A/N: As you can tell, I'm trying to give you guys as much as I can over the weekend to make up for my lack of updates during the week. I'm up to my eyes in schoolwork right now, and although I don't want to rush, I do need to be banging out as many updates in my free time as possible. It is after 1am, though, so this is barely proof read at the minute. Sorry for the inevitable typos, I'll fix them in the morning. Enjoy, and please leave me a review. No reviews = no story, kids. Love you all.


They need to talk.

They really, really shouldn't dive into this headfirst without consideration or admittance of the problems posed by entering into an actual relationship. Piper wants to talk, but she also wants to stay right here on Alex's sofa, curled against her side and resting her head peacefully against the brunette's warm chest. There are rules that must be adhered to; they cannot continue flirting so openly in front of pupils and coming within inches of fucking each other senseless in-between periods.

That's the whole problem, isn't it? Rules aren't any fun.

As if sensing the blonde's slight discomfort, Alex's fingers press a little harder against the dimples at the bottom of Piper's spine, exposed due to the persistence of Alex through the movie to pull her shirt up a little higher every twenty minutes or so. It's quiet, now; the apartment is dim and silent and there's nothing to be heard save for the occasional sharp intake of breath from Piper.

They need to talk, but Alex also needs to move her fingers a little lower. The blonde shifts suddenly underneath the blanket, hitching her right leg over Alex's waist and settling her weight down into the brunette's lap slightly. She leans over Alex, blonde hair falling over the older woman's face, but she continues to smirk as her fingers skim over the bare thighs of her girlfriend, occasionally squeezing the toned muscle there.

"You still haven't shown me your bedroom." Piper insinuates in a low voice, leaning down so that her lips are inches from Alex's. The brunette squirms underneath her, moving lower to attach her lips to Piper's neck greedily.

She should tell her not to leave a mark. She doesn't.

The taller girl continues to bite softly down the column of Piper's neck before her lips move to Piper's jaw line, blazing a trail of kisses before she pulls back ever so slightly.

"Now we're talking." She husks smugly.

No, we're not. Piper thinks.

But then Alex's breath fans over her face and her hips grind upwards into Piper's, and that's all it takes for her momentary resolve to fall apart.

Alex removes the doubt from Piper's mind with the wicked touch of her fingertips and the inviting timbre of her voice, and the blonde lets her, responds to Alex's touch like no one the older girl has ever seen before. More than that, she fucking loves it. The thrill of being dangerous, of being wanted, of breaking the rules with acquiescent abandon beckons Piper, and she stumbles after it blindly, without care or recognition for what the hell she's getting into. But then she's getting into Alex, so to speak, the brunette whispering her lover's name over and over like the most lustful prayer Piper's ever heard, raking her nails wantonly down the blonde's slim shoulders and soft skin of her back. Upon laying down beside each other, and looking at each other wondrously, naked and breathless, Piper doesn't even worry anymore. She just wants Alex, she doesn't want pupils or jobs or classrooms. She's got Alex.

They need to talk.

They'll talk later.


Sundays are good. They're relaxing and usually spent by Alex in bed with a good book and a takeout, with a phone call afforded to her mother after she finishes her preparation for the school week. This Sunday is different.

This Sunday is better.

Having been rather preoccupied the night before, sunlight filters freely though the large gap between Alex's curtains, casting a sharp line across Alex's field of vision. She awakens groggily, narrowing her tired eyes at the intrusion and shifting downwards so the comforter was over her head. Enveloped in a dim lighting, shielded from the blinding sunlight, she makes out the entire form of Piper Chapman almost attached to her side. Adorably, the blonde had fallen asleep all the way underneath the comforter, left arm strewn across her company's stomach as well as her left leg half entwined between both of Alex's. She had obviously cradled Piper throughout the night, for her body was turned inwards slightly, left arm numb underneath her girlfriend's weight and her right was loosely resting on the blonde's naked side as Piper's face was pressed right against Alex's chest. How in God's name they managed to fall asleep like that, Alex had no idea. But they had, and Piper's slow breaths were tickling Alex's sternum slightly as she continued to sleep. The brunette, meanwhile, is content to just lie still, pulling Piper a little closer and marvelling at how well their bodies fit together. Although she can't see her face, the slight change in Piper's breathing pattern alerts Alex to the fact that the girl is coming to. She shifts her body closer to her makeshift pillow, making no attempt to remove herself from Alex's blissful embrace.

