/ /
[day eighty-two]
"Sometimes I want to tear the world apart with my bare hands."
Piper's voice is soft, non-threatening and Alex keeps on looking at the cards she is holding – a pair of threes, nothing to be that pleased with.
"Okay..."
Piper puts a card on the table – face down – and Alex takes another one from the deck, sliding it over until it bumps up against Piper's waiting fingertips. Piper lifts one corner and then huffs in minor disappointment at what she's drawn.
"It's like... I don't know, if I fight... I'm in some kind of control...," and Piper catches Alex's quick, amused glance, and her own lips turn just a bit upwards in return, "...okay, yeah, maybe my version of being in control is a little fucked up these days..."
Alex smiles just a bit into her cards and allows her gaze to drift from the game and to Piper's face; Piper's face, oh so familiar and yet somehow brand new, beautiful but battle-weary, blue eyes staring hard at this hand she has been dealt.
"Everything's a little fucked up these days, Pipes..."
They are watching each other quietly now, cards still held aloft but mostly forgotten, and Alex thinks of her own anger, of her own special brand of falling apart; Alex thinks about shooting up in the bathroom (not just alone but so damn lonely) and Alex thinks about weeping like a child (tenuous faith forever shattering).
But pain is pain – no matter how it decides to come out, fists flying or needles in the arm – and this is just another patch of land that the two of them share, this is just another way in which they are connected to one another.
"...It's not just you."
'It's not just you' – and the words roll through Piper's body, into the chest and then outward to the palms, to the kneecaps, to the toes, and Piper wonders if this is what it feels like to belong somewhere, this sensation of your bones settling into place, of being warm and solid and alive.
'It's not just you' sounds a lot like home.
And here they are, with no more aces up their sleeves and no more hearts on the line; here they are, putting everything on the table this time – the mistakes, the wounds, this need, this want, all of the used-to-be and all that they are yet to know... and right there, lingering unspoken on their tongues, is a promise that they are in this together now...
"So, you got anything worth showing over there, kid?"
And if Piper had her way, she'd let these cards tumble out of her hands and she'd lean across this table and kiss Alex Vause within an inch of her goddamn life – as if they had all the time in the world, until they could barely breathe - but this is still prison and there are still rules to follow, even if Piper cannot seem to stop breaking them at every turn, and so she shrugs her shoulders instead, a small grin coming to life upon her lips.
"Maybe I do, maybe I don't... Guess you'll have to call and find out."
...and they are really fucking in this together now, aren't they?
Alex can feel it, like finally remembering something that she had forgotten, something so lovely and so damn fine, and it slips underneath her ribcage, it slides right into her heart and won't let go; Piper Chapman is in her heart and she just won't let go and Alex wouldn't have it any other way.
"All-right..."
And Alex lays down her hand, eyebrow raised in challenge, and Piper's eyes light up oh so knowingly.
"...I call."
/ /
[day eighty-six]
Everyone in here develops a routine, a method to this madness called imprisonment, and the subtle ways in which patterns form – shower always at five in the morning, smiling at the same faces, lamps and laundry and library books – creates a sense of security in the midst of so much instability.
You don't have to think about what is waiting for you outside of these walls – or, perhaps more aptly put, what isn't waiting for you outside of these walls. You don't have to think about the very real possibility that there isn't a future, all pretty with ribbons and bows, standing still while you make your slow return.
Everyone in here does what they have to in order to survive; survive the bad food and the bad CO's, survive the crushing loneliness and all the ways in which you become hard instead of staying soft, all the ways in which the truth finally peels back the layers and reveals who you really are.
You don't have to think about lying anymore – to others, to yourself – because now you've been caught, now you are looking at your face in the mirror and you see everything; everything you used to hide from, everything you used to bury, everything that you swore wasn't you at all.
No, I don't have to pretend anymore...
And somewhere between night and morning, while the staff is still groggy and the kitchen girls are wiping their drowsy eyes, Piper slips her fingers inside of Alex, pushing in so deep and pausing, holding this moment like a treasure, holding Alex's dilated stare until the woman pleads in whispers, until they are both moving – quick, wet, breathless – until they are moving seamlessly from pleasure to precipice, all too soon and not nearly soon enough.
...I don't have to tell myself that this isn't what I really want, that this isn't what I've wanted all along...
And somewhere between the drumming of her restless heart and the turning of her reckless thoughts, while all the things they've yet to fully discuss linger around the edges of their days, Piper presses her lips to the damp length of Alex's neck and can almost taste the pulse, can almost feel it thrumming along her tongue, and they don't have to think about yesterday, they don't have to think about tomorrow – not right now, not with their bodies so damn close - they don't have to do anything other than love each other, to just finally fucking love each other.
...No, I don't have to run away from this...
And somewhere between everyone in here and everyone out there, between those jilted lovers and all those other lost daughters, somewhere in the midst of such insanity is this – Piper's cheek against the flushed skin of Alex's chest, with every steady beat like a lullaby; somewhere between time served and crimes committed, they have found each other again and this time... this time, Piper isn't going to let go.
...I don't have to run away from you and I anymore.
/ /
(tbc)
