Chapter 1: The Morning After: A Brother-Sister Swap
Billie woke up to the smell of cologne.
That was wrong. Her room, her bus, her life smelled of vanilla perfume and vetiver candles and the faint, always-there scent of hair dye. This was something sharp and clean and entirely unfamiliar. She opened her eyes. The ceiling of the tour bus bunk was too close, as always. But the weight of her body was all wrong. She felt… lighter. Narrower. A strange, hollow sensation in her chest.
She lifted her hands. They were too big. The fingers longer, knuckles more pronounced, a faint scattering of hair across the backs. Her black nails were gone. Panic, cold and sharp, shot through her. She shoved the bunk curtain aside and swung her legs out, the movement jarringly fluid, her center of gravity completely different.
Her feet hit the floor. She was wearing boxer briefs and a thin white t-shirt. She stumbled toward the small vanity mirror, its frame cracked from a too-rough move somewhere between Phoenix and Denver.
The face in the mirror was Finneas’s.
Billie’s breath hitched, a short, choked sound in a voice that wasn’t hers. It was deeper, rougher. She stared. His tired morning eyes, his stubble, his hair a mess of familiar brown curls. Her own mind screamed inside a skull that didn’t belong to her. Her hands—his hands—flew to her chest. Flat. Hard. The faint contour of pectoral muscle beneath the cotton.
“No,” she said, and the word came out in her brother’s voice. “No, no, no.”
Across the narrow aisle of the bus, the other bunk’s curtain ripped back with a violence that made her jump. A figure tumbled out, legs tangled in a silk sheet, and crashed to the floor with a thump and a high-pitched yelp.
The person on the floor was her. Or rather, it was Billie’s body. Same green roots peeking from dark hair, splayed across the laminate. But the expression on that face was pure, unadulterated terror. The eyes, her own distinctive pale green, were wide with a panic that looked utterly foreign on her features.
The body—her body—scrambled up onto its knees. Hands, her hands with their chipped black polish, clutched at the front of a baggy Sleep t-shirt. They cupped the fabric, feeling the weight beneath. A shrill, disbelieving sound escaped her—Billie’s—lips.
“What the fuck?” the voice that should have been hers shrieked, but it was pitched higher, laced with a hysteria Billie never allowed herself. “Billie?!”
“Finn?” Billie whispered with Finn’s mouth.
Her brother, inside her body, looked down at himself. He patted his—her—hips, her thighs, then grabbed a handful of the shirt over her chest. He froze. His face, her face, drained of color. “Oh my god. Oh my god. What did you do?”
“Me? I didn’t do anything!” Billie said, her words borrowing Finn’s cadence. “I just woke up like this!”
Finn stood up, movements awkward and uncoordined, as if he’d been given a puppet with unfamiliar strings. He staggered to the mirror, shoving past her. He stared, his breath fogging the glass. He brought a hand to his cheek, tracing the line of her jaw with her own fingers. “This is a nightmare. This is the weirdest, most specific nightmare I’ve ever had.”
“Pinch yourself,” Billie heard herself say flatly.
Finn did. He winced. “Yeah. Not sleeping.”
The bus was still parked, silent save for the hum of the generator. Outside, the vague sounds of a stadium waking up. They were in Chicago. Or was it Minneapolis? The panic blurred the details. They just stared at each other’s faces, each wearing a mask of the other’s horror.
The interior door to the bus’s front lounge banged open.
“Rise and shine, my loves! Soundcheck in ninety—“ Their mom, Maggie, breezed in holding two cups of coffee. She was in her uniform of soft jeans and a drapey cardigan, her smile warm and routine.
It froze on her face as she took them in.
Finn, in Billie’s body, standing half-crouched like a cornered animal, still clutching the front of the t-shirt. Billie, in Finn’s body, standing rigidly by the bunk, arms held slightly away from her sides as if contaminated.
Maggie’s eyes darted from one to the other. The coffee cups dripped onto the floor. “What…?” Her voice lost all its music. “Finn? Why are you wearing… Billie’s shirt?” Then her gaze locked onto Billie—in Finn’s form. “Billie? Sweetheart, your… your face…”
“Mom,” Billie said, and Maggie flinched at the sound of her son’s voice coming from her daughter. “Something happened.”
