Chapter Text
It was the start of spring semester, and for the first time in his eight years at the university, Gavin had shown up to work in sweatpants.
“It’s just laundry day,” he insisted, pouring himself a cup of coffee, as Nines practically panted over him in the break room.
This was true, technically. As it turned out, the only pair of jeans that still fit Gavin comfortably were the ones he had on all the time, which were worn and stretched out and accustomed to his bulk. And that pair had gotten messy after Nines fed him an entire carrot cake last night.
He only had two classes today, so hopefully if he spent enough time at his desk, no one would notice the embarrassing sweatpants situation. A situation that was only likely to get more embarrassing if Nines kept messaging him.
Nines: I told you to go shopping.
Gavin: aren’t you teaching a fucking class right now
Nines: You’ve gained ten pounds since Thanksgiving. You can’t expect your clothes not to notice.
Gavin knew this was perfectly true, and for some godforsaken reason the idea was getting him warm in the face. In pants like these, he could not afford to get distracted.
Gavin: i'm just bloated
Nines: Is that so?
Nines: Your ass and your thighs, too?
Gavin: it’s your fault
Gavin: you owe me new pants
When Nines returned to the department after his class, he swung by Gavin’s office with a coffee and three pumpkin-spice muffins of his own creation, one of which he gave to Tina. She had also not failed to notice the sweatpants and was getting far too much glee out of the situation. Gavin glowered at both of them and pointedly did not eat the muffins. Not until Nines and Tina had both left the office, anyway.
After his last class of the day, Gavin returned to his office to find Nines at his desk. He was straight-backed in Gavin’s shabby office chair, head bent over a heavily annotated copy of Lady Windermere’s Fan. He looked up as Gavin closed the door behind him, that cool exterior brightening into something sweet and soft, the kind of look that was only for Gavin.
He raised an eyebrow at the items in Gavin’s hands. “A light snack before dinner?”
“Don’t get excited, asshole.” Gavin set down a huge box of chocolates and a bottle of wine on his desk. “Apparently, when you get fat, students give you food.”
Students had never given him food-based thank-you gifts before he packed on all this weight. Then again, they’d never given him thank-you gifts of any kind. He’d also never held extra study classes over the winter break for a group of struggling freshmen, though.
Nines gave him a soft look. “You must have made quite an impression on them.”
“Yeah, yeah. O captain my captain and all that shit.”
Nines held out a hand, encouraging him around the desk and onto his lap. Gavin fixed him with one of his most sceptical looks, but sat down anyway, knees on either side of Nines’ strong thighs. The chair squeaked beneath their combined weight; Gavin grimaced at the noise, and noticed with a jolt just how much his belly was pressing against his boyfriend’s firm torso. Nines’ hands slipped up his shirt, squeezing his soft hips.
“Getting friendly there, professor,” Gavin told him. Nines hummed and began pressing kisses at the base of his throat. “You’re lucky Tina went home early.”
The last part came out slightly more breathlessly than he’d planned, as Nines wriggled his fingers into the taxed waistband of Gavin’s pants. His fingers were cool against the warm skin, soothing where the pants were digging in a little. Jesus, even his stretchy clothes were getting tight these days. He really needed to go shopping. He knew his hips and belly would be marked with irritable red lines when he pulled them off later tonight; he knew too that Nines would pepper kisses along them, lament how fierce and uncomfortable they looked, lovingly remind Gavin how big he was getting.
“Nines,” he said with a groan, as realisation dawned, “is this because of the fucking sweatpants?”
“My interest in sweatpants only goes so far. The fact that sweatpants are all that fits you right now, however…” Nines nipped at his earlobe and he gasped. “That is far more interesting.”
It was safe to say that Nines’ former shyness about all this had long since passed. Teases rolled off his tongue as easy as literary theory, and his hands no longer shook when he offered Gavin another portion of food he definitely did not need. Even now he remained fascinated by the smallest changes in Gavin’s body, whether red marks from his clothes that would soon fade back to creamy white, or changeable fluctuations in his weight, or permanent scars that sprang up, the stretchmarks that littered his belly and hips, the insides of his thighs, even a few new ones on his upper arms.
