The Miz watches blankly on the monitor as the Hart Dynasty gets attacked by Nexus. After the screen dies away to commercial, Bret Hart and Natalya's worried race up the ramp the last thing seen, he smirks. It quickly slips into a grimace as he turns to hunt out John Morrison. He hates having to run things by another person again, used to doing things as he wants and when he pleases. So much control was taken from him by the email GM's little declaration weeks back. It makes him sick.

He finally finds him in one of the other locker rooms, cleaning up one of his coats. Miz rolls his eyes at the flashy wear- way too hot for August, or any other time except for the dead of winter- and is tempted to push it off of the bench onto the floor. The only thing that keeps him from doing it is the fact that he does need to stay on John's good side- however reluctantly, because... well. "Hey," he says, trying to keep the anger out of his voice. "Put that on, we're going to the ring." A little blunt but he can't take the command back now.

John jerks at his voice and takes a deep breath before turning. "Why?"

"Weren't you watching? The tag champions got jumped. Best time to challenge them for the tag belts is right now. Come on." He turns towards the door but can almost feel Morrison shaking his head. "What?" His jaw clenches as silence proves that Morrison isn't moving.

"I'm not going out," he says simply and the rough sounds of him running a lint brush against the inside of his coat starts grating at Miz's nerves like it always did when they would room together.

"Why not?" Miz's fist clenches next and he wants to turn and punch the stubborn stupidity out of Morrison.

"Because I have a match already tonight and I need to focus on beating Nexus this Sunday. Besides, there's little point in going after the tag belts if they keep taking people from my team out- what would stop them from going after me during the match?"

Miz snorts. "You have all of your little excuses just lined up in a neat little row, don't you?"

Before Morrison can answer, he leaves the room. John sighs and rolls his eyes.

Miz takes his anger out on Evan Bourne, beating him after a crazy move off the top that leaves Miz dazed for a bit. He's still a little winded when he grabs a mic and, purposely digging into Morrison a little, says he doesn't care if it's Orton or Sheamus, he's ready to cash in by this Sunday.

Sure enough, Morrison is waiting for him at the gorilla position, a frown on his face. "What was that?" he asks, dogging Miz back to the locker room. "I told you..."

"I know what you told me," he says, throwing down his title belt in aggravation. "I honestly don't care. I see that you're fine coasting along doing nothing substantial with your career but I'm not. We're going to do this my way or else. You will be ready to go after the tag titles when I say you are, nothing less and nothing more."

The look of dumbfounded amazement on Morrison's face would almost be funny if Miz wasn't boiling with fresh anger.

"Do you understand?" he demands, glaring at John, his voice lowering dangerously. His lips twist unhappily as he glares back so Miz prods him roughly in the shoulder, knocking him back a bit. "I said do you understand?"

Morrison glowers and pushes him back. "Get off of me, man."

Miz is gearing up to swing, consequences for their forced team notwithstanding, but they're interrupted as R Truth gets between them, smoothly pushing Morrison back. "Come on, John, you don't want to do this," he says quietly, patting his shoulder.

"I don't?" he asks with a snarl, glaring over Truth's shoulder.

"Yeah, you don't. Come on, let's go talk about Sunday..."

Miz watches in annoyance as John is led out of the locker room and rolls his eyes, looking down at his still clenched fist. It would've felt so good too.

Self-destructive tendencies run wild in the WWE- guys tend to do things that will just end up bad for them, stupid decisions after stupid decisions that just ruin anything good they may have going for them. Miz has tried to learn from his peers but something about the situation with Morrison takes all of his common sense and throws it out of the window.

So he's not surprised when he sees Cena and Bret Hart heading to the ring for their tag match against Jericho and Edge and starts prodding them to ask him to join Team WWE. He's not really interested in it, it's just another attempt at annoying Morrison and show him that in the end, Miz has all of the control and momentum if two of the bigger names in the team would beg him to join it. They do actually ask him and his ego rises once more as he imagines the look on John's face. He walks off with a smirk on his face. What a couple of idiots, thinking I'd really consider joining their team...

"You have got to be joking me," Morrison speaks from behind him, surprises him, cutting into his thoughts. "What was that? I thought all you could think about was the tag belts and cashing in money in the bank."

He chuckles, shaking his head as he stops and turns to stare at his partner as he leans against the wall of the hallway, obviously waiting. "R Truth not here to protect you this time?"

John scowls as he walks closer. "He wasn't protecting me- he protected you."

"Is that what you think?" Miz's eyes gleam as he glances around the empty hall. "Wanna test that theory out?"

"Not until you tell me why, Miz. Why hint that you might join Team WWE? You hate everyone on the team."

He laughs for real this time, leaning forward. "Why, John? Because it's fun, seeing how people react to sudden swerves. You used to enjoy it too," he says lowly. That said, he pushes past and continues on to the locker room, leaving a bewildered Morrison behind.

Miz enters the quiet locker room and breathes, some of the tension easing from his shoulders as he rests the briefcase on the floor next to the bench. Yeah, NXT tomorrow should be a joy, he thinks quietly.