I never want to make Violette cry again. The few times I've done it always felt just awful, like my big mouth that could fumble her feelings so carelessly deserved to be shoved full of hot coals and sewed up. It's one reason I'm scared of acting like the old me, because they acted all cocky then stumbled into it in the stupidest ways. I get that Violette doesn't prefer me to be paralyzed by anxiety instead so I have to find a balance, but that's taking time. I appreciate her patience.

That said, watching her throw a full-blown tantrum that I had no hand in causing and actually agree with is fascinating. All of the drama but none of the guilt!

"I DON'T WANNA!" she screams, louder than I thought her volume settings even went before this, fat tears rolling down her cheeks. Maybe she did inherit Eric's lungs.

Everyone in her family, including Jett, is crowded around her worriedly as she stomps her feet and tightens her arms around herself. I'm the only one standing back, watching the whole thing play out. Frankly, I'm letting her cook.

"I'm sure she's overstimulated after traveling," I hear Bo-Wen murmur to his wife, Jenna, who nods sympathetically.

Violette's short grandmother and tall grandfather, who I only had time to exchange a few words with before the crying began, are there too, patting at her shoulders soothingly and speaking in words I'm not close enough to parse. Violette twists away from their hands and whines "No! No!" as they do it.

Eric tries, "It'll be okay, honey, it's just a couple weeks. It's tradition--"

"Daddy, no! I WON'T DO IT!" she howls. I seriously did not know her voice could get that loud. Her squinched eyes leak more tears as she turns around to sob into his stomach, and he quickly wraps his arms around her protectively. No surprise there.

"Oran and I will be fine, Violette, and you'll see them during the day," Jett says, although I can tell he hardly believes it.

She lifts her face away from Eric's stomach to shriek, "NO!!! I need Oran!" Afterward, she gives up on words and starts making animalistic, throaty noises, like a cat that's just seen its worst enemy outside the window.

At the mention of my name, the faces of her family all turn to me. I shrug, holding my hands up as innocently as I can.

"Um, she really likes me? I help her feel comfortable?" What else can I say?

When we got here, her grandparents were so happy to see her. They fussed over her in a mixture of Mandarin and Shanghainese that I couldn't possibly untangle, but it was obvious they adore her.

After the initial greetings and fawning over Violette (she's a perfect angel, understandable), they tried to take us to our rooms. That's when the mess started. They wanted to put us in separate rooms, me with Jett and her with her dad, even though the agreement was I would stay with her. Apparently, since the two aren't "married" yet in the eyes of the family, they decided last minute that it was the more appropriate choice. Not to mention, sticking innocent princess Violette with her DMAB "friend"? Yeah. I understood, even if I thought it was stupid. I figured we'd make do for one night, then work out something better tomorrow.

Violette, on the other hand, immediately began a spectacular meltdown about it. I can tell she's really hamming it up, but to her credit, I think it's working. The mood in the room has definitely shifted to appeasing her at all costs.

"We are married, really," Jett says to Eric, who nods and looks at his mother.

She shakes her head, but then Violette wails again, and I can see her will crumbling in the way the drooping skin of her brow lowers further, almost enough to make her eyes disappear, as she furrows her brow.

Her insistence isn't about religion or anything, which is what I would assume in the States. There's just a tradition about the wedding bed, so it would be weird for the spouses-to-be to sleep together before then or something, even though the special wedding bed is going to be a different bed and not two twin beds in a guest room. And listen, either way, the ancestors can cope: they are dead. I want to room with Violette too!

"妈, she needs familiarity." I'm surprised to hear Bo-Wen speaking up, since he seemed more like the type that would stay out of conflict. "对她温柔点, 好吗?" he adds as he puts his hands on his mother's sloped shoulders.

This woman is only in her mid-sixties, but I can see a life of challenges imprinted on her in the way that gravity has tugged the whole of her downward. For a second, I imagine Violette aging in a similar way, and my heart can hardly take it. I want to be there to see it, to kiss her no matter what lumpy shapes we eventually take. Knowing that she could live longer but would never accept the price of erasing one of her sisters or some theoretical daughter—well, I think she should get anything else she wants until she dies, and I'm just here to help make that happen.

Which is really true, isn't it? What a freeing bolt of clarity. It's good to have a purpose.

Eventually, Violette's grandmother has her own realization. She sighs and mumbles something under her breath; her golden child standing up for Violette seems to be enough.

"Come, come," she says, gesturing over her shoulder. When she looks up, she looks at me. I don't think she's angry with me specifically, but she isn't happy either. I guess I can't blame her. I did immediately show up and throw a spanner in her works, and I'm an easier target than Violette, Eric, or even Jett. Who do I even think I am, right?

