*reference to chap 16 of Caught in the Whirlwind
Phantomframe- enjoy your marriage to this fic lol
thanks for the feedback
21
She stretches her long limbs straight, pointing her toes. They're met with wetness from the dew resting on the grass around their blanket, causing her to sharply inhale and open her eyes. The blonde's head is tucked underneath her chin, her cheek is pressed warmly against her chest. Her left wrist with her watch is pinned beneath the blonde. The sky is hazy, she rubs her right hand over Piper's left shoulder,
"Pipes?," she simultaneously pulls her arm around from under her to look at the time, 05:42.
Alex leans up briefly and sees their car is still parked at the bottom of the hill; she remembers the antics of their child's tantrum and subsequent projectile vomit, now probably crusted into the upholstery. She wrinkles her nose as, just the memory seems to cause the smell to migrate up into her nostrils; her back falls into the blanket, she wraps her arm around Piper and pulls her close while her brain swirls with thought.
She thinks of why she was so bothered by the incident in the car. He's still so young, she reasons, we're teaching him morals, she reassures herself. He's healthy and normal and he's supposed to test our limits. So why is this lingering? She runs a hand over her head and rests her head back onto her hand.
Apple doesnt fall far from the tree, eh? Her mind taunts her.
But he's not of my branch, she wills the thought away.
Ah, but can nurture overrule nature?, her thoughts wave over in domination.
She shuts her eyes, and mildly shakes her thoughts away, trying to rid the negativity. Failing, she thinks back to the times when Piper threw her ability to manipulate situations in her face, "whatever it takes to get what she wants," she hears the younger blonde calling her out on her vice from the doorway of the hotel bathroom.
She looks at Piper, sleeping against her and silently questions, like she's done time and time again, and will probably do until she breathes her last breath, how can you trust that I won't go back to being that person?
She thinks of the lucid image of the blonde sitting up in the bed of hotel, the sheet wrapped around her body, with disgust, sadness and fear written all over her face, "and I think what scares me more than anything else is it doesn't even have an effect on you."
She opens her eyes, and gently nudges the sleeping blonde, she needs her. Needs to hear her say she's a different person now, that we're all flawed, that she isn't as wicked as she feels in this very moment.
"Pipes," she says again, with a crack of her voice. But the blonde doesn't answer.
"You're so beautiful, but the things you do are so horrid I'm struggling to separate them," the sight of the younger blonde fighting the shaking of her body, verbalizing the thoughts that she's tried to convince herself werent true.
"Piper!," she shakes her more roughly.
"Mmmm?," she replies in her sleep. She looks absolutely wiped out and the brunette feels guilty for a moment for trying to wake her when she looks so peaceful, but she needs her more.
"Babe, please wake up," she wills with longing in her tone.
The blondes brow furrows in frustration, "whyyyyyy?," she asks no one. It's a general inquiry of questioning the rationale of having to be broken out of a restful sleep. She opens her eyes and realizes they're outside.
"Tell me I'm not a wreck, that our son isn't picking up on my innately manipulative nature."
"What the hell are you talking about?," she asks with an upturned palm. "Why do you continue to play this game?," she whines bringing her hand up underneath Alex's chin and squeezes her cheeks together.
"Stop it Pipes, I'm serious. Why would he even think to throw the sandwich out the window?"
She grunts, "because he wanted a cupcake and we flat out told him he wasn't getting it until he finished the sandwich? What would you've done?"
"Exactly, I would've done the same fucking thing. Piper it's freaking me out. I don't even care that he flipped out and thrashed his legs around like we were holding him down, and torturing him. But he knew he could finagle his way around the issue and get what he wanted."
"He's a toddler, Alex."
"I'm ruining him."
"So do you think every other small child, doesn't dip their little toe into the water to see what happens, and then when nothing does, just plunge their whole leg in?," she says sitting up, looking directly into the brunette's eyes.
Alex sits up, the dark hair falls over her face as she hangs her head contending the rationale of her other half.
"Piper he watches us, studies our actions, listens to our words. After a lifetime of following in our paths, how do you know which he'll take?"
