Pacifica Pleasure hated a lot of things. She hated Mabel Pines. She hated low-lives who couldn't even recognize talent. She hated people who treated her like a child. She hated people who didn't compliment her when they should (which was every time they saw her). She hated people who called her a fake. She hated that she technically was a fake.

But now, there was something else. A new, crowning hatred that topped everything else.

Pacifica hated being a boy.

Gideon — or, heh, Gidica — scowled at her and thrust the heels at her. "If you love them so much, you wear them."

Pacifica looked herself (or, rather, Gideon's body) up and down. "You think I can wear heels in this thing? You don't have a delicate bone in your body, Gidica!"

His scowl deepened. He was ruining her make-up with that expression! "Don't call me that," he said, his voice low.

Unfortunately for him, the threat didn't work when it was a male voice coming from a female body. Pacifica laughed. "I'll call you whatever I want."

"Fine, Pazeon, but we're wasting time."

Pacifica wrinkled her nose — an expression that didn't feel half as satisfying with Gideon's features. "Fine. Let's just figure out what you have to do to fix this. I have a show in a few hours, and there's no way I'm performing in this body — or letting you perform for me."

"Pacifica, this is not my fault!"

"You touched the prophecy!"

The two continued down the passages of Harbinger Hollow, bickering all the way.

"Look," Gidica said, "the prophecy said, 'Whatever curse you got, you deserved it.' That means both of us. So we both have to confess to something."

"Fine. You first."

Gidica threw up his hands. Gah, he was so jerky and violent. Her body wasn't supposed to move like that. "I don't know! I do a lot of stuff. I don't know what counts as bad. And most of it isn't stuff I want to do, anyway."

"That's it!" Pacifica said. "You can't think of what you've done wrong, right? Well, me neither. Because I don't do anything wrong." Gidica rolled his eyes, but Pacifica ignored him. "So maybe we switched bodies so that I can figure out what you've done with fresh eyes."

"And so that I can do the same for you, I'm sure?" Gidica drawled, his voice heavy with sarcasm.

Pacifica waved the comment away. Then she moaned and stopped walking.

"What?" asked Gidica.

"That would mean we do have to take each other's places before we switch back. At home."

Gidica stopped too. "No. No way am I running your fake psychic show."

"Hey! I am a real psychic, as you know very well!"

"Yeah, but your show is fake."

Pacifica made a huffing noise. "That's just so people aren't afraid of me and my awesome power."

"Sure."

The two continued walking in a broiling silence, tension rolling around them in waves. Gideon's body was uncomfortably sore, almost aching, and Pacifica wondered if he'd gotten in some fight with a creature from the forest. She tried to ignore the discomfort and focus on the situation at hand. She would not let Gidica ruin her show. They would have to figure something out before that. It couldn't be too hard, right?

They turned a corner and were greeted with sunlight that filtered through the snow-capped trees with a cheerfulness which neither of them felt. Gidica quickened his pace, then stopped as he tripped over his tiny feet. Pacifica snickered at him. Then she tripped, too.

Finally, they were under the sun again. They let out breaths they didn't know they had been holding. It felt a lot better being out in the open, rather then in the suffocating cave where the low ceiling bounced their emotions around like ping-pong balls.

Gidica snapped his fingers. "I've got it."

"What?"

"We were fighting about Mabel when I touched the prophecy. I was trying to tell you she's not an evil mastermind—"

"—and I was trying to tell you you're too soft around her."

"Right," Gidica said with a roll of his eyes. "Well, maybe we've switched bodies so that you can apologize to Mabel."

"What does switching bodies have to do with her? And I'm never apologizing! I have nothing to apologize for!"

"You nearly murdered her with a kitchen knife."

"I wasn't going to kill her! Just teach her a lesson!"

Gidica opened his mouth, then shut it again. "Whatever. Look, you have to apologize to Mabel for this to all be over—"

"You don't know that!"

"—but you can do it in my body, so she doesn't really know it's you. Or. . . or I'm supposed to apologize for you, using your body."

Pacifica thought it over. "All right. You do that. And what am I supposed to do with yours?"

Gidica paused. "I don't know. Let me think about it." He sighed. "Well, if we're going to pretend to be each other, we should practice. You'd better start talking deeper."

"No way," Pacifica retorted. "How do we even know our voices sound like this to other people? I mean, what's the point of you apologizing for me if Mabel can hear your voice?"

Gidica conceded that with a slight nod. "We might sound normal to everyone else, but how would we know?"

Pacifica shrugged. "By going into town and asking people."

Gidica frowned. "'Oh, hello, sir, I was just wondering: Does my voice sound strange to you? Like a boy instead of a girl?'"

"Yeah, just like that," Pacifica said sarcastically. "A little more subtlety, if you even know what that means."

"Of course I know what subtlety means!"

Pacifica fingered a swath of his cape. "Oh, sure you do."

