As the winter months trudge on, Maz has been alone with no one (but his brother) to hang-out with. Today is different though. Cinder, his old classmate, is coming over! How will he take to Maz's hundreds of pounds he has packed on since? Shock? Anger? Happiness?

CHAPTER VII <--- PROLOGUE ---> CHAPTER IX

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Cinder ©:

Story:

Mazaku © & Artwork:


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JANUARY (Month 8)

Maz’s fingers tapped in rapid succession on the arm of the couch, the pudgy digits thumping against the soft upholstery as the drake felt his heart race in his chest. Why was he so nervous? It wasn’t like he was meeting Cinder for the first time or anything. They had met and chatted plenty of times… well, a few times... Maz tried to rationalize with himself, but it wasn’t proving as effective as he thought it should be. Cinder was a friend, well as much a friend as one could be from the few times Maz and the other drake had bumped into each other the seldom times Maz had actually stepped foot on campus last semester.

Maz remembered clearly the first day he had gone to class for a mandatory session with a guest speaker in his ethics class. He had waddled in and saw that the entire auditorium was packed. He must have been standing at the top of the lecture hall for an awkward amount of time as he helplessly scanned for a seat as he heard someone whispering in his direction. Maz had turned and saw a cheerful-looking blue-haired dragon sitting in the back row. The drake was motioning to him and the empty seat beside; right on the corner aisle. Perfect. Maz remembered feeling a little embarrassed as he thanked the dragon quietly while sliding his plump rump down into the quaint desk.

All those months ago, Maz hadn’t yet grown the monstrous gut he now sported, but still, his chunky frame had struggled to squeeze into the tight seat. Maz remembered apologizing as he felt his soft sides pressing out beyond the confines of his own seat and against his friendly neighbor’s side. Another apology trembled out of the flustered dragon’s throat as his thighs and elbows bumped up against drake beside him as he shuffled through his bag hunting for a pen he soon realized was sitting on the kitchen table back home. Just as he was about to start beating himself up over his lapse in memory when prepping for his nerve-wracking trip to campus that morning, dragon beside him offered a pen of his own.

Maz remembered that friendly inviting face, and though they didn’t talk again for the rest of the lecture, the next time Maz shuffled back to campus, he didn’t have to look long before the same blue-haired dragon flagged him down again for an adjacent seat. Though their conversation had been brief before the professor began to introduce yet another guest speaker, Maz learned one new thing: his draconian double’s name was Cinder. Each successive time, though few and far between, had led to more and more conversation between the two, ranging from discussing homework questions to if either of them had seen the most recent Star Wars film.

Maz appreciated having a friendly face to talk to though he wouldn’t have considered the two of them close. That was one of the reasons why the drake was surprised when he received a text from Cinder after the first day of class at the start of the semester.
Maz picked up his phone from the couch cushion beside him and skimmed through the conversation again; a neurotic habit that only seemed to calm his anxiety ever so slightly.

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Cinder: Hey dude! Missed you in class 2day! Ur taking Art and Architecture in Ancient America right? I think it’s AH102 or 103 or something.?

Maz: Yeah, I thought it’d be easier just to watch the lecture recordings at home. Traveling is tough!

Cinder: Fair enough! Wanna work on the reading response assignment together? I have NO idea what that article was saying, ha

Maz: Yeah, u’d think they’d teach us the jargon/buzzwords first before throwing us into things, lol

Cinder: True, so you wanna work on it tonight?

Cinder: I can swing by your place if it’s easier.

Maz: Are you sure you want to make the trip?

Cinder: Yeah! It’s not too far, plus I just got my car back from the shop and want to hear that engine purr lol #2003ToyotaCamryforlife

Maz: Okay then!

Cinder: I’ll come by @ 6!

Maz: Awesome see you then, drive safe!

Cinder: Will do!

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Maz let out a nervous sigh: what was he thinking? Why had he agreed to have Cinder over? Sure it was to work on homework, but still, he couldn’t let the drake see him like this! Maz glanced down at his exposed belly as its own rolls cast shadows across the rest of his frame from the glow of the television on the wall. Though Maz was coming to terms with his newfound weight he still had some apprehensions, particularly about just how fast the weight was piling on.

He knew he had been big the last time he was on campus and Cinder had seen him, but that was nothing compared to now. The drake’s rump stretched across the couch, his plump cheeks splaying across nearly two of the three cushions beneath him, barely contained in the set of athletic shorts that squeezed into his barrel-sized thighs and hips. His haunches were becoming broader than they were long by the day, taking on the shape of an ever-widening slice of greasy meatlovers pizza from a profile view on the rare occasions he was standing up. His rump sagged to the floor and his thighs drooped over his knees, the joints having all but disappeared under the cascading layers of lard that had accumulated around his stocky calves that were approaching the width his own waist had once been.

