Nicky was on her feet the second she saw them, Alex's car keys firmly in her grasp as she guided them towards the door, pressing $20 down onto the table as they left.
Piper was still unsteady despite Alex's support, and it was with great care that they eased her into the back seat, fastening the seatbelt across her lap before helping her lie down.
Nicky assumed the passenger's side, ejecting the CD from the stereo as soon as Alex turned the ignition, leaving Piper to sleep to the sounds of traffic on the highway and the breeze filtering in through the window they'd left open for her.
The ride back to the house was uneventful, and somnolent though Piper was, getting her through the front door and up into the stairs was less difficult than the brunette had initially assumed it would be.
Piper filled the silence with mumbled I'm sorrys - for ruining brunch, for being sick, for drinking too much - with every step they took, and there was little Alex could say that would prevent her from continuing.
Piper, for her part, was mortified. She couldn't help but hang her head, the world swimming around her as she felt sick with both shame and the heaviest hangover she'd ever had to endure. It hung around her like a thick fog, and no amount of apologies could possibly compensate for the inconvenience she'd probably caused Alex and Nicky.
Stumbling up each wooden step to the first floor, Piper's mind reached for tenuous links in an attempt to make sense of her surroundings.
She could remember her first sleepover as a child, consuming too much sugar and being sent home to her parents' house in disgrace. Her mother had made her promise to never be such an embarrassment again - our friends from the country club will not forget this quickly - and it was several years later when she was finally invited over to another friend's house to stay.
If only I'd learnt my lesson, Piper mused. Unlikely that I'll be invited back, after this.
"You sure you don't feel sick anymore?" Alex tone was earnest, concerned, steering Piper through the doorway to her bedroom..
"I think I'm okay." Piper responded, in a voice that made her sound better than she felt. "I'm just exhausted, you know?"
Alex gave a low chuckle, almost approvingly. "I wonder why."
Piper's tired expression gave way to a bright smile, which flickered and faltered at first, but settled at the sight of Alex's answering grin.
The brunette pressed a soft kiss to the blonde's forehead as Piper slowly disrobed, and they both lay down on the bed.
"You should sleep."
"I can go home and sleep there. I should go home. I've already inconvenienced you enough." The younger woman's eyes began to close against her will, her words a distorted reflection of her body's needs.
"Fuck that." Alex's reply was quiet, and Piper felt the mattress dip and shift as the other woman moved closer to her, their arms brushing. "You're welcome to stay until you feel better."
Piper rolled onto her side, her chest now flush with Alex's, the measured rise and fall of their ribcages moving almost synchronously, ticking clocks keeping time with one another.
"And what if I never feel better?" Piper whispered, almost inaudibly. It was a fairytale question, the kind of shit she'd dismiss in a rom-com, but it seemed apt and silly here, the ramblings of a self-made invalid seeking reasons to stay with a beautiful woman.
"If you never feel better," Alex ventured, smirk evident in her voice. "Then you'll just have to stay here forever."
Being taller than Piper, Alex's breath warmed the top of Piper's face, and her lips brushed Piper's forehead tentatively.
"Will you wait here until I've fallen asleep?" The blonde's enquiry was coy, but she didn't want to lose this connection. Alex made her feel calmer, steadier, less likely to be reduced to the same shaking pile of limbs on a different bathroom floor.
"Sure thing, kid."
Alex cast her arm across Piper's body, her hand snaking beneath her shirt to find the curve from hip to rib, settling in to rub smooth circles with her thumb across Piper's soft skin.
Several silent minutes passed.
Alex's heart thudded in her chest.
Piper wasn't ill, just hungover, but badly so. Despite the fact that this was a situation entirely of her own making, she couldn't help but want to spend the rest of her day by Piper's side. It was so sweet a scenario, so textbook, that its saccharine simplicity sought to rot her teeth.
Sucker, she admonished herself.
Once she was certain that the blonde had dozed off, Alex extracted herself from their entanglement, easing their bodies apart with the greatest of care. She brushed a lock of hair away from Piper's face, and granted herself a moment to marvel at how attractive the woman was.
Denying herself the Twilight-like creepiness of watching the blonde sleep, she headed for the door, knowing that she'd only return to her previous position if she stayed a moment more.
"Alex?"
Alex turned from the exit, so close to leaving that a second sooner and she'd have missed the question. "Yeah Pipes?"
"I'm sorry."
Alex sighed. "What for now? You're sorry you came over? You're sorry you stayed the night?" She teased gently, hoping that Piper would hear the humour in her tone.
"I'm not sorry that I stayed the night." The answer was sincere, but sombre around the edges. "I'm sorry because I need one last favour."
