Disclaimer: The characters and real people in this story do not belong to me. The characters belong to the WWE and the real people own themselves. Also there are a couple lyric lines from the songs "T.S.R." by Against Me! and "The Party's Over" by Willie Nelson.
A/N: I was looking through my stories today and found this one. It takes place after WrestleMania 23 in 2007 for reference. It's just a one-shot that I had. The italics are a couple lines from a couple songs (see disclaimer). It's not necessarily a song-fic or anything, those lines just really inspired the story and thought they should be included as reference points to the tone of the story. Anyways, I hope you enjoy it and please leave a review and be as brutal as you want to be. :)
The party's over…a CD's skipping…
Turn out the lights…the party's over…they say that all…good things must end…
She sat there, watching as the last few straggling pieces of confetti flew down from the rafters, late in joining the party, but still fluttering down as if they had a real purpose. She watched them float down, like feathers almost floating in midair and then seeming to stop altogether in space, like a moment frozen, before fluttering down again and landing with no noise to the ground before the janitorial crew would come over and sweep them up.
They were the last few guests to arrive fashionably late, and she was the guest who just couldn't leave. The last of the ring was coming down, ringposts, ropes, turnbuckles, mat, staging, equipment, all of it disappearing to be brought in and assembled again in another town, another state, ever-changing and yet managing to stay the same despite it all. And she'd repeat this same strange ritual all over again, watching them take it down and then waiting for them to put it back up again.
It was her life, a constant change of background, a sorely non-changing foreground.
The last of the ring crew stalked up the ramp to bring back the equipment they had just hauled away and so she was alone in the giant arena. For a brief moment, she was tempted to yell out to hear her own echo, but she refrained because she wasn't a child, and that was such a child-like thing to do. Still, though, she wanted to, just to hear her own voice shooting back at her, making her real, taking her outside of her body, outside of her life where she played the doting wife to her injured husband, the archetype for the perfect wife. She was so tired of that sometimes.
A shadow fell over her from behind and she needn't look back to feel the presence behind her. She just sat there, staring straight ahead as she felt her cheeks getting a little warmer. She didn't need to see his blue eyes for her to feel them on her, drinking her in, and undressing her slowly. She didn't need to see it to start to blush because of it and almost bring her arm up to cover herself from his lascivious gaze. She bit her lip though, anticipating something…what she didn't quite know, but she knew something was coming.
The soft scrape of a chair was all she got as she felt a small gush of air as the person behind her leaned forward and to the side, coming at her from the left. She closed her eyes as she felt his elbow gently brush against her upper arm and while she'd like to say it sent a shiver down her spine, it didn't. It was more like a warm feeling spreading through her like a virus and she smiled at that, and she could almost feel him smiling in her own mind.
"You waiting for something to happen?" he asked.
His voice was soft, like they were in a library instead of an empty arena. Maybe he was afraid of his own voice echoing. Whatever it was, she opened her eyes and still staring straight ahead, responded, "I might be."
"Anything good?"
"Again," she repeated, "might be."
"I hate when you're vague, McMahon," he told her, ignoring her real last name, the one she had taken when she married her husband. This was wrong, she constantly told herself, but then the little devil that lived on her shoulder would whisper that nothing this wrong could feel so damn good, and she was consoled with herself. "I like it when you're more direct."
"You do?" she inquired, playing coy.
"Yes, I rather like it when you're telling me to fuck you faster, deeper, harder," he told her, his voice lowering again, to a husky whisper this time, his breath fluttering against her skin like the way his eyelashes would flutter against her when he was waking up in the morning, his head buried against her neck.
"Chris…"
"What?" he asked, his voice returning to normal, and he reached out to turn her towards him. He noted the blush on her cheeks, his eyes warm and teasing, and that only made her hotter under his scrutiny, her blush creeping to her ears. "You're so cute, you know that."
"If anyone knew you were here…" she started.
"They'd invite me out for a drink," he told her impishly. "What? You think I'm as hated around here as that bastard husband of yours? Let's be realistic, Stephanie, nobody is hated more than your husband."
"Chris, let's not bring him up."
