Jupiter - "to rule/to be ruled" (lit., grasp). Inwardly, it's self-control, personal rigor… Outwardly, it's the ability to exercise that control over others; it's that patriarchal charisma that makes people want to be their best self for you.
-Postmortem: 100 Days On We Know The Devil, by Aevee Bee
The very first night was probably the most amazing thing that Jupiter had ever experienced. (The second-most amazing thing was, of course, the look on the Bonfire Captain's face when she finally took something for herself, and dropped the cabin on top of his stupid fucking guitar.)
The first days were also amazing, in a different kind of way. Every littlest thing once covered under the thinnest veneer of the fear of God, exploding into different bodies, and different languages, and different feelings-
The first days seem far behind them, now. Those were days or weeks ago, and they're a camp of teenagers and young adults, each and every one of them become the Devil; the first days may as well have been weeks or months ago. Distant history!
In that light, it takes far too long for Jupiter to notice that Venus is dimming, and dimming, until she's already dark.
"That's super fucked up," Neptune says, when Jupiter tries to point it out and explain.
"It's fucked up that it took me so long to notice?"
"No? Chill, babe, I'm just saying it's super fucked up that Venus is going dark." Neptune lounges across the lake shore, drying out in the baking sun and imagining dark and brooding things.
Jupiter marshals her thoughts, but Neptune interrupts her before she knows what she's asking.
"On the other hands, maybe we're assuming too much, though," Neptune says. "I mean, it's not like she's running back into the closet, right? She's not turning into a boy again, she's just going darker. So maybe it's just a fashion statement? I don't want to dim-shame her or anything."
"Neptune, I don't think anyone has ever been dim-shamed before in all of human history, what are you on now?"
"First time for everything," Neptune says. "But that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that I'm not an expert in Devil-ology because someone was a little hazy on the terms and conditions."
"Nobody reads those, Neptune." Let alone you…
"What I'm saying is, I can tell you what a deficit of phlegm and bile means for me. I can't tell you what turning off the light means for Venus. That's not me or my Devil."
"Maybe we should ask Venus," Jupiter suggests, having already given up on getting any conveniently pithy advice from Neptune, at least for now. She's worldly, but she's not a goddess, as much as they can all agree that's an absolute travesty. "Did you ask her about it?"
"Nah, I didn't ask. Mostly because she looked fine when I saw her, actually."
That's how Jupiter decides to go and see Venus herself.
Venus is where she normally is, in the ruins of what was once a secluded shed (before Pluto got a little too drunk, and smeared it across the woods). She's surrounded by the remains of dozens of radios, shattered by eager kids when they realized that they didn't need any devices to transform anymore.
The destruction is a good thing if you only care about the magic and the transformation sequences, but it's a bad thing if you actually care about radios. Venus actually cares about radios; at least when they aren't tuned to evangelical channels, like K-LOVE and METATRON.
"Hey Venus," Jupiter says.
"Oh-" Venus says, blinking dust out of her eyes; she had seen the other girl, but she hadn't seen her. "Hi, Jupiter!"
"LOGARITHMIC IS THE LEPROSY-" her radio crackles. Still looking at Jupiter, she tries to push a crystal into place with her thumb; it fractures, but doesn't break, as it goes.
The crystal finds its place in position between metallic coils, and Venus begins wheeling through the channels without glancing at the dial, too fast for Jupiter to make out much. "-THAUMIEL, THE DIVINE LIGHT IN THE ABSENCE OF-" "-MIXED METAPHORS-" "-LIKE A CONTROLLED USE OF SHARED MEMORY-"
The very sound of it is an eyesore.
The machine (assembled together from six broken radios, the wiring of a phone that Venus had snatched from the Bonfire Captain, and the glue normally prescribed to hold together shattered dreams) finally fades into static. It begins plumbing the depths of frequencies normally blotted out by God's broadcasting, and the results go to tape.
Venus pulls away from the mechanisms, and Jupiter can see that she looks absolutely exhausted.
"What are you working on?" Jupiter asks, already falling into orbit together with the other girl. Her heart falls into her stomach and leaps into her throat, and she's pulled in as if by magnets, the hot iron in her blood.
