Synonymous with Freedom
Synonymous with Freedom
After the divorce papers are signed, Piper doesn't know what to do with herself or her time. She supposes it's easier for Larry who moves in with Polly three days later and acts as a father figure the way he was always meant to, quickly starting to follow the white-picket fence scenario that she could never really get herself into.
For her things are different, she is alone and she doesn't know what to do. All her life she has followed instructions and people, she has coloured carefully between the lines all in the name of praise. Right now there are no lines, no people to follow and she feels more than a little lost.
Her parents are outraged and call at least five times a day, coming up with a million different ways of saying: "We're so disappointed," while her brother, as supportive as he is, has little advice to offer.
In the end Piper does the one thing she does best, she runs.
She packages clothes and make up and books and whatever remains she wants from her past life into heavy dark blue bags and settles for a tiny, dusty apartment in the city.
xxx
Living on your own comes with many disadvantages such as having to fight the spiders by yourself, wondering if the neighbours are secret porn actors or just have an abnormal sex drive (in three in the morning). The most serious disadvantage however is the underlining feeling of loneliness that seems to decorate every inch of her new apartment.
xxx
"Well, I mean yeah, it fucking sucks that you're on your own," her brother begins one evening when he has come for a visit, "but I mean, look on the bright side!"
"What is the bright side?" Piper mumbles, words slightly muffled as her head is in her hands.
"Umm…" Cal struggles when he sees an abnormally large black spider crawling on the wall opposite him and very pointedly decides to ignore it (because gender stereotypes about men being brave – be damned).
Silence falls between them and stretches while Cal tries and fails to come up with some sort of silver lining.
"Well, at the very least, you are free." He says in the end and the words catch her attention as cliché as they are, almost making her drop the spoon she's been holding while eating ice cream. (because apparently there is no better way to state you're depressed than eating strawberry ice cream in your pajamas all weekend).
"You're free."
Cal's words echo in the small, dusty room and give some sort of meaning to the quiet, uneventful evening in late September.
"I am free," Piper points out with a small smile and a quiet laughter that makes Cal question her sanity for a few brief seconds.
"Huh," the blonde chuckles, in between stuffing her mouth with a rather large spoon of ice cream and contemplating her life from an entirely new perspective, "I am finally free." she muses although she still isn't all too certain what freedom really is, having never experience it before.
xxx
The months crawl by and Piper learns the meaning of freedom and how even though it's not always pretty, it is thousand times better than the routine and monotony that her life with Larry was synonymous with.
Freedom offers much needed clarity and honesty and once she's rid of the lies that she's built her image upon she's ready to really stop, take a deep breath and ask herself what she wants for once in her life.
xxx
"Freedom is nice and all, I just wish I could share it with someone, you know?" Piper muses one day while talking to Cal on the phone and vaguely wondering why on Earth he's the only friend she has left.
(The again calling Polly a friend after the other has essentially stolen her husband doesn't seem such a good idea, even if said husband wasn't all that prized.)
"Well, go out there and look for someone!" she hears from the other end of the phone, "You know you're not going to find Prince Charming while you mope on the couch and watch Game of Thrones, wishing you actually had the sex life of the characters, right?"
Piper chuckles at the joke, idly twirling a lock of blonde hair around her index finger as she muses over his words. She vaguely wonders since when is Cal of all people capable of giving good advice.
"You know what, you might be right." She offers in the end as she opens whatever app she's downloaded and searches for a nice bar where she can find said Prince Charming.
xxx
Piper has never considered the idea of a Princess Charming.
All her life she has been a good little girl with neat hair and good grades. And good girls didn't fuck other girls.
However, when she sees the waitress in a bar called Enigma (no one has a sense of originality in the 21st century), she wonders why the hell not.
Alex Vause, as the name tag, so promptly suggests, is definitely princess worthy in Piper's eyes.
Vause's tall and much curvier than she herself is but at this moment Piper has no time for being jealous because she's too busy staring in awe at the other.
Alex's long black hair contrasts sharply against milky pale complexion that is only accentuated by colourful and masterfully made tattoos. Piper can't really get a closer look at her since she's currently busy serving other clients, her quiet, slightly flirtatious laughter echoing in the small bar.
When she finally comes to take Piper's order, her lips stretch into a confident smirk, "How may I help you?"
Suddenly Piper feels as if she's thirteen and the quarterback has asked her out on a date and she has no idea what to say.
"I uh…margarita?" she asks sheepishly but fortunately the waitress doesn't seem all that horrified at her sudden lack of social skills.
She offers an amused grin that makes Piper flush a deep crimson colour.
"You don't visit such places very often, am I right?" she inquires, raising a perfectly shaped black eyebrow.
(Piper has to wonder how on Earth can such a simple action scream seduction more than anything Larry has done in the bedroom).
"Nope, I…I'm kind of new to the whole bar-kind of thing." She mumbles in response, mentally berating herself for acting like a school girl in front of her crush when she has just met the other and although Vause is incredibly hot, it's not like she looks too bad herself.
