New Romantics

by NightsLightss

a collection of one shots based on various AU's from around the internet.

20. Chapter 20

inspired by various runaway and codependency prompts
musical inspiration includes Lorde's Buzzcut Season and Ribs
[RATED M; SEX, VIOLENCE, TRIGGERING THEMES] [yeah so this story's kinda dark...]

---

Piper Chapman is seven the first time she meets Alex Vause (Alex Vause had just turned eight the first time she meets Piper Chapman).

By all accounts neither of them should remember the first time they spoke to one another. But they do. They were young, too young to have much memory of anything else. And Piper often finds herself contemplating the strange vividness of it all. In a sense it feels like there had never been a moment without Alex in her life. And yet she can never forget the moment she first laid eyes on Alex Vause.

Alex likes to tell her it's because her life hadn't begun until she met her. Piper always tells her to shut up, shoves her playfully away, laughs as Alex's determinedly serious expression breaks into her own fit of laughter. But deep down she sometimes wonders if Alex is right.

They don't become friends immediately. Alex has never been the most popular attraction among her peers (being the new kid is never easy), and Piper's got the upbringing but her good girl demeanor prevents her from really being the target of anyone's envy (or attentions). So she ignores Alex at first because it's what everyone else does. They were two outcasts, each in their own regard. Neither of them really all to eager to spend time with most of the other kids their own age, though most of the other kids weren't too eager to spend time with them either.

It's a gradual thing. A gentle tug between their souls, slowly pulling them together as if it were the most natural thing in the world, as if it were just where they were supposed to be. Something that just sort of happens in a way that neither of them really catches before it's suddenly too late. They're in the same class and share a similar bus route (only on the way home though, Piper's not quite sure which bus Alex rides to the school). They end up seated next to one another when the teacher decides to rearrange the classroom of paired desks and the only seat left is the one beside Piper, end up sitting a little too near one another when they bury themselves in their respective books during recess as the other kids play games neither of them have been invited to, end up at the same lunch table when Piper's friend joins an already crowded one, leaving her standing awkward and alone in the center of the noisy cafeteria.

Eventually they're helping one another with homework, they're asking one another about the books they've dragged outside, they're sharing bits and pieces of their lunches because Piper's mother doesn't pack her anything sweet like the stale cookies that come with every standard cafeteria meal and Alex thinks discarded crusts are the best parts of a sandwich. Eventually they're sitting beside one another on the bus, convincing the bus driver to let them off at one another's stops, venturing into one another's homes.

The don't really become friends immediately. But they fall into it with the easy familiarity of something that's always been naturally bound to happen.

And Piper Chapman can't remember a lot of things about her childhood, but she'll never forget the way something about Alex Vause had quietly called to her, and looking back later Piper would wonder if it was just something they had been destined for.

.

They're nine years old (Alex on the cusp of ten) when she quietly tells Piper about why they'd moved.

They've reached a point where they think they might know more about one another than anyone else in the world. They share things with one another no one else knows, and they converse about things they'd never discuss with any other soul in the world.

They're spending the night at Piper's house, blankets pulled over their heads as they whisper quiet secrets into the soft light of the flashlight that lies between them in an otherwise dark bedroom, when Alex shares her story.

Alex doesn't have a father. Or... she does... but... he's not exactly around. Her mother's struggled to support them on her own since well before Alex had even been born and for the most part she's succeeded. But for a moment, just before they'd moved to this new town, she'd failed. She'd lost her job in their last town, and couldn't manage to find a new one. Not until it was too late. Alex isn't entirely sure what all had happened (she's barely old enough to understand as it is now), but she does know that because of her mother's temporary failure to support her, she'd had to be taken away for awhile.

"What d'you mean?" Piper whispers softly, as they slide a little further under the blankets (a little closer to each other).

She'd lived with several different people, she tells her, families, full of other kids who didn't belong there. She doesn't go into a lot of detail, tells her she can't really remember too much (tells her she intentionally blocked the rest of it out). She doesn't know a lot about those days she'd spent away, but she does know she'd hated every minute of it. She'd tried to run away several times. Desperately attempting to return to her mother. And they'd shuffled her from family to family each time she failed.

Eventually though her mother had gotten back on her feet and when they came for Alex again she'd been ready to run once more. She'd been skeptical at first, sure that they were somehow tricking her and would just be shuffling her to another terrible family in another terrible house full of other terrible, miserable children. She'd nearly fainted with delirious relief when she finally realized they were taking her to her mother.

Her mother had promised her that day, as they hugged each other and sobbed, that she'd never let it happen again. She'd never let them take her again as long as she was alive. And Alex knew she could believe her.

Piper's quiet when she finishes, eyeing the flashlight between them as she takes it all in.

Alex tells her she knows her mother will never let those bastards take her again. But she also tells her she'd sooner die than go back. And if for some reason her mother couldn't stop them, she'd make sure to find a way to run this time. Run and never look back.

It's the first time Piper hears her mention it. Running.

And it settles between them thick and heavy. Like a weight hanging over their heads.

Or a timer slowly ticking down.

.

Alex is happy for the most part.

Being with her mother, when she could be in places much worse, is something she constantly reminds herself to cherish. But there are still bad days. They still come to check up on them. Make sure she's making enough to acceptably support them. Silently threaten to tear them apart again if she's not. And her mother spends a lot of her time working, leaving Alex to spend a lot of her time in the apartment alone, or with whatever cheap babysitter she could convince to sit with her for the night until she finally manages to convince her she's old enough to watch after herself.

She's twelve years old the first time she hears her mother arguing with the landlord about late checks. They're shouting and stomping and slamming things and she sits in her room trying to focus on homework when she hears something that sounds an awful lot like the sharp slap of skin against skin. And her mother muffles a quiet yelp. She's up from her desk and flying out of the bedroom before she knows what she's doing and her fists are tangled in the man's shirt as her mother yells, grasping at her small flailing body as she pulls her from the livid man.

"Alex!" She's screaming, and "Al!" and "No!" and "Go!" and "Go back to your room!" and Alex struggles against her as the man begins to chuckle.

And "listen to your mom, kid" he says "before I give you a matching welt."

And the look her mother gives her, the pleading look as her cheek blooms a slow deep purple, telling Alex to let it go, that it's fine, because she can't lose her again, and that if this is what it takes she'll endure it. It's all too much. It's all too much and Alex's small body is overwhelmed with a million different emotions and she dashes for the door before her mom can stop her.

She spills into the street, angry at herself for being this burden upon her mother, angry at her mother for allowing her to be, angry at the man who'd raised his hand against her and laughed at Alex's rage, angry at her father for leaving them in this situation in the first place, and angry at God for allowing it all.

The streets are quiet this time of night. She wanders them blindly, climbing through the quiet rubble of abandoned buildings and the still silence of vacant lots. She stumbles aimlessly, as the anger slowly gives way to a sadness, seeping slow and heavy through her veins.

She doesn't return until several hours later, slips quietly through the door to find her mother hunched over on the couch. Her head jerks sharply at the sound of the door and she's on her feet in an instant, enveloping Alex in her arms and sobbing against the material of her shirt as she holds her. She's apologizing, crying and scared and telling Alex she'd thought she'd lost her and that she was sorry for everything she'd had to see tonight. And Alex tells her she's sorry too.

They cry.

And it becomes routine.

.

Alex has just turned thirteen when Piper's mom tells her she's not to spend any more time with "that Alex Vause girl."

It's something neither of them can say they didn't see coming.

She's heard the rumors (about Alex, about Diane) floating around among her circle of friends for years. Her friend Patricia is a secretary at the school and mentions one day, when Carol tells her Piper's spending the evening at Alex Vause's house, that Alex Vause is a girl who spends most of her afternoons in after-school detention. And her friend Margot tells her that rumor has it, there'd been a point in time when Diane Vause couldn't even support herself, let alone her daughter, and that Alex had spent several months being shuffled through the system, passed from foster home to foster home because she'd driven every family who'd taken her in crazy. Her friend Angie, who's married to the local county sheriff, shares that her husband has often seen Alex Vause walking the streets in the early hours of the morning during his patrols, and that she's probably up to god-knows-what kind of awful teenage shenanigans.

Carol purses her lips, bites her tongue, and stiffly tells them she'd been hoping Piper would be a positive influence on the girl's life.

But she doesn't officially put the ban on Alex Vause until the night the police show up on her doorstep with her daughter and warning.

They'd been playing around a vacant lot on the outskirts of a rundown part of town. Weathered buildings looming over them in the low light of the early evening sun, as their shadows stretch long and dark across the scattered patches of rough grass. A place Alex had told her was perfectly safe, a place she'd said she'd visited a lot. They're not doing anything particularly bad, nothing that kids their age don't normally get up to under the heat of a long day and the heavy influence of boredom. But at some point Alex's teasing gets out of hand and the flames of Piper's temper get stoked, and she hurls a rock in Alex's general direction. It's a half-hearted aim, but a rage-fueled throw, and Alex easily ducks out of the way as the rock goes sailing into the windshield of a car parked along the far edge of the lot. It splinters with a sharp crack and the alarm begins blaring loudly into the settling dusk, and next thing they know a window's being thrown open at the apartments across the street.

"Oh fuck," Alex mutters as the irate owner of the car begins screaming at them.

And when she tells Piper to run she does. Because Piper's always trusted Alex.

But looking back later, as they're seated in the back of a police cruiser (Alex; sullen and moody, Piper; trembling and silent), she thinks maybe running hadn't been the best course of action.

Her mother's predictably livid.

And when she later tells Piper she doesn't need a negative influence like Alex Vause in her life, Piper's worst fears come crashing down around her.

She's crushed at first, pleading with her mother to change her mind. She tells her that she's known Alex for nearly five years and that her friends are nothing but gossip hounds who have no idea what kind of person Alex is. She's tells her it wasn't Alex's fault the windshield broke, tells her it was she who throw the rock. But it only serves to make things worse. And soon they're shouting angrily at one another before Carol tiredly tells Piper to excuse herself to her room.

She flops onto the bed, sobbing into her pillow as she tries to imagine a life without Alex.

It's thirteen hours before she takes her seat next to Alex the next day and tells her about her mother's verdict. And Alex rolls her eyes, scoffs, and tells Piper it just means they'll have to get a little more creative when thinking of ways to hang out. She tells her it's not like they have anything to worry about.

She tells her nothing in the entire sorry world could keep Piper Chapman and Alex Vause apart.

And the heavy feeling of fear and sadness that's been hanging over Piper since the police hauled them into the back of their cruiser finally begins to fade away.

.

At age fourteen Alex begins to come over whenever things get bad.

She pulls herself up the garden trellis, hoists herself onto the low porch roof, and ducks in through Piper's always-open window. Crawls into Piper's suffocatingly large bed, into Piper's open arms, and nestles into Piper's warm throat or gentle shoulder blades. Alex never sleeps so peacefully as she does when with Piper.

