“UUUUAAAAAAAAARRRRRPPPPPP! Sorry Hund, did you want him?” Ty said bashfully as he belched into his companion’s face.

Hund’s ears straightened, having been blown back by that titanic gust. Despite the droplets of slobber dispersed across his face, his usual stoic demeanor remained unbroken. “No,” Hund said gruffly, looking down at Ty’s stomach.

“You sure? I know this is like your favorite thing to do to haters of your… huskiness.” Ty said while snickering to himself.

“I don’t want to eat someone covered in your drool,” Hund responded plainly.

“Ok, maybe I’ll treat you for lunch for a change. We missed our usual after gym lunch for a couple days now. You run short on cash or something?” Ty asked.

“No, I haven’t. Side’s you hungry after eating that last guy?”

His companion’s typically flat muscular middle gave way to a bloated round squirming dome after his most recent meal. Ty possessively placed a palm over the jutting kicks and punches within, attempting to feel the weight of his meal. “I’ll admit, this guy’s a heavy one. I don’t think I’ll need lunch after this.” As he patted his stomach, another belch escaped his lips; this time, the retriever had enough control to turn his head away from the glowering husky.

“Still, I think I could squeeze in a couple of treats from the dessert bar if we go to a buffet,” Ty said, rubbing over his rounded stomach. “I think you’re bulking lunches really helped with my eating potential.”

Hund nodded. “Glad to hear it.”

“Yeah, nowadays we got some real competition entering the gym. The other day I saw this huge black alligator using one of the bench presses. Dude could barely fit under the bar; I was afraid the whole bench was going to collapse!”

Hund’s emotionless expression gave way to surprise. “Did you say hi to him?” Hund asked anxiously.

“I did! He seemed like a really friendly guy, even though his eyes reminded me of a demon. I haven’t seen his face around before, but apparently, he’s been here for a while. Though he said, he may not be around for long?

“Why?” Hund asked curiously.

“I don’t know. Damian said something about how his boyfriend doesn’t feel safe here. I reassured them that most of our patrons are friendly, but he said they had a really bad encounter the other day they’d rather not be in again.” Ty explained.

“Oh,” Hund said as he lowered his ears, ashamed.

“Were you the one who did it? I know you don’t like strangers.” Ty asked jokingly.

Hund didn’t respond to the question. Instead, he looked down at his watch and tried redirecting the conversation. “Are you going to get back to posing before that guy showed up?” Hund asked impatiently. “If we want to get lunch, we’ll need to wrap this up soon.

Ty lifted his head to look at Hund. “Oh, right! Sorry, that guy really messed up the session.” As Ty positioned himself in front of the camera, he attempted to start another conversation with his grumpy friend.

“Like I showed you before, the abdominal and thigh is a common pose in most bodybuilder poses,” Ty explained. Hund nodded. “The goal of this pose is to really show off the muscles of your torso like your serratus anterior, external intercostals, and abs.” Hund raised his hand like a kindergartener.

“Yes, Hund?” Ty asked, happy that Hund seemed to be engaged.

“You don’t have abs, though,” Hund said, pointing to his squirming gut.

“I have other muscles besides my abs.” Ty tried firing back.

“But why are you doing a pose called abdominal and thigh when you can’t see either for this picture?” Hund asked bluntly.

Ty let out an exasperated sigh and continued through his demonstration. Ty flexed an arm behind his head, revealing a series of ridges along the sides of his upper body. Then Ty flexed his other arm over his chest and stomach, showing off the girth of his biceps and triceps. Even as Hund continued barraging Ty with comments through this process, he paused when Ty finished setting himself into his pose. Even though Hund knew he was stronger than his blonde friend, Ty’s muscles were enviable. Hund pressed the button on the camera, triggering the timer.

“Psst, Hund,” Ty said while keeping his toothy smile. “Can you give me some of your water? I’m thirsty, and my bottle’s empty.”

“Really?” Hund replied to Ty’s lack of foresight.

“Please? I think this is my best pose, even with the gut.” Ty begged.

