Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or real people portrayed in this story. The characters are owned by the WWE, while the real people own themselves. There will be swearing so if you have sensitive eyes, then you're better off turning around right now, you've been warned!

A/N: So, as you all probably know by now, I accept challenge fics (and if you don't, well, now you do!). This was a challenge from the author, SmoochyDreams (if you haven't read her stuff, you should!), where the prompt was selfish, and where one character (or both I suppose) is selfish about something, which drives the other away. She, in turn, is spinning her own take on the story, which is called On the Path Unwinding.

So I know I shouldn't accept more stories, but with Meet and Greet being so quickly updated, I thought, what the hell, plus, I don't back down from challenges. So, in order to understand the story, all you need to know is that neither Chris nor Stephanie have ever been married, therefore, there aren't kids. Now off you go.

If you want to review, please do so, and as per usual, if you want to be brutal, go right ahead! :)

A band.

She'd lost him to…a band.

Since the moment she started dating Chris, she'd always pictured their demise one of two ways. They would either crash and burn like some giant supernova in the sky, millions upon billions upon trillions of light rays generating enough heat to burn the entire universe to a crisp. Or they would be happy, die old, in their rocking chairs, their hands clasped together as they watch their last sunset. Stephanie liked to take things to the extremes.

When she pictured the first scenario, it was always so dramatic. There would be bloodshed, there would be war, there would be an eternal struggle back and forth, a tug-of-war for supremacy. That was just the kind of relationship she and Chris had, fiery, passionate, no room for anything but themselves, their words, their actions. They were two independent people who collided together, over and over and over again.

When it finally did happen, the crash and burn, it wasn't actually a crash and burn, it was more like a fizzle and a pop, like someone had shaken a soda can too hard, opened it, and sprayed soda everywhere. That's how dramatic it was. There were a million different ways it could have ended. She could have cheated, he could have cheated, they could have fought, they could have raged, but in the end, fizzle…

Then pop.

A band.

The other woman had been…a band.

She didn't hate Fozzy, in fact, she loved them. She recalled, quite clearly because she had a wonderful memory thank you very much, the first moment when she'd actually taken notice of his band. Oh, she'd known about it, heard about it from Chris himself before then, but she'd mistaken it for a silly hobby because honestly, wasn't that kind of what cover bands were, hobbies for guys who couldn't be in real bands?

She wasn't dating Chris at the time, but they'd had a scene together, one of many, their fans were so spoiled when it came to the two of them. Hell, they were even more spoiled once they started dating. She thought to them briefly, how would they take the news? How unselfish of her, thinking of the fans and how they might take the breakup. Or maybe she was deflecting, yes, definitely deflecting. Focusing on someone else's hurt let her ignore her own, which, at this moment was a godsend.

She had to go up to him and ask him if he was happy on SmackDown, oh the irony of it now, sitting there as she was, alone, in their house, where they lived, his things permeating her senses. His goddamn ugly-ass, ratty, old shoes with the hole on the side were sitting by the sliding door to the backyard. He called them his lucky shoes because they'd been the shoes he was wearing when he first entered the Dungeon (which wasn't so much an actual dungeon). Yes, he kept 22 year old shoes because he was that kind of guy. His free weights were next to the fire place because he liked to lift them after he did his yoga regiment. His stupid face was all over her pictures, and she resisted the urge to cut his face out of every single one of them and make a little horrible Chris Irvine collage, drawing mustaches and devil horns on all of them, then sending it to him. He'd probably think it was so rock and roll so she immediately dismissed the idea.

So yes, she'd asked if he was happy, and he'd lied to her then, in that scene, so long ago, but he gave her his CD. He really did, it was his CD, sitting there, pristine as could be, waiting for her to listen. He'd told her after the cameras stopped rolling that she really could keep it, if she wanted it. She remembered turning it over in her hands, reading the back, looking over the songs, then smiling up at him and nodding, telling him she'd love to listen to what he came up with.

So she'd listened and she'd liked them, she'd become a Fozzy Floozy if you will. When she'd told Chris this, he'd looked at her sheepishly, embarrassed by her praise. He was such a weird guy, a contradiction so much of the time. Every once in a while, with a person he trusted, the façade, his strong, macho, I can do anything façade would crumble and reveal this humble, quiet, thoughtful man. Then every once in a while, that façade would get thicker and reveal an annoying lunatic.

One she'd lost.

To a band…

They'd started dating at the beginning of 2003. 9 years, completely down the drain. She couldn't understand him, had she ever? She was only thankful they'd never gotten married. Oh yes, that was the twist in all of this, they'd never gotten married, 9 years of blissful dating, so when the end came, it was neat and crisp, like a pair of scissors tearing right through their life, snip, snip, snip, it was over. Sure, he had to get his things, sure, he had to take his stupid ass muscle car out of their car, sure, he had to give back the keys to the house (like hell she was moving, he was the one who'd left), but there were no divorce proceedings, no custody battles, nothing, just two people, walking away.

