Eye of the Beholder
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Summary: It's a well-known fact that a good marriage nurtures the heart and soul, but sometimes it can nurture the body a little too well. Elli laments her unmistakable weight gain, and Jeff tries to figure out how having more of his wife around can possibly be a bad thing.
------------------------------------------------------------------------CRASH!!!
Jeff, the youngish Flowerbud Village bakery master, gave a startled yelp and an involuntary hop of surprise at the decidedly violent sound ringing out proudly from the shared sleeping (and...other-things) quarters of himself and his wife of five months and blissfully counting.
Setting the icing tube carefully down on the counter next to Miss Mary's birthday cake, he gave the mayor's wife an apologetic smile.
"I'll be right back."
"Of course," the mystified woman agreed, her own brow furrowing with concern as she peeked towards the closed door.
Jeff bolted quickly for the back room, and as the door banged shut behind him, Anna shook her head.
"It must be that bakery poltergeist, up to its old tricks again."
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"Elli?" Jeff was meanwhile calling hesitantly, rapping lightly at their bedroom door. "Are you okay?"
"No," came the muffled, flat, somewhat soggy reply.
Concerned moved quickly into frantic, and the three seconds it took to wrench the door open and bolt into the room seemed an eternity to the mustached young man.
"What's wrong, sweetheart? Are you ill? Do you want me to go get—"
As the sight of their bathroom scale lying in a decidedly dismantled heap against the prettily papered wall, he stopped short.
His night-dark eyes slid from the wreckage of the scale, to the unmoving bump huddled beneath the cheery blue and yellow comforter of the recently purchased queen size bed.
Frantic draining easily back into concerned, along with the newly recruited bewildered, Jeff approached the bed carefully, feeling just a little bit like a certain fellow named Daniel, famous in part for his miraculous survival of his encounter with an entire den of annoyed lions.
"Elli, come out here," he chided, sliding onto the bed and giving the bump in the middle a gentle shake.
The bump inched away.
"I don't want to."
Jeff inched closer.
"Are you sick?"
The bump inched away.
"No."
Jeff inched closer.
"Does it hurt somewhere?"
The bump inched away.
"No."
"Then what's got you so upset all of a sudden, Little Elli?" he asked, prodding gingerly at the girl under the covers until he had managed to locate her back, and then rubbing soothingly. "Did somebody say something?"
A muffled sigh.
"Nothing I didn't already know."
With a sigh of his own, he dragged the covers back off of her, despite her yelp of protest.
"Alright, Elli, that's enough. Now, what's wrong?"
She sat up grudgingly, and he bit back a laugh at the sight of his generally composed and cheerful young wife, little strands of hair dancing every which way, dress rumpled, and pouting like the child she had rarely acted, even years ago, when he had first taken her in as a daughter and assistant.
"I just weighed myself."
He blinked.
"And...?"
"And, I'm ten pounds more than I was for the wedding!" she wailed, trying to dive under the blankets again, and pouting even more fiercely when he caught her first and hauled her into his lap.
"Is that all that's troubling you?" he chuckled, hugging her tightly despite her annoyed expression.
She pulled away and stared disbelieivingly over her shoulder.
"All?! We've only been married two months! And Karen was right – I was already fat enough."
He sighed, rubbing his eyes as his little bride drooped despondently.
"Listen, Elli, you know better than to listen to Karen in the first place—" He broke off suddenly as a reasonably important recollection meandered through his mind. "We'll talk about this when I get back. I sort of abandoned Mrs. Preston at the counter."
He reluctantly disentangled from the warm, delightfully soft little female in his arms, and climbed off the bed. The instant she was free, Elli dove back into her nest of blankets and quilts, and with a long-suffering expression, Jeff hurried from the room.
"Sorry about that," he greeted the woman at the counter as he hurried back into the bakery's main room.
"It's not a problem, Jeff," Anna assured him, brow wrinkled in concern. "Is everything alright?"
He hesitated.
"Elli's just a little upset right now because she thinks she's gained weight too quickly since the wedding."
"Oh, dear," Anna lamented, frown deepening, voice warm with sympathy.