"Okay, okay," he told her, giving in, knowing that he didn't have much time with her. He never had much time with her, and that was the big problem in their lives. Time was against them. It was okay when you had people against you, things against you, but you couldn't mess with time. Time was always going to catch up to you, and every passing second was one second you never got back. Each word not whispered was one word you never got to say again.
"Thank you."
"You know, I'm surprised that nobody figured out how close I'd be to Detroit. I figured someone would've noticed, invited me to some after-party or something, but nope, nothing. I guess people don't care about me anymore," he said with a mock pout.
She laughed softly, "I wouldn't say that nobody cares about you."
"So you care about me then?"
"It's debatable at best," she countered.
"You want to get out of here or were you waiting for me to carry you out of here?" he joked.
She turned and grabbed his hand. "Chris…"
"Don't even start with we shouldn't, Steph," he warned her. "We've had this discussion a million times, and it never gets better, and it never gets easier. We know that it's wrong, and we know that we shouldn't, and yet we keep--"
"Doing it anyways," she finished for him. "And why is that?"
"Why do we have to be deep tonight?" he returned. "Why do we have to analyze when we've only got this short time together. There's only so much time that I can get to spend with you. Do you know how hard it was to get the band to want to come to freaking Windsor, Ontario, it was no easy feat, let me tell you."
"So why did you then?"
"Because I knew you'd be here, I knew for sure that you'd be here, but that nobody would know that I was here for you," he told her, then sighed to himself. "Stephanie, do you have any idea how far I've traveled for you, how many hours I've spent just trying to get to you?"
"Yes, I know, I've done it too," she told him. "I've checked your schedule, I've tried to influence where the show goes, I've tried a great deal, Chris, so I know how many hours it takes, okay, I know."
"Sorry," he mumbled, "it's just…you know what, never-mind, come on, I know you're skipping the after WrestleMania party for me, so let's go enjoy the night while we can, okay?"
"Yeah," she agreed, not wanting to spend any more of their precious time fighting and sniping at each other. They got so few moments alone together that she had to cherish the ones she did get.
As they were sneaking out of the arena, she thought of their illicit relationship. Ironically, it hadn't even started until he had left the company. She remembered their first night together, that night when he had made his final appearance on Raw. She had walked into his locker room, wanting to tell him that he had done a great job that evening, that he'd be missed. When she entered though, she didn't know she'd feel lips on hers, breath stealing away her own, hands caressing everywhere. She had briefly wondered what would've happened if she had been a guy.
But she had pushed him away, not knowing what was going on, but knowing that she was married, and so was he. What he was doing was wrong, and whether he was looking for a cheap thrill, a parting gift, or some sort of comfort in the face of leaving, it mattered not because she was married, and she shouldn't have this other man kissing her. She had never been unfaithful, and she had never planned to be. But then words had spilled from his mouth, urgent, begging, insistent, and she had let them be the pathway to her body.
I've wanted this for so long…give me this…once…
She had been gone everyday since.
They didn't talk much of their real lives. Sure, they mentioned things here and there, they mentioned their significant others every now and then, but it was just easier to forget for a few hours that they were even married, and just fall completely into each other. That's what people say when they have affairs, you see, that's the easiest way, you forget. Honesty has nothing on amnesia, and if she could trade in amnesia for a few hours pleasure, she would do it every time. Even though she knew that this was so wrong.
She loved Paul…or she thought she did. She knew that she cared about him, and should he ever find out about her liaisons with Chris, then she would be rather upset. She didn't want his heart broken, and she was sure that Chris didn't want his wife's heart broken. It was funny, how they put so much time and effort into stealing away a few moments, and yet they were so careless when it really came to their spouse's feelings. She was a hypocrite, not wanting Paul to be hurt while she was hurting him every time she let Chris into her body.
"This is wrong," she whispered again as she let his lips roam her chest, dipping in the valley between her breasts, hot lips against hot skin. "This is so wrong."
"No," he mumbled against her skin, teasing her breast and bringing up his calloused hand to toy with her a little more. "No…"
"Yes," she told him painfully. Why she was more aware this night than any other she didn't know. Maybe it was the fact that he had been in the arena; that he had sat behind her as she watched them dismantle the ring. Maybe it was that symbolism. The party was over, they should be over, how long could they keep doing this before everyone got in too deep. How long…
"What?" he asked, resting his head against her chest, hearing her heartbeat at a rapid pace, her head pounding with the headiness of the entire encounter, "What's wrong?"
