Long overdue. I apologize profusely.
And I forget how to move
When my mouth is this dry
And my eyes are bursting hearts
In a blood-stained sky.
The Cure/ Homesick
They are forced to separate and Alex profusely apologizes to an angry Carol Chapman, before turning around one last time to shoot a meaningful glance at a blushing Piper, who is rubbing the back of her neck with her left hand, trying to ignore her mother's death glare.
She feels her heart pounding furiously on her throat, that all of a sudden feels constricted with unspoken words. Alex notices, of course she does, and she tries to not think about the implications behind everything because hope is a dangerous thing.
What is it to do when you have never had anything you wanted? Alex knows better than to hope Piper feels the same way about her… so she returns to the on-call room, to put her clothes back on as her contradicted mind wanders to minutes ago, when she had the blonde firmly wrapped between her arms. All she can think about is how sweetly Piper smelled, how perfectly well she seemed to fit right beside her and how she fell more in love with her best friend when she stepped foot on that hospital room and saw her. Broken, weak and -possibly- dying.
Alex finishes getting dressed and hastily puts on her earbuds, pressing play on her cellphone and turning up the volume as she gets out of the hospital, fighting the urge to sent Piper a text with useless repetitions of "there's no uses" and "this can waits" that fail to put her at ease.
She starts to run because there's nothing else she can do. She runs as fast as she can, without a conscious destination in mind, until her lungs burn from the lack of oxygen and the muscles in her legs scream in pain, but still, she keeps running. Maybe if she can't breathe properly, she'll faint and every possibility seems better that her swirling thoughts.
Alex loves Piper so much it hurts. Because 'Love is Pain' and life's a bitch at times like this, for the first chords of this fucking song make Alex laugh in irony. Her laughter faltering because of the lump forming in her throat as Robert Smith's words pierce through her.
'It was the sweetness of your skin
It was the hope of all we might have been
That fills me with the hope to wish
Impossible things'.
Alex recalls another time in the past when everything was easier. When they both were little kids, running and playing around. No boys or girls pretending her. Piper was only hers.
She remembers a specific day at school, when Piper first got her period. She was so scared and, although she knew what was happening, she couldn't concentrate long enough on anything to be able to do anything about it. That was, until Alex appeared out of nowhere through the door of the poorly cleaned restroom of their middle school, as if she had called her with just her mind.
"Hey Pipes, what are you doing? I never thought I'd see the day when you skipped class- hey, what's wrong?" she cuts her banter as soon as she takes one good look at her best friend and immediately notices that something isn't quite right.
Piper's eyes are unfocused and she's staring at her reflection in the mirror. Perhaps, that was the first time she realized something had changed inside of her chest. It felt hot and she wished she could change the world for her best friend. It scared her enough to not think about where that was coming from.
Since then, Alex just deals with her feelings for Piper, always supporting her, trying to make her happy in the most simple and stupid ways. For instance, everyone knew Alex was a force of nature, she always stood her ground and took shit from no one. Except Piper.
Her mind wandered to all the times Piper hurt her without meaning to, and the times she put up with whatever bullshit Princess Piper wanted. And, she got really angry at herself for letting someone tame her like that. She had had her heartbroken so many times since they were 13-14 years old because Piper wanted to experiment with boys and do all the normal shit teenagers were supposed to do.
Alex let herself get lost in the painful process and now she realized she had no personality of her own without Piper. Well, fuck her. She's irrationally angry and she decides that she will not cry her heart out again. The best thing she could do right now was to take her mind off of Piper and try to forget about her. If her best friend wanted to date a fucking girl, it was her fucking problem and Alex would not intervene. She will play it cool with Piper, make a joke out of Piper's dream and that's it.
The solution is to go get wasted out of her mind again, but this time, she needs new people, a change of perspective.
"What was that about, Piper?" Carol asks her daughter in a stern voice, eyes blazing. "What if somebody else had enter before me? Do you know what people would think?" she sounded as homophobic as a hypocritical catholic fanatic.
"What, Mom? What would they think? That I am gay?" She spat angrily, trying to piss her mother off so she would shut up and possibly leave her alone.
"Well… yes, Piper Elizabeth!" she pursed her lips in distaste and sighed dramatically. "Can you imagine what everyone would say about me? No, you can't. "
"About you?! What do you have to do with Alex being my girlfriend?!" Piper blurts out and her eyes widen in horror at what she just said. Not because of what she said to her mother, but because that was the moment when her mind finally caught up with her heart and she realized that she did have a girlfriend, but it wasn't Alex.
"Oh, Piper. You don't know what you're talking about. You're too young to know anything about love." Carol stands up and starts shakingly pouring water on a glass, just to have something to do. "Alex Vause is a bad influence, I've told you a thousand times, that's why I'm not letting her near you again." She hastily puts the newly filled glass on Piper's bedside table and leaves her hospital room, to avoid further confrontation.
Piper is fuming by the time her mother closes the door behind her. And she wants to scream or hit something, but the only thing she can do now is throw the glass her mother gave her across the wall. It shatters in a thousand pieces, spilling the contents on the floor and the wall. It doesn't make her feel better, but at least some of the bubbling anger starts to fade when she thinks about the underlying truth in her own words.
And how has she been so fucking blind all this time?
She needs to call her best friend and tell her. Ask her.
Sadly, Alex doesn't pick up.
This feels mechanical, almost forced and semi-awkward, but she manages to make the girl cum several times. This girl, Alex thinks her name is Ashton or Aspyn or something like that, is smoking hot, has the right curves distributed perfectly and her eyes are dark brown, as well as her hair. Alex avoided blondes at all cost tonight, and Aspyn was an easy catch. She practically threw herself at Alex and her goal was to take the tall brunette to her apartment.
The sex was alright. Alex let her go down on her and closed her eyes when she came, trying to keep Piper off her mind, but cumming harder when Piper's eyes filled with lust appeared out of nowhere inside her eyelids, haunting her as always.
The smug grin Aspyn gave her when she opened her eyes made her unbelievably mad. The bitch had no fucking clue about anything.
Alex stood up so suddenly that Aspyn almost fell out of the bed. "Cigarette, be right back." was all Alex offered as she hastily dressed.
Outside Aspyn's apartment, Alex choke back tears as she checked her phone and realized the number of missed calls she had from Piper, and then, a single text.
Pipes: I love you, Alex Vause.
Just that, no explanation, no excuse to say that, nothing.
Too late. She thinks, sadly.
It's probably the worst attitude to take right now, but Alex is broken and had found a new source of self respect and pride. She will not let Piper break her heart again, because Piper never knows what the fuck she wants. So she venomously texts back a curt message.
Alex: I believe you meant 'Sophie'. The other hot brunette who just so happens to be your girlfriend. Goodnight, Piper.
And she turns her cellphone off, lights another cigarette with trembling hands and tries to turn her sadness into anger again, before she regrets what she had done and ends up calling Piper, crying for forgiveness at the rudeness of that text.
No, Vause. She harmed you. She broke your heart. It's her loss.
She finishes her cigarette, trying to focus on all the attractive things she finds in Aspyn before re-entering the girl's apartment and taking her by surprise by grabbing her face with both hands and kissing her as passionately as she possibly can.
Thank you for all your kind reviews, and for the ridiculous ammount of time I had made you all wait for this update. I hope I don't disappoint you and that you'll still like it and be interested in this fic. I'm not abandoning it.
Thank you so, so much to HurricaneDrella. Nothing could be possible without you, my dear friend.