General Fic Warnings: PTSD, depression, lightly evocative of self-harm

I won't let you choke (on that noose around your neck)

Alex is kissing Piper everywhere she can reach, like her mouth is capable of pressing new words into Piper's skin and leaving them there.

She finally peels her hands off Piper's tattooed ribcage and pulls off Piper's pants and underwear; she pulls her head back enough to look down, relieved when she doesn't find more tattoos waiting.

She drops one hand between the part of Piper's legs, relieved to find her slick and ready.

Piper can feel herself coming unspooled. She wants Alex's fingers inside her with a desperation that feels primitive. And a little bit wrong.

She's forgotten how to want anything.

Alex is kissing the side of her neck and when her fingers slip up and in, Piper presses her face into Alex's hair and lets out a low, keening noise that still sounds like crying. She rocks back a little, arching into Alex's touch.

Slowly, Alex draws her fingers out in a way that leaves Piper feeling achingly empty. Her lips find Piper's again in the same moment, swallowing the whine that lurches out of her at the sudden absence.

Piper's breathing is ragged, her heartbeat feels feral, and there's a pure, overwhelming need trying to crawl its way through her. "Alex," she whispers against her mouth, and it sounds caught between protest and plea. At a torturing place, Alex's fingers dip back inside her, her thumb hooking up to leisurely circle the outside of Piper's clit.

Alex's free hand is still roaming, sliding up the ladder of Piper's ribcage before letting her fingers meander across Piper's chest, each touch still gentle and soothing. Piper imagines her leaving behind fingerprints, pressed among the words; leaving proof of this.

Piper is clenching and rocking around Alex's strokes, but she stays quiet even as her throat tangles with moans and pleas and Alex's name. She feels Alex's tongue and teeth lightly scraping the edge of her jaw, and Piper's arms are starting to tremble from leaning on her hands, her whole body on the verge of collapse.

Between her legs, Alex's fingers move more intently, hard, building pressure, a contrast to the hand still gliding across Piper's tattoos almost as if it's checking her for wounds. She feels Alex's breath, hot against her cheek, saying her name and telling her it's okay.

She is pulsing with pleasure, this feels too goddamn good to be allowed. A tiny, almost frightened whimper wrenches out of her in spite of Piper's efforts to stay quiet; Alex's face rises to check on her, expression concerned, and Piper automatically squeezes her eyes shut and realizes there are still tears there. She feels Alex's lips brush the corner of her eye, featherlight and achingly sweet.

Blindly, Piper parts her lips and tilts her head, searching. Their noses bump lightly, and she almost smiles, until her lips skid sideways, across the comfortable planes of Alex's face and come up against the unfamiliar: rough, pitted skin and scar tissue.

Piper's body goes cold.

At nearly the same moment, Alex's finger hook deep and hold while her thumb builds its friction to a fever pitch. It yanks Piper to an edge, she is so close and it feels so good but it is all wrong.

Alex does exactly what works, and she feels the jerk of Piper's body and the quaking of her thighs that shows she's close, when suddenly Piper's whole body wrenches back, a litany of tight, panicked commands hurling out of her, "Stop, stop, no, don't, get off..."

Pure alarm shoots up Alex's spine and she jerks her hands back on instinct, holding them up in a strange, panicked surrender.

Piper looks hazy eyed and off balance. With stiff, precarious movements, she folds her knees up to her chest, successfully shielding herself for the first time since Alex took off her shirt. She's shaking. She looks small and scared and so, so ashamed.

Fresh tears start to prick at the corner of Alex's eyes. "Pipes, hey. It's okay." Tentatively, she reaches out a hand but Piper visibly shrinks away. Guilt hooks itself in Alex's gut, and she starts to question her own actions for a dozen new reasons. "Hey, look, I'm sorry if - "

"DON'T." She practically yelps it, like a terrified child. "Don't apologize, Alex, I haven't even...I haven't told you I'm sorry, you can't say it to me - "

"Okay," Alex cuts her off quietly. She's not sure if Piper means an apology is imminent. She waits, wiping her hand on her khakis.

