So this is a RP I did with @tigresjumeaux following the Golden Ticket Awards. She plays Talia, I got Milan, and we both had massive amounts of feels

Heads up/Content Warning since there’s heavily-implied emotional/mental abuse in Milan’s (and Clark, by default) past, outright drug abuse at the very beginning, and lots of language because of Millennium’s second-favorite F word behind Force.

Had she ever expected this to happen? Well, no. Not really, no. Maybe someday far off into the future, like 2025 or something, she didn’t fucking know. She did know, though, that she had tried her very damn best. She had worked herself to a breaking point to get to what she wanted. And it was not enough.

She had failed.

Oh sure, she had before. 2003 came to mind. And 2006 to 2009 was a haze for her if anything, but…she didn’t want to lose in any way, but with Clark, it almost made sense because he had been raised like her. He had known the repercussions of failure, how they were supposed to redefine an era, and oh God, Clark knew just how her hands shook when they were children and the adults raised their voices at things out of their control. Clark was like looking in the mirror. She was better than him. But losing to him made some vague sense.

Not her. Not that damnable little redhead who didn’t even /want/ the title. Milan had wanted…no, no, she needed that title. That was her identity. And now that had been ripped from her hands despite how hard she had fought to hold onto that. She was waiting, just waiting, for that manager to come in, to back her into the corner and use that icy tone of voice she had unwittingly adopted to everyone they’d told her to fear.

Her mind was in Maryland a lot these past few days, and in the haze of too little sleep and too many pills, she could swear she saw a little girl with copper skin and raven twin-tails running outside her door and along the curving, dormant sapphire track. She threw back a handful for good measure. (They couldn’t, she reasoned, kill a coaster made flesh as easily but damn if Milan wasn’t going to see how down the rabbit’s hole she could fall.) Part of her knew the kid was her brain fucking up on her, reverting her back to a childhood she wasn’t even sure she had because it was safe. Part of her wanted to grab the girl, hold her close and tell her to run, run far and fast, run at those blessed and cursed 93 miles per hour to somewhere the industry couldn’t find her. And then another part wanted to grab the girl and wring the life from her neck, feel her body go limp and cold under her hands because damn it all, she would be sparing her from this shit.

“Jesus, that’s a little fucked,” She muttered, coughing to help dislodge the capsule in her throat. Muscle relaxant, the bottle had read. Too bad it couldn’t relax her brain. “You’re a little, a lot, fucked.”

She blinked at the mirror, wide yellow eyes adorned with smudged mascara and dark circles. “You’re a lot fucked, and you fucking suck. You’re a fucking psychopath and nobody fucking likes you anymore because you fucking suck. You fucking suck, Milan. You deserve this shit because you are a fucking dumbass loser. You are literally good for fucking nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nada, no fucking purpose any-damn-more.” She threw the empty bottle at the mirror for good measure, but she’d taken just enough or not slept enough or didn’t care enough or just plain wasn’t fucking good enough that it didn’t dramatically shatter the glass.

Her room was nothing short of a mess, her dress ripped into sequined blue tatters on the floor, tables and chairs flipped and overturned, their contents left to scatter. Her pictures and awards had been taken down and all but slammed to the ground, her symbol painted on the wall with a dark sheet over it. She couldn’t bear to look at it. One chair sat firmly lodging the door shut. Nobody else would want to come in anyway, would want to see a fucking loser, but she wasn’t sure if she was keeping herself in or them out, and that opened a whole new slew of injuries she didn’t want to think about. So she did what she did best: avoidance, this time by flopping down face first on the bed and sobbing uncontrollably.

She sat outside the door many a time before actually steeling herself to open it. Talia was no stranger to Milan’s dangerous tantrums, nor her icy silences, but…the genuine, crippling hurt was the worst.

The hurt that sent her pummeling into her conscience (which she too-often pretended didn’t exist) was the worst. The scariest. Milan was notorious for being nigh sociopathic in her ability to come off as an ice queen, but it had taken a single slip for Talia to realize just how deep that hurt had latched on.

Talia knew that Milan wouldn’t want anything to do with anyone, not now, but…perhaps the visit was more for herself than for Milan. The few times she had seen Milan in the past week or so she had been devastated enough, so dramatically fallen from grace, to send Talia retreating to her own room in a fit of panic and nauseating terror for the gigacoaster. Because damn it, Milan was one fucked-up girl. But she was /her/ fucked-up girl. The others would whisper - some half-heartedly concerned, some mocking…but nothing would fail to set Talia off at this point.

The throbbing ache in her chest came to a quiver when she finally found the strength to knock on the door.

