On the dangers of (psi)bondage

[rememory]

After her text exchange with Molly, Sabine gathered what she'd need for lunch and then made a quick run down to the market for vegetables. She arrived, as promised, outside Molly's quarters within the half hour. A bag of the kind purchased in grocery stores for reuse was stuffed and leafy greens poked out from the top.

Yes, Chinese broccoli with a "pork" and black bean sauce ragu was overkill for lunch, she thought as she passed her hand over Molly's door scanner to let her know she was here. Then again, asking a three-week acquaintance with help for something as intimate as a psi-bond was pretty much overkill too.

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[thewinterlady]

Molly felt Sabine and her nervousness a while before the door actually chimed. She smiled and tapped the open panel.

"I'm not that scary, you know. I'm the nice Faerie queen." She said with a chuckle. "Come on in. Drink?" She asked, turning to the kitchenette.

[rememory]

"Isn't that what they all say?" Sabine asked, her nerves quieting in Molly's presence. Truthfully, it wasn't Molly that had her tightly wound, but the situation with Scott. "As I recall, I'm meant to refuse your hospitality, lest I be required to stay."

A smile flickered around the edges of her mouth and warmed her eyes. "Of course, the same is often said of the Queen of the Dead. So, it may be safe enough to for you to offer drink, if you accept my offer of food." True, she wasn't Queen of the Dead in the same way that Molly was a Faerie queen, but the parallel pleased her sense of whimsy.

[thewinterlady]

"I'm only part Fae so I don't think my offers are binding in any way." Molly said, laughing and heading to the fridge to get out a beer and a bottle of soda that she'd found was oddly changeable depending on what you wanted. "I'll take the food though." She said, offering both out to Sabine for her to choose. "I can burn water."

[rememory]

"Honestly, I'd prefer water if you don't mind," Sabine replied with a small shake of her head. "Nothing to do with the hospitality, but alcohol doesn't help with my mind, and I've never been a fan of soda. As for the food--I didn't know what you use to burn water in, so I brought everything I need. Mind me taking over the kitchenette for a few while we talk?"

[thewinterlady]

"Of course. It's all yours." Molly turned back to the refrigerator and grabbed a bottle of water, handing it to Sabine and then standing back, leaning against the side out of the way but where Sabine could still see her. "So. What are we talking about?"

[rememory]

Sabine was quiet for a long long moment, trying to figure out where to start and how. Eventually, when she'd finished sorting the veg, she started the only place she could. "Have you ever loved someone you couldn't have?"

[thewinterlady]

"Yes." Molly answered immediately. She'd been in love with Harry for years and known for almost as long that it would never happen. She'd tried, but there was no way she could have Harry the way she wanted him. And she'd gotten over it, but it'd sucked big time. "I know that feeling."

[rememory]

At least Molly wouldn't blame her for falling in love with another woman's husband, probably. "I never wanted him for myself. Never tried to seduce him. Got engaged to someone else. Broke off the engagement after my fiance's father sold me to our enemies. Then one of my ghosts gave up the rest of his existence to go find him, the one I couldn't have."

She took a breath and arranged the Chinese broccoli, then rough-chopped it quickly. "He came to get me. Not by himself, but he was there and carried me out of hell. Flash forward to Valentine's Day this year, about a year after I was in prison. He admits he loves me, and then tells me he's got to go back to his wife."

Sabine glanced up at Molly and smiled wryly. "There's more, but I figure you might need to catch your breath."

[thewinterlady]

"Well, shit." Molly said, sipping her drink and taking it in. Clearly there was a lot more at work than just the obvious love triangle but that wasn't what Sabine was here for. "I hate to say it, but he sounds like he doesn't know what he wants."

[rememory]

Sabine shook her head but didn't give voice (immediately) to the stubbornly protective denial that wanted to fly out of her mouth.

"Neither of us ever wanted to be together. He wouldn't be the man I fell for if he would've left his wife. And I wouldn't be the woman he loved if I could ask him to break a vow," she explained after a moment. "The thing is, that was fine. It was how it should be. He went back to his wife, and I fell in love with the telepath who'd been psi-bonded to me since we were thirteen and the Towers fell. Shola."

Tears sprang to her eyes at saying his name out loud, and the pain that ripped through her all but doubled her over. As it was, it took her a minute to catch her breath again. "I miss him, every second of every day, like you would miss Will. But... the one I couldn't have... if you haven't guessed by now, is Scott."

[thewinterlady]

Molly couldn't help flinching at the pain coming from Sabine. She shored up her defences and reached out with her senses, magic wound through to offer a little comfort to her friend.

"I'm sorry." Molly murmured, and she was. Sorry for Sabines lost partner and for the pain she was going through now.

Will had told her about Scott, though she'd not met him herself she was inclined to think well of him because Will seemed to like him. Plus Sabine loved him and Sabine was probably one of the only people Molly had ever met that she'd trusted instantly.

"So now you're both here and you're both free." Molly said quietly.

[rememory]

"If only." Sabine finally put down the knife and grabbed a glass of water. After a few sips, she shook her head. "On second thought, maybe I should take that drink," she said, but knew if she didn't push on through, she'd never finish it, and she did need Molly's help.