"This?" Venus smiles, looking embarrassed. She is embarrassed, for her hobby, but also for being caught before her project is done. "It's, well, a surprise. It's not done yet."
"Oh," Jupiter says, trying to imagine what it could be. (If she were able to imagine it, though, she could probably build it herself; and she knows she can't.)
Venus is still smiling and glowing, but as she's been for some time, the glow is entirely metaphorical. The glow isn't literal. Her eyes are wide and blue, but the proportions are earthly and human, and the blue doesn't beam. She has no wings. Not her old body, but not her new one, either.
Jupiter can't help but worry. And Venus worries, too, because she's alone with Jupiter and she knows that things are… awkward… between them.
"So…" Venus trails off. "How are you?"
"…that was… what I wanted to ask you, actually."
"Um," Venus says. "You're asking me how I am? I'm okay."
Jupiter sits down on an overturned crate, putting her hands on her knees.
"That's good," Jupiter says faintly. "I wanted to spend time with you."
It isn't even a lie. With the magnet dragging her in, she can't help herself. She's being carried along for her own ride.
Tension rolls through Venus' spine, and she turns back to the radio to continue working. She etches an alchemical design into the existing symbology of the circuit board, but her heart isn't in it.
"You're worried about me, aren't you?" Venus asks.
"Yeah," Jupiter admits. "I am."
Venus looks away from the circuit board, down across her body, and she can see that it's plain.
"You looked… really happy when you became the Devil," Jupiter says. "It's-" Sad? Scary? "-worrying to see you, and not see the Devil."
"You never felt worried for me before all of this happened, when I always looked like this," Venus replies. Guilt stabs Jupiter in the gut, but Venus giggles; she isn't quiteupset, and she shows it, light rather than heavy. "I never felt worried for me before all of this happened, either. Not for the way I looked. I don't blame you."
Jupiter struggles to meet Venus' eyes. "You didn't look like this before."
Venus seems to dim even further. "I know."
"Neptune isn't worried about you, but I am."
"Neptune doesn't worry because I never worried about her," Venus offers, closing her eyes. She never worries about Neptune, because Neptune doesn't care…
"… you were worried about me?" Jupiter asks, hopelessly confused. Venus chews on her lip for a long time.
"I'm sorry. I know I'm weird," Venus says. "Really weird. And I can tell that Neptune doesn't care, because she thinks that weird is cool. 'Oh, your arm just fell off and you're growing wings, that's so metal, can you talk dirty in Enochian!?'"
It takes a valiant, outright heroic effort for Jupiter not to file Neptune's question under 'blackmail material', before the solemn atmosphere returns.
"Sorry- I- when I think too much, I worry about whether I'm too much- I, I doubt anyone cares if I'm just a girl, or I think I can deal with it if they care?" Venus' voice quavers. "But I look like an angel, and God is exactly who we're trying to get away from." The true shame, the creeping worry that on some level, maybe she's always going to be God's creature…
"And I saw you kept, just… not looking at me. So I thought I was too bright, like the sun," or maybe Jupiter doesn't care as much as Venus hopes she does… "and, and I worry a lot of ways. Sorry. I know that's silly."
Better to be dim, if you think that being bright is an imposition. A dark lump rises in Jupiter's throat. "You don't need to apologize."
"So- okay."
She really wants to hug Venus, reassure her. What do I say, how do I explain myself?
"Venus… you're…" One of the most normal people here? That's true, especially when you compare her to people like Saturnine and Jack. But that isn't actually what's worrying her. "I wasn't looking away from you because you were too bright… or angelic, or scary."
Venus opens her eyes and meets Jupiter's gaze. "What?"
"I was looking away from you because I felt guilty… and scared of myself."
The crystal in the radio at Venus' side cracks completely, too small for its setting.
"Oh," Venus says dumbly. "Oh. I feel really silly now."
She curls her arms around herself and her ill-fitting shirt.
"You shouldn't," Jupiter says, frustrated or helpless. "It's my fault… for not being able to explain my feelings."