“Something happened?” Maggie echoed, her voice climbing. “Something happened? You’ve… swapped pajamas? This is a very weird bit.”
“Mom, look at me!” Finn cried, and the sound of Billie’s voice breaking like that was physically painful. He thrust his hands—her hands—out. “This isn’t a bit! Look at my hands! These are her hands! But they’re my hands! I mean, they’re not!” He was spiraling.
Maggie set the coffees down with a shaky clatter on a counter. She walked over to Finn, moving slowly like one would approach a spooked horse. She took his—her—face in her hands. She studied the eyes, the familiar features she’d kissed goodnight for eighteen years. Then she looked at Billie, standing there in her son’s lanky frame, looking like she might be sick.
“Oh, my sweet babies,” Maggie whispered, the color draining from her face. Her mind, always practical, always solving, visibly scrambled for purchase. “How? When?”
“I don’t know!” Billie said, running Finn’s hand through Finn’s hair. “We just woke up like this!”
Maggie’s gaze swept the room, landing on the small table near the lounge. The remains of last night’s makeshift celebration were still there: a single, burnt-out cupcake with a number ‘18’ candle, lopsided and blackened. A memory seemed to click. Her eyes snapped back to Billie.
“Last night,” Maggie said, her voice tight. “You made a wish. When you blew out the candle.”
Billie’s stomach, Finn’s stomach, dropped. The dressing room after the show. Just the three of them, too tired for a real party. The cupcake. Her mom smiling, Finn strumming a silly happy birthday riff on a ukulele. She’d leaned over, so tired she was swaying, her chest aching in that tight, hated top she’d had to wear for the costume change. A wave of that familiar, crushing self-consciousness had washed over her.
“Make a wish, Billie,” Maggie had said.
And she had. In her head, with the heat of the tiny flame flickering against her face, she’d thought it with all the fervent, desperate clarity of a prayer: I wish these things were just gone.
She hadn’t meant… not like this. Not him.
“I didn’t mean…” Billie started, but the words crumbled.
Finn understood. He looked down at his new body, at the very thing she had wished away. His expression shifted from horror to a deep, gut-punching hurt. “You wished for this?” he said, his voice small.
“No! Not you! Just… the… the part! I didn’t think it would…” She gestured frantically between them. “I didn’t think magic birthday candle was on the table!”
“Magic?!” Finn squeaked.
“Okay, stop. Both of you, just stop.” Maggie put her hands up, her own panic morphing into a focused, maternal command. “Arguing in each other’s voices is giving me a migraine. We need to think.” She started pacing the narrow aisle. “It was a wish. On your birthday. That’s… that’s a thing. Folklore. There has to be a way to undo it.”
“Undo it? How?” Billie asked, her voice cracking in Finn’s baritone.
“I don’t know!” Maggie stopped, pressing her fingers to her temples. “But we have a soundcheck in…” She checked her watch, a wild laugh escaping her. “Eighty-seven minutes. For a show tonight. A show where Billie Eilish,” she pointed at Finn, “is supposed to sing, and Finneas,” she pointed at Billie, “is supposed to play keyboards and guitar.”
The sheer, monstrous reality of it crashed over them. The stadium outside, sold out. The crew, the band, the management. The world.
Finn, inside Billie’s body, sat down heavily on the edge of the bunk. He put his head in her hands. “I can’t sing your songs,” he said, muffled. “I don’t know how you do that with your voice. The breath control, the phrasing… I write them, I don’t perform them.”
Billie felt a fresh wave of nausea. “And I can’t play your parts. Not like you do. I know the chords, but the timing, the feel…”
Maggie looked back and forth between her children, one wearing the other’s skin. The initial shock was hardening into a desperate, fierce resolve. “Then we don’t do the show. We say… food poisoning. A sudden, severe viral thing. Contagious. We buy time.”
“Buy time for what?” Finn asked, looking up with Billie’s eyes.
