Another chapter that has been in the works for a while and recently completed. It looks like I'm going to be dwelling on the guys in Vegas for much longer than I initially thought. Not much for words right now, so let's just move on to the chapter.

Date Uploaded: 30 May 2006

Chapter 14: Even More Lucky and Unlucky Breaks

"Dude, that's pretty sweet," Rob commented.

"It's flawless," Rene said in something akin to awe, holding the plastic card in front of him and examining it thoroughly.

Despite the fact that it had actually cost him upwards of seventy dollars to procure, Rene felt it was worth it. They had located a scalper outside MGM Grand who had taken them to his 'office', which was basically nothing more than a little hole in the ground underneath a dilapidated building. From there he had fixed everything up, and Rene was now the proud owner of a surprisingly authentic-looking driver's license that stated him to be twenty-four and from Milwaukee.

"Best part is, man, the date on it makes it good for another three years, so you can use it anytime," Rob said, shuffling down the street beside him.

Rene tore his attention away from the card a moment to give Rob a dry look. "I turn twenty-one in the next year, Rob. I won't be needing this then."

"Whatever, man," Rob said, shrugging his shoulders. "Oh, hey, you may want to drop the accent and everything. You're not from Quebec anymore now."

"I'm from Paris."

"Dude, whether you're from the Himalayan Mountains, it doesn't matter. Drop the goofy accent or you're going to get found out before you can hit the tables."

"Fine," Rene snapped, pocketing the card. He relaxed and immediately his voice lost it's pompous air and concocted accent, replacing it with dry sarcasm and a tinge of whininess so popular with the youth of today. "Now are you going to baby-sit me for the rest of the night or do you actually have something better to do?"

"Hey, not bad," Rob said, giving him an approving thumbs-up. "Now slouch a little. Don't look like you've got something shoved up your colon all the time."

"Thank you, Rob, I think I can take it from here," Rene snapped back irritably, not appreciating Rob's 'helpful' little tips to de-French himself, so to speak.

Rob shrugged again. "Fine, man, whatever. Have fun with your new toy, see you in the morning, and don't get into any trouble I wouldn't."

"Well that leaves me with a lot of leeway," Rene said, mostly to himself as by then Rob was already sauntering up the road, whistling nonchalantly. Rene patted his pocket self-assuredly and turned, intending to head back to Caesar's Palace. Can't gamble, can't drink, huh? He would see about that.

»»»

Cena nervously drummed his fingers on the green felt. It had been fifteen minutes since his run of good luck seemed to have passed on to the now raucously laughing and unmistakably tipsy young brunette two tables up. The crowd that had been gathered around him had been reduced to simply one blonde at his right, no longer giggling and scouring the area for another big winner.

In front of him, Dean the dealer gave a relaxed smile. "Your move."

Cena looked down at his hand. He had a seven and a five. The dealer's hand was no better with a three and a four. Finally Cena licked his lips and resignedly said, "Hit me."

Dean gave a look that could have said, 'Your loss, knucklehead,' and then drew a card. It was the Queen of Spades. The bitch.

At that the blonde gave a sigh. "Listen, I'm out of here, look for me when you're raking up the big numbers again, hotshot," and with that she blew him a lazy kiss, took her purse and left.

As Cena groaned and put his head in his hands, Dean happily took more chips from his rapidly diminishing pile. "So, another hand?" he asked smugly. "You're down to the ten you started with."

Cena looked up and found that the dealer was right. There in front of him was the lone ten dollar chip that started this all. He reached out and took it. "Nah, I think I've finally learned da golden truth 'bout Vegas."

"And what's that?" Dean asked.

"Sooner or later, da house always wins," Cena said, putting his cap firmly back on his head. He flicked the chip in Dean's direction. "Here. And fair warning, buddy, if I ever see you outta Vegas, I may kick your ass."

Before Dean could ascertain whether that was a threat, Cena had stridden off, intending to find one of the guys and bum some dinner off them.

»»»

Mick put down the phone, after making a long and extremely costly call to an obscure cousin living in Okinawa. Before that he had telephoned his family, a friend in Berlin, and an aunt vacationing in Puerto Rico. Matt also had his turn, talking to Jeff, a few buddies down under and even picking a fight with an old girlfriend who had long relocated to Singapore.

