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Cas must be doing this to torture Dean—he just has to be.
Well, he could also be doing it because sometimes, he's oblivious—but Dean chooses to believe that Cas is torturing him.
They're over at Meg and Ruby Masters', helping Ruby set up for her big sister's birthday pool party, and there's really no good explanation for what Dean's boyfriend is wearing beyond, "he's doing this to torture Dean." None of it fits him right, not even the slightest bit—granted, almost nothing's been fitting Cas right since they went off to college and his ass got slammed with the Freshman Fifty-Five, so that's not exactly a new phenomenon. But now, by late July, it just looks like a summer of I'll start a diet tomorrow's and I don't want to go for a run, though, it's so hot's and all Cas's other sundry excuses have taken their own toll on his ballooning waistline.
Dean really would've thought that how much weight Cas put on at school—not to mention the joint weigh-in they shared that confirmed that number, that confirmed Cas's weight as two-fifteen and his waist as clocking in at forty-one inches; that confirmed that he'd gotten considerably bigger than Dean—was enough motivation to get on a diet. But here Cas is, visibly bigger, wearing clothes that are at least two sizes too small and munching on the snacks and baked goods that he's supposed to be putting out—downing a cupcake here and a brownie there, a handful of potato chips on top of that, as though he's completely oblivious to having put on any weight at all.
Not that Dean can really talk about Cas plumping up the way he has—Dean knows that he can't talk, and as he sets up plastic cups on the drinks table, his heart sinks to the pit of his chest. His lungs writhe guiltily at the thought of how he's pretty much the biggest fucking hypocrite he knows. After all, he got hit by the Freshman Fifteen and a little more—back in May, when summer break started, he weighed in at one-ninety-five after starting the semester at a lean one-seventy. Mom doesn't think that much of it and she's told Dean more than once to stop worrying about his weight as much as he does, but the fact is that his pudge has just gotten pudgier, despite how he's tried to lose it—softer and ever-so-slightly more prominent. Chubbier.
Dean weighed in at two-oh-seven yesterday and his cheeks burn just at the thought of seeing those awful, red numbers glaring up at him, even though he's covered up now and it's harder to tell. The twelve extra pounds don't show all that much when he's naked, either—a bit of extra softness here or there, and nothing more—but in a t-shirt and his trunks, Dean looks pretty much the same as he did at the beginning of summer. Maybe his paunch tugs at his Metallica shirt a bit more than it used to—but it's also black, so that's harder to tell. Dean picked this one out specifically for that reason.
The only upside to any of this is that, ever since the divorce, ever since Dad moved across town to live with Kate and their son, Adam, Dean's barely seen him—so he has no idea that Dean's not got his good little soldier's body anymore. Either way, Dean's still ashamed of getting as pudgy as he has, still trying to drop the weight.
But Cas? Cas is a whole different sort of animal—and his too-tight clothes show that off for all to see. Well, they would if there were more people here than the two of them and Ruby. But that's just a point of semantics. It doesn't change the way that Cas's belly strains against the two shirts he's managed to squeeze it into—his t-shirt rides up on him and exposes a wide strip of pale and hints of the three thin, ragged stretch-marks that line his midsection. As for the blue plaid button-up—which is actually Dean's and fits him just fine—Dean has no idea how Cas even managed to get it on and done up. It rides up on him, too, bunching up around the upper curve of his pudgy stomach with the fabric bowing out between the buttons. As though Cas needed help with this, the clothes just make him look bigger still.
And his cut-off shorts do nothing at all to help the matter. He made them out of a pair of jeans back in April and while they were pretty snug on him then, now, they're just downright sinful. The waistband slices into the middle of Cas's belly and leaves him with a sizable muffin top, a good roll of flab from both stomach and love-handles sagging over the fabric and the button. The side-seams struggle to contain Cas's wide, plush hips and when he bends over to get a Coke out of the cooler, it's some kind of miracle that his ass doesn't put a tear in the seat of his pants—Dean has to hold his breath until Cas is standing upright again, though.
And all that's not even getting into the way the frayed edges wrinkle and ride up on Cas's chunky, jiggling thighs—then there's the wear-and-tear along the insides, where Cas's thighs have rubbed the denim almost raw… Cas might as well be naked in this outfit—and just looking at him, Dean can't help swallowing thickly, feeling something hot and sticky start unfurling in the pit of his stomach, making his cheeks flush and his fingers tingle, his chest feel all light and warm and flushed—
"Oh my God—could you be any subtler in checking him out? I swear to God, you are such a chubby-chaser."