"Marzipan." She mumbles into the soft skin of Alex's chest. An incredibly confused expression crosses Alex's face, and she thinks she's misheard Piper.

"Morning?" She questions.

"No." Piper breathes in deeply, before sighing happily, warm air hitting Alex's skin. "Marzipan."

"I'm not even going to pretend to know what you're talking about." Alex whispers into their little hideaway underneath the comforter, her chin resting on Piper's head slightly.

"Your nipples smell like marzipan." Piper deadpans, her voice thick with sleep. Evidently, so is her mind, because Alex seriously doubts she'd come out with a statement like that if she was one hundred percent awake. The older girl laughs, and Piper smiles tiredly at the vibrations deep within Alex's chest that her head currently rests on. Eventually, Alex quiets her laughter, and pulls her arm out from underneath the blonde.

"Piper?" She says, pulling back slightly so she can look down into the cerulean irises of her girlfriend.

"Yeah?"

"Hi." Alex smirks, pursing her lips in wonder at the blonde's ability to surprise her constantly.

"Hi." Piper whispers back sheepishly, shifting herself more on top of Alex and kissing her slowly. Alex's hands stroke slowly down the blonde's sides as Piper braces one arm on the mattress and brings her other to the side of Alex's face, threading her fingers through the raven locks at the nape of her neck. An unquantifiable amount of time is spent in that position by the pair, kissing desirously underneath the comforter, hidden from the trials and tribulations of everyday life, of the inevitable problems that will be posed to the forbidden love currently being shared underneath the downy covering pulled securely over their heads.

Piper doesn't want to leave. Alex doesn't want to let her go.

"Let me take you out for lunch." Alex husks against Piper's lips, trailing her hands up and down her girlfriend's sides teasingly.

"Lunch?" The blonde raises a questioning eyebrow. "What time is it?"

"About one." Piper's eyes widen in alarm, and her thumb stills on Alex's cheek.

"Are you joking?" She questions intently.

"If that was the height of my jokes, would you really still be here?" Alex attempts to humour the agitated girl, but she pokes her head out into the cool air of the bedroom to be met with the alarm clock staring back at her, reading 1:13pm in block red numbering.

"Shit!" She cries, looking down at the smirking brunette below her. "Shit!"

"Shit!" Alex repeats for no reason, raising her eyebrows and laughing in amusement. She presses her lips to Piper's chest while looking up at her, green eyes flashing challengingly.

"Nuh-uh." Piper shakes her head adamantly, attempting to scarper from the brunette's touch. She gets one leg off the bed before Alex pulls her back by the wrist, knocking out her arm from underneath her and causing her to be pinned underneath the older girl.

"Where d'you think you're going?" She enquires, her voice low and suggestive.

"To meet Polly, in literally ten minutes!" Piper cries, looking up at Alex pleadingly.

"Holly can wait." Alex husks, ghosting her fingertips low across Piper's toned stomach and moving her lips to her girlfriend's jaw line. Involuntarily, the blonde arches up into the touch, her body betraying her mind.

"Holly can't wait." Piper insists breathlessly, but her resolve is already lying in tatters around the bed frame.

"Leave, then." Alex smirks smugly against Piper's skin, dragging her tongue lustfully down the column of the blonde's neck while her fingers drawn illegible patters on the inside of her thigh. Eventually, she stops, abruptly removing all contact from Piper, leaving the girl glaring at her angrily, annoyed at her change in demeanour.

"No." Piper growls, tugging on Alex's hair and bringing their lips together again desperately. Alex smirks triumphantly into the kiss as Piper's hands run across her body searchingly. She knows Piper won't leave if Alex continues giving into her desires, knows that she cannot possibly tear herself away from the brunette.

She won't even try.


Piper doesn't stay for lunch, but she shows up to a very pissed off Polly Harper half an hour late, without so much as a shower or makeup on her face.

