Devils and Details (pt.5) (Patreon)

contains gas, wg, trisksy deals! 

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Argyle felt stiff as he gradually eased into consciousness, for some definitions of stiff anyway. He’d slept fitfully at best, only half-remembering the anxiety ridden nightmares about blimps and contracts and cartoonish hells. The first bit of morning squirming he did left the wolf instantly clear-headed as he felt a mass of extra flesh shifting about him. Just the act of rolling over onto his back took more effort and time than it should have and forced Argyle to look down on the enormous expanse of a belly he’d grown into the preceding evening. The great gelatinous heap was still swaying a bit just from that, obscuring the wolf’s view of the rest of the room, though there were plenty of other bits of himself to gawk at.

Reaching out to grab hold of a handful of the loose mound of flesh felt like being inside a giant water balloon someone had filled with yogurt or butter. Argyle was mystified at how much it moved, how much of it touched itself. There were plump, wobbling pockets of flab around his upper arms now, which he couldn’t move without grazing the soft pillows of it he’d grown on his chest.

Moving a little more called his attention to the rest of it, a good deal of which was both covered in the smooth blanket he’d been under and blocked from view by the rest of his vast body. He felt like he was wearing lead weights on every limb as he eased himself toward the edge of the bed, needing to shuffle one trunk-like thigh over at a time until he had enough of himself past the lip to let gravity do the rest of the work. It was around then that he realized some things were off – several of them – by a lot.

Staring at a full-length mirror in a much nicer room than he remembered being in, Argyle briefly thought he was still dreaming and this was about to take some horrible turn for the impossible. That didn’t come to pass, though as he stared back at himself and gently pressed against what looked like a solid hundred pounds of new weight compared to the previous evening (the wolf dared not even guess how heavy he was now) reality did an excellent job of providing its own brand of awful in what noisily billowed out from his swollen rump. 

The bit of gaseous indecency lingered, trumpeting on for moment after stinking moment and leaving the silk boxers the wolf was in billowing out like a parachute as he winced and waited for it to subside. 

“Good morning, sir.”

Argyle was beyond being startled at this point. He simply exhaled heavily and turned, feeling his belly and thighs quiver and sway in the process, trying not to sound annoyed that his body was suffering further degeneration into this slovenly mess. That point exacerbated itself when it took no less than three shuffling steps for the wolf to turn ninety degrees – and he’d started farting again by the second one.

“It is not in any way shape or form good, Lewis. That – waking up like this – where the blazes am I even?”

The squirrel didn’t seem to mind the noise or the odor, he simply waited by the door with two arms bearing clothing. One a bath robe, the other a familiar subtle pattern of gray on gray. His suit, or something like it. The thing was infinitely larger of course and looked to be made of nicer material this time around, but it was familiar to Argyle just the same. 

“Home, of course sir. The loft above your law firm, privately rented.”

A slow blink followed that before Argyle turned and walked – waddled really, thighs rubbing against one another, sweat started to creep in under his fur, to the nearest window. A tug of the curtain left him looking out on the parking lot of his law firm, quite a way below him. 

The whole thing approached and then rapidly shot through surreal and into maddening. He recognized a lot of the various things in the room as belonging in his bedroom – the framed law degree, the whiskey he’d kept on the shelf since he won his first court case, the room was put together largely like his as well apart from the component pieces looking more expensive. Like the suit. And the bath robe.

“And… and I either head down the elevator to my office, or work from up here.”

That thought was a strange thing, a prickly thing in the wolf’s head. It was sitting right there like a memory should be, but he had never done that before nor been in this room and he knew it. The suit was for putting in appearances since he still had to do that, the robe was for sprawling out in bed and working while he let Lewis bring him a relatively steady stream of small meals to nibble on, which… 

Argyle parsed that non-memory carefully. He had the most vivid recollection of yesterday’s gluttony, how everything had tasted, how shameless he’d been with the flatulence since it was just him and Lewis in the room. It was several times over what he normally ate in a day and it hadn’t even been a noteworthy event. Going down to his office required going back several more days and showed a much more reasonable consumption rate – if one could call it that. It still seemed ridiculous, but with Lewis needing to go up and down the glass elevator to prepare and bring the meals and with people able to see him eating Argyle dialed it back.

