Untitled

Author: Jasmine (missiridescence)

Characters: the Miz, John Morrison

Disclaimer: Don't know anyone, don't own anything, don't sue me

Reviews are not expected, but they will be appreciated. ^^

This week, Miz was late to the show. By the time he reached the arena the parking lot was jam-packed, forcing him drive around the area, in hot pursuit for an empty space. He eventually managed to find one, but instead of quickly making way his inside the building he remained sitting behind the wheel of his rental and stared fixedly into the distance until the coast is clear. He wanted to locate a discreet entrance way into the building and sneak inside without anyone seeing him or even thinking that they saw him. It was not often the case that an extrovert such as himself would be so careful to deliberately avoid his colleagues.

Then again, it also wasn't often the case where he found his spotlight to overshadowed by not one, but two of the biggest stars in the history of this business-and unjustifiably so. For unlike John Cena, he was the current WWE champion, and unlike the Rock, he would be competing at Wrestlemania. Such a situation was dauntingly unfamiliar to Miz, and one which he hated, a lot. But he knew that he had to do something about it; something drastic and unpredictable to fix things for once and for all, and he now knew exactly what that was going to be. There was no turning back now.

Upon entering the building, he was greeted by a confronting and uneasy stillness in the air. The main hallway-which would normally be animated by the noisy weekly bustle—was deserted, and almost completely quiet apart from his own shoes shuffling against the shiny surface of the corridor. At one point however, he almost thought he heard the movement of something-or someone else but when he stood still and surveyed his surroundings he was only met by silence.

Everyone had long ago dispersed back to their usual places, and were now in the middle of their last minute pre match rituals, warming up, strategising over their matches, and rehearsing over their promo lines. In such an empty atmosphere he was he was spared the chore of pushing and shoving his way towards a better view of this week's schedule. Rather, he could immediately spot the white piece of paper that was sticky-taped to a wall and walk over to it to take a closer look. Miz's eyes followed his right his index finger as it quickly slid down the page and came to a sudden halt at Cena's name which was written at the bottom of the page, indicating that he was allocated with the main event slot. Lucky last-what a surprise, he thought sarcastically.

Miz once again cast a furtive glance on either side of him before entering a small, nondescript room that was not too far to the skybox area, now fully aware that no superstar was scheduled to hang around that area this week. He placed his WWE title on a wooden table that was in the room, dumped his duffle bag on the floor next to it, and without haste, began using his spare time to painstakingly go over his plan for tonight.

As he paced around the room, he thought about what he will do, when he will perform that wrestling move; what he will say, when he will bring up that catchphrase. He even reflected over earlier decisions that seemed to be absolute. But as far as Miz was concerned, every little one of these details mattered now more than ever.

Since the last episode of Raw, he had spent the entire week coming up with a plan to cement the words he spoke last week, where he vowed to lay out both John Cena and the Rock at Wrestlemania and prove that he was the biggest star of the company, not them.

Before this week's show would be on tonight, Miz tweeted a message that he would boycott the show, to mislead everyone, especially Cena into thinking that he would not be there. So while Cena would be once again busy mouthing off about the Rock, and forgetting Miz's existence, Miz will be concealed somewhere, intently watching, waiting until the time was right to strike-and do what he needed to do. By the time he was done, it would be his promos instead Cena's and Rock's childish insults that would be replayed repeatedly to a point where one could recall every word, every inflection, every dramatic pause and every grimace to punctuate the contempt that he had towards his opponents.

And Cena and Rock would have no choice but to finally pay attention to him. They would both be sorry for ever thinking that they would get away with ignoring the WWE champion for even one second.

Miz's thoughts were suddenly stirred when he heard the same mysterious patter of footsteps. He thought his mind was playing tricks on him again but this time when he stopped in his tracks, the sound continued. Which each step it grew louder, yet the pace slowed down until it came to a halt instead of continuing into the distance, causing Miz to suspect that someone was now standing on the other side of the door. Uncertain of what would happen next, he remained frozen on the spot though he heaved an exasperated, but muted groan, thinking how helpful it would be if Alex Riley was on the lookout, and could chase prying people away from him...

He soon gave a wry smile and shook his head to himself, feeling slightly humoured that he had become too used to having someone do odd jobs for him to the point that he was still thinking about it even now. He supposed that came with breaking ties from someone whom he was good terms with, but that was no excuse. He knew very well that Alex was no longer Miz's apprentice; that it was now the former rookie's time to focus solely on forging his own career path. And besides, as tempted as Miz may have been to tell him all about the plan he couldn't because he wanted it to be a complete surprise to everyone.

