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thegainingdesk · 3 months

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Regret

Vidhur couldn't pull his eyes away from his reflection in the mirror. The face he saw was familiar, for the most part - the same floppy hair stylishly quaffed, the same dark, playful eyes, framed by long, almost girlish eyelashes, the same long, thin nose, the same perfect, straight, white teeth. He'd even gotten used to the small gut that had recently become a permanent fixture on his previously athletic frame. But he couldn't take his eyes off of his jawline.

Vid knew, logically, he'd get a double chin sooner or later, that his face would change as he put on weight. Seeing it though, in the bright, unforgiving lights of the Weatherspoons loos, was quite another matter.

He should, he knew, be excited. Another external sign of the weight he was putting on, another gainer milestone ticked off, another change to his growing body to wank to later. But god, didn't he used to be so handsome? His sharp jawline, his cheekbones - he didn't expect them to get buried so quickly. He told himself it was the bad lighting, puffiness from the alcohol, he'd had a salty lunch. But he knew, this was his face now. He’d seen it coming for a while, ignored the changes in favour of focussing on the soft curve forming at his middle.

“What you doing then?”

Vid was snapped out of his reverie as his mate Trent walked in. He shook his head. “Nothing. Nothing. Sorry, just thinking.”

“Fuuuck mate,” Trent groaned. “Can't be doing that. That's what the beer’s for. Here, you need to go get yourself another one if you're starting to do shit like thinking.”

Vid laughed and nodded. “Yeah, yeah, I suppose you want one as well do you? Here, you fancy ordering some food?”

“Fuck!” Vidhur snapped, as he let go of the two sides of his waistband, and let his gut once again push them apart. He'd been struggling with them for five minutes now, sucked in his belly as far as it would go, tried to do them up lying down, tried yanking them suddenly, coaxing them slowly, but nothing would convince the two sides of the fabric to meet.

Vid looked down at the jeans lying crumpled on the floor. His boss would bollock him, he knew, if he turned up looking so casual. Maybe if he wore a jacket with them? No, his office was notorious for keeping up appearances, and besides, he didn't want to look like Jeremy Clarkson. He could stop off and buy some smart trousers before work? At that point, it was a choice between turning up on time wearing jeans or arriving properly dressed but late. Neither option seemed viable. He could hold his trousers together with a safety pin, maybe, and hide it with a belt? Not that he owned any safety pins, or realistically believed that worked outside of weight gain stories.

He sat down on his bed and sighed into his hands. He’d only bought a whole new wardrobe of 38-inch trousers and extra large shirts just over a month ago, and despite them becoming increasingly tight and pinching in the past couple of weeks, he’d managed to convince himself that they'd last him a little while at least. Unfortunately, he'd found his most recent growth particularly thrilling, and it had spurred him into some rather spectacular feats of gluttony, leading him into a rather vicious cycle of growth inspiring ever faster growth. Last Thursday he'd spent the whole day at work frantically itching his fleshy sides, only to see bright red lines there when he got undressed at home later that night. The revelation had pushed him into a weekend of unbridled gluttony, his uncomfortably swollen gut only adding to his sexual fervour and willing him on to stuff himself even more.

Vid didn't know whether to be thrilled with the effects of the weekend’s feasting, or horrified. He couldn't really need the next size of trousers up already, could he? But the evidence was right in front of him, straining around his waist, thighs and arse. This was getting out of control. Yes, he found fat guys hot, yes, he wanted to experience it for himself, but his little experiment was supposed to be twenty, maybe thirty pounds at most. Now here he was, 255 pounds, checking to see if Next had any 40-inch trousers in stock, and a couple of 42-inch just to be safe, wondering how long it would be until he needed new shirts as well. Was he even attracted to guys this big? He was bigger than even his university boyfriend Hamish had gotten all those years ago. No, he'd look at gym memberships this afternoon, this had all gone far enough.

Still though, he might as well get some McDonald’s breakfast while he was out. He didn't have to lose all the weight.

Vid picked up his phone. “Ellis? Yeah, hi, I'm really sorry, I'm going to have to work from home today. Yeah, a burst pipe, sorry.”

“Did you see his shirt today?” Vid heard Harriet-from-finance ask in a hushed tone.