Venus shakes her head. If the way she was acting is a problem — even if she thought she was doing it to help — then she has some of the culpability there, too. "You don'thave to explain anything," she says. "I'd like it if you told me how I can help you, but you don't have to tell me that, either?"
"I should explain," Jupiter replies.
"Should, nothing."
Jupiter swallows the lump in her throat. "It's gross... and you would think differently of me."
"I already do think differently of you, Jupiter," Venus replies. Jupiter looks panicked, though, so Venus continues hastily. "You've changed. I've changed, too? People would call me gross, too."
It isn't untrue, either, and both of them know it.
"I want… so many things," Jupiter confesses. "I want things that I probably never would have wanted, before I saw you as the Devil."
Venus blushes deeply, red-hot glass in her cheeks. "It's okay to want… things," she says. She can almost guess what Jupiter wants, which is still so unfamiliar to think about. But she made a choice to believe that wanting was right. "I promise."
Jupiter doesn't feel nearly as bad for wanting Neptune, because on some level she always expected herself to want Neptune. Neptune is and was a self-proclaimed bad girl, and Jupiter thought she knew her type. ( Why am I so fucked up that I want that, stupid, stupid -)
But Venus was always an inoffensive bit character in Jupiter's world, until he became a friend to her, in the narrowing window of time before they met the Devil. And now sheisn't a bit character at all, and now… Jupiter wants something from her. A lot of things, maybe everything.
She wants Venus so, so, so badly. The same whole-hearted heart-sick way she wants anyone. She wants to hit her, pet her, grab her, hold her, spank her, grope her, choke her-
"I feel like a predator," Jupiter confesses. "I wanted to look at you, and… and touch you… almost as soon as I realized that you were a pretty girl." As soon as the dust was clear.
And how gross is that? Everything overturned, reduced to the base facts of Venus' flesh. Neptune was uncomfortably right, making stupid jokes about 'dim-shaming', because Jupiter misses Venus' radiance and beauty as the Devil.
Just when she had a grip on things, things changed; and now, maybe she doesn't really care about Venus, maybe she just wants to screw her. Because maybe she didn'treally care about Venus until Venus was fuckable-
What is wrong with her?
"I don't think I mind," Venus says, cutting clean through Jupiter's chain of logic.
Jupiter looks at her, really looks. A soft light is creeping into her eyes, happy and sad, and something else.
"I'm happy as the Devil," Venus tries to explain. "I'm not offended or hurt if I can make you happy too, as the Devil. Or if being the Devil gives you the chance to see something in me that you couldn't see before, or if the Devil gives me something that I didn't have before?
"Does that make sense?" Please understand, Jupiter…
"...I think so," Jupiter says, but she's torn.
Venus' face wavers with indecision, but she's resolved. And then-
The light she choked down lights up the room, once tucked away and folded in on itself, and Jupiter expects that any minute Venus will rip out of her own fleshy body. Like kicking out of an egg or cocoon, the way she did once before. But instead, her body wavers like a beam of light through mist, and her wings contract into visibility, where they were once outstretched and unseen.
She blocked her light with her wings, and covered her face with her wings, and then she covered her wings with her wings, a traditional demonic exercise in the logically impossible. But covering something up doesn't make it go away; it just makes it harder to see. Venus never went back to any other body, or stopped being the Devil at all.
"Venus… you're…" Now Jupiter has a hard time tearing her eyes away, or even speaking. Venus still half-covers her body in her wings, a nod towards modesty, but she's recognizable as the Devil again.
"You can look," Venus says, vulnerable and yet assured. "It's okay."
"I don't just want to look," Jupiter says, desperately trying to choose to be okay. Venus' light caresses her skin. Venus is the epicenter.
"I think that's okay, too." Venus takes a deep breath. "I… I really like you, Jupiter. Not because I'm idolizing you, or because I wish I was you. And I want, too, so you shouldn't be ashamed-"
"Stop," Jupiter says, not cruelly. She reaches out, taking one of Venus' many feathers between her many fingers, impossibly warm and soft, not just in the flesh but in everything else. She wants to bury her body there, light all around her, and take the light inside her, and…
Venus watches and waits.
