Arro leaps at the chance to explore the mysterious research facility where he's been hired, but eating too many donuts may get in the way.
Rangavar is horrified by completely platonic cuddling, but his day may only get worse as Arro's eating problems suddenly become his problem.

A SFW chapter, but a little treat for all you other "stuckies" out there~

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Kill, Marry, Fuck
Chapter 8


Sunlight streamed in through the windows. When Arro opened his eyes, he noticed a soft pressure on his side.
The Darkal was still asleep on him.
Arro tried to stay very, very still, watching the smaller dragon rise and fall with Arro’s breathing. He’d unconsciously snuggled deeper against Arro sometime during the night, his knees drawn towards his chest and head lolling on Arro’s plush belly.
He knew if he tried to get up, he’d wake him. But he wondered if it would actually be that much better to let the dragon wake up on his own. Just a few days ago, he’d taken off running from Arro in terror at even being in the same room. Well, under slightly different circumstances, of course.
As Arro lay trying to decide, the Darkal began to stir. Evidently, the choice would be made for him.
When Rangavar opened his eyes, Arro felt him stiffen against his mass. Realizing where he was, the Darkal’s eyes flung open and he pushed himself backwards— perhaps not noticing he was already on the edge of the bed, and he toppled over the side, landing heavily.
Arro winced. “Sorry, when I noticed you fell asleep on me, I wasn’t sure if I should wake you up or not.”
Rangavar lay on the floor with his knees still over the edge of the bed. He groaned. “Well, I’m sorry for falling asleep on you.” He slowly began to push himself up, rubbing his shoulders, while Arro looked on apologetically.
Rangavar stretched his back sorely. “I have to go to work today. And I’ll get to pick up that wristband on the way back here, and they’d better not fuck around this time.”
“I was supposed to go to work today too.” Arro leaned over the edge of the bed, peering down. “They told me the custom uniform would be ready. I feel kind of bad about not going.”
Rangavar picked himself up from the floor and stretched, flexing his wings. “Well, it means you get to enjoy your last day here. I have to get ready to go.”
As the Darkal headed into the shower room, Arro put his paw on his chin, thinking over his words. It was his last day here. What did he want to do with it? He looked around the sparse hotel room, the only sign of their presence being Arro’s hip bag and the disturbingly large amount of empty donut boxes.
He’d have the morning to himself since Rangavar would be at work. Well, other than having to field off calls from his wristband all day as his employers wondered why the hefty Faerian hadn’t shown up. It was a shame, really, since the reason he’d gone the first time was to learn about Glitara, but he’d been so focused on not getting fired all day that he hadn’t had the time to poke around.
Wait.
Arro stared down at his paws. If he was going to leave for home tonight, he didn’t have to worry about getting fired.


Rangavar heard the door to the shower room open on the other side of the curtain, despite the running water. Instead of standing directly under it, he always just wet a towel and scrubbed himself down. He hated the feeling of water pouring on his head. “Just a second,” he growled distractedly.
“Is it okay if I just use the sink for a second?” Arro called from the other side of the curtain.
“Oh, yeah, sure.” He’d thought the Faerian wanted to shower.
He heard the hiss of the much lighter water stream while he finished up and turned off his own torrent. He pulled back the curtain to grab a dry towel. He paused with his paw reaching for it as he observed Arro twisting and turning to observe himself in the mirror with the sink still running.
Even if Rangavar weren’t telepathic, the large Faerian was visibly distraught. He was pinching his side-rolls, pouting at his reflection, turning to observe the overhanging curve of his gut. He lifted the giant mass in his arms, then let it flop back down over his thighs. It rested heavily and jiggled when he patted it.
He turned to look at the other side— and ended up facing Rangavar. He froze, his mouth open, appalled to see the smaller dragon studying him.
Rangavar finished snatching the dry towel and flung it over his shoulder, rubbing it back and forth over his furry wings. He tried to look like seeing Arro’s big belly wasn’t a big deal, because it wasn’t. “What?”
Arro was blushing furiously. “I thought you were in the shower.”
“Yeah, and now I’m not.”
