When you die, people describe a feeling of your life passing before your eyes. Memories, moments, even regrets. Tses felt a lot of those things when the impact of the bullet sent her body into survival mode. Nothing could stop the initial break of skin and bones, but diverting all energy to transform your brain into light...well, weirder crap had happened to mutants. The body has it's own ways to survive.

Police did not generally check if someone was a mutant when they found a Jane Doe. They didn't check if a heart was nothing but moonlight, trying to sustain a broken body. And a lazy mortician didn't bother much beyond nothing injuries, checking for a pulse, and heading to their lunch break. When the body was missing, the records all said it went through the proper channels. Disposed of, beyond their interest to guarantee.

Meanwhile, the mutant hovered between the world of life and death, all energy remaining on the aspect of survival.

Her last few years had been chaotic. Stealing, running, trying to forget a stupid boy who left her behind. A stupid boy she could not help missing. As she hovered near death, she considered the feeling of forgiveness. He wasn't there to save her, and she wasn't worth saving after all. She fought and clawed her way up from the bottom, only to find a crutch to lean on, holding her onto sanity. With the certificate of death, her past life melted away.

She really must be a ghost now. A Will-o-the-wisp ready to haunt someone new.

Then, a change. Someone was there, piecing her back together. They stitched up the wound, covering the injuries and giving her body the first chance it had to heal. Slowly, her life-sustaining power was able to relax, her mind returning from vapors of light, her heart fluttering once more. She felt a breathe, another, her lungs struggling to remember how to work. She felt cold, confused, falling in and out of sleep and failing to realize what was occurring.

Stitched back together, like a rag-doll mended from the edge of destruction.

Her eyes opened, and her tongue flicked across dry lips. Where was she, and who had bothered to rescue her?

Certain people would accuse Chrysanthemum of being uncontrolled chaos, but she took offense to an accusation like that. Well, she took offense now. Even she could admit that, in her youth, she was little more than a wandering Id when left unchecked, looking for sex and murder wherever she went.

Good times.

These days, Chrys was more controlled. In fact, control was the name of her game. She controlled the company she inherited from her abusive father, which gave her some say over the goings-on with Syndicate, as one of its financial contributors. In her personal life, she also valued the things—and the people—she could maintain full control over. As for herself, she was in control… mostly. Her proclivities were kept to carefully selected situations.

Finding out Tses had died… that made Chrysanthemum feel less in control. Someone suffered for that. It could not be helped; she had made an effort to keep tabs on her old friend, but to suddenly realize she was gone… there was a tantrum to be had there. Blood was spilled. Not her blood.

Chrysanthemum wanted to know what happened, and when that was done, she wanted to memorialize her friend. After paying the right people, Chrys had Tses’s body in her penthouse laid out and awaiting attention.

It was not publicized for obvious reasons, but Chrysanthemum had spent years developing a keen understanding of the mechanics of the human body. Studying and research helped. Taking them apart helped, too. Tses’s skull had damage, but Doctor Chrys took care of that. She wanted Tses flawless, like she remembered.

The damage to Tses was patched up and from a physical standpoint, she was good as new. It was sad, but if she was not going to get her friend back, Tses would make a lovely doll when preserved correctly.

Returning to her study, scalpel and drainage tubing in hand, Chrys looked to the body resting on a flat, padded table in the center of the room. She was ready to empty away the blood from that otherwise pristine woman when… she blinked, confused. Was Tses… moving?

”Tses? Are you…” She ran over, dropping her tools and pressed two fingers against Tses’s neck. ”A pulse! Tses, are you alive? Please tell me you aren’t just tricking me like the frogs. Or Jameson.” Oh, Jameson. Electricity did such interesting things to his body.

Focus. Tses was alive. This was amazing.

Alive? The surprise in those words made Tses feel anxious. She tried to move a hand, muscles feeling a week from lack of use. ”W...” She started to ask where she was, what happened, who was talking, but the only word she could finish was ”Water.”

She managed to reach her hand up to the side of her head, and felt along the edge of a expertly repaired wound. The memory of a bullet pressed into her with impossible weight. She crawled away from death like a cat with nine lives, so close she whisper “f—you.” into the reapers ear.

Finally her eyes opened, as brilliant blue as ever and flecks of glowing green lingering around the irises. The face above her was familiar, even after many years apart.

Well, who else could have snatched her from the devil other then the woman who gave him so many new playthings.

Water. An obvious request! She should have expected that being dead would work up a thirst. ”Right. Of course.” The brunette ran back to the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge. Heaven forbid she get something as pedestrian as tap water. ”Forgive me; I sent the help away for the week. I justified it with the New Year, but really, I prefer to be left alone when I have a corpse around.”

