Comeback
Personal story written for me as a vent piece and to kind of show just what things have been like for me for the last couple years. Plenty to enjoy here, sure, but... Also, kind of a glimpse at what I have been going through for the last couple years in terms of where my head has been, and why I have been so scarce in the fandom.
To call Sasuke fat would be to call the sky blue; it was such an understatement. To say that he was obese was to say that the oceans were vast; the word did so little to truly encapsulate the sheer enormity of the beast. To even call him massive felt woefully inadequate, as such words were reserved for the titanically overweight. Sasuke was none of these things, as he was far, far more. So much more, in fact, that to even take all of what the wolfdragon had eaten himself into with years upon years of gluttony would take more than a quick glance. It would take study, it would take time, and above all... It would take food. The utterly unhinged greed of the behemoth of obesity was staggering, hereto unknown in any sentient creature when it came to all things consumable. If it was edible, he had eaten both it and, in most cases, the plate that it had come to him on. He was an unstoppable force of nature when it came to consumption, and the draolf knew that in spades. He reveled in it and made it a part of his very being just as he did its inevitable consequences. He had nothing stopping him, nothing keeping him in check... And that lack of a system to stop his appetite had brought him to where he was at in this particular moment.
Two years, give or take, prior, Sasuke had receded from the world. He had cut ties with most around him, severed himself off from the world, and decided to just give in to the call of gluttony. Its siren song had held his ear for many years prior, but he had always resisted, contrary to what most around him would say. He had held his head high and declared that he would not eat his sixth helping, or that he wouldn't indulge past what would be considered meals for a family of six... For a week. The idea of 'moderation' to one as voracious and gluttonous as Sasuke was a laughable one, but it was still one that he had entertained as long as he had been out in the world. Something had changed for him though, at that time, something inside of his essence had... For lack of a more proper term, broken. The wolfdragon had taken a step back because of that, retreating into what he knew best and what he loved the most; eating. Gluttony knew no bounds with him, and as such, the second that he let his guard down and began to consume, it was only a matter of time before that consumption completely took hold of him. He relished that consumption though, as boring and lonely as it could be, as it just felt like he was indulging himself. He worked to get to where he was, both in life and in his own width... Why not enjoy and indulge for a little while? That was what he had told himself at least, a nice lie to keep him from seeing what had broken in him and what had driven him to eat, eat, and eat before eating some more.
He was still eating when he came out of his trance, eyes seeing only his own swollen flesh. He could only hear the gurgles of his stomach and the creaking of his hide, only smell his own overbearing musk and the scents of countless meals past. He could still taste the tube running into his muzzle, and the sausage pizza he was eating around it because industrial pumps weren't fast enough for the insatiable greed that possessed him. He could feel... Walls, maybe? He couldn't see, but he could feel pressure all around him. He wasn't sure if that was his hide stretched to nearly it's very generous limits, or if that was the building, he had decided to park himself in over two years prior so that he had room to expand, and consume. His world was singular because of all that, all his senses so hyper-focused on his gluttonous rampage that he had ignored the world around him by and large for untold amounts of time. What day it was, what time, what month even? He had no clue. He didn't even know how much time had truly passed while he had been just eating himself into a stupor. No, the wolfdragon's world had been one of eating, eating some more, passing out once the self-imposed limits he had put on his body were nearly broken, then waking up and repeating that process without a moment's hesitation.
The only reason for his 'naps' as he called them was to enjoy the feeling of being well and truly full, something that was very rare for the hybrid but a feeling that he relished to the point of being indescribable. He yearned for that feeling as much as he did food, and in turn, he kept that feeling as the only real way for him to get himself off. His package long-buried beneath countless pounds of adipose, the draolf had no way of relieving that tension... Not unless he was so full that he felt another bite would cause him to burst. That last bite never failed, though, as every single time, he would explode beneath his tonnage in a musky mess of overindulged hedonism. This drew him to eat even more the next time that he stuffed himself senseless, which in turn took more to get him to get off, and so on. It was a vicious cycle that most beings would scoff or turn their noses up at; Sasuke was hardly one of those beings. Instead, he cherished each and every time he was able to eat himself to full, blissful orgasm. It took monumental effort, and even being as powerful as he was, it took restraint to really let himself feel how full he was, how helpless he was, and just overall any sort of limits at all. He could have easily made it so that he ate day in and day out, never feeling full and always expanding with flesh. He did do this in fact on some days, just to mix things up or to really let himself feel like the true hog that he knew he was. Most days, though... Most days, he craved that full feeling, the feeling that he was about to burst with his own greed and gluttony.
This particular day though, he felt no such need. He instead almost felt as though he didn't want that feeling, an odd sensation for one driven by pure gluttony alone to ever succumb to. He wasn't bored, he wasn't full, he wasn't even tired... No, this was another feeling entirely. The hybrid wasn't sure how to phrase it, the sensation almost feeling foreign to him. The mutt suckled away at the industrial hose, which filled his muzzle and was the only indication left on his amorphous frame as to where his head was, trying to eat his way back to normalcy. He did eat, but the gnawing at the back of his mind remained, and it was getting stronger. The draolf could still feel that part of him that had broken though, the one piece that had let him just seclude himself entirely and fall from the face of the planet as it were. That feeling too was there, along with the gnawing that something was wrong with what he was doing. Both were there, fighting one another in the hybrid's mind, all while he continued to suckle greedily from the hose strapped to his sunken face. He was going to stuff himself into another stupor if he had his way, eat the feelings away as he had countless other times. The gnawing had been there for a while, as had the feeling that something was just wrong with what he had become... But neither was going to win over in his mind. No, he could just ignore them with the one joy he found any more in his life, indulging his incessantly greedy table muscle.