“Is the android thing part of it?” Gavin had asked him once. “I mean. You can’t eat, but you like watching me eat. You can’t gain weight, but you like it when I do. Is there something there?”
“Curiosity is part of it,” Nines had admitted after a moment. “I like to imagine what it tastes like to you. How it must feel to eat so much, to feel full to bursting but still find room for more. I like seeing the changes in your body, because each one of them is beautiful.” His touch had lingered on a pink stretchmark, newly burst through, back in the days when Gavin was unused to seeing his skin scarred like this, when he’d been bashful about them. “But mostly, I like seeing you enjoy yourself,” he’d said matter-of-factly, which had led into an evening of Gavin working his way through an entire pan of lasagna and, yes, enjoying himself enormously.
Back in Gavin’s office, the chair creaked ominously beneath them as Nines pulled him closer.
“If we break this fucking thing, I’ll never hear the end of it from Fowler,” he complained, which, if anything, seemed to encourage Nines more. His hands sneaked down to Gavin’s ass, fingers digging into the generous weight there, and pulled Gavin further on top of him.
Gavin gave a grunt of surprise but didn’t fight it, leaning into the kiss, feeling his belly push insistently between them. Not so long ago, he would’ve worried about crushing his much slimmer boyfriend when he was on top like this, but now, heavier than he’d ever been, he barely gave it a second thought. He loved how strong Nines was — it helped that he was all steel and carbon rather than flesh and bone, but still, it made him feel secure, safe, in a way he’d never realised he’d wanted until he had it.
“We should get out of here,” he tried. “Continue this at home. But not here, Jesus Christ.”
He clambered off his boyfriend, not at all elegantly. He pulled his shirt down where, inevitably, it had rucked up over his pudgy middle, and ran a hand through his hair to make it look less like Nines had been grasping at it. Nines, still slouched in the chair, locked his eyes with Gavin’s and reached out to take the box of truffles from the desk. He examined it with interest, running a finger across the smooth surface of the box, deftly unravelling the decorative ribbon on top.
Gavin set his hands on his hips, glaring down at him. “Nines.”
Nines prised the lid off the box, peering at the contents inside. Fuck. Gavin could imagine it already, the rich, heady aroma of chocolate. The box looked pretty fancy — probably not artisan or anything, but not grabbed at random from the corner store either. He was trying not to think too much about his class buying these for him. Goddammit. They were good kids, really.
Nines met Gavin’s eye again, and somehow he found himself going to the office door and locking it, grateful that this crummy old building still had old-fashioned physical locks that couldn’t be overridden. Nines leapt up from the office chair and encouraged Gavin down into it.
The chair was a cheap old thing, had seen better days, and didn’t even have armrests, which Gavin had never given much thought to before, but now was actually glad of. At least he didn’t have to worry about ever getting stuck in the damned thing. He was starting to see how he could easily become too big for a chair like that, the blubber at his sides wedging him in, plump thighs preventing him from spreading his legs apart, his huge belly mounding up in his lap, pinning him in place.
He wasn’t at that stage yet, but somehow the idea of it was more exhilarating than embarrassing. Even now, he was really starting to feel wide, the extra weight stacking up on his sides in stubborn rolls, his hips rounding out in generous handfuls. Now, sitting down, he could feel his ass spreading out, his thighs creeping off the edge of the seat, claiming more than their fair share of space.
Nines placed the box of truffles in Gavin’s hands and sank onto his knees between Gavin’s legs. Just the sight of Nines in a position like that, looking up at Gavin with wide grey eyes and wearing an innocent smirk, made Gavin so fucking weak. He began to rub along the insides of Gavin’s thighs, noticeably meatier than they used to be, and Gavin made an undignified little noise in his throat.
“You aren’t going to try them?” Nines nudged the truffles. “How ungrateful, Professor Reed.”
Gavin obediently popped one in his mouth, a burst of rich sweetness on his tongue. Nines hummed in approval, then pushed the hem of his t-shirt up, the material bunching just under his chest. His pecs were getting pretty soft too, as it happened; Nines had developed a habit of cupping them, assessing how much of a handful he could get hold of, but they didn’t qualify as proper tits, Gavin thought. Not yet, at least.
