After a huge Smackdown VS. Raw televised show, all but two of the divas (Melina and Michelle McCool) had gone home and all but eight of the Superstars had left as well.

In the men's locker room Rey Mysterio was one of the few who hadn't showered yet. He'd barely worked up a sweat during the show despite his many flips and gymnastically-inclined moves. He was used to wrestling strenuously and his part hadn't been too strenuous.

He was humming Shakira's "Whenever, Wherever" song softly to himself as he bounced along out of the locker room in his buoyant Adidas boots, and half black half sunshine yellow pants and Rey Mysterio t-shirt. He'd even kept his mask on. He went to the mailboxes to get his fan mail.

Jeff Hardy passed him in the hallway. Absent minded as he was, he'd left his gym bag out in his frighteningly old deathtrap of a black van that spewed smog out of its giant tailpipe like a dying pot smoker.

The more gothic wrestler grinned when he overhead Rey's humming. "Hey, man, I didn't know you were turning Columbian on us!"

Rey laughed. "I'm not! I just can't help it, man, her songs are so damn catchy I can't get them off my mind, you know?"

Jeff chuckled, "Whatever blows your skirts up, man," he said and entered the locker room.

Rey shook his head, laughing a little. Jeff could be pretty funny sometimes.

Rey turned his eyes and thoughts back onto the mailboxes, which were many, small, and set into the wall with combination spinners, like the industrial mailboxes inside city apartment buildings. They each had the same combination as the wrestler's locker room locker, so it was easy to remember.

"Siete…nueve…uno…" Rey said to himself and opened the door. He smiled.

"Nice little stack. Today is a good day." He pulled it out and walked back to the locker room. John Cena held the door open for him because he saw the luchador had his hands full of mail.

"Gracias, Senor Cena," Rey said jokingly and Cena chuckled. Rey sat down on a bench and filed through the mail. Everybody watched him come in and turned back to what they were doing when he sat down.

Batista had evidently just burst out of the showers. (He was the Animal, after all. If you weren't accustomed to being around him in fact, you might jump in utter fear the first couple of times you were witness to him opening doors of any kind. They were usually flung open as if a hurricane were hitting the building and swung wildly on their hinges as he rushed through them. Then ironically, he would turn around and quietly close them shut. Poor CM Punk nearly needed psychiatric help after his first week in WWE because Batista kept exploding in and out of various places in the locker room while Punk was still in there.)

He was wearing black jeans already and was drying his hair with a towel. He peeked over his friend's shoulder at the fan mail.

"Whatcha got there, Rey?" as though he couldn't tell. But he tended to ask Rey obvious questions because he liked the sound of Mysterio's voice. It was sweet and tinged with a kind of excitement and a kind of calm simultaneously and marked by a cool accent that hinted at a Californian dialect of Spanish.

"Letters…letters…and yeah, letters, Dave."

"Gotcha," Batista said, shaking his head and chuckling, going over to his locker and pulling out some shoes and socks.

"Oh ho, score one for the cruiserweight," Triple H announced.

Rey smiled and didn't say anything. The conversation moved on and he listened to the guys talk about how well all the matches went that night.

"What the hell is this?" Rey blurted suddenly.

"It's a note," Jeff said densely.

"Yeah, no kidding. But from who?" Rey said, scrunching up his face in thought.

There was a handwritten note folded inside the envelope, but along with the note was a check for a looooot of money.

"Holy shit Rey, somebody gave you their life's savings again?" Cena asked.

"What do you mean, 'again'?" Shawn Michaels looked at Cena funny. "This has happened before? How many times? Is this a regular thing?"

Nobody answered that.

"I'm mailing it back and writing them an apology that I won't accept it. If they mail this back to me again it's going to two places: One, my kids' college fund. Two: charity."

"Rey, that's good and all, but don't you think…" Shawn Michaels trailed off, twiddling his thumbs.

"Do I think what?" Rey demanded, quirking his pierced eyebrow.

"Well, there's door number three…you could give the money to little old me…" Michaels suggested, grinning devilishly.

"You aren't spending anybody else's goddamn fan money on hookers and blow," Triple H said exasperatedly and walked through the room, swinging a towel over his shoulder and heading for the showers.

"That's right. Thanks for backing me up, Triple H," Rey said appreciatively. Then he frowned and did a double-take at HHH but it was too late; the man was already gone.

