A/N Tag yourself I'm me speed writing an entire chapter of a fic I've accidentally ignored for months just so I can scream about the new episodes of Supernatural at the end

"Happy birthday, Dean!"

Dean sighs dramatically. "How is it a happy birthday?"

Castiel cocks his head to the side, confused. "What do you mean?" They just got up. How did Dean's day get ruined already?

"I'm 27, Cas," Dean says. "I'm officially an old man. That's no reason to celebrate."

Castiel rolls his eyes. He wouldn't be too surprised if Dean actually does think he's an old man now, but he's decently sure his fiance is exaggerating how much it annoys him. "Well, c'mon, old man. We're celebrating anyway."

Dean groans. "I told you guys that I didn't want some big thing, so if you —"

"No, don't worry, there's no surprise party," Castiel assures him. "Just you, me, and Lucifer's household."

Dean pauses, thinking that over. "I mean, I do like those three..."

"C'mon," Castiel insists. "It'll be fun! I promise we won't watch Aladdin again."

"Won't watch Aladdin at Lucifer's house or won't watch Aladdin all day?" Dean asks, his interest piqued.

"I meant at Lucifer's house, but I'd be willing to have an Aladdin-free day if you go to Lucifer's," Castiel says.

"Deal," Dean says immediately. "Very much deal. The most deal of deals."

Castiel chuckles. "That's what I like to hear."

~~ squiggles brought to you by the fact that this is where I stopped writing months ago and I have no idea where the fuck this scene was actually going ~~

Lucifer's house looks normal.

Very normal.

Completely the same as it usually does.

It's suspicious.

Clearly, Castiel's not the only one thinking it, because as they pull up by the house, Dean asks, "Is it just me, or does it look like Lucifer actually listened when I said no party?"

"No, you definitely look right," Castiel agrees. He certainly hadn't expected that.

So they head to the door, which, as always, is unlocked for them. Dean puts his hand on the doorknob, but he hesitates before opening it -- a very dramatic hesitation, so Castiel can tell he's joking. Then he pushes the door open, and...

"I can't see," Dean whispers. "It's just latex, latex, and more latex."

Castiel chuckles. "Okay, wall of balloons. I probably should have seen that one coming."

"Do I hear the birthday boy?" Lucifer yells from god-knows-where.

"No!" Dean yells back.

Lucifer laughs. "Come on in!"

Dean glances at Castiel warily, then hits the balloons out of the way. It's a bit of a struggle, given that there have to be at least 100 of them. It's kind of funny how he did it, too — instead of getting helium balloons, he just blew up normal latex balloons and taped them to strings that are taped to the ceiling, with a solid six or seven balloons coming down on each string. Castiel has never known Lucifer to take the cheaper route, but he has known him to take the route with the most work, so this is definitely in character.

Finally, Dean decides to just crouch on the ground and crawl down the bottom, because the balloons aren't taped down there so the strings move more freely. Of course, that means Castiel also has to crawl on the floor to get inside what used to be his own house, which is definitely weird and he can't help but wonder how this became his life. Granted, with a brother like Lucifer...

Per usual, Lucifer is on the other side of the balloons with his video camera in one hand — not that the balloons are usual, of course; Lucifer's too extra to do the same weird thing twice. It's the vlogging that's normal, though that's kind of drifted away since Alex was born, so this is probably just for his personal archives.

"Ah, you've made it!" Lucifer says with a grin. "Hey, Dean, guess what? Guess what, guess what, guess what, guess what guess —"

"What?"

"Happy birthday!" Lucifer throws a handful of confetti at them with the hand that hadn't been holding the camera, which, in hindsight, they probably should have expected.

"I don't know whether to thank you or smack you," Dean says.

"You can't smack me because I have a baby," Lucifer replies. "C'mon, let's go see le baby."

They follow him to the kitchen, where they find Claire and Alex standing at the counter, Alex on top of a chair, as they work on frosting a cake.

Or, more accurately, frosting a lot of cakes.

"We totally underestimated how long this would take to make, by the way," Lucifer tells him. "It was supposed to already be an eight-layer cake by the time you got here. Clearly, we're struggling."

Dean scoffs. "You're making me an eight-layer cake?"

