Chapter Two - The Way The Ball Bounces.
Paul took a deep breath and inched closer to where he could see Shawn Michaels sitting alongside Kevin Nash. It was now or never.
"I don't want to interfere with what you guys are doing, but my name is Paul Levesque. I talked to Terry Taylor and he said you are the guys to hang out with. So if you don't mind, I'd like to hang out and travel with you."
Watching with his breath still held in, Shawn glanced up at Kevin, before he fixed his vision on Paul, and smiled.
December, 2009.
Chris Jericho's eyes widened as the crowd went ballistic at the sight of D-Generation X standing in the ring before him, smiling. It wasn't exactly the most comforting feeling in the world to see the two degenerates in such a close proximity when he sat precariously upon the Big Show's shoulders nearly thirteen feet up in the air. He stole one final gaze at the Unified Tag Team Championship belts hanging just a few inches above his head, and then in the next instant, felt himself plummeting to the concrete floor below as Shawn Michaels Super-Kicked Big Show right in the jaw, sending him off balance. Triple H grinned at the stumbling giant and then kicked him the stomach before performing a pinpoint accurate Pedigree, with the added help of the Heartbreak Kid.
With the crowd still screaming the roof off of the San Antonio stadium, Paul and Shawn then rolled Big Show out of the ring under the bottom rope to join Jericho. That was the easy part. The tag-team partners looked at each other, then at the belts hanging above the ring, and finally at the broken ladder that sat in the centre of the canvas.
The Cerebral Assassin immediately felt the cogs in his brain set to work. Without another second's thought, he snatched up one half of the snapped ladder and planted it firmly into the canvas, holding it upright directly underneath the championship belts.
Shawn tilted his head to the side for a moment and glanced at Paul. The younger man gestured his head upwards and sternly spoke, "Go."
Shawn remained frozen for a second or two, in all honesty a little reluctant to take the credit for what looked to be a certain win for DX, but none the less, he soon set to work carefully climbing up the rungs of the ladder as Paul faultlessly held his friend's weight while he climbed.
The increasing sound of the twelve thousand, or so, people around him rapidly began to catch up to Shawn as he sensed a bead of sweat roll down his face. He could faintly hear the voices of Jerry 'The King' Lawler, Michael Cole and Matt Striker on commentary at ringside anticipating his short climb to the top of the ladder. But to Shawn, the ascent felt like it would take a lifetime.
Paul held his breath and felt the veins in his biceps start to ripple just as Shawn made it to the top of the ladder. The chants of 'D-X!' roaring from the crowd soon meshed into indefinable screams as the belts were finally unhooked from above the ring and grasped securely in the hands of HBK. A wide grin of pride and accomplishment immediately beamed across Paul's face as he looked up to see his best friend holding the Unified Tag Team Championships high above his head, their theme song booming in the background.
"They've done it!" King exclaimed.
"There you have it folks!" Striker cut in, "After all the tables, ladders and chairs, Triple H and Shawn Michaels – DX are your new Unified Tag Team Champions!"
The second that Shawn was safely back down on the ground, Paul threw the ladder out of the ring and the two partners collected each other in a hug. Neither of them had absolutely any idea how good it was going to feel to become Tag Champs for the first time. The emotion was nothing they were expecting. It was completely indescribable.
After a few seconds, the two parted and Shawn handed one of the belts to Paul, "We did it, buddy!" he shouted over the hysterical cries still teeming from the arena, "Worth the wait?"
Paul couldn't help but chuckle to himself. He knew full well what Shawn meant – the two of them had been waiting twelve years for this moment, that is, to finally be crowned as the Tag Champions. But Paul's reference was a little different.
Unbeknownst to Shawn, not to mention every single other person in his life, Paul had been waiting a further five years just for this night in general. Ever since the crazy dream he had experienced all those years ago as a twenty-three year old debutant, Paul had been waiting on a knife's edge just to see if he was even going to meet Shawn in the first place, let alone team up with him. And only once he did, and it was proven to him that all of his original opinions of the Heartbreak Kid were so far off the person he truly was, Paul realised that having the privilege of gaining a friendship with someone as amazing as Shawn was genuinely the greatest moment he ever could have waited for.
"Yeah, Shawn," Paul agreed, "Definitely worth it."
With that said, the two threw their belts over their shoulders and then crossed their arms, commemorating the moment with a DX high-five, before climbing to the top rope and celebrating with the DX Army.
