Work Text:
The closet is small. Cramped. It smells of dust and ancient books. In the dark, stuffy space, all Venus can make out is the white of Neptune’s eyes glinting in the light seeping beneath the door. Their feet are tangled up and Venus is pretty sure his elbow is digging into Neptune’s waist as he tries to find a safe place to hold his hands, but if she minds, she hasn’t deigned to tell him yet.
When he’d suggested Seven Minutes in Heaven, he’d never expected Neptune to take him seriously, let alone to drag him in behind her, rather than Jupiter. Venus hadn’t planned for this. Hadn’t wanted this. He doesn’t want this. He can’t.
“Hey.” The roll of Neptune’s eyes is audible. “Chill out.”
“M’sorry.”
“Oh my god, stop apologizing,” Neptune huffs. She leans into Venus, shoulder to shoulder, letting him bear a bit of her weight. It’s more physical contact than Venus is used to; Jupiter’s comforting hand on his shoulder, Neptune casually using his shoulders as a head- or armrest, the way both his cabin mates will clap him on the back to fix his atrocious posture. Coerced into full-body contact by their cramped surroundings and Neptune’s cavalier attitude, Venus can feel her toeing the line, pushing a little closer than the rule to leave room for Jesus drilled into his brain for every male-female interaction in his life. Contact, closeness, cuddling was a privilege reserved for female friendships, not for him. “Seriously, it’s annoying.”
“I’m–” sorry, Venus bites back. “Okay.” He shifts, trying to find a way to stand that isn’t painfully uncomfortable. He still doesn’t know what to do with his hands.
Neptune can tell. “Just relax,” she scoffs. “You’re harmless. Like a puppy. But there’s something you want, isn’t there?”
There are a million things Venus wants, a trillion things, things more innumerable than the stars across a midnight sky. Neptune asking about any one of them sends a shiver of fear up Venus’s spine, despite the booze still working its way through his system, the little pool of molten copper in his stomach.
Please specify so I know what to worry about, Venus wants to say. “Huh?” is what escapes his lips.
“I mean,” Neptune drawls, her voice ever-so-slightly slurred, “that this shitty little party game was your idea, sweetie.” The pet name catches on her teeth, a bit of bite to her affection. If Venus could pull away, make himself small and tuck himself away into the dusty cubbies that line the closet walls, he would do it in a heartbeat. Instead, he can feel the warmth of Neptune’s skin through her button-up, the weight of her body, the roar of her pulse, constant, like waves eroding away the embankment of Venus’s flesh.
God, he’s going to die in here, isn’t he. It’s not even a question anymore.
“Do I have to do everything myself?” Strong, warm fingers wrap around his pronated wrists, held awkwardly around shoulder-height, and for one wonderful, terrible moment, Venus is dead certain she’s going to pin them above his head, but Neptune is uncharacteristically merciful. Slow, but insistent, she lowers Venus’s hands for him, letting one drape across her shoulder and the other brush against her side. “There. That wasn’t so hard, now, was it?”
Being manhandled is just about the easiest thing Venus could think of. It’s infinitely easier than responding to her.
Neptune sighs. “We can stay in here just like this,” she offers, “or you can talk to me. You’ve been acting weird. Weirder than usual. And I think I know why.”
Venus swallows. He’s sure Neptune can hear it, feel the bulge of his Adam’s apple disturbing her hair. “I’m always weird.”
“You’re a bad liar, sweetie,” Neptune bites.
The closet air is hot and heavy. Venus tucks his face into his shoulder, as though that will make it any easier to breathe. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he admits, hoping it’s enough and knowing that it isn’t.
“There’s an it to not talk about. I win.”
“Neptune,” Venus whines.
“I know you have a crush on me.”
“I–?” Venus chokes. “No?”
Yes, Venus has a crush on Neptune. Obviously. Thorny as Neptune may be, there’s a part of her aggressive strength that Venus finds comforting. Alluring. Safe. But Venus refuses to be a monster, refuses to slide in between the chemistry crackling between her and Jupiter and ruin the best chance at any sort of genuine happiness the two of them have to look forward to. It should be her in this closet with Neptune getting her feelings bullied out of her chest, not him.
“Cut the crap.” Neptune’s elbow digs into Venus’s side, as though nudging him awake. There’s a glint in the barely-visible whites of her eyes that tells Venus that she means no harm, insofar as Neptune can mean no harm. She’s mean. She’s proud of it. She thinks it’s honesty. “I’m not trying to embarrass you, I’m not trying to feed my ego. I just want you to tell me the truth.”
“I don’t–”
“Bad liarrr.”