"This," she answered simply. "What are we doing, Chris? What the hell are we doing? We've been having sex…fucking," she corrected herself and because his face was near her chest, she didn't notice him frown, "we've been having an affair and it's wrong, we know this and yet…here we are, again…we're like a bad episode of Maury."
"Oh man," he told her. "Steph…I like doing this with you, what more do you want from me?"
"I think…I think I want this to end," she said slowly.
The party's over…a CD's skipping…
Turn out the lights…the party's over…they say that all…good things must end…
She felt a little gasp against her bare breast and somehow that aroused her even more. He lifted his head and he looked at her, but he wasn't really looking at her it seemed. It seemed he was looking through her. "I came all this way…I came all this way and you tell me that you think you want this to end."
"I never wanted it in the first place!" she protested, sitting up. "Remember that it was you, Chris! It was you that had come on to me, who had kissed me, who had me pinned against that door and wanted me, telling me that you had waited for so long! Waited so long until after I was married, after you were married!"
"Because I couldn't take it!" he shouted at her. "I couldn't take looking at you anymore. You're…" He wanted to say something, but didn't finish what he was going to say. "You want this to end?"
"I…" She thought about it for a moment, a long moment where the air was still sticky sweet with lust and sweat between them. If she breathed in, she would breathe in that lust and he would be all over her again, "Yes…over."
He looked away and she thought she saw a tear or something wet forming in his eyes, but it was gone the next moment, blinked back. "Fine…do I get one more night with you?"
She nodded before she could think. She had breathed in that sticky sweetness, and it was transforming her one last time. He nodded in acceptance, and she wondered if he had always known she would be the one to break things off. He seemed oddly…accepting of it. He must've steeled himself for it a number of times. A year and a half is a long time, he must've figured…because Chris always figured.
The rest of the night was a blur of lips and teeth and hands and skin and touching and everything sinfully sweet that came with sex. It was passionate highs and so few lows of thinking that tomorrow would bring a separation. But they both should've been prepared. Isn't that the way an affair works? You're always prepared for the end because it's inevitable. It has to be because that's what an affair is, it's an impossibility, like counting to infinity, these things just aren't feasible, they don't work in the real world, and they weren't special, they were just two people caught up in something that had to end at some point.
Had to end in two hours…
One hour…
Three minutes…
The time it took him to gather his clothes…
The time it took for her to follow him to the door…
The time it took for him to look at her wordlessly, brushing her hair out of his face with such reverence that she felt like she was a saint, like she should be blessed at any moment with a divine light…
The time it took for her to wipe a smudge of lipstick off his neck…
"This is it," he said, cliché to the very end.
"It is," she said. "We just…we're hurting people…we're hurting us."
"This is hurting me," he told her with a sad laugh. "Stephanie…I never told you…"
"Then don't…if you've never told me, then don't," she told him, having a strong feeling of what he was going to say. "Saying words at the last moment is so Dead Man Walking, Chris, and the words you say now…they don't mean anything. Not in the long run, I can't cling to them, I can't see them, I can't hold onto them. Clean breaks are always nicer. They always leave less sticky threads behind."
"Yeah, I guess you're right," he said. "But know that I thought it a lot."
"I thought it a lot too," she said. "But words were never our strong point, were they?"
"No, I never did know how to say anything around you, not anything important."
"Me neither," she told him. "It's okay though, we said enough."
"Yeah…okay, well, goodbye," he said, and his words held far more feeling than a normal goodbye would. It was all-encompassing, it was more than words, and yes, they had never been one for words, but the words they did say, they made them count.
"Goodbye," she said with the same tone, returning everything he said with something of her own. They were making them count after all, making them count because these could very well be the last words they ever uttered and meant.
He was practically out the door when he turned to her, and he licked his lips a little, "Steph?"
"Yeah?"
"I'm coming back in November."
It's the same hook repeating…
The party's over…and tomorrow starts…the same old thing again.