She used to wander the streets at night when things got bad or whenever she got restless, roaming aimlessly until her legs could carry her no longer, napping fleetingly in empty cars or abandoned buildings or covered hideaways. She's still not sure what exactly had brought her to Piper's house that first night all those years ago. One moment she'd been drifting through the seemingly abandoned town, the next she was in Piper's backyard, staring desperately at her darkened window.

She doesn't know how long she'd stood out there for (she knows she would have stood all night) before a light turns on in Piper's window, a shadow moves across the walls. The window slides open soundlessly and then Piper is peering cautiously into the night.

"Alex?" She calls softly, upon noticing the girl. "What are you doing?"

She tries in vain to find her voice, she really does. But Piper doesn't give her the chance to before she's withdrawing from the window, and Alex vaguely notes that she's alone again. (Was there ever a moment in this world when Alex Vause wasn't alone?) She's still staring at Piper's window when the locks of the backdoor click softly. And then Piper's stepping quietly onto the porch, approaching her as if she's some untamed animal that might flee into the night if approached too quickly or too suddenly or too loudly. And it's not like it's that far off from the truth.

"What are you doing here?" She asks again, softly.

"I..." She falters, eyeing the gentle girl before her desperately, "I don't know. ... I didn't know where else to go."

Piper's soft confusion gives way to a look Alex will later come to recognize as heartbreak. All they can do is stare and so they do. They stand still in the quiet night of Piper's backyard watching each other for what may have been years before Piper's arm raises, just slightly. Her fingers reach out, as if searching for Alex's own despite the fact that she was still half the yard away. But Alex's body is already so in tune with Piper's and her legs hear the soft plea of Piper's outstretched fingers and obediently carry her across the yard. Her own fingers tangle gently with Piper's as Piper leads her quietly into the house and up the stairs and into her bedroom.

They stand before each other and before her bed (and before God and the devil and whoever else may be watching). Then Piper sighs, and they're crawling beneath the covers, into each other's arms. And Piper holds her. And Alex clings to her.

It's the first time Piper sees Alex Vause cry.

Later, much later, when she quietly replays that night in her mind, Alex wonders if maybe she'd ended up in Piper's backyard because Piper is the only place she's ever truly felt like home (or maybe it's just that same tug of whatever it was that pulled Piper from her bed that night and to the window in the first place).

.

They're somewhere between fourteen and fifteen when Alex teaches Piper how to sneak out.

It's just as easy for Piper to slip out of the house as it is for Alex to slip in, but Piper still frets nervously at the window a bit before Alex gently coaxes her into the waiting night. They stick to the places she knows they'll go unnoticed; vacant lots hidden from view of the main streets by sagging trees and old buildings, abandoned yards of rubble forgotten with time and ignored by the world around them. She takes her to her favorite place one night ("well... favorite place before I started coming to your house," she amends quietly), and they settle themselves into the musty front seat of a broken and stripped convertible (Alex helping Piper steady her footing as she climbs up the crumbling cinder blocks supporting it's frame and hoists herself over rusty doors that no longer open).

It's their favorite place to go on warm nights when they're feeling restless, or suffocated within the walls of Piper's large house. They settle quietly against one another and the seat and study the vastness of space and the sky above them. Sometimes they murmur quietly to one another, other times they let the silence speak for them. Tonight though, Alex's mind is abuzz and she fidgets against the seat, eyes studying the heavens above her, as a myriad of thoughts tumble over one another and fall from her lips.

"Sometimes I think I should just run away..." she concludes softly, drawing a thoughtful breath, "if it weren't for my mom, I would."

Piper's gaze flicks to her face, but Alex is faraway. She snuggles closer, suddenly afraid. The thought of losing Alex, in any way, has always haunted her. Hanging over her head like a looming storm. Hovering just out of her reach like an uninvited ghost. She tries never to dwell on it. But sometimes the thought sneaks up at night. Sometimes the look on Alex's face, the tone of her voice as she tosses out a blithe comment about disappearing, makes Piper's blood run cold. And she suddenly feels as if Alex is slipping through her fingers. Along with the sands of time.

Normally it's enough; tucking closer to Alex, feeling the beat of her heart, the warmth of her skin; the signs that she's here. Normally it's enough. But today's not one of Piper's better days. Today her parents' weighted gazes, heavy with disappointment and expectations, had fallen across her shoulders a little harder. Today Tommy Montgomery had spilled his drink all over her at lunch and Piper had sat alone and humiliated under a thousand gazes and snickers. Today the faraway look in Alex's eyes was just a little too distant.

She snuggles closer.

"What about me?" She asks in a soft voice. So soft. Anyone else might never had heard it. But Alex was never anyone else.

Her head tilts down, eyes abandoning their study of the stars to lock with Piper's quietly pleading blue ones. "You'd be with me," she says, as if it's something that's been decided all along. As if it were something she's always known. Something she'd expected Piper to know.

"Really?" Piper questions, voice still soft.

"Pipes... I could never go anywhere without you."

And Alex's steadily thumping heartbeat in her ear seems a little more comforting all of the sudden.

.

Piper is halfway through fourteen when she punches Jessica Wedge in the face.

Alex was no stranger to in-school harassment from her peers. Neither was Piper, really, she just wasn't harassed as often or in the same ways. Her harassment stopped being so tormenting when she began to realize that Alex Vause's opinion was the only one she really cared about anymore. Her peer's taunts about her "boring choices" or "good girl" persona faded into the background and gradually began to stop altogether when they realized Piper Chapman no longer seemed to care about what they thought of her.

Alex's didn't stop until the day Piper exploded.

She'd been relentless lately, Jessica. Eventually goading Alex into retaliation that landed her a week's worth of after school detention. Piper had managed to hold out the entire day without confrontation but it was currently last period and Jesscia Wedge had been crooning loudly to her subjects all day long.

She'd had a fight with her mother that morning, arrived to school on the edge of tears, and Alex had pulled her into the bathroom before anyone else could notice Piper Chapman fraying at the seams. Alex was fifteen minutes late to class as she cradled Piper's head against her neck, wiped Piper's tear-tracked cheeks with a cool paper towel, and kissed Piper softly on her forehead as she calmed.

Alex's tardiness coupled with the outburst instigated by Jessica Wedge is what gets her hauled to the office an hour later.

Piper's fists are clenched and shaking as she desperately wills the clock to turn the remaining twenty minutes. Jessica's voice is high and piercing and her attention turns to Piper when she mentions Alex Vause got what she deserved for hitting on her in the locker room the other day. Piper's nails bit against her palms and she vaguely notes a soft warm tickle running down her clenched fists.

"Not all of us are into that," she remarks snidely, eyes drilling into Piper (she can feel them, she can feel them boring into her exposed neck like a drill, whirring, whirring, whirring), "honestly, it's no wonder her dad left her, I wouldn't want her either if she were my kid."

She doesn't really know what happens next. One minute she's hunched over her desk (desperately attempting to drown out Jessica's words, desperately attempting to ignore Jessica's stare), the next; nothing. Blackness. A void so thick it's both overwhelmingly chaotic and soul-shatteringly calm. Jessica is crying when comes back to herself. Full blown sobs tearing their way from her lungs as she clutches her nose and wails. Piper's hands are sore but she can't tear her eyes away from the slow trickle of blood leaking through Jesscia Wedge's once-pristine fingers. There are arms around her, and suddenly she'd being pulled away, out of the room and into the hall. Someone takes her to the bathroom, slowly dabs her aching fists, then her warm cheeks. That's when she realizes Jessica's wails hadn't been the only ones echoing through the classroom. A steady trail of hot tears cling to her flushed cheeks and the teacher from the next room over is wiping them away with a gently dampened cloth.

She asks her if she's okay. Piper sniffs.

Eventually they make their way to the office. The principal tells her had it been any other student they'd have been immediately expelled, but he knows Piper and she's never done anything remotely close to stepping out of line before in all her years as a student. He also tells her it's not the first time he's heard about Jessica Wedge's tirades, and while he can't condone Piper's retaliation, he won't let her verbal bullying go unpunished. Jessica Wedge has been sent home with a week's worth of detention for the things she'd said about Alex Vause. Piper Chapman receives a week suspension.

Her mother is livid when she picks her up, grounding her for what could possibly be the rest of her life. The principal doesn't mention Alex's name when he gives her the rundown of what happened, and for that Piper is thankful. She's not exactly supposed to be hanging out with Alex Vause, let alone starting fist fights over her at school. They ride home in a stony silence and her mother tells her to go to her room the moment they step through the door, tells her she needs to have a talk with her father and they'll speak to her together when they're ready.

She cries herself to sleep, falling into a light and fitful slumber until the air of her room shifts and she blinks awake. She lies still, listening to the wind drift gently through her curtains before she feels the bed dip behind her. She's met with a warm weight as Alex tucks herself behind her, her arms snaking tightly around Piper's waist. She buries her face in Piper's neck and exhales, slowly stroking the arms that had risen to grip her own.

"I heard about what you did to Jessica," she murmurs after a long stretch of silence, "I heard... what she'd said." A shaky wet breath falls from her lungs and she buries herself deeper, pulls Piper impossibly closer, "Thank you."

They fall asleep pressed tightly against one another, as if attempting to fuse into a singular being. And Alex waits until she's awake again, as the dawn begins to break across the sky, before pulling herself from the bed and departing for school with a gentle kiss against the crown of Piper's head and a soft promise to see her again tonight.

And Piper can't quite seem to feel so guilty about the suspension when she spends every night of the week tucked tightly in Alex Vause's arms.

.

Alex is at the edge of sixteen when she kisses Piper Chapman for the first time.

She'd just been dumped by a boy who Alex insists never deserved her in the first place. But he was popular, and attractive, and had paid Piper just the right amount of attention and she'd found herself smitten because the only other person who'd ever treated her like that had been Alex (and she was trying really hard not to think about what that meant).

She loses track of how long she cries for, Alex's fingers trailing gently through her hair as she holds her against her chest.

"He'd only been going out with me to make Alyssa Johnson jealous." She eventually mumbles into the tear dampened fabric of Alex's chest.

"What?" Alex asks softly, fingers still gently threading through her hair.

"He never even wanted to date me in the first place," Piper hiccups, "he just used me."

Alex's fingers still against her scalp and Piper gazes up at the sudden tension, "He's an idiot, Piper. He didn't deserve you."

She sniffles softly for a moment, a fresh wave of tears breaking along with her voice as her next words drift out at barely a whisper, "but I gave him everything Alex. I gave him everything and he told all his friends about it and it was all just a sick joke."

And she tenses in Alex's arms, as if awaiting some sort of backlash, and it couples with the new information ringing through Alex's mind. And she suddenly finds herself angry at the entire world and everyone in it who's ever hurt Piper Chapman as her arms tighten around the broken girl.

"I'll kill him."

And Piper clutches her harder.

She lets her cry out a while longer, her fingers threading gently through Piper's soft golden hair. Piper's breath is steady against her neck and she thinks the girl has finally cried herself to sleep when her voice whispers up to her, soft in the darkness of the bedroom. "I just wanted to feel loved, y'know."