“–Don’t want to make things weird.” Venus’s heart drops into his stomach. He can hear the plop, the burn as the alcohol in his stomach eats away at his ventricles. “I didn’t want this. Stuck in the closet together playing a stupid party game where you’re obligated to. Uh. Do things. I know you and Jupiter have a thing, and that even if you didn’t, I still wouldn’t want to make you feel uncomfortable.”
“Venus, sweetie,” Neptune condescends, “there are worse things than making someone else feel uncomfortable.”
“I know,” Venus says. “I still don’t want to do it. Ever.”
“Well, I don’t care. I can take it just as well as I can dish it out.” Neptune shrugs. Her shoulder brushes against Venus’s chin. “It’s not your fault, you know. You can’t control it.”
Venus’s mouth tastes like ashes.
“I know I’m pretty. I’m used to it.”
Venus knows she is. He’s acutely aware of just how much unwanted attention Neptune attracts from boys, swarming like the gnats that zip and dive in the most inconvenient spots around the lake, just the right height to get sucked down Venus’s windpipe and make him gag. They don’t go away, no matter how he swats. And now Venus is just another swarming insect, another boy talking at Neptune just like all the rest. They leer and jape at her until she tells them to fuck off, and then they call her a bitch and a temptress and a slut. Venus has seen it happen.
At least they’re all alone, where his feelings won’t further tarnish her reputation.
“You shouldn’t have to deal with this,” Venus says. “With boys. With me.”
“God, stop talking forever. Ugh.” The smack of skin on skin as Neptune facepalms echoes in the cramped closet. “Your self-loathing is so annoying. You know that, right?”
“I–”
“If you’re about to say ‘I’m sorry,’ I’m going punch you in the face. For real.”
“Okay.” Venus’s voice is shaky. “I won’t say it.”
“I told you I don’t care, like, thirty seconds ago,” Neptune says. “You’re the only boy I can stand. You’re harmless.”
“I’m not,” Venus says, and he’s right. He knows the violence he’s capable of, the cruelty that spills off his tongue unexpectedly. Neptune should know this. She encourages it. “No boy is.”
“Whatever. You’re not like other boys.”
Heat floods Venus’s cheeks. “It would be easier if I was.”
“But you’re not,” Neptune says, blasé. “You don’t want to be. I’ve seen the way you look at me. At Jupiter. Even she can tell. We can see it in your eyes.”
For a brief moment, Venus is grateful that they’re in the dark, trapped in the dusty, dismal closet. At least in here, Neptune can’t see his shame. He wants to hide, to cower in the shadows, because he can’t tell where Neptune is going with this, and if it goes where he’s afraid it might, he doesn’t know how to deal with it.
“You don’t want to be like the other boys,” Neptune says slowly, condescending, as though to a stupid child, “because you want to be a girl, don’t you, Venus?”
Venus can’t breathe. Suffocating, drowning, choking on the inky black depths of the stale closet air like it’s the thick chill at the bottom of the lake.
“I’ve seen the way you look at me and Jupiter. I know you like her too, don’t lie to me, I have eyes, and you’re right, you know.” Neptune smirks. “Jupiter is hot.”
“Neptune,” Venus chokes. He wants to defend himself, deny the allegations she’s driving into his chest, but his mouth is dry and he doesn’t know how to deal with any of this because he’s bad at people and weird and can’t handle things the way other people do–
“Stop shaking, you fucking chihuahua.” Neptune pinches the bridge of her nose. “I’m not going to rat you out. I’m not a snitch. You’re just not subtle.”
“What are you talking about?” Venus gasps.
Neptune sighs. “You’re so jealous, you know. When I see you look at her, you’re not just crushing, you’re jealous enough to look like you’re going to throw up.” Neptune spins around. Pinches Venus’s chin, forces her to meet her eyes. “You want to be a girl, don’t you.”
It’s not a question and Venus knows it.
“I’m a boy,” Venus whimpers. He hates the way his voice sounds like that, a squeaky, whiny falsetto. It’s pathetic, forced. It sounds fake even to his own ears.
“Sure you are,” Neptune scoffs. “Maybe that’s why I don’t mind. That you like me, I mean. Like, did you expect me to be satisfied with just one cute girlfriend? I get bitches, Venus. You should know that.”
His head is spinning. His head is spinning and he doesn’t know what’s happening, what Neptune’s endgame is, just that he’s very much not safe and that when he leaves this closet, everything’s going to be different and worse and he doesn’t know how to prepare for it. She’s toying with him, playing a game where only she knows the rules and can change them at her whim.