“To fix this,” Maggie said, her voice leaving no room for doubt. She walked over to the table and picked up the blackened ‘18’ candle. She turned it over in her fingers. “A wish made can be unmade. There are rules to these things. There have to be.” She looked at Billie, her gaze sharp. “What did you wish for, exactly? The exact words.”
Billie closed Finn’s eyes, trying to remember the feeling more than the words. “I wished… I wished my chest was flat. That’s all. I just wanted to feel… normal.”
Finn let out a long, slow breath. He looked down again, his expression unreadable.
Maggie nodded, clutching the candle like a talisman. “Okay. Okay. So we need to find a way to reverse a very specific, magical body-altering birthday wish.” She managed a shaky, utterly unconvincing smile. “It’s just another production problem. We’ve handled worse.”
Outside, a golf cart buzzed by, followed by the distant thud of a sound system being tested. The world was moving on, oblivious to the impossible swap happening in the heart of the tour. Inside the bus, the three of them stood in a silent triangle—a mother, a son in his daughter’s body, and a daughter in her son’s skin—staring at each other across a chasm that had just opened up in their reality.
Maggie pocketed the candle. “First step,” she said, her voice dropping to a pragmatic whisper. “We need to figure out how to get you two dressed.”
The silence that followed was thick with the practical horror of it. Finn stared at the floor, then at his—her—hands, and a grim determination settled over his borrowed features. “Right. Okay. I got this,” he said, his voice a poor imitation of Billie’s calm.
He turned and walked, with careful, unfamiliar steps, toward the small partitioned area that served as Billie’s bedroom on the bus. Billie watched, a knot of guilt and surreal horror tightening in Finn’s gut, as her own body began rifling through her dresser drawers. The sounds were all wrong—her movements usually graceful, now clumsy and abrupt.
He dug through stacks of soft black tanks and twisted sweatshirts until he found the drawer. He pulled out a simple, black D-cup bra, holding it up like an archaeologist examining a baffling artifact. “Hard to believe I need one of these,” he muttered, mostly to himself.
Without ceremony, he pulled the oversized Sleep t-shirt up and over his head. Billie instinctively looked away, a flush of heat creeping up her—his—neck. It was her own body, but it wasn’t her. Seeing it operated by someone else, even Finn, felt like a profound violation.
She heard a grunt of frustration and couldn’t help but look back. Finn was fumbling with the bra, his fingers—her fingers—seeming to betray him. He got one strap over a shoulder, but the cups flapped uselessly. He tried to hook it in the front and spin it around, but the fabric slipped through his grasp. He attempted to just place it and pull it up, but the weight he was trying to contain refused to cooperate, spilling out and making the cups collapse.
“They just… they don’t… stay,” he growled, voice tight with a mixture of anger and humiliation. He yanked at the straps, his breath coming in short, angry puffs.
Billie found herself speaking, her brother’s voice soft. “You have to… lean forward. Let them fall into the cups first. Then hook it.”
Finn froze, then slowly did as instructed. He bent over, letting the unfamiliar weight settle. This time, when he brought the bra around, the hook found its eyes. He stood up straight, adjusting the straps on her shoulders. He looked down, his expression unreadable. “It’s heavier than it looks,” he said quietly.
Across the room, Maggie let out a small, choked sound that was almost a laugh. “This is my life now,” she whispered, pressing her fingers to her eyes. “Teaching my son how to put a bra on my daughter.”
“I’m sorry,” Billie said again, the words useless.
“Don’t,” Finn said, not looking at her. He picked up a loose hoodie from the bed and pulled it on, hiding the bra, hiding her body. He zipped it up to the chin, a fortress. “Just find us some pants that fit. And then figure out how to undo this.”
Finn turned back to the dresser, his movements in Billie’s body still jarringly deliberate. He yanked open a drawer, shoved past a tangle of fishnet sleeves and ripped tights, and pulled out a pair of simple black sweatpants. “These’ll fit,” he muttered, not meeting anyone’s eyes.
Across the lounge, Billie stood awkwardly in the middle of the aisle. She stared down at Finn’s long, bare legs, her mind blank. Everything felt too exposed, too angular. “My stuff won’t fit you,” Finn said, his voice softer now, an attempt at normalcy. He tossed the sweats to her. “Try these. They’re yours, but… they’re elastic.”