Nines peppered kisses along his exposed upper belly, the soft, plump roll of it that comfortably pushed over the waistband of his pants. He shoved truffle after truffle into his mouth without thinking about it, feeling giddy with the rush of sugar and Nines’ attentions. He sucked in to help as Nines tugged down his waistband, settling it under the overhang of his belly. Nines’ lips brushed the sensitive skin below his navel, his tongue laved over a recent stretchmark, pink and brazen, and Gavin tried his hardest to stifle the groan that was desperate to pour from him.
“Jesus Christ, Nines,” he choked out, his mouth thick with chocolate, far more needy and desperate and aroused than was appropriate for six o’clock on a Monday in the middle of his goddamn office, locked door or no.
“You’ve nearly finished the box,” Nines murmured, looking up at Gavin like he’d hung the moon, cupping a soft handful of his tummy fat as though it were something precious. Christ. Gavin wanted Nines to look at him like this forever, touch him like this forever. “Don’t let the rest go to waste.”
*
One early morning in April, Gavin rolled over and realised Nines’ side of the bed was empty. Which, yeah, it was entitled to be. He didn’t expect Nines to come in every time to wake up with him. But he usually did, and Gavin had gotten used to blinking into consciousness to the feel of Nines’ strong body against his back, Nines’ good morning kisses to his shoulder, Nines’ hand cupping whichever part of his belly had taken his fancy that day.
He sat up, leaning back against the headboard, resting a hand absently on the crest of his tummy. He’d recently hit 260, and he was starting to feel really, properly big — though he’d felt that twenty pounds ago, and probably fifty pounds ago too, his perception shifting as time went on. He was getting thick all over, but his gut in particular felt round and heavy, even first thing in the morning like this when it was empty.
He wondered where Nines was. He also wondered what he would have for breakfast. Both these things motivated him to haul himself out of bed, pull on a soft t-shirt, happily rounded out by the push of his belly. He padded out into the kitchen to see his boyfriend standing in the living room wearing his jacket and shoes, which was like a bucket of ice water on Gavin's sleepy-soft morning.
“Morning,” he said awkwardly, his mind racing through any number of things he might have done wrong that would be causing Nines to sneak out with even saying goodbye to him. “You heading out?”
Nines looked at him for a moment, then strolled right past him and into the bedroom.
“Hey,” Gavin started, indignant, only for Nines to stroll right back in holding Gavin’s phone, proffering it. Gavin snatched it off him and saw a message.
Nines: I am experiencing a maintenance issue.
Gavin looked up at him. “Shit. You okay? Does it hurt?”
Another message.
No. Merely inconvenient.
“Right. You can’t talk?”
Nines hesitated, then opened his mouth and a strange fizz of static came out. He shut it quickly and ducked his head. It sounded kind of funny and was actually pretty cute, but he was clearly embarrassed about it, so Gavin did his best to keep his expression neutral and checked his phone again.
A glitch is affecting my vocal capabilities, amongst other things. I am unable to fix it myself. I have made an appointment tomorrow at Jericho.
Ah. Fuck. If there was one thing Nines hated, it was other people messing around with his circuits and systems and whatever else made up that impressive android body of his. It made him anxious in a way few things in life did. Gavin had never pried into this too much, but it probably had something to do with his early days at CyberLife.
Gavin closed the space between them, set his hands on Nines’ narrow hips, rubbing gentle circles. He wanted to say Stay here and let me take care of you but he wasn’t sure how. “If you wanna head out somewhere, or if you wanna go back to your place, that’s okay,” he said carefully. “But if you’d like to stay here, you can. You don’t have to leave just because of a glitch.”
Nines hesitated. After a moment, another message pinged on Gavin’s phone.
It’s weird.
Gavin grinned. “Well, yeah, it kind of is. But you’re weird, tin can. Don’t pretend I’ve never told you that before.”
