"You think?"

"Alex. Shut. Up."

He winces again when Alex speaks. "I—didn't think."

"I had no idea she'd set up something like this - as a surprise - I'm so sorry, lovely."

"'S not your fault," he mumbles.

Squeeze. Pet pet pet.

"Fuck," he says at one point.

"Pet?"

"I'm just—fuck, did you see the way he looked at you, at me, he was okay with me going to school, he won't be anymore. Fuck."

"If he doesn't want to lose his other two kids he won't want to go to court for child abuse."

"There's no evidence, I used magic to heal everything, he never abused the other two, unless you count indoctrinating them into whatever nineteenth-century view of roles he has as abuse, it's literally my word versus his, a nice preacher of a congregation, everyone loves him, handsome, rich, who would believe the wayward kid of the crazy sub-turned-dom who left him and then drove herself into a ditch seven years later."

"...I'd need to look up whether role pressure is considered emotional abuse in this state..."

"I don't even know if there was any pressure, from what I saw Jonathan and Sarah did just happen to be their roles, and Tobias just teaches them what those roles mean."

"I meant on you, pet. If it's your word against his but his word is 'that's a sub' and yours is 'no I'm not', then that's all that would take to establish it."

"Oh. Yeah, maybe, but." He tugs on his collar. "People might not believe my word."

"I gave you a key, lovely."

"I know, that's not what I mean. We'd have to lie about you being my dom, Tobias could get people to say that I've always acted submissive and that this was an act of rebellion against him after joining school, hell he might even find people from school and get them to testify about my being your sub, it would totally be a thing he'd try to do."

"...I'd suggest you borrow Jackson but that would involve interacting with Jackson's dom. Ugh."

"...who I suspect would not play ball, in any case."

"Yeah." Hug. "...Do you want to discuss contingency scenarios or are you not up for that right now?"

"I—" Pause. Think. "I think I am. But I might not be, so if I find I'm not, I'll—stop, if that's okay?"

"That's fine, pet." Hug. "I have one instance of telepathy down but it's verbal only and it still might take me months to develop a second or generalized instance. If he manages to take you you'll be on your own at least at first."

Shudder. "You don't need to do that, you have your things."

"I wouldn't want to leave you alone in that house until you turned eighteen."

"B—but I'm not sure I'd want you to be there. To—to know."