Billie caught them, the soft fabric familiar in her hands, which were now his. She walked, with Finn’s gait, toward his bunk. His closet was a curated chaos of band tees and tailored trousers. She grabbed the first pair of jeans she saw, dark and slim, and a wrinkled graphic tee for some sports team she didn’t recognize.
Dressing was a surreal, silent ballet of avoidance. Billie turned her back to the room, struggling with the unfamiliar bulk of Finn’s hips to pull the jeans up. The button fly was a puzzle her fumbling fingers barely solved. The tee smelled like him—that sharp cologne from this morning, now underlaid with her own vanilla-scented sweat. It was nauseating.
Finn had managed to get the sweatpants on, cinching the drawstring tight around Billie’s narrower waist. He stood, staring at the reflection of his sister’s face in the cracked mirror, a stranger looking back. Maggie watched them, her hands clasped so tightly her knuckles were white. “Okay,” she breathed, the word hanging in the thick, disoriented air. “Clothes are on. Now we figure out everything else.”
The silence stretched, thick with the weight of twenty thousand tickets and a world waiting. Finally, Maggie’s shoulders slumped. “We can’t do the show. I have no choice but to cancel the concert. Billie can’t play Finn’s instruments, not with that finesse, and Finn… baby, no offense, but you don’t know how to sing and emote like Billie. People would know in the first verse.”
“So we fake food poisoning?” Billie asked, pacing Finn’s long legs. “That’ll hold for, what, twenty-four hours? Then what?”
“First, we need to look… normal. Or passable.” Billie grabbed a black skirt from a hanger and tossed it to Finn. “Here, wear this over your tights. A skirt’s easy.”
Finn fumbled the fabric, his expression pained. “A skirt?”
“Trust me. It’s just fabric. We need you to not look like you’re having a mental breakdown in my sweats.”
While Finn wrestled the skirt on, stepping into it like it was a minefield, his hands kept drifting upward. He was still struggling with his new breasts, adjusting the bra, his movements jerky and frustrated. He caught his reflection in a chrome panel and stopped, frozen. He leaned closer, his gaze fixed. He swallowed hard, a strange look of revelation crossing his borrowed face.
He looked over at Billie, his voice a mix of awe and accusation. “I didn’t realize you were so big in the chest, Billie.”
Billie flinched, her face—Finn’s face—flushing. “What?” It came out defensive, raw.
“I mean,” Finn continued, gesturing vaguely, “I knew. Obviously. But from this angle… it’s a whole different perspective. It’s kind of startling.”
“Finn, shut up,” Maggie cut in, though a flicker of something like dark humor touched her eyes. “We have bigger problems than your sudden anatomical awareness.”
“Easy for you to say, Mom. These are new to me,” Finn mumbled, pulling at the hem of the skirt as if it might bite him.
Finn kept fidgeting, his hands unconsciously rising to adjust the unfamiliar weight beneath the hoodie, his fingers pressing and shifting against the fabric. Billie watched, her brother’s face burning with a humiliated heat, as he experimentally shrugged his shoulders and winced.
“Stop playing with my boobs, Finn,” Billie told him, her voice flat and exhausted in his baritone.
Finn’s hands froze, mid-probe. He looked at her, his expression in her face genuinely startled. “I’m not playing. They’re just… in the way. How do you deal with this? It’s like having two inconvenient front-facing backpacks.”
“They’re not backpacks, you ass,” she snapped, running a hand through his short hair. “They’re mine. Just… stop touching them.”
Maggie let out a long, slow breath, pinching the bridge of her nose. “The pair of you are going to give me an aneurysm before we even get off this bus.” She looked at them, her eyes scanning one then the other. “We need a plan. The cancellation story is set. Now we have one day, in this city, to figure out how to undo a magical birthday wish.”
“How?” Finn asked, letting his arms fall to his sides with a slap.