"Pipes..." She whispers, those words settling into her chest in a way that makes her think this must be what getting stabbed feels like.

"It's stupid, I know, but-"

But Alex doesn't let her finish, covers her lips with her own, silencing anything else she'd been about to say.

Piper's rigid against her for a moment, shocked at the suddenness of it all, before she relaxes under Alex's caress.

It's a chaste kiss. Gentle. But long. And when they finally pull apart Piper's eyes flutter open to stare dazedly into Alex's.

"You are loved," she murmurs, fingers dancing lightly under Piper's chin, and it's as if something inside her finally clicks into place as she acknowledges the love in Alex's eyes that she's (until now) been too scared to acknowledge.

Alex's thumb brushes against her cheek, swiping away at a small trail of tears Piper hadn't even noticed gathering, the softest smile Piper's ever seen stretching across her face as she watches the blonde gazing at her as if she holds the entire world in her hands. And then it's Piper who's pressing her lips against Alex's.

They spend the next while slowly exploring one another's mouths, until they can no longer fight off the gentle pull of sleep, and drift off quietly, foreheads pressed together.

Neither of them can really bring themselves to care all too much about Jake Riley again.

.

The first time Alex fucks her is gentle.

Piper's parents had had a fight that night. A loud angry yelling match punctuated with alcoholic slurring and slamming doors.

She's curled tightly in on herself when Alex climbs through the window and tucks herself behind her on the bed. They listen as harsh truths are hurled around as if their vocalization means nothing, Alex dropping silent kisses against the back of Piper's exposed neck every time she shudders softly. Eventually Piper turns over, burying her face against Alex's chest, as if attempting to block out the world and everything in it. Everything except Alex.

Alex's hands are stroking her softly, have slipped under her shirt to rub at the warm skin of her bare back, and without warning Piper presses herself into her, pushing her lips against Alex's own with a sudden desperation. Alex's hands still for a moment, taken aback by the abrupt attack, before flattening against her back and pulling the blonde into her.

Her parents shouts finally begin to fade out around them as Piper loses herself in the sensation of Alex. And just like always, Alex seems to sense what she needs.

She pulls Piper's shirt over her head, pushing it off blindly as their lips continue to dance against one another. Piper disrobes Alex with an anxious fervor that Alex does her best to counter with gentle ease.

Alex's fingers are steady within her as the fingers of her other hand curl gently around the back of her neck, anchoring them together. And Piper buries her face against her shoulder as a million different emotions shoot through her. Her hips rock effortlessly against Alex's hand as she brings her higher and higher to ecstasy. Alex's thumb brushes against her and she shivers, thighs quivering against Alex's stomach, before falling headfirst into an oblivion quite unlike anything she'd ever experienced.

She's trembling gently when she comes to again, Alex's face hovering above her own as she brushes back wayward strands of blonde hair. She tries to speak but can't quite seem to find the words, finally closing her mouth and fixing Alex with a look she knows will convey everything she wishes her to understand. And Alex smiles softly, drops a kiss against her forehead, and holds them against one another as the silence of the house settles around them.

Piper sighs softly, and sinks deeper into the bed, and the darkness, and Alex's arms and warmth and soul.

And Alex fucks her gently as her family sleeps on unknowingly throughout the house.

.

Alex's mom falls into a coma a week before Piper's sixteenth birthday.

A sudden and seizing medical problem that neither of them quite understand. Struck out of nowhere.

Alex cries in her arms the entire night. And she's nowhere to be found when Piper wakes up the following morning.

It's the last Piper sees of her for three days. She tries not to worry, tells herself Alex would never do anything stupid (would never leave without saying goodbye). And Alex finally confirms this the evening of the third day.

She climbs through Piper's window, tired and defeated, humming with an anxious energy.

Piper keeps asking her to sit, to calm down, to talk to her. But Alex is all frantic muttering and jittery, pacing limbs. She's a caged animal and Piper fears for her in a way that scares her for a whole new reason, finally getting the older girl to talk as a sheen of frantic terrified tears began to pool in her eyes.

"I'm leaving," she finally murmurs.

And Piper's entire world shatters.

"What?" Her voice is soft, so soft. Soft and embarrassingly quavery.

She tells her she's been at the hospital, explains that the doctors have told her there's no chance of her mother waking up, that they can only keep her on life support for so long. She tells Piper her mother is all but dead. And soon enough, she'll be that too. And she tells her that they're arranging for her to be sent back into foster care. She'd spent the last several hours packing anything and everything that she couldn't leave behind and was on her way out of town before they could send her back to that place. Piper wants to tell her it'll only be a year. One year and then she'll be free. But she can't seem to make her voice work, and she's not sure she could ever bring herself to say those words to Alex anyway.

"They're gonna try to take me away, Pipes. I have to go, I can't..."

"Alex," Piper's fists close around her jacket lapels helplessly, a thick hot panic flooding her veins, clouding her mind. The moment she'd always feared had finally arrived. Clutching the older girl to her in desperation, as if maybe she could keep her here, in this moment, in this room, in this town with her forever, if she just held on hard enough, "you can't go. You can't leave me."

Tears welled in her eyes and Alex feels her heart breaking as she raises her hands to capture Piper's shaking ones, "Pipes... I have to."

Piper's voice is soft, broken, as she fights a losing battle against her emotions. They're silent a moment, Piper clutching Alex, Alex's eyes squeezed shut against both of their tears, steeling herself for the hardest thing she ever has and ever will do in her short miserable life. Leaving her best friend. Abandoning the one person left in this world who she loves more than anything. Walking away from the only thing in her ruined life that still matters.

"Come with me," she whispers suddenly.

"What?" Piper's voice is soft, almost inaudible.

"Come with me, Piper. Come with me. You said it yourself there's nothing for you here, come with me. We can go, we can get out of this shitty town and start our own life somewhere good. Together."

Through the soft light of the bedroom and the dewy glisten of unshed tears, Piper's eyes twinkle up at her. Her hands still tangled in Alex's jacket, Alex's hands still enclosed around hers.

"Pipes," she whispers.

And then they're packing.

.

Piper Chapman is on the cusp of sixteen when she chooses to forsake her home and live homeless.

But she's not really forsaking her home, she muses as they huddle together in the small bus station, because Alex has been her real home for awhile now. And she's not really leaving her family, because Alex had become more than her family years ago.

She wonders if her mother and father will miss her. Part of her wonders if they'll even notice she's gone. She knows her younger brother Cal will, leaving him is the hardest part and she feels a small pang of guilt for not even thinking of the boy until she's well on her way out of town. They'd pulled what little money they had (Diane's small emergency funds left scattered through the apartment, Piper's broken piggy bank of "life savings"), and bought the first bus tickets available.

They're thrumming with a wild terrified energy, unable to relax, eyes wild, darting constantly across their surroundings, as if expecting the social workers or Piper's parents to arrive at any moment to drag them away (though they both know it'll be several more hours yet until their absence is noticed). And when the bus finally pulls up they quietly take seats near the back, keeping their bags close as they settle in to prepare for their journey. Piper's head drops against Alex's shoulder, Alex's fingers rising to swim gently through blonde hair. She studies the faces of everyone around her as they file onto the vehicle slowly, silently sizing them up as Piper grows still beside her.

And Alex will never forget the quiet hiss of the shutting doors (doors closing on this town, and these streets, and every bad thing that's come to dictate their lives) or the shrill screech of the breaks as they release (and the bus begins to slowly lurch forward, toward their new lives, their new future, the decisions they've made for themselves). Her attention turns to the window beside her, and she watches as the station, then their neighborhoods, then the town itself, slowly disappears behind them. She watches as the cluster of small town buildings give way to rural suburbia, give way to vast farmlands, give way to empty stretches of land. And slowly the sky begins to break with dawn.

Piper is asleep against her, her face pressed into Alex's neck so closely that she'd wonder if the girl had suffocated, could she not feel the steady puffs of her breath falling across her throat. Her knees are pulled up, hands buried somewhere between her lap and stomach, and Alex finds herself nodding in an out of sleep herself as the bus chugs tirelessly into the night.

It's brighter out when her eyes snap open again, and she turns her attention to the window once more, attempting to gauge their surroundings.

A sound to her right catches her attention and she turns to see two passengers arguing quietly a few rows down. A mother and daughter, she muses, bickering heatedly about God only knows what. She watches them a moment, craning her neck so as not to disturb Piper. Though she soon feels a shift in the blonde's presence as she pulls away from her neck with a heavy exhale, casting her sleep-stuck eyes in the direction of the commotion. A heavy yawn crawls out of Piper's lungs as she hunches and bunches her shoulders a few times, tiredly working some of the stiffness from her muscles.

"Where're we?" She asks, her voice soft and scratchy with sleep.

"I don't know," Alex whispers back, and she fights off a shiver in her spine at the quiet confession.

She thinks it might be her only answer for awhile now.

And Piper gazes at her with those eyes, shining brightly with the flicker of such overwhelming emotion.

And Alex tucks that quiet worry back, because she doesn't have a plan, and she's terrified (of what's already happened, of what's going to happen, of what might happen) but Piper's gazing at her like she's her entire world and Alex knows she'll die before she lets that flame die out.

.

The bus takes them to the city.

Alex muses it's a good enough place to stay for awhile. Anyone who doesn't want to be found can easily bury themselves within the chaos of a city.

They alternate their time between abandoned buildings, secluded alleyways, and crappy motels. The type of places that make a business of never looking too closely at their patrons faces. The type of places that are more than content not to ask any questions when Alex presents them with her fake ID.

They rarely leave one another's side; draping their bodies atop one another anytime they drift off into a fitful sleep, pressing against each other in the shower as they take turns lathering their skin with cheap motel soap and washing away the grime of the streets.

Alex rents a room for Piper's birthday though, and spends a small amount of their money on a single cupcake, which she manages to somehow keep hidden until they're curled into one another on the small bed hours later. And Piper's face lights up in a way that makes Alex's heart soar as she blows out the gently flickering match Alex had stuck in the top of it. And their lips are sweet when they kiss each other quietly that night.

Their money dwindles quickly and eventually Alex resorts to petty thievery to keep them alive. Piper attempts it herself only once.

They're in a convenience store, Alex keeping an eye on the old man behind the counter as Piper slides a few things into their bag (they never take more than necessary, only what the need). Her attention had jumped to the door for a moment though, as the bell above it jingled and she eyed the newcomer, and it was all the events the man had needed to catch sight of Piper slipping a packet of pre-made sandwiches into her bag.

"Hey!" He shouts, pointing a finger in Piper's direction as he stands to his full height, preparing to give chase.

"Fuck," Alex mutters. And Piper freezes.

Alex is halfway to the door before she notices Piper has not been moving with her. She's standing, wide eyed, hand still holding onto the packet of sandwiches over the mouth of the bag, as the man advances. He's sputtering something about good for nothing kids and respecting other people's livings and cops and Alex's feet are suddenly slamming against the tile of the floor as she launches herself back towards the frozen blonde.

