sugarishapple

[sugarishapple]

Wounds from the past and how to heal from them

Chapter 4: It always has been you

Rating: E Relationship(s): F/M Words: 10~k

(This is the longest chapter I have ever written in... anything really :'3. I couldn't cut anything even when I saw this was taking over 10 pages in my text processor program. Haha, you're welcome 😭)

(AO3 link)

(first chapter) (next)

----

The bell at the entrance of the coffee shop rung as soon as the door opened. Gail was running out of air as she entered her workplace. She wasn’t wearing her usual casual clothes, but instead she was using a dressing suit. She could easily explain (or at least she thought) that her tiredness had to be with the fact she wasn’t used to run with her pants’ fabric or the shoes with slight heels that she was wearing that day.

However, the reason of her running to her workplace was the man sitting with her friends/co-workers, laughing and chatting with each other. Her former rival and her not-so-former crush.

And as soon as Gina looked at Gail standing in the entrance and called her name out, Marshall couldn’t not twist his head to look at her.

Catching a whole glimpse of Gail, he attempted to disguise his surprise expression. She looked, well, beautiful being dressed in formal clothes, as the suit accentuated her petite and slim frame’s curves. And the small plus, he considered, was that she wasn’t wearing her glasses: her eyes were shining.

“Eh? No, no… no!” Gail responded as she wasn’t too happy at that giggling scene with her co-workers and Marshall. “What are you doing here? Right now?”

“Oh,” interrupted Gina, “Marshall was telling us funny stories about you two when you were classmates in high school”.

Marshall smugly grinned at Gail. “Come on, they are truly fun.”

“I’m not sure why would you think they are…”

“Gail, Gail. Your stories are really good, trust me.” Gina told her. “Besides, it’s not like… we all were so different in high school.” She added, inviting her to sit down. “Like, I used braces back then… and GOD, my life was hell.”

“For real?” Asked Fran, the other co-worker, with amusement. “I didn’t have that bad of an experience… then again, it’s probably because I used them in college.”

“Pffft! Of course, you don’t get the stares and the jokes once you are there. Everyone’s busy with their life stuff.” Gina replied with a humorous and sarcastic tone, as she crossed her arms.

“I don’t think you could have looked bad with them…”

“You will catch me dead if I ever share pictures with you, Fran.”

“You also don’t have to be mean to me like that!” The guy responded, making the others laugh.

“Hey,” Marshall made a signal to Gail, grabbing her jacket’s sleeve, so she wouldn’t be lost. “I was telling them about a few things, like the DND campaign we made that one time at Henry’s, you know the one.”

“(The costume incident?!)” She nervously remembered.

“...And that one Literature project we did in which we almost submitted a stage play for the class and I was so done with it, because I refused to act it out…” Marshall continued, as he took a sip of his decaffeinated vanilla latte.

Gail groaned as she started rubbing her temple, remembering more specifics about those events her ex-classmate was sharing with her friends, and unfortunately for her, all of them were fully embarrassing: all her antics… her persistence to do some things… her writing scenarios… her weirdness… and also, dragging Marshall to all of those (if possible).

“Oh! And also about that revenge prank you both did!” The pink-haired young woman threw in. “WOW! It’s just… unbelievable! The bullying you went through, or the fact that you two weren’t really friendly at each other.”

“Ye...yeah…” Gail responded as Gina smacked her on the back.

“And then both of you taking those bullies with one epic prank? GOSH, why didn’t I go with you two in high school?!”

“We are actually a couple of years younger than them, Gina.” Fran remarked, grasping her shoulder.

“I don’t think it was as huge as that...” Gail responded back, shyly.

“I wouldn’t minimize it.” Marshall said. “It was epic.” He smugly smiled at her back, while also patting her shoulder.

Gail couldn’t not notice how soft Marshall’s profile was looking as he was smiling. And she... simply grinned back, despite how embarrassing and also slightly worried she was feeling at that moment, but she didn’t want to ruin the moment they were having at all.

However, she wasn’t the only one looking at Marshall. In the meantime, Gina was trading stares between this pair as they were sharing smiles and giggles with each other. She surely knew about the guy’s frequent visits to the coffee shop, so what she was looking were the small details that didn’t seem to coincide with how her friend firstly pointed her out about his presence, months ago. Sure, he had shaggy dark-hair, some stubble, and those thick glasses… but the man was definitely not as slender as he used to be. It didn’t take long for her to put one and two together, with how Gail was exchanging gazes with Marshall. She was well aware about what her friend found attractive in a guy, so she wondered if she… or he… well, if someone took a step forward in their ambiguous relationship as he was obviously getting bigger.

Gina proceeded to incline her head towards Gail and murmured, in a teasing tone:

“Your guy has gotten soft…”

The comment just made Gail bump her head with Gina’s, gritting her teeth, faking a grin.

“Ouch…” But she continued to tease her. “So, did you...”

“No!” She whispered.

The thing going on between those two made Gina smile with devilish intentions. It was obvious to her what might have been going on, even if her friend was denying it. Although they weren’t as modest to point it all out in front of them. Also, there was something of that ‘old saying’ (with quotations, this wasn’t sourced) of “it isn’t your business… but you want to know all the gossip.”

“What about your interview, Gail?” Fran asked to the dark-haired woman. “How did it go?”

Gail’s eyes suddenly fell onto the table they were all sitting in. She closed them and breathed in deeply.

“Hopefully good!” She smiled, as she fixed her hair, putting her bangs behind her ears. “They said they were going to call me in a few couple of days, so…” She crossed her fingers, finishing with a nervous laugh, not sure what to actually tell them.

The small movements, the way her voice went highly optimistic, and the nervous smile. Perhaps Gina and Fran wouldn’t notice it as much, but Marshall did. Something wasn’t right with what she mentioned.

“Oh, you know…” She tried to change the topic. “There was this another time where Marshall and I…”

“Gosh, why did you have to wait for me in the coffee shop?!” Gail covered her eyes, not wanting to rub them because of the contact lenses she was using that day. She was walking (once again, how many times they have had walked back together? She has lost the count) at Marshall’s side around the neighborhood.

“Wasn’t that the best place I could have waited for you?” He argued. “We discussed this before.”

“Well, yes!” She exclaimed, as she crossed her arms “It’s just… geez, why did you tell them all of that?”

“To be honest. Gina seemed to be very curious about us… about me… so she kept insisting. I couldn’t turn her down.”

“Of course she did.” She mumbled, sighing. “I’m sorry if she was too nosey.”

“Nah. Not at all. I realized that you are in good company., after all. I was curious about your current friends, too. I only know them by sight or from whatever you have told me about them.”

“I guess that’s valid. How is it that you still go from time to time there and haven’t had the chance to talk to them?”

“Hmmm… I wonder.” He glanced at her, from head to toes. “They are not the ones that take my orders to my usual table often.”

Gail mumbled a silent “I see”, as she kept walking.

“Maybe I should have arrived earlier…”

“Well, I don’t think you could have avoided the questions of your friend, regardless. I’m impressed, however, as it seemed you were still running out of air as you arrived there. I sent you a message as soon as I dropped off my therapist’s place”.

“By the way, how did you do in your appointment?” She asked, genuinely interested. “I didn’t have the chance to ask you back in the text message.”

“It was… fine. The usual, I think?” Marshall rolled his eyes, and put his hands inside the hoodie’s pockets, as if it was hugging his gut. “According to her, I have been looking quite well these days, so there’s that. We talked about a bunch of things that I have been doing lately. We even managed to arrange a schedule so I can organize my working times more… oh, and I finally told her about how well the herbal teas have been working with my sleep. Unbelievably so, she now wants to try that specific tea recipe and wanted me to share the recipes with her. Looks like your heirloom recipe book is a success.” He nudged her with his shoulder.

“Of course, I shouldn’t doubt what my grandmother trusted me the most.”

“You aren’t taking enough credit, Gail.” He said. “I have talked about you with her. And she agrees that mending my relationship with you has been very helpful, as well.” He adds, while side-eyeying her and grinning.

“Heh.” She chuckled, although she nervously rubbed her arm. “I’m… happy that it happened, too. Glad that we are still hanging out, after all.”

“Yeah.” Marshall paused, as he thought it was probably the moment to ask her about something that he had noticed moments ago at the café. “How about you? How did the job interview really go?”

Gail stopped her walking.

“What… what do you mean?”

“It’s my sixth sense.” He gestured with his hand close to his forehead, fidgeting his fingers, as the answer caught Gail by surprise. “Okay, no, really. As if. I did, however, looked at how rather nervous you were when your friends asked you about it. Remember how observant I have been about your quirky habits since we were teens.” He fixed his glasses, as he put his hands over his waist.

Gail pouted. He can still read her that much, huh.

“To be honest…” She let out a sigh. “I don’t think it… It didn’t went well. I did try my best, you know? I talked about why I wanted to work in that publisher, about how it didn’t even matter if I could start with the basics.” She then inclined her head to the side, growing frustrated. “But, I don’t know why the latter part of the interview focused about my face appearance. They thought I was too pale, even if I did my make-up correctly, or that my eye-bags were too noticeable, despite trying to explain them that they were pretty natural at this point of my life. Then they added that I should have been looking much more… feminine! And friendlier! And, I mean! Tell me, Marshall, does this expression inspire you ‘trust’ in talking with me?”

She even pointed out a small smile, while putting her palm hands to frame her face.

“I mean, I suppose it does…? But, that’s just me...”

“Ugh, you know? Maybe I should have used my glasses…” She relaxed her forced smiling expression.

“You do look fine with your contacts lenses.” He interrupted her. “Your sight shouldn’t be always framed by your glasses.”

Gail blinked as he said what sounded like a compliment.

“Well… Thanks?” She stroke her hair. “Although, I only used them because…”

“Because you asked me for tips to make a better impression for the HR recruiters, days ago.” Marshall sighed now, before scratching the stubble around his soft chin. “They truly underestimate the work you put with your presentation, if that’s what they are looking for. It’s not like you are going to work face to face with potential clients?. You would supposedly be doing heavy text work in a publishing house...”

“Exactly!” She pointed out. “I was just hoping my credentials are enough. I didn’t waste my time to get my major in Classic Literature and learning about editing and text correction. It’s just… unbelievably discouraging and…”

“Stop.” Marshall took Gail’s arm, making her gasp. “You will be fine, Gail. You are and look fine. Amazing, even. That suit you are wearing fits you incredibly and your eyes…”

“Wh… what about my eyes?”

The man bit his tongue as he realized that he was very close to confess further how much he liked her. But he suddenly shook his head, basically saying, “screw it”.

“I think… your eyes look beautiful the way they do… even when they aren’t framed by your glasses.” He briefly paused to add, shaking his hand. “Ah, of course, that doesn’t mean that you should use contact lenses all the time. I know, perfectly well, they aren’t for everyone! They can be bothersome, and… annoying and...”

“Oh… oh! Right! Right…” Gail was caught in a loop of disbelief with what she was hearing and what she was understanding from the comment her old classmate gave… or even the intentions behind it.

Suddenly, Gail was also caught in another kind of moment. She took a deeper glance on Marshall’s body. He definitely has been getting chubbier now. His old baggy clothes were less baggier and more snug now, as he was filling them in places. How much did he weigh now? Holy shit… even his hoodie was letting her peek a bit of his subtle stomach, he had a hair trail right up towards his belly button, as well, huh… He was chubby, still not as fat as she would expect, but he was getting there…

She got lost in words.

“Gail?”

“Ah… sorry…” She got called out and even giggled to hide her sudden embarrassment. “Was… was I staring too much?”

The way she worded it made him boil like a teapot. His neck got hot, enough to reach his ears. He (very obviously) knew she was staring longer than she should have… but somehow? He wanted her to take his current appearance… aaallll in…

“No… no! It was... fine…” He scratched his left ear, around the small two moles he had in that area. “Where… where do you want to go now?”

“Ah, right…” Gail paused, thinking for a bit. “Do you mind if we get some burgers as a meal? Honestly, I feel like I want to drown my frustrations with some junk food.”

“Pffft. I didn’t expect you were one of those people that drown their frustrations with greasy food.” He sarcastically mentioned. “This wouldn’t be a first time”.

“Hey. Careful.” She nudged him back.

“No, no. I completely get it. It’s nice, isn’t it?” He scratched the back of his head. “Perhaps I should be a sympathetic eater and share your frustrations. Would that mean I can order all what I want?”

“A ‘sympathetic what’??” She laughed. “Order as much as you can if you want to, then…” She answered again getting caught off guard. “Wait, no, no! You know I’m on a budget! We are on a budget! What…”

“Haha, I’m just playing with you.” He poked her nose before walking faster. “Come on, don’t stay behind!”

Gail was quite... perplexed. Was Marshall this playful before? When was the last time that he… he even poked her nose…?

“(What has gotten into him? It’s like…)” She spent some seconds thinking, until she came to a realization. “(Is he teasing me about… that…? Wait. Wait, wait, wait… does he already know?!)”

The burger joint they decided to go to had become their regular for a bit too much in the past four months and a half. It was certainly becoming one of Marshall’s favorites as he seemed to appreciate how varied their specials were, and he was curious to taste new combos to find exactly what he would like the most. The first time they both went there, Marshall was truly hesitant because the portions they served were very big, of those “my eyes were bigger than my stomach” kind of servings. But given the encouragement from his companion, for so many times, he started to don’t mind as much.

The thing, of course, was that Marshall’s appetite was growing. No doubt about it. Gail was always taking mental notes for him. This time he went to order one of their big juicy grilled burgers prepared in a “hawaiian” style (it had pineapple and ham with a sweet sauce to complement it), with a side of fried potato slices and onion rings, with some of the house’ dressings and sauces. As for her, she ordered a special burger with mushrooms, with onion rings as a side-dish. Even though she knew her appetite was smaller and more measured than Marshall, she thought that watching him to feast was her main dish in that particular meal outing.

From how much time Gail has spent with Marshall during these kind of meals, she knew he used to have a very reserved kind of character when eating in front of others, but as of lately, it was like he was relaxing it much more than the usual. His burger’s bites grew bigger, stronger, and quicker, as so did his swallowing… he then could grab a few of the potato slices or the onion rings to dip them in the sauce or the dressing, and shove them in his mouth. It was like he had the need to satisfy his hunger. And whenever he was satisfied, he didn’t mind to let out a couple of few belches which, obviously, made Gail flinch for how sudden they were becoming.

Another aspect from him, she observed, was that he didn’t hide his pleasure moans, either.

*Sigh*. If only Gail knew this all was mostly because Marshall was also doing this all on purpose, recently – to get her watching him, to make her indulge into his actions. To make her react much more than just a single blush to make her pale skin get a rose-tinted color. To make her squirm below the table. He wanted much more than that. He all really wanted was for her to reach under the table, and touch his soft body and his growing belly… to help him continue in growing his waistline in no time, to be fed by her… to be pampered by her…

All of this train of thoughts turned him on at that instant. Maybe that was also why he was so eager in pigging out like he was doing, to get Gail’s attention and perhaps take the first step to do something about it.

Except, Gail was trapped in a trance just by watching Marshall indulging as much as he was. She was growing hotter at the mere scene, second by second, feeding herself on the sight of him feasting out. Gail didn’t want to make it obvious, sure, but as much as she tried, she couldn’t match his eating speed, as she barely had half of her burger done. And she was still busy in licking her finger and biting her nail.

She was right about one thing, though. The greasy junk food helped in drowning all of her worries and frustrations over her interview, but she wasn’t going to deny that the worries were still in her mind. She had been wanting a change in her working life in the past few months, and she took her time to discuss it with her friends and with Marshall. She felt it was time to turn a new leaf from her current job and do what she had been wanting to do since she graduated, and she had unanimously support. But she had a hunch that she may not be getting it, and then she would return to search for similar job gigs… and… -ah, it was so tiring. Precisely why she didn’t pursue it from the start after graduating (besides all the debts she had to pay back).

Gail let out a sigh as she caught a glimpse Marshall shuffling in his seat, letting her wonder...

Under the table, the man was subtly lifting up his shirt and hoodie, and even attempting to zip down his pants so he could let his belly bloat freely. That particular day, he chose to wear an old pair of jeans that he was already outgrowing, but, perhaps, there was a possibility that he could have miscalculated his meal a tiny bit, as they felt tight. That being said… he felt turned on, hotter…

“Marshall…” Gail pronounced, almost absentminded. She was noticing him.

“What is it…” he mumbled as he stuffed a couple of onion rings that were dipped with dressing and sauce into his mouth. With a mere exchange of glances, he felt his neck getting hotter. Her eyes were focusing on him.

“Would you mind if I would fee-” Her hand reaching towards her bunch of onion rings.

It was a simple action that caught him very off guard, in the middle of biting his hamburger. Maybe it was the way she said it (was she going to actually make him the question? Nonetheless, her voice was charming him a lot), or the action itself... but he was growing confused in a manner of seconds.

“Marshall…” Another feminine voice was calling him from behind his seat. “Is that you, Marshall?”

He recognized the voice. He knew the woman whom it was from.

The timing wouldn’t have been the worst.

The couple (?) kept looking at the woman. Her light brown and wavy hair was tied up with a ponytail. Her big, and hazel-colored eyes giving them a confused look. And both Marshall and Gail were catching up with embarrassment as they were realizing what kind of scene they were making in front of this woman.

“Natalie?” Marshall mumbled in response.

Gail was definitely ‘brought back to Earth’ as she was vaguely recognizing that woman. And the more she looked at her, she started to realize who was her. Natalie was the same woman that sometimes accompanied Marshall way back when she realized he was visiting the coffee shop frequently. The same pretty and cute woman Gail knew she shouldn’t be comparing herself to, but it was unavoidable due to the current of thoughts coming back into her mind.

“Oh, so… it was really you, Marsh…” She held her purse closed to her arms.

Natalie was (understandably) uncomfortable, as she was attempting to put everything together in the scene she interrupted. She even put attention at the subtle details, like Marshall showing off his belly under his hoodie, or Gail slowly putting her hand back from her onion rings. Gulping, she cleared off her voice.