Their proverbial soda can had been shaking for a long time though. It was distance mostly, distance when he wasn't with the company. She traveled, he traveled, they both traveled and it came down to a choice, for both of them really. Chris's band had recently hit the big time, well, bigger than the times before it. They'd signed with a major label, their new album would have lots of publicity surrounding it, they were going on a major tour, and that's where the problems started.

Stephanie was proud of the band, proud of their accomplishments, she was not however, proud of the fact they were going to travel the world…again. Stephanie traveled too and the distance, the time spent apart, they should have known it would come down to this, come down to a decision they'd have to make. She didn't hate him, quite the contrary, she loved Chris, she'd loved him for 9 years, 9 years of her life spent loving him.

So what if she couldn't stand his stupid face right now?

It all came down to her and his band. She couldn't travel with him, couldn't leave her job because her job was something that required her presence, required her expertise. She needed to be at the shows. She was taking over for her father when he eventually retired (she expected it to be when he turned 120, she was quite sure her father had some pact with the devil), and she needed to be there, to take the reins, to learn from the best, not to mention, she wrote for the show so in order to write for the characters, she had to immerse herself in them.

Chris, however, could certainly travel with her. He could give up the band, travel with her, be a wrestler. Okay, so she'd never expected him to give up the band, but he could scale it back, only do the shows when they were convenient for the both of them, together, like she thought they would be when this crazy journey had started. When she pictured the ending, if there was to be one, it ended with that bang, that supernova of light that would blind the world, leave it a gaping crater and nothing more.

Not a fizzle.

Not a pop.

"Stephanie," he sighed with every syllable, his voice drooping lower and lower as he stared at the floor in front of her. "You're not making this easy for me."

"Life isn't easy," she'd countered. "You know where I stand, you know how I am, you know how I have to be, Chris. Look, I'm not asking you to give up the band, I'd never ask you to do that, you know that, but—"

"But what, Stephanie," his voice raised this time, even slower than it had drooped. He was getting angry and if he got angry, she was going to get angry, and then they'd both be angry, and the conversation would get nowhere fast. "I'm supposed to just sit back, make everything convenient for you?"

"It would work out for the both of us."

"Why can't you ever make allowances for me?"

"Because I have to do paperwork and take meetings—"

"I do too!"

"But you always schedule them whenever you want, whenever it's convenient for you, why can't Fozzy be that?"

"Because I don't want it to be that! I want it to be a success, and I can't do that when it's a side project!"

"Well, I'm sorry then," Stephanie told him, "I'm sorry that you can't see where I'm coming from because you are so blinded by your band! Maybe you love your band more than you love me, maybe that's it."

"Oh yes, real mature, Stephanie, maybe I'll go fuck a drum set," Chris told her.

"I was thinking a trumpet would be more appropriate!" she yelled back at him. They laughed because that's who they were. They laughed and then they calmed down and they looked at each other. "Things are going in separate directions, aren't they?"

"It would appear so."

Fizzle.

"I don't want to keep you from your dreams," she told him valiantly, gazing up at him with those smoky blue-gray eyes he'd become so accustomed to over the years. There were so many expressions hidden behind those stormy orbs, so many she hid from everyone except him. She knew he loved her, knew he probably always would, but they were independent, too much so, the both of them, and this was how their downfall would erupt. "It's me or the band though, Chris, it's me or the band."

He was selfish because he chose the band. She was selfish because she chose her work. Independence reigned and neither one of them was willing to give an inch. Oh, they both talked about loving each other and always being friends, that they'd been together too long not to be friends. They said the right things, but at the basis of the argument was their inherent selfishness, neither one truly seeing the other side. She'd lost him to a band, he'd lost her to her work, they were selfish people with only their goals in mind. It made her question whether they'd ever really worked or if they were always destined to put their own dreams in front of the others. Maybe that was why they never saw fit to get married.

Pop.

She thought, though, oh how she thought, that he'd come back, come crawling back to her, begging her, telling her he was wrong, he needed her. So when the first week passed by and she didn't hear a word from him save for a short message saying he was picking stuff up soon (while having the audacity to call her from some sort of club or bar), she knew that he was for real, that he'd actually chosen his band over her, this time, it was for real, everything they'd worked at for 9 years was really nothing more than a past relationship with a past boyfriend, and suddenly, she was thrust right back into the dating scene.

Maybe it was selfish of her to expect him to give up everything to come crawling back to her, but hadn't they already established the way their minds worked. In the end, she sat there, waiting for him to show up (sometime, he'd said, no definite date, but she waited there all day, everyday, just to see him like the idiot she was), but he hadn't yet, probably planning to show up when he knew she was working, so she could come home to a half-empty house that hadn't been there before. She stood up and grabbed his ratty shoes and threw them across the room. She could hate him, that was easy, she could hate him until the end of time.

It certainly made it easier than loving him even when her heart was broken.

A band had torn them apart.

A band.

She'd lost him to a fucking band.