Welcome back. It's been too long. And this hiatus is killing me. This chapter is actually quite fluffy, something I haven't really done with the others. I don't think I captured it very well, but hey, let me know whether it worked for you. You may like it.
Disclaimer: Nah.
Piper feels like a giddy teenager all over again. Filled with a nervous energy that makes her movements quicker and less definite. She's tripped three times already today; around corners she is so familiar with, she's had better luck evading in the dark. It's all impulse – all her thoughts, decisions, and lingering doubts.
They flood by in an onslaught, clouded by excitement and anticipation. And in the end, everything just feels so damn irrelevant. Because she's doing this. She wants to do this. It's some twisted form of adventure, but she's chasing after it anyway. It's wrong, but Piper doesn't doubt for a second.
Something has failed to activate – some moral guilt or ethical inconsistency that should send alarm bells ringing. The stuff that would send painful pangs right through her as a kid – when you forgot to get parental forms signed for some school trip, so you signed it yourself. Your hand shook as you went to hand it in. Your face gave you away completely. Or when you started skipping college classes, because the boys you fell into bed with the night before wanted you to stay. And you knew how horrified your parents would be. It's like that now. Because Piper knows this is wrong. Slightly disconcerted that there's no guilt to back her up.
It's just…gone.
It's no longer there, like when you walk up a street you thought you knew, and it turns abruptly into a dead end. There's always a strange emptiness there, some strange space for emotion left blank. But in a way, it's kind of liberating. There's no burden to carry around and dwell over. Instead you have the freedom to make your choices. Act on what you want. And nothing weighs on your shoulders. Nothing pinches at you. Nothing reminds you just how wrong you are.
She checks her appearance in the mirror – once, twice, and once more for good measure. Her phone hums with an incoming message, and Piper practically hurls herself towards it.
Alex: Get your ass out here.
She's here. She's actually here.
Piper all but bolts for the door - heavy footsteps trampling over the wooden floorboards. She calls out to Polly, something about going out, but no specification as to where or when she'll be back. Piper makes sure she's fast, because Polly's already highly suspicious about what she's up to. And she hasn't gotten to the bit about explaining yet.
The door slams, and Piper doesn't even bother to attempt the lock, skipping towards the car stationed right in front of the house. It takes the shape of an old, rather beat-up looking Daihatsu, and Piper can make out several scratches along the sides. A dent or two at the corner of the bumper. It strikes her as odd, or perhaps, just something she considered incompatible with Alex.
From what she had gathered, Alex had wealth. An abundance of it. Surely she could afford more than, well…this. It feels otherworldly. Like from a past so separated from her current self, the two can hardly exist in the same reality.
But Piper doesn't think further before she practically falls into the car. Alex looks slightly taken aback, and it's almost as if she can sense Piper's restlessness. And excitement. And nervous energy she's exuded all morning.
Alex grins. "Hey."
"Hey!" Piper echoes back, slightly more enthusiastically. It's hasty and eager. And her face is freshly flushed, and it's not helping the illusion of calm Piper she would like to project. Alex bites her lip, gaze levelled with Piper's in a way that seems to almost beckon. "Get over here…" Alex prompts her, leaning across the seat and grasping Piper's jaw, kissing her.
Somehow, it's better than she remembers. There's so much more passion and softness there that Piper just can't memorise. But she shape of Alex's lips is starting to feel familiar. The way she moves her lips, glides her tongue and tilts her head. Piper tries to resist the urge to pull Alex across the console. People could see. This neighbourhood doesn't hold secrets. And it certainly won't hold Alex.
Alex reluctantly pulls away, biting her lip. "Wanna go?" she asks, turning the ignition back on. Piper nods in affirmative, casting a glance around the car. "Where are we going?"
Good question. To be honest, Alex really hadn't thought that far. To be brutally honest, she was a little too distracted by the mere prospect of seeing Piper. That was direction enough. Think fast. "Uh, I don't know. There's this great cinema near where I live. You wanna see something?"
"Sure," Piper agrees. She doesn't really think about it – she doesn't care where Alex takes her. It could be anywhere, and as long as Alex was right there beside her, it wouldn't make the slightest difference to Piper. Alex pulls out onto the road, easing away from the brake. Piper gets a feel for her driving style – and it's very much like her – confident and purposeful, kind of fast, yet always easy transitions without ever needing to apply the brake abruptly, or go through awkward gear changes.
