Devils and Details pt.4 (Patreon)

contains gas, wg, trisksy deals! 

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Argyle swallowed and let out a breath of relief. He’d enjoyed the ride home and all, the sandwich was excellent and not having to do the driving was a pleasant change of pace that let him try to catch up on what he’d just seen and what might come of it. Finding a proper meal waiting when he arrived though? That was icing on an already decadent cake.

He hadn’t actually gotten to the cake yet – there was cake, he could see it waiting under one of those little glass covers, but the wolf was still greedily stuffing himself with all the salted pork and buttered rolls he could get into his face at the moment. Every other bite of it Argyle stopped to shudder in pleasure as it scoured all memory of bad coffee and stale donuts from his mind. 

“Mnf’so what now?”

There wasn’t an immediate answer from the squirrel poised near the dinner tray, which Argyle had no notion of where he’d acquired. Lewis was busy reviewing the video for the umpteenth time since he’d been given the phone, staring with unblinking eyes of gold and an expressionless face.

“Now I adjust this little event and its natural conclusions. It’s easier to work with long repeated actions, and this qualifies. The broad strokes of the situation remain the same, but it will have happened earlier in your career.”

Argyle took a small detour from his haphazard stuffing to get a little more technical, though just a little. Tucking some of the pork into one of the rolls and then stuffing a few of the steamed vegetables in with it to make a haphazard slider of sorts. He didn’t quite remember to ask his next question before digging in, not that his chef seemed to mind.

“Anf that changes things now.”

Swallowing, Argyle looked up with a raised eyebrow – and a curious glance around the apartment. He didn’t see anything different – but would he even be able to tell?

“It will be a gradual adjustment but yes. Your position now will alter to reflect the changed course of events with Marshall’s fall from grace and the steady decay of his power. The same thing would happen now if you used the evidence in that fashion, this just extends it and a few other things – our association for example – backwards a decade or so.”

That brooked a raised eyebrow from the wolf, a little sliver of worry had crept into him that he cursed himself for not thinking of earlier. One that was potent enough to make his stomach twist just a little.

“…And the state of the contract?”

Lewis appeared to have been expecting that question. 

“Remains as it is now. I am forbidden from altering it after all, and furthermore cannot lie to you – per your own stipulations.”

Argyle let that thought roll around his head for a moment, but nothing about it was incorrect. He had worked that into the contract, and from what he’d gleaned on the side working with it over so many years he was fairly sure that the point about a fiend not being able to change the rules of their own deal was legitimate as well. That set his mind, if not his stomach, at ease as he polished off the tiny sandwich and began making another with one hand while reaching for his wine glass with the other.

“Alright, so th-hwooarph-”

The wolf reeled forward and shut his eyes against a stinging cloud he’d released. The potent mix of salt and spices from the meat escaping him in a saturated haze left Argyle tensed up and quiet for a moment. After that he had to reach up and rub at his eyes with his sleeve, coughing once before he leaned back. 

That brief setback left Argyle leaning heavily back in his chair, which resulted in a soft popping sound followed by a ‘zing’ – and then the sight of a small beige object landing in his wine and floating there. An object that turned out to be a button, which is what finally prompted Argyle to look down. He’d felt like his belt was a little tight lately, felt like the seatbelt dug in a bit more than it should, but all that he chalked up to just eating better than usual and he’d assumed he could dial things back once he’d indulged a little and gotten it out of his system.

What he was looking at now was not a small bit of pudge packed on, the wolf was looking at a small gut protruding from under his shirt, which had ridden up enough to expose some of its gray expanse and had of course popped a button in doing so. His belt was nowhere to be seen. 

“W-what the?!”

Argyle’s breathing sped up, which left him dumbfounded as he could swear the belly got a little fuller with each rapid inhale. He couldn’t stop prodding at it, the soft give of the thickening padding, which he could already feel starting to fill out his pants a bit more than it ought to. Shakily, Argyle reached for the wine and took a large drink – before aggravatedly spitting out a button.