Pouring the water into a glass, Chrys offered the glass to the woman as she opened her eyes. This was wonderful; those gorgeous eyes would have deteriorated over time, and as a doll, they would have eventually needed replacement. There was no way those false eyes would hold up to the real thing.

Chrysnthemum’s fingers traced her careful stitchwork on Tses’s head. ”It’s been too long, darling. You gave me quite a scare! I thought I was going to have to add you to my collection.” Not that she was ruling that out just yet. ”What do you remember of how you got here, Tsesy?”

Tses drank while she processed what was being said. A few key words stood out: corpse, for one. Wait, what corpse? Surely not, her? Taking a bullet to the head certainly was fitting for a corpse, but she felt alive now. Why else would she be thirsty? She tried to find some flicker of memory, but from the point of pain to waking now, there was nothing. She could only assume her body focused on survival, and things like hearing, thinking and processing would be unnecessary. At least she was alive.

>>”...add you to my collection...”

Well, if this was alive? She wasn’t sure how to feel about the situation.

I don’t remember. There was a shot, and then...this. But, weird things have happened to me before. I learned how to walk through walls, so maybe surviving a gunshot isn’t impossible?”[/b] she shivered at the touch on her skin, becoming aware of the bare spot where her hair had been shaved away. The stitches felt itchy now, and her hand flicked up and caught Chrys on the wrist.

”Why does it feel so weird...” the tiniest flicker of green energy flushed her fingers then faded. Her powers had clearly burnt their corse keeping her alive.

So Tses was shot, which certainly explained the skull damage. ”At least now I know why I had to put your head back together. The phasing might also explain why your brain seemed miraculously intact for someone who took a shot to the head. Chrysanthemum no longer had to explore that mystery, which was great, because any of her intended exploration would likely have turned a surprisingly alive Tses into an unfortunately dead one.

Chrys looked down at her wrist when Tses caught it and pouted, wondering why she was being kept from properly examining her work. ”I imagine being declared legally dead, then waking up on my table would feel weird—and who knows what consequences might come from that kind of emergency phasing?” In theory, she could know with enough examination.

This was Tses, who had always had a challenging personality, so Chrys smiled warmly and tried her best to ease her into rebirth. ”If there’s still something wrong with you, I can make it my duty as a friend to help figure out what,” she offered, leaning in to plant a kiss on Tses’s forehead.

Walking away with that little taste of Tses to form a connection, Chrys rubbed her forearm back and forth in a motion she always found soothing. Tses was confused and potentially stressed, so why not offer some calm, hopefully. ”I don’t suppose you remember how or why you were shot? You were always my favorite troublemaker, so I can make some educated guesses.” Indeed, Tses never had a problem getting herself in questionable situations, which the psychopathic brunette found appealing in a friend.

Tses could have been surprised by what Chrys was saying. After all, having someone they put your skill back together in such a casual way was certainly disconcerting. This, however, was Tses. She broke more bones, had more scars, suffered more falls than she ever wanted to admit. She was almost burned alive in her childhood, had several assassination attempts on her, and only lived now by some sheer dumb luck. She frowned at the thought this emergency phasing could have risks though. ”I suppose I should just be grateful to be breathing. But I have never been much of a person of gratitude.” She snarked.

Then, Chrys kissed her. Tses shivered involuntarily at the contact, a red flush crossing her cheeks.She was groggy and that made her react more slowly, but she still did not like the forward actions. Then came the strange sensation of touch, that haunting transfer of pleasure to her limbs. Ah, she forgot about this part. It would do little good to lash out at Chrys anyway. They would just share the pain, right? At least, that’s what she remembered. It had been six years.


But, why did she still feel cold? She reached to tug at her hoodie, only to realize, there was nothing. No hoodie, no shirt. No bra. No clothing.

”Holy fu—CHRYS!!!! When you bring home a doll, you put FRICKIN CLOTHING ON IT!!!”

Tses was never the most accessible person, and not particularly tolerant of the forward nature Chrysanthemum liked to take with her. Thankfully, she was just coming out of something between a coma and straight-up death. It was not surprising she might be groggy and slow to respond. And thanks to that, the puppeteer snuck a kiss.

Being familiar with her powers, Tses did not seem surprised at the new sensation being transferred to her. What she was surprised by, probably justifiably so, was her lack of clothes.

Chrys could feel the warmth on her cheeks that actually came from Tses. "Of course, and when I finished piecing a reckless, ungrateful doll's head back together, I was obviously going to play dress up and put a nice pretty bow on you, but until then, you don't generally dress cadavers, which is what I thought you were, sorry!" the words came fast, but she seemed less apologetic and more matter of fact. Clearly, she thought the answer should have been obvious.

