A/N updated 4 times. Make sure you start at chapter 25

Castiel figures out that there's something going on when Dean pulls into that first Dunkin Donuts they passed on the way — the one he claimed was a bad one, but they go through it smoothly, again paying for the car behind them and telling Window Man to keep the change. If it's really not a bad one, why did they go passed so many Dunkin Donuts?

When they get home, Dean tells Castiel to stay right where he is, then grabs the Dunkin Donuts bag and runs inside. Castiel's too suspicious to be bored as he waits for him to come back. What's going on right now?

Dean comes back out to the driveway and opens the door for his fiancé. "Sorry about that. Come on."

Dean takes his hand and leads him inside, but instead of stopping in the kitchen to eat, Dean leads him to the living room.

"What are you —" Castiel cuts himself off with a gasp, slapping a hand over his mouth. "What? How did this get here?"

Dean just smiles proudly.

"Oh my god!" Castiel throws his arms around his fiancé, pulling him into an excited hug. He lets go pretty quickly, only to look again. "Dean, that's awesome!"

"How's that for a birthday gift?" Dean says with a grin.

"Oh my god," Castiel breathes. "How did a goddamn grand piano just suddenly show up in our house? How does that even happen?"

"I got some guys to agree to put it in when I bought it," Dean says. "I just wanted to keep you out of the house long enough for them to get it in and get out — and no, there aren't fifty billion horribly Dunkin Donuts by our house."

"But a piano?" Castiel says in disbelief. "What —?"

"I remember you mentioning once that you were learning to play, so..." Dean gestures to their new piano. "Now you can learn to play from here."

"Dean, that was over a year ago!" Castiel says. "How do you even remember that?"

"Well, you said it. How was I supposed to forget?"

Castiel pulls him into another hug. "This is the best birthday gift I've ever gotten. Thank you so much!"

After a quick kiss, Dean says, "I hoped you would like it. I wasn't quite sure what to get you, so... voilá?"

Castiel scoffs. "Hoped I'd like it? Dean, I love it!" He runs over and takes a seat on the piano bench, flipping the piano cover up. God, he hasn't used one of these in months. Does he even remember how to play?

But once he's played the first chord, it starts coming back to him, and he doesn't have a problem finishing the introduction before, "Once I rose above the noise and confusion."

"Just to get a glimpse beyond this illusion," Dean joins in. He takes a seat on the couch across the room, joining the impromptu singalong for the duration of the song.

"God, I can't believe I remembered all that," Castiel says. "It's been ages. And I only messed up, like, seventeen times!"

Dean scoffs. "How did you mess up? It sounded fine."

"But it was really, really not fine," Castiel says. "I really don't know how to play piano — but now I can learn!"

He turns around to flash his fiancé a smile, only to see Dean has his phone pointed at him, videoing him. Castiel cocks his head in confusion. 

"What's that for?" Castiel asks, gesturing to the phone with a jerk of his head.

"I'm FaceTiming Lucifer," Dean says. "I have been since I ditched you in the car. I told him I'd do it 'cause he couldn't be here himself. Wait, hold up, I'm going to turn the volume up so he can talk." There's a pause, then Dean says, "You're all set."

"Woah, now I feel like I'm really there!" Lucifer says excitedly. "Hi, Cassie! Happy birthday!"

Castiel chuckles. "Thanks, Luce."

"Am I intruding on your birthday celebration?" Lucifer asks. "Because I really want to be here, but I also really want to not be annoying."

"You're not being annoying," Castiel assures him.

"Although we did get food to eat and now we're talking to you instead of eating, so that's kind of annoying," Dean says.

"Coolio," Lucifer says. "Hey, Castiel, come sit next to Dean so I can show you my cool new magic trick."

"God, I'm scared," Castiel whispers, but does as he's told anyway.

Lucifer's sitting in the kitchen, probably at the table, though Castiel can't really tell. He pauses, then says, "Now I can't see either of you."