It was loud and made her nearly jump out of her skin. Most anything did at this point but, regardless, it startled her. “If I just pretend I’m dead, will you leave me alone?” She called, uncoordinatedly flinging her legs over the bedside.

/Fuck, I needed to wash my face./ She had been in the shower twice, and each time had resulted in her curled up on the floor and damn near hyperventilating. It wasn’t like she was doing much besides lying about and stewing in her own woes.

She cracked the door open just enough to look outside, and before any other emotion could come, there was relief in seeing Talia and she was sure there was a small smile on her lips when she saw familiar emerald eyes. She was stable, good, dependable. Milan needed someone like that right now.

And that quickly changed to panic. /Talia won’t love a loser./ “Fuck, Tals, I,” she stammered, pressing her back to the door and digging her heels into the carpet. “I can’t do this, Talia, not right now, fuck, fuck, I-” /Too weak to even keep someone else out. Fuck, you’re pathetic./ She slumped to the floor and buried her face in her hands to muffle the scream.

Talia couldn’t stifle the sob that ripped out of her chest in the split second she saw Milan through the cracks. The wild, smudged golden eyes and the usually-smooth hair greasy and untamed.

The /vulnerability/.

But…God. She had to hold it together. If she didn’t there was no chance in hell Milan would let her in. Let her help clean up a bit, let her sit quietly with her as the storm blew over, let her be gentle…

As Milan sank to the floor on one side of the door, Talia did the same. For once, she found herself thankful for the paper-thin door (though each sob that found her ears was a sock in the gut).

“Milan,” she said quietly, swallowing the shake in her voice and fighting the urge to cry “oh, /Milan/,” barge in, and throw her arms around the giga. “I’m not…I’m not here to do ‘this.’ We don’t need to talk. I just. I need to see you.”

“How can I know that?”

There wasn’t any malice in it, and it was so unlike herself that it even took Milan aback. She just sounded…tired. Through. Broken. But losing wasn’t like her either, and look where she was now. A fucking loser. By one fucking point to that ditzy little bitch.

“How can I be sure you aren’t here to just be the first to point in my face and tell me I’ve fucked up irrevocably and there’s no way in hell I can fix this? Because my /God,/ Thrill, I’m sure they’re lining up to do that. Fucking hell. Just…”

She picked up a relatively heavy picture frame and chucked it across the room. It left a sizable dent in the cobalt wall and made a satisfying sound as more glass trickled out of the frame.

“How can I fucking trust you?” She all but whimpered.

“You could know that by letting me in,” she replied quietly, carefully. “Milan, you’re the one that hates you. Not me. Even if I did want to tell you that, it’s nothing you haven’t told yourself.” She flinched as she heard something heavy smack against the wall, knitting her eyebrows and shutting her eyes. A few tears, hot and stinging, sprang to her eyes. The weakness in Milan’s voice was gnawing at her stomach, at her head.

“You don’t have to trust me. I just want to see you.”

“Fine. Fucking fine, Tals. You can come in.” She knew that Talia wouldn’t go away per se, and would probably sit outside that door for a while. The sooner she came in and said her piece, the sooner she could leave.

She scooted away from the door enough, instead huddling in a corner with her back pressed firmly against the wall. Her knees drew up to her chest, and she wrapped her arms around her self, clenching one hand over her wrist to try and mask the fact that she was trembling like a leaf.

There was a tense moment before the door open, but when she heard the telltale creak, she dropped her head down to hide her face. “There, you’ve seen me, somehow I’m still regrettably alive, are you fucking happy?"

She wished she could say she was surprised.

As the door opened she was hit with a wave of heat, and the smell of sweat hung heavy in the air. It was dark, too dark, and she closed the door behind her, zeroing in on the once-magnificent Millennium Force curled pathetically in the corner. She was trying - and failing - to hide the tremors that shook her body, and her hair fell in an unruly curtain over her face and knees.

Talia wasn’t entirely sure she could handle seeing her face. God, she just wanted to brush that hair, help her regain some semblance of self…

"Milan. I’m not here to lecture you or yell at you or anything.” She sat down close (but not too close) to the shaking giga, her eyes wrought with worry. “I just wan—-”

She trailed off as she caught side of an empty pill bottle lying on its side near a wall across the room.

“Milan. What is that.”

Her head snapped up, her teeth clenched taught in the back. “It can’t fucking kill me, Talia. We’re damningly durable compared to people-people. It’s not like I have anything left to lose anyway. I’ve lost everything.”