"Are you seriously trying to elucidate that you're a noxious person by nature? We made bad decisions, served our time, and we're given another chance to prove that at the heart of hearts, by nature, we have the ability to make better choices and progress. We're not our crimes, Alex. I believe you're the person who honed that into my core, no? Or were just talking out of your beautiful ass?"
The brunette chuckles. "Somehow it sounds more convincing coming from your mouth."
"We teach and correct undesirable behaviors. Are you really contemplating if were raising a sociopath? Which if you are, would be a diss in my favor."
"That's my point, are insane people insane because of how theyre raised or is biology to blame?"
"I don't know, but regardless..."
"It's not regardless!"
"When you think back to those times, and please don't go too deep, are you not able to see why your direct actions were inexcusable?"
"Yes. Fuck!," she hates that this has continued to claw it's way back into her thoughts, "of course I can."
"So, do I need to spell out that your previous actions were an act of survival? When the egg cracked and all the shit spilled out onto the floor, the suitcases of money, the 500 thread count sheets, the private oceanside massages... me," she brings her hand to her own chest, "were all gone and you were left with nothing but yourself, were you not able to understand that you fucked up? Your words."
"Sure, and I also had a nervous breakdown, shot myself up with heroin and went right back to doing the same shit."
"Because, you were depressed and were in a bad place, not because you didn't have the ability to make the right choice." She frowns slightly at her wife's continued angst. "Will you ever be able to let it go?"
"I honestly don't know. Whenever I'm in a good place, it's almost like I hunt for something to screw it up."
"You feel like you don't deserve to be happy."
She shrugs a single shoulder lightly.
Piper hooks her hand behind the brunette's neck and pulls her impossibly close. "You had the odds stacked against you, and you learned to cope. No, not in the best ways possible, but you tried to find your way. You fucked up, you paid your debt to society. You've done nothing but actively overanalyze every decision you've made since, a bit obsessively for my taste nontheless, but I love you in spite of it."
Her head picks up some at Piper's words.
"Look at me, honestly, and tell me that you were putting on a front anytime you tried to console me when I was upset back then, or was it genuine?"
"It was legimate."
Piper places her open palm flat against the space between the brunette's breasts, "and the Grinch's small heart grew three sizes that day."
Alex laughs through her nose and pushes Piper's hand away. Guilt tugs at her heart for making the blonde repeat the mantra she's required for years since her release.
Piper continues, "and not for nothing, but the puke all over the car says he has a conscience."
"He's such a good kid Pipes, I know that, it just scares me when he's able to figure out how to get what he wants."
"If only the rest of his childhood is penetrated by innocent flying sandwiches."
Alex flicks her wrist as through she's throwing a frisbee and pulls her knees upto her chest.
"You're a wonderful wife and an amazing mother Alex, please try to see that."
"Mother of the year," Alex mutters, "we passed out and left him with your folks!," she laughs out while she rubs a hand over the "blanket head" of her wife.
"Shit," she sits up straighter and checks for her phone in her purse, "well they didn't call, probably passed out too." They stand up, Alex wraps the dry side of the blanket around Piper's shoulders and she starts down the hill.
Piper stares at the back of her head, as she takes long strides, further away from her toward their car and whispers, "do you believe me?"
Labor day weekend. The last opportunity for habitants of the northeast to get their last licks of anything that resembles summer. They both scurried around the apartment that Friday morning, packing "day of" essentials for their end of summer trip to Fire Island. Piper's parents usually rented the house out for extra income during their retirement, but this year she took advantage of the access, and volunteered to close it down for the season.
Alex poured the coffee into their travel mugs and secured the lids before running to the bathroom to do her makeup. Jamie follows behind her, dressed for his last day of daycare before he starts pre-k next week, his eyes barely look over the sink. Alex unscrews the container and taps some of her ivory powder into the lid. She brings the makeup brush up to her skin and stops, setting it down next to the powder and begins to pull at the skin near her mouth and then her eyes. Piper walks in and squeezes next to her in their small bathroom and looks at her amusedly.
"I'm getting old," she brunette says as her mouth pulls down at the corner.
"You're not old," Piper replies with a roll of her eyes.
"I have crows feet and lines around my mouth," she says with both hands on her face again pulling her skin back. Jamie pulls his skin back on his face copying his mother. Piper pushes his hands away from his face, "they're lines from squinting and laughing all the time, what a horrible life you've had," she squeezes toothpaste onto their sons toothbrush and leans his head back against her hip and starts brushing his teeth.