Ruby—her voice grates on Dean's ears like sandpaper, and what she has to say makes his jaw clench shut, makes his hand curl into a fist, mostly by reflex and partly because Dean gets a little comfort out of digging his nails into his palm. "I'm not a goddamn chubby-chaser," he says. "I'm just… getting a fix on things—like, assessing the situation—"
"If by that, you mean, 'staring like a creeper at Prince Caspian's fat ass, going slack-jawed over his bubble-butt, and getting off on watching him stuff his chipmunk cheeks.'" Ruby smirks and arches her eyebrow at him, folds her arms over her chest like she's already won this.
But Dean's not going to let that happen: "I'm assessing the situation because sooner or later, Cas is going to want to lose all the weight, and when he does, somebody's going to need to have a fix on just how much work he'll need to do—and since he's gonna be one of those, 'wake up and suddenly realize he's up to three-hundred pounds' types, that somebody has to be me."
Ruby drags her eyes over to where Cas is chowing down on his third sugar cookie. "Yeah," she drawls. "You're right. I'm sure he totally cares about his weight and what people think about it—just like how I'm the Queen of England and you're soooo not a chubby-chaser."
"Yeah, well… you can kindly fuck off, Your Majesty," Dean huffs and tears into another package of plastic cups, accidentally sends them spilling out on the table.
He doesn't mean to rip through their coating quite so hard—but at the same time, he can't escape this sinking feeling that Ruby might be right. Dean might be a chubby-chaser. Or, at the very least, he might be the kind of guy who thinks it's hot that his boyfriend's getting fat—and right as he's picking up the cups, trying not to look over at Cas burping and rubbing his belly, that's when Dean gets an idea. The only thing he needs to work on? Is how to bring it into practice.
***
Faintly, vaguely, in a mostly intellectual fashion, Cas is aware of the fact that he's gained weight this summer when he's supposedly been dieting instead. He realizes it as something of an inevitability, with how he's been eating and how he hasn't joined in with Dean's trips to the gym or half-hearted jogs around the block.
Rather than attempting to diet, Cas has more been sitting on the front porch at Ms. Campbell's house, drinking milkshakes and eating multiple slices of Mary's pie while watching Dean run—or else he's been liberally sampling all of the treats that Dean and Anna have put together for their rec center cooking classes while listening to Anna chuckle and call him Tubby. More than once, Cas has been reading a book and snacking, only to find that he's accidentally cleaned out an entire family size bag of Doritos and still feels hungry. In the quiet of his bedroom, Cas has eaten whole packages of Oreos while jerking himself off, thinking about how much bigger he can get.
He wouldn't say that he's been actively gaining weight so much as eating whatever he wants and damn the consequences—but Cas also hasn't put in any effort not to gain weight.
So, yes—Cas is aware that he's gone and put on more weight instead of losing what he gained at college… That's sort of been the point, really, avoiding weight loss. He just doesn't have a number to put on the state things, and struggling into his clothes this morning, he nevertheless caught himself thinking, but these fit me just fine, don't they. He supposes that he probably needs some new outfits—he'll absolutely need clothes that fit properly before he and Dean go back to school—and Cas probably needs to see the business end of a scale sometime, just because he's curious. But there's one thing that Cas really can't see himself needing anytime soon.
Namely: he doesn't need to go on a diet or worry about his weight the way that Dean and Anna seem to think he should—he's been skinny for his entire life, and frankly, Cas likes this change of pace. He likes it that his thighs jiggle when he walks and that they touch each other, that he can palm at his belly and the rolls of flab that he's picked up, that his hips have rounded out into a pudgy pear-shape and that his ass strains all his pants. Putting a number on his weight wouldn't change anything about who Cas is—all it would do is satisfy his interest, let him see if he's crossed out of 'chubby' territory and started being really, properly fat yet, the way that he wants to get.
Of course, there are some downsides to having put on as much weight as Cas has since September—his back's been sore lately, and as Meg's birthday party starts getting into its swing of things, Cas can't help noticing the way that people stare at him. Meg herself snaps at more than one person for arching their eyebrows when Cas gets another brownie off the snack table or grabs another cheeseburger from the grill—she's a good friend like that, if slightly presumptuous in thinking Cas needs her to stand up to people for him. It's much easier to just ignore the way that Ruby snickers and glances over at Dean after every time she looks at Cas.
It's harder to ignore the way that Dean's button-up keeps feeling tighter on Cas's belly, or the soft rrrrip! pop! that comes while Cas is reclined on one of the deck chairs, in the middle of his third cheeseburger. Even harder than that task? Is ignoring the way that Dean looks at him when he picks a little black button up off the ground—Dean holds it up and arches his eyebrow as if to ask whether or not Cas knows what it is, and he wrinkles his nose as Cas brushes his free hand's fingers down the row of buttons, as he finds the place where one popped off. Cas swallows thickly and wriggles in his seat, stares down at his belly pooching out into his lap and at the roll of flab crushing down on his waistband.
