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"And are you really mine every day, all the time
I've gotta know which way to go
Will our love grow, are you sincere…"
Elvis Presely, "Are you Sincere?"
000
Mark Calaway, more famously known as "The Undertaker" or just "Taker" for short, walked along side his younger half-brother, "The Big Red Machine", Kane. Even though he was dressed in his more normal street clothes, Taker wore his signature western hat to help the blaring hallway lights from making his headache even worse. They had made the mistake of getting into a drinking contest with Triple H and Stone Cold Steve Austin –who had made a cameo appearance at the show- the previous night. The mistake was drinking to many shots and not enough water, which left the Brothers of Destruction with a rather nasty hangover and in an even nastier mood.
As they rounded a corner they spotted a small group of their fellow wrestlers that included Randy Orton, Ken Kennedy and Adam "Edge" Copeland.
"Oh look, it's the 'Geriatric Killer,' the 'Loudmouth,' and 'Anybody, but that guy'," Kane grumbled as they drew closer.
"Great…" Taker groaned, pulled his hat down to shadow his eyes even more.
"Hey, look it's 'demon spawn' and the 'guy who's been hanging around too long and won't die'," Randy grumbled when he saw Taker and Kane approaching them to wait for an elevator.
"Go to hell and rot," Taker muttered.
"Fair warning," Kane said. "We're in a mood right where we will kick your ass on a dime, so I advise you to keep your mouths shut about us."
"Okay, people let's all just calm down and make peace," Edge said, stepping into his role of playing peace keeper in order to avoid getting involved in a fight. "It's too early in the morning and our hangovers are still too acute for ass kicking, okay?"
"Could you all just stop yelling until my Tylenol starts working?" Kennedy said, plugging his ears.
For the sake of their headaches the two groups made a silent truce while they waited for an elevator, and thus chose to just simply ignore each other.
000
"When I find Edge, I'm going to slug the smirk right off his face," Jeff grumbled as he shouldered his duffel bag. He rode the elevator alongside Matt, Maria and Ashley to the lobby so they could checkout out of the hotel.
Matt nodded. "You know, I'd be happy to help you do that."
"I knew Edge was a jerk, but I didn't realize he was this bad…"Ashley growled. "Manipulating two people into getting married? I wanna slug him myself!"
Maria stood, silently fuming, in the back of the elevator.
As Vegas fate and luck would have it, their elevator stopped on the floor where Edge and his group were waiting. No sooner had the elevator door opened and Jeff laid eyes on Edge, the younger Hardy charged out of the elevator, grabbing the R-rated superstar by the front of his shirt. Jeff started screaming every expletive he could think of at him.
"You sneaky son of bitch! Who the fuck do you think you are?!" Jeff shouted into Edge's face.
"Damn it! What's your fucking problem, Hardy?!" Edge growled. He somehow managed to push Jeff away and put some distance between himself and the irate Hardy.
The others just stood there, watching, half shocked, half fascinated to see how this confrontation would play out.
"You and your maniacal schemes!" Jeff snarled. "You manipulated Maria and me while we were plastered, two nights ago, into getting married!"
"What…?" Edge looked at Jeff as if he had three heads.
"Maybe this will refresh your memory," Jeff said as he pulled out the pictures with Edge in it and the marriage license. "I know your previous ring name was Damon Striker and that's what's on this license and that sure as hell is you in the picture!"
Edge took the picture and studied it. "Son of a bitch…"
"Copeland, I'm going to beat your face in!" Jeff slammed his fist into the palm of the other hand. "Thanks to you Maria's chances with CM Punk are ruined!"
"Why the hell are you blaming me?!" Edge protested. "I swear to god I didn't mastermind all of this!"
"Come on you guys," Randy stepped up in Edge's defense. "Adam wouldn't pull something that bad… not like what happened to you and Lita, Matt..."
"Don't go there, man!" Matt growled warningly.
"Now you've broken up not one, but two relationships, Adam!" Jeff shouted.