Then, the unexpected happened. Arro burst into tears.
Rangavar didn’t know what to do. It was crazy to think that this dragon had actually tried to murder him a few days ago. At first, he’d suspected that Arro was merely a bit incompetent. Now, Rangavar was starting to think the fat Faerian wasn’t even murderer material. The Darkal actually felt a bit bad for him.
Wait, no. I’m supposed to hate this guy. Even as he thought it, though, he had to admit to himself that he didn’t really. He had at first, of course, but now realized ‘hate’ might be too strong a word. He wasn’t really sure what had taken its place. Maybe just a sort of vague anger and distrust.
“You must think I’m so pathetic,” the Faerian sobbed. He hugged his belly. “I’m absolutely huge. I can’t stop eating. Can’t wear clothes. Can’t fit on a bed without taking over the whole thing. And you’ve seen how I stuff myself—helped me, even. Vaugh, you had to physically remove me from a chair the other night.” He covered his face with his paws.
Rangavar dropped his wet towel to the floor. “It was a booth, actually.”
The Faerian started to cry harder, so he supposed it was the wrong thing to say.
He started over. “Look. There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s not a personality trait.” He gestured vaguely at Arro’s figure. “You’re a person who just also happens to be fat. It’s no different than being tall, or being pink. Er, pale-red, I mean.”
Arro sniffled, and was quiet a long moment. “Why are you being nice to me?” he finally asked. “You should want to see me suffer.”
Rangavar crossed his arms. “I never said you shouldn’t suffer, I just think it shouldn’t be about something as non-problematic as being fat.” Okay, wow, that came out cruel. “I mean, you should definitely feel bad about… what you did. But I’m having trouble understanding why you’re feeling bad about your weight.”
Arro rubbed one of his pudgy arms, self-consciously trying to fold his wings around himself to hide his body from view. They curved over the shape of his side-rolls, but weren’t even close to covering his protruding belly.
He sniffled again, but calmer this time. “I notice it everywhere I go. People point it out, or make a huge deal of not-pointing-it-out, or don’t even think twice about making fun of me. I just feel like shit.”
“Well, stop doing that.”
Arro furrowed his brow. “Doing what?”
“Feeling like shit.” Rangavar kicked the towel off to the side distractedly. “If you don’t know those people, you don’t have to give a fuck what they think.”
A small smile finally appeared as Arro wiped beneath his eyes with the back of a paw. “Heh. I wish it was that easy.”
Rangavar moved to leave the bathroom and shrugged. “No reason it can’t be.”
The moment he went to leave the bathroom, however, it came to his attention that the sink Arro was standing at was too close to the door, and he wouldn’t be able to squeeze by without asking the larger Faerian to move. That was a bit of bad timing.
He changed direction and leaned on the sink instead, trying to look casual.
“You can’t get out because of my fat ass, can you.”
Now it was Rangavar’s turn to blush awkwardly. As his scales turned a darker shade of gray, he refused to meet Arro’s eyes. “Okay, yeah. Sorry.”
“It doesn’t help when you do that, you know.”
Rangavar looked back up at his face. “What?”
“When you specifically look anywhere else except at my fat.”
“Oh, uh, sorry.” His eyes sank down to his potbelly, then sank towards the floor.
“You’re doing it again.”
Rangavar scowled up at him. “What do you want from me? To stare?”
Arro sighed. “Just… nothing.” He turned off the sink. “Ugh. I’m just going to shower now, okay?”
“Yeah.” Rangavar pressed into the wall to let the Faerian pass. It was a bit of a tight squeeze, but he pressed himself against the side of the sink, and Arro made it to the shower without incident.
Rangavar was mentally preparing himself for the day when the Faerian emerged. He was rubbing the back of his head at the base of his horns. “Hey, uhhh…” He shifted his feet, his belly swaying back and forth with the motion. He didn’t seem to notice. “Do you want to walk together? On our way to the transport, I mean.”
The Darkal stared. “You’re going back to the research facility?”