"You were fucking her, weren't you?" Polly rages from the booth as Piper slides in across from her, having appeared from the interior of a silver Aston Martin onto the sidewalk outside the bar.

"Yep." Piper smirks, before calling the waiter over and ordering herself a glass of water.

"Jesus." Polly shakes her head, looking down at her best friend with marked disappointment.

"What?" Piper turns her palms skyward in defence of her untameable lust for her girlfriend.

"You're not even dating her and you've basically spent the entirety of the weekend together." Piper attempts to mask the laugh that escapes at Polly's cluelessness as a cough, but the brunette picks up on it and her eyes widen in utter shock. "No...Piper, don't even say it. You're definitely gay now."

"I'm not gay. I'm not. I'm just experimenting."

"You're twenty-six and I haven't seen you kiss a guy since the final year of college." Polly reminds her best friend. The blonde shrugs, and her expression becomes quite far-off, a smile tugging at the corners of her lips.

"I'm telling you, it's like I just discovered what sex is supposed to be like." Piper says dreamily, mind wandering to the events of the weekend, of Alex's nails raking down her back and addictive voice in her ear, whispering unrepeatable promises into the early hours of the morning.

"She has a girlfriend!" Polly reminds the blonde, who shakes her head vehemently.

"She had a girlfriend." Piper hums happily. "They were having problems. It's over.

"For sure?" Polly presses further.

"Trust me, Pol, it is definitely over between them. She has a girlfriend, though." Piper presses her tongue cheekily to the inside of her cheek, shrugging as the waiter sets down her water before leaving again.

"You dog you." Polly shakes her head, but she's not even surprised. Piper wasn't exactly notorious for being cautious about things.

"I really like her." Piper insists, more to herself than anyone. She thinks about the brunette for the remainder of her lunch with Polly, about the honesty afforded to her throughout their weekend, something she doubt Alex grants to many people. She reminisces about the ridiculously cute way she had watched parts of the movie from behind Piper's hair and finally about the fact she was actually the girl lucky enough to be Alex Vause's girlfriend.

Yes, it would be fair to say that Piper Chapman was pretty happy with that title.


They go for breakfast on Monday morning to make up for Piper's desertion the day before. An An Audi R8 pulls into the parking lot as the clock strikes half past seven outside the deserted cafe. It's pretty early, and a thin stream of rain falls from the grey skies, not falling in rivets but just drizzling down across the city. Alex pulls her jacket over Piper's head with a chuckle, ignoring the rain falling on her own figure so long as the blonde doesn't get her straightened hair ruined by the precipitation, suffering as a result of leaving her own jacket in the car.

"Thanks, baby." Piper places a chaste kiss on Alex's lips as they enter the warm confines of the building, shielded from the rain. The cafe is utterly empty save for one bored looking waitress who chews on her gum like it's the greatest thing she's ever tasted and takes their order with a grunt and not even an attempt at a smile.

"We really didn't plan this through." Piper realises upon sitting down and looking out at her car.

"What?" Alex asks, raising a quizzical eyebrow.

"Showing up to work in the same car is going to raise a hell of a lot of suspicion." The blonde begins to panic, and they've only just sat down.

"Hey, Pipes." Alex takes her hand and runs her thumb soothingly over her knuckles. "Relax, baby." Her smooth voice and earnest eyes plead with Piper, and she feels her nerves dissipate slightly. "Nicky and I share lifts all the time, it's no big deal." Piper nods, conceding the fact that she might have overreacted. Piper doesn't know if she's listening to Alex's logic or the incredible feeling of her fingers linked with her own, but she agrees anyway.

"We should have talked about this." Piper adds as their pancakes are set down between them. Alex's eyes flash mischievously behind her glasses, and she bites her lip slightly before replying.

"Guess we got distracted." The brunette surmises flirtatiously, knocking her knee against Piper's lightly under the table.

"I guess we did." Piper should be worried about the fact, but she hears her own voice lower slightly at the skin to skin contact. God, I should have worn trousers, I mean it's fucking raining! Piper thinks, and she rather wishes Alex had gotten the memo too. Does she really, though? Would she trade safe and normal and not exciting at all for exhilarating, forbidden contact underneath the blind eyes of the waitress?

