A Day at the Zoo
By: PhoenixJustice
Disclaimer: The wrestlers own themselves; WWE owns the gimmicks. I only own this story and make no profit from this.
Pairing: Kevin Owens/Sami Zayn, mentions of Hideo Itami/Bayley.
Setting: Post-Money in the Bank 2016.
Summary: "Of course!" She says enthusiastically. "This has to be the best plan in the history of plans!"
(( )) for strikethrough since fanfiction . net doesn't have them.
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"Are you sure about this?" He asks doubtfully.
"Of course!" She says enthusiastically. "This has to be the best plan in the history of plans!"
She dims a little. "Well...it's the best plan we have, anyway."
"I'm sure it will go fine." He reassures her.
She brightens back up at that, smiling at him. "Thank you, Hideo. For all of this. I couldn't have managed this without your help."
He smiles back at her. You would have to be dead not to smile at Bayley and her enthusiasm of life in general. "You are most welcome. So, can you go over the plan one more time?"
She nods, ponytail bouncing with it. She claps her hand together. "Right! So, first I'll talk to Kevin and you'll talk to Sami."
He nods, but still looks a bit doubtful. "Do you really think you should talk to Kevin?"
She nods rapidly. "Mmhmm! I have a secret weapon on my side when it comes to Kevin Owens." She leans forward to whisper conspiratorically. "We sometimes go and visit zoos together. He's a big zoo enthusiast."
He raises an disbelieving eyebrow at that. He thought her plan of using a zoo was because one was so near, here in Orlando; he certainly would never have believed it was actually for something like that.
"So you'll talk to Sami in the meantime and convince him to come while I convince Kevin. And then-"
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"No."
"But, Kevin-"
He shakes his head, crossing his arms. He tries to glare at her but her puppy dog look has him instead grunting and looking away.
"But you love the zoo!"
He snorts. "I don't love it that much." ((He was such a liar.))
Bayley gives him a look, as if not believing any of his shit. She smiles all of a sudden and he gets a sudden lurch of dread in him. She couldn't. No. She couldn't say that. Anything but-
"They have a new exhibit."
-that.
Damnit.
Her smiles widen as she knows she's won this round.
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"No. I mean, thanks for the offer. But I'm not really in the zoo seeing mood." Sami says, putting some of his cleaned clothes into his locker.
So much had happened as of late and him and Kevin reigniting their never ending feud with one another had taken a lot out of him. It left his mind more weary than anything, even more so than his body.
"I am not that familiar with the zoo here. I wanted to take a look at it and see how it compared to places back home. I-miss it very much." Hideo says, a frown on his face.
It makes Sami's heart ache to see it. He hadn't really thought much to the thought of "home", because to him, to Sami, home had lost its meaning to him personally years ago when-when home had become forever lost to him. But to Hideo, he still had a tie to a place he still considered home, Japan. As much as Hideo loved wrestling and Sami knew he loved NXT and the fans and all of that, it still didn't make Japan any less of home to the man.
He melts against such words and finds himself nodding.
"Okay. Sure, I'll go."
He starts to put the rest of the clothes away into the locker, not seeing the sly grin on Hideo's face.
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"We have the zoo to ourselves?" He says, utter glee in his voice. No having to deal with large and loud crowds who liked to ruin everything? He realizes how excited he sounds and tries to dial it back a bit. "That sounds alright."
She smiles. Her and Kevin had been Sneaky Zoo Friends for a few months now, when she had ran into him on her trip to the San Diego zoo (NXT had a show there and WWE was having one there the next day.) He had been cautious with her at first, but when he realized she wasn't blabbing his big secret everywhere, he started to be less guarded around her.
"Yes! So let's go!" He starts to head to the left but she grabs his arm, shaking her head at him. "No, no. We gotta start this way." She jerks her head to the right.
He blinks at her in confusion. In all the times they had visited the zoo here, they had started from the other way. It was the usual path in traversing the zoo.
"Gotta save the best for last, right?" She says with a smile. "The new exhibit is on the left. So we should start from the right and go around, so we end it there."
Well, it certainly made a lot of sense. He nods and lets her lead the way over to the birds.
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"Wow, you got the whole thing booked up just for us? Cool. Triple-H pull some strings or something?" Sami asks, impressed.
Hideo nods absently. "Yes."
"Cool." He starts to head in the direction of where the birds were kept but is stopped by an insistant hand. "Something wrong?"
Hideo shakes his head. "No, no. But-perhaps we can start this way instead? So I do not get confused."
Sami shrugs. He liked the birds, but they could see them later, no biggie.
