Arro and Rangavar are getting closer to answers about the research facility, but Arro's waistline might prevent him from getting quite as close as Rangavar. The other dragon seems to know a lot more than he's letting on, and Arro knows he needs to catch up. Unless some inanimate objects "catch" him first.

A SFW chapter with a bit of a tease for all my fellow stuckies out there
Y'all should stick (heh) around for chapter 14, my fellow thirsty hoes

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Kill, Marry, Fuck
Chapter 13


Sunlight streamed through the windows. Rangavar was the first to wake up, squinting at the bright light. He tried to roll over, but something soft and warm was preventing him. He became a bit more alert. He was on the couch next to Arro.
Moving softly so that he didn’t wake the larger dragon, he slowly got up and drew the curtain closed over the window. Light was the last thing he needed right now. He went back to the couch, absentmindedly grabbing the bread pan off the floor. There were crumbs everywhere. Did they really eat the whole thing last night? He couldn’t remember eating that much, but there seemed to be a lot of evidence.
He brought it into the kitchen, quietly lowering it into the sink and getting himself a glass of water. He scowled at the window there too, taking a moment to pull the blinds. Too bright. Right now, the sun could go fuck itself.
He sat at the counter drinking water until the Faerian began to stir. Arro, finding himself on the couch, looked over at him sleepily. “I’m so glad I don’t have work today,” he sighed.
“Me too.” Rangavar rose to get more water. He held up a glass to Arro questioningly.
Arro closed his eyes and groaned. “Yes, please.”
Rangavar plopped himself back on the side of the couch, handing one of the glasses to Arro. “How much longer do you think we’ll keep getting the same shifts?”
Arro brought his glass to his mouth. He practically chugged it. When he was done, he held it loosely against his stomach. “What if we’re just supposed to? Work together, I mean.”
“I doubt that. They don’t need three janitors at the same time. They’re gonna rotate us eventually.”
Arro glanced back over at him. “Not janitors. Maintenance.”
Rangavar slumped back on the cushion with a shrug. “They just call us that to make us feel better. We both know what it really is.”
Now it was Arro’s turn to haul himself up on his way to get more water. In the kitchen, he noticed the pan in the sink. “I can’t believe all the bread is gone.”
Rangavar gazed at him with half-closed eyes. “I don’t actually remember eating that much.”
Arro made a noncommittal grunting noise. “How much do you remember from last night?”
“Didn’t we try to outdrink each other?” the Darkal asked. “I think I remember having more than you. That means I won.”
“Other way around, buddy.”
“It doesn’t really matter.”
Arro smirked. “You’re only saying that because you lost.”
Rangavar stretched out a little farther on the couch. The other cushion was warm where Arro had been lying. “You know, if they start putting us on different shifts, we won’t get to check out the lab together anymore. We’ll be on our own.”
Arro raised a brow at him. “When did you become interested?”
“In what?”
The other dragon made air quotes. “My ‘conspiracy theories’.”
Rangavar frowned at him. “It’s not that I believe your ‘conspiracy theories’, but I am starting to wonder what those weapons were for.” He knew damn well what they were ‘for’, but had no idea what they were doing on Karraden.
Arro came back over with a new glass of water. “I think we can find out, if we work together at this point, like when we originally checked out that storage room.”
Rangavar realized he’d taken over the couch. He scooted over so Arro could sit back down.
The Faerian took a long drink. Then he said, “Hopefully we’ll find out before we’re split up for different shifts.”
Rangavar took another sip of his own glass absentmindedly. “Yeah. Before we’re split up for different shifts.”


Two days later, Arro grumbled angrily to himself as he picked up trash around the perimeter of the building. Was it really too much to ask for people to just throw their own shit away? The answer was ‘apparently’.
He checked the time on his wristband. It was almost time for a break, and then he’d get to meet up with Rangavar. As it turned out, they were sent to work on separate sides of the research facility, Jethe only checking up on them from time to time. Arro could sense an end to their training looming near.
He fanned his wings a bit as the hot sun beat down on him. Regardless of what he and Rangavar did during their break, he could really use one right now.
