A/N: I'm back. I do apologize that it has taken so long. Life doesn't always go the way we would like for it to. This is probably not my best work, but I did finally finish writing this chapter a few days ago and figured I may as well post it. Also, MsViolet85 has been griping at me again, so thank her. I have hardly slept so I apologize once again if the editing is sub-par. So.. Ya know. Read this thing I wrote. If ya wanna.
Winter Roses
The air was thick with their heavy breathing as Piper pulled Alex's hips towards the edge of the sofa cushion. The brunette looked down at her through hooded, emerald eyes, the desire nearly causing them to glow in the dim lighting. Piper grinned seductively before unclasping the black, lacey bra and tossing it to the side, revealing her lover's full, heavy breasts.
Alex's long, thin fingers tangled in Piper's flaxen locks as the younger woman caressed and stroked her nipples. A gasp echoed throughout the room when Piper sucked and tugged on the small, steel piercings found there. This seemed to go on forever until Piper knew Alex needed more from her.
The blonde leaned back and looked into Alex's beautiful eyes, holding them hostage as her fingers hooked into the lacy black boyshorts. Piper let her eyes drop to Alex's bare chest, then allowed them to wander down past her smooth, tight belly to her milky, toned thighs. The blonde felt her mouth water as she pulled the panties down and off of Alex's perfectly arched feet, taking note of the perfect black polish found on her toes.
Feeling Alex staring at her, the blue eyed woman looked up. The look on her lover's face was pure sex. Alex's full lips were parted, red lipstick and winged eyeliner still perfect. Her brows were slightly raised, her pupils blown out and irises a much darker shade of green than Piper had ever seen before.
Chuckling at how ready Alex was for her, Piper began kissing the inside of Alex's thigh. She made her way tenderly to the apex of Alex's thighs before inhaling. Her lover was very ready for her, but Piper made her wait a bit longer by repeating her actions on the other leg. Once she reached the brunette's core the 2nd time, Piper lifted Alex's legs and hooked her knees over her shoulders.
"Please.." Alex whispered, her hands tangling once again in blonde tresses.
Piper had no desire to resist Alex's plea.
With a flat tongue, Piper licked the length of her, collecting quite a bit of her lover's arousal. Alex sighed, the sound echoing throughout the room as it had before. Hips dipped and spine arched, the brunette released a plethora of pleasured sounds. Then, it was time for the sensual dance.
"Ahh.." Alex cried, her hips rolling slowly against Piper's talented tongue.
Piper's heartbeat was loud in her ears, but not enough to block out the sounds of Alex's sensual breathing and occasional moans. She massaged Alex's hips for a moment before moving one hand beneath Alex's leg. Sensing no resistance from the woman she was pleasing, Piper slowly pushed two fingers deep inside of her lover. The muscles constricted around her, trapping her inside the warm, silky, wet walls. Alex cried out in pleasure, fingers tightening in Piper's hair.
"Oh.. fuuuck." Alex gasped as the blonde curled her fingers towards her g-spot, sending an electric shock of tingling pleasure jolting through her core.
"Hard and fast or soft and slow?" Piper questioned in a soft voice, lifting her head to look at Alex's face.
Alex bit her bottom lip, groaning at the loss of movement or friction. "Surprise me."
Piper smiled. That hadn't been a choice, but she wouldn't deny her lover what she wanted. She began pumping her fingers slowly, putting a bit more force behind each thrust forward. Then, she felt her face being pushed downward. The blonde licked her lips before taking Alex's hardened clit into her mouth and sucking on it in time with her thrusts.
"Oh, shit.. Fuck. Fuck." The porcelain skinned woman cried softly, her legs beginning to shake and twitch.
Piper's heart-rate continued to rise; she could both hear it and feel it now. It was making her wish this would never end. She sucked harder on Alex's clit and curled her fingers with a bit of force against her g-spot, massaging it until she felt Alex's knees begin to wobble uncontrollably. The brunette moaned, hoarsely, her breathing shallow and rapid.
"Mmmh.." Alex pressed down on Piper's head, grinding and rocking her hips sporadically. She was about to cum. Piper could tell by the way her walls were fluttering and clenching hard around her fingers, the way her breathing sped up, the jagged movements of her hips.
"Unghh.. Fuck, Piper." Alex gasped out just before she arched, her body stiff all except for trembling legs.
"Piper.."
"Piper!"
"Wake up."
Piper bolted up, startled and a wee bit flustered.