“Was I interrupting something?”

Marshall left his burger back on his plate. He lifted a finger to let him grab a couple of seconds, so he could gulp down a gas that was menacing to come out from his mouth, as he covered it with his other hand.

“Urp…” he still briefly pronounced (while unknowingly making both women flinch). “No… it’s fine.” He corrected, processing everything that was going on. He was scratching his left ear, feeling very awkward. “But… maybe you did…? I don’t know. Not sure...”

“I’m sorry.” Natalie apologized, taking her hands over her mouth. “I just wanted to make sure it was you. I haven’t seen you for a little while and, I suppose I did recognize your voice but…”

Gail abruptly stood up, nervous and very uncomfortable, at the presence of Natalie. Deep down it was like she felt very intimidated by her.

“S… say! I think I will go to the restroom.” She said, as she tried to smile as much as she could, pointing to the direction where the bathrooms were. “Perhaps, in the meantime, you could talk with each other. Is that... okay with you two?”

Marshall immediately understood what was happening with her and wanted to stop her as she walked away.

“Gail! Wait!” He stood up as he covered his belly back, but her steps were quicker than him taking initiative in following her. Marshall simply stopped as he lost sight of her, and sighed. Taking his glasses out, he rubbed his temples. “That woman, I swear…”

“I am not entirely sure what is going on?” Natalie expressed with confusion. “Are you two dating or something? I’m… really sorry for whatever I was interrupting earlier.”

“No, you are not the problem, Nat. It’s her.” Marshall responded feeling defeated. “And about both of us…? I’m not really sure, even. I want to say we are… but… I’m pretty sure now that she misunderstood something here.”

Natalie blinked.

“She misunderstood something…? Oh… I see.” She finally realized, as she was holding her chin with one of her hands. She was starting to understand what was going on. “Anyway. I’m actually waiting my order go through, so perhaps I could use some minutes to talk with you a bit.”

“Sure, of course.” He invited her to sit down.

“You know, I’m happy in seeing you like this, though.” She sat down, putting her purse on the table.

“Like what?”

“Dunno. Seeing you enjoying yourself, I guess.” She replied. “Happier, at the company of your significant other.” Natalie smiled.

“You wouldn’t be the first one in telling me all that.”

She reached her purse. “Actually, now that I’m here… I wanted to give you this before I forget.”

----

At the bathroom, Gail was feeling incredibly childish at that moment. She was alone, fortunately. So it was her and all her feelings and thoughts running wild in her head.

Why would she be running away like that, again? She perfectly knew that Marshall wasn’t seeing any other woman besides her, and hell, they weren’t even dating like that to feel… to feel… jealous? The truth was that she didn’t need something like this to be added to an already bad day after her earlier work interview, one that fueled her self-esteem issues and insecurities, at the presence of a beautiful-looking woman like Marshall’s friend.

Looking at the mirror, Gail saw herself – she looked elegant, professional, and pretty. She wasn’t a kid or a teenager anymore, as she was now much closer to her 30s. However, despite growing up… there were leftovers of a shy kid that barely could handle face-to-face interactions without thinking that these people would think she was weird or even ugly.

Why did she have to keep comparing herself to “prettier” women she didn’t really know about? Plenty of times? Even if she knew it was stupid? It was always the same thing, the same issues. Over and over. She usually tended to avoid it, and she had tried many times. But… the voice of her controlling mother still echoed through her mind.

Her mother always wanted her to conform to her values. If it wasn’t about her hobbies, it was about her studies, if it wasn’t about her clothes, it was about her appearance. And Gail struggled a lot to conform to whatever her mother wanted of her, until she was done with it, until her father was done with it. Once she didn’t have her mother over her (once the woman left their house for good), Gail decided to give it a try: to be feminine her own way. But she knew that the shy kid, the shy teenager that was often called a “ghoul” or a “witch” by her classmates, was still hidden somewhere inside her.

Gail had been trying to improve her self-esteem and insecurities since her mother left. Some days were good, others were bad. Or really bad, as that specific one day.

Marshall’s friend was cute. From the way Gail remembered their interactions at the coffee shop, she always suspected they were quiet close, from afar. The way she called him in, the way she addressed him as ‘Marsh’… it all confirmed to her how close they were actually. Of course, she knew Marshall had other female friends before her, she wasn’t the only one. He may have dated plenty more, as well. But Gail always liked him more than just a friend (or, again, whatever they used to be in high school, or whatever they were as adults). And as much as she didn’t want to devolve her thoughts into jealousy, to dive deep into her self-esteem issues… she couldn’t not do so.

She groaned at her reflection, in front of the hand washer.

To top an already messy day, with the interview, Natalie, there was this one outing… fuck, this specific meal outing. What was she doing before?! Why did she had to be all absentminded to ask Marshall if he wanted her to feed him?!

“GYAAAA! Fuck, I’m losing it!!” She screamed and expressed, covering her face. “It has to be that, right?! I’m totally losing it over HIM!” She slowly moved her hands down her face, before biting her thumb nail off.

Of course, she knew, she couldn’t back off now. The past four months and a half have been quite illuminating to her, about herself, about Marshall, and about their relationship. But lately, she felt that Marshall had gotten more playful? He had been teasing her more, there was no way whatsoever that whatever he implied wasn’t intentional at that point. The way he was exhibiting himself, eating as such with so much delight, noisier… and all in front of her? That was making her entire being boil as a coffee water pot. And then… and then...

Gail decided to stop overthinking it.

She started to breath in and out to start calming herself. That HAD to be it: she had been overthinking everything. She wished to be more… honest. She had to. If anything, she had a hunch, and maybe it was already time to be sincere with Marshall, about her and her feelings towards him.

----

Once Gail got out from the restrooms, she peeked from a corner and saw that Marshall was sitting alone at their table, picking up the last few potato slices that were left, with Natalie being nowhere to be seen.

Marshall, noticing her presence, stood up, making his belly jiggle, if only a bit.

“Gail, hey! Are you… okay?” He asked her. “Your food is getting cold.”

“Yeah…” She rubbed her arm before coming back to their table. “I... don’t think I am going to finish it, though… If you want to, I can give you the rest…”

He half-smiled at her. “Nonsense. You need it better than me. Weren’t you the one drowning your frustrations?”

“I know. It’s fine, really.” She took her seat, thinking about it for a couple of seconds. “Okay, maybe just a few more bites, and I will give you the rest, okay?”

As Gail picked up her burger to give it another bite, she noticed an envelope under Marshall’s wallet on the table. “Has your friend…?”

“Oh, yeah. Natalie left minutes ago. She wanted…” he saw her eyes focusing on his wallet, “to talk with me a little bit and to give me something.”

“Right…” Gail, cleaned a bit of her lip, and took a sip from her soda can. “Can I ask what was it?”

“Oh, sure.” He responded. “We can talk about it once you finish, of course.”

She nodded, slightly doubtful. As soon as she returned to eat, her heart was beating loudly under her chest. Half of it was dread, she was sure about it, and the other was simple excitement about whatever was coming after they left the hamburger joint. Catching a few glances of Marshall, at least he looked very calmed while finishing his meal’s leftovers.

“Natalie is getting married soon.” Marshall showed Gail the envelope. “She gave me the invitation of her wedding.”

“A… wedding invitation?” Gail said as she took it and opened to check it out.

Marshall nodded, before sighing.

“You see… Natalie and I go way back.” He gestured. “She used to be my neighbor when we were kids. We even tried to date each other while we were 15, although we never had a chance to become a couple back then. She moved out all of sudden, and I’m still not even sure why we never gave that step forward, maybe it was because we were good as friends, or I simply started to get interested in other girls.”

Gail kept looking at the invitation, with curiosity. It had cute flowers colored in pastel tones and there were written the names of Natalie and her partner with a lovely cursive font with gold ink. She kept listening.

“Some things weren’t meant to be, you know?” He continued. “She moved back a few years ago. You already can imagine how hard it was with me pushing away people with my anxiety and my poor mental health, so it was kinda hard maintaining our relationship in a friendly manner. Even so, she never seemed to mind that I was too grumpy. It was nice keeping contact with an old friend like her.”

“I suppose so.” She replied.

“Besides, that’s when I found out about her boyfriend of over five years. And I even met him! Such a polite guy, but if I’m honest with you, he is such a dork. I feel it was time they would already tie the knot…” He chuckled.

As soon as Marshall finished, Gail felt like a weight was lift from her shoulders. And he, noticing it as well, grinned.

“So, that’s more or less my relationship with Natalie. Since she is as busy as I am, we often met up at the coffee shop where you work to talk about stuff. And now, as you see, she is getting married.” He concluded, stretching himself to relax. “Did this stress you out? That she and I could have had a thing?”

Gail flinched and gasped, as it felt like he was reading her thoughts.

“What...?” She answered. “No, I wasn’t stressed...!”

“Gail, please. You just relaxed your shoulders and even look calmer than before.” He got his glasses off to clean them a bit with the sleeve of his hoodie.

“You… you don’t know what you are talking about…” She kept stammering, as she averted her gaze to the other side of the restaurant.

“No, I do.” He replied back. “Gail, I have told you before that you are fine the way you are. I have told you plenty of times already that...”

“Do… d-do you think I was jealous of your friend?!” She snapped at him. “Give me a break!”

“Then why did you run away to the restroom in the first place if you weren’t?! Come on, Gail. I understand why you acted like that and-”

“No, you fucking don’t!” She abruptly interrupted, in a defensive mode. “I simply wanted to go to the bathroom!”

“Gail. Please. It’s very obvious you misunderstood what was going on in the first place between me and Natalie!” He sighed, facepalming. “If you didn’t jump into conclusions…”

She was getting out of her patience, clenching her fists with anger. If there was something that she disliked the most in the world, that was Marshall being absolutely right in a discussion and her having to admit it as such.

And so, she exploded.

“Okay, fine! I might have misunderstood all of that as you say! However, you don’t have to act too sympathetic with me, Mr. Vain and Superficial!” She pointed him out with her long and thin pale index finger. “You don’t fucking understand how is it growing up and being made fun of you behind your back or others mocking you with awful nicknames because of how you looked or how you acted around with others! Or…” She tried hard to hold tears back, but her voice was starting to break up. “Or having the voice of your actual bitch of a mother echoing in your head reminding you similar things over and over…”

“Wha-” Marshall was astonished at what he just listened. Gail told him that her relationship with her mother wasn’t good, but, was it really that ba-?

“Or even having this bad habit of comparing yourself with other women because they look better, more feminine or more fashionable than you…” She covered her crying face with her hands. “And, although, your mother or those pricks are not part of your fucking life anymore… the wounds remain, they haven’t been fully cured… and I hate this with all my fucking being…!”

Marshall sighed out of frustration, taking all what she was putting on the table.

“Okay. You win. I was a vain and superficial asshole. Are you happy?” He held her hands to pull them apart from her face as a way to force her see him to his eyes. “And yeah, I find faces like Natalie’s quite cute and attractive. Is that wrong?!” He reclaimed her back, while letting her hands go, and making his own to fall over his lap, making a solid sound on his thick thighs. “But, don’t you dare to tell me that I’m just acting as sympathetic, because you don’t believe me enough, thinking that I do not understand you. Because I fucking do.”

“Then, how? TELL ME!”

Marshall’s gaze was full of cold anger.

“Do you think it was fucking easy to be constantly reminded by others about how skinny I had been looking in the past few years?!” He bit his inner cheek, his eyes getting teary. “Or that I wasn’t smiling as much as I did when I was younger?! For fuck’s sake, Gail! I was pitied a LOT of how awfully bad I had it after I lost my older brother! How do you… ugh… how do you not seem to believe someone would grow self-conscious about stuff like all of that when others often remarked you they ‘miss the old you’?!”

“That is not the same, Marshall!” Gail was gritting her teeth.

“Of course it is the same!” Exasperated, he rubbed his nose bridge and temple. He got nervous about telling her the following., but it was now or never.

“I… I have been getting fatter, Gail. I am probably… between 50 and 55 lbs heavier than I used to be in high school. And, you don’t have any idea how… how good it makes me feel as of lately.” Marshall was sobbing. “Of course, I still receive unnecessary comments about this, and I also feel a small voice in my head that wants to make me feel bad… but trust me when I say that I like this. I really, really like this change on me.”

He held her hand dearly, grasping it with certain strength. Marshall couldn’t stop looking at Gail, who was dumbfounded about the whole ordeal. Carefully, and hesitant, he put his other hand over her hair, and started stroking it with his fingers. His eyes full of warmth.

“I like you, Gail. I always felt attracted to you, you know? But… perhaps, I never agreed on how to interpret my attraction towards you up until very recently.” He kept stroking her hair, while her face was flushing pink, as she finally looked directly at his eyes. “I enjoyed a lot of the things we did back then… those that we still do together and these are many more than those that I didn’t. I realized that is quite easier to be with you than others, because it’s fun and very comfortable being accompanied by you. You bring me a lot of peace, as well, heh. So, how can I not like you?”

Gail took his hand with hers, and she closed her eyes. She liked the way he stroke her hair with so much care and love. It was easy to perceive his sincerity on his voice, his actions. It all matched.

She inhaled and exhaled.

“I’m… I am so sorry for reacting the way that I did, Marshall. I… I was childish. Unbelievably, so.”

“It’s alright.” He responded, still not letting her go. “You jumped into conclusions…”

“And I ran away like a scared child.” She laughed. “It’s ridiculous admitting how jealous I was of you and your friend. And I wanted to be honest and all that…! But when you become a smartass, I… don’t like you being right.”

“Ho, ho. That might be a problem, then.” His grin was a smug one.

“Marshall. Please.” She begged him. “It’s just… I hate… being this childish in front of the one guy I had a crush on since we were teenagers…”

And there it was.

Marshall put a more sincere grin on his face.

“I know.”

“Wait… what do you mean ‘you know’?” She winced.

“I just… knew. Well, more like I had a hunch.” He rolled his eyes as he chuckled. “Several, actually.”

“But, I mean-”

“You weren’t very subtle. Sometimes, it was very obvious, but I think your reaction with Natalie’s presence hit the last nail…” He rubbed her hand.

“No, no, no… backtrack, backtrack.” She gestured to go back a few minutes ago, as she grabbed his hand harder. “I don’t get it. No… I don’t get you. You… like me? Since when? Why? I thought you didn’t like me beyond… being a ‘friendly rival’...”

“Hey, why do you assume I couldn’t like you back then?” He genuinely asked her.

“Because I wasn’t cute and I was a weirdo?” Embarrassed, she lowered her gaze, attempting to cover her eyes with her free hand. “And a stubborn rival on top of that?”

“Well.” He scratched his neck. “You may have been weird, Gail. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t like you. Didn’t you pay attention to what I said before? I used to be a vain asshole, so... after that prank we did, I… became conscious about how you were actually cute below your weirdness. And, although my feelings at the time were messy… I always thought you deserved someone much more better than me.” His gaze went to the opposite direction of Gail’s, embarrassed of admitting and phrasing his feelings for her like that.

Gail spent seconds processing how to take his confession.

“Did… I…” She groaned, as she was trying to figure out what she wanted to ask. “Were you even considering it?”

Marshall’s gaze got back to Gail’s small gray eyes. And, embarrassingly so, he nods.

“It was a thought that crossed my mind.” He swallowed saliva. “Once… twice, maybe. But that was then… and this is now, and, like I have told you already – I have been reevaluating my feelings and our relationship and I recently came to the conclusion that I really like you, Gail… Hell, why not? Let’s call it what it is, ‘love’. I love you.”

Gail was feeling warm as she heard him say the word ‘love’. She even bit her lips towards the thought of her former ‘friendly’ rival, feeling ‘love’ towards her.

“Love, huh.” She repeated, slowly grinning back. “I like that.”

And then, Marshall took the opportunity to hold her face with both of his hands, so he could look at her directly.

“I honestly think you look beautiful today, Gail. Yesterday, today, tomorrow…” He leaned his head as he got closer, his lips reaching to hers.

“You look quite fine and handsome, as well, Marshall.” She blushed, while smiling at each second she took in to respond him: “I love you.”

Gail’s words were sealed by a warm kiss, something that perhaps she only imagined in her dreams. It happened that Marshall kissed so much better than she would have thought, however. As their lips touched, his hands were still holding her face, not wanting to let her go, once again.

They stopped for a few seconds as they were breathless but very excited at seeing each other being a complete mess, which, it was a first for Gail. She just wanted more of that breathless and hungry image that Marshall had at that instant, so she kissed him back with so much desire than before.

This obviously caught Marshall with a certain degree of surprise, but then he became a little more adventurous, as their wet lips touched again. He went to get his tongue deep into her mouth, making Gail wince, but her answer was holding him closer to her. Her arms and hands sliding around his shoulders to hug his neck. Once she grabbed him, she let her hands slip and roam down at his thicker torso, while her mind was hazy and busy when making out. Little by little, she started to notice how softer her ex-classmate was getting, as she recognized the closer she got to his waist, his sides were clearly becoming love handles.

Ah. Was it true, right? Wasn’t there something he said about liking ‘getting fatter’…?

Marshall was frowning (if just a little) as he realized Gail was touching and feeling his softer sides. Her small hands slowly… carefully… sliding into his overgrown tee, holding on them as much as she could do. He let out a moan, panting, growing excited as if he was asking for more. He did his part, though, as he was starting to unbutton Gail’s blouse, wanting to slide her jacket off so he could also grab to her, which she also responded with her hands holding harder, squeezing…

“Isn’t this…” Gail exclaimed, huffing, under their breaths. “Isn’t this getting too... steamy?”

“I guess…” Marshall nodded as he let out another moan, before returning to kiss her one more time. “I guess someone was too excited that she couldn’t just wait to get all over me.” He teased her.

As the embarrassment and consciousness started to kick in, Gail closed her eyes for a few seconds, watching around them to see if they weren’t getting a public. They were still sitting at a side of the restaurant and anyone could see them, afterall.

“We shouldn’t be… doing all of this, so in the open… gosh…” She added while fixing her hair, and recovering certain sitting posture.