“I don’t know!” Maggie hissed, her calm fraying. “But we start by acting normal. You,” she pointed at Billie, “need to slouch more. And stop looking so terrified. You,” she jabbed a finger at Finn, “stand up straight. You’re not carrying a secret, you are the secret. And for god’s sake, try to walk like you’ve done it before.”
She grabbed her bag, her movements sharp with purpose. “We’re getting off this bus. We’re going to a hotel under aliases. And we are going to find someone, or something, that knows about wishes.”
Maggie’s words hung in the close, perfumed air of the bus, a fragile plan already cracking under the weight of the impossible. They moved like sleepwalkers, gathering phones and wallets with unfamiliar hands. Billie shoved Finn’s feet into his own sneakers, the laces tangling. Finn shouldered Billie’s small black backpack, adjusting the straps over his new, narrower frame with a grimace.
“Hoods up,” Maggie instructed, her voice low. “Eyes down. Just walk to the car.”
They stepped out into the bland, concrete corridor of the venue’s underbelly. The world was shockingly normal. A roadie wheeling a flight case nodded. “Hey Finn, Billie.” He walked past without a second glance.
That ordinary acknowledgment was the trigger.
Finn, inside Billie’s body, stopped walking. His breath hitched. The fluorescent lights hummed overhead, suddenly unbearably loud. The distant thump of a bass line from another stage vibrated up through the soles of Billie’s platform boots and into his bones. His vision tunneled. The roadie’s casual greeting echoed. Hey Finn, Billie. He was neither. He was nothing. A wrong thing in a skin that didn’t fit, moving through a world that saw only the shell.
His heart—Billie’s heart—began to jackhammer against her ribs. A cold sweat broke out on her—his—brow. The green hair at the edges of his vision seemed to pulse. He couldn’t breathe in here. The hoodie felt like a straitjacket, the bra underneath a cruel, alien contraption digging into her—his—back.
“I can’t,” he whispered, but it came out as her voice, thin and reedy. “I can’t do this.” The walls of the corridor seemed to lean in. The reality of it, the permanence of it, crashed down. This wasn’t a dream. This was his life now. Trapped. His chest seized. “Get it off,” he rasped, his hands clawing at the hoodie zipper, yanking it down. “Get it off me!”
Maggie and Billie turned, their faces mirrors of dawning horror. Finn wasn’t just scared. He was coming apart. He stumbled back against a cool concrete wall, sliding down it, his—her—nails scratching at the fabric over his chest, hyperventilating. “I want out,” he sobbed, the sound utterly foreign in Billie’s throat. “I want out, I want out, I want out!” Finn’s voice cracked, Billie’s body shaking against the cold concrete. His fingers clawed at the hoodie, tearing at the fabric like it was suffocating him. “I can’t—I can’t—”
Billie dropped to her knees beside him, her brother’s face twisted in panic. She grabbed his—her—wrists, her grip tight. “Finn, look at me. Look at me.” She shook him gently, forcing his gaze to hers. His eyes were wild, glassy with tears. “Breathe. Just breathe.”
Maggie was already moving, her phone pressed to her ear. “Cancel the car.
We’re not going anywhere like this,” Maggie said into the phone, her voice low and urgent. She hung up and crouched down beside them, her face set in a mask of fierce determination. “Finn, sweetheart, listen to me. You’re having a panic attack. I need you to focus on my voice.”
Finn’s breath came in ragged gasps, his chest—Billie’s chest—heaving. His fingers were still tangled in the hoodie's fabric, knuckles white. “I can’t—it’s too much—”
Billie kept her grip firm on his wrists, her brother’s voice steady. “You’re not trapped. You’re still you, just in a different body. You are experiencing one of my episodes. Try to breathe deeply
Finn did breathe. He remained panicked. "They keep moving when I breathe," he said, placing his hand on his new tits as if trying to push them back into his sister's chest.
"They don't feel like me."
Billie watched her brother's face in her own body, her own eyes wide with terror. She had never seen Finn like this—not even when their dad died, not even when their first tour bus broke down in the middle of nowhere. He was always the steady one, the one who kept it together while she fell apart.
Maggie knelt beside them, her voice low and urgent. "Finn, sweetheart, you need to focus. Billie, help me get him up. We can't stay here."
