You paint
your smile on your lips
Blood red
nails on your fingertips
A school
boy's dream, you act so shy
Your very
first kiss was your first kiss good-bye
Test watched in vengeful satisfaction on the locker room's small TV screen, as Security hauled a screaming and kicking Stephanie away from the WWF ring. A smirk decorated his lips, as he viewed the Princess being dragged away, while back in the squared circle, Hunter Hearst Helmsley, a.k.a. Triple H, led the gleeful crowd in singing the rather annoying Good-bye song to his soon-to-be-ex-wife. To a stranger who wasn't aware of Stephanie's true colors, it must have been a rather pitiful and sympathetic sight to see this beautiful and seemingly helpless young woman being roughly booted off from the arena. But Test was no stranger to the billion dollar bitch and her conniving ways, and surprised even himself when he discovered that there wasn't a single hint of neither pity nor sympathy at the pathetic sight, only a deep, vengeful satisfaction. He might have gone along with Stephanie during the Invasion days, but now that his stint with the Alliance was over and the Princess was no longer his boss, Test was free to hate his former fiancée as much as he wished.
But it hadn't always been that way. As impossible as it seemed--sometimes even to Test himself--there had once been a time during which Stephanie was his life, his love, his very soul. Was it really only...what, two, three years ago, that the woman known as Stephanie Marie McMahon was the sweet, innocent young girl who had a beaming smile and welcoming hug for everyone? And was it really that long ago that Test had been willing to do everything in his power for her? She had meant everything to him, and although he now liked to think of his early relationship with Stephanie as the biggest, dumbest mistake he'd ever made in his life, there was still a part of him that stubbornly declared if he could go into the past, there wasn't a thing he would do differently...and that included getting close to the little princess.
The veterans backstage all saw potential in him to some day become one of the biggest Superstars in the World Wrestling Federation. Stay focused, they would tell him. Train as hard as you can, don't let an occasional loss every now and then get you down, don't get into trouble, kid, work on your technical skills...and stay away from the McMahons. Whatever you do, don't let any of them ensnare you. Because he respected the old-timers, and because he had been young and ambitious, and eager to prove his worth to the company, he had dutifully followed their advice down to the tiniest detail...and carefully avoided getting too close with a member of the McMahon family. After all, that was what everybody was telling him, and from the battles he'd witnessed between Mr. McMahon and DX, he was beginning to see why he'd always been warned to stay away from the first family of sports entertainment.
But a certain little princess's arrival into the company had changed all that. Nowadays, Stephanie was known for being the curvaceous and coldly beautiful heiress to the throne that was the World Wrestling Federation, but back then, she was a shy, sweet young girl, with a friendly smile and ready hug for anyone and everyone. That was what had drawn Test to her in the first place. Stephanie McMahon might not have been one of the more exotic divas in the WWF, but she possessed a natural charm and innocence, and to him, those qualities alone had made her the most beautiful diva in the entire company.
And yet how could he approach her? Granted, as far as he knew, Stephanie didn't have a significant other...but she was also a McMahon. And backstage, there was an unspoken rule that you don't date the boss's daughter. Hell, you don't even date the boss's son: as far as Test knew, most of the divas, no matter how outrageously flirtatious they were, were still somewhat intimidated by Shane McMahon's name and status to chase after him. And that was a male McMahon. How was he to go after Vince's precious little baby girl without getting his head cut off? Well, apparently, he had been smitten enough to try--and probably dumber than he'd ever really cared to admit--but finally, he had gotten the courage from God only knew where to approach Stephanie...all in the name of friendship, of course. Of course. He might have been more naïve than he was today, but he was still not dumb enough to have Shane and his Mean Street Posse going after his ass for dating Shane's baby sister. If he wanted to really pursue a relationship with Stephanie, he was going to have to do it the smart, safe way, and slowly ease into it with casual friendship being the first step.
And Stephanie had gladly accepted his friendship. She was new in the company, a fresh face, and had no one with whom she was really close except her family. The rest of the Superstars had shied away from her due to her name, and the poor girl had been starved for a hand of friendship. Test had also suspected that, back then, Stephanie was probably a bit taken with him as well. And, not to be bragging or anything, but he certainly shouldn't have been as surprised and secretly thrilled as he had been when he'd first realized that. Now that he thought about it...why shouldn't she have been smitten by him? After all, he was tall, he was in great shape, he was great-looking--in his humble opinion, certainly much better-looking than the bastards she'd chosen over him ever since they'd broken up, including the likes of Triple H (naturally) and Kurt Angle (what the hell had she been snorting to have ever possibly seen anything in the pompous dork, anyway?).
But, getting back to the subject at hand, yeah, back then, he had been equally lovestruck. He must have been more stupid than he really cared to recall, if he had fallen for the sweet, innocent, girl-next-door facade that Stephanie upheld. Now that he thought about it, it seemed as though every favorite-little-sister type character turned out to be a bitch at heart...just look at the supposedly perky, innocent little Miss Molly Holly. Hell, she'd even gone and copied Stephanie's hair color! He probably should have warned the little runt, Spike Dudley...but then again, he'd never liked the pipsqueak. That, and it wasn't fair to him, because he'd never gotten any warning about Stephanie McMahon. Two, three years earlier, he had been so sickeningly, disgustingly in love with Stephanie, that he'd practically thrown away his career for her. After all, she was daddy's little girl, and when daddy doesn't approve of the man his baby daughter's dating, daddy makes said boyfriend's life a living hell.
