"I don't see why you're going out with Jeff tonight," Connor said as he continued to eat the donut James had bought him at the grocery store. He was getting chocolate frosting all over himself and it made Cooper feel like kicking him and telling him to go wash his face. "You should stay home with me and Daddy tonight. We're going to play Candyland."

Cooper rolled his eyes. "As tempting as that sounds, I'm going to have to pass. Playing Candyland with you is a pain in the ass."

Connor pouted. "Aw, you're so mean!" He picked up one of Cooper's shoes and tossed it at Cooper's head before storming out of the room. Luckily, Cooper was able to duck the footwear and finish getting ready in peace. "Fuck, I hate suits," he muttered as he looked at himself in the mirror. Not only did he feel like a penguin, but he thought he looked like an idiot. Oh well, it's not like Jeff's never seen me in one of these things before, he thought as he stuffed his wallet into his pocket and left the room. He already knows how stupid I look in these things so that should take care any of the awkwardness about it.

"Hey Dad?" Cooper called out as he searched for James. "Dad!"

"What?" James yelled back.

"Where are you?"

"Kitchen!"

With that question answered, Cooper went into the kitchen and found James attempting to cook brownies. "Oh God," he groaned. "Why are you doing that? Are you trying to kill you and Connor?"

James frowned. "Shush you. These are going to turn out or I'm going to kill them."

"But they're food, they're not--oh never mind." Cooper wasn't going to waste time arguing with James about this. "Listen, can I take the Corvette to go pick up Jeff?"

James frowned. He had a 1975 Corvette Stingray that was very rarely used because he treated the thing like it was a baby. "Why in the hell do you want to use that?" he asked. "We've got like nine other cars you can use. Why don't you use one of them?'

Cooper sighed. "Dad come on, I promise I'll be careful with it. Just please let me use it?"

James's frowning continued. "But... but…it's mine," he finally said pathetically.

Cooper stomped his foot and huffed. It was a very Connor like move but he had to get aggressive about this. "Come on Dad! Look, you have my permission to skin me alive if anything happens to it." He pouted his lips. "Don't make me beg dude. Let me keep some of my dignity here."

James continued to hesitate for a couple of minutes but he finally gave in and handed the keys over to Cooper. "I swear, if you fuck up that car, I'm sending you and Twinky Dink to hell," he threatened. "You got that?"

Cooper nodded. "I got it. Thanks Dad." He patted James on the shoulder before heading towards the garage. On his way there, he almost got killed by Connor, who threw a knife right at his head. "Hey! Watch it you little brat!" he growled as he just barely ducked out of the way.

Connor just cackled before running off. Cooper rolled his eyes and just continued on his way. He was just going to deal with Connor later. Right now he had to get moving to make sure he wasn't late picking up Jeff.

Despite owning the car for about thirty years now, there were significantly less miles on the Corvette than there were on the newer cars James owned. "Please, for the love of God, don't wreck," he told himself as he drove to Jeff's place. He knew that James was deadly serious about the threat he had made, so that just put all kinds of pressure on him. "I don't want to die…I like life…it sucks most of the time but getting skinned by my father is NOT an appealing thought."

Luckily for him, he was able to get to Jeff's house without incident. Just as he was pulling up, Jeff went ahead and opened the door so he could get in. "I didn't know you had a Corvette," he said as he shut the door."

Cooper shook his head. "It's Dad's. Believe me, I'm lucky to even be driving this thing." He took a deep breath. "But if anything happens to it, this will be the last night you'll see me alive. Dad doesn't fuck around when it comes to this."

Jeff shook his head and patted Cooper's shoulder. "Don't worry about it. He's not going to kill you. I won't let him do that."

Cooper grinned. He wasn't exactly sure how Jeff would stop James from doing anything, but that wasn't what was important. It was the thought that counted. "Thanks. I appreciate the support." He drove them to the restaurant that Mark had recommended to him earlier in the day. It was some new Italian place that he couldn't remember the name of because the name itself was Italian. But despite his lack of knowledge about the name, the directions he had been given about how to get there were good enough for him to not need to know the name of it in order to find it.

"So do you know what Mark's going to say?" Jeff asked.