"You shouldn't have done that," Piper says instead, her voice wavering. "You should...you should want to hurt me..."

"I don't," Alex tells her, making it calm and firm, like Piper's continued insistence on her own pain doesn't knife Alex fresh, every time. Tentatively, she moves a little closer, her eyes roving Piper's balled up form for a glimpse of the tattoos. She's struck suddenly with the importance of everything she says to Piper. "And I don't want you hurting yourself."

Like she knows what Alex is referring to, Piper reaches for her discarded clothes, trying to grab at the shirt she was wearing under her prison scrubs. Alex's eyes land idly on Piper's arm, and her stomach coils. "Piper..."

Horror sweeps Piper's expression, but she can't pull away fast enough before Alex has crawled the rest of the space between them and gripped her arm.

It takes Alex all of five seconds to realize what she's looking at. This is the tattoo that Piper had told her about, the one that woman gave her. It's white ink, and only a few letters are fully distinguishable now: instead there's just scrape shattered skin, all scratches and scabs.

"I'm sorry." It's Piper's first apology. "I'm sor - I tried to get rid of it, I really did."

As if the tattoo is what's ripping Alex to shreds.

Not half an hour ago, Piper had told her about this almost like she was bragging; she's talked about the affair like that this whole time, all spitefully rubbed salt, trying to make Alex angry...when all along she's been mutilating herself to get rid of any trace of it.

It hits her that Piper's been trying to make Alex hate her as much as she hates herself right now.

Except Alex isn't capable of hating her at all.

Alex is running her knuckles over the cuts when out of nowhere she thinks of blood, drying her eyes shut, and just like that a red metallic scent that isn't really there fills up her nose and then her lungs, leaving her horrified and infuriated with herself.

This isn't the time. This shouldn't even matter now.

But Alex can feel her lungs contracting and her chest tightening and finally the chapel starts to narrow and fall away.

Somehow, Piper's voice makes it through the fog and reaches her. Alex grabs on and follows it back to the present. "Why aren't you mad?'

For once, Alex is glad Piper barely looks at her anymore. She has to take several deep breaths before she answers, "I am mad." Her voice sounds scraped raw. It sounds anything but angry. "Well. How about I'll get mad when you're okay."

God, that feels so far away right now.

Piper pulls her arm out of Alex's grip, hiding the decimated tattoo, but really that tattoo says so much. Buried there is proof of Piper's betrayal, of what she did to Alex. But more frightening and more urgent is the evidence of what she's doing to herself.

Piper is pulling her clothes back on and her hands are shaking. She turns her head away from Alex to say, "You have to stay away from me." Finally, she's spelling out what she's been trying to make happen for weeks. "I don't want to hurt you again."

"Then don't," slips out, small and pathetic, before Alex can stop it. Like it's ever been that simple with them.

"I don't think I can stop it," Piper's voice splinters, and words start spilling out, a frantic downhill tumble. "There's something really wrong with me, I'm awful, I always have been..." Her eyes flick up to Alex's just for a second, but then her whole face crumples, the next words almost lost in an agonized wail, "Alex, I thought you died."

Then she's crying again, crying so hard it's scary. Alex's heart is trying to claw its way out to get to Piper, so her whole body takes it there; she pulls Piper into her lap even as she fights it, resisting comfort in the same way she resisted pleasure, but this time Alex won't let her.

For a moment, fingernails scratch ineffectually at arms that only wrap tighter until finally Alex feels the fight leave Piper. She drops her head, body going boneless, and sobs against Alex's collarbone.

Alex rocks her and strokes her hair but she doesn't shush her because instinct is telling her that Piper needs this, maybe. So she just holds on.

But something is wrong, because Alex is starting to feel awful. Not just the expected awful - the Piper is hurting awful. Awful like she can't get enough air, like her skin doesn't fit right.