"Well, you didn't want presents," Claire reminds him. "And you know Lucifer didn't know how to be a normal person celebrating a normal birthday, so..."

"If I'd known you were gonna go through this much trouble, I would've told you to just buy me something," Dean says. "I'm so sorry Lucifer forced you into the slave trade for me."

"Don't worry, Alex is loving it," Claire tells him. She crouches down next to Alex, who, because she's on a chair, is finally taller than Claire for the first time in her life. "Do you like helping Mommy frost cakes?"

Alex just nods.

"Hey, Alex, do you know who that is?" Lucifer asks, pointing at Dean.

Alex just looks at him.

"It's Uncle Dean," Lucifer says, just like he says every time they come here.

"Hi, Alex," Dean says, just like he says every time Lucifer introduces him.

"Alex, you wanted to say something to Uncle Dean when he got here, right?" Lucifer prompts.

Alex looks at her father for a few moments, confused, until she figures it out and looks back at Dean. "Happy birthday!"

"Oh my god, my heart," Dean whispers. "Thank you, Alex! And that cake you're frosting looks super yummy."

Alex just smiles.

"She's still a little shy," Lucifer says. "One day you'll see the real her. She loves to talk."

"And you know what she's saying almost half the time," Claire adds.

Dean chuckles. "Well, I'll take what I can get."

"Now, I have to ask," Castiel says. "What is this cake supposed to be? You've got, like, 17 circles and nothing really going on with 'em."

"I told you, Cassie, it's eight circles," Lucifer says. "And they're just kinda gonna get stacked on top of each other. You can't tell because we were skipping around with the colors, but it's gonna be a rainbow."

"Of course you made it gay," Dean deadpans.

"I make everything gay," Lucifer says. "Cassie's stuff is already gay because it's his brand, and your stuff is always gay because it annoys you."

"And because Alex is 22 months old and likes rainbows," Claire adds.

"Yeah, that too," Lucifer agrees.

"Okay, now I have a question, actually," Dean says.

"That's never a good sign, but I'm listening," Lucifer says.

"How are you going to make this a layered cake?"

Lucifer shrugs. "Stack the lil cake and hope 32 inches isn't too tall for a cake to stand?"

"Oh, it's definitely going to fall over, but that's not actually what I meant," Dean says. "How are you going to stack them? You've already frosted most of them. Are you just gonna pick them up and get frosting all over yourself?"

Lucifer looks at Claire, and, when she doesn't give him an answer, he just shrugs. "Yeah, apparently I am, because I'm not very smart."

Dean shakes his head. "I can't believe I'm saving my own birthday cake right now, and yet here we are. First of all, for future reference, if you're gonna have eight layers in a cake, make them different sizes so it has a large base and a small top."

"Oh, but Dean, that would be the smart thing to do," Lucifer says. "You know I can't do that."

"Touchè," Dean says. "And, second, I think this cake is too far gone to do correctly, so you're gonna have to smooth the frosting out every time you put a new later on if you want to get rid of the fingerprints for this to be Instagram-worthy."

"I love that you know this is going on Instagram," Lucifer says.

"You're being weird," Dean says. "Of course it's going on Instagram."

"You're not wrong," Lucifer says.

Claire returns to frosting the cake, and Alex continues slathering red frosting all over the mess that is her layer of the cake. It's both adorable and concerning.

"Do you want help finishing your cake?" Dean asks.

Lucifer gasps dramatically. "Dean! This is your cake! You can't touch it! I'm pretty sure that's illegal in, like, 57 states."

Dean stares at him blankly. "57 states?"

Lucifer nods.

"And, pray tell, what are these 57 states?"

"I am so glad you asked," Lucifer says before proceeding to burst into song, listing off every state in alphabetical order.

Castiel can't help but wonder if he memorized it for elementary school, for the same unknown reason he memorized the Bee Movie script, or if it was because Taylor Swift sang it on The Voice once as a joke and Lucifer felt inspired. Either way, it's horrible and Castiel loves it.

But he doesn't stop after Wyoming, continuing without singing for the last of the seven states. "Washington DC, Puerto Rico, the American Samoa, Guam, the Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the Novak household."

"None of those last seven were states, but I'll give you props for DC nonetheless," Dean says.