“Stop!” came Liam-from-reception’s laughing reply. “I thought it was about the burst off of him!”

Vidhur stopped outside the break room and looked down at his shirt, which was notably straining around his gut. He had, he knew, outgrown 2XLs a while ago, but work had been so hectic that he'd not had time, or at least that's what he told himself. At weekends he was so preoccupied with stuffing himself, with pushing himself to beat personal challenges and records, and left in such a stupor afterwards, that he forgot everything else he needed to do. He had, at least, hoped that it wasn't quite so noticeable, and had thrown on a tie and cardigan in an effort to hide some of the worst of it.

He also, quietly, hoped that maybe this was as big as he'd ever get. That 2XL would be the biggest he'd ever see on a clothes tag. He knew that it made no sense, that his constant gorging guaranteed his continued growth, that he was already in dire need of some 3XLs, that every attempt he'd made to curb his growth had resulted in abject failure. Still though, he really hadn't wanted to get this big, honest.

“Can I tell you a secret?” Liam’s voice asked.

“You may in fact tell me nothing else,” Harriet’s voice replied.

“I actually used to fancy him,” Liam whispered.

Vid heard Harriet scream. “You did not! No, I'm sorry, you absolutely did not. Him? Seriously? He's so fat!”

“He genuinely used to be fit, before you started” Liam replied. “Like, properly fit. But then like a year ago he just suddenly got fat out of nowhere.”

Vid's stomach lurched. He knew that his weight gain was obvious, that everyone could see it, but he'd told himself that people still saw him as ‘chubby’, or ‘husky’, or ‘large’. To hear people call him fat, that some people were surprised he’d ever been anything else… Time, maybe, for him to stick to a diet. He took a deep breath in, sucked in his gut and walked into the break room.

“Oh hey guys, how are you?” he asked.

The pairs’ eyes widened and they both plastered on wide, fake smiles.

“Hey Viddy,” Liam drawled. “Oh, we’re good. We were just saying that Terry looks like he's put on some weight recently, weren't we Harriet?”

Harriet choked on her coffee and Vid saw her mouth “Stop it!” across the table at Liam.

“I don't know,” Vid replied. “He looks the same as ever to me.”

“Maybe,” Liam said, smiling. “I suppose, the thing is, I'm quite health conscious, so I notice these kinds of things.”

Vid saw Harriet slap Liam’s thigh and bite her lip. “Maybe,” Vid replied, seething. “Do you know if these donuts are for everyone?” he asked. “I've got a real sugar craving.”

“I think so,” Liam replied, before turning to Harriet and mouthing “Oh my god!” The two shook with silent laughter.

“Great,” Vid smiled. He took three.

“Oh my god, Terry! You look amazing!”

Vid looked up to see his co-worker Terry walk into the office after his holiday, with a broad smile on his face, an almost radioactive looking tan, and, most importantly, a significantly deflated gut. Terry held his arms out, showing off his baggy shirt and laughed. The office came to a standstill while everyone went over to congratulate him on his near-miraculous weight loss.

Vidhur declined to join the throng of people, instead looking down at the large gut filling his lap, and the small patch of sausage grease on his shirt from the first of that morning’s breakfast sandwiches. For a while now, he'd taken comfort in the fact that no matter how big he was getting, no matter how much weight he put on, as long as he stayed smaller than Terry, as long as he wasn't the fattest guy in the office, at least he was still in the realm of normality - a level of fat that an average member of the public could reach, without intentionally gorging themselves like Vid was doing. Okay, yes, Terry was thirty years older than Vidhur, and he'd put on his excess blubber over many years of sedentary desk work, happy marriage and living the good life, rather than Vid’s explosive weight gain of almost two hundred pounds over the last couple of years, but it remained a convenient and happy lie he could tell himself.

While Vid knew he’d been close to catching up with Terry anyway, he'd assumed that the effect of six weeks of all-you-can-eat buffets on Terry’s 58-year old metabolism would easily match the fifteen pounds Vid had put on while the older man was away. He felt ashamed. Sick. He'd blown himself up like a freak and now he was the fattest person he knew. Had he really ever meant to get this big? He'd just wanted to get a beer belly, hadn't he? Not this sack of lard he'd become.