Violette's tears don't disappear entirely, but she quiets as we walk down a hallway layered with thin strips of light-colored wood paneling. There are several doors—Bo-Wen mentions that one is the room for him and his wife, another is for his two kids—and then we stop at the one at the end of the hallway. So many doors, we must have passed six or seven in total? One was a bathroom. Just like Eric's house in America, this place screams "big family," even if the scale of every room is smaller. It'll be an adjustment to try to become part of this extended web, that's for sure.

Eric takes our bags inside (I don't not think "Thanks, Daddy 🩵" in my best fake Violette voice when he does that). and Violette follows after him, snuffling the whole while, really selling it. I'm about to go in when her grandmother catches me with a tug of my cardigan.

"非男非女... behave."

Tiredly, I blink at her, consider talking back, then just nod and duck inside the room.

At least it wasn't a slur. God. Call me petty, but I memorized all the ones I could find, so I know that one was just a basic statement of the facts. Starting tomorrow, though, everyone better watch their mouth and their minds around me—right after I sleep for a hundred years. On that note, I'm laying face down on the leftmost bed until everyone gets out of our room, manners be damned.

* * *

As soon as the circus leaves, I sit up and rub my eyes, wanting to check that Violette is actually okay. I want to sleep, but there are priorities.

Much to my relief, when she sees my face, she lights up (don't get that excited, I must look like dogshit) and throws up double peace signs. The gestures contrast dramatically with her streaked mascara and flushed cheeks. Ugh, she is so princess babygirl. It might kill me one day.

"Didn't I do good, Oran?"

"You were amazing," I rasp, then dig a half-empty bottle of water out of my bag and take several swigs of it. "A real actress. I didn't know you had it in you."

"Mmm, wasn't really acting. I was mad that they went back on their word, then I thought about how I was getting a headache, and it was easy from there. But, I'm fine now!" She wiggles her peace signs at me, though I can see past her smile to the raw redness around her eyes. She's weary.

Still, I play along. "Remind me to never go back on a promise to you, huh. Dangerous."

Violette pats the bed next to her, then leans against me when I take my place beside her. "You already know not to."

"True. And you didn't even have to order me."

"Wouldn't want to," she murmurs. "Please lie down with me. I need you."

Exhausted as I am, the way her husky voice says "I need you" shoots a throb straight to my dick. But then, no, I'm just too fucking tired. Besides, she must be too. She can't mean like this.

"In my dreams, right?" I ask as I pull her down on the bed with me, not even caring enough to get undressed. Later. Whatever. She settles her back into my chest, and I drape my arm over her, practiced as anything. Spooning on autopilot.

"Yeah," she says, already fading from my awareness, but always there on the edge of it. "In your dreams."

* * *

How do you wake up in a dream? In my experience (I’m getting to be quite a professional), you just do.

So, there I am, aware, floating in utter darkness. I guess Violette wasn't up for a normal dream any more than I was up for sex in the waking world. Whatever, I'll cope with weird. The dark swirls around me in a way that I forgot once but never again: sharks in an ocean of nothingness. I saw this inside her when she passed me some of her strength across the defensive barrier the stronger girls-like-her produce to keep humans-like-me out. That's what I believe, at least. It's not like there's anyone around to ask why or how she does any of this. If there were, I'd love to know how she could rewrite the whole world and not shatter anything important—other than me, I guess, but I'm only in a few pieces, and she holds me together.

Good news! The sharks are gentler than they were back then, and though their skin is rough, the passes they make against me feel more like nuzzles than attacks. Kind of nice, honestly. I find my mind drifting over the past few months, just little flickers of memories with Violette.

How my hands shook when I touched her, that first night I re-met her. Or how I cried when I told her more about Sam breaking up with me, and she seemed genuinely stunned but held me tight. The first store I coaxed her to; the first restaurant; going to a crowded outdoor art fair and soothing her through a panic attack, joking and distracting her until it got so bad I put my hands over her ears and pulled her to my chest, and that was what finally calmed her down.

She's here, I realize, in the way that each jostle against me carries another little moment.

I love love, I love being in love, I don't care what it does to me.

I can hear my own voice singing it back to me. That's from the day she helped me throw all of Sam's left-behind stuff in a box. Those pieces of high school memories sometimes hurt, and it was so surreal to let her see it, but the loud music helped me keep the mood upbeat. The song in question is about messy breakups and falling in love again anyway, so it fit the mood perfectly when it came on. Violette really liked it, enough that she made me play it a few times. By the last playthrough we were spinning around the clear space in front of my bed while I practically yelled the chorus.

It's still true. I really don't care.