Everybody else left in the locker room had pretty much the same reaction.

"Wait…what the fuck did he just say?" Batista rumbled quizzically.

"Was he serious?" Jericho asked, frowning in that way that made him look akin to a smoosh-faced Persian cat.

Shawn rolled his eyes. "No…I spent all of his money in Vegas when we went there one time. On gambling stuff. Card tables. Not nearly as weird as hookers and blow."

"Let's just take his word for it, guys, 'cause I don't want to think about the alternative," Rey interjected.

They all shivered. Michaels was one of the older guys still active in the WWE roster and they all loved him, but not enough to want to think about him…that way.

Rey continued to go through the wad of fan mail. There were still a few people out there who wrote actual letters. Rey liked them. They seemed unique now and somewhat nostalgic compared to emails or posts on his MySpace page.

HHH had returned from his shower, as he was in fact the world's fastest shower-taker who was not enlisted in a military service. Everybody else was also looking over Rey's shoulders now, most of them out of curiosity; Michaels out of hoping Rey might cave and give him the check.

"Anything else out of the ordinary?" Batista asked when Rey was two letters away from completing the pile. Little did they know there was something out of the ordinary sandwiched in between those last two letters.

The Animal was smearing something green and from a jar on his face.

"No…" Rey said, his voice trailing off quizzically as he stared at his friend. "Dave, what is that that's going on your face right now?"

"Exfoliating mask," Batista answered simply, screwing the lid back on the jar.

"Uh…kay. Does it like, peel off or…?"

Batista nodded.

"Right. It peels off." Rey stood in silence for a minute and then just shrugged.

All the other superstars in the room shot each other looks. They'd been judging Rey's reaction.

"Wait. Rey, are you seriously just gonna let the 'Animal'" HHH put it in bunny ear quotes, which made it much funnier. "Use beauty products? That's cool with you? Nothing shows up on your gaydar at all about that?"

"Just the fact that you said the word 'gaydar' makes you show up on my gaydar," Michaels interjected and expertly dodged an elbow jab from his fellow DX member.

Rey shrugged again and looked at everybody. "Whatever, it's his business. I bet John Morrison uses that stuff too."

They all laughed and secretly wished that they had Morrison's full-bodied hair. (Meanwhile, I wish for CM Punk's flawless, shiny, Asian-like hair.)

Rey exhaled nostalgically. "All I can think about when I see that guy is how he managed to short out our power that day he had too many hair straighteners and blow dryers plugged in. Michelle McCool told me she ran into a pole 'cause she was in the hallway when the lights went out."

They all pictured that.

"Are you sure she was in the hallway? 'cause there's probably a pole in the Diva's locker room…"

Rey rolled his eyes, annoyed by the immaturity level at the moment.

"God, Cena, you're making this story worse than it already is."

Cena chuckled "Sorry, dog, my bad. My bad."

"How badly did Morrison fare after that?" Michaels asked eagerly, grinning.

Michelle McCool was a compact can of rage on her good days and qualified as a natural disaster on her worst.

Rey chuckled, "Oh, she beat him six ways to Sunday. I had to pull her off him when the lights came back on."

"You were in the hall, too? I think everybody else was in the showers or the locker room," Jeff said.

"Yeah, he was in the hall, how else would he have seen Michelle in the hallway unless he was there? Use your brain, man!" Batista shot back.

"You guys finished yet? I can wait," Rey said calmly.

"Sorry, man, keep going with the story," Batista apologized.

"Yeah, so I was in the hallway too. That's when I saw her and it took me like two minutes to pull her off 'im. Then she told me why she was beating the crap out of him. She told me I'd better keep him from plugging the stuff back in again."

Michaels whistled.

"Damn, that girl can fight," Cena commented.

"Remember when John had to be absent the week after that because of the…" Rey motioned towards the fly of his pants.

Everybody nodded.

"You mean when his balls got all banged up?" Jeff said, stating the painfully obvious.

"Yeah, Jeff. That," Jericho said, annoyed.

"That was Michelle?" Triple H asked, lowering his voice as though dreading she would hear them and come beat them all in the same place.

Rey nodded. "That was Michelle."

They all considered that in silence for a moment, the way people consider what their last words are going to be that level of reverence.

"Wow, a week? Did she use a bulldozer or just kick him?" Michaels asked.

Rey sighed. "Aw, man, come on, it's too gross to even recount…" he said, shaking his head.