He found the Darkal waiting for him when he finally got the all clear from Jethe. He wiped the sweat off his forehead as he approached.
“Fuck this,” Arro panted, gesturing at the trash bags he’d unceremoniously dumped outside of the building, where Jethe would have him cart them off later. “ ‘Work your way up’ my ass.”
“What?”
Arro crossed his arms. “That’s what they told me. After spending a little time as maintenance, I’d get to a higher position. I’m starting to think they were full of shit, though.”
“Ohh. Sorry, I… it sounded like you said something else.”
“Huh?”
Rangavar pressed his lips together and looked away. “Nothing.”
Arro frowned.
“You can technically still leave any time,” Rangavar pointed out. “I’m here because I need to be. But you’re here because of your weird Glitara obsession.”
Arro crossed his arms. “It’s not ‘weird’ to wonder why they’re packing the building full of weapons, and it’s not an ‘obsession’.”
Rangavar shrugged. “Sure.” He didn’t sound convinced.
Arro looked around. “What if this time, we inspect the outside of the building? I kind of want to go behind that back corner Jethe always steers us away from.”
The smaller dragon put his paw on his chin thoughtfully. “Sure. Why not.”
It turned out the back corner, behind some of the labs, was suspiciously guarded by a chain-link fence. Fortunately, there didn’t seem to be any menacing barbed wire at the top.
Arro flattened his ears. “Well, this plan sucked.”
Rangavar studied it thoughtfully. “Why? We could just hop over.”
Spreading his arms, Arro gestured at his massive belly. “Do I look like the kind of dragon who ‘just hops’?” He looked around the area. “Maybe that’ll work for you, but I’d have to find another way.”
“Are you sure you can’t just… like, TRY to climb it?”
Arro eyed it doubtfully. “Even if I could, what if I accidentally, uh, bent it out of shape? You know…”
They both knew.
“Let’s skip the fenced area for now and come back later,” Rangavar suggested. “There are other places around this back section of the lab building.”
“Hmm, okay.” It didn’t seem like they had much of a choice.
As it turned out, Rangavar had been right about the fence eventually ending. Several windows were close to the ground. The two dragons realized that they were windows into a basement.
“I didn’t even know there was a basement.”
Rangavar shrugged. “Me neither, but I don’t find it that surprising. A big building like this really should have one.”
Arro looked at them thoughtfully. “You don’t think it’s weird that they apparently have an entire basement that Jethe never asks us to clean?”
Rangavar paused. “Okay, yeah, I guess that is kind of weird.”
The larger Faerian stood back as they decided Rangavar, being obviously flatter to the ground, would army-crawl up to the windows and make sure nobody was inside to notice them poke around.
He wriggled in the dirt, pushing himself forward, while Arro stood closer to the trees. The trees that could be seen encircling the building from the front, actually turned into genuine woods out back. There was only a short band of grass in between the woods and the building.
Rangavar stopped when he got to the glass and pricked his ears curiously, peering inside. He turned back to Arro and gave a thumbs-up. “All clear.”
Arro cautiously plodded over. They looked through the window together. The lab on the other side appeared relatively clean; certainly no impressive weapons displayed all over the tables or anything. “Should we even bother checking out any of these other windows? I’m way more intrigued by the area protected by a fence than these plain labs where there’s nothing to see.”
Rangavar stood back up and brushed himself off. Little blades of grass stuck to his gray scales. “I think you’re right. There’s no reason to risk sneaking around back here for no reason.”
It was several minutes later when they inspected the fence again. Arro looked for some sort of gate. There didn’t seem to be one, though. It wasn’t meant to be entered. It was clearly just meant as protection. From what, he couldn’t tell.
“What if I just, like… gave you a boost?”
Arro raised a brow at him, eyeing the significantly scrawnier dragon with a frown. “I can think of a few reasons that wouldn’t work.”
Rangavar stretched his wings a little, trying to look bigger. He didn’t. It was sort of adorable. Wait, adorable? Arro rubbed his head. He was sure that wasn’t the word he’d been looking for.