He rolled his eyes. "Let's just go try your idea."

With that, Gidica turned and marched off through the snow.

On one hand, Pacifica couldn't believe that Gidica was trudging through deep snow with nothing but black nylons on — he was totally ruining them — and on the other, she couldn't help but feel smug as she followed him.

Pacifica: 1, Gidica: 0.

~~~~~

"Okay, go ahead."

Gideon looked at Pazeon incredulously. "No way!"

The two were in an alley, looking out into the town square. Townsfolk milled around, chatting to each other while going about their business on the sunny winter day. All of them most likely knew Pacifica from her shows and Gideon from his family's reputation.

"Yes way!" Pazeon retorted. Every time her whiny voice came from his mouth, Gideon winced a little. "People like me a lot better than they like you."

"It was your idea! You do it!"

"It was my idea, so I get to choose who does it first."

Gideon sighed. "Look, we'll do it at the same time, all right? I'll go out the back end of the alley and around so it doesn't look like we're with each other."

Pazeon glared at him, a feminine expression that involved widening her eyes instead of narrowing them and that looked horrible on her masculine face. "Fine. But I'd better see you doing it too, or you'll regret it."

"Sure I will. There isn't much you can do to me, Pazeon, seeing as I'm in your body. Not only is this already the worst torture imaginable, but you can't hurt me without hurting yourself."

"Ugh! Gidica! Just do it!"

Ha. Gideon: 1, Pazeon: 1.

Gideon started for the other end of the alleyway, giving up any attempts to look sneaky in this stupid dress. And Pazeon thought he didn't have a sense of subtlety. He couldn't move with all these triangles jangling around!

Speaking of triangles, these earrings were heavy. Gideon never understood why girls — or guys — wore pieces of metal hanging from their body. Especially ones that hurt. He was getting a headache. He would've taken them off a while ago, but this outfit had no pockets. How did girls survive without pockets?

Once Gideon, in all his jangly glory, made it around the building and into the town square, he started for the most braindead person he could see: Lazy Susan, local diner owner.

"Ahem. . . excuse me, miss?" He spoke in a high voice, just in case.

Lazy Susan turned around. "Well, well, look who we have here!" she said. "I followed your advice and tried a new type of pie. I almost burned down the diner making it!" Her enthusiastic tone remained consistent even as she gave this bit of information.

Pacifica would give her charming little smile here. Gideon wasn't used to smiling, but he might as well try. His facial muscles slid easily into what he hoped was Pacifica's dealing-with-the-public face. It felt surprisingly natural, considering what Pacifica was really like — and considering that Gideon couldn't remember the last time he had smiled. "That's wonderful," he told Lazy Susan, still in falsetto. "Tell me, does my voice sound any different to you? I'm afraid I might have a cold coming on, and I don't want it to ruin my silky smooth voice."

Lazy Susan shook her head. "It doesn't sound different at all, my dear!"

Gideon dropped the high voice. "Does it now?" he asked again, this time in his normal, much deeper voice.

"Nope!" Lazy Susan said, not even looking confused. "Your voice still sounds sweet as a peach, honey."

So that settled it. Gideon's voice sounded like Pacifica to everyone but Pacifica. Or, Pazeon. "Thanks," he said to Lazy Susan, flashing that smile again. Looking all nice and happy was easy in Pacifica's body.

That scared him.

Gideon left Lazy Susan and headed back for the alley, looking at Pazeon out of the corner of his eye as she talked to a man in a pink polo shirt. He left her alone and slipped between the buildings. One of the stupid triangles on his skirt snagged on a brick.

It was only a minute before Pazeon joined him, walking far too gracefully in Gideon's body. "I sound like you," she said, "according to that guy."

"Likewise. So, now that we know that, I'll head over to the Mystery Museum and—"

"No!" Pazeon shrieked.

Gideon stared at her in surprise. Then he sighed. "What now?"

"You're not going to the Mystery Museum! You're going to go do my show!"

Another incredulous stare. "You have got to be kidding me! I'm not doing your show! The sooner I go fix your issue with Mabel, and the sooner you do whatever it is you have to for me, the sooner we can switch back!"

"Yes, but I have a show in a few hours, and you have to go do it for me because I can't do it in this stupid body!"

Gideon rubbed his forehead with a hand.

"Don't do that! You'll give me wrinkles!"

That was it. Gideon gave Pazeon his best glare, which probably wasn't as effective with her face, but made her shriek in anger all the same. "Don't you get it?" he snapped. "We're stuck in each other's bodies! And who knows how long we have to fix it before the change becomes permanent!"

That statement cut off any more comments about wrinkles. Pazeon blinked. "Permanent?" she asked softly.

"You don't want to risk that, do you?" Gideon replied.

Pazeon shook her head, a vacant look on her face.

"So," Gideon said, grateful for her silence, "I'm going to go to the Tent of Telepathy and cancel your show somehow, and then I'll go over to the Mystery Museum and apologize to Mabel for your trying to kill her."