Piper looks around the car, noting the various cassette tapes scattered on top of the dashboard, on the floor, and on the back seat. The leather's worn, and Piper finds herself playing with the frayed material of the seat. She likes the car. It's not fancy like her parent's ones, where you were never allowed to touch anything. But Alex's car clearly wasn't viewed as an investment. It was hers. There were fingerprints on the windows, and scuffmarks against the door. It was used, but at the same time, loved. And it was so much better than something you couldn't touch, something that never really belonged to you, but was hostage to the next buyer, the one with the largest credit limit.
"I like your car," Piper comments, picking up a knocked-over stack of tapes and browsing through the labels. Alex looks unsure, and for a moment Piper thinks maybe she shouldn't have said anything. But she'd meant it genuinely, and wants Alex to know it.
"Is that sarcasm?" Alex questions, keeping her eyes fixed on the road.
"No! No, I meant it." Piper blurts, her words jumbled together. She picks out a tape that's simply labelled with June '89 and turns it over in her hands.
"Well, it's the only car I've ever owned. I should get another one, but…I'm kind of attached to it." It sounds a little like a justification to Piper, like Alex feels obligated to have a shiny new one, just because the current one is a bit battered. Immediately, Piper senses that there's some sort of insecurity Alex has towards material possessions and wealth. Piper wants to ask, find out why. But she can tell she's struck a nerve, and thinks better of it.
Alex looks over at Piper, the mixtape still in her hands. "You can play that, if you like."
Piper gives a smile. "Really?"
Alex scoffs, giving Piper a look. "Think I'm going to make you endure the trip in silence or something?" It's enough to render Piper speechless. She's tempted to mutter, "Well, no", but it feels silly.
"What is it?"
Alex holds her hand out, and Piper passes over the cassette. Alex flips it over, scrutinising the writing she'd written on it a long time ago. She used to remember what was on every tape – every song, every damn chord progression. All memorised. But she stopped paying so much attention once she'd gone to see Death Mane, when her whole world just cracked. She didn't just throw away all the cassettes poisoned by them. She trashed them. Ripped out the tape right off the rollers. Crumpled it all up like tangled Christmas lights. Burnt them.
"Not sure. Play it anyway."
Piper presses eject, and another anonymous tape pops out. "You want this anywhere?" Alex glances at it, trying to place the content of the tape Piper holds up. "Anywhere there's room." Piper unlatches the glove compartment, but it's overflowing with tapes, and there's absolutely no space for even a single tape to be shoved inside. "Gosh. Are you a hoarder?"
"There's twenty-four years worth of mixtapes in here. It's more of a collection." Alex explains, smirking at Piper's awkward attempts at finding a home for the tape. "Impressive." Piper muses, inserting in the tape she'd earmarked. Joy Division's Disorder bursts forth, and Alex instantly recognises it within a second. "Joy Division." Alex indicates. "You know it?"
Piper shakes her head, racking her brain to remember if she's ever heard it before. But it's unfamiliar. "No."
"Well, it's good. Sort of a classic." Piper nods, trying to establish whether she likes the song. It's quite far removed from what she usually listens to, which is usually whatever Polly's currently hooked on. But she kind of likes it.
She pays attention to the lyrics, catching I've got the spirit, lose the feeling, let it out somehow. The music isn't in top form, not from Alex's bad-quality speakers anyway, and it comes out a little crusty. Piper sees Alex cringe a little as she mutters "Sorry about the sound quality."
They fall into a comfortable rhythm, and the songs tick over, with Alex pointing out more well-known ones Piper might recognise, including Aerosmith's Sweet Emotion and Guns 'n Roses' Sweet Child 'O Mine. A couple feel vaguely familiar, and Piper knows she's heard them before, but it's the kind of familiar that's so distant you just can't place. You might have heard it before. In the background of a pub or in a store. But you can't isolate it from the jumble of frayed memories that blend together in your mind.
"I'm definitely taking you to a record store after." Alex declares, clearly more than a little appalled at Piper's lack of 'solid' musical education. Alex makes a right, drives the length of the block, and turns left. She parks, putting her hand on the back of Piper's seat as she judges the distance between the car behind her.
