Girl In Your Dreams
The Cule
by Cherry
Tags:
#cw:depression
#cw:gender_dysphoria
#D/s
#dom:female
#hypnosis
#transgender_characters
#urban_fantasy
#but_a_weird_sorta_furry
#dom:nb
#furry
#like_mostly_how_real_life_furries_are
#sub:female
#sub:male
#trans_egg
AlternianDidact: Hey Myrrah, I just wanted to say thank you again.
AlternianDidact: It wasn't an easy conversation, but you said so many things I needed to hear.AlternianDidact: You're right, I think, that beforehand I wouldn't have chosen to let you see what you saw.AlternianDidact: But now that it's happened, and now that I know about it, I'm glad that it did.
AlternianDidact: I accept your apology in the spirit it was given.
AlternianDidact: I'm still not really good at this self-confidence thing but you said that I should actually say things if I want them and I want to continue being a part of your life, too.HypnospacePsychonaut is typing...
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HypnospacePsychonaut is typing...
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HypnospacePsychonaut is typing...
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HypnospacePsychonaut is typing...
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HypnospacePsychonaut: Hey Lucas do you wanna meet the five absolute fucking dipshits I love with all my heart
Lucas raised an eyebrow. "An ice cream parlour?"
Myrrah cracked her neck and grinned. "Yeah! I'll let Katie explain more about it, but it's a good place to hang out when we're not doing... well, you know."
"Sex stuff. Myrrah, I've had sex before. Hell, you know I'm not even that vanilla," Lucas remarked. He stopped and looked up at the shop sign, grinning. "Heh. Vanilla."
The hyena let out a giggle, clapping the boy on the shoulder - a motion he was slowly learning to anticipate and brace for. "I know, I know, I just... it doesn't occur to me to talk to you about it that much! Like, god, so many people just see 'trans girl dominatrix' and think 'hey she wants to talk about nothing but sex, ever.' So I wasn't about to give up the good thing we had going."
That comment set off some sort of feeling within Lucas he couldn't quite decipher, but he was too anxious about the upcoming introductions to deal with it, so he filed it away for later brooding. He motioned towards the door. "Shall we?"
She pulled the door open with one massive paw, gesturing politely with the other. "After you!"
The parlour had a distinctly '90s feel to it - vinyl-backed booth seats in shades of pink or blue that were somehow both neon and pastel at the same time, plastic-topped wooden tables and walls covered in abstract shapes in gradient colours, all contrasted with a dull beige tile floor that was probably that way to provide a navigation space in the sea of colour and noise. It was very nostalgic, in a way; Lucas had memories of places from his childhood that looked just like this. He reached out to touch a movie poster; it was illegible, the text seeming to change every time his eyes moved across it, but it did look like exactly the sort of thing you'd find in a shop from this era.
"Is this constructed from memory?" Lucas asked. "The early 90s?"
"Nah," came a voice from the back room, "I worked here in, like, 2012? But they never bothered to change the decor, so it was, like, the ice cream time portal to the shitty aesthetics dimension."
A girl of middling height strolled out of the staff door, carrying a tub in each hand. She had mid-length black hair - clearly dyed - with a streak of white added on her right-hand side, which she'd thrown back behind her neck to expose the two hanging bat-wing earrings she was wearing. She was dressed almost exclusively in black, from her knee-high boots and skirt right up to her lipstick and the collar she wore around her neck, although she'd thrown a bright white apron over it all. She set both the tubs down on the counter next to the cash register.
"Hey, so you must be Lucas? Katie," she said, offering a hand.
"Oh!" Lucas exclaimed, not exactly sure how to respond. He felt a little numb. "Yes. Lucas. Um, pleased to meet you, Katie." He took her hand to shake it, only to yelp and tense up as he was pulled into a hug, and the numbness subsided.
"Oh, shit, sorry!" Katie mumbled, letting go of him. "Force of habit."
"No, no, it's fine, it's fine!" Lucas held up a hand reassuringly, scratching his head with the other. "Sorry, I just wasn't expecting it!"
"Yeah, Katie's a big-time hugger," Myrrah chirped, sidling up to the counter. "You're doing human today, huh?"
"I always do ice cream as a human," Katie declared, digging for something underneath the counter. "Do you even have any idea how hard it is to eat ice cream as a bat? Speaking of which, Lucas, you ever have wild cherry ice cream before?"