It's the feeling that means panic is chasing her and getting close.

Not now.

She digs her teeth into her lower lip, trying to count backwards in her head. She sends her fingers swimming through Piper's hair, leaning close and breathing in the smell, trying to focus on her senses.

She does everything Berdie had told her to do, because she's no good to Piper if they're both falling apart.

Still, when Alex wraps her arms a little tighter and brushes her lips against the top of Piper's head, it feels like she's clinging to a life raft instead of being one.

Piper is balled up and wailing like an animal. Her hands are clenched and held close against her chest, like she's hiding claws.

Some part of her is still able to feel sick about this, letting Alex comfort her, but her weaknesses are taking over and she can't pretend not to need this.

She wears herself out eventually, but stays buried against Alex's shoulder with her chest still heaving chaotically; she doesn't want to move. She's afraid of what will happen when she does.

Jesus, she loves Alex so goddamn much.

It swells in her chest and it climbs frantically up her throat but she won't say it because it would sound like an apology, or an excuse. It would sound like a plea for absolution.

She won't say it because that would offer Alex the chance to say it back. And Alex has already come too close, today: whispered with gentle fingers and spelled it out with tender lips.

Piper has no idea how much time has passed when suddenly Alex's voice says in a hoarse whisper, "Pipes? Hey, babe, we gotta go back for count."

When she lifts her head, she sees the light on the wall is flashing. Keeping her gaze low, focused on the wet spot she's left on Alex's shirt, Piper wipes the back of her hand over her face. Alex's hands join hers, thumbing away tear streaks. "You okay?"

Stupidly, stupidly Piper nods. Because it's harder to remember all the reasons why she isn't when Alex is touching her like this, when her voice sounds like mornings and flannel and home.

"Come on." Alex holds her hand when they stand up, but Piper lets go so she can retrieve the tattoo gun from the floor and hide it under a chair. She doesn't watch Alex when she does.

They walk back to the dorms together, and after count, Alex falls into step with her to head to the cafeteria. Before, when Alex would try to walk with her, she'd try to talk as much as possible, like she knew it would be too rude for Piper to run away in the middle of sentence. Now she's quiet, like she isn't worried about keeping her there.

Alex follows her through the line and to an empty table. She's still not saying anything, but Piper isn't looking at her enough to figure out why.

As soon as they sit down, Alex says in a purposeful voice, like she's been planning this, "Look, Piper. I know you've been trying to hurt me or make me mad enough that I just...go away and write you the fuck off. But that's not going to happen, no matter what shit you tell me, so maybe...don't try anymore." The force falters in the last three words, more begging than anything. "It's not going to work, but it's...it's still not exactly fun to hear."

Piper should argue or refuse, but she doesn't want to, and because she's horrible and selfish her wants win out.

Nothing has changed. Alex is still better off staying far away from her, but Piper's maybe run out of the strength to push her there. Alex had touched her with matchstick fingers and given gasoline kisses and Piper's little bit of strength had burned to ash.

She hates this about herself, the way her flaws and her weaknesses are so mismatched and volatile. Piper knows now she is selfish and manipulative and unthinkingly cruel, but she is also a coward and so fucking needy it makes her sick.

Piper has never been good at being alone, even though she's exactly the sort of person who deserves to be.

"Okay?" Alex prompts, a little nervously, when she's gone too long without answering.

Piper nods, and it takes her another few moments to make her voice work. "You know everything now." She should add don't forget and don't forgive but she doesn't.

"Good." Alex sounds relieved. She's quiet for a moment. Piper watches her hands, peeling an orange. Then, hesitant, Alex starts, "So, those tattoos - "

Her skin wakes up, instantly panicking. "I don't want to talk about that."

There's a long pause, and Piper can practically feel Alex's gaze picking her apart, trying to figure out if it's worth arguing. Finally, she just says in a low voice, "You know you can stop now, right? You...it's not good, Pipes."

