Work Text
"We need to talk."Alfred sits on the couch, one arm across the back, torso twisted around to better to see behind him.Ivan freezes in the hallway towards the living room and kitchen. He dreads these four words and what they mean, but can't help himself from asking, "About what?"Alfred's expression and position don't change. "You. Us."Ivan's legs feel impossibly heavy as he makes his way to the couch to sit beside the other man. He opens his mouth to speak, but can't think of anything to say. Instead he closes his mouth and nods weakly.Alfred continues, "This isn't working." And, as Ivan's (probably-not-anymore) partner launches off on all the things wrong with him and why he's a terrible boyfriend, he can't help but think that this is awfully sudden. He begins to regret ever waking up, and thinks that, perhaps, this is only a dream. But no, everything feels far too regular to be any sort of dream Ivan has ever had.Just as Ivan thinks they're done and he can crawl back to the bedroom, Alfred delivers the kicker. "And your weight."Everything in Ivan goes cold. He stares, mouth slightly open, as he tries and tries to find something to say. After far too long, he comes up with a measly, "It wasn't a problem before."Alfred gives him a look somewhere between deadpan and sympathy. "Before you were just kind of chubby. It was cute, how you were awkward about everything and stuff. Now you're just fat. Have you looked at yourself recently?"He feels faint. He feels feverish and sick and like the ground should hurry up and swallow him up because there is nothing more for him here. His brain simply turns off as he tries, again, to find a reply. This time he can only say "oh"."Yeah." Suddenly, Alfred is at the door, leaving. "See you around, I guess."The door slams and Ivan can think again. He thinks this is shallow of Alfred to do, and mean. Well. He didn't want such a mean boyfriend, anyway. "Yeah, " he says to his empty house.He stays seated on the couch and can't remember what he even came in here for. He stares at his knees and doesn't cry. He would smash some picture frames or decorations, but the room is sparsely decorated. He doesn't have picture frames or decorations.His stomach lets out an angry growl, and he glances at it, before looking at his kneecaps again.It quickly lets out another angrier, longer growl, and Ivan stands up and goes to the kitchen. Once there, he opens the freezer and reaches for the Double Chocolate Fudge With Mint And Cookies that Alfred bought the other week. He reaches and reaches, and suddenly he isn't reaching anymore. His arm drops back to his side, and he stares. He doesn't need it. He doesn't want anything Alfred bought.Moments later, however, he finds himself shoving as much of it in his mouth as he can manage, along with nearly everything else in the kitchen. He eats until he can barely move, and then eats some more.When he finally declares himself full and finished, he lays on the couch and stares at the ceiling. Not at his stomach, that is distended and sloshing and hard and so full oh god it hurts to breathe-After a few moments he sits up. When his stomach settles, he stands up and walks back to his bedroom. On the way, though, he passes the bathroom, with the mirror visible from the door, He tells himself he won't look, he won't, but he does.As usual, he dislikes what he sees. This time, though, he can maybe sort of see where Alfred was coming from (though it was still terribly unfair). His cheeks are too round, his jawline is all but gone, he almost (only almost) has a second chin, his thighs rub together, and his stomach is too, too round, and now sags a bit over the waistband of his pants. His shirt fails in a noble attempt to keep it covered, but after his binge it fails miserably, riding up and stretched taut (like his skin) everywhere.He still doesn't cry, though, as he pokes and prods his stomach (which hurt) and cheeks. Then, as if possessed, he turns away and all but runs to the bedroom.As he falls asleep staring at the ceiling, he thinks he'll call in sick at work for a few days.____________________________Monday, he calls off of work claiming food poisoning, or something. It's close enough.On Tuesday he doesn't leave his (it used to be their) bed, except once in the morning to pee.Wednesday, he stares at the ceiling wondering how long that water damage has been there, when those cracks appeared, and where it all went wrong. He never had a chance to stare at the ceiling before. He does it all day.By Thursday Ivan gathers enough energy not only to leave his bed, but to go down to the corner convenience store and basically buy them out. He finds Alfred's stash of take-out menus and orders from all of them, so that he can spend Friday mindlessly eating on the couch and watching daytime TV. And he does.Partway through Maury, the doorbell rings. Ivan jumps, spilling the cheese doodles balanced on his stomach. He goes to open the door, before realizing he is only wearing his boxers.Shit.Without acknowledging whoever is at the door (though certainly they can hear him stomping around), Ivan hurries