….
There's a couple of choices, but the titles wash over Piper without making the slightest impact, and so she eventually handballs it to Alex to make the final decision. She settles on Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums, telling Piper she thinks she'll like it.
Piper asks if she's seen it already, and Alex says "no", but she's familiar with the director, and he's pretty predictable. Already, Piper begins to feel a little overwhelmed. Alex knows everything about music, the years they were first live performed, little trivia facts, and apparently, has a great deal of knowledge about film. She's expecting to trail behind Alex's knowledge, fail to be able to read a film the same way she can, which is ironic, because Piper is the one that's studied film.
Right on cue, Alex senses Piper's hesitation, and catches her elbow just as they are about to enter the theatre. "You okay?" Piper nods, torn between admitting she feels less-than, and pretending she doesn't. Alex scans the cinema – it's pretty much empty, save for a group of stoned dropouts taking up almost an entire row, and smaller clutters randomly scattered around. "Got a preference?"
"Wherever you like." Piper chooses third from the back, and Alex has got to admit she's rather pleased with the choice.
The feature begins, and Piper just lets the images flicker by in a haze of colour, the precise composition of every frame intrinsically satisfying. She shuffles closer, creating a comfortable pressure of their shoulders touching. Alex lifts up the armrest, letting Piper lean against her. It makes Piper feel giddy all over again. She never did the whole movie date thing, and it feels like she's making up for lost time. But Alex is better than any boy trying to put their arm stealthily over your shoulders.
A character Piper doesn't catch the name of quotes 'I haven't had sex with a man in eighteen years', and Alex smugly whispers, "Neither have I" in her ear.
The Ramones' Judy Is A Punk filters through, and Piper feels Alex sit up a little straighter, her interest peaked. It cuts off swiftly, and is closely followed by Elliott Smith's Needle In The Hay. Piper recognises it instantaneously, snapping her fingers. "I know this!" Piper chimes excitedly. Alex grins, pulling Piper close and kissing her.
It doesn't break this time; it just keeps on going, with heated kisses that drag out to lazy kisses, and every combination in between. Piper never wants to stop. The rest of the movie passes as more of a backdrop rather than the main attraction, and both get so wrapped up in each other that neither have a clue how it ends. Piper ends up wedged between the seats, half on Alex's lap. Her lips are bruised by the time the credits begin to roll, and people begin to file out of the cinema. They should probably go.
They are the last to leave, and the attendant casts a half-judgmental stare at Alex, and to prove a point, Alex pulls Piper back to her lips. They reach the pavement outside, grimacing slightly as the harshness of the light temporarily blinds them.
"So…" Alex starts, kicking a stone away from under her feet before continuing. "You up to explore a record shop, or have you had enough?"
Piper really doesn't want this day to end. She wants it to go on forever, so she doesn't ever have to go home. "Definitely record shop." Alex grins, looking more pleased than a child promised ice cream. "Good."
Alex matches the pace Piper sets, and they fall into easy conversation. Alex asks most of the questions. She asks about everything, from meaningless things like what tv programs she watched when she was little, to what kind of job she snagged. It's like Alex is trying to nut her out – fill in the details that come with investment in a person; make someone a complete picture. Piper starts to dread what questions are coming next. Not that it has anything to do with Alex, but because everyone asks the same ones. What do you want to do with your life, or how are you planning to support yourself.
But Alex never asks. The closest she comes is when they start to talk about Smith, with Piper asking why she spent time on campus, when she wasn't enrolled. Alex isn't completely honest – as far as Piper is aware, the comment about 'working for an international drug cartel' was a joke. Or a pick-up line. Maybe some diluted form of a half-truth. So she says it was past a girlfriend, which was some version of honest anyway.
It's as if those pivotal questions about security and career prospects just aren't important to Alex. She'd rather know what she thought of the girls at Smith, or whether she ever bribed a professor. It instantly makes Piper more comfortable.
They stumble upon a record shop, and Piper follows Alex through the aisles, watching as she sifts through the boxes. Alex pulls out the ones she considers worthy, flicking through the others with a startling speed that Piper's not sure how she manages to register the title before she flips right on past them. Alex mutters the band names and album titles, forming an endless string of information that's almost soothing. Television, The Clash and Pink Floyd are murmured, croaky, as they never fully leave her throat.