The attempt to eat away his feelings kept on chewing away at the back of his mind for the entire time that he glutted. Try as Sasuke might, the feeling wasn't fleeting but rather growing in him. Growing as he had for months, years even... Growing and eating away at the minute amount of armor that he had built up to protect himself from that one piece of himself he had lost. Just what it had been wasn't for the draolf to say, but it was enough that he had needed to eat himself safe time and time again to cope with the loss. Just thinking on it was enough to make the large, gluttonous gulps which were filling his muzzle and bulging his throat out to almost comical proportions come faster and harder. It didn't ebb this time, though, for it too was growing along with the feeling that he had spent too much time indulging. Try as the draolf might, he couldn't just let himself give in; he didn't want to give up and merely admit that he had wasted his time being more fat than draolf for over two years. No, doing that would mean admitting defeat, and the draolf had his pride to consider. Sasuke did also have those emotional tidal waves bearing down on him, and the combination of the two was one that he knew would end badly for him, and inevitably his waistline. His girth was the least of his worries, though, so instead of focusing on just what he was going to be doing to his abused, overly fattened, amorphous blob of a body, he focused on the mental side to try and decide what to do.
More time passed, more calories were ingested. The feedback loop of thinking more and eating more was reaching a fever pitch in Sasuke, and yet it continued on. He could still only see his own fat, smell his own musk, taste pure lard, hear his stomach, and even only feel his hide continuing to stretch around his stupendously large meal. Those sensations were all still omnipresent in the mass of pure adipose, but internally the war with himself was going badly. No, inside his own head, he was trying and failing to come to terms with just what he had done to himself, and what locking himself away had cost him. The monetary was, of course, a large part of it, as vast chunks of his fortune had gone to feeding his unending and ever-increasing capacity for everything edible. His friends, his family... Those were more part of things. He had fallen out of contact with so many, so abruptly, that it felt as though he had died in a sense, at least when he thought on it. He had died that day, maybe. Maybe this was all just a creation of his own mind, and he had just let his mortal coil wither and die. The ethereal could be much more fun; a lie he told himself for the briefest of moments before shoving that thought from his mind lest he become even more lost in the quagmire of his mind. The cost to himself did still come back to him; he hadn't died, but he had become something less than what he was, and that was just unacceptable to the hybrid. Who he was, who he had built up, who he had worked tirelessly to become... Those had died on the vine when he decided to give all of himself up and just let gluttony run its course with him. Each piece of him that he had been afraid of losing wasn't alone in being lost; many more had left with each and every mouthful of lard that has passed through his greedy lips. He had waddled laboriously into the pocket dimension of his own design, a broken shell of himself, and what he had eaten himself to... He was a hollow balloon of lard and little else. He knew that deep down, he had known that from the very first piece of food that he had consumed. However, admitting it... That had taken him time, and it was about time that he did it.
One part of his quandary solved, the draolf decided he should get a good, long look at what he had become before he reversed things and tried to re-enter the world. Curiosity had gotten the better of him, in spite of his mental state, and he wanted to know just what had become of his body as he had eaten, consumed, and glutted his way through the calories of worlds untold. He had a vague idea of what to expect of himself, as he had been far larger in many other cases. Those times had all been with friends, though, as he rarely wanted to glut himself to such stupendous obesity alone. When he had entered his current home though, he hadn't cared; this was a prison of his own making, isolation in fat of his choosing. He hadn't told anyone where he was going, he hadn't made any sort of a grand deal about his disappearance, he had just somewhat... Fallen off the map. Fallen into his own gluttony. It was a fall for sure, and the draolf now wanted to see just how far he had fallen, and more importantly, just what he had done to himself. Still unsure of himself to see anything other than the fattened cheeks that had taken over his vision over a year prior, the draolf steeled himself to see new things again. Sure, it was just a room with little in it other than himself, but it was new regardless of the reality which he had grown accustomed to.
Sasuke wasn't quite prepared for the answer.
In fact, no one could have been prepared for what the draolf had done to himself. He had gone from being undeniably obese to something so much more that it was daunting for him to even take a look at. Projecting his vision was an easy task for the draolf; he was in his own little dimension, so seeing more than his eyes could was trivial at best, and yet something about seeing just what he had done to himself was jarring. There was more grey there than he was expecting, more food staining his hide than he could fathom, and the stains of his lack of bathing, enjoyment of his size, and just overall filth of keeping himself ungroomed for all that time... Sasuke was taken aback by just what he was. He could feel his groin stir with arousal at the sight, but at the same time, his mind was just stunned by the fact that he had allowed, willingly, such a mess to befall his body. He had gone days, weeks without a grooming, and was known for his penchant to be more than a bit of a slob. This took things to a new level, though, and his impossibly fattened size... Sasuke had been fatter than galaxies, universes, even the multiverse itself. He had eaten from the very fabric of space-time and still cried out into the ether for more. Yet this fattening, one that could still be contained in a room, was the fattest that he had ever felt in his entire existence.