Lucas, again, was at a loss for words. "I don't... think so?"
Katie retrieved the ice cream scoop she was searching for, burying it in one of the tubs and doling its purple-pink contents out into a bowl. "Okay, well, I guess you won't be able to tell me if it's accurate, but maybe you can tell me if this is good?" She offered the bowl to him, along with a spoon.
Lucas took the bowl, examining it carefully. "You can actually taste things in a dream?"
Myrrah dug a clawed finger straight into the tub, much to Katie's irritation. "Oh, Katie got dream-taste down to an art form. She got stuff like chicken jambalaya and bacon cheeseburger down pat while we were still struggling with coffee." She stuck her finger in her mouth, slurping loudly. "Mmm. Yeah. That's definitely wild cherry. Good job, girl!"
Lucas stuck a spoon into the substance experimentally, and was impressed to discover that it had texture and resistance, that it carved into chunks like real ice cream. He poked it with a finger like Myrrah had, and shivered a little - it was even cold! Finally, he raised the spoon to his lips and took a bite. Heavenly. It was sweet, sharp, fruity, and despite never having had wild cherry ice cream before it certainly did taste like cherries. "Oh my gosh, this is amazing!"
"What's amazing? Oh, oh! Are you guys trying new flavours?"
Lucas turned his head to see a short girl with silver-dyed hair had just walked in, wearing a frilly, pale blue dress and a pair of white-and-blue striped socks with a matching set of arm-warmers. Her most notable features, however, were the orange-brown cat ears sat on top of her head and the long, gently-twitching furry tail that curled out behind her. Lucas felt a little numb. She scooted up to him with a curious, quizzical expression that Lucas couldn't quite read.
"You... must be Lucas, right?" It sounded like a genuine question, as if she wasn't sure what the answer would be.
"Uh, yeah. Yes," Lucas replied, feeling the numbness subside a little. "That's me. I was just- ah!"
He was once again cut off as the shorter girl threw her arms around his shoulders, letting out a noise somewhere between a hum and a purr. "Hi! I'm Jessie!"
Not quite sure what to do, Lucas patted her politely on the back with his free hand and did his best to keep the ice cream bowl out of reach with the other, as the girl's hair was threatening to get dipped in it.
"C'mon people," Myrrah snapped, bristling a little, "personal space!"
Jessie released Lucas, who held up his hand to the hyena. "Honestly, Myrrah, it's okay! I can do hugs. I don't want to be a problem!"
"You're not being a problem, Lucas!" Jessie replied, in a slightly apologetic tone. "It's really good to finally meet you."
Lucas grasped desperately for something worthwhile to say, before remembering the bowl in his hand. "Oh! You should try some of this! Wild cherry! It's really good!"
"My girlfriend, the flavormaster," Jessie chuckled, smirking proudly. "I'm glad to see she's found another fan. Hey, get me a bowl of this, girl, stat." She snapped her fingers.
"Would it kill you to say please?" Katie muttered, sticking her pierced tongue out between her teeth.
"Katie sweetie darling," Jessie cooed, giving Lucas an inscrutable wink. "Please make with the bowl."
"Shoulda called yourself Karen," Katie grumbled, doling more ice cream into a bowl and handing it to the catgirl. "Hey, Lucas, you're like, British."
Lucas raised an eyebrow.
Katie looked away, cleared her throat and picked up the other tub. "Uh, I mean, like, obviously. You'd know toffee, right? Toffee's a British thing. I'm trying to make toffee ice cream. Can you see if I, uh, like, got it right?"
Lucas shrugged, holding out a hand. "I suppose I'd know toffee when I tasted it. I'd love to help!"
She filled up another bowl and handed it to him. He took a spoonful, stuck it in his mouth and swilled it around a little. It was good, but... "This is tasty, but it's not toffee? Tastes more like..." He took another bite. "... you've got the texture of toffee ice cream, but this tastes more like caramel."
"Ugh! Toffee's so fiddly. Fifth try so far," Katie replied, tossing the tub on the back counter. "But it's pretty rad that I got wild cherry right on the first."
She took the cherry tub and placed it in the display counter, underneath the "Wild Cherry" entry in a long row of flavour labels. About half of them had tubs underneath, while the rest were empty, apart from Vanilla, which had a small sign declaring "permanently out of stock." Lucas chuckled at that.