Finally seeming to come out of her trance as Alex's fingers lock around her wrist and yank her towards the door, she nearly drops the entire bag in her panic. The man gets close enough to swipe at them when Alex suddenly turns, throwing her shoulder against him and sending him sprawling across the floor. He's howling and shouting and their feet pound against the pavement as they break through the door and onto the streets.

They don't stop running for several blocks.

Piper's a quivering mess by the time they finally stop, slipping through a hole in a crumbling wall and ducking down towards the quiet cover of the river. Alex holds her until she calms down, stroking her hair and back as she sobs into her neck and clutches at her shirt.

"I'm sorry," she eventually whispers, voice hoarse, "I'm sorry, Alex, I panicked. I'm sorry."

"Shhh, Pipes... it's okay."

She doesn't ask Piper to steal anything else.

.

They spend nearly a year living off the streets.

It's a miserable existence, and they often find themselves going cold or hungry. But they never complain, because they know the alternative, and they'd both trade all the comforts in the world if it means being able to remain together.

They avoid homeless shelters and hostels and anyplace someone might recognize them if anyone were to come looking (because Alex doesn't fool herself into thinking Piper's family isn't looking). They spend their good nights in abandoned buildings or rundown sheds along the river. They spend their bad nights on cold benches or in sagging boxes in abandoned alleyways. Piper never says anything, but Alex can hear her stomach rumbling when she holds her as she sleeps. She hates herself for what she's asked Piper to do; runaway with her, abandon her life of comfort for a life on the streets. She'd never meant to drag her into this.

She'd always wanted to leave with Piper, escape that awful town and all the misery that drowned them in it. But she'd never expected to have to do so so abruptly. So soon. So she'd told herself as she snuck out of the hospital, as she packed her bags, as she prepared to say goodbye, that she was ready to leave Piper behind. Because she loved her too much to ask her to leave the comfort of an actual home for her. But of course Piper had worn her down, because Piper had gazed at her like she's the entire world and that it's all gonna come crashing down if she were to leave her. And she'd gotten a little selfish. She's admittedly never been good at telling Piper no, and so in that moment with Piper looking at her so openly, with such wild emotion, she'd let the selfishness win out. She'd asked her to come.

Part of her hates herself for it. But that selfish part of her she can't seem to squash down rejoices.

Because she's not entirely sure if she'd have been able to survive this long had she been on her own.

And when she murmurs these thoughts to Piper in the darkness of the night to drown out the growls of their aching stomachs, Piper tells her she knows she never would have survived without Alex.

Because all the comforts of the world couldn't make up for the hole she'd surely leave within her soul.

.

Eventually they learn to hone their skills.

They find a handful of bars who conveniently forget to card, and Piper never has much trouble talking men into buying them drinks. It irks Alex at first, until she presses her lips gently against Alex's frowning ones and quietly admits that she finally feels like she's helping. She can't quite hold it against her after that.

So Piper flirts with the more harmless patrons, convincing them to buy her drink after drink, which she discreetly slides towards Alex until the man becomes tipsy enough not to notice the dexterous fingers slipping into his pocket and closing around his wallet. Alex has gotten good at that; dipping into a man's wallet and retrieving a handful of goods, before returning once again, completely unnoticed.

She's not without her own set of skills though, as far as charm and wit go, and it doesn't take long after for Alex to begin hustling people. She learns she's quite good at talking people into parting from their money and soon enough they're pulling enough money in for a few more nights in dingy motels. It's not much, but Alex always sleeps better when she knows Piper's in a bed with a roof over her head, and safely shut off from the world behind a temporarily locked door.

It's enough to shelter them from the harsh bite of winter. For which Alex is glad, because she'd been growing increasingly worried that the cold might snatch Piper from her one of these nights as she slept. And she'd woken with a start from several reoccurring nightmares to desperately make sure the blonde was still breathing beside her.

She also sleeps better when the last thing she sees before losing consciousness is Piper's soft beaming smile, and the last thing she hears is Piper's quietly content sigh, and the last thing she feels is Piper's pleasantly warm skin burrowing closely against her own.

Alex Vause never quite remembers to worry about her own safety.

She knows she'll be fine as long as Piper Chapman is.

.

Alex is finally approaching eighteen when they meet Fahri.

They're in another shady bar. It's a warm evening, a willing crowd, and Alex is having a good night.

He approaches her just as she finishes conning a particularly masochistic man out of two hundred dollars in a series of escalating rounds of pool. She's made enough for her and Piper to rent a room tonight, with enough left over to treat themselves to an actual meal. He settles his glass on the table as she counts her winnings.

"Sorry pal, we're spent for the night."

"I'm not looking for a game." He admits softly, eyeing her closely, "I've been watching you. I'd like to talk, if you don't mind. How about a friendly match?"

He doesn't miss the way her eyes flick across the room, locking onto those of the young blonde seated at the bar. He doesn't miss how they hold one another's gazes for a moment, a silent conversation, before she nods, "no bets, just playing?"

"Just playing."

"One round only?"

"One round only."

Alex studies him a moment before racking the balls up once more. "So. What've you got to say?" she asks bluntly.

"Right down to business," he chuckles.

"I'm a busy girl," she drawls, moving from the table as she invites him to take first shot. He obliges.

"As I said, I've been watching you," she eyes him silently, patiently, and he has the faint notion he's being sized up, "I think you have a gift. A talent for convincing people to bend to your will," his brow cocks and he grins at her from below it, "I think you're wasting it." She's intrigued. He can see that much on her face (though, he suspects it's only because she allows him to), "I'd like to make you an offer."

He spends the rest of the game laying out the details for her. Until the eight ball sinks into a far pocket and he murmurs, "I'm not asking you to decide tonight. Think on it. If you meet me back here in a week we'll take it to the next step."

Laying his pool stick onto the table, he slips out the doors and into the night without another glance back.

"What was that about?" Piper asks quietly as Alex makes her way over to her; a change in routine. Typically they opt to keep their distance on nights like this, nights in which it suits them to appear anonymous, unconnected, as Piper swindles one half of the bar and Alex works the other.

She pulls a few loose ones from the small bundle she's collected, motioning to the bartender for another drink, before leaning over to drop a kiss against the blonde hair at Piper's temple. "How'd you like to get a room tonight?" she murmurs softly.

And Piper picks up that it's something to be discussed in private. She smiles, leaning forward to rub her nose against Alex's, their lips brushing lightly as she whispers, "I'd like that a lot."

They don't stay at the bar very much longer.

.

Piper's hesitant at first.

They spend nearly the entire week going back and forth over the offer before Alex finally manages to convince her it's a chance worth taking.

Fahri's sitting alone at the bar when they finally amble in and his face lights up just slightly as he catches sight of them, as Alex tells him they've thought it over, explains that they come as a package deal, makes it clear that their priority is first and foremost each other. And tells him that Piper stays. He accepts it with a slow nod.

And just like that they're working for an international drug cartel.

.

Fahri treats them well.

Makes sure they're housed and fed until they're able to begin supporting themselves.

It's easy work, Alex notes, not all too different from what she'd been doing for the last year. Except now she'd getting paid something significant. Now she's able to keep a roof over Piper's head. Now she's able to make sure they never go to bed with growling stomachs ever again.

She's finally able to give Piper the life she deserves.

And she doesn't waste a single second not doing so when the money finally begins trickling in.

She buys them new clothes, throwing the old ones into the marble tub of the expensive room Fahri's put them up in and setting fire to the pile with a box of matches and a giddy laugh. Piper tells her she's being ridiculously stupid and that she didn't survive a year on the streets to die in a reckless hotel fire, but the rest of her protests die on her lips the moment Alex pulls them against her own.

They blaze through overly stocked bar of the room, Piper only protesting slightly before Alex tells her they've got more than enough money to do so (convinces her they've more than earned it). They're drunk on expensive liquor and giddy happiness when they call for room service and demand they bring them every last item on the menu. And they sprawl across the bed as they feed each other the best food they've ever tasted until their stomachs can hold no more.

They spend the their nights tangled deliriously around each other and the satin sheets of the largest bed Alex has ever seen in her life and she can't remember the last time she's heard Piper laugh so freely or seen her smile so brightly. She can't remember the last time they existed with such security and safety and overwhelming happiness. And as she slowly falls to sleep, for the first time without an underlying fear of danger since she can't remember when, she quietly vows she'll do whatever it takes to hold onto this.

For Piper.

For her happiness.

.

Alex Vause is nineteen years old when she nearly beats someone to death.

Piper has always been the one with the temper, the one to fly off the handle at the right provocation, the one to lose herself in the depths of a wild feral rage that rolled in waves just under her skin. Alex would pull her away, talk her down, touch her until she calmed. Alex's quiet rage is fought through scathing words and piercing wit, carefully planned moves, mental warfare, not bruising knuckles and spilled blood.

Until the night she snaps.

They'd been working with Fahri nearly a year, and Alex has been told she's been making quite the impression. They've got her running meetings by herself more often than not, but tonight happens to be one of the nights Fahri's with her. A more important meeting, so to speak.

A chance to gauge just how well Alex is really doing before bumping her up to the next level of involvement.

The night starts off smoothly enough. But it doesn't take long for everything to fall apart.

And Alex still isn't exactly sure how it all happened.

One moment she's in the middle of closing a deal with Fahri and a client, the next she's being pulled from the bloody face of the man's partner.

He'd been watching Piper all night. Following her with his eyes. Finding excuses to touch her or brush against her whenever he could. Alex's grip had slowly been tightening around her bottle and Fahri had observed this with muted interest from the corner of his eye. Their client, the man's partner, had ignored him in the way a neglectful parent does an embarrassing, unruly child. He'd known of the two's involvement (Piper had been wrapped tightly around Alex's back when the men first came in, eventually pulling away when they stepped aside to do business), but he only seemed to glean amusement from Alex's steadily darkening glare.

She'd let it slide most of the night, Fahri's presence keeping her grounded. That was before his hand landed on Piper's arm, pulling her into him. That was before Piper snapped quietly in protest. That was before his hand collided against her face with a loud smack. Alex was on top of him instantly. She vaguely acknowledged a screaming (the back of her mind registering it as her own), everything else was a blur.

She saw red. Anger. Blood. Someone made to grab her and she threw them off with such ferocity that they skidded across the floor. Something was cracking under her fists (her knuckles? his bones?). Her hands felt sticky. She didn't relent until a familiar pair of arms wrapped themselves around her waist, a tear stained face pressing against her nape. Piper.

The world only begins to come back into focus when she eases them slowly to their feet. Piper's arms pulling back to clutch at her biceps as she steps back, allowing Alex room to stand. She's breathing heavily, and Fahri stands off to the side, observing silently. He murmurs something to a burly man beside him, eyes still fixed on Alex's mess as the man nods and slips from the room.