All around the huge arena, chants of 'D-X! D-X!' could be heard, except for the few who chose to play favourites and were instead screaming either 'H-B-K!' or 'TRI-PLE-H!'
"What do you want to be called? Paul? Hunter?"
Paul looked up at Shawn and shrugged his shoulders, "I'm not sure."
"Well, how about Triple H?"
In a few minutes, the two degenerates soon found themselves backstage in their dressing room, relaxing and taking a well-deserved post-match warm down.
With a huge smile still extremely apparent across his face, Paul walked over to his and Shawn's freezer bags and grabbed an ice pack for each of them.
"Man, that was so sweet!" he yelled, the excitement still pouring from his voice, as he planted a kiss on one of his two belts before gently placing them down on the bench that sat in the centre of the small room.
Shawn simply gazed at his in silence and forced a small grin of pride. Taking the ice pack that The Game had tossed to him, Shawn then placed it firmly against his lower back, wincing slightly.
"Ya' back alright?" Paul asked in concern.
Shawn quickly gawked up the younger man, but shot his vision back to the floor, "Yeah, it's fine."
Paul froze for a minute and narrowed his eyes in suspicion, "What's up, man?"
"Nothing, why?" Shawn instantly replied, still barely facing his friend.
"Because you're sitting there on your arse in total silence when we should be out celebrating. Perhaps a couple of celebratory drinks…?"
"Hunter!"
"Kidding!" Paul snapped back with a laugh. Not wanting to encourage The Game any further, Shawn let a subtle smile cross his lips.
"But seriously, Shawn, something on your mind?"
There was a moment or two of a prolonged hush as Shawn eventually allowed his eyes to lock with Paul's. A mass of hesitation clouded his mind, and being face to face with his best friend of fourteen years certainly wasn't helping him form the words that he needed to say.
"Well… there actually is something I gotta' talk you about," Shawn confessed, "You really wanna' know?"
Paul frowned and took a seat next to Shawn, placing his ice pack against his quad, "Of course, man."
Paul waited for a second longer as Shawn made some further deliberation in his mind, and then sighed, "I got my match for 'Mania."
Paul's eyes widened, "That's awesome! Wait, lemme' guess," he announced, jumping off the bench, "For the first time ever in their history, competing on the Grandest Stage of Them All will be none other than The Heartbreak Kid; Shawn Michaels, The Game; Triple H – D-Generation X!"
Shawn cracked another small smile at Paul's over the top gestures and dramatisation, "As sweet as that would be, bud, that's not exactly it."
Paul's expression dropped as Shawn's reverted back to a demeanor of pure angst and nerves, "Well come on then, spill. How bad can it be?"
The Atlantic City crowd exploded in fury as the young wrestler in the ring, along with his cohort, smacked the Undertaker in the back at full force with a chair.
The Dead Man instantly bolted upright, as Shawn dropped the steal chair, grabbed Paul and ran out of the ring.
As they did, an overwhelming thought crossed Paul's mind; 'This could be huge.'
...
"Generation X always gets a bad rap," Shawn thundered through the Titantron to Bret Hart, the Canadian flag still half hanging out of his nose, "everyone calling us degenerates. D-Generation X, is that us? D-Generation X. Triple H, HBK, Chyna – we are D-Generation X. You make the rules and we will break them!"
Paul continued to wait anxiously for Shawn to answer, before the older man pushed his hair back between his fingers and sighed again.
"I've got a rematch. With 'Taker."
His jaw flying open to the ground, Paul felt the rest of his features brighten in surprise, "Wow, really?" he spoke in awe as Shawn nodded his head.
If there was one fight out of them all that truly headlined WrestleMania XXV, it was without a doubt the match between Mr. WrestleMania himself and the legendary – and at the time – 16 and 0 Undertaker. And although the Dead Man may have prevailed, taking him to seventeen straight wins at 'Mania, Paul couldn't even begin to imagine how huge the ultimate good versus evil rematch was going to be.
"Damn, Shawn, that's gonna' be the match of the century!"
"Yeah, you're telling me…" HBK reflected softly to himself.
Paul then sensed his brow furrow again in confusion as, evidently, Shawn's muse hadn't been as quiet as he anticipated, "What?" The Game probed.
Mentally Super-Kicking himself, Shawn hastily stood up and threw his ice pack down, "Nothing, don't worry, bud. C'mon, let's go to – "
"No, hang on a minute," Paul interjected, grabbing a hold of Shawn's shoulders. The Game forced his best friend to look him dead in the eye as Shawn awkwardly waited for Paul to let him go and say something.