Despite Vince and Shane's best efforts, their most outrageous attempts at breaking up the happy couple of Test and Stephanie only made the latter two strive even harder for their relationship to work. They'd secretly thought of their relationship in an almost Romeo and Juliet-esque light...except that Test didn't have any influential family members to counter Daddy Vince and Big Brother Shane's shameless antics at shredding the perfectly fine relationship. Nevertheless, the brutal disapproval of the male McMahons only served to strengthen their relationship, and, grudgingly, eventually, Vince and Shane had finally learned to reluctantly accept the fact that their daughter was dating one of their wrestlers.
Test had been so happy to have finally earned their grudging approval. Now that he looked back on it, he had no idea why--after all, Hunter had married Stephanie and received hell for it from the male McMahons, and look at where he was now. But, apparently, back then, he had been stupid enough to try and be one of the "good guys". And, just like most of the "good guys", he'd eventually ended up getting screwed over--big time. He didn't know that, of course. All that he did know was that he'd decided like an idiot that being with Stephanie McMahon for the rest of his life would be wedded bliss, and desperately wanted to marry her. He had also been desperately hoping that she wouldn't turn him down, so, in an effort to better his chances, he'd gotten down on one knee like some romantic fool, and proposed to her in the middle of the ring, hoping that she wouldn't turn him down in front of the fifteen thousand people at the arena and millions of people watching the event unfold on national television. A choked-up Stephanie had said yes, and, like an ecstatic idiot, he'd believed her to have actually meant what she'd promised him. Test shook his head. How naïve he'd been back then.
But then, of course, Linda McMahon just had to fly Stephanie over to Las Vegas for her bachelorette party. Now that he thought about it, Linda certainly seemed to have a knack for ruining all of Stephanie's relationships, first with Test by giving Hunter an opportunity to marry the youngest McMahon in Sin City, then sending over the videotape exposing the false pregnancy to Hunter right before the night he and Stephanie were supposed to renew their vows. But Test was focusing his anger on the wrong McMahon. Either way, he had been shattered when he'd found out about Stephanie's secret--albeit very drunk--marriage to Hunter Hearst Helmsley, and had taken off...only to return to find out that Stephanie had not only settled into married life with Hunter, but had also gone as far as shedding her little girl image to align herself with the dirtiest player in the game and clock her own father with a sledgehammer while he was fighting for her honor.
Stephanie might not have known it back then--and she probably still didn't know it, even now--but contrary to popular belief, Test's entire world had been flipped upside down when he'd found out about her crossing over to the dark side, and not on the day of their marriage that wasn't to be. Because at least when he'd found out about Hunter secretly marrying his fiancée, he could make up dozens of excuses on Stephanie's behalf. She had been drunk, she had been drugged, it had probably been a pretty wild party, and she'd done some things she would later regret, it was all Hunter's fault, Hunter was a conniving little son of a bitch...But, now that Stephanie had gone and flat out aligned herself with Hunter, going as far as turning on her own father, Test could no longer delude himself into believing that she was still the sweet little girl he'd fallen shyly in love with. She had found the McMahon in her, after twenty-two years, and was apparently determined to make up for lost time.
Later, Test had found out that Stephanie had been immensely hurt that he'd just run away from the problem and seemingly abandoned her, and that that had been the main reason she'd joined up with Hunter--not to get back at Daddy Dearest, but to get back at him. And while he couldn't exactly say that he didn't share even a tiny portion of the blame, he certainly didn't think that the disaster was entirely his fault. After all, who wouldn't be crushed to find out that the girl of his dreams, who had just promised to spend the rest of her life with you, had been secretly wedded off to one of the most ruthless, manipulative men in the industry? It might not have been the best solution on his part to run off like that, but, after eventually calming down, he had realized that, just like all those countless times in which Vince and Shane had attempted to break them up, he was fiercely willing to fight for their relationship. And, just as he was about to go tell Stephanie that, he'd found out that she had announced her alliance with Hunter. Before that, he hadn't deemed it possible to have his heart broken twice by the same girl in so short a period...but apparently, just as he had been wrong about Stephanie's sweet innocence, so had he been way off about his immunity from heartbreak. Way, way off.
After his disastrous first brush with love, Test had strayed away from the McMahon-Helmsley faction. The next time he'd encountered Stephanie was during their days working together with the Alliance, and even back then, he'd cautiously made sure to never get too close to her. Granted, he'd done her that one favor, and fought and beat Chris Jericho--the same man she was now aligned with to ironically fight against Hunter--but he had been determined to make that his last little favor to Stephanie. And, so far, he was keeping to his promise.
Test watched as a screaming and kicking Stephanie was finally dragged away from the arena, while Triple H gloated in the ring. Despite the fact that he hated Hunter's very being, Test couldn't help but share his mirth, as he felt a smirk tug at his own lips. Daddy Vince was probably in the back right now, yelling at his lawyers and pulling his hair out as he watched his precious daughter get hauled off. Test didn't have to think twice to make up his mind that, as far as he was concerned, Vince could take as long as he wanted before finding away to weasel out of the deal his daughter had agreed to with Triple H, and hire Stephanie back into the company. As for Test himself, he had once loved the woman now known as the Billion Dollar Princess, but he had been young and naïve back then, eager for his very first taste of true love. And that was what was so ironic about this whole situation. Despite the fact that Test hated, with his heart and soul, the woman known as Stephanie McMahon, the woman who had broken his heart, and whom he found himself still bitterly angry at three years later, he had to give her credit for also being the first girl he'd ever truly loved.
Shot through the heart
And you're to blame
You give love a bad name
I play my part and you play your game
You give love a bad name
You give love a bad name