Her knuckles drip with blood that isn't hers (though she later learns some of it is when Piper tends to the tender tears running in crisscrosses across her raw skin), Piper's crying behind her and it makes her want to finish the job, take what's left of the life of the asshole who'd made her feel such raw terror. She doesn't though, because Piper's hands are still wrapped around her biceps, shaking fingers digging desperately into her muscles. She straightens slowly, allowing her lungs to refill themselves with heaving pants of air. Centers herself back to that neutral state of balanced nirvana. And Piper takes the opportunity to slide her arms around Alex's ribs, drawing them flush against each other as she buries her face in the back of Alex's neck once more. Alex can feel the tears rolling out of her eyes in steady waves as they slide from Piper's skin to her own.

Fahri's still watching them silently from the corner (and Alex will later come to understand that it was a look of apprehension as much as interest when she reflects on this moment later, a fair warning to anyone who dared to wonder what might happen if they were to try to come between the two girls). The beaten man's business partner had been escorted out at some point, or so Alex figures, as they were currently the only four bodies left in the room.

"Impressive," Fahri eventually murmurs thoughtfully.

Piper sends him a glare from over Alex's shoulder, arms still wound tightly around the older girl's torso, hands clenched firmly in her shirt (he knows better than to assume they'd be parting anytime soon), as they both attempt to steady their breath.

They're still tense with adrenaline, rightfully prepared for another fight or flight, waiting for his final judgement on what had just taken place.

He smiles gently, gaze flicking from the near-dead man, to Alex's rigid form, meeting the cold steel blue still glaring at him from over her shoulder. "Don't worry," he says softly, "he was an embarrassment. And way out of line. It was only a matter of time before someone put him in his place."

Piper's eyes narrow in suspicion and he finds his careful smile expanding into one of true amusement, "it's taken care of. Go get yourselves cleaned up. I'll explain it all to Kubra." A soft chuckle slipped through his lips, not entirely planned, "he'll probably be pleased. He's been looking for a reason to put him down for awhile now."

They stay were they are, planted firmly against one another, watching him.

"It's alright," he presses gently, moving towards the door as he pulls out his cellphone, "you're not going to get in trouble. Go get cleaned up. We'll call for you in the morning."

They don't move until he's departed, refusing to allow him to see the shaken state they're in.

Alex begins shaking as soon as Piper's arms unfurl from her torso, and she ducks around to her front, sliding her arms around Alex's quaking frame once more as they stand chest to chest. Piper whimpers softly against her neck as she holds her, and Alex is certain she'd burrow completely into her chest if she could find a way (thinks she'd crack her ribs open herself for her, if it was what Piper wanted).

They lose track of how long they stay standing there, recollecting themselves, assuring themselves they're okay, before quietly slipping from the room.

They don't catch the snippets of Fahri's conversation drifting quietly down the deserted hallway as they take their leave; ("She's surpassed my expectations.") ("I'm telling you, if they're still there in the morning you might want to seriously consider taking them on.") ("I don't know what they are. Best friends, girlfriends... fucking sisters... they're close, I can tell you that much.") ("Their dependency on one another is astounding, I don't think we'll have to worry about either of them becoming a liability. It's definitely something we can use in our favor though, if need be.")

They decide to stick around.

.

At some point their bodies learn each other.

Or at least Piper believes they did, Alex insists they'd always known each other, even before they met in their current life.

Two pieces of one whole, she'd say.

This shared sense of connection, a sort of heightened self awareness that stretched between both of their bodies as equally as it did their singular selves, shown through in almost every aspect of their relationship if you knew where to look for it. Their ability to look up and lock gazes the second one entered a room the other was already occupying, broken pieces of not quite full conversations understood and spoken seamlessly as if a thousand words had been exchanged in between.

There were an uncountable number of small occurrences and habits that suggested there was a deeper sense to their relationship than either could explain or understand. Though Piper mused it was always best observed in the shroud of darkness. The cool cover of night, bleeding into the warm gentleness of morning. Their bodies had a way of finding each other even when they weren't fully aware of themselves. She often found herself revisiting one particular memory when idly contemplating her and Alex's connection. She wasn't even entirely sure how much of it was a memory and how much a dream (but perhaps that's the reason it sticks so insistently in her mind).

She stirred slightly as a gentle stream of sunlight hit her face, lingering in that hazy reality between wakefulness and sleep as her mind lazily felt out her surroundings. Alex is beside her, her arm slung across Piper's back, soft puffs of breath wisping across her neck as she breathes out. Her face is buried in the very edge of her pillow, as if she'd fallen asleep on Piper's originally and had slid slowly sideways during the night. Piper scoots closer, burrowing against Alex's warm body, suddenly desperate for her closeness.

Roused by her nudging, Alex stirs, drawing her arm tighter around the blonde as she settled securely against her. Her palm runs soothingly across Piper's wiggling form, fingers dancing between shoulders, sliding slowly down the warm skin. Her leg had hitched slightly over Alex's own in her struggle and Alex pulls it further against her as she strokes Piper's thigh. Her knee dips across the small of Alex's back as her legs part around the older girl's hips. Whining softly, her hips flex, grinding just slightly against Alex's hipbone. Alex can only smirk lazily, fingers still gently caressing.

Piper's teetering on the edge of deeper sleep once more when Alex's fingers slide deftly over her ass and between her thighs. Two lazy fingers running languidly from her asshole to her clit, pausing as she sighs, before repeating the motion twice more. Alex's touches are light as Piper's hips twitch gently against her own, and Piper exhales slowly, her mouth opening against Alex's shoulder, teeth scraping her skin faintly.

Alex continues to toy gently with her, until she's satisfied that Piper has slipped back into that halfway world of reality and dreams. Her hand returns to Piper's slender hip and she repositions them so she can flip over onto her back. A sigh falls from her own lips as her eyes slide closed once more, fingers trailing lazily back to the space between Piper's thighs. Her fingers dip absently against the girl's slit, gliding smoothly through the slowly pooling wetness almost on instinct. Thumb dancing lightly against Piper's pulsing bundle of nerves, she gradually sinks her fingers further and further into the warm wetness. A push and pull, give and take pattern, and she eases them in a little further each time she pulls out. Piper whines softly against her as her arm flex against Alex's ribs.

She works her slowly and deeply, bringing Piper to a quiet completion. The blonde's eyes flutter open momentarily, just before she goes crashing into orgasm, soft wet walls of her cunt sucking greedily at Alex's fingers. It takes her another thirty minutes to sort herself out from the dizzying high of her orgasm and the still gentle clutches of sleep. Alex has slipped closer to her own edge of oblivious, delirious slumber once more, fingers still buried in Piper's warm wet heat.

They lay in quiet stillness as the soft light of dawn pools around them. Before Piper lazily hoists herself over her sleeping companion, settling their hips against each other, and trails a line of kisses down the column of Alex's throat. She can feel the wet stickiness between her thighs transferring to Alex's and she sighs, grinding herself into Alex a little harder. A low rumbling moan drifts from somewhere within Alex's chest, and Piper stretches herself along the planes of Alex's body like a cat stretching in the warm morning sun. She attaches her lips to Alex's neck, suckling gently as her hips begin to pick up the telltale beat of a rhythm in their grind. And when Alex's hands raises to curl around her hips, to pull them a little harder against each other, Piper snatches her wrists and hoists them above her head.

Alex is too tired to fight. Too stuck in the still thick presence of sleep. Too lost in the way Piper's hipbone is grinding against her clit in just the right way. She teeters on the edge of dreams of reality, fingers tangling with Piper's above her head as Piper's teeth scrape gently at her neck. They have no sense of time in their hazy sluggish minds, and their bodies move on instinct until Alex jerks lightly with the crashing waves of orgasm. Piper's hands fall away from her own, her hips gradually stilling their motions, as their mouths find each other and they kiss for a moment.

And just like that they slip back into unconsciousness.

Bodies and souls entwined as if they'd never meant to be apart.

.

Piper Chapman is twenty-one when she fully realizes the implications of what she's done.

They'd had a fight. Another one. A bad one. One that somehow circled onto their old lives, the ones they'd left behind.

Their arguments seem to be doing that a lot as of late. Dancing closer and closer to a discussion they'd been adamantly avoiding. Somewhere within the last year Alex had begun to feel as if Piper blamed her for her uprooted life, her ruined future (and maybe it scares her because a part of her has always felt like she should and the guilt is something she's spent too much time trying to tamp down). She's begun to feel as if Piper is beginning to regret choosing her.

It always begins with Piper making some comment or another about Alex's job. Something designed to wriggle under her skin and provoke Alex into a fight. And it always succeeds. Always grates at Alex's nerves. Because the only reason Alex took the job in the first place was to get Piper off the streets. And she's finally making the money to give Piper the life she deserves. And yet the blonde continues to bemoan her. Because nothing is enough. It's never enough. And Alex doesn't know what else to do when she's already giving Piper everything she can.

She's made an especially catty comment tonight, about not knowing why she even came with Alex in the first place if she could spend just as much time with her by having stayed at home as she is now.

It's the last Alex can take.

"You chose to come with me, Piper, I didn't force your hand, you came willingly!" Alex growls angrily at her after several tiring circles around the same issue, "I ran away and you chose to follow! You didn't have to, and you don't get to suddenly pretend you miss anything about your old life in some fucked up attempt to make me regret it!"

"That's not fair," Piper counters, "I do miss some things about..." she falters, takes a breath, "I had a family to leave behind, Alex. You didn't."

And maybe that's what's not fair. Piper had been the only thing left worth loving in Alex's life. And Alex would have lost her either way if she hadn't have come with her. She staggers for a moment, as if struck by a physical blow by Piper's words before letting out a soft disbelieving laugh, "Yeah, well. It wasn't much of a very good one, if I recall correctly," she says, voice low, deadly (and Piper can almost see the fangs as she prepares to sink them into her), "'else you wouldn't have begged me to take you with me."

Piper doesn't know what else to say. So she doesn't say anything.

And Alex takes it as resistance.

"You know what, Piper? I'm so sick of this fucking argument. If you really fucking regret this so much, go. Just go. Go back to your family and your life and everything you left behind when you decided to follow me into the fucking unknown. I'm done taking care of you." She turns, putting her back to Piper and running a hand through her hair before exploding, "GO!"

It's the first time Alex ever raises her voice to Piper in violent anger.

And Piper jolts, as if she's been physically slapped.

Alex's back is still turned as she catches her breath, dropping her hands from her hair. She doesn't notice the resulting silence until the door clicks closed.

Whirling around wildly, her eyes land on the patch of carpet Piper had been standing upon. Now empty. A white hot panic floods her veins and for a moment she almost bolts for the door, desperate to catch the blonde before she can get too far. But she steels herself. She tells herself Piper will be back. That she just needs to blow off some steam.

She's gone for thirteen hours.

The streets are dead when Piper spills out onto them, and she's struck with an almost sickening familiarity. These streets that used to be my home.