Describing himself was an arduous task, and yet it was one that the draolf secretly would take pleasure in as he drank in the sight of just what he had become. His body had no starting point and no ending point; it just was. Shapeless folds upon rolling seas of grey filled his vision; the practically overflowed it. Shaggy fur stained with grease and sweat, and various other detritus sprawled over the rolling landscape of his frame, thinned enough in some places to see the rivers of stretch marks which ran along him like their own ecosystem of pure excess. He didn't have limbs, he had divots where paws had once been but were long lost to fat. He didn't have a head; instead, he just had a pair of folds that rose high above where one had once been to smother himself deep in adipose. Finding any feature on the draolf that wasn't completely and utterly consumed by blubber was a task that proved impossible, for even his meaty tail had been swallowed completely by the two rolling hills of cellulite and lard that were his gargantuan ass cheeks. Moobs were not something the draolf had, as defining a chest in the turbulent ocean of fat that he had become would be impossible. His belly? No, that wasn't a belly, a gut, or even a table muscle worthy of being called as such. Vehicles couldn't compare to such a vast, sprawling commitment to gluttony, even buildings would be hard-pressed to find some sort of meaningful comparison to such a vast collection of folds, rolls, divots, and hills of buttery fat. There was no frame of reference for his size, nothing to compare it to or to contrast it with. No, Sasuke had eaten himself into little more than a beast of pure fat and nothing, absolutely nothing else. He reveled in that, a feeling that spread from his tired mind to his very alive nethers. The draolf couldn't even begin to put words to just what he had become. No, he could try, but it would pale in comparison to the sheer enormity which he had eaten himself to.
Looking from the hose, the only real landmark on his body, Sasuke just saw rolls. His ass had spread to the point of flattening out, losing all shape and becoming more of a foothill to the mountain that was his gut. That foothill had still rolled well over where his head had once been, a deep crevice separating the two mounds of lard which were fighting valiantly for any space which they could accrue on his body. There was a split between them, and a single ridge of tail could be seen at the very peak of their divide, but it was a fleeting glance at a tail which would be more akin to a small car than any sort of appendage one might see on a living beast. It was submerged inside of the tide of rump spreading behind the beast though, one that had spread yards from where a spine had once been. So much was this swell that there were folds of fat along the sides of those cheeks, steps towards the top of that grandiose tonnage that anchored the draolf in place all on their own. Thighs were there, hips were there, calves were there, but they were all buried beneath yards of overstretched and woefully overtaxed hide. No, all that was visible was ass and lovehandles, though even calling those sagging mountains of fat on what could be construed as sides lovehandles was a woefully poor description of them. No, just his ass alone could be enough fat to immobilize a dozen furs twice-over, and still leave their owner beached on the most comfortable seat one could possibly imagine. The divots of fat along the tops of his outrageously oversized ass just further showed how fattened he had gotten; there was little fur left there, just cellulite and stretchmarks. Grease and sweat pooled in those little mounds of pure adipose, small lakes on the sea, and quivered undisturbed as the draolf had no hope of moving enough to empty those little caverns of flab. With the fat in his rear alone, he had no hope of moving whatsoever; he was beached unequivocally.
Moving slightly forward, the sprawling landscape of his gut took center-stage. The draolf was divided into two sections thanks to the vastness of his stomach, his belly, and then everything else. The grand table muscle sprawled out untold yards before him, a swollen dome that almost shone with how full it was. Stretched to the point of nearly pain as the draolf ate on during his examination of his frame, the fur on the grand bulk before him had thinned to near non-existence along much of its surface. There were deep pockets of fur in the deep folds of fat rolling along the sides of that bulk, and the pair of twin mounds which that bulk rested on were a deep grey, stained with meals past and overgrown with shaggy, unkempt fur which hadn't been moved in ages other than to spread. The top of that mass was a bright pink, though, stretched and overstretched time and time again. Deep, angry marks of his gluttony ran all along the surface of his hide, showcasing to the world, or rather just his world's one occupant, just how fast and how much he had grown over the period of his self-imposed exile. The dome of his gut rose yards above the rest of him, and spread further out than he thought possible. He had most always grown his frame along with his gains, or he had only grown to be more fat than fur rather than so much more fat than anything else. This was something new for the draolf, and that something new sent more blood down into his groin as he looked over just what he had eaten himself into. He could feel that weight pressing down on his arousal, each gulp sending a small pulse of growth throughout the grand mass before him as he continued on in his glutting. Sasuke still looked over that gut though, trying and failing to take in its sheer grandeur. He could spend hours drinking himself all in, looking over every fold of fat and every roll of lard that adorned the sides of his gut, or just staring into the sheen of fat and grease that coated the top of the mountain he had eaten himself into.
