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This is the story of a recurring dream in the life of a young bear, beset by poverty and hostility, working through his feelings for another man even as they mix with the latent fear, doubt, and homophobia passed onto him from his father. It deals with the kind of insecurities and anxieties you may expect in such a man- if somewhat augmented by an unmentioned supernatural force.

I wrote this piece on a sudden whim, and it takes place in Houndblue's "BYWAYS" series setting, which you can read here: https://www.sofurry.com/view/2063549

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_Love in the shadows

Was never hard to find

But sometimes the moonglow

Plays tricks on your mind_

Love in the shadows is the only kind.

-The Magnetic Fields

Ishkode Dreaming

It's cold in his dream. It's lonely, and the aching muscles achieved the day before crawl into his arms now and lend a visceral sort of edge to the feeling of climbing. He is scaling a tower at the edge of the world, atop a great mountain overlooking a valley of fire. His shadow climbs the rope shadow, his burning arms haul him up.

He is a heavy bear. Even with all his strength, he only just manages. But he manages because this is a dream, and because he has been given a mission. The maiden held captive within the tower's apical chamber has cried out his name, and so he must go. The claws of his feet scrabble at the stone. The rope creaks and groans, tormented. His heart hammers in his chest, just like the rest of him: unholy strong. Fist over fist, he goes up into the night.

In the window, his silhouette blinds all the stars. The night is darkened by him as he pulls himself, breathing heavy, into the final chamber. It is cold here, and spare, and no kindness has been done here for a very long time. He can sense it in the roughly hewn furnishings, the threadbare tapestries that do not warm the walls, the thin slit of the singular window that he could not have possibly slid through. He casts around for the maiden.

He tends to forget the dream.

He has it almost every night-- has had it almost every night since he began to change. That is why, each time he looks around the room, he expects to see him there, the Brittany spaniel, the boy his father detests as a loathsome queer. The dog with ears like copper and an elven muzzle and the smile that took him in. Surely if there had to be a maiden atop the tower, if there had to be someone in need of rescue it would be Anton. Surely, if there was someone the bear would climb a tower for, it would be him and no other.

But when at last his eyes fall upon the satin ruin of the bed and he peers beyond the silken veil to discover the supine form beneath… it is not Anton. Nor any beautiful thing at all. He stares in shock, but there it is all the same: laying chained like the Wolf-Bitch of Gor on the covers of one of his father's fantasy grotesques.

A great brown bear, his trunk and arms huge, his eye grossly gouged and hidden under a bloody bandage. The way it was when he'd fallen at football practice and hit the stake. His masculine body, unworthy of rescue, lays heavy and rude upon the sheets. Covered only in a clownish imitation of sultry lingerie.

The bear is not kind to himself in his waking hours, he is not kind to himself in the dream. Leaden ursine flesh pours over the rim of the lingerie, his muscular chest fills out a bra where the chocolate of his nipples can be glimpsed beneath white frills. His manhood, his testicles bulge out the panties like a dark brown aneurism, mesh-caged in honeymoon lace.

Half blind and furtive, he strains upon the bed, unable draw back in terror: for having recognized himself as the thing on the bed, he has become the thing on the bed. And now it is his own arms that are shackled above him, his own wide bearish hips that that are cocked enticingly toward the window. His own tremulous voice that calls out in the night for a hero.

And there might he lay forever, imprisoned in his dream, but for the click of claws at the door.

In an instant, his heart goes cold with death as he realizes that the great dragon who guards this tower, who lives in the Valley of Fire below might be his own father. If Ishkode is seen like this his life will surely take that last lonely mote of happiness at the bottom of the jar and lick it out like honey. None left over for him to have when morning breaks and all the world is insensibly sensible once again. None ever left over for this bear. The tension as the door opens is all-consuming. He is afraid that he might urinate with fear before it can fully open.

Anton is at the door. And no maiden is he, but a knight, with a gleaming sword and armor that looks like his varsity jacket, and his tight jeans and his whiskers that catch starlight in them. And God, the bear's one eye cries because Anton's smiling. And not in the derisive way that Lukas Mitchell smiled at him in the emergency room after Ish fell, but in the way his mom used to smile at him before she left. It is the look Anton used to give him when he'd come over to pal around with Mikey and Jessie, even though Anton was the older brother and was supposed to be mean.

Anton the hero, returned from the depths into which he'd plunged. Out of the town and out of Ishkode's life, which must be lived day in and day out without news of him or tales of what college is like. Without the sight of the sun in his copper ears and the pearl fur of his neck.

“Hey big guy," He says, wearing the orange halo of the hallway light outside Ish's room in real life. It's too much. The bear turns away, but he hears claws clicking on the floor. He feels soft, cool paw pads on his shoulder turning him over. Still Anton. “Shh." He says. “Here."

And with a sweep of glimmering steel the ludicrous silk trappings of Ish's body fall away, and though he is naked, in the dream he feels better, feels swaddled. His barrel chest heaves with the freedom and the gratitude he cannot bring himself to express, and Anton undoes a shackle with some counterfeit dream-art that does not explain itself.

He sits on the bed. Ish feels the weight. “I bet I know what you want." Anton says, pushing his thumb up along the bear's muzzle, blotting away tears from below the one undamaged eye. “Just nod. I'll give it to you."