He remembered a time when with just a flick of his ankles, his calves could send him soaring down the road on one of his runs, but now they barely could lift themselves up let alone the rest of his blubbery frame. Cellulite dimpled the entire side of his blubbery thighs and a seemingly perpetual sheen of sweat seemed to have settled around the various folds and crevices that had formed due to the ever-growing tension of the fat nestled just beneath his skin. Even his paws had grown plump, forcing him to go up two shoe sizes and to start looking for that ominous W for an extra-wide sole. Sure, it was tough to find a pair of outer footwear for the rare occasions he stepped outside, but what was proving even harder was finding a shirt that would contain his enormous gut.

Maz had utterly outgrown not just all of his own shirts but Vorax’s as well, a subtle shifting of the guards that meant one thing: he had grown fatter than his brother. The thought both did and didn’t shock the drake, as over the last holiday month he had done little to curb his appetite and monstrous caloric intake. Food was constantly being slurped passed his lips and poured down his throat as Vorax seemed to become more and more brazen about getting Maz to eat. Maz would just be sitting on the couch and Vorax would drop a tray of cookies in front of him without saying a word, only speaking up when he came back a mere five minutes later to comment that Maz had yet to eat the last remaining cookie. Vorax seemed to know that just putting food in front of Maz was enough as he had lost all self-control around sweats, salts, and fats.

Maz had completely given in and as a result, his belly now drooped nearly half a foot more towards the ground than just a few weeks ago, even drooping over the edge of the couch as he sat down now. The sheer weight of the guttural appendage was extraordinary and seemingly couldn’t be contained not just within standard cotton-fiber attire, but seemingly within his own scales. A series of stretch marks lined the growing mound of pudge that was a testament at just how fast the adipose was accumulating just below the surface; too fast for the rest of his body to keep up in more ways than one. It was getting harder and harder to walk with his drooping belly acting like a weighted apron slapping against his thighs and sloshing back and forth with a momentum of a raging maelstrom sea.

It didn’t help either that despite their extra padding, his knees would start to cry out after just a few trips up and down the hall, prompting Maz to sit down on the couch to rest, a state of being that was becoming more and more the norm not just out of habit but utter necessity. It gave his wheezing lungs a break as he struggled for breath with only minor amounts of exercise as did it prevent the occasion squeezing sensation around his chest as the fat of his ample moobs and more pressed squeezed his ribs and all that was contained within them.

Maz struggled to raise his arms over his head both from the weight of his doughy shoulders, jiggled underarm fat, and pudgy forearms, but also from the fact that the pads of fat accumulating along his sides and back prevent the joint from moving much beyond the parallel. The lard incarnate would slosh down toward his buried neck and pressed against his thick fishbowl sized cheeks and stubby, nonexistent muzzle, making it even harder than it already was to fill his lungs with precious oxygen; luckily bringing more food to his mouth didn’t require such acrobatics.

Maz had grown fat. Indescribably fat. Unfathomably fat. Impractically fat. Unaccommodatably fat. Above all else though, he had grown embarrassingly fat yet there didn’t seem to be an end to that gaining.

Maz glanced up at the clock on the wall and saw the minutes ticking past six. He knew that Cinder would be arriving at any time and still he sat in barely a pair of shorts that were mostly buried beneath his overlying gut and sagging love handles. Vorax had left earlier that morning to head to the mall and buy some new shirts that could contain his bulk, and though he was supposed to have returned home by now, the older drake was nowhere to be found; there were no conceivably bedsheet-sized shirts to be found. Maz knew that he should probably just put on a smaller shirt in his wardrobe even if it only covered up seventy-five percent of his frame before Cinder came, but that would be standing up and walking to his bedroom which was a task all in it of itself. It’d leave him breathless, sweaty, tired, and aching and somehow sitting exposed as he was at that moment was better than that alternative.

Maz’s heart skipped as his phone pinged. He glanced and saw a text from Cinder:

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Cinder: Pulling in now! :)

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Maz heard the screech of tires outside and the soft slam of a car door. He waited for what sounded like an eternity until he heard the soft patter of footsteps up the front steps. The double knock on the door elicited a bead of nervous sweat on Maz’s brow. Maz took a deep breath. He had to get up. He had to let his guest in. To not do so would be rude. Maz sighed.