"But it's more complicated than that. He came here from the day he confessed his love, before he talked to Jean. I came from about a month and a half after that. We promised we'd find a way to stay in each other's lives, but at home we hadn't found it yet. We've been avoiding each other. So even though I told him Jean forgave him, he feels guilty still. And even though I don't blame him for us not having found a way to talk yet, it means I've still dealing with the hurt of his rejection, even if I never really wanted him to choose me in the first place."

She took a breath and another sip of water, trying to settle her emotions enough to finish. It shouldn't be so hard. The problem itself was simple. But the solutions weren't, and she needed Molly to understand. Sabine took refuge in programming the replicator to use her credits and supply a firm pork-flavored tofu while she said, "The worst part is that we have a psi-bond. At home, his wife was suppressing it. Without her here..." Sabine shrugged and turned to meet Molly's gaze finally. "It's already almost as strong as my bond with Shola, and it has some very challenging side effects."

[thewinterlady]

"Side effects?" Molly asked, though she could probably guess what they were. She and Wills connection, whilst it couldn't exactly be called a bond and certainly not in the same vein as the one Sabine was talking about, was intense and complicated in its own way. It could cause issues if her control wasn't on point.

"I take it they're making things difficult to be sharing relatively closed quarters?" She encouraged Sabine gently.

[rememory]

Sabine gave Molly a grateful smile of understanding. "There's that, yes. But I sincerely doubt platonically sharing a bed with a man I want like air could ever be easy. Feeling his emotions and his needs, that just puts another layer on it."

The cut on her palm had healed without so much as a scar, but her hand opened toward Molly reflexively anyway. "I cut my hand with a kitchen knife, on purpose, to test my suspicions. He felt it. He knew exactly what had happened, and it hurt him almost as much as it did me. That's the bond I share with my spirits. I feel their pain. And... well, I can force a link with other people to distribute that pain across a network. Scott let me do it whenever we worked together, and... now he's not just sharing when I need to shift the load, but he experiences pretty much any excess sensation."

Sabine wasn't one to be coy, shy or avoid taboos and she didn't expect Molly was, either. So she just came out with the other issue. "It's kind of a catch-22, even if it weren't a dangerous distraction. Can't have sex with him. Can't have sex with anyone else, or he's having sex with us too."

[thewinterlady]

"Awkward." Molly said and smiled, folding Sabines hand back in where she'd offered it up.

Molly thought over the situation. She, probably more than anyone, could understand how Sabine was feeling. Before she'd learn to control the outside influences, any strong emotion or personality could override her own. After Harry had apparently died, she'd shied away from anyone at all, wary of anyone and their minds and feelings. It'd taken a long time and becoming part Fae for Molly to figure out how to stop it.

She looked at Sabine and realised her new friend hadn't asked for anything yet, but there was a question in her eyes.

"What have you tried to ease it?" She asked, smiling gently to show Sabine she was used to this kind of thing.

[rememory]

"Bless," Sabine answered softly, more of a sigh than words. "I knew you'd understand."

She took a moment to gather herself again and to turn on the burner, since she trusted her focus enough now to cook.

"So far, meditation. I learned some shields, and how not to grab for links instinctively, so I can do it intentionally now or not. That involved working with complex psi-patterns. If my teachers were here, I'm sure they could teach me to adapt the patterns to minimize the flow along the link, but on my own..." She shrugged and smiled wryly. "It's like swimming upstream...when everything in me wants to swim down."

[thewinterlady]

Molly gave it some thought, watching her friend move around the stove, adding ingredients with a practised hand. There were a few things she could try but they were invasive and she was loathe to suggest them to someone that was as sensitive as Sabine was to the spirit world and to magic in general. There was a reason Molly had the Doom hanging over her head when she'd been apprenticed. But there were less invasive things that she could do.

"Well...I can think of two things that might help." She murmured thoughtfully. "One, I can enchant a physical object to act as a nullifying effect for the specific link between the two of you. A ring or a talisman of some sort. That's probably the easiest thing to do for you both. It's complicated spell work and I'd need to have you both here while I work it, but it's doable. And you can take them off if you wanted." She added with a smile. "Two, we can work on some shields and mental defences for you. You're the one with the power so the onus is on you to do the work. Psychic bonds aren't something I have a huge amount of experience with, but it's not completely out of my wheelhouse. The danger would be that I miss something, some kind of resonance that can get through whatever defences we put in place and worm it's way in regardless. I can probably also teach Scott some basic shielding but if he's not talented, you'd be able to walk over it in a heartbeat." Molly held up a finger. "One - the enchanted item would cut off the connection completely. You'd be wholly normal with him for all intents and purposes." She held up a second finger. "Two - you could be lulled into a false sense of security and end up overwhelmed by the connection from his side and in a situation you weren't expecting."

She let the choices hang in the air and gave Sabine time to think them over. Both had their merits but Sabine would have to make the choice.

[rememory]

Sabine didn't need time to think. Not about that. Even the merest touch of the thought she might not feel him sent a shudder through her and brought tears to her eyes. "I love him, Molly. God help me, I love him, and even if I never have him, I don't want to shut down the bond. Not even if it could be temporary." She would suffer a thousand years of celibacy and other discomforts before she'd lose a moment of connection with him.

It would have to be defenses, but they couldn't be arcane. Not and risk her other abilities being affected. Not and risk losing the touch of Scott's love on her heart forever.