Next time on "The Abs Licker": Men are more than pretty statues....for real. And a happy husband is a happy house.

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Ryan would not allow Shay to leave the house until she could bend over and back without wincing, wary of the cold and rain. When she passed that test, he bundled her up and brought a large leaf, one of many used to shale the roof, as an umbrella for her to hold above herself.

"Stay and guard the house," he told Parker, who was already getting up to follow.

A few days of good food and sleep had done wonders for the leopard. While still looking a bit on the thin side, he was in his ripe and proper shape.

What's to guard besides the snake? Said his face, but having fully accepted his role in the family hierarchy, he didn't question Ryan and slunk back to the corner where he and Ryan had been finishing the final touches on the fireplace, mainly how to install and use a damper, since the first time they had attempted to start a fire resulted in more smoke than even the firepit gave off. Parker's natural talent with his hands had proved invaluable to the project.

Satisfied, Ryan swept Shay off her feet and set off at a crisp jog.

"I have legs," she said, yearning to enjoy walking without the weight of pregnancy. "And Curtis made me shoes."

"Not waterproof shoes," he said. "Hush and humor me. Is there something you want in return for doing so?"

"Even if there was, you get me whatever I want anyways."

"Why do you pout as you say that?"

"Because I want to spoil you too! I'm so useless."

"Not so." He ducked under the leaf to nuzzle her, ruining the purpose of the umbrella. His next words were a husky rumble. "You show me pleasure nigh to heaven."

She pushed his wet face away. "Horny panther."

On arriving at Neara's house, however, there was a momentary disturbance before tiny and buff Theo answered the door.

"Oh, it's you."

"And who were you hoping it was? Your lady love just left to go to the bathroom." snapped a familiar grouchy voice. "Let them in already, you're letting in the cold."

Ryan stepped inside and Shay, scanning the room for Neara, found a bandaged and ragged Orson next to the fire instead.

"Orson! You look like crap. What chewed on you?" she squirmed out of Ryan's grasp as he flung out the leaf and closed the door.

"Funny you should ask," he said blithely. "Some wolves did the chewing."

"Did you sass them?"

Orson sniffed, insulted. "They ambushed me, if you must know. Like predators need a reason to be violent maniacs."

"Shay?"

A figure clad in white whom she hadn't noticed before stood from the corner. A ring of wood bowls sat at his feet, each filled with various plants.

On recognizing him, along with the gentle intelligence in his gaze so unique to this wild world, Shay smiled widely.

"Harvey. It's been a while. What are you doing here?"

He seemed to shiver, but covered it up by stepping forward.

"Your friend Neara needed a doctor to tend to her mate." His eyes jumped up and down her figure, and his smile soon turned to a frown. "You've lost weight." His eyes narrowed on her face. "A lot. And you hardly have any color to your face." His eyes flickered to Ryan standing behind her and his naturally gentle expression hardened.

"I just made and birthed a load of snake eggs in a month, give me a break," she said. "How have you been doing?"

"Well enough now that I can see you out of the bad situation you used to be in," though he said it carefully. "...Are you? I heard the snake who kidnapped you is still around."

Shay opened her mouth to answer when the door behind her opened again, letting a flurry of raindrops against her back.

"Jeeze, like peeing in the sprinklers."

Shay swung around, Harvey momentarily forgotten.

"Neara!"

Neara, her curly puff of hair wilted from rain, grinned and closed the door behind her.

"Hey, Shay."

"Don't you dare dawdle by the door to talk, get over here by the fire and warm up."

At Orson's order, Neara looked to the ceiling in exasperation.

"I love you, Orson, but I kinda miss being able to take a pee without you nagging me."

"Which you could have had if you hadn't tripped over the doorframe going out this morning and almost fell into the sandpit, but here we are."

Shay patted Neara's shoulders sympathetically as she passed.

"Totally get it," she said, shooting a look at Ryan.

