Fame Crazy (Sequel to Strings Attached)

Chapter 33

A/N I feel like I should kinda move this along so... Time skip!

"I got a B!" Claire practically screams in excitement, shoving a couple pieces of paper in Castiel's face. It's her math test, undoubtedly. "Look! Look, I got a B!"

Castiel chuckles at her enthusiasm. It's nice to see her excited about her grades, considering a week ago she couldn't have cared less. "I knew you could do it," he tells her. "And how's the Pythagorean theorem going?" he asks, knowing that's what her class is learning now.

"I actually get it!" she says proudly.

"Nice," Castiel replies. "You better keep this up once I leave."

"Do you have to leave?" Claire asks, more whining than a question.

"Unfortunately," Castiel replies. "I have some last minute album work to do."

"Can't you do it here?"

Castiel shakes his head. "Nope. I've got to go all the way back to California for it, actually."

Kripke moved the label to Los Angeles a few years ago, now that they have the money to do so due to Castiel's success. Castiel might as well move to LA, seeing as he spends so much time there. But he likes New York, so he'll stay there and make his life difficult.

"How come you're doing it now?" Claire asks. "Why didn't you do it last time you were there?"

"I'm both lazy and an expert procrastinator," Castiel replies.

Claire gives him an amused smile. "Nice. But can't you come back right after? Because I don't want to be alone with these people!"

Castiel knows that by "these people" she really means Anna. They're still at each other's throats nonstop, so not having Castiel here to referee is going to be interesting, to say the least. At least they'll have Michael and Lucifer, though. Michael is very capable of being the scary parent when necessary, as Castiel has witnessed on a few occasions this week. Lucifer is like the good cop; both girls like him, and he can probably get between them to stop them from killing each other.

"You'll survive," Castiel replies.

"But I don't want you to leave!" Claire whines.

Castiel sighs. "I have to leave. But maybe I'll come back this summer for a while before I go on tour, okay?"

Claire grins. "Yes! Yes yes yes yes yes! Wait, when are you going on tour?"

"End of the summer," he replies vaguely. "But I haven't announced it yet so it stays between the Novaks and the Winchesters, okay?"

Claire nods. "Yep. But only if you come back this summer. I'll give you a week after school ends to get your ass back here or I'll tell everyone."

Castiel chuckles. "Alright, I'll come back this summer."

"Good," she replies. "I'm gonna hold you to that."

"I'd be concerned if you didn't."

~~

Because the author wants to skip to the good part in a few chapters, she's going to skip the details of... Well, everything. Okay, I'm sorry, I was on Pinterest and saw a bunch of depressing as fuck quotes and I was inspired to make Castiel's life a living hell. Don't judge me! Actually, it's not too bad. Or really bad at all. But whatever. Anyway, let's put the remote on x10 for the next couple months, shall we?

Castiel says goodbye to his family that Sunday morning, after having a goodbye dinner or something the night before. Because this is a story and the author can have stupid coincidences for the sake of speeding this up, Dean and Cas say goodbye at the airport because their gates are next to each other and their flights leave within half an hour of each other's. You can tell I'm being quick when I say Cas instead of Castiel. Wow, that's, like, uncharted territory for me. Anyway, I digress.

Okay, now Castiel is back in California and it's... Um... Let's say it's April. Middle of April, I guess. Okay, it's the middle of April. That's, like, a month later, I think. Okay, I'm sorry, I'm a mess of an author. Let's put the squiggles in and make stuff happen.

~~

Castiel's alarm goes off at eleven thirty that morning. Yes, he needs an alarm to wake up at eleven thirty. Okay, it's been a month of a free for all sleep schedule. Don't judge him. He smacks his phone a few times, attempting to stop the beeping. It doesn't work. Finally, he gives up and actually sits up, pulling his phone out and turning off the alarm for real.

Great. Half an hour to get ready. Fun. Can he just go back to sleep? Screw fame. Sleep is his best friend, even if they haven't seen much of each other in recent months... or years...

Castiel doesn't bother showering because he's not even leaving the house and there's no reason to waste his time like that. He just kind of makes himself look presentable-ish and sits down in front of his laptop to wait for noon to arrive so he can start live streaming. Yes, he has to wait until exactly noon to start. It's probably a good plan, actually, because he announced the time of his live stream a week ago, and he knows people will be watching.

At exactly noon, he turns on the live stream and pauses for a moment to let people start to join.

"Hey, guys!" Castiel greets the laptop with a grin as he watches people joining the live stream. "If you're watching already, either you have notifications on for my live streams, or you saw that I told you I have an announcement today. I don't know why I'm trying to make it kinda dramatic because I'm sure you guys already know what it is because it's that time of year again. Okay, let's get on with this.

"My new album, Broken Love, is coming out June fifteenth! And, per usual, I'll be releasing tour dates today as well! Instead of listing them all off, I'll just tell you to check my website to see when I'll be near you. But, as a general timeframe, my first stop is in Lawrence, Kansas on August thirteenth, and I'll be ending in Boston, Massachusetts on November nineteenth.

"As some of you may know, I always like to do something fun in Sioux Falls, my hometown, so you should come to a Sioux Falls show and maybe I'll be able to perform a fourth there. Tickets go on sale May first at six in the morning on the west coast. I'll post the link on Twitter and Facebook so you guys can find it. I can't wait to see you guys again. Come on, let's make this tour the best yet. Bye, guys. See you soon."

The second Castiel turns off the camera, his smile falls. He lets out a long breath as he turns off his computer. Live streams are becoming increasingly more difficult for him. Each time, he gets more rude comments, ranging from stan wars to blatant homophobia. He's gotten to the point where he tries not to look at the responses he gets anymore.

A small part of him blames it on Lucifer; everyone seemed to love his streams, and Castiel even saw an article or two on those celebrity gossip pages about them. Now that it's back to Castiel being his boring self after people heard about the legendary live streams from Lucifer, people are getting sick of them. Castiel himself is, too, but when he mentioned it on Twitter, the responses blew up, and too many people told him to keep doing them for him to stop.

Castiel sighs to himself and flops back into his bed, bouncing slightly on impact. He curls up on his side like a baby and closes his eyes, hoping he can at least get a little sleep today.