Dean and Castiel show up at eight o'clock the next morning to find Lucifer fiddling with a tripod in his bedroom. He doesn't seem to notice them standing there, so Castiel puts a finger to his lips, silently telling Dean not to say anything as he sneaks up behind his brother. Without warning, he jumps on Lucifer's back, landing on his feet a moment later. Lucifer whips around, a hand on his heart.

"Dear god, Castiel," Lucifer breathes. "Is this what a heart attack feels like?"

Castiel just laughs and claps him on the back. "You'll live." He eyes the tripod, then asks, "Did you write a script?"

"On my desk," Lucifer replies before turning his attention back to the tripod.

Castiel gestures for Dean to come with him as he grabs the papers on the desk next to Lucifer's laptop. He skims through his parts, a smirk playing on his lips. He could really have some fun with this.

~~

Castiel and Lucifer — mostly the former — convince Dean to do his prisoner part shirtless, claiming that it's because most of the fanbase is teenage girls who want to see this stuff when in reality, Castiel just likes the eye candy. Lucifer turns out to be very good at special effects makeup, and it really does look like Dean has been tortured in the basement for weeks. Overall, this whole scene went great.

It's when Dean's part is over and they're taking a brief snack break that things go downhill.

Lucifer hands Castiel his cellphone, which had been lying carelessly on the kitchen counter. "Explain."

Castiel clicks it on to see his most recent notification, which came two minutes ago, was a message from Jim. He slides it open for details, but he can see enough of it from the abbreviated message on the lock screen, and he knows it's his flight information.

Apparently, he's leaving this coming Friday, and it's currently Wednesday, so he only has two more days until his flight out to California. He hasn't even started packing yet. He should probably do that soon.

To answer Lucifer's question — which wasn't really a question, exactly — Castiel explains, "I'm working on my new album, and we're kinda under a deadline."

"Meaning?" Lucifer prompts.

"Meaning it's a secret, and I can't tell you," Castiel replies.

"What do you mean, you can't tell me?" Lucifer asks, clearly offended. "You tell me everything."

"Yeah, but I've got big plans for this one," Castiel tells him. "I'm not telling anyone about it yet."

"You're not telling anyone about what?" Dean asks, walking up to them with a bag of goldfish crackers.

"He's going to LA on Friday," Lucifer says accusatively.

"Wait, what? When did this happen?" Dean asks.

"Long story," Castiel lies. He could explain it really quickly if he wanted to, but that would ruin the surprise. "It'll take less than a month, everything is top secret, and it's gonna be horribly awesome."

"Don't tell me you're gonna do something stupid," Dean mutters.

"Can't do that, sorry," Castiel replies with a careless shrug.

"Okay, now you have to tell us what stupid thing you're planning on doing," Dean says.

"So we can talk you out of it," Lucifer adds, and Dean nods in agreement.

"It's complicated," Castiel lies. It's simple, really, and he could explain his plan in under a minute if he wanted to. The point of this is that no one is supposed to know. So what if everyone he's close friends with starts to question his entire existence. At least he'll be having some fun sending his fans and critics in a frenzy as they try to figure out just what has happened to Castiel Novak.