Note: firstly I wanted to take a quick opportunity to thank everyone for the (unexpected) positive reaction to Slow Hand my first oitnb fic, I really wasn't expecting it at all! this'll be my first multi-chapter oitnb fic, and I just wanted to clarify that it's an AU set completely outside of Litchfield, but based (very) loosely on the scene from 1x05. I also just wanted to highlight that this chapter is a bit shorter than I'm aiming for the rest to be, as it simply acts as a prologue of sorts, setting the story up.
Anyway, without further ado I'll end this here, thanks in advance for reading and any comments and suggestions you have are always greatly received!
"...And lean forward again, slowly. Go into a forward fold, with a hand on either shin. Bring your tailbone upwards, and gently slide your hands down towards your feet. Only go as far as is comfortable, bringing your hands to the mat if you can...Aaand...exhale."
Yoga Jones's voice has a strange, almost shaky timbre to it, but it is somehow always soft enough to be relaxing as she guides them gently through her classes. She always adds in just the right amount of extra intonation too, as instructors often seem to do.
It's strange to Piper that having your head tucked against your knees whilst you're standing - something which should really be an anatomical catastrophe - could be calming, and yet, somehow, it is. Generally, Yoga Jones's classes are always relaxing, which is essentially what keeps Piper attending them.
She'd never had any special interest in the activity and hadn't actually expected it to bring any benefit when she first started going, but there had only been so many times she could listen to Polly dropping hints about the merits of her weekly yoga class. Apparently Polly thought that Piper needed to de-stress, because her mind was on the business too much, because she was a 'born worrier', because she needed to 'switch off, occasionally'.
Piper privately thought she was less of a born worrier, and more of a worrier by exposure after a childhood surrounded by her family's 'keeping up with the Joneses' anxiety. But rather than argue the point, Piper had instead gone along to the damn class with Polly, who then predictably stopped going about three weeks in, when Wednesdays suddenly somehow became the only feasible weeknight she and Pete (the new boyfriend) could have date night. Polly said it was something about their schedules only aligning on Wednesdays. Piper said it was something about Polly talking bullshit. The investigation was still pending on that one.
By now, at least, Piper had gotten to know just enough of the class regulars that turning up alone every week isn't an entirely lonely affair.
At the front of the room, Jones moves on to talking them through the next step of their opening Sun Salutation ('now, lunge back with the right foot, make sure to bend that left knee,lengthen the spine...aaandinhale') and Piper thinks that the instructor would probably be far from impressed if she caught one of her members letting their minds wander too far from the class. Jones was always extolling the virtues of everyone clearing their minds completely, called it an integral part of her classes.
So, breathing in deeply, Piper lets herself fall happily into the whole thing. There's no room for her mother's seemingly unshakeable commitment to 'finding Piper a man' in amongst the spongy softness of the yoga mat beneath her toes. There is no place for her father's endless questions about business trajectories and profit margins beneath the soothing, atmospheric music Jones always plays from a dusty, ancient-looking CD player plugged in across the room.
Indeed, by the time they follow through on Jones's instruction to 'lengthen the spine, reach out again behind you, pressing the pelvis forward and opening the chest', Piper is just beginning to forget about all the pent-up stress from having to constantly set up meetings with department stores, when the doors to the hall clang open loudly and unexpectedly.
A few spaces down from her, an already shaky Lorna Morello – a small, sweet girl who Jones always needs to personally remind to breathe – jumps in surprise at the noise and loses her balance, breaking pose in order to stay on her feet.
Though Jones tries to encourage the class to ignore the disturbance and shift into Mountain pose for a moment or two, people begin to turn at the sound of footsteps echoing through the sports hall, and, in spite of herself, Piper also cranes round to look.
Across the room, a strange assortment of people are filing in, following a short, squat woman who is carrying a sign under her arm. With a considerable struggle, two other women drag what appears to be a makeshift lectern of sorts into the room between them.
"Excuse me, what's happening?!" All of the newcomers pause and glance up at Jones's disgruntled shout, a few of them looking surprised and put out, as though the members of the yoga class are the ones who are gate-crashing.
"We got AA," the squat woman tells them impatiently, as though that clears everything up.
"No, not right now you don't. We're doing yoga, this is our time."