But now that might not be the case. A newfound sense of annoyed curiosity compelled him to unfreeze himself and quietly creep towards the door. He pressed his ear firmly against the door, and as his eyes darted around the room, he forced himself to stifle his breathing to try and detect a sound, any sound, but he got nothing. Perhaps the mystery person on the other side was doing the exact same thing he was. Or maybe it was all in his imagination. He backed away from the door and let out a loud sigh, before he could turn around and walk away, the door pushed open, causing him to stumble back and almost lose his footing. The fresh grimace on Miz's face only deepened when he saw who was on the other side.

"Morrison?"

Miz's pulse picked up momentum, his right hand formed a tight fist around doorknob on his side, and his teeth clenched but despite all that, for some strange reason, he was also hit by sense of relief that it was him and not Cena, or Orton that was standing in front of him instead. He exhaled deeply, whilst shoving that unwanted sensation to the back of his mind.

"What on earth are you doing here?" He asked in an ominously calm and monotone voice

"Looking for you." John answered straight away, and returned the eye contact, as if in an attempt to be unperturbed by Miz's mood, but he hesitated before confessing rather sheepishly, "I waited for you in the parking lot and followed you around."

Much to Miz's dismay, the all too familiar feeling of resentment over Morrison's elusive sneakiness, swiftness and agility, started to make its way back to him. "Didn't you read my tweet?" he snapped. "You're supposed to think that I won't be here tonight!"

John gave a cynical scoff. "Like you would really miss out on trying to be the centre of attention for one week." He retorted. "Don't you think I know you better than that, Miz? It's obvious to me that you are up to something." He let his gaze drop down to the floor and pondered to himself for a moment. "You're a lot smarter, manipulative and cunning than people give you credit for." He added.

Found himself Miz giving that same wry smile as he did before when he thought about A-Ri, but even he was not too egotistical to completely forget about what John had done. The same grimace quickly returned to his face.

"If you tell anyone that I'm here, I swear I'll..."

John held up a hand to stop him. "Relax, I'm not going say anything. Why would I want to ruin the party that's taking place right now?" he asked in a typically facetious tone.

"How do you that they aren't still celebrating over your absence from last week's show?" Miz shot back.

The comeback seemed to have caught John off guard as he fell silent, but Miz did not care. He simply pushed past him out the door and looked down the both ends of the hall way.

"No one else is around." John offered in a softer tone, perhaps realising how annoyed that the element of surprise was now partly ruined. But Miz just nudged him to the side once more to re enter the room.

"Just shut the door."

"...do want me to go?"

Miz spun back around to face Morrison. "What makes a difference?" he shrugged. "You already know I'm here." Without bothering to wait for a response, he returned to his things, and from his bag took out a case of title polish and a cloth and proceeded to polish his title—not that it needed to be done as the belt shone brightly enough; he only wanted give the impression that he could care less what John will do. But as he looked down at the belt he snuck a glance from the corner of his eye and watched him linger at the doorway for a few seconds before finally deciding to enter the room, close the door behind him and slowly made his way towards Miz's direction.

As Miz placed the belt and the rest of the things back down on the table he could not help but notice how John occupied his gaze with the walls despite there being nothing on them, besides peeling paint, then he looked the floor, the table-anything except for Miz. While doing so he placed his hands in his pockets and shuffled around his feet, as though he himself was unsure what he was doing here.

"So what do you want?" Miz asked, at last, having all he could take of the curiosity niggling at him.

The question finally prompted John to look directly at him. "Look, Miz, I know, you have a lot of things on your mind, but there's something I wanted to tell you since last week."

"It can't wait until after the show?"

John shook his head. "This is the only time I can catch you without Riley hanging around like a lovesick puppy-which is funny because that's exactly what this is about."

"What about him?" Miz challenged as he narrowed his eyes, preparing himself to hear a plethora of insults and less than flattering remarks about his former protégée-something which he had unfortunately become too used to hearing.

"I really enjoyed working with him at the house shows. All the matches we've had were really, solid." John took a deep breath. "I might even to say that they were the best one-on-one matches I've had this year so far..." Even though he was standing over the other side of the room, he managed to catch the glimmer of the WWE title. "Some of the best, I mean." He added quickly.