Nines rolled his eyes, but he stepped in closer, Gavin’s belly a comfortable push between them. His hands gravitated there as they always did, and he spent a moment rubbing up Gavin’s thick sides, the familiar action seeming to ground him.
Gavin persuaded him out of his jacket and shoes, and they ended up on the couch, Nines’ head in his lap. They watched mindless TV for a while, Gavin’s fingers carding through Nines’ soft hair. Percy deigned to grace them with her presence, curling up by Nines’ feet, because apparently his goddamn cat preferred his boyfriend to him.
After a while, Gavin’s phone buzzed. “That you?” he asked, fumbling for his phone and knocking it to the floor. “Shit.”
Nines sat halfway up, his smile indulgent as Gavin fell into the ‘useless human’ routine that always seemed to amuse him. He reached out in a familiar motion, patted Gavin’s tummy and nodded his head in the direction of the kitchen.
“If that means are you very fucking hungry, Gavin then the answer is yes.”
Nines’ face lit up beautifully. He gave Gavin’s stomach another affectionate pat before heading for the kitchen. For brunch, he made a delicious spread of eggs and avocado and fried halloumi (Christ, Gavin had never been an avocado and halloumi kind of guy before he fell in love with this fancy piece of shit) and when Gavin proposed that a mid-afternoon meal would be better than waiting until evening, Nines pulled out the ingredients for pizza.
His face lit up again when, a little gruffly, Gavin suggested Nines could show him how it was done. He had never been much good at cooking, and he’d gotten so used to Nines keeping his cupboards well-stocked that he barely did anything more than grabbing himself a beer or selecting one of Nines’ meticulously labelled meals from the refrigerator. But Nines silently walked him through how to make homemade pizza, patiently repeating his nonverbal instructions when Gavin didn’t follow the first time, beaming with pride whenever Gavin did something right, like he was a cute puppy learning to roll over.
Honestly, Gavin was more than a little distracted. By Nines, who was flitting about the kitchen with his usual easy grace, looking pretty as anything in the soft light spilling through the window. But also by — fuck, by the realisation of how much space he took up in his own kitchen these days. He kept misjudging his movements, bumping his padded hips against the counter, finding that his gut pressed insistently against the counter as he attempted to roll the pizza dough. And each time it was accompanied by a heady, delicious jolt of shame.
By the time the pizzas were ready for the oven, Gavin was covered in flour and he had produced a squashed blob of dough with too many toppings thrown haphazardly on top. By comparison, Nines’ pizza looked like he’d spent years training in goddamn Naples. He’d even done that thing where you spin the dough in the air, the smug asshole.
Said asshole looked fondly at Gavin’s attempt. Gavin huffed, but Nines just wrapped his arms around him from behind, hands resting comfortably on the curve of his belly.
“Alright, jerk. Tell me it’s a mess.”
Nines nuzzled the side of his neck in response, and there was a sharp buzzing from his phone.
I’m sure you’ll eat it just the same.
Gavin did, in fact, eat his scrappy misshapen pizza, which tasted much better than it looked, greasy with cheese and sausage and rich tomato sauce. He also enjoyed the masterpiece Nines made, artfully adorned with torn mozzarella and scented with basil.
By the last few slices, he was getting more than a little full. Nines heard his grunts of discomfort, noticed him wriggling his waistband down under his tummy and shifting position to try and get comfortable. His gut felt like an entity all of its own, round and heavy on his lap, seeming to spread out further by the moment.
Usually, this was the point when Nines would chime in with a cheeky comment that somehow made Gavin feel hot and flustered and adored, that somehow encouraged him to keep going no matter how full he was. Today, Nines’ eyes on him, soft and sparkling, were encouragement enough; Nines’ hands rubbing at his tummy, hitting all the right spots that made him groan, were the praise he needed.
Perfect, Nines’ messages told him, and he found that he enjoyed seeing the words written down almost as much as he loved hearing them in Nines’ smooth voice. You’re perfect, Gavin. You’re doing so well for me.
After Nines’ visit to Jericho the next day, he showed up at Gavin’s apartment with his glitch fixed and a box of twelve cupcakes, each the size of a fist and with a generous swirl of icing on top.