"That's just a nice way of acknowledging my wrinkles."
"You're right, you're old and you have wrinkles due to bad vision and laughing at other peoples misfortune, serves you right," she rinses Jamie's toothbrush and picks him up, "spit." He fills his cup, swishes the water and spits again.
"I'm gonna grab the car, I'll meet you guys in the front in 5 minutes."
"Stand on the sidewalk, " Alex says to him as she pulls a suitcase in each if her hands while Piper comes around the corner with their car.
Alex taps the metal twice cueing Piper to pop the trunk. She rolls down the passenger window and shouts to him "c'mon get in, get in!" He gets into the car and pulls the straps of his carseat over his shoulders, "I can't do this part," he shouts over Fleetwood Mac's "Rhiannon" that Piper's got blasting in the car.
"Would you stay if she promised you heaven? Would you ever win?," she sings as she turns around and fastens his buckle. He throws his arms in the air and sings "banaaaaaanon." Alex gets in the car and sees her coffee in the holder and gets her seatbelt on, "ahhh, I feel disheveled," realizing she would've forgotten her coffee had Piper not grabbed it, "I forgot to grab our breakfast."
"Taken by, taken by the skyyyyyy," Piper sings into her ear. At a light she reaches down into the bag on the floor near Alex's feet. She rips the foil off a yogurt and passes it back to Jamie, and does another one for Alex.
"Don't be all farklempt, I got ya."
"When did you grab all this? I didnt even see you," she spooned in a mouthful of yogurt, "thanks."
Jamie looks at the crease of skin in his antecubital space and gasps, "oh no! Look," he says pointing to the overlap in skin, "I have a wrinkle, im old!"
Piper purses her lips and glares at Alex, who laughs outloud. She's amused at the vast majority of the things that come out of his mouth, a dull moment does not exist when she's in his presense. She reachs back and grabs his hand to extend his arm, "look when you stretch your arm out, it's gone. It's not a wrinkle, you're not old."
She balances her yogurt cup on her right knee and grabs Piper's hand with her left, smoothing the skin on the blonde's hand with her thumb and tries to change the subject, "they're playing at the Garden at the end of the year, I think."
"Mmmhmmm," Piper nods knowingly as the track changes to "I'm So Afraid."
"Was this for me to take the hint?," the brunette says pointing to the cd player, her fingers still intertwined with Piper's. Piper moves their hands over onto Alex's leg, and smiles sweetly, "can we? I haven't seen them in years."
"I love this guitar solo," Alex turns it up and slumps down in the seat, resting her knees against the glove box. She shakes her hair out to the solo while Piper taps out the beat on the steering well, Jamie rocks out in the back. Piper reaches her hand toward the backseat, "you like this one babe?"
"I'll get him a ticket too," Alex acknowleges.
"Al," she whines feeling bad that she's now mentioned the idea in front of him, "we can't take him."
"I want to go!," he protests,"... where?"
"You wanna see these guys play music on a stage?," she asks pointing back to the cd player.
"Yeah!"
"Al?!"
"Who knows if this'll be the last time they tour, he knows most of the songs," she rationalizes.
"He'll go deaf."
Alex looks at her crossly, "yes, the violins, I'm sure, will damage his hearing. I'll get him those noise canceling headphones, it'll be awesome."
"Alright, alright. Can we at least try to get photos of this so when he tells us we suck later, we can show him that we took him with us?"
"Absolutely."
For once, the day flies by, and after chugging along the Long Island Expressway, they make the ferry just in time, collapsing on the blue benches with their belongings sprawled out all around them. As the ferry pulls up to the dock, Jamie spots "Unfriendly's" ice cream shop, "can we go?!," he asks leaning up on his knees, halfway hanging over the rail.
"Chill child," Alex calms him, "how many hands do I have?"
He points to one of her hands and then the next, "two," he tells her.
She laughs, not expecting a response to her rhetorical question, "let's get our stuff to the house and then we'll walk back over."
