He shrugs. "Being violent and impulsive is, like, fun, but I'd kind of rather be better at not doing obviously dumbass things. Eventually my parents will probably get tired of covering it up every time I rape somebody. Although the magic powers make it way easier to just not get caught doing that in the first place. But like, having magic powers that make it easy to get away with things doesn't help that much if I also just sometimes lose my temper and light somebody on fire in front of thirty people."

"...were you planning on raping me?"

"I mean, I was planning on hurting you and making you suck my dick, and I did that, and you loved it, so like, yeah I guess but also it seems weird to put it that way. 'I was planning on raping you' makes it sound like there's something I wanted and didn't get."

"...could have fucked my cunt."

"Didn't feel like it. Is this like, 'by the way, in case you ever feel like fucking me in a way I'll definitely hate', kind of thing?"

He half-starts two or three sentences and then says "...you can do whatever you want to me."

"I can!" he agrees cheerfully. "But it's fun when you like things. Going out of my way to make you miserable sounds like way less fun."

"...having something inside my cunt makes me want to die."

"I'll keep that in mind. But it doesn't sound like the kind of thing I'm into. Or, like, not exactly."

He's kind of shrinking back against the seat.

If Sean had invented mindreading by now then he'd learn that Chris's internal narrative is a string of pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease.

Sean glances over at him. "You look like you're trying real hard not to have an opinion."

Very quietly: "...yes."

"Is the opinion 'please don't do that'?"

Even more quietly: "yes."

What do you know, he's finally found a hotel. He's quiet for a moment as he parks the car.

Then he takes off his seatbelt and turns in his seat to face Chris.

"Okay," he says. "First of all, I'm not gonna do it. Second of all I want you to understand why I'm not gonna do it."

He has to take a moment to collect his thoughts. Putting this into words is hard.

Chris looks a fraction less terrified than previously.

"...so like," he starts, speaking slowly as he thinks through the words, "you're maybe not the best first magic slave I could possibly have gotten, but you're probably better than the best magic slave I could've come up with if somebody'd asked me what the best possible magic slave would be like."

Firmer ground now. "You want to be my magic slave, enough that you're offended that the magic tried to make you want it more, and you want me to get what I want, and you have, like, a reasonable amount of common sense about how to make that happen, and you want to get better at it, and you're cute and hot and you want me to set you on fire, and wasting all that on making you miserable just because I can would be a profoundly stupid thing to do. The smart thing to do with you is—give you everything I can to make you better at doing what you want to do with your life, because the thing you want to do with your life is serve me. It's good for me if you're happy and safe and it's bad for me if you're fucked up and terrified. And, like, I know I'm not the best at thinking through the consequences of my actions, but sometimes I can see a dumbass decision when it's staring me right in the face."

Chris thinks through this.

"...yes, sir."

"Also," he says, "this trying not to have opinions thing seems to be doing way more getting in my way than helping me. Like, imagine if you'd actually succeeded in making it sound like you didn't care whether I did it or not and you'd be fine either way. I still probably wouldn't have done it, cause it still doesn't sound like the kind of thing I'm into, but you would've been going around terrified of it for no good reason."

"Yes, sir."

Orders! Orders are good! Now he knows one thing that he is supposed to be doing. He considers this and then says, "I like when you tell me what to do because then I know what I'm supposed to be doing."

"Good to know." He reaches over and puts a hand on the back of Chris's neck, squeezing gently. There's no burns there anymore, but the gesture is still reminiscent. "Right now I wanna get a room at this hotel and fuck you in it. After that I'll think about what you should be doing with your life for the next couple months."

"Awesome. I can't remember the last time I slept in a bed."

He laughs a little, squeezes Chris's neck again, and gets out of the car.

It's a nice hotel. The room he gets has a king-size bed and everything is very pretty and fancy and Sean ignores it all in favour of scooping Chris up and carrying him to bed and taking his clothes off.

Ooh cool fancy things aaaaand he's scooped. 

No more fancy things only Sean.