The studies for their degrees taking shape, the weight of their classes isn't the only thing rising for our two college juniors...

<<< PREV | FIRST | NEXT >>>

---

Maz © & Artwork:

Clyde ©, Riley © & Writing:

---

Junior year had come for Clyde and Maz, and with it meant that the general studies of their time at NSU were wrapped up for the most part. Now began their specializations to get their degrees, and those degrees? Similar, but different enough that group study sessions were starting to become rare. Sure, they would study together more often than not, but it really was for the company and comradery that had been made through the prior two years rather than sharing notes. No shared notes meant less talking, and less talking when the two had spent two years getting used to eating far, far more than they had before college? Well, that meant even more eating. Not needing to worry about a mouth being full, or a bit of chomping on their third burger, the two went from putting on weight to just slowly watching the ultimate hazing of their waistlines start to happen. Neither stopped it though; the stress of having to take all their own notes, all their own studies, and without someone to bounce ideas off of was almost palpable whenever they entered a room. Stress eating had already become a habit after all, so of course the added stress of being on their own, despite having a roommate and study partner… Well, it just added to things. Things that were consistently being shoveled into their mouths, of course.

The new weight that was growing onto the two, sticking to them like glue to paper, was starting to show issues. Clothing was becoming a constantly rotating array of things fitting one week, and then not the next. The walk to classes was seeming to become longer and longer by the month, with more panting each time they arrived in class or back to their suite. Maz’s hygiene suffered, his clean-shaven look giving way to scruff more and more often as he skipped showers to keep studying, or just because he was too tired. The tidiness of Clyde’s room went to hell, a mess of wrappers and books becoming something the llama just accepted. Stairs were out of the question for both of them, the elevator of the dorm hall getting quite a bit of use by them… And realistically, every other junior and senior in their dorm too. Maz and Clyde did look at freshman with some jealousy, watching them take the stairs and scamper around unimpeded, but that only lasted for fleeting moments at best; they had studying to do to keep their places atop their class. Overall, their ballooning forms took backseat to schooling, as it should have been from day one… And as was becoming more and more of their excuse for why the pounds kept piling on.

“Maz, you reek,” Clyde said one morning, towards the end of winter coming up on spring break. “Seriously, do you ever shower nowadays?”

“I do!” Maz replied, sounding almost indignant around the doughnut crammed into his mouth as he typed away at the paper he was working on.

“When?”

“Uhm… I…” Maz started, and then trailed off, the dragon having to think on both the last time he had bathed and the paper. The combined thoughts shorted out his brain for a moment, and instead of just trying to answer Clyde, the dragon just decided getting back to his work was more important. Clyde, however, moved in a bit closer and took a sniff of the dragon, waving a paw in front of his face in disgust.

“Seriously, when?”

“I-I don’t know, okay? I’ve been busy…” Maz replied, still typing and munching on a doughnut… Though he had already moved onto another. There was a box already starting to show more carboard than pastry in it beside him, despite being purchased less than an hour before.

“Well wash, please. It smells like a locker room in here all the time lately because of you.”

“I will later, fine.” Maz replied, not even looking up at this point.

“You will, or your leftovers are going to all be gone when ‘later’ rolls around,” Clyde replied, moving over towards the refrigerator in their suite and pulling out a platter of pasta that Maz had failed to finish the night before. That move, that got the dragon’s attention as he looked right up from his laptop and glared. Food was the pair’s one bargaining chip; that was how they got eachother’s attention nowadays, as talking usually was done more in grunts and short words because of how busy they were. Threatening food or offering it was akin to waving money in front of them now, and to take it away… That was a really big sin in the pair’s relationship.

“You wouldn’t….” Maz said, and then just gaped as Clyde took out a fork and began eating the cold pasta dish, one slow forkful at a time as he stared at Maz.

“I would,” Clyde replied coolly, looking right back at Maz.