“How did you do it Terry?” Sarah asked. Vid looked over. Maybe Terry was ill - some intestinal parasite caught in some distant country. Maybe, now he'd recovered, Terry was about to blow right back up, fatter than he'd ever been before, ready to take his heavyweight crown back from Vidhur.

“Well, I'd been thinking of dieting for a little while now,” Terry explained cheerfully. “I'd uh, well. I'd realised what I looked like. Just how fat I was.” Vid saw Terry look over at him, then look away again, a look of embarrassment on his face. Vid’s heart sank. Of course he was the huge monster that convinced Terry, the perpetually happy, lifelong fatty, just how disgusting his weight was.

“Well,” Terry continued, his face awkwardly turned away from where Vid was sat. “I thought the cruise would be awful for it, you know, all those buffets. But actually, they had these places you could go and they'd make me up these new salads every day, and I asked what was in them so I could make them at home - I've got them all written down. And the ship had this gym, and people there to help me. Three stone, I’ve lost so far.” The crowd around him gasped, ahh-ed and ooh-ed in astonishment at his feat. Terry waved them off. “Most of it was water weight, I lost most of it in the first couple of weeks.” Still, the admiration continued, and through the day Vid would cringe at each comment of congratulations. He noticed that a lot of people seemed to be avoiding him today - his size having been amplified by Terry’s sudden relative slimness.

“I hope you don't mind me saying Vid,” Terry said quietly later that day. “It's just, I know it's not easy, being so… well, you know.” Vid gave a short, uneasy smile in recognition that he did, in fact, know. “Well, I always thought I'd never be able to lose it. Told myself I was big boned, or that I had a slow metabolism, or that I just had too much of an appetite. But you know what Vid?” Vid could hear the pride in Terry's voice. “I just needed to decide to do it. It was easy in the end. Here, if I can do it, a young thing like you definitely can, eh?”

Vid smiled. He was terribly aware of the way he could feel the small action make his double chin crease even more. “Yeah, cheers Terry, I…” He paused and thought. “Maybe I have let it get too far.”

“If you ever need any healthy recipes or anyone to talk to, you know where I am, eh?” Terry smiled. “Here, can you believe I was almost twenty-four stone before my cruise? That was a wake-up call, I'll tell you that much.”

Vid whistled and raised his eyebrows. “Wow, yeah. That sure is… that sure is quite the number,” he said, giving a small chuckle. He turned back to his computer, knowing that he'd weighed in at over twenty-five stone that weekend. He had to lose some fucking weight.

Vid felt his whole body shake as he crashed to the floor. He wasn't sure if the crack of the chair breaking or the thwap of his soft body hitting the floor was louder, but he knew the combination was enough to bring the entire office crowding around his desk in a circle.

He lay on his side for a moment, dazed and winded as his co-workers murmured and pointed. He struggled into a crawling position, and did his best to ignore the roaring pain in his left hip and knee where he'd landed on them. In this position, his gut hung down far enough that it almost touched the ground. Vid's arms shook with the strain of holding up his weight, his heart pounded, and his breath was shallow and ragged.

“Come on, come on, help the man up,” Vid heard Terry's voice somewhere above him. “Here you go, easy now.” Vid felt a pair of hands grip his large flabby upper arms and strain to help him up. He did his best to not put too much weight onto the much smaller man as he staggered to his feet, but even so, he could see Terry struggle to stay upright. “You're okay, you're okay, there you are.”

If Vid had enough breath, he'd have wanted to tell Terry that he wasn't a shell shock victim or a startled horse, and didn't need treating like one. Instead, he gasped out a breathless “thank you.”

“Come on, come on, someone get him a chair,” Terry barked at the gawping onlookers.

“Terry,” Sarah said out of the corner of her mouth. “Isn't the problem, you know, that the chairs don't support him?”

Vid wanted the ground to swallow him up. If he put on much more weight, perhaps it would. “I'll just go to the break room,” he said, refusing to meet anyone's eye.

“That's a good idea,” Terry said, still holding Vid’s arm and beginning to guide him. The crowd parted to allow Vid’s elephantine figure past, people pressing themselves into the desks on either side. “Let's get you sat on a nice comfy settee. Here, just let me…” He began pulling on Vid’s shirt, who looked down to see that it had ridden up so that most of Vid's soft, hanging gut was on show, with pale stretch marks almost glaring against his brown skin.

