#aro meg

“From what you’ve told me of your mother,” Cas said, “She sounds very nice.”

“I mean, if I keep my GPA up at school and visit her at least once a week, but, she wants to know everything. I can’t lie to her.”

“Just not telling her things, isn’t really lying,” Meg suggested, starting on the second coat.

“Oh, she would know.” Kevin insisted.

“Then tell her that you have a boyfriend and a girlfriend,” Cas said. “It’s not that complicated.”

Meg rolled her eyes, thought about how many years Cas and her had been together in some way. Her benchmark for a relationship was sex, which they never had, but Cas defined it in some other weird, emotional way. She supposed that the off-again-on-again D/s thing they had occasionally - between Cas’ attempts at dating other people which usually crashed and burned - that that was some kind of something beyond friendship.

Adding Kevin into the mix - a boyfriend of Cas’ that didn’t leave after finding out about the whole no sex thing or the hey this is my friend Meg who ties me up and whips me on the weekends - after he had moved in with the two of them when the last semester ended, instead of going back to his mom’s for the summer, and they were all… something more than roommates. Plus, he and Meg were banging now. Come to think of it, Meg hadn’t had sex or scened with anyone outside of Kevin and Cas since the start of summer.

Meg concentrated on painting Cas’ nails. “It’s pretty complicated.”

Kevin groaned and dropped his head against the book.

-

Every single day for the past week, Meg had had to listen to Kevin worrying about the dinner his mom had insisted on that Saturday. Over breakfast, it was the ‘Should I tell her about the bdsm thing, that’s not something you tell your mom right?’. And coming home from work it was ‘Meg please don’t talk about sex at dinner’.

Cas didn’t get scolded.

The box fan in the bedroom window whirred steadily, blowing hot air from outside across the three of them sprawled in bed. The laptop was open on the foot of the bed, Orange is the New Black playing episodes back to back on Netflix as they ate ice cream. Meg felt like she was ice cream, melting in the goddam heat.

Cas sat in the middle, propped up against a mound of pillows with the ice cream in his lap. Mint chocolate chip, one of Meg’s favorites.

Over the music of the intro, Kevin asked, “Is it too much to put on her?”

“What do you mean?” Cas humored him.

“I mean, I came out as bi my freshman year, then trans my sophomore year, now it’s hey mom I’m in a polyamorous relationship.”

“She’s taken everything else well so far, hasn’t she?” Cas asked.

“Yeah. But I mean. Is that even something you come out as. Polyamorous? That’s not like a … an orientation or anything. How do you come out as polyamorous?”

“It’s a lifestyle choice,” Cas said, “but it can be difficult to explain. Given that it’s not the default setting of a relationship, in a sense one can ‘come out’ as polyamorous.”

When he used air-quotes, Cas spattered chocolate chip ice cream on Meg. She picked it off her boobs and ate it.

“Hey, the next episode is starting,” she warned them.

“Oh my god it’s almost Saturday. Why did I tell her we could come this Saturday? I need more time.”

Meg reached across Cas to slap Kevin on the thigh. “Kev, your mom is going to love Cas. Everyone loves Cas. I’ll bring dessert, I’ll make my gluten free devil’s cake. She’ll have to like me. Everyone likes a person that can make cake.”

Cas hummed his agreement. “Do you really think that your mother will have a problem with it?”

“I don’t know, I mean she’s my mom. All she does is work and clean and worry about me.”

Meg told him, “You might be surprised what your mother gets up to when you’re not around.”

“Oh god, please don’t make me think about that.”

Laughing, Meg scraped the soft stuff off the sides of the carton. “Hey, did you tell her Cas has Celiac’s?”

“Yeah. She’s probably spent the last week researching it and what to cook.”

“Everything will be fine,” Cas reassured.

-

Meg leaned against the doorframe to their bedroom, watching Kevin pacing between the closet and dresser.

“What do I wear? Jeans or slacks?”

“If you don’t put something on, we’re going to be late.” Meg told him.

Grabbing a pair of jeans, Kevin pulled them up and looped a brown leather belt through the waist. Wearing a tan binder, he put a white tank over it and got a white button down out of the closet.

On the bed, Cas was already dressed in a perfectly respectable button down and black pleated skirt, hairy legs on display. The cat sat on Cas’ belly, nudging against his hand, purring, shedding all over his nice outfit.

Fuck that, Meg was wearing jean shorts and a spaghetti strap, it was too goddam hot for anything else.

Holding up two ties, one a striped green and one solid green, Kevin stopped in the middle of the room and gaped at Meg.

“You are not wearing that.”