Were it not in anticipation of Nicky's mockery (which she knew would be a certainty), she'd wait on Piper's every want until she felt better. In place of that, a favour was the least she could do.
"Sure. What do you need?"
Alex found herself at the bottom of the bed once more, and would venture closer if she knew she wouldn't be overwhelmed by the desire to wrap Piper up in her arms for a second time.
"Can you call my housemate? I left my phone in my jeans."
"Sure." Alex crossed to the pile of discarded clothes and gathered them up, rifling through the fabric until she found what she was looking for.
Laying her hands on the back plastic casing, she approached the bed once more. "What do you want me to say to her?"
"Just tell her I'm here, and that... "
"That?"
"That I'm not very well."
Alex wanted to laugh - she knew all too well the feeling of hiding a hangover from the people around her. "Something you ate, maybe?"
Piper nodded grimly into her pillow. "Something I drank, more like. But yeah."
"I'll cover you."
The blonde whispered her thanks, calling Alex back one final time as she headed for the exit. "Her name is Polly."
Alex nodded, verbalising her response as she remembered that Piper had her eyes closed. "Thanks kid."
Nicky tossed a worn and well-thumbed copy of 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas' to the floorboards upon seeing Alex exit the room opposite her own, unfamiliar phone cradled in her grasp.
"That Chapman's?"
Alex paused, turning on the spot. She pushed her glasses back up into her hairline as she approached, knuckling tired eyes with the hand that held the mobile. "Yeah."
"Where're you going with it?"
"I was going downstairs. She's asked me to call her housemate."
"What, she want you to pander to her whims, too?"
Alex laughed, but it was laden with sarcasm. She sat down heavily next to Nicky, and began cycling through Piper's contacts.
"All I'm saying is, be careful."
Alex glanced from the phone to Nicky, and back again. "About what?" She gestured vaguely with the object in her palm. "I know how to use a phone. It's not going to explode or anything."
"No, I mean with the roommate. If she's anything like the girls Chapman used to hang with, you might be in for a culture shock."
"I've handled Fig. I can handle this."
Nicky gazed longingly off into a fictional distance. "I wish I'd handled Fig."
"Gross. You hate her."
"I'm complex enough that I can despise a human being and covet her curves at the same time. Besides, what's a little hate-fucking between friends?"
Alex held a single finger aloft, silencing Nicky as she pressed the mobile to her ear.
"It's ringing." She mumbled in hushed tones.
"Phones do that, Vause. I knew you weren't cut out for this."
As the brunette swung her fist at Nicky playfully, a poorly aimed punch that her housemate batted out of the air like a cat with a butterfly, somebody answered the phone.
"Piper?"
"Uh, hi. No, this is one of her colleagues."
"Oh, hey. Is she okay? She hasn't been answering my texts." Polly seemed genuinely concerned for Piper's well-being, so Alex decided to give her the benefit of the doubt.
"Actually, she's pretty rough."
"Heavy night? She can not hold her drink." Polly laughed lightly down the line, and Alex immediately resented the idea that Piper's low tolerance for alcohol was funny in any way, particularly as she was now suffering the consequences.
"No, I think it was something she ate."
"She tell you to say that?" Piper's housemate had evidently been through this before, and her skepticism hung heavily for a moment.
Alex glided past the problem swiftly. "She's going to crash here until she feels better. She just wanted to let you know."
"Wouldn't she be better off at home?"
"Well, she's fallen asleep here, so it's probably better to just leave her."
"But if she's at home, I take care of her."
"We've got it, thanks Holly." Alex's tone was flat, emotionless. She wasn't grateful, and she didn't like this micromanaging housemate of Piper's. Not that it matters, Alex reminded herself. She didn't even know Piper well enough to know her favourite books yet - although the list accounted for that - let alone to be casting aspersions about the company she chose to keep.
"Polly." Polly corrected, sounding as enthused as Alex was to still be part of the conversation.
"Right, Polly Hobby. Got it."
"And you are?"
Alex was stopped short by the enquiry. She hadn't even given her own name, so caught up had she been by her frustration with the woman at the other end of the line.
"Alex."
"And you work with Piper?"
"Yeah, in the English department."
"And I take it you were at last night's party too?"
Alex guffawed at that, the obtrusive outbreak leaving her mouth inadvertently. "Yeah, it was my party."
"Oh." Polly faltered. "Is there somebody else in your department?"
"Like, another staff member?" Alex could hear how short her own fuse was simply from her tone of voice, but Polly was apparently missing every cue to close the conversation. "No, it's just me. And now Piper. Why?"
"I had a long day." Piper paused, pondering whether or not to share her tentative encounter with Alex. "But, I met my new colleague in the department."
Polly's eyes were on her immediately, as though she could sense what was coming. "Is he cute?"