They find records that even Alex hasn't heard of – obscure collections that look like they've done more collecting dust than anything else. Alex turns over each new find carefully, her fingers feather-light as they trace over the packaging, almost caressing it.
Piper can tell when she's particularly interested in a record – she holds it for much longer, runs her fingers over the cover art and analyses every song title over and over again. Like she's weighing its value. But Alex's apartment demonstrated she wasn't exactly stricken with money, so Piper can't understand why she doesn't just buy it anyway.
Eventually, she's too curious not to ask. "What are you doing?"
Alex doesn't respond right away – still captivated by what she holds in her hands. "I'm gaging it."
"You're gaging it?"
Alex smiles, catching Piper's bemused expression. "I'm figuring out whether it's worth it. Everything I own has been judiciously selected, so I don't want to ruin that with editions I was only half interested in."
It makes sense - but it causes Piper to think about all the impulsive purchases she's made – when there's only been a handful of tracks she was really interested in, while the others were consistently skipped. It feels like such a waste. Alex slots it back, muttering "not worth it" before moving onto a new section.
The endless wandering and browsing is soothing, but in the end, Piper grows weary, and she finds herself leaning against whatever surface she can. Alex diligently finishes sorting through an entire genre, and Piper waits at the end, watching the final titles being flipped over, with not much more than a moment's consideration.
Piper leans against Alex, her voice giving away her drowsiness. "Let's go get something to eat."
Alex knows Piper's beginning to tire, and there's a moment where she feels like she's draining Piper…wearing her out. "Don't want me to take you home?"
Piper's hand brushes against the back of Alex's, her fingertips encircling around until their fingertips loosely interlock. Her thumb brushes against the palm of Piper's hand, just to maintain physical contact. It's reassuring, somehow. "Please don't," Piper whispers against her ear.
Piper can't make a decision on what she wants to eat, so in the end Alex opts to get some Thai. They order it takeaway, duck into a cornershop for some beer, and eventually find a grassy park area. Despite the season, it's surprisingly warm, and both end up shedding their jackets. Alex watches Piper make a pathetic attempt at using chopsticks to pick up even a single noodle strand, despite the task being made easier from a box.
Alex can't help but laugh, as she picks at her own with a practised ease that's become almost second nature. "Here, let me show you." Alex offers, stabbing the sticks inside the box so they stand roughly parallel. "Hold them like this." Alex demonstrates, slowly grasping them between her fingers. She applies just enough pressure to lift out a sizeable amount, declaring "Huzzah" as she successfully gets it into her mouth.
Piper frowns, and tries again. But she's not very successful, in the end digging around the plastic bag to find a fork. She looks a little beaten, clearly not happy coming off second best in a challenge against two stationary sticks.
"That's not exactly fair, Alex. You've gotta have had years of practice."
Alex laughs at Piper's grumblings. "I actually got the hang of it quite quickly. But you're sped along when there's no spoon or fork to fall back on."
It's clearly a reference to some foreign place, and obviously quite remote, if there's an absence of western cutlery. The notion bounces around in Piper's head for a while, thinking about how expanded Alex's horizons were, and not just by what she'd read or seen in photographs. She'd actually been to these places, smelt the difference in the air. Had the sun seem stronger and the stars feel closer. Experienced things Piper can't begin to imagine.
Piper finishes off the box, putting it to one side as she takes another swig of beer. She lies down against the grass, her arm raised above her to block out the sun. "Tell me about the places you've been."
Alex looks at Piper curiously. It's surprising somehow, but the question has never been asked to her before. Her mother doesn't ask. She avoids all topics associated with the whole drug-career thing. She doesn't approve, but she never pushes Alex on it, never says anything really. She knows her daughter is smart enough to know the risks, and savvy enough to make her own decision. She knows she has no right to interfere.
And outside the ring - those who don't really care about where she's off to or where's she's been, that leaves only a handful of other people. Friends she's kept in contact with. But her job forces her to remain tightly guarded, and her long, sporadic absences are never discussed. No one knows where she goes.
Alex thinks for a moment, letting all the images and emotions and tastes of adventures rush back to her. There's a lot, an awful lot to remember, so many years and so many trips. "Where do you want me to start?"
