Fame Crazy (Sequel to Strings Attached)

Chapter 147

Castiel wakes up the next morning to the familiar sound of Asia's "Heat of the Moment" blasting loudly, undoubtedly thanks to Dean, who yells, "Rise and shine, Cassie!"

Castiel groans. "But I don't wanna," he mutters.

"Too bad, so sad," Dean replies. "Come on, up and at 'em. It's, like, eight o'clock and we have plans for today."

This gets his attention, and he reluctantly sits up. "What plans?"

"Birthday plans."

Wait, that's today? Is it really Saturday already? Crap, he has a music video coming out tonight. He should be hyping that up, shouldn't he?

"Are these birthday plans time sensitive?" Castiel asks.

Dean hesitates, finally settling on the answer, "Yes, kinda, but only roughly time sensitive, if that makes sense."

"I can tell you right now, that does not make sense," Castiel tells him. "But whatever. Imma roll with it. Do these plans involve leaving the house and if so, what do I wear?"

"Yes and whatever you want," Dean replies. "Nothing fancy, though. We're not going to have a meal with the queen of England or whatever."

"Good to know," Castiel says as he rolls out of bed. "I don't have my 'Long live the queen' merch yet." He rubs the sleep from his eyes and bites back a yawn. "I'm gonna go get dressed. If I'm not out in fifteen minutes, I probably got distracted by social media and you've lost any chance of taking me anywhere."

~~

Castiel just throws on jeans and a plain white t-shirt, knowing he's not going to be wearing bright colors for a while after tonight. Dean coaxes him into the Impala without any explanation, and Castiel decides to just roll with it.

"Are you ever going to tell me where we're going?" Castiel asks, more curious than anything.

"You'll see when we get there," Dean replies mysteriously.

"'Kay."

Castiel pulls out his phone and awkwardly twists his body to take a picture of him with Dean, who glances over a moment too late for his face to be in the picture.

"What are you doing?" Dean asks.

"Posting on Instagram," Castiel replies vaguely.

The picture itself doesn't really matter, because he's only posting it for the caption, which reads, "Might be MIA for a while. Idrk where I'm going or what's happening, so I can't say exactly when I'll be back, but I'll definitely be online tonight. See you then?"

He realizes as soon as he posts it that someone is going to think this was some subtle foreshadowing in a few months, and he's perfectly content with that. People are always welcome to think he's smarter than he is.

"So, how long are these birthday plans going to take?" Castiel asks.

"Sorry, no spoilers," Dean replies. "Why? Got somewhere to be?"

"Not 'til, like, an hour before my video comes out."

"Just to be on Twitter, right?" Dean asks.

"And Instagram, yeah," Castiel adds.

"Then you're all set," Dean assures him. "We'll be back in plenty of time. But let's not get ahead of ourselves." He pulls into a parking lot, and they're stuck parking near the back, which means more walking, but also more calories he's burning, which is always nice in his line of work. "First, pancakes."

Castiel looks out the window to see that they're at IHOP, the pancake restaurant he hasn't been to in ages. He grins, feeling like a child hearing the familiar tube of the ice cream truck. He's really missed this place.