The dream shifts then, and I lose some of that "awake" feeling, though its absence will only be noticeable when I come to later. For now, there's silk beneath me, heat above me, and then the best of all is what's pressing down on my cock: warm, slick, grasping, unmistakeable, Violette.

The scene is still dark and hazy, but there are flashes of red light, like a single beam is coming from somewhere but it's broken up by the fluttering of a curtain or the spin of a fan. I can just—barely—see her silhouette. She's an angel, wings spreading out behind her, or are they equally large devil wings? Butterfy, dragonfly, fairy things, fluttering and gossamer? Maybe wisps or fire or smoke?

It must be all of them. She's so much more than she used to be, but still the same on the inside. Cute but spoiled, sweet but demanding, innocent one minute and trouble the next, but not more than I can handle. My trouble.

Feeding her, as always, feels so, so, so good.

* * *

I wake up with her in the same position on top of me, my cock pulsing and spilling inside her, and obviously it's hot and she's so gorgeous, but above all else I'm thinking Thank fuck I didn't cum inside my jeans. That would have been such a pain in the ass.

When she notices I'm awake, her blank post-orgasm face shifts into a special little smile, just for me. Who needs caffeine in the morning with this girl around?

"Good morning," she says, then yawns. She stripped herself before climbing on me, and I admire her body as her hand rests on her pelvis, right above the little whirl of blonde pubic hair. She used to be smooth down there, but it must've been more about hating her auburn hair than body hair in general, because now it's just trimmed.

"Morning. So much for behaving," I say with a little grin, remembering her grandmother's narrowed eyes. "Your grandma didn't seem to like me much."

"奶奶 can get over it," Violette mutters. "I'll take care of it. Probably should do it to a few of them."

"Ew," I say, companionably.

"Not gonna have sex," she says, wrinkling her nose at the idea, "but it's easier this way. I'll just tell them to forget it once it takes effect."

I shrug. She's so weird, but the point where I cared is lost to time. Hardly ever existed. "If you're fine with it. You're the one who has to deal with the awkward period before that, princess."

"Mm... that bit is only natural. Everyone in the world should want me," she says, sounding a little bored. "It's not like a mission or anything, just feels normal."

Something about that phrasing sets me on edge, but for the life of me I can't say why. I frown a little as I examine it. Yeah, I have my own limits, but not that many. My parents are number one, but I took care of that when she let me wire her so she literally can't touch them. It was kind of romantic in an insane way—you know, a normal day for us. She's also not allowed to touch Sam (but I could be convinced, one day, maybe) or his stupid also-non-binary partner who I hate (they're hot, makes it worse) or any of my friends, but she knows all that. So, what else is thrumming a warning signal at the back of my mind?

"Oran?" I hear the note of concern in her voice and wipe the frown off my face, but it's too late. She leans over me, pressing her hands into my front. "Is that bad?"

"No, no, it's not... I just..." I reach for whatever it is that's dangling just out of sight of my memory, and when I finally grasp at it, it's like a well-buried part of me lights up.

It's been a lifetime since I last thought about it, and back then I told her I wasn't interested. Which was true for a lot of reasons, but the main one was that I didn't know how to trust her all the way, much as you would have had to torture that out of me before I confessed. It's different now. I'm different.

"What if we have kids?" I ask, knowing that it's a paradigm shifting sort of question. The way her eyes and mouth widen in gentle surprise confirm that much.

"But, you don't want them...?"

"Who said that?"

"Old Oran," she admits, and some of her surprise turns to thoughtfulness. "I didn't realize that would change."

"I'm not saying it did. Necessarily. But at the time, thinking you might hurt them was a factor. So... so I'm asking instead of assuming this time."

A disquiet expression overtakes her face, her frown wobbling and shifting as she chews on the inside of her cheek. I realize it's a tough question for a girl who mostly runs on instinct, hormones, and inhuman morality, so I wait patiently.

"Hurt them..." she repeats to herself softly, and I realize that was maybe not the most delicate way to say it to a girl who fucks her own dad, but she shakes her head before I can try to adjust it. "They'd be counting on me to protect them, so I wouldn't want to. It would be wrong."

My face softens as I see her eyes start to swim a little. I know what's coming, so I tug her down into a hug before she even says anything. Now, her tears can drip onto my shoulder instead of running down her face. At least I pulled my clothes off while half asleep at some point last night, so I'm not cuddling her in a sweaty cardigan.

"Your mom?" I ask quietly, and she nods.

"I needed it, and it felt good in a way... but mostly bad. It was worse that it was both. Scary."

"You'd never build anything as horrible as that fantasy she made."

"No," she says into my skin with a little sigh. "I know what I want is bad too, but..."

