You’ve seen the way Dean eats. It’s like there’s a hunger inside of him that no amount of food can fill. He doesn’t let himself savor the meals. He shovels it in, almost frantic, as though if he doesn’t finish it fast enough, something will be taken away from him. He’s always had a way of masking his issues with humor or anger, deflecting before anyone can see the cracks beneath the surface.

Dean didn’t get to eat as a kid. He didn’t get to experience the dinner table or late-night snacks with his family. For him, food wasn’t something to enjoy, it was something to survive on. When he was younger, it was about fighting for scraps. Now, as an adult, food is still his way of coping. It’s not about survival anymore, it’s about comfort, about filling that endless void that’s always there, no matter how full his stomach gets.

But time does its thing. The years have caught up to him, and his metabolism, isn’t what it used to be. He’s not fat, but the six-pack abs that used to be a part of his identity have faded, and with them, a sense of confidence he doesn’t know how to get back. Avoiding any kind of reflection when he can. He mutters things under his breath, jokes about being “past his prime,” but you know it’s not a joke. It’s insecurity slipping through.

And when he eats, when he eats too much, it’s like he’s punishing himself. You can see it in his eyes, the shame that flickers there right after he eats, the way he retreats to the other side of the room or buries himself in his work, trying to distract himself from the way his body feels. But you can also see the exhaustion in him, the way his shoulders slump when he starts to feel the weight of his own internal struggle. He doesn’t know how to stop. He doesn’t know how to fix it. He just knows he’s not happy with the way he feels, and it’s been eating at him for longer than he’s willing to admit. And when you catch him lost in thought, in front of the mirror in the Dean cave, you decide to say something.