“If we start a band I’d rather actually sing.”

Happy nuzzle. "You do have a really nice voice! What kind of stuff do you like singing?" Will you sing something for me? Is it taking advantage of your backlash to ask?  (It's hard to know! She's never met unbacklashed Lucy! Be cautious, Cara. There is always next week.)

“Oh, just about anything—GAUDETE GAUDETE CHRISTUS EST NATUS EX MARIA VIRGINE GAUDETE.”

Cara is not expecting the noise and is a tiny bit jumpy about it, but once she adjusts she's just listening happily. Lucy really does have a nice voice.

When Lucy finishes, she calls for an encore.

Hm, how about—no, Fat Bottomed Girls is out, Cara has a normal-sized butt. Well, "Bohemian Rhapsody" is always good. 

Cara knows Bohemian Rhapsody! She will sing along, though mostly under her breath - she's distracted by how much she's enjoying just being pressed against Lucy, hearing her voice through both the air and her skin.

oh no she's so cute

Once she's done, Lucy just breathes for a few seconds and then nosesmooches Cara. 

She was not expecting this!! She gets very blushy. 

"H-hi!" 

"Hi!"

Nuzzle. Hairpet. "You have a really nice voice." 

She smiles. It's so nice, getting this many cuddles...

"Thank you! I was in the school choir in high school."

Oooh, lore!

She keeps petting Lucy's hair. "What was high school like for you?" 

"It was fine? A lot of media would lead you to believe that high school is a feeding frenzy of social sharks but mine wasn't. I had some close friends and more friendly acquaintances and good classes."

"I think that high school can be at least a bit like that for some people" including her, at least for the first few years, though she was the chum in the waters "and it leaves an outsized impression on our media culture! But also it makes for fascinating stories, even when they're not very realistic."

Noseboop. "I'm glad it wasn't anything like that for you."

"Yeah I don't have an assessment of anyone else's high school. Actually, middle school was worse."

Should she volunteer information? She can... volunteer information. "High school was a bit like the media for me, in that I was, uh, a convenient target for some of the other kids when they were frustrated or bored?" How to put it... "I went through a lot of phases, and none of them were very suited for the environment; I mostly only got to have the kinds of friends i wanted to have online. I did do a lot of that, though."

Squeeze. "I'm glad neither of us are in The Bad School Years anymore."

"I'm really sorry to hear that."

She smiles gently. "Thanks. Things are much better now! It turns out it's so good for me to have agency over my social life and also my medical decisions, who could have imagined this."

..Lucy's red hair streaks came out really well. She's distracted by how pretty they are.

"...Ohhhhhh, you lived with your parents in high school, didn't you."

"...Yeah. Though that wasn't - "

She rests her head against Lucy.

"I dunno, I don't want to give you guys the wrong idea? The way they are about gender was really really bad for me, and I will be sad about it for a while. But - they were otherwise pretty decent parents. A lot of people I know had it worse."

...Shrug. 

"I dunno. The way they are about gender is, you know, enough? Like--they don't have to have hit you, for it to be bad."

"I mean... it's enough that I don't talk to them, and for them to be in my phone as 'shitty parent #1' and 'shitty parent #2', which I realize kind of undermines the thing I'm trying to say here, but" she takes in a breath for emphasis.

"...it wasn't just that they didn't hit me. It was that they loved me, kept track of the things going on in my life, tried to figure out what i needed and helped me get it. stuff that - I hear people say is the bare minimum for acceptable parenting, but - a lot of people don't get that."

“Oh, sure. But—wait no hang on my backlash is low enough for me to realize the thing I was about to say is a bad idea actually.”

...Huh! Interesting. But also... "...Oh no, but now I'm so curious..." 

She makes pouty eyes at Lucy, but is also pretty clearly trying not to giggle at herself for doing so.

“…Well. Well. You see. My mum is just good actually. Like someone whose parents failed at the stuff your parents were good at, might not be able to criticize them, but mine didn’t.”