"So everything's set," Hunter said as he gripped the steering wheel rather tightly for a moment before slowly relaxing his grip once more. Stephanie had only ridden in a car with him a few times, but already she knew this was his sign of nervousness. "Right? You go out there, pretend to marry that bozo and then-"
"And then you'll come out and have the guys in the back play the video we're gonna record and- Oh, shit."
He frowned as he pulled up at a red light, glancing over at her. "What? Stephanie?"
"We have to get rings."
"Rings for what?"
"For our fake marriage, idiot." And she was huffing then, as she stared looking out the windows of the car. "Find a jewelry shop."
He tensed again, just for a moment, before slowly relaxing his grip. She'd added a new layer to things and it would take him a moment to get his bearings again.
God, she was learning far more about him than she wanted to.
But then again, if they were really going to be partners in all this, she had to learn as much as possible.
"A jewelry shop?" he finally remarked. "Why? You buying yourself something fancy?"
"Uh, last time I checked you're the man."
"I only buy rings for women I'm actively fucking. You get one consummation and, if you make me happy, maybe more. Nothing less."
"Shut the fuck up."
"Look, here, huh?" He nodded forwards then and, glancing out the windshield on his side, she saw a big sign for a pawnshop sticking out above all the others. "Stop in here, get some rings, then back on the road for Vegas. Get this marriage thing on the road. And then the consu-"
"If you say that word again, it'll be the last one you say."
"I think you're confused, princess, about this whole deal." He frowned over her once more as he turned into the rundown parking lot. "I'm the muscle in this. Not you." Then he thought. "But I'm also the brains. And the sex appeal. You're just the McMahon. That's literally it."
He got a glance from the woman, but she was more concerned it seemed then with their surroundings.
It certainly wasn't the nicest area. Or even an area at all, really. Not one either knew. They were traveling together down to Nevada just to get the video all filmed and stuff preemptively. Originally they were going to travel with his gross DX cohorts, but somehow she ended up alone with the man.
Out of the group of them, he was certainly the one she'd choose. Maybe. Currently, at least. They could all be pretty shitty in general.
And so lowbrow.
They'd pulled off the highway to find a place to eat when Steph made the declaration about the rings. Which led them to the best pawnshop in the state. Or so the half assed sign on the door claimed.
Stephanie was more than a bit leery.
"Afternoon," came the draw from the man behind the counter as they walked in, Hunter without a care in the world, Steph with man, but mostly about all the germs the place no doubt carried. "What can I do you folks for?"
Hunter grinned, almost immediately, just from the sight of the man. From his miss teeth to the cup he was spitting tobacco into, this was the exact kinda guy Triple H loved to harass. Stephanie, however, only grimaced equally from the smell and the sight of the place. Mildew and mild depression were it's main selling points, honestly.
"You can do us for," Hunter mocked, quite openly, taking on a bit of the man's slow speech and country accent, though the man behind the counter didn't seem to pick up on this, "some wedding bands. Me and the old lady here are heading down to Vegas, to tie the knot and all that."
"No kiddin'?" He grinned then, widely, the man did. He had no hangups it seemed about his missing teeth. There's something to confidence, anyways. "That's great."
"Really is." Hunter smiled over at his 'bride' who refused to look at either of them. She seemed rightly pissed he'd made her come in at all. "A bit step in our life, but definitely the right one."
The man had turned then, to grab a box off the cluttered shelf behind him, before dropping it down on the counter top.
"Well, these are all the rings I got. Say, tell ya what; two for one, huh? For the happy couple." Then he frowned some, glancing at Hunter. "'course, sir, I dunno if we got a band big enough for your, uh-"
"Oh, no, not looking for a cock ring. Just for my finger."
"Come again?"
"These are all you have?" Stephanie complained as, ignoring the men (actively blocking out Hunter, actually, as it was) . Making a face, she huffed some before saying, "We'll just take two of the gold bands, I guess." To Hunter, she said, "Pay him. I'll be in the ca-"
"I can interest ya in some other stuff now, ma'am, if you'd just wait a second, huh?" He pointed then, over to a table that was pressed against the far wall. Atop it seemed to be different stacks of clothing. "Maybe somethin' nice for your wedding night?"
Stephanie made a face, first in confusion, then in understanding. And with a loud, bratty sigh of discontentment, she left the little shop.
Hunter didn't. Not yet. He was having far too much fun.
"What," Stephanie complained when he finally came back out to his car, "were you doing-"
"Jack helped me pick out somethin' for ya." And he tossed some sort of lacy garment at her. "Nice guy, he is. Told him we may stop back through on our way-"
"Hunter, what the fuck?" She tossed the garment to the floor, looking stricken. "That is so gross. Do you know who could have possibly touched that? God, you're gross."
"You got time to wash it before the wedding night?"
"I warned you-"
"I didn't say that word, babe. Just refered to it heavily."
"Hunter-"
"And would you shuddup? Huh?" As he settled into his seat, he held something else out to her. "Here. The rings. You hold onto 'em for now, huh?"
"It won't turn my finger green, will it?" she asked with a frown down at the tinier golden band. "Because-"
"You gotta wear it, what? Once a week? For a few hours?" He even shook his head as he started the car. "Honestly, if I wasn't so keen on fucking over your father, I'd let Test's dumb ass have ya."
Still, curious as to it's fit, Stephanie slipped it over her finger slowly before staring down at it, as if in judgment.
It wasn't terrible.
She felt the same way when, about a year later, her plan had not only been fulfilled, but also resulted in a multitude of successes.
"We gotta get you a new one of those," Hunter grumbled one night as he laid in the hotel bed with his wife, watching her toy with the cheap golden band that still adorned her ring finger. "King of a whole damn company and my woman's got some pawnshop shit on her finger."