Piper waves to the neighbors across the path and exchanges a few words, not having seen them for years, and vows to catch up later. They get inside and Jamie immediately runs over to the televison stand and pulls out all the boxes of old VHS's from Piper's childhood. Piper kneels down next to him and looks through the boxes nostalgically, getting excited over every other movie. She pulls out "The Parent Trap" with Hayley Mills while Alex looks on at her sharing a moment with their boy. She breaks her trance and brings their bags into the respective bedrooms, while Piper comes up to her feet and begins to stock the fridge with the groceries they schlepped over. Piper walks him down to the ice cream shop, while Alex volunteers to start dinner as the sun's already starting to go down.
She sets their dinner on the table out on the back deck, as Jamie struggles to slide open the screen door, the remains of his ice cream melting down his hand.
"I had ice cream before dinner," he expresses his confession enthusiastically.
Alex nods amusedly at his excited admission, as though she wasnt present when they decided to go get his frozen dessert. "Can you go wash your hand please?," she asks him as she lights a citrinella candle, before the mosquitos feast on her provisions.
Piper walks out with a bottle of wine and gives her a look.
"You may not look at me like that while the tiny grasshopper is within sightlines," Alex says forcing her eyes anywhere other than Piper.
"Prob not the best idea now that he just consumed a days worth of sugar then, huh?," she reasons.
Alex raises her eyebrows, confirming her earlier point.
Piper settles on a chair beside her and rubs her back lightly, as Jamie comes back with clean hands and speaks through the screen, "help." Alex backs her chair away from the table and slides the door open for him, then slides it back. She tips her mouth towards Piper's ear and raspily whispers, "raincheck."
Throughout the week, their days are spent in the sun of the empty beach, their nights, sitting around the coffee table, doing puzzles and watching old movies. Nothing is rushed, the days are calm. Alex stands by the sink cleaning out the pan she used to cook their dinner in, Jamie pokes her in her thigh with his plate that he cleared from the table outside.
"Thanks kiddo," she looks back at him scamper and sit besides a curled up Piper who pulled, "Oh the Places You'll Go," from the bookshelf that's mounted on the wall. She makes eye contact with her and licks her lips, causing Piper to re-adjust her position, turning her back toward her.
She reads out loud, "you have brains in your head, you have feet in your shoes, you can steer yourself..."
"What does 'steer' mean?," he asks, stopping her, putting his hand on the page.
"Guide." He stares at her, as if this information is completely useless. "It means you can choose which direction you want to go in."
"Okay," he says removing his hand.
"... 'any direction you choose,'" she continues, "see if you just let me finish the sentense, Dr. Seuss, would've explained it to you."
"Who's Dr. Seuss?," he stops her again to ask.
"He's the author of this book."
"He's a real doctor?"
"I don't know," she says shaking her head and tries to re-direct his attention to the page. Alex tongues her cheek from behind them, while slipping the dishtowel through the refrigerator door handle and walks over toward them.
Piper continues, "...with your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet, you're too smart to go down any not-so-good street."
"What's a not-so-good street?," he asks and Alex stops in her tracks.
Piper takes a deep breath at his continued inquiries every ten seconds, but answers his question, "a road where there are things that are not nice."
"Scary things?"
"Sometimes, yes," she can't help but continue with the deeper meaning. "Dr. Seuss means that if you're a smart boy, when you see a street that looks scary, you won't walk down it."
"Because there are scary things on that street?"
"Yes." She looks up and sees the nervousness that had just been on Alex's face melt away at her simple explanation. She winks at Piper, and shoots her a lustful look before coming around the coffee table to join them on the couch.
He looks around slightly worried, "what kind of scary things?"
"James," she breathes, wanting to finish the book and put him to bed. Alex cackles to herself, as she goes through this routine almost every night. She's never sure if he asks a question after every line because he's curious or because he tries to prolong his bedtime.
"Like a mean looking dog or broken glass, those kinds of scary things." He presses himself into her side as she continues to read.
"...and your gang will fly on, you'll be left in a lurch," she giggles to herself remembering Alex's nickname, "hey you know what's funny?," she says to Jamie, but then cringes slightly when she sees he's sleeping. She looks up at Alex, who looks unamused.
"Think the Lurch thing is funny, do you?," she peers at her before she teasingly wiggles her toes under Piper's bottom. Piper adjusts her seat and points to their son's head in her lap.