That all just scared them even more.

Triple H clutched Rey's comparatively little shoulder in terror and shook him.

"Please tell me it was a bulldozer!" he hissed.

"All I'm gonna say is that you shouldn't ever mess with a lady who's got high heels on. That's all I'm gonna say," Rey answered.

"Aw...heels? Sick…" Jeff Hardy said, flushing pale at the mental images.

They all shuddered in horror.

Rey looked up at Batista.

"Is your mask done yet?"

Batista blinked and then lit up with a spark of recognition. "Oh yeah! Yeah!"

Batista pulled up the edge of the green glob and peeled all of it off his face in one elastic-y, flat, eye and mouth-hole covered mass.

"Man, that's like something outta an alien movie or somethin," Jeff commented.

"Are you seriously okay with letting your dog use a woman's product?" Cena asked Rey.

"Why should I care? If he wants to take good care of his skin, fine! I'm not his Papi; I don't tell him what crap he should use!"

The Animal stared down John Cena.

"It's not for women! It says right on the damn jar it's for adults who actually care about their physical appearance!" Batista interjected angrily. "And John, I think you might just qualify as an adult."

Triple H held Cena back as Jeff held Batista back. They both lunged at each other.

"Hey! Hey! If you both end up with black eyes then you won't fully appreciate what I found, would you?" Rey interrupted.

They both growled at each other and turned to the luchador. "What did you find, Rey?" Batista demanded.

Rey held it up.

"It's a key," Jeff stated.

"We know, Jeff, we're not blind," Jericho sighed, exasperated.

"It says WWE on it," Jeff said.

"We know, Jeff it's -" Jericho stopped and looked at the key. "It does have the logo on it. Maybe it goes to something in this building."

"Maybe Mr. McMahon put it in your box, Rey," Triple H suggested.

Rey shrugged. "I'll go look around and find out."

He got up and sauntered out into the hallway, key in hand.

Little did Rey know that the moment he was gone all the guys started talking at once.

"Man, I can't believe you didn't notice that he was defending your skin product! He's so chill, you know? I've never once heard him dis anybody for what doing what they want to do," Cena said admiringly.

"Of course he defended my skin product! I knew he'd like it, that's why I got it!" Batista shot back.

"Can I borrow your exfoliating mask goop, Dave?" Triple H asked sheepishly.

"Man, don't be a cheapskate! Dave, where did you buy that stuff? I'm gonna get my own jar!" Jeff declared.

"Bath and Bodyworks," Batista responded.

Triple H looked mildly confused at that. He'd heard of the stores but was absolutely clueless as to how to locate himself one.

"They're in malls, big guy," Shawn Michaels supplied after glancing at the look on his friend's face.

HBK figured as much. The only store HHH had probably ever entered in a mall was Vitamin World. And maybe those places that sell swords…

"I didn't know he liked guys with nice skin…" Jericho whined.

"Of course he likes guys with nice skin, have you not seen his skin? It's gorgeous! It looks like caramel for the love of God!" Batista exploded.

"Guys!" Rey shouted from the hall.

"I think you're all gonna want to see what this key is for!"

Cena, Batista, HHH, Shawn Michaels, Chris Jericho and Jeff Hardy all poured off of the men's locker room. Rey stood staring upwards at something.

It was the biggest door they'd ever seen.

They all stared at it. It was about twenty feet tall with a handle at Rey's waist level and one little keyhole as though it were a normal mailbox. They looked from it to their usual mailboxes set into the wall like tiny lockers and then back to the huge monstrosity.

"Was that there before today?" Jericho asked suspiciously.

"I don't think so," Triple H said.

They all looked at each other. Nobody had ever seen the door before.

"This is creeping me out, man," Jeff said uncomfortably.

Michaels rolled his eyes. "Really? 'Cause the rest of us are all totally used to shit appearing out of nowhere."

HHH laughed.

"I don't know if you should open it, man…" Chris Jericho warned, giving the door a death glare.

"I'm opening it. The key fits. But everybody get out of the way just in case." Rey broadcasted.

Everyone decided to be cautious and shuffled out further down the left or right sides of the hallway. Rey unlocked the door and bolted back to the left, recognizing the feeling of an unstoppable weight bearing down upon him. (That's aimed at you, Umaga. No offense, but you are a huge, huge man.)

