It's a big night, in varying ways. Miz is unable to stop staring at his various title belts- the tag, US and WWE title gleaming from their positions on the locker room bench, reflecting even the pathetic lighting in the room like they're drenched in the brightest sunlight possible.
It's the single greatest sight he's ever seen.
He's not the only one distracted; John Morrison sits a few feet away, deep in thought- more than likely about the King of the Ring finals that are coming up. Alex Riley sits on a bench next to the door, running a rag across the battered surface of his Money in the Bank briefcase. Why exactly his apprentice chose to keep the red case after the victory last week, he's not sure but it could have use in the future so he doesn't say anything.
For once, he's too content to mock these two, anyway.
That is, until he goes to the ring for his celebration just for Jerry Lawler to interrupt and challenge him to a match, with the title on the line. It's little to no surprise when the GM Email gets involved and sanctions the match... going a step further and making it a Tables, Ladders and Chairs match.
His fists clench as he rushes back to the locker room, pulling the briefcase from Alex's grip and slinging it into the wall with all his might, barely feeling better even as the plaster cracks at the impact.
John jerks from his thoughts at the loud sound, peering back and forth from Alex to Miz. "Bad night?" he ventures, eyebrows raising as Miz looks back at him witheringly. He examines his tag partner's clothes and opens his mouth as if wanting to comment on the hoodie peeking out of his suit but, catching sight of Riley discreetly shaking his head behind him, clamps his mouth shut.
"I should have known that the Email GM would find some way to screw things up for me! I can't even have one week!" he yells back, slamming the locker room door open with such force that it too almost rams into the wall. He leaves in a flurry and both Alex and Morrison flinch as the door is forced shut behind him loudly. He wanders the hallway in an angry stupor for quite awhile, barely noticing anything around him until he finds himself outside, breathing deeply.
It's a quiet, cool evening, hints of December all around him. He's started to hate this kind of weather since moving to California, when the snow is almost palpable in the air, everything crisp and dry, as if the world's holding its breath for the first snowflake to ease down to the world to prove that Christmas is just a few weeks away. It's always too quiet, leaves him with nothing to do but sit and think. Completely opposite of the hustle and bustle of the nearly always warm, sunny west coast, where he can always find something to distract himself with.
Bad things happen when he has nothing to do but drown in his own scattered thoughts. Even so, he slumps down against the building, his body absorbing the chill from the bricks at his back. He's had precious little time to honestly just think since... well, since winning Money in the Bank way back in July. The Email GM's constant presence in his title aspirations hadn't given him much time for anything but worrying, planning, attempts to find a way out of the mess. Luckily Morrison had come through just in time and he now had everything he wanted- but the Email GM was still just waiting in the wings for an opportunity to ruin things for him.
He knuckles his eyes, sighing loudly as mist streams from his lips. Nothing's easy, he reminds himself, pressing the back of his head against the building until it begins to hurt. No point in giving up now. I've fought every step of the way to get here, I'm not going to give up now. And for the first time in a long time, if you ignore the Email GM, things feel... ok. Alex is generally a decent apprentice, at any rate. And John and I can be in the same room without wanting to kill each other now. It's a start. He ducks his head, rolling his eyes as the cold wind nips at his face once more. Wish I had one of my scarves right about now.
He's about to give up and go inside, the cold not helping with his as always wayward thought process, but the door opens to his side before he can move. He grits his teeth, not even bothering to look up to see who it is. Fat chance it's someone I'd actually want to see, he thinks, expecting someone to start mocking him at any time but, as the footsteps pause in front of him, he's startled when a coat is dropped over his still tilted head, immediately buffering him from the wind. He bats it away, keeping it up high so it still offers him some protection but yet lets him see as well. He blinks as Morrison sits down next to him, his large, sequined coat all the protection he needs from the elements. "What are you doing?"
His tag partner shrugs, picking thoughtfully at one of the sequins on his sleeves as he holds the coat closed around him. "Just thought you should know there's a tag match next... Number one contendership for the tag belts." He rolls his head against the brick wall to look over at Miz. "Gabriel and Slater against Yoshi Tatsu and Mark Henry."
Miz closes his eyes, fingers clenching spastically against the coat. "If this is your attempt at cheering me up, well... you suck at it."
John shrugs. "What can I say, it's an art."
Mike scoffs, shifting against the hard wall and pulls the coat closer, realizing belatedly that it's Alex's. "Where's Riley at anyway?"
"I think he's still babying the briefcase," Morrison comments with a hint of humor in his dark eyes. "I think he loves that thing more than you do."
"Distinctly possible," Miz agrees with a grimace. "He better not expect me to apologize to it." At John's quick grin, he turns to look at him and sighs, shaking his head as if to dislodge the still scattered thoughts cluttering his brain. "So what's going on with King of the Ring?"
"Sheamus is facing Kofi right now. One of them will get a by and face either me or Alberto Del Rio." He glances over at Miz, eyes dark with a sudden intensity. "It's gonna be me, though."