"I swear to you, Pipe, I'm gonna have to buy ear plugs if I'm gonna be staying over here with you." Polly grumbled before exiting Piper's bedroom and closing the door with a soft click.
The blonde wiped the sweat off her brow and looked around.
She wasn't in her living room and Alex was nowhere to be found. Piper felt her chest crack open just a little bit more and gasped at the raw, sharp pain it caused. The blonde clenched her jaw and closed her eyes, trying to breathe through it. Once she was able to inhale without feeling like there was a knife lodged in her heart, Piper stood up and wiped at her eyes.
Exiting her room, Piper found Polly sitting on her couch with a cup of coffee in her hand. There was another mug on the coffee table and Piper was thankful. Her best friend had been staying with her for the last week, right after the dreams started. Not all of them were sex dreams. In fact, most of the time they were nightmares that included watching herself strangle Alex, the defibrillator not working, or breaking up with the brunette. There had only been one other sex dream, and she'd been woken up right at the start of it.
"Sounded like a good one, this time." Polly said, taking a sip of her hot morning beverage. She both sounded and looked exhausted.
Piper sighed. "I'm sorry."
"I'm not mad at you for having a wet dream, Piper. It's just not my favorite thing to wake up to. It was a wet dream, right? Usually your nightmares are much less.. breathy? Usually there's crying." Polly stated, eyeing her best friend.
"Yeah. I was.. We were christening the couch." Piper said, her voice sounding far away, matching the look in her eyes.
Polly rubbed Piper's knee. "We're gonna find her.. We'll check her mom's house again, the homeless shelters.."
"The women's shelters. I don't think she'd go anywhere that she could be cornered by a man." Piper took a drink, "What if she's back on drugs, Polly? This whole thing would've been an excellent excuse to relapse if she really was addicted to pills and stuff."
Polly sighed at the thought. "That is possible.. If we find her and she's high out of her skull, we'll just have to get her sober."
"Polly, what if she's dead?" Piper asked. She'd been thinking about the possibility for the last week, probably causing her nightmares. It certainly didn't help that Piper already knew what 'dead Alex' looked like in real life.
The brown eyed woman looked at her best friend. She didn't really know how to respond, so just started with the first thing that came to mind. "She was apparently functioning well enough when she left the hospital. They said she'd probably make a full recovery if she got plenty of rest."
"But what if-"
"Piper, the whole lot of her former gang-style family is in prison. They took them all down." Polly reassured.
"But she doesn't take care of herself.. I should've been taking care of her then, and I should be taking care of her now."
Polly nodded, "All of that is true, Piper.. But you cant change anything about the past. All you can do is try to secure the future. We're gonna find her. I don't care how long it takes, one way or another between the two of us, we'll track her down. Even if she's somehow escaped to Antarctica."
"Australia is a safer bet. Alex hates the cold.." Piper mumbled, her tone very forlorn. The blonde took a deep drink from her black coffee mug, remembering all the times Alex had used it. Blue eyes closed as Piper tried her hardest to imagine that she could still taste a trace of Alex's lips.
xXxXx
The smell never seemed to fade away, to Alex. She had hoped that after being there for a few days that she would be desensitized to the overly-clean, bleached smell of the mental hospital. It turned out that it would take longer. Or so it seemed. Other things were easier to get used to. Like the stupid buzzing of the lights that could be heard all through the building at all hours. If you got distracted, you couldn't hear it anymore. But breathing wasn't optional. She tried to remind herself of that often, especially now that she'd had a taste of what it was like to not be able to.
Alex shuddered and rubbed anxiously at her throat, trying to rid herself of the feeling of hands crushing her windpipe. She began pacing, her eyes wide as breathing became more difficult. The brunette closed her eyes and tilted her head towards the ceiling to try and open up her airway. She inhaled as deeply as she could though her nose and released it slowly through her mouth. It wasn't enough. Alex ran her nails down her throat to try and dislodge the invisible hands that were wrapped around it, but it wasn't helping. All she managed to do was hurt her bruises. She was truly trying not to have a second panic attack in less than 6 hours, but they seemed to occur anytime she even thought about not being able to breathe.
"Hey," Her new roommate called, "Hey, you're having an episode. Just remember, man. Ya gotta breeeathe through it. Come on. One, two, threeee.."
"Fuck off, Lolly." Alex grumbled, her chest starting to hurt.