Ryan, however, had his eyes to Harvey, a curious frown to his features.

"Ryan?"

He looked to her, frown vanishing. "Yes?"

"You know glaring at people is rude, right? If you're so curious about Harvey, just go talk to him."

His eyebrows furrowed and his shoulders rose a bit. "I just...it's nothing."

"And you, Neara, why didn't you just ask for Ryan's help? You know he does a bit of the medicine stuff too, right?"

Neara blinked. Then slapped her forehead.

"Don't talk to me..." she said.

"No, you probably did the right thing," said Ryan, glancing at Orson and sniffing the air. "I only know a little of the basics from helping my mother, mainly with assisting in births. If he were truly in danger, a proper doctor is best."

"Quit telling everyone I'm dead," barked Orson.

With that, Shay settled down with her friend for a visit. As they did so, Orson flopped besides her with a pained groan and more than likely fell asleep by the sound of his snores. Ryan eased himself over to Harvey and had probably the most awkward looking conversation Shay had ever witnessed from near opposite ends of the room, though whenever she listened in the subject matter didn't seem to stray far from plants and rainy season specialties.

The only rabbit in the room went back to sharpening his knives, then to fletching arrows. He somehow managed to watch Neara talk and work at the same time.

Shay wanted to ask Neara what was going on in that corner of slightly creepy, but after experiencing Joseph's amazing hearing-range, it would have to wait another time.

Meanwhile, Neara instantly launched into her experience with the Ape King, explaining Orson's situation.

Shay, who couldn't find herself being surprised after having met the guy herself, said to Orson, "What do you know, it wasn't because of your sass."

In response, the groggy sheep just grunted.

"Are you worried about your mates? Or even Parker," Neara said. "Since he gave you the same 'offer.'"

"Somehow, I get the feeling I won't have to worry. Curtis is busy incubating the eggs and when he's done with that he's going into hibernation. Not to mention both him and Ryan are...well..."

"Super crazy buff and scary?"

"Well, not just that, but there's a lot of fear of ferals around here. And while Ryan isn't technically a feral, since he had a set in stone home with the other panthers, he's still considered one since he dealt so much with ferals. Though it probably doesn't help that he's been wandering around like one since his mom and tribe were killed."

"That's kind of funny... we have witches and black cats in our world and they have them here too. What happened to them?"

"Can't you tell by his scars?" Shay looked over at Ryan, who had finally gotten closer to Harvey to observe what he was working on in his bowls. "A feral snake killed them all."

Neara made an 'o' of understanding. "That's why with Curtis...I always thought it was just because he has less stripes. Beastmen are always so quick to back off from someone with more."

"Except Parker," said Shay with a grin.

"Speaking of, have you seen him lately?"

Shay then filled Neara in on her newly acquired guardian.

As she did so, another gust of cold swept through the house as the front door opened once more, allowing Winston in with a massive dead, horned mountain goat over his shoulder. The sheer size of it, its matted wet fur still scraping the ceiling, and Winston's seeming ease at carrying it, made everyone in the house stare. He paid little heed to the looks, though he did flash Neara a soft smile before heading to the second room.

The moment he heard the slaps of wet bare feet, Orson yelled, from his half-dead position on the floor, "Don't you dare gut that thing in the house."

"I've already cleaned it. The hide is just resting on the meat and I'm going to hang it up."

"Don't hang up bloody skin in the house either! Take it to the sandpit where it belongs!"

Winston just sighed and went into the room anyways, coming back out with the bloodless mass of dead and skinless goat that still managed to be massive without all its fur.

Shay shuddered and covered her eyes.

"One day I'll get used to this," she muttered.

"What? Gore?"

"Forget gore," she forced her hand down and leaned over to whisper conspiratorially in her ear. "When you gonna bang that?"

Neara turned red faster than a traffic light.

"What--I can't just--why would I--"

"You were forward enough to get the sheep," she whispered as quietly as she could, having heard the abridged version of how that happened during one of their earlier visits. "Why not him?"

