("You're gonna to say I shouldn't give up, and there's hope, and we can all get through this… and that's not a lie, but…")
("Venus, you need to get a grip -")
("But it's nobody's fault but mine," Venus says.)
(He's floating in the air on a river of light.)
(Sparks go off in his eyes like candy bombs, and the Devil reaches out to him. The Devil is the most horrible thing he's ever seen, but he can't look away. It is the fruit of a poisonous tree, it is the the carcass of a snake, trapped in its own shed skin, it is marrow at the bottom of a well.)
(DON'T WORRY BABE, the Devil says. I'VE GOT THIS.)
Venus screams; the light is so bright that it's blinding.
Five seconds later, Venus stops screaming, and he opens his eyes, still squinting as if to block out sunlight. The woods look a little too bright for 4 in the morning, but otherwise, nothing seems particularly unusual.
"Is that it?" Jupiter asks.
"Is what it?" Venus asks. "I'm the Devil! Aren't you going to exorcise me or anything?" He closes his eyes again and waits for his friends to strike him down.
"You don't really look like you've changed too much, though" Neptune muses. "Maybe we were wrong, and the Devil came for one of us instead."
Venus opens his eyes all of the way and looks Neptune and Jupiter over. Both of them look normal, although Jupiter won't look up to meet his eyes for some reason.
Venus looks down to check himself over. Hair falls across his forehead and covers his eyes, but he seems normal; he gets a good look at the ground (soggy leaves), his feet (too small for his shoes), his legs (too short for his pants), his arms (freezing cold because they're in the middle of the woods at night) and his breasts (too big for his shirt).
Wait.
Wait a moment.
"Oh my god," Venus says dumbly. "This is the worst transformation I've ever heard of."
"God has nothing to do with it," Jupiter says, also stupefied by Venus' breasts, but for a completely different reason.
"This is the best transformation I've ever heard of," Neptune says.
Venus' breath comes short and quick and he - she - folds her arms across her chest. Jupiter rips her eyes away and blushes, looking ashamed.
On balance, this really isn't that bad at all. It's not like Venus would pick something else - she never paid attention to or cared for the whole 'Devilsona' nonsense online, and this body is kind of nice - but… "My parents are going to kill me," she says. "You have to change me back."
"Change you back?" Neptune asks.
"Exorcise me! Turn me back into a boy!"
Neptune raises an eyebrow and shares a glance with Jupiter.
"Weren't you always a girl, Venus?"
"Excuse me?" Venus asks, feeling more perturbed by the moment. "No! Well, I don't know? Not like this!"
"Like what?"
"Like… this!" Venus gasps for air. "I have! Breasts! My clothes don't fit! My hair is twice as long as it was before!"
Neptune rolls her eyes. "You are a growing girl, Venus."
"I grew because of the Devil, though! I am the Devil, and she made me a girl!"
"I think everyone grows up because of the Devil, though," Jupiter says, her face completely flat.
"No! We're not talking about the fall of man, Jupiter! I turned from a boy into a girl!"
"I don't remember you being a boy," Neptune says. "Jupiter, do you remember Venus being a boy?"
"I mean… she was always pretty cute."
"Oh my god," Venus says, struck dumb for the second time in as many minutes. "The Devil messed with my body, and your memories, too! This is…"
Neptune's presentation is still deadpan, but now Jupiter is clearly struggling to hold back laughter, even as she tends to her sprained ankle.
"You're messing with me, aren't you?"
"From a certain perspective, yes," Neptune admits. "But I'm pretty sure you were always a girl, if the Devil transformed you like this-"
"That's not what I mean and you know it! You're awful! Awful!"
In the end, Jupiter and Neptune try to oust the Devil, but Venus can tell that their hearts aren't really in it. They're all tired as shit after staying up all damn night, it's almost morning, Jupiter can barely walk and is too bewildered by the whole affair to care, and Neptune is being far nicer than any mean girl should be able to pull off.