“Oh, right.” Arro looked away. “About that…”
“Didn’t you promise to leave me alone?” Even as he said it, though, Rangavar realized he actually didn’t actually care whether or not the large Faerian was around. “You know what, that’s fine. I know you’ve become obsessed with Glitara for some reason.”
“I’m not ‘obsessed’,” he protested. “I just realized this morning that since I’m leaving tonight anyway, I can do whatever I want there. I don’t have to worry about being fired or something. I can look around where I want and figure out what they’re really studying.” He narrowed his eyes at the smaller Darkal. “Unless you do know, and just aren’t telling me? Is there a reason you wanted to come all the way to Karraden for work?”
Rangavar rolled his eyes. “I’ve had exactly two shifts, you think I’ve had time to learn anything ‘odd’?”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Ugh.” Rangavar waved a paw. “No, I don’t know what they’re studying.” The truth was, he’d had a hunch this whole time, but he wasn’t going to bring it up to the big Faerian. It was a little far-fetched. He thought he’d been hiding it rather well. He didn’t know why Arro would suddenly bring that up. “Now let’s go then, I’m going to be late.”
“We’d both be late; we have the same shift,” Arro reminded him, his paw on the doorknob. “I guess the training guy is here ‘til nightfall, so he’s going to work both of us at once.”
“Great,” Rangavar sighed. “Looks like we’re stuck together all day.”


The Darkal turned away as Arro began to squeeze into his custom-made uniform. Rangavar’s own uniform fit well. The sleeves were slightly poofy the way the material bunched up on his arms, but the straight legs of his pants fit smoothly.
He leaned one paw on the wall and the other on his hip as he listened to the rustling of fabric behind him and Arro’s labored breathing.
Their trainer for the day, a pale gray Faerian of a slightly shorter stature than Arro, was trying to help the much larger Faerian. “The zipper isn’t stuck, you just need to suck in again.”
“No, I’m pretty sure it’s stuck.” The sound of Arro’s voice cut through the sounds of the straining fabric. “I was just fitted for this a few days ago.”
The gray Faerian, Jethe, sounded doubtful. “Well, either they measured you wrong, or you’ve gotten fatter.” Rangavar could feel his increasing impatience.
He could also feel a spike in Arro’s embarrassment. The Darkal finally turned around. “Can’t he just leave the jacket unzipped or something?”
As he said it, the zipper finally slid up over the expansive swell of fat. Arro finally released his breath. His rolls sagged harder into the fabric, testing its limits, but it held.
“Ah.” The much smaller Faerian leaned back, crossing his arms with satisfaction. “There it goes.”
Arro was still a bit red in the face as the three left the small storeroom where the lockers with their uniforms were kept. Rangavar adjusted his utility belt around his waist. It fit him well, but since he wasn’t used to carrying things in the physical world, the pouches felt huge and heavy. He cast a side glance at Arro, who seemed satisfied with his own. The nice thing about the Faerian finally having his belt sized correctly meant that it wasn’t straining hard against the last notch like it had been the other day.
As their shift wore on, Rangavar could feel his training partner grow increasingly antsy as he looked for a chance to ditch their trainer and poke around the facility. Unfortunately, Jethe was relentless, showing them the ins and outs of upkeeping the labs without taking a break.
What, do people just dump shit all over the floor every day? Rangavar wondered grumpily. He wasn’t sure what went on in the labs, but the floors seemed fine to him.
The much fatter of the trainees, Arro, kept pausing to stretch his back and wipe sweat off his brow. Straightening up for the millionth time, he arched his back, and unconsciously leaned over on the mop.
Snap.
Arro stumbled as the twig of a pole gave out. The bottom half toppled to the floor, the top still clenched in his paw.
Their trainer sighed. “There’s a closet down the hall with extra mops. Rangavar, go grab one.”
The Darkal had been ignoring the whole thing while continuing his work. Now he glanced up, leaning on his own mop. “What? Why me?”
Jethe jabbed a thumb towards Arro. “I’m not sure the big guy will be able to get into the closet, it’s just a narrow one for supplies.”
“No, I’ll get it, it’s my fault,” said Arro quickly. “I’m not— I mean, I don’t want to let my size get in the way of things.”
