This is a story I wrote for Airborne August as I don't recall doing it for last year. I may make a popping version in the future but I'm not sure yet. This also could be one of my last stories I may write, if you haven't read my journal, I recommend it if you want to know more: https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/10926569/

Marco was trying to work his night shift at his job until his co-worker came in late with something to show him. He's about to experience what Airborne August really means.
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Working the late night shift is never fun when it comes to being bored out of his mind as there are barely any customers after twelve in the morning. In the commercial area of a small city on the Atlantic side of the country, there is a convenience store that is open 24/7, besides the holidays. Behind the store, taking out the trash, is a small brown-feathered male chicken wearing the store’s vest over his regular clothes which is a blue t-shirt and some cargo shorts. His name is Marco, who is about twenty six years old with a hefty debt that he needs to pay off from his college mortgage. Although he could’ve gotten a better job than a store clerk, there’s no place that would hire him because of his lack of a degree. He didn't do well in college due to him skipping class and going to parties. It seems like karma does catch up with an anthro. Once Marco takes out the trash, he goes back inside to make sure there aren’t any customers waiting on him. On the night shift, he sometimes works alone because he’s one of the only anthros who works this late. He does have a co-worker who works with him but at most times, he’s not the type of guy who gets to work on time. Though it is a good thing that it doesn’t get busy during nights. The chicken doesn’t see anyone in the store besides himself. Whenever he’s alone, he usually goes on his phone and scrolls through social media, or does tasks his boss can give him like cleaning the floors, stocking the shelves, and even cleaning the toilets which is what he hates the most.

After a while as Marco was about to go on his phone, the silence breaks as some crashing noises could be heard at the back. “What the?” The chicken thought that some homeless anthro was digging through their dumpsters, or maybe someone was trying to break into the store. It’s not the first time that has happened. Marco grabs a wooden bat from underneath the counter he uses for protection and slowly makes it into the backroom. From there, he can hear the door open from behind a shelf with some boxes blocking his view of the exit.

He doesn’t plan to hit them straight on as he gives out warnings first before striking. Waiting on the intruder, he can hear the heavy footsteps get louder before they walk past the shelf. From there, Marco steps forward to confront the stranger, only to whom it was a large, six-footed, white-furred polar bear dressed in a green t-shirt that barely covers his fat belly and blue jeans that were supposed to be loose but were tight around his furry thighs. “Gah!” The polar bear lets out as he didn’t see Marco until now, making him jump back.

Marco gets jumped a little by the polar bear’s small scream, but he does lower the bat down and eases himself. “Really, Seth?” He groans, dropping the bat down completely. As it turns out, Seth the polar bear is Marco’s co-worker, the one who comes in late as usual. Marco has never seen Seth go out through the back door before which is why he didn’t assume it was him in the first place. “I could have hit you.”

Seth chuckles, surprisingly not angry at the chicken for even thinking about doing that. “If you did, I wouldn’t feel a thing.” He pats his rounded belly. “My padded fat protects my bones and muscles. Plus, your scrawny arms wouldn’t do crap to an actual person.” He insults Marco’s strength.

The chicken grumbles under his breath, knowing that is true. “Ugh, I hate it when you are right.” He picks up the bat and goes into the main store where he puts the bat right under the counter once more. “Why were you in the back of the store anyway? That’s highly unusual for you.” He questions the polar bear.

“It’s a good thing you asked because I was gonna ask you to come with me to the back alley.” Seth said as he had something planned for Marco. The chicken doesn’t get these surprises from his co-worker, unless it was for birthdays and his wasn’t happening until four more months.

Marco shrugs his shoulders and says, “I mean, just as long I’m not getting jumped.” He agrees to follow Seth into the back alley. With a smile, the polar bear leads his co-worker to the exit at the back and outside where Marco was just at when he threw the trash away. But what he noticed when he came back was some junk on the floor that the polar bear must have knocked over on accident, a car that was blocking the alleyway, which might be Seth’s car, and a helium tank just sitting there on the ground. Marco isn’t sure what he’s seeing besides trash. “Ummm, what’s going on?” He asks, now worried if he is actually going to get jumped.