Not for a million dollars.

They should have talked. They didn't.


Alex Vause and Piper Chapman are very, very lucky to be two of the most liked teachers at the academy. If it had been anyone but a few members of Piper's track team and some of Alex's tutees who'd seen the pair step from the same car, the pupils would have been sprinting down the corridors shouting about it at the tops of their voices.

They observe in silence as Piper steps out of the driver's side, looking like something straight out of Zara's office wear Autumn/Winter '14 catalogue, or something along those lines. Black heels, black pencil skirt and a form fitting, long sleeved white blouse tucked into the waistband, over which she pulled on a beige trench coat, tight fitting and shorter than her skirt. She shook out her blonde hair and fixed her collar before closing the door sharply and walking around to the boot. Alex Vause stepped a moment later from the opposite side, and almost every pupil in the gathering gasped at her appearance alongside the blonde. She was dressed similarly, only her grey skirt was slightly longer, and her black shirt was unbuttoned a little further than Piper's. Her heels were the same colour, and she slung a leather jacket over her arm, preferring to keep it off her figure now that the rain had stopped. Piper opened the boot, pulling out her bag and work she had unsurprisingly forgotten to mark, while Alex slung her marked work over her shoulders, encased safely in her laptop bag. They paused to smirk at each other for a moment, and that's when the pupils erupted into frenzied chatter.

"They're fucking." One girl surmised eagerly.

"How do you know? They just shared lifts, for God sake." Another fired back.

"When have you ever seen Miss Vause smile like that?!" The group turned back to the teachers currently walking towards the archway, and caught sight of a wide, full grin on Alex's red lips, laughing at a particularly well timed comment from her girlfriend.

"They're fucking. Awesome." The girl repeated. This time, everyone nodded. Miss Chapman and Miss Vause would get away with it this time.

Next time, they may not be so lucky. They should probably talk about it.


"Nervous?" Piper teases, swinging her legs off her desk as Alex for once sits in a chair.

"For what?" Alex fires back, taking a final sip from her steaming cup of coffee.

"For trying to control yourself all week around me." Piper raises her eyebrows suggestively. Alex sets down her mug on one of the tables as she stands to her feet.

"Who said I planned on doing anything of the sort?" She breathes, standing intrusively close to the blonde and staring down at her, a self satisfied smirk playing on her lips.

"You wouldn't even try it, Miss Vause." Piper had locked her door just in case, though. They did have a meeting in fifteen minutes, but Alex could do a lot in that time.

"Just watch me, Miss Chapman." The brunette replies, her voice dripping with desire. She presses her body against Piper's, taking off her glasses and slipping them into the front of her shirt, drawing the younger woman's gaze downwards similar to the way she had done in the car park on their first day.

This time, Piper doesn't have to look away.

She exhales slowly, shaking her head at Alex's incredible ability to get her riled up with only the smallest of movements, or the slightest lowering of her voice. Piper would like nothing more than to test Alex's conviction, but they really don't have enough time or privacy to play out exactly what the blonde has in mind. So she contents herself with bringing her lips to Alex's, resting her hands behind the taller girl's neck as Alex's splay low across her back, thumbs pressing harshly into Piper's hips. There's nothing innocent or chaste about the kiss, but it's not rushed or frantic. Piper parts her lips slightly to accommodate Alex's wicked tongue, but they don't fight each other for the lead in the kiss, simply brushing their lips and tongues against each other's for quite some time, punctuated with occasional quiet moans from Piper as Alex's hands groped her ass or low groans from the brunette as her girlfriend's dextrous fingers palmed her deliberately over the material of her shirt. It's a dizzying, electrifying kiss that has them both breathing heavily by the end of it, doing categorically nothing to sate their incredible desire for each other.

"Fuck." Alex curses softly with a breathy laugh, brushing away a strand of hair from Piper's face.

"Yeah." Piper agrees shakily, biting her lip to steady herself as she pats Alex's hip, signalling that she kind of needs to step back a little.