The drake anchored one hand on the arm of the couch and the other on the cushion beside him. After a short countdown in his head, he grunted and attempted to hoist himself up. He rose a few inches before the weight of his rear pulled him back again with a thud. Maz, expecting the failed first attempt, used the momentum of the bounce to hoist himself up again with a louder grunt. This time, he arched his torso forward, shifting his balance over his wobbling legs as he slowly stood up. Immediately, his entire frame sloshed forward, putting his weight on to his knees and ankles. He let out a huff as he stood stationary for a second, letting the cascade of waves and ripples of jiggling fat settle before and onto his knees and ankles. With a grunt, he lifted up one of his meaty thighs and took a step forward. He could feel the strain of his muscles working to lift not just the mass of his thunderous thighs but also pushing aside his apron of a gut; it was as if his entire body was actively fighting him to move. Despite the struggles, he managed to step forward a mere foot. He shifted his weight over, tilting slightly to shift some of his stomach fat away from his other thigh as he took another step.

By appearance’s sake, an outsider would have described the motion seemed awkward, clumsy, and arduous but it was a rhythmic sequence, both in motion and in the pulsing waves of pudge rippling across the surface of his entire frame, that Maz had quickly learned was the means of least effort with his bulky frame: the waddle.
“Come on, you’re almost there,” Maz muttered to himself as he grunted and huffed while slowly making his way to the door. Another double knock echoed about the room, prompting Maz to try and quicken his pace despite the already growing burn of his thighs and calves. Eventually, he made it and took a second to collect himself by the door, trying to calm his heaving chest and wipe away some of the sweat that was starting to build on his brow and beneath the folds of his moobs. After that second, he grabbed the knob and slowly swung the door open. A burst of cool air washed over Maz before he saw a familiar face emerged in the dim glow of the doorstep.

“Maz?” Cinder said.

“Hey! Come in!” Maz said, grunting as he stepped aside and allowed his guest to shuffle in out of the cold. Maz tried putting on an inviting smile and trying to find an air of confidence in his anxious state.

“Wow, this place is nice!” Cinder said walked in and kicked off his shoes and placing his backpack by the door. Maz shut the door and as he turned he realized just how tight and aching his knees were. He needed to sit down before they gave out altogether!

“Thanks, we… *huff… actually just rearranged… *huff... recently,” Maz wheezed as he made a beeline back to the couch. He tried to control his breath, not wanting Cinder to think he had just gotten out of breath from walking to the door.

“Oh cool, that must have been a lot of work!” Cinder said admiring the layout of the room. “I like that painting over there too, really brings the arrangement of the room together.”

“Yeah, it’s a *groan nice recent addition to the decor!” Maz replied, thinking back to the day were he simply laid in bed while Vorax had spent the better part of the afternoon pushing the furniture around for a new
“feng shui arrangement,” as the older drake had put it.

“Well, anyway, I uh…” Cinder looked up and finally locked eye with Maz. His jaw dropped, flabbergasted, as he stared and once the look extended passed a few seconds, Maz felt his face blush; he knew what the blue-haired drake was looking at.

“I’m sorry about being shirtless…” Maz said, trying to break the awkward tension, “and being a little sweaty and…” Maz stopped as Cinder suddenly rushed across the room and plopped down on the couch beside him, his eyes falling on Maz’s belly.

“You look amazing!” Cinder said, eliciting a quizzically raised eyebrow by Maz.

“Amazing…?” Maz stammered; what was Cinder talking about? His hair? His glasses? He had recently washed them…

“Yeah, you look great!” Cinder reiterated. “What you’ve put another 150, no 200 pounds since I last saw you?” Maz was taken aback by how forward Cinder was being. Was he asking about Maz’s weight? Why? Where was this coming from? Why did he seem so excited about it? Why did he say that it was amazing?

“Uh, something like that,” Maz stammered again, not quite sure how to react. He could feel his face blushing as he tried to wrap his arms around his torso, a self-comforting measure that was proving more and more difficult lately as his belly expanded forward.

“Wow, that’s awesome!” Cinder exclaimed. “I figured you must have put on some more weight over the school break, but I never expected it to be so much!”

“Expected?” Maz asked. Did he have a reputation for gaining that he didn’t know about? It kind of made sense, as every time he went to campus, he easily had been sporting an extra few dozen to a few hundred extra pounds. In a way, Maz figured he had hoped that no one would have recognized him or noticed his ballooning frame. That may have been the case for the random students in his class and wandering campus, but of course, the one person he did talk to on a semi-regular basis would notice! Of course, Cinder would have noticed his belly poking further and further out from beneath his undersized shirts! Why wouldn’t he have? A sense of about having thought otherwise and a sense of embarrassment about that naivety welled up in Maz making his cheeks grow rosier.

