"Whoa, dude, chill out," RVD drawled, then glanced at the trench coat covering the larger man's delightful little Angus Young getup, and asked innocently, "Hey, where did your little schoolboy's uniform go? My sister would have really liked one of those for her twelve-year-old son." Triple H scowled at his words, before snarling an explanation of, "I blew out the damn amplifiers!" and pushing past the bewildered RVD to go sulk to Stephanie. RVD stared after the furious World Champion stalking off, shaking his head from side and side and whistling, "Whoa," repeatedly to himself.
Fortunately, before anybody might think RVD's act was a bad imitation of a broken record player, Lita happened to walk by, desperately searching for any sort of sanctuary from Kurt and the WWE accounting tasks that he'd managed to lug with him and was now bothering the redhead to help him with. Spotting RVD standing around and staring off into space while muttering to himself, Lita ventured cautiously, "Hi, Rob...Are you okay? You're not, like...well, you know..." She blushed as her voice trailed off, polite enough to not finish her sentence, and RVD merely blinked sunny eyes at her and chirped brightly, "I'm not what? Oh, yeah, that's right--I'm up after these next three acts, huh?" Lita shrugged, muttering, "How should I know, all I care about is that I'm practically dead last at No. 99, which should give me plenty of time to rehearse." RVD nodded along wisely to her words, mumbling to himself, "Hmm, yeah, that might be a good idea." Lita's eyes widened in surprise, and she asked incredulously, "You mean, you haven't even practiced your song yet? Dude, you're up in less than twenty minutes!" RVD grinned goofily at the word that she'd unwittingly snatched from his daily vocabulary, before shrugging sheepishly and admitting, "Well, it's kind of hard to rehearse for your act when you haven't even got a song picked out yet!" If Lita had been sitting down, she would have surely fallen off her chair in shock, as she leaned up to the cheerful wrestler and squawked shrilly, "You what! You don't even have a song picked out yet!" RVD shrunk back under her imposing presence, but somehow still kept his cool and managed to sound as calm as ever, "Nope. See, originally I wanted to do a cover of "Smokin' In The Boys' Room," but Stephanie put her foot down (literally, by the way--she raised one of those new pumps of hers and stomped down on my foot, can you believe her!) and told me absolutely no--after the Katie Vick and Dawn-Al-Torrie fiascoes, she couldn't afford to give the WWE an even lower reputation by confirming a rumor. Whatever that means." RVD shrugged again, then brightened and interrupted Lita as she was about to comment on that subject, "Oh, and also how she didn't want me sounding like some sort of gay pervert lurking about a cramped little room where young boys drop down their pants to piss, as the title might imply!" Lita almost laughed straight into his face when she heard those words coupled with his confused expression.
"Well, Rob--" she started to say, but RVD cut her off yet again to huff and whine, "Which is completely unfair--I mean, if she'd just take the time to actually read the lyrics, she'd know that "Smokin' In The Boys' Room" is far from some sort of kinky gay voyeurism thing!"
"Uh, Rob--" Lita tried to pick up where she'd left off, but RVD seemed determined to play Kurt's role that day and continued to ramble on, completely engrossed in himself and happily clueless of his surroundings.
"I mean, honestly, it's not like her song is all that innocent and non-suggestive and whatever," he grumbled. "I mean, with a chorus that goes--"
"ROB!" Lita, beginning to see shades of Kurt Angle in Mr. Monday Night, finally decided to use the same approach with the latter that she used with the former--bully him into shutting up. It was a time-tested technique that never failed to work, as proven by when RVD finally stopped rambling and gave her his full attention. Unfortunately, however, so did just about everybody else present, and Lita blushed when she saw all those eyeballs fixed curiously on her form, before she cleared her throat and mumbled awkwardly, "Here, Rob, tell you what--since you don't have a song yet, and since No. 16's already finished his performance and you need an act fast, I'll help you pick out a song that will imply nothing about smoking pot or guy-on-guy voyeurism, okay?" RVD shrugged cheerfully.
"Gee, thanks," he replied in a sunny voice.
The festival host flashed a strained grin at the audience, mumbling weakly into his microphone, "Thank you, Ms. Taylor. Now, wasn't that just the most dazzling rendition of "I Will Survive"? You really get to distinguish the little trademark bits of the song after the twenty-seventh rendition, don't you!" The audience, whether because they were really enthusiastic about disco or maybe just because they were suffering from heat stroke coupled with Triple H's earlier ear-busting performance, responded with such a mad roar of cheering and whistling that the hapless host was nearly blown right off the stage.
"All right, now let's forget all about the seventies and disco," he sang out into his microphone, "and welcome Contestant No. 19, Mr. Rob Van Dam, who will be singing a stunning rendition of..."