Lately she'd begun to feel as if her presence was becoming a burden on Alex. That maybe she should have sucked it up and let her go and not have been so selfish when she pleaded with her not to leave her. She'd seen the way Alex had looked at some of her mules. She'd seen the way she watched other women in the clubs. She knew she couldn't hold a candle to the lot of them. And they may not have been each other's firsts, but Piper knows it's hard not to grow restless in the knowledge that there's an entire world of people out there when all you've ever really had is one person. She knows that Alex has always had a short attention span. Alex has always been easily bored once something loses the luster of it's initial mysterious pull. She knows she can't hold onto her forever.

She's nothing but a small town girl, run away from home, with not even a high school diploma to her name. She'd never held a job or earned a living, and was nothing but dead weight to Alex's new-found success. Which she'd grown somewhat comfortable in, content to be away from Piper for longer periods of time, greater stretches of distance. And suddenly Piper feels like she doesn't see Alex as much as she used to. When she's staring at Alex from across a crowded club as she works instead of standing pressed against her. She tries to fight that clawing panic, the lingering grip of that fear that'd kept ahold of her all throughout their childhood. Every time Alex mentioned leaving.

Piper knows it's selfish. She knows she has no right to hold Alex so tightly against her when all she wants is to be free.

But Piper's never been good at bravery.

So when Alex finally tells her to go, she does.

Because the only thing scarier than losing Alex is Alex's hatred.

She lets her feet carry her through the city, traveling familiar places she's not seen since they were their places, and they eventually bring her upon a payphone. She's got just enough change in her pocket and she stands before it for a long stretch of time, just watching it. As if waiting for it to ring. At some point she takes a step forward, pulls the receiver from it's cradle. Her fingers hover over the buttons for only a moment of hesitation before pounding out a familiar pattern. She's scared and alone and Alex's words are still ringing through her mind and suddenly she just wants to go home.

She calls her mother. Almost hangs up before she even answers.

She answers on the third ring.

"Hello?" and Piper's eyes squeeze shut, (the first time she's heard her mother's voice in five years) "Hello? ... Who is this?" A beat. "Piper?" Her eyes shoot open and she grips the phone tighter, pulling against her ear almost desperately, "Piper... is that you?" her mother's voice is uncharacteristically soft and Piper suddenly finds herself biting back a sob, "Piper! ... Please-"

She hang ups.

And the stifling weight of what she's done finally comes crashing down over her shoulders.

Her hands shake. Her knees buckle. She slides down the wall, crumbling to her knees against the ground. A sob wretches it's way from her chest. And she wails.

Eventually she finds the strength to pull herself from the pavement. Allows her feet to carry her blindly once more. Ends up tucking herself against a bench she and Alex had spent more than one cold night huddled against and shuts down. She loses track of just how long she sits there, but the night is receding by the time she drops her stiff and aching legs back to the ground. She thinks she's been here long enough.

Alex awakens to an empty bed.

And a slow thick panic begins to seep heavily into her veins.

She's shaking by the time Piper finally wanders back in. Sitting on the couch with her head in her hands, fingers tugging helplessly at her scalp, and she finally understands what her mother must have felt all those years ago when she'd fled from her arms and into the night. She nearly misses it when the door creaks open with a long slow creak.

She jolts to her feet and Piper flinches. They watch each other silently.

Until Piper can no longer stand it and finally murmurs, "I'm sorry."

And Alex wants to be mad at her, wants to be livid. She wants to take her by the arms and shake her until she realizes what exactly she's just put her through. But fuck if she isn't so goddamned relieved to see her again, that it's taking all her willpower not to run to the blonde, pull her into her chest, and hold her until the world falls away around them. Suddenly there are tears streaming down Piper's face as she wraps herself in her own arms defensively. "I'm sorry, Alex," she repeats.

"Are you okay?" Alex asks quietly instead.

Then Piper's sobbing. Huge wracking quakes bursting from within her as she collapses into herself, and Alex can longer resist her instincts, pulling the trembling girl into her arms before she even knows what she's doing. She's vaguely aware of thick hot tears sliding down her own cheeks, blending with Piper's, as they fold into one another and cry.

And Piper's spewing out gasping mouthfuls of words Alex can't quite make sense of until she pulls her far enough from her chest.

"Shh, Pipes... shhh..." she coos.

"I called my mom," she cries, "I called my mom and couldn't even fucking say anything, Alex. I tried. I tried to leave, but I can't. I can't... fucking... let you go. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I'm so selfish. I know you don't want to take care of me anymore but I don't know how to live without you."

And suddenly Alex understands that they've both been arguing about different things. She pulls her closer, clutches her tighter, cries harder.

And later, when they're pressed against each other, the soft sheets of their bed pulled over their heads in an attempt to block out the world (an achingly familiar practice from days long gone by that leaves them both feeling raw), Piper tells her that she knew, the moment she heard her mother's voice, that she'd never be able to come back. Never be able to see Alex again. Ever. She tells Alex she'd decided she'd rather live with her hatred than not live with her at all.

And Alex finally shushes her, and quietly tells her she'll never have to.

Because Piper Chapman has never been a burden.

Piper Chapman has always been Alex Vause's reason for living.

.

Alex begins to take Piper recruiting more regularly after that.

Rather than leaving the blonde alone while she traverses the clubs; it helps. A little. Piper's comments about not getting to see enough of Alex pander off.

It's a lot like the old days in a way, and there's almost a nostalgia to it at first.

Piper watches as Alex draws people, like a spider luring flies to her web, into the cartel life. Alex even convinces her to help every once in awhile, utilizing her own skills of old to lure in the occasional man or two whom Alex can't quite bring herself to pursue. For the most part though, Piper watches. Watches from the sidelines as Alex works her magic. And she begins to understand, for the first time, how Alex must have felt as she'd watched her flirt with all those men for all those drinks all those years ago. Except Piper's pretty sure she never looked quite so into it as Alex does.

She's met the mules on occasion. Evenings out with groups of them in which Fahri and Alex treat them to a celebratory dinner or party that Piper's graciously allowed to tag along to. Their own nights out in which Alex would murmur at her to venture off and dance while she gets a little work done whenever she spots a particularly easy target to draw in. It's different seeing so first hand. And it doesn't take long to grate on Piper's nerves.

They're in a particularly crowded club one night when she finally reaches her limit.

She'd wandered away from Alex's side some thirty minutes ago, and it hadn't taken the brunette long to begin chatting up potential candidates.

She finds her way to the dance floor, just enough drinks in her to throw herself entirely into the mass of bodies pulsating within the confined space and the music thrumming loudly throughout the room. It doesn't take long for someone to take an interest and Piper can't quite help but enjoy the sturdy body that's growing bolder and bolder against her back. Alex has barely spared her a single glance since she left her side, and it's childish, Piper knows, but she can't help but feel cheated at the lack of attention from the brunette. So when the man behind her grows confidant enough to lay a hand against her waist she doesn't stop him.

Alex is currently chatting up a tall red headed woman. And Piper's just desperate enough for attention.

She loses herself in the music, the man behind her guiding them along in the rhythm together with that steady grip at her waist. Her eyes track to Alex occasionally, but she's filled with the same disappointment every time as she wonders whether Alex had noticed her departure at all. She leans into the man's touch. His hips rolling against hers and his breath hitting her ear as he begins to whisper muffled promises to her. He tells her she's beautiful. He tells her she's lovely. He gives her the entirety of his attention. She shoots another glance across the room at Alex, now leaning into the woman, laughing.

The man extends his hand. Piper takes it.

He pulls her from the dance floor, buys her drink after drink, showers her with attention. He makes her feel desired, and Piper loses herself in it.

Eventually he tells her he's leaving, that he and his friends are headed to another bar just down the street and Piper's face falls at the thought of sitting alone in the crowded club once again. The man seems to pick up on her sudden dip in spirits and with a quiet laugh tells her that that had been a poorly executed attempt at an invite. And Piper's heart swells excitedly once again before her mind and gaze returns to Alex.

She's about to tell the man she can't, that she's here with her own friends and they'd wonder where she's gone, when she sees Alex tuck a strand of red hair behind a gentle ear, trail a slow hand down a long arm, lean just a little closer and husk out a low chuckle she can't hear over the noise of the club but can feel within her soul nonetheless. Flooded with a hot wave of anger Piper turns to the man, grabbing her jacket, and tells him to lead the way.

Alex's eyes dart from the woman before her as she catches sight of the blonde donning her jacket and following a group of people from the club. Something within her stomach clenches, but she maintains an easy grin, tearing her gaze back to the redhead before her. She'd been keeping tabs on Piper's location all night. Knew the girl was mad at her for her lack of attention and figured she'd let her work it out of her system before she inevitably turns to drunk sulking at the bar until Alex finally finishes recruiting and comes to collect her. She hadn't counted on the handsome fucker who'd sidled up behind her on the dance floor. Or the gentle grin alighting the blonde's eyes as he nodded towards the door.

Alex tells herself she's just stepping out for a few minutes. Tells herself she'll at least be back by the time Alex is finished, ready to return with her to their bed with hopefully higher spirits than usual. She tells herself Piper's a big girl, capable of making her own decisions and that she has nothing to worry about.

But Piper doesn't confirm any of these thoughts.

And Alex waits until the bouncer tells her she's going to have to leave, that the empty room around her means Piper's not coming back.

Alex is sitting on the end of bed when Piper finally returns several hours later.

She stumbles in with a soft curse, feeling her way through the darkness of the narrow hallway to the bedroom with a steadying hand against the wall. She hesitates when she catches sight of the older woman, pausing in the doorway with a deep breath. The lights are low and she enters tentatively, slowly, a heavy silence hanging between them as she makes her way a little further into the room. She pauses when she reaches the dresser, leaning into it and fixing Alex with an anxiously patient gaze.

Eventually, after what feels like ages, Alex speaks.

"Where've you been?" Her voice is deadly, low and soft, and Piper takes her time answering.

"I went out with some people."

"Where." Her voice is still low, but Piper notes the sharp cracks of anger beginning to break through her calm facade. She's angry. And that makes Piper angry. Because Alex had barely spared her a glance when she walked away from her five hours ago and now she has the audacity to act like she'd missed her presence?

And Piper's not quite so practiced at withholding her own anger.

"What d'you care, Alex? You seemed pretty heavily invested in your new toy when I left."

And Alex Vause has always been good at controlling her anger, but when it came to Piper Chapman her control faltered.

She was on her feet before either of them could even realize. Her hand closing around Piper's bicep as she drags the smaller girl into her, "that was BUSINESS, Piper!" The steel in her voice would have been enough to send anyone else quaking. But Piper Chapman was never just anyone else.

"Oh, pardon me," Piper seethes, "it's so easy to mistake for pleasure these days."

"What the fuck do you want from me!" Alex explodes, "I leave you here and you complain you don't see enough of me! I take you with me and you decide to run off with the first fucking asshole who shows you the smallest bit of attention when you don't get enough of my own! I can't fucking win here, Piper!"