“I-I’ll shower right after class, promise!” Maz said, sounding almost a bit panicky as the pasta began to vanish down into Clyde one forkful at a time. The llama wasn’t even hungry right then… He’d had a big breakfast of bagels and coffee just an hour before. Still, a full stomach was easier to study on, so why not right?

“And do your laundry.”

“B-But!”

“This pasta is really good Maz…”

The laundry was done, folded, and put away, and Maz was showered, before the end of the day.

This was how things went for the two now. One would see an issue with the other, food would be promised or scarfed down, and then whatever the issue was would be solved. It was a system that many would see as antagonistic in some ways, but it was just how Clyde and Maz worked. There was no malice in it; just hunger that was starting to take over every aspect of their lives. Food was a bargaining chip, a stress reliever, a time-passer, a friend… It was a huge part of their time at the college, and it was ruining their forms at a pace that would make any dietician balk. The duo didn’t think about that; they still weren’t gaining even close to as fast as some of the others on campus. An elephant who had started in their same year needed two chairs to sit down now, and Dustin? Some say he was already struggling just to get out of bed, and he had only graduated just months prior! Sure, others were ignoring the siren’s call of all the food of the school, keeping their stocky but still mostly in shape figures in check, but those were few and far between in the expansive and ever-widening body of NSU students. Maz and Clyde were just part of the norm; acting like everyone around them. There was nothing unusual about it, nothing problematic… Nothing that would be worrisome. Right?

Time progressed, and classes continued on. The first semester of junior year bled into the second, and the weight and laziness of the pair continued on. Of course, the continued schooling and eating was only making their weights climb, and it was enough that Clyde was starting to share some of his older shirts with Maz. The llama was exploding out into a belly that entered the room before he even reached the door, and Maz was starting to get hips that could never, ever tell a lie. This meant that tight shirts which Clyde had outgrown would fit the dragon… And thusly took Maz from being dressed just in t-shirts and cheap hoodies into looking as though he actually cared about his appearance in no small way. In fact, it looked like the two shopped in the same places as the shared wardrobe became more and more of a common occurrence; Clyde just couldn’t stop outgrowing his clothes!

It was later in the spring of that year, when spring break was ending and the campus was coming back together, that Clyde and Maz were walking from their dorms after a night of writing and studying towards the cafeteria for their second breakfast of the morning, that they ran into Riley. The roo still looked as slim and trim as ever, not a pound of fat on him from the time they had met him two years before. The pair secretly both hated that about the roo… But neither would say it to give Riley the satisfaction. How he had managed to ignore all that food and keep eating salads was something of a minor miracle after all, and ruining that for him almost seemed cruel in the face of all the weight that the rest of the school seemed to keep on finding. Well, cruel maybe, but satisfying? Oh… It would be so satisfying to see some ounce in the bounce of that kangaroo.

“Clyde! Maz!” Riley exclaimed, hopping right on over to the two and grinning as he greeted them. Maz just gave a sleepy nod and a grunt, and Clyde… Clyde did as he always did with the roo and just gave a polite response.

“Hello Riley, you’re back from home I see.”

“Yeah, just got back this morning. You two look like crap… Up all night?”

“Yeah…” Maz responded, yawning sleepily as he nodded. “Had a paper to do…”

“I did as well.” Clyde said, then looked to the camera Riley was holding. “Picture time, again? You know I don’t like those…”

“I know, but I was going to ask and mean it this time!” Riley said, holding up his camera and looking at the two of them hopefully. “My cousins wanted a picture of my friends at college, and since you two are my best friends here…”

“Your best friends? You sure Riley?” Clyde asked, arching an eyebrow.

“Yeah! I mean, I know you’re a cranky crab Clyde, but you never kick me out or anything like that, so that has to mean we’re friends by now, right?” Riley said, and then turned to Maz. “And I already know Maz is a good friend.”

