Work Text:
Tim did like his job, honestly. The people, the pay (could’ve been a bit higher, but what else was new?), the work itself. Even if it was more or less single-handedly responsible for the three (realistically, probably closer to four) extra stone sitting heavily around his waist.
For as long as he could remember, he had been active, fit. Kicking a football ‘round the back garden when he was barely old enough to toddle after it. Rugby and track in school. Kayaking in university and beyond.
There was something addictive about it. Purifying, almost. No matter what, he made time for it, rock-climbing all through his tenure at the publishing house, going away every month to hike once he’d joined Research at the Magnus Institute. And so it went, muscle in his arms and legs lean and wiry, stomach flat, chest all hard angles. Up until Jonathan Sims tapped him for the Archives team.
Tim was only too happy to accept. He did like Jon (archacademic little freak though he was), and even if he privately didn’t think he’d been the best fit for the job, he was willing to support him in his endeavor to get the Archives whipped into shape. And what an endeavor it was.
Plus, Sasha James had also been chosen to be part of the team. Working with her, more closely even than they had in Research, was something of an extra perk so far as Tim was concerned.
He just hadn’t foreseen the demands that trying to sort out the previous head archivist’s mess would place on his time. Or his body.
Tim had always thought he had a fast metabolism. As it turned out, any metabolism seemed fast when you were burning three or four thousand calories a day hauling yourself sweating up a rock wall by your fingertips. Toting around boxes, collating papers, and sorting files and tapes just didn’t have quite the same workout potential. Especially given the way that Tim was eating.
They ate lunch as a team practically as a rule, ordering in almost every day. As a department head, Jon had been given access to a discretionary budget, one he seemed determined to slightly abuse, probably as petty revenge for Elias allowing the archives to reach their current state in the first place. Tim, used to cravings for protein and carbs, tended to order the biggest, heaviest dishes the stack of takeout menus they rotated through offered. He got up from lunch more than once with his belt discreetly unbuckled, but at least it kept him going through the long afternoon.
Speaking of keeping him going, the work (the sorting and re-labeling and re-filing especially) could be mind-numbingly tedious. The break room tended to stay well-stocked; Tim quickly found himself in the habit of snagging something every time he rose to keep himself awake. Candy bar, packet of crisps. The trick was not to get caught by Jon, who went absolutely feral if he caught anyone with food near anything he considered “research materials” - including Tim’s own notes for personal use. Tim got very good at eating very quick…which ultimately just led to him snacking more and more and more.
Then there were Martin’s endless cups of milk-and-sugar-heavy tea, made for the entire team…the quick bites to eat Tim snagged while out on follow-ups because he wasn’t sure he’d be able to get anything later…the frozen chips and pot noodles he chucked in the microwave when he got home too exhausted to do anything but collapse in front of the TV.
They were barely a month in before Tim’s trousers began getting tight, the thin pad of healthy fat that had always overlaid his abs thickening up. He’d had to let his belt out a notch, and then two. And then he’d had to finally admit defeat and go shopping for a bigger size.
“At least I don’t mind it as much as I thought I might,” Tim commented to Sasha at one point as they lay in bed during their short-lived but immensely-enjoyable fling, arms folded behind his head. “I think I carry it pretty well.”
“I think you look better with it, honestly,” Sasha replied. She had a hand on his middle, where the excess and the sedentary nature of his job had coalesced into a small (at that time) paunch. Even the lightest touch had it jiggling. “Makes you look…hmm. Softer, I guess. More approachable.”
“What, you mean I’m not so intimidatingly handsome now?” Tim asked, lifting his head and arching an eyebrow. “Well. Won’t you be upset when you see how easy I lose it.”
“Oh, no! Don’t lose all of it!”
“You want me to get fatter, then?”
“Did I say that? I didn’t say that.”
“Just you wait. They’ll fire me eventually, or send me back to Research, and I’ll slim right back down, and you’ll be heartbroken.”
“Like you’d ever get fired.”
He almost certainly wouldn’t. Tim probably would have weighed less, ironically, if he didn’t care about his job…but he did.
So he pulled overtime, belly bloated and sloshing with the soda he guzzled to keep his eyes open. He took sources out on lunch and dinner dates, sometimes multiple in the same day, and they’d get squirrelly if he didn’t eat much, so there were times he waddled back to the Institute after three lunches. He sat listening through the tapes Jon had recorded for inconsistencies and errors, eating mindlessly, and by the time the tape reached its end and the button popped up, he was stuffed to the gills, buttons straining, belly resting hot and heavy in his lap.
The weight almost all gathered around his middle, in an increasingly-large gut and steadily-growing love handles, and he really did carry it well, he thought. He’d kept most of the muscle in his arms and legs; in fact, going up so many stairs and ladders carrying so many filing boxes, he thought it might’ve even bulked out a bit. He did not mind the way he looked. Those clerks and receptionists and administrators and technicians he wooed for statement follow-ups didn’t seem to, either - he wasn’t having any more difficulty with them than he ever had. In fact, some seemed more interested now. The gravity of him seemed to draw their eyes.
Surprisingly, it seemed to draw Jon’s, too. Tim had written him off as nothing more than a friend ages ago in Research, when his flirting had met a very unequivocal brick wall - you didn’t go around pushing burgers on people who didn’t eat red meat (or, as Tim suspected, didn’t eat any kind of meat at all). But the bigger Tim got, the more arrested Jon seemed, the arrogant aloofness he’d wrestled down over his personality to try and enforce some professional distance when he’d been promoted evaporating.
He seemed to like his belly a lot, Tim noted. And his ass, when he bent over. And when Tim finished his leftovers.
“Here, boss,” Tim volunteered, swiping Jon’s half-eaten noodles after he’d pushed them away.
“O-oh.” Jon swallowed. “Th…thank you. Tim.”
“Of course. We all have to help out wherever we can, right?”