"Well they sent us here because our room is wrecked," a woman with restless eyes and what seems to be a semi-permanent expression of alarm supplies by way of explanation. "The ones in there before us, some Bible study group or something, well they tried to hang a big-ass cross from the roof. Brought the whole ceiling down. Reckon it's gonna take forever to fix it."
Suddenly, Piper's neighbour, Sophia, sighs to herself. Piper turns at the unexpected sound, flashing an enquiring expression at the woman beside her. Sophia inclines her head and murmurs, "I told her that shit wasn't a load-bearing pipe."
Jones makes a frustrated noise behind them and the startled-looking AA woman's eyes go impossibly wider as she glances round the room.
"Oh, don't worry, you just keep on doin' what you doin'."
No one else from the yoga class speaks, but most people have turned back to face Jones, looking to her for instruction. Piper, Lorna and a few others, however, continue to survey the interlopers.
There are a few clusters of cheap plastic chairs stacked in one of the corners of the hall, and the women of the AA group all start arranging them in a semi-circle, the beaten-up lectern their focal point. Jones makes one valiant attempt to resume her class, but the other group continues chattering loudly amongst themselves as they set up. A wild-haired woman sits down backwards on her red chair, the headrest against her chest, so she can observe the yoga class.
"Let's see one of these downward-facing doggy styles."
This outburst elicits an unexpected reaction from Lorna, who lets out a gasp that's equal parts surprised and angry, before very deliberately turning her back on the woman who had just spoken.
Sophia raises her eyebrows in a questioning manner at Piper, who shrugs in return.
A lot of other people seem interested in the exchange too, but as Piper is about to flash Lorna a questioning look (intending to try and ask are you alright? as much as what the hell?!), she instead finds herself distracted when someone goes to sit down next to the woman who had addressed Morello.
This new woman doesn't quite leer like her two peers had done, but she doesn't bother to hide her obvious interest in watching the women of the yoga class either. In fact, she hooks an elbow over the back of her chair so that she can comfortably crane around and look behind her.
And it doesn't exactly escape Piper's notice that she's hot. Unfairly so. And in a way that simply goes beyond bodily appearance.
There was no denying that everything about the woman's appearance – from the bold streaks of blue in her black hair, to her dark, thick-rimmed glasses – is attractive, but there's something more to her, something in the way she seems to carry herself. There's an easy-going, effortless confidence in her gaze, in the way she slouches comfortably in her chair, even in the way she wears her simple black jumper and her distressed jeans like they're hallmarks of her own laid-back brand of cool.
Because, trite as it seems for two adult women, Piper can't help but think that that is what this woman is – easily, effortlessly cool. She has the sleeves of her sweater rolled up carelessly to the elbow, a dark, tribal-looking design visible on her forearm. It makes Piper wonder – suddenly and incredibly inappropriately – where else she might be hiding other tattoos.
Unsurprisingly, given that she's hardly being subtle, the woman catches Piper looking, and, embarrassed, Piper quickly tries to draw her gaze to literally anything or anyone else. Before she can bring herself to look away, however, Piper catches the woman with the tattoo quickly flick her eyes down Piper's body and then back up again almost appraisingly, before slowly unfurling a maddeningly brazen smirk.
Oh. God.
"This is unacceptable. I'm getting Caputo," Jones grumbles as she storms across the hall, reminding Piper why she's even in a position to be flustered by this woman in the first place. "Norma, take over for me," Jones calls back over her shoulder as she goes, a decision which raises an eyebrow or two. Even Norma herself seems surprised by this instruction, given that no one in the group has ever heard her speak.
Piper feels herself blushing (actually blushing, like a goddamned idiot kid) under the AA woman's gaze, so she quickly turns and watches for Norma's directions as she silently leads them into Downward-Facing Dog pose.
Piper can't help but think that it's possibly the most unfortunate pose anyone could have chosen at that particular time.
As she takes a deep breath in, Piper gets the feeling that the AA woman with the tattoo is still looking at her, and she feels strangely exposed as she brings her hands to the mat, body now a V shape, her tailbone (and more importantly to her in that moment, her ass) in the air.
Breathing out, Piper chances a glance between her legs and, sure enough, the woman with the glasses is looking right at her, smirk still very firmly in place.