Quick thank yous to M, Eva and Maria for the reviews, and an apology for the reviews I've missed replying to over the past few weeks. I've been drowning in NaNoWriMo and other things and so some stuff has slipped through the cracks. Hope you all continue to enjoy the story!
After spending the bulk of the week overseas to visit with the troops for the holidays, Mike is relieved to be back in LA, even if it's only for a short amount of time. Despite his overworked schedule, he finds a little bit of leeway and heads out before the weekly edition of his satellite radio show, grateful to have even these couple of hours as he slips out of his car and heads to Morrison's apartment building, burying his hands in his pockets. California is notably warmer than most other places he's been to recently, but he still finds himself inexplicably chilled now and again and he can't help but wonder if Ohio weather haunts him, no matter how far away he gets from it.
Shaking his head, he pounds on the door and steps back to wait, half-smiling as he hears footsteps near and the locks unlatch one by one. When the door is opened finally, he raises an eyebrow at his best friend and tsks in an exaggerated fashion. "See that that still takes you a lifetime to do."
John mocks him by mouthing his words silently for a moment before grabbing him by the arm and pulling him inside, shutting the door behind him. "Yeah, yeah, you drop in on a guy and this is how you greet him? Would've thought the time with troops maybe taught you some manners," he teases.
"After all the time we've known each other, you honestly expect me to treat you differently?" Mike snarks back, following him into his living room. All teasing is quickly dropped then as they settle in to talk face to face for the first time in both men aren't sure how long.
"Hey, wait," John says, back on his feet and in the kitchen before Mike can even ask how he's been or anything. He watches, jaw frozen mid-word as he finally returns with a pie pan in hand. "Might as well let you have at this, since you probably didn't get to enjoy many leftovers seeing that you went overseas so soon after Thanksgiving." He smirks as his former tag partner's blue eyes light up and the pumpkin pie is nearly tore from his fingers. "Um, no eating with your fingers, God, I'm tempted to ship you back to your mother and order her to try again with you, 'cause damn." As Miz glares up at him warningly for even mentioning his mother, he waves a fork under his nose. That too is grabbed out of his hands and he settles in on the couch, near enough to- when he's feeling brave- chance a bite of the pie between Mike's own forkfuls.
Once he's had his fill, Mike hands the pan over to John, who is left with the half of a piece that he'd been slowly working over. Looking unconcerned at just how much of it he'd ate, Miz smirks and leans against the couch, content and full. "So what have you been up to?" he asks finally as John starts to eat what's left in a much slower fashion.
"I suppose you saw my tweet about the play," Morrison shrugs. "Hope you didn't laugh too hard."
"A little, maybe," he smirks. "When is it, anyway? All this month?"
"Yeah, all of December except for the actual holidays. What, you thinking about crashing one of the dates? Remember it said on the page they have no clue when the scheduled guest stars make an appearance, I might not even be there if you do go."
"Oh what, you wouldn't be sure to be on the ticket when I go to see you?" He sneers. "Afraid of making a fool of yourself in front of me? You do it daily anyway so I'm not sure what the big deal is."
John rolls his eyes at him. "Says the guy who still yells about how awesome he is."
"Hey it's catching on." He begins to eye the last couple of bites of the pie, so Morrison quickly eats them. He sticks his tongue out at his friend and looks around. "No other leftovers from Thanksgiving, huh? Just that pie?"
"Well, Thanksgiving was almost a week ago," Morrison points out. "You going to be on Smackdown this week?"
"Nah, I think they decided to keep me away from Cena this week. Which is just as well."
John nods, tilting his head as he weighs his friend's expression. "I've kind of been watching bits and pieces of the shows sometimes. That AJ chick is kinda ridiculous." Miz can't argue it, but he doesn't really want to agree with it either. So he does something he rarely does and keeps quiet, which only seems to further along John's curiosity and worry. "I know you wanted to use her to try to get my job back..." Again Mike stays quiet and John sighs, resting the pie pan on the coffee table in front of them before turning to face him. "Look, I know you hate talking about this kind of stuff, especially with me, but... I'm kinda worried, man."