"If you can get yourself back to your feet, I can gladly take you to my wardrobe and help you pick out something for that lovely body of yours." Chrysanthemum was not about to avert her gaze; she had already seen all of Tses and approved of what she saw.

Of course, it was easy to think of the many possibilities of dressing a body like that. "A skirt, maybe," she thought aloud, her fingers caressing their way up her thighs as she spoke, before passing her cut-offs I'm dragging along her sensitive waist. "Midriff exposing would be nice..."

Her hand moved up before stopping just shy of her chest. She grinned, pulling her hand away to instead wrap a lock of her own hair around her finger. "A tiara, maybe, just for old time's sake."

Turning back to Tses, Chrys realize she got a little wrapped up in imagining dress-up (and the enjoyable sensations of her own delicate touch) and nearly forgot she had a perfectly good doll still waiting for her. " I'm sorry, drifted off for a second. Can you stand? I didn't notice any major trauma to your legs." Which wasn't to say there would not be some brain trauma that could keep her from walking, so Chrys watched curiously for the answer.

Tses was doing her best not to absolutely lose it now that she realized she had no clothes on. For someone who spent most of her life covering virtually every inch of her skin, this felt like she had been literally skinned alive. Her heart was racing a little, and she didn't even have the energy to be annoyed at Chrys' condecending nature. She wanted clothes first! It didn't matter what type of clothes.

She was already sitting now, trying to resist covering herself with her arms. That felt a little late considering how long Chrys had probably been staring at her body. She flushed again. She felt so uncomfortable with her own figure. She was tiny, thin, with what could only be compared to a models thin physique from years on the street, but her own scars and self-doubt made her hate her body.

"Chrys, I appreciate you repairing my skull and saving me from a crematorium. I do. But I swear, if you put a bow in my damn hair I won't be happy. I am already sure I have a buzz cut on one side. I don't need a bow to top it off." She cried in exasperation.

Then, oh....She was about to stand when Chrys started, well, there was contact. Or, it felt like contact. She almost fell over as the petting sensation moved to her waist and she shivered. This experience was not something she was ready for. She had moments with Ty, but the contact always terrified her. She resisted, ran, struggled not to feel things. The problem was she could not run from Chrys the same way. She was a toy, and the master was tugging here and there, making her feel what she did not want to feel. "C...chrys. How can I stand when you are doing that?" She shut her eyes, trying to get a hold of her self. "You can't...when you are linked, you can't do that to me if you want me to come with you."[/b][/color] Her voice sounded like a kittens mew, attempting to be fierce but also facing a very strange and frightening situation.

Unsurprisingly, Tses was apprehensive about the bow. For a thief, she seemed to have an aversion to some of the finer things in life when it came to prettying herself up. It was a shame, because in Chrys’s eyes, she was starting from a very pretty base.

The touching was genuinely done out of habit. Chrys was a tactile person, and savored the sensations of skin on skin, so she often absent-mindedly traced against her skin with her own fingertips. It was only when she returned her attention to Tses that it became clear she was sharing those delicate feelings. This made something important now obvious: Tses was not used to the level of sensitivity to touch Chrysanthemum lived with. Those touches, while not chaste, were hardly intimate.

Her lips curled into a wicked smile. She wondered…

”Oh, Tsesy, there’s no rush. You’ve had a rough day, and you seem stressed, darling. Maybe…” Chrys’s hand trailed back up her body, hovering just shy of her own chest like a threat before her grasp found flesh. ”…you could do with a little distraction. I think you have too many worries in that pretty head of yours. Why don’t we clear it out and give you something nicer to focus on?” People were more receptive when dealing with pain or pleasure. While Chrysanthemum could peddle both, she wanted to see what would come from giving pleasure to someone who seemed to lack experience with it.

When the contact stopped, Tses thought it was safe to stand and follow. One shaky step in front of the other tested horribly weak muscles. She used to be so athletic, but now it was almost as much effort to walk two steps as it was to run two miles. Then, there was Chrys, and that look that Tses should have known to be wary of. She held a hand up, and Tses recognized the threat.

”Oh, Chrys, I don’t F—“ What little strength she had regained disappeared with a breathy gasp, and she fell sideways into a wall. She was cold, but the touches were making her body fill with different warmth. She wanted to be angry, but it...well honestly, she was confused by what she was feeling. She started to feel lulled, her mind bending...

Then she lifted her own arm, and bit it. Teeth cut flesh with force as she let the pain rush through the other sensations, seeking solid ground. No... she did understand this, and that was the only reaction she knew when something frightened her.

Chrysanthemum considered herself an enternal student in many ways. Of business, of anatomy, of pleasure, and of pain. Her knowledge of the human body was impressive, but with her powers, they did not have to be. Chrysanthemum had an intimate knowledge of her own body, and as long as she could establish a connection, that was enough.