Seth picks up the helium tank and sets it down properly on its bottom. “Do you know what today is?” He asks back, looking down at Marco.

“Uhhhh…..” He had to check his phone to get the date and according to the calendar, July had ended hours ago. “August 1st? Is it someone’s birthday?” He assumes it is, possibly his manager’s or a co-worker who does the day shifts.

The polar bear chuckles lightly again. “Nope, think again.” He gives the chicken a second chance to guess.

Marco had no idea why tonight was an important date. Was someone being promoted? Or maybe fired? Hopefully not him, he needs this job. “Look, I really hate guessing, just tell me.” Marco gives up.

He shakes his head jokingly before patting the top of the helium tank’s valve gently. “Two words, Airborne August.” Marco knew something about Airborne August, it’s a trend where anthros inflate themselves with helium just so they could float away in the air. It was a strange trend for him as he’s never celebrated anything like that. Last month was Juicy July where anthros swelled up as blueberries, but he stayed away from that too.

If this was the case, he’s not going to judge Seth’s celebrations or what he loves best. He’s guessing that the polar bear is telling him this because he needs someone to make sure he doesn’t float away. But with the size differences between the two, it’ll be a little difficult to keep an inflated polar bear from floating away. “Okay then. So, do you want me to just hold you down? Do you have any rope?” He doesn’t see any on the concrete ground, unless Seth has some in the trunk of his car.

Seth grunts as he lets out a short cough to clear his throat. “Do you remember those stories you told me how people made fun of you for being a chicken, like literally a chicken?” The polar bear explains and Marco remembers those stories. He told them to Seth during their shifts at the gas station. It was whenever they needed to spark a conversation to fill the silence. Marco’s stories were about when anthros at his college years bullied him for not being able to fly unlike most feathered anthros. It did piss him off a lot since he knew it wasn’t his fault for being useless when trying to fly.

Marco nods his head as a response. “Well yeah, I know all about it. Why does it have to do with this……” He had put two and two together once he figured out the actual plan. He looks up at Seth with disgust. “Now wait a minute. If you’re thinking to blow me u-”

“Oh come on, Marco. This is your chance to feel what it’s like flying. All I wanna do is help you.” For a good reason, Marco doesn’t believe that.

“If I wanted to fly, I would find ways to get better wings, not turn my body into a balloon.” Marco explains.

Seth sighs. “You know how expensive it is to get surgery. This method is free of charge, besides the helium tank being one hundred dollars, but that’s not the point.” He tries to persuade Marco to volunteer. “All I’m asking is for you to celebrate Airborne August, just this once.” He’s basically begging.

Marco still needs to think about it. “I don’t know. I’m not looking forward to popping into confetti.” It’s one of the worries that he has right now, the other is floating away.

“Hey….” The polar bear pats him on the back. “I’m here with you. I’ll make sure nothing bad happens to you. And besides, wouldn’t it be better to do it now than later? I mean, who’s gonna know about this besides us? We have no customers at this time.” When he puts it like that, it makes a lot more sense why he should go with this plan.

Trusting Seth is like trusting a hungry lion who says he’s not going to eat you. It’s risky, but he goes by his word. But when would there be another time where he could do this? If he gets this over with early, he can enjoy the rest of the month without being inflated. With a sigh, Marco gives up his fight. “Well alright, if it makes you happy.” Then again, he does want to know what it’s like flying, or at least in the air by any means.

Seth claps his paws cheerfully. “That’s the spirit! Let me go grab the hose and some other things.” He said as he walked over to his parked car and opened up the trunk. Pulling out of the trunk is a black elongated rubber hose and a roll of duct tape. The duct tape in Seth’s paw makes Marco worry about what Seth plans to do with it as he can only think of one thing. “There….” He sets down the duct tape onto a wooden crate next to the door before attaching the rubber hose onto the helium tank which fits like a glove. With the hose adjusted, Seth holds onto the other end of the hose and hands it to Marco. “Bite down on this for me, but not too hard.”

