Easing The Tension

Taylor was again a bit taken aback by how far gone Talia was. She had completely lost it. Who knew she was such a time bomb? But then she was charging at Taylor again...

Fuck my life, Taylor thought, as she did her best to protect her midsection from the collision with Talia's shoulder. She went down flat on her back with a pained scream. Between the fiery pain from her injured ribs and her damaged will, she barely had the energy to fight back. She covered her head with her arms and did her best to twist side to side away from each punch, but they kept coming. Every punch stung her forearms, battered her, smacked against her cheek, and for a moment she thought about yelling for help while knowing perfectly well that she wouldn't. She didn't have it in her.

This crazy bitch wasn't going to break her, even if she couldn't stop her from pounding her head in.

"I can see why you haven't won any matches." Taylor taunted between punches. She had no idea if Talia had any wins, but it sounded like she didn't. She was going to prove that Talia could never beat her, even if she had to get beaten to death to do it.

Talia had lost her mind. She continued to hammer away at Taylor's head in a fit of rage. All those years of people yelling at her, insulting her, and everything else had built up into this. Perhaps she had believed she was better than them, that their words never stung at her pride. Oh how naive she was. All those suppressed feelings were pouring out now. Her left hand reached down to grab Taylor's hair to stop her from dodging her right fist.

"Shut up you bitch!" she yelled in response to Taylor's taunt. She was sick of it. She didn't want Taylor to admit anything to her. Her rapidly pumping heart only made her bloody nose that much worse as it was all Talia could taste. Blood began to flick around as she continued the assault, though it wasn't Taylor's. She just wanted her to shut up. And then, when it looked like there was no turning back, her fist suddenly stopped. She stared down at Taylor below her.

They weren't in a ring. Taylor wasn't an opponent. She wasn't even a bad person. Yet Talia was trying to break her face in. It felt like a whole minute that Talia stared down at Taylor. She wasn't look at the black-haired wrestler, though. She was looking at herself. Her left hand which had been holding onto Taylor's hair for leverage began to shake. The other that was clenched in a fist above her was also shaking. Both her hands suddenly released and fell to her sides. This wasn't her. She couldn't believe what she was doing. She thought she was better than this. Now, Talia really didn't know what to do. Obviously, she had never been in a situation like this. She was just so confused with herself and everything that had happened. So, she just stared.

With Talia holding her hair and her head stuck in one spot, more and more punches sneaked through her guard and bounced her head off the floor, one to the eyebrow, one to her mouth, another closer to the chin. They hurt, and they dazed her, and being stuck underneath the girl and mostly unable to move she could only keep taking punches until Talia decided to stop.

Taylor opened her eyes when Talia let go. She shook her head and spit blood off to one side before she looked up at Talia. "C'mon, you pussy. I'm not even fighting back, and you still can't take me out?"

She tenderly dabbed at her face with her fingers to assess her damage. There was blood coming from her mouth and her nose, and there might have been a cut over her eye but by that point there was enough blood on her hands that it was hard to tell where it all came from. She just wanted to go home, but she could never show that, not to Talia.

"Halfway isn't going to win you any matches, fuckface." She growled. She rested her hands on her chest so that they'd be ready if Talia decided to start hitting her again. "Hit me again. I bet it feels good, too. Hit me."

Talia stared down at Taylor as she continued to egg her on. When she finally could see the damage she was doing to the girl, it made her feel awful. Even if Taylor had deserved this, why was she the one throwing punches at her? What could possibly justify a brutal assault like this? "What have I done..." Talia mutters, barely loud enough for Taylor to hear. Even with all of the girl's name-calling and taunting, it was against Talia's nature to do this. The mere fact that she started it made her sick to her stomach. "No...it doesn't," she replied to Taylor's last comment.

Talia couldn't do it. She didn't even want to. "I'm sorry," she whispered vaguely. Sorry to not finishing the job? Or sorry to ever starting a fight in the first place? "I'm sorry," she repeated as she rolled off of Taylor to the ground beside her. She curled up facing away from the girl, her knees up to her chest as she tried to salvage some pride in her personality. In only 24 hours she felt as if she had experienced every emotion possible. "You're right," she muttered into her knees, "I am a loser." She began to think all of the problems she faced weren't caused by a lack of good fortune. They were caused by her. And this little demonstration proved it. "Just...just leave me alone..."

Taylor grabbed the hem of her shirt and used it to wipe the blood off her face. "Fuck me." She whispered. She laid on her back for several more seconds after Talia rolled off of her, just staring at the ceiling, and then drew a deep breath and began to pull herself up. It was slow going, it hurt, she was worried that something else might go wrong with her ribs. She didn't want to go back to the hospital.

Once she finally got to her feet, she looked down at the pathetic pile of psychotic little girl next to her. She scowled, and nudged her with the toe of her boot.

"Get up." She said, her voice quiet and raspy. She cleared her throat. "Get up." She commanded. She didn't get to just lay on the floor and feel sorry for herself some more, especially not in the freaking AFW gym. This is where people went to get stronger, not fold up like a bitch.