In the dream, he nods. His one arm still manacled. The bear cannot move, but he does not need to. He feels warm thighs closing around his hips, and the naked feeling returns. This time it's good and it's right, just like how it is supposed to be. Anton lowers his nose so that they're touching, two cold blocks with warm breath mixing in the tight junction between them. A little kiss, just a peck. Ish struggles uneasily, suddenly aware of his own erection. He does not want Anton to see, and he -does- want him to see, but the spaniel just laughs his easy laugh and shifts on the bed. He's not wearing any pants, either. Not wearing any boxers.

“It's ok." He whispers, his voice a gossamer moonlit thread strung across the dark plane of the room. “You can look."

So Ish looks. One time, after the gang had gone to see Aspiration, he'd tossed his popcorn and had to take a piss. And he'd walked in and bumped this big doberman guy on the shoulder on his way out and the guy had said “hey, watch it" and when Ish had turned to look, he'd seen Anton at the urinal, shaking himself off, getting ready to zip up. The real details are scant, but the fake ones are robust, and in the dream and in his waking imagination, it is the perfect cock. It's elegant. Strong, confident like Anton, the perfect shape. Graceful and sweet to the nose and the tongue, made to be loved, and cherished. Made to be held by cleverer paws than Ish's, kissed by more confident, more beautiful lips. Ish has never revealed to a single living soul how much he would like to have it in his mouth, just to hold, just to hold. He has only half-revealed it to himself and this is why he forgets the dream and why it is always fresh for him each night.

The perfection between Anton's legs was wrought by loving nature to match his body and his spirit. The heat of its belly, resting against the semi-flaccid length of bear manhood, is almost shameful.

That and the excitement only hardens Ish, stiffens him so that his manhood pushes up, brutish and blunt. It is a clumsy instrument for no one's pleasure. Ish watches as he expands, dull and heavy alongside Anton, whose tip glistens with a sparkling pearl. A graceful canine paw wraps around him, and the bear shudders and arches his back to better imbibe the tender tugging that makes him feel just what he needs to feel. He shakes, draws breath through clenched fangs.

“I like it." Whispers Anton, pushing skin up to cover the tip, squeezing the head tenderly. He already knows what to do with Ish. It's natural to creatures like him, it's an inborn wisdom. The bear reaches to reciprocate, but his paw is pushed away. He is being bidden to learn. Anton kisses it, and a bead sticks to his whiskers.

Now the bear is really hard. Now he's drooling, the eye of his tip is open and Anton's touches are lathering the thin gloss of his fluid all over. The dog's paw takes them both in hand and strokes, and he feels the heat, feels the glorious warmth, the exultation, the honor of being pleasured in tandem with something so naturally right. It makes him pull desperately against his one remaining restraint, wanting to break free, to embrace Anton, to thank him, but he cannot. His last shackle still binds him and he pants, working at it while the spaniel casually weaves magic in between their legs. There are things he wants to say, things he wants to do, but he cannot be free right now when he needs it.

“That is well," Says the dog's voice through a wry smile, the shape of it like a false moon in the dark. “For I am not a king. Yet I will wed with the White Lady of Rohan, if it be her will. And if she will, then let us cross the River and in happier days let us dwell in fair Ithilien and there make a garden. All things will grow with joy there, if the White Lady comes."

… He loses it all over his belly. Great surging white gushes, a hot rush like magma spewed forth from the earth to land and steam and dribble down the sides of his ursish body while Ishkode bucks and brays. In real life he fills his boxer-briefs with it, seeds his sheets for an anxious 5-AM wash, overseen by prayers to higher powers that his father will remain in his Miller-stupor and come not ranging from out his fetid lair.

Anton smiles to see that belly glazed. He is proud of his work. He shuffles forward, sits on Ish's chest and the weight of him there is nothing at all. With one paw he touches the bear's face and guides his gaze up. With the other, he masturbates. Heaving, Ish looks at him, stilled with amaze to see that graceful paw pumping in front of his muzzle.

“Hey," Ish says in panting, gasping awe. “Did you really give Nathan Clawbrecht a handjob in the library?"

“No dude." Anton says. “That guy's a creep."

The spaniel cums on Ish's face and neck and chest. The heat and the smell of it in his fur is perfect. The perfect thing from the perfect place. Ish rubs it in with his paws, and lays contented with it cooling on his body until the coming of the dawn, in the dream and the waking world. When he opens his eyes, there's no one there.

Ish spends the first few moments of each of these mornings trying to hold on to the feeling as it drains away. Like water through your claws. Water through your claws.

…

…

…

Ten years later, he sees Anton at a show.

Ish catches him up there behind the curtain of cigarette fumes. The place is not too big, Anton wouldn't like that, but it's packed to the brim with their tribe, their people. They cry out to the night in their faded old t-shirts and their leather jackets with studs, and jeans where the tatters at the knees hang down in fine white strings.

Anton clutches the microphone and says everything Ish ever wanted to hear him say in song. He looks out over the crowd past the topless Dalmatian floozies, past the guys with green manes buzzed on both sides, past the drunken frat bros trying to talk about -their- album concept. He wraps the room in midnight dark guitar, his howls lament creation. It rules. And his gaze comes down. His regard falls upon the Alaskan brown bear in back.

Christ, he sees those eyes. Like new jeans. Like rain on the moon.