"Hey!" Edge shouted back. He was getting tired of being accused from all sides, and decided to turn the tables. "How do I know this isn't just some plan by Jeff to get Maria for himself and then lay the blame on me when he got in trouble?!"
"Don't you dare try to weasel your way out of this, Edge!" Jeff snarled. "I would never do something like that and you know it!"
"It wouldn't be the first time you did something stupid, stoner!" Edge countered.
"Shut up!" Jeff shouted, he was on his last nerve of patience. "You apologize for what you did to Maria right now!"
"I'm not going to apologize for something I didn't do!" Edge snapped indignantly.
"I said apologize!"
"Make me!"
Jeff's tether of patience finally snapped. "Oh. I'll make you!"
He lunged at Edge, but instead of tackling the R-rated superstar, he found himself slung over the strong shoulder of the Undertaker like a sack of potatoes.
"Enough!" Taker roared, causing almost everyone to freeze.
Jeff, ever the stubborn one, struggled to get out of Taker's grip. "Damn it, Taker! Put me down!"
Already in a bad mood, Taker had no tether to put up with an argument. He punched the side of his fist into the younger Hardy's lower back. A small smile of satisfaction almost crossed the phenom's face when he heard Jeff groan and stop his struggles all together.
"Okay…" Jeff said through teeth clenched in pain. His lower back was his sure-fire weak spot. It took the most damage of any place on his body, thanks to his signature high-flying moves like the Swanton Bomb.
Though Taker had targeted Hardy first to stop the fight, Edge was not getting off Scott-free either. The phenom grabbed the R-rated superstar by his hair and started dragging him down the hallway with Jeff still slung over his shoulder. The scene was strangely reminiscent of a parent dragging their two badly behaving children out of the toy store.
"Kane," Taker said in an exasperated tone, just like a father would on his last nerve with his two kids. "While I deal with the boys here, will check us out and make sure the rest of these idiots don't continue to make the WWE look worse than it already does."
"Will do…" Kane muttered and started herding the others into an open elevator.
Taker stalked back to the hotel room he and Kane shared. Since they had not checked out yet, the key card still worked. Once inside the room Taker threw Edge onto one bed and Jeff on to the other.
"Now what the hell is going on?" the deadman demanded.
"I got married to Maria and Edge was the one who put us up to it while we were drunk!" Jeff grumbled, rubbing his back, which still hurt from Taker's punch.
Taker looked over at Edge and quirked an eyebrow at him.
"I did not!" Edge insisted. "Hardy just doesn't want to own up to his own mistake."
Taker looked back over at Jeff for an explanation.
"Look!" Jeff snapped, "I don't remember anything about the wedding except for this very vivid image of Elvis! Same with Maria!"
"Well I didn't remember anything either until you showed me that picture!" Edge insisted. "In fact I still don't really remember."
"Yeah, right." Jeff crossed his arms over his chest, leveling Edge with an accusatory glare.
Taker rolled his eyes. "So basically neither of you knows, or is pretending to not know, what happened at the wedding."
The two other men remained silent, looking slightly embarrassed that they had been so plastered that they could not even remember what they were doing two nights ago.
"I think there is only one way to really solve this," Taker groaned.
"What?" Jeff and Edge asked at the same time.
Instead of answering, Taker grabbed them both roughly by the arm and dragged them back to the elevators, catching a ride down to the main lobby. Once there, Taker continued to drag them out the hotel door and practically threw them into a Taxi cab, where he ordered the rather shocked driver to head to "The Elvis Love Me Tender Wedding Chapel".
"Where the hell are we going?" Edge demanded, which earned him a 'shut up" glare from the phenom, although he answered him. "To the scene of the dispute."
"How's that going to help?" Jeff raised an eyebrow.
"Almost every place in Vegas has security video tapes, especially the wedding chapels, just for this very reason," Taker explained.