"I'm just tryin' to help you." Lolly shrugged, leaning back against the wall while sitting cross-legged on her bed. "Since you suffocatin', an' all."
"Fuck off!" Alex growled, glaring hatefully at the tiny blonde woman. She knew that her roomie was honestly trying to help her out, but it never actually did any good. Especially when Lolly had to go and say words like 'suffocating'.
"Okaaay. Jeez." Lolly side-eyed Alex through her taped up glasses like she was insane. "I'm gonna go find someone better suited to deal with.." She gestured to Alex's form, "All this."
Alex tore her own glasses off her face and paced around before shoving them back on and pushing them into her hair. She ran her hands angrily over her face and tried once again to make the phantom-hands let go of her. She knew she must look as crazy as she felt. No wonder Lolly always looked at her funny.
"Just let go.." Alex whispered before shaking her head in frustration and gasping for breath. "Please."
"Vause? Everything alright?" Said a voice that Alex hadn't been expecting.
Alex startled and whirled around, eyes wide and afraid. "Jesus fuck."
"She's havin' another one of those panic things. Like she had this morning and woke me up." Lolly stated, trying to help the nurse figure it out so she would do something about it.
"Go to the TV room, Lolly. I'll help Alex." The nurse stated, walking slowly towards Alex so she wouldn't make it worse.
"Take a deep breath through your nose, Alex. There aren't any hands around your throat. Nobody's sitting on your chest." Nurse Berdie stated, watching as the much taller woman began to calm down a little. "Nobody's hurting you at all, Alex. You came here for help, we wont let anybody hurt you here."
xXxXx
Calculating brown eyes stared at Piper like they could see straight through her and right into her very soul. The woman across from her twitched her lower jaw from side to side a few times before a hand came up and forced its way through a wild, curly mane of strawberry blond frizz.
"A'right, so lemme get this straight. You dump my best friend when she needs you the most, she gets attacked in her own apartment and strangled -to death, mind you- the paramedics bring her back, thank fuck, and then you let her.. leave. You let her leave and now you can't fucking find her." Nicky glares at the blonde. "Tell me, how the fuck does that even happen?"
Piper gulped, "I was asleep.."
There was a vein in Nicky's neck that looked close to bursting. "What the fuck kind of excuse is that!?"
"NICHOLS!" The officer at the desk in the back of the crowded visitation room yelled.
Nicky closed her eyes and took a deep breath, visibly trying to calm down.
"I checked her mom's house. I've checked with Red. I went to all of the women's shelters.. She hasn't been back to her apartment that I know of. I swear to you, Nicky, I am trying to find her. But I just don't know where else to look. I could barely get her to open up to me about anything. The only places I could think of her going to are obviously not where she's at." Piper rubbed furiously at her eyes. She really didn't want to cry anymore.
"You seem awful worried about someone you dumped."
Piper felt like she'd been slapped. "I'm in love with her. I don't think when I panic and when she told me the situation she was in, I did a stupid stupid stupid thing I will never forgive myself for. I was going to ask her to take me back. To forgive me."
"Why didn't you?"
"She disappeared before I could."
Nicky nodded and heaved a heavy sigh. "Ya fucked up, Blondie."
"Do you know of anywhere else she could possibly be?" Piper asked, sounding every bit as forlorn as she looked.
A few moments of silence passed as Nicky wracked her brain for any place her best friend might have run away to. Finally, the smaller woman shrugged and offered the only possibilities she could come up with. "Either she's hit the road and wants to be alone for the next year like she did last time, or she's finally checked in to a mental-help hospital thing."
Piper looked at Nicky curiously.
"Look, you're her girlfriend. Or.. were. Whatever. Anyway, I'm sure you've gathered by now that Alex has got some pretty significant emotional issues. Someone told her bipolar; I don't think that's accurate, and told her as much over and over. She used to 'joke' about needin' to go to a professional hospital to get her shit straightened out. Say it once, it's a joke. Keep mentioning it, it's something ya think about often. I'd check around those places. I dunno if they'll tell you whether she's even there, but it's worth a shot." Nicky shrugged, looking disheartened.
"Thank you. Please, call me, write me, whatever you want so I can keep you updated." Piper said, holding eye contact.
"Oh, I will. Trust me."
xXxXx
A/N: So, that was short. I know you guys probably wanted more, if you're still even interested in this. Sorry, again. Anyway, I won't say when the next time I'll post will be because apparently, I'm not good at updating. Maybe review and lemme know what you thought. -SK