Milan’s lower lip quivered at that. “I’ve lost everything,” she repeated, voice small and hollow and embarrassingly timid. “I have nothing left.” Tears welled up in her eyes and she swallowed hard.

“Why do you even care? Nobody’s going to care anymore. Nobody cares about you when you aren’t on top. I could fall off the face of this miserable fucking planet, and nothing would change. Not anymore.”

“I’m not worried about it killing you, Milan, I’m worried about the sentiment behind it.” She edged closer as Milan’s labored breathing broke into something small and quiet, a ghost of her pride and strength. God, she just wanted to touch…

“I’m not on top. I was nineteenth. I was never on top, but damn it, people still care about me, don’t they? You’ve won the most - more than her, more than him. You’re the face of this damn park. You’re what people come for.”

“I don’t care about Clark anymore. I still can run circles around him blindfolded with one hand tied behind my back. They effectively killed him the second they strapped goggles to his face and told him to pretend to be something he’s not. And that dumb bastard is happy. Did you see him last night? Laughing and dicking around with Remus and Jesse and fucking /Maggie?/"

Her hand clenched into a fist. "He’s fucking happy, Talia. He’s been miserable for nearly 20 damn years and he’s finally happy. If I didn’t hate him so much, maybe I could be happy for him."

"You know why he’s happy, though, Milan?” she struggled to keep her voice steady. “He’s been through a lot of the same shit as you. He was a fucking wreck for a long time. And then he learned to let go.”

“Bullshit. Aside from the way we were raised, his life has been damn near perfect. Nobody gives two shits about any other park in New England. Nobody gives a shit about that Six Flags otherwise. Him? He’s literally the only reason people care. He doesn’t have competition standing 10 feet from his damn sign. I’ve had to work my ass off to be better than any of you fuckers here, and that’s not counting across the border in Pennsylvania or even down at the bottom of the state since they finally decided to turn Mason from a ghetto shithole to a vaguely respectable park. I’ve /tried/, Talia. Clark never had to. And he’s got those damn idiot bumpkins from Jersey that are always up his ass, I got here by /myself./"

And it finally was starting to occur to her that maybe, just maybe, she was part of the reason she had no one. She bit down on her lip hard enough to draw blood. "This whole world has tried to tear me down. They put you here, they put Maddie here. There’s Clark, there’s my sister, and now there’s that damn little idiot sitting pretty down in the city she’s named after. I have fought this whole world for so long, and I tried so hard to prevail but…”

Milan sniffed hard, tears rolling down her face. “Talia, I’m tired,” Her shoulders slumped, and she leaned back helplessly against the wall. “I’m so fucking tired of fighting. But what else do I have? That’s my whole identity. If that’s gone, I’m nothing."

Talia knew better than to attempt reassurance. It never worked. Not when she was like this. And maybe…maybe that was for the best.

"You’ve fought harder than he ever had to. And letting go is harder for you but would also make you so much happier. Maybe it’s time to make yourself a new identity. You’re still one of the greatest coasters on the face of the planet but if it’s going to tear you up like this every time you don’t get a slip of paper to prove it, then damn it, you need to move forward. Because this? This isn’t good, Milan. Even the coasters who hate your guts are scared for you.”

She gently placed a hand on Milan’s shoulder, gauging her reaction.

Milan was a prick, yes. Talia would be the first and last one to confirm this - despite facing the arrogance significantly less than others, she knew better than anyone, she thought. But she didn’t…deserve this.

She snorted. “I doubt they’re really worried. Clark is probably laughing his ass off back in Boston, I’m sure Aurora’s made a thousand different comments about how it serves me right, and I know she doesn’t act like it bothers her anymore but I’m sure Maggie is looking over here and laughing too. I am the fucking laughing stock now."

Milan shook her head, running her hand through her slick tangles of hair as best as she could without snagging it. "Everybody hates me. It used to be because they were jealous of me, but now, they probably just hate me the same way that we all hate Phil or Manny.”

But that couldn’t be entirely right, there were levels of terrible, and Mantis and Mean Streak were at the very bottom. Even at her worst, she didn’t think she could be quite that bad. Clark was happy now. This never had bothered Rory, except for the fact that she had heard enough rumors to know that Charlotte was probably equally as miserable, and believing herself to be some terrible person now because she sat on the throne.

“Or maybe they don’t like me because I’m a massive sociopathic cunt."

Talia watched her solemnly. "Clark…actually called last night. He asked how you were doing, and I had to tell him I hadn’t a fucking clue. You’re being miserable enough that people are looking past all the shit you’ve dumped on them and realizing that shit, maybe you’ve stepped on them all your life because something’s wrong.”