As she anticipated, Tses had no way to prepare for an onslaught of sensations like this. Chrysanthemum took special delight in watching an affected Tses grow powerless and gasping. Tses was a strong, impressive woman, and Chrys could bend her with a well placed sueeze.

Unsurprisingly, given who she was, Tses did show signs of resistance. The sharp sensation of pierced skin on her arm transferred back to Chrys, who did her best to stifle a moan. That was impressive; most people were too hesitant to bite themselves so hard, they broke flesh. There was an instinct to restrain yourself in most people to prevent intentional pain. It was the same reason drowning yourself or punching yourself full force were hard to do.

Except Tses was strong-willed and somehow more fearful of pleasure than pain. ”Oh, Tses… pain’s familiar isn’t it? You’re not alone, dear.” She stepped toward Tses, not reaching out for her yet—she would lash out. She was still feeling defensive. Instead, her hand would remain where it was. Well, maybe a quick shift from the right to the left. Keep the sensation fresh.

”But why fear pleasure? Just because you aren’t used to it? Or… because you can’t have your guard up constantly if you…” A purposeful tweak. ”…give into it? Be honest, darling. Isn’t that lost control worth…” A kneading, pressed palm. ”…A little well-deserved empty-headed bliss?”

Tses had her arm in her mouth, the taste of blood leaking lightly to her tongue. It was tangy like iron, a ruby string tying her down to reality. Chrys was saying things, like the devil on her shoulder, a siren luring her toward the edge of a dangerous cliff. She needed to get away from this, escape the temptation and the games being played.

Why did her legs shake, as she sank closer to the floor? She shut her eyes, trying to muffle the noises she was making. Chrys was right, pain was familiar. She had a great tolerance for pain, enough that letting her teeth cut her own skin was possible. The playing with her senses, the idea someone was able to bring her to her knees like this was horrible. It was horrible...

So why was her jaw releasing, and her arm slowly falling away. Her eyelashes fluttered, one hand clawing near her own neck for something to hold onto. ”Why? Does this, amuse you?” Chrys had called her a doll, after all. Tses was just an object of collection for Chrys. Why did Tses even bother asking out loud? Maybe she should be grateful, the feelings being administered were seductive. But she knew what was down this road. Abandonment, frustration. Giving in to someone else’s wants only to be left when you became too much to handle.

It was written across her face what kind of effect this was having on Tses. She did not continue her attempts at inflicting pain, instead grasping at herself. She was having a hard time thinking of reasons to fight this.

Chrysanthemum shrugged a shoulder and her loose crop top slipped off it, exposing her bare shoulder. ”Maybe it does. Is it so bad to enjoy myself? You are a beautiful doll, Tses,” she admitted truthfully.

”I also remember you. So much you had to be in control of. Protecting yourself from everything, even joy.” Before Chrysanthemum’s stint in the facility, she was there to see Tses almost let a man in and find reasons to push him away. ”I don’t break all my toys. I’ve always had a soft spot for you, Tses,” she said as her hand appropriately found a soft spot as well.

Chrysanthemum bit her own lip to keep her focus. ”There’s plenty to enjoy able vulnerability when done right. I want to see you vulnerable, my old friend. I want to help you understand the peace in giving into my and letting me lead you to something wholly wonderful.”

Finally pulling her hand away from her relentless teasing. To give Tses a moment of clarity where her mind could be her own to think on those words, that hand carefully reached to place itself on Tses’s cheek. She brushed her thumb across Tses’s lips. ”What do you have to lose? What would it take for you to try?”

Life was as clear to Tses as a flash of green light, a glimpse at the abyss waiting. She spent years running from what she wanted, from people who made her feel some semblance of sanity. There was the boy who clawed his way into her heart but in the end was still unable to reach her, and she carried his hoodie, able to cling to the fabric more easily than she had to the person. There were broken bones and amnesia, childlike innocence and monster like rage, and none of that mattered in the end.

If life gave you a chance to restart, was it worth taking?

”Some toys are broken when you find them,” Tses countered. ”Is it really worth playing with broken toys? How did she feel being a ‘toy’? She was torn. After watching some who seemed drawn to her enough to steal her body and repair it, she could not argue Chrys was showing an intense, if not somewhat warped, attachment to her. That did not mean her own interest was settled. Tses has always been the powerful one. What was it like to have someone else in control.

The next contact was on her own skin, and the shiver she felt was much stronger there. She shut her eyes involuntarily, and felt her cheek pressing against the contact. Was that, consent, to this? Acceptance? She felt her head drift more, as if aching to feel the fingers on her hair instead. Just...don’t leave.. it was warped and twisted, but this was the only chain she had to hold her to reality.