"Don't be. She made her choice." Painfully aware that he's doing a crappy job of seeming disinterested in the geeky, unstable girl who'd somehow wormed her way into his life, he stands up and heads for the kitchen himself. "Do you have anything to drink around this place that isn't coconut water?"
John grimaces and follows him, leaning against his counter. He's not yet given up on the original topic, no matter how obvious it is that Mike wants him to. "Yeah, there's some stuff in the fridge. Feel free, just don't eat everything in there, too, huh?" Mike shoots him a glower over his shoulder before locating a diet soda and popping it open, joining John. "So you're just going to sit back and accept that she's picked Cena?"
"What choice do I really have? If she's really that into him, then I don't know why I should bother. At this stage in my career, I've got better things to worry about. You know?" Mike tries to focus on the soda, the soft wood of the cabinets in front of him, anything but the disbelief etched across his friend's face, but he fails, eyes flickering up to look at Morrison every so often. His shoulders slump at his friend's continued silence. "I left it up to her, I kept my distance. A week later, she made out with him on national television. She chose him. There really isn't a lot I can do about it."
John's eyes soften sympathetically and he slaps Mike on the shoulder, shifting until they're side by side. "Look, I don't know that much about her, hell I haven't seenher on TV that often, but what I do understand is that she'd kind of strung Punk, Daniel and Kane around for a few months, right?"
"Yeah, rub it in, John."
"No, just listen," he mumbles. "She strung 'em along and it wasn't until Kane took himself out of the running that she seemed to realize what she'd lost with that, right? Maybe the same is true here, maybe it's just going to take her awhile to clue in that Cena isn't going to do her any good, that he's just too obsessed with his career and all of those side projects to really pay attention to her-"
"And I'm any better?" Mike demands, a fresh wave of anger pulsing through his veins as he pushes away from the cupboard to pace around the kitchen, trying to make sense of this. "I have movies, I have TV shows, I have oversea trips, I do so many radio interviews and other promotional tie-ins that they all mesh together in my head until I can't remember where I've been and where I'm going... You seem to know AJ well enough to realize she's a little on the needy side." He sneers. "I probably won't be enough for her in the end either."
John waits until the flood of words die away and takes a breath, turning to face him once more. "Alright, Mike. The first thing you did when you had a free minute?"
He blinks and shakes his head, not comprehending. "Uh. I came here."
"Yeah. And whenever you see a tweet or anything from Alex or I that catches your attention, what do you do?"
"Text or call you."
"And on holidays what do we all tend to do, even if just for a little while?"
"Skype." He starts to catch on, wincing at Morrison as he smirks.
"It isn't hard to communicate with people anymore, Mike. We all have busy schedules and if AJ really cares at all, she'll understand that. Besides I'm sure she has her own fair share of media events and responsibilities, especially since being GM. I wouldn't worry about it, just take it a day at a time."
"If there's anything to take," he grumbles.
John rests his arm on Mike's shoulder once more and squeezes, deciding it's time to distract him. "Come on, let's go get ahold of A-Ri and see how Australia is."
Mike hesitantly follows him, mulling his earlier words over. Shaking his head, he swallows and tries to find something else to talk about. "Notice how we're going all over the place, one after another now? My being in Bahrain, now Alex down under, and you've got that UK thing coming up, right?"
"Yeah, the 9th. It's like the world is conspiring so we're not all in the States when the world ends on the 21st."
"As if we'd be that lucky," Mike snarks.
"Don't believe it, huh?"
"Not really, no. Now if we could choose who exactly would be affected by that, that'd be alright."
"I can guess who all would be at the top of your list..."
Things are quiet on the AJ and Cena front that following Raw. Ziggler even doesn't say or do that much involving her, the tag match with him and Cena on opposite sides goes by quickly enough and Miz only half-watches, his focus on setting up the lie detector test for Punk later on. He really doesn't care that much about the man, or The Shield, or anything else that he had rambled on about earlier, but it gives him something else to do other than deal with what John had said about the AJ situation. He really does hate how well Morrison knows him sometimes...