“Thank you for yesterday,” he said quietly, as Gavin helped himself to a cupcake and licked icing off his fingers. “I was anxious. More so than I expected to be under the circumstances. I struggle with feeling … vulnerable. But I’m very glad you asked me to stay here. I had a wonderful day. Thank you for taking care of me.”
Gavin set down the cupcake, slipped an arm around his waist. “Any time, tin can.” He kissed him, long and slow, and Nines let out a sigh he seemed to have been holding for a long while.
As Gavin started on his second cupcake — Nines’ feet in his lap, his boyfriend entertaining Percy with a laser pointer that had her scrabbling round the apartment for the elusive red dot — he felt a sudden squirming in his gut that had nothing to do with all the sugar he was eating. He’d been thinking about this for a while now. He’d asked Tina for a second opinion, and she’d told him he was a grown ass man and should stop running away from it.
Here, now, it just felt like the right time. For most people, the right time for a question like this wouldn’t be after eating twelve whole cupcakes and lying bloated on the couch, practically pinned down by your own heavy stomach, almost dizzy with your own gluttony. But for them, maybe it just made sense.
Moments like this were a heady reminder of how much he trusted Nines, a fact that still astonished him sometimes — he, Gavin Reed, who had never been inclined to trust any fucker as far as he could throw them. He trusted Nines to take care of him, to respect his boundaries. Trusted Nines to feed him the last of the cupcakes, to rub his swollen belly the way he liked, to help him clean up afterwards, to do it all with love and tenderness and just the right amount of teasing. Moments like this were a reminder of how different he felt from the person he’d been a couple of years ago, before the revolution and deviancy and everything that had allowed him to meet Nines.
“Can I get you anything?” Nines asked, setting a large glass of water on the table. He ran a hand over Gavin’s strained belly, warm and tight and full.
“I’m good.” Gavin let out a small belch. Nines smirked and increased the pressure on his stomach, rubbing with a little more intensity. It felt goddamn heavenly, but even so, Gavin found himself placing a hand on top of Nines’, halting the motion. “Hey. Um. Are you staying here tonight, or going back to your place?”
Nines raised an eyebrow. “Is this your romantic way of asking me to stay the night?”
“Maybe it is.” Gavin cleared his throat. “Or how about more than the night? I mean. You’re here pretty much all the time anyway. What if you lived here? With me. What if we moved in together?”
For a brief moment, Gavin was treated to an adorable look of surprise on Nines’ face. Then the cheeky bastard flashed one of those smirks that he knew made Gavin weak as anything.
“There would certainly be benefits,” Nines mused. “It would reduce my commute to campus every day. I would have permanent access to a kitchen. I could spend more time with Percy, when she permitted it.”
“Goddamnit, Nines, is that a yes?”
Gavin did not technically get a yes, but he did get a kiss and a squeeze of his tummy, and within a week he was helping Nines move his stuff in.
*
When August hit, Gavin came to the conclusion that being fat in summer was awful. Or at least, it was when the AC in your apartment was bust and you were relying on a single miserly electric fan to keep you from melting into a puddle on the floor. He hadn’t exactly been willowy last summer, either, but he was considerably fatter this time around, and right now he was feeling every one of those extra pounds.
He shifted uncomfortably on the couch, reaching out to steady the laptop that was perched on the arm next to him. He’d actually had a very productive day of writing, but it didn’t exactly have his full attention right now. He drained the last few drops of soda from his glass and wished he had a never-ending supply of ice to hand at all times. He considered pulling his t-shirt off, see if that would help, but the thought of his sticky back pressing into the fabric of the couch seemed worse somehow.
By his foot, Percy yowled, shrill and demanding.
“I’ve fed you,” he told her. “You’re not getting anything else out of me. So damned greedy.”
He wasn’t one to talk, though. He hadn’t exactly been restrained with the burritos he’d ordered for lunch, or the profiteroles and cheesecake Nines had left him, or the chips he’d been snacking on for most of the afternoon.