Behind Vid, he heard a creak and turned around to see Sarah probing the floor with her foot. “Yeah, I think the floorboard’s broken,” she sighed. Vid hastily helped Terry pull his shirt down, his pulse racing with shame.

Vid sat eating a plate of biscuits and a mug of “overly-sweet” tea (Terry's words; just the thing after a shock apparently. Vid didn't bother to tell him that it had less sugar than he usually put in it himself). He looked up as the door opened and his manager Ellis walked in, three years younger than Vid, and half his weight.

“HR says we’ve got to buy you a reinforced chair,” Ellis snapped. “Reasonable adjustments or some shit. If you ask me, the reasonable adjustment would be for you to lose some of that fucking blubber. Fucking hell man, I'm surprised the chair went before your heart did.”

The settlement made Vid very comfortable indeed.

Dr Wiltshire tutted as she looked at the charts in front of her. “If I'm being honest, you're lucky your blood pressure isn't even higher, considering your weight,” she said, not bothering to look up. She began to type something on her computer.

“Yeah, I get that I’ve-” Vid began.

“I can't believe it's taken you this long to come in,” the doctor interrupted. “Your records say that you last came in-,” she tapped at the screen and inhaled sharply, “four years ago. You've put on almost three-hundred pounds in that time, did you know that?”

“I guess I-”

She grabbed his forearm and pulled it towards herself. “I'm going to have to take some blood for a diabetes test,” she snapped. “If I can find a vein,” she added in a murmur.

Despite knowing his gut more than covered his crotch, Vid struggled against the erection he could feel forming. He'd stayed away from the doctors for years, knowing that he'd be judged for his explosive weight gain, and now he'd left it so long that it was so much worse than he could possibly imagine.

“We'll put you on some medication to lower your blood pressure, at a minimum,” Dr Wiltshire said once she'd taken some blood. “Its very likely that you’ll need to be on insulin as well, but we’ll talk about managing your diabetes at another appointment.”

“Well I thought we still had to test-”

“Yes, yes, we’ll need confirmation before we put you on ozempic. We can talk about that once we sort out your insulin,” she said.

“Well, I'm not sure I'd want to go on ozempic,” Vid said. “I've heard some bad things about it.”

Dr Wiltshire sighed. “Well, have you also heard some rather bad things about morbid obesity as well?”

Vid sat in silence the rest of the appointment, vowing to take on all of her advice, to make the changes to his diet she suggested, to start exercising more. He really had let all this get too far. He couldn't believe how badly he'd jeopardised his health for a fetish. Once he left, he realised he'd never even told her about the knee pain he'd made the appointment for.

“Go on,” Lee said, standing on the bed over Vid, stroking his thick erection. “Say it.”

“Please,” Vid said, as he strained towards his crotch.

“Please what?” Lee said. He raised a foot and pressed it lightly down on Vid's gut.

“Please let me cum,” Vid pleaded.

Lee’s face feigned bemusement. His hand continued pumping his cock. “You're allowed to cum,” he said. “You remember. We agreed that you needed to finish all-” he gestured towards the pile of fast food wrappers spilling over the side of the bed and onto the floor with his free hand “-of that food if you wanted to cum. And you did! Well done you.”

“But I can't…” Vid said.

“Sorry,” Lee said, bending slightly. At no point did his stroking slow. “What was that?” His free hand pressed his ear forward.

“I can't make myself cum,” Vid said, his face flushing. “I can't reach my cock.”

Lee's hand sped up slightly. “Oh my!” he said, his face and voice in mock surprise. “Why wouldn't you be able to do that then?”

Vid was equal parts horny and genuinely embarrassed. “Because I'm too fat,” he said, collapsing back onto his pillows. “Because I can't reach around my fat gut, and even if I could, my dick is too small because it's been swallowed up by all my fat.”

Lee’s hand let go of his cock, and he let it hang, heavy and pulsing between his muscular thighs. “Why didn't you say?” he said, a smile spreading on his face. “Well then, you'll need me to do it for you I suppose then, won't you?” Vid nodded. “Sorry, what was that?” Lee asked. “I can’t see your gestures because they get swallowed by all the fucking fat.”