"Also, I'm too gay to do it," Neptune says.
"That was a lie, you would totally make a pretty girl into a boy if you didn't like her," Jupiter says with a sigh. Venus and Neptune are helping to support her as they trek back to the cabin, hopefully before anyone comes knocking to look for them.
"First of all? Not true. I would be much crueler and much kinder if I wanted to do something mean to a girl I didn't like."
"I have no clue what you mean," Venus tries to interject.
"Second of all, Jupes? Rude. Way to take all of the mystique out of me."
"Oh no, Venus might think you like her," Jupiter sighs. "Neptune, you've been all but flirting with her."
"She has?" Venus asks, her heart skipping a beat.
"You know my heart belongs to you, Jupiter," Neptune says, making a kissy face so horrible it must be faked.
Jupiter closes her eyes and looks like she's about to throw up. Or flip her lid.
Venus, on her part, also feels like she might throw up, because this is so weird, and she's sort of supposed to be a guy so how could any girl like her in a gay way, anyways? Her stomach does a loop-de-loop like she's on a rollercoaster.
It's not… that bad.
"Venus was right. You are awful. I can't believe I like you."
"Guilty!"
"Please stop arguing," Venus tries.
"Right, you're in the middle of an infernal existential gender crisis," Neptune says, actually sounding halfway regretful. Jupiter winces as she puts too much weight on her bad leg again.
It's 5 in the morning by the time they get back to the cabin and Venus is still, unfortunately, a girl.
"Now what?" she asks. The cots don't feel as hard and unforgiving as they did last night.
Jupiter throws an enormous hoodie at Venus. It lands on her face.
"Uh, thanks?"
"No problem. Neptune, do we have any scissors or anything? I think Venus needs a haircut if she wants to pass for a boy again."
"She always looked kind of like a girl though."
"Yeah, but she didn't have long hair last night. That has to go until it can grow out naturally."
"Are we sure we shouldn't just try to exorcise me again?" Venus asks, but the words fall flat. Even her heart isn't in it.
"You don't seem sure of it, so why should we?" Neptune asks. "Come over here and stand still for a second-"
The scissors slide through Venus' hair, untouched, like they're passing through sunbeams.
"Damn it. Venus, can you stop being incandescent for a second?"
"I'm not doing anything!"
Neptune starts cursing out the Devil for the first time ever.
"Here," Jupiter says. "What if we…"
She claps her hands and Venus' hair goes out like a light.
"Seriously!?"
"So are you sure no-one will notice?" Venus asks for the seventh time.
"Trust me, Venus. You can relax; grown-ups are always so busy fantasizing about heteronormativity that they never notice anything."
"That is surprisingly optimistic coming from you," Jupiter points out.
"You know exactly what I mean, Jupiter... Come on, Venus, you've got this." Neptune taps Venus on the chin. "Slouch until you can shoplift a good sports bra, don't hug anyone, and you'll be fine until we're all grown-ups and we can clear out anyways."
"Thanks. I think?"
"Good girl," Neptune says, pushing Venus gently towards the road. "Come on, you can't loiter around camp forever. That car is so tacky it can't be anyone but your parents."
Venus is already putting on her seat-belt behind closed car doors when Jupiter pipes up. "You exchanged phone numbers, right?"
"Of course I did," Neptune says.
"Did you give her my number, too?"
"Of course I did. You're gay, she's a girl, it's a match made in heaven!"
"Shut up, shut up shutup!"
"Did you have a good time at camp, son?"
Venus sticks her head out of the window to watch Neptune and Jupiter as they shrink into the distance. "Yeah, it was fine."
"That's great, little man!" her father says, completely oblivious to her. She's completely oblivious to him, though, because all she's looking at is Jupiter, who is somehow managing to give Neptune bunny ears even though she has one hand in her pocket and another hand waving goodbye.
"You're both awful!" Venus yells down the road, but she's not sure if either of them hear her. Phone numbers are already burning a hole in her pocket.