"I got, like, the biggest sweet tooth while you were gone."

"Really?"

Nodding, Steph said, "All I did was eat candy. Constantly. Can't you tell?"

"How would I be able to tell?"

"I've had to have, like, gained ten pounds since you've been gone."

"Not even."

At the moment, the two were lying in bed, the first place they'd gone after she picked him up from the airport. He'd been gone for, oh, five days, doing overseas shows, and they'd more than missed one another.

Hell, even a day apart would find them right where they were at the moment. Five apart was just torture.

"I have too." Steph was snuggled up under the covers, having only slipped on his shirt after...after. Paul, however, wasn't bashful in any situation (at least when she was involved) and laid atop the covers in the nude, just watching her. "Swear."

"As the comprehensive expert on any and all things dealing with your body-"

"What does that even mean?"

"-you most certainly have not." Paul grinned over at her. "Trust me, if anyone's an expert on your body, it's me."

"Mmmm." Steph grinned as her blue eyes focused fully on his. "I think I just missed you."

"And I think you're just using that as an excuse." He shook his head a bit. "You always have a sweet tooth, whether I'm around or not."

"Well, I did miss you," she insisted. "At least."

"At least."

"I did."

"I know. I missed you too." His head lulled back to staring up at the ceiling. "Hate that you couldn't come with me."

"I do too." She let out a long breath. "But I had all that stuff to deal with here."

"You should just quit working and follow me around."

"When I can work and still follow you around ninety percent of the time?"

"You're not following me around then," he told her with a frown. "You're working too."

"You honestly think that you'd be able to deal with me? If I had nothing to do all day, but hang off you?"

"You have tons of stuff to do all the time and you still manage to hang off me constantly."

"Other way around."

"Oh?"

"Really." She was shifting then, under the covers, as if cold, snuggling into her pillow while staring over at him. "That's actually kind of sort of what I wanted to talk to you about."

"You mean we're not getting up and getting ready to go get dinner because you wanna cuddle and talk about your sweets addiction?"

"Okay, for one, we're not cuddling, you big jerk, and two, it's not an addiction; just an unhealthy obsession."

"Not sure if that's much better, but sure."

"And we don't have to leave the house again," she told him with a shake of her head. "We can just-"

"I promised to take you out to eat when I got in," he told her with an affirmative nod. "We just, uh, sort of got distracted."

"You put your hand on my thigh as we were driving home and then asked me, in a dead tone, how I felt about giving you road head."

"And if you had just done it, we woudln't have had to go home, would we have?"

"Right, because that's another photo I need circulating the internet. Not only did my husband's pedigree make my boobs fall out of my shirt-"

"One of my shining accomplishments, sure."

"-but there I am, in a car, blowing him while going down the highway."

"Who would possibly manage to get a photo of that, huh?"

"I don't know," Steph said with a shake of her head. "But knowing my luck, multiple people."

"Still worth it."

"For you."

"Who the hell else would I care about?"

"Paul-"

"What is it that you wanted to talk about? Babe?" He ran a hand down his chest lazily. "Anything serious?"

"A bit, maybe, yeah."

"Do share."

But she only took a deep breath and moved around a bit more before she said, "I get so lonely, you know, when you're not here. Not with me."

He nodded. "Same, babe."

"It's different for you," she said with a frown. "You're a big strong man."

"The strongest."

"You don't need me to protect you."

"Not at all."

"And-"

"Steph, if you're asking if you can have some big, hulking guy sleep in bed with you when I'm gone-"

"What?"

"-then the answer is no. He'd probably smell weird and stink up my side of the bed."

She made a face. "You're so stupid."

"The answer stands."

"I want a dog."

Paul blinked. Then he frowned. After, he stared over at her for a long moment before saying, "No."

"What? Paul-"

"What do you need a dog for?"

"Because I want one."

"But why?"

"Did you miss the part about me wanting to feel safe? When you're not around?"

He decided not to mention the house's security system. "So you want a watchdog? Like one that patrols the property or something?"

"No," she said, crinkling her nose. "I want a family dog."

"Family, huh?"

"Well, yeah," she said with a nod of her head. "We both agreed that we'd start trying for a baby soon. Right?"

He nodded a bit. It had been a given for the both of them, since they first truly entered a serious relationship with one another, that they would hold off on such a thing until the right time fell upon them, when they felt they could better flex their schedules around a child. And while the time wasn't perfect just yet, it was looking to become that way as they only got older.

"Which is exactly why," he told her softly, "we don't need to get a dog right now."

"The opposite, Paul. Right now is the exact reason we do need one. To get him all trained and ready for a baby and-"

"You should have your kids before you get a dog though," he told her simply. "They'd be easier to get accustomed to a dog than getting a dog accustomed to them."

Right?

Right.

Right?

Maybe.

"I don't agree with that," she said with a frown. "At all."

"Of course not."

"I think that it would be a good dry run for us, you know?" She gave him a grin. "To see if we'd honestly be able to balance a schedule around another living thing. See what it's like to, you know, have another responsibility tacked on."

