AN: Hey everybody! I wanted to update earlier, but just felt like this chapter wasn't finished enough for that. And I yet again apologize for mistakes that I haven't noticed. Just so you know, slight warning on violence in this chapter, may be a trigger, not so sure. It's only in one dialog of this chapter.
Hope you enjoy it and the next chapter is almost finished! I hope to update soon since school is almost over.
Thank you for your reviews, they are wonderful and make me smile! Thank you!
Thanks for reading. Love always.
I die at night
Piper woke with a start. At first she didn't know were she where and what had awoken her. Her brain had yet to comprehend that she was in a state of wakefulness, mostly it was due to the alcohol she consumed earlier that night. Even so, she remembered in her post-drunk and still sleepy haze, having a dream, a beautiful dream about her and Alex.
In the dream, they were sitting on a beach somewhere tropical and just kissed each other into oblivion. It was such a tender and sweet dream. She hadn't really had such a dream in a while and was quite disturbed with being taken away from such delight. She wanted to fall back to sleep and continue the pleasant pretend existent, but heard noises and felt movement beside her. Quickly she sobered up and found that Alex was tossing and talking in her sleep. She sat up and watched for a moment as the raven-haired woman tossed and murmured no over and over. Piper snapped out of her paralyze and placed a hand on Alex's shoulder.
"Babe, wake up." She gently shook her. Alex reached out for her hand in her sleep and tried to swiped it away, but Piper didn't take it away.
"Alex, it's me, Piper. You're just having a nightmare, wake up babe. I'm here." As she said this all very loud Alex finally jerked awake and her whole body twitched, as if she had been electrocuted. Her eyes were wide open and she breathed hard. Piper laid down again and pressed her body close to the raven-haired woman's. She kissed her cheek and murmured comforting things in her ear.
Soon, Alex's breathing was back to normal and she finally relaxed. She turned and embraced Piper tight and closed her eyes.
A furrow had formed on her forehead and Piper sensed that she thought about whatever horror she experienced in her dream. Piper stroked her cheek lightly and kissed her.
"Tell me." Piper tried to move away so she could look in to her eyes, but Alex embraced her even harder making it impossible for Piper to put some space between them.
"Al..."
"Just... just let me hold you for a while. I'll tell you, but just let me hold you now." Alex cut her off and opened her eyes. Piper stopped moving away and just let herself be embraced by her lover, giving her the comfort she needed.
It must have been a really awful dream, Piper thought. She herself had had similar dream experiences that left her inconsolable for hours, thinking that somehow the dream had really happened or that her actions in the dream reflected something she would do in real life. It really sucked that dreams, which only were made up scenarios, had such a power over one. At least for a little while, but at times, they held more that just a little power, haunting her for weeks.
After a while, Alex sighed and bit her lip. Piper could see how she fought her dream demons but restrained herself from pushing Alex to tell her. She drew comforting circles on her back and just waited.
"I dreamed that I found you in bed with some guy in our old apartment in Paris. "Alex paused and closed her eyes again, as if the painful images kept replaying even with her eyes open. She opened them and continued.
"You were fucking him. Neither of you stopped when I walked in to the room, you just looked me in the eyes as he kept going, and you smiled at me. And then, my phone rang. It was my aunt who called and said my mother had died. I dropped my phone and I sank to the floor. But you didn't care, you kept staring at me as you came. You moaned out his name, I think it was Larry or something. He got up after you came and then walked over to me, dragged me up and pushed me against the wall and started to rip off my clothes, I just kept screaming no, but he didn't stop... and..." Alex stopped and took a deep breath as if she tried to compose herself before she could continue.
"And all I could see was you starting to pack your bag... and... as he got to my underwear... you walked out of the room and didn't even look at me. That's when you woke me, thankfully..." Alex didn't close her eyes as she described the dream and maintained eye contact with the blonde.
Piper was speechless. Never in a million years would she ever have thought that walking out on Alex that day would cause the raven-haired woman so much pain still.
Piper broke the eye contact, too ashamed of herself to maintain it. She was ashamed how her actions had caused someone so much pain for such a long time. She wanted to tell Alex how she wasn't going to do that again and that she was here this time, but felt too angry with herself to say anything. Her throat tightened as her thoughts took off into a dark place, as if they had been sucked into a dark hole in space.
Piper turned her eyes to Alex's again and leaned in and kissed her, trying to tell the raven-haired woman with her lips the things her words couldn't. She thought that the kiss would kill the dark hole in her mind, but it seemed that it only got bigger feeding on the shitty thing her dream alter-ego had done, and soon it consume all of her thoughts. She was unable to keep kissing Alex tenderly as she wanted since her was occupied with dark thoughts.