“Yes,” Vidhur said. He bit his lip.

“Well then. Eating all that food was the requirement for you being allowed to cum, not for me to do it for you,” Lee explained. “You'll have to have dessert if you want me to do that for you.” He shuffled forwards on the mattress, the motion made difficult by having to navigate around Vid’s sheer width. He lowered himself down until he was sat on Vid’s chest, the tip of his cock so close to Vid's lips that Vid could feel its warmth. “Do you want dessert?” Lee asked.

Vid answered by leaning forward and taking Lee's length into his mouth. He sucked hungrily, and Lee began to rock back and forth. Vid focussed on his technique, eager to please, gently stroking Lee’s balls and gripping his firm thighs. Lee moaned and gave a couple of shaking thrusts, jamming his cock into the back of Vid's throat, before Vid felt thick jizz pour down his throat. Lee pulled back and sighed contentedly while Vid coughed.

“Please,” Vid said as Lee climbed off of him. “Me now.”

Lee tutted and smiled. “Silly fatty!” he said. “That wasn't dessert. That was my cock.” He leant down and pulled a cake from below the bags he'd stashed beneath the bed. “No, this is dessert.”

Vid shook his head. “I'm too full. Please, I can't.”

Lee smiled. “I think you can. Big boy like you. And all that exercise you were doing trying to reach your little nub of a cock must have worked up quite an appetite.”

Vid closed his eyes and breathed heavily. His cock ached below the heavy pressure of his gut. “Give me the cake,” he said.

“I thought so,” Lee said. He didn't bother cutting the cake, just brought the whole thing to Vid's lips. Vid took huge bites, trying to eat it quick enough to trick his body into not noticing the huge amount of calories and sugar being forced into it. It didn't work. His stomach was straining and painful by the time he finished, and his head was spinning.

He was so dazed from the sugar that he could barely remember his aching cock, and was almost surprised when Lee's thick arm slid underneath his gut and began to work the exposed tip of his once impressive cock. Within thirty seconds, Vid yelled out and shook as he felt his crotch fill with semen.

“Same time next week?” Lee asked, wearing a thin pair of sweatpants and pulling on a muscle-tee, while Vid waddled back from the shower.

“Yeah. Money's on the bedside table,” Vid said.

Lee nodded. “Yeah, I got it, thanks.” He stayed sitting, unusual for him. “That was new, wasn't it?” he asked after a moment.

“What was?” Vid asked.

“Not being able to reach yourself,” Lee said. “You've done it before, but always pretending, part of play. That was different, wasn't it? You really couldn't?”

Vid shrugged. “For a while now. Too much in the way,” he explained.

“Right, right,” Lee said quietly. “You okay with that? I mean, I know this is your thing and everything. Shit, it's my thing too. But, you know, it's okay to not be okay with parts of it. To take a step back? I know how this can sort of run away with you. I used to think I didn't like guys over three-hundred, now that's my entire client-base.”

Vid nodded. “I'm okay with it. I've… well, I've definitely not been okay with it sometimes. But I've always kept going. Gotten okay with it, in the end.”

Lee nodded. “Okay. Good. Well, you’ve got my number if you need to talk, yeah? I won't even charge if I've got my clothes on,” he joked. “Or I could put you in touch with some other big guys? One of my exes is even bigger than you, might be good to talk to?”

“Yeah, that would be good thanks,” Vid said with a smile. “But, genuinely, I'm fine. I've got a good community going, I've come to terms with all the shit that comes along with this.”

Lee stood up. “Okay then,” he said. “No regrets?” he asked.

Vid shook his head. “No regrets.”

#weight gain #gaining fiction #gainer fiction #gainer story #weight gain story #male weight gain #wg story #weight gain fiction #regret #do i end another story with someone smiling and saying 'no regrets'? maybe but im not going to read through and check #can you spot the characters from my other stories?#desk cinematic universe tbh #i have another really long story i've been wanting to finish since about christmas so obviously i wrote this instead

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feroluce · 14 days

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Lucid Dreamer (1/2)

part 2

Gepard notices that it's been. Quiet lately. Like weirdly quiet. TOO quiet. He hasn't seen Sampo Koski in almost a week, which is about the longest he's ever been absent. And he is NOT worried. He's not! So what if they've been getting along more lately! So what if Gepard sometimes looks for him in his favorite hiding places! So what if he's been dreaming about blue hair and green eyes! It's nothing!!