"Right. So that when we do have a kid, we'll have two to deal with."

"Exactly."

"Steph-"

"You won't even have to mess with him, if you don't want to," she was quick to say then. "He'll be my dog."

"Ah. Right. Just how I plan on raising our kids."

"Paul-"

"Stephanie, I don't know." He made a face. "We're both busy people. You know? And wouldn't it be kind of unfair to bring a dog into that? They need a lot of attention."

"As opposed to a baby?"

"We're not trying for a baby this exact moment." Then he frowned and sat up some, staring down at her. "We're not trying for a baby right now, right?"

"Right."

"Good." He fell back into his pillows. Stephanie only frowned though.

"Why is that good?" She reached out to shove his arm. "What if I happened to get pregnant on accident?"

"It's not that," he said, making a face. "You could have gotten all knocked up at any point and it would have been okay with me."

"Gee, make me feel loved, why don't you?"

"What's wrong with saying knocked up?"

"Try everything." She rolled her eyes. "And if that's not what you meant-"

"Certainly not."

"Then what-"

"Just that I would be using a different technique."

"Technique." She pushed up some then, staring at him in shock. "You have a technique for getting women pregnant?"

"Yep."

"And just how many women have you been trying to get pregnant over your lifetime, Mr. Levesque?"

"That's personal."

"Paul-"

"If you must know," he said as he went back to watching the ceiling, "none."

"Better not have been."

"But I've given it a lot of research."

"Research?"

"Porn. I've watched a lot of porn."

"I really don't think anyone involved in that ever tries to get, as you put it, knocked up."

"Yeah, but there's all sorts of techniques to learn from-"

"Can we get back to the damn dog? Please?"

"Oh. That." Paul shut his eyes. "No."

"You're not being fair."

"Am too. I'm being fair to the poor animal you're going to drag into this relationship. Not only am I going to be expected to open my life to a baby-"

"You want to open yoru life up. You're the one that told me you think we're ready to start try-"

"-but I also have to open my heart to a mutt?"

"Not a mutt." Stephanie grinned. "A Mastiff."

Paul peeked an eye open, staring over at her with it. "You already have a dog, don't you?"

"W-What? What are you talking about?"

"Stephanie-"

"You're crazy."

"I know my woman. You at least have one picked out. Don't you?"

"Well, I might have gone to look at some puppies at a pet store-"

"You can't be serious."

"His name is Bluto and he's-"

"Adopt don't shop, Steph."

"Uh, try if I don't adopt him, someone else might. Like a cult. And might eat him. Would you rather I let that happened or went to a shelter?"

"I don't even… What kind of argument is that?"

"One you can't argue with."

Oh, he could, but what was the point?

"What made you go and pick out a dog?" Paul rolled onto his side to stare at her. "Huh? Without even talking about it with me?"

"Did you miss how lonely I was?"

"We talked on the phone every night!"

"Still."

"And it was only five days. You got five full days to be in the house all by yourself. I would kill for that."

She made a face. "Are you threatening to kill me?"

"Ew, gross, no. I wouldn't do well in jail." He reached up to mess with his own hair. "Not enough conditioner."

"You're so full of it."

"Where is your dog, Steph? Huh?"

"He's still at the pet store. They'll hold him for me until tomorrow when you and I go down there to get him. Ooh, and he'll need a new collar and tags and I already paid for his shots and stuff, but we're gonna pick him out some fun toys and-"

"And a crate."

"Paul-"

"Dogs like crates," he told her. Which was true. Not his reason for wanting one, but it was the truth. "And he's going to be trained."

"Of course. I'll teach him-"

"Serious training. Not just you teaching him to sit."

"I was gonna teach him to shake too," she said around a stuck out tongue. He just shut his eyes again with a shake of his head.

"I can't believe you did this without talking to-"

"You got a new motorcycle without asking."

"I didn't need to ask for that. It doesn't affect you."

"It affected my back account."

"And who thought it would be more romantic to share one when we got married?"

"That's not why we share one. It's just what you should do." She made a face over at him. "And you sure don't mind sharing one."

"Fuck no, I don't. It's how I got my motorcycle."

"Paul-"

"You should just discuss these things with me," he told her with an air of seriousness. "This isn't a game. It's a...not a human life, but an equally as important one that you're bring into ours and expecting me to care about. Would you like it if I just adopted a kid and brought it home?"

"I wouldn't believe it was adopted," she said with an accompanying look. "I'd think it was a product of you perfecting your technique."

"What I do when you're at home and I'm traveling the world," he told her with a nagging smirk, "is my business."

"You better come off it."

"And you better explain this dog business to me."

"It was just… I was bored and I didn't have anything to do and I was walking around the town and then there was the pet shop, right? Right there? As I was walking? And I thought I'd go in and look at all the cute animals."

"Uh-huh."

"And you know that I don't look for long. Eventually I have to have."

"Not sure the reference there, but considering what you're looking at right now-"

"And what would that be?"