RVD then made his grand entrance, looking completely different from his casual jeans-and-T-shirt-clad earlier self after a certain red-haired high flyer was done with her makeover. Gone were the faded Levi's, ripped and torn at one knee, to be replaced by a pair of crisply pressed black pants tight enough to tantalize but still loose enough so as to pose no threat to Jericho's shiny little ensembles. Instead of his white T-shirt, RVD had been wheedled into wearing a charcoal-gray wife-beater, and to achieve that rock star hair, Lita had assaulted his long sandy ponytail with enough mousse and hairspray to put Diana Ross to shame, as she somehow managed to manipulate his tawny-colored locks so that they stuck out swankily in what appeared to be a bad Jon Bon Jovi hairstyle impersonation. Lita was still sticking all sorts of slap-on temporary tattoos onto RVD's bare arms and shoulders when he tottered dazedly onto the stage, apparently having appeared only because someone--namely, Lita--had shoved him out from behind the curtains by force. The host blinked at Mr. Monday Night's rather...erm, unique entrance, then scurried to dodge the bras that were already being thrown up at RVD, mumbling hurriedly into his microphone, "Urk, here's Mr. Rob Van Dam to sing the Goo Goo Dolls' smash single, "Slide!"
The music started, and RVD, glancing back and trying to decipher exactly what Lita's frantic gestures from behind the curtains meant (they were supposed to order him to get up to the microphone and sing, by the way), finally got the point and went up to the mic stand.
RVD had to stop, then, because the girls' frantic screaming was completely drowning out the sound of his surprisingly okay voice, and as he opened his mouth to sing again, a lacy pink bra flew right onstage and hit him squarely in the face.
"Gahck!" A startled RVD struggled to untangle the silky material from his face, praying that his mother wasn't watching this, and to cover up his embarrassment, quickly rushed through the rest of the song.
After RVD had finished and the bras had been collected from onstage and tossed back into the audience, the former ECW'er walked backstage and hogged up the nearest computer to read the Internet smarks' reviews about his little performance. Clicking on the first WWE news and rumors web page he found, RVD waited patiently for the headlines and pictures to load...and then reacted in a most curious fashion.
"Aaaauuuugggghhh!"
"What!"
"What happened!"
"Mommy!"
RVD's shriek drew the attention of most of the WWE Superstars backstage preparing for their own acts, as a slew of wrestlers and divas, Lita included, rushed up to see what had startled RVD so. The flame-haired femme fatale was the first to reach the laptop, and frowned when she saw nothing out of the ordinary displayed on the web page, save for a rather enticing pictorial of herself posing in a hot pink bikini. Lita gave an insulted huff, assuming that her divas' magazine centerfold was what had made RVD let out his little siren wail, grumbling, "You know, Rob, most men would agree that me in a bikini is a sexy--not scary--sight!" Before Lita could go on lecturing RVD, Jericho and Kurt had arrived as well, and began reading across the front page. The blonde Canadian was first to finish, and his response was to let out one of his annoyingly sarcastic laughs, causing Lita to whirl around and seethe, "Oh, so now you think that me in a bikini is funny!" Just then, Kurt finally finished, and reacted by clapping his hands on his shaved head and gasping accusingly, "Oh, my God! I can't believe you would do something like this! How could you!" Lita left Jericho to continue to smirk and laugh away, turning her attention to Kurt and trying to explain, "Kurt, it's not that slutty for someone to pose in a bikini...Hey, it could be worse, I could have been completely naked...Oh, please, like Trish hasn't posed in more provocative outfits...You know what, I bet that you just wish it was Stephanie in that bikini and not me...!" Finally, Jeff arrived at the scene, briefly read across the page, heard Lita's frustrated words, glanced around at the rest of the motley crew--RVD was still in shock, Jericho was still screechingly laughing away, and Kurt was still spouting drivel about sluts easier than first grade arithmetics and degenerating morals--and finally corrected Lita's impressions by clearing his throat and pointing out to the redhead, "Um, Lita? You might want to read the headline splashed beside your beach photo shoot pictorial!" At this, Lita finally whipped around and took the time to read the words beside her picture, finding the headline screaming at her from the page in bold capital letters, "WWE Superstar Rob Van Dam Impregnates Teenage Girl; Condemns Her For Getting Abortion But Proposes Eloping!"
"D'oah!"
In their adjoining private dressing room, Stephanie glanced up from consoling Triple H to wonder if what she'd just heard really was the sound of a body hitting the floor in frustration.
A/N: Just in case you didn't get that last part or didn't take the time to read through the lyrics, the song "Slide" is actually about a teenage couple who're unexpectedly having a baby, and the guy is basically asking his girlfriend why did she have to get an abortion, but then telling her that he'll let this slide and then asking her if she wants to get married.