He heard the sound of the key in the door, and he felt rueful at how much of a mess he must look right now. He brushed crumbs off the shelf of his belly and tried to tug his shirt down with one hand, though he’d been doing this all afternoon and he knew by now it was a lost cause. It definitely did not meet the waistband of his boxer shorts, there just wasn’t enough material to pull over the swell of his lower belly. It was his own fault for putting it on this morning and not bothering to change. And for eating himself out of it in the first place, obviously. It had fitted him a little better this morning, maybe, when he wasn’t so bloated and heavy, his stomach bowing out further after the strain he’d put it under with a day of constant snacking.
He did his best to smile as Nines entered their apartment, looking cool and collected and put-together as always.
“You look hot,” Nines told him, observing him from across the room, his expression fond and amused.
“I’m gonna take that as a compliment.”
“You should.” Nines pulled a tub of ice cream from his bag and, like an overgrown kid in a candy store, Gavin’s eyes lit up. “I thought this might help.”
“Fuck, you are amazing.”
It was slightly melted from the journey home, but it was still pretty cold, which was all Gavin cared about — wonderfully cool in his throat, a delicious burst of sweetness after the salty chips he’d just eaten. He dug in while Nines chatted about his day at Jericho, pushing up the hem of Gavin’s t-shirt and rubbing his belly while they talked. Any suggestion of embarrassment easily dissipated as Nines cuddled against him, pinching his soft tummy and kissing his pink cheek, reassuring him he was worthy of affection even when he was a bloated, sweaty mess like this.
Nines ran his blunt nails across Gavin’s lower belly, sending a wonderful shiver through him that had nothing to do with the ice cream. “Did you enjoy the snacks I left you?”
“Of course I fucking did. Top marks as always, tin can.”
Nines beamed, as though he hadn’t heard Gavin praise his food a hundred times before. “Will you have room for dinner?” he teased. “We’re due at Hank and Connor’s in a couple of hours. I believe Hank is making jambalaya, and we’re taking the cheesecake.”
“Shit. Really?” Gavin paused over the ice cream. He gave Nines a sheepish look. “Um. I didn’t know that’s what it was for.”
“Gavin.” The corners of his mouth were twitching. “Did you eat the cheesecake?”
“Not all of it! There’s loads left. Two thirds, at least.”
Unsurprisingly, Nines didn’t seem mad; he looked utterly indulgent as he took in the sight of his fat, happy, pampered boyfriend. “No harm done. I’m sure you enjoyed it more than Hank would.” He patted Gavin’s belly and it jiggled a little with the movement despite how full he was, how much he’d packed in there. “We’ll take the remains of it. Perhaps the macarons, too, unless you ate those as well.”
Gavin flushed. He hadn’t, but only because he’d forgotten about them.
Percy jumped onto the back of the couch and whined pitifully. Nines scratched her under the chin, and Gavin sighed. “She wants you to feed her. She’s been whining at me all afternoon.”
Nines looked stern, as if about to reprimand a student for skipping class yet again. “She is slightly overweight for her age and breed. We should cut back on the food we give her.”
The irony of this was too good to pass up on. Gavin raised his eyebrows and let a hand slip to the curve of his underbelly. Nines’ gaze was on him immediately, his eyes following the movement. He lifted the heavy, solid mass as best he could with one hand, assessing the weight, before letting it drop back into his lap, his tummy fat rippling.
God, he’d gotten fat these last few years. It still caught him off guard, sometimes, even in moments like this where he’d spent all day glutting himself shamelessly. But the sharp surprise soon faded back into the warm, comfortable sense of calm that eating always gave him. This was the most he’d enjoyed himself in years. The most he’d liked himself in years.
He said, “You’ll have me on a diet next.”
Nines hummed. His hands were immediately on Gavin’s middle, rubbing up and down his sides. “Would you like that?”
Gavin shrugged, and it felt like an admission. Acceptance that this wasn’t going to stop, that he was probably never going to lose all this weight, and that was okay.
He said, “I’d rather have some of that cheesecake.”
Nines climbed into his lap, where the available space was shrinking by the day. He leaned in close, his lips soft and teasing. “That can certainly be arranged.”