Everyone was a safe distance away from the swinging door and the terrifying mass that lay inside it.

But Randy Orton, who, in contrast to HHH, took the world's longest showers and had just gotten out of them wearing nothing but gray sweatpants was busy cleaning out his beautiful little ears with Q-tips and didn't hear Rey's warning because he was busy wishing for a compact mirror got hit with the scariest load of mail in his entire life.

Everyone's eyes bugged out of their heads as the avalanche of packages hit Randy and buried him, spilling out a little ways into the hallway in both directions and creating a 10-foot deep hill in the epicenter of the disaster site.

Randy Orton was never heard from again.

"Aw, shit, man, that sucks," Jeff said, shaking his head.

"We can't just stand here! Somebody's gotta get him out!" Rey said worriedly.

HHH waved his hand and snorted. "Naw. Let's just leave him. It's his own damn fault."

Rey didn't like that idea. "No, it's my fault, that's my fan mail he's suffocating in."

HHH shrugged. "Whatever. I'm not helping you pull the little fucker out."

Rey rolled his eyes and groaned, stepping gingerly onto the crest of the mail-hill and beginning to pull packages off the top of the pile. Within a few seconds Rey himself began to sink and Batista, always the gentleman, dashed halfway into the pile, stretched out and snatched Rey back before the gifts he'd been standing in toppled into themselves and got sucked deeper into the pile like quicksand.

Batista was hold-hugging Rey around the smaller man's hips.

Rey sighed from his perch. "Damn. Maybe he's stuck in there." He patted Batista's hand as a signal to be put down and the heavyweight reluctantly set Mysterio back onto his feet.

"Duh moffafucggin helf I'n sfuck in bere!" a very muffled Randy Orton screamed. I lied. He was heard from again.

"What did he say?" Jericho asked.

Batista shrugged, still standing protectively by Rey, and very much still proud of himself for saving him from the impending mail-trap.

"I don't know, but at least he's alive in there," Rey said, relieved.

"I think he said 'the motherfucking hell I'm stuck in here'," Jeff Hardy translated in his own southern accent.

Michaels raised an eyebrow. "Great. Now can somebody tell me what Jeff just said?"

"Fuck you, man," Jeff replied, glaring.

HHH chuckled.

"You two need to stop having your little prima donna catfights, all right? Randy's stuck in there and we've gotta figure out how to do something about it!" Rey chastised, frowning at Michaels, then back at Jeff.

The Hardy brother paled and hung his head, murmuring "Sorry, Rey."

Michaels pretended to pout a little.

"Rey's right. Now who the hell's gonna go in there? Rey is already too heavy and we're all heavier than that, obviously, so what's the plan?" Batista demanded.

"Hey, I'm not that much heavier than Rey!" Jeff Hardy snapped defensively.

"I'm not helping," HHH repeated.

"I guess I'll have to dive in, then. Dave, man, can you pull me out again?" Mysterio volunteered, always fearless in spite of his compact size.

Batista looked reluctant to agree to let Rey go in the pile again.

John Cena got a spark in his eye.

I will save Rey Rey from having to go into danger! And when I save Randy I will win Rey's lo― err…friendship. Cena thought to himself.

Friendship. Yeah. That.

Before anybody could say anything John Cena unnecessarily tore off his shirt and chucked it in Shawn Michaels' face, diving into the pile with perfect form.

"By Mat bat frick!" Michaels said, his voice muffled by t-shirt. It translated into "Why that fat prick!" and scrambled to get the t-shirt off his face the way people do when they walk into a spider's web.

"What are you saying, Shawn?" Jeff Hardy asked, grinning.

"I know this won't end well," Jericho intoned, putting a damper on everything.

"Hey man, don't say that," Rey said; a note of disappointment in his voice.

Batista and the other guys shot dirty looks at Chris while Rey stared at the pile.

Don't you upset Rey Batista mouthed and motioned he'd break Jericho's neck if he said anything depressing again.

Jeff Hardy and HHH nodded in agreement.

"Look! Look!" Rey said excitedly, jumping up and down a little.

"I see them moving! They're coming out!"

"I see 'em too!" Jeff said. "Whose hand it that?"

Some fingertips were starting to peek out of the top of the pile.

A John Cena wristband was the next thing visible as the man hoisted himself and the leaner Randy Orton up through the top of the pile.

"Catch!" Cena warned and tossed the slightly-limp Orton through the air.