"So, on a scale of one to ten, how mad do you think Edge will be?" Matt asked, slumped in the bed and still doggedly stuffing potato chips into his mouth. He called it his fourth wind.

"About thirty-three," Mick replied with a grin.

At that point the phone rang. The two of them looked at it quizzically, and then at each other. "You didn't ask anybody to call you up here, did you?" Mick asked Matt.

"No. I told them I would call them, naturally," Matt said. "It may be Edge."

"In which case we shouldn't pick up," Mick said, scratching his chin. "Then again, it may be one of the other guys."

"They know the number to this place?"

"Only a select few of them thought to ask," Mick said. "Gregory for one, Spanky for another. Surprisingly even Rob did." Now Mick pondered that and groaned. "I hope it's not Rob."

"So are you going to pick it up? All our stalling hasn't made them put their end of the line down," Matt pointed out.

"Oh fine," Mick said, giving in and picking the phone up. "Good evening, welcome to the local morgue, how may I serve you today?"

There was a momentary pause on the other end. And then a serious voice asked, "I'm sorry, but is this the hotel room of one Adam Copeland?"

"Yeah, I was just yanking your leg," Mick said jovially, now wishing that he hadn't tried to pull such an immature gag. "Adam isn't here right now but I'm his friend Mick. Is there something wrong?"

"It's not anything overly-serious, sir, but do you know a Brian Kendrick?"

"Spanky?" Mick was confused and now a little alarmed. "Yes, I do know him. Is he all right?"

"Nothing to worry about, sir. Mr. Kendrick was involved in a small incident at Circus Circus earlier and was accidentally knocked out. He's come to now, but we've insisted that if he has anybody in the city they come fetch him rather than let him walk back too the hotel alone. He's given this number."

"Right, we'll come over as soon as we can. Circus Circus, you say? We'll be there in about ten minutes, thanks for calling," Mick said, hanging up.

"What about Spanky?" Matt asked, pushing himself up.

"He got himself knocked out at Circus Circus," Mick said, pulling his jacket on. "I'm going over to get him. You coming? Would do us good to get out of this hotel room for a while."

Matt gave a belch and then managed to roll out of the bed. "All right. If I get to Phoenix looking like a walrus anyway Stephanie will have a fit."

Mick patted his own belly. "I guess I'm more conditioned than others when it comes to certain things. Come on then, Hardy boy, and try to keep up." Matt waved him over and the two of them left, Matt closing the door after him.

»»»

Meanwhile Edge followed Megan the brunette down the hall towards he hotel room. Even as she pulled his hand and giggled at him, he still had his doubts. He really shouldn't be doing this, but turning down a potentially great night with this unknown woman to bunk with eight other guys in his own room seemed particularly stupid to him right about then. Must have been the glasses of alcohol swirling in his system.

Quite a few, it had had to be. Edge had stopped counting past three, and now his vision had more than tripled as well. He shook his head and tried to focus on Megan, who was also a bit wasted herself and fiddling with her keycard for much longer than it would have taken her had she been sober.

"Here we are, room 1306," Megan said, pulling out the room card and slipping it into the slot. The door swung open. "No going back now."

"I guess not," Edge said, and then was cut off as Megan pulled him inside and pressed her mouth to his. The door closed and the two of them clumsily fell onto the bed.

"Ow," Edge muttered in the darkness. "Hey, there's something really hard in your purse and it's poking me in the leg. Mind getting rid of it first?"

Megan giggled again and drew him close to whisper in his ear. "I'm not carrying a purse, stud."

At that point Edge should have somehow put two and two together, but considering his less than temperate condition, he didn't. As such much of what happened that night passed through a confusing swirl of Megan in a blur, giggling, a bulge on his leg that didn't seem to be his and trying to stay awake long enough to get things over with. He also vaguely recalled thinking that he hoped to God that he wouldn't somehow regret this in the morning.

»»»

"So, Spankster, let me get this straight, you got knocked out by a five year old and the rear end of a trapeze artist?" Matt said, wondering whether he should laugh or belch, considering he was still stuffed from the pigging out he and Mick did earlier.

