Archive of Our Own ^beta

The basement is a bit colder than the rest of the house, a welcome relief given how unnaturally warm it is for a mid October evening. Then again, Jupiter is still wearing that bulky jacket, so maybe it’s cold for the “charming” little Southern town where her dad lives. Neptune and Venus are both from a few states farther north, so autumn being as hot as it is here is something neither of them are used to.

Venus has been spoiled today; Neptune and Jupiter insisted on taking her out to pick some clothes out, clothes she would never have the guts to put on in her hometown but she felt the most comfortable she’s ever been in. Tonight, she can dress in all the pretty blouses and frilly sundresses she wants, and she doesn’t have to go back to hiding in a little shell for another week. A faint glow seems to surround her, the faintest hint of wings between her shoulder blades. Now, one of her hands is held in one of Neptune’s, and she can’t even bring herself to be flustered because she’s so enthralled by fine streaks of pastel yellow the brush makes against her nails.

This is what she’s always wanted, and it’s enough to work her to tears.

“Come on,” Neptune says, her voice a mimic of annoyance despite the small smile on her face. “I’m the only one here that’s allowed to have waterworks, thank you.”

She’s right about that; she’s more at ease than Venus or Jupiter have ever seen her, a faint smirk across her lips and all sorts of shades of nail polish sitting by her legs. She’s wholly focused on Venus’ nails, and this focus combined with her relaxation has resulted in a steady stream of water from one of her shoulders - it doesn’t impede with her work, but runs down her back into a bucket usually used to catch water from the leaking roof when it rains.

Jupiter is sitting on an old pull out couch, watching her girlfriends with a small smile on her face and a book resting on her thighs. She hasn’t turned a page in a while, but her hand still sits on the page like she’s ready to any moment - despite knowing full well that she’s too transfixed by watching the smooth strokes of Neptune’s nail brush and the easy, comfortable smile on Venus’ face to get much of any more reading done.

Extra hands sit on the blankets, idly waiting for their owner to need them. In the moment, though, she’s content with not being touched. She’s content with watching.

That changes, though, as she sees Neptune finish the final nail on Venus’ right hand and sees the look of wonder on her girlfriend’s face. For Jupiter to let anyone touch her hands is rare, and she has never in her life wanted to do much of anything overly feminine with her appearance - but as she glances to a forest green shade of nail polish by Neptune’s knee, she realizes that she wants to give it a try.

Neptune is startled when, as she’s cracking her knuckles after painting Venus’ nails, Jupiter suddenly sits down to her right with a hand extended. “Can I have green?” she asks, a bright pink blush spreading across her cheeks.

A little startled by the intimacy of someone who’s so scared of physical contact wanting her to touch them, Neptune hesitates for a moment before nodding and gently taking Jupiter’s hand in her own. The athlete doesn’t flinch, but seems to lean a little closer to her girlfriend. Neptune is pretty sure she shouldn’t be the one a little unsettled by the sudden change, but as she finished painting the nails of Jupiter’s left hand, she couldn’t help but feel a little proud of the progress the other girl had made in the months since they sat with the Devil in a rickety cabin.

It takes a moment for her to realize that Jupiter isn’t even wearing hair ties on her wrist.

She’s proud of all three of them for working past the idea that their very existence is a heinous sin, and that feelings they can’t control are crimes that need to be rehabilitated from. Venus has become comfortable expressing herself as the woman she is, if not in public - when they can meet together, she’ll borrow Neptune’s clothes or wear the pride bracelet Jupiter got for her at some festival or another on her wrist, and on social media, she’s open about being trans. Jupiter’s mom had been horrified when she came home with two girlfriends and a stronger sense of self, and let her live with her dad full time, where she had begun feeling a little more comfortable with being who she is and accepting that she wasn’t born evil, nobody is.

Neptune… well, she’s still pretty much the same, but she instead of just resting with her all the time, her anger at the lot she’d received in life had calmed from a devastating flood to a light drizzle unless provoked. She might still be a bitch, but she’s more at peace now. Coming to terms with the devil that dwells inside her is the best decision she’s ever made, really, and she’s pretty sure it’s the same for both of her girlfriends as well. 

