i should never be given any free time ever bc this is all that comes out of it
i think i just turned a brutal kidnapping into love triangle drama so. i may be becoming shannon.
warnings: torture, kidnapping, invasion of privacy(?? its a big thing), killing fantasies, heartbreak(??), drugging
word count: 4k
Keefe snaps awake with a start, and Sophie's stomach sinks like molten lead.
She'd hoped Keefe would stay unconscious. She'd hoped they wouldn't have to do this. But now Gethen is standing, walking towards the cot Keefe is strapped to. And she's still tied to the chair, drugs hazing over every shred of her powers.
She doesn't know how they got into this position, doesn't know anything but Gethen's haunting leer and the white panic Keefe must be feeling as he realizes they've been captured. He's sitting up, thrashing against his binds now, eyes wide and darting but they don't catch on Sophie.
"It's just a drug, Keefe! It's just a drug, you're gonna be okay!" she shouts, desperate frenzy overtaking her thoughts. How to get out, how to escape, how to make this okay--
Gethen turns to her, face cruelly twisted. "He can't hear you. Can't see. He's paralyzed enough that he won't know what's going on, even if he can move and feel and think."
Sophie shudders, hoping the red heat of her anger would become a tangible thing, hoping her inflicting would miraculously strike Gethen into a heap of whimpering pain. It doesn't work. The drugs they've given her are a sheer net over her mind, blocking out her abilities.
"What are you gonna do then?" she snaps. "If he doesn't know what's going on? What's the plan?"
Gethen looks to be thinking hard for a moment. Sophie feels the ground disappear under her feet and she gasps, twisting down to see that her chair was levitating two inches off. Gethen grins at her, and the chair zips forward to him and Keefe before thumping down to the ground, jolting Sophie into biting her tongue.
"That's a better view, isn't it?" he asks. "So now you can see up-close."
Sophie chokes on a laugh like bile. "What?"
"We're going to look into his mind."
"I can't do Telepathy," Sophie reminds him. "You blocked my powers."
"Well, you're not doing anything. Just coming along for the ride. It'll be a good one."
Gethen laughs, then, and the world hurtles into black.
~~~
Sophie has been in dozens of minds before, but never like this. She'd always been the one probing, the one searching through, the one in control. Even when she was with a partner, even when she was a hair from slipping into the depths of what was a broken mind, she'd had a semblance of power.
This is different. She feels dull. Heavy, bloated, useless. A floatless balloon. She can't move, can't even lean forward to see a little clearer. An apparition of Gethen hovers beside, fingers tapping a pattern on his arm, and he flashes a lion grin at her.
Chills shoot through her. It's him. He's in control now. He can drag her from memory to memory, force her to witness every nook of Keefe's mind, push her to the very limits, and she'll be nothing more but a rag doll flopping along.
Words catch in her throat but she can't breathe enough to let them out.
A hazy shape materializes before them, slowly hardening into the outline of Keefe. He blinks, stunned. "Is this my mind?"