But they're….strange, these dreams. Gepard doesn't usually remember what he's dreamt. It's out of his mind seconds within waking up. But these stick with him, they won't leave him be, they feel different somehow.

He dreams of Sampo bringing food to the frontlines and eating breakfast in his tent with him. Sampo always sneaks him extras. He dreams of chasing Sampo through the alleyways, Sampo sometimes letting himself be caught, Gepard sometimes catching him, and trying to ignore how it feels more like a game now more than anything else. He even dreams that Sampo tags along with him on one of his few civilian days. Sampo runs errands with him, prattles about inane bullshit while Gepard picks out groceries for the week, drags Gepard into some bakery he's never been to but he thinks Serval mentioned once.

And sometimes, it feels so close to reality, that Gepard half expects to see Sampo, shamelessly swaggering into the frontlines with all the guards' breakfast like his wanted poster wasn't only recently taken off the walls of Belobog. He's disappointed when it's always someone else instead. He tells himself his disappointment is ridiculous and if Sampo wants to go prowl around the Snow Plains or wherever he is, then fine. It's not any of his business.

…But it IS his job to investigate any unusual criminal activity relating to the frontlines. And the frontlines are Sampo's usual haunting grounds, and this is unusual activity, and Sampo IS technically a criminal, so it is absolutely part of his duty to look into this - is what Gepard tells himself the entire tram ride down into the Underground.

Natasha tells him he's gone, and Gepard has to steel himself. He knew Sampo made enemies wherever he went, there are a lot of people who would love his head on a platter, but he didn't think-

Natasha corrects him that she means literally gone. As in off-planet. Sampo always leaves her a note before he goes anywhere, so she knows not to expect any supply runs from him. He should be back in exactly two weeks. Thank the Preservation.

Gepard goes back home. He waits.

The uneasiness doesn't leave him.

"Where did you go?" Sampo stops dead in the middle of some story about Seele, and how you'd think someone with as blunt a mouth as her wouldn't have so much trouble asking a woman out, even if that woman IS the Supreme Guardian, and stares at him. He nearly fumbles his cigarette.

"Ahaha, what do you mean, I'm right here?" Sampo smiles at him the same way he always does. Gepard has no idea why he asked. It just popped out. He can never tell when Sampo is lying, anyway.

"I don't know. I feel like I haven't seen you in a long time." Gepard idly mouths at his own cigarette. He almost never smokes, but he wants to ration their stocks of Blizzard Immunity, and it helps with the cold. It's seemed colder lately, for some reason.

Gepard flicks his lighter once, twice, sighs at the third time because a metal prosthetic and thick gloves make the damn things so difficult. Sampo reaches over and wordlessly kisses the end of his cigarette to Gepard's, lighting it. "Thank you."

Nothing happens for almost a full 30 seconds. Something churns behind Gepard's ribcage. Because Sampo never leaves a "thank you" hanging. This is the part where he gives his spiel about how helpful and kind he is and Gepard either brings up how long his rap sheet was before Bronya helped clear his name, or just stares deadpan because seeing Sampo squirm is weirdly satisfying.

"…I'll be back in one more week."

Gepard jolts awake in his cot, mouth dry and eyes bleary.

The hell.

The next dream he has, Sampo looks tired. Sometimes he seems normal. Sometimes he says strange things, like how he wishes he'd gone to some restaurant in Belobog. Ate his favorite food more recently. Brought something with him. Gepard asks why he can't do that now. Where would he bring something? Sampo only shrugs. His rebuttals have less energy.

Gepard doesn't know if he wants to dream more, or less.

He ticks down the days on his calendar. Natasha hasn't told him any different. She promised she would if she got any kind of message. Sampo returns tomorrow, from whatever vacation or seedy business dealings he's been off having. He is not excited about it. He is not looking forward to it. He's not!!

Gepard falls asleep late that night, unable to settle. He dreams again.

He's alone. There are tons of people everywhere, the frontlines are always crowded. But he's alone. They all pass right by him as though he were a ghost. Gepard starts to walk before he realizes his feet are even moving.