Piper doesn't answer. She's already been mentally reciting things Alex said today, she's already picked out where they'll go: Look at me and You make it really hard to give a shit about you and I don't want you hurting yourself.

"So, fuck, okay. Blood, I guess." She tenses up a little; Alex doesn't like saying the word, even. How pathetic. "Or anything that just reminds me of blood."

"Okay, great." Berdie smiles encouragingly. "I told you, Vause, identifying triggers is an important thing. So what happened?"

"Hardly anything." It comes out irritated, because honestly, Alex hates this. It's ridiculous, that she should have to spend her time dissecting her reaction to Piper's cut up arm, like that matters more than the fact that Piper did that to herself.

"Flashback?"

"No." Then, when Berdie just waits, infuriatingly patient, Alex adds, "I thought for a second I might but...I stopped it, it was fine."

"That is awesome to hear," she smiles like a proud kindergarten teacher giving Alex gold stars for managing to stay mentally in the present. Jesus. "Does that mean you've found a method that works for you?"

Piper. Piper's voice, Piper's hair. The fact that Piper needed her more than the crazy did.

"I don't know, I guess the five senses thing."

"Great. Seriously, Vause, that's really important progress...that you were able to center yourself, and take control."

Alex lifts an eyebrow. "Does that mean we're done here?"

Berdie laughs a little. "No. Sorry. It's great that you might have a way of stopping the flashbacks, but it can't be fun to have a near panic attack before you do it." Alex lets out a harsh, frustrated sound that Berdie ignores. "Think you might be ready to try going outside?"

Alex sits back in her chair, tightening her jaw. "Sure," she bites out. "Sure, I'll go outside. I'll look at the fucking greenhouse. I'll even walk inside. If I do that without losing my mind can we be done here?"

Berdie doesn't even flinch. "Any reason you're feeling particularly resentful today?"

Alex pushes a hand through her hair, shaking her head almost unconsciously. "These sessions...you're just covering the prison's ass. It happened. It's over. Maybe I needed help before, but now...you know, you've got inmates with a lot bigger problems than me, but because it's not your fucking fault then who cares?"

"I'm really glad you feel like you're getting such personal attention, Vause, but I promise you, I've got a lot of inmates I'm working with just as frequently as you."

Alex scowls and looks away, suddenly and embarrassingly tearful. She hates coming to these sessions. She hates being reminded that she's supposedly messed up. And she even kind of hates not knowing where Piper is when she's in here, if she's gone back to the chapel with her tattoo gun or, worse, whatever it is she uses on her arm.

She's not sure how much good she's doing Piper right now.

Piper still doesn't talk much, which is unnerving, and she'd tensed up so badly when Alex asked her about the tattoos that she's instinctively avoiding pushing her on anything difficult.

So mostly Alex is just there. Trying to find things to say, smiling even though Piper doesn't look at her, keeping watch. But she knows it's not much, and it scares her that she doesn't know what else to do.

When she's confident she can talk around the knot in her throat, Alex rolls her eyes and says, "Look, can we go back to where I made great progress and maybe you can just let me go early as a reward?"

It takes a moment, but then Berdie nods in acquiescence. "Sure. But I'll see you back in two days, yeah?"

Piper skips work one day to go to the chapel. She's started writing things down in a notebook, saving up words for later. She doesn't want Alex to bring it up again - actually, she wants to pretend Alex doesn't even know - so she can only go when Alex is at work and she isn't, or when Alex has sessions with Berdie (which is another thing Piper doesn't want to think about).

Then she goes back to her bunk and lays down, fingers running comforting circles over her skin while she shuts her down all her thinking.

A few hours slip by without her noticing and then suddenly Alex is there. "Hey, you okay? Are you sick?"

There's more worry than sick in Alex's voice, so Piper makes herself sit up and work her face into a smile. "Yeah, just finished work early. Fell asleep."

"Brought you something." Alex tosses a book onto Piper's bed. Piper glances at the title, it's something she read in college; in a few days, she'll send it back unread and Alex will bring her something new.