“I’ll just…” Rangavar faltered for a second, looking unsure. But then he seemed to sharpen his resolve. “If I help push you up, maybe you won’t bend the fence as much.”
Arro gestured down at himself again. “I’m too big,” he said bluntly. He’d only just begun convincing Rangavar he wasn’t about to kill him. He didn’t want to prove himself wrong with his butt. “You know what? Why don’t YOU climb over, and tell me what you see.”
Rangavar blinked. “Huh. Yeah, I guess that works. You’d just stand out here, though?”
Nodding affirmatively, Arro added, “It’s better than not checking it out at all.”
He stood back and watched as the Darkal nimbly climbed the fence, his little black claws wrapping around the wires as he pulled himself up. The fence shook, but fortunately didn’t make too much noise as he swung his legs over the top and dropped down to the other side.
He slowly and carefully crawled towards the nearest window, like he’d done before. His tail swished back and forth over the grass. He had his head flat to the ground, only two of his jagged black horns jutting up to give him away. Arro wished he could be that stealthy. He didn’t have much of a ‘stealth’ body.
Rangavar slowed as he approached the window. He finally peeked, and was still for a long moment.
Arro wanted to ask ‘Well?’ but something about it didn’t feel right. The Darkal was too still, staring too intently into the room. Arro shifted his feet with growing impatience. Maybe mixed with a bit of concern.
Finally, without speaking, Rangavar began to shimmy backwards away from the window.
Arro figured it was time to ask. “What did you see?”
Rangavar didn’t answer as he scurried back over the fence. He grimaced as he dropped down. “Just… more of those weapons. A lot more.”
The larger dragon sensed that he wasn’t telling him everything. “And?”
The Darkal seemed to think for a moment. He wouldn’t look at Arro. “And like, other science-y things. Tubes and stuff.”
“That doesn’t sound so weird,” he said carefully.
Rangavar seemed distracted, but just shrugged. “I guess not.”
Frowning down at his wristband, Arro wanted to probe him for the real reason he was shaken, but supposed he’d have to wait in suspense. Their break was just about over. “Okay. Fine. Let’s go back before anyone notices we’re gone.”
He cast one last glance back at the chain-link fence as they began to walk away. Maybe he would have to find his own way inside.


“Today, we’re going to learn how to do small repairs, such as locks.”
Flicking his ears a little, Rangavar looked around, feeling distracted by what he’d seen earlier. He had a lot of other stuff to think about. He didn’t want to be doing this.
Jethe led them through a bunch of twists and turns down the hallways. It was a minute before Rangavar perked up. They were headed towards that storage room at the back of the building. He wondered if Jethe would finally show them what was inside. Shit. We’ll have to act surprised.
Their trainer finally stopped when they reached the door. Rangavar had been right.
Well, mostly right.
Without turning to look at them, Jethe grabbed the edge of the door and pushed and pulled for a second, showing them that it wasn’t closing correctly. With a sinking feeling, Rangavar vaguely remembered having to tug to get it closed the other day. He hadn’t thought anything of it at the time.
Shit shit shit.
He could feel Arro struck with realization at the same time.
Jethe turned back to look at them. “This is the other half of our job. We don’t just keep the building clean and running. We have to fix things like this on occasion.” He didn’t take his eyes away from them. “The tumbler is bent out of shape. It’s a bit odd. I’m not sure how something like that could happen.”
Rangavar stood stiffly as Jethe stared at them. Maybe it was Rangavar’s imagination, but the blank stare seemed to carry on just a moment too long.
The pale dragon turned back to the door. “Take out your tools, and I’ll show you what to do.”
The whole time, Jethe didn’t open the door wide enough to enter, and he stood casually on the inside of the door, blocking most of what was behind him from view. Rangavar pretended not to notice or think it was weird in any way. He hoped Arro was doing the same, but didn’t dare share a glance with him.
Fortunately, nothing else out of the ordinary happened. When they were done, Jethe pulled the door shut. The lock clicked. “There. Good.” He waved a paw at it. “You’ll have to do stuff like that from time to time.”
