tv instead. He was going to come, but he broke his leg and now he's on crutches. He refused to come if he couldn't dramatically step out of the limo."

She laughs. "Is that just your fun rendition of why he's not here?"

"No, that's literally what he said," Castiel tells her. "And he's definitely going to kill me for saying it, but I feel like the world deserves to know that I'm marrying a dork."

Melissa grins. "Then should we expect him here next year, dramatically stepping out of the limo with you?"

"I have no idea," Castiel says. "He can be very spontaneous, so I'll probably find out a couple hours before you do." Of course, Castiel isn't planning on going to these types of things after today, but he's definitely not going to admit that.

"Well, tell him we'd love to see him," Melissa says. "Speaking of next year, should we expect a new album?"

Castiel pauses, which hopefully isn't as noticeable as he feels like it is, before saying, "I'll definitely put out a new album eventually. I can't say when, just 'cause I don't want to get anyone's hopes up and then dash them with my lack of time management skills, but yeah, it'll happen. I mean, my recording contract kinda mandates it, so I couldn't back even out if I wanted to." He says it jokingly, even though if he had it his way, he'd probably never release another album.

"Well, thank god for recording contracts," Melissa says with a grin. "I, for one, can't wait for your next album, and I know I'm not alone."

~~

Castiel's sitting on the end of a row with Jack by his side, which he specifically requested as a requirement to get him to show up. He's only here to see Jack, so that was a given, but he really wanted to sit on the edge, and he's glad he did. It makes him feel just a little bit better in this crowd of people. He doesn't even care that he's surrounded by celebrities. He'd be far too paranoid if he couldn't see his surroundings so clearly.

"Who's opening the show tonight?" Castiel asks quietly.

"Cardi B," Jack replies, and Castiel has to fight to keep a neutral face. "She's not my favorite, but I think it'll be really cool to watch her perform. I've never seen her live before."

"She's pretty good," Castiel lies. He's never been able to get past the fact that she's a rapper enough to enjoy her performances. Rap is easily his least favorite genre. He just wouldn't say so, because he really doesn't get the point of complaining about music or artists he don't like. As someone who's been on the receiving end of those "harmless" comments, he'd rather not start them.

"I hope so," Jack says with a grin.

They chat for a while, and soon, the Grammys begin. It's all going fine. He's actually sort of enjoying himself. He's pretty excited to lose himself in the music tonight; enough so that he doesn't even care if they win the award or not.

But his calmness flies out the window as soon as Cardi B's song starts, because the absolute silence is broken by a bang loud enough that he can feel the vibrations in his chest, and it sets him off.

It call comes back in an instant. The bang. The fire. The screams. The dead bodies, and the bodies wishing they were dead.

His heart rate picks up, each beat slamming against his chest like a drum. This is bad. This is really, really bad.

"I'm sorry, I —" Castiel puts a hand over his chest as if he can hold his heart still. "I have to go."

He slaps his hands over his ears and steps into the aisle, and at that moment, he doesn't even care that everybody's looking at him. He just has to get out of here.

His breaths are short and labored, and he can't get enough oxygen to think properly. His quick walking isn't helping in that regard, just taking up more oxygen that he doesn't have. But he's almost at the door. He's almost out. It's right there.

The second he's out of the venue, the camera flashes start. He tries to ignore the yelling, to just keep walking until he's at his limo, but he's been walking for too long, and his body just can't take it. He collapses to the ground, covering his face with his hand, trying to shield himself from the paparazzi as they all start yelling at him, coming closer just to take more pictures.

He tries to catch his breath, to slow his heart rate, but he can't. He wipes the tears from his face with the hand that's not shielding it from the cameras, hoping it's subtle.

This is going to be everywhere tomorrow, isn't it? Of all the people closing in on him, all the cameras, one of them is bound to get their pictures out there. Everyone will see him like this, on his knees in the middle of the red carpet, practically hysterical for what seems to be no reason.

And suddenly, he's gasping for breath again, and every flash of a camera or scream for the paparazzi just makes it worse and worse and worse and —

"Castiel? What's wrong?"

Castiel shakes his head slightly, pushing Jack away. At least, he hopes it's Jack, or this may become even more awkward than it already is.

"Castiel, what's going on?" Jack asks, his voice panicked. "Are you okay?"

Castiel holds up a finger, gesturing for him to wait a minute as he tries to catch his breath. He pictures Dean in his head — telling him to breathe, talking about Disney World; just calming him down. It helps a little bit. It takes a minute, but he starts to calm down, at least enough to speak.

"Go back inside," Castiel says quietly.

"What about you?" Jack asks. "Are you coming?"

Castiel shakes his head slightly. "I'm going back to my hotel." And then he's going to cry into his nice clean pillowcase for the next couple hours because he was such an idiot, coming here like this.

"I'll go with you," Jack says. "At least let me walk you back to your room. I want to make sure you get back okay."

Castiel sighs. "There's no point in saying no, is there?"

"Nope," Jack replies confidently.

It's actually a little bit of a relief, knowing Jack is going to be by his side the whole time. He may just be a kid, but he's good company nonetheless.

Castiel wipes his face with his sleeve, drying his eyes before he slowly stands up, holding onto the wall for support. He's really lightheaded right now. He keeps his hand against the side of his face, trying to hide from the cameras as much as he can. Jack seems to get what he's doing, because he stands by his side, blocking Castiel from some of the cameras. He even has to push some of the paps away from them. He puts an arm around Castiel, guiding him to the limo. Is it that obvious that he's feeling sort of dizzy?

Jack ushers Castiel into the limo first, standing in front of the door so no one can see inside as Castiel gets situated. Jack sits down next to him, the door closing behind him, and then they're off.