"Stand up and look at me."

Talia didn't even budge when Taylor nudged her with her foot. "Why bother?" she thought to herself. She wanted to just go home and be rid of everything that had happened in the last day. But she would only be so lucky. She couldn't just ignore Taylor, even though she wanted to. It wasn't like nothing had happened, and they couldn't just forget it all and move on.

Slowly, but surely, Talia got to her feet. After a few second delay, she finally turned around to face Taylor. She had gotten use to looking up at others. But she had never gotten use to the site of blood on a face. And knowing that she was responsible for it only made it more difficult. She would've sniffled had her nose not been bloodied. Seeing Taylor clean her face, though, made her do the same with her own shirt. She felt the warmth of her bloody nose, though, and it continued after she wiped it off. It may have been broken, but she wasn't about to let that be an excuse. She looked at Taylor, a blank stare on her face. She wasn't sure what she was suppose to be feeling at this point. "What?"

"Look what you did to my face." Taylor demanded, pointing at her bloodied face. "And that's nothing compared to this..." She said, gesturing to her ribs. They hurt so much, she longed for pain meds but if she had them she knew she wouldn't take them.

"You just kicked your own ass." She said. "You just beat the shit out of me until you couldn't take it anymore, and I got up first. I dunno what's wrong with you, but that's not gonna fly here. But when you're down, no matter who puts you there, the first thing you do is get up. You can't ever stay down, no matter how bad it gets, even if you can't do anything to keep from getting put right back down, you get up." She folded her arms and scowled. "Don't fucking insult me by beating my ass and then crying like a bitch about it."

She began tapping her foot, as though impatient, while she stared at Talia. "I'm glad I got you away from Johnny." She said. "For his sake. And for yours. Having a boy doesn't make everything okay, it just might make you forget about what's really wrong, and you, killer, need to be worrying about that. I'm gonna get some ice, and... I guess lay low for a while."

Taylor turned away to go find some ice packs from a place next to the gym, and once she thought Talia couldn't see her face anymore she stopped holding it all in. She was in a lot of pain, but she couldn't let Talia see that. She might get a big head over it.

Talia stared at Taylor's face, uncomfortable with knowing she had done it. She was expecting Taylor to punch her right in the face. She had told Talia to stop, but she hadnt. It wasn't suppose to be a fair fight, but it didn't mean Talia hadnt thrown in some cheap shots. She thought, then that Taylor was just going to beat her down for attacking her even if she did stop. And it's not like she would have argued.

Instead Taylor just gave her advice on what it's like in Friction. She realized that even after everything she had done, Taylor still didn't hold it against her enough to be violent. She just lectured her as if she was her mentor or something. Talia stayed quiet the entire time, she really had nothing to say. As she finished, Talia continued to just stare. Taylor started to walk off.

"Wait..." she said to Taylor's back. "This...this isn't me." Talia then reached out to try and put a hand on her shoulder. "I am sorry...I don't know what came over me..." she tried to reason herself out with the girl. "Are..are you okay?" Talia asked, legitimate concern on her voice. She already assumed Johnny would never talk to her again after this.

Taylor breathed a laugh at Talia. Of course this wasn't her. Of course! She was a perfect little angel! She was new and naive enough to think that the real Talia was the person she acted like in front of people she wasn't totally comfortable with, reserved, nice, concerned. Everybody figures themselves out pretty quick when they decide to fight people for a living under barely controlled circumstances in front of thousands and thousands of people.

She reached to open a small freezer that sat around behind a small desk in an alcove in the hallway, but she stopped short and turned to give Talia a look like she'd just said the most ridiculous thing ever. She grabbed and ice pack out of the freezer and put it to the side of her face. It stung like crazy, but she stopped herself from showing it and only closed her eyes for a moment.

"I'm fine." She said forcefully. "You can't hurt me. You can just... set me back." As if the healing process wasn't long and drawn out enough for her without people beating on her broken bones... But she was alive and standing and moving forward, and that put her ahead of a lot of people.

She looked at Talia and frowned for a moment before saying "This is really your first time going all domestic abuse-mode like that?" It seemed weird. She seemed too unstable to have only done that once.

Talia nodded with hesitation. "Okay..." she said, though fairly certain Taylor had been hurt in some way. But it wasn't Talia's place to question what Taylor claimed. After all, she did hope to not have injured her after what had happened. "No one has ever set me off like that...I don't know what came over me." Talia looked at the ground. She did know what set her off now in hindsight. She just couldn't believe that it had. She doubted Taylor would understand her reason. Rather, she doubted Taylor would even care what the reason was.

Talia suddenly remembered her busted nose and held it shut with her right hand. She looked around and took a few tissues to plug it up for now. As she did so, she sighed at the sight of her hands. Both were covered with both of their blood. She looked at Taylor for a minute, observing her reactions. She was able to contain the pain of Talia's ribshots without so much of a cringe. She was amazed by her resilience, but something was still very present on her mind. It just wasn't easy to say.

"Is there anything I can do to make this up to you'?"