Before he spent time doing that though, the draolf finally came to a conclusion about what to do with himself, and just how to deal with the nagging, omnipresent doubt of his current situation that had consumed his thoughts entirely at that point. Eating wasn't making those feelings ebb, thinking on what he had done to put himself into the fattened position wasn't helping, no... Sasuke knew that he needed to end his exile. He had to go back. How he could do that and just what that would entail were mysteries to the draolf, but just reaching that conclusion had drastically reduced the headache he had grown to have as he had finally tried to do something about those thoughts gnawing at the back of his consciousness. This was no small feat for the immense beast, though, as going back would mean cleaning, losing the untold pounds that he had gained, and above all, having to actually deal with his problems rather than eating them away. That had been his solution, and for a time it had worked... In fact, it had worked so well that he was now a living monument to excess. However, something about his predicament was lonely, and it left him feeling unfulfilled even though he was filled to the brim and then some. It was time, though, and he knew it.
Stuffed past the point of pain, to where even his cheeks felt as though they were stretching and he could only wheeze and gurgle over the food rising to his throat from his packed stomach, the hose in Sasuke's maw vanished. Some of his meal spilled from his muzzle, a rumbling gurgle escaping his wheezing face as he tasted the remnants of his latest shake binge lingering on his tongue. The draolf tried to belch in vain, met only with more gurgles, and a few creaking groans of protest from his overused stomach. He was full, completely and utterly, and it was as good a time as any in his mind to unlock the door to his prison chamber. He could think better on a full stomach, sure, but this full... Higher reason, and even the ability to stay awake were fleeting for the mammoth mound of mass. No, he was giving in to baser instincts and just letting the whim that had driven him to even consider freeing himself take over his mind. Thus, it was with but a thought that the door to his warehouse of gluttony unlocked. It took that little effort to set himself free, such a small thing the draolf could do even as his vision blurred and his mind fell blank as the power of his stomach bore down on his waking mind. His fleeting thoughts were of just what he would do out in reality again, away from the confines and safety of his gluttony and his own little world. Those thoughts didn't last, though, as Sasuke was far closer to succumbing to dreamland than he thought; it took mere moments from the end of his excessive feasting for his whole body to render itself unconscious.
Sleep offered little respite to the wolfdragon, as it was as dreamless and fitful as ever for him. He snored as though he was a diesel engine, though some part of him setting out on this excursion had enough forethought to make his body never require an oxygen hose to sleep; such a device would mean more effort to get back to eating when he awoke. Sasuke didn't want to have to think about that and instead just wanted to focus on what he did best, glutting himself stupid. However, one of the few negative side effects of such eating was that his sleep was often just time spent unconscious rather than sleep. No dreams, no fleeting thoughts, nothing... Just emptiness. It was fitting, in a sense, as the wolfdragon had dragged himself into the confines of his gluttonous greed due to a certain amount of emptiness that he had felt, and that emptiness had followed him right on down that rabbit hole. Furthermore, that empty feeling came as a direct result of what he was doing to fill himself; he had quelled one empty feeling only to replace it with another. The irony was hardly lost on Sasuke, but it was yet another of those fleeting thoughts that he forced from his mind with every excess calorie that passed through his maw. Hungry for more and yet left empty at the end of his binges; nature seemed almost cruel to Sasuke in that respect. He could have changed nature to form to his will, though, and in some ways, he indeed had. Not many, though, as he wanted to keep himself as grounded as he could during his time spent eating himself into little more than a sagging mass of pure adipose.
As a mass of buttery fat and little else, Sasuke was a bundle of nerves as well, thanks to that. His stretched hide was immensely sensitive, the slightest breeze or the lightest touch enough to stimulate him to the very core, as it had been for some time now. The draolf would, at times, just kick up a light wind to run over his stomach, and that alone was enough to send shivers down his spine. A few conjured paws rubbing on his vast acreage of stomach? Tenderly tracing lines along his various peaks and valleys of fat while running along his stretchmark-riddled hide? That was sheer heaven for the hybrid and left him drooling at the very thought of it. Thusly, it was little surprise that he was awoken from his food-coma by the ever so gentle touch of paws to his hide. The paws were real enough, too, not conjured from his comatose mind or figments of his overactive imagination. No, the paws that stirred the sleeping mountain of excess were very much so real, and they were ever so gentle in their touch. They almost felt fearful as they ran over his surface, a light shiver coming from their initial touch that had awoken the gluttonous behemoth. Sasuke couldn't see the intruder into his space, but he could hazard a guess as to whom it was; there was really only one answer to that question. He knew that answer too, but he still wanted to pose the question first; to be certain that his two-or-so years of seclusion hadn't dulled the one friendship that he had relied on for eons.
"Hyede?"