Hund rolled his eyes but began digging through his bag for the bottle. Meanwhile, the beeping of the camera timer grew faster.

“Can you beat the clock?” Ty asked jokingly.

Bottle in hand, Hund prepared to throw it to Ty, only for him to stop him.

“Wait! Can you tip the bottle for me?” Ty said.

Hund reluctantly agreed, walking up to the posing retriever as the camera’s ticker began to tick away. As Hund tipped the contents of the bottle past Ty’s lips, the timer’s discrete beeps started to merge into one long pulse. Hund capped the bottle and stepped out of the shot within the nick of time before the camera flash.
Hund inspected the picture with a perplexed expression. For most people, Ty’s active wriggling stomach would be the cause of concern; for Hund, it was his face. Ty had a maniacal grin plastered on his face with an excess amount of fluid dripping from his muzzle. It was hard to say whether it was water or drool; it was clear that Ty looked ravenous. Ty’s dilated pupils were further evidence something was off.

“Hund…” Ty said in a raspy voice. Strangely, Ty was still holding his pose, but now his entire body seemed to jitter as if he was trying to control himself. “What was in the water?”

Hund looked down at his clear shaker bottle. Only a quarter of the volume remained. The water inside was a cloudy white with visible particulates floating inside. “Should just be creatine. Why?” Just then, a stag wearing a plain T-shirt and baggy shorts walked into the studio.

“Have either of you guys seen a puma walk in here? He has about the same build as that yellow dog there minus the squirming gut?” The deer asked casually. This stranger would soon get his answer as Ty charged at the cervine at lightning speeds to tackle him down with jaws wide open. Despite the cumbersome antlers, Ty was able to devour the deer in record time, leaving Ty’s medicine ball-sized stomach into more of a bouncy yoga ball. The feasting didn’t stop there. Hund watched with confusion and a faint bit of concern for his friend as the screams of more gym-goers from down the hall along with Ty’s voracious snarling and swallowing.

As Hund debated what to do, a fit-looking greyhound wearing a polo shirt and slacks furiously tapped him on the shoulder from behind.

“You! What did you do to Ty?!” the greyhound yelled.

“Why does it matter? Ty’s off the clock,” Hund replied to the greyhound.

“Although Ty isn’t working now, he is still on gym property, which means he is still under my rules!” The greyhound yelled. “I put up with his voracious heroics a lot. Every week there is at least one complaint about him helping you harass my clients. I have put up with it because Ty is one of our most popular trainers. BUT I can’t easily explain Ty ravenously eating half the Zumba class for no reason!”

Hund continued staring back, expressionless to the greyhound.

“If Ty ends up digesting a single person after all this, I am going to have to ban him from the gym.”

Hund’s usual cold aura dissolved. “He made one mistake that isn’t really his fault! Don’t do that to him!”

“I can already see the headline for this story! ‘Local Trainer devours entire class of athletes.’ If news break that we kept a guy like that around, a gym membership will plummet.”

“What if we got all the people Ty ate out and got them to not spill?” Hund asked with a bit of desperation. Both Hund and the greyhound perked their ears up to listen down the hall. Not a single footstep could be heard. “Ty ate all the witnesses already, so we could easily cover this up.”

The greyhound let out a reluctant sigh. “Fine, if you can somehow make this whole problem go away by the end of the day, Ty can stay” He then silently slipped out the studio doors, leaving Hund to contemplate his next moves.

---

“Hey, Hund,” Tanu said sweetly as her partner walked through their apartment doors. The raccoon was at the kitchen counter fixing up some grub for dinner. “How was the gym today?”

“Bad,” Hund replied bluntly.

“We have to work on your conversation skills,” Tanu said. “What did you do?”

“Lift”

“Ok”

“Pose”

“Ok, I don’t see the bad yet.”

“And eat”

“Who did you eat?”

“I didn’t eat anything. Ty did all the eating,” Hund said as he placed the crazed photo on the counter.