"Excuse you, they are all states," Lucifer says. "Why else are they all on the backs of the quarters with the state names on them, hmm? You think they added non-states to the state quarters project just for kicks, huh?"

Dean scoffs. "Okay, first of all, I don't even want to know how you know that. Second of all, I would love to see the United States quarter with the Novak household on the back."

"Unfortunately, that's the only quarter I haven't found yet," Lucifer says. "But I'll find it one day, and then I'll have all 57 state quarters."

"Mm, okay, sure," Dean says. "Let's go with that."

"Do you actually have the other 56, though?" Castiel asks. He wouldn't put it past Lucifer to joke about it, but he also wouldn't put it past him to be telling the truth.

"Not all of them, but I did collect them for a while," Lucifer says. "I was, like, eight, and the whole making cool quarters thing was halfway done and Dad used to give me and Michael all the quarters he found so we could make a full set, but we gave up before they made all the quarters so here we are."

"I honestly don't know what to do with that information," Castiel says.

"You would've already known it if you knew what money was when we were collecting them," Lucifer says. "But no, you have to be a baby and not know anything."

Castiel scoffs. "Dude, if you were eight, I was four. I was barely in kindergarten. Of course I didn't know what money was."

"And here you are, just 19 short years later, and you are a fountain of money." Lucifer pretends to wipe a tear away. "They grow up so fast."

"Yeah, yeah," Castiel says, rolling his eyes.

"Mama?" Alex says quietly, which breaks the conversation apart with ease.

"What is it, sweetie?" Claire asks.

"Done." She looks at her mother with a smile, doubtlessly proud of the mess that is her cake.

"Guess what?" Claire says, a goofy smile on her face that excited Alex immediately.

"What?"

Claire turns the cake around to the other side. "You get to frost it again!"

Alex just giggles.

Oh, babies. Gotta love them.

A/N I only get to watch spn every other week bc of college so I watched last week's episode right before yesterday's episode and I must  S C R E A M !  There won't really be any major spoilers in my rant it's just kinda mostly ambiguous screaming but if anyone is still actually reading this fic I can't guarantee there won't be any spoilers in the comments

I think last week's episode (15x17) might genuinely be the worst episode in Supernatural history not even gonna lie it was so dramatic and convoluted and I'm pretty sure it was only that dramatic and convoluted because the writers knew Dean was right (I mean the main characters were all gonna die anyway but at least Dean's plan meant the rest of the world had a shot) but they had to make it look like there were two valid sides to this so they turned Dean into an absolute asshole so you'd be more reluctant to go along with it 

On a related note, there was a time when I would have said Dean was my favorite character and even as he became more of an asshole in the later seasons I still really liked him but after 15x17 it finally occurred to me that I genuinely do not like him at all anymore? Like he's just a flaming ball of anger going after everyone and everything in his path? And I mean I guess I don't blame him and if I were him I guess I'd be pissed to but he's just not an enjoyable character anymore and it makes me sad bc he used to be my fav and I just have a lot of feelings

AND THEN

AND FUCKING THEN

LAST NIGHT'S EPISODE

LAST NIGHT'S FUCKING EPISODE

THAT ENDING???

WHEN CAS--

AND THEN HE JUST FUCKIN--

MY BOI YEETED HIMSELF THE FUCK OUT OF THERE??? ON PURPOSE??? BC HE CARES ABOUT DEAN SO MUCH??? 

AND? 

DEAN?

JUST?

FUCKING?

STARED?

AT?

HIM?

LIKE I KNOW HE PROBABLY COULDN'T EVEN PROCESS WHAT WAS HAPPENING AND HE PROBABLY WOULDN'T HAVE RECIPROCATED EVEN IF HE COULD HAVE BECAUSE OVER THE LAST FEW SEASONS HE'S SLOWLY LOST THE ABILITY TO FEEL COMPASSION BUT COME ON HE DIDN'T FUCKIN SAY OR DO ANYTHING HOLY SHIT

AND THE FUCKIN END

WHEN SAM WAS CALLING HIM

AND DEAN DIDN'T ANSWER

BECAUSE CAS FUCKIN BROKE HIM

AND NOW SAM PROBABLY THINKS HE'S DEAD

AND OH MY GOD

WHAT

THE

FUCK

thank you for coming to my TED talk