“Yeah, of course, you would put on weight. You a gainer, right?” Cinder asked. “Well I mean I’ve watched you packing on the weight throughout last semester and I thought it was just so awesome and cool to run into someone else who’s a gainer in real life but I didn’t want to say anything in public because sometimes people are embarrassed are you embarrassed I’m sorry I sometimes get super worked about it but it’s just so incredible to see how big you’ve gotten and…” Maz was taken aback as the blue-haired dragon spoke so energetically, hardly taking a breath or moment to pause and collect himself. Maz had never seen someone speak in one continuous run-on sentence before, but Cinder just seemed so uncontainably excited.

“… and then I saw you wear and new sweatshirt and figured you had outgrown the other and I was thinking wow that must have been another fifty pounds in just a few weeks since the last time I saw you and…” Finally, Cinder caught himself and breathed. “I’m sorry, I’m talking your ear off.”

“No, no,” Maz reassured. “It’s okay...”

“You… You’re just an inspiration,” Cinder said. “An icon, a gaining guru, a binging beast, a…” Cinder caught himself again, taking an intentional breath and slowing down. “I guess what I’m saying is that I didn’t think I’d ever meet someone with the same interests as me; someone who wanted to pack on weight, to get so big and soft and heavy. Because doing that is just so awesome and cool. Watching you inspired me.” Cinder rolled up the bottom of his shirt, revealing a small paunch of ever so slightly stretching scales. Maz didn’t remember his fellow drake having a little potbelly before, but then again, Cinder was usually wearing a large sweatshirt in class during these last few cold months. Despite the fact that Maz was only a few inches taller than the drake and was by no means a towering giant at 5’3”, but the sheer bulk of his boulder of a gut made the small mound of pudge jutting out of Cinder’s middle seemingly insignificant. Still, Maz would have been lying if it wasn’t at least a little bit impressive; it was still a solid fifty or so pounds worth of lard.

“I started working on this bad boy in the middle of last semester, but at the start, I could only put on a pound or two here and there. Then during finals, I was standing in line in the cafeteria and saw you across the room absolutely hounding a burrito and I realized that I needed to embody that mentality: a mentality of gluttony. I just needed to force the food into my body as fast as possible, as often as possible, with as much calorie-dense of food as possible! I was planning to take winter class over break but decided to drop it and instead focused on going to the buffet over on the corner of Tremont and Bolton every day and just stuffing myself with food. My appetite and I guess my capacity slowly expanded and pounds seemed to come with it! I know I’ve got a long way to go but it’s just so cool to have a gut! I couldn’t have done any of it without you as my inspiration and I just wanted to say thank you!”

“Well,” Maz started. “I’m glad you were inspired, but I have to admit I’m not actually, really a gainer per se…”

“Really?” Cinder asked, confused.

“Yeah, this all kind of just… happened…” Maz admitted.

“This wasn’t intentional?”

“Not really…”

“Oh…” Cinder said, his face dropping. Maz felt his heart sink. He didn’t like seeing his friend look so disappointed. He was about to open his mouth again but the blue drake suddenly lit back up. “That’s incredible!”

“What?”

“You were able to pack on all of this weight without trying? That’s so cool! You truly are the Lebron James of gaining!”

“Uh, thanks,” Maz said, blushing with a smile.

“Even if you didn’t try,” Cinder continued. “You must enjoy the weight to some degree, right?”

“I guess…”

“That seems like a yes to me,” Cinder smirked. “I can read people well and I know when someone is holding back. You love it, don’t you?”

“It has some of its perks,” Maz admitted.

“Being so soft and jiggly, like having your own personal masseuse strapped to your frame?”

“Yeah.” Maz unconsciously shifted in his seat, causing his frame to jostle back and forth ever so slightly. Though he may have grown used to the sensation of sloshing fat, he did have to admit, there was something nice about that sensation, especially as no matter how hard he tried, hey couldn’t stop it; it really did feel like another being or a masseuse was working their magic on his bloated scales.

“Being the biggest drake in the room, commanding space and attention?” Cinder continued.

“Yeah,” Maz mused. There was something nice about not only being a little taller than Cinder but being so unequivocally larger than him. More massive. Like the physical presence of more mass on his frame was something to proud of in it of itself; his inherent draconian instincts trying to pierce through millennia of social civilization from those bestial foregone eras.