“Got it,” Arro nodded. Rangavar could sense his heart beating fast.
Throughout all of it, he hadn’t picked up much emotion from Jethe. Certainly nothing negative. Rangavar breathed lightly in relief, glad that was over. Nothing bad had happened. Their trainer beckoned them down the hall, and they followed.
At the end of their shift, much later, the sun was turning red as it set in the sky. Arro began to walk towards the transport.
Rangavar gulped nervously. “You know, I think I’m going to stay late.”
Arro looked at him curiously. “Why?”
It was the question he’d been afraid of. “I just, want to go talk to Jethe, I guess,” he lied. “Because of what happened earlier, you know?”
Arro pressed his index fingers together. “Yeah, true. We can’t be so careless next time.” He was giving Rangavar a hard look. It was nice of him not to state the obvious, that it was Rangavar who needed to be more careful.
The Darkal felt the urge to apologize, but stopped himself. None of that mattered right now in comparison to what he was about to do. “You can just go home, okay? I’ll be back later.”
The Faerian gave him an odd look. “Yeah, okay. I’ll go… home.”
It wasn’t until he walked away that Rangavar realized what he’d said. He smacked his forehead, glad the Faerian wasn’t around to see him blush.
Home. He’d fucking said ‘home’ instead of ‘my house.’ It wasn’t Arro’s home. His scales felt hot. He wondered what Arro must think about all the dumb shit he says.
He was still glowering as he marched back around the other side of the building. He kept close to the trees, but fortunately no one else was around as employees filed home for the day. He stopped in front of the fence. Indoors, he’d discreetly been keeping an eye out all day for any suspicious doorways that looked like they might lead downstairs, but hadn’t seen any. So to the window it was.
As he climbed the fence, he mulled over how lucky he was that Arro had decided to stay behind earlier. Even if he did see what was inside, though, he wouldn’t have understood.
Rangavar pressed his nose up to the window and peeked again. All of the lights were off, but his heightened vision cut through the dark. There were weapons lined up across one wall. That was true. On the other side of the room was a tube-like glass cylinder.
It wasn’t exactly glass, Rangavar knew. It was similar, but it was a substance that came from Glitara. They would have had to transport here. It sat upon a metallic platform, the two sealed together. There was what looked like a control panel in front, sporting several buttons and a screen.
The glass case itself seemed pretty unremarkable. It went up to the ceiling. It was empty. It looked a bit narrow, but large enough to fit a person inside.
Rangavar certainly knew that.


The fat Faerian dug through his hip bag with increasing frustration. He thought he’d asked Rangavar for the key, but felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach as he rummaged around. It just wasn’t there.
He sighed. Who knew when the other dragon would be back? He had a feeling he knew what Rangavar had wanted to talk to Jethe about. They’d gotten very lucky today that Jethe hadn’t said anything more about that storage room, although even Arro had picked up on how suspicious he was. Nobody had to be telepathic to sense that.
The stupid lock. Arro frowned, thinking. He needed to do something about the lock right in front of him, too.
He looked at the door. But were there other ways to get in, weren’t there? He thought about the huge window on the back of the house. He looked out at the street uncertainly. No one was around to see him.
He shook his head to himself. He knew better than to let his thoughts go where they were headed. He couldn’t possibly fit through a window. He knew he was fat. He self-consciously wrapped his arms around his belly and squeezed it.
No one was around to see him.
He shook his head again. No. He didn’t dare. He leaned back against the front door, shutting his eyes and sighing.
No one was around to see him.
He opened his eyes. It wouldn’t do any harm to just look at the window. He hadn’t really inspected the outside of the house before. What was wrong with just looking around? Not that he’d try to climb in. Unless it just so happened the window was huuuuge, of course.
Arro tried to push that thought away, too. He looked down at his massive waistline. He couldn’t see his feet. Only layers upon layers of fat.
The sides of the house were a pleasant shade of yellow. It was small, but it was cute. All of the houses around it were identical except for color, but none of them were crowded closely enough together that the small community looked boring. And the back window really was huge, it turned out. That was good.
