A/N: For those of you who are readers of Same As You, don't worry I will get back to writing it soon. I'm just slightly demoralized by Season 3 at the moment. As for this little one shot here, I was stuck in traffic before work the other day and a random playlist of songs inspired some thinking. So hope you all enjoy.

…

-Creatures of Habit-

There is always something to be said about how hard it is to break at habit. Addicts know this fact well. It's always one more time, one last hit or line thinking that maybe, maybe this time would be enough for the rest of your life, but even as they fade into oblivion they always know that will always be complete and utter horseshit.

The theory of habit formation states that it's an automatic response to a specific situation, something almost completely involuntary because it doesn't require our conscious attention to perform said action. When smokers get stressed, they light one up. When a gym rat gets home, they hit the weight room. When people get scared, they run.

Habit is a scary thing sometimes.

And she also knows it's the only reason why that when her phone goes off in the middle of the night (or sometime in the dark hours of the morning), Piper answers. Always.

Every time she is greeted with a quiet husky voice, whispering in the dark of the night, 'hey kid.'

.

It's the same thing every time. Piper answers the phone, and less than an hour later there is a knock at her door. Every time she takes one last sip of wine before unbolting her front door and letting it swing open.

And every time Alex Vause would be on the other side, always drunk and usually high. And like every other time before and for many times after they would spend the rest of the night with skin on skin, hands in hair and mouths gasping against each other.

Piper would always be up first to go to work. It wasn't habit for Piper to leave a note, not since the first time when she came home and Alex had all but disappeared. That was it, this was the routine. The habit carved in stone that encompassed the entirety of their relationship. That was all.

Neither one of them expected more or less nor did they think words were necessary. That required thinking and conscious thought, and that's not how a habit endured.

The involuntary answering of the phone and two words: 'hey kid.'

That's all they needed.

.

Sometimes days, weeks, even months would pass without even a thought about their arrangement. Piper would live her life, have lunch with Polly, and go on dates to satisfy her mother. It was simple and mundane, something a nice blonde lady should always want from the world.

She is never sure why the long absences occur, Piper had never bothered asking her, that wasn't part of the routine. She is never sure why Alex is always half out of her mind by the time that call comes in, it's seems like the norm honestly. In fact Piper can't recall a time in which she ever saw the enigmatic brunette sober since the first time they met.

Even before the late-night calls, the only time she would run into the elusive woman would be at a bar. Sometimes she would be alone, more often than not there was a girl wrapped up next to her, never the same girl. That wasn't part of Alex Vause's tradition, not that there was anything traditionally about Alex in any sense of the word. And Piper would often ponder over how she manages to draw so many of these girls into her web.

That was, until she was one of those girls wrapped around her waist, talking quietly about renaissance era paintings and laughing loudly about some story she would tell not caring if it was true. There was something about Alex's presence that drew Piper in the moment the taller woman sat down next to her and offered to buy her a drink. Maybe it was the way the dim bar light managed to make her green eyes dance with some sort of inner fire behind her black frames. Or maybe how the soft husk of her voice managed to overwhelm all other sound and caused Piper to lean in closer as if hoping to absorb the words that flowed like liquid gold between her lips.

Alex was drunk from liquor and Piper was drunk off of her presence…and tequila, admittedly.

At some point throughout the night Alex had disappeared, taking a phone call and Piper waits at the bar loosing track of time as she sips on her drink. Countless minutes pass and eventually she closes her tab and the bartender tells her everything has been covered for the night. She smiles before walking through the door.

And there she was. Cigarette in hand, leather jacket hugging her frame as she leaned against a lamppost. Her eyebrow is arched and eventually a smirk curls over her perfect lips at Piper's stunned silence.

'Hey kid.'

When she offers Piper her hand, the blonde doesn't hesitate.

The next day, Piper leaves a note with her number, and thus it began.

.

Alex broke the habit first.

It had been two months since Piper had looked at her phone to see the woman's name alight on her screen. It was the longest amount of time that had passed in between their routine. The same day that Piper assumed that whatever they had was officially over was also the same day the mysterious woman finally called again.

'Hey kid.'

…

'Look Piper, I need your help. Can you please come and pick me up?'

She hesitates, not really sure how to react to the unsteady wavier of Alex's voice. Her ragged breaths on the other end of the line pick up in frequency and its sounds like she is having a full blown anxiety attack.

'Piper…please. I wouldn't be asking if I had any other option.'