A slight sigh came from somewhere beyond the wolfdragon's horizon. His head, buried deep within the countless folds of fat which had come to be his entire frame, had no way of naturally hearing this noise. Instead, Sasuke was just projecting his mind above his lard-encircled frame. It worked, as he was able to speak through his mind out to the one before him. He didn't get a response, but that sigh, though, and it troubled the wolfdragon. He didn't want to peek over himself as that would be cheating, but he could hope for words. He, in fact, desperately hoped for words... Something, anything to show him that he could be talked to even in this state. He knew that he had been gone too long from the lack of words that he had made a mistake. That was part of what took him so long to emerge from his prison; he didn't want to own up to that mistake and deal with the consequences, even if it was no mistake of his own that had led him down this particularly gluttonous path. No, the wolfdragon wanted to just have this part of his life concluded, but at the same time, it had taken will which he no longer thought he possessed to even try and go down this path. In fact, that will was fading with every single moment of silence that he was getting from the being beyond his horizon. He could undo this lapse in self-preservation, just erasing the memory of the unlocked door, resealing himself in his expansive room, and conjuring up a new hose to fill his ever-expanding stomach all over again. It would be so easy to do, such a little thing that he could do it with nary a thought. In fact, it could be done just as easily as-
"I missed you."
Three words, just three, but those were enough for Sasuke to melt all over again. Not one for tears or emotions in general aside from a chosen few that lingered in his mind, Sasuke could feel himself going bleary-eyed. It was not of his choice, his mind was reacting to such a small but vastly important sentiment that he just felt overwhelmed and as out of control of his own body as he had ever been. He had let his appetite run rampant for years, totally surrendering control of himself to his stomach and his mouth. This was something different for him, though, something almost feeling alien after spending as much time as he had not only alone but eating and consuming every waking moment to quell any feelings other than emptiness and being so full it was nearly painful. The wolfdragon didn't know how to react to the sudden bursting of the dam of emotion that he had been holding back, but tears were starting to flow. They weren't about to stop either, and with nowhere to go, they simply began to pool before his eyes. Sasuke did at least have the wherewithal to fix this, but... He didn't stop himself crying. He couldn't have stopped even if he had so desired to, so overcome with just a whole host of feeling as he was. His whole form shuddered and sloshed tectonically as he cried, little ripples and waves of blubber along his oceanic surface of buttery flab as he did so. He made no noise, but the paws on his taut stomach seemed to almost get even lighter in their touch, rubbing long, lethargic arcs over that area as they did so. Even with those arms, they reached but a minute fraction of the surface area of Sasuke, but the draolf knew their intent and did take solace in that; his first intruder was trying to comfort him.
It took minutes before Sasuke was composed enough to speak again, thankful that he only was capable of speaking through his mind rather than through his mouth; he was still a whimpering mess. Bleary-eyed and barely able to even begin to fully calm down, the draolf spoke with a vulnerability that even he forgot that he had. "I missed you too," he began softly. "I'm sorry for leaving, for just..." He trailed off, but the paws that were on the front of his prodigious gut didn't stop rubbing in circles over that overtaxed hide beneath them. In fact, they gave a light squeeze to the fat-filled mass, and the feeling of a wet nose and wetter eyes pressed against that vast acreage of blubber gave away the tears the draolf had avoided seeing. It was Sasuke's turn to want to comfort, but the draolf forced himself to stop. In his mind, somewhere, he felt that he hadn't even earned that right. He had left his closest friend out in the cold, abandoned his empire, and just secluded himself with nary a warning or words. The draolf had snapped, and there was the biggest casualty for that snap standing right before him trying to comfort him; overjoyed to see him even. It was astonishing to the wolfdragon, but it wasn't something that he could begin to comprehend, nor that he felt that he had earned. He almost was waiting, somewhere deep in the dark parts of his mind, for the other shoe to drop. For there to be shouting, berating, even threats, he had earned it all in his mind. Had his reasons for snapping been just? Who was he to say anymore, he could scarcely even remember what had led him to that moment in time. He was there, though, in that moment, and he just felt as though he had done nothing to earn the compassion that was being shown to him by Hyede.
The pair sat in silence for several minutes, neither saying a word as they both just existed. It was peaceful, but Sasuke could tell there were so many words that needed to be said between the two of them. In a way, though, they were having that conversation through silence, each saying volumes to the other without words. Sasuke expressed how alone he had actually been, and how sorrowful that he was that he had felt the need to even go off as he had, through his silence. Hyede expressed just how much he had missed the draolf, and how much care for the draolf he really had, through his own silence. Neither wanted to break that, to broach on a subject that would scare off that moment and bring back the reality of the situation, but they both knew one would have to talk. Both the panda and the wolfdragon didn't want to be the first to do it, though, so instead they just sat in silence and let the other speak first. It was almost a game of chicken, but they were playing it expertly, and neither was about to lose; stubbornness ran in both of them like the blood through their veins.
"I really did miss you," Sasuke finally relented, the words barely above a whisper as they flowed from his mind to Hyede's. The panda simply grasped a bit tighter at the folds of flab on the front of the wolfdragon in response, seemingly having to think about what he was going to say.
"You kept me waiting, you know? All of us were waiting," Hyede started, the words beginning to tumble out of his mouth as he spoke. "You didn't have to leave like you did; we all knew that you were struggling, but just leaving like that... You didn't have to do that. You could have stayed, and we would have helped you out, been there, done something. Just vanishing and locking yourself away so that you could wallow in it..." Hyede trailed off as he spoke, seemingly to keep from upsetting Sasuke. The wolfdragon could tell how the panda before him felt, though, as those paws of his were shaking lightly as they gripped onto the rolling surface of wolfdragon fat beneath them. The frustration, anger, and hurt that Hyede felt was palpable, and Sasuke knew it; he had felt it from the moment that he had woken up and felt Hyede in the room with him. He hadn't wanted to acknowledge it, but as the panda had spoken, it had all come bubbling back up to the surface. It was the consequence the wolfdragon didn't want, the one he had in fact dreaded. The price he needed to pay for pulling a vanishing act on himself. He knew it needed to be paid, but still, he had hoped to somewhat avoid it, to just go back to how things were without needing to transition or to even have to think about just what he had done...