"Whoops, hang on." Dean flips the camera. "Better?"

Lucifer nods. "Ready for my magic trick? Now you see me." He puts his hand over the camera. "Now you don't." Suddenly, the call ends, leaving the two boys alone.

"Why'd you make him leave?" Castiel whines. "I never get to talk to him!"

"You can literally just pick up the phone and he'll be there," Dean reminds him. "But right now, I'm hungry. Come on, let's eat donuts."

~~

Dean sets his phone up on FaceTime a few minutes later, hopefully leaving enough time for both Claire and Lucifer to watch before one of them has to put the baby down for a nap. In fact, Alex is there, too, with the rest of the family and their friends, waiting for Castiel to open their gifts.

Dean drags a large box out into the kitchen, and Castiel just gapes at him. What the hell is that? No one got him something that big, did they?

"This is everyone's gifts," Dean tells him. "I put them together to make it easier. Want me to just hand them over?"

Castiel shrugs. "Go for it."

The first one Castiel gets is a gift from both Anna and Cain, though Cain's name probably just made the tag because Anna wanted to put it there. He opens the box to find a glitter rainbow fedora, and Castiel can't help but laugh at it.

"It seemed fitting, you know?" Anna says, seeming proud that Castiel likes it.

The next is from Adam, Samandriel, and Garth, who all pitched in to make him a Rainbow Loom bracelet chain that hasn't been cool since, like, 2012. It's a continuous pattern of the same main colors, with some extra ones thrown in there, too, likely just to make it longer — as if it needed to be longer. Castiel pulls out one arm length of it, and then another, and another, and another, and another, and —

"Seriously, how long is this thing?" Castiel asks, gaping at it.

"Really, really long," Garth says.

"We took all the bands from Anna, so she gets partial credit, by the way," Samandriel says. "She was cleaning her room and wanted to throw them out and I didn't let her. That was, like, two months ago."

"And we've been giving it to each other to work on basically every other day since then, just trying to make it even longer," Garth says. "We finally finished using up all her old Rainbow Loom bands a week ago, when we mailed it."

"Except my black and white ones," Anna adds. "I'm keeping those for my hair, but that was thousands of my colored bands they used."

Castiel just laughs. "God, you guys are the strangest people."

"Wait, it gets better," Charlie tells him. "Open another one!"

Castiel opens Sam and Gabriel's gift next. It's two shoe boxes hot glued together with the middle cut out to make one big box. Castiel pulls the cover off to reveal an entire box of cherry lollipops.

"Because we know those are your favorite," Gabriel says with a grin.

"And we spent hours separating out the cherry ones from the other ones," Sam adds.

Castiel laughs. "You guys really didn't have to do that, you know."

"But it's so fun!" Gabriel says with a grin. "But wait, there's more!"

"I don't have more," Castiel says.

"I do, though," Dean says, pulling something else out of the big box.

It's another shoebox housing collection of what looks like jewelry boxes, but each is about five inches deep. When Castiel opens them up, he sees they each one has Hershey Kisses with a different color tinfoil wrapping.

"God, I'm never going to survive with this much sugar," Castiel laughs.

"Well, you better survive, cuz we got you another gift that you have to open," Sam tells him.

"This one's really spooky," Gabriel adds.

Dean hands his fiancé yet another shoebox, and Castiel opens it to find a bunch of individually wrapped licorice Twizzlers with little Halloween spider rings wrapped around some of them.

"God, you guys have way too much candy," Castiel says.

"And now you have way too much candy!" Gabriel says with a grin.

Castiel shakes his head at the boy, amused.

"Also, I know this looks like something that would be all me, but Sam did all the heavy lifting," Gabriel tells him. "He found all the candy and helped all the sorting and didn't let me eat it all before we sent it to you, and really you wouldn't have a birthday gift if he wasn't way more productive than I am."

Castiel chuckles. "Well, thank you to both of you."