"Hey Katie, can I get two scoops of peanut butter please?" The request came from a bird-like creature, covered in white feathers, with a tapered face and a dark grey beak where their mouth should be. When they looked behind the counter, however, they paused. "Oh, we're doing human today! Give me a second." They concentrated, and their body warped, feathers melting into tan skin and dark brown hair. Their body shape didn't change, precisely; moreso it became visible as the feathers vanished to reveal a boyish figure, at least a head shorter than Lucas, toned and athletic but not exactly muscular. The cargo shorts and t-shirt they were wearing seamlessly changed shape to fit their new frame.
The newly-human newcomer extended a hand towards Lucas. "You must be... Lucas?" Lucas felt a little numb.
Lucas reached out his free hand and returned the gesture, bracing for another hug, but was surprised when all that happened was he got a warm, welcoming handshake. "Yeah! Been, uh, a quickfire round of introductions to the rest of your friends here."
"Oh, it's very cool to finally meet you! I'm Riley, they/hem!" Riley spoke at a blistering pace, in an accent with Lucas vaguely recognised as south German - Bavaria, perhaps? "Well I suppose the girls have been introducing you to the wonders of ice-dream, yeah? Any flavour you can imagine, zero calories - oh god, when I was dieting for my trip to Switzerland this place was my sanctuary!"
Katie loudly slapped the counter so she could get a word in edgeways. "Hey, motormouth, your instant death dessert is ready."
Riley grabbed the bowl with blinding speed and began shovelling ice cream into their mouth while still talking. "And see - mmm! - another great thing about this is that I don't have a peanut allergy in my dreams, so I can eat as much of this stuff as I want and it can't kill me!"
"Can't stop you talking, either," Myrrah quipped, rolling her eyes.
"Mhm!" Riley grunted, grinning around the spoon in their mouth.
A voice, unmistakably Irish, rang out. "Ah! Here I turn up all fancy like, and you people are making me feel overdressed."
Lucas turned to see a bizarre and quietly terrifying reptilian creature, tall enough that it matched eye-level with Myrrah. It seemed to blend together the features of various snakes while still being very distinctly bipedal and humanoid, but the most captivating thing about it was the energy it exuded, a sense of poise that seemed to seep out into the air around it. It fixed its eyes on Lucas searchingly.
"Ah, and you must be the Lucas fellow we've heard so much about," it hissed, forked tongue flicking out from between its teeth. Lucas felt a little numb. It extended a hand. "A pleasure to meet you. Alex, he/him."
Lucas gingerly, cautiously extended his own hand while craning his neck upwards to look the beast in the eye. "N-Nice to meet you too!"
Katie clicked her tongue. "Alex, don't frighten the poor kid."
Alex rolled his serpentine eyes, sighed theatrically and concentrated. Scales rippled into skin, his body condensed, shrinking in on itself until he was half a head shorter than Lucas. A closed-cropped shock of strawberry blonde hair sprouted from his head, which lost its distinctive cobra hood as it became human but gained a well-groomed beard in its place. The sheer lines of tense, compacted muscle melted away, but not fully - the build of someone who took care of themselves, but wasn't working out. He wiggled the fingers on his hand as they shortened and lost their scales, cracking each knuckle.
"Ah, see, I envy you naturally tall people," Alex said, looking up at Lucas with a rueful grin. Without turning away, he addressed the hyena behind him. "Now, c'mon Myrrah, if we're all going human tonight, you can't be the only one still rocking the furry look."
Myrrah blew air out through her lips dismissively, but conceded. She only lost about a foot and a half of height, but a whole lot of muscle, her body cramming itself down to the six-foot-six frame Lucas had seen in the pictures three weeks and what felt like an eternity ago. But it was different to see her in the flesh, dream-flesh or otherwise; all of her photographs had been expertly posed and lit to convey a mood or a tone. Here, she wasn't just a series of still-frame concepts, she was animated, alive, graceful; god, the rose-and-grapevine tattoos on her arms looked so much better in motion. Her piercings flashed and twinkled in the light. The angles of her face, the curve of her chin, the strength in her arms and shoulders, it was captivating. She was so beautiful. And her eyes, gosh, her eyes, bright green and looking right at him. Looking right at him.