Batista caught him.

Rey ran forward and smiled as Cena hoisted himself out of the pile.

"Way to go, man! Hey, can you breathe?" Rey said happily, a big grin on his face as he bro hugged Cena.

John laughed. "Yeah, Rey, it's no biggie!" He patted the smaller man on the back and kept his arm in a bro hug around Rey, raising his eyes so that they met Batista's.

John Cena winked at the other superstar and spread his fingers possessively out over Rey's back, daring the Animal to admit that he'd won Mysterio's coveted affections.

Batista growled threateningly.

Rey broke apart from Cena, his face blank with confusion and turned his head towards the noise.

Batista abruptly whacked Randy on the back as though he was burping a baby very violently and Randy coughed, making the same sound. Rey never knew the difference.

Coincidentally, Randy coughed up a stamp.

The luchador ran over to them while Jeff gave Cena a hand getting out of the pile.

Cena muttered something about "Batista…we'll fix him!" and Jeff nodded feverishly in agreement.

"Are you good, Randy? Nothin's broken? Nothin like that?" Rey asked concernedly.

A dizzy Randy nodded and grinned lopsidedly. "Yeah, yeah, sure. I've felt worse stuff hit me in the ring, right?"

Rey laughed. "I know exactly what you mean. And his name is Big Show."

Batista chuckled and patted Randy's shoulder, completing the father figure image of him caring for the tussled Orton and giving Cena's role as life-saver a run for his money.

Rey put his hand warmly on Randy's knee and grinned.

"As long as you won't sue me for trying to kill you with my fan mail, it's all good!" he said jokingly.

"Rey, why would I sue you? I make more money than you do!" Orton teased, managing to keep a straight face.

Rey laughed.

Randy's inner thoughts: Oh my God he's looking at me and smiling! I hope my hair looks cool!!

So it should come as no surprise that Randy nearly melted when Rey ruffled his hair playfully.

"Easy there, Randy. Don't make me stick you back in that pile again!" Rey laughed.

"If you won't, I will," Triple H said, narrowing his eyes at his protégé.

"How stupid and deaf can you be? Rey warned everybody the door was opening!"

"Yeah, man, Rey all but shouted 'timber!' dude," Jeff put in.

"Let it go, guys, it's already over and done, all right?" Batista said.

He turned to his friend.

"Rey, you want some help putting all this junk in your car?"

Since they were out of Rey's home state of California, Rey had a rental car that he'd been driving around in and been letting some of the other guys carpool in.

"Sure, thanks. Be back in a sec." Rey went and packed up his duffel bag, slipping the strap over his shoulder and grabbed his keys.

While he was gone Shawn Michaels burst into uncontrollable laughter that he'd evidently been holding in.

"What the hell is your problem now?" Triple H asked.

"I don't think we can fit any more junk in Rey Rey's trunk!" Michaels answered breathlessly.

"Cute, Shawn," Batista said, rolling his eyes, whereas Jeff and Cena began to chuckle too.

"Aw, man, guys, you know it's true!" Cena said.

Triple H looked up at the ceiling with a look on his face that clearly indicated that he felt as though God hated him, and thus he was forever stuck with HBK.

They all managed to shut up again by the time the locker room door opened and Rey came out twirling his keys around his index finger.

He looked right at Triple H and asked, "Are you going to say, 'I'm not helping' again?"

There was a tense pause.

"What's he talking about?" Orton asked, looking at his former mentor.

"No, Rey, I'm helping," Triple H said promptly and took off to the parking lot with an armload of packages.

"What?!" Orton exclaimed indignantly when Cena explained HHH's plan to let Randy suffocate or get crushed to death- whichever came first.

Turns out the pile was all packages, which made it easy to find all the mail but hard to carry it all out.

Rey jogged out into the parking lot where Triple H was waiting by his car.

"How the hell did you manage to fit that many things in one hand?" he asked.

Rey smiled proudly as he unlocked the car. He was holding two stacks of boxes, each about seven boxes high, which reached up above his own head.

"Practice. Every time I get back home after being on the road for a while I've got piles of laundry to carry around my house. And sometimes Angie's tired of being the only one who has to pick up all our kids' stuff, so I have to go on toy collection duty."