Pazeon looked like she had all sorts of objections to that statement, but she only said, "How are you going to cancel the show? I've never canceled a show."

Gideon shrugged. "You're a master at throwing tantrums, aren't you?"

Pazeon huffed. "I don't throw tantrums."

Gideon gave her a look that clearly showed his opinion on the subject.

Pazeon assumed a pouty face that Gideon never wanted to see on his features again. "Fine. Go tell them you're too stressed or something. Or that you don't get to spend enough time with your parents; that one should work really well. Make sure there's a lot of yelling and crying. Maybe some blubbering too."

The way Gideon saw it, he spent way too much time with his parents. But he knew Pazeon meant hers. "Okay," he said.

"What do you think I have to do for you?" she asked. Gideon didn't like the curiosity in her tone. A thread of panic slipped into his chest from the knotted mess that he'd been trying to ignore since the body swap. What did she have to do for him? Pacifica didn't know much about his life, and that was for the better. It was bad enough that she knew about Bill now.

"Um, there are some boys that I was with the day with Mabel's clones. Maybe go find them and tell them you're sorry for ditching them." Not that they'd care. They probably didn't even remember that he'd been with them that day.

"I think I have a better idea," Pazeon said, and a sly look crossed her face. "If you have to apologize to Mabel as me, maybe I have to interact with Mabel as you somehow."

Gideon frowned. "What on earth would you say to Mabel as me?"

"That you like her, of course."

There was a beat of silence as Gideon processed this. Then he shot Pazeon an annoyed look. "Really? That was a cheap shot. I've only met Mabel twice."

Pazeon batted her eyelashes — Gideon's eyelashes! He immediately felt sick. "From what they say," she said, "that's long enough to fall in love."

"Never do that with my face again," Gideon replied, screwing his eyes shut to try to erase the image from his mind. All it really did was make his eyelashes stick together again. "Pazeon, I don't like Mabel, all right? She can't even handle herself in the face of danger."

"What if you do?" Pazeon countered. "What if you don't know it yet? If I go confess it to her for you, it might switch us back."

Gideon couldn't believe this. "And ruin what shred of dignity I have left?"

Pazeon stomped her foot. "You're already ruining my dignity by apologizing to her! At the very least, I should be able to do the same to you!"

Gideon's mind churned, trying to figure out a way out of this.

Then he got it. "True," he said slowly, "but even though you're in my body, you'll still have to say the words 'I like you' to Mabel."

The color drained from Pazeon's face. Gideon smirked.

"Never mind," she finally said. "You can do all the talking to Mabel."

"Thank you," Gideon drawled. That fixed that.

"Don't you think I should go to your mansion to look for a solution on your side?" Pazeon asked. "I'm sure there's a butler or a maid that you've been rude to."

Gideon grimaced. "I don't want you going to the Manor."

"Why not?"

"Because. . ." He hesitated. "Because my father is there."

"What's wrong with that?"

"He and I. . . don't have the best relationship." This description, though it certainly wasn't a lie, was a gross understatement. It made Gideon's stomach flip just to say it.

Pazeon's eyes lit up. "Then maybe he's the one I have to apologize to."

"No," Gideon said immediately. The thought infused him with panic, but he shoved it down. "No. Don't go near him. I guess you can go to the Manor. Maybe you can try apologizing to my mother for not spending enough time with her. But don't go near my father."

"What if he comes to me?"

Then I'm doomed, Gideon thought. Aloud, he said, "Then be respectful. If. . . if he gives you a job to do, go ahead and tell him that you've been cursed and that you can't do it."

"What kind of job?"

Gideon wanted to sink into the earth and never emerge. "You'll know." He couldn't tell her about the memory wiping. He could only pray that she wasn't asked to do it. "And," he continued, "if my father brings out a little whistle and blows it with this really low sound. . ." He trailed off. Then what? Should she explain everything? Would she be able to? Again, he just had to hope that it wouldn't happen. It was bad enough that he had to warn her about it now. "Well," he finally said, "if that happens, then I'm sorry."

Pazeon frowned at him. "Why?"

He closed his eyes. "I'm not going to say any more. Let's just hope nothing happens."

A few seconds of silence passed. Gideon cracked open an eye and saw Pazeon staring at him with a look of genuine concern on her face. "Gideon, are you—?"

"Just avoid my father," he said, cutting her off. "Got that?" She nodded.

"Good." He took a deep, cleansing breath. "Time to go throw a tantrum, then."

A/N: A quick word on the names, so nobody is confused: Gideon and Gidica both refer to Gideon, while Pacifica and Pazeon both refer to Pacifica. If it's a G, it's Gideon; if it's a P, it's Paz. (I use each name in deliberate ways; but if I went into all the nuances here, then people would probably get really confused.)