“Y-Yeah…” Maz said, looking at the camera and then at Riley with a bit of nerves. Neither Maz or Clyde liked pictures of themselves. They hated them in fact… And had spent a lot of time over the last year avoiding seeing those, or mirrors, so that they could ignore what was happening to them. It wasn’t that they hated it… They just wanted to ignore it. To pretend it wasn’t happening, and face it once they had graduated in order to lose all the weight that had been piled on and get back to running and playing disc golf and not hating anything with a light incline!

“Well, may I? Please? Pretty please?” Riley asked, looking almost pleading between the two.

“Fine, fine…” Clyde said, and then looked to Maz. The dragon just nodded and yawned again, still tired and looking rather non-plussed about the picture.

“Great!” Riley excitedly replied, moving just a couple steps away from the two and holding up the camera. The roo then grinned his happy, excited grin into the lens and…

CLICK!

“Thanks you two! Get some sleep!” Riley said enthusiastically, and then hopped on off to do whatever his energetic, bright self could. The colors of the roo matched him almost too well, something Clyde had thought since meeting the roo over two years before. It seemed especially true after ever break, given that Riley always went home to recharge and to get his energy out. He came from a family all like that apparently… And it just confounded Clyde how anyone could have that much energy. Or even have that bright of a natural fur pattern; there was no dyes in there!

“He… Riley is a force of nature.” Clyde said, starting off towards the cafeteria again with Maz walking alongside him.

“Yeah… He kind of is,” Maz agreed, taking a final swig of the energy drink that was in his paw. The dragon looked around the campus and then sighed, shrugging a little. “I used to be like that too, ya know?”

“You did?” Clyde said, sounding a little surprised at that. Maz had been a bit lazy and sleepy all throughout college, even when they’d started. To hear that the dragon had once been a ball of hyperactivity… Especially now, when he looked more like a slug than anything, was surprising to say the least. “Was it all that disc golf?”

“Yeah, that stuff… I just used to love to run and do sports and stuff. All that stuff, just being outside and running around and everything. I loved it, and now?” Maz said, sounding a little forlorn as he placed both paws on his stomach and gave it a little bit of a lift. He then dropped it, causing it to bounce and shake a few times as he just kept right on lightly waddling alongside Clyde. “I don’t know if I can ever get myself to like… I guess be like that again.”

“Why not? I mean, once we finish school we can diet and exercise right?” Clyde said, but then he looked down and saw the gaps in his shirt and grimaced. His shirt that he had on looked almost painted on, each button straining to hold in all the llama packed into it… There were more than a few diamonds along the front of that shirt, especially around his very rotund and bloated midsection. He wasn’t growing like Maz, all soft and flabby. His bulk was firm and taut, making him always look like he would burst from more food. The llama wasn’t much of a fan of how he was bulking up, but… It was temporary. Of course it was temporary. It wasn’t going to last, and it certainly wasn’t going to stick with him for the rest of his life. He would slim down, trim out, and get back to his old self. He had to.

“Yeah, yeah… But like, are you gonna? I mean, really gonna? Cuz I don’t think I can… I’m too used to eating now. Like, I don’t know if I can go on a diet and stick to it. Running would just be a lot of chafing and stuff…” Maz said, still moving along with Clyde and talking, even as the two got to the cafeteria and entered on inside.

“I think that I will be able to, yes,” Clyde said, shrugging lightly and then wincing as he heard a seam pop on his shirt; it was just that tight! “I think that you will too Maz, really. We both just need to not be, well… Here, with all this temptation.”

“Yeah, I guess…” Maz agreed, grabbing at a tray from the buffet line in front of him, and immediately starting to put food on that tray. “Like, I think losing weight is going to be harder than we think, and I… Ugh, I don’t want to think about more than I have to right now. All the classes and papers and stuff have me just so stressed all I want to do is sleep and eat and try to get any time to myself.”