Oh fuck, was he gawking? He turned away sharply, desperately hoping she hadn't noticed him blushing, and cleared his throat. "Uh, right, so there's one more?"
"That would be me."
Lucas turned his head towards the door again. This time, the newcomer had decided to just walk in as a human, but that didn't make their appearance any less striking. As a matter of fact, they managed to outdo even Myrrah in that regard: jet-black hair buzzed off on one side of their head to reveal an ear in which Lucas could count at least sixteen separate piercings, including two industrials, one black, one gold. They had a matching set of tattoos around their neck and wrists that looked like thorns, or perhaps barbed wire. They dressed in blacks, greys and browns, with an awful lot of buckles and straps, and they had a pair of boots that added at least two inches to their height. They wore a touch of makeup to accentuate their deep brown eyes, something that Lucas just couldn't look away from even in spite of his discomfort with eye contact. There was a distinct energy to them in just the same way there was to Myrrah, but this one was different. Lucas felt his skin crawl, but in a way that felt compelling, in a way he honestly wouldn't mind feeling more of...
... how long had he been staring? Too long. It felt quiet.
"Hi! Yes!" Lucas squeaked, thrusting out a hand. "Lucas! Pleased to meet you, um...?"
The vision smirked, lips parting just enough to show a tooth. "Val." Lucas' hand was taken in the newcomer's own, skin pale white and nails painted black, and he expected another handshake or a hug, but instead he found it raised to Val's lips and kissed gently, then released. "It/its. Pleased to meet you."
Was Lucas blushing? Lucas was blushing. Lucas was blushing. Oh god, Lucas was blushing.
"Right, so!" Myrrah declared, clapping her hands and jarring Lucas out of his reverie, "everyone in the cule is here! All my big stupid wonderful lovers!"
Jessie snapped her fingers, pointing at Myrrah. "And you're the biggest, stupidest one of us all, Mistress."
"Sit down?" Riley suggested. "Get to know each other a little?" Six sets of eyes turned towards Lucas. He felt a little numb, but when he briefly looked back to Val, he noticed a smile on its lips.
"C'mon, they won't bite," Val chuckled, "unless you ask them to."
Talking was hard at first - Lucas felt like an outsider to this group of tight-knit friends and lovers. He spent a lot of time just listening, letting them do the talking while he remained silent. Riley, as it turned out, was an athlete and extreme sports enthusiast: while they might have been addicted to peanut butter ice cream in the dream, when they were awake their drug of choice was BASE jumping. They related with energetic glee how they'd once gotten to wingsuit with a professional stunt team in Lauterbrunnen. That sounded infinitely more interesting than anything Lucas had ever done, and he felt a little numb.
Alex was an actor, and listed off a couple of roles he'd had on Irish television - pre-transition, of course. It wasn't like there was a massive TV industry in Ireland to begin with, and once he'd come out, the work had dried up entirely. He did have a stage career, though, and had even performed at the Bord Gáis a couple of times - not in a starring role, alas. "But don't you worry," he said, "I'm working on that." Lucas thought back to his childhood, of having to perform literally anything in front of a crowd of people, of hundreds of eyes watching him, and felt a little numb.
Jessie was a furry trans woman in tech - a stereotype so common even Lucas knew about it. Her speciality was backend development, she supplemented her income as a professional domme, just like Myrrah - this was how they'd met Katie, although she didn't elaborate on that. She just leaned in to kiss Katie, who was sitting next to her, eliciting a furious blush. Lucas felt a little numb.
Katie was also a furry trans woman in tech, although her area of expertise was server administration, which Lucas was a little more familiar with. In her spare time, though, she did speedruns, and apparently held world records for two obscure Dreamcast games that Lucas vaguely remembered from the early 2000s. That was just too cool, nerdy and obscure to make Lucas feel numb.
Val did modelling for kink websites. It just came right out with that. Lucas tried not to picture Val in chains, because the mental image simultaneously made him blush and feel numb.
He wished he had talked more when he'd had the chance. All of them had such fascinating lives, and now that he had to go last, he felt completely inadequate. He was just an awkward British shut-in who hadn't really done very much of note in his entire life, and it must have been easy for them to tell that he was struggling to find anything interesting to say about himself.
That's when Katie came out with a question: "Myrrah says you're a Homestuck, right? Favourite troll."
