A/N: Sorry for the delay - just had a lot of work and travel going on in the real world. Thanks to those reading and especially those who left reviews. I don't always get a chance to reply, but I definitely appreciate it and it's great to hear your thoughts!

8. Imperfect Ten

"What's eating you? I mean, you're rocking the life-both-sucks-and-blows vibe a little hard there, man. Even for you."

"Don't you have someone else to annoy?"

"No," Nicky smirked, hands on her hips as she surveyed Luschek's slumped shoulders and gloomy face that couldn't seem to find the energy to drift into outright grumpiness. "Everyone else finds me delightful."

"I find that hard to believe," came the reply, as he sat at one of the picnic-style tables outside.

"That's your problem – no imagination. Come on, what's going on? Lemme guess … You cracked on to Blondie and she shot your sorry ass down?"

Nicky was already chuckling to herself at her little joke when she clocked his startled look and her own eyes widened in that way she had, all surprise she might have actually struck gold, revelling in the unexpected win.

"No fucking way! Jesus, Luschek, that might be the fastest I've ever seen you move," she chortled. "She's been here, like, five minutes, for crying out loud. And can we please talk for a moment about how supremely out of your depth you are here?"

"God, get a grip, Nichols. Do I look retarded to you?"

She cocked her head to consider. "You really want me to answer that?"

"Fuck you," Luschek retorted, albeit with no real malice in his tone. "Look, you got this whole thing wrong …"

"Of course I do. Which is why you're sat here with a face like a well-smacked backside and, when I hazard a wild guess at the reason, you couldn't look more caught out! Hey, don't go blaming me – I was only joking. I, god help me, actually thought you'd have more sense. You know, know your catchment, man."

"What are you-"

Nicky grinned as she circled him, a critical look in her shrewd eyes. "Oh, come on. From the wrong side of thirty, you gotta have learned your limits when it comes to women by now. You … You're talking, what, sixes? Maybe a seven if, say, the tits are a seven, but the ol' mental faculties are more like a five. Or there's booze or a shed-load of narcotics involved. Blondie? She's the closest thing to a ten this place has seen since the Amazonian goddess that is Alex Vause got herself banged up. Although, I gotta say …" Nicky broke off to muse. "Vause's propensity to gravitate towards highly-strung women takes even her a rung or two down the ladder. Guess that's what puts her within my reach …"

Luschek raised an eyebrow at that, despite himself. "You and Vause? Like you and Vause, you and Vause?"

"What can I say? I don't like to kiss and tell," Nicky smirked as she threw the exact words he had once used on her back at him. "But I fucked her. And you know I ain't bullshitting."

"Huh," the guard managed, looking reluctantly impressed. "What about Morello?"

"We got an arrangement," Nicky shrugged, seeming to close down a little at that. "Hey, I figure if she gets to marry some guy, I get to fuck around. How very modern, huh?"

"Nah, I mean, she's within your reach, right? So you don't think she's a ten?"

Conflicting emotions passed over the wild-haired inmate's face and she chewed her lip before finding an answer. Or at least as much of an answer as she was prepared to give him. "Maths don't work on Lorna."

It wasn't a subject she really wanted to go into.

It was funny – Nicky wasn't exactly shy, and part of her didn't care who knew the intimacies of her messed-up relationship with Lorna. The physical side at least. Prison didn't exactly offer a lot in the way of privacy and part of her was kinda proud for everyone to know she was the one the little Italian turned to for comfort. For pleasure. On the other hand though, the over-analytical part of her brain knew that she tried to keep up a blasé front of just being in it for the sex. She was less keen to admit just how deep in she'd gotten with a woman who, despite evidence to the contrary, believed she was straight.

And, oh boy, was she in deep.

She didn't even think she could look to get off the hook by blaming her addictive personality. Sure, she craved the pretty brunette just like she'd craved her many other vices. But it was more than that. Take the sex out of the equation – as Lorna was prone to trying to do when her guilty conscience caught up with her – and Nicky still wanted to be there for the girl. Was prepared to play along with the just friends riff. Or at least try. Mostly.

In other words, she was fucked. Even when she wasn't.