He can't help blushing as he ghosts his fingers down the long stretch of extra exposed t-shirt that he finds between two buttons, as he looks over at the missing third in Dean's fingers—and for as much as he enjoys his body like this, all Cas has to say for himself is, "Oh. …That's odd."
He has to shake his head when Dean asks if he knows how much he weighs in at these days—and in response, Dean makes a proposal: "You keep all your buttons on today and I'll shut up about your weight—but if you lose any more of them, we go borrow Meg's scale and get a fix on just how much you've put on since May, capisce?"
Cas isn't sure what possesses him to agree with this—into agreeing to weigh in on terms other than his own—but by the time he's biting into another brownie, he doesn't have it in him to care too terribly much. He can make the most of this. And besides, Ruby's brownies are delicious.
***
Dean should've counted on Cas to be clever about avoiding their arrangement: almost as soon as they kiss on it, he's unbuttoned the plaid shirt and started letting his belly just hang out. He doesn't do anything about the shorts, though, and he doesn't even seem to think about not eating, which makes Dean's victory almost inevitable, almost perfectly assured. If anything, Cas seems to realize this and as the party goes on, as he keeps eating everything he can get his hot little hands on, it gets harder and harder to think that he's doing anything else but actively playing into Dean's hands—and just the thought that he might be doing that makes a thick lump well up in Dean's throat.
Wherever he goes, whoever else he talks to, he's never far from Cas and his deck chair, never far from being able to watch Cas eat—and boy, does he ever eat. Dean would say that Cas eats like he hasn't had any food in a week, but that'd miss the whole way that he eats, the character of it, in favor of talking solely about the amount. More accurately, Cas eats like he's a prince instead of just being named after one. He leans his chair back and reclines in it so easily, contentedly takes huge bites out of chocolate chip cookies or cheeseburgers, or forks through helpings of potato salad and enormous slices of cake. He never gets anything off the snack tables for himself but has Dean or Meg or Corbett fetch food for him.
And it's some kind of intoxicating, watching Cas put food away like this, getting the food for him, watching him rub at his belly in long, lazy strokes. It's intoxicating to watch his belly as it expands from everything that he crams into it, as it bulges out onto his thighs—to watch Cas rest his palm on top of it, almost caressing it. Everything about this makes Dean think of what it could be like to really, properly feed Cas, to have a full-on session of just stuffing him to his limits and well past them—feeding him until he can't even move… But Dean follows these thoughts with trying to dwell on anything else, anything to keep himself from popping a boner right in the middle of the party. It works, but it doesn't get rid of his throat-lump.
At least the moment of truth waits until Dean's sitting down next to Cas—he's chowing down on his third huge slice of Ruby's triple-chocolate cake, and for all Dean can't see the button on Cas's shorts, he's pretty sure that the thing has to be nearing its limit. The zipper's already halfway undone, with the fly bowing out the same way that the buttons on Cas's shirt did before he gave up and undid them. How Cas hasn't already bust his shorts is a mystery to Dean—but right as he's trying to fathom that, Cas moans, lets out a heavy sigh.
And there's a snap!, and then a tink!—Dean looks down at the ground and picks up the little off-gold button. When he looks back up, Cas's belly has surged forward, further into his lap, shoving his fly so far apart that, even if he still had the button, there'd be no hope of him ever getting them back together again. Dean grins; Cas blushes and ducks his chin—which, now that Dean notices it, has definitely gotten chubbier.
"Well, well, well," Dean says, trying his best not to snicker. "Looks like we've got a date with the scale, huh?"
***
By the time they're up in Meg's bathroom, Cas is wavering in his commitment to making the most of this situation—not by a lot, because he still wants to know how much he weighs, but enough that his hands tremble as he tries to pry his ass out of his shorts. With how far apart the flaps on his fly are, he thinks this ought to be simpler than it proves—but he ends up having to peel the denim out of deep, angry red grooves along his waist before it agrees to budge. He has to yank the fabric down from there, tugging hard as he jimmies his shorts around, as they chafe up against his skin. By the time they hit the floor, they're inside-out and Cas has no idea how he even managed to get into them this morning.
Dean doesn't make this realization any easier, leaning back on the toilet and pointedly arching his eyebrow, silently asking whether or not Cas is going to get on with this already. He has to sit where he is—the scale rests between the toilet and the sink, and there's no other way that Dean will be able to read the screen. Cas could do it himself—he could suck in and lean forward and see the scale's verdict just fine—but he can't deny that it's gotten harder to see his feet around his paunch—and Dean's I told you so expression isn't really making Cas want to be cooperative. On top of that, he has a roll of measuring tape in one hand, which he "borrowed" from the kit by Meg's sewing machine—all to try humiliating Cas into getting on a diet and losing weight, whittling himself back down to a skin-and-bones one-sixty. Not happening.
