Disclaimer: Ah, I wish I owned them… but I don't. Sadly.
A/N: Ow. Owowow I hate pulled muscles. On the plus side, it gives me more time to write since I don't have to go to field hockey practice tomorrow. On the down side, it hurts. Ow.
Miz found Mickie where he expected her to be, just down the hall from catering and around the first right hand turn. It was their usual meeting spot, having been decided on randomly one night when they got sick of Hunter and Jericho bickering and just wanted some peace. Miz was just happy that in this particular arena there was a clear right hand turn; there had been several interesting attempts to find where to meet in previous venues.
As soon as he rounded the corner he was knocked backwards a few steps as Mickie all but tackled him. The embrace lasted only a few moments, though, before she stepped away and cuffed the back of his head. "Ow! What was that for?"
"That was because you didn't tell me what was going on! When I heard that you weren't in tonight's segment I thought you were still upset at me about last week. Then when I read your note I thought that you thought that I was mad at you, when I wasn't! And now I just don't know what to think!"
Miz chuckled and pulled her into another, calmer, hug. "I'm not mad at you, Mickie. I could never be mad at you."
She pulled away from him, glaring slightly. "I still haven't forgiven you for confusing me," she told him.
"Even though I gave you a stuffed orangutan?" Miz asked. He spotted the stuffed animal lying on the ground nearby and picked it up, holding it out to her.
She took it from him and gently smoothed its fur. "Well… I guess we may be even." Miz grinned. He knew that whatever had happened between them was now in the past. "Though I am curious, is the pattern intentional? Red roses, orange orangutan…"
Miz heard her stress the first letter of each word and was pleasantly surprised that she had managed to pick up the pattern that he had only thought of randomly the day before. "Guess you'll just have to wait and see," he teased.
Mickie laughed. "Well, I'm curious as to what you'll find starting with the letter y that's also yellow…"
That makes two of us, Miz thought to himself. Because so far, I have nothing.
XXXXX
"Seriously, calm down. Just find anything yellow and be done with it."
Miz shook his head and continued pacing. "No, it needs to be something special. Something perfect."
Jericho sighed in frustration. Miz had been driving him crazy since the whole damn storyline started, but this just took the cake. He had gone through nearly two dozen stores, searching from top to bottom, looking for the next gift to give Mickie on TV. Worse, he had dragged Jericho along with him- at least until Jericho all but rebelled and dragged Miz back to the hotel.
"You are acting like an idiot."
"Just an idiot? Not a Pharisee or a hypocrite this time?" Miz asked sarcastically.
"What the fuck crawled up your ass and died? You've been annoying for the past week, but a downright bastard all day. This isn't the first time you've bought something last minute, and in the end this is just a fucking storyline!"
"No, it's not."
Jericho thought he had misheard him. He must have misheard him, because there was no way that Miz was that serious about all of this. One look at his friend told him all he needed to know, though. Miz was completely serious about this. For some reason, this wasn't just a normal angle for him- and there was only one reason Jericho could think of to explain why. "Holy shit, you're in love with Mickie!"
Miz winced. "Keep your voice down!"
"But… you! And Mickie! And holy shit, does she know!?"
"No, she doesn't know and you can't tell her!"
"Wait… you're in a romantic storyline with Mickie and she doesn't know that you actually love her? You aren't going to use the storyline to ask her out or something, are you?"
"Well, that was the plan…"
Jericho suddenly remembered seeing Stephanie arguing with Miz not long before the first segment was due to air and began to piece things together. "So you love Mickie and just happened to be put in a storyline with her, where you had some sort of plan to actually ask her out for real…" he said slowly. "Please tell me you didn't do what I think you did. Tell me you weren't the one to suggest this."
Miz hung his head in shame and muttered, "I was."
Jericho ran his hand through his hair in frustration. "Damnit, Miz! What the hell were you thinking? After everything she's been through with Vince controlling the storylines using her you go and do this! Did you even stop for a moment to think about how she'd react to this?"