She felt like a computer. Calculating a million things at the same time, but she was a useless computer. Her calculations didn't do any good, they ran in circles. They couldn't perform any operations or make something. It was like she couldn't even register all the emotions that came rushing over her. She had a deep furrow on her forehead and felt how her whole body started to shake. It became hard to breath and she needed to get out of bed, even though she wanted to comfort Alex.
Alex, the one person she could imagine forever with. The one she had hurt over and over. The one who had forgive her even so. Even though her actions had caused her years of heartache and drug use. Despite all of this, Alex loved her.
It all became too much. She wanted to be there for Alex, but at the same time she felt so disgusted with herself. She wanted to stand on a beach and just feel like the only person in the world. That was what she deserved, to be alone forever.
She couldn't take it any more and broke the kiss. In one swift motion she sat up and walked to the window.
It was still dark outside and rain hammered on the glass. A storm must have rolled in while they slept.
Thunder rolled in the distance as she felt her own rain fall onto her cheeks and how her own storm roared inside her. A storm triggered from her thoughts, like it always did. She wasn't really good at sharing her emotions. It was like the things she felt didn't have words to describe them, and even if there were words to depict them, she felt like nobody would understand what she said. It always felt too complicated to explain and Piper hated complicated things that had the power of disrupt the balance of good.
She sighed heavily and tried to suppress a sob, but her body and mind didn't want the same things. It was like that Christmas in prison all over again. She just couldn't stand being herself. It felt like she was yet again incarcerated, but this time she was trapped in her body, and the actions that she, as a being, had made. Even though she made those decisions long ago, she just couldn't get over the fact that she made them. It was like she suddenly wasn't over what she had done. The question was more like, had she ever been over it? She certainly hadn't been over Alex, even though she thought she had been. Piper cursed in her head and fought the sobs that came more frequently now. At the same time, it all felt slightly ironic, like, what had she expected, that some magic fairy would come and wipe all of her bad decisions away? Piper laughed dark in her head. She felt like she really wanted a royal ceremony were somebody would crown her to; Piper Chapman her royal highness, Queen of fuck ups.
Her actions had done so much harm and she just wished she could stop existing on the very spot. That her breathing could cease and that all the pain she had created in the world would be undone. How could she cope being responsible for it all? Why couldn't she be perfect from the very beginning? Her mind kept ranting other stupid things as her current world faded and her mind was yet again her world.
Alex must have sensed the hurt oozing from her, because she could feel arms around her waist and how she planted a kiss in her neck. It made her wake up from her rambling thoughts.
Piper wanted to resist how good those arm felt. She wanted to throw a fit and yell at Alex that she was worth so much better than this, but she got lost in her embrace and before her racing mind could actually form the thoughts into action the raven-haired woman spoke softly to her.
"Pipes... by hurting yourself you're hurting me as well. It is no longer you and I, it is us. Don't forget that when you blame yourself for something." Alex placed another kiss on her neck and waited for a reply. Piper just shook her head, unable to shake the feeling that Alex could read her mind, but all of her hurt and she couldn't believe what Alex had just said to her. How could she say something like that when Piper was the main cause of pain?
"But... but I have caused you so much pain, and I am still doing it. You deserve someone better..." Piper whispered the last part out, unable to stop her thoughts from becoming words as she kept facing the window.
"Right now you're causing me pain by saying this, because you're hurting and blaming yourself, and by doing that you hurt me as well. But you do not cause me pain, Piper. It did, but this was just a nightmare. I know you wouldn't do such a thing." Alex said and brought the blonde closer to her before she continued.
"Don't be so harsh on yourself, Piper. The world is already hard enough, you don't need another critique. Nobody's going to judge you harder than yourself, so stop it." Even though Alex spoke softly, she heard that Alex was going to make Piper do it, with force if necessary.
"It's time you forgive yourself." Alex said and placed another kiss on her neck.
Even though tears were still running down her face, Piper couldn't help herself from thinking; were the hell did all of this come from? When did Alex become this Buddhist like preacher? As blunt as she was, she turned around and just stared at the raven-haired woman with a funny look on her face.
"Why are you making that face?" Alex looked slightly confused by the blondes expression.
"Did you reach nirvana or something in prison, or are you just high? You sound like a Buddhist guru or something." The look of confusion on Alex's face disappeared with the blondes words and she chuckled softly at them. She kissed her on the cheek and wiped the tears away with her thumbs.
"I guess you could say that. I came to terms with a few things and found that I must allow myself to believe and never make decisions for others. Something you should learn. I will never think that something is best for you until I have talked to you about it. That's called, communicating and something we are going to rock this time around." Alex smiled and wiped some more of Piper's tears away.
"Just remember what I said the other day. Sometimes you have to forgive someone, even if it hurts to do so. Forgive yourself, Pipes." Alex searched her eyes and Piper could see how they became stern and how Alex stiffened a bit.