“As if that couldn’t make you stop.” He teased, ending with a chuckle. His hand holding her jacket, wanting to take her hand. “Besides, I also have been desiring to touch you as of lately…”

The comment just made her get all red as a tomato.

“Desiring…? Ahhhh… I can’t believe my ears…” Gail groaned, and he got closer to give her a kiss on her nose.

“Heh. What’s wrong with it? I do desire you…”

“It’s just, hearing you saying it like that…” She shyly covered her face, her hands slowly sliding down from it, giving it a thought. “I think… I think we should calm down just a bit and talk about everything of, well... this…”

“Now that you mention it,” Marshall commented, “I’m curious about something that has been bothering me for a bit.”

“Ok. Shoot, what is it?” She was fixing her blouse and jacket, attempting to make her presentable again.

“So, tell me, miss Gail.” He started, his cold-gazing almond-colored eyes looking at her with curiosity. “Was it fun seeing me, with those prying eyes of yours, when I shoved food into my mouth?” He raised his brow. “I mean, all this gained weight wasn’t entirely ‘accidental’, if you catch my drift.”

Gail was very caught on the spot, her ears feeling as they were boiling in hot water. She tried to speak, but no sound was coming from her mouth.

“And you were quite nonchalant inviting me to get some food. I suppose I get it. And how couldn’t you? We were hanging out, and it was fair since I invited you to do other things, and you wanted to pay for the food… but I also was quite skinny, don’t you think? Scrawny, even...”

She was sighing.

“I suppose... you aren’t very wrong.” She started confessing, her hand rubbing her arm. “When we first talked to each other, again, that day at the cash register, I wouldn’t exaggerate that it threw me off looking how skinny you were. I was suspecting why, of course. But, deeply in my mind, it felt like a voice was telling me ‘wow, I would love to feed this guy and, who knows, maybe he would feel better?’”.

“To feed me?” He asked as he was getting the catch of it.

Gail nodded.

“That’s… yeah. That’s right.” She bit her nail. “Uhm, it’s a little weird to describe. I always liked seeing you eat… like a fixation, maybe? And I told you before that I like big men… so, I guess something made a connection in my head and…” She suddenly stopped talking as she realized how it was all sounding. “I mean, it truly wasn’t my intention to fatten you up while inviting you to get some dinner or when I cooked desserts for you… and I’m quite glad that you aren’t ‘scrawny’ anymore, don’t get me wrong!… But…! I...” She tried to hold her tears back, again, her contact lenses starting to hurt her. “Maybe I’m getting selfish or greedier… But, I would love to see you getting fatter thanks to my food and getting to feed you by my hand…”

“Would you… make me fatter thanks to your food and your hand?” Marshall flinched. He closed his eyes to evaluate the situation in front of him. That was exactly what he wanted to listen from her, to understand that they might have been in the same page.

Gail was looking defeated, however.

“I… I’m so so-”

Marshall interrupted her with a gasp.

“Oh, Ms. Gail! Are you saying that all of this… it was you who have been encouraging me to gain weight and fatten me up?!” He sounded very fake, but there was clearly a teasing intention behind his accusation.

At first confused, Gail looked away, slightly covering her face.

“God… when you put it like that…” She closed her eyes, reclining her head to a side to get a glimpse of his rounder face. “It sounds quite dirtier than it should be??”

With a cocky smile on his face, he also got a better look of her.

“Well, tell me – isn’t it dirty? I find this explanation quite impressive. You always find yourself a way with words, even if you end up rambling like that. I knew you were a little persuasive, but this…?”

“Whoa, whoa, Marshall… Are you flirting with me?!” She laughed and raised her eyebrow as she caught him teasing her, as always.

“Shouldn’t I?” He took her hands. “We just made out… and you confessed something that is, dare I say, making me feel all throbbed… I guess I can flirt with the woman I love and tease her a little just like that.”

“Gooosh! Stop that!” Gail, nervous, slipped one of her hands out so she could scratch the back of her ear. She was loving the fact he described her as ‘the woman I love’. She ended up laughing at the thought.

“I really don’t want to.” His face got closer to hers. “Don’t test me out.” He chuckled as well, fixing his glasses.

“So… Marshall. I…” She exhaled, wanting to find the exact words she wanted to use. “Would you like it? Do you want me to do it? Letting me,” she gestured her hand and put it against his chest, sliding it down to his small gut, grabbing as much as she could with it. “Fatten you up by my hand, with my food?”

He smugly grinned back. It felt like they were going to make a pact. He finally answered.

“So glad you dared to ask.” He hold her from the back, pushing her towards him. “I would love you to get me fatter…” Keeping Gail closer, he leaned in to kiss her, sealing the whole deal.

----

Marshall and Gail went to wander through the grocery store nearby, giving themselves some time to talk out things about them in a more streamlined way, while also buying some things.

Although they just became a couple, Gail was acting a little bit shyer than usual as Marshall wouldn’t let go of her hand. They would even whisper to each other as a way to tease each other on things they could do later whenever they stopped in the store’s aisles. As such, they decided to go to Gail’s apartment, since it wasn’t too far away from there.

An hour later, the couple arrived to Gail’s apartment, a modest sized one-floor place which happened to be decorated in a very cozy cottagecore-like vibes.

Marshall whistled as he entered the apartment, taking a look around.

“I don’t know why I never thought you would be into this trend. The few couple of times I did go to your house back then it was so…”

“Oh, shush. I know…” She nervously laughed, as she reached the switch to turn on the entrance and living room’s lights. “Most of this decoration was from my grandma. Moving out… gave me the perfect chance to make use of all of her stuff.”

“Well, it looks better than my place, to be honest.” He left the grocery bags he was carrying on the ground. “But I suppose that’s what poor mental health and a single life plus a busy work field can do as much to give order to your space.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Marshall.” Gail reached the table to leave her groceries there, as well. “It’s possible your place can be better than mine on some things”

“Oh, sure?” He raised a brow. “Like, what? Tell me one thing and I would consider it.”

“Like…” She turned to him, eyeing his soft torso, from top to bottom. “I dunno…” She took a few steps forward so she could make small circles over his chest with her fingers, not being subtle about her intentions for that evening.

“Maybe… it could be much more spacious… or perhaps, soundproofed…?”

“Naughty.” He responded with a cocky smile on his face. “Honestly, though… your place is nice and comfortable. I like it.” He leaned his face down to whisper to her ear. “You should bring me more often…”

“May… maybe I should.” Gail’s face was turning red, again.

“I really want to know this ‘you’ so much better.” He caressed her face. “Even the more intimate parts of you.”

Gail was biting her lower lip, obviously not very used to all of that attention from him, yet. She nervously backed off a bit, until he caught her waist. She definitely liked all of that. But she had to admit it was still a bit weird given all of that relationship progress had been happening during the same day. She felt nervous to not fulfill expectations that Marshall might have had of her.

And Marshall also noticed it.

“I’m sorry…”

“No… it’s just that I am not very used to this, haha…” She replied.

“It’s fine, Gail. We can take it slowly. I’m not going to leave.” He kissed her on her forehead, before wrapping his arms around her, hugging her. “I don’t plan to leave. I don’t want to.”

“I feel I should be the one saying this, you know?”

“Perhaps.” He looked at her, brushing her hair. “Although I admit I do feel slightly weird, as well. I need to get used to this.”

Gail laughed. “There’s plenty of time for that.” She gave a look at the grocery bags she put in the table. “Speaking of which, do you still want to try this feeding thing today? We could still just relax and watch a movie or something else.” She replied with a rather nervous tone of voice.

“Oho, are you backtracking?” Marshall answered, with a teasing voice. “Weren’t you the one that wanted to try to get a feel in how all of this was? The one who convinced me to do it when we were at the store?”

“Well, I did… it’s just…”

“Look, Gail. It’s okay. I’m not going to break.” He held his small gut and made it jiggle. “I have been practicing a bit myself. I didn’t gain this much in the past few months just because. If it took me around three months to be at an ‘average weight’, imagine how it would be if you help… me…” He leaned close to her ear again and lowered his voice to get her attention.

At that moment, Gail was feeling like an electric shock was going through her body.

“Do you want to take it slowly and relax just for today, or perhaps, would you like to try feeding me?” He proposed.

“So… what should I do?” She softly asked. “How... can we try this…?” She was embarrassed, but her eyes glowed with excitement.

Looking around, Marshall got his sight on the sofa. He walked towards it, and then let himself sit on it, making him sink if only a bit onto the cushions.

“We could make use of the chocopies we bought.” He pointed the grocery bags out, the ones he left on the floor. “And then…” He later pointed out towards his mouth. His gaze was reflecting desire, inviting her to indulge in it, as well. He shifted in his seat to let her sit down as well.

Looking the way Marshall was sitting on the sofa, Gail could easily see how his belly was just starting to take space onto his lap. He simply looked different when sitting down… and so, she was thinking how long it would take if he looked bigger… rounder… on the same spot.

Gail quickly got the box of chocopies, and gave a look at the contents. The box was full of 12 packages of small chocolate-covered soft cookie sandwiches filled with marshmallows. Although she could be exaggerating with thinking the chocopies were “small”, as they were actually the size of her hands.

She sat at his side, and he lifted his shirt, showing her the pudgy yet still small belly he was able to get mostly on his own. There were not subtleties anymore. It was all for show to her.

“This is thanks to you. I got this because of you.” He told her, taking her hand to touch him. Gail caressed his belly with delicacy, until she squeezed it. Letting a moan come out from his mouth, Marshall bit his lips. He was growing sensitive, sure. But, her touch? That was not part of his fantasies anymore.

“It’s soft… pudgy…” Gail let out. “I feel like I should be proud… if you decided to get this chubby, to let go… because of me. It’s still small, but we can make sure in making it bigger, don’t you think?”

Her smile was hypnotizing. She took one of the packages, opened it, and offered the chocopie to him, slowly getting it closer to his face. He was delightful at her response, of course, as she was sliding it carefully into his lips.

Marshall wouldn’t say no, slowly biting it and swallowing it all down. He could taste the chocolate in his lips, as much as the soft cookie crumbling inside his mouth, and the soft, very soft marshmallow filling.

“Is it good?” Gail asked. “Did I do good?”

He quickly nodded, leaning his face onto her hand so he could grab another bite of it. He was eager, very clearly into it. His free hand could rub his belly, wanting much more of the feeling he was soaking himself into.

For Gail, it was captivating seeing her old rival being… so docile. He used to have a stronger personality whenever they were deep into their discussions. He once told her he was mellowing, but even so… she couldn’t believe how docile he was being at that moment… or how pleased he looked as she continued feeding him the pastry, until he finished it and she went to open a new one. It was so strange… exciting, but also… provocative. She was growing hot and wet.

Little by little, Gail went to undress herself, piece by piece of the suit she was wearing. The jacket went off first, then she unbuttoned her blouse, leaving her with just her bra. If he was exhibiting himself for her, she wanted to reciprocate and do the same. To make the moment so much more intimate between them. Which, of course, Marshall couldn’t not stare at.

“Atta girl.” He licked his lips, as he saw her barely covered torso. He also took his hoodie and shirt off.

She got her face close to his. Touching his soft chin, she lifted it up, and she leaned in to kiss his lips. As a response, he wrapped his arms onto her back, and she got one of her legs onto his waist, enjoying an exchange of tasteful desire, right before Gail would feed him another chocopie.

[sugarishapple]

This is just me vaguely rambling (also, as 'ideas I might explore later'), but I have a brainrot that has lasted me for a whole week after rewatching (and finishing) one of my comfort live action tv shows, and I'm not sure how to cope about it, lol.

Like... you have to understand me. The main character bulks out a bit (ie gets slightly softer on screen between seasons, and YOU notice it comparing him from early seasons towards that last few). And... I dunno how to react to this, lmao. It was like a full revelation to me (and other things), and all I knew was "wow, this dude REALLY seem a bit more... 'square', bulked out... I cannot not stare at his torso, pls send help (to me)".

So, I explored a bit into ao3 (as you should), and, frankly? I have just found one fic so far that explores and shares my vision about this, lol. I want to be self-indulgent and do my deed one of these days, too, haha.

On the other hand, and perhaps I'm just overthinking this, I feel slightly weird about this 🤔.

Like... I know live action characters are still fictional at the end of the day and I know that actors just portray them, and... you know. I never have explored wg kink stuff like this on live action properties (despite what my reblogs in my main-kink blog suggest), so.

I don't really watch too many live action TV nowadays or follow live action movie franchises, so, I mean. I think most of what I watch of "live action" are korean dramas and, maybe I do have a few kink headcanons that indulge that itch in regards to these characters, until I forget about them because I tend to watch a lot, lol, (although, honestly I do tend to think 'let this character be FAT' as my usual :') when I think about 'glow ups' and the like), lol.

The thing is... this itch is the usual. But presencing it on my screen clearly didn't help me in noticing it. Noticing my blorbo (and his actor, btw!) is actually bulking out if only a bit? (I put "bulk" out in the more general sense here?) and I'm... hmmm 🥴. Oh, especially (AND VERY especially), blorbo is in his mid to late 30s this late into the game (very much the last 2-3 seasons), and with the way the character is in the series, doesn't give me vibes of "this dude stays thin in canon (I'm ignoring a bit the extra material canon atm, so give me a break on this, lol)", you know? the writer of that fic puts it in the best way about "these characters on a shitty college diet that would be against them as 30-smth or potential 40s", so. And there's bits here and there in actual tv show adding fuel to my indulging desires to write something...

And I'm wanting to eat my fist so bad :)))

[sugarishapple]

MAN, I want what Marshall and Gail have... 😏❤️

tfw you revisit a comfort tv series you liked and you explore a bit of tumblr to find a perfect kiss scene from the particular titular pairing from the series (because you don't know how to draw kisses) and then use it as a base to draw this scene :)

[sugarishapple]

Wounds from the past and how to heal from them

Chapter 3: Self-reflection

Rating: E (YEAH, had to change it because months ago I didn't expect I would add some steamy scenes, lmao |D) Relationship(s): F/M

(AO3 link)

(first chapter) (next)

----

“(*SIGH* For real...)”

Sitting at the edge of a sofa, was a dark-haired young man in his mid 20s. He was shifting a bit into his seat, feeling disappointed, as he saw the frame of his older brother’s back still behind the chair in front of his desk.

“I come all the way from Uni and you happen to be busy. Weren’t you the one who supposedly invited me to join you for dinner?” The young man was pouting, his sight now glued to the screen of the portable videogame console he was holding in his hands.

“I know, I know…” Marshall responded as quick as he was typing. “Sorry, Sammy, I got called to correct and retouch some things and I couldn’t sit back to do nothing about it. I will finish quick, though”.

The other man in the room was Samuel, Marshall’s younger brother. But everyone (family and friends alike) used to call him either Sammy or Sam.

“I could have chosen to go and visit mom and dad, you know? I’m sure they are tired of me going to visit them so often, haha.” He shrugged. “We rarely coincide nowadays and it’s like having to schedule a date with a cryptid.”

“Sorry.”

“Although, after all this time... I admit you have been looking rather healthier these days.”

“Right.” Marshall was too focused on his work, that he couldn’t concentrate too much on his brother. But he quite knew what was his intention behind that sentence. “But, what do you exactly mean by ‘healthier’?”

“Well…” Samuel was looking for the right words, to explain himself, as he put the gaming console on his lap. “Don’t take it wrong, I truly mean it when I say you look healthier. Like, I perfectly know you weren’t the model slender and fit high school or college student, but I felt quite sad looking how you truly got from that to being very scrawny. No offense, of course.”

Marshall stopped typing on his keyboard. Samuel was well-intentioned most of the time. While he didn’t feel offended on the way he said all of that, he did feel somewhat annoyed about what his brother meant, even though it wasn’t his intent.

After Ethan’s death, Marshall didn’t know how to handle everything on his plate. His responsibilities, his studies, his relationships… and most importantly, taking care of himself. His mental health was basically holding up on masking tape with the rest of his physical body. At the beginning of his therapy sessions to treat his trauma and the anxiety it eventually sprouted, his therapist made it clear to him that the medicine he was going to take would probably work a way; however, in the long term it had the opposite effect on his own physical being, including loss of appetite. And finding other hobbies and work to get himself busy, Marshall eventually realized that being stressed for a good amount and not eating well (or much, actually), wouldn’t do him good later on life.

Taking off his glasses, Marshall reclined his head on the back of his chair to think. During the past three months, he noticed his body had been finally recovering to a more 'average' weight for a man his age and height is supposedly to have, but he surely had been accumulating the pounds after that. Caressing his torso, he couldn’t stop recognizing how softer it was getting, as his tum was becoming pudgier. It was a different sensation than whenever he would feel his ribs against his skin (especially when he would stretch or lay down)… and it certainly was becoming a very welcoming feeling, as well. 

Although he wasn’t against the idea of gaining more weight in the first place, he grew aware that this all was because of his constant outings with Gail. His ex-classmate often encouraged him to finish his meals, getting bigger portions, or even something ‘better’ than his usual meals (after all, she was mostly paying for them, not him). He complied at first because he wanted to be courteous towards her, but he also grew comfortable with sharing any kind of meals with her, especially (especially so) once she also started to cook or bake for him.

And the thing was that, somehow? He started to like that filling sensation of getting full and satisfied off his meals, particularly, around her presence.

“I think what I find attractive nowadays are… big guys…”

“Big guys? You mean… wider with a belly?”

Marshall put his hand over his lips as he realized something. It turned out that he still couldn’t forget when Gail confessed him that she liked fat guys. And, somehow?, the more he thought about it, the more his actions… it was like... he was taking cues from that confession.

----

It was thanks to Gail that Marshall got a harder grip on some of his habits. 

He had been following the tips she had been sharing with him, including the medicinal herbal teas (he even had a small notebook that she gave him with useful recipes inside), or being told that he could improve his cooking skills so he could eat a little better on his own, too. In fact, he suggested to his brother that he would make the dinner at home, as he was going to visit him during that weekend.