“I’ve been alive for sixteen years. I’ve been here almost two decades.” Milan leaned into Talia’s shoulder and shut her eyes, exhaling shakily. “And I think I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve actually been happy. Isn’t that awful? I don’t know how to be fucking normal."

Talia sighed quietly, letting her cheek fall against Milan’s head, quietly thanking whatever deities were out there for her willingness to be touched.

"You want to think about those times, then?” she murmured. “See what they have in common? Because…I think it’s time to learn.” She ran a hand through Milan’s hair, noting how uncharacteristically greasy and tangled it was.

“And also maybe time for a shower?”

“Yeah. I probably fucking reek.” She rose to her feet. “You can… Come sit on the other side of the curtain if you want to. I don’t really mind you keeping close to me right now.”

Milan wobbled at her first step, pitching forward and clinging to Talia’s arm for support. “Th-” She blinked, the word foreign on her tongue. “Thanks…?” She began uncertainly. “Yeah, uh. Yeah. Thank you for coming.” Oh yes, that was a very strange word for her to use.

“I’ll take you up on that. And look at you, already saying nice things.” Talia stood carefully, steadying Milan with a careful hand on the shoulder. “I had to come. Now come on, let’s go get you cleaned up."

"You didn’t have to. I didn’t expect anybody to. Not after that. People are going to kind of just… Stop caring. And that’s really hard for me to accept."

She stepped into the bathroom, tiles chilly on her feet. She hadn’t realized how downright cold she was until a shiver wracked her body. "I really fucked everything up this time, haven’t I?”

“Yeah, well. I like to think I’m a little different.”

Talia helped her all but stumble - God, Millennium fucking Force was /stumbling/ - across the room to the bathroom, taking care to step over the tatters of fabric and the broken glass strewn about the room. She made a mental note to clean up a bit, if Milan wasn’t going to…

“You’re too much a part of this park for people to ignore you completely, Milan. You’re the only one who’s had any change in opinion of yourself as of recently."

She carefully sat Milan down on the toilet, reaching in to turn the nozzle and feel the water. Last thing Milan needed now was cold water, if her earlier shiver had been any indication. The bathroom was fucking freezing.

The bare backs of her thighs hit the cold seat and she all but yelped. She hoped that Talia couldn’t hear that over the sound of the now-running water. It was just like being a child again, sitting and waiting for her bath to be drawn after she had been on some horrid crying jag.

And that was when she made her mistake, thinking of that summer back in Maryland. She didn’t know what sort of rosy pictures Clark had painted from it, because that was how he dealt with things, to deny and deny and cover up his eyes and pretend nothing was real, so virtual reality was truly a fitting punishment for him. The truth was that their upbringing was less than ideal. She remembered screaming, pressure, trembling, impossible standards and lofty expectations, tears, and Clark burying his face in the pillow and pretending heroes and metropolis were real.

"God, we were fucked up from the start,” Milan hoarsely whispered.

Talia…didn’t have a reply for that. She sighed, looking at Milan with sympathy heavy in her eyes (she hoped she didn’t look up). She only sighed, looking away and determining the water warm enough to suit the trembling girl.

“I think you’re good to go in here. Want me to step out?”

“Is he really fine, Talia? Or is he just sticking his fingers in his ears and playing pretend?” Milan whispered, standing to her feet and halfheartedly pulling her baggy sweatshirt off. “He’d rather die than let anyone know that something wasn’t right. Is he really okay? He does that. He fakes it.”

She shook her head, squeezing her eyes shut tight and sighing once more. “And stay, God, just…stay, Tals."

"I don’t know if he’s fine,” Talia replied quietly. “But he did seem concerned. Sometimes you just have to fake it until you’re there.” She picked the royal blue hoodie up from where Milan had discarded it into the floor.

“I’ll be back. I’m going to throw this in a basket because I don’t even want to know how long it’s been since it was washed. Then I’ll be back, okay?”

“He got out of it easier than I did, but I guess he still took a pretty bad lick.” Milan stepped into the shower, shivering once more. And she had finally come to just enough semblance of self-awareness that she wondered how much of his suffering could’ve been pinned back directly onto her.

/Oh, God. I’ve ruined Clark’s life./

It really should have stung when she came to realize it, but she was perhaps just so numb from everything that had been hurled her way in the past week that she accepted it with little more than jaded nonchalance.

/Because you’re Millennium Force. That’s what you do, you ruin peoples lives. And now you’re ruining yours./

“He did.” Talia sat down, her back to the wall, legs splayed out parallel to the shower. “But he’s worried about you. And so am I. And so is everyone else. They don’t know what to do without their preening princess strutting around the park.”