"Ocean air," the brunette explains. "I love it here."
"Me too, it always feels like were a million miles away from the chaos and such," she agrees, tilting her head back into the couch some. "Think the ocean air is enough to keep him knocked out for a bit?," she asks quirking an eyebrow.
Piper looks down at him, "the doors don't lock," she says biting her lip. "I can be quiet," she says with her hand to herself, "can you?"
A wide smile spreads across the blonde's lips, she moves slightly to try to lift Jamie up off her lap and he starts moving around, twisting his body til his face faces her abdomen and wraps her arms around her waist. Piper blows a kiss toward Alex.
"My patience is running thin, I have a threshold, you know."
The following evening, they're on the pathway that leads back from the beach, a deer raises it's head, startling Jamie just slightly before scurrying away into a neighbors yard. "So cool," Alex says as she tickles his sides, reveling in the wonder of the little island. As they head back to the house one of their neighbor's sons asks if Jamie can come over to play for a little while.
He runs into the backyard, while Alex thanks whatever God above for his playmate. They make their way up the ramp to the house and they lay their wet towels along the wooden bannisters before heading to the back deck. Alex takes the wine stopper out of their bottle of wine and empties the remaining wine into two glasses and hands one to Piper. She sits beside her, and jerks her head toward the outdoor shower, it's mocking her.
Piper leans her ear toward the neighbor's yard, she can just barely hear the boys yelling, as boys do, over what? She couldn't care less as the brunette's hand drags up her inner thigh and underneath her shorts, elliciting her to draw her breath in.
"Finally," the brunette exhales against her skin leaning in closer.
"Mmmmhmmm," Piper nods in agreement and moans at the feel of the hand that's pulled her bathingsuit over to the side and is now pressing it's salty self against her center. She rolls her hips forward, causing the white wine to slosh over the rim of her glass and land on the bare skin of her leg. Alex practically dives after it, licking it up and nibbles at the sensitive skin just below the blondes shorts.
"Mom?," his voice rings out as the front screen door slams behind him, causing Alex to bolt upright and Piper to sit up straight.
"We're out back baby," she said standing up, as Alex's forehead slams onto her forearm that now rests on the table. The blonde goes up to the screen door, she can see her son and the neighbor's boy running toward it, "can I eat at his house for dinner?"
"I need to talk to his mother," she presses her cool hands against her cheeks willing away the heat that built up beneath her flesh. She pulls open the door and her eyes track the sand trail that both boys just created along the wooden floors, "and you need to bathe first," she justifies, not wanting to send her sandy son into someone else's home. "Bathtub," she says to him, and tells his new friend that she'll walk him over in a few minutes to make sure it's alright that he joins them for dinner. She watches the boy skip back to his house, as Alex walks up to the screen door looking ravenous, when they hear Jamie scream. They run towards the bathroom where there's a spider crawling near the window in the shower. Piper nervously tries to catch it and after about a minute Alex intervenes,
"just kill it!"
Piper whines, "nooo!," and looks over her shoulder annoyed. Alex widens her eyes, the areyoufuckingseriousrightnow look, is all over her face. She stares at Piper, lets take forever and a day to capture the fucking spider. Why don't we name it, and buy it a yacht while were at it?
Piper looks at Jamie, "they capture other bugs, and they spin beautiful webs, you don't kill them!"
They step out of the bathroom while Jamie stays inside, refusing to break eye contact with the spider out of fear of where it will go.
Piper rips a papertowel from the roll in the kitchen, while Alex mouths I'm going to fucking kill you in her direction. The blonde sticks out her tongue and goes back to the bathroom. She lays the papertowel flat against the edge of the shower wall and it crawls onto the paper towel. She screams as she runs with it toward the door but manages to get it outside before it falls, releasing it outside.
Alex slowly claps her hands together as she sits on the edge of the back of the couch, "Humane society award goes to...Piper Chapman."
Piper quickly bathes Jamie and walks with him wrapped in a towel towards his bedroom. They pass Alex who has fallen backwards over the edge of the couch and is laying there in misery, trying not to concentrate on her need. Piper gets him dressed, and walks him to the front door. She shuffles back over to the back of the couch, leans over it and pulls at the edge of the wrap Alex has around her chest, "start the shower."