Instead of answering back, Miz fished out from his pocket his mobile phone, pressed its buttons aimlessly and read over the messages in his inbox he saved from weeks ago, so it would not look as though he was mulling over what John had just said. Try as he might, Miz could not deny that this was the first time that anyone, other than himself of course, who has said anything to Alex that went beyond "Nice try" or "Good job, kid." It was so unfamiliar, that he was reluctant to accept it. What was more uncomfortable however, was the tension that grew from the prolonged silence. Having had enough, he promptly snapped his phone shut.

"Of course the matches were solid." He muttered. "Anybody with half a brain could have told me that." With a sigh, he left his things and stood beside John. "I don't think you stalked me all the way here and made sure Riley wasn't around just to tell me something I already knew. I know there's more. Come on, out with it."

Miz looked at John intently, penetrating his eyes with his own with great anticipation of what he had to say.

"Alight." John slowly nodded in comprehension of the gaze. "I thought the only reason that you picked him as your rookie was because he was just like you. So you would have someone to stroke your already inflated ego; someone who would not talk back to you, question you..." he lowered his voice. "Or hurt you."

The last part caused the eye contact to break as Miz instantly looked away and flinched, but John continued. "Up until now you've proven me right-he's interfered in your matches, he's taken beatings from your opponents, and just like you, he carries a briefcase except his contains who knows what, and he was and even willing to make an idiot of himself looked like he belonged on the set of a Muppet's Christmas Carol in front of the whole world."

Miz frowned back at John, but remained silent and kept hearing what he had to say.

"But last week, when I turned up to the arena after the show, I overheard you speaking to him in the locker rooms. You were telling him how he was being too hard on himself; that trash talking a main eventer and competing against one inside a steel cage is tough for a mid carder let alone a rookie."

Once again, John shuffled, and moved his hands around in his pockets as though he was foraging for something inside. "It made me realise that you weren't just using him as your personal servant-you actually care about him. And if it makes any difference, I think last week's Raw did him no justice. Seeing him redeem himself at those house shows reminded me of his potential and just how is willing he is to learn and improve from his mistakes...like someone else I know."

Without saying anything more, John wandered over to the wall and slouched against it, indicating that was all he had to say. Miz also did not add anything either, he simply unfolded his arms, tapped the fingers of his right hand against the wall to the tune of whichever song popped into his head first while thinking about what John had just told him. He could not help but notice that when John spoke, he sounded nowhere near as loud passionate as Michael Cole lavishing heaps of overly smarmy praise upon him and give a standing ovation. But unlike his commentary, Miz could discern in John's tone that he was being genuine-he actually meant what he said. And hearing somehing like that was rare.

During the steel cage match last week, Cole's apparent bi-polar disorder kicked in and one minute he applauded Miz for taking a picture of Cena during the match and the next, while Cena dominated Alex, Cole told Miz that that could be him taking a beating like that from Cena at Wrestlemania. Thinking about that now, Miz could see that anyone could praise him every time he had a good match, or gave an entertaining promo, or did something cool, but not anyone would be willing to say good things about him after he—or Alex—made a mistake. They would instantly criticise you instead and pretend that they were never a fan of yours to begin with. Thinking about John's compliments way made Miz feel less uneasy and reluctant to accept them. He released his fingers from the wall and faced John once again.

"It makes a lot of difference." He admitted finally. "Thanks."

"No problem" John smiled, and sensing that the friction between them had eased down somewhat, he quickly started a new conversation. "So what's going to happen to him now?"

Miz rolled his eyes at the very mention of the issue. "I have no idea" he shrugged. "Creative still can't make their minds up yet. Some people want him to be drafted to Smackdown, others think he should stay on Raw and be rehired as my apprentice, blah blah blah. So if and when they come up with something, he'll just be working the house shows."

"I wouldn't mind having an on air match with him." John offered. "It would beat jobbing to Ziggles in a squash match." He glanced at his watch. "Speaking of that, I should go warm up." He pushed himself off the wall walked towards the doorway.

Miz returned to where the table and his things were placed. "Yeah, I need work on my surprise ambush."

"I hope it works out."

"Well, you managed to find my hiding spot so it can't possibly get any worse." Miz jibbed.

"Who knows? Maybe you'll try to retell that toilet joke?"

"That's not my joke! It's Riley's!"

John just chuckled and shook his head. "I'll catch you later."

"'Later."

With that, John walked out and closed the door behind him, and Miz took the time to listen to the footsteps until they disappeared into the distance. Once they did, he continued going over his plans for tonight, feeling even more motivated to surprise everyone and do what he had to do.