Just a week ago, she wouldn’t have contested at all that she was the greatest thing to ever grace the face of this earth. How the mighty could fall in just the span of seven short days. Now, she wondered if anyone was genuinely concerned aside from the woman standing on the other side of the shower curtain.

No, Clark probably still cared. He couldn’t let things go, and he’d probably built it up in his mind it just so that they were still, on some base level, friends. She knew him well enough to know he was thoroughly convinced that there was still some shred of decency under layers upon layers of ego and narcissism.

Those were a lot of layers to get through. She wasn’t even so sure if there was anything decent under it all anymore. She didn’t know exactly when she had gone from feeling almost responsible to taking care of both herself and Clark to only watching out for herself. She didn’t know when exactly all of their persistent pushing to be perfect and to trust nobody had finally cracked through her skull and utterly warped her. She didn’t know when she had been corrupted into a complete monster, the girl who could kill with just a look and swallow your soul.

“Talia, have I ruined your life?"

And there she went. A few tears trailed down her face despite her iron will, and she clutched her knees up to her chest.

For a long time she had wondered what would trigger it. What would open the floodgates and cause a river of regret and emotion (all the emotion she’d kept under wraps for over a decade) to sweep Milan away. She thought about it a million and one times and constantly told herself she was ready, she could help, she could handle it. She could be strong for Milan.

And here she was, broken by that one little question.

"No. God, of course not.”

“But I have other people’s. Clark. Maggie. Rory….fuck, is Maggie okay? Where is she?” Milan didn’t know why she cared, but in the moment, she did. It was odd to have the silver-eyed coaster cross her mind, and a part of it almost felt wrong, but she…she had to know.

“I don’t want her here obviously. Not here-here, but Jesus, Jesus, I was a bitch to her too.”

“Maggie has Maddie. Maggie’s…come a long way.” Talia watched the curtain absentmindedly, faintly remembering the days of the blonde’s stony silence towards her. Jealousy was a powerful beast, as was narcissism. “She’d probably throttle you if you apologized, though. She’s…happy to just let it be. She’s let go.”

“Talia, I can’t let this go,” She choked out. “I can’t. Not when this is the only thing that makes me…me. I’m not like the rest of you. I don’t /have/ anything else.”

She was thankful the tears blended in well with the water on her face, and she absently ran the soap along her left forearm, only faintly aware of what she was doing. “They set me up so I’d become a monster, Talia. When all you live for is so subjective, it’s gonna get taken away. I just didn’t think it would be like this. I was smart enough to know they were fucking us up, but I was dumb enough to let them.”

Talia wasn’t fully aware of what she was doing until her shirt was off and her pants were halfway to the floor. She only thought against it for a moment, honestly.

“Maybe now you start over.” She tossed aside her bra and slipped into the shower, shuddering a bit at the hot spray. She looked at Milan pointedly, dumping a handful of shampoo in her palm. “So you can let go.”

Any other time, she would have made some quip, made a move to get Talia sat firmly on her face. But there wasn’t anything sexual or even seductive about this. It was…God, it was Talia actually giving a shit about her.

She supposed the proper question would be asking where to go from here then, if that were the case. She didn’t know, that was for sure. Normal wasn’t something she had ever been taught was even a possibility. It certainly wasn’t something she had ever considered.

But there was so much more that finally was making sense, and she….didn’t like what she was finding out. She had let her ambitions and ego get the best of her, turning her into quite frankly a horribly unlikable person. Maybe this was karmic retribution for all the knives she stabbed in everyone’s backs.

“I…I’ve really hurt a lot of people, haven’t I?"

Talia sighed quietly, defeatedly. No edging around this one, so she resigned to gently turning Milan around with a hand on the shoulder and beginning to work the sweetly-scented gel through her thick, dark tresses.

"You have. But they either have thick skin or were quick to grow it. They also…don’t understand the sheer amount of pressure and hurt you were put through when you were young.”

“They always told me that I couldn’t trust anyone. As soon as he left, they went to work on me and tried to make sure that I would hate Clark. They told me that I was above everyone else and then I wouldn’t need anyone, said the people who tried to get close to me would just use me.” She splashed water on her face, spitting out a mouthful to her feet and coughing.

“Were they like that with you, Tally? When you were young?” Flashbacks played behind her eyes as her gaze fixated on the corner of the shower. She could almost hear the yelling now, criticizing her for failing on her own turf so miserably. Suddenly she was backed against the wall, her hand much smaller and latched to Clark’s pale and bony wrist, her chest feeling far too tight and constricting on her racing heart as the voices reached a fever pitch.