"Oh…"
000
After watching the security video tapes at the chapel, Jeff made the rather disappointing discovery that Edge was no more responsible for this whole situation than he was. In fact, on the tape the R-rated Superstar, Randy Orton and Mr. Kennedy, were just as plastered as Jeff and Maria were.
The whole group seemed to think that the wedding thing was just a big joke, something fun to do on a night out, without realizing it was real.
However, there was one consolation for Jeff in all of this. As a result of his drunken stupor, Edge had insisted on paying for the wedding himself as a wedding gift to Jeff and Maria.
"I was wondering what that $300 charge was." Edge scratched his head thoughtfully. "I was beginning to think me and Randy had gotten a little action that night."
"This sucks," Jeff groaned as they stepped out of the chapel.
Taker was unsympathetic. "Well, it's the grave you dug for yourself. Now lie in it."
"Yup, you can't use me as your scapegoat, Hardy." Edge grinned, which earned him a slap upside the head from Taker. Though the dead man was unsympathetic to Hardy's situation, that did not give Edge license to rag on him as well.
"Hey! What was that for?" Edge snapped.
"You have no right to rag on him as you were a part of it too, even if was indirectly," Taker muttered. "Now come on, let's get back to the hotel."
"Shit," Jeff groaned, as he climbed into the cab. "How am I going to tell Maria…?"
"You're on your own there, kid," Taker said.
However, Edge seemed to have a rare moment of pity. "Just tell her that you never meant her any harm," Edge offered. "Women always love an honest man."
"Like you would know," Jeff muttered.
"Watch it…" Edge growled, irritated that he was being rebuked, when he was finally trying to be nice.
"Calm down, children..." Taker warned. "God, you two are worse than Chasey and Gracie."
"Sorry…"
The three of them rode in the cab in uncomfortable silence for awhile, until Taker's cell phone rang. He pulled it out and, answered it. Kane informed him that everyone was going to go ahead to the airport and that they should meet them there.
Fortunately, the airport was only twenty minutes from the Las Vegas Strip and soon the Phenom, the R-rated Superstar and the Rainbow-Haired Warrior, met up with their group in front of the ticket kiosks. They had agreed to wait until after they had gone through the security checkpoint before discussing what Taker, Jeff and Edge had found out. Jeff had spent most of that time trying not to make eye contact with Maria.
"I've got good news and bad news," Taker said when they had finally arrived at the terminal. "Good news... we figured out what truly happened... the bad news..."
"What's the bad news?" Maria asked nervously, she glanced at Jeff, who looked away, before returning her gaze to Taker.
"You, Jeff, and Edge were so drunk that you all decided that it was a good idea for you and Hardy to get married," Taker came right out and explained when it seemed Jeff wasn't going to.
"What?!" Maria said in disbelief.
"If you don't believe me you can see for yourself." Taker held up a DVD copy of the security segment. "It's all on the security video." He handed it to her and stalked off after Kane to find a seat in the terminal.
Maria buried her head in her hands. Somehow, the situation had not seemed so bad when there had been the possibility that she had been manipulated in this by someone else. Now it was official; she was as much responsible for what had happened as anyone else.
"I told you it wasn't my fault," Edge muttered, as he walked off to join Randy Orton and Shelton Benjamin at the far end of the Terminal.
Jeff finally steeled himself and went over to the distraught Maria. "Please, Maria... you have to understand…"
By now, Mara was sobbing in both sorrow and frustration. "Understand what...? I understand I made a stupid mistake and it messed up the best relationship I ever had..."
"None of us knew that what we were saying… Apparently Fate wanted to have some fun with us," Jeff tried to comfort her. "Don't be so hard on yourself…"
"Phil warned me about it." Maria continued to sob. "I should have listened... I should never have gone to that club with Candice..."
"It's okay..." He lightly embraced her. "I don't want you to be upset."
She shrugged his arms off her shoulders and pushed him away. "Oh for god's sake's let me be upset... it makes me feel better..."
"But there's still going to be pain inside of your heart," Jeff insisted, his own frustration starting to come out. "And you'll still feel awful."
