Gamzee examined himself in the mirror. His face crinkled into a grimace. He turned his body, examining himself from the side. He was painfully thin, a complete beanpole. He lifted his arms and attempted to flex. It would have been inaccurate to say that his arms had no muscle, but they certainly weren't large; his long, slender fingers could easily wrap around his biceps even at their thickest. Gamzee dropped his arms, examining his torso again. There were dimples and crevasses, to be fair, hints at the flimsy musculature that clung to his bones beneath his skin, but with no development or definition. His ribs showed clearly, and further down his body, his hips stuck out at sharp angles.

Gamzee put his hands on his waist, wrapping his fingers around his body. The tips of his middle fingers nearly met at his bellybutton, with only a few measly inches separating them. His legs were equally undersized, knobbly and bony and just plain unattractive. He had always been tall, like most of his family, and as a child he had assumed that as he aged, he would put on some weight and start to resemble his massive father (whose size attributed to his intimidation factor in his job as The Most Terrifying Judge in the state). But it never happened. He stretched higher and higher, but with no growth laterally. It was almost as if his whole body was stretched like a piece of taffy throughout puberty, getting thinner if anything as he grew taller.

Now, basically at the end of the usual human growth cycle, Gamzee stood 6'1” from toes to head. An impressive height. Considerably taller, at least,  than most of his peers. But just being taller didn't mean much, in the end.

Gamzee turned suddenly from his mirror, sick of looking at himself, and flopped onto his bed, staring at the white stucco ceiling, disgustingly ubiquitous in the suburban nightmare he was stuck in. He lay for several minutes, doing nothing, and trying, at least, to think nothing as well. But his brain just kept coming back to his physical deficiencies. Even Karkat, who in childhood Gamzee could always subdue in any prepubescent wrestling match they entered due to his height advantage, now weighed twice what Gamzee did, all muscle, even as he stood a foot shorter than him. 

Sighing, Gamzee rolled out of bed. He made his way over to his desk, every square inch of which was covered in trash or half-eaten food. He reached into one of the many cubby holes of the thing, probably intended for neat storage of office supplies, but more frequently for him just turned into horizontal trash cans. He popped out the jerry-rigged false back of the cubby (a simple square of particle board, pretty fucking transparent to anyone who bothered to look close, but nobody ever did). Behind the faux cubby was a small wooden box, which Gamzee pulled out and cradled in an almost parental way.

He opened the lid and pulled out from inside a shitty stone zig-zag pipe, the type you find either in Cozumel after a short walk among tequila-dispensing con men or on Amazon.com, marketed as a medicinal herb delivery unit, and a plastic baggie with what was once a half O composed of, and this is unlikely as far as Gamzee can tell, California Purple Kush.

He shut the door firmly, turned on the overhead fan, and propped open both his windows. He turned off the overhead lights, in a vague attempt to be less conspicuous. It was close to 3 AM now, nobody'd be outside. In the past he had been far more cautious, only doing it at others' houses, stuffing a towel under his door to keep the smell from permeating the hall, and thousands of other nervous precautions that he had slowly abandoned throughout adolescence. None of it was that necessary; his dad was out of town on business for another week and his mom was in her room, in a doze of diazepam and Merlot, as was her habit on Saturday nights. The smell would long be gone by the time she was conscious again. 

It only took a moment for him to pick a generous nug and toss it into his grinder, twisting the two halves dexterously with his long slender fingers, and pack it expertly into the bowl. It was a lot, but whatever the fuck, he needed cheering up. He sat on the floor beside He sucked on the end as he held the lighter up to the top of the bowl, the familiar warm burn entering his trachea as the plant matter began to glow red. He took a long drag, and then turned to blow the smoke out through the screen of the window.

As he smoked, he let his mind wander. It went, against his will, instantly back to the topic of his mild teenage angst. 

It didn't seem fair. Even with his high just starting to ramp up, Gamzee was aware of how clichéd that complaint felt. But still it was true. Why was it that he had such body image problems? He had convinced himself through his teenaged years, in his usual “who motherfuckin' cares?” attitude, that his appearance didn't matter much to him. After all, he was a guy who went around on a daily basis with motherfucking clown make-up on (a habit that had originated from a fight with his father when he was 14. “When are you going to stop acting like a motherfucking clown all the time and straighten out!?” His father had roared. The next day he had gone out and bought several pounds of make-up. The petulant anger faded after only a couple days, but the look stuck out of stubbornness until it became an inseparable part of his identity).