…

'Piper?'

'Where are you?'

So that's how she ends up leaving her house well past midnight, driving to a street that she had only been to once before in her life. Just like that first night she was leaning against a lamppost, only this time it was with great burden as if without it's support she would just collapse to the ground. She has a hood over her head and Piper can barely make out any of her features through the shadows.

The moment her car comes to a stop she is opening the door and sliding in, pointedly staring out the passenger window and Piper feels a spike of annoyance run through her at the brunette's aloofness.

She sighs heavily. "Where are we going, Al?"

"Back to your place, I guess."

Without any more discussion she pulls the car away from the curb and they endure the ride in a rigid silence. They become so accustomed to silence that the thought of conversation seemed nearly impossible. Piper is acutely aware of the scent of alcohol that surrounds the other woman.

At least one thing is consistent about tonight.

It's a relief when they finally cross the threshold into her apartment and Piper wastes no time as she crosses over to the kitchen. "Do you want a drink?"

Alex isn't look at her as she nods her head. "Ice too, please."

"For your drink?"

She pulls her hood off her head finally and turns to look at the blonde. "No."

Piper's breath catches in her throat as she takes in the other woman's features. Her bottom lip is split and swollen. There was a large gash carving its way over her eyebrow, a small trickle of blood highlighting the bruises that are peppering over her sharp cheek bone and Piper notices for the first time that her glasses have a spider web of cracks in the one lens.

She swallows thickly, looking up at the ceiling, at the floor, at anything besides Piper. "Do you mind if I go sit down? I feel kind of dizzy."

Piper nods mutely and when she finally joins Alex in the living room she has her glasses off to the side table, her hand cradling the part of her face that isn't injured. Piper holds a glass of wine out in front of her and she chuckles darkly at the fact that she placed a stray inside.

"Wine, huh, how romantic of you kid."

Piper sits down next to her on the sofa, placing a first-aid kit in her lap. The blonde's hand comes up to brush a feather-light touch over the bruised skin of the other's face. "How did this happen?" Piper asks, the concern in her voice caused a grimace to spread of across Alex's face. Mistaking the expression for pain, she quickly withdrawals her hand. "Sorry."

"It's okay," Alex murmurs. "But I don't want to talk about that right now."

Piper just nods and begins to work on patching up the brunette's face, hesitating here and there as she causes the older woman to wince in pain. After several minutes and a few gentle assurances Piper closes up the kit and retreats back to the kitchen to retrieve an ice pack. In the living room Alex has started to doze off and Piper shakes her awake in a panic.

"Pipes, I'm so tired."

The nickname startles her for a moment but she doesn't comment. "Exactly, you could have a concussion, you can't go to sleep."

She mumbles something incoherently in response and startles slightly as the cold of the ice pack is pressed to her tender cheek. Piper coaxes her head to rest in her lap. "Are you still dizzy?"

Alex nods mutely looking up into her eyes with an unreadable expression as Piper threads her fingers through the dark strands of her hair, her other hand still gingerly holding the ice pack to her face. They slip back to the silence that has impregnated every encounter they've had in the recent past.

"Thank you," Alex says so softly that Piper thinks that maybe she was just simply hearing things but-, "I mean it, you didn't have to do any of this. So, thank you."

She continues talking about random things that she noticed around the apartment, saying something about how she never slowed down to notice a certain decoration there or how soft the sofa felt. The thoughts are more disjointed than they have been in previous encounters and often times she would pause as if having great difficulty grasping the words. For most of the time Piper just listens, hands running through her hair, still holding the ice pack even though it has long melted into a lukewarm mess.

Eventually she goes quiet and when Piper glances down her eyes are closed. She shakes her fearing that the taller woman may have went unconscious. A slow smile creeps on to Alex's face as she confirms that she is indeed still awake.

And she continues to talk, saying she was thinking about her mother. Alex mentions that she passed recently, at some point in between the times of their absence from each other's lives. Piper immediately feels guilt for not being there and she watches as tears start to well up in those green eyes as she talks about all of the good moments they had together and all of the shitty ones they survived. It takes ten minutes for her to finally calm down. As her breathing settles, Piper leans down to place a chaste kiss on her forehead, carefully avoiding the bandage she placed there earlier in the night.

When she pulls back the expression that Alex is wearing is unreadable, her eyes slightly misty as if thinking of something else. "Why has it been two months since we've seen each, huh kid?"