“Wow, this looks good.” Samuel mentioned as he served his meal, pasta with sauce and meatballs. “No more ‘fried eggs and toasts’, am I right?”

Marshall laughed.

“Don’t make fun of me, that’s as much as I could make when getting busy with stuff (that or some instant soup). I have been trying new things, trust me on that.” 

“Hopefully so, because I was starving!” The younger man delightfully grabbed a forkful of the pasta and shoved it into his mouth. “Mhmm, this tastes quite good!”

“Does it, right?”

“No wonder you have been gaining some extra weight, as well!” Samuel remarked.

Ah.  There was something about that... it was like Marshall couldn’t not feel a bit weird about this claim. He wasn’t hiding it, of course, but-

“Y… yeah, I guess…” He nervously added, as his sight suddenly went to his plate. “It’s a nice change of pace, though...”

“Whoa! Don’t take me wrong! It’s just… I wonder. I am seeing you more in the mood, even more expressive. Healthier and happier…?” He tried to explain himself. “What’s going on, Marsh? Did you get a girlfriend? Are you improving your cooking skills because you want to impress her? Or, well, has she been feeding you well?”

“No… I don’t have a… girlfriend…?” Marshall denied it, with an uncertainty in his voice. He paused, while adjusting his glasses. For starters, he was sure he couldn’t call Gail a ‘girlfriend’. But there was something more about the way his brother questioned him. His voice at the end was filled with a derisive feeling, so his attention was put on what he might have meant by ‘been feeding you well?’.

“Are you sure...?”

But then, Marshall got back in track.

“Uhm… she… she is not, at least I don’t think so… Do you remember this girl from high school with this long and messy hair and didn’t stop talking about the supernatural?” He played a bit with his fork and the pasta he had on his plate. “There’s a chance she has gone to our house a few times because of homework or some other project we might have done together.”

His brother got all thoughtful, inclining his head to a side, trying to remember the girl in question.

“Yeah… I think? Wasn’t her name ‘Ghoul’ or something?”

“Gail. Yes.” He abrasively corrected, as ‘ghoul’ was the nickname many at school gave her as a way to make fun of her. “That’s her. We recently crashed into each other, and we have been going out a lot since.”

“Oh, wow.” Samuel scratched his neck. “Now that I think about it, I can’t believe you would just… go out like that with someone, especially if you just reconnected. When was the last time you dated someone?... Wait. Wasn’t her the one girl you used to rant over from time to time back then? Didn’t you dislike her?”

Marshall could easily perceive his brother wanted to have the juicy details, from his sudden interest in this he was telling to him. He glanced at him and shrugged.

“I never… ugh… I didn’t dislike her.” He put his hand over his forehead. “We had lots of arguments, and she could have been quite annoying, insufferable, and stubborn… but, she was one of the most fun people I wanted to hang out with. That is if we weren't too deep in our stupid discussions, of course.”

“Yeah… I suppose you could say that…” Sammy rolled his eyes. “You know what they say, birds of a feather, flock together… So, how has it been?”

“Interesting. That’s how it has been. Very... interesting.” Marshall replied with a soft voice. 

“Does she still bothers you about all that supernatural stuff?” His brother kept inquiring.

“No, not really. Sometimes? Maybe? Although I think she is also restraining a little. It’s kind of hilarious, even. I can usually perceive it, but it still makes me laugh. But, generally… it feels that much hasn’t changed between us? But, I mean, we had… she had. And, dunno, I find her fascinating.”

“Fascinating?”

“To be fair, Sam,” Marshall closed his eyes, “I always found her fascinating.” He smiled, and unconsciously, his hand went over his softened torso.

“Oh, well. I am happy for you both if things are working… somehow. It’s strange knowing you are having fun with a female friend, colleague or else, actually. Especially given how you used to pushed back others after they found out about your, well, anxiety ‘situation’” Samuel made quote marks in the air when saying it as such, even though he knew he couldn’t say that nonchalantly. After all, all of their family also passed a difficult time after Ethan passed away, although it was Marshall who got the short end of the stick, taking the loss the hardest.

“It’s like… I don’t know. She is fun to be with, for starters. She also empathizes with me, she doesn’t get too tactless in asking too much about everything that went on, and she doesn’t treat me carefully as if I was a child or if I would break myself, like with other women I have dated before… She… seems to understand my pain and give me my space, too, and...”

“It’s okay… to not be okay.”

“And, perhaps, she might be the only one who would get along perfectly with you?” Sam raised a brow while giving the final direct attack to his older brother’s mind and heart.

----

Marshall always knew that, for some reason or another, Gail got used to that persistent and stubborn part of him, as he was used to hers. They got along perfectly, despite some differences. So, when they started to distance from each other back in high school (before the Ethan incident, that is, of course), it was… well, it was weirder than anything she could have done. He didn’t understand why she would start avoiding him or put a wall between them (and Gail wasn’t too subtle about it, either), so he became too selfconcsious about it as time went on. But, if there was a moment his present self would pinpoint as the very moment they stopped hanging out with each other… he was sure of one.

It was during their last year of high school, when Marshall realized that he was spending too much time with Gail, even in the slightest unconventional moments. One could say from far away that ‘fate brought them out together’, because they were a very unconventional pair of ‘friends’. 

It was surprising to him that they had similar hobbies, specifically in the gaming area, and sometimes he was very impressed by her creative talent, while enacting stories crafted with fantastical and supernatural elements like those fantastic novels he could spend time reading.  In fact, he was incredibly impressed by her, that he started noticing that their rivalry was becoming much more friendlier… as it was becoming too much comfortable. He couldn’t complain, to be honest.

But Marshall always had this suspicion Gail had a crush on him. He was very observant (an aspect his circle of high school friends hated a lot), so it was unavoidable to see that every single small thing she did for him, always had something that wasn’t too subtle about it.

However, Marshall knew he couldn’t correspond her. The feelings weren’t as mutual. He was a superficial (and vain) bastard that thought he could have everything at his hands if he played his cards right… and she wasn’t part of that ‘everything’.

The day Marshall helped her out for that revenge prank thing, he realized something that terrified him: if she put make up, and if she fixed her hair… she looked beautiful. In fact, she always have been pretty, even behind the tomboy style of clothes she wore daily (overalls, giant grungey-like jackets), the glasses, and the long, wavy and messy hair she used to have. But, being the way he was (and the way she was)… it wouldn’t have been fair forcing her to be ‘conventionally pretty’ if anything happened between them then.

The thing was, Marshall found her so fascinating and interesting just the way she was. Maybe it was her personality or her passion much more than her physical appearance, the ‘witch-like’, the ‘ghouly’ appearance everyone at school was making fun of. And it’s also not like he hadn’t thought about it, either (at least so many years after the fact), it was that at the time he didn’t look at her more than the classmate, rival, and ‘kindred spirit’ he found in her.

So. The one moment Marshall had pinpointed as the moment of the start of their ‘friendship’ falling apart was… no, had to be that one time where one of his ‘closest’ friends from high school, Lucas, asked him about his relationship with Gail. 

It was true that he was hanging a lot with Gail in and out of school, but many of his friends noticed this pattern until one of them (who cared who it was) caught them somewhere (he did not remember explicitly this detail in the present), so this one guy ‘took one for the team’, and asked him ‘out of curiosity’ why someone like him kept hanging out with Gail, despite all the rumors about her, despite the mockery, or despite the fact they were supposedly ‘rivals’ and that ‘he couldn’t ‘stand her’.

“Are you even dating or what?” The guy asked him.

That one group of friends where Marshall and Lucas were part of mostly cared about appearances, so there was some kind of annoyance that Marshall (whom had some nerdy hobbies and didn’t explicitly shared them with these people but friends he knew elsewhere) was hanging out with the ‘weird girl of their high school’.

“Dating? Her? What do you mean by that?” He told Lucas.“Gail is so weird… she’s not even my type.”

He knew that a question like that might have meant more than mere curiosity, so it made him grow irritated the more couple of minutes he spent thinking about it. But, what else he could have done: Just deny the feelings you might have about her, and that would be the end of it, right?

There was a high chance that a chat like this that was very open in the public, in the high school campus, might have arrived to Gail’s ears. If his guts were right, this had to be what distanced them. There was one small thing, though: this wasn’t the whole conversation he had with that Lucas guy.

Marshall clarified a few things with Lucas, shortly after: “Although… I feel she should deserve someone better than me that could match her weirdness and all that. I know what you think about me… so maybe I am as weird as her...? But, let’s be real – at least, I am not a hypocrite that treats her like garbage as many of you do in this fucking school.”

Gail was a good person and someone Marshall could rely on. That’s why he ended up clinging to her that fateful last time they met, so many years ago. She was her only ‘hope’ to possibly reach Ethan, to save himself of the burden that just a couple of words (charged with anger and other negative feelings), caused him to go ‘down-spiral’. He admitted he was delusional back then. He didn’t believe in actual ghosts and yet, he felt he was chased by one: his guilt over the death of his older brother. But he later understood that the grief never goes away as much as he wanted it to disappear. He could control it, but it never left him.

And with that cleared out in his mind… he couldn’t stop reflecting in what Gail meant for him in the present. What were his actual feelings towards her?

The more time they spent together, the more made him remember lots of things he missed about her and their time spent together: How a good person she was. The good friend she was. The peace and serenity that she brought him when they spent time together, and the realization that he enjoyed sharing meals with her, especially given how his trauma and work made it hard to make him eat well – always busy, always stressed.

All of this made him realize how much he actually liked, liked Gail.

As he continued to eat his dinner meal with Samuel, Marshall now had a query forming inside his mind about Gail, and her encouragement and-

“Wow, Marsh... you seem to have prepared a lot for just two persons...” His younger brother exclaimed, interrupting his train of thoughts. “I feel full… but, how is it that now you are eating a third serving?”

Something that definitely now caught Marshall by surprise, as he was quite deep in his thoughts. A third serving?

Marshall was getting nervous (and, slightly… turned on, even? He couldn’t fully tell). He gulped as he left his fork fall over the golden-looking pasta on his plate.

“Uhm… hey.” He rubbed his lips for a few seconds with the tips of his fingers. He suddenly remembered the conversation he had earlier with his brother, to probably derail the talk. “Just curious. What did you really mean by ‘has she been feeding you well’ from before?”

Sam side-eyed him.

“Are you… how do you get clung onto a detail like that…?!” He ruffled his hair, groaning. “You know it’s just a saying that usually means that you might be so happy in a relationship that you might gain weight, right?. That’s it.”

But Marshall wasn’t convinced Samuel said it just for that. He could sense it. He crossed his arms, looking at him with concern.

“Sure. But, the saying doesn’t use ‘they feed you well’. It’s too specific coming from you to me to simply ignore.”

Sammy grabbed a glass of water to drink from it.

“It’s nothing to worry about. Why do I have to...”

“Sam.”

The younger man groaned. He knew how Marshall could get when questioning him about anything, really. He rubbed his neck, growing annoyed of telling him about a situation that didn’t concern him, and yet...

“I suppose I can tell you.” He sighed. “A friend of a friend had this incident with a girl he was dating. Apparently, from what I’ve heard, he had blown-up in a period of six months. I barely knew the dude personally, but I remember looking at him at times and he was very skinny, although he usually was behind a table or a desk, and wasn’t very active in sports. But once he got a girlfriend, his waistline grew wider by a lot.” Sam made gestures to make his visual point across the board. 

Marshall was paying attention at the story, as he drank from his glass of iced tea.

“You couldn’t notice it at first, yeah, but!” Sam emphasized the ‘but’, pointing his older brother with his fork. “As time went on, my friend thought that the girlfriend wasn’t too delicate either about fattening the guy up while being with them.” 

“Uhuh…”

If there was a series of thoughts in Marshall’s mind during that moment, they were still all related to that night where Gail confessed him about her physical attraction towards fat guys, and about his recent own pudgy bulge for a belly. On one hand, he shouldn’t have been feeling excited about what sounded like a ‘cautionary tale’ (in his brother’s own words), but, on the other... would be wrong of him to be seemingly interested about something similar to it, happening… to him? It didn’t help that Marshall had building this mental image of Gail’s face getting colored of a bright pink, the same face he would catch whenever her gray eyes would stare at him as they ate together.  What would have been going on inside her mind at that moment? Would have she been enjoying seeing him eating, too?

“...And, gosh… I mean, she even fed him by hand? At times?” Sammy kept telling him about that situation, in a submachine gun-like pace. “Thing is, at the end, this guy was eventually told about what was going on, it caught him at his worst, and they even broke up shortly after. I think he even got into the gym recently, or so I heard. I dunno, I haven’t seen him around since… And it’s like… man, bro… it was, like... some weird shit. Like, why didn’t they keep their kinky shit at home? Or, maybe, dude, how didn’t you realize that your girlfriend was into that feeding kink to make you fat?? I would have realized it so quickly...”

Feeding kink. “Make you fat”.  Huh.

Ahhh… Marshall was finally catching on what was going on with him. Did he… Would he like this kink? Enjoy it, even? Being fed meals, getting stuffed and get fatter… especially by her?

“Marsh?” Sammy reached towards him, agitating his hand closer to his sight. “Hey!” He snapped his fingers, finally getting his attention back.

“What?” Marshall reacted.

“I thought I lost you there for a whole second.” Sammy pouted. “Weren’t you listening to what I just said?”

“No, no. I... I think I got you.” He coughed, attempting to recover his posture. “So… from my understanding… your friend had a feeding kink?”

“What? No… well… I’m not even sure at this point… I’m just saying...”

“And his girlfriend fattened him in purpose?”

“YES! All I’m trying to tell you is that you should take care so it doesn’t happen to you? Don’t fall in the claws of someone fattening you on purpose!”

“(But... what if I do want to do that…)”

----

Later that night, it was inevitable for Marshall to delve down into this kink rabbit hole, online. He knew barely a couple of things about feedism as a kink (and adjacent ones, like stuffing or weight gain), and researching made him very clear that his brother’s story was not the only one that had a toxic and/or negative connotation related to it, while at the same time, there were plenty of others that had more positive notes. The more he looked and clicked into them, the more he got captivated by this world of people that desired to be fed by others, of people that loved to get stuffed, of people desiring to get fatter on purpose, and those that admired them.

Each story he found, each picture he stumbled with… it woke up sensations he might have had before, hidden in the back of his mind.

Marshall was very attractive in high school. But he wasn’t someone that really put too much attention to what he ate when he was younger, and he tended to brag about having a fast metabolism with his friends and his relatives. He wasn’t very athletic, though (but he usually was a good runner), and didn’t like to hit the gym as his friends or, well, Ethan did. Many told him that he actually got pretty lucky, because being tall (he was currently at 5’6’’) really accentuated his slenderness.

Back then, the paternal side of his family frequently organized big reunions with lots of food. Marshall and his brothers loved them as many of his relatives did, obviously, but besides mingling with cousins and other relatives they had a while of not seeing, Marshall usually used them as an excuse to taste and stuff himself with the delicious and quite caloric dishes that his aunts and uncles prepared for these parties. 

He liked to stuff himself as much as he could, to the point where his pants snugged juuuust right around his waist. The pain that came after was overwhelming, sure, but could anyone blame him? He was always up for a few small extra bites from the exquisite and decadent sweets his aunts prepared in these parties (cakes and other sticky desserts). Of course, given his fast metabolism, he couldn’t gain much weight after those reunions and, in the small chance he did, by the next month he would already lose it. 

Of course, as time went on, he started to miss those family reunions. He grew up, while many of his cousins also got married and/or were living far away from the small town he was still living in… and his anxiety got the worst of him after Ethan passed away. There were plenty of times that he would reject going to them, given the chance. What was the point of going to these reunions if his relatives would usually pity him because of the sudden loss of his idolized and loveable Ethan? Or pity him about his mental health. Or about his loss of weight. Or about his adopted terrible mood. Or about everything, really.

*Sigh*.

He knew he shouldn’t have derailed his thoughts on the bad… all he simply wanted was to return to his nostalgic thoughts, because, at the end of the day... he really loved those reunions, didn’t he? Especially the food.  And the way he stuffed himself to the brim… Marshall suddenly felt a reaction coming from his groin as he went to remember all the sensations he seemed to like from the stuffing in those parties. What was it, again? Eating, getting full, his pants feeling all tight in the right places, and then wanting to unbutton them to give him relief and rub his poor tum… "Wow, it’s a shame", he thought. "It’s a shame I used to have a good and fast metabolism, back then…"

Such a shame… but he was an adult now. Something about metabolism getting slower once you are close to your thirties. An interesting thing he was fascinated about was that it turned out that some of his relatives were more on the bigger side, and it also turned out that some of his cousins plumped up (very much so) once they got married.  So, why them… and not him…? 

“What if… I got fatter…”

Marshall groaned, realizing what he was doing. Letting out a deep breath, he wanted to cover his mouth. Leaning back to his chair, illuminated by the small lamp sitting on his desk, he wanted to delve much more in his fantasy, his imagination. The idea of getting fatter… wider… and bigger, was too irresistible. He could feel it down, too… the excitement of how a great idea it was for him. His cock was tingling, as he passed his hand over the bulging mound in his groin.

Within the years, he went to dislike the fact he wasn’t just ‘slender’, but scrawny. No. What he felt was so much bigger than ‘disliking it’. He plainly hated it. He always made an attempt to maintain his ‘average’ weight, but it wasn’t easy. He grew stressed, and the medicine he was taking to manage his anxiety never seemed to have truly helped on that regards.

“Maintaining your weight is good, Marshall”, his therapist mentioned one time, but she also commented that he could lose much more if ‘he wasn’t paying attention to that’. And it did happen. At times it felt like he couldn’t control it, the numbers of the scale dropping whenever he weighed in, and when he started working as a tech engineer, it ended up consuming much of his time, so he ended up going for easier ways to eat something (for the smallest it could be), even though his appetite wasn’t working wonders, and he also had to take supplements to not let himself break further. It sucked awfully, but at least (he always thought), he tried.