"We were waiting, Sasuke. I was waiting. It... You can't just leave like that." Hyede started again, his voice shaky as he spoke. "I thought you... You..." The panda trailed off again, but Sasuke didn't need him to finish that sentence.
"I wouldn't," Sasuke replied, a hint of anger behind his voice. Not at the panda; Hyede didn't do a single thing to anger him. No, the anger was directed at himself for even allowing that thought to brew in someone else other than himself. The wolfdragon had, of course, harbored those thoughts of ending his existence on the mortal plane and just ascending to something more, somewhere that even his gluttony could be sated. In fact, it was why he had eaten and eaten and eaten; he had tried to eat himself to death time and time again, and yet just couldn't find the strength to let himself be finished off by what he had devoured; a weakness that had let him live on the mortal plane. He was eating to fill the emptiness in some respects, but that was mostly a lie that he had told himself so often that it wasn't until Hyede spoke the truth that the draolf had remembered it. He had been so lost in his own mind, his own body, his own predicament that he had forgotten about what had gotten him there. He had even forgotten just what it was he was running from or eating for, or anything other than the fill of his next meal and the routine that came along with it. He had been going through the motions in a manner of speaking, and as such, he had lost sight of himself. It was a sight that he abhorred as well, one that showed just how far he had fallen and how much of himself he had lost to eating. His gluttony had taken the form of his depression, and it had swallowed him whole both literally and figuratively. Just even having a faint idea of that picture disgusted the wolfdragon, and yet there was little that he could do to change it; the feelings weren't going to just mysteriously disappear, nor were they ebbing. Even in that moment, that first moment of clarity about just what he had done, the feelings of worthlessness and ineptitude and meaninglessness about everything surrounding himself came back in waves. They had vanished, or rather hidden beneath the surface, so deeply that the draolf had forgotten about them. Once they were allowed to see through a crack in his armor, though, they came flooding back in spades. They rushed his mind as though a dam had burst, filling it to the brim and only serving to make him even angrier at himself for allowing that to happen. Allowing it to happen almost felt wrong to say though, as it had been happening for a long time to him, and he had been able to just either ignore those feelings or push them from his mind. No, this was more that he had let them win; his stubbornness and competitive nature had given up in the face of a mind that had been so broken down by the rigors of life and the wear and tear that it brought. He had been defeated simply by living, and as an immortal beast of immeasurable power, it was more than merely humbling; it was soul-crushing. With that crushed soul came the lack of the willpower to do anything, and with that... Well, came what Sasuke had eaten himself into at that moment in time. Each and every bit of those emotions led to the anger in his voice when he responded to Hyede and the anger that the draolf could feel building in himself. That same anger that had led to the downward spiral that had put him there. The same anger that had taken him from an outward, pleasant, mischievous wolfdragon to a bloated amorphous shape of nothing but pure, buttery fat. It disgusted him. It infuriated him. But, above all of that, the thing the wolfdragon didn't want to admit the most... It put him right back into that spot. Right back where he had started this years-long journey.
It depressed him.
Hyede seemed to sense that, at least as much as the wolfdragon was allowing himself to sense that; he wasn't going to probe Hyede's mind in the least in that moment. His feelings were his own, and thusly the panda's were his own as well. Sasuke wasn't about to intrude on that privacy, though he had been known to do so from time to time in the past. Those days... Well, those days like his feelings had been swallowed up by what he had become, and what had led him there. The panda's rubbing, soothing arcs of massaging stopped, and instead, the panda began to climb. He had to actually climb Sasuke, paws and feet sinking several inches down into the surface of the draolf as he ascended. A few belches and rumbles worked their way involuntarily out of the draolf from the pressure on his stomach, but Sasuke made no move to stop the panda; how could he? Instead, he just stayed motionless, or as motionless as an undulating ball of blubber could, and waited in himself. He didn't want to hazard a guess as to what Hyede was doing, but he wasn't about to try and ask. No, he wanted to wait and see what was to come. He had ideas, sure, but he also knew that being in his own head about those ideas was what had put him where he was. Did he enjoy being what he was on some level? An amorphous ball of flesh and gluttony that could only be a beast of comfort and nothing else? Absolutely he loved it, and he had been there more than once with the help of his friends or just on his own whims. This particular time though was different, and although the draolf did relish what he had become physically, his mental reasons for it were why he didn't spend a moment letting his mind sink into guessing and questioning motives. He instead just did his best to let his mind be blank and his patience absolute. Hyede needed time to climb, and Sasuke was going to give it to the panda.