But she wasn't about to overshare on all that, even with Luschek. Weirdly, she could kinda picture hanging with him on the outside world. Their shared taste for twisted humour, illicit substances, and attractive women probably would have made them natural wingmen for each other. And, despite that not-quite-forgiven dip in their unconventional friendship of sorts, Nicky had to admit – if only to herself – that her imagination often let her pretend they were shooting the shit while perched on stools in some dive bar or other. Not sat in a federal corrections facility, on opposite sides of the system.

Some things she just didn't want to talk about though. With anyone.

She should have steered them back to safer turf. There was still plenty of mileage in pushing the guard's buttons over the new counsellor, just for example. There was, however, something equally awkward as her entanglement with Lorna to clear up first. Something that had been lingering unsaid, both in the current silence that had fallen between them and in most of their admittedly more limited dealings with each other since the resolution of the riot.

"Yo, Luschek," Nicky tried, less aggressively than usual after deciding to bite the bullet while he seemed a little preoccupied and maybe less likely to turn on her if he didn't like where the conversation was headed.

"What, Nichols?" he prompted, when that was as far as she got. "Cat got your tongue? Hey, there's probably a pussy joke in there somewhere …"

Eyeing him warily, she for once passed on her tried and tested approach of taking nothing seriously and got straight to the point. "The shit that went down during the riot," she started, sticking her tongue in her cheek as she searched for the right words. "Like, with the guards. The strip searches. The not-so-subtle rapey vibe. Look, I ain't down with that, man. I think I missed the worst of the show, but I got caught up on the cliff notes and … Well, I ain't that vindictive. There was a time I pretty much wanted to smother you in your sleep. But if I'd been there for that ... Don't go getting the wrong idea. I ain't saying I'd take a bullet for ya. But I'd have, I dunno, tried my usual smooth talking to get you out of a bad situation, all right? Just because some guards are piece-of-shit rapists, that don't make raping lazy-shit guards right."

Luschek heard her out, an unreadable expression on his face in the moments before he started staring at his awkwardly shuffling feet, clearly not loving the memory of being paraded in his underwear in front of a baying mob of volatile, aggressive women.

"You saying you'd have defended my honour?" he said finally, sounding like he had gotten what she was driving at and maybe even appreciated it, but like he was also clearly trying to keep things light. Then it was his turn to recall a past conversation and twist it around. "What, are you like in love with me or something?"

Nicky smirked. "Now you're just trying to make Blondie jealous. So … you gonna tell me about your kamikaze bid to jump on that or what?"

Luschek groaned, realising she wasn't going to get that idea out of her head now it had been planted. "I did not try to jump on her!" he protested.

"Sure you didn't, big fella."

"I. Did. Not!"

"Well, why the fuck not?" Nicky demanded, throwing her hands up in exasperation. "Jesus, Luschek, you gonna spend your nights sat in your y-fronts in your parents' basement for the rest of your life?"

He spluttered at that. "I don't live in my parents' fucking basement, Nichols!"

"You might as well. You'd save a fortune and it's not like you're getting any action."

Glaring at her, he struggled for a comeback before something seemed to dawn on him and he jabbed a finger in her direction. "Hang on! A minute ago, you were waxing lyrical on how out of my league I was – now you're up my ass for not going for it with Dallas? Can you at least be consistent when you're being a pain in my ass?"

Nicky held up a finger of her own. "Okay, point numero uno – I am not going anywhere near your ass. Just to be clear. Two – yanking your chain about your incompatibility with insanely hot blondes is not nearly as much fun as I thought it would be. Probably because I'm realising you don't exactly have an over-inflated sense of self in the first place and it's already starting to feel like kicking a cripple when he's down. Three – stop being such a fucking pussy!"

He shook his head and wiped a hand over his face in exasperation. "How am I being a pussy, huh?"

"You're sulking over something, man," she shrugged. "I dunno what exactly, except that it's her. You're too chickenshit to ask her out, but you're like mad at her or something for not being psychic and just somehow knowing that you want to ask her out. Or … Fuck, you're pissed off because you don't think you stand a chance – even though you're not prepared to give the grown-ass woman who probably knows her own fucking mind the chance to actually have a say in all this. I'm close, right? Right ballpark, wrong play?"

She didn't think he'd relent, despite her insistence. But, with something close to a growl, he did.