"Would you tell me?" Jupiter asks. "Can you tell me if I do something wrong, or bad, or if I hurt you? I… I worry, too. I worry so much."
"I would tell you," Venus says. "I promise that, too."
If Jupiter is waiting for permission, that's about it.
Perhaps they shouldn't be nervous, not when they've already bared their souls to each other, and helped each other shuck off their old bodies. But this is a different kind of intimacy; not an intimacy of desperate wish and dream, but an intimacy of yearning want and desire.
Venus' body is warm to the touch. Not made of flesh, per se, but pale and tawny starlight. She isn't wearing her shirt, or any clothes at all; the ill-fitting shirt was only a curtain of wings and feathers, and now Jupiter sees all of Venus, the contraction of sweet light.
Jupiter runs a hand along Venus' shoulder. Fuzzy down feathers brush against her palm, fine and inviting all across Venus' body. Venus squirms at the contact; it feels good to be touched, but her body's first reflex is to flinch away anyways.
"Did you really mean what you said?" Venus asks.
"Said what?"
"...did you mean what you said, when you said I was a pretty girl?"
"I did," Jupiter says. The truth is, Venus is pretty, in a way that Jupiter never imagined for herself.
"I don't think anyone's ever called me that before," Venus murmurs, melting against Jupiter's touch; her soul fills with the color of soothing.
"Do you want me to stop?" Jupiter asks.
"No!" Venus blurts out. She claps a hand over her mouth, looking mortified. "No, um… I… kinda liked it…"
Jupiter extends a hand, curling her fingers around Venus' wrist to pull it away from her face; and now Venus doesn't flinch away. "Have you wanted to hear something like that before?" Jupiter asks quietly.
Venus can't answer, but Jupiter understands, at least a little. "That's sweet."
Venus is glowing again, and smiling with her small upturned lips. She can't stop herself from smiling, and Jupiter wants to touch her.
Kissing Venus makes Jupiter as warm on the inside as Venus' skin is on the outside, pressed against her body.
"You are pretty," Jupiter insists, as she pulls away from Venus' lips. "You're beautiful."
"Y-you shouldn't just sit here complimenting me," Venus says, just as sure but even more flustered. "What do you want me to do…? What do you like?"
I don't know, Jupiter thinks, which is complete nonsense; she only believes that she doesn't know. "Just you," Jupiter says, which is so completely true it hurts a little. "Your wings, can you cover us-?"
"My wings?" Venus asks. Then: "Oh!"
Venus wraps herself around the both of them, cradling them in a hidden place, suspended light and thunder. Jupiter's stomach flutters like Venus' wings, because everywhere she turns she can look directly into the other girl's eyes.
But she's already returning to the kisses, her hands against Venus' chest; moving her lips down across Venus' body. "You're beautiful here," she says, kissing across Venus' gossamer jaw, "and here," kissing across the curve and hollow of her neck, "and here," kissing down the expanse of her collarbone.
Venus trembles, not from dull panic or fear, but because she's luminous, because she doesn't need to hide from Jupiter after all, because she feels safe, and this feels right.
"H-ah!"
Jupiter's hair falls upon Venus' body, clasping at her exposed torso, before Jupiter brushes it back.
If she keeps going, she isn't sure she'll be able to stop herself.
She keeps going anyways.
The Devil was kind to Venus, if she chose Venus' body for her; maybe Venus was kind to herself, skipping all of the steps and fulfilling every wish of her eyes. She never restrained her wishes, because she never saw her own wishes head-on to notice what God would call excess.
Now you can't not see her wishes, beautifully blinding and blindingly beautiful. Broad hips and plush rear, legs for light-years, a cherubic face glittering with sex and desire and other, simpler things.
The swell of her breasts demands Jupiter's attention, and after weeks of restraint, Jupiter allows herself to do what she wants, and takes them in hands.
Venus gasps out loud, stifling herself again, and the absurd thought comes to Jupiter: I may be about as new to Venus' body as she is.