But despite his general indifference, it was becoming increasingly undeniable that his own body bothered him a lot. Gamzee took another hit. He was burning through it pretty quickly. Rather than helping him relax, he found the more he smoked, the more upset he got. And not a vague hatred of the universe or his own misfortune, but a deep, personal feeling of detestation of himself.

He daily refused to care deeply about things, or to put any significant effort into anything, and yet now he had the gall to try to feel self-pity? It was disgusting. It was pathetic. If he really had such a motherfucking problem with his build, why didn't he try to do something to change it? 

He had considered lifting weights in the past, but it had always been such a daunting task that he had never actually pursued it. But fuck that noise. He wanted to gain muscle, to be less of a motherfucking beanpole, so first thing in the motherfucking morning he was going to go to the gym, and start actually doing something about his problem for once. 

First thing in the motherfucking morning came far faster than Gamzee really would have liked. His eyes opened lazily at 10:30. He lay in bed for several more minutes more, with a vague feeling that he was supposed to be doing something. His brain chugged sluggishly, straining to remember. Details of his promise to himself from the night before resurfaced slowly, and upon recalling it Gamzee made a groaning noise from the back of his throat. Ideas had while blazed out of his mind never seemed quite as good the next morning, and despite the enthusiasm with which he had made up his mind last night, Gamzee found that he also desperately wanted to sleep for several more hours, if not days.

He stared up at the same white stucco ceiling as the night before. He laid in bed for several minutes, breathing slowly, but internally struggling over the issue. It would be easy to dismiss it as a dumb idea he had while high and just keep laying there, sleep in a little, maybe get up around 1 and make some pancakes for himself and his mom (who would probably start to stir around the same time, with a pounding headache and plenty of “fucks!” and “where's my aspirin?”s).

But that would be doing the same old motherfucking thing he always did. The longer he stared up at the blank white, the more agitated he got. The nagging desire to actually stick with his resolution moved from a vague feeling at the back of his brain to the forefront of his mind, til finally he sighed and mumbled, “Fuck it.” 

He rolled out of bed, and stumbled his way to his closet, stepping over the variety of junk covering the floor.  He yanked a tee-shirt out of his closet, and then bent over and grabbed a pair of basketball shorts on the ground. A quick sniff. Not too bad, definitely passable for the gym. He pulled them on and walked out the door, pausing briefly in front of his mirror to consider fixing his intense bed-head, but then figuring that it wouldn't motherfuckin' matter to nobody anyways.

He walked down the stairs and into the kitchen. He grabbed his mother's purse off the counter and opened it out, pulling out her wallet. He grabbed her credit card and slipped it into his pocket. Then he was out the door.

Gamzee looked up at the gym's façade, unsure what to do. It was an impressive, if not somewhat hackneyed, sign. “Revolution Gym” it said in large, bold letters, with two well-muscled arms coming out of either side, grasping a dumbbell in each hand. He suddenly felt hesitant again. He took a deep breath and pushed the door open.

The inside smelled like sweat and some kind of ointment. Even from the doorway, Gamzee could see onto the floor of the gym. There was an impressive number of patrons exercising in various ways. His heart fell a little; he had hoped that there wouldn't be too many others there.

Between him and that, though, was the front desk. Behind it stood a young man, maybe a few years older than Gamzee himself, 21? 22, maybe? He was thin, but clearly fit, his lithe muscles easily visible in his loose tank, and he had an insane head of black hair that looked like three mohawks side-by-side tinged with red on the end. He had nut-brown skin; Latino maybe? Or Filipino? Gamzee didn't have a motherfuckin' clue; he was a pale little white boy, and wouldn't even make pretensions to being particularly racially aware. 

He ambled up to the desk, and the attractively tan youth turned his head and greeted him, “Hey, man. What can I do for you?” Gamzee tried to not look as uncoolly nervous as he felt, “Yeah, hey man, I was interested in buyin' a membership...?”

