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.

They're fortunate enough to get a corner booth. Luck seems to be on his side this birthday morning. They order their drinks, and as much as Castiel would like some apple juice, he sticks with water because he knows it doesn't have the calories or sugar that juice does.

"So," Castiel asks as they wait for their drinks, "Do we have other plans for the day, or just a delicious breakfast?"

"Oh, we have a lot plans," Dean replies with a mischievous grin. "They're all very random, but it makes up for the last seven years I've known you that I've never celebrated your birthday with you."

"Seems legit," Castiel agrees.

Their drinks arrive fairly quickly, and it comes time to order. Dean gets some weird bacon thing that sounds simultaneously delicious and disgusting. Castiel just asks for three plain buttermilk pancakes.

"What? No, get five," Dean says. "Like, why not, ya know?"

Castiel shakes his head. "No, three's good."

Dean seems to figure out why he only wants three, because he says, "You know, calories don't count on your birthday."

"Oh, how I wish that were true."

Castiel does end up only getting three pancakes, despite Dean's protests. The wait for pancakes is expectedly longer, which gives them more time to chat.

"Can I have some hint about what our plan are today?" Castiel asks.

"Nope," Dean replies. "Everything is going to be very spontaneous but planned, all day. Get used to it now."

Castiel groans dramatically. "Ugh, fine."

"My turn to ask the questions," Dean announces. "What time does your song come out tonight?"

"8:29, duh," Castiel replies as if Dean should know that, even though he knows that's a ridiculous thing to assume.

"Oh, right, because you're a weirdo who can't make things easy on us," Dean says teasingly.

"It's the time I was born," Castiel explains.

"I know, I know. I'm just messing with you." He glances around the room before asking, "Since it doesn't look like anyone's listening in on our conversation, can I ask about the song?"

He shakes his head. "Rule of thumb, someone's always listening."

"That's a bit of an exaggeration, though," Dean says.

Castiel scoffs. "Yeah, no. Maybe for you, but I think we can both agree that I'm a little more famous than you." He exaggerates the "a little" because they both know it's more than that. Even in New England, home of Dean's football team, Castiel is still more well known than Dean is. "Things are a bit different for you."

"Well, yeah, but..." Dean trails off. "Okay, point taken. But can you tell me soon?"

"I can tell you at 8:29."

Dean groans in annoyance. "But why?"

"Because you're gonna hate it, and I don't want you to be mad at me on my birthday," Castiel explains.

"Okay, you keep saying I'm gonna hate it, but, like... I won't?" He says it as if it's common sense, and there's no other way to put it. "I can pretty much sort out which of your songs are about me and which of them are about Crowley, and even the ones that should be pretty offensive don't bother me. I'm not going to hate this one."

Castiel raises an eyebrow at that. "You think you can figure out who my songs are about?"

Dean nods. "Well, yeah. I mean, I was pretty much around the entire time you dated both of us, so it's not that hard to figure out."

Castiel scoffs. "Right, because I only write about you two, of course," he says sarcastically, rolling his eyes.

"Wait, then who else do you write about?" he asks, seeming genuinely confused. "Cuz I was so sure I had this figured out."

"Dean, half the people I write about don't even exist," Castiel tells him.

"What? But, like — what?" He takes a moment to put this together, then asks, "Is this, like, common knowledge and I just somehow missed the memo or something?"

Castiel shrugs. "I'm sure I've mentioned it before." He pauses, rethinking that. "Okay, I might have mentioned it a few years ago on a show no one watches. I don't know. Probably not. No one knew who either of you were, so they couldn't try to figure out who my songs were about, so it didn't really matter."

Dean just stares at him for a few moments, trying to comprehend this. "But I was so sure I had your songs figured out," he mutters. "So you're saying literally half your songs are about some fake person? Or close to half?"

"Well, no, not half," Castiel corrects himself. "But I have, like, eighty-something songs out and probably, like, ten of them are about people who don't exist, and twenty-ish of them are about people I've never dated but do exist that you probably assumed were about you or him."

Dean scoffs at that, seeming fairly surprised by this new information. "Alright, you have to tell me what songs are about who when we get home."

Castiel mimes zipping his lips.

"What? Why not?" Dean asks, his voice bordering on a whine like that of a child.

"Because I don't name drop," Castiel explains. "That's, like, my whole thing."

"Yeah, but I'm me."

Castiel rolls his eyes at that lame reasoning. "Oh, yes, that's so much better than talking to anyone else. 'See this really sad, depressing lyric? That one's about you.' Because that wouldn't be awkward."

"Woah, tone down the sarcasm," Dean laughs. "Sassy Cassie. Damn!"

Castiel grins. "It's my specialty."

It's then that the pancakes get there, and they get to enjoy the deliciousness that is IHOP pancakes.