And so, they looked into the mirror together.
The family resemblance between Jon and Zoe made it hard to tell whether their new reflection was supposed to be an older version of Zoe, a female version of Jon, or somehow both at the same time. Jon had only been 2 years Zoe's elder, a Senior to her Sophomore, but if it were the former case then those 2 particular years of growth must have meant quite a bit, because Zoe looked like a proper Young Adult now, firmly on the mature side of her teenage years. She was a little taller, a little more shapely, developed, and curvy, and her skin was a little clearer, all in those subtle telltale ways that left no doubt in their shared brain that physiologically, their body was at least 18 now, maybe 19. Poor Jon, on the other hand, had shrunk a few inches, lost muscle and shoulder width and a LOT of weight; all he had gained bodily in the transformation was hair, and maybe some body fat, all in unfortunately feminine places.
Both their hair colors had been a shade of brown; their new hair was closer to Jon's dark-chocolate color, but lay straight like Zoe's without any of Jon's waviness. Jon and Zoe had had very similar eye colors before, and to be honest, it was hard to tell with just their naked eyes if the new soft amber ones more closely resembled Jon or Zoe's from before. Their new skin wasn't nearly as pale as Zoe's had been, but it also wasn't freckled like Jon's had used to be. And it bears repeating, this new body was curvier than either of theirs had EVER been; the fashion was foreign to both of them too, an unzipped green jacket over a plain white shirt with a plunging neckline, tucked under the studded belt of some pitch-black tight-fitting jeans. It was swiftly becoming obvious that determining whom this new body "belonged to" was a fool's errand.
After a while, their hands were brought up to squeeze their boobs. One of them made it that far; the other one slapped their own face. "JON, WHAT THE FUCK, MAN!?" Zoe glared their shared reflection dead in the eye and pointedly away from its cleavage.
"You said you wouldn't slap me for looking..." their reflection pouted, still kneading a breast regardless.
"I DIDN'T SAY YOU COULD FUCKING FONDLE MY TITS, YOU PERV! Zoe, they're our tits now. SAME DIFFERENCE, STOP IT!" The hand yoinked away from their chest. "...are we wearing a bra, right now?" And then the hand went looking for shoulder straps, since that boob now felt funny in its confinement. "Does it fucking matter!?" Zoe had their boob fitting better in their bra with barely a single practiced motion. "This is gross! You're gross, and, and, and until we get this fixed you better keep your hands off me, okay!? Zoe, relax. This whole thing was your idea anyway. WHAT!?" Now their hands were on their hips and they were practically screaming into the mirror. "YOU DID NOT JUST BLAME THIS ON ME, DID YOU!?"
Their reflection sighed wearily. "How else do you explain what happened, sister? We were arguing about the stupid shower, and then you said that one I art wistful line, and then this happened. JON, YOU FUCKING KNOW I MEANT I WISH WE COULD AFFORD ANOTHER BATHROOM! I didn't think the shooting star or whatever the fuck it was was going to take the fucking Thanos Snap approach to limited resources! ZOE!" Suddenly their face seemed frightful in the mirror. "YOU JUST SAID IT AGAIN! Said what? THE W WORD, SISTER, THE ONE THAT'S NARRATIVE SHORTHAND FOR 'I WILL BE HIT BY AN IRONIC INCITING INCIDENT NOW'! ...'Wish'? YES, THAT WORD, STOP SAYING IT!"
They looked around. They opened up the bathroom door and looked out into the hallway. Everything was just as it was when Zoe was the half of them panicking. Then they headed back into the internal monologue room, apparently repurposing it as the internal dialogue room. "Bro, nothing happened. Okay, fine, nothing happened, but be more careful please!? I don't want us to get screwed any harder by the Monkey's Paw here! ...Jon, no chance you actually think that me saying that shit is what did this, do you? Sister, have you read like any stories about wishgranting ever!? It's always dumb shit like this! I saw something just yesterday over garbage like this. Jon... My best friend is a bona fide Witch, man," they told themselves matter-of-factly. "I'm pretty sure you'd have to, at minimum, sacrifice a goat for magic like that to be possible. Preferably a firstborn child."
They rubbed their temples. They weren't getting it, because of course they weren't, but they didn't want to explain the Stone to themselves yet, especially not when they didn't know what they would wish for when they had it in their hands.
"Okay, smartypants, what do you think it was that happened here? Do you have any goats we can sacrifice to fix this here and now!? Well, I guess I could BETTER YET! What would you even ask for if you had 3 magic-W-words out of nowhere for no obvious reason? Not a second shower, I'm sure! Jon, you're being ridiculous, that's easy. I'd say I wish we had magical abilities including power over our current problem or something like that, right? ZOE!" When it was Jon screaming with their shared voice, it came out more booming, more thunderous. Now it was his turn to run their body out of the bathroom and make sure everything was okay. By the time they made it downstairs they were laughing.
"Looks like I really gotcha, bro! Zoe, this isn't funny you little gremlin! Cut it out with the flippant magic words here! Gee, this seems familiar. What was the line a few paragraphs ago: Relax, Jon, this whole thing was your idea anyway? ZOE!" Their hands were clenching into shaking fists. "You know I meant we oughtta calm down before we make things any worse, sister, I wasn't encouraging you to do exactly freakin' that! Bro, do things look any worse to you right now? Besides, by Aladdin-Disney's non-goat-killing rules, that was my third wish! We're safe now! Jesus Christ, Zoe, how is it possible for someone who claims to know this much about Magic to be this wrong about Magic!? What do you mean wrong!? I mean, you don't have half a clue why this actually happened, do you!? I was right there with you, I saw every bit of that panic you had when this happened! Well, excuse me for being upset someone put a spell on us, dickbreath! We have the same breath now, 'dickbreath'! Stop dodging the question, you don't actually know what to do here, do you? Well, maybe, but I DO KNOW skeptical fucks like you are NEVER going to-"
"Alright, stop."
Those two words sent a chill deep through their shared core. That voice belonged to their mother.