She can't help but want all of it, and she can't help but want to treasure it.
"Your voice is beautiful, too," Jupiter says, her mouth absolutely dry and parched. "You don't need to keep quiet."
A soft sound breaks out of Venus' chest, shining with bliss, as Jupiter continues to test the curves of the her body, heavy with a weight beyond mere starlight. Holding her as if she's never going to let go.
It makes Venus feel appreciated, rather than just self-conscious. Her own errant fingers clumsily begin to peel Jupiter's jacket away, and Jupiter's hands act unbidden to help her from there, unbuttoning the flannel underneath.
Jupiter's breasts are much smaller than Venus'; becoming the Devil didn't change her body much, because she was (and is) a creature of doing and feeling rather than being. Her body is rough and hewn from hours of rough-and-tumble, and her raw skin has healed raw red, blush-stained the color of blood all across her smaller and slender body.
There's a small note of disappointment, the sinking sensation of coming short at the last second, compared to the beauty in her arms. But Venus sees Jupiter's body, and although she doesn't understand why Jupiter's body is the way it is, her heart still pounds harder and harder in her chest, and she wets her lips without thinking about it. She takes in the sight of Jupiter's body, and her gaze is still entranced, and she reaches out to touch Jupiter's chest-
Somehow, Jupiter forgets that she's supposed to be worried.
Jupiter's own arms move in absolute defiance of geometry, as the Devil always can; she branches every which way and then some, in order to explore Venus' body further. She runs languid fingers through the vanes of Venus' feathers, and Venus gasps.
"I-it hurts to pull on those," she whispers, and Jupiter pulls her hands away from Venus, whose face falls. "I'm not telling you to stop, I'm just, um, asking you to be careful?"
"The same way I'm careful with these?" Jupiter ask, breathless. Hands slip around Venus from behind her, and Jupiter tweaks the other girl's nipples, before shifting to cup and tease her tits again. "Don't worry, I don't want to hurt you." Not like that.
Jupiter returns to carefully combing through Venus' feathers, working out every kink. But Jupiter's hands on Venus' breasts are like nothing Venus had ever felt before. Dizzy fire blooms in her chest from one moment to the next, rising to her skin until every delicate touch and tender squeeze sends wafts of hazy pleasure through her.
One of Venus' wings twitches, extending to its full length and knocking over a pile of radio wreckage. She doesn't care or even register it, too wrapped up in the feelings that Jupiter is giving her.
Jupiter takes her time in attending to Venus, and savors every moment as if it will last forever or end in seconds. She gives Venus' nipples gentle pinches and runs her calloused thumbs around her areolas, as her hands continue to descend. Beneath and below six wings, she grabs the small of Venus' back to pull her in until their hips are touching, and Venus moans into her.
Venus is so pliant under Jupiter's hands. Hers to touch and to hold. She wants to pin the luminous girl down against the earth and fuck her until she's screaming her name. She wants to prop Venus up against the empty vault of the sky and fuck her until all of the pleasure is wrung out of her.
Jupiter's hands continue to fold and breathe against Venus' body, meeting the hollow glass bones and joints of her wings to stroke them, back and forth. Caressing the supple, hollow crook of her wings. Venus shifts and squirms almost cutely, rubbing her thighs together, arresting Jupiter by the closeness of their bodies.
"Jupiter, I-" Venus whimpers, and chokes, not because she doesn't want to speak, but because words have failed her. Her cerulean pupils yearn open, wider than the sky, and slick arousal drips down her legs.
"Yeah?" Jupiter asks. (In fairness to Venus, Jupiter isn't doing much better.)
Venus doesn't want this to be weird. She wants it to be the most normal, natural thing in the world. "Please… I want you to keep going."
"Keep going?" Jupiter asks. It wasn't what she wanted to ask, she wanted to go to hell with questions. But somehow, she can't do this if she thinks she could misunderstand, she needs to make sure, she's scared of herself. "You need to tell me what you want, Venus."
"I-" Venus takes in a gasping lungful of air. Even self-knowledge can't stop Venus from being stricken bashful again (so turned on she could just die, so needy for Jupiter's fingers between her legs). "-I-I want you to touch- I want you to put your-" Say it, "-I want you to fuck me!"