The guy smiled a big friendly smile, “Aw, sweet, man! A new member to our big family! Sure, sure, I can get you all set up with that!” The kid, whose name was Rufioh, as he told Gamzee, explained all about the membership, the pricing, the amenities of the gym. The information was a bit of an overload for Gamzee, but he just nodded casually and said, “Yeah, I got you, man.” periodically. Finally, Gamzee swiped his mom's card, forged her signature, and walked onto the gym floor with a new membership card and a big friendly, “Good luck with your workout, man!” from Rufioh.

The gym was way bigger looking on the inside. There seemed to be endless machines in all directions. There were free weights over here, treadmills over there, cycling machines on the other side of the room, machines Gamzee vaguely recognized from his limited interactions with exercise in the past, and others that he couldn't even fathom their use. There were signs pointing to the locker rooms, to the indoor pool, and other features that he would never be able to navigate.

Suddenly he was overwhelmed with how stupid this whole plan was. Gamzee knew nothing about fitness, or gyms, and didn't even have any idea how to go about working out. He felt exposed and awkward, but there was no way he could just walk out now. So instead he looked around for something he could do. He wanted to build muscle, right? So he would have to lift weights. 

Gamzee made his way to the squat racks (there was a hell of a lot of them), and found one as far away from anyone else as he could. He looked around. Every other patron was engaged in their own workout, no one paid him any attention. It was fine, stop being a motherfuckin' pussy, he told himself. The bar already had some weight loaded onto it, but it didn't look like much. Then again, he had no idea how much he could lift. Better too little than too much. He laid down on the bench beneath the bar and put his hands on the textured grip. He took a deep breath and lifted it up off of the rack.

He grunted, surprised at the weight. The bar tilted a little, Gamzee thrown off balance by the unexpected heft. He steadied himself, arms still rigidly straight. Okay, it was heavy, but definitely manageable. He bent his elbows, bringing the weight down til it grazed his chest, and then straightened them again, gasping at the difficulty of the task. That's one already, good, motherfucking good. But how many was he going to do? Motherfuck, he had no idea how many was a good set. He opted to just go until he couldn't any more. He lowered the weight and lifted it again, and then again. It felt good, actually; he felt like he was doing work.

That is, until number 6 or so, and then it got very suddenly painful. On number 8, his arms were burning. He grunted, breath held and every muscle tensed in his body as he lowered the bar for number 9. His arms shook and trembled as he attempted to press it back up. He pushed with all his might, straightening his arms and replacing the weight, letting clatter back into its place. He dropped his arms, panting heavily, sweat drenching his forehead. He could practically hear the blood pumping through his arms, and every beat of his heart sent a shudder of pain through them.

“H-hey, it's your first time here, right?” A voice came from behind Gamzee suddenly. Shit! He bolted up, feeling like a motherfucking moron. It was that obvious to everyone that he was a motherfucking newbie to all this? “Haha,” His casual laugh sounded insincere to even himself, “Is it that clear that I have no motherfuckin' clue what I'm doing?”

He turned around to look at his addressee and came face-to-face with a brick wall.

No, wait. It wasn't a brick wall, it was abdominal muscles the size of bricks seen behind a red tank top attached to the largest man Gamzee had ever seen. He did a double take, eyes darting up and down the guy's body.

He was motherfucking massive. He looked to be about 8 feet tall, if not bigger, and every inch of him bulged with muscle. He had the same olive skin tone as Rufioh, and his hair was styled similarly, though his was slightly more traditional: a close buzzcut on the sides of his head, and down the middle his black hair was styled into a single, medium-sized mohawk. His face was disproportionally child-like in contrast to his body and even hair; round cheeks, wide, chocolate brown eyes, and thick, full lips currently resting just slightly apart. One ear had a small silver stud on the lobe, while the other had a gold ring through the cartilage. Below, his pecs bulged out over the top of his tank top, like two halves of a watermelon. The cleavage between them would have been impressive on a swimsuit model. The poor top looked like it had been blown out by vicious misuse; the fabric was pulled taut, stretched to cover a surface area that it simply could not, and the neckline dipped incredibly low, the giant's nipples just barely covered. Even still, the danktank was soaked in sweat, and his nips were clearly visible through the semi-transparent fabric. They were fat and huge, and had heavy metal barbells jutting through them. His arms, resting by his sides, were forced out from his body by their own impressive size, the huge, but amazingly relaxed, biceps pressed against his flared-out lats.