Humiliated, Venus sinks into the wall behind him. Doesn’t try to fight Neptune’s grip. He’d always been one to play by the rules. “Don’t make me say it,” he breathes. “Don’t make me make it real.”
Neptune cocks her head. “I won’t,” she says. “I’m not that nice. You want me to make you. To force you to admit it so you won’t have to take responsibility. It has to be your choice.”
He could stop this. Just keep his lecherous, sinful mouth shut and let the seconds tick by until the door opens and lets the light back in. Even this late at night, the dim lanterns in the cabin will be blinding, radiant, and he’ll squint and blink as he walks back into the comfortable, familiar glow. He won’t be in the unpredictable darkness of the closet, amorphous and free.
And she’s right, Venus thinks. She’s not that nice.
He’s doing this to himself.
Venus inhales shakily and exhales with similar grace. “I. I’m. I’m weird.” Swallows.
“You look girly when you’re scared,” Neptune says softly. “Wide-eyed and blushing. Trying to make yourself look smaller.”
“It’s weird. It’s wrong. I just have fucked-up ideas about gender, some weird kink, I swear. Some shameful little perverted thing. That's why I’m bad.”
“You’re not.” With the certainty in Neptune’s voice, Venus can almost believe her.
“It is, because with the other boys, you can at least know what you’re getting into, but with me, it’s all still there, just waiting for you to let your guard down and feel safe.” Venus swallows. Oh, he’s crying, isn’t he? “I’m no better than any other boy.”
“But you’re not a boy,” Neptune says, and Venus’s brain does not compute. “It can just be that simple.”
It can’t, can it?
“Just for right now,” Neptune offers, “here in the closet.”
“I’m not a girl,” Venus says. “I’m not.”
“I didn’t say you were,” Neptune smirks. She grabs his wrists, pushes them above his head, and leans her weight into him in a way that’s about as exciting as it is terrifying. “I said you weren’t a boy. And you’re not contradicting me. Are you sure you’re not a girl, Venus?”
“I’m a boy!” Venus whimpers. Isn’t it obvious? He has to be.
“You really can’t lie to save your life, can you?” Neptune scoffs. “I could make this so much worse for you, you know. Being cruel is easy. Anyone can do it. Especially me. Tell me, are you a girl?”
“Neptune,” Venus begs. For what, Venus isn’t sure.
“I am trying to help you,” she says, as if explaining to a child, “because I know you can be happy if you stop trying to make yourself into someone you very much do not want to be. So, Venus, are you a girl?”
Eyes wide, unblinking, and wet with tears, Venus doesn’t answer. Venus can’t say it. Won’t let it slip off the tongue and out where it can’t be taken back. So, instead, she nods, imperceptible in the dark, and Neptune takes her by the chin and lets her lips do the talking in silent harmony.
They come apart with a soft pop, and Neptune says, “You kiss like one.”
“Yes,” Venus gasps. “I’m a girl.”
“That wasn’t that hard, was it, sweetie?” Neptune thumbs Venus’s lip, toying with her in a way that makes her face burn and her skin buzz. “You know, Jupiter will be very happy about this development the moment she admits to herself that she’s gay. A cute new girl at camp.”
It’s like a bucket of ice water to the face. “Don’t tell her!”
“Relax,” Neptune breathes. “I’m not ready to share just yet. Not while I have the cute new girl all to myself.”
I’m not cute, Venus tries to say. “Uhhh,” Venus says.
Neptune kisses her again, her lips electric, and in the black of the closet, Venus sees stars. “You’re all mine, Venus. I get bitches. And you have always been my bitch.”
Venus can’t handle it. Can’t comprehend the feel of Neptune’s lips, the taste of her breath, her personal space so thoroughly and delightfully violated. Neptune has claimed ownership of her, taken her all to herself, as though to show off in front of Jupiter. Venus’s head is spinning. She just can’t take it.
“This isn’t me making you mine,” Neptune says, her voice a low growl. She presses her lips against Venus’s ear. “This is a victory lap.”
And that’s enough. Venus snaps like a rubber band, going limp as Neptune crushes her into the closet wall, not an ounce of fight left in her. She surrenders with a whine to Neptune’s kisses, the arm pinning her wrists above her head, the weight of Neptune’s body against hers.
Neptune laughs. “You get fuzzy when you think about getting wifed up, don’t you.”
Wifed up, Venus thinks, and she’s pretty sure her brain explodes, the idea so new and so old and deeply repressed that it’s all she can think.
“Lots of girls do, trust me. You’re just a girl, it’s normal to like the idea of belonging to someone, so just relax, and let me take control…”
Venus does. She’s pretty sure Neptune could do anything to her right now and Venus would thank her for it. As much as Neptune told her she needed Venus to admit it, wouldn’t be nice enough to let Venus not take responsibility, Venus couldn’t help but notice just how happy she seemed to be to have her pinned against the wall and at her mercy.