Marco stares at the hose, taking the time to go over this once more just to make sure if he is ready for this. “Alright, let’s do this.” He opens his beak and puts the hose inside. Just like what Seth said, the chicken bites on the hose gently, not to make any holes or cut it off completely.

Once that’s done, Seth grabs the duct tape and pulls out a small length of tape. That’s when he catches Marco off guard as the polar bear starts to wrap the tape around his co-worker’s beak as Seth tightens and locks it in place with the end of the hose still in. Marco muffles in fear as he’s helpless to do anything to stop this. “Don’t fret, I just want to make sure you don’t ‘chicken out’. He had to make a pun out of the situation, which Seth must have held on for months just for this moment.

Seth then places his paw around the valve of the helium tank just to make things tense for Marco. His heartbeat rushes intensely with dread as Seth’s rushes with excitement. The polar bear begins to twist the valve with the sound of a squeak and the gas hissing through the hose. It takes less than a second for Marco to feel the helium fill up his cheeks, like he stuck two tennis balls inside of his mouth. His own throat expands as well, just enough for the flow of air to go down his body safely. He puts his feathered hands around his stomach once he can tell how full it’s becoming. That’s when he looks down to see his own belly swelling outwards. “Mmmfh….” Marco moans with his cheeks flustered red, embarrassed by the whole thing.

The polar bear chuckles as he can’t help but to pat Marco’s ballooning gut. “Oh my, you’re gaining some weight there.” He mocks. Seth is known for that as all he does is tease the chicken around. So it’s no surprise when Marco grumbles at him as he looks away from Seth. The swelling pushes his shirt up for a full view, exposing that roundness to his feathery stomach. The button on his cargo shorts pops off easily as it stood no chance against Marco and helps make more room for his belly to grow.

Marco does wonder how big he’ll get before he can even start floating. He hopes it's not too big, though he’s not sure what his limits are. After a while, he gains an underbelly in which he deeply rubs as his own gut looks like a beer gut, or maybe pregnant, which Marco finds blushful about. Though just as he thought his belly was gonna get bigger, his shorts started to get tight around his thighs which wasn’t a good sign for the chicken. He can feel the inner thighs touching each other, forcing him to spread them out further away. That’s when he realizes that it’s not his belly that wasn’t blowing up, his thighs were getting thicker with gas. “MMMFH!?” It’s something he didn’t consider when it comes to being inflated. With his belly getting bigger inches per second, he can’t see his own legs anymore. His sides were also popping out from his body standards as they expanded and helped make his belly look larger. “Mmmfh?”

Seth couldn’t understand what Marco was saying with that hose in his mouth and the tape shutting his beak, but it’s the expressions on his face that helps the big guy come to the conclusion. “Oh…hehehe…” Again, he lets out another small chuckle. “You really thought that the helium was going for your belly? I guess you really forgot what kind of anthros we are.” Marco has no idea what that means, but does it have something to do with his inflating thighs? His upper legs bind with his belly after the area around his pelvis puffs up.

Soon, the chicken makes another muffled squawk as his butt bwomped out of nowhere, putting more pressure onto his shorts. Seth goes around Marco, avoiding his co-workers arm movement and takes a good look at Marco’s inflated butt. The polar bear will admit that the chicken has a better cake than he does and he’s supposed to be the larger one, or so at least. With Marco feeling more humiliated, he tries to gather his footing and waddles with his arms to the side for balancing. Rather than feeling heavy, he does know how light he’s getting, as if he weighs just as much as a feather. Who knew that helium could make a person feel like they’re losing weight while looking big. “Mmmmfh…. Mmmmfhhhh!” The cheeks on his face have gotten puffier than what he started with, alongside with his neck taking in more helium. Once his lower back expands and connects with his ballooned butt, he’s taking more shape as a heavy bottom. As he tried to take one more step, he felt as if he lost his footing and was afraid he was going to fall over, but that wasn’t the case. Instead, his feet couldn’t touch the ground anymore with a good explanation. The chicken is inches from the ground as he floats. “MMMFHHH!?” Because of his limited movement on his puffy legs, he can’t kick anymore. So all Marco could do was whimper helplessly as he keeps growing.