"Oh, I can tell," Alex responds as she pours the margarita and places an obscenely green slice of lime at the corner of the glass.
Piper accepts the drink and feels a bolt of electricity when their fingers brush together that she tries to attribute it to static electricity or whatever other explanation there can be.
They fall in silence and Piper has no idea what to say as her mind races in a thousand different directions, the only thing that they have in common is that they all include a certain raven haired waitress she's just met.
She can feel the other's studying, calculating gaze over her and it only makes her blush an even deeper shade of crimson.
"So, it only seems fair you tell me your name since you know mine." Vause says in the end and Piper can tell even without looking that the other's lips are stretched into a mischievous smirk.
"Piper Chapman." She shoots back, feeling inexperienced and awkward, unable to think of any witty response.
"That's a nice name," Vause muses, leaning in closer to Piper until they're only a few centimetres apart.
Piper wants to pull back and walk away and quite possibly never visit the damn bar again. She wants to go back at home and bury herself under a blanket of monotony and false pretense and call it a normal life.
She wants to meet another Larry, someone she can watch boring day time TV with and read pretentious vegan blog posts and pretend that's who she is and that's all there is to be.
And she almost does it, she almost pulls away but then she remembers what monotony and the so called security actually feel like. She remembers the countless empty hours wasted on dinners with Larry and Polly where they all talked forever and said nothing in the end.
And so, she doesn't pull back.
She leans in, looks up and sees Alex's beautiful face almost touch her own.
The other's eyes are a beautiful and unique shade, like everything else about her. A sea of turquoise, flecks of lime green contrasting sharply against a navy blue lumbar ring.
The cliché about getting lost in one's eyes comes to Piper's mind except this time, for once clichés sound true. As lost as she is, she actually feels something for the first time in years as a rush of adrenaline seems to quickly and swiftly spread and erase the routine she's built for herself and labeled it normalcy.
"My shift ends in an hour." Alex states and Piper finds herself instinctively nodding as she inhales the other's perfume which is different and exotic, nothing like the sweet, flowery scents she's used to buying herself.
For whatever reason the scent becomes synonymous with freedom to Piper.
xxx
A week after they're dating and although Piper sometimes berates herself about moving too fast and falling heads over heels over someone she's just met, one smile from Alex is all it takes to erase those pesky thoughts.
xxx
Alex literally changes everything about Piper's life, from the dull furniture in their home that she scoffs at, to the way she sees the world. Piper jokes about how her life can be divided into two segments: the before and after Vause but by the end of the day it doesn't feel like she's joking at all.
xxx
Alex does visit Nicky, even if it's only once in a while since the other firmly insists she lives her life and doesn't bother with her.
"So, tell me about that Piper girl you've met," the curly haired woman says with a playful look behind deep brown eyes and Alex can't help the smile tugging at her lips.
"Oooh, that face tells me she must be hot," Nicky points out with a knowing smirk, "She good in bed?"
Alex chuckles, the light sound that escapes her lips contrasting sharply against the dirty grey walls of visitation room and the overall forlorn atmosphere.
"She is," she replies, making Nicky clap in amusement and thus earning them both a stern look from one of the new guards who waves a finger in their direction.
"See, I always knew you had a thing for blondes," Nicky teases with a mischievous smirk that Alex has missed more than she could admit.
"She's amazing, Nicky," the noirette finds herself saying, blunt words escaping her lips before she can process them and stop herself.
The inmate's eyebrows shoot up in surprise and she lets out a small whistle sound that leaves the guard glaring.
"Damn, this girl must be good if she has you head over heels over her," she says, stretching out a hand and cupping Alex's fingers.
"She better appreciate you or she'll have trouble talking to a dangerous inmate from Litchfield," she threatens, making her friend laugh and shake her head at the childish antics that she's come to love over time.
"Yeah, she better," Alex concludes, "Cause I feel like this is more than just a fling."
And Nicky smiles at her, all the warmth of the world seemingly trapped between her chapped lips.
"I'm so happy for you, Vause," she says, voice sincere and uncharacteristically serious, "and kind of jealous as well."
"How are you and Lorna doing?" Alex finds herself asking, the image of the petite Italian American girl with the brightest red lipstick she's ever seen, flashing before her eyes.
"Oh, we're great. Yesterday we had sex in this new shitty greenhouse they've built," Nicky admits as mischief glistens behind her eyes, "You should have seen Red's face when she found us!"
The noirette chuckles at the mental image of Red busting them and giving a lecture against improper behaviour and the obsession with sex.
"Seriously, though I'm kind of jealous you and Piper-girl get to have all the sex you want out in the open," Nicky muses and Alex can see the sadness and the bits of anger, masterfully hidden behind her trademark witty comments.
"You will be out too," she points out, surprised at how much more compassionate she's become, "And Lorna too and then we can have double dates."
"Or you know swinging," Nichols teases, wiggling her thin, blonde eyebrows suggestively and with that all the tension dissipates and for a second Alex even forgets she's visiting the other in jail of all places.