"Bye." The brunette smiles crookedly, fixing Piper's shirt collar before reinstating a normal distance between them and beginning to make her way over to the store room door and into her own classroom.

"I'll see you in five minutes, Al." The blonde points out with a laugh

"Yeah, but I won't be able to do that now, will I?" Alex winks, disappearing off to do whatever it is she should have been doing instead of making out with Piper for ten minutes.

No, she won't be able to kiss Piper in front of the rest of the staff. But then again, she wouldn't be allowed to press the blonde up against her desk and make out with her desirously, either. And she definitely, definitely would not be allowed to date Piper Chapman.

Terrifyingly, so many rules already been broken by the couple, that everything was already beyond repair anyway. And, needless to say, they'd find a few more to break before everything was said and done.


Anybody who says it isn't different working with someone when you've seen them naked is nothing but a dirty liar. There is unquestionably a shift in the air in the conference room come Monday morning, when Piper and Alex are seated beside each other, both in collared shirts to try and cover up the marks on their necks that had suddenly appeared over the weekend. A single sheet of paper is presented between the two, and Mr Caputo looks at them expectantly.

"Um...what is this?" Piper questions first, looking at the page blankly. Alex pulls it towards her, studying it while her girlfriend's question is answered.

"An itinerary." He offers.

"For?"

"Your trip." Piper's much too tired for his odd manner this early on a Monday, so she just turns to Alex who shifts the paper between the two.

"Boston?!" Piper whispers harshly, looking at Alex for clarity.

"Read the sheet, Pipes." She encourages under her breath, nudging the sheet towards the blonde. Caputo talks to the rest of his staff while the pair continue to read over the itinerary carefully, before Piper thinks she understands it.

"They're letting us, me and you, stay in a hotel for two nights with fifteen pupils at some sort of conference...thing?"

"Yeah, it's like a Chemistry course for..." Alex checks the sheet again. "The gifted pupils of our up and coming generation."

"Sounds riveting." Piper muses sarcastically.

"Piper..." Alex's tone is lower but incredibly inviting, audible only to the blonde who leans in slightly to the sultry voiced teacher beside her. "You, me, hotel room, for two nights, paid for by the blissful ignorance of our school's generous board." She reminds her counterpart with a quick smirk, looking down at the blonde as recognition colours her face. "Don't ask questions, babe." She adds quietly.

"Nope. No questions." Piper squeaks, before breaking into a sly grin and leaning back into her chair.

"Ladies." Caputo directs his attention to his two Chemistry teachers. "Obviously, because of costs, you'll have to share a room, which I trust you two will be able to manage?" His tone isn't suggestive, but he sounds rather apprehensive at two women who'd been strangers two weeks ago being thrust into a small hotel room together.

The poor man has no idea what the hell he's done by affording them such an opportunity.

"How tragic." Nicky mouths at Alex from across the table, earning her a swift kick in the shin from the brunette.

"No problem." Piper smiles as her partner nods in agreement.

"Now, you're getting this for free, technically, but I need something from you two in return." The two sit up a little straighter as his tone turns serious. "As I'm sure you're aware, the Fall homecoming is next week."

Oh, for fuck sake.

"And you two are down to supervise it."

Fuck that.

"Well, considering this is supposed to be a reward for both your classes' astounding progress so far, we'll draft in a few teachers from other departments, but you're our volunteers."

Fan-fucking-tastic.

"Fair enough, right?"

"Sure."

"Yep." The two answer in unison, their shoulders sagging slightly. No teacher looks forward to having to spend the night listening to trashy pop songs and watch desperate boys run after girls. But when you're spending the night with your girlfriend, dressed to the nines only unable to so much as look at each other inappropriately...well, you can see why neither Alex nor Piper is particularly excited about it.

"Fantastic. Thanks, ladies." Caputo dismisses them with a wave, and they exit the room in silence, the first two to leave. Alex turns to her girlfriend, and they smirk slyly at each other for a moment, tension dissipating as quickly as it had appeared as they regard each other in the foyer outside the conference room. Eventually, the brunette speaks, the smugness in her voice clear as day.

"So... wanna come to homecoming with me?"