"You know, if this had happened to you I would have the decency to be a little more sensitive," Spanky said sullenly, his face red.

Both Mick and Matt gave him skeptical looks at that.

Spanky sighed. "All right, maybe not, but I would have at least waited a couple of minutes to be an ass about it behind your back. That's a tad bit more humane."

Mick laughed and ruffled Spanky's hair, causing the cruiserweight to slap his hands away irritably. The three of them had just exited Circus Circus, where Mick and Matt had arrived to find a restless Spanky, who had only wanted to get away from the nurse and said trapeze artist who had accidentally conked him out. Had he not been so embarrassed he probably wouldn't have minded that the two women were fawning over him, but as such he was happy to dash out of there with his two companions.

"Let's just get back to the hotel," Spanky whined finally, rubbing his neck. "I just want to crash on the bed and sleep the humiliation off."

"Sure, until morning comes and Matt and I have told everyone else. Then you'll have to endure the teasing and the mocking for the rest of tomorrow," Mick reminded. Spanky groaned at that.

"Unless the others got up to more shit than what happened to you," Matt said thoughtfully. "And knowing Jericho and Cena's potential to fuck up in the weirdest ways, you could only end up as runner-up to dickhead of the night."

"Ah, words of impending doom. Come on, Spankster, there's a turkey sub sandwich back at the hotel room that has your name on it," Mick said, as the three of them left the casino.

»»»

Meanwhile, Cena was also on his way back to the Hilton, watching the few glum faces passing by him and wondering how much they had lost, all the while trying not to think of how much HE had lost. As he walked he passed by a brightly lit chapel, the manufactured sound of tolling bells announcing that another couple had tied the knot, along with possibly a hundred others that night. Deciding to do something fun and utterly stupid before he got back to the Hilton and had to endure the ridiculing of his road trip companions, Cena walked up to the chapel door and entered.

Inside he was immediately greeted by two loudly-dressed figures, one a large man in a white outfit with a ten-gallon hat and the other a diminutive Asian woman with a feather boa. The two of them, rings on their fingers, smooched and giggled as they left the chapel. Cena turned to the receptionist dressed up like Dolly Parton, complete with a golden-blonde wig seemingly three stories high and a push-up bra stuffed with God knew what. She snapped her gum and smiled at him, revealing a lipstick stain on her teeth. "Hey darlin'. If yer plannin' on gettin' hitched yer gonna need a partner," here she winked. "I'm free."

"Actually, I'm here as a witness to the next marriage," Cena said, spinning out a lie that he hoped she would buy. "The groom's the brother of my ex-girlfriend's cousin. We're close."

"Okay, well," Dolly acquiesced, signifying that she was more than a little drunk that night. She turned to the curtain covering the main part of the chapel, lifted it and peered in. "But which groom are ya talkin' 'bout? The one on the left or the one on the right?"

"What?" Cena was baffled, quite certain that whatever Vegas got up to, it didn't sanction same-sex marriage, not yet at least. He went over to where Dolly was looking and stuck his head in for a peek as well.

"... And so by the power vested in me by the great powers that reign in the infinite galaxy of the place above known as heaven, or whatever," the minister dressed in an Elvis outfit slurred almost incomprehensibly, "I now pronounce you husband and bitch. Or husband and husband, whatever you happy folk like to call yourselves." Reverend Elvis let out a belch and leaned heavily on the podium.

"What happened to the 'You may kiss the bride' part?" a familiar, tipsy voice came from one of the figures in front of the minister.

"Does it matter? Neither of us are brides, junior," his partner responded in an equally tipsy and unmistakable tone.

And as the completely wasted Gregory Helms and Chris Jericho staggered to retrieve their marriage certificate from the zonked out assistant at the first pew, John Cens' incredulity finally burst out in uncontrolled laughter. "Holy shit, wait 'til the other guys get a load of THIS!"

cont'd

What kind of a mess will Rene get into with his new, shiny, fake ID? Why hasn't Rob gotten into any shit yet? How much will Edge regret in the morning, especially after he finds out what Matt and Mick have done to his hotel bill? What will Helms and Jericho do when they find out what they did the night before? Are gay marriages even sanctioned in Las Vegas? Will they EVER get out of Vegas? Only the next chapter will tell!