Thankfully, that time was short, as the panda was rather adept at ascending fat; Sasuke had made him do it more than once in their eons together. Feeling steps along the rolling tide of fat of his chest, gentle footfalls sinking heavily into the pure lard that was beneath them, the draolf almost held his breath in anticipation of Hyede's arrival at his sunken face. The draolf didn't have to wait long for that either, as the panda made it with nary an incident, and wasted no time with his goal. Paws sank deep into a fold of flab that had rolled over Sasuke's head, and the wolfdragon could feel the strain of muscle as the panda grunted with the effort of lifting. That effort was hardly fruitless, though, as Sasuke could feel his whole face shifting as the fat around it moved and contorted out of the way. The blinding sac of blubber that had rolled over his head slid back, rolling sluggishly over onto his back and wings with a long, drawn-out motion. Once that was moved, Hyede pressed on, paws sinking into the jowly cheeks that too had blinded the draolf. They were each pushed aside, slowly and carefully, by the panda. They took more effort to move, but they did... And when they did, Sasuke could see light.
"Hi."
"Hi," Sasuke responded in a bassy, muffled voice; speaking was a chore that he was not about to continue doing. He had to squint, as moving his cheeks fully from his eyes and muzzle was not going to happen. He did, however, see light for the first time in recent memory. It was shocking to the beached ball of adipose, to see again, but he did it... And he saw the bleary eyes of Hyede looking right back at him. His own looked back, squinted and just barely capable seeing over the hills of his own excess, but they looked back with that same bleary expression and just seemed to smile up at Hyede. The panda smiled back, though it was a pained smile; Sasuke could tell that much just from what little he could see. Sasuke tried and failed to do the same, his muzzle not cooperating thanks to the sheer weight which was pinning it in a permanent pout smooshed ever so much between his bulging cheeks. The wolfdragon did, however, manage to give a light jostle to his frame, a small shimmy inside the sea of himself from muscles that had long been unused. It was just to show that he, too, was smiling, and Hyede seemed to get it as his own smile broadened as a result.
"You got a bit fat," Hyede quipped after a few moments of looking at Sasuke, the wolfdragon letting out a rumbling chuckle that undulated his blubbersome chest in rippling waves of mirth.
"A bit... I did kind of let myself go," Sasuke responded, his voice again emanating from Hyede's mind as the draolf decided against the sheer effort of moving his jaw. "I just wanted to eat..."
"Well, I think you ate plenty from the looks of it."
"Hyede, I-" Sasuke started but was interrupted by a paw from the panda.
"Don't, just... Don't" Hyede interrupted, his voice shaking again as he spoke. "You were broken and have been for a long time. I know that, and I know that this didn't fix you and that you will probably break again. This isn't the first time you've done this after all, and it won't be the last. But... I'll still be here."
"I know..." Sasuke muttered, his eyes looking down as they got bleary again. "I am broken, and I am still very broken. I want to try again, though, to not be... Well, broken. I'm a mess, though, panda... I mean, I reek, I am so disheveled that I look like a worn rug, and I have more rolls than a bakery. That's just the exterior too, on the inside... Fuck if I know. My head is a mess. Hell, it took a lot of me just to even let you inside here, then hearing that you missed me and all this? I still want to just erase this happening and go back to glutting like a pig to try and eat this all away. I know that if I do, though... I will miss more of life, and that just isn't something that I can do anymore. I need to either live or just qui-"
"If you say quit, I will fucking hurt you," Hyede growled out, taking Sasuke aback. The draolf's eyes went wide at the sudden outburst as he looked at the panda, who was glaring back at him with a fire in his gaze. There was no questioning that he was serious, and Sasuke knew better than to question when Hyede was serious; it was scary when Hyede was serious. "You're not quitting on my watch, so stop talking like that."
"Okay, I won't quit on your watch... It would be too big of a mess to clean up anyways," Sasuke quipped, trying to lighten the mood even a bit but only getting an angry glare from the panda in response. "I mean it... I won't. I can't say that I won't think about it and that it won't be something I have to fight with, but I will do my best. Does that work?"
"A compromise for living is hardly something I would call working, but... I'll take what I can get out of you." Hyede grumbled, clearly not amused by what Sasuke was saying. The massive mutt just sighed in response, knowing full well that this would be a conversation for another time, but not wanting to drag it out. Hyede frowned harder at that sigh, a low growl again coming from the bear before he spoke again. "You can't just live to appease me, or for a promise, or anything like that. You have to live because you want to live, and I mean want to really, not just... Well, for your next meal."
"You think I don't know that?" Came a growling reply from Sasuke. "You think this is easy? To be vulnerable and to have to admit that I have a fucking problem? Do you even know how long it took mul-"
"Two years, seventy-eight days..." Hyede interjected, drawing a glare from Sasuke. The panda didn't look pleased either, and Sasuke yet again felt the urge to purge the entire conversation from history itself and go back to gorging. To knowing just what his day was going to be filled with, and to filling himself to the point that he couldn't feel anything anymore. He resisted that urge still, but it was stronger than it ever had been when he first decided that he should let himself get back out into the world. The wolfdragon wasn't expecting this amount of resistance, nor was he expecting to be scolded as he was. He was a god after all; he did the scolding, not the other way around. Here he was, though, the panda giving him a deserved tongue lashing for locking himself away and shirking his duties, however... It was one that he had given himself nearly every moment of his time spent away that he wasn't eating, part of why he had never stopped eating for even a moment.