He checks the trashcans in the dead end alley. He checks the supply crates that someone always stacks too high because they don't feel like finding more space for them. He pauses to check the soldiers that march past him, watching their footprints in the snow.

He finally finds Sampo on the rooftop along the northernmost wall, the one that looks out over the plains, towards Everwinter Hill, towards where the Stellaron had once been kept. With a full moon and an entire land of white snow, Gepard can almost see clear out to the horizon.

"Found you." Sampo stiffens, and Gepard is almost prepared for him to sprint off the roof. He doesn't. But he doesn't relax either. Gepard sits down next to him and stares out at the wastelands.

"…I fucked up." It wasn't what Gepard had been expecting. Sampo never 'fucks up,' Sampo just gets into incidents that are entirely, supposedly, not his fault and that he just happens to always be within the vicinity of.

"What did you do now?" It must be really bad if Sampo is coming to the Silvermanes for protection.

Instead, Sampo ignores his question completely. "See out over there? Right on the other side of that mountain. There's a safe house that way. It's hidden under a lot of snow and dead trees, but it's there. And in that safe house is a box full of letters. I need you to deliver those letters for me."

Gepard's brow furrows. It's a weird favor to ask. Sampo would never tell anyone where his hidden safehouses were. It defeated the whole purpose of a hidden safe house.

Something is wrong, something is really really wrong.

Gepard turns back to look at him again and startles, all of his questions dying in his throat, because the entire left side of Sampo's head is suddenly matted down, dark and sticky, his skin is dyed red red red-

"In three more months, there's gonna be something big happening." Gepard grabs Sampo's hand and it feels slick and warm against his palm. "I won't be here. So I need you to do my end of things for me." Gepard tries to keep hold, but something is fading, something is slowing, the sun is coming up but the colors are all wrong, everything feels like encroaching fog, Sampo's hand slides right through his. "I was gonna come back with my mask to finish setting the stage, but…" Gepard makes a frantic grab for Sampo's wrist, the air twists, he comes back empty-handed. "They have you. And you're the Iron Wall of Belobog. So it'll be ok."

Gepard finally manages to find his grip, snatches the front of Sampo's dark wet jacket and yanks him forward to hold onto him, and this close up, he can see it better, his colors are bleaching out, leaking outside the lines as if Sampo will become part of the background, as if he's fading into the strange fog that's been closing in on them. His fingers are already starting to feel empty again.

"Wake up."

Gepard jolts awake, uncurls his hands from where they're fisted in the blanket, scrubs the dampness off his face. Breathes. Breathes. Breathes. Today is supposed to be the day.

He throws on his civilian clothes, and he goes down to the shipyard the IPC had built. He finds a spot where he can see every person that returns to Belobog, and he waits.

And he waits and he waits and he waits.

No one he recognizes appears.

#sampard #gepo #hsr gepard #hsr sampo #gepard landau #sampo koski #honkai star rail #hsr #blood #my fics #lucid dreamer #there was more to this but it didn't feel right included here so part 2 tomorrow maybe?#I just think Penacony being the land of dreams presents some FASCINATING possibilities like showing up in other people's dreams #the end of masquerade duet killed me just beat me dead #Sampo going through all this trouble just to protect Belobog...#poor Ray got such an earful that night haha #In the Penacony dreamscape someone can change their appearance however they want but I think in this case where one of the dreamers AREN'T-#-on Penacony it would take more concentration to keep that illusion up #and if someone were say. hurt and badly bleeding. it would start to fall apart eventually as they lost their concentration.#but oh my heart #Sampo being away and missing Belobog so badly he shows up in his friends' dreams just to do the same mundane shit they always do...#He probably showed up to everyone #he sat around and kept Natasha company in her clinic. he pestered Seele until he provoked her into asking Bronya on a date.#he played one last song with Pela and Serval. he told them he'd always kept his old bass guitar.#he took Hook out on one last joyride on his scooter and he even let her sit up front and steer like she'd always wanted.#and he stood around to shoot the shit with Gepard #he got to go do things like run domestic errands together with him. as if they could have been something more than what they were at the en #it was nice to get the chance to do all that #it was nice

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