Dolph Ziggler just wants one simple, quiet thing to distract him from what'd just happened on Raw. He can still smell, and feel the... stuff Cena had showered them with less than an hour earlier, and he knows all too well that the still silently steaming AJ needs the same thing too so when he walks by a door and sees it snowing through the small window, he almost sags in relief. "Hey, babe," he speaks up quietly, just loud enough to attract her attention.
"Yes?" she responds after a moment, visibly trying to keep herself from screaming any further, her fists clenched at her sides so tightly that it almost looks painful.
He glances outside once more and smiles. "It's snowing." She barely reacts and he sighs, deftly tickling his fingers along her side, eyes gleaming as she gasps and squirms away from him, a small laugh escaping her lips despite her best efforts. When Big E. looks over at them, eyebrows raised, Dolph smirks almost sheepishly. "Come on, let's put all that went wrong tonight behind us... ring in the New Year properly, huh? We still have about fifteen minutes to salvage this."
She considers it for a moment before nodding, following him outside with Big E. following behind as always. Dolph stands and watches, idly enjoying the soft white flakes dropping onto his face and hair, looking up at the dark night sky as AJ, slowly relaxing in the brisk air, skips in a joyous little circle around Big E., her arms outstretched until she seems to get another idea and approaches the large man, tilting her head. Dolph's just turning to see what she's going to do to their enforcer when something wet and freezing slaps right between his shoulderblades, causing him to jerk. He spins around in the other direction, eyes narrowing as he finds Santino Marella and Zack Ryder frozen by the arena, gaping at him.
"Sorry, bro, didn't see you there!" Ryder yells out to him and he fumes, shrugging his shoulders until the snow is off of his skin. "Um, bro?"
He just sneers and leans down, collecting some snow in his own fist, painstakingly packing it until it's the perfectly shaped snowball. The two members of CoBro back away slowly, tugging on each other's arms and scrambling to get away, but the parking lot they're currently standing in is also slick and Santino goes down, almost taking Zack with him, but when the Long Island Iced Z regains his balance, he looks up just in time to eat the first snowball of what ends up being a snowball fight, the three men throwing wildly and only stopping long enough to create more weapons and look for places to hide behind.
It all comes to a squeeching stop when the door opens half-way through it and an unaware Alberto Del Rio and Ricardo Rodriguez ventures outside, the ring announcer barely making it all the way outside before taking a snowball straight to his chest. "Hey!" Del Rio screams at them as the younger man's knees almost buckle, his chest already a throbbing mess after his match against Big Show, and that not helping much at all. Alberto looks worriedly at him and sighs, shaking his head. "Are you ok?"
"Si," he groans, rubbing gingerly at his raw, chilled skin through the shirt that he'd switched into after his match, which is now wet, along with the unbuttoned coat that he'd slipped in to leave the arena. His eyes widen when Alberto folds his sleeves up and stares distastefully at the white powder at their feet. "El Patron-?"
"Are you up to helping me with this?" he asks, actually kneeling down and gingerly scooping up some of the snow to all of their shock.
Ricardo swallows and nods rapidly, all agony from the match earlier becoming a distant memory as he joins his employer and helps make snowballs. Dolph, Zack and Santino exchange uncomfortable glances as they back away to prepare for whatever volley the two men may come at them with. They make a ridiculously good team, Ricardo oddly speedy with forming the snowballs, and Alberto's throwing arm vicious enough that when they get hit with the snowballs- which is more often than not- it feels like rough explosions, blinding them whenever he actually hits them in the face.
The three working together still isn't enough against them and it's humiliating, but then the door opens again and all involved come to an abrupt stop, looking up as the horribly off-key warbling that sounds more like a dying cat that is 3MB walks out, all three men doing their "rehearsing" all the way out of the arena. Ricardo grips Alberto's sleeve, watching on wearily as the three come to a stop too, examining the five, snow-soaked individuals in front of them. "Well, what's this?" Heath sneers. "Y'all havin' a snow fight to ring in the New Year?"
Drew drapes an arm around Heath and Jinder's shoulders, tsking at the others. "Guess none of them were invited to parties, Heath. Unlike 3MB."
Jinder shakes his head, smirking. "So many parties."
"Hell, yeah, brothers. So let's stop standin' around here and go hit some of 'em up, bring this year in right, yeah?" Heath sneers at the cold, wet men scattered around before them but he's barely taken a step, flanked by the other two members of 3MB, when there's a fresh volley of snowballs- from all five men, aimed right at the wanna-be band, startling them. "HEY!"
"This is very rare, very expensive leather-" Drew's complaining when another set of snowballs, sent from Alberto and Ricardo, cling to his face and hair and shut him up quickly.
3MB beats a hasty retreat, trying to avoid the snowballs still stalking them as they rush through the parking lot to their car, and the five remaining hesitate, turning to look at each other as if expecting the prior uncomfortably one sided battle to continue. Zack finally drops his snowballs and sighs, crossing his arms over his chest. Despite his many issues with Del Rio and Ricardo the last few months, it's a new year and he's not interested in continuing this- for now. "Truce, bros?"
Alberto shrugs and rests a hand on Ricardo's shoulder, watching the others with a suspicious look on his face. "Alright, Ricardo?"
"Si, El Patron."
"Fine then." Leading the younger man away from the building, he walks by AJ Lee and both stop for a moment, blinking in confusion at what she's up to, before quickly proceeding on to the beautiful red car awaiting them.
Dolph sighs and sits down in the snow, not really minding as the slush soaks his jeans almost immediately. Zack and Santino drop down next to him, all prior tension forgotten for now, as they listen to the countdown from inside the arena. "Happy New Years, bros," Zack says and the other two echo his sentiments.
Dolph's lips twitch into a smile as he stands and ventures over to AJ, drawing her away from the snowman she's building, not disturbed in the slightest by the snowball fight that'd gone on nearby. He presses a soft, slow kiss to her lips before his eyes trail over and lock on the snowman- realizing that his girlfriend had somehow managed to build it around the stoic, still Big E. Langston. He chokes on thin air, struggling not to laugh at what she'd done and risk hurting her feelings. "Happy New Years," he tells her when he finally can't stand it and pulls away.
She smiles, looking much more calmer after earlier. "Happy New Years, Dolph."
A/N: I just want to wish a quick Happy News Years to my readers, thanks to all you for reading so many of my stories and gracing me with so many amazing reviews. I treasure each and every one of them.