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Bayley slows down when they get to the aquarium, when she had been a big bounce of energy just moments before. He raises a brow. "Got a thing against fish or something?" She had seemed to like them just fine in their other trips to zoos, but maybe she lost interest? She didn't seem the type to easily lose interest though, despite her ever exuberant energy in all things.
She starts. "Huh? Oh, no! I was just thinking, sorry." She shakes her head and puts back on the smile he expects, heading towards the opening to the Aquarium. With the lack of people, it was much calmer and cooler here than it would have been with a mass of bodies everywhere. It felt like the first time in a long time he could just relax.
She tries to lead the way to the right of the large aquarium, again doing what he doesn't expect. He stops. She turns as he does, eyebrow raised.
"What is this?"
Her brows furrow. "Huh? What's what, Kevin?"
"This." He says, gesturing around. "You keep leading me around. Gotta be some kinda reason for it."
"It's-" She says, hesitantly, biting on her lip. "Can't you just...can you trust me, Kevin?"
He stills at that, looking at her, taking in her expression and her words. Trust. As if it were so easily given. He knew all too well what trust meant between people. ((Knew what it was like even better to take that away from someone.))
He doesn't say anything, but she seems to take it as confirmation and he lets her lead him to the way she wants.
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"Ahh, the fish." Sami says, taking in the long lines of glass all around them. "Ooh, look. A manta ray. Kevin always said they were-" He pauses, swallowing hard. It didn't matter what Kevin thought or said about them. It couldn't matter. It was long past the time when anything Kevin Owens did could matter to him.
Hideo doesn't comment on the slip, instead points over to the left of the aquarium, where it would lead around into a circle. Essentially the aquarium was one large (and it was definitely large) circle shape, with a smaller circle inside of it with other aquatic life, so in order to see the whole thing, you had to go all the way around, and you couldn't see the other side from where you were, due to the smaller circle of fish in the middle of the room.
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Kevin pauses, cocking his head. "Did you hear something?"
"No." Bayley says quickly. "Other than you. And the fish. With their little "gurble gurble" noises." She makes a little gesture with her hands, making what she obviously thought were "gurble gurble" gestures. He laughs, despite himself.
They get near the middle of the tank and stop to admire it. He looks at a particularly large school of fish, liking some of the coloring. The blue's, the green's, the black's. He never much cared for the red's, orange's, or yellow's though ((as it reminded him all too much of a orange headed stupid piece of crap that never left his fucking thoughts or the red of the former man's mask, or the yellow that made him think of sunshine and that was so intrisically linked with Sami that it hurt to look at it.))
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Sami pauses, listening. "Did you hear something?"
"No." Hideo says, not even pausing in his stride as they continued down their way of the aquarium. "Perhaps you heard the fish?"
He pauses as they get to the middle to look at the large school of fish swimming around. They were beautifully colored. He loved all of them, even the ones that hurt him. The yellow's that reminded him of brighter times, of smiles from Kevin he had worked so hard to get out of him. The dark colors that reminded him of Kevin's eyes.
"They're beautiful." He says.
"They really are."
He stops and turns, eyes widening.
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"They're beautiful."
The voice is so completely not Bayley's, but he still responds to it.
"They really are."
He stops as recognition hits him, eyes widening and he turns.
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He looks in shock at seeing Kevin standing next to him as much as Kevin seemed to be shocked at seeing him. He looks around wildly but Hideo is nowhere in sight.
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Sami.
Sami, Sami, Sami, Sami, Sami. The evercontinuing chant continues in his head against his will and all he can do is look around blindly and wonder where Bayley could have gotten to.
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"Do you think they'll be okay in there?" Bayley asks, in concern, looking back against the door she and Hideo were leaning against. He crosses his arms, pushing off the door to look at it critically.
"I am sure they will be. You know Kevin much better and I trust your judgment." He smiles at her.
That makes her heart do the little pitter patter like it often did and she smiles. "He won't let no harm come to any creature, even little fish, so that'll be the best time for them to talk-goodness knows they'd never talk to each other otherwise!"
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He's away from him in an instant, going for the door, shaking at the handles when it doesn't come open, rage filling him and he starts beating on it.
"Hey! Still in here! Let me out!"
It had to be Bayley, right? No one else was here besides him and her. Well, Sami too (and apparently Itami too, from what he could tell of Sami's muttering as he hurries away from him) but he knew Sami wouldn't do this. Sami was all too worried about getting his hands on Kevin the same as Kevin wanted his on Sami's.
He pauses. Well, he probably could have phrased that better, but it was true all the same. After a few minutes of fruitless beating on the door, he sighs and puts his forehead against it.
