Title: "Sabotage"

Author: Allison Lindsay

Rating: M ('cause I'm cautious like that)

Pairing: Palex - or, as I've dubbed them, Plexi - femslash

Disclaimer: I would own Degrassi if I could, but I can't, so I don't.

This fic is set in season five, post-"The Lexicon of Love," pre-"High Fidelity."

Chapter One

Alex Nuñez emerges from her bedroom in a state of sheer frenzy, a slew of curses emanating from her lips. She has exactly fourteen minutes and eleven seconds before the Queen of Degrassi arrives. And Paige Michalchuk is not one to be kept waiting.

Dreading a lengthy lecture on punctuality, the raven-haired beauty scurries into the living room, en route to the bathroom. The pungent odor of alcohol permeates the air molecules, eliciting a cringe of disgust from Alex. No sooner has the girl gone five paces than her bare feet collide with a depleted can of beer. "Fuck!" Alex hisses, latching on to the arm of the couch to prevent a tumble to the faded, un-vacuumed carpet.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk. Am I gonna have to wash out that potty mouth of yours with a bar of soap?"

Steadying herself, Alex turns to see Jay Hogart standing beside the refrigerator, his signature smarmy smirk firmly in place.

The boy is beginning to exhibit the characteristics of the standard comic book villain – lurking around every corner, materializing at the most inopportune moments.

"Who invited you?" Alex would like to know.

Jay gestures to the floor in front of the sofa, where a shirtless Chad lies prone in a drunken stupor. "He did."

Alex has not yet decided which of the men – and she employs the term loosely – is the more repulsive of the two. At the moment, Jay is the reigning champion.

Making no effort to conceal her indignation, Alex folds her arms across her chest and shifts her weight to her right hip. Her eyes propel daggers at the cocky, conniving teenager before her. "Well, isn't that nice. There's a carcass on my carpet and a ginormous cockroach in my kitchen. You wouldn't happen to have the number for pest control, would you, Jay?"

The boy's stoic eyes skim over Alex's pajama-clad frame. "Cranky, cranky, cranky. You really know how to get my motor running, Lex," Jay remarks, punctuating the jibe with a lascivious leer.

Alex is tempted to reach for the nearest blunt object and hurl it in Jay's direction. If she is fortunate and her aim is accurate, there will soon be two unconscious bodies sprawled on the floor.

"Tell me, Jay, is Chad the only no-life sleaze on this planet who can tolerate your upchuck-inducing presence? Don't you have friends your own age?"

"I did . . . but they dumped me. Like you."

Jay approaches his ex-girlfriend, extending a hand towards her arm. Alex recoils in disgust, jerking the appendage out of his reach. "Touch me and you leave here with five less fingers than you started with."

A faint sigh of resignation escapes his lips, and the unwanted guest takes two steps backwards. "I just miss you, Lex." Jay's sentimental professions are sporadic, to say the least, and although Alex detects sincerity in his voice, she remains unmoved. She opens her mouth to remind Jay of his bouts of infidelity and failure to appreciate her, but then reconsiders. Alex has no time to bicker with him now; Paige's arrival is fast-approaching.

"Exit's that way. You can get out the same way you got in." The reminder is accompanied by a freshly-lacquered fingernail pointing towards the front door.

Risking the amputation of half of his digits, Jay reaches for Alex's other hand. "Your girlfriend giving you pedicures now? How very precious."

"Manicures," Alex corrects him, extracting her hand from Jay's grasp and rephrasing her instructions. "Visiting hours are over. You need to leave, Jay. Now."

"Okay, okay, I'm going, relax," he capitulates, shuffling towards the peeling, off-white paint of the exit-cum-entrance.

Paige is fifteen feet from the apartment when its sole sober resident turns the doorknob and ushers Jay out into the hallway. The blonde struts towards her destination, the threadbare carpeting muffling the clacking sound of her chunky heels. As she approaches the domicile, Paige is all smiles and giddiness. That is, until she hears Alex's voice.

"Oh, by the way, Casanova, your fly is open. Don't be too careful zipping it up."

Paige peeks around the corner. Jay? What the hell is Jay doing here? A rather unpleasant scenario begins to manifest itself in her mind. "Eww, eww, eww," she mutters, clenching her eyes shut and shaking her head vigorously in an attempt to dislodge the disgrossting images destined to plague her in slumber.

When she raises her lids a moment later, the figure of the ginormous cockroach assaults her retinas. Jay has been studying Paige, the personification of perfection in the eyes of his former girlfriend. As he observed the oblivious young woman, his contempt for the perky, popular blonde began to escalate. Paige has supplanted Jay as the object of Alex's affection, while he has been demoted to the object of her rejection.

"Well, hello there, Miss Michalchuk," Jay addresses the visitor in a patronizing tone. "Come to call on Lexi, have you?"

The menace's proximity is much too close for Paige's comfort. "What were you doing with Alex?"

"What is this, the Russian Inquisition?" Jay quips, unfazed by the gelid glare in her azure irises.

"I'm Ukrainian, dorkus."

"Hey, now. Is that any way to treat the guy who just performed a modern miracle?"

The blonde's nose crinkles in confusion. "What are you talking about? Ugh. You know what? I don't even care. Just go away before you contaminate me with your ickiness."

But Jay does not take direction well. "You'll be happy – or unhappy, really – to know that Lexi has been cured." As he is talking, he removes a package of cigarettes from his jacket pocket, plucking one from the box and lighting it.

"Cured." His companion repeats the word as though it is foreign to her.

The nuisance exhales a cloud of blue-gray smoke. Paige coughs, pinching the bridge of her nose to prevent another carcinogenic invasion of her respiratory system.

"Mmm-hmm," Jay responds. "Of her lesbianism. As it turns out, she was just doing some experimenting. Dabbling in dykedom, if you will. It was just a temporary condition. You know, I never knew my, uh . . . phallus possessed healing powers. It was quite an epiphany."

Paige stares vacantly at the self-professed miracle worker with the magic member. She feels as though she has literally been struck dumb. "Okay, I just lost brain cells listening to you spew that garbage."

"What, you don't think I'm smoking for the good of my health, do you? It's what people do after sex . . . of the mind-blowing, earth-moving variety, anyway."

"You're lying." The assertion is uttered with the utmost of confidence. "Alex would never go back to you after being with moi. She only associates with human beings now, hun. You know, those two-legged life forms with brains and opposable thumbs. Now, if you'll excuse me, my lady awaits."

Placing her palm against Jay's chest, she shoves the teenager aside. Alex would be proud, she thinks, the smile slowly returning to her shimmery-pink lips. And with that, Paige makes a much-anticipated escape from Degrassi's resident mischievous-maker.