That was one thing Lucas didn't need to ponder the answer to. "Terezi, all day, every day. Not even a contest."
Jessie released a tension Lucas didn't realise she'd been carrying. "Oh, thank fuck he didn't say Eridan. Then we'd have had problems."
That got a conversation started about Homestuck, trolls and a couple of the conventions Lucas had been to in his early 20s. This was a conversation Lucas could actually participate in, and even though it seemed like Riley had no idea what they were talking about, they nodded and smiled politely while the others discussed the subject. Then the subject of theatre came up.
"Alright then," Alex began, holding up a finger. "Favourite Shakespeare play."
Again, Lucas didn't really need to think about that one. "Twelfth Night."
Alex raised an eyebrow, smiling and nodding approvingly. "Very good choice. Why?"
"Look, it's just his best comedy, okay?" Lucas felt incredibly confident all of a sudden. "I... have strong opinions on this! Midsummer Night's Dream has a few strong moments and Much Ado About Nothing is pretty funny throughout but there's just no play of his that's so consistently funny. You want giggles from the audience, give them Dogsberry's speech to Don Pedro. You want them to laugh until it physically hurts, you give them the whole of the scene where Sir Andrew and Viola have to duel."
The entire polycule turned towards Alex, who shrugged. "What can I say? Boyo knows his stuff. He's not wrong."
That got them talking about the excellent weaving of the story threads between the Olivia-Viola-Orsino love triangle, the Antonio-Sebastian unrequited gay crush and the hijinks and Olivia's manor. At some point, Alex made a comment about how ridiculous it would be to call Olivia a lesbian for being in love with Cesario even if Cesario is secretly a woman, which Lucas felt was hinting at something, although he couldn't grasp exactly what.
After the discussion of Shakespeare had run its course, Myrrah leaned in. "Favourite movie?"
Lucas thought for a moment. "I don't really pick favourite movies? It's a weird kind of medium. I don't really rewatch movies that often, so I don't really have just one favourite?"
Val gestured noncommittally. "Okay, but if you had to pick one."
"I suppose... I mean it'd be a toss-up between..." Lucas thought for a moment, looking around at the dream they were sharing. "Okay, I'm going to go out on a limb and say you all have some manner of strong opinion on Inception..."
Alex snorted, slapping the table. "There it is!"
"He said it," Val declared, "he said the thing!"
"Yeah," Myrrah chuckled, "yeah, Lucas, safe to say we all have strong opinions on Inception."
"It's a good movie!" Jessie chirped. "It's just wrong. About a lot of things."
Katie raised a finger. "... but Tom Hardy as a genderbending gay guy can get it."
Riley leaned back, grinning. "Everyone in that film can get it."
Myrrah held up a hand. "Okay, but Lucas, you said it was a toss-up. What's the other film?"
Lucas paused for a second. "It's gonna sound cliche."
Myrrah clapped Lucas on the shoulder gently. "No judgement here, Lucas. Unless it's Ace Ventura, in which case we're gonna have problems."
Lucas hesitated for a moment. "It's The Matrix."
A look passed between all six of the polycule's members, and Lucas couldn't quite read it. But all the ice had been broken, and it felt easier to discuss things. The ice cream flowed freely, Lucas relaxed and conversation continued for hours on end.
HypnospacePsychonaut: Morning slutsktspace87: morning daddyOphidian_Solace: Greetings from the glorious Irish future, where it's already afternoon.HypnospacePsychonaut: So elephant in the room 🐘HypnospacePsychonaut: What'd you all think of LucasZeroBird: I found him very charming! Exactly what you would expect from an English person, except not transphobic.KnifeWretch: Didn't know what to think of him at first and he's kinda closed off but once you get him talking he's a decent kidZeroBird: Lmao did you notice how he has a huge crush on youKnifeWretch: The most adorable thing is he thought he was being subtle about itOphidian_Solace: I have to say I was a little defensive at first, given the circumstances under which you met him.Ophidian_Solace: But I'm glad to say my fears about him are completely assuaged!ktspace87: dudes a terezi stan he literally cant be evilJesstrogen: hey so we're gonna talk about his obvious dysphoria, right
This chapter gave me a lot of trouble, but it's finally done!
“I don’t have a peanut allergy in my dreams” very not homestuckcore of you :p also twelfth night is so good, i chose my name from it!