"Thanks." Piper slides over on the bed to make room. Alex settles beside her, opening up her own book. This is their routine, now, and she leans back against the wall, opening the book on her lap but it's mostly for show. Her eyes can't hold the words, can't focus; she still gets a little overwhelmed by Alex's presence.

When Alex has turned two pages, she kicks her foot gently against Piper's. "Good?"

"Good," she replies, aiming a faint smile in Alex's direction.

Sometimes, around Alex, Piper feels like her throat may rip open from all the scrambling apologies and declarations. But she's spending her last ounces of self-control on never trying to excuse herself, never attempting to make what she did any better.

But she's glad Alex is here. And sometimes Piper thinks that maybe it's safe like this, if she doesn't do or say or want too much. If she keeps herself small and quiet and doesn't wish for much more than Alex held at arm's length, Alex sometimes saying her name with a smile in her voice.

Maybe she can allow herself that much.

Except.

Alex is whimpering in her sleep again.

It doesn't happen as often anymore, or maybe Piper's just gotten better at sleeping through it, but one night she wakes up and Alex is practically sobbing a few cubes over.

She thinks about that day in the chapel, breaking down in Alex's arms, and she hates herself for not being able to walk over and give her the same thing.

But she can't, so she just rolls on her side and pulls the pillow over her ears.

God, she wants to sleep.

She just wants this to stop.

"Did I ever tell you what happened to Fahri?"

Alex says this, seemingly out of nowhere, one day at lunch, and the randomness of the subject actually makes Piper look up. "No."

It takes her a moment to keep going. "Kubra had him killed."

"What?" For a second, the shock of that eclipses anything else - she'd always vaguely thought of Fahri as Kubra's righthand man - but then her stomach starts to clamp up.

Piper doesn't want to talk about Kubra having anyone killed.

"Yeah, it was about six months after you left." Alex says completely neutrally, all fact and no accusation, but it knocks the wind out of Piper anyway. She wants to run. "We'd been...partying pretty hard for awhile. And I guess he'd been screwing up in general. But when it happened, he missed an airport pickup and the girl got arrested. So...Aydin shot him in our hotel room."

Piper's insides twist again at the mention of Aydin, but she still manages to ask quietly, "You were there?"

"Yeah," Alex's voice is thin. After a second she continues, "I thought he was going to kill me, too, because - Pipes." She waits until Piper looks up. Alex's face is serious. "He missed the pick up because I wanted to stay out. He had the drugs, so I talked him into staying. And then the next morning Kubra sends a note and he's just...dead."

Piper hates this, she doesn't want to hear it, for too many reasons. "Alex..."

"I thought it was my fault, Piper. Kubra made me go to rehab, after, and they always want you to make list of friends and family you've harmed and you know...I was basically on my own when I was using, but I did get a friend killed because I wanted his drugs so...still would've trumped everyone else's shit in group therapy if I'd been allowed to say anything honest."

The air feels thick between them, this is too much information, and it takes Alex a few moments before she continues, "Anyway...I felt really guilty for a long time, but me feeling bad didn't change anything. And I honestly never believed something like that was going to happen. You know?"

Piper maybe gets why Alex is telling her this, that she's saying she understands something about blame and guilt and fault, but mostly what Piper hears is Alex doing drugs after she left, Alex without her or her mom or even Fahri, Alex watching him die six months after burying Diane, Alex in rehab on her own.

And Piper should remember that, because she knows now that she was always the bad guy in their story. That didn't start the moment she picked up the phone and told Polly to call Davey Crockett.

She doesn't even answer Alex, doesn't accept any of the empathy she's trying to hand over, just pretends to be paying attention to Janae and Poussey arguing about something a few tables over until Alex changes the subject to something innocuous, something she knows is just meant to fill the silent space between them.

The next day, while Alex is in counseling, Piper adds I was basically on my own when I was using just below her infinity sign. She's crying by the time she finishes, and this time she tries to be glad Alex isn't there to hold her.