"There's something you're not telling me," Paul proclaimed strongly.
Shawn fell back to a bleak silence. He should've known better to try and pull the wool over the Cerebral Assassin's eyes. The two knew each other better than they knew themselves. They were aware of every single fact there possibly was to know about each other. They had been through plenty of good times, and a whole lot of bad times together, and always came out standing side by side in the end. And it was for those exact reasons that Shawn couldn't bring himself to succumb to his confession.
"C'mon, Shawn," Paul urged, dropping his arms back to his side, "If you don't want me to know, then that's fine, but – "
"No," Shawn interrupted, snapping back to reality, "It's not that, it's just…" HBK allowed one final breath to inhale into his lungs, "there are particular… stipulations to the match."
Paul cocked an eyebrow, "Oh, yeah? Like what?"
"Well, if I win I get the streak – "
"Well, yeah," Paul interposed again, "That's a given."
" – it's no disqualifications."
"Ha," Paul barked at the thought of the Dead Man in a match with no rules, "well, it's your career."
Shawn suddenly froze at the words that spilled from Paul's mouth. He focused his attention back to the tiled floor below him and hurriedly sat back down. Paul watched in total and utter bewilderment as he tried to decipher the means of Shawn's strange behaviour, until, something abruptly came to him.
"Wait," he started nervously, "What does 'Taker get if he wins?"
The constant thudding of Paul's heart seemed to slow with every other minute detail of the dressing room and he waited for a response from his best friend. In the back of his mind, there were a million different answers swarming around, trying to get the most attention from The Game, but at that precise moment, Paul was only allowing himself to concentrate on one thing, and that was the look of extreme dismay that uncharacteristically was sprawled across Shawn's face.
After what felt like an eternity, Shawn lifted his head up.
"…My career."
In the immediate hush that had swept over the two men, Paul took a second or two to comprehend what Shawn had just told him, "So… you'd have to retire?"
Shawn nodded his confirmation, his head now re-facing the floor.
A chunk of panic sealed itself in Paul's throat, "Well, you're going to win, aren't you?"
Paul felt his patience begin to ware thin at the persisted silence.
"Shawn?" he snapped.
In the next second, Shawn shot his head up in slight aggravation and rigorously shook it, "I'm sorry, Hunter. It's time."
Paul blinked in disbelief and chuckled, "You're just messing with me, aren't you?"
The joking smile of denial stretched across his best friend's face caused Shawn to heave his shoulders in a shrug, "What do you want me to say, buddy?"
The tone of thorough seriousness that coated Shawn's voice slowly brought Paul's world to a stop as he felt all emotion crash down around him. The expression plummeted completely from his face as realisation firmly set in.
"What do I want you to say?" he repeated patronizingly, "I want you to say that you're seriously not giving up!"
Shawn stood up, "Hunter – "
"No!" Paul thundered, "The day you retire is the day that you can't kick your fucking leg above my head anymore, and not a second sooner!"
"Hunter!" Shawn called again, before Paul flung his icepack across the room and stormed out the door, slamming it behind him.
It took every ounce of self-control he could muster to not let a single tear escape the corners of his eyes as Paul marched, head down, up the corridor.
This wasn't how it was supposed to happen, and as Paul continued to power though the building, wherever he was going, that was what he kept telling himself. Out of all of the scenarios he had come up with over the years of how the night of his and Shawn's Unified Tag Team match would end, the circumstances he grimly found himself in had not even crossed his mind once. And if Paul had known just how much it would kill him inside to hear that his best friend was leaving him behind after all that they had been through together,
'I never would've spoken to him in the first place…'
"Billy, Dogg. Shawn's left," Paul announced, "we, DX, really need you guys. DX is no good if it's just me..."
A/N: Hey guys :) What did we think of the second chapter? I know in the last one I said this was only going to be a two-shot, but I've decided to stretch it out to three instead. My original one-shot idea was going to end after the boys won the Tag Championships, but I'm pretty happy it's turned out this way :)
I hope you enjoyed the random flashbacks, as well. I figured since there's such a massive time jump between the first and second chapter, the flashbacks would help anyone who wasn't really sure of how the DX story went down. Again, all those moments are directly from 'The Unauthorised History of D-Generation X' so all that credit goes to where it's due.
I'll try to update as soon as possible, but I'm sure it'll happen faster if you leave a review ;)
Oh, and Tiger, if you're here, I promise I'll start writing again for Swash first :D Thanks guys!
Reneyyyyyyyy x.