The guard's loud bark about visitation time being over drags them back to reality with a sharp thug and they exchange one last long look.
"You should keep blondie," Nicky advises as she gets up to leave, "She makes you more… I don't know – happy I guess. But it's not just that, she makes you seem more alive and secure, seems to be something like an anchor or some shit for you."
Alex chuckles at the poor use of a metaphor but still nods because the more she thinks about it on her way home, the more she realizes how truthful the words are.
xxx
Days roll by and turn into weeks and Alex finds herself falling into a familiar rhythm. They wake up in the morning, either at her crappy place or Piper's, attempt to make pancakes which usually results into a lot of wasted milk and eggs as neither of them seems to possess the talent of cooking.
Then they spend the day together if they have a night shift or if it's a day one in Piper's case, spend it in leisure chats filled with smirking emoticons, making countless references that not so subtly lead one's imagination to the bedroom.
xxx
"You ever miss your previous life?" Piper asks one evening, after they've watched the latest season of The Flash (because apparently superheroes are thing now and Alex has missed on that while being away).
"What do you mean?" she asks, propping herself on her elbow, "I sure as hell do not miss Litchfield."
Piper bites her lip and Vause muses how it should be an offence too look this cute when the other's wearing summer pajamas, dirty hair thrown into a lazy bun. Still she looks picture perfect and Alex soon finds her imagination travelling to certain places as her turquoise eyes plunge down the other's neckline.
"I don't mean Litchfield," the blonde responds, waving a hand dismissively, "I mean your previous life. You know the one where you were part on an international drug cartel and you slept in a different country every week."
Piper pauses, uncertainty flashing through light blue eyes before finishing, "With a different girl too."
Alex muses over the words as countless flashbacks come to life before her eyes. She remembers all of it as if it was yesterday, she remembers the ancient European cities, contrasting starkly against the miserable faces of the people she recruited, desperate for money and thrill, desperate for an escape of the grey routine they'd cornered themselves in without thinking.
At the same time, it feels as if it was a different life time and a different her, one she knows is still there, still a part of her. And yet she feels disconnected to that reality, almost as if she's read about in between the pages of beaten down books as a way to cope with reality in Litchfield.
"I hope this isn't a test for my parole," Alex jokes with a trained smirk because humor is easy and it doesn't bound you to one place, it's an easier alternative to saying what you really want to say.
"Relax, I'm not a cop," Piper retorts with a light chuckle before adding, "Unless you want me to be."
The noirette chuckles at her somewhat sloppy way of flirting and teasing, at her half ass innuendos that she finds herself slowly falling in love with, much like with everything else about the other.
The room is quiet, the atmosphere soaked in silence that reeks of familiarity. Alex closes her eyes and reels in it, the sense of security and warmth blossoming in her chest every time the other is around.
Because Piper is more than an adventure, she's more than the countless nameless girls across the globe she's been with. There's more to the sex and the moans are coloured with something other than lust, even if Alex is not ready to name it yet.
"I do miss it," she responds in the end, "The thrill, the adrenaline of surviving another day without being the caught."
The blonde doesn't say anything and she takes it as an invitation to continue.
"I miss the travelling, meeting people I've never met before each day and seeing places I've read about in books since I was nine years old."
Piper listens to her words closely, mouth agape. She looks like a child listening to fairytales about monsters and princesses, her imagination painting pictures of places she's never been to before.
xxx
Alex continues and tells her all sorts of stories as the night crawls by and her own husky voice and the occasional laughter and snort or small remark from Piper is the only thing that pierces the peaceful silence that has fallen over the city.
In the end a small frown lingers dangerously over Piper's features and Alex can't help but cup her face and ask, "What's wrong?"
"Are you sure you won't get bored with me?" the blonde inquires and Vause can see insecurity flashing behind the other's grey-blue eyes once again.
"I mean, I can't offer you travelling and car chases," Piper points out, voice diplomatic, "I can't offer much of a thrill when all my life has been nothing but boredom badly hidden as normalcy until I met you."
The corners of Alex's lips curl into a genuine smile at the words and the familiar feeling of warmth washes over her.
"I've had more than enough car chases for a life time," she muses as her slender fingers dance across the other's smooth cheek.
"And the thing about thrill is, it's not just about selling drugs and car chases and sex with strangers," Alex goes on and her hushed words echo across the small apartment.
"You can find thrill in everyday life, in a glass of margarita on a cold autumn day, in the presents someone puts under the crappy, plastic Christmas tree you've bought at Walmart-"
Piper interrupts her speech with a soft chuckle that Alex makes sure to remember it and put in a box somewhere at the back of her mind and replay every time the world seems grey.
"Or sex with someone that you know's going to be there in the morning," Alex continues as their eyes cross for a moment that lingers too long before they lock their lips.
Piper's hands travel down the side of her cheap T-shirt while her own explores the other's torso and then plunge down, tugging at the string of her lacy pajama shorts and prying a small moan from the other.
"You can find thrill in another person, Piper." Alex concludes and she doesn't need to say anything more as she leans in over the other and makes their bodies one.