The question throws her off, but she doesn't miss a beat. "You didn't call."

"Neither did you."

It wasn't a lie. At the same time, Piper finds herself at a loss for words, lucky Alex decided she wasn't done speaking. "In fact you never call. Last time I checked, phones work both ways, Pipes."

Irritation begins to nag at Piper but when she looks down to throw a comeback at the brunette, there is a smirk on her face and she has to suppress a smile. "Fuck you, Al."

"I can't, I'm concussed."

Piper wants to be mad but Alex is laughing and it's infectious, they both find themselves in a fit of giggles and this time the silence that they fall into after is a comfortable one.

Piper eventually lets Alex fall asleep, making sure to check if she is breathing from time to time as she wanders around her apartment. As the sun begins to rise, bathing the living room with golden light Piper decides to call into work saying that she wouldn't be there today. After dealing with the manager's irritation she watches the steady rise and fall of Alex's chest and eventually she squeezes in next to her on the sofa. Strong arms pull her in closer and green eyes flutter open sleepily to meet hers before closing once more.

When Piper wakes up, she is still there, still breathing. She stays most of the day and when she finally slips out of the door she places a note in the same in the same place Piper had left her own all those months ago. She tells Piper to wait until she leaves to read it.

The moment the door shuts behind Piper bolts back to the kitchen taking the small post-it in her hands.

Call me, kid.

-A.V.

After that day a new habit forms, one that systematically changes in the same way any addicts would. The more frequent the doses, the more that is needed to get a fix. In this case that fix would be Alex. It went from sporadic and unpredictable, to once a week, then every few days. Until, eventually Alex Vause would find her way to Piper Chapman's apartment every night.

She would still be drunk every time she would rap her knuckles on Piper's door, and without fail the blonde would answer. What occurred between them also changes, sure they would always end up in Piper's bed breathless and basking in afterglow. Now though, they would talk, sometimes for hours learning everything they could about each other.

Alex would seemingly absorb the information Piper would tell her, about where she went to school and what her siblings were like, her father's infidelity, her mother's drinking, her favorite book and songs, everything. And Piper would do the same for her, listening intently as Alex told the story behind her father and the one and only time that they met, past relationships or lack of them for that matter, and even her job.

The tension that followed could be cut with a knife and Alex feared for a long moment that she would be asked to leave and never come back. But eventually Piper just shrugs, telling her she doesn't want to ever be involved and Alex promises without hesitation that would never happen.

After that night's major revelation, the habit changes again.

When Piper comes home from work, Alex is there still with food ready and about two drinks into the night. She greets her with a kiss and when they go to bed the way Alex touches her now is different, softer and more protective.

The next day Piper gives her a spare key.

The habit of not putting a label on whatever they were doesn't change, but it doesn't seem to matter anymore.

That is until Alex breaks the habit once more. She isn't there one day when Piper gets home, and she doesn't show up later that night or the next day. It's four long Alex-less days before she calls her, worry surging through her and only becoming worse as she doesn't answer. She calls twice a day for over a week before she stops trying.

Her life goes back to the mundane existence that she had built before, she goes to lunch with Polly and goes on a few dates. There is one man that she even agrees to see again. Two months pass before she hear a knock at her door well after midnight.

And sure enough, just on the other side is Alex with that infuriating smirk with a bag slung over her shoulder. "Hey, kid."

Piper shuts the door in her face and marches back towards the living when she hears the sound of the lock being turned. She whirls around in time to see Alex walk into the living room after her, her smirk gone replaced by a look that resembles that of a warrior ready for battle. There are a lot of things that are said, not many that actually mean anything, just violent verbal lashings being dealt (mostly from Piper). Piper throws things and slams doors and Alex lets her, explaining but being unapologetic for her absence.

"Getting sober is a bitch, Pipes."

Eventually the argument dulls, at one point Piper lets a few tears fall and she rejects the Alex's attempts at comfort, immediately feeling guilt at the beaten expression that flits onto the brunette's face. When the she asks if she can stay, Piper wants to say yes, to forget this whole mess happened and wake up next to her in the morning. But she is angry and bitter, she wants Alex to feel like she did the moment she decided to disappear without a word. She realizes that the thought is childish and perhaps she is too far into this habit, and if she doesn't let it go it will destroy, Alex will destroy her.

But God help her there is something to be said about addiction, and if nothing else humans are creatures of habit.