He stared, pen frozen above the receipt for the birthday cake. For a moment, the suspicion that this wasn't something his wife would particularly want her best friend's mother to hear about warred with the desperate temptation to garner another feminine opinion, and perhaps even some idea as to why a few extra pounds had her in such a state.
Temptation, as it tends to in such cases, won over. He leaned forward over the counter.
"Anna," he began in a hush, "do you know why she's so upset about this? Is it because she's worried that her dresses won't fit? Because I've been trying to convince her to have some new ones made for ages, anyway – she's been wearing the same ones for years, until they've begun to wear out, and I'd really like her to get something in red, or pink, because I know she loves bright colours, and pink is wonderful with her complexion. Yellow would be wonderful, too. She had a yellow silk dress once, years ago, and she looked just like a little dancing sunbeam. I've never seen anything so adorable, and I think she would be just as beautiful in yellow now—"
"Jeff!" Anna finally broke in as his eyes started to grow starry with mental images of wrapping his wife in yellow silk, and then promptly unwrapping her. She chuckled. "You have a lot to learn about women, Jeff. The female gender as a whole, and the younger ones in particular, have an overwhelming tendency to measure their personal worth on how low they can get the needle on the scale."
"We don't have a scale anymore," Jeff announced gloomily. "I think she threw it at the wall."
Anna muffled a guilty laugh with her hand.
"Poor thing. I think we've all had that urge."
"But why is she so upset?" Jeff demanded, hedging on a wail. "She's the most beautiful girl I've ever seen, and now there's just a little bit more of her to be beautiful! Why is that bad?"
She fixed him with a disapproving eye.
"Honestly, Jeff, have you been living under a rock all your life? Women have been bombarded with images of thinness, and the undeniable fact that a few extra pounds make us unworthy to live, for decades."
"Well, the media brainwashing has obviously gotten to Karen," he said thoughtfully, one hand at his chin. "Elli mentioned that Karen has been giving her a hard time over this."
"Oh, Elli knows better than to take Karen seriously," Anna scoffed with a noise suspiciously like a snort.
Jeff nodded emphatically.
"That's what I said. And I think she does." He sighed again. "I just wish I knew how to cheer her up."
Anna nodded meditatively, then leaned suddenly forward with a conspiratorial smile.
"Can I give you some advice?"
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Mope, mope, mope; mope, mope, mope; mope, mope, mopity-mope; mope, mope, mope, Elli sang to herself, staring morosely at the underside of their comforter.
She knew that she was being silly, and she was already regretting giving Jeff a hard time when he was being so sweet and concerned, but it just got so frustrating! It seemed like whenever she let her guard down, let the stress of a busy bakery and now the newly added duties of a devoted and loving wife, spur her into eating just a little more to keep her energy up, she gained a completely disproportionate amount of weight. How could one little tiny piece of cake a week, just for a special treat, possibly result in ten pounds over the course of two months?
It was all very easy for Karen to say that she could be model-thin if she would be just a leeeeeeettle bit careful, but Karen didn't instantly add two pounds every time she so much as smelled a chocolate cake.
"'You know, it's really disrespectful to your husband to just let yourself go as soon as you're married,'" she mimicked sourly. "'If Jeff wanted to marry a cow, he'd have spent a lot more time at the Green Ranch.'"
"What was that?" asked a mystified Jeff at the door.
Elli turned, and the dark-haired fellow allowed himself a laugh at the sight of a pile of blankets first talking to itself, and now peeking quizzically over its shoulder.
"Okay, okay, I'm coming out," Elli grumbled, emerging from the cocoon. She flopped backwards to the tangled mass of covers and heaved a long sigh. "I was just thinking about what Karen said."
He plopped down on the bed next to her, absently smoothing her hair back into place.
"Alright, what did Karen say?"
A moment ago contentedly nuzzling into his hand and purring until he began to wonder if they needed to bother buying a kitten, since he seemed to have a perfectly adorable one right here, Elli's face fell at this, and she shrank away.
"She thinks it's disrespectful to you to let myself gain weight. I think she needs someone to pound it into her head with a rolling pin that some people gain weight more easily than others, and being a few pound heavier than her doesn't mean I do nothing but eat all day."