“This picture looks like it got quite the story to it,” Tanu said as she tried to chuckle off the bizarre nature of the photo.

“Ty ate someone. I gave him a drink of water before taking the picture. Then Ty ate the whole gym.” Hund explained simply.

“You can’t be serious, right?” Tanu asked, thinking Hund was exaggerating. The stoic husky guided the raccoon to the window of their loft, which faced into an alleyway. Nestled amongst the garbage bags was a familiar golden retriever with a belly the size of a dumpster. Ty was leaning over his oversized belly, eyes closed with a content grin on his face.

“Huh, those hunger stimulants are strong,” Tanu said under her breath. Hund’s ears jolted up.

“Hunger stimulants? Did you swap out my creatine?” Hund asked aggressively.

“I am worried about you. For this whole week, you have been eating way less than usual.” Tanu said softly.

“I’m cutting,” Hund said with no hesitation.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say those words in the time we’ve been together,” Tanu said, calling Hund’s bluff.

“You haven’t told me you wanted to go on salads and grilled chicken. I’d be fine doing that if you were serious. You still eat the same stuff but slower. You don’t lick the plate when you finish. Heck, you’ve stopped eating burgers! Burgers!” Tanu shouted, her worry growing.

“I just had a rough time earlier this week,” Hund said lowly.

“Was it someone calling you fat again? I get that you don’t mind gulping down a fool, but if it’s wearing down on you, I don’t mind changing gyms for us.”

“No!” Hund yelled defiantly, “It’s not that.” He continued lowering his volume. “We need to help Ty.”

“We will, but I want to talk a bit about your problem now that it’s in the open,” Tanu said calmly. Hund barely received her words, catching the reactive gurgles of Ty’s stomach growing louder and louder even though he was stories above him. “I know you have that shell, but if you think that constant teasing is bothering you, we can change gyms. I’m sure Ty will- “

“Let’s talk about this later; we need to help Ty NOW!” Hund emphasized.

“Hund, I’ve been waiting all week to have this conversation. Meanwhile, it looks like Ty is just stuffed silly like usual. Can you please give me one minute to understand what is wrong now that we are talking now?”

“Ty is more important than this problem.” Hund restated.

“Ty is in this mess because of this problem! If you just told me why you aren’t eating, I wouldn’t have used those hunger stimulants. So help us both out here and tell me what’s wrong!”

“I DON’T WANT TO LOSE ANOTHER FRIEND!” Hund roared at Tanu. “I don’t want to lose…Ty. Ty’s boss said if we don’t get all those people, he ate now out by the end of the day he’s getting banned from the gym.”

Tanu’s face was a mix of shock, sympathy, and curiosity. “Hund…” Tanu said gently, reaching a hand onto his shoulder. Hund remained still and silent as if all his energy was expended in that outburst. Tanu moved her arms around Hund’s waist and pulled the hulking husky in for a hug. “We’ll fix this. I always fix our problems, don’t I?” she said. From behind her shoulder, she could hear the big husky breathing heavily and unsteadily. After a couple pats from behind, Hund’s breathing eased. Tanu continued comforting Hund for a few minutes before releasing him from her embrace.

“We need to get everyone out of Ty in one piece, right?” Tanu asked. Hund nodded. “Ok, we’ll need a rope, some rubber boots, a bottle of chloroform, a rag, and a hairdryer.” Hund headed to the closet and grabbed a box labeled “Operation Fisherman” on the side in a sharpie containing all these items. Tanu stood at the ajar door, her face confident in the success of this plan. “After all this is done, you are going to tell me who this other friend is.”

“It’s a really long story,” Hund replied, uneasy about revisiting the events of his heartache.

“That’s why I said after, or we could do it while we are fishing people out of Ty. Anyways! Let’s go!” Tanu said as she closed the door behind them and headed down the stairs to rescue their friend.

---

Thanks again for  TankDragon for this alt of Ty! The story for this piece is based on the aftermath of a very emotional encounter for Hund (Differing Opinions). I highly encourage you to check out the story below!

Differing Opinions: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/43566784/