Her skin turns terribly wan, and Jupiter smiles a crooked smile. "I think that's maybe the second or third time I've heard you curse, ever."
"Sorry- I mean, uh!"
"You don't have to be sorry," Jupiter says, and now her voice is actually admonishing. "It's… actually hot, to know you can let go like that." Venus' embarrassment itself is cute, but a hand reaches inside Jupiter and thumps at the thought that she can so overwhelm the other girl's mouth. How many more times can you make her curse?
At the words 'let go', Venus finds herself faint. She's even fainter when Jupiter's hands trace up her inner thighs.
"Thanks," Jupiter whispers. "For telling me. Reminding me more like, haha." She's being silly — do it, just do it.
It's such a little thing, thanking her, but Venus begins to shine even brighter, and her wings flutter as if they're preening. The idea strikes through Jupiter like a lightning bolt, voiced simply: "Good girl."
And Venus just goes slack, her breath coming in glorious tatters.
It's so, so, so easy to just forget why she ever hid anything, even hid from herself. Easy to just take this as it comes without having to choose it; easy to accept that she's happy, and she feels good, and this makes her happy, and it feels good.
And it's sinking past Jupiter's skin and into her bones that this is real, that she can touch, and it's okay, and even wanted. There's a feeling of power: not power over Venus, but power with Venus.
Jupiter's hands hook around Venus' legs (she's weak in the knees, in every limb) and spread them open, exposing her completely. Jupiter's fingers drum against Venus' inner thighs (she's so sensitive ) and grip Venus' ass (so soft ).
"Good," Jupiter says, reassuring herself as much as reassuring Venus. "Stay open for me."
Venus whines, plaintive, and Jupiter circles her fingertips around and on Venus' clit, getting her hands wet with Venus' need. "Oh," Venus exhales, and her hips jerk sharply against Jupiter, even as hands and arms hold her in place. Jupiter, please, more...
Jupiter holds Venus close and facing her. Like a lover, skin-to-skin. Feeling Venus shake and quiver. She pushes a finger further down, then further in; and Venus yields, her breath hitching while her body comes apart around Jupiter's touch.
"Are you okay?" Jupiter asks. Venus' breath is coming in gasps.
"Y-yeah, I-" Venus strains to take a deep breath. "More intense than I expected," she chokes out, her eyes blown over like morning fog. "Not bad." Exactly the opposite, in fact. The exquisite promise of more.
Jupiter moves in Venus, and Venus is closer to Jupiter than she thinks she's ever been with anyone before. Her legs wrap around Jupiter, and she involuntarily clenches around Jupiter, as Jupiter inserts another finger.
Venus already feels impossibly full, filling to bursting with Jupiter's body, scintillating with her own radiance; Venus is impossibly hot and tight and wet around Jupiter's fingers, like she's reaching inside of a star. That's its own reward, and it's worth it, to leave Venus like this.
"You're doing good," Jupiter whispers, her own voice drawing out into a ragged live wire. Her fingers move just so inside of Venus while she thumbs her clit, and Venus cries out, tender, stricken wordless.
"Th-there! Harder!" she croaks, and Jupiter kisses her on the jaw, beneath her ear.
"Good girl," Jupiter murmurs. Venus' vision blurs as Jupiter continues her assault. Any coherency Venus might have mustered leaves her, now, weeping from her eyes or leaking from her pussy. There's nothing inside of her but Jupiter; Jupiter, the name falling out of her mouth between her gasps and moans; Jupiter, looming large enough to engulf her until she loses herself.
She already has.
Jupiter hits something deep inside of Venus, and Venus breaks open, warm and spilling. Coming around Jupiter's hand, burying her face in Jupiter's neck and babbling, crying out. Jupiter, don't stop, Jupiter, please, don't stop, don't stop don't stop you're so so good I love you so much I can't don't stop-
Every inch of her body is glowing, and her heart is throbbing, her heart might as well be pouring out of her. She didn't realize that she was crying; she didn't even realize that she was speaking, let alone that she was screaming, but now her lungs are hoarse, and her breath is shaking harder than she is, and her cheeks are wet (although her legs are wetter).