He stared in genuine bewilderment.
"Elli, what on earth does ten extra pounds have to do with being disrespectful?"
"Well, it does seem kind of deceptive," she replied mournfully, snuggling into his arms. "If I'd looked like this before we got married, you might not have proposed at all. It's like buying a bag of strawberry seeds, planting them, and getting skunk cabbages instead. In this case, you married a decent-looking girl, and right after the wedding she turned ugly. A good wife would make an effort to be pretty for her husband, but I've just been gaining and gaining, and getting uglier and uglier, and it's really selfish, because you might not want to be married to a barnyard animal."
Jeff took a long moment to ponder this.
"Now…what does gaining ten pounds have to do with being ugly?"
"Come on, Jeff, just look at me," Elli huffed in a slightly wobbly voice, tears gathering in her eyes as she grasped at a small handful of skin at her waist. "I've got bulges everywhere, and everything jiggles. It's disgusting!"
"No, it's not," he countered patiently, pulling her hand away and kissing it. "It's soft, and warm, and snuggly, and beautiful. You're beautiful."
"But I'm not," she muttered against his shoulder amid sniffles. "I'm plain, and insignificant, and fat."
He shook his head, mouth set in grim determination. Time to break out the Secret Plan. He'd hoped it wouldn't come to this—wait a second; no, he hadn't. He'd kind of hoped it would come to this.
"Alright, get up," he ordered, already dragging her up from the bed.
"Ack!" she noted curiously as the surface of the bed was suddenly no longer there. "Honey, what are you doing?"
"We're going try something," he replied with a grin, taking her hand and tugging her gently around the bed and toward the full-length mirror hanging on the closet door.
"Jeff!" she protested, trying to bolt and glaring up at him as he caught her shoulders and held her firmly in place. "A mirror is the last thing I need right now!"
"No, it's the last thing you want right now," he corrected, gripping her chin gently and turning her head to face the mirror. "You're beautiful, and it bothers me that you can't see it."
"I can't see it, because I'm not."
"Look, Elli. Take a good, long, careful look in the mirror and tell me what you see."
Grudgingly, she stopped trying to pull away, and carefully studied her reflection.
"I'm plain, and boring, and pale, and bulgy, and ugly," she finally announced flatly.
Jeff pulled a long face.
"Well, that didn't take long." His fingers drummed for a long moment at her shoulders. "What about your hair?"
"You can see it," she pouted. "It's too brown, too straight, and too short, because if I grow it any longer, it gets in the way at work."
"I think we're looking at a different girl. I see thick, beautiful, shining brown hair in an adorable little pixie cut. Just long enough to brush over my cheek when you lean down to kiss me."
She gave a horrified little squeak and flushed brightly red, and he laughed, his own cheeks a little pink. The majority of their lovemaking thus far had been done in the evenings, with the lights down low – due as much to his insecurities as to hers, insecurities over his pale, skinny torso and stick-like arms in sharp contrast to the tanned, muscled physiques of most of the town's young men. So, the idea of undressing his wife in broad daylight was a little strange and more than a little embarrassing. But Anna was right; Elli deserved to know just how adored and desired she was, and if she was working herself into such a state over ten pounds, she clearly had no idea. He rested his cheek at the top of her head, arms wrapping around her from behind.
"When you've been in the kitchen, it smells like sugar and cinnamon and warmth and home. And in the sun, there's nothing boring about the colour. You haven't seen the bits of gold and red dancing in it. And you have no idea how it bounces when you move – I've spent a lot more time than I should, just watching you go from table to table, watching the sun on your hair. Now," he concluded, "tell me about your eyes."
"Boring brown. Karen says they're cow eyes."
"I would have said doe eyes," Jeff said softly against the back of her ear, and those same doe eyes grew wide and just a little bit darker as his breath coaxed delicious little ripples of sensation to life all up and down her back. "Gentle, and sweet, and innocent, and peaceful. With an adorable little nose—" He brushed a gentle fingertip over her nose. "— and soft, pretty pink lips."
"And a chubby, round face," she added gloomily despite a light shiver as his thumb traced the line of her lower lip.