“I know what you mean, but I think we can diet once we leave,” Clyde replied, also piling food onto his tray as he talked about dieting. His body was working on autopilot as his brain thought about losing weight, putting food onto his oversized tray that would do nothing but add weight on. Two thick burgers, a cheese-and-baocon-smothered container of fries, large brownies, a hefty helping of double-fried chicken, another burger… “We can get out of college and then start losing weight, I really think we can.”

“Heh, well…” Maz said, pulling his tray along and loading it up just like Clyde was. The dragon, in a taut collared shirt that showed off his impressively grown chest and flared out widely for lovehandles that were growing more like tires every day, just shrugged. His pants, sweatpant joggers that looked at least somewhat like normal pants but were stretchy enough to contain his blossoming thunder thighs, creaked lightly as he strained to reach one of the last two bowls of chocolate pudding; the stuff made of whole fat cream and sugar and little else. Dieting was good in theory, but with each of their trays packed with enough calories to sustain a normal anthro for three days, at least… it was a theory at best. “I don’t think dieting is going to be happening soon.”

“I guess you are right there,” Clyde replied, grabbing the other pudding, and then pairing it with a fourth burger that was left on the end from a student who decided they didn’t need as many of the calorie bombs that were called burgers the school gave out. Clyde, however, was addicted to those things. He could survive on burgers alone in fact, if push came to shove… And it had a few times when he went on late-night runs to the cafeteria when a study session was interrupted by a bassy growl from his stomach. “We just have to have faith I suppose, Maz. I mean, we packed on the weight, we can lose it, right?”

“Sure, I guess,” Maz said, shrugging again… And being greeted by his shirt untucking around one of his lovehandles and flapping down off to his side. Clyde chuckled lightly from that, and then gave a poke to the side of the dragon. “Hey, d-don’t do that.”

“Your fat was showing, I had to.”

“So’s yours,” Maz replied, giving a poke to the largest gap on Clyde’s shirt around his middle. The llama huffed with that poke… And that huff was the final straw for the tortured button right around that gap. It popped and shot off, bumping into Maz as it then bounced lazily off the flabby drake and to the floor in front of the two. “Even more now.”

“I, I…” Clyde started, his cheeks flaring with a blush as he realized what had just happened. He knew that shirt had been tight, but to think he had burst out of part of it… In front of Maz, of all the ones he could have… “I think I need to go clothes shopping.”

“Why?” Maz said, moving his tray off the buffet line and starting towards the table the two usually sat at. Clyde followed automatically, still blushing furiously as he felt the cool breeze of the cafeteria on his bare stomach. He could feel the other buttons digging in a little more, now, and was keenly aware of just how fat he looked, and felt, as he shifted in the shirt and tried his best to suck in his heft. No amount of sucking in helped though, so as he sat down alongside Maz… He just let out a sigh, and that sent another two buttons off towards their place on the floor.

“I need a new shirt, Maz…” Clyde said, his blush darkening as more of that cool, cafeteria air hit the sitting llama’s stomach. “This is getting out of hand.”

“I mean, it is, but… Like, there is something nice about it, without all that dieting talk and missing energy and stuff, right?”

“What could be nice about this Maz? What on earth is nice about being so fat you burst a shirt, in public?” Clyde asked, a little snippily. The dragon wilted just a little, and then Clyde softened and sighed again, unwrapping his first burger and taking a large bite out of it without even a hint of the manners he’d had a couple short years before. He talked around the large chunk of beef and cheese and bacon and bread in his mouth, little bits of it dribbling down onto the tray. “I definitely don’t see any upside to this.”

“Not having to care, I think. I mean… It’s nice to eat without thinking about it, right?”

“I suppose, but what it is doing to us, we think about a lot.”

“What if we didn’t though? Like, what if instead of stressing and dieting and talking about all that… Even when we’re just doing this,” Maz said, waving a paw over the spread of food in front of them as he took talked around a burger in his mouth. “What if we just didn’t care about that too; like not think about the future of losing weight and just lived in the moment.”