"Fuck you, Alex." Piper growls, pulling her arm free with a jerk preparing to storm away from the angry brunette before abruptly seeming to change her mind. She takes a sudden step into Alex's space, her hands coming up to connect with the space between her collar bones, and gives her a rough shove, "FUCK you!"

Taken aback by the uncharacteristic display of physical aggression, Alex falters. Until Piper pulls back to set up another shove and her hands raise to capture the blonde's wrists before she can land another blow.

"STOP IT." She barks angrily, "You're acting like a spoiled child."

"Let go of me." Piper growls, vainly attempting to free her wrists from Alex's steel-like grip. Realizing she's unable to overpower the taller woman in her inebriated state, Piper abruptly changes tactics. Pressing herself against Alex's tensed body she murmurs, "You know what Alex, you're right. I did like the attention. He told me I was beautiful, he followed my every move all night... he wanted me." Alex's fingers tighten around her wrists as Piper leans further against her, murmuring softly against her ear, "and I could have had him. And you'd never know. Because you were too busy eye fucking some dumb slut at the bar."

Alex's eyes are a storm when Piper pulls back enough to catch them, unfocused and rolling with dark emotion as her nostrils flare.

"Did you fuck him?" She asks quietly, and Piper thinks she picks up a hint of insecurity in the otherwise collected voice. It's enough to give her pause. Pause that Alex takes as confirmation. Her grips grows impossibly tighter against Piper's wrists and for a moment Piper thinks they might snap under the pressure, "I swear to fuck, Piper, if you fucked him..."

"What would you do, Alex?" She challenges quietly.

And Alex's lips pull back in a snarl before their crashing against Piper's angrily.

Their lips meet heatedly as their nails dig into each other's skin. Alex can't help but recoil in surprised when Piper's teeth close against her bottom lip with enough force to send a spurt of blood shooting across both their tongues. She tongues the new wound briefly, eyeing the possessive, challenging look in Piper's gaze. An animalistic growl tears from her throat as she attacks Piper's lips with her own once more. They stumble backwards as they struggle, tumbling into the wall with a thud as they fist and claw at each other's clothes and skin.

Their teeth clash violently as Piper's back connects with the wall. It's animalistic and it's raw and neither of them can tell if it's love or lust or anger or some convoluted mixture of every emotion they've ever instigated in one another. Alex's lip is still bleeding as she drags it and her teeth down Piper's neck, Piper's nails are digging into her own. Piper shoves against her with a sudden surprising force and she slams her back into the wall immediately with another low growl. They're going to be bruised in the morning, but it's not something that works it's way into either of their minds in their current state.

Clothing tears open with heavy ripping sounds, thick in the dark of the bedroom. Alex yanks Piper's thigh over her hips as she lays into her with her weight. It lasts all of a few seconds before Piper's palms connect abruptly with her collarbones, sending her reeling as she stumbles backwards. The backs of her knees connect with the edge of the bed and Piper is on top of her before she even settles fully against the mattress.

Piper's tongue is prodding at the wound she's left against her lips and a fresh wave of anger floods through her as she feels the blonde's lips quirk into a humorless grin against her own. She flips them, driving her knee between Piper's legs as she pins her to the bed beneath her.

Clothes are torn away angrily, flying across the room in wild arcs and crumpled bunches. It's a competition to see who can gain the upper hand first, each of them rolling and tumbling, throwing one another around the bed in their desperation to come out on top. It's Alex who eventually wins. Still half-clothed and finally managing to pin the blonde beneath her as she reaches for her legs.

Her fingers delve roughly into Piper's cunt and she gasps as she arches against her hand.

The contact is deep and filling, and Piper groans breathlessly under the motions of Alex's thrusts. It doesn't take long for the struggle to seep from her muscles as Alex's lips wrap around a stiff and protruding nipple, biting down quickly before sucking gently. It takes even less time to build Piper to her peak. Alex's pace is relentless as she drives Piper higher and higher, and Piper writhes deliciously under the attention she'd fought so hard to receive. Alex's thumb brushes her clit roughly and it's all she needs. She explodes around Alex's fingers, a thick wave of heart pooling around them.

They still as Piper attempts to catch her breath, Alex's fingers still between her legs. She attempts to raise herself from the bed when Alex's free hand collides with the center of her chest, pushing her back down in the mattress.

"No. You're going to cum again. You're going to cum again and you're going to remember this feeling the next time you get the urge to suck some fuck off in some shitty club. You're going to remember what I make you feel. You're going to remember what I do to you. And you're going to beg me to be your release. Because I know you, Piper. I know you better than I know myself and I know you better than you know yourself." A soft growl escapes, Piper shudders beneath her. "And I'm going to ruin you. Because you're never going to be able to get off with anyone else ever again."

Her thrusts are slow and deep. So deep. She's not sure she's ever been this deep, but Piper's hips are pushing back against her palm and she's not entirely sure she could stop now if either of them truly wanted her to (and part of her is terrified at the realization of how tremendously this red hot fury quakes within her). Piper's groaning at a steady pulsing hum, a continuous noise of need. She's beyond words. Alex's fingers stretch deeper.

She brings her off six more times before finally pulling her fingers from the blonde and falling to her elbows atop her.

They're both shaking, gasping for air as they struggle to regain control of themselves and the wild emotion that's just driven them to such a place.

There are thick, fat tears in Piper's eyes as she struggles to catch her breath and find herself amid the chaos of hypersensitivity and emotion. And Alex suddenly feels every ounce of that all encompassing rage dissolve through her in a terrible wave of heartache. She collapses fully atop her. Her own tears smear messily across Piper's neck as Piper's drip from her cheeks to Alex's scalp. They're clutching each other once more, with an anxious desperation, fingers digging into skin in a terrified attempt to anchor themselves together. As if loosening their grip would pull them apart in a way that could never be stitched back together.

"I love you." Piper whispers hoarsely, her voice faded and weak, "I love you, Alex. I love you. I love you."

She breathes it out with every breath until her fragile voice cracks and leaves her once more. Alex presses a gentle kiss to her neck with every declaration as their skin cools against each other. "I'm sorry," Alex whispers weakly against her skin, "Piper. I'm sorry for all of it. I'm sorry I-"

A heavy tremor works it's way through Alex's body as she shudders atop Piper's exhausted form. She can't see through the tears tumbling from her eyes in thick waves and it makes her cry harder. The don't leave one another's embrace for the rest of the night.

Fahri asks them to take the next step a few days later. Finally opening the doors to the world of the international cartel.

Alex tells herself it's what they need. A fresh start. New cities. Change.

She hopes it's enough to fix them. She's hopes it's enough to keep Piper from fraying any further at the seams.

.

There are nights when Piper's body thrums with an anxious energy.

When Alex can see her building to a violent implosion and quietly finds a way out of her plans.

Usually all it takes is a night in, cradling the blonde close and maintaining a constant contact. Usually. But some nights Piper's anxieties hum too loud or Alex doesn't catch them until it's too late. She'd learned that the hard way. The night Piper almost attacked one of her mules.

She'd gotten angry, invaded Alex's space, leveled a threatening finger at the young girl who'd stepped up to intervene at the sight of her boss in potential danger. It'd ended with Alex's hands wrapped around her biceps, dragging her out of the club and into the streets. Telling her to go home. She'd watched until the blonde disappeared from sight before returning to the bar to diffuse the rest of the situation and get her kids back under control.

When she'd returned to their room several hours later, she realized her mistake.

The vase of flowers Piper had purchased from a local vendor several days ago lay broken on the other side of the room now, sharp jagged pieces scattered haphazardly across the floor under a still damp patch upon the wall. Folders and papers and other various items of her work covered the room in patches, as if thrown aggressively from the table with the sweep of an arm. Alex's eyebrows furrow slightly, angry at the blonde's childish display of anger, before she moves further into the room. Piper's jacket lays in a heap on the floor near the kitchen, slowly growing moist with wine, shards of a broken bottle and shattered glasses shining under the lights of the kitchen beside it. Her eyes trail over the mess before turning towards the hall to the bedroom. The pictures that had once hung pristine and collected now hang crooked (she notes one has fallen off the wall entirely, frame cracked upon it's collision with the floor). It isn't until she reaches the bedroom that she notices the blood.

Smears of it, coating the walls in smudged fingerprints and long fading strokes. She casts her gaze back towards the kitchen in alarm eyeing the assortment of broken shards laying scattered across the floors and her heart skips a beat for the faintest of moments before she tells herself Piper would never do something so stupid. But her heart is pounding heavily against her chest now, and the overwhelming silence of the place is starting to feel stifling. She catches sight of cracked indentation in the wall at the mouth of the hallway that she'd missed upon her first inspection, and she moves shakily back towards it.

The blood is thicker here, splintered indentations and the faint shape of a fist and knuckles painted within the cracks and blood. She turns quickly towards the bedroom.

Her heart is attempting to leave her chest as her eyes sweep the empty bedroom and gives no sign of the missing blonde.

"Piper?" She calls out desperately, "Piper!"

She's in full panic by the time she catches sight of the small sliver of light shining through the crack at the foot of the bathroom door. She launches herself after it, shoulder colliding unintentionally hard as the nob sticks against her hand, refusing to give way.

"PIPER." She barks again, shaking hopelessly at the stiff handle, "PIPER!"

She's throwing her weight against the door now, her mind replaying image after terrible image of what might be behind the unforgiving door. She's slamming her full weight against it, pounding at it and screaming, prepared to throw everything she's got at it before Piper's voice finally drifts out from behind it.

"Go away, Alex."

A hot flood of heady relief washes over her at the sound of the blonde's very much alive and well voice.

"Open the door, Piper." She says, arms stretching out to support her now quivering body against the frames.

"Go away!"

She's taken aback by the anger, still thick within the blonde's muffled voice, "Piper, open the goddamn door!"

She's met with silence.

Dropping her forehead to the wood before her, she takes a moment to steady her breath, ease her heart rate into something calmer, her tone into something softer. Her lungs take in a long slow pull of air as she squeezes her eyes shut against the absolute fear she'd just experienced, feels it seeping out of her slowly with every breathe she takes.

"Piper..." she starts with almost a whisper, "please... open the door."

"Fuck off, Alex!"

She grits her teeth, shoving her forehead harder against the cool wooden barrier, "Pipes..." and suddenly there's a wetness in her eyes, "I just... need to make sure you're okay... fuck... PLEASE."

There's a long stretch of silence before Piper responds. "I'm fine, Alex. Go away."

And she draws another long lung-full of air before turning around and sliding to floor, her back pressed heavily into the barrier between them. Burying her face in her hands, she lets go. Thick heaving sobs wrack her body as she she shudders silently. The adrenaline finally coursing from her system, leaving her raw and vulnerable. She's not quite sure how long she cries.

Eventually though the sobs begin to lessen, the tears begin to patter out, the quakes become nothing more than shivers. And she sighs, dropping her head back against the door with a soft thump.