Billie nodded, slipping an arm under Finn's shoulders. She could feel the unfamiliar weight of her new, taller body, the way her muscles moved differently.
Finn’s panic was contagious, and she had to fight the urge to join him in his spiral. Instead, she tightened her grip on his shoulders, her brother’s voice steady despite the storm inside her.
"Finn, look at me," Billie said again, her voice a mix of Finn’s deep timbre and her own desperate urgency. "You’re not alone in this. We’re going to get through it together."
Finn’s breathing remained ragged, but he managed a small nod. His eyes, her eyes, were still wide with fear, but there was a flicker of recognition, a spark of the Finn she knew—the one who always found a way to make things better.
He took another shaky breath, his hands finally stilling against the fabric of the hoodie.
"Okay," he whispered, his voice trembling but trying to find strength. "Okay. I can do this."
Maggie exhaled in relief, her shoulders dropping slightly. "Good. That's good, sweetheart." She reached out, placing a hand on Finn's cheek—Billie's cheek—and gave it a gentle, reassuring squeeze. "We're going to get you out of here. We're going to figure this out."
Billie helped Finn to his feet, her brother’s body still trembling slightly. She kept a steadying hand on his arm, her grip firm but gentle.
"My body isn't that bad, Finn. You should give it a try until we figure out how to get back to normal." Billie said, her voice a mix of Finn’s deep timbre and her own desperate urgency.
Finn took a deep breath, his chest—Billie’s chest—rising and falling under the hoodie. He looked down at his—her—hands, staring at his two inch long nails and flexing the fingers as if testing their new form. "Okay," he said, his voice still shaky but more controlled. "But I need a minute. I need to... adjust to all this."
Maggie nodded, her expression softening. "Take all the time you need, sweetheart. But we can't stay here. We need to get to a hotel, somewhere private."
Billie kept her arm around Finn's shoulders, guiding him gently down the corridor ass he stumbled along in her high heels. Billie wished she had worn flats for his sake but who knew he would be trapped in her body?
Finn’s legs wobbled in her platform boots, his knees buckling under the unfamiliar height. Billie tightened her grip on his arm, steadying him as they shuffled toward the tour bus. She felt oddly strong holding up her former body
The backstage area was a maze of roadies and crew members, all moving with the purposeful chaos of a show day. No one spared them a second glance—just another artist and their entourage passing through. But Billie’s heart pounded in Finn’s chest, her pulse thrumming in his ears. Every step felt like a performance, every breath a lie.
Finn’s fingers dug into her—his—arm, his knuckles white. He was still hyperventilating, his breath coming in short, panicked gasps. She stared down at her former chest, shocked to see her tits on another person. She shared a lot with Finn, but never expected to share her breasts!
She had always hated her big breasts and now she was forced to walk in her brothers flat chested body while Finn bore their heavy weight. She felt like a fraud. She felt like an imposter. She felt like a woman in a man's body. She felt like a stranger in her brother's skin.
The tour bus was a sanctuary, a place where they could be themselves without the scrutiny of the world. But now, it felt like a prison. A prison where she was trapped in her brother’s body, and he was trapped in hers.
Billie and Finn sat on the bus’s small sofa, their bodies turned toward each other, their eyes locked in a silent conversation. The engine hummed beneath them, the familiar vibration of the bus’s idle doing nothing to calm their nerves.
Maggie stood near the door, her phone pressed to her ear. She spoke in low, urgent tones to the tour manager, her voice steady despite the chaos. “Yes, we need to cancel tonight’s show. No, I don’t know what’s going on. Just tell them it’s a family emergency. We’ll make it up to everyone with a second concert on Sunday for everyone who bought tickets to this concert.
Billie watched her brother’s face etched with worry as he crossed his arms like a guy and met with resistance for her big boobs. It took her months to get used to getting her tits, and he got them in a moment thanks to whatever happened to them.
Billie watched as Finn fidgeted with his new chest, his hands instinctively reaching for the unfamiliar weight. She couldn't help but feel a strange sense of satisfaction at seeing him struggle with something she had always found so burdensome.