Now that he was more or less around an ‘average weight’ (although the scale and his figure indicated he was now heavier than that, obviously), he desired to make more of an effort to keep gaining. He wanted to indulge more, to grow so much more. If it wasn’t for Gail’s encouragement… and all those outings they were doing… and the few times she would offer to bring him any kind of decadent sweets she would make…

Huffing, he scrunched his facial expressions at the mere thought of her.

His ex-classmate. His old rival. 

Why her… What was she doing to him…? It was like he was under her spell…

Licking his lips, Marshall chuckled. His other hand wandered down his pudgier torso. He wasn’t fat, fat... at least not yet. But, he liked the way he felt… soft. Squeezing as much as he could, he wanted that area to get so much softer. He wanted to grow heavier… and wider… for his pudgy tum to become a full blown belly, with fat rolls folding onto each other as he was sitting down, while they rested onto his lap, the more uncomfortable they would made him fit in that same chair he was sitting on that moment.

The chair was creaking under his weight due to the movements he was doing by shifting and attempting to touch himself. The idea of a fatter him.

“Fuck…” he moaned, feeling pressure on his member, as all these fantasies were turning him on so fucking badly. And the more he wanted to, his hand slid into his pants towards his twitching cock.

He could eat more, wouldn’t he? He was already doing so, after all. He was growing an appetite. Nothing as before. But he knew it was so much better if he was accompanied. Always seen by those prying small gray eyes from his former classmate, those eyes that were inviting him to exhibit himself so much more.

What did Gail like about all of this? What did she enjoy about him eating all those meals he ate with her? Did she want him to indulge more than he was doing?

Wouldn’t it be great to be... fed by her…?

He moaned once again, as his hand was grabbing his penis with a stronger grasp. It got hard. And he wanted to relieve all of that exciting pressure...

“Gail…” Marshall noticed that everything she had been doing lately was giving him some kind of care and/or love. He wasn’t sure what exactly. But it was comfortable. It was nice. She wouldn’t make any questions about his appearance or his mental health, at least there wasn’t pity. She was patient. She wanted him to relax, and she wanted him to eat well and to enjoy his meals. Sure. Care… Love... But, she also had to… enjoy it further than just a blush… right? And if she wanted him to eat well… why wouldn’t she helping him so much more directly by feeding him?

*BZZZT, BZZZT*

*BZZZT, BZZZT*

There was a buzzing sound coming from somewhere closer, Marshall realized. And it was a sound that was starting to be annoying. His phone was vibrating on the desk, and he wanted to ignore it for the time being and let it continue to do its own thing. Besides, his hands were too busy for him to get it.

*BZZZT, BZZZT*

However, the buzzing was getting a little too persistent, and he couldn’t just let it be there. Huffing, he reached his phone with a desperate trembling arm and hand, as he was attempting to release with the other. He scrolled it to unblock the screen, and saw who was sending him messages that late at night.

It was Gail. 

Obviously, it was her.

He couldn’t not snicker by the mere coincidence. “Shit, why it had to be her right now…?”, he hazily thought as he kept masturbating.

The details of her texts were so unimportant at the moment (something about hanging out the next day in the park? He couldn’t put so much attention), but… this woman was already the ‘object’ of his thoughts at that moment. Moaning, he couldn’t stop imagining Gail’s petite-like frame with subtle curves, barely wearing anything, while sitting on his lap (or his own hypothetical big belly). Her charming eyes casting a spell that stripped him to his lustful desires… while her hands, her fingers, her lips, her touch… everything was caressing every inch of him. Caressing… rubbing, kissing...

Kissing, eh? Had there been a moment where he had imagined Gail’s lips touching his before? Perhaps, it was something that crossed his mind. Once or twice. Perhaps a couple of times. A few dreams, even. But… he didn’t want to admit it directly. He was too horny thinking about her… masturbating at the thought of her touching him and making him bigger, just the way she liked her men. Perhaps… he was attracted to her much more than he originally thought.

He wanted to kiss her, as much as he wanted to lustfully devour each other. 

Why couldn’t he imagine the dark-haired woman teasing him, and praising him and maybe also pushing another bite of food into his mouth? Testing his stomach limits. Fattening him up. 

Man, he was falling under her spell deeper and deeper… 

His hand movements were quicker, pulling harder and harder… panting… huffing… moaning… until he finally reached climax.

Marshall was glad that his apartment’s next door was empty so no one had to hear his moans full of pleasure. Glad that it was just him, poorly illuminated by the small lamp of his desk and his laptop’s bright screen.

He couldn’t stop panting. He slowly recovered his sitting posture, finally relaxed on his chair. His glasses were fogged, his heart was beating too fast... and he felt like a complete mess.

Marshall’s night culminated in him finding out he was into the idea of not just getting fatter, but also in getting fed by no one else but the woman that used to be his former high school rival. The one same woman he always felt a certain connection, and perhaps whom he seemed to have been attracted to since forever.

[sugarishapple]

(reblogging this here because the same applies to this sideblog)

*sigh*

I really don't want to rebuild while getting onto another site, and another site, and another site, but I wonder.

I could attempt to go to pillowfort, so there's that. It's been a year since I have visited Twitter, I don't feel too much to get into bsky due to "I just don't want to develop the same habits I did with Twitter"... I could go back to post/upload stuff in DA... but frankly, do I want that? OTL

I am strongly considering pillowfort, even though I know it's not as much as Tumblr, I don't how how strong they force their nsfw rules, I do wish "sideblogs" was kind of an option there, etc., etc.

What are you going to do?

[sugarishapple]

It sucks when you have a great idea, and you want to finish one (or two) story(ies) first to get through it.

A fic idea for another ship, smth about magical/rapig wg and lactation. Probably I will write it in Spanish rather than English, but I will see.

*headdesks*

I also want to draw toooooo...

[sugarishapple]

Wounds from the past and how to heal from them

Chapter 2: Steam on the Mirror

(also on AO3)

(Prev) (Next)

As students, there were times that, by pure coincidence, Gail would find Marshall in their high school’s library. At first, she was surprised that Marshall was there, sitting and reading in complete silence. She hated the comparisons she often thought about themselves, but Gail understood that the guy was much more social than she was, so she expected him to be with his friends elsewhere, easily. But when she questioned him about it, he simply snorted and told her:

“Hey, who said I couldn’t be here? Please, don’t stereotype me with other people.” His voice reflected the annoyance he had at that exclamation she made. “No matter how I may look like, I also like to enjoy and come to read here. It’s the best place I can take some time off to order my thoughts. It’s comfy and quiet to do so.”

Gail, doubtful, simply nodded as she agreed with his statement about how the library was quiet enough to study and take some time off from everything else.

“It’s some sort of refuge from the outside.” She expressed back. “I like to be here instead of getting sunburned and other things.”

“Pffft.” He snickered. “What are you, actually? A witch or a vampire? Decide.” He teased her.

Which, of course, Gail didn’t like it and wanted to bark back at him. But, knowing how ‘sacred’ the library was to her, she didn’t want to give in and get them expelled from there just for bickering at each other. She sighed and thought that it was better to ignore him, maybe continue to do her thing while looking at other books, and yet, her lips betrayed her.

“...Look, it’s not…” She facepalmed, her hand lowering to her mouth. “I find it better to be here than outside. If it’s cold, it’s warm in here. If it’s hot, there’s the AC, too. I can read without too much bother, and others… well… you know.”

Gail ended up playing with her hair, nervously. She didn’t want to look at him, but her voice tone communicated how uncomfortable was that ‘you know’.

Marshall understood. Maybe out of empathy (hopefully so), he didn’t go further with the topic on hand. The boy stood quiet, and walked to her, slightly hitting her head with a book.

“Hey, Gail, what’s the best horror book you would recommend to me?”

Gail remembers he grinned. What was behind the intention of that smile?, she always asked herself about that.

It’s just…

It was always the smallest things.

The smallest things, in which Marshall would seek for her help in the library. Those moments where, the more they spent time together, it didn’t bother him if she was sitting in the same table or space as him. And there were other times, because the fortune wasn’t (or was?) on their favor, where they would end up in the same reserved closed room for studying, which (at best, to be honest) was better for them to study together for their exams. Something about lending their brains to each other because they were smart in some subjects and so and so.

Those breaks of ‘shared solitude’ from the outside, where they could be more like ‘themselves’, making that library a place where they could be neutral at best and brought the better from each other, despite their silly logic vs supernatural rivalry. A ‘sanctuary’ of sorts.

---

To be real honest, Gail never imagined that she would be going out with Marshall the way they have been doing recently after that encounter in the café. For her, those moments felt so familiar, and yet, they were so different from the past.

The film festival was a total banger. Gail and Marshall got the chance to watch old movies in the big screen, and even had the chance to discuss things with other aficionados. The discussions were intense (even for them, who were butting heads with each other at times they wanted to express their respective ideas), but they agreed the whole experience was interesting as a way to share their interpretations with other people, like them.

But the best thing, according to her, was that they were making laugh each other, something that she missed so dearly, as she clearly wanted to see Marshall smile and laugh as he would do when they were in high school.

During these ‘hangouts’, Gail was relearning stuff about Marshall, as he was also relearning things about her. She remembered Marshall was a fan of classic horror and sci-fi movies, but they never got the chance to actually watch any one of those movies together before, so, when they were at their seats she grew fascinated in seeing him whenever he looked at the screen, as he was definitely another person, his eyes glowing in excitement as he got too deep in the plot or the special effects. It was definitely a Marshall she wanted to learn more about.

At the end of the festival dates, he wanted to be sincere with her and he told her that the main reason he ended up inviting her was that he originally did ask some of the friends (those that he still relied to, although he assured her it was mostly people from college), but they weren’t exactly fans, so he ended up planning to go on his own… And on a whim (and motivated by the nostalgia), he ended up inviting her instead, simply because he remembered she liked horror cinema from all the discussions they often had back in the day. Although Marshall wasn’t sure she would agreed, he felt that the experience was going to be much more fun if going together with her (and it was, he added).

As Marshall was the one that invited the movies, Gail proposed herself to invite the dinner ‘to be fair’ for all their meet-up ‘dates’ (she didn’t have a better word for these, however). It was always on a budget (as she insisted), although her ex-classmate was a little reluctant or didn’t have that much of an appetite, a detail that didn’t get fully lost on her. Gail was mostly worried that he wasn’t eating well, as she suspected that his current scrawny frame was probably related to not just his mental health but him being busy with work. She tried to convince herself that she wasn’t driven by a slightly ‘dark motivation’ in inviting Marshall to also see him recovering all that weight he had when they were teenagers (and perhaps some more?). Although, she thought, it wouldn’t be so bad if she would give him a hand for that.

The fact here is that Gail had the proper knowledge of what places were perfect to look for ‘nice food with good prices’, as long as they were still running up until then. Many of those were spots where her college friends usually took her after an evening of heavy studying, to be more ‘awake’ or perhaps to sleep better before an important project or exam. They were either food trucks with a diverse variety of cultural food or small restaurants with lighter meal choices. But, most noticeably, they were all delicious.

Although, as she pointed to him out that one evening, it was ‘always better to eat your own homemade food’, a statement that made her companion chuckle.

“Well, that’s actually the way, isn’t it? It’s always better to cook it up yourself.” He mentioned as he adjusted his glasses.

“I mean, of course! We can even try it out one day. Wouldn’t you like it?” Gail commented as she played with the straw of her soda can. But, it took her a few seconds to realize what she just have said, as she could have been overstepping limits with her ex-classmate. Her face flushed of pink, and attempted to make gestures to wave off her comment. After all, they were still in that stage of reconnecting as ‘friends’, right?

“I think that’s a good idea. I am going to consider it.” He seemed to have ignored her reactions. “But I should warn you that I’m not a good cook.” He grabbed a bite of his torta ahogada, and gulped it down. “Like, I can do very basic stuff like frying an egg or putting butter on a toast, and making a cup of coffee, sure. It’s just that I don’t have the time to do else.”

“Oh.” Gail muttered. “I see…”

At the other side of their table, in front of Marshall, Gail was eating a plate of mixed-variety mexican antojitos, thinking about what to choose next, besides a piece of grilled potato with a bit of chorizo-like flavor on it.

“By the way, Gail… do you know how to brew medicinal herbal tea?” Marshall asked her, making the woman grab her fork off the table.

“Indeed I do. I think I even told you about it before?” She foxily grinned, pointing him with the fork.

“Probably you did, but I don’t seem to remember too well.” He apologized.

Gail proceeded to close her eyes. “My grandma taught me how to, as many other things related to herbals. And ever since, no matter when I get sick, I do the ones she always used to brew for me. They usually tend to help me, so, I guess I’m doing her recipes and knowledge alright”

Marshall nodded, surprised to listen her answer. “So, I guess I was right to ask you…” He mumbled.

“I also have been told by my friends that my teas tend to relax both mind and body, even probably their spirit, so I suppose there’s that.” She added. “Why are you asking me about them? Are you interested in some recipes?”

“More likely, my therapist is the one interested in me trying some of them.” He grabbed a napkin, to clean his hands and around his lips. “Recently, she has been recommending them to me as they were a ‘nice’ alternative I could try, but I have been iffy in attempting to brew them. You know, messing with the specific herbals and what not. So, maybe you can give me some helpful directions for that.”

Gail chuckled. “Come on, it’s not that hard, actually. But, if you insist.” She smiled, and put her hand on her chin, thinking. “I have a big heirloom book full of recipes at home that could help. Hell, I can try to grab and manage the herbals you might need to a shop I’m familiar with.”

Marshall grinned, before returning to his meal. “That would be incredibly helpful. Thanks.”

The woman’s gray eyes couldn’t help but keep looking at her old classmate, who kept eating, while grabbing a few bites here and there, and a few gulps of his agua fresca, too. It wasn’t the first time she has done that ever since they started hanging out again, and she knew for sure it wouldn’t be the last time, either. Between fixating on the way he was eating (or munching) something, even if the savoring moment was brief, all she thought about was, perhaps, a chance of doing so herself. Maybe, she would be sitting at his side, offering him his meal, by hand, and he would accept it by opening his mouths and letting it all go in… by also watching how his waist would be widening out from all that food she was feeding him...

Unknowingly to her, Marshall often took notice of her constant staring when they were eating together, as of lately. Always at the corner of his eyes, marked on by those thick glasses. He wanted to know what was exactly what Gail was looking at him, so much. If it was one time, he would let it go, but it was a lot of times already. He got extremely curious, and decided to bite in.

“What is it?” he chuckled. “Am I still attractive as I was in high school? With these glasses, or this growing stubble? I mean, you haven’t stopped looking at me for a moment there.”

“Wh...what?!” Her cheeks turned red, as she immediately avoided his sight. “What are you even…”

“Just got curious.” He laughed at her cute reaction, as he reached out his drink. “I mean, I was a pretty popular good-looking guy back in high school, and lots of girls thought I was handsome. But, if I recall correctly, you never told me that, not even once.”

“Are you kidding?” She sighed and looked at him with an annoyed grimace. “How could I, if you were the one that let me knew about that. Plenty of times, actually! Especially whenever you wanted to tease me.” She put her can’s straw into her mouth.

“Well… did you, at least?”

Gail awkwardly left the drink can on the table, rolling her eyes and cringing.

“I think… you were easily one of the most attractive guys I have known in high school.” She abruptly corrected herself. “At- at least in my personal opinion at the time, anyway!”

And, the thing was that… she wasn’t lying. She always seemed to think about it – Marshall was frustratingly too attractive. Girls were flocking to him and there was a chance that some guys also considered him hot. However, his personality was… complicated. An smartass who was quite blunt when he was provoked.

But, his attractive appearance was the reason all their classmates seemed to think they were an ‘odd couple’ whenever they saw them hanging out. The shy but also antisocial ‘witch’ of the school and one of the most ‘popular’ and handsome guys of their class? Dating? No way. Those two that were bickering to each other being friends? Absolutely, never.

“W… wow, haha.” Marshall rubbed his arm, shyly, as he listened her response. “Well… so! What or whom do you find attractive nowadays? Surely there’s something or someone that has caught your attention, right?”

He was… so direct. To the point. And Gail didn’t want to answer all of that, but she wanted to be, at least, sincere.

“I think… I think what I find attractive nowadays are… big guys.”

“Big guys? You mean, wide and with a belly?” He expressed with surprise and even made a curve gesture to represent his statement.

“Yeah…” She fixed her hair and glasses, a little nervous, while feeling her face was feeling warm. “It might be… I know it may sound a little… weird, I think…”

“A little weird…” He repeated in a mumbling tone, before licking his teeth. “Well, I don’t think it… I don’t think it’s weird…? Like, we all end up having a type, at the end of the day. It’s that… well, coming from you, I never knew.” He gestured with his hands… “I mean, it’s more like you never told me what or whom you liked before?” He took his glass of agua fresca to give it a sip.

“To be fair?” Gail rectified. “We weren’t exactly that close back then.” Gail scratched her cheek, while avoiding his cold-gazing brown eyes. “We barely talked about our more private matters. And, knowing you, I thought that might have given you a chance to tease me about it. Ha. Imagine us talking about that...”

“Heh. I guess you might be right there. Sure.” Marshall sighed, his sight going back at his meal, and then once again to her.

“Also… well, if it makes you happy: There was someone I used to like back then.” She continued, half-smiling. “But the guy was…” Her attention changed focus onto the can. “I suppose, there wasn’t any way I would have caught his eye. AH. Just to be clear, he wasn’t fat… I think I got that taste until later on.”

“Ehhh…” He replied. “I wonder who was that person. Although, I feel like I would have been surprised you did like someone since you didn’t seem to show much interest about things related to crushes.”

The dark-haired woman only nodded, agreeing… AHHHH… if only he knew.

“Damn, you would tease me to no end about it… thank god I never confessed, even.” She reclined her head, covering her eyes.

“You didn’t?”

She groaned as a response. “I couldn’t. How could I.” Recovering her posture, after a brief moment of pause. “So… what kind of girls or women do you like?” She took the chance to ask, in regards to the topic on hand.