"A friendly, cheerful, beautiful heart-shaped face," he corrected firmly, stooping slightly to kiss her cheek.
"But everything below the neck—"
"Is just as lovely," he broke in, his hands already moving to the pert little bow tied neatly at her collar.
"U-um, Jeff?"
He looked up from the zip at the back of her dress.
"Hmm?"
"Shouldn't we get back to the bakery?"
"We're on our lunch break," he replied absently, sliding the sensible blue cotton forward and down her arms, raining a trail of light kisses over her shoulder as he went.
Elli made a happy little noise, catching Jeff's hand and cuddling it briefly.
"Mmm…okay, then," she agreed eagerly, and he shook his head a little at the way she could voice such adamant protests at the idea of looking at herself unclothed, and yet be so entirely comfortable with the idea of fully enjoying physical intimacy.
Meanwhile, Elli was wriggling around in his arms, heading straight for his belt.
"Wh-what?" she demanded, alarmed and a little hurt, as he caught her hands and turned her back to the mirror.
"We aren't finished yet."
Elli took a long moment to consider this.
"Okay, fine," she finally pouted. "But if we run out of lunch break before we get to have fun, you're going to hear about it!"
He laughed.
"Don't worry; we can take a long lunch today." Taking her shoulders, he spun her gently about to face him, hands drifting down to settle at the dip of her waist. "Now, you can't possibly tell me there's anything wrong with this."
"Of course there is," she pouted, grasping a handful of skin.
Jeff dropped to his knees, and laughed again at Elli's startled squeak and saucer-wide eyes.
"Well, I can't see anything wrong with it, even up close." Leaning in closer, he brushed light kisses over her abdomen. "Such soft, pretty skin…"
"It's only soft because of all the fat."
He gave her a light slap on the backside, climbing to his feet again.
"Hush, Elli. It is not. Everything about you is beautiful, and now there's just a little more of you. Do you really think I'd mind that?"
She bit her lips, viciously blinking back another onslaught of tears.
"But all the other girls in the village are so thin and pretty, and I'm—"
His hands drifted down to rest at her hips.
"You're curvy and pretty – stunning – instead." He nudged her around to face him, and caught a teardrop with a finger soft and gentle at her cheek. "I'm glad I don't have to worry about impaling myself on your razor-sharp hip bones."
"Well, at least these are big enough," Elli said with gloomy satisfaction, casting a critical eye at the bounciest part of her physique.
Jeff stared, delighted, at those small, pale hands cupping indeed reasonably ample, and very nicely shaped breasts.
"Here, why don't you let me do that?" he asked eagerly, pulling her hands away.
"I guess you are a man," she giggled around a sharp gasp as his thumb brushed over the sweetly sensitive tip. "It only makes sense that the best part of being married to a fat girl is the bigger breasts."
He fixed her with a stern look.
"Elli. You know that isn't true. I think you're beautiful, and I hope you remember that, but that's not why I love you. And for that matter," he continued quickly as she began to protest that she hadn't meant it that way, "as nice as they are, I don't think they're your best…um, feature." He grinned, hands returning to her hips and squeezing tightly. "That honour goes to some different curves."
"My hips?" Elli said, voice flat with disbelief. "But they're way too big; they're completely out of proportion with everything else."
"Your sense of proportion is a little skewed, sweetheart," Jeff told her gently. "They're lovely. Good child-bearin' hips," he finished with an exaggerated rustic drawl.
"But I don't want good child-bearin' hips!" she wailed. "I want good bathing-suit hips!"
He laughed, caught her tightly in his arms, and flopped back to the bed, leaving her dress and apron pooled on the floor in a heap. Her startled, dismayed shriek was muffled against his chest. Once they had come to a stop, he raised her head to meet his gaze, and smiled in spite of her outraged glare.
"Do you remember when we went to the beach last summer, and you wore that little red bathing suit Popuri brought you back from town?"
"Yes," she pouted, struggling to get her arms crossed despite being wedged tightly to his chest. "And I remember how you went running for cover the second you saw me, too."