Cooper shook his head. "He's been keeping it to himself. I tried asking him about it but he just told me to go away because I was ruining his concentration." He gave Jeff an inquisitive look. "What about you? What are you going to say up there?"

Jeff shrugged. "I um…I'm not quite sure yet. I mean, I've thought about it a lot and there's stuff that I definitely want to bring up but I don't exactly know how it's going to come out when I get up there." He tugged at the sleeve of his jacket compulsively, betraying just how nervous he really was about this.

"Well you'll do great," Cooper assured him.

"You think so?"

"Yeah. I really do."

Jeff smiled just a little bit. "Thanks."

Cooper nodded and got them to the restaurant. The place turned out to be a lot fancier than he was expecting (or liked) and judging from the looks of the people who were going into the place, he was going to be spending dinner resisting the urge to kill every pretentious asshole on the premises.

"Holy crap," Jeff said under his breath. "This place is going to cost a fortune."

"Yeah," Cooper agreed. He started to get out of the car but then stopped and began to laugh as he realized something.

"What is it?" Jeff asked.

It took Cooper a moment to calm down enough to say what was so funny. "Well uh…I'm pretty sure that they've never had a customer that plans on paying them with a credit card that's owned by a porn company."

Jeff took that in and then began to giggle hysterically. As soon as he started doing that, Cooper felt his resolve slip away from him completely. Before he could think about what he was doing, he was leaning over and kissing Jeff on the lips. Jeff froze for a second but then surprised Cooper a little bit by kissing back. But despite being surprised, Cooper didn't let the opportunity slip by him. He deepened the kiss and refused to back off until his lungs were begging for oxygen.

"Whoa," Jeff said breathlessly.

"Yeah," Cooper agreed. He smoothed down Jeff's hair and sighed. "We should go inside," he said reluctantly.

Jeff nodded. "Yeah. We should." He started to reach for the door handle but then he paused. "Cooper?"

"Yeah?"

There was a long moment of silence before Jeff finally shook his head. "Never mind. Let's just go eat."

…

Someone had decided that inducting a dead man was probably not the best way to end the show, so Tom was sandwiched in fifth. Leaving Cooper with Glenn, Jeff joined Matt and Randy backstage while they waited, Jeff's own thoughts racing and they had more to do with the kiss he and Cooper had shared than his own speech.

"You okay, Jeffro?" Matt noticed the distraction.

"Yeah." Jeff swallowed, listening as the taped video package began.

They say that before you can put someone down, you have to walk a mile in his shoes and no truer words can be spoken about Tom Hardy. Growing up outside of the limelight, outside of the ring, and outside of the family that he'd come to know. Adopted by the Baker family at a young age, he only became aware of his lineage during the last year of his life and from then on, there was no looking back.

From his stint with Legacy to his time as intercontinental championship, nothing says more about the character of Tom Hardy than his willingness to be himself. One of the first superstars to break down the barriers between real-life and his on-screen character, his openness about his personal life became one of his traits. To those that knew him, he was a man of conviction, honestly, and integrity and it's with that World Wrestling Entertainment is proud to induct Tom Hardy into the 2010 Hall of Fame.

"Please welcome the man who, this Sunday, will attempt to go 18 and oh at Wrestlemania, the Undertaker..."

Mark took the stage.

"Tom Hardy. If any of you had told me that less that a year after meeting him, that I'd be posthumously inducting him into the Hall of Fame I would've thought you were either crazy or on something, but here we are. There's an old expression in this business about 'living the gimmick'. For those of you who don't know what it means, back in the day when guys would have these crazy personas in the ring, it was sometimes hard for them to be themselves outside. You'd see guys acting like these cartoon characters and making total fools of themselves. Tom was the opposite. What you saw outside the ring was less of who he really was than what he gave the fans. I learned more about Tom watching his in-ring character than when we'd sit down over a drink or, yes, during the brief period we were dating."

Mark looked up. "I know that doesn't come as a surprise to some of you, but Tom and I both had some difficulties in our personal lives and if any of you have a problem with that, I got my receipt book with me, don't think I won't pull it out."

There was some nervous laughter from the members of the Universe gathered at the event, but the majority of the Superstars maintained a respectful silence.