Marshall looked at her, and then he closed his eyes, reaching to his torta, once again, to bite it. “I feel like my type… the women I tend to like… are when they are interesting, and pretty. Beautiful, even.”

“Huh. That sounds a little too superficial.”

He looked how the sauce of the torta was running through his hands, so he grabbed another napkin.

“I mean. Yeah.” He chuckled. “Although, it’s more like I like women that I find interesting. And them being pretty? You know, all part of the package.”

“That doesn’t change anything I just said.”

“That’s on you, then.” Marshall shifted in his chair, slyly grinning. “Okay, yeah, maybe I’m superficial, you are right. I have liked girls like those before, and dated some like that in the past few years. But, whenever I thought things were going well, and they found out my anxiety issues or that I had anxiety attacks or that I took meds or that I’m still seeing a therapist after all these years…”

“(So, it all went south.)” Gail thought.

“And… I mean, I understand.” He continued. “I know the story all too well. They found me handsome, that I had a pretty face and that, maybe they found my character ‘cool’. But, when they found ‘the ugly’, they preferred to step back because I could get ‘too emotional’, or they didn’t want to handle me with my own issues And once I started getting drown with work, I was too busy to mind myself in something else.”

Gail gritted her teeth, getting furious, grabbing her can with certain force.

“Bitches.”

Marshall couldn’t help but act surprised, as hearing his old classmate cursing caught him off guard. When did she ever cursed like that when they were in school?!

“Everyone has problems! What the fuck were they thinking?! Just because someone had a ‘pretty face’, they think everything might be okay with them? That they are ‘normal’ up to their standards?! Just to leave them after they find out they are ‘not fine’?! Fuck!”

He snorted after listening to her lively response. That’s exactly how he remembered Gail: being loud, without a care of the rest of the people around them, and her lively reaction towards anything else he would have told her. Well, sure… without all the curses, but, still… He couldn’t avoid forming another smile on his lips.

“I suppose that’s what they thought, too, when we agreed to date.” His smile turned more to a melancholic one. “And I… I think I wasn’t a good boyfriend either, if I’m honest with you… but I tried to be one. There were times my anxiety got so bad that I wanted to step back, too… I had to take other meds again and… it was too messy. And yet…” He paused. “I simply kept trying.”

Gail took her own glasses off, trying to come with a good response, giving her old classmate a puzzling look. He… well, both of them changed. A lot. It was very clear by now. He already told her before about the therapist… but now knowing the reason… She tried to look at Marshall’s eyes, and her lips were separating so she could say something, but the man quickly overtook her words.

“I appreciate your words and that you may be wanting to defend me?” He chuckled as he crossed his arms, while his gaze was pointing somewhere else from her gray eyes. “But I don’t feel like I deserve them. I truly feel like I could have done so much more, too. At best, when things with any one of these women got bad, I thought ‘Well, if they think of me as a burden, then screw them. But, at worst, I’ve always been inclined to ‘man, why am I doing this shit wrong again…’”

“It’s not your fault that you are like that!” She exclaimed, interrupting him. She clearly wanted him to be slightly more positive, but didn’t think of anything else better to answer.

“You see… maybe you are right. It’s not my fault to be like this… but…” He gulped. “I mean... I also said awful things to Ethan before he…” His voice was trembling, cutting off… so he bit his lips. He put his hands on his face. “...I should have called him back. Tell him that I was sorry and that I was just angry… I… we didn’t think anything would happen to him, and that he wouldn’t return our calls anymore. And once it happened… I grew awfully scared. Not just about my parents or Sammy, my younger brother… me… and others, as well.”

Gail went silent, as she was taking it all in. If only that was what he told her back then. Back to that day, to that incident. But hindsight has never been 20/20. She knew it took him years and years to say it like that. She closed her eyes, opened them up, not completely convinced if what she was going to tell him then was going to be useful in some way.

“I understand. I understand growing scared of any kind of mistakes and choices we have made.” She joined her hands together. “You know… I used to be very close to my grandma. She was more of a parental figure than my own folks, I’m sure about it… but she also had a very estranged relationship with my mother, and it got worse when I was a teenager.”

The woman took a couple of seconds to keep talking, as it was putting her in a position she really didn’t share much with others of her acquaintances and friends. She looked at her hands, her index finger rubbing and scratching her other hand’s. Marshall was… curious to know her story. He didn’t remember much, but he vaguely recalled that she may have mentioned her grandma a few times back then and, in all sincerity, he wanted to know more about Gail...

“Thanks to that ‘situation’... it was harder to visit and see my grandma as much as I wanted. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t try to. However, my mother didn’t take long to find out my escapades.” She tried to smile, but she was feeling… bittersweet about sharing a piece of her like that. “Then… my grandma fell ill… and passed away not much longer. All alone in her home. And… well… trust me when I say that there have been moments where I still wish that I had an opportunity to accompany her, at least one more time.”

Marshall put his hand over his mouth, astonished.

“I… don’t know what…” He tried to articulate something. “That sounds terribly awful! Gosh, I’m so sorry!”

“So… I get it. I get where you come from. I sometimes wonder if my escapades were a mistake. Or maybe being too close to her. Or if she is to blame that all of that happened in the first place. I understand getting this feeling where you may have done wrong before losing someone you loved so much. Maybe not under the same circumstances or in the ways we processed all of this.” She held her chest, as if she was clasping her own heart. “It is not your fault being like that. I think… it’s… it’s okay to not be okay.”

Marshall couldn’t stop looking at her, and once realizing he was doing so, he averted it directly to his meal, almost entirely gone by then.

“Thanks.” He said as he held the rest of his meal to give it another bite. “It should have been difficult for you to share this story to me. I really appreciate it.”

Gail smiled at him, with a certain degree of nervousness, fixing one of her hair bangs. “It’s fine… you’re welcome. I just… I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t being disingenuous with what I was saying. I know the pain, I know mourning is different from one person to another… and I…”

“(I wanted to share a piece of my heart’s pain… as you have shared me yours)”

“It’s okay. I’m very glad that you did.” He replied back.

“You aren’t alone.”

“I sure am not.”

“Besides… screw those girl from before, for real!” She added. “If they cannot accept the ‘ugly’ sides of any person, what is the point of a relationship? You have to accept the whole deal!” She paused, while pointing him. “And I mean it! That isn’t even the ugly side you have, Marshall!”

“Is it so?”

“Of course! You tend to be a stubborn and sarcastic smartass if you propose to!”

“What? Do you think they are ugly? You?” He laughed.

“I had to go through all of that when we hung out. Did they even know that side of you?” She charmingly added, joking around, to make the environment slightly lighter.

“Well, they weren’t you, for starters”, he suddenly realized what he said, and added a quick correction. “But… maybe that’s something that they did find charming.”

She snorted.

“For real? At the end of the day”, she grabbed her can, smiling, “you are someone that shouldn’t feel like a burden to others… we all have ugly sides, but we have to be empathetic to each other, too. And, if someone gives up midway… maybe they weren’t worth your time.”

He got silent for a little, as he started to smile little by little.

“Haha. You are right.”

“Damn, please say it much more. It is so good to listen you saying I’m right at something!”

They both burst out laughing

“Keep inviting me to dinner, and maybe…” He added, patting his stuffed tum.

“Haha, I will.”

---

Back in school, there were times and moments where Gail and Marshall used to chat outside their usual bickering topic-related turnpoints. Those weren’t many, admittedly, and were always casually about their shared classes and homework or maybe about their friends (sometimes either one of them would be rolling their eyes at each other during these conversations)... but surely they were always about their school life.

They weren’t ‘friends’ in the strict sense of the word, anyway, to delve deeper into any kind of ‘heart to heart’ conversations. But, they were still very friendly, to the point of being somewhat comfortable around each other. Maybe, from Gail’s perspective, she thought of Marshall as some kind of shelter. He offered a different point of view than her own friends, who wouldn’t offer much of a help, and would be as passive as she used to be.

“You know,” Marshall once told her after she was trapped in an awkward situation, a bad joke played on her, “I can offer you my help to get you revenge… or at least to make things more into your favor.”

He held her shoulders, while she looked at him, very confused at what he could mean.

“Let’s give them a taste of their own medicine.”

“Geez. How do you even remember stuff like that?!” Gail asked Marshall as they were walking down the plaza they went for their dinner, just finished and ready to go home.

“Why wouldn’t you?” He proudly mentions, shrugging. “Those guys sucked awful and they deserved what they had coming”.

“I mean, yeah…” Gail rubbed her temples. “They were playing a very sick joke on me, and I hated it… but why do you remember it… like that!”

“It was a good scheme, you have to admit. I had a lot of fun being a part of it with you.” Marshall chuckled. One of his hands wouldn’t stop holding his tum, as he was feeling very stuffed. He wanted to have some time off to relax and digest before going back home, so he was looking at the shops they were passing by. “Besides, I couldn’t simply let it go. You deserved much more respect than some dumbasses thinking they would get off while playing a ‘game’ or a joke like that on you.”

The woman was trying to hold her laughing, crossing her arms. She knew she couldn’t laugh at that, but, the way he put it…

“It was payback, too. You helped me out a lot before…”

But then, she suddenly got pensive as she kept walking. ‘You deserved more’, ‘I had a lot of fun being part of it with you’... They were similar words to the ones he once told her and that she had burned into her heart, that one moment when she finally realized that she really, really, really liked Marshall.

“Fuck those assholes, Gail! You deserve respect. It doesn’t matter how weird you are or what others think about you. We all have our ‘obsessions’ and/or hobbies. As far as I am concerned, you are as normal as I am.”

But then… she often wondered if she might have misunderstood his intentions of those words. Gail had to remember another one thing that happened some time after, something she shouldn’t have eavesdropping.

“Dating her? What do you mean by that? Gail is so weird… she’s not even my type”.

It was one of those things that could have been called “caught in the wrong place and wrong moment”, maybe she wasn’t meant to listen to this at all. And it hurt. To be fair, Marshall never told her that directly (as she never confessed her crush, deciding to shove it deep into her heart), and, wouldn’t this contradict his actions on their revenge? It would have also contradicted the Marshall of the present she was reconnecting with, right?

It was so… conflicting… but...

“Oh, hey. The bookstore is still open.” He pointed out the place, a medium place with the lights still on. He nudged her arm, making her interrupt her thoughts. “Do you want to check it out?”

Past is... the past, right?

“Sure, let’s.” She took the lead, walking first into the bookstore’s entrance. The man grinned, following her steps not long after.

---

As they were checking the different titles that the bookstore was offering, Marshall couldn’t stop prying at Gail. It was… nostalgic, he admitted. She looked so natural in her own habitat, revising the covers and tomes, while smiling and finding amusement in them, making him think of the times they were still in high school, passing the time in its library. Their so-called “sanctuary”.

And the more he was looking at her, the more he felt… something. It was like… serenity? He couldn’t put it clear. Gail made him feel somehow calm and… happy. Despite all of their ‘grievances’ and the silliness of their rivalry, that was one of the things he missed the most about her: the way he felt around her despite the superficiality. He seemed to realize he actually li...

He went to walk to Gail.

She was too focused on checking the next book she was interested in, while carrying a few books in her arms, until he nudged her with a book he was holding.

“Hey, Gail. What is the best new horror novel you would recommend to me?”

[sugarishapple]

As a Valentine's Day gift, I give you all, the first chapter of this "short" origins fic (I have planned it as a five chapter thing) for Gail and Marshall :)

I am also uploading it in AO3, but Tumblr is not letting me insert the link on its own post :'3

(This is the first time I'm writing a longer format fic in English, so, mistakes are probably meant to happen. It's a bit "slow burn" since it's also a bit of a discovery kink kind of fic and they are just reconnecting with each other at first)

Wounds from the past and how to heal from them

Rating: M Relationship(s): F/M Words Count (so far): 4,350

Chapter 1: Mending Memories

It’s been almost a decade since Ethan, Marshall’s older brother, passed away.

And Gail still remembered how all of that went. Especially when Marshall, her high school classmate, looked like he slipped away so easily from her life, as he stopped going to school after the incident happened. Issue was, she wasn’t close to him anymore, and the more she wanted to reach him, she knew she couldn’t step into it.

Gail remembers going to the funeral, but couldn’t stand being in that place more than she did; the environment felt quite heavy, as it should, but it felt like it was drowning her. All the people dressed in black, sitting in rows, while others were mumbling their condolences to the family. But Gail’s attention was on the poor Marshall’s back, as he seemed to have been surrounded by what was similar of a stormy cloud. She knew that the overwhelming feeling that she felt was to the fact her sixth-sense perception wasn’t as trained as it could have been… but she also kept swearing she saw a stormy cloud over her classmate.

She also had a clear memory of Marshall, clung to her, desperate, asking for one last chance to talk with his older brother’s ghost, ‘whom he felt was also clinging to him from the far beyond’. His appearance was distant from what she always saw him on the day to day: his dark hair was quite messy, there were dark circles under his almond-colored eyes, and his skin looked as pale as hers – basically, he was a shell of his former self. He grabbed her arm, asking her for a favor, his eyes not looking at her as his classmate (or his “friend” or his rival), but as the one that was mostly seen by everyone else at their school: as a “witch”.

His pledges, his tears, and his trembling voice were all still recorded in her mind.

“Gail, I’m so, so, sorry. Really. Truly. But, you have to understand! You can see ghosts, right? I’m sorry, I truly are. I never seemed to have believed you.” His voice was fast and slippery, and the smile he had on his face was far from the friendly one he always put to everyone else in their classes. “But, I really want to. You can see him, right? Ethan is right behind me, right? Please, I need… I need to talk to him. One last time… Please, I beg you…”

Oh, how Gail could have taken advantage of this situation. She knew tales as old as time about her ancestors who practiced magic, and whom were also considered witches… and she could have done the same as many of those may have done to other poor foolish souls: manipulating him. The difference is that she wasn’t able to see spirits in human form, but one lie and she could have had him under the palm of her hand. She still liked him, after all, and if she proceeded they would become inseparable. But… exactly because she had a crush on him, she knew better than that. She couldn’t have taken advantage of his poor mental health to make him go into a co-dependent relationship just for a lie. It wouldn’t be fair. She wasn’t that kind of person, witch or otherwise.

So, she let him go.

“I… I am sorry, but… I can’t.” Not looking at him, she took his hands off her arm, took a step back...

And then, she ran away.

It’s been years since Gail saw Marshall. And yet, he sometimes appeared on her mind from time to time (like this one moment).

The truth was that they weren’t friends-friends, although Gail admitted their relationship didn’t have a proper name. She and Marshall were… friendly rivals? and classmates. And, man, oh, man, she eventually developed a crush on him. They could discuss about anything, sparking from the smallest occult thing she was into or the trendy urban legend that was making its rounds in the town they were from. Marshall could argument against its credibility and Gail would argue about the contrary, swearing it had its logic. However, there were (plenty of) other times that they often accompanied to each other, as they frequently visited the library or played long sessions of games (especially tabletop ones), and they could even talk about the latest horror film they have seen. As much as it seemed that they hated their respective guts in their heated discussions, they still tolerated (and respected) each other.

Of course, all good things went to a close, perhaps in the most sad and disappointing way possible.

And yet, for the first time in a long while… Gail casually found Marshall in the same cafe she was working at that moment.

---

Gail was standing behind the windowed door that separated the kitchen and the cash register area. She was squinting, even tilting her head as she was attempting to identify the man who was sitting at one of the tables at the windows of the establishment. He had dark messy hair (if a little long), he used thick glasses (although she swore that when she looked at him slightly closer, he had the same cold-gazey almond-colored eyes as Marshall), and he was tall as she remembered the guy, with broad shoulders on a slender frame (however, she admitted he looked… quite thin).

Of course, Gail knew, it was probably not Marshall. The man looked similar to the mental image of the memory she had of him when he was a teenager, yes. And, perhaps, she was overthinking it, as she had been thinking (a lot) on her ex-classmate recently, given the closeness of dates with his older brother’s passing anniversary. However, she recognized the man had a similar “gray stormy cloud” over his head, the same as Marshall had over his head in that funeral, but much more smaller.

On the other hand, she discussed with herself, there was a chance he had changed, as much as she did. She no longer had that long, wavy and messy hair she used back then, as it was shorter and straighter, and it didn’t hide her bespectacled gaze anymore. She wasn’t antisocial either, even though she still had a decent low number of friends and acquaintances. If she changed, so did Marshall. And, if it was costing her to recognize him (although she was almost certain it was him), it would be the same for him to realize it was her, the one behind the cash register or making the coffee drinks for other patrons.

Gail waved it off as a strange occurrence, and didn’t seem to worry much about it… until the next days (and even weeks) made it apparent: he still concurred to the café frequently.

Curse the fact that she lived in a small town, after all.

---

Every single time she caught the stranger (now completely certain it was Marshall), he was always looking at the window. Sometimes, he brought a book, a laptop… or was accompanied by a friend (?) and/or whom appeared to be his girlfriend (??), a beautiful-looking and bubbly brunette woman, quite the opposite of herself.

Ah. She knew she shouldn’t be thinking about… that moment. She pushed the bridge of her glasses, slightly annoyed at what suddenly crossed her mind. She also knew it was better to not assume about the woman she saw him with… or about his relationships, if anything. It had been literal years and… well, she had to admit that she still had a spark of interest in him that had been growing again, similar to a bunch of flowers she forgot to water and had been watering them again.

Gail used to observe Marshall when they were students, something that became some kind of a tendency when they spent time together. It felt like she was falling back into old habits, because she kept doing the same.

Whenever there was dead time under her turn, she couldn’t help much but glance at him (at moments). He usually was reading, using his laptop… sometimes she saw he would write down stuff, as well. All while enjoying the taste of a warm non-caffeine brew, with some sweet bread or dessert as companion (although, she noticed, he sometimes didn’t finish it). She also took note of what were his usuals.

However, through her observations, Gail came to a conclusion: Marshall was quite thin.

Marshall’s clothes, she noted, were too baggy. The guy in her memories was slender and fit (although not a fan of sports, he was a good runner), and most of his clothes were relaxed and loose-fitting (whatever was trendy a decade or so ago), these never looked… well, he never looked like this.