“Oh, come on! That – this – this isn’t okay! It-”

Lewis’ expression was predictably unreadable. Argyle couldn’t remember more than a handful of times he’d ever seen the squirrel’s face anything but passive and impartial. What was a trifle disturbing was he could remember that face in a lot of places he shouldn’t have been able to across his memories.

“It is the natural result of a comfortable, indulgent lifestyle and a relatively low activity one. You have a desk job, sir. If you eat like this every day it catches up with you.”

There was a moment of panic where Argyle kicked away from the table and tried to physically escape what he was seeing happen to himself, but it was something the wolf wrestled under control quickly. Not that it stopped the swelling, he still had one hand clutched around his belly and could feel it spreading outward. 

“That – you really had me eating like this every day for a decade?”

That artful raise of a single eyebrow began Lewis’ answer as he put one hand to the cart with the dessert tray.

“It would be more accurate to say you never saw fit to ask me to stop, sir. If it’s truly distressing you so much we can always perform a similar adjustment once this one has run its course – it is too dangerous to try and engage another until then.”

As Argyle’s shirt continued to peel away upward, complete with losing a second button which lodged itself in a dinner roll, the wolf found himself growing increasingly irritated, frustrated, maybe just a little fearful as he fumbled with the zipper on his pants when they started to become truly painful to leave on. He hated that the way his ass settled outward when freed of its constraints felt more than a little good, and that his belly was still churning and felt decidedly not full.

“That – this is… if I order you to change this now-”

The response came once more as if it had been waiting to be said long before Argyle had the thought that necessitated it.

“I will be unable to obey, as it will directly put you in harm’s way by my own actions. Your contract stipulated that as taking priority over your direct orders on account of I assume thinking I would know better than you if my actions might bring you to direct, physical harm. Another wise precaution, I might add.”

The praise at the end, and the overall sense of what the squirrel was saying were hard to ignore. So was feeling his pants slide slowly to the floor around steadily thickening thighs. Argyle could now wrestle two full hands of his belly and have some left over, with it resting comfortably over top of his waist when he let it go. The wolf did just that, letting it rest against his middle with a heavy exhale – which segued into him wincing as a loud, resonating trumpet burst of nose-burning, egg and pepper stench filled the air around him while his gut helpfully let the wolf know it had more space for food now.

Argyle was still wincing and holding his breath when he heard Lewis exhale, and saw the squirrel walk over wearing his usual mask of passivity. The creature did reach out though, which almost left Argyle wanting to recoil. Almost. When his servant simply touched his shoulder he almost felt bad about the lack of trust in something he had shackled so firmly he had no excuse to question.

“Sir, this is going to have to run its course. I suggest, given that it can hardly do more harm at this point, you retire to bed and relax some. In fact, given how tense you look right now? I would suggest you allow me to bring the cake along.”

A nervous laugh answered that. What more harm could it do indeed? Argyle looked down at the pillowy mounds on his chest, the belly obscuring his view of the floor – though not so much that he couldn’t see his slacks pooled around his ankles.

“…Yeah. Fine. That – fine. Might as well have the thing now, while it doesn’t matter.”

Shaking his head, Argyle walked past Lewis and the cart toward his bedroom. There were small changes around the place that he noted on his way, things that were at least a minor salve to the wound. Some of his furniture looked nicer, newer – and that extended to his bed it seemed. He found his bedroom sporting a copiously large flat screen on one wall, and a king size bed that as far as he could tell was just for him against the other. 

“It… that.”

Closing his eyes, Argyle reached for that patience and focus he’d spent so many years honing while trying to get himself ahead the honest way – if one could call legal work at his firm honest. 

“…Come on, if I can’t be patient through this what the heck was I doing all those years? I – alright. Yeah. Bring the cake Lewis.”

A voice that was directly behind Argyle despite the lack of any indication he’d been followed left the wolf jumping again as he was startled and trying to ignore how much of him bounced and jiggled from that small act.

“Already here, sir.”