to the bedroom to find something to wear.All he finds is a bathrobe.Double shit.Even that doesn't fit right: there isn't enough material to reach across his stomach, so he ties the belt and hopes for the best. He tries very hard not to care, or to notice how tight the bathrobe is across his shoulders, how his stomach pushes out and sags down over the waistband of his boxers and how tight they are-He opens the door. "Ivan!"Ivan stares. Standing in front of him is probably the nicest human on the planet: Toris Laurinatis. What is he doing here? He is far too fantastic of a person to be wasting time with him. And shouldn't he be at work?"I'm glad you're okay!" Well that's a loose way of putting how he feels. "You haven't been in to work and no one's heard from you since Monday, so I thought I'd stop by to make sure you weren't dead, haha." Ivan chuckles with Toris, wondering why he hadn't thought of that. Wouldn't being dead make things so much easier? "Ah, anyway, I brought soup! It's good to eat when you're sick, and I worried you wouldn't eat anything." Ivan's smile falls. If only he knew.A quick glance around the room shows Toris what exactly Ivan has been up to, for the past two days at least. Empty vodka bottles, take-out containers, and wrappers litter the room. "Soup is also good for mending broken hearts," Toris says."My heart is not broken," Ivan growls."O-of course not! It's just a suggestion. May I come in?"Ivan has nothing better to do, anyway, so he lets Toris in to do whatever as he shuffles off to take a shower.After the shower (where he discovers even more of himself), Ivan searched for something to wear while wearing his last pair of clean boxers. He finds an old, large shirt and sweatpants from when he thought he would start working out (and look at how long that lasted! Truthfully, it barely started). Both feel a little tight, but wearable. Good enough.Ivan comes back out to find the front room cleared of all garbage, a large bowl of soup on the table with more warming on the stove, and Toris bustling around the kitchen making tea and bread and cookies as if it's his job. Ivan just stands at the entrance and watches, waiting to be invited into the room in his own home."You're back!" Toris says, as if he didn't expect Ivan to ever reappear from the other part of the house. "You look much better." Ivan shifts his weight from one foot to the other. "Oh! Come in, eat the soup I made. It's good, I promise."Ivan complies, sitting down and eating as though he wasn't just stuffing his face for two straight days. The soup is good, very good, and even though his pants are tight and he feels quite full, he finds himself wanting more.Toris notices Ivan's hesitation. "Go ahead! You can have it all, it's for you. Eat as much as you like." Ivan had no idea what a relief those words would bring. It feels wonderful to be told to eat as much as he wants, rather than being told to limit himself, don't eat so much, slow down Ivan!, as he's been told his entire life.So he does! He gets up and refills his bowl, then sits back down and digs in because even though he's so full it hurts, he feels so empty and tries to fill the void with food.It doesn't work. He manages a few spoonfuls before he pauses. He drops his spoon in the bowl and bursts into tears. Toris is understandably startled but reaches out to Ivan, offering comfort and asking what's the matter.“That's the problem!” He wails, “I can't have as much as I'd like, that's what got me here! I'm just dumb and fat!”That doesn't clear anything up, except that maybe Alfred and Ivan had a falling out. Toris soothes Ivan until he calms down enough to talk it out, to tell Toris what happened.Once he finishes, Toris is angry. Ivan has never seen him like this, he's never been anything but calm and helpful. “How could he be so rude! Dropping someone for such a trivial thing - I didn't think he was that shallow!”Ivan doesn't care. He doesn't want to think about it anymore. He doesn't want to think about anything except going to bed to sleep off his binge, so he can repeat it all tomorrow. But at least Saturday is the weekend and he has no responsibilities to shirk, like he's been doing all week. Maybe he no longer has a job as well as a boyfriend. Toris helps him stand and walks him to his room. He instructs Ivan to undress while he arranges the pillows on his bed, a thing that Alfred always complained that there were too many of. “You shouldn't lie flat after eating so much,” Toris says. “I'll go make tea while you get comfortable.” He leaves.Getting comfortable means taking off both his pants and boxers, because they were digging into his stomach and waist. He keeps his shirt on for now. It does nothing to hide his gut with the way it pulls and rides up, but he feels better with it on. He doesn't know what he'll wear tomorrow, since nothing fits. Once he's snuggled into bed, laying on his pillow incline, Toris comes back with tea and a few cookies. “The tea is to settle your stomach, if it was bothering you.” Of course it was, he'd made that fairly obvious. “The cookies are - well, I thought you'd