"I'm going to feel miserable no matter what, and you debating with me, is not helping!" she snapped at him.
"Fine!" he said, glaring at her. All he was trying to do was make the best of things, but she was breaking him down at every turn. "I'll leave you alone then."
"Never mind, I'm going for a walk," she muttered as she hurried toward the ladies' room.
Jeff growled irritably as he stormed over to where Matt was sitting and plopped down next to him.
"You guys sound like a married couple already." Matt grinned, trying to be funny.
However, Jeff was not amused. "Shut it…" he muttered, sighing. "I give up… If she's not going to at least meet me half way, I'm just going to stop trying…"
000
After having herself a good cry, Maria walked slowly out of the bathroom, her head hanging low. As fate would have it she ran right into CM Punk.
"Hey there," he said gently.
"Hi," she replied equally as soft, keeping her eyes low. She was afraid, that if she looked him in the eye, she would burst into tears all over again.
"Um…" he began shakily, uncertain of the words he wanted to say. "I'm sorry I was so harsh yesterday, I didn't mean for it to come off like that."
She looked up at him in surprise, before looking down again. "No, you shouldn't apologize. You had every right to be angry. It was my own stupid mistake."
CM shrugged somewhat mournfully. "Well, we all make them, and it is Vegas, so the little mistakes here become big ones."
She looked back up at him gratefully. He was trying so hard to deal with the situation civilly. "I guess so. Still I should have listened to you."
"Well, what's done is done, no use clinging to it." He sighed. "I hear Vince has you tied to Jeff for a year."
Maria nodded and looked down at the floor again.
He stared at her for a few seconds, before reaching out and, placing a hand under her chin; he tilted her face up to look at his own.
"You know, a year can go by pretty fast," he said gently. "Maybe at the end of it, if you still feel the same way about me and I still feel the same way about you, we can get back together."
"Really?" She stared at him in shock. She had not expected that.
"Love is funny like that. You think you know what you love, but then something different comes along and you find you love that more. Sometimes you don't know how much you love something 'til you go without it for awhile," he said thoughtfully. "So after the end of the year, if we still feel the same way about each other, then I guess we'll know it was meant to be. And if we don't then we'll know it wasn't."
Maria nodded and hugged him. "Thank you."
Punk smiled a little and hugged her back, before pulling her forward and, giving her a small kiss on the lips. "So…" he added. "Let's keep an open mind about other relationships, while we're apart."
"Okay, although, I don't know if I can stand seeing you on Kelly Kelly's arm," Maria giggled.
"Oh come on, I'm not that open minded!" He laughed.
000
Maria walked back to her seat in the terminal, feeling a lot happier than she had been in the past two days. She smiled a little when she spotted Jeff, sitting with his eye closed, and listening to his ipod. She felt a little guilty about their rocky start for the year together. Jeff had made every effort to make the best of things and all she had done was push him away and snap at him.
Off in the corner she saw a snack vending machine and a light bulb went on inside her head as she thought of a way to show Jeff that from now on she would be willing to make the best of things too. She walked over to it, got a snickers bar for herself and a bag of skittles as a peace offering for Jeff.
Walked over to where Jeff was sitting and settled down into the seat next to him. She gently nudged his shoulder, causing him to open his eyes and look at her.
"Hey, Jeff," she said quietly, holding out the skittles to him. "I got you a peace offering. I'm really sorry for being such a stubborn jerk."
He grinned at her, taking the skittles, and she grinned back.
"Good. This situation doesn't have to be a bad experience. I'm really not that bad of a person to be around."
"I know you're not." She smiled at him. "You're a very nice person, Jeff, and I'm really sorry I was so ungrateful and bitchy before. I hope you can forgive me."
Jeff popped a few skittles in his mouth. "You gave me skittles; of course I forgive you…"
000
Well it looks like for once Edge is not the cause of all the trouble, and it looks like everyone has made peace…for now….
We'll see how long that lasts… XD