Which all sounds about as appealing as a root canal—so for a long moment, Cas just stands there on the freezing cold bathroom floor. He puts his hands on his hips, brushes his palms all over the pudge he's accumulated there and sinks into his flesh—and he arches an eyebrow back at Dean by way of daring him to say something about how Cas's boxer-briefs might as well be painted onto him, or about how Cas can't pull his t-shirt's hem down over the hollow of his bellybutton much less his stomach's lower roll of flab, which sags over his underwear, even with how stuffed Cas is pushing his gut forward. Or maybe about the rippling collection of cellulite along the inside of Cas's thighs. Or about his growing double-chin.
Cas stretches out, raising his arms above his head in an attempt at cracking his back, and he does so simply because he knows before it happens that his t-shirt will get pulled up higher on his midsection. He struggles, faux-whining, to try and pull it back into place, thinking that maybe this will get Dean to say something, make one of the comments that must be whirling around in his mind—but all Dean does is scoff and roll his eyes. All he says is, "Come on and get on the scale, Gorgeous—you lost the bet and we haven't got all night here, y'know."
Cas sighs and rolls his eyes right back at Dean, and as he closes his eyes, steps up on the scale, he feels his insides squirming with how much he wants to hear Dean insult him for his weight. That's not a normal desire, is it? …Well, Cas supposes that it's probably not, but on the other hand, he's hardly a good judge of what constitutes normal—and whether or not it's normal doesn't matter, really. He can't see that fact changing how much he wants to hear Dean telling him how fat he's getting—Cas holds his breath and bites down on his lip, tries not to think about Dean calling him Chunky or Fat-Ass, or saying that he's nothing more than a flabby waste of space—as Dean sighs, Cas feels his cheeks and the back of his neck flush, red-hot—
But all Dean says is, "Two-forty-two-point—wait, no, shit, it's… Sorry, the number flickered for a minute, but it's good. And, uh, Cas? You officially tip the scales at two-hundred and forty-two-and-a-half pounds. Which means you've—"
Really blubbered out? Put on a lot of weight? Turned into a blue-eyed baby whale? "Which means that I've gained twenty-seven-and-a-half pounds since break started—yes, Dean, I am capable of doing the math myself."
He doesn't mean to snap or anything—it's just that the number's rather staggering. Here Cas is, he hasn't even been trying to put on weight, and he's put on almost thirty pounds in almost two months. If he actually applied himself, he could probably gain that same amount in a month or so—maybe he would give himself six weeks to do it—but he can't consider those possibilities for too long. Dean loudly clears his throat, cutting into Cas's reverie, and with a heavy sigh, Cas shuffles around to stand in front of Dean, lets Dean loop the tape-measure around his waist—
His entire face flushes sick and pink when Dean announces that his waist is up to forty-five-and-a-half inches around—but when Cas opens his mouth to protest, to announce that he doesn't care and that he's not going to lose the weight to appease Dean, something unexpected happens. Dean lets go of the measuring tape, digs his fingers into Cas's hips instead, and yanks Cas down into his lap. Before Cas can say anything, Dean's mouth is on his—Dean's kissing him, hard, sucking and biting on Cas's lower lip. Reflexively, Cas's arms snake around Dean's shoulders and he grinds down on Dean's thighs, rocking his belly forward and rubbing it up against Dean as he returns the kiss. Dean just grabs onto Cas's hips harder and holds onto the kiss until both of them need to breathe.
As he tries to catch his breath, Cas noses at Dean's cheek and says, "I was under the impression that you did not like my extra weight, Dean. After all, you've been pushing the diet idea rather strenuously all summer…"
"Yeah, well… partly, I was concerned—and I didn't want any extra weight on me, personally? But I…" Dean sighs, steals a briefer, gentler kiss. "Partly, I think I was just overcompensating? Trying to deny what I felt and shit? I mean, it's not most people who'd look at their boyfriend pigging out and stuffing his face and getting fat and think, 'God, that's so hot.'"
Chuckling a bit, Cas supposes that no, no it is not most people who would do that—"But then again," he adds, "you and I have never been very good with doing what most people would do, have we?" Cas is the one to kiss Dean this time, reaching up to cup Dean's jaw and brushing his thumb down Dean's cheek. "So you are amenable to me keeping the weight? Because I rather like it, and I have no desire to lose any."
Dean snorts and presses his nails into Cas's pudge. "Cas, you can get as fat as you damn well want, if it makes you happy. All this is great and all—but I'm here for you, dumb-ass, not for your extra weight."
"That's reassuring," Cas says. "Especially as I would like to weigh at least two-hundred and fifty pounds before our new semester starts."