"Still locked?" Sami's voice asks hesitantly behind him.
He tenses up, rather than jumps, hands clawing against the door. He couldn't look at Sami now.
"Yes." He says shortly. Why'd she have to do something like this? She knew. She had to. Know that Kevin wouldn't try anything here. That he'd never hurt any of these things. ((He had hurt the thing he cared about most, however; he had done it time and again.))
It's quiet for a few minutes. He finally moves away from the door and turns, swallowing as he sees Sami looking into part of the tank, looking lost. His feet take him over to Sami without his permission and he stands there near him, looking at the manta ray's.
He tries to speak, to say something, but can only ball his hands into fists, to keep them from laying into Sami. Seeing him always lit that something in him. The thing he had ((ran from)) gotten away from, through chair shots, betrayal, and blood. Or, what he had tried to get away from, anyhow. It had always been too much, but all he had done through that betrayal was assure that Sami would be in his orbit always. ((And wasn't that he had longed for all along? When seeing his smile made his day infinitely better? When all he wanted was to grab Sami and let him know how he felt. That of course he loved-))
"I remember." Sami finally says.
He glances at Sami but Sami keeps his eyes on the tank.
"Remember what?" He asks hoarsely.
"What you said. You liked them so much. You always said it looked like they were flying."
He flushes. How could Sami remember such a minor thing he had said so many years ago, like it was nothing, like it was yesterday?
"And-" Sami starts, then stops. His eyes are filled with tears and Kevin looks at him in shock, but he can't look away. Sami shakes his head violently. "It's-it's nothing. It doesn't matter anymore."
He tries to turn his eyes back to the fish in the tank but he can't turn away from Sami ((had never been able to look away from him.))
"Tell me." Sami finally turns to look at him and his eyes widen at whatever is in Kevin's face. "Please."
Sami swallows hard, but doesn't look away from Kevin, the shadows of fish moving against the walls given from what light there was from the dark room, illuminating Sami's face ((or was Sami the one illuminating them? He could never tell. Sami was always so bright, so bright, making it hard for Kevin to look at him. What right did he, after all, to look at something so bright, so good?))
"And all I could do was look at you and wonder if I could ever make you smile that way. I tried so hard." Sami says and a tear does fall now. "I tried so hard, Kevin."
"You fucking idiot." He grates out, causing Sami to wince. "Nothing ever compared to your flying to me. Nothing."
He's horrified to find tears in his eyes, falling without his say so but he can't stop them. Sami moves his hand ((warm, so warm. Sunshine personfied into a hand, a smile)) to the back of Kevin's neck, pulling him forehead to press his forehead against his.
Kevin trembles with the weight of it all, but he does not pull away. He couldn't.
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"When do you think they'll finally let us out?" Sami asks, not sounding too concerned about it now. Neither was he, come to that. He sat shoulder against shoulder next to Sami and there was nothing more he wanted than that in that moment.
He shrugs. "Soon, I guess. The place has got to close sometime. Maybe-" He pauses in his sentence as he feels Sami's hand hesitantly lock with his. He swallows. "-it'll be soon."
He doesn't mention Sami's hand locked with his and neither does Sami. He didn't need to. Neither of them did. They just knew.
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"Guys? We're really sorry, okay?" Bayley says, voice echoing in the aquarium as her and Hideo enter. "But we just wanted to-" She stops as she sees the strange tableau of Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens sitting on the floor next to one another, asleep, against the aquarium glass across from them, hands locked.
She starts to tiptoe away but stops as she sees Sami stir. He looks at them, then glances at Kevin with such obvious fondness and love that it makes her hurt to look at it. Oh Kevin, how could you not see Sami's feelings for you? They've always been there so open on his face.
"We will come back. Give you time to wake him up." Hideo says, nodding at Sami.
Sami nods in thanks and she catches a glimpse of him shaking Kevin gently awake.
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"So-what now?" He finally asks. He was afraid of the answer, that much he could admit to himself.
Sami looks at him solemnly for a moment and it makes his heart beat into overtime with worry. But then Sami smiles and it-as it always did-takes his breath away. He feels a squeeze and looks down to see that their hands were still interlocked and Sami looked so obviously happy to be there that it leaves Kevin reeling.
"I thought we might check out the new exhibit. They've got a new cub."
He squeezes Sami's hand in return and Sami's smile deepens.
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And so she'd tell her kids years later, how she and their father Hideo got their Uncles Sami and Kevin to work out their problems.
"I told you it was the best plan in the history of plans!" She tells her husband proudly.
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I hope you enjoyed this!
Let me know what you thought!
-PhoenixJustice