Wait. What was ‘good’ about that? It’s not like he was going to climb in.
Arro pressed his nose to the window to look inside. There wasn’t furniture or anything in the way. He could see the living room. He wished he was in it.
He looked down at his belly. He was really fat.
He looked at the window. It was really big.
He groaned, paralyzed with indecision.
I can’t believe I’m even debating this. He put his paw on his chin.
The window was really big though.
Arro put his paws underneath the bottom. It was probably locked anyway. But when he pushed, the window slid open. Hmm. He pushed more. The pane of glass slid open all the way to the top, leaving the entire bottom half of the window wide open.
Arro took another look around the yard behind him, that separated the back of this house from the back of other houses.
No one was around to see him.
He sighed, and braced his paws on the window sill. The opening was huge. Was he really bigger than the entire massive window? That would be pretty pathetic. There was no way he could possibly be bigger than that.
Pushing down on the sill, he hauled himself up. His thick arms pushed him forwards so that his chest slid inside. He felt the sides of the window graze his shoulders, but not tightly. The top wasn’t touching his back or anything. After all, the window was huge.
He adjusted himself so that his arms were out ahead of him, inside the house. He braced his paws against the inner walls and pushed forwards again. His overhanging gut was caught on the outside of the house, but he could fix that by wriggling a bit. There was too much of it between his legs and the side of the house though, so both legs were lifted off the ground. He let his chubby-but-muscular arms do the pushing instead. The ‘heavy lifting’, one might say.
It wasn’t until he got to the roundest part of his gut that he felt a bit pinched. The window was getting tighter around his sides. The top of the window above him had gone from grazing his back to pushing down more firmly now. He just needed to wriggle a little more to get his gut over the bottom of the window sill. It was definitely a bit uncomfortable.
He frowned. There was no way he was really that fat. No way. The window was huge.
I knew this was a bad fucking idea. He felt stupid. With a sigh, he began to push himself out. His belly bunched up beneath him, and he shimmied to get it back outside. Since it was too massive to let his feet touch the ground, though, he couldn’t get any traction there. He didn’t have anything to push against.
It took another minute of squirming to actually start feeling scared. He really didn’t have anything to strain against. His hind paws couldn’t reach the ground, lifted up by his belly. His belly was in the way of planting them against the outside of the house. He began to turn bright red. He reached down and gripped the part of his belly that was inside the window with his arms. It was plugging the hole.
He wanted to cry. Why couldn’t he just stop eating? He’d done this to himself. Too fat to fit through the world’s largest window. He started thrashing more violently, knowing it wouldn’t help. He was just mad. He thrashed until he exhausted himself, and then hung there, half through the window, defeated.
With a sinking feeling, Arro realized that he’d just have to wait for Rangavar to return. He felt humiliated at the thought of the smaller dragon finding him like this. Vaugh dammit. The tears finally came.


Much like the window at home, the window to the lab wasn’t locked either. Rangavar supposed it didn’t have to be locked when it was guarded by a fence. The opening was small, but the Darkal was slender enough to drop inside through the small rectangle.
He curiously brushed his claws over the smooth surfaces of the weapons on the walls as he walked around the room. At the bottom of the long, tube-like barrels, he could feel that the wraith cannons had some weigh to them. Why were they loaded? He could think of only one reason they’d be loaded.
He next turned to the glass case on the left. He quietly padded over to peer at the control panel in front of the glass-like case. Next to the dark screen, he saw a tiny plaque with some writing and a photo of a Gemian printed on it. The Gemian in the photo had kind eyes, and was smiling a bit. It made Rangavar feel a bit sad. The glass case was empty now.
He suddenly jumped as he felt an aura coming quickly his way.
He frowned. It was Jethe’s.
What was he still doing here? Rangavar didn’t know why he’d stayed so late, but wasn’t going to wait and find out. He ran back towards the back wall, pressing off with his foot to leap for the window. He grabbed the edge, hauled himself up, and scrambled through it as Jethe reached the doorknob outside the room. The chain-link fence shook as he climbed it, the metallic sound the only hint of his presence as he ran to the woods and disappeared.