The Latino musclebeast's abs were clearly visible through the clinging fabric of his top. The tank top, its insufficiencies as a garment becoming more and more clear, was so small on the man that the hem could not reach his waist, turning it into a sort of crop top, revealing the last row of his abs as well as his bellybutton and a thick trail of fur that lead down into his pants. The creases between his abs were as deep as the cleft between the pecs of the largest bodybuilder Gamzee had seen before. Further down, he wore tight black shorts that looked like they were made of some kind of Lycra material. His thighs were, as hackneyed as the comparison may be, like tree trunks, each head of his quads in clear cut HD definition, and his calves were diamond hard below. But the real attraction of his lower body was his crotch. It took a moment for Gamzee to really process what he was looking at. The huge man before him had the most motherfucking huge bulge Gamzee had ever seen.

It was almost obscene, really, and moreover impossible. The black lyrcra was stretched out into a bubble-like bulge approximately thrice the volume of Gamzee's skull (or perhaps “the size of both the musclegod's pectorals combined” would be a better comparison?). The elastic fabric clung tightly to every nook and cranny of the massive junk. The titan's cock, a tube as wide as Gamzee's waist, snaked over the twin bulges of his balls (each bulge rivaling the size of a watermelon), wrapping around them and terminating on the underside of the massive bulge, the thick, pronounced rim of the massive, blunt cockhead clearly outlined through the sheer material. Somehow the man's clothing kept the entire bulge fully supported, making the ginormous junk look as if it defied gravity as it hung from the hunk's groin.

Gamzee tore his eyes from the ungodly junk, and looked back at the titan's face, realizing suddenly that he had been speaking and Gamzee had missed every motherfucking word of it. “Wha-? I was spacin' the motherfuck out.”

The mohawked Atlas seemed to shrink and turn red; holy shit this hulk of a man is embarrassed because of Gamzee? He stammered out, “Oh I just said that um, I knew you were new because I've never seen you around here before.” He face seemed to turn even more scarlet, “N-not that I know everyone here. It's not like I'm weird and follow patrons around or anything it's just that I have to know the people here because I'm the son of the owner um.” As he kept speaking, the behemoth's words tumbled out faster and faster til he was just blathering. He stopped, and took a deep breath. “I'm sorry, I'm being rude, my name's Tavros. It's nice to have you at the gym.” 

He extended a hand. The massive paw looked like it could crush Gamzee's skull between two fingers. He felt like he was going to spontaneously orgasm. He took the handshake, his own bony hand eclipsed totally by the monstrous one as Tavros gripped him. “Gamzee,” he said.

Tavros still looked red, “W-well Gamzee, really sorry to bother you. Just wanted to introduce myself, sorry for bothering you, I wasn't trying to insult your form I mean it does need some work but no I'm sorry that was really rude of me—“

“Dude. Motherfuckin' chill. It's cool. You're totally right, I got shit for brains and know just about fuck all about lifting. Mind giving me a few pointers about form?”

Tavros blinked in surprise, “Umm, yeah. Yeah! Sure I can totally do that. In fact, why don't you tell me about what you had planned for your workout and I could give you some tips?”

Gamzee's eyes couldn't stay still. Without even realizing, every time Tavros opened his mouth to speak, his gaze dipped down to stare at his pecs, his biceps, the tangles of hair bursting from his armpits, the chiseled rock face that was somehow his abdominal muscles, and oh god that monster cock. Gamzee's eyes darted back up when Tavros finished speaking; even his face was unbearable, an inscrutable and beautiful mix of punk, innocence, and sheer masculinity. “Well. I don't have much of a workout planned out....” Gamzee scratched the back of his head awkwardly, “I guess I really got no motherfuckin' clue what I'm doing here.”

Tavros' big brown eyes filled with confusion, “You don't have anything planned at all?” He instantly shifted to embarrassment again, “I mean, not that there's anything wrong with that! Lots of first-timers are pretty lost their first time at the gym. Here, I got an idea, I can help you out. I'll show you some different machines and some exercises today, and then if you want I can write up some different routines for you to do on different days, just so you have something to do.”