"Take me through it one more time."

"Fucking hell..."

"Are you getting bored?"

"Uh, yeah, we only do this every single time."

"Good. I want you to get bored by this story." She smiles a little, then turns serious. "You know it's important that you're able to talk about it."

"Fine." Alex lifts her eyes upward, addressing the ceiling, almost reciting, "I was in the greenhouse sweeping. I thought the CO who'd been overseeing the crew was back but it was Aydin. He was in uniform." She flicks a distasteful glance at Berdie at this declaration. "He said anyone could get hired here, and that they were just happy to find someone qualified. I told him he didn't have to do this. I knew it wouldn't work. He got out his pepper spray and started toward me. I hid my face and he hit with the fucking bullshit baton thing they give you people. Then he tripped me. Like a ten year old on a playground. When I looked up he was unlocking the tool cabinet. I tried to get up and then he hit me with a shovel."

Her momentum stalls a bit, because she knows by now Berdie will prod her for feelings. For her to personalize it, not give a crime report.

"It hurt a lot. I, uh. I heard the bone crack. There was...blood in my eye, but I could see him lifting the shovel again. He hit me in the head. The blood was in both my eyes by then." Her mouth tastes vaguely coppery. Alex lips her lips. Her fingers are twitching, so she winds them through her own hair like she can distract them. "I couldn't see, really. I tried to wipe it off. Aydin was sitting on my legs, or something, and he stabbed me with the shears. That's when it got hard to breathe. I could taste blood. It felt like it was everywhere."

"And what were you thinking?" Berdie asks gently when she stops talking.

"That I was going to die," she grits out, sounding almost angry about it, because she knows the question is perfunctory and how the hell is this helping.

"And you felt..."

"Shockingly, I was scared." Anticipating Berdie's next question, she says, "I thought about my mom. Everyone always said her death was instant, and that was good, and I never thought it mattered until then. I just wanted it to be over." She doesn't say what else she thought about; Alex doesn't talk about Piper in here.

"Okay. And then what happened?"

"I don't remember anything else. Just waking up after surgery."

"That's it?"

"That's it."

"No paramedics? No ambulance?"

"No." A vague feeling of unease washes over Alex, and she adds, a little too forcefully, "Why?"

"What do you mean?"

"You always ask me that. I've told you I was unconscious. Probably because I was bleeding from the head, face, and gut. So why do you always ask?"

"Vause, I'm just making sure - "

"I want to see the incident report."

"I can't show you that."

"Why the fuck not? Doesn't that go along with your whole thing about wanting me to see it as a 'thing of the past'?"

"Vause, there's nothing out of the ordinary in that report - "

"So show it to me."

Berdie sighs a little, then looks her in the eye. "The medical report says you were still conscious and verbal in the ambulance."

Alex chest starts to prickle unpleasantly. "No, that's...that's wrong."

"It's what we have on file," Berdie tells her. "It could just be that you were partially conscious and not really aware of what was going on...but there's a decent gap there, and it's possible that you've just cut off the memory. If that's the case...it could be beneficial for you to remember on your own."

Alex is shaking her head without stopping. "Look, I...I don't care what the fuck that says, okay? I was passing out right after he fucking stabbed me. I could barely breathe."

She had been thinking about Piper, and everything had faded.

Alex knows Aydin ran shortly after making use of the garden shears, that he was off prison grounds by the time anyone found her, but she has no idea what else happened.

Berdie is giving her this waiting look, like she thinks some memory is coming back to her, and it pisses Alex off.

She pushes the chair back and stands up, in a swift, almost violent motion. "I was unconscious."

Then she leaves, without waiting for permission. None of this is important. None of this matters. She should be with Piper.

A/N: Another kind of a filler chapter, but probably anything have felt filler after last chapter.

Sorry there's been more of a delay between chapters...like I said, I was on vacation when I started this story, and now chapters will be more of a weekly thing rather than every few days.