"I just thought we could go for drinks after work, like all of us. Mark her first proper day," Luschek admitted finally, trying to play it down and failing miserably. "That's what people who work together do. That's normal, right? And yeah, fine, I kinda just wanted an excuse to … You know. See her outside of this place. Get to know her. She wasn't up for it. Probably worked out why I was really asking and didn't want to know. Probably too nice to tell me to stop making an idiot of myself."

Nicky rolled her eyes and barked out a laugh. "That's it? Well, you are a fucking idiot, that much I can confirm. Jesus, Joel, that's pretty lame. A Monday night with Litchfield's not-so-finest? I'd fucking run a mile myself."

"Uh, because they're guards and you're an inmate."

"No, numbnuts, because they're a bunch of boring bastards!" she declared. "Look, don't take this as me going soft on you or something, but you … You, I could tolerate on the outside. We probably wouldn't exactly be the best influence on each other, all things considered. But we could go for a beer. Catch a game. Hang out. That lot? Especially collectively? Hell no. And trust me, it would be hell. Cut the woman some slack. Besides, you really want her hanging out with Stratman after hours? His tongue practically hangs out every time she walks past him."

"Maybe you're right … Hold on, what?"

"Oh yeah," Nicky nodded solemnly, albeit with a devious glint in her eye. "I'd say you got competition from the stripper, Lover-Boy. Not to mention the fact the delectable Miss Ford can counsel me any day. And when I say counsel, I'm thinking less about me sitting on her couch and more her sitting on my face …"

"Shut up, Nichols," Luschek sighed, only succeeding in making her grin. "Don't you have somewhere to be?"

"Actually, yes," she said. "Heard on the grapevine Red's coming back up the hill. Gotta go see if it's true. Might be something to do with your little girlfriend – I heard she was the one who busted Mercy outta SHU. Course, you can't believe half the bullshit that spreads among these crazy bitches."

"It's true. About Mercy. I dunno about Red," he said, realising too late that he'd let the girlfriend dig slide. "And she's not my girlfriend. Obviously."

For once, Nicky eased up on winding him up to turn serious again for a second, delivering her parting shot just before ambling off across the yard. "Wasn't right sticking that kid in solitary. Getting her out? Took balls. And a heart. Guess Blondie might be more than just a pretty face …"

"There has to be some kind of catch."

Alex rolled her eyes at her fiancée's matter-of-fact proclamation. She loved Piper, of course she did, but she hadn't been back at Litchfield five minutes and she was already back on her high horse.

"I'm usually down with a healthy dose of cynicism," Alex said, adjusting her glasses on her nose as they sat side-by-side on the bottom bunk, their gazes flitting from each other to the young woman stood in front of them. "But, Pipes, some things just are what they are."

"I'm telling you, there ain't no catch. She wouldn't play me like that."

"Mercy …" Piper started, plastering a gentle smile on to go with her patronising tone.

"Don't Mercy me like I don't know what I'm talking about! She got me outta SHU. That's it. Told me I don't owe her nothin'. I just go to counselling with her once a week and-"

"And there it is," Piper chipped in. "Counselling. See my sarcastic air quotes?"

"Would you chill?" Alex tried, not quite sure whether to be amused or exasperated. "Counselling. She is a counsellor. That seems pretty reasonable."

"Yes, but what kind of counselling?"

"Well, I doubt it's electric-shock therapy or something. This Ford'll sit her down, talk out her feelings. Fuck, it might even actually help. She's probably better qualified than Healy ever was."

"But-"

"Piper," Alex tried, taking her hand with her good one. "I know the whole realisation that even guards can be evil fuckers shook your nice little upper-class world view, but not absolutely everyone has an angle. And if I'm saying that …"

Piper pursued her lips stubbornly. "I don't want to be right," she tried quietly. "But I don't know how you of all people can seriously tell me to trust a guard. Not after everything."

Alex acknowledged that with a little tilt of her head and a sigh. "If it helps, technically she's not a guard."

"It doesn't help."

Mercy threw herself down on her bunk with a scowl. "Well, I fucking trust her, okay? She did right by me, so I ain't gonna hear you diss her before you even give her a chance."

"Give who a chance?" came a distinctive lilting voice from the doorway of the cube. "And what do you think you are doing back here, kotyonok - I thought I warned you to live your life and never look back?"

Red.

To be continued ...