Triple H pictured Rey unmasked and at his house, carting around loads of wrestling pants or his son Dominik's action figures or his daughter Aalyah's barbies. It wasn't hard. Rey was a good father and every time the other wrestlers asked about his children he lit up and there was an extra bounce in his step. When his kids were younger, he would excitedly recount stories of his baby girl Aalyah tossing her baby food all over the kitchen floor as many of the guys winced in dread and made mental notes to never reproduce. But they saw that to him, all the mess and mayhem were happy memories. They liked the updates more now that the kids were older and felt less scared of potentially dealing with seven year olds than three year olds. If there was only some way to skip to that age and avoid diapers and potty training.

With everyone's assistance the massive mound of packages was crammed into Rey's (and later also Batista's) car in no time. They were all staying at the same hotel so it didn't matter much as to who transported whose stuff.

Rey went around and hugged all the guys goodnight and goodbye. They waved and went back inside to pack up themselves.

Shawn Michaels was going to ride with Rey. He had his bag already and he set it onto the floor of the passenger front seat.

"Shotgun has been called," Rey noted, un-strapping his mask and slipping it off.

It was truly a real-life transformation to see Rey Mysterio go from masked to unmasked. With his colorful pants, t-shirt, and black gloves with intricate white patterns he looked athletic and his shoes hinted at his tendency to be probably the fastest wrestler in WWE. But the mask was almost an entity unto itself. It all but screamed Mexican Lucha Libre heritage and definitely did its job to remind other wrestlers of the near-flamboyant style of Aztec warriors of the past. With the mask, Rey somehow managed to look fierce, and, coupled with his starkly colored contacts- today's were a light electric blue- he could even pull off being intimidating. He may have been small in stature, but once he got in the ring and took off his shirt to reveal his muscular torso and formidable tattoo collection, clenched his fists in those gloves, and stepped around his corner with all the bearing of a boxer and then stared you down with those crazy bright eyes…then you would know that Rey was not an opponent to take lightly.

But without the mask, Rey metamorphosed into someone else entirely. His right eyebrow was pierced and the tattoos were still obvious, making him appear still a little bit rough and tumble. His hair was buzzed close to his scalp and his ears were pierced with tiny hoops to match the ring on his eyebrow. But there was no getting around it; Rey was a baby face. He may have been in his early thirties, but he looked at least a decade younger. In a word, Rey was undeniably, entirely, mind-numbingly, eye meltingly cute. In Japanese the word was kawaii. So adorable that it should be illegal.

Rey smiled. It should have made him look conceited or self aware of his looks, but it didn't. Anybody who Shawn Michaels had ever met, who looked younger than their age, like Rey, had always tried to use their looks to beguile people and make them take their side. But he'd never seen Rey do that. Undoubtedly Rey had been teased by other boys when he went through school and other wrestlers when he was starting out, since he began his career as a teenager. But those other guys were probably wishing they were Rey about now, not just because of his successful career, but because every human being with functioning eyeballs were drooling over him. Looking too young when you are young may be looked down upon, but when you get older, you always wish you could be like Rey and look younger. Girls adored him and although they didn't like to admit it, men did too. (If the guys in WWE were all clamoring over him now, they would've had heart attacks if they'd seen him as a kid.)

He was very handsome in a soft kind of way, and his mouth was perfect, just exactly proportionate to his face. He was usually calm and possessed a kind of patience that he'd no doubt gained from fatherhood, and it made him seem his age even if he couldn't look it. Rey never emanated anything but a sweet, happy energy. He carried himself with the swagger peculiar to professional wrestlers, but every step he took bounced and was incredibly balanced. He looked graceful standing still, but always as though he was on the verge of either smooth everyday motion or bouncing off the walls the way he did in the ring.

He was still wearing his contacts and he wouldn't have the opportunity to take them out until they arrived back at their hotel. Until then, Shawn would have to look at the two faces of Rey Mysterio contrasting each other at once. If Rey's unmasking was like a metamorphosis then right now was like seeing a caterpillar with a butterfly's tongue. The contacts didn't match up with Rey's face outside of work.

It was highly unlikely that anybody would be intimidated by an unmasked Rey, especially if you knew his personality. There was the possibility that old ladies were afraid of a Latino man with tattoos and piercings but that possibility evaporated if they either 1) saw Rey with his wife and kids or 2) he smiled at them.