She gasped, quickly dropping to the floor and curling in on herself. She almost rocked back and forth, but settled to grip her knees tightly. “Oh God, Tally, they /know./ What have people been saying?"

Talia studied the rivulets that trailed down over Milan’s shoulders as she curled on the ground. She too could remember the vaguely threatening undertones of the praise she was smattered with. "You’ll be the biggest,” they had said to her, teeth bared in too-wide smiles. “The fastest. The brightest.”

/And yet you still won’t outshine Millennium Force./

“They weren’t as bad. They…apparently trusted my grandeur over my ability to fight. But they didn’t think I had a shot at being the best - not with you around. You were their biggest project. You were all they needed. But…” Talia kneeled down behind Milan, ever-so-gently working the white foam through Milan’s hair and tracing her fingers over her scalp. “It only bothered me until I met you. As for what they’ve been saying, I’ve…only heard what they’ve asked me, and that’s if you’re okay. Some more sympathetically than others. Truth is, I’ve…not been out much either. Not with as worried as I have been.”

“…you’ve worried?”

That sent a lot of alarm bells off in her mind. Instantly, suspicions were raised; she was looking for weakness by feigning sympathy, sniffing for blood to get her while she was wounded, and…No, no, that wasn’t Talia. Another smaller part of her knew that the strata wouldn’t dare go that way.

“You’re worried,” she repeated, picking up the soap and running it on her leg until her calf had a thick white paste coasting. “You didn’t have to do this, Thrill. But I know you know that. Can I?” She pointed at the razor.

Talia passed her the razor, looking up and meeting those golden eyes with her own. Some color had returned to Milan’s cheeks, most likely thanks to the hot water and steam, and her eyes had a bit more life. They were far from out of the storm, but Talia breathed an internal sigh of relief.

“I’d say I did have to. I was making myself sick thinking about what was happening because I’ve seen you get like this. Not as bad as this, but…I know what happens to you. And it’s very worthy of panic.”

Well, she couldn’t argue with that. Milan merely nodded, the pair sitting in silence as the water beat down around them. It was starting to feel more real, and she wasn’t sure if she was finding comfort or terror more in the fact that it had actually happened. She had gone through her worst nightmare, and somehow, she was still more or less alive. The world somehow didn’t completely fucking screech to a halt.

“Why are you doing this?” Milan sighed, running the razor through the soapy mess on her leg, chasing it with her fingertips to make sure nothing had been missed. “Why are you nice to me?"

"Because I love you.”

/Fuck/. Well that wasn’t supposed to be what came out. Talia drew a hand to her mouth, and for once in her life she was terrified of the repercussions of something she’d said because it was so…unexpected. Not careful, not planned like everything else that left her mouth. Perfectly inarticulate and painfully heavy. She watched Milan hesitantly, worriedly. She was already in such a fragile state, and damn it all, those walls could go right back up.

/God, you’re a fucking moron./

“You love me.” She felt pretty stupid to repeat it, because that was obviously what Talia had just said. Instead, Milan just blinked. She supposed that it made sense, God only knew how many times they’d fucked and Dragster was the only coaster she seemed to have some shred of decency towards.

“That’s just a damn predicament, isn’t it?” She turned to face the other woman, fighting that familiar burn in her throat. “Because maybe if I were normal, I could say that I feel the same. Hell, Thrill, I would want to love you,”

A hand reached up to cup the strata’s face, her voice little more than a strangled whimper as tears welled up in her amber eyes, “But I don’t know how.”

Talia reached up and gently held Milan’s wrist, leaning into her touch and holding her gaze.

“I’m willing to wait, if you’d like to learn."

"I don’t know how to love you, Talia. I don’t even know how to have /friends./ I’m fucked up, Talia, I don’t know how to even interact with people!” Milan gasped, dropping her head to Talia’s shoulder. “How can I love you? And why would you want me to?”

Talia pulled her into a hug, one hand rubbing up and down her back.

“You start with taking care of yourself. The rest is going to fall into place. First we focus on getting you out of this place you’ve been stuck in for the past week. Then we untangle what’s been going through your head. Small steps.” She pressed her cheek against Milan’s, letting her eyes fall closed and feeling that damned pressure building up in her chest again. /You’re the strong one here. Come on./

Milan looked up at her, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Talia, can-” No, no, Milan shouldn’t do this. She should fight this and walk out and then mope and plan for next year to take that little Beemer down a few pegs.