"And never again say that I deserve better." Alex looked into her eyes hard, letting them tell just how serious she was and that she would hear non of Piper's bullshit about deserving better. Piper broke the eye contact and crumbled under the raven-haired woman's gaze a bit because she had actually said that shit to Alex. It was like she had punched her in the face with those words. She bit her lip, feeling a bit like a little child getting a lecture. She heard the other woman sigh before she heard her deep voice resonate in the air.
"I may die at night, but when I wake up, you bring me back to life." Alex said. At this Piper looked up and just stared into the beautiful, deep green eyes of Alex and saw that she was actually smiling a bit.
Even if it was a serious situation Piper just couldn't stop herself from grinning at the words of Alex. She surely knew how to smooth talk, but the things she said didn't sound like the big bad Alex she was used to seeing, and as usual, she spoke without a filter.
"I see you're still a pussy." Piper grinned a bit, but her eyes was still sad, not knowing if the words were okay to say at a time like this. She bit her lip and was about to say something to apologize for her big mouth, but Alex beat her to it with a chuckle.
"Hey, hey. Easy with the blaming. Last time I checked, you were still the biggest pussy." Alex winked before she turned serious again.
"No, but seriously though, stop pissing me of by claiming something you don't know, Piper. That hurts as well. I love you. Please accept that, and believe me when I say it." Alex said and Piper swallow hard, feeling how the air became heavy with seriousness again.
"I... I don't know if I'll ever be able to forgive myself for everything I've put you through and I should be your rock now. I'm not fair to you..." Piper broke the eye contact and could feel how she had trouble breathing again. Alex brought her chin up and made her look directly in her eyes.
"Stop right there. If I could forgive you hon, you can forgive yourself as well." Alex said and kissed her. A kissed that was tender but at the same time filled with hot, fiery passion. The raven-haired woman always seemed to be able to mend and soothe her, even if it was with such a simple gesture as a kiss.
They continued kissing as Alex lead Piper back to the bed and made sure that the blonde fell onto it. Piper let out a small giggle to this. The raven-haired woman always knew how to lighten up the mood and make Piper feel right again.
After a heavy make out session Piper smiled again, which earned a big smile from Alex.
"Who made you this sappy?" Piper laughed a bit.
"Hm, I think it is this certain blonde girl. She is a bit stuck up at times, thinks she knows everything but makes it up with a really nice ass, and the tits, oh God, they make you forget her stuck-upness." Alex looked out into the air as if she imagined the named body parts and bit her lip. Piper rolled her eyes and halfheartedly slapped her on her arm, which earned a chuckled from Alex.
"The things love do to you." Piper said as she just stare into the other woman's eyes.
"Come here." Alex pulled the blonde to her and kissed her again. It was a gentle and slow kiss, not demanding any further actions. Piper didn't know when Alex had turned so soft. Maybe it was because she didn't have to keep this badass facade up anymore and just let all of her walls down. Prison may have broken her down, but she was more beautiful than ever to Piper.
After the kiss they just stared into each others eyes, yet again communicating without words.
Alex broke the silence after some time.
"Believe it or not, but I started to write poetry in prison." Alex chuckled at herself and Piper just snuggled up to her, happy to hear the raven-haired woman share some more of the time when they'd been apart.
"A cliche of some sort, I think, but it took some of the worst from me. It felt good to ventilate on a material thing, even if it is as harmless as a paper." Alex kissed Piper's forehead and stared into thin air.
"I would like to hear some of what you wrote if you want to share it with me." Piper snuggled into Alex a bit more as the raven-haired woman nodded slowly. The blonde could tell she was miles away in thoughts.
"Al?"
"Yeah?" Alex murmured, still staring into nothingness.
"Why were you crying when I came home, the other day?" Piper asked with her face into the pale skin of the other. She could feel Alex stir back to reality. Silence fell like a thick blanket over them. The raven-haired woman let out a huge sigh before she lifted the silence off them.
"I don't really know. This all feels so surreal and it suddenly hit me what I've been going through all of those years I was in prison. It was so overwhelming that I couldn't breath. And all the things that I've missed..." Alex sighed and squeezed Piper tighter to her.
"It's hard to feel how the world has kept on going while I was left out of it. It just became too much and I sat like that for almost an hour, crying my heart out. But it felt so good to do it and when you came and comforted me, I just couldn't stop myself. I figured that if I wanted you back, that was my chance." Alex said and brought some distance between them and stared into the blonde's ice-blue eyes. Piper just nodded and started into the early-spring-green ones.
"I'm glad you did." Piper took Alex's hand in hers and kissed it.
"Yeah, me too kid." Alex said and smiled.