When she finishes painting Jupiter’s nails, she considers for a moment giving her a kiss, but decides it’s best not to rush it. She nods, and leans back. “How does that look?” she asks her girlfriend, even though she knows for a fact that the athlete is going to say that it looks perfect and she’s really happy with it - maybe she just wants the praise for even the easiest nail job she’s ever done, maybe she wants to see the smile on the other girl’s face.

“It looks perfect. I like it,” Jupiter responds, and Neptune decides rather quickly at the sight of a toothy grin and slightly pinkened cheeks that it’s the latter. Despite that being her goal, though, the sheer amount of love her girlfriend looks to her with is very quickly overwhelming, and the very flustered rebel had to get up and step back almost immediately. Seriously, she should not be the one this intimidated by a little bit of intimacy.

Neptune claps her hands together, and makes her way over to the pile of movies they dug out from the five dollar bin when they went shopping that day. “We’re going to watch a scary movie,” she announces, more as a declaration than a suggestion. When she glances back to the other two, she sees that both Venus and Jupiter are seated on the pull out couch; as she expected, Venus has a little bit of a grimace on her face, and she laughs.

After popping the DVD for some 80’s gorefest into an absolutely ancient player connected to a TV that looked like it had been rotting in Jupiter’s dad’s basement since 1993, Neptune returns to her girlfriends and laid down across their laps. She reaches up, gently pats Venus’ cheek. “Come on, you can’t just keep avoiding everything scary for the rest of your life. You might as well watch a horror movie with us so we can protect you.”

Venus snorts and rolls her eyes, leans forward and parts some hair that fell into Neptune’s face when she laid down and presses a kiss to her forehead before leaning her head against Jupiter’s shoulder. “Well, as long as my tough, strong girlfriends are here to protect me, I guess I can handle a little blood,” she teases - and at least she doesn’t seem to be lying, her expression a little more eased than it had been when the suggestion was initially raised.

Neptune admires the way that both Jupiter and Venus have eyes that give away how they’re feeling underneath what they actually say. For someone who knows them really well like she does, all it really takes to dig into what their words actually mean is looking a little deeper, checking the expressions in their eyes. Jupiter might say she’s fine, but the faintest twitch in green eyes could hint that she was sinking into internal conflict and self loathing again. Venus might say that she was feeling great, but a glance down could reveal doubt and sadness. I’m too gay to be this close to both of them, she thinks to herself, but doesn’t make a move to get away again. This time, she sinks into the girls’ laps and lets herself feel.

She presses the play button to start up the DVD, and even though her eyes are settled on the screen, her attention is anything but. She’s seen this movie before, but even if she hadn’t, every movie like it is the same and the feeling of Venus quietly braiding her hair to stay calm and Jupiter’s hands resting on her side and rubbing in an easy, absentminded pattern is incredibly distracting - and in a good way. It makes her feel safe. It makes her feel loved.

Moments like this make her acutely aware of how rare it’s been in the entire rest of her life to feel safe and loved. It’s almost saddening, but she refuses to feel anything but at peace tonight. She can put a pin in any sadness and save it for later when she isn’t surrounded by her girlfriends with a laughably bad movie playing in the background.

A woman screams on the TV, and she feels Venus’ hand pull on her hair as she squeals. Neptune can’t help but laugh at how easily startled she is, the light she gives off almost making it difficult to focus on the screen at all. Jupiter doesn’t react to the murder onscreen, but her hand does grip Neptune’s side when Venus makes a noise. “It looks like she had a juice box in her shirt and the guy just made it explode with his knife,” she comments, partially out of an actual need to make fun of the notoriously bad special effects of 80’s B movies and partially in an attempt to keep Venus and Jupiter from getting scared.

There’s a pause then as the three of them watch the movie, and it’s Jupiter that eventually speaks up again. “You know… someday, we’re going to be able to do this every night. We won’t have to worry about what my mom or either of your parents say ever again.”

It’s something that seemed like a far off dream when they were spending a night in a crumbling cabin surrounded by Jesus, or even a week ago when Venus still wasn’t totally sure if she was going to be able to visit and Neptune was throwing an explosive fit over voice chat after a particularly nasty fight with her father. Now, though, with some version of happiness and freedom here and tangible…

None of them can really wait for the rest of their lives.