Gamzee was taken aback, “Shit, man, you don't gotta do all that.”

“It's no big deal! We like to keep loyal customers, so I don't mind going through just a bit of trouble to give you a good experience at our gym. Plus it really isn't a big deal, it would be pretty basic stuff. Maybe just a weekly regimen, weights on Monday, running on Tuesday, that sort of stuff. Just to give you an idea how to get started. Now, c'mon, let's get started.”

The huge guy proceeded to explain what Gamzee had been doing wrong. He walked him through various exercises, demonstrating and them prompting Gamzee to try. He pointed out problems in the smaller man's form (“Widen your grip on the bar a little”; “Be careful not to round your back when you deadlift; that's a sure way to slip a disc”; “Don't try more weight than you can handle; work up to it”). 

It was.... humiliating really. Gamzee had had no motherfucking clue just how clueless he was when it came to fitness. Even more sobering was just how little weight he could lift. It was more than a little disheartening, struggling with weights half that of the other patrons of the gym, and not even a fraction of what his impromptu fitness coach was picking up with no effort. 

Not to mention the distraction Tavros posed him throughout the time they worked together. Every few moments Gamzee felt his eyes wander over the teen's impossible physique (“Oh you're 19? Me too!”). His pecs stretched out the fabric of the tank top comically, and cleavage deeper than the Grand Canyon showed over the distressed, soaked fabric. A thick, musky scent came off of the giant teenager, and Gamzee found himself unintentionally drifting closer to Tavros to smell it, and feel the incredible heat radiating off the giant.

Finally, a little over an hour of being coached, taught exercises he hadn't known existed, and put through more rigorous exercise than he had had since he quit Little League, they were done. Gamzee did his last bicep curl, struggling to lift the dumbbells in his hands. His arms dropped to his sides; he was panting. He set down the weights in their place, and Tavros began clapping, smile wide. 

“Good job, man! You're all done with your first day!”

Gamzee didn't feel near so ecstatic. Every part of him hurt. He could feel his pulse throbbing through his arms and his chest and his legs. He wasn't quite sure he could manage the walk to his car. And he was absolutely drenched in sweat. 

“A-aw, man, really? I could totally keep going,” Gamzee said, the lie emphasized by wheezing and flushed skin.

Tavros maintained his broad smile as he laughed, “Well, you made it! Um,” he paused, “Y'know, I hope, that, I-I didn't push you too hard or anything!”

Gamzee gave a short bark of laughter, “Man! I motherfuckin' need to be pushed!” He stretched his arms behind his head, grimacing at the fatigued burn that spread all throughout his upper body as he moved. God he felt like he was about to die. He forced another smile and a chuckle, “It feels good, man!”

Tavros smiled again, “W-well that's great then! If you'd like, I'm gonna be here tomorrow at 11:00 again, i-if you'd wanna join me, and I could, um, coach you more I guess.”

Gamzee blinked. “Y-Yeah! That'd be motherfuckin' great!” He exclaimed, a little too excitedly he realized. This godly behemoth before him was offering to train him personally as a workout buddy? Gamzee let his eyes drift all over Tavros' body for a second; the boy had been sweating along with Gamzee for the past hour, and now his already-failing tank top was soaked through, rendered practically transparent. Every detail of the impossible topology of his upper body was highlighted; his huge, heavy nipples hung off the end of his heaving pecs, the barbells whose existence was only hinted at through the fabric of the shirt now entirely visible, and gleamed through the fabric. 

And his bulge, jeez, his bulge. The entire workout, Gamzee could not prevent himself from glancing at the humongous bulge hanging from the crotch of his new-made friend. Every movement Tavros made cause his junk to quiver and bounce slightly. Every time Tavros turned or moved suddenly, although the lycra held the huge bulge tight, it swung with visible weight. It was hypnotic. It was addictive. Gamzee was already obsessed.
Tavros' voice snapped Gamzee back to attention, “Well... I guess I'll see you here tomorrow at 11:00?”

“You bet you're motherfucking ass on it!”