"Stop touching them," Billie snapped, swatting his hands away. "You're making it worse."
Finn glared at her, his eyes flashing with irritation. "I can't help it! They keep moving when I breathe."
Billie rolled her eyes. "That's because they're not supposed to be there. You're a guy, remember?"
Finn's face twisted in disgust.
"I don't remember asking for this," he muttered, crossing his arms over Billie's chest and immediately wincing as the movement compressed the unfamiliar weight. "How do you even function with these things? They're like two extra limbs I can't control."
Billie watched him struggle, a strange mix of sympathy and dark amusement bubbling up inside her. "You get used to it," she said, her voice still rough in Finn's deeper register. "Eventually."
Finn shot her a look that was pure Billie—eyes narrowed, lips pressed into a thin line. "I don't want to get used to it," he snapped. "I want them gone.
Now." Finn—no, *Billie*—demanded, his voice cracking with frustration. He yanked at the fabric of the hoodie, as if sheer force could make the unfamiliar weight disappear. "This isn't me. This isn't who I am."
Billie watched, her brother's body tense with the effort of not rolling her eyes. "You're just going to have to deal with it for now," she said, her voice laced with a patience she didn't feel. "We don't have time for a full-on existential crisis right now. We need to figure out how to undo this."
Finn—Billie—let out a sharp, disbelieving laugh.
"Deal with it?" he echoed, his voice rising in pitch. "You think this is just about *dealing*? I woke up in your body, Billie. Your *body*." He gestured wildly at his—her—chest, the movement making the hoodie ride up slightly. "These aren't just boobs. They're *your* boobs. They're attached to *me* now. And I don't know how to be you."
Billie watched as her brother's hands—her hands—clenched into fists, the smooth black polish on her nails catching the light. She could see the panic in his eyes, the way his breath came in shallow gasps. He grabbed a large boob with both hands and tried to rip it off his chest.
Billie watched horrified as her brother tried to tear her breasts from his body. "Stop it!" she yelled, grabbing his hands. "You're hurting me!"
Finn's eyes were wild with desperation. "I don't care! I need them off! I need to be me again!" He struggled against her grip, his movements frantic and uncoordinated.
Maggie rushed over, her face pale with concern. "Finn, stop! You're going to hurt yourself!" She grabbed his wrists, her grip firm and unyielding.
Finn's breath came in ragged gasps, his chest heaving.
He stared down at Billie's body, his eyes wide and filled with a mix of horror and disbelief. "I can't do this," he whispered, his voice trembling. "I can't be you."
Billie sat beside him on the couch, her brother's body tense with the unfamiliar weight of his own panic. She reached out, placing a hand on his shoulder, feeling the unfamiliar contours of Finn's muscles beneath her touch. "We'll figure it out," she said, her voice steady despite the storm raging inside her.
Maggie knelt in front of them, her face etched with worry. "Finn, sweetheart, you need to calm down.
We're going to fix this." Maggie said, her voice steady and reassuring. She reached out, gently placing a hand on Finn's knee—Billie's knee—and gave it a reassuring squeeze.
Finn took a deep, shuddering breath, his eyes still wide with panic. "I don't know if I can do this, Mom," he whispered, his voice trembling.
Billie watched her brother struggle inside her own body. She could see the fear in his eyes, the way his hands kept drifting up to touch the unfamiliar weight on his chest. She knew that feeling all too well—the constant awareness, the self-consciousness, the way it could make you feel like you were always on display.
She had spent years hating her own body, wishing it away, and now Finn was trapped in it, feeling the same suffocating weight of self-consciousness she had carried for so long.
"Finn," Billie said softly, her voice still rough in Finn's deeper register. "Look at me." She waited until his eyes met hers—her own eyes, wide and filled with terror. "I know this is overwhelming. I know it feels wrong. But you're not alone in this. I'm right here with you."
Finn took another shaky breath, his chest rising and falling under the hoodie. He looked down at his—her—hands, still pulling on his boob. He let it go, shocked by the way it bounced about.
"They're like two separate living things," Finn said, his voice trembling. "I don't understand how you can stand it."