“Meaty arms that act as pillows?” Cinder continued.

“Yeah,” Maz replied.

“A billowing belly that only wants more and more?”

“Yeah.”

“Can I touch it?”

“What?”

“Sorry, I mean can I, you know,” Cinder said, glancing down toward Maz’s middle. “Rub your belly?”

“Yeah,” Maz huffed nervously. He heard Cinder gasp in excitement and apprehension. The smaller drake slowly reached out his paw and gingerly pressed it against one of Maz’s fat folds before reflexively withdrawing. A second later he pressed the hand against the soft flesh again, lightly at first, as if stroking a porcelain vase before pressing his paw deeper and deeper into the soft flesh.

“Whoa,” Cinder muttered as his hand seemingly disappeared into the malleable mass. “It just keeps going.” An odd sense of pride welled up in Maz who stifled a nervous chuckle. That chuckle quickly turned into a soft moan as Cinder began to knead his digits the blubber. The motions were not as crisp and smooth as Vorax’s belly massages, but Maz could tell the blue-haired drake had some experience, likely with his own growing gut. Maz had to admit, he kind of liked the attention that Cinder was giving him; like he was an object or being to be admired. He had never met anyone who was into being… well… bigger outside of his own brother and well, it was kind of fun concept.

Maz realized that the usual shame and embarrassment he felt about his body was nowhere to be found. He felt safe and comfortable. He was being appreciated for who he was. It felt nice.

“Can you teach me?” Cinder asked.

“Teach you?” Maz replied.

“Yeah. I know you said you aren’t a gainer per se, but you must know how to pack on the pounds. Can you teach me how so that one day I can be as big as you?”

“Uh, sure...” Maz replied. “I guess the uh, first thing is to uh… eat a lot of snacks…”

“Oh perfect, I brought some!” Cinder suddenly jumped up and ran back across the room and grabbed his backpack. He rushed back open, unzipping the back and tossing two family-sized bags of chips onto the couch before hopping back into his place. He quickly opened them, handing one to Maz and eagerly holding one in his lap, waiting for instructions like the overly eager student he appeared to embody. “So do we just stuff ourselves or something?”

“Not exactly,” Maz said, feeling strange describing how he had managed to pack on so much weight, a feat that seemed like it should be shameful but now was being addressed as if it were a coveted skill; an art form. “It’s not necessarily about eating a bunch at one time but eating a steady amount over a period of time. Like eating while playing video games or watching a movie.”

“Ooo we should do that,” Cinder said. “Do you have Jedi: Fallen Order?”

“Yeah! Just got it a few days ago!” Maz said.

“Wanna play?”

“Sure, but shouldn’t we do that assignment?”

“It’s not due until Friday, we’ve got time,” Cinder assured, jumping up and grabbing the controllers from the coffee table before them. “I call Prauf!”

“Fine,” Maz teased with a chuckle. “I guess if I have to be Vader then I will!” The two drakes quickly settled into their seats, controllers in hand. It didn’t take long for Maz to be sucked into the gameplay, focusing on his character’s careful and precision movements on screen. He almost immediately absentmindedly stuck his hand into the bag of chips and grabbed a handful but it was only after his third mouthful that he noticed Cinder copying him out of the corner of his eye. The blue-haired drake was keeping a keen eye on Maz, studying him; taking mental notes. Maz noticed Cinder attempting to take larger and larger handfuls to match the several dozen chips that Maz consistently pulled out and stuffed into his maw, the fried potato crisps sticking out the front of the smaller drake’s mouth as he attempted to chew the morsels.

When Maz inevitably finished his bag and stifled a burp, Cinder took it upon himself to dump the rest of his bag into his open maw before pulling out a second bag of ships and when those were gone, a third bag apiece. Though Maz’s belly was still rumbling as he neared the bottom of the third bag, and secured his third win in a row on screen, he could see Cinder struggling. It was clear that drake was reaching his breaking point. Though a single chip was not very filling, three family-sized bags was no small task for the drake whose eyes were starting droop and who was stifling belches every free moment he could take his hands off his controller.

“Slowing down there?” Maz teased with a nervous chuckle.

“How… *huff… do you… *groan… do it?” Cinder gurgled.

“Just takes some practice, and time,” Maz assured. “You’ll get there though.”

“Thanks, Maz,” Cinder said, leaning his sore, greasy, crumbled-covered cheek up against Maz’s pudgy side:

“Thanks for everything…”