Miz examines him, nodding silently. He finds he doesn't doubt it. "I guess we should go watch that tag match," he grumbles, struggling to stand up after who-knows-how-long against the cold wall. Not dropping Alex's precious coat against the ground makes it an even harder feat.
Morrison nods, standing easily- Miz scowls up at him- and turns to face a stiff Miz. "C'mon," he says lowly, holding a hand out to him. Mike grimaces but grips it after a momentary hesitation, allowing John to pull him to his feet. "Ya know," John says as they walk back into the arena. "It's a little funny that I'm wrestling for King of the Ring and you're wrestling The King."
"Ha-ha," Miz says dryly. "How long have you been waiting to say that?"
John just smirks as they head for the nearest monitor.
Miz and Alex share a glance as they head for the gorilla position, catching a glimpse of an obviously defeated Morrison laying on the ring on one of the monitors near catering. He shakes his head, disappointment for John seizing him. Morrison's arm had been messed up during the match with Alberto Del Rio, not a surprise considering his opponent, but by what he had caught of the match against Sheamus, his tag partner had never quite given up, trying his hardest to work around his injury. In the end, the Irishman's brutal strength was just too much.
They reach the titantron area in time to see a referee help Morrison through the curtain leading to the ramp and Miz holds a hand out, stopping Alex from going further. As they stumble forward, the differences in their height making the journey forward all the more awkward, Miz hands his heavyweight title to Alex and walks up to the referee and John, placing a hand on his tag partner's good shoulder to stop their forward motion. "I got him," he tells the referee, eyes flashing warningly when the man opens his mouth as if to argue. Once the official backs away, Miz shifts his grip to under his arm so he's keeping him from keeling over at the smallest provocation.
"Mike?" John mumbles, his bad arm wrapped around his ribs.
"Yeah," Miz responds quietly, leading him down the hallway.
"Wha- your match," he comments, trying to pull away. As Miz stubbornly tightens his hold, John shakes his head, realizing he's too wiped out and in pain after three matches to force him away. "You're gonna-"
"Don't worry about it," Mike sighs. "They're on commercial, we have a minute. The trainer's room isn't that far away." He looks over his shoulder as Alex follows them, silently commanding him to stay near in case John ends up needing an extra set of hands. If not for Morrison's bad arm, he'd have Alex helping already because he can feel how the man's trembling just with one hand wrapped around his bicep so he frets the whole trip down the hallway. Thankfully they make it after a painstakingly long, shuffling walk and Alex pushes the door open for them.
As the trainer begins looking a now settled Morrison over, Miz nods at Alex, almost feeling the seconds as they tick away to his TLC match. "See you later, John," Mike says hurriedly, taking the title belt from Alex and dashing back to the gorilla position. Now that it's here, he just wants to go out there and get it over with, his body thrumming with reluctant anticipation of the beating that's to come. I will probably need the trainer too by the end of all this, he thinks aggravatedly, arriving just before his music starts to play.
The match is almost as brutal as he expects, his back and neck throbbing in time with his growing headache as he is thrown backfirst onto a ladder placed in the corner of the ring. DAMN! he thinks, writhing against the cool steel before the pain becomes so bad that he can do little more than lay still. A little later he goes through a table and blinks fruitlessly as his awareness comes and goes in waves, the lights overhead shining right in his eyes. He thinks he sees out of the corner of his eye as Cole slides into the ring, the man's voice drilling into his skull as he tries to stand up. It's a slow process, getting to his feet, then rolling painfully into the ring and trying to climb the ladder. It feels like a decade but he manages to keep Jerry Lawler away from his title belt, flimsily gripping the leather belt.
When he finally knocks Jerry from the ladder, he tightens his grip around the belt, his vision still spinning as his back protests his arched position on the ladder. He finally succeeds at freeing the belt and sighs as he freefalls to the mat below, barely caring as a fresh wave of pain stabs through his body from the impact with the ring.
Alex is down on the outside of the ring, having also gone through a table, and Cole is scrambling away from Jerry, bruises already forming from where he was punched repeatedly. I bet the Email GM loves that his chosen "voice of the WWE" is trying to help me, he thinks tiredly, his head falling back against the apron for a minute as he catches his breath. He slowly rolls to the apron and collapses out to the floor, his body once more throbbing as he lands next to Alex. "Hey, let's get out of here," he tells him after a few minutes spent again catching his breath, waiting as his apprentice tries to roll out of the shattered pieces of wood surrounding him.
The walk up the ramp is tedious, his body protesting almost every movement and, judging by his tentative steps, Riley feels about the same. They wearily support each other, stubbornly ignoring the referee as they continue trudging along, the heavy title belt in Miz's grip and the empty briefcase in Riley's grounding them.
It feels like heaven when they finally reach the trainer's room and get to relax, eased down on separate couches as the trainer takes turns at looking them over, grumbling to himself about not having a large enough office. "My back hurts," Alex moans after awhile, squirming in an attempt to find a comfortable position to lay.
"My everything hurts," Miz and a still recuperating Morrison say at once from their places on either side of Alex, derailing his complaints successfully.
"I hate when you do that," he mumbles, glancing from left to right at both men.