Work Text:
Castiel tossed Balthazar his phone. “Read that. I think you’ll find it amusing.”
Balthazar glanced at the headline. “What is going on with Garrison of Angels?” he read aloud. “What is going on with us, Cas?”
“Just read it. I think you’ll like it.”
It started with a rundown of band members and assorted associates. Lead singer and guitar, Anna, lead guitar, Balthazar, keyboards, Inias, drummer, Hester, bass, Castiel. Manager, Rachel. Agent, Gabriel. Roadies and occasional subs or special instruments, Sam and Dean. Songwriter, Hannah.
“Gossip likes to link various members of the band, but are any of them actually involved with someone? Yes, they tell us in interviews, but no one can ever quite work out who. Hester and Inias are a popular speculation, Castiel with almost anyone, Sam and Dean – although they claim to be brothers, so probably not romantically involved.” Balthazar stopped reading. “You’re absolutely right, this is definitely worth a laugh. Analysis of photographic evidence, really? I recognize at least two of those as fan manipulations, even.”
Castiel nodded. “I particularly like the way they’ve decided I’m some sort of sex god or something. An entire busload of allosexual people, and it’s the asexual person who’s the sex god. The media has it so wrong.”
“What’s going on?” Dean dropped his keys on the table.
“A blog writer took it upon herself to figure out who’s dating who in our band. You’ll hate it.” Balthazar handed Dean the phone.
Castiel snatched it away from him. “Look it up on your own phone if you want to know the details. That way when you get pissed and throw it because she came to the conclusion that you and Sam are sleeping together, it’s your phone, not mine.”
Dean groaned. “We are brothers, why does no one believe that?” He pulled out his phone and searched. “Has Rachel seen this?”
“Seen what?” Rachel swiped Dean’s phone. “Oh, boy.” She read and started giggling. “You’re sleeping with your brother, but it’s because you can’t get any of the girls to touch you, Dean. If Anna or I would just give you a chance, you’d break your brother’s heart without a second thought.”
“What about Hannah and Hester?”
“Well, obviously, Hester and Inias are only into each other. Quite possibly the only thing they’ve got right in this entire article. Hannah’s pining for Cas and sleeping with me until she can convince him to stop being such a man-whore and settle with her.” Rachel looked up, eyebrows almost to her hairline. “Castiel? Man-whore?”
“I appear to be romantic with everyone so clearly I’m having sex with everyone, with the obvious exceptions of Hester, Inias, and Dean. I don’t understand their logic on why Sam’s the one cheating on Dean with me if Dean’s only in that relationship to get laid while he tries to convince one of you to change her mind.” Castiel took his phone back. “Balthazar, meanwhile, our local aromantic, holds himself aloof from the rest of us until he can win Anna’s love and convince her to forsake me and Gabriel and the women and just be with him.”
“This is so ridiculous. Have you ever looked at our tags on AO3?” Rachel said.
“Oddly enough, I saw one that got it more or less right.” Sam grabbed his laptop from his bed and pulled it up. “Still had me sleeping with Dean, but other than that… the author had to shut down comments because of people saying how unrealistic and out-of-character it was. It turned into some pretty nasty flame wars.”
Dean took the computer from Sam and started reading the fic out loud. By the time he finished, everyone except Castiel was laughing. “Cas? Something wrong?”
“I know who wrote that and there’s a reason they’re so right.”
Sam raised an eyebrow. “Who wrote it? Besides whoever picks Metatron as a user name… voice of God? Really?”
Castiel shrugged. “That’s Marv.”
“Marv,” Dean said.
“Marv,” Cas confirmed.
“Our publicist Marv,” Rachel said.
“Our publicist Marv,” Cas confirmed.
Balthazar started laughing. “Our publicist Marv wrote fan fiction about us that started flame wars because of how out of character people found us?”
Castiel nodded. “Because of him making me asexual and you aromantic and going against some other wrong ideas people have.”
“Except for the part where people think I’m fucking my brother,” Dean said. “Does Marv actually think that? Really?”
“Who knows. The question here: what is he doing?” Rachel said.
Castiel shrugged. “Does it really matter? You guys didn’t know it was him. No one else does. It’s fan fiction, you guys. No one takes any of that seriously.”
“How do you know it’s him?” Sam asked. “If no one knows…”
“His other work is an AU where we’re all angels, except for the Winchester brothers, who are the chosen ones to bring about the Apocalypse. I beta that for him. He didn’t show me this one. I wonder if there’s more.”
Dean clicked the username. “Uh… lots. I’m… I’m a little creeped out here. Aside from me and Sam, he keeps to groups we actually do… well, maybe not the puppy pile fic.”
“Puppy pile?”
“We all jump in and it’s a complete free-for-all,” Balthazar translated. “Fun, but very complicated to write, keeping track of where everyone’s bits are.”
“Still, what’s he hurting? Aside from any of us ever wanting to be in a room with him, which let’s be honest, none of us ever do anyway.” Sam took his computer back and shut it down. “As long as he stays anonymous, the best thing to do is ignore it and avoid him. Gabriel usually deals with him for us anyway, and he doesn’t know about this.”