"I had the pleasure of wrestling Tom in his last official match in the WWE and he was one of the few people I knew I could step into the ring with and he wouldn't try to make himself look better at my expense. The only foolish thing he did was step into the ring with me when he knew how angry with each other we both were. What we were thinking, I still don't know! Despite all the crap that went on between me and Tom, I can say that it was truly an honor and a privilege to work with him... "

It was here that Mark abandoned his original speech and proceeded to tell a handful of stories about Tom's life outside of the ring.

"...and Glenn and I are driving along and we come across Tom, draped over the hood of his Viper, wearing only his Intercontinental belt and his sunglasses. Now, I'm not the most outgoing person to begin with, but this strikes me as kind of weird. Glenn pulls over and I get out. 'Aren't you worried about this?' I ask him, meaning the police or someone else harassing him. He thinks I'm talking about a tan line and says 'Good point' before tossing the belt into the back seat. He's now completely naked, on the side of I-95, and he doesn't seem to care. Easy to say, Tom and I became real comfortable with each other that day." Mark didn't add the part about telling Glenn to go on ahead and joining Tom, au natural, for some impromptu sunbathing.

The crowd roared with laughter.

"One more story," Mark waited for the noise to die down, "then I'll shut up. Back when Tom was General Manager of ECW, we were all at one of the big Pay-Per-Views... Summerslam, I think it was. The guys are all sitting around, waiting for their matches, when suddenly the locker room door gets kicked open and Tom storms in, grabs Christian by the shirt, and yells something about having to repaint his car. I swear, Tom loved that thing more a lot of people on this planet, but anyway we're all sitting around wondering how bad it's gonna get for Jay when Tom and Jay, along with eight or nine guys from the crew come back in, each carrying two cases of beer. This was shortly after Vince had chopped costs to stop his fortunes from going south faster than some of the talent so the post-PPV parties were a thing of the past, at least as far as the company payin' for them. He sets the beer down and without a word, leaves.

"We think this has gotta be a rib on all of us. Vince never allowed booze backstage, even when he was paying for the parties. Two minutes later, the same group of guys comes back in, each carrying six extra-large pizzas. 'Okay, guys,' he shouts 'once you're done your match, the party's on me.' Tom must've spent at least two thousand dollars of his own money that night on the guys. I'm sure everyone else would say they'd have done the same thing, but Tom... well, Tom wasn't even scheduled for the show. This whole thing was out of his pocket. That's just how he was. If you got on his good side, he would die for you." And even if he didn't like you all that much...

"It is with great pleasure, and a little bit of sadness, that I induct Tom Hardy into the WWE Hall of Fame, class of 2010." Mark exhaled, feeling a huge weight disappear from his shoulders.

Jeff sighed loudly. He knew that he was going to be the last one to speak so he just had to try not to break down or anything while Randy and Matt were talking. Of course, considering the way his emotions had been lately, that was probably going to be easier said than done. With their individual music stings playing, the three of them individually took the stage.

Randy waited for the applause to cease, then he stepped forward, cleared his throat, took a deep breath and began talking. "I may not have been his boyfriend or his brother, but once Tom came to the WWE, my path seemed to be connected with his both professionally and personally." He paused and let his eyes scan over the audience. "The professional connection based on our time in Legacy and the Four Aces will obviously be more remembered by the fans because that was played out for the world to see. But for me, it's the times off-screen that I will remember the most.

Now as some of you know--" He looked at the wrestlers in attendance as he said this "--it's really not that easy to be an openly gay wrestler in this business. There a lot of people that just don't risk it because they fear it will hurt their career. Tom was one of the few people who wasn't afraid of that. I always admired him for that, but I didn't think I would ever have the courage to do something like that. In fact, I couldn't even get the courage to willingly come out to my own father. I only did so when there were circumstances that pretty much forced me to. My father, who's pretty old fashioned, took it pretty bad and if it weren't for Tom stepping in and talking to Dad for my behalf, I don't know if we would even have a relationship to this day. And for that, I'm eternally thankful to Tom." Randy wiped his eyes. "There are two other guys who want to speak so I'll finish by saying from the bottom of my heart, thank-you for being you."

While the audience applauded again, Matt moved to center stage. How do you top that? Okay, here goes...