Huh. As I lay there with her in my arms, I realize I probably have the opportunity to set everything right, to scold her for the way she's twisted her dad, Jett, and Christy to fit her preferred shape, and to discourage her from doing more of it in the future. If I used the memory of her mother hurting her without blunting the confusion, fear, or pain that comes along with it, I bet I could convince her that it's wrong to do it anymore. Not even by using my abilities, just my words.

Anyway. I roll over on top of her, kiss her wet cheeks, and feel like I should be the one with demon wings as I smile down at her.

"But you're so cute and you needed him, right? There weren't any other easy options when you're so shy, and it is his job to fulfill your needs." I tease her nipples while I say it, and the look of worry clears from her eyes. When I wink for her, she giggles, her tears dried up from just a few sentences and the press of my fingertips into her skin.

I continue, "Once your start there, you might as well have anyone else you want. We both know you're so sweet to them. You even let Jett fuck you, and he doesn't deserve it."

She sighs happily at the thought, and I'm satisfied to be the source of it.

Honestly, I have no idea why I've been agonizing so much. New life and sense of restraint or not, I'm just as much of a freak as Violette. That's one reason I'm so hopelessly in love with her. It's true that I'm different now, more open and less angry, but I still want to see her juice the whole world like an orange and drink the results greedily, then be the only one with permission to lick the sticky trails of fructose off her chin.

On the plane, I would've watched her fuck any one of or all of those flight attendants, if she wanted it. I really should've told her to have more fun. There's just this little fence around the life I built without her, and maybe, maybe a life we could make in the future? I'll have to think about that more. The idea of a child is still fresh and kind of makes me want to mutter "no hetero" when I consider it too much.

Violette, as usual, is off thinking her own thoughts while I have mine. Seeing the dreamy smile on her face, I grope her chest more forcefully, trying to draw her attention back to me.

"What're you thinking about?" I ask.

"The challenge I have for you," she says, her eyes suddenly sharper than I expected. Smug, sneaky. "I was a little worried, but now I think you'll like it."

Uh-oh, but in a way where I know I'm in for a good time. "Tell me, babe. I'll ganbaru."

She knows what that means because I've explained it before, but she still pokes me on the hip for dropping random Japanese on her.

"Come on, even Megan is speaking Japanese now, we're really having a moment," I say with a laugh, before she pokes me again several more times.

"闭嘴," Violette says. I know the word well enough that my brain registers it as an order, and my mouth clamps shut.

She nods approvingly. Oh, I know we've been playing around like we might have sex again, not like I started touching her chest for no reason, but the idea that I learned another language just for her to order me around in it really gets me there. I shudder and silently watch her smirk as my arousal becomes evident.

"Good." She reaches down to take my cock in her hand, and I can barely even whimper as she does it from the order choking my throat. She adds, giggling, "You don't even know what it is yet."

I nod, then shrug exaggeratedly, as if to say "Yeah, but it'll be hot, because it's you." I know this. She rewards me with her fingers around the head, her thumb tracing the slit, then the sensitive underside.

"Eileen's coming tomorrow. She texted me before we left. I want... I've always wanted her, since I knew what that meant. I want her to want me too."

I think I see what she's about to ask, but I let her hold on, pump her hand more firmly and pull more small, strangled noises out of me. She's too good at satisfying me to ask for a reprieve from my forced silence yet.

"Please make her make the first move," Violette says, her puppy dog eyes so sweet, especially when contrasted against the words coming out of her mouth, the way her hand is milking my dick for all its worth. "I can't do it like you, from the inside. I lent you some of my strength last night, and I can share more if you need it, so, please?"

I smile for her, but can't speak. It takes her a second before she remembers and says, "You can tell me now."

I gasp and drop my head back before I can actually speak again, not because I've been holding my breath but because she's jerking me off while asking me to do something absolutely perverse. I want it too; I want to see the delight on her face when I manage it; I want to tear Eileen's walls down for her; I want to be awful, awful, awful and get some of that wicked certainty back—the conviction that others are mine to sculpt, if I just set my mind to it. That having rhe ability means I have the right. It's possible to still be a sculptor without treating every person like a block of marble, isn't it?

We'll see. We'll fucking see, I guess.

"Knew it'd be her," I say, and Violette lets a moan slip out because she can tell what's coming next: "I'll do it. Two weeks or so is a hell of a deadline to give me for something that intense, but I'll do it."

She shivers underneath me in anticipation, and that's it. As my cock seizes up and pumps cum across her cute little tits, I think there must be something wrong with me, something terrible that no amount of love in the world could ever really polish away, and that it's a good thing Violette seems to like it.