inspired by captainscarletts and her orange AUs on tumblr
musical inspiration (of course) Sometime Around Midnight by the Airborne Toxic Event
11:43
The white letters of her cellphone blurred together before he eyes as Alex tossed back what was left of the drink in front of her. She'd lost track of what number she was on somewhere around forty-seven minutes ago. The music pulsing through the speakers was some melancholic lament about love lost and swirling darkness and she vaguely wondered how many times she'd heard it tonight (or maybe all music just sounded the same anymore. or maybe she was just drunk. which beat the other sort of cloudy haze she'd taken to spending her nights in before Nicky pulled her to feet and began to work on building her pieces back together).
The chimes above the door had jingled twelve minutes ago and she'd happened to raise her eyes to the mirror across the bar before her for the first time since entering the quiet establishment (because Nicky had given up vying for her attention somewhere around thirty-two minutes ago). She told herself she was hallucinating (again), that the sapphire eyes and golden blonde hair reflected through the soft light before her was just some other late night, upper class bar crawler (not her late night, sapphire-eyed ghost, never her upper class, blonde haired memory). But it was going on fourteen minutes now and the familiar presence was still there (it's fingers closing around her neck, slowly squeezing the air from her lungs with it's falsely loving grip). And she could feel her. She could feel her eyes on her (because those fingers were tugging at her neck too, that invisible thread that tied them together no matter how hard at it they pulled) and she tried so hard to ignore it (but she'd never been able to not feel Piper Chapman's presence when she was near, and what the fuck ever made her think that would change?).
She was wearing white. A dress familiar to Alex in the same way everything else about her was. She closed her eyes against the war of emotions fighting for control of the situation. The last time she'd seen that dress had been a Sunday afternoon. They were back in the city for the briefest of moments, visiting friends, family, home, not even anywhere foreign. They'd gone to a farmer's market that morning and her thoughts betray her by projecting the image of a laughing Piper against the dreary backdrop of the bar (only it wasn't the bar anymore and that white dress was swaying with the gentle breeze and Piper's soft laughter as she held up various questionably shaped vegetables for Alex's amusement).
Her laughter rings out across the bar as Alex catches her shimmering reflection in the mirror once more. She's holding a glass against her chest, running her hand down someone's arm, moving with the music in the smallest sway of motion. And the memories bleed into reality and Alex can't tell where one ends and the next begins before she's approaching her (and she knows she's coming before she sees her move, knows she's there before she speaks).
She begins slowly, but not tentatively (because tentative was something they'd never been), asks how she is, says it's good to see her, tells her she looks well (and she's drunk and she's giddy and she can't quite mask that shade of enchantment swirling gently against that shadow of guilt). And Alex answers her. Heaven help her, she gives her everything (because when has she ever not?).
She's wearing perfume and the flood of memories already threatening to drown Alex yank her deeper into the churning depths as more and more images of Piper splash across the bricks of the bar walls. Scent was always the strongest sense tied to memory, she'd learned that much after her mother died and she spent the night sobbing against the sheets of her old house, relearned it the next morning as she came across an abandoned shirt of Piper's that managed to get lost in the hasty tanglings of her own, forgotten in the wake of their fallout (much like she had been).
Piper's skin glistens under the orange-yellow lights of the bar and against it Alex can see her own, she can see everything. Piper's skin glistens underneath her and next to her and inside her and it slides gracefully against her own, and they're rolling and they're tumbling and they're still as memory after memory of Piper's skin glides over her. And that small gripping of anger that had begun to out-pull the rest of the warring tangled emotions filling her chest to the point of physical ache was now beginning to lose ground in it's battle. Because she hated Piper and she hated herself and she hated every single thing they allowed themselves to become and every single thing each had allowed the other to do, but the smiling sated Piper who's skin glistened against her own as she held her in her arms and the laughing playful Piper who's dress danced in the gentle breeze of the Sunday afternoon told her that she could never stop loving her. And she remembers how they always used to fit together like two perfect broken pieces of one whole being.
And those fingers that had been slowly tightening around Alex's neck since the moment Piper Chapman walked into the bar were now choking the life from her lungs as she fought desperately to regain herself against the overwhelming feeling of loss. Her mother, her girlfriend, her best friend, the love of her life, her home, her home, she'd lost it all in one shattering moment. Those ruins she'd finally turned away from now lay in crumbles at her feet once more as Piper Chapman slipped gracefully away from her yet again in the haze of the bar.
A man she doesn't know offers her a coat she doesn't recognize and Alex screams at herself to tear her eyes away (as if there's anything else in the world to focus on when Piper Chapman is in the room), but she can't. Sapphire eyes dart to hers briefly as Piper shrugs the unfamiliar coat on, and just as quickly as she'd come, she's out the door (and her nostrils flair and her fists clench and her blood boils because if that isn't just such the Piper Chapman way). Come into her life, ignite everything she thought she knew, then disappear just as quickly as she'd come, Piper Chapman had always been nothing short of a storm. Nicky's voice is ringing against her ear, asking her what the hell's got her so worked up, informing her that she looks as if she's just seen a ghost (but she's grabbing her jacket before anyone can stop her and bursting through the door before her mind can catch up with her).
The street lights bleed above her and the pavement heaves below her and she screams (and people stare but she doesn't notice because all she can see is Piper, all she could ever see was Piper). At the end of the block a taxi breaks and Piper is paused in the door of it, murmuring words she can't make out into it. She's stalking forward on unsteady legs growing steadier with every step that brings her closer to the blonde (that storm named Piper Chapman rolling through her in increasing waves of anger and love and loss and hatred). Her hands are tangling in the coarse material of the coat as Piper's fist against the loose material at her collar bones when they collide. And they're drunk and they're tired and they're beaten and they're worn and all she wants to do is scream (scream until her throat runs raw and her voice gives out and Piper's ears ring with nothing but the noise of her devastation), but her snarling growl carries a sob as she shakes helplessly at the lapels of Piper's coat.
Her world lay in crumbles at her feet and she begins to fall to her knees among the rubble, but Piper's hands against her chest keep her from falling, and she vaguely notes that she's not alone in her sobbing as Piper's warm tears slide steadily from her own cheeks to Alex's temple (and it's a new sensation to not be alone in a world inflamed with Piper Chapman). She loses track of the time as they fall apart against each other (she loses track of everything as Piper Chapman seeps steadily into her throbbing veins). And she knows it's a bad idea and she knows that they should both let it go and let it die and let it be (because the only thing they've ever truly been good at is breaking each other), but none of that seems to matter anymore as they clutch each other in the pulsing lights of New York City. Because they're the only thing that ever truly did matter.
There were a lot of background details I tried in vain to include in this story, like time frame and setting, and whether or not Litchfield existed or where Alex was in her drug use or if she was still with the cartel, but this story sort of ended up all flowing out at once (this is actually one of the first chapters/stories I've actually sat down and just written all in one go) and I can't find it in myself to squeeze them in anywhere. Because (much like the way the song itself seems to run) the story seems best left in an air of hazy muddled disjointed thoughts. So I apologize if it's hard to read in places or seems like a mess of confusion and nonsensical ramblings, it was just something I needed to get out and couldn't bring myself to alter. Though, I also did want to leave a lot of it up to interpretation as well, leave it slightly vague and floating so you can fit it into canon or AU wherever or however you see fit.