But instead, she moved up to her knees, running her thumb almost curiously along Talia’s lower lip. “Can I…kiss you?”

Talia’s reply was a whisper. “Please do.”

Milan moved in cautiously slow. She shouldn’t have, they had kissed many times before, but she was almost curious about it, leaning in to press her lips to Talia’s. It was chaste and quick, over as soon as it begun, but her heart was pounding. She swore her own lips were tingling.

Talia hadn’t had enough time to even move a hand to Milan’s cheek. Yet…even that was enough to send her pulse skittering.

“Milan…” she breathed. Did she necessarily have anything to say? For once, no. But her name…felt right, in that moment.

She held her eyes, studying her face for a brief moment before rising to her feet and offering Milan a hand. “C'mere. Gotta get conditioner.”

Milan accepted the hand up with a small smile, throwing her arms around Talia and burrowing her face into the crook of the other coaster’s neck. “You love me. And God, Talia, I want to love you too. I do."

It was weak. It was desperate. It was beneath her. But it was /nice./

"That’s more than enough.” Talia wanted to fight her, desperately. Wanted to tell she /could/ if she’d just let herself, but…she didn’t understand. She couldn’t.

So she’d take what was given and lean into this damn hug. Because God, here she was, after a prolonged, miserable week, and she was /smiling/.

“Will you help me?” Milan’s arms wound around Talia’s waist, “Help me adjust to life as a-” She cut herself off. As a loser, she’d wanted to say. But that was harsh, and Talia had been nothing but nice, and dammit Talia was all she had left anymore, she /had/ to be as good as she could be to her.

“To life as a normal fucking coaster.”

Talia leaned in, brushing a few wet strands of hair that had plastered themselves to Milan’s face before resting their foreheads together.

“I’ll help in any way I can.”

“A single ballot, Talia. One measly vote. Is this it for me? Is it all downhill from here, and would I be stupid to hope maybe I can get it back?” Milan sighed, eyes roving Talia’s face.

“I don’t think it’d be stupid, no.” Talia reached for the conditioner. “But I don’t think that’s all you should hold on to. Don’t want to hinge on what wore you down, you know?” She reached behind Milan’s head, slowly working her fingers through the tangled, dark mass.

God, she ached for the giga. She wanted to encourage her, to talk her up and bring her right back up to that peak. But…she suspected that they both knew that peak doubled as a ledge to leap from.

“Talia, that…that’s all I know. That’s what I was made to do. If you can’t even go with your own purpose in life, then what’s the point? What do you do when you’ve lost the only thing the put you in this world in the first place?"

Milan crossed her arms over her chest and sighed. "I know it’s wrong. I know it’s not healthy. I’m smarter than any of you guys think I am. I really am. I know it’s not the right thing to do but I can’t help it.”

“We never thought you were stupid, Milan.” She gently raked her fingers across Milan’s scalp, watching the snags in her hair give way to its typical sleekness. “I know it’s all you know, so go ahead and strive for that ticket. But…I think it’s also time to learn something new, don’t you think? Make your own purpose.”

“Did she completely lose it? I walked out.” Part of Milan hoped that Charlotte had simply blanked out and hit the ground screeching, she wasn’t sure if she had dreamt that or not, but this newfound part of her was saying that wishing that wasn’t…the best thing to do.

“She looked like she went blank.” Talia’s voice was a bit harder now. “She faked a smile for the crowd, faked a smile for Rory, and went blank when no one was looking. She’s torn up over this.”

“It’s ironic, isn’t it? This is all I wanted, and Charlotte wanted anything but. And look who actually won."

Milan laid her head on Talia’s chest, blurring before even thinking. "How is Aurora? She actually fucking talks to you.”

“She’s learning to get away from all the shit that’s been bothering her.” Damn. That was tough to say without mentioning Milan by name. “She and Charlotte are happy enough. They lean on each other a lot. She barely talks about you any more. Which is nice, because…it used to be constant.” Talia rested her chin on top of Milan’s hair, running her fingers through her hair simply for the feel of it. “She got better. You can, too.”

“Lightning Rod’s the only one who walked out of that damn place happy, wasn’t she?” Milan sighed. “Rory’s another person I’ve fucked over. I know I can’t ever talk to her. She would fucking murder me.”

“Rory…would come around if you did, I think. It’d be a work in progress, but now that you aren’t her primary concern? I think in time that could be mended. But this isn’t about other people.” Talia kissed the top of her head. “This is about you.”

Now there were words she never thought she’d have to say.