"I like it," Stephanie remarked which was odd because the woman hardly liked anything. He snorted at her remarked to which she only frowned. "I'm serious, Hunter. It's, like, you know, a symbol or some shit."
"Or some shit?"
Nodding, she sat up in bed then, holding her finger out to him. "It's like our marriage. It was fake to begin with, and still fake, maybe, to some people, but it means so much to the two of us. Doesn't it? Hunter?"
He gave a grim that looked like a bit of a grimace, honestly, coming from him, as he only reached over to grab her by the waist and pull her over to him. "If you think so, princess, then yeah. Saves me money, anyways."
But, at the end of the day, the ring was still as it was that first day she slipped it over her finger to check the fit. A cheap reproduction. A lie. It'd ended up in a desolate place for that reason exactly. It was trash and their sham of a marriage wasn't far from the same.
That's why, when in mid-2003 when they started trying to see one another again and seriously discuss marriage once more, Hunter proposed with the biggest diamond he could find and planned on getting a nice, simple band to match it when the wedding rolled around.
At home one night as his wife sat beside him on the couch, flipping through some sort of document, she kept talking about different ideas for it. Their wedding.
"How are we ever even going to pull it off?" she asked with a bit of a sigh. "I mean, think about it, Hunter. This has been hard enough, really, keeping us getting back together a secret. How will we ever get around people finding out about-"
"We'll figure it out."
"I don't want people to find out. Not he wrong people. You know what they'll all say. They-"
"Fuck what anyone else says."
"Yeah, I know, but-"
"I'd marry ya in a rundown, drive-thru chapel again, if that was the only option." He glanced away from the television and down at her. "'cept my parents would have to be in the backseat this time, with us. I want them to take us seriously this time."
She made a face equally from the thought as from the idea of his parents at all. They'd hardly forgiven her for all she'd put him through. None of his family seemed to like her, honestly. She didn't blame them. She just wished they could get over all that already. Like she and Hunter had.
"But you deserve the world," he went on. "More than that. So whatever you want, however you want this to all go down, I'll make sure it all works out, babe. Whoever you wanna tell, wanna invite; it's all up to you. You run things now."
She didn't, but the idea was nice, anyways.
Leaning against him, she only said, "I just wish the whole company would fuck off, honestly. I kind of hate it."
"I absolutely hate it," he retorted. "Fucking bullshit. Did I tell you about-"
"No more work." Even though she'd been the one to broach the subject, she was now tired of it. "Just us."
His arm had been around her shoulders already and, patting at one shoulder, he agreed. "Just us."
Glancing down at the engagement ring she could only wear, really, around their house, she sighed some before remarking, "Do you remember that gross pawnshop we went to? When we had to get our rings?"
"Gross? That place was amazing."
"I wish I still had it though."
"Had what?"
"My ring," she explained. "From back then. I mean, I wouldn't wear it or anything, but it'd be nice, I guess, to just have. A symbol."
"Symbol of what?" he asked with a frown, something in the back of his mind aching to be remembered, but just not quite making it.
"Like..." She hummed some. "It was a joke, you know? That ring, our marriage. And it got serious because we're serious about one another. But a joke stops being funny eventually. So you have to retire it and not mention it very often anymore. But beneath the joke was something real. Us. The real us. Right? And that's eternal. The ring was, like, the joke. A symbol of what we were. Now we're serious. Now we're going to have real rings and with real sentiment attached. But it's still nice, you know, to hear the joke from time to time."
He made a bit of a face at her statement, a bit shocked she got all that from some stupid rings.
Then, slowly, he shrugged.
"I have it, anyways."
"Have what?"
"Your ring."
"You what?"
Nodding, he said, "When we divorced, I basically just leveraged to get all your shit. Remember?"
It was kind of hard not to.
"And I thought, man, Steph's a chick and chicks like jewelry, so I'm going to take her wedding ring too. It was in the agreement. I mean, I stole it before the agreement, but I made sure it was in the agreement so I didn't have your crazy McMahon ass trying to sue me for the cost of a cheap, pawnshop ring."
"And emotional damages."
"You came to me emotionally damaged."
"Hunter-"
"It's somewhere," he said with a bit of a shrug. "At my place. Boxed up with some of your other shit."
"Hey, I want all my old shit back now, by the way."
Her shoulder got patted again. "We'll just see about all that, Stephie."
They would.
But first, they'd see about that ring.
They went their separate ways again, as they always did throughout the week, as they were on different brands, but the next time they met up in a hotel room, Hunter had something for her.
"You have no idea," he grumbled as he presented her the ring, " all the shit I had to dig through to find this. And on the only day I had a chance to go back to my place. Never doubt it, Steph. I care about ya, huh?"
"You love me," she corrected against his chest, which she was hugging rather tightly at the moment.
He wrapped one arm around her just as tightly and looked down at the stupid, cheap ring in his other before nodding. "More than you know."
She didn't wear it, of course. When give the chance to sport a ring, it was always her engagement ring and, by the new year, her real wedding band, but at home, their home, together, where they both came back to when given the chance, it sat in her bedside drawer, only to be thought of really when she was digging around for something in there. Just like her statement before, it was a joke. An awful, ill-fated joke that they had to be reminded of, every so often, to know where they came from. To be reminded of what could happen, if they ever started feeling that way again.
Both were resound though to never start feeling that way again.
This was a request for what I assumed was Hunter and Steph getting their rings from a pawnshop (I'm really not sure what exactly you were referencing, but I decided on this). If you meant Paul and Steph, I can do something for that too, I guess.
For the person that requested the whole 'kids walking in on them thing', nah, sorry mate, not gonna be able to do that one. But I will post a list of the all the current requests on my profile (just scroll down past the Fairy Tail stuff) when I get a chance, like you asked. Just gotta get them all together.