Somewhere in the same penthouse, in a room that looks more like a showroom floor than a dressing room, "Is this all absolutely necessary?" Castiel stands on a short step in front of a full length mirror, adjusting his tie while a valet quietly brushes lint off his sleeve. He can see his brothers reflected in the mirror, lounging behind him and looking content as a couple of fat house cats, "I'd like to enjoy my own birthday for once, if that's not too much to ask."

"Cassie, baby..." Gabriel has to pause in casually checking his manicure to look up at Cas, "Don't you think I want you to have fun? I'm all about you having fun. Parties? Are fun."

Castiel sighs, waves away the valet and slowly takes a seat for himself on the step he had just been standing on, "You make me sound abnormal."

"Well, you're a freak so there's that." Balthazar chimes in, halfway through a bottle of champagne although god knows where he managed to get it.

"Thank you." grumbles Cas, resting his shoulders back against the mirror behind him. The one thing he would pay a million dollars to avoid and it doesn't look like there's any getting out of it. How cliche it all is.

"Normal people have birthday parties, Cas." As if anyone asked Gabriel for his opinion. He crosses his legs, looking grander in presence than he is in stature, "Find the fun button and push it."

"Gabriel, you're wearing thin my patience." But there's no menace to it, no venom, and it's weaker than he wants it to be. Castiel slowly stands, brushes at his own shoulders, "I just want one night. One night talking to someone real, not surrounded by those vapid Dolls..."

"Real? Pfft." Balthazar's not really in the conversation but he does like to stir the pot, "Real people are overrated."

Gabriel chuckles at stands as well, giving Castiel's weirdly twisted tie another fix, "So come for the cake then go home. Or, hey, wander around town and talk to random scum? Move a few rocks, get your groove on. You don't wanna party? Fine. Your loss, Bucko. But you gotta stay for the big surprise, alright?"

Castiel remains quiet through Gabriel's chatter and only sighs in response. At least he won't have to waste the whole night with these people.


The party is everything Castiel thought it would be. Pretty people he doesn't know, party drugs, a tap that never runs dry and music he can't stand. And everywhere he goes he feels eyes on him. Yes, he doesn't know these people but they sure as hell know him. Architect Castiel Shurley, son of author Charles Shurley. Worth 2.75 billion dollars without the wealth of his father's estate and better known for his aggression - wrestling and kick boxing - than for any stupid building he's ever designed.

He's a catch, Castiel. Rich. Good looking, looks younger than his 38 years, slim built and strong but in the possession of an irritatingly intense personality. He's a dud. His brothers are all fun, playboys who are the life of any party and seem to fit in wherever they go. Casual flings, fake people, they don't bother the other Shurley boys.

Castiel would rather hide than do what he's doing right now. He can't mingle because he has no real personality and can't fake a conversation to save his life. He can't drink, it doesn't really do anything for him except make him a little irate bastard. So he sits at the bar with a cherry 7-up on the rocks in a highball glass, trying to scoop the maraschino cherry out with a spoon for lack of anything better to do and that's when he hears muffled swearing coming from a few seats down.

A kid, maybe 19, is sitting at the end of the bar trying to wipe cake icing off his t-shirt with a napkin and doing little more than smearing it across the fabric. Castiel smirks, gets the bartender's attention and motions to the club soda. Another cliche but at least it works, sometimes. The soda's poured out and he makes his way to the young man, holding the glass out, "I hope you didn't borrow that."

Dean looks up at the glass, first, and dips the napkin into the soda, "Hey, thanks man... yeah, kinda did. Hope there's not a deposit on this crap." He's seen Charlie since they got there, decked out and gorgeous, looking like she owned the world and it took that long for him to finally settle in to the party. Of course settling in, for Dean, means eating and half of what he ate has ended up on his shirt.

Castiel reaches out to take the sugary napkin from Dean before he can do any more damage with it and gets a fresh one, dampens with soda and starts to dab at the icing, himself, "Well, a casualty of war, I guess. I'm sure it can be replaced." Dean took the napkin from Castiel and he didn't argue, just invited himself to the next seat, "Having fun, casualty aside?"

"What, here? Fff, nah. Kinda off the beaten path for me, you know how it is."

"I do." Shurley sighs and rests against the bar, watching the festivities of his own birthday party pass him by, "Not your scene, I take it?"

"Yeah, well. Guess I don't really have a scene but if I did? Hell. Wouldn't be this, no offense or anything."

"No, none taken. I'm not much for this sort of thing, myself. It's part of the life, though." As if his nanny were behind him, jabbing his ribs for being impolite, Castiel excuses himself quietly and holds out his hand, "Where are my manners? Castiel."

"No, hey I get it. Well, not in the sense of actually getting it but I get what you're on about. But, hey, you gotta do what you gotta do, right?" taking Castiel's hand, shaking firmly, "Oh, hey. Dean." It takes Dean a second but the man's name grates on him, he makes a face, "Castiel? Don't take this dirty but that's mouthful right there."

He laughs, he can't help it, "You're not wrong. My father has some sort of fetish for unique names I imagine."


It's a solid hour, maybe more, into Castiel's attendance. He and Dean have moved to the bend in the lone sectional couch, gabbing the night away about whatever pops into their heads. At first it was Dean telling weird stories about his braniac little brother and the good times they'd had before they went their separate ways. Now Castiel, griping through horror stories of his upbringing. Of Au Pairs, a bitchy butler and annoying his father's drivers.

"Wait, wait, hold on..." Dean's laughing harder than he has in a long time, his mouth stuffed with crackers dolloped with some kind of fish salad. Stuffed in his cheeks like a squirrel, "You're telling me you never learned to drive?"

"Well, I wasn't given a second chance after that." Castiel's lounging, looking more casual than he usually does, sipping at another mocktail and laughing along with Dean, "Can you really blame them?"

"Yeah, guess not." he's not thinking when he puts his feet up on the coffee table, ankle over ankle, arms folded behind his head. Takes a few seconds of mulling it over and then Dean pipes up again, "Could teach you? I mean, I don't exactly have a car anymore but I figure, basics?"

Castiel looks puzzled for a moment, over thinking it all, and before he's able to answer their conversation is interrupted by Gabriel and Balthazar, both seeming pleased as hell with themselves. It's Balthazar who speaks, "Sorry to interrupt, you lovely Party People. Mind if I steal my brother away? Important party business."

Dean and Castiel both stand at the same time and Dean, surprised, shrugs, "Naw, hey that's cool. Party business."

Castiel shrugs, too, trying to tell Dean that he's not sure what's going on either as Balthazar wraps an arm around his shoulders and starts to walk him away. Gabriel watches them go and then discreetly takes Dean aside, walking him towards a hallway, "He won't be long, hour or so tops. But I'm more interested in you."

"Me?"

"For a private, uh... show. See, this is a birthday party." Gabe motions to get the attention of an assistant and three come slithering out of the crowd to follow the pair, staying behind as they walk, "And we think you caught our birthday boy's eye. We want him happy, right?"

"R... ight." And Dean still doesn't follow, preoccupied with the overly swanky group behind them, "What's that got to do with me?"

"Well, birthdays mean presents." A good looking man in a pink polo shirt catches up with Gabriel just long enough to hand him a clip board, which he starts looking over and making notes on, "You, my friend, are the present. Get me?"