Her mind pondered a bit, until it came to her:

“Wow, I think… it wouldn’t be so bad if I feed him.” A little strange sudden thought that made her blush, enough to put her hands onto her mouth, feeling embarrassed of thinking about something like that. Towards him.

There were a few things she liked about Marshall the most, but one of them, was what she would call an “oral fixation”, whenever he had a snack in his mouth and ate it. Or so, she thought at first, as it somehow became one of those things she simply enjoyed to look at whenever he was eating. But it happened that, as time went on, her friends and coworkers observed that she ended up acquiring a certain fixation towards to big bellied guys. So… if it wasn’t just an “oral fixation”… maybe it was something else than just liking big bellies? How about fatten-

One of her co-workers, a short woman of pink cotton-candy colored hair named Gina, took notice that Gail was absent-minded when she was looking at the same table with the same man with glasses sitting and looking at that window of the establishment.

“Gail, you have been staring to that guy a lot as of lately.” Gina said, curious, before gasping. “Is it what I think it is? A crush…?”

“NO!” Gail replied. “It’s not a crush!” The remark her co-worker (and friend) made her jump, as it was the first answer she could prompt, similar to the ones she could give to her old high school friends, as they noticed that her small ‘infatuation’ thing towards Marshall was more than just the fact she enjoyed his company.

“Mhmmm”, Gina looked at the guy back, a hand on her chin. “THAT skinny dude? Nah, it’s impossible. You tend to look more at heavier guys… So, what is it? Do you know him?”

Embarrassed, Gail’s fingers went through her dark hair, fixing it, and her sight went to look at her feet.

“Pro… probably…” She murmured.

“Huh?” Gina wanted to listen her response loudly.

“I...” Gail groaned, adjusting her glasses. “I’m not really sure. He looks like a... high school friend I had.” She was aware Gina didn’t know about her high school days, so she spared her the details. “He looks different… but I have this feeling it may be him…”

Gina sighed.

“Gail, I mean… I’m just saying, okay? This town isn’t that big, so chances in finding someone you know, unless they moved out, are high. And, well, if that’s your friend… people change. So, why don’t you go and ask him about it to satisfy your curiosity? The worst that could happen is that you have to apologize for staring at him and thinking it’s a guy you knew in the past. He seems to come here frequently, so it’s not that hard to ask… unless, you know, you do have a crush on the guy…”

“I told you it’s not a crush.” Gail sighed. “(But he used to be one)”, she thought for herself. “(And I still feel bad about that day…)”.

--------------------

Gail couldn’t believe her eyes.

And so couldn’t Marshall’s.

The man had to blink twice when it was his turn to order (fixing his glasses, even), as the dark-haired woman was in front of the cash register. He was obviously surprised, when he was able to read the name plaque on Gail’s work apron.

For the first time in years, they crossed gazes with each other.

“...Gail?” He murmured in a questioning voice tone. The way he pronounced her name made her over conscious of the situation just going on, and shyly had to hid her face.

“Uhmm…” She mumbled, nervously, attempting to reply back. “W… What is your order?”

The man seemed to have gotten the indirect, so he ordered his usual. “I… I want a medium vanilla latte and a banana nut bread.”

She bit her lips, and made a wry face, while she took note and registered the order. As she received the payment in cash, she continued: “It… it will take a while, but I will get it for you once it’s done… that it, if that’s okay with you.”

Marshall agreed with a slight nod, rubbing his neck. “Y… yeah. That… that would be nice.” He turned back and proceeded to walk towards his usual seating at the window.

---

It took minutes for Gail to get courage in taking her old classmate’s order once it was done and give it to him. She has thought of a moment like this happening before and, maybe, being able to handle it, but now? She wasn’t even sure of how to act properly since it now just happened. Finding old classmates and even friends on the street wasn’t a strange event for her. They may have shared a couple of words, a few laughs and a “hello” and “goodbye”. But, him? Marshall was special to her. They shared a past, maybe full of petty and silly rivalry stuff, but she liked him well enough beyond just a classmate and a friend.

Grabbing her head, she made a choice. She knew she couldn’t beat around the bush anymore. There were possibilities he would still come to her workplace (or maybe not as well!), so she couldn’t avoid his presence anymore. This was her opportunity. With a deep breath to inhale and exhale, and as she adjusted her glasses, she took the order and went to stand in front of Marshall’s table.

On the woman’s hands were the latte and the nut bread her ex-classmate ordered. “Here is your order, sir.”

“Oh, thanks.” Marshall responded in an automatic voice. He was reading a book, so it took him some seconds to rise his face to look at hers. He noticed she was slightly trembling, trying her best to not look at him. “Hey.”

Gail was silent for a few seconds. Her already tense posture started to relax as she talked.

“Hey… Marshall.” She replied. “How have… have you been?” She was still very nervous, evidently as she rubbed her arm and fidgeted with her apron’s suspenders.

And then, the bespectacled man, smiled. That smile that seemed to have taken a special place in this woman’s heart for a long while.

“I have been okay.” He chuckled, posing his hand over his mouth, attempting to hide his joy, as he took a look at her. “Could have been so much better, however.”

“I see…” She half-smiled, still thinking in his brother’s loss. “I’m glad that you are doing okay, honestly.”

“Yeah. And you?”

“Me? Well… I have been fine.”

“Do you want to…? I mean, it’s been a while.” Marshall quickly made a clumsy gesture for her to take a seat.

Gail’s hands held quite dearly and strongly into the chair, but she suddenly remembered that she was still working.

“I’m sorry…” she immediately looked back at the ordering bar with the cash register. “But, I have to go back to work.”

“Ah… is that so...” The man looked rather disappointed as his gaze returned to the cover of his book, and the latte he ordered.

Gail breathed deeply.

“But, if you want to… could you wait for me? I still have half hour left of my turn.”

As Marshall looked back to his former classmate, it was like his eyes got illuminated. So, he nodded.

“Uhmm… yeah! Sure, I can wait.”

“Then, I guess this is… a date?” Gail blushed as she noticed she fumbled with her words, as that wasn’t definitely what she wanted to tell him. Holding her mouth, very embarrassed, she looked away. “I’m sorry, that’s not...”

“It’s okay. Don’t worry over details.” The man sheepishly replied, as he took his drink and started giving it a sip. “I will wait for you.” Then he looked at Gail’s back, as she turned away to get back to work.

---

The half hour came and went as Marshall was still drinking his latte and reading his book, so he went to give his bread another bite. And suddenly, at the corner of his dark brown eyes, he saw how Gail, now carrying her bag, her hands gripping hard onto it, was walking to the table where he was sitting.

“Hi.” It was the only thing she could say to salute him again. “I’m just done with my job for today.”

The guy just stared at her. Shuffling in his seat, he grabbed the chair at his side, and pushed it back so Gail would sit with him.

“So… how long has it been?” He put the book back on the table, as the woman sat down. “It feels like we haven’t seen each other in an eternity.”

“It could be like that, at best.” She answered, holding her bag onto her lap. “I think we haven’t seen each other since high school’s graduation.”

“Of… of course.” He let out. Of course it felt like an eternity, Gail was sure about it, and she was also completely sure that he didn’t forget exactly when was when they stopped seeing each other. Maybe, she thought, he was being courteous with her. “I didn’t expect you to be working here. I come here very frequently, and yet, I never thought I would recognize you while being here.”

“Well…” She played with one of the chunks of hair she had as part of her bangs. “You know how it’s like – one day you simply wake up and decide to do a whole makeover.” She was half-joking. “One day I simply decided to make a change and look different from my usual self back then. I dunno, maybe I wanted to feel pretty and wanted people to start noticing me. Maybe I wanted to stop hiding, as well.”

“People tend to change, Gail. For good or bad. Physically and internally.” He pointed out, tapping his fingers on the top cover of his book. “I don’t think you have to justify why you did, so. In fact, I think you look amazing. It’s not like you weren’t pretty before, if you ask me.”

She bit her lip. Those weren’t the words she wanted to hear from him. Not at that moment.

“You have also changed, something, I guess.” She pointed out the way it looked like he needed a haircut, then pointed out the stubble he had growing on his face, and the glasses. She was going to direct his attention at his scrawny frame, but she stopped mid-air, before he even responded back.

“Oh, these?” He alluded to his spectacles. “My sight got terrible with the years. You wouldn’t believe how.”

“(I… might have a slight idea, though…)”, Gail thought, as she was making the connections on why his appearance might have changed.

“I never imagined you working at a café of all places. You weren’t exactly shy, but I remember you weren’t good with talking to others.” Marshall continued, showing a certain interest, notably in the way his voice tone sounded, towards her.

“You said it better than I should have done, people change.” She crossed her arms. “This work helps me in paying the bills while also paying for my major studies. And this was conveniently too close to where I am living right now.”

“Fascinatingly so, I still cannot believe we haven’t crashed at each other before.”

“(While I was purposefully avoiding you when I noticed you coming here)”

“What did you end up studying? Weren’t you interested in books? You were an avid reader and writer…”

“Classic Literature.” She quickly responded. “I am still aiming to work in the publishing industry, but in the meantime, one thing led to another and…” She laughed. “What about you? Weren’t you working with computers and such?”

“Yup, I went to study Tech Engineering.”

Obviously he did. Marshall was pretty smart back in high school. He was deeply interested in technology – developing stuff, fixing them, inventing, even. But, deep inside Gail, she always imagined him working in the other side of the country, miles away from the small town they were both from.

“...And I ended up in a community college, instead. To be fair, I didn’t want to leave my family, and I’m still seeing a great therapist, and moving elsewhere was going to be a pain. I tried to, but…”

“A… therapist?” Gail murmured, as her interest focused in that specific detail. However, her voice volume was still loud enough for Marshall to hear it.

He didn’t want to smile, but he made an attempt. He shook his hair as he went to reply: “Yeah, well…” He paused for a very brief moment, choosing the necessary words he was going to tell her about it. “I have been seeing one for a while. So… you know how, when you find and meet the perfect doctor, it may be difficult to find ‘the one’ ever again if you are forced to do so? Well, that…”

She was surprised, nonetheless. But she started to connect all the dots and small hints. “Is it because your brother…?”

He went silence for another brief moment, reclining to the front of his seat, looking at the book and the latte he ordered prior. And then, he sighed. “The grief never goes away.” He rubbed his neck. “I went to seek for help to get through all of it.” His voice was slightly cracking down. “I… I shouldn’t have clung to you the way I did that day. I’m… so sorry, Gail. I have been so for many years.”

He obviously remembered it.

The woman fixed her dark hair, thinking about that moment. Memories soaking her as they were flowing in her mind.

“It’s okay. I… get it, you know? I could have done the same, I guess.” She sheepishly answered.

“Still, I hate that I never properly apologized to you about it. I was so, so desperate. That was very low.” He concluded.

“Well… it’s never late to apologize, so there’s that.” She paused and looked at him, once again. “Honestly, I wish I was of better help.” She closed her eyes, being sincere with herself, mostly. Maybe things would have turned differently if she was better with her ancestry’s magic abilities. Or maybe if she was more normal, like other girls or women her age. Instead of running away, she would have stayed and offered him a shoulder where to cry or, maybe, just maybe, being a good listener.

But, the problem (she thought back then, and still did to that day) was that she had a crush on her rival. They weren’t exactly friends. And, she couldn’t even had a chance to be his girlfriend, either.

And yet? A small part of her wanted to be in his life again. And she also wanted him to be part of hers, too. Now.

“But…” She started to talk. “But, if I can do something now, I am here.” She admitted. “How about we don’t waste this re-encounter? We can build that relationship or whatever we had back then!”

Marshall gave her a quick look, as she suddenly talked quite lively, joyously, even. One of the many things he remembered about her was how she gave lively responses whenever they discussed about the supernatural, science, fantasy, and other trivialities. He suddenly posed his hand over his chin, fascinated at this new but same old Gail that he once knew.

“Sure, why not?” He replied, slightly smiling. “Besides… there have been times that I have missed your face and your loud arguments about the supernatural.”

He missed her. Listening to that sentence, it made Gail feel warmth. She couldn’t stop smiling. It was like he opened a box in her depths that has been locked for so long.

“I promise I will not be a pain in the butt about my arguments.” She laughed.

“You say that, but I’m sure you will be very stubborn.” He slyly grinned at her.

“So says the guy that used to insist to keep going and going to prove a point.”

“Or, perhaps, I probably mellowed with time. You will see.”

“Hah! I highly doubt that.”

Marshall got a sudden realization and took his phone out and started looking for something.

“Well, what do you think about this?” He showed his phone to Gail. “It’s a horror and sci-fi film festival. I was already making my mind to go on my own… but I wouldn’t mind the company.”

She looked at his phone, and went to slide her fingers on the screen to read the details (like time and movies shown in the festival) and grinned, once again.

“It’s… perfect. Sure, I can go! Let’s set this up…”

They were excitedly sharing contact details, laughing a bit as the talk started to get much more relaxed, while also discussing about the films presented. They weren’t exactly comfortable to start some debate-like discussion (at least, not yet), but that there were sparks going on between them, Gail felt them, and she wondered if Marshall was feeling the same as hers.

But, everything had to be baby steps, she thought as well. She wasn’t sure if what she wanted to come out of all of this was a romantic thing, but in that exact moment, she thought it would have been welcome if it did.

[sugarishapple]

I kinda want to talk a bit about Marshall and Gail, lol

Especially since I have been thinking about them as I alternate in thinking about the ship that I based them on 😉.

I feel a little... ashamed? I think? in confessing? that I based them in a ship that I like (although, I dunno if anyone may catch who are them, tbf? it's from an old series at this point), but I kinda wanted them to be more "mine" than just "characters from a ship that I like".

Don't get me wrong. I do have love for the ship in question, and I don't feel ashamed in doing feedism or wg kink material based on others (adult) ships I may like, as well. However, I feel like I'm limited in doing something with them as characters from other media, because, although I can maybe ignore some canon elements (I say this as I curse the ending in some ways) or create AUs and such to fit my feedism hcs, I feel I would ignore who they truly are (ie "this is the kind of stuff they would get in the future, but...").

As of lately, I have been thinking in an old story I wrote ages ago, and that ship is prominent at a certain point in it.

And I sorta wanted to do something with that "route" I took there, maybe not in the same context per se, but a similar one. Because, I admit that I was "too obvious" about the way I presented one of the characters there, or "how incredibly obvious I was" about the way their partner/spouse felt about them as such. Or maybe it was all in my head, but never wrote it down with proper words. And I wanted to explore that again.

But, tbh? I also have grown so distant from the ship in question, so I have been tracing back my steps to "find them again" and thought, maybe, maybe I should do similar characters as well.

A little bit expies, but their own characters? A little bit based on that route I took with them in the story I wrote back then. But, certainly... I wanted to do something with them.

So, Marshall and Gail come in as I was prompting how I would do their "thing".

I am still polishing their story and details, but I basically spent this past week writing down more or less their history together - how they met and knew each other, how they found each other again and started dating (and potentially how they got married), how they got involved with feedism, etc. And, from this, the idea I have is telling a bit of those past events, and do new things (a la, my Possession short story from last year's Feedist Kinktober) with them.

It's just... sfdfdfg! I love them! I love ALL of my OCs unconditionally (non-kink, kink ones), of course, but, MAN... the things I want to do with them! 😩😩

[sugarishapple]

29. Theme Park Feedist Kinktober 2024

When your feedee boyfriend has slight feeder tendencies towards you 😳

Nicolás and Olivia going to a local-area theme park.

I didn't want to do a similar piece as the first prompt (Farmer's Market) but... eh, it's some kind of reverse concept, in a very casual way, as well.

This is the last pic I will do (I know, it's Nov 10th by now) for this Feedist Kinktober, I still have a small story? for a past prompt, but I'm not 100% convinced by it to post it yet :/)

[sugarishapple]

Some kind of reference sketch pic I had to conveniently have in digital, at least as a first take!

This is the couple featured in my "Pumpkin Spice" piece, Nicolás (1.78 m) and Olivia (1.55 m), they are co-workers in a office-like company: that's how they met and eventually started dating. I still don't have clear their ages? At least, at the initial point of their relationship, they are in their late 20s, which is the reason I use these appearances specifically here (also, their initial respective weights, wink wink).

Basic gist is that, they are feedist (mutual gaining) couple. Nico is the feedee and Olivia is the feeder... until one point, two years after they start dating and start this feedist dynamic, that Nico proposes Olivia in being her feeder.

[sugarishapple]

I'm in a bit "I shouldn't explain myself" situation, but I want to be transparent? lol

I wish I did more of the prompts. Maybe I will finish a few more (a couple, or three) in the days upcoming, but also, like... I got a nasty cold and I'm just now recovering fully, lol.

I'm also writhing myself up, because I really want to do digital stuff again, but I'm in another situation where I don't trust my laptop nor my Wacom Intuos, lol. Especially since the Intuos is an old model now (from 2015, bought in 2017), and I have had bad luck with my computers, and the drivers to a degree (99% working okay... until a pestering "cannot find this exe's path" appears), and now that I'm using Windows 11... let's say I have been playing in a very "press (x) to doubt" way about my tablet as a whole.

I know this is not the place but, suggestions? Do I save myself some money from buying a new drawing tablet and test the one I DO have? (it's not like the issue I mention above is instant/immediate... but it does appear within time... *sigh* knowing from experience...)

Hopefully this month I finish that one fic I was talking about before, as well! I wasn't too far to finish it... but I really want to go back to it, lol. I will make a newer post asap about the OCs I introduced this past month, too. And so, and so.

[sugarishapple]

26. Satanic Panic Feedist Kinktober 2024

*Sent to Marshall and Gail's friend group chat* This WAS a JOKE! For HALLOWEEN! Don't take it too seriously, geez. (There's my lipstick right there)

[sugarishapple]

25. Kaiju Attack! Feedist Kinktober 2024

With ire ingrained in your heart, you think you will be able to control yourself against the world like this?