“But the moment has be with a ripped four hundred dollar shirt and feeling like the biggest piece of fat garbage on the planet.”

“But like, what if it didn’t hve to, right?” Maz said, his voice lowering slightly and then looking to Clyde with a light smile. “You can’t tell me it doesn’t feel good, secretly, right?”

“No Maz, nothing about this feels good.”

“I don’t mean right now Clyde, I mean like… When you’re alone and whatnot.” Maz said, his cheeks starting to darken with a blush. He took another large bite after a heavy swallow, trying to keep himself from saying more with a very full mouth of food… But his blush spoke volumes about what he was implying. Clyde, too focused on the fact that his shirt had ripped, took a few moments too long to realize that.

“Alone, what on earth do you… Oh… OH! I…” The llama’s blush darkened even more too as he finally put two and two together with what Maz meant, and he too took a big bite of his burger to keep from saying anything else. The fluffy llama had his belly on display, a ripped shirt, was stuffing his face, and now he was being reminded that his alone time had been more… Exciting as of late because of all of that. He didn’t dare admit it, but his own deep red blush, shown rather brightly thanks to his pale cream cheeks, was all the evidence of his answer that anyone who had heard even an inkling of their conversation needed. Maz knew that, Clyde knew that… But neither would dare say another word on it. Speaking of it meant admitting that something was nice about their weight gain, and not all negative. It meant admitting that this wasn’t terrible, but had an upside. It meant admitting that they secretly were starting to come around to being larger, rather than just simply dealing with it. It meant more than either would say… And so they didn’t say. They just ate in silence after that, blushing like two fools who had just walked in on eachother’s porn collection.

Maz was the one to break the silence once they were just about done with food, each working through their pudding with short breaths and deep, guttural belches. Eating till they were stuffed was common; they both had fostered appetites that could only be satiated with enough food that left them either needing a nap, or a belly rub, or both… But neither would admit that either. Instead, it was just low belches and light panting once they finished, often left sitting in the cafeteria talking about classes and other non-important things as they digested enough to get moving again. This was another side effect of their descent into being proper gluttons… Something that neither wanted to admit was happening, so they didn’t speak on that. “Uhm… Clyde, c-can I tell you something?”

“Yes, Maz?” Clyde replied, stifling a burp as he looked to the dragon.

“Y-You, uhm… You look a bit better with that bulk.” Maz said, and then his cheeks flared red enough to make him look like he had a tomato stuffed in each cheek.

“I do? Uhm…” Clyde replied, his own cheeks looking the same as Maz fumbled with his spoon in paw. The dragon had been wanting to say that for a while it looked like, and it shocked Clyde. He thought he had looked hideous, and yet here Maz was, trying to… What? Flirt with him? What was this… “You have to be joking…”

“I’m… I’m not… Uhm…” Maz said, his face staring straight at his pudding and with his cheeks burning.

“Seriously? Maz, I… Uhm… Really? You mean that?”

“You were so lanky, and you look more like… Grown up now. Like, I guess, uhm… Like proper and stuff…” Maz said, still looking at his pudding and not even trying to meet Clyde’s shocked gaze.

“I… I suppose I could say the same to you with your beard Maz,” Clyde said, still wide-eyed and shocked, but letting the words tumble out before he could stop them.

“Seriously?” Maz said, looking right up at Clyde with surprise too. It was the llama’s turn to look at his pudding, cheeks aflame with blush as he nodded feebly. “I do?”

“Yes, you do.” Clyde replied, eyes locked on his pudding like it would move if he took even a single bit of his gaze off it.

“Uhm… Thanks…” Maz replied, unsure of how to continue from there.

Neither said another word about all that, but… Maz didn’t shave for almost a month after that talk, and Clyde? Clyde wound up not going clothes shopping until summer break.