like to have them.”Toris is so good, so sweet. “Thank you,” Ivan says, and sips reaches over for the tea and cookies. He doesn't actually want to to eat more but Toris's cooking is wonderful, almost as good as his big sister's!Toris stays for a moment and, blushing, takes his leave. Ivan idly wonders if he should be concerned that a relative stranger is alone in his house, but he doesn't worry much about it. He falls asleep.He wakes up to more cookies on the bedside table and a very nice smell in the air. He eats the cookies and walks to the bathroom, where he is surprised to find a clean set of clothes laid out. He didn't have any more clean clothes!Ivan doesn't dwell too much on it. He showers and puts on the outfit. The shirt is just a plain T-shirt, tight across his still-bloated stomach and riding up a bit. He struggles to get the jeans to his waist, and then buttoned, but gives up. They're not going to close, and he's not going anywhere anyway.He walks into the kitchen to investigate the fantastic smell and is surprised to see Toris, cheerfully cooking up eggs, bacon, and pancakes, with toast on a plate. The table is set, waiting for Ivan. “You're still here?” Toris turns, just enough to see Ivan. “Ah, yeah,” he says sort of bashfully. “I wanted to make sure you'd be okay, so I cooked, and then I did laundry because your hamper was full? I slept on your couch.” Toris turns back to the stove. “I'm sorry if that was too forward. I just,” he puts the spatula down and turns around completely to face Ivan. “I was really worried when you didn't come in to work for a week. I had to make sure you would be okay.”Ivan doesn't have the heart to tell him that no, he probably would not be okay. Instead, he looks at the numerous desserts across his counter, and thinks there is probably more cooked food in the fridge. He hadn't had enough food left in the house to make all this. “Where did you get the food?” Toris has turned back to the stove, and takes the eggs off the heat. As he puts them on a plate, he says, “Oh! I, uh, brought it with me. In case, you know. You needed it. Not that you don't need it!” He brings the plates to the table and sits. “I wouldn't have cooked if I thought you didn't need it. I wouldn't have stayed. But, food makes people feel better, right? And I want you to feel better. So, help yourself,” Toris smiles. Ivan does. Everything looks so good! He piles his plate high and digs in. Toris joins him. “Oh - one more thing,” he says, digging through his pocket. “I got my roommate to write up a doctor's excuse for you. He works for a doctor and writes up notes all the time. Last week is taken care of, and next week if you want.”“Do I still work there?” Ivan asks, mouth full of food.“Well, if you want,” Toris says. “Everyone was more worried than mad. You've never done this before.”Yes, well, he's never had quite this kind of breakup and resulting breakdown. “Sorry,” is all he can manage.Toris shrugs. “It's fine now. Just, don't do it again, and take a few more days off, okay?”Ivan nods, and eats. In the seated position, his stomach has fallen forward into his lap a bit. Toris notices. “Is that uncomfortable?” He asks, and Ivan nods. It is. “I'm sorry,” he says, “I didn't realize they didn't fit.”Ivan lets out a bark of laughter. “It doesn't matter, it's okay. Nothing fits.”“Do you want to take them off?”“No!” Ivan blushes. “I can't take my pants off.” Not in front of Toris! That would be embarrassing! Well, even more embarrassing than spilling out of his clothes in front of him.Toris watches for a moment, and finishes his own smaller breakfast. “Do you trust me?” Ivan shrugs, then nods. “Go sit on the couch for a minute.”Ivan complies. He sits down and leans back because that way there isn't as much gut digging into his waistband. He has nothing to cover it, and his shirt only goes so far.Toris comes out of the kitchen balancing a few plates on his arms. It looks like he's taken everything off the kitchen table. He sets them on the coffee table. “Close your eyes and open you mouth,” he instructs, “and relax. Stay reclined.”Ivan obeys, and soon Toris is feeding him. Ivan doesn't fight, and tries not to think about how embarrassing it is. But it feels good. It feels good and he keeps eating, and then there's a hand rubbing his stomach that feels even better. He loses himself in the repetition of open, chew, swallow, and barely registers how full he feels when Toris says there's nothing left. He can't believe he ate that much, but after the past few days he's not surprised. He hears Toris say something about cleaning up, but Ivan is already dozing off.He wakes up to Toris putting a platter of cookies on the table next to the couch. Ivan rubs his stomach. He's still quite full but reaches for the cookies anyway, because they're so good. Toris tells him he's leaving. “Thank you,” he tells him. He can't remember if he already did, but it's important. Toris has done a lot. “You've been very helpful. What do you want in return?”Toris shrugs. “Eat what I made for you. Have as much as you like, and enjoy it. Call me when you finish.”Ivan does.