I don't have much of a backstory for this pic, but I just wanted to draw Em as a monster and I think kaiju-sized monsters are fun to think about :)

[sugarishapple]

19. Invasive Vines Feedist Kinktober 2024

Damn, those outgrown pesky vines from the backyard...

[sugarishapple]

18. Artist's Muse Feedist Kinktober 2024

"How couldn't I? You inspire me."

This is Olivia, one of the characters from the "Pumpkin Spice" prompt story I posted yesterday. She and Nico are co-workers and they met at their office. I'm still not sure atm if Nico starts showing interest in Olivia before they talk for the first time, but he tends to do scribbles of her from time to time.

So, a few sketches from her from around the time they start going out, a post-it sketch from around the time he contemplates the possibility of she getting fat, main sketch with the dress is actually a more "present" Olivia.

[sugarishapple]

Pumpkin Spice

(Day 14 of Feedist Kinktober 2024)

Originally I wanted to do a pic, a bit of contrast within the prompt... and this was a short story that would accompany it, however, plans changed and I decided to focus a bit more on the story itself (and it turned, well...).

New OC feedist couple! I will share designs and more details about them asap! They have a different dynamic than Marshall and Gail, btw. This story serves as some introduction to them and their dynamics (and change and contrast of dynamics), but you will see 👀.

Word count: 3515

-------------

It was her favorite. Olivia’s favorite coffee drink: Pumpkin Spice Latte cappuccino.

Whenever Olivia went out with Nicolas during the autumn, she always asked for this coffee drink. She liked the way it tasted. The way spices like the cinnamon or the nutmeg or the ginger rolled so well with the pumpkin and the coffee milk.

Of course, she knew that the one offered at the coffee shop wasn’t THE real thing, but it always reminded her of the pumpkin pies her grandmother made when she was younger, especially after her grandfather brought all those huge pumpkins he got back in the farm he worked in, just before October was over. And the best way to make the most of them was pumpkin pies or pumpkin candy (chacualole (1)) with similar ingredients.

“It is nostalgic. I guess that’s why I ended up loving it”. She explained to Nicolas, a few months after they started dating. “It makes me cozy, I guess? It’s too delicious.”

“I think I get it, though.” He responded. “I think it’s the same with me and salted caramel. Once you taste it in other things than chocolate bars, it’s kind of nice”.

“Well, of course. It’s caramel and it’s a bit salty. They got together well.” She thought. “Hmmm. I could make some pumpkin pies with caramel over it, though…” Olivia jostled Nico as they were getting out from the coffee shop. “Maybe a couple… four? Just for you, as always.” She muttered as she quickly grabbed his growing belly and gave it a jiggle.

“As always, fattening me up.” He sighed. “I’m not going to be able to keep walking out and coming to these places at your pace if you keep feeding me up like that.”

She giggled at what they considered flirting. “Buuut, I want to see that, you know? I plan to keep showing up how my man is getting fatter and fatter as long as we keep going out like this. The more they see you and the more you get plumper and unrecognizable… they will eventually realize it is you.”

“Heh. I wouldn’t mind. That sounds quite fun, actually.”

--

When Olivia got the perfect pumpkins she could use, she didn’t waste time in gutting them. The stuffing would be used for dessert, and the seeds would be a nice snack to grab a bite from time to time. She knew the recipe for her grandmother’s pumpkin pies by heart as she tasted it many times (although, admittedly, she had to write it down the last time she was at her parents’ house), and was longing for that flavor that was so nostalgic and cozy for her. And sharing it with Nico, her boyfriend, was the best she could do with it. She assured herself that he would love those pumpkin pies as much as she did, that he would love them so much while feeding him one by one, and perhaps make him long for its flavor and desire for it past the Autumn season… and, eventually, he wolf them down without any issue as the gluttonous pig she knew he was able to be.

The pumpkin pies came out as excellent as Olivia expected them to be. The hypnotizing smell of the pumpkin and its many spices, the texture of the filling and the crust, the taste, even. They were exactly as many as she wanted for her boyfriend, so she invited him at her house to have a fun evening accompanied by a delightful special meal and dessert.

As soon as Nicolas was at Olivia’s house, he sat down on her living room’s couch. That’s how these special meals have been since they started dating. He wouldn’t mind, as he knew she was always looking for the most comfortable places he would be sitting (or laying down) as she would feed him.

Olivia walked in with the four pumpkin pies and put them in the low table in front of him. She looked at him, from the head to the toes, with those dark brown eyes of hers and a smug smile embellishing her face.

“See, babe?” She took a good look at Nicolas’ figure, calculating how fatter she wanted him to be, imagining him taking much more more of his seat in that couch, overflowing it with his corporal mass. “I told you I would prepare four of these small pies just for you.”

He laughed.

“They are anything but small.” He shuffled so he could get even more comfortable on his seat. “I didn’t expect anything less from you, Liv. You never break a promise.”

She sat at his side, sliding his shirt up and started rubbing that soft gelatinous mass of a belly he had. It wasn’t so big, yet, but it was starting to reclaim more space from his lap. He was admittedly a corpulent guy when he and Olivia started dating, but oh, how much these two wanted him to soften up so, so much more. Patting it a few times, she couldn’t help but smile and blush.

Grabbing one of the pies and a knife, she started cutting a nice and thick slice, the caramel oozing on the sides.

“You are looking so good, now, Nico. I wonder how much more good you will look and get when I help feeding you those delicious pies, huh?”

“I will surprise you, Liv”. He tilted his head to kiss her. And as soon as his lips touched hers, she immediately kissed him back and harder.

She would feed him slices at first, but eventually opted to give him thick handfuls with her small thin hands, which he reached with his mouth, with enthusiasm and eagerness, almost like desperate to get that delightful dessert from his feeder girlfriend’s hands, even playfully licking her fingers, grabbing every leftover he could with his lips and tongue. The pumpkin and spices flavor was slowly becoming addictive to him. Moaning while gulping it all down, Olivia knew exactly where she would grab and touch, squeezing his belly fat, also fascinated with the hunger and gluttonous ways of her amazing boyfriend. He perfectly knew, as well, that it was all making her moan, getting so worked up as he devoured everything she gave to him.

“You are doing great, Nico… so, so great.” She bit her lips. “I love it.”

“It’s all thanks to you, you know, Liv?” He smiled, before opening his mouth again, ready to be stuffed with more of the pie, gulping it down before talking to her, again: “You have been a great encourager…” He felt a belch coming out from his chest, letting it out. “Urp… You have been doing an excellent job in making me this way...”

“Heh. I am certainly proud of it.” She cheekily smiled, fixing her long hair lock right behind her ear, out of nervousness, attempting to hide how wet he was making her feel down her thighs. “I want to take you to a no-return point, so, so bad...”

He laughed. “With the way you are doing this, I may not be so far away from that point”.

Olivia grabbed the last of the pies’ plates, with no much left than a small handful and gave it to him.

“Mind in making me the honors, my glutton hog?”

“Of course. All for you.” Nico took the plate and grabbed the handful of pie with his bare hands and shoved it into his mouth, not wasting any time onto it. As he ate it, he couldn’t not smile. He was proud of being Olivia’s glutton-feedee boyfriend.

“See?… I knew you will finish them up.” She snuggled her face into his chest, before tilting her head and giving him a kiss. “Now, I’m the one wanting her dessert…” She wrapped one of her legs onto his waist, ready to make out with him.

-----

It was her favorite. Olivia’s favorite coffee drink flavor: Pumpkin Spice Latte cappuccino.

Olivia always orders it whenever it is autumn, and during the past two years, there hasn’t been an exception where she doesn’t order one of these coffee drinks. She and Nicolas knew it wasn’t THE real thing, of course, but nevertheless, it still tasted as wonderful as always.

This year, however, Nico was enchanted by the lovely idea of buying her a full box of Pumpkin Spice flavor mix for dairy products. Especially since he knew how exactly he wanted to prepare and mix it with, even after the autumn season ended, just for her. However, Olivia couldn’t expect his choice: heavy cream milkshakes that he was going to feed her.

Nicolas’ intentions were very clear in how he wanted to do this. For the past few months he was looking something perfect to help her in gaining weight and making her addicted to it, while also pampering her in the process. And as soon as the autumn started, he remembered the pumpkin spice flavor she loved the most, so “why not making her some milkshakes with this and heavy cream?”

“Maybe, I can even add some caramel syrup into them to add not just a sweeter flavor but more calories…”

Nico wanted to focus on his beloved Olivia now, partly because he wanted to reciprocate all of her amazing work in fattening him up, and also because he developed a growing desire to see her getting fat as much as he got.

Although he was a gluttonous feedee at heart, Nico also had some feeder tendencies, and he would be lying if he hadn’t imagine in being Olivia’s feeder at some point during the past whole year, especially as he realized a couple of things about her, like noticing that she wasn’t very subtle in sneaking a few bites from all that delicious food she made for him, and finding out that the fading stretchmarks she had in some areas of her body were there because she used to be overweight in the past. He simply couldn’t stop thinking about all of it as a whole.

“Wouldn’t you be opposed to the idea of me feeding you?” Nico remembered telling her as he finally decided to express his desire to fatten her up.

“What?” His question took Olivia by surprise. “You want to feed... me?”

“Well, you have been very sneaky, Liv.” He responded. “But, you cannot trick me. Recently I have seen you grabbing bites here and there when you are not just going to feed me, but when you are doing it, as well.”

“We… well! Of course, I have to… I can do that, you know?” She responded nervously.

“Exactly, I know you can do that. But…” One of his hands reached her face. “I can feed you. I want to feed you, and I want to make you fat, too…”

As he started to caress her face, her ears got very red.

“What are you saying??” She kept replying in a nervous manner. “Making me fat???”

He giggled, and with a smug face, he told her: “Your reactions say it all, Liv. I bet you have been thinking about it. You told me that you were overweight before, but I suppose it’s possible that spending all this time with me could have turned on a switch inside you.” He grabbed one of her hands and he put it against his chest and his upper belly, jiggling it. “I mean, you made me aaaalll this fat… wouldn’t you want some of it as well?”

Liv closed her eyes, her face all red, as she grabbed Nico’s thick upper fat roll, before making her hand go to his left juicy moob. She felt like her heart would come out of her chest.

“This is all your work.” He whispered to her ear. “And I want to repay you as nicely, too, while also making you my gluttonous piggy.” He teased her.

She bit her lip just with those three last words, losing the little concentration and balance she had left on her, slipping on the couch, as her boyfriend ended up above her. Nicolas was, in a word, huge. He was already corpulent when they met, but his figure got wider and heavier with time. His arms softened up, his elbows almost buried in fat. His whole torso was drooping on her, his abundant stomach with thick rolls all over his Liv’s stomach, and his moobs sagging close to his girlfriend’s face. From Olivia’s angle, she could trace how rounded and chubby looked his face, with a prominent second chin. His breath was becoming quick and heavier.

“See...? All because of you… I’m 360 lbs now… Wouldn’t you want me to feed you… and fatten you up at my current weight, babe? To a point of no return?”

Olivia moaned when she heard his proposal, her legs trembling under Nico’s weight. He didn’t take long to observe this, and started giggling.

“Are you fascinated by this? Feeding you and making you soooo fat…?”

She looked him into his eyes, until she slightly averted them into another direction.

“...Yes.” She sheepishly responded. “...Could you?”

--

This all brings Nicolas to the present time. It’s been some months since that confession/talk he had with Liv, and he had since applied his “magic” on her all that past summer. And, although he manifested his want to feed her and making her fat, all he wanted was to spoil her, to pamper her.

That morning, Nico prepared for her, as much as he could, a vast breakfast composed of the same dishes she usually made for him when she started staying over at his house. It was a nice gesture, but he his intentions were obvious, as well.

“Wow, Nico... you shouldn’t have. This is a lot.” She said as she contemplated the whole table full of rich and hearty food.

“Nonsense, Liv.” He said. “I know you can handle it all fine. We didn’t spend the whole summer in training your appetite, and that peeking belly of yours is enough to prove it.”

He pointed to her ‘small’ tum peeking though her sleeping shirt, which she sheepishly rubbed it, before attempting to hide it with her shirt, slightly embarrassed.

Olivia sighed as she sat down at his table. “Oh, what the hell. I will try. It smells good and looks REALLY good.”

She took her plate and started to fill it with a couple of pancakes oozing with butter and syrup, scrambled eggs, and she also decided to grab a couple of bacon strips. She took a bite of the eggs, and a bit of the pancakes and couldn’t avoid moaning out of how delightful it was all. She then grabbed a few more forkfuls from her plate and stuffed them into her mouth, before gulping it all down.

“Mhmmm. You even tried to do my seasoning.” She noticed, tasting the pancake with syrup on her lips. “This has cinnamon on it”.

He nodded and smiled. “Of course, how couldn’t I. I was inspired by you, after all.”

She giggled as she went to fill her place with more pancakes, and picked up some fried ham and jam. She also picked up some fried potatoes with chili and chorizo, and more scrambled eggs. Nico was looking at Liv, all fascinated at her growing appetite, because he knew his girl was capable of eating as much like that, and he also knew it could grow more if she got bigger.

She noticed Nicolas was looking at her, as much as she usually did when he ate a lot, which was exciting to say the least. And the more he admired her, admittedly, it made her want to eat and stuff herself much more. Her legs trembled a little, and passing one of her hands over her tum, giving it a rub, she became eager and continued her eating.

“Owww… I don’t think I can fit anything more here…” She reclined on her chair, caressing her tum. Almost all of the breakfast was gone (although Nicolas grabbed some bites as he saw her eating speed was decreasing). “Maybe next time… but this is all I can handle now.”

“Oh, come on, Liv.” He stood up. “A few more bites? For me? You always push me up a little more…”

“Yeah? But you are you. Trust me, I cannot do so much more right now.” She started to rub her tum once again. “I’m not a big glutton like you.”

“Yet.” He corrected. “And I will make sure of it. Besides, I have a little treat for you and just you. And I will give it to you if you eat juuuust a little more. All calories count~”

“Hmmm…” Liv groaned, but was curious. “What is it?”

“Eat a little more, and I will let you have it.” He teased her as he sit down at her side, and grabbed a fork to pick some leftover pancakes, that he wrapped with ham. “Say ‘ah’.”

She opened her mouth and Nico shoved the piece of pancake into her mouth. She chew it and gulped it.

“A little more.” He cut more of the pancakes and offered it to her, which she again opened her mouth to eat it, chew it and gulp it down. “Good girl. Come on, you are almost there.” And, once again, he offered the final leftover from those pancakes he grabbed, which she also ate. “There. I think you deserve your prize now.”

He stood up once again and walked up to his refrigerator. His belly was jiggling up and down as he went to open it, and grab Olivia’s well-deserved treat: a glass of milkshake made with that pumpkin spice flavor mix he bought earlier. He also grabbed the caramel syrup and put some into it.

“And here it is.” He smiled as he showed it to her. “It’s a milkshake that I am very sure you will grow to love.”

“A milkshake, huh?” She reached her arm to attempt to grab it, but Nicolas refused.

“Nope, I will feed it to you, instead.”

“For real?” She kept rubbing her full belly.

“Sure as hell. It’s your prize, babe… but, let me have some fun out of it as well.”

Olivia remembered all those times she flirted and teasingly did the same with Nico, so, she couldn’t back off. Regardless, she wanted him to enjoy the moment, too.

“Okay, big guy. Let’s find out what this milkshake taste.”

“Of course.” He smiled as he made sure Liv was at least somewhat comfortable. “Recline your head a little more, okay?”

She followed his instructions and did so, as he was grabbing the glass and bringing it closer to her lips.

“Drink up~”

As Olivia separated her lips, Nicolas tilted the glass to let flow the creamy liquid into her mouth. Instantly, Olivia tasted the pumpkin spice flavor, but she was forced to drink it up as quickly as more of the milky liquid was flowing into her. And as she started to chug, she noticed how thick it felt, and how incredibly sweet it was, too.

“Caramel syrup… and it has heavy cream, too?” Olivia identified the rest of the flavors as she chugged the milkshake. She started moaning as she felt how sweet it was. It was so rich… so delicious. So heavenly like. So she kept drinking, and drinking… and drinking, until it started to hurt… until there was nothing left in the glass.

“Wow, look at you… You surely enjoyed all of it.” He gave her a belly rub, and patting it made her let out a burp.

Groaning, Olivia tried to shuffle into her seat with some pain. “Pumpkin spice, huh? Urp...”

He nodded, as he kept rubbing her tum.

“Gosh…” Liv responded, groaning. “And heavy cream, too?! Fuck, you really want me to get very fat like this… There’s no way I’m not going to get addicted to these now!...”

“Figured it out?” He responded, giggling, as he also caressed her hair. “I knew you would love it. I can make you so much more, you know that, right?”

“I mean…” She fidgeted. “I dunno… I wouldn’t mind, but… fuck… how much did you buy of that pumpkin spice flavor stuff?”

“Enough to last until winter… or I would hope so, of course.” He replied with some tease. “We could finish them sooner if you want that…”

“So, so fat…” Olivia mumbled to herself, before reclaiming: “You are so mean, Nico!”

“Maybe? But, look at the good side of it, it’s sweater season, too!” He kept teasing her, even sticking his tongue out, before kissing her forehead.

“Ugh… don’t do this to me...!” She trembled with pain and laugh.

“Take it easy, Liv.” He grabbed her hand, helping her to stand up. “Relax, okay? At least for now. Let’s go to the couch so you can rest and digest it all.”

He reached down as she also titled her head to give each other a kiss on the lips.

“Can I ask you to be gentle while I rest?” Olivia asked.

“Of course. All for you.”

****

(1) I was looking for an English word for this specific kind of dessert, because it didn't hit me well with just "pumpkin candy", all I know it as is "dulce de calabaza", but apparently the ES Wiki says it is actually a dessert/sweet coming from Guerrero, Mexico. YET, I know for a fact that we also make it here in the north of the country during autumn (ie October-November). Do they do it in English-speaking countries too? I feel they DO, but "pumpkin pie's filling" also doesn't feel appropiate to name it either, lol.