Outgrew
Author's note: Second fic dedicated to the same fellow artist and fan of dem bellyz, this time (loosely) based on DHMIS episode 6.
Jets of lukewarm water in the shower slide down his frame with ease — all his paws meet is the same even surface, with maybe a couple folds of slightly baggy red pelt here and there. The usual towel doesn't appear to lack length when wrapped around his waist. The boxers don't seem to squeeze him either. For the first couple of hours, at least.
Even the sight of a barely hinted bloat as he buttons his dress shirt up doesn't disturb him all that much. Must be just the eaten breakfast settling down, nothing more, nothing less.
A barely hinted bloat turns into a good three inches closer to lunch. The mop monster even straightens up on his chair: maybe just his eyes deceiving him, it's not all that odd if one sees things after half a day's worth of filing files and clackity clacking on the keyboard keys.
But a glimpse of red fleece-like fuzz between folds of meticulously white fabric straining closer to the buttons is- real and tangible. A thought that just came to him feels nearly as tangible — one about how much his shirt is going to squeeze it if he doesn't do anything.
…wait, was it even three? A whole seven inches of his middle gratefully ooze out onto his lap, as he hurriedly frees it — from both the shirt and the fly, gods, how didn't he notice the belt of his trousers getting that tight before. A pie chart on the monitor before his eyes is ironically red in its lower half, making him utter a chuckle under his mane as he clicks on it and thoughtlessly runs another paw over his own mound-
because yes, now it looks like a decent mound that fits two or three large pot pies inside. And it feels strangely hot, like the rest of the monster, before he realizes that all of his lookalike colleagues in the office are staring.
Of course they were. It was hard not to notice their coworker bloat for absolutely no reason an hour later after he came to work. He could almost sense some of them worry that he was either about to burst any minute, or grow on and squeeze everyone and everything else out of the office. And worry even more that he suddenly chuckled. On a work where any behavior other than boring plain didn't belong-
But of course.
How could he forget the very magic he was made of with all that work-and-home routine.
To the point when the magic got tired of boredom and did what it could.
Bloated its host like a fuzzy red water balloon on a funfair.
The weighty bwomp-glnk as he gets up and the way the aforementioned water balloon slightly sags down as its owner's paws rub wide circles all over it seem even more out of place than his chuckle, but Red Guy no longer cares. With the heaviness comes something else. A memory of an old saying that came true so suddenly.
Full of himself.
The self he had long forgotten he lacked, squeezed by the office suit and office plankton role.
Now that it broke through both, he wasn't to do much except pull himself together — literally — with both paws: slosh-plp — let go, and breathe out:
"Don't know about you guys, I'm taking a break. To admire the town."
And so he does. Calm to the tips of his foot paws, standing at the wide window as his bared red pelt soaks in the sunlight. Not bothered even by sounds behind his back — a series of weak gurgles growing louder, buttons popping off jackets and shirts growing tighter, and his coworkers gasping as one by one they go through the same thing as him, just a bit faster. Why even worry if they all will deflate. Later. When the magic decides they're distracted and relaxed enough.
August 2022