Their trainer put a paw on his chin. “Hmmm, okay. But take the Darkal with you, just in case.”
Rangavar put down his mop and cast a glare towards Arro, but the fat Faerian didn’t seem to notice. Rangavar felt he was actually a bit relieved for some reason.
As they exited the room, he explained why. “This might finally be my chance to go wander around. Say I got lost, or something.”
“Uh.” Rangavar pointed at himself. “Why would Jethe think you got lost, if we’re walking together, but I’m the only one who comes back with the mop?”
Arro flattened his ears. “Oh, right.” He hung his head with a frustrated sigh.
The storage closet wasn’t hard to find. Their trainer had been right, though, it was pretty narrow. Rangavar looked Arro up and down. His shoulders might fit through if he squeezed, but the rest of him… “Okay, I’ll just grab it real quick.”
The door swung into the room. It was slightly larger than an average ‘closet’, large enough to physically walk into, but not quite long enough to be considered a walk-in closet.
The mops were resting on a shelf far over the Darkal’s head when he spotted them. He looked around for something to stand on, but there didn’t seem to be anything. “Uh…” For a brief moment, he considered trying to magic them down, but decided against it. He didn’t think Jethe would appreciate an entire armful of shattered mops on top of the one Arro had already broken.
“Hey, Arro?” Rangavar asked hesitantly. “They’re too high up.”
“What?” Arro turned sideways and put his head and one shoulder through the narrow doorway, a bump from his potbelly pushing the door a little farther into the room. “Oh, I think I can reach, if I just scoot in a little.” He started to wriggle his wide frame through the doorway, his rotund gut bumping the door in farther and his fat eventually squishing past the edge of it.
Rangavar tried to back away as the Faerian strained his body deeper into the space, trying to give him more room, but found he couldn’t as his back thumped against the wall. Arro’s fatty but well-muscled tree trunk of an arm brushed over his head as the tall Faerian easily plucked one of the mops from the shelf.
The Darkal was still pressed up against the wall, the Faerian’s massive form taking up the rest of the space. “Thanks, let’s go.”
Arro backed up, the edge of the door digging into his fat belly. As he backed out, it pulled the door closed on him, which made the opening too small. Starting to turn red, he put his paw on the door and tried to push the edge out of the fat where it was caught.
Rangavar sighed as he tried to look anywhere else.
“Fuck,” Arro hissed between clenched teeth. The Darkal’s eyes shifted back to see that the edge of the door was wedged too tightly into his roll to be moved back aside. “Sorry, I think I have to come in a little farther to swing the door off my stomach.”
Rangavar eyed the door doubtfully. “I’m not really sure that’ll—”
Before he finished, Arro pushed farther into the room. Rangavar put his arms out in front of him as the Faerian’s protruding pile of pudge pushed into him. He was already against the wall, so he didn’t have room to back away from the round, incoming mass.
“Sorry. Just a sec,” Arro grunted as he pulled the door past his squished belly to free it. The door did go into the room slightly farther, but it only wedged harder against the surplus of fat, sinking deeply into the adipose, and refused to move after that. The Faerian started backing out again, but was ground to a halt even quicker this time as the door dug in even tighter.
After jerking against the door a few times and watching it merely pulled closed by his fat again and again, he stopped. “Uh…”
Exasperated, Rangavar went to smack his forehead, but found that his arms were pinned up between his chest and Arro’s belly, his palms sinking into layers upon layers of pudge. “Oh, wow, that was a great idea, it worked spectacularly.” He squirmed a little, but he was pressed pretty hard against the wall. “I’m really glad I’m not claustrophobic.”
Arro was panting from exertion, feeling mortified but trying not to show it. He was squished pretty tightly from all sides, except for the bit of his hip still in the hallway, but he tried to wriggle a little. “Maybe—”
“No,” Rangavar growled. “Whatever you’re about to try, don’t do it, you’ll only make it worse. You’re already crushing me to death in here.” He sighed, resigning himself to his fate. “We’ll just have to wait for the maintenance guy to come looking for us.”