"Piper..." she begins, running a hand under her nose with a sniff, "Pipes..."

She doesn't know what to say for a moment, eyes trailing over the ceiling above her, "I'm sorry... when I... I didn't see you. And I thought... fuck, Piper... I thought..." she tries desperately to find the words, but she knows she'll never be able to voice them, her biggest fear, her only fear, "I was so scared, Pipes. I was so..." Her voices catches, and she swallows vainly against a thick lump that has settled low in her throat. "I'm sorry. I never should have... fuck!"

Her head thumps back against the door in her frustration, her eyes welling with tears once more.

"Please come out, Pipes... please... I..." it's all she can manage before giving way to the muffled sobs lodging their way into her throat once more.

She's somewhere between sleep and consciousness sometime later when the weight at her back gives way, and barely manages to catch herself tumbling backwards through the open door. Her gaze jolts upwards, locking with Piper's as she stands quietly over her. Her eyes are puffy and red and Alex knows her own probably don't look too much better (would venture to guess they're probably a million times worse). She's cradling her hand to her chest as she studies the brunette and Alex holds her gaze as she slowly maneuvers herself to her feet.

"Pipes..." she murmurs, catching sight of her bloody and broken knuckles.

Piper says nothing. Sniffs once. Studies the floor. And Alex takes a tentative step towards her, hands outstretched, hovering hesitantly over Piper's swollen fingers before darting her gaze back up to the blonde's crystal blue eyes, silently asking for permission. Which Piper seems to grant as she silently turns turns the raw red skin of her hand from her chest towards Alex.

"Fuck." Alex murmurs, hands still hovering, afraid to touch the broken skin and fingers, afraid to cause anymore pain. "C'mere," she coaxes gently, easing Piper back into the bathroom and settling her atop the closed lid of the toilet as she ruffles through the cabinets for the first aid kit.

They remain silent as she cleans Piper's wounds, wetting a washcloth with warm water and clearing away some of the mess of the wounds. Piper's eyes track the red stains slowly creeping into the once-pristine white of the washcloth and finds it a strangely fitting image. Alex clears away the blood, wiping the open skin with hydrogen peroxide and setting Piper's two broken fingers with a small splint. She finishes with a roll of gauze, slowly covering the raw skin of Piper's knuckles before dropping the gentlest of kisses atop the plush material. And Piper nearly cries at the tenderness of it.

She tucks the curtains of hair that had fallen around Piper's face back behind her ears as they lock gazes once more, holding one another's eyes and communicating a million silent conversations. Eventually a soft sigh falls from her lips and she closes her eyes, moving forward to drop another gentle kiss upon Piper's forehead. She leads her quietly from the bathroom.

Alex undresses them silently, laying them down in the covers of the bed and pulling Piper against her immediately. Her hands run across Piper's skin in slow gentle patterns, as she gradually leads the blonde into a calm and gentle sleep.

There are no more tears to shed for the night.

As Alex holds Piper tightly against her and wonders how much longer she can keep gluing her cracks together when she threatens to fall apart.

.

Alex is twenty-eight when she leaves the cartel.

It isn't planned. It isn't impulsive. But if you'd asked either of them, looking back, they's say it had been a gradual slide into an abrupt collapse. It had gotten dangerous (though Alex had never deluded herself into thinking it wouldn't be, she'd known it'd be dangerous the moment they slipped from the warmth of Piper's bedroom and into the cold arms of the streets all those years ago).

It had worn on Piper. The business. They lifestyle. The danger. The moving. The lack of Alex. She won't admit it, but she's grown tired of this life, and, somewhere along the lines, miserable. And she'd begun to think there might be something seriously wrong with her when she'd started to catch herself missing the days they'd spent living on the streets.

Alex had noticed it in parts, but convinces herself she didn't. Piper had been growing melancholic, despondent. She'd spend her days in bed more often than not and rarely speaks unless spoken to. And Alex convinced herself not to worry about it until it was something she can no longer ignore.

She'd rolled her eyes when she'd return home from a several-hours-long meeting only to find Piper exactly where she left her, sigh heavily when she'd say she was going out with a few of the mules for drinks and Piper would mumble a barely decipherable "okay". It wasn't until they were preparing to leave Milan after a two month stay that that nagging worry she'd been pushing down pushed back.

"Pipes, our flight leaves in three hours could you please get out of bed and get packed?" She'd recently given up requesting she get ready for things anymore, as 'getting ready' for Piper had, at some point, reduced to 'put on shoes'.

"I'm packed," Piper's voice speaks from somewhere within the covers.

"Really? Because I haven't seen you move all day. When exactly did you find the time to pack?" Her attention's divided between their conversation and the task of making sure all their final arrangements are in place when Piper's following statement stops her cold.

"I never unpacked."

Alex stills, turning to face the mound of blankets on the bed, "What?"

No response.

"Piper. We've been here for over a month and a half."

No response.

"What do you mean you haven't unpacked?"

No fucking response.

Dropping what she was doing, Alex strides over to the bed and pulls down the covers enough to see Piper's face. She's curled on her side, back towards Alex, facing the center of the bed. And Alex's empty pillow.

"Piper."

"What's the point, Alex?" She murmurs tiredly, "Why do you even care?"

A foreign feeling of coldness seeps across Alex's skin as that repressed sense of unease suddenly slams into her chest, "Piper... how many times have you left this bed other than trips to the bathroom or kitchen?"

No response.

She rakes a hand through her hair as panic takes over, "Piper."

"What do you care, Alex?" Piper's voice is soft when she speaks. So soft. Alex strains to hear it. "I'm not bothering you. I'm ready to go. What does it matter?"

"Piper, you haven't left this bed in over a month what do you mean what does it matter? It fucking matters!"

Piper sighs heavily but offers no other response.

Alex stands abruptly from the bed, both hands threading tightly against the hair at her scalp as she stalks across the room, pauses, stalks back.

"Fuck." She whispers, "FUCK."

She casts one last glance at Piper's despondent form before striding from the room. The door closes with a bang. Piper doesn't move.

They arrived in Paris four hours later.

Alex murmurs a soft "I'll be back" as Piper climbs into the new bed.

She'd returned hours later, much later than usual, and slid quietly in behind Piper. Her arms snaking around the younger girl, and Alex cradled her against her chest as tightly as she dared. Piper seems so fragile anymore. A trail of tears leak from her eyes before she can stop them, and she buries her face against Piper's neck in attempt to suppress them. Piper's hand rises to lay against her forearm and Alex cries harder as she squeezes softly. She drops a collection of kisses along the base of Piper's neck as the night drifts on around them.

They stay in Paris for five months. They develop a routine. Not new. But altered. Alex would slip quietly from the bed with the breaking dawn, dropping a soft kiss to Piper's head, whispering a quiet plea for her to remember to eat, before departing from the room until well after sunset. She returns every night now. Immediately. Disrobing and slipping into the bed once more to pull Piper against her, holding her closely for the rest of the night.

It was nearing ten in the evening, going on their fifth month when Alex breaks routine.

She bursts into the room with a quiet urgency, and Piper stirs slightly.

"C'mon."

Her brows furrow as she watches Alex grab their things, already mostly packed.

"Come ON."

"What's going on?" Piper asks dazedly.

"We're going."

"Where?"

"Away. Piper, come on."

She rises slowly from the bed as Alex tosses her a hoodie, "Alex..." Piper watches her dart around the room, "Are we in trouble?"

"No. But we're going to be soon so I need you to MOVE."

"What are you talking about? What's going on?" Piper murmurs, growing uneasy. She slips the hoodie over her head.

"We're leaving, Piper."

"Alex..." she ventures hesitantly as the older woman hands her a dufflebag, and places a gently guiding hand at the small of her back, "you're scaring me."

"I'm sorry, Pipes, but if we want to make a clean break we have to move NOW."

"A clean... Alex what- what is going on?"

And Alex is pulling her out the door as she begins to explain, "I've been stashing away money, preparing for the perfect opportunity. It took a lot of time and precisely laid plans but it's happening now, Piper, and we need to go."

"What did you do?" Piper asks, a thick fear seeping into her voice (and Alex almost loves it, because it's been so long since she's heard any sort of emotion in the Piper's lilting tone), as Alex leads them down the hall, forgoing the elevator as she drags them down the stairs.

"I took care of things, babe. And things are about to get messy, so if we want out we have to go now. It's our only opportunity. It's our chance to start over."

Piper's head is spinning by the time they reach the pavement. A car she doesn't recognize is waiting for them out front, and Alex thanks the valet, tossing the bags into the trunk before helping Piper into the passenger seat.

"Alex..." Piper asks as she settles beside her in the driver's seat, gunning the car to life, "where are we going?"

And there's fear in Alex's eyes and a nervous grin on her face when she turns her head to face her.

"We're running away, Pipes."

They're well on their way out of the city when Alex begins explaining that she couldn't bear to force Piper through that life anymore. That it had slowly been killing them both. She tells her she'd lost herself in it all, and had only wanted to give Piper everything she's ever deserved, that she was addicted to the sensation of finally being able to reach out and take anything she ever wanted. She tells her she didn't realize the price they'd been paying had been themselves.

They drive late into the night, Alex talking about the money she'd begun saving and the plans she'd been assembling. Creating a chaotic mess that Kubra would spend weeks untangling before realizing he'd lost the girls for good. She tells Piper they'll be long gone by the time he does, carving out a new life in a new town once again. She tells Piper they don't have to worry. Because they've got each other.

And for the first time in Alex can't remember how long, a smile creeps across the face of Piper Chapman.

The car travels silently into the night as their fingers tangle gently between the center console.

And everything else falls away into the night as the world shrinks down to Piper Chapman and Alex Vause.

Because that's all they've ever needed.

.

They leave this aspect of their life they way they left every other; quietly and in the cover of darkness.

When the sun begins to peak across the horizon with the early stretched of morning it would not reveal Alex Vause and Piper Chapman. And Paris, France would just become another bullet point on the long list of brief abandoned moments in their unstill lives.

There are three things Alex Vause and Piper Chapman would always be.

Restless.

Free.

and Together.

---

Hahaaaa... so I was gonna like... take this time between fics to sort of write something small... and light... and honestly... I just... don't even know what happened. This is another one that's been in the making for awhile, so it feels good to finally get it out. I know I said that the last one would probably be the longest one I ever write but haha, fuck, I guess that makes me a goddamn liar because here we fucking are. I'd tentatively say it again but at this point I doubt any of you would believe me so I'll just leave it at this and ask you not to be too disappointed if I ever actually do end up posting six thousand word chapters again.

I MAY make a few edits throughout the week because I haven't gotten a chance to sit through and reread it all in one go yet, but aside from sporadic spelling errors and like, I think it's turned out as good to go as it ever will :)

anyway a special thank you to orange dandelion who listens to me babble out tangled ideas and chopped up excerpts until I can finally pull something resembling a story out of them. I don't know how you do it, but bless you.