Scoffing, he gestured to his nude body. "Obviously perfection incarnated."

"I'm looking at your eyes, actually, babe." And she made a point to stare heavily into them then. "And not much else."

'If you got that much self control, you shouldn't have bought a dog without my permission."

"Permission?" The word made her scrunch up her face. He had another one for her.

"Agreement then," he corrected. "We both do live here."

"Well, I knew you'd agree if I asked you sweetly."

"Uh-huh."

"I did." She even shrugged. "Think about it, Paul; if I really was afraid of you saying no-"

"You should have been."

"-don't you think I'd be a tad more willing to give into that...road head fantasy thing you were pushing leaving the airport?"

"Maybe that's what it will take," he decided then. "On the way to pick him up tomorrow."

"Mmmm...no."

"What makes you so certain?"

"Because," she said with an easy grin and big eyes. He returned the look with a less than pleasured one in return. "The King always gets his Queen what she wants. And I want a dog. Really badly."

"The King might have considered it, if the Queen wasn't such a sneaky little-"

"It makes it more fun if I sneak around behind your back to get things done. Doesn't it?"

"No. In what world?"

"Paul-"

"You already know we're getting the damn dog," he grumbled as he rolled again, though that time it was to shove out of the bed. "But you take him out at night, Steph. And make sure he gets fed. And I'm serious about him being trained; if we're getting a dog to keep you company when I'm gone, then he's at least going to be able to protect you."

Err, well, as Paul found out, one day he might. Because the little runt that Steph took him to go pick up the next day could do anything but.

"Look how happy he is with his new backyard, Daddy."

"I'm not its Daddy."

"He's our firstborn."

"Stop saying that."

"Watch him scope out the yard. Assessing the situation. He's so much like you."

"God, I hate him already."

Especially that first night when he used the bathroom everywhere, literally, and whined for hours about being in his cage which Paul insisted they needed to get him accustomed to.

For an animal that lived his life in a glass box, you'd think bars wouldn't be that big of a deal.

Steph, of course, rescued him (and both their hearing) eventually and let him sleep in bed with them, telling Paul they'd figure the cage thing out another night.

He was too thankful about it finally being peaceful that he couldn't carp much.

Things got better, of course, slowly. And the dog wasn't that bad. He did keep Steph entertained, anyways, when they weren't working. Plus...he was kind of cute…

And the name grew on Paul. Sort of.

There was one nagging thing about the damn beast that annoyed the hell out of Paul.

"If I have to hear one more stupid joke about that what brand of dog food I feed the dog-"

"It's cute," Steph insisted one night as they fell into bed, both glad to be able to spend a day or two at home. Bluto had taken his ever watchful post at the foot of the bed, staring up at them as if daring Paul to go put him in his cage.

He was just lucky the wrestler was too tired for that.

"It's not cute." Paul pulled off his shirt as he sat on the edge of his side of the bed, grumbling more to himself than Steph. "It's annoying. And unoriginal. Ha ha. There's a dog food brand that has the same name as my finisher. Come up with some new jokes. The company is full of the most unoriginal people these days."

"You're just sour about your neck."

Which had some truth to it. Paul was, unfortunately, not cleared to wrestle and wouldn't be for a bit. According to Vince, that meant that he got to go up to the office every weekday and help around down there. Keep his daughter supported with a, as he put it, 'real job'.

Sigh.

"At least guys in the locker room can rib you on all sorts of levels," he griped, falling backwards into the bed, keeping his feet on the ground. Steph laid across her end, staring at him with a big smile. "Up at headquarters, the best they can do is make the same damn pedigree joke. Over and over. And over. We should fire everyone in the creative department if that's the best they can come up with." Then he grinned. "Again, I mean."

"Shuddup." She reached down to flick at his head. "And what you're not getting is that this joke works on so many different levels."

"How? Huh?"

"Because, silly, a pedigree isn't just your finisher or a dog food brand."

"It's not?"

"It's, like, a lineage."

Paul was unimpressed. "Your point?"

"This is your firstborn son here. He's going to inherit the kingdom one day."

"That is not my s- Bluto, get off!"

Never. The puppy had left the end of the bed to come lick at Paul's face mercilessly.

It was one of his favorite activities. Paul's? Not so much.

"He loves you, Daddy," Steph giggled as her husband shoved the dog off. That was no problem for Bluto though, as he only bounded up the bed to go share his love with Steph.

She was always receptive to it.

"Yeah," Paul grumbled as he sat up, rubbing at the slobber the animal had left behind on his cheeks. Glancing over at where his wife was getting the same treatment, but far much more enjoyment out of it, he found it hard to keep the scowl on his face. As it fell, he only moved to do the same, in his rightful spot at the head of the bed. Reaching over to rub at the dog's ears some as he continued to maul Steph with kisses, the man only added, "I know."

I was asked by a few people for some dog stuff, so here's some dog stuff. Obviously Andre's gonna get his own little one-shot too.

Eventually.