"Of course I did! It's just that by then it was too late to change anything. Now I'm stuck in this and I don't know what to do about it except continue and hope that Mickie realizes that I'm completely serious about this."
"How? By continually showering her with gifts?" Jericho shook his head. "Miz, that's not what Mickie wants at all. She wants someone she can just hang out and have a good time with."
"But I already-"
"Someone she trusts," Jericho continued. "And frankly, once she realizes what you did, that person isn't going to be you."
Miz sank down onto the edge of one of the bed, his head in his hands. He completely fucked up, and didn't know how to fix it. "What should I do?"
Jericho sighed. "Honestly, I don't know. You need a gift for tonight first, and then we'll try to figure something out for the long-term. At least you're going to have a couple of weeks after this before the storyline needs to come to some sort of conclusion, whether that's you and Mickie together or not."
"Can you at least help me figure out something for tonight, even if you want nothing to do with this afterwards?"
"That I can do, and we'll see about whether or not I'll help you later," Jericho said. "Depends on whether I'm still pissed at you for what you did when the show's over."
The room was silent for a few moments as each man tried to think of something yellow starting with the letter y. "What about yellow gold?" Jericho finally asked. "Instead of white gold or whatever else they sell these days. Buy her a bracelet or something."
Miz shook his head. "It's kind of a cop-out, isn't it? Using yellow as the word starting with y, I mean."
"Okay… well, it's not quite as exciting but continuing the trend of simpler gifts, what about yarn?"
"Yarn?" Miz asked skeptically.
"I mean, buy her a handmade yellow hat and scarf set. There were a couple of shops that were selling things like that since it's starting to get colder and I'm sure one of them is going to have something yellow."
Miz thought about it for a moment before finally nodding. "Alright. It's a bit of a stretch, but I can live with it. And now that you mentioned it, I do remember seeing something that might work in a shop we passed earlier…"
XXXXX
"You again? You just don't give up do you?" The cameras were already rolling for their segment and Miz was just walking into the picture.
"Of course not!" Miz said, pretending to be shocked at the idea. "How could I give up on a beautiful, charming, amazing-"
"Shut up," Mickie said though she was still smiling. "What did you bring me this week?"
"How do you know I brought anything?"
She rolled her eyes. "You've brought me something for the past two weeks, you're here now, and I can see it." She leaned around him and tried to grab the package he was holding behind his back, but he pulled it away. "Come on, Miz, please?"
"Well since you asked so nicely…" He handed the box to her.
Mickie grabbed it and carefully lifted the lid. "Oh, they're beautiful," she said as she pulled out the hat and scarf, yet Miz could tell that she was confused.
"Is something wrong?"
"I had been hoping you'd follow the pattern of the gift being the next color in the rainbow, with the name of it starting with the same letter as the color… but neither hat nor scarf follows that pattern," she explained.
"But they're made of yellow yarn," he pointed out.
Mickie glanced down at them and laughed. "So they are," she said. "And just in time for winter, too. Thank you, Miz." She gave him a quick peck on the cheek. "Now the real question is, how long are you going to keep doing this?"
Miz leaned in close to her and whispered in her ear, just loud enough for the camera to catch, "As long as you want me to."
Once the camera stopped rolling and Mickie had gone to put her new gifts away, Jericho stepped out of the shadows where he had been watching. "Please tell me you're going to help me," Miz begged.
Jericho sighed. "You're hopeless," he said. "I mean, have you ever even flirted with her outside these segments?"
Miz thought about it for a moment, and then shook his head. "That's actually pathetic," he admitted.
"It is pathetic," Jericho said. "And that is the only reason I'm going to help you with this mess. But keep this in mind: if you hurt Mickie, I am not taking responsibility for this and you will be on your own at that point. Am I clear?"
Miz nodded nervously. "Crystal."