The blonde chose not to correct her. "Tall, dark..."
"Handsome?"
"... Heathcliff."
Polly laughed. "What, he's a total dick?"
"Not a dick, just… Enigmatic. Like, mysterious, and kind of judgemental, but weirdly attractive with it."
"I think Piper should come home now." Polly asserted, after a short pause.
"I think Piper's a grown woman, and she's capable of making her own decisions." Alex was done with the dialogue options available to her, and decided it was time to finish what she'd started. "Right now she's asleep. She made her choice to stay when she got into my bed."
Polly's voice sounded strained when it reached Alex's ears, an undercurrent of distress running through the reply. "She's in your bed?"
Alex opted to cut the crap. "Yeah, and she was there last night too. I'll take care of her, and I'll drive her home when she's ready."
"Well, I - "
"Nice talking to you, Holly."
"It's Pol-" Alex took the phone away from her ear and pressed the brightly lit red phone icon on the screen.
She hoped for Piper's sake that she'd never have to meet this woman face to face.
"Jesus, what's razzed your berries?"
"It turns out Piper's housemate is a bitch."Alex turned to her housemate, exasperated.
"What'd I say before?"
"Fuck off, Nicky." Alex rose to her feet, but Nicky followed suit, footsteps padding down the stairs after the brunette like a precocious puppy.
"Wow, she really got on your tits, huh?"
Alex opened the fridge, fully inserting her head into the cooled compartment in search of absolutely nothing before begrudgingly slamming the door closed. "She was just..."
"Entitled?"
Alex shrugged and moved from one side of the kitchen to the other, Nicky shifting around her to pull herself onto the large oak table in the centre of the room.
"Condescending?"
The younger woman remained silent, opening cupboards at random and sighing before each closure.
"Okay, tell me if I'm getting warm." Nicky continued in the face of Alex's silence, watching her housemate intently. "Was she too upper-east-side? Too country-club Republican?"
Alex finally stopped her pacing, running a pale hand through her dark hair as she paused. "All of the above."
"Ha! Called it." The blonde raised an open palm into the air, awaiting a high-five that would never be reciprocated.
The room fell still for a moment, as each participant considered their next move.
"Smoke?" Nicky was the first to break the silence, as always, her physical interaction abandoned for the sake of another occupation.
"Yeah." Scrabbling in the box by the back door for the keys, Alex opened the back door, the pair finding seats on the step that faced out over the turf.
Lighting their respective cigarettes, she inhaled deeply, mulling over a reality she wasn't sure she was ready to face.
"You said she knew Piper when she was younger?"
"Yeah, debutante days and shit."
"Are they all like that?" Alex flicked some ash away from them both, studiously avoiding Nicky's gaze.
"Like what?"
"The girls from your school days. Are they all like Fig and Polly?" Alex founded herself spitting the final word out like chewing tobacco, and it left as sour a taste on her tongue as she'd expect.
"Not all of 'em. I'm not like that." Nicky reasoned, leaning back until she could rest her head against the poured concrete that the house was constructed from.
"Is Piper?" Alex's immediate fear became evident, and Nicky didn't bother to conceal her chuckle.
"How am I s'posed to know? Before last week, I hadn't seen her for years."
Alex nodded, taking the answer without question.
Nicky dug a soft elbow into her friend's ribs. "Time'll tell. She doesn't seem like a bitch, but I've been surprised before."
Alex released a cloud of cigarette smoke from between perfectly pursed lips, and Nicky recalled the first time they'd met, how she'd watched Alex complete exactly the same motion, and how allowed herself to wonder what those lips would feel like.
That was years ago, and Nicky needed to help now, not indulge herself. She wasn't even attracted to Alex - well, not anymore - and she wanted to be of assistance.
"Hey," she chided. "There's no rush."
"I have to share a department with her though. And, by the way, thanks for pointing that out."
Nicky nodded. "Look Vause, either you rush in like a bull in a fucking Italian restaurant - "
"China shop."
" - Don't be racist. Or, you take your sweet time and actually get to know her."
Alex looked at Nicky, and the intensity of the brunette's gaze almost threw her off.
"I thought you said this was a bad idea."
"It is, but there's no need to rush it. It's like that poem - be the road less travelled. Or, take the road less travelled. Or just, travel? I don't remember."
"That reference makes no sense in this context." Alex mumbled, skeptically. "But I think I get what you mean."
Nicky nodded, as though accepting the proposal before her. "Whatever the fuckin' poem is, take it slow. Think of all the roads." She nudged Alex's arm as the woman went to take a drag from her cigarette, ash tumbling from the tip and onto her shirt. Alex raised an eyebrow at her, a challenge, but Nicky simply smiled.
"You've got time."