For every kind of touch Jupiter has, it's the hands stroking through Venus' long, long hair that ground her against Jupiter's body. Bringing Venus back to the two of them, their bodies twining together into the tangle of limbs that cradles them both. Jupiter's palms trace circles across Venus' pounding chest.
Venus lies there, her body in absolute surrender. Not just surrender to Jupiter, but also to herself. Her body aches in her sensitivity; her limbs tremble, weak and quivering Doppler shifts.
A hand rises up to brush away Venus' tears, punctuated by the look of concern on Jupiter's face, and Venus nuzzles her cheek into Jupiter's fingers. Jupiter relaxes, and strokes her knuckles across Venus' face.
Jupiter looks like a mess, too, with wind-blown hair and skin sticky with sweat. She fights to catch her breath, and her jeans are uncomfortably rough and damp on both of their skin, now that they're clear to think of it-
"You're still wearing pants," Venus says faintly, some faint accusatory note completely lost in the afterglow.
"Ah," Jupiter says. She frowns, and looks away. Her skin is still raw, but it's only sunburned rather than bloody. "I think I had more important things to worry about. You, I mean."
Even manifesting a thousand and one hands, she wouldn't have felt like she had enough. Every hand she wasted on herself was a hand that she couldn't have touched Venus with.
Now, her blood is cooler; merely warm, instead of boiling to a storm. But she's spent, at least for now.
"Are you disappointed?"
"Maybe a little bit," Venus says. Her cheeks burn, and she buries herself in Jupiter's chest almost as soon as she says it. Jupiter returns to stroking Venus' hair.
So, Venus is actually still… well, Neptune might call Venus a super-dork. Thoughtless, maybe.
That isn't a surprise to Jupiter, it's screamingly obvious. But it still means that she has to confront an awful truth: anything can be cute and attractive, in a girl that she already found a way to crush on.
Why am I such a dyke?
And Venus was incoherent towards the end, but she was still so fucking beautiful that Jupiter had to hold her. And even if Venus was just drunk on sex, right now Jupiter understands exactly why you might love someone — and tell them as much — in the heat of the moment.
The look on Venus' face and the feeling of her shaking body when she came in Jupiter's arms is easy to fall in love with. The way she lit up with every last sweet nothing, warm against Jupiter's skin. Jupiter thinks maybe she already has fallen in love.
Why am I such a dyke?
But… the sky isn't actually falling on them. If this feels hollow in her chest, it's only because she expects it to feel hollow, and she doesn't have to feel that way.
Instead, this is… it feels… nice. Jupiter takes Venus' hand in her own, and feels that Venus is still splayed and weak.
"We can take off my pants later," Jupiter says, and to absolutely no-one's surprise, she means it.
A heartbeat.
"Thanks," Venus says. "I mean, uh, not for taking-off-your-pants. That too, but thanks for all of that. That was… really good."
"It wasn't something you asked me to do," Jupiter replies. If Venus did ask Jupiter, it was only because Jupiter asked her to ask… right?
Why does this have to be complicated?
"Still," Venus says. "Thank you."
Maybe it isn't complicated at all.
"It was my pleasure," Jupiter says, and she finds herself smiling widely, as if the very corners of her mouth and the muscles in her cheeks are being taken and lifted by unseen hands. Then she remembers this is what smiling really feels like.
They hang in the ruins of the shack in the woods, weightless, and the only thing that matters to Jupiter in this one moment is the feeling of Venus' breath on her chest, the feeling of Venus' hand in her hand. The only thing that matters to Venus in this moment is wrapping herself in that eye of the storm, for just a little while.
Venus is smiling, too.
"Hey — Venus?" Jupiter cranes her head very slightly. "Do you see where I dropped my jacket?"
"Oh," Venus says, and furrows her brows. "I think Neptune came by and took it while we were busy?"
"Neptune was here!? Why didn't you say something!?"
"What-? I thought you noticed her!?"