"From the beginning." Piper instructs.
And Alex does start from the beginning. She tells of how her first trip – Malaysia – and how it was her first time on a plane. She didn't tell anyone that, of course. Malaysia turned into Czech Republic, and she was so mesmerised by Prague that she filled up her camera's storage within a day, and had to search everywhere for somewhere that sold appropriatememory cards. The following year – 1998 she thinks – was a month-long spit in China. Alex laughs, recalling how thorough Chinese customs were going through Beijing, that they tore her bag apart. But when she exited the land border from Kunming, they had to wait for hours for the idle officials to stamp their passports, determined they could not be let through until precisely midnight. There was a stint in Moscow, but she never got to leave the airport. She tells of street kids in Cambodia, lost backpackers in Jakarta.
The list goes on, and Alex stretches out, her arms supporting her weight as she leans back. Piper comes close, her head resting on Alex's stomach as she listens intently. The sun is so harsh she's blinded even with her eyes closed. But Alex's tales of adventure are so vivid she feels as though it's all playing out before her. Alex goes on, explaining how she rode around the metro of Berlin aimlessly for hours, before getting off somewhere randomly, and following the intact sections of the Berlin wall. She can even remember the colours of the graffiti – and the way sections had been knocked down hastily in 1989. Alex recounts how parts of the rock still lay scattered – the artwork crumbling and lost.
Piper notices a distinctive pattern emerging – most of the destinations are focused around South-East Asia or Western European cities. And slowly, Piper begins to fully accept that Alex does indeed work in an illegal industry. She'd suspected it from the moment Alex had told her – but at the time, thought it ludicrous. But then again, there's nothing more elusive than an obvious fact – hidden in plain sight. And that's obviously how Alex wanted it.
The way Alex works through the narrative almost anecdotally makes Piper simply embrace it as an inseparable part of Alex. The steady, automatic tale Alex reveals lulls Piper into a state of contentment, and it's almost enough to put her to sleep. Almost.
Destinations blend together, and Piper's mind only receives fragments – Paris is mentioned somewhere, and there's something about a bartering exchange in a market in Vientiane. Saigon is cited along with something about heavy motorcycle traffic, and something about the sweltering heat of Surabaya. Alex stops, mentally recounting the places, until she realises she's reached the end of the list. They fall into silence, and Alex looks down at Piper, brushing the hair out of her face. "You still awake?"
Piper nods. "I just can't imagine travelling to all those places. So many adventures…" Piper trails off, falling into a chasm of fragmented illusions of the foreign places Alex has been.
Alex just smiles, tucking threads of hair behind Piper's ear. The sun begins to lose the strength of its heat for the day, and the light fades as dusk approaches. Piper doesn't shift. She just stays right there, feeling Alex breathe, watching her face hover above her. The sun's still too aggressive to allow her to see Alex's expression, but Piper's almost certain it's one of affection.
It grows cold, and goosebumps begin to surface. Piper's mildly afraid to break the spell. "It's getting late. I'll take you home." Alex stands up, finishing off the half-empty beer bottles lying around. She hoists Piper up, handing her jacket to her as they gather up their possessions and toss away the empty boxes and bottles.
Alex can feel how goddamned tired Piper is, and so she drapes her arm around Piper's shoulders, and lets her lean against her. Their pace is slow, as they silently trace their way back to the car, watching the sunlight slink away. On impulse, Alex kisses Piper's cheek, the softest she's ever kissed someone. Piper smiles, and leans a little more into her. There's something about it. It's soft and barely there, but somehow, it holds so much more weight than any hard, demanding kiss can ever hope to accomplish.
Both feel dizzy – from the alcohol, from lounging in the sun, from lazily browsing record shops and kissing in darkened movie theatres. But above all, they're dizzy from each other. From the contagious effect that comes from simply being in the presence of one another.
They finally make it, and the whole day feels like a marathon. All they have the energy to do is crawl back into Alex's car. Piper's half asleep, streetlights transforming into nothing but red and yellow blurs. She doesn't pay attention to the way – she focuses on Alex, watching as a hand rests lazily down at the lowest point of the wheel, only moving when she has to make a turn.
