Title: "In a Handbasket"
Author: monimala
Fandom: One Life to Live
Rating/Classification: adult language, Rex/Adriana, filler fic for 1/4-1/5/06.
Disclaimer: Sexy Rexy belongs to ABC Daytime. (Damn!)
Summary: Karma's a bitch...and so is being in love.
There's that old saying about eavesdroppers never hearing good things about themselves. At least, he thinks that's what the old saying is. Living life through the Roxy filter, it's entirely possible that the saying has something to do with eyedroppers and jabbing yourself repeatedly until you can't see.
Which, in light of recent events, might not be so bad.
Because blindness is a better alternative than...than remembering what Adriana looked like when he totally fucked things up with her. That godawful expression on her face when she saw Nina standing there, behind him, in a bra.
And that's thing. Even with a godawful devastated look on her face...the kind of look that kicks you in the teeth and pulls out your intestines by the handful...she looked beautiful and sweet and so damn untouchable.
But he did touch her.
He touched her all over.
Just like she touched him.
Those shy fingers not so shy anymore as she mapped out his chest and tugged at his jeans and Holy Christ...
His palms are still itching, practically on fire, because he remembers what it was like to put his hands down her pants. But his ears are burning, too. Because he remembers hearing her this morning...hearing her tell Dorian that he's no good.
Living life through the Roxy filter, his first instinct was, obviously, to prove it: "Hey, Nina! Sure, come in! Have a beer! Stick your tongue down my throat!"
And look how that turned out.
He kicked Nina out as politely as possible, tried to go over to the LPD and get Bo to give him something -- anything -- to do...and all he winded up doing was confessing all over the place about the girl "he's in love with."
And isn't that a kick in the head?
In Love.
When did that happen? Somewhere in between helping her find her purse two summers ago and practically coming in his shorts from that impromptu lap dance in his car last night?
He wasn't lying to her when he said he wanted her more than anything.
Not totally anyway. Because it's hard to clarify your feelings to a girl when there's another half-naked girl getting dressed in the next room, but, yeah...he wanted Adriana and he'd thought she finally wanted him, too. And then he'd stopped at the kitchen door of that ridiculous mansion of hers and heard her talking to her mother...and everything went to Hell.
Which, okay, he can't blame on living like Roxy.
It's pure Rex. Vintage.
Lindsey and Jen, if she were here, could testify to this. Seriously. What kind of guy claims to love a girl and then sleeps with her mother?
Jen...
He actually has to stop and lean against the nearest wall and wonder "what the fuck?" Because he really thought Jen was it. Partying with her, reforming for her, trying to save her...all of that was all he was going to know about love. And when she died, it all died, too.
So much for that philosophy.
Because every breath is Adriana now. Every thought. Every hard-on. Yeah, even the one that Nina was planning to take advantage of.
Yeah, he's such a prince. He's a great guy.
Maybe it's only fitting that he fell in love with somebody he started calling "Duchess."
Maybe it's only fitting that loving her is a royal pain in his ass.
There's another old saying...one he knows real well: What goes around comes around.
And when it comes around again...he's still going to be screwed.
--end--
January 5, 2006.