Standing Together

Chapter 120

"Can I play teacher?" Lucifer asks.

"Sure?" Castiel says uncertainly.

"M'kay, so how about we all go around in a circle and introduce ourselves."

So that's what they do, and it helps to hear names to bring back memories of these people. Ellen and Jo are friends of Dean's. It's been years since he's seen them, but Dean's mentioned them a few times since then. Eileen and Ash went to school with Anna and Claire, though Castiel didn't know they were friends with her until now. Still, it helps that he at least knew of them before now.

"So, where do we start?" Castiel asks his brother.

"Why are you asking me?" Lucifer asks. "It's your music video."

"You're the director," Castiel reminds him.

"Executive decision," Dean says. "Why don't we — wait for it; it's gonna be your mind — why don't we start at the beginning?"

"I've never actually done that before," Castiel says. Filming is always out of order. Music videos, cameos in tv shows and movies, everything. This is weird.

"There's a first time for everything," Dean replies.

"Does anyone want to be Hester?" Castiel asks, then clarifies, "the chick that very obviously likes Misha-slash-me and doesn't realize Misha-slash-me is gay?"

No one immediately volunteers, though Castiel can't say he expected much different. The only girls who really know him are Anna — and it would be weird with if his sister played the girl with the crush on him — and Claire, who just doesn't seem like the flirtatious type.

After a pause, Jo says, "If you need a Hester, I can do it."

"That works."

Castiel explains how the scene is going to work. He is going to look visibly uncomfortable as Jo fake flirts with him. The camera will cut to Dean, showing up on his motorcycle on the front lawn, but they're only filming the Misha-and-Hester part now.

"And you don't have to say actually flirty things, by the way," Lucifer says. "It'll just play the music, not the audio. You could talk about how much you love Scrat and his little acorn that he can never quite reach, for all anyone will know."

"I can promise you, I won't talk about Scrat," Jo replies.

"Well, you're lame," Lucifer says. "Now, everyone get behind them and act like you're at a party and drink your fake beer and be people who exist and don't look at the camera or at Cassie or Jo."

Everyone does as they're told, and Dean stays back with all the adults who can't pass for college kids as he waits for his scene. Kelly probably could have pretended she was in her twenties, but she opts to play with Alex, instead. Lucifer puts his camera on his tripod and pulls out his phone. There's a pause, and then seemingly from nowhere, Taylor Swift's "I Did Something Bad" starts playing.

"Why?" Claire asks, amused.

"Because," Lucifer says as if it should be obvious, "Taylor ended the male species with "if a man talks shit then I owe him nothing."

"You're part of the male species," Dean reminds him.

"And we deserved to be ended like that," Lucifer replies. "Now, as hard as it is not too sing along to this absolute bop that deserved to be a single, you're not allowed to sing along to any on the bazillion songs my phone plays while we're filming — unless you wanna make it look like you're just talking, I guess. I don't know. You do you." He adjusts his camera, then says, "Action! Be the flirtiest flirty of all flirties!"