Alex pulls over, remembering which house is Piper's, and cutting the ignition. She sighs, half out of tiredness and half out of exhaustion as she finds Piper staring at her, eyes wide and unfocused. Alex feels like she should say something, maybe I really enjoyed this, or can I see you soon? But they seem like such tremendous understatements that they're about as useful as flat soda. It's an unspoken, agreed upon fact, that they'll see each other soon.
Probably tomorrow.
The day after at a stretch.
On instinct, Piper climbs across the console, her thighs straddling Alex's, as she sinks against her shoulder. Alex feels like her heart is going to burst out of her chest. Her hands run up and down Piper's back, in-between her hair. "When are you working?" Alex asks coolly.
"Tomorrow."
Alex becomes disappointed almost immediately, but then remembers her own commitments that she's ignored the whole day. She needs tomorrow to get everything straightened out.
"We'll figure it out." Piper murmurs, half against Alex's shoulder. She doesn't move, just stays completely still, basking in just how safe it feels to be draped against Alex. "Come on, kid. I've got to drive home," Alex points out; prompting that Piper can't stay here forever. Despite how much she wishes she could.
Piper levels her gaze to Alex, noting how her lips are slightly parted, watching whether Piper is going to close the distance. She does, and the fever returns, and she feels her body respond as the kiss gets heated. Both are too tired to do this now. Kisses grow lazy, until all that remains is the brushing of lips, hardly any pressure put behind the movements.
"Out." Alex orders, jokingly.
Piper gives her one last kiss, before reaching around for the door handle and sliding off Alex's lap. She doesn't say goodbye, just gives Alex one last look before shutting the door behind her. They'll call. They'll figure it out.
When Piper disappears behind the door, Alex can fully appreciate just how different she feels. "Fuck." She mutters, sighing as she starts the car. Her mind can't think that much, and she's grateful for that. She thinks just a little on the way back, just a little about how natural the day had felt. How easy. They just meshed. Broken into a pattern they hadn't quite done before.
It's not until she changes her clothes and crawls beneath the covers that she realises she hasn't managed to shake off the feeling that Piper left on her. It's stuck there, imprinted on her very skin, gotten into her blood flow. Sylvie stirs, lethargically asking Alex where she'd been. "Work." Alex claims. Sylvie either buys it, or is not conscious enough to really think about it.
She's so tired; her eyes feel heavy and her muscles strained as she places her glasses on the dresser. But sleep doesn't come. Her mind magically dials back to full capacity, and all of a sudden, she's playing the day over in her head, rewinding and rewinding again. She's searching for a moment, the moment, where something changed. Shifted. Parted. Joined.
She doesn't find it. She finds other things, like how they created a rhythm that they hadn't quite broken into previously. She finds things that surprise her, too. Like how their hands wove together in the record shop. How she let Piper rest against her stomach. How she stroked Piper's hair away from her face. How she was so overcome with the urge to kiss Piper's cheek, she just does it. So impossibly softly.
It's like reflecting on a different person. And it scares her, because it's too honest for comfort, too close to her heart. The hours pass by, and she's still deep in thought, wondering where this thing they've started is going. Her last conscious thought is how much she wants all her days to be just like today – filled by Piper.
Shoutout to vanillaltte, mafaldamartins, endofeverything (glad I kept you distracted! I'm super duper grateful to you for saying that.) melodydean, the particularly excited guest who 'needs the next chapter and needs it now' (hope this satisfies), Shauser, Vauseismylife, Katerina (thanks for the feedback!), ejm137 (thanks! heh, 'pleasure' *snickers juvenilely), PipexVauseman (duuude, thank you! *bro-fist) DarkestGayMoon (okay, okay, we're both rad!) SG, hotvause (woah, thaaaanks! Hope it stays as a favourite for you) inevitablevauseman (thank you so damn much), excedrinpersonality (*hi-fives you), TwoYearPlan (THANKS DUDE! it was pretty hot, was it not? *pretends I didn't get hot and bothered when I wrote it) reesefries (I can't thank you enough!); assorted guests who I can't thank individually, and absolutely everyone who is still with this story.
So just a note – if there's something you'd like to see in this story, for instance, either you have an idea yourself, or you've seen an idea or prompt somewhere, give me a shout! This story is hella long, so there's definitely room for it.
So, uh, want chapter eight?