“Yeah, I am.” Meg rolled her eyes.

“Meg you can’t meet my mom looking like that! No cleavage. Please.”

His big brown eyes looked utterly panicked.

“It’s summer, and I’m hot.”

“My mom’s house has A/C.”

“Hey, I am who I am, your mom can take it or leave it.”

Kevin groaned, scowled at her, and went back to agonizing over ties. Cas stood and went to the closet, came out with the one fancy blouse that Meg had for work interviews.

“Please put this on.”

Standing in front of her, Cas held the shirt up to Meg.

“I made dessert, I don’t have to get dressed up,” Meg protested.

“Put the shirt on.”

Cas glared at her. He could be an implacable, stone son of a bitch when he wanted to be. Meg was not going to make it out of the house dressed as she was.

Kevin sounded like he might be hyperventilating on the other side of the room.

Huffing, Meg grabbed the shirt roughly and pulled it on.

“Fine.”

-

Kevin did not shut up the whole way to his mom’s house, rehashing every doubt and everything that could go wrong while Meg steered through sedately winding suburb roads. The houses here were nice, well-kept, big but not mansion sized. All the lawns were neatly trimmed and there were people out jogging on the sidewalks.

Fucking jogging. In summer.

“Pull in here,” Kevin gestured at a driveway.

Bright hydrangea bushes framed the doorway to a tidy house, backyard fenced in, not a weed in sight.

“Your house is lovely,” Cas commented.

Neighborhoods like this kind of gave Meg the creeps. She grabbed the cake dish from the footwell after pocketing the keys and followed the others up the walkway.

Kevin took the lead, knocking on the door. His mom was even shorter than him when she answered, swooping forward to give him a crushing hug before stepping back to appraise Meg and Cas.

“Hello, welcome, I’m Linda Tran.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you Ms. Tran,” Cas said, stepping next to Kevin to shake her hand.

Meg lingered in the back as they were ushered into a wide entrance hall, staircase sweeping up to the right, photos of Kevin all over the walls.

“It’s nice to meet you too. You must be Castiel. And this is…”

“Hey,” Meg waved, “I’m Meg.”

Ms. Tran blinked at her, nodded politely.

Kevin shuffled awkwardly, “So, this is Cas, my boyfriend, and Meg, my girlfriend.”

“Oh!” Ms. Tran exclaimed. “Are you swingers then?”

Kevin made a noise like a wounded animal. Cas was busy studying a bowl that had some kind of woven balls or something in it on a side table.

“Yeah, the kids these days are calling it polyamory.” Meg told her. “Why, were you a swinger in the seventies?”

Kevin’s face was bright red.

Ms. Tran moved them along the hallway back to wide kitchen with big windows, full of sunlight and gleaming counters.

“In the sixties actually. I know, I look a lot younger than I am.”

-

The three of them were practically pushed onto stools while Ms. Tran fussed and served them drinks - wine, Meg could not believe that she actually had a small wine fridge set into the cupboards. She moved around the kitchen swiftly and purposefully, taking out containers of prepped food and measuring spices into little glass bowls that she lined up beside the stove.

“Kevin told me you have a gluten allergy?” Ms. Tran asked.

“That’s right,” Cas answered.

“Well, I’m making a rice and vegetable dish, but there is gluten in the kitchen and I understand that cross contamination can be an issue, so I won’t be offended if you don’t eat.”

Kevin, for his part, sat quietly looking shocked that bringing home a boyfriend and a girlfriend seemed to be a non-issue, taking backseat to Cas’ dietary needs.

“Thank you, that’s very considerate.” Cas smiled, looking around the kitchen curiously.

“The cake I brought is gluten free,” Meg said.

“Really? What kind of flour do you use?”

“It’s a mix of a few, actually. There’s sorghum flour, tapioca flour, potato starch.”

“You know,” Ms. Tran talked over her shoulder as she cooked, “I was surprised by some of the things I read, about the effect that gluten can have. I was thinking about trying a gluten free diet myself.”

“It can make a difference,” Cas said, “whether you’re severely allergic or not. I have a lot of books you could borrow, if you like.”

“I would love that.”

Pulling a pan bigger than her head off the stove, Ms. Tran dished out something like a stirfry.

“Really, Kevin, you should have brought your partners over sooner. You know I’ll expect them here for dinner every week.”

“Mom.”

“That would be so great, Ms. Tran.” Meg told her.

Family dinners were usually awkward, but Ms. Tran was pretty cool and more than anything Meg was enjoying the intense wave of embarrassment coming off of Kevin. She did take an immense pleasure in other people’s discomfort, after all.