“Please don’t stop,” Venus begs.
Neptune doesn’t. She presses their lips together so hard their teeth collide. It’s just as awkward and passionate as the kiss before it, all teeth and tongue and tonsil. Neptune tangles her hands in Venus’s hair, complaining about how unfairly soft it is compared to her own, but all Venus can think about is how the hell she got here, how this has got to have been more than seven minutes by now, and how good it feels. She’s not allowed to do this, is she? Something this good can’t be guiltless. No boy is innocent, not even whatever kind of girl Venus is.
On the next kiss, Neptune yelps. She pulls away, sucking at her lower lip, cut on Venus’ teeth. In the dark, her blood looks like black bile. It drips through her fingers. “Fucking hell. This is your fault, Venus.”
“I’m sorry,” she says.
“Don’t say that.” Neptune kisses her again. Venus can taste her blood on her tongue. “You can’t help that you’re a bad kisser. You’ve never done it before.”
“And you have?”
“Irrelevant.” Neptune rolls her eyes. “It’s just ‘cause people have been looking at you like you’re a boy instead of a cute girl. Once everyone can see it, they’ll all want a piece of you. Not like I’ll share.”
“Do you like having me all to yourself?” Venus asks, voice shaking. The moment the words leave her mouth, her face burns, and she wants to sink into the wall behind her, but it draws a ferocious, bloody kiss out of Neptune that Venus is pretty sure means fuck yes.
“You have no idea.” Neptune bites her, just beneath her jaw, and it earns her a pathetic whimper. The sound makes Venus cringe at her tone, her pitch. Too masculine. She doesn’t get to focus on it for long. “I’m the only one who gets to have you. Except for Jupiter. Maybe.”
The thought of being pressed into the wall by both Jupiter and Neptune fills Venus with equal amounts of elation and shame. Elation at the physical contact, the electric joy of kissing, of warmth, of being wanted. Shame from her unworthiness of their time, from disturbing the balance of Jupiter and Neptune’s potential relationship, from being helpless to properly return such affection.
“You make a better girl than a guy, y’know. You made kind of a pathetic boy. Good thing this man-shaped shell is hiding a cute girl inside.”
“Cute?” Venus asks. Neptune’s been saying it so many times she can almost believe it.
“Of course you’re cute.” Neptune grins with manic eyes and her own black blood smeared across her teeth. “I would know. All we have to do is get you out of your ugly old boy clothes and into something a little more fitting. Maybe nothing.”
“Noth–ah!”
Venus’s face burns. It takes a moment for her to compute what’s happening, to process novel sensations and decide if it’s a fantasy or reality, because Neptune’s hands are up her shirt pawing at her chest and Venus didn’t even know that was an option. She’s groping her, feeling her up as though she had something there to grab beyond skin and bone. Venus might cry.
“You did a terrible job pretending to be a boy, oh my god.” Neptune pinches, and Venus makes a sound that vaguely resembles a frightened kitten. “You feel like a girl, you know. Even if you don’t have boobs, you’re still so sensitive. And you’re just letting me do it.”
“I am,” Venus agrees, because she is. Even if she could push Neptune off of her, she wouldn’t.
“This is what you were made for, isn’t it?” Neptune teases. “To be my good girl and take my kisses, to be small and needy and used.” A violent kiss. “To be my bitch.” Black ichor drips from their lips. “ On purpose.” A bite to her lower lip, harsh and cruel enough to make her cry out in pain. “Tell me you’re my girl.”
Venus whines, but when she isn’t answered with another kiss, a hot, burning wave of embarrassment rushes through her. Neptune is asking her to play along, to tell her to keep going, because she would never make this easy for her, and she knows Venus understands.
There’s only a moment’s hesitation. Everything is so complicated and Venus’s heart is racing with sheer terror and pure, submissive joy. She can’t let anything happening here leave this cramped, dark room, but she’s too far gone to stop now and Neptune knows it.
“I’m your girl,” Venus says, and it feels so good to give in. She was trying so hard to fight it, to resist her inner nature, and it was a life that felt like death. She was made for this. “Your girl.”
“Now that’s what I wanted to h–”
The light is blinding. For an instant, all Venus knows is the silhouette burned into the back of her retinas, blue ghosts dancing on the insides of her eyelids. Neptune’s grip on Venus’s chest tightens beneath her shirt in shock.
Jupiter stares at Neptune and Venus. Neptune and Venus stare back.
Oh fuck, thinks Venus.