Next up is from Lucifer, Claire, and baby Alex. Before Castiel can see what they got him, Lucifer says, "Because we know you're going to get bored if you're stuck home alone with Dean gone all day and you don't have a tour to get ready for or anything, and we figured you'd need a hobby."

The first gift from them is an Xbox 360, which seems a bit strange. Castiel isn't one to play video games very often, and Lucifer should know that. Even the Xbox Kinect that comes next doesn't make sense to him. It's not until he opens the third box that he gets it. It's a collection of every single Just Dance game for Xbox.

"I expect videos of every single dance to make up for the fact that I can't be there," Lucifer tells him.

Castiel closes the box up and puts it on the floor, the only one he's done that with. "Nope. Never. Not happening. Next?"

Dean hands Castiel a large, thin paperback book. "Also from Lucifer and Claire."

"And Alex!" Lucifer adds.

Dean rolls his eyes. "And Alex."

Castiel flips it over to read the cover. "The piano edition of my own songs? Really, guys?"

"Well, you've got a piano," Lucifer says. "You might as well be productive with it, ya know?"

"That's a total joke, by the way," Claire says. "I just thought it was funny that you probably don't even know your own songs on piano, and then we saw the book and couldn't help it."

"Well, I love it," Castiel says.

The next gift Dean pulls out is from Charlie. It looks like a regular scrapbook at first, until Castiel reads the title, made with gold, glittering letters.

"'The Ultimate Guide to Stan Twitter.'" Castiel stares at the cover for a moment, then says, "This is going to be really bad."

He opens it up to show an array of tweets on each page, and Castiel reads them allowed

"'Castiel outsold.' 'Over 2 million copies in one week for the third time in a row wig.' 'Skinny legend we stan.' 'My wig is gone.'" Castiel looks over at Charlie through the phone. "I am so sorry you had to go through Twitter to do this. My birthday was not worth your struggle."

"Oh my god, it was great!" Charlie says with a laugh. "Dean kept sending my screenshots of things he saw and I just thought it was really funny and I had to join in."

"Keep reading," Gabriel says. "I haven't seen this yet and it's the stupidest thing I've ever heard of so I'm intrigued."

Castiel chuckles. "Oh god, okay. 'Castiel's a better main pop girl than any of the actual main pop girls.' 'I heard the new album and now I'm bald.' Oh, this one's a double. 'Castiel's got all the the best selling artist since 25 in a time when album sales are only going down. Only legends.' 'Wig, tea burned down my house.'"

That earns a lot of laughs through the phone, and Castiel can't help but smile, even though he's heard that phrase many times before.

"I wish I lived in your Twitter," Gabriel tells him. "This sounds like a wild ride."

"It's certainly interesting, that's for sure," Castiel says.

"It gets better, by the way," Charlie says. "Skip a couple pages 'til you get to the pictures."

Castiel passes by a few pages, landing on a picture of himself leaving the Grammys one year with five Grammys in his arms. The picture just happens to be taken right as one of them is falling out of his arms. The tweet under it says, "'I can't hold all this success.'"

The next page is a picture of him performing 'Yasss' at some award show, draped in rainbow clothes. The tweet under it just says, "'When you see a cute guy and you want them to know you're gay but you don't want to be obvious in case he's not into you.'"

"Okay, this is officially my new favorite gift," Castiel says. "I'm sorry, but no one else can top this — except maybe the piano. But this is great. This might be better than the photo album from a couple years ago."

"I feel so accomplished!" Charlie says excitedly.

"But there's one more gift left," Lucifer says. "I think this one might actually be your favorite."

"Okay, I'm interested," Castiel says.

Dean pulls out another shoebox — how many shoeboxes do they have over there? — covered in wrapping paper. Castiel unfolds it delicately and removed the shoebox to open it up, and...

Bee Movie.

Again.

Castiel sighs. "I should have known it was too much to hope for that I could get through one birthday without it."