Shawn Michaels once considered using Rey as a weapon of mass destruction. If the luchador was ever held hostage by another country the U.S. President at the time-male or not- might develop a crush on Rey's photograph alone and launch nukes to rescue him. Rey had the potential to become the male Helen of Troy.

All of the attention from other wrestlers was undoubtedly because of the cuteness and poor Rey was completely oblivious to it, as far as Michaels could tell. But that attention had been going on for years. It hadn't reached epic Helen-of-Troy-like proportions until recently with all of the guys scrambling to get the exfoliating cream to have a chance at looking beautiful for Rey. Or the ridiculous piles of gifts from his fans that vastly outnumbered anything that the other guys were receiving.

Shawn was afraid that if he didn't make sure that Rey knew just how out of hand things had gotten, the situation would explode and the worst way for Rey to discover that people were madly in love with him was to get kidnapped by one of them. The other wrestlers were the ones Shawn was the most worried about. The fans would all calm down after a while and pick somebody else to freak out about, but the guys would just get worse and worse.

"Anybody else coming along that you know of?"

"Randy doesn't want to ride with Triple H any more, so he's coming.

Rey chuckled. "Can't say I blame him. I wouldn't want to be crushed by mail, either."

"Rey…" Shawn Michaels began, stuffing his hands into his gray pullover, his stocking cap clinging to his head.

It was fall where they were, and it felt like it.

He wanted to tell Rey the truth. He'd never been as blindly in love with Rey as the other wrestlers. He liked Rey a lot as a person and a coworker, but not as a love interest or sex object. He felt like he was indebted to Rey -as a friend- to tell him what was going on behind the scenes in his life. Michaels would have wanted somebody to tell him if a bunch of heavyweights had crushes on him.

But the sun was beginning to set and Rey looked so peaceful, and damn it…beautiful.

"What?" Rey asked airily, and the wind blew the mask in his hand slightly. Michaels got an idea. He may not have wanted to ruin Mysterio's mood tonight, but they would be in town for one more day.

"Rey, how about just me and you go tooling around tomorrow? I have some stuff I'd like to talk to you about."

"Oh. Kay. Sure. I didn't have anything else planned for tomorrow. I almost forgot we have another day here."

He could tell it was something serious.

Randy Orton came running with his bag, fully dressed now in a shirt and hoodie, panting.

"Slow your roll, man. Calm down," Rey said.

"What's up? Is Triple H chasing you or something?" HBK asked, half-kidding.

Randy nodded.

They both stared at him.

He caught his breath a little and rasped, "Well…he will be. I put shaving cream in his pants for trying to kill me with Rey-Rey's fan mail."

Shawn Michaels ducked into the passenger's side front seat as fast as humanly possible and then shut the door.

"Ay dios mio…" Rey said, exasperated, looking up at the heavens. He slid in behind the wheel and shut his door.

"What? Is he right behind me?"

"Get in the damn Lexus, Randy!!" Rey yelled.

Triple H was in fact, just bursting out of the building, shouting angry things that were still audible this far away. "YOU LITTLE PRICK!!! I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU!!!"

And other things too scary to repeat.

"Jesus!" Randy yiped and flew into the car, pulling the door shut and locking it.

"Drive, Rey! Drive!"

Rey swore under his breath in Spanish and pulled out surprisingly fast. He slowed down once they were safely on the road.

HBK and Orton were both laughing that HHH had given up on chasing them once had reached the edge of the parking lot. And at the fact that Rey was capable of driving like an action hero.

"Randy."

They stopped laughing. Rey had that tone that all the guys were positive he must have used with his kids whenever they did something bad. It had the exact same effect on all the wrestlers regardless of their age. Triple H and Batista were known to bristle and straighten up whenever Rey went into his 'disappointed father' voice. But it was usually aimed at one of the younger guys. Like Randy right about now.

Rey didn't take his eyes off the road.

"You are going to apologize to Triple H the very next time you see him."

"But, Rey, that's-" Randy protested.

"Not finished talking."

Randy shut his mouth.

"You are going to be completely sincere about that apology. Got it?"

Randy nodded fiercely.

"I can't see you up here, Randy, I'm driving."

"Yes sir," Randy peeped.

"Good."

Rey seemed satisfied enough with that answer.

HBK watched him in silence carefully until finally Mysterio's body language relaxed and he rolled his shoulders.

"Rey?"

"Yeah, Shawn?"

"How did you learn to drive like a NASCAR driver?"

Rey laughed.