And Sadde is fidgety and nervous.

"It'll be okay, pet."

"I'm pretty sure you're right, but I'm still kinda nervous."

Scritches. "Charlie won't even be there, just Renée."

"Which means I'll get to repeat this at some point in the future, woo."

"Poor thing," says Isabella.

He grins. "Fine, I'm being overdramatic."

Pat pat. "Yes you are. It'll be fine, lovely."

"It probably will," he agrees.

"Renée is a very sweet and friendly person."

"Yeah, I've gathered as much."

"You can talk about being switches or something if nothing else."

"...I'm not sure that's the best idea."

"It's not the world's most fascinating conversation topic, I guess, what do you mean?"

"I mean that most of my relevant experience consists in being beaten up by Tobias."

"Oh." Snuggle.

Snuggle. "I presume a bunch of teens go into activism when they're about this old, but I don't really have it in me. I understand the problem and such, but other than convincing individual people that switches are in fact a thing," shrug.

"Okay. She might bring it up; she does know you're a switch. But it shouldn't be hard to steer her elsewhere."

"It's not that I don't want to talk about being a switch, I'm just not gonna be very clear about or forthcoming with information on how it's interacted with my history."

Nod, nod. Pet pet.

Snuggle.

"To be honest she's not likely to focus on your childhood in particular. More like, 'do you get that thing where you go into a store and you can see the cashier decide you're a sub who had an accident at the barber'."

He giggles. "I mean, I have had this happen recently, yes."

"Aw, pet." Pet pet.

"The collar's more indicative than anything. I don't mind it that much, and I don't think I act all that subby most of the time. And I'm definitely not gonna walk around without the collar, heck yeah I belong to you."