In light of recent events and Milan’s presence casting a shadow of dread onto Fury? Perhaps Rory wouldn’t be the friendliest. Not with her girlfriend cowering away from the thought of becoming a monster like her predecessor. While Talia did understand, she…also found it obscenely selfish, in a way. And martyred in a way that didn’t make sense.

But that was beside the point, she figured, as she gently pulled Milan back under the spray of water. “Gotta rinse off or your hair’s gonna get greasy again, mí lindeza.”

Milan laughed softly. “I haven’t heard you say that in a long time. You’ve not called me that in a while. What does that even mean?” She took her fingers through her own hair, rinsing the soft locks out carefully. She stepped further back with ease, focusing on keeping her breathing steady and even. And now, other urges she’d neglected began to surface, namely food and the fact she had eaten precious little in the past week. She’d have to remedy that.

Talia stepped back, a small smile touching her lips. “It’s not really…translatable. Closest word there is is prettiness, or beauty, I suppose? It’s both calling you pretty and saying you bring out the beauty and good in me. But…it sounds cheesy in English. The language doesn’t do you justice, I guess."

"I don’t know a second language, I was never taught. First Nations girl, a clusterfuck of European names, I don’t know what I am. It’s cool that you can though.” Milan stroked Talia’s hair. “It really does mean a lot that you stayed here today, Talia.”

Talia chuckled softly. “I’ll have to teach you Portuguese. Though I think Italian would suit you.” She reached back and let off the water, leaving the two of them standing there together in the steam. She studied Milan, her expression soft.

“It…means a lot that you let me in.”

Oh yes, she meant that in more ways than one. “I’ve…never really let anyone know what me and Clark went through as kids. It was always something unspoken between us. I don’t know. I’m just really all kinds of fucked up, and it’s really terrifying.”

“It is.” Talia ruffled her hair as she stepped out, shivering a bit at the wall of cold she was met with. She grabbed a towel and tossed it into the shower for Milan. “But it doesn’t scare me, you know? I’ve always been afraid for you, but…never of you."

And it was true. She hated all of their past for them - for both of them. Hell, she even felt sorry for Clark, as much as he annoyed her…

She wrapped another towel around herself, rubbing at the goosebumps that had raised on her arms. "Wrap up before you come out here. It’s fucking cold.”

“Noted,” Milan replied, her voice regaining its usual silkiness. She bundled up as tight as she could, stepping out onto the floor and shuddering. “Fuck, you’re right. It’s freezing. Let’s not stay here? Grab my hairbrush.”

She walked out into the disaster area of her room and sighed again. She really knew how to trash a place, that was for sure. Gingerly stepping over shards of glass, she made her way to the dresser and opened a drawer. She took out a pair of shorts that were obscenely tiny, but that was par for the course for Milan, and then rummaged through the shirts. She didn’t much want to wear anything with herself upon it, it was still too raw and fresh for her liking. So she reached for a black hoodie that no one had known was missing.

“I kinda took this from you a couple years ago, when I accidentally wore it after opening night."

Talia grabbed the small brush off the counter and turned off the lights behind them, following Milan’s careful path across the glass-strewn floor. As Milan made her way to the dresser to find something to wear, Talia knelt next to a shattered award and carefully began scooping up the splinters. Someone had to clean this shit up before Milan lost a toe.

At Milan’s quiet confession, she looked up to see her own logo emblazoned across the black fabric, and couldn’t fight an incredulous smile.

"Damn you, Force, I’ve been looking for that.”

“Finders keepers, Tally.” Milan half heartedly smirked, pulling the fabric over her head and climbing onto the bed. She sank down into the mattress and yawned, propping up on her elbow. “I hope you like Pizza Hut. I’m fucking starved. And I’m not leaving this place today.”

“You got it. Make it ham and pineapple and I’m a happy girl.” Talia dumped an armful of wrecked frames in the trash, but was careful to salvage the awards.

“Do you, ah…want me to hold onto these until you’re feeling better?”

“Put them in the closet. I’ll get to them eventually. But they’ll be out of sight for then. Ham sounds good. I’ve not eaten in ages,” Milan idly picked up the phone, punching in the number to order and patting the space beside her.

Talia did as told, sliding the stamped and ribboned papers up onto the top shelf and covered them with a folded sheet, then perched on the bed next to the giga.

“You’ve really done a number on yourself, Force,” she murmured, resting a hand on Milan’s knee.

“Yeah. I have. I just don’t know what I’ll do. I can’t stay cooped up here with you eating pizza forever.” As nice as it sounded, it wasn’t practical.

She laid down, her head in Talia’s lap. “You’re entirely too good to me.”