"I don't think you're allowed to do that."

"Hmm, yeah, maybe, I dunno. But I will, if the therapist person allows and you want me to. But—I still think you should. You'd—want things, if it worked and. Stuff."

"Wanting things wasn't so great either."

He shrugs uncomfortably. "Do you see what I see, here?"

"I don't know, do you see that my life sucks no matter what I do?"

"...more or less, yeah. I see a friend I wanna help but am not sure how. I mean, I've laid out what I think is wrong and what I think you should do and how I think it'd help, but I can't force you to do it. So, I don't know what to do either."

"A therapist isn't going to fix my life actually sucking."

"A therapist is going to tell you how to make your life actually not suck! Besides, do you have a better plan? What do you have to lose?"

Poke sausage. Observe sausage motion. Put down fork again. "I still think they'd flip out and go after Master."

"Well, one, you could choose not to tell them about Mason. They won't force you to. And two, I don't know if he's strictly a threat to your safety. I'm also not sure just how much power they really have to randomly go after someone."

"Well, I don't know either. That's not actually better."

"So you don't tell them," he repeats, shrugging.

"I think they'll notice if I don't. And try to make me. I'm not really good at not doing things people are trying to make me do."

"You seem awfully good at not going to the therapist," he points out. "But I don't mean make Mason a secret, I mean telling them you don't want to talk about Mason."

"Are you trying to make me go?"

"Not... exactly? I'm trying to persuade you it's in your best interests to go. I can't very well order you to do it."

"That's not the kind of thing I'm not good at not doing then."

"That's exactly the kind of thing a therapist would try to do, though. And maybe you could get a sub for a therapist."

"Subs can try to make people do things too, sometimes."

Sigh. "You can tell the therapist that if they try to make you tell them about Mason you'll stop going."

"That only works if they're not very good at making me do things."

"You're honestly tempting me to try to do just that."

Jackson looks away.

"Is that your only objection to therapy, then? That the therapist might go after Mason?"

"And I don't really think it'd help anything but it has that in common with everything, so."