Maggie knelt beside them, her face etched with worry.
She reached out, gently placing a hand on Finn’s knee—Billie’s knee—and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “Finn, sweetheart, you need to calm down. We’re going to fix this.”
Finn’s breath came in ragged gasps, his eyes still wide with panic. He looked down at his—her—hands, trembling as they hovered over the unfamiliar weight on his chest. “I don’t know if I can do this, Mom,” he whispered, his voice trembling. I'm a guy with boobs and a... you know what." Billie’s voice, rough in Finn’s throat, was laced with a dark humor that cut through the tension. "You’re the one who always said you wanted to know what it was like to be me. Well, now you do."
Finn—no, *Billie*—stared at her, his—her—eyes narrowing. "I didn’t mean *literally*," he snapped, his voice cracking. He tried to cross his arms over his chest, but the movement made the unfamiliar weight shift, and he winced. "This isn’t some kind of joke, Billie. This is *my life*."
Maggie let out a long, slow breath, rubbing her temples. "Alright. Enough, Fin. Half the people on earth get by just fine with a pair of boobs... and you know what," she said with a smile. "You're going to have to get used to them for a while."
Finn—no, Billie—glared at her, his—her—face twisting with frustration. "I don't *want* to get used to them. I want them gone. *Now.*" He grabbed the fabric of the hoodie, yanking it down as if that could somehow make the weight beneath disappear.
Billie sighed, her shoulders slumping. "Don't you think I want them back? I miss the girls when I look down at this body of yours, Finn," Billie said, staring at the flat expanse of Finn's chest beneath his t-shirt. She flexed her fingers, feeling the unfamiliar strength in her brother's hands, the way his long limbs moved with a different kind of grace. It was like wearing a suit that didn't quite fit—comfortable in some ways, but wrong in all the important ones.
Across from her, Finn shifted uncomfortably on the couch, his—her—hands still hovering over the unfamiliar weight of Billie's breasts. "They're just so... there," he muttered, his voice still laced with frustration.
"I keep forgetting they're even there until I move wrong and they—" He cut himself off, his—her—face flushing a deep red. "This is humiliating."
Maggie exhaled sharply, her patience wearing thin. "Finn, sweetheart, I know this is hard, but we need to focus. We have one day to figure out how to undo this before the world realizes something's wrong. And right now, the best thing you can do is stop fixating on your new anatomy and start thinking like my brilliant, resourceful son."
Finn—Billie—stared at her, his—her—eyes wide with disbelief. "You want me to *think*? Right now? I can’t think past the fact that my tits keep bouncing when I breathe,” Finn said, his voice cracking in Billie’s throat. He looked down at his chest, his hands hovering like he was afraid to touch them.
Maggie pinched the bridge of her nose. “Finn, *please*. We don’t have time for this. You’re Billie right now, so act like her. She wouldn’t be sitting here whining about her boobs.”
Finn’s—*Billie’s*—face flushed. “I’m not whining. I’m *panicking*.”
“Well, panic faster,” Maggie snapped.
“We’ve got a hotel to get to, and a magical body swap to undo before the press figures out Billie Eilish just grew a beard overnight.”
Finn—no, *Billie*—glared at her, his—her—mouth twisting in frustration. “You’re not helping, Mom.”
Maggie sighed, running a hand through her hair. “I know, sweetheart. I’m sorry. But we can’t stay here. The longer we wait, the harder this gets.”
Billie—*Finn*—nodded, standing up with a wince. His—her—body still felt wrong, like he was wearing someone else’s skin. Which he was!
Billie watched Finn struggle with the unfamiliar weight of her chest as he stood, his movements hesitant and awkward. She could see the panic in his eyes, the way his hands kept drifting up to touch the unfamiliar curves beneath the hoodie.
Maggie stood, her expression resolute. "Come on. We need to get to the hotel. We can't stay here any longer."
Billie—Finn—nodded, his jaw clenched. He took a deep breath, trying to steady himself. Let's go."
They stepped off the bus, the cool air hitting them like a slap.
They were back at the hotel.
Billie and Finn stared at each other the whole ride up to their suite.