His blood running cold, Argyle swallowed hard and reached for the suit. Lewis didn’t wait for him to get that far before he’d already stowed the robe and darted behind the wolf. Behind and below, face perilously near Argyle’s direly expanded ass. Lewis didn’t seem worried, he was busy easing one foot up at a time to get the legs of the suit pants and underwear positioned properly for dressing Argyle.

Dressing him. Argyle had another moment with his insides freezing up on him, this process had started, and he’d just accepted it – went with it as par for the course. Obviously, Lewis was helping him get dressed, he was far too fat to properly get himself into a suit anymore, even a tailored one. 

It was patently impossible for him to keep the tremor out of his voice this time.

“A-and how long until this business has settled, then?”

There was a strange thrill that danced across Argyle’s skin feeling the garments slide up his body while he just stood there, already starting to feel worn out simply from holding himself upright for any length of time. He had to give the tailor credit, the suit was a perfect fit – it painted a pristine picture of every bloated, swollen curve the wolf now sported by hugging them all just right. Lewis tucked it in under his gut, so it would stick in place while he went to work on the top parts, taking Argyle’s arm by the wrist and guiding it in the undershirt’s sleeve.

“Potentially this afternoon, sir.”

Argyle let out a sigh and nodded. One day, he could last that.

*** 

The wolf regretted his decision the instant he was in the elevator. An oval shaped thing with perfectly clear walls, it dropped down into view of the entire lobby of the building as it descended from the top floor. Argyle knew it wasn’t holding him there for long, but even though his gut blocked most of his view he felt eyes everywhere on him as he waddled clumsily out of the small chamber and into the halls of the highest floor of the law firm. Apart from his own personal one of course.

Personal floor. Personal office. Personal assistant. Argyle almost walked right past the mouse without recognizing her, which was a bit of a trick since he’d seen her in such a state just the day before. Kind of. It was yesterday to him.

The mouse from the typing pool.

“Amelie. I – err, good morning. Any uhm, anything waiting for me?”

Looking a little surprised, the mouse perked up at her desk, brushing some slightly disheveled hair out of her face as she caught up to the moment, adjusting a few things on her desk – a few papers here, a pen there, turning on her fan.

“Yes sir! A couple of cases to review, two of which involve mandatory court appearances.”

Argyle nodded, letting his gaze linger just long enough that it was clear the mouse was wondering why, at which point he began the laborious task of getting his body through the next couple of yards into his office, each step grateful for the form-fitting and slick material stopping him from chafing on himself. The chair inside looked more like a repurposed loveseat, apart from obviously being deliberately made. Perks of money, he supposed. Settling himself back into it was a small task in itself, in that he didn’t want to just pitch backward and hit it full force. Sturdy as it looked he doubted such a thing would do it any favors. 

Bending over in that particular way set an unsurprising eruption loose from Argyle’s hindquarters, one that continued to drift on for a few uncomfortable seconds while Argyle learned that the supple leather of his seat was fantastic at amplifying sounds pressed against it. It was also when he finally realized the fan on the mouse’s desk was pointed away from her face, not toward it.

A frustrated breath later, Argyle resumed his mantra about this being a one-day ordeal and took a glance at the cases on his desk. Bank fraud, grand theft, a few other lesser things he could probably delegate. A light day’s work, he figured. He hoped. He-

The twisting growl in Argyle’s stomach was a monstrous thing, a demanding one. Like some foul beast denied its release and threatened into a corner. The warm sweat still clinging to him from that short walk turned chilly as a driving biological need struck him at the base of his mind. He reached a sausage-thick finger for his phone, for the line that went to the intercom of his flat above. A button he knew how to find, and which looked very well worn.

“L-Lewis? I could use some-”

Already on my way down, sir.

Argyle let out a sigh of relief. All that worry about the day, about embarrassing himself, and he’d outright forgotten about breakfast.