Marco’s body flips upside down while going up higher, now with him looking down at the floor. The fear of him being in the air gets into his head, thinking that he’s about to take off. Luckily, he has a co-worker who knows how to ease the chicken down. He grabs onto the hose and yanks it down a tad bit, just to show that the balloon isn’t going anywhere. “Relax, I got you.” Seth said as he grabs the helium tank and puts it underneath his armpit. “Let me get you inside before something happens.” He then pulls Marco to the doorway to the backroom, in which Seth knows that he has little time to get the inflating chicken in before he gets too big to fit. He goes inside first to set down the helium tank, and then uses both of his paws to flip Marco back around and hug him tightly against his furry chest, just to squeeze some gas out of his lower body into his chest for a better fit. Though it wasn’t easy with how Marco keeps swelling each second but with Seth’s strength, Marco pops right in without his body bursting or causing ruckus. “Heh, it feels like I’m hugging a giant pear.” He points out which makes Marco grumble with flusterness. Seth lets go of him once more and lets the chicken float up in the air as his now arching back hits the ceiling.

With his bottom filled up, the gas moves upwards to Marco’s chest and arms. The chicken barely looks down enough to see his shirt and vest stretching out, with the view of the room getting limited as all he’s beginning to see is his inflating chest, rounding out just like his entire back and sides. His arms have grown puffy too once he realizes that he can’t bend or move them anymore, forced to let them stiff out in a t-pose manner. “Mmmfhh….” He really regrets letting Seth do this to him. But at least he feels a lot safer inside than out. Now that his body is getting its orb-shape look, Seth decides to turn off the pressure completely just to make sure that Marco doesn’t pop on him. With the helium tank turned off, the swelling stops on Marco’s body who looked almost similar to a miniature hot air balloon, or even a parade blimp. “Mmfh…..” Marco flaps his hands and feet in place as those are the only things he could move around. He can’t turn his head side to side with his neck terribly bloated with gas.

Seth on the other hand felt like he had accomplished his mission, which was mostly to get Marco to enjoy Airborne August. “See? I told you it was fun!” Fun wasn’t a word that Marco would use. The chicken muffles with disagreement. “Oh, don’t be like that.” He teasingly pokes against his gas-filled body. “If I were in your situation, I would already be in the sky.” There was no way that he would trust Marco to get him inside quickly, or be strong enough to hold him down. Seth then thought of something to make it better. “How about next week, I’ll let you fill me up with air rather than helium? Just so you can watch me swell without worrying about me flying away.”

Marco thought about that idea, getting back at Seth by turning him into a balloon. And with his size, he would fill up the entire room. “Mmfhhh….” He’s interested in the idea. Marco can’t nod his head but he does give a thumbs up in agreement.

“Heh, good!” Seth is someone who loves to try new things out, especially if other people did them first. He’s also the type of person to do them fully willingly, unlike Marco in this case.

The polar bear begins to walk away from Marco, which the chicken finds surprisingly. “MMMFH!?” He’s hoping to be deflated now.

“Oh, ummm. I think you should hang on there. I’ll deflate you after my shift is over, okay?” That wasn’t the plan Marco agreed with. He muffles in protest, flailing his arms and feet again in anger, wanting to be deflated now. “Heh, sorry. I just need something to make my night better. Hope you don’t mind.” Seth exits the back room and leaves the chicken there to float. Marco seriously needs to stop trusting the polar bear if he wants to not get himself involved in these problems. But on the other hand, at least he knows what it’s like to fly, even if he would consider it cheating in a way. But hey, someday when he gets better wings, he’ll be better off using those than having a body filled with helium.