"Then maybe," Sasuke started, his voice barely above a low hiss, "Instead of giving me shit and harassing me to live on, try supporting me instead. Instead of berating me for even trying, boost me up so that I can do this 'living on' thing that you keep on talking up. I don't want to be here, I don't want to even live when I am like this. I am fucking trying, though, so just deal with that part and let the rest fall into place. I opened the damn door and let you in, and that was a start. There isn't much more I can do than that, so let a start be a start, and instead of expecting the world, maybe just expect me."
"Okay," Hyede squeaked, clearly crestfallen after getting his own lashing. The panda all but wilted right before Sasuke, sinking down into himself slightly as his grasp on the cheeks letting light into Sasuke's eyes softened. The weight of the draolf began to take hold again, sinking him back into darkness ever so slowly as the fat of his head oozed around Hyede's arms. Little by little, as the panda continued to droop from Sasuke's words, the light that was coming in faded. The hybrid could see less and less, and his mind could less right along with those eyes. Gone were the images of more chances, more ways to fix himself, more things to try; there was so much more than eating himself into a stupor with every waking breath, or so he had thought. He had known this before succumbing to the crippling self-doubt and myriad of other thoughts that had led him into his current position, but they had all seemed so far away, too distant to even attempt to reach for. From where he sat now though, with the light fading as Hyede let him sink back into the darkness and depravity of his own gluttony, Sasuke could see all of those things again, but he could also see them receding into the darkness of his mind. Each and every one was there, and though the light was fading from his eyes, his mind was darkening even more rapidly. Something had to give for him; something needed to be the instrument of change that would set him on the correct path towards fixing all that he had broken in himself and in those around him. Hyede hadn't fully earned that outburst, and he was now getting to experience just a small piece of what Sasuke had been experiencing for years. It was... Well, it was enough alone to make Sasuke regret the choices that had led him there, but at the same time, he had no clue as to how to get both himself and Hyede off that current trajectory and onto one that would aim towards fixing things. The draolf did have an idea, though...
An idea that he acted on.
There was no flash, no bright light, no blink of an eye. There was simply one moment where Sasuke was a ball of useless flesh, an overblown sac of lard that could have immobilized ten beasts several times over had they taken on even half of his excess flesh. The next moment, there was no more of that blubber, there was simply the towering form of Sasuke in his usual flabby form, standing there beside Hyede and looking down at the smaller panda. Gone was the stench of unkempt fur and food and sweat, and in their place, there was nothing. Gone was the humid air of the room around its sole sweaty occupant, and in its place, there was a cool air that made sure Sasuke was comfortable. Above all, though, the biggest change to the room... The room itself was gone. The pair were now in one of the hallways of Sasuke's mansion, the same one that the door to the locked room had been in. The room itself was no more, gone in that same moment as the rest of the flab that had locked Sasuke in place and been a constant reminder of his failure. There was nothing in its stead either, no placeholder or reminder that things had gone awry for the wolfdragon. Instead, there was simply nothing there, nothing to be talked about or even seen; it was all gone. He hadn't wiped the memories of his time there, from himself nor Hyede nor any other beast that resided in the mansion along with Sasuke. No, those were all still there and intact and reminders of what had been. There was nothing physical, though, nothing to cling to in order to fall back into those cycles or to dwell on the past. There were only the thoughts of what had been and what could be.
"I think I like this a bit better," Sasuke said after he and Hyede took a moment to adjust, the panda looking around with a confused gaze for but a moment before remembering fully just who he was dealing with. The ursine butler simply shook his head and gave a few small pats to the tuxedo he was wearing, finding it back to its freshly laundered state rather than with the grime of the draolf on it. Sasuke couldn't help but snort with mirth at that little pat-down; he was half-tempted to give Hyede something to wash instead of taking care of that for the panda. The wolfdragon figured there was going to be enough for both of them to deal with, though; after all, one doesn't vanish for over two years and not leave a mess to clean up when they returned.
"I had a whole speech planned to get you out of there and cleaned up..."
"Taking a step newspaper, taking a step."
"Oh, wow... Right back to that, huh?"
"Would you prefer printing press? You are old enough for that one after all."
"If that's a jab at my age, then can I just call you dust?" Sasuke and Hyede both chuckled at that comeback, the light-hearted exchange a breath of fresh air after their tense conversation a few moments before. It was needed, for both of them, to ease things back into the normal, or at least what could be considered normal with what Sasuke was feeling then.
"So, I don't want-"
"I will be quiet on everything, Sasuke, but... You have to promise that you will at least talk to me or someone next time, okay?" Hyede cut in again, drawing a peering frown from over the curvature of Sasuke's large, sagging gut. "...And I'll stop interrupting you."
"I can try to do that," came a response after a few more moments of glaring. "That's all I can promise. I can keep on trying."
"That works for me... Now, should I get started on your first lunch?"
"Yeah, I'm starved." Sasuke paused a thoughtful look on his face for a moment before continuing. "And Hyede... I..."
"I know, you're welcome."
"No, I was going to say I want something roasted for lunch; it's been ages since I've had your roasts."
"...Lardass."