"Because...because he's--you know they can hear everything we're saying probably, right?"

"They don't know what bang means. Just use fo shizzle lingo and it's like talking about birds and the bees in front of chill'uns without them being scarred."

"Ugh, no." But Neara hesitated. "Doesn't the whole thing upset you? Why are you even...?"

"You said it's fine by you and, uh, your home boi, so what's the problem?"

"What if, uh, I don't really...what if the subject doesn't really think I'm the...fo shizzle?"

"Beep. Lame. So last episode. Next excuse."

"What if bang-subject gets all possessive?"

"I think we've already established that he's not. Or at least he has a handle on it."

Orson, who might have caught on to a bit of their hushed whispering, grunted and flopped an arm over his head.

Neara noticed this and, if possible, flushed darker. She put a hand over her face.

"Shay..."

Knowing she'd gone too far, she sat back, hands up in defense. "Sorry, you seemed like the aggressive type. If you'd rather him initiate it I can harass him instead."

"No! He's not even that... he just... ugh!"

"Yeah yeah, got it. Change in topic then," Shay cleared her throat. "I've been thinking, relationships here are beyond screwed up, right? I mean, it's all about mating this and mating that with a good dash of food in there. The last decent bromance I got to watch was between Calvin and Parker, if you can call it that. I mean, Ryan and Curtis get along decently, but it's not, like, bros, you know?"

Neara lowered her hands and curled her fingers in, peering over her knuckles. "Okay...?"

"I'm sure there's more dude friendships that I'm not seeing because I'm a female--"

"That's exactly it, and definitely not that those kind of friendships don't exist," grunted Orson, still having his back to them, even though his knobby vertebrae had been pressed against Neara's hip.

Shay sighed. "Point is, our dudes shouldn't have to worry about that around us since they know the others are already taken, so why don't we instigate some games or something when we visit? I feel like they just...hang out and be pretty whenever we visit each other. I want them to have fun too."

"So, like...card games?"

"No paper, and I doubt they've ever seen our kind of numbers."

Orson chortled, stopping abruptly when Neara whapped him on the shoulder.

"How about instead of mocking our ideas you be constructive?"

"Sorry, sorry, it's just...I've never heard females worry about their males like you two. It's like they're your children rather than your husbands."

Both Neara and Shay sighed and muttered "Sometimes," and "Sort of."

"So," Shay clapped her hands together. "I thought about it and I came to a brilliant idea. Sports."

Her friend wrinkled her nose. "Won't that just turn into a big fight fest? I think that's already their idea of sports. They'll probably kill each other for points."

"No no, listen, we can start with rugby, that's a good rough and tumble sport, right? And we'll explain how the rules add skill and concentration to the game and that the rules help level the playing field for the strong and weak and--"

"Yeah, no. Winston is going to rule everyone in rugby, except Curtis."

"What? Have you seen Ryan move? He's like a bar of soap! He'd totally win."

"If we're talking soap, the rabbits have it. They'd just run underneath everyone's legs to the goal."

Their increasingly competitive argument drew the attention of the males in the room, particularly Winston and Ryan on hearing their names.

Orson started chortling again, though it was broken by small, pained grunts of "ah, my ribs."

Theo put down his arrows to draw near, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. "If you want me to show up the tiger, I can do that!"

Winston's face twitched into a scowl. Having set up the spit, he stabbed the stick through the goat in one quick jab and hung it up on the supports for the spit like a shirt on a hanger.

"Did you say a way the weak can defeat the strong?" said Harvey, trying not to look too interested and failing.

Ryan, ever careful before speaking, just looked on with his ears tall with interest, his black tail flicking from thigh to thigh.

Shay and Neara exchanged glances.

"So...a ball?" Neara asked.

Shay grinned. "And this is where you come in, my gore-sturdy friend." She looked to Winston. "Hey, do you happen to still have the bladder of that thing?"