"We hadn't agreed to marry yet, Elli – I didn't feel like I had any business staring like that," he explained gently, scratching the back of his head sheepishly as he continued. "And my bathing suit didn't really do much to hide…um, certain reactions. I thought it might hurt your feelings, or make you trust me less."
As his meaning sank in, Elli grew bright red, eyes approaching the size of the saucers they served cakes and cookies on.
"Y-you liked looking at me before we got married?"
She yelped and jumped reflexively, startled by his guffaw.
"Sorry," he said sheepishly, kissing her forehead. "I just can't believe you didn't notice. I didn't always realize I was doing it, until someone pointed it out, so I thought you must have caught me at it, and just kept quiet to keep the peace. I can think of at least a dozen times we had to work late to finish up because I spent too much time watching the bow from your apron strings bobbing when you walked."
Burying her face in his shoulder to hide her blush, she missed the bright red in his cheeks, too.
"I never noticed," she admitted.
"Well, now you know," he murmured against her lips before capturing them in a soft kiss.
Elli, however, was having none of this soft kiss business, and swiftly tightened her embrace, arms winding around his torso and legs clinging at his hips. He groaned against her mouth, hands sliding down her back to her hips, grabbing at bunches of lacy fabric in attempt to tug her petticoats up and out of his way. Dipping her head, she nipped lightly at his neck, fingers already moving quickly over his buttons and pushing his shirt aside.
Together, they struggled quickly out of the remainder of their clothes, Elli pausing only to undo Jeff's belt (which remained one of her very favourite activities), and Jeff only to admire the pink lace of his wife's undies against skin flushed almost the same shade.
Once the last garment had been discarded, Jeff scrambled hastily underneath the covers, pausing only when he noticed Elli's curious, reproachful gaze.
"Elli," he said pleadingly once he'd followed her train of thought back to the time he'd just spent trying to convince her that he enjoyed looking at her. "It isn't because I don't want to look at you. I just feel more comfortable doing this under the covers."
"But I wanted to look at you," she protested softly, crestfallen.
He groaned, nevertheless already climbing out from under the sheets and blankets.
"You could just go have a Popsicle and stare at the stick for a while. It's the same shape."
"Jeff!"
"Sorry, Elli," he sighed, pulling the sheet absently across his body. "I just wish I had a better body to show you, instead of scrawny stick-arms and a soft belly."
Elli pouted.
"Okay, okay, I get it: you're trying to show me how annoying that is."
Jeff blinked.
"Huh?"
"Well, at least I had Karen to back me up on my insecurities; you're just being silly."
"Hey, wait a—"
"There's nothing wrong with not having gigantic tree trunks shooting out of your torso," she said scornfully, fingers drifting up and down the smooth pale skin of his arms and chest. "I like your arms just the way they are."
"You never wish that you'd met a young, handsome, broad-shouldered lumberjack to carry you away to his cottage in the mountains?" he asked wistfully, pulling her closer and smiling contentedly as her hair brushed his shoulder.
Propping herself up on one elbow, she shot him a look of utter flat disbelief.
"Not really," she replied, and then giggled. "I'd rather have a man who can cook – and likes to snuggle!"
He laughed, and pulled her close again.
"Well, I do love to snuggle…"
She peeked up at him, concerned.
"But…um…not just snuggle, right?"
One hand at his chin despite their prone position on the bed, Jeff took a long moment to consider this.
"Welllll…"
But before he could expand this one word into a full statement, or even draw it out any further, he found himself tackled and held firmly in place by an Elli-comet and a rain of enthusiastic kisses over everything that showed.
And considering that everything that showed was, in fact, everything, it was little surprise that the Flower Bud Village Bakery never did open for the afternoon.
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End Notes: My first try with HM64 Elli and Jeff. I think I need more practice. But, this was fun to write, and I got warm fuzzies from the scene that inspired it (Jeff stating that he doesn't think Elli should lose too much weight, because she's hot like she is - paraphrasing, of course). Also, I have no idea if Jeff's name is ever revealed as Jeff in HM64. I don't remember seeing it anywhere, but I'm using that character's Mineral Town name, because calling him The Bakery Master over and over just got awkward. It was kind of hot, in a BDSM-ey kind of way, but very awkward. XD