In fact he wouldn't mind if Cena and Sheamus are stuck with each other for the rest of their lives, as it's just all the easier to block them both out at once, but Miz doubts he'd ever be that lucky. He had watched as The Shield dominated Kane and Daniel Bryan, beating them both down and leaving them struggling to regroup afterwards- interestingly enough, it looks as though the tag team champions had somewhere along the line taken his advice and decided to play nice with each other, at least for now. He can't be sure if his words from a few weeks ago had finally sunk in to the two mismatched men or if perhaps they finally just accepted that they needed each other, but either way, it always fascinates him to watch the visible shift from hate to attempts at teamwork in thrown together tag teams. It had worked quite well for him and John off and on for years, and a part of him hopes it goes just as well for these two.
The Shield are far from done this night, however, as they also target Randy Orton. They decimate him as easily as they had Team Hell No, and Miz blanches. He knows he's put himself in dangerous territory here, because if The Shield is working with Punk, and Miz does come close to unearthing something in that lie detector test he's forcing Punk into later, well... Of course Vince puppeting Vickie Guerrero into declaring that, should Punk be caught in a lie, the following week Heyman would compete against Ryback, doesn't help matters at all.
He anxiously smooths his hair back. Forces a deep breath and heads for the gorilla position to watch as the ring is set up for the lie detector test. Even from back here, there's a smothering kind of tension in the air. He rocks back and forth on the balls of his feet, barely paying attention to anything around him, when he senses her more than hears or sees her. Turns around and comes eye to eye with a hesitant looking AJ. Soon as their eyes lock, she swallows and takes a step away but something stops her. He wonders if she somehow has guessed the cause of his anxiety, if she really even cares.
She ventures closer to him and reaches out to him, just to come to a stop a few inches away from his chest, her fingertips close enough that, if he'd leaned forward even a little bit himself, they'd just barely meet but neither make another move, their eyes the only contact that remains between them. "Good luck out there, Mike," she says faintly before turning on her heel and walking soberly off. There is no skipping now, no coy smiles. No sign of the girl who'd used to tease him and innocently flirt with him. He can't help but miss her sometimes.
Despite that, he quickly regains his focus once Punk is actually in the ring with him, Heyman lurking around with a tense look on his face. They all know what's at stake here and Mike takes it upon himself to knock Punk out of his comfort zone in a big way, taunting him, taunting Heyman, throwing as many jabs as he possibly can about Wrestlemania and various other embarassments that Punk has suffered over the years. Even when Punk volleys back with vicious barbs, Mike shakes it off like water off of a duck's back and proceeds on until finally he gets to the question du jour. The Shield, Brad Maddox, Punk's involvement with it all- he's so excited that he demands an answer and thinks he's on the cusp of getting it, Punk looking so conflicted- probably thinking about Heyman's fate, should he have to face Ryback the following week and then...
The world turns on its side, literally. Mike feels something roughly grab his legs and tug, his back protesting as he lands harshly on the floor outside of the ring. The Shield attack, they punish him, they pummel him with punches and kicks before dragging him back into the ring for their triple attack, slamming him into the mat with such force that he almost expects to go through the mat. Before he can try to recollect himself, Daniel and Kane arrive, doing for him what they wouldn't- or couldn't- do for Orton earlier. As they lose the number game, however, Miz struggles just to breathe, watching through bleary eyes when finally Ryback makes an appearance. He never thought he'd be glad to see that oaf, but for once, he kind of has to be. It turns the tide, Team Hell No slowly getting the upper hand and as Ryback abuses the only remaining member of The Shield left out there, Punk stands over Mike and, adding to his humilation, roughly kicks him out of the ring. "Get out of my ring!" he overhears Punk scream at him as he rolls towards the barricade wall and just lay there, breathless and aching in a way only a melee like that could cause.
He's only slightly aware as Ryback pummels Punk a few feet away as a referee slowly helps him to the back. He lays him down on the couch and moves aside so the trainer can begin to examine him, poking and prodding him in ways that only adds to his suffering, when the door squeaks open slightly. He groans and wonders who's coming to witness his turmoil, when a soft hand rests on his now bare chest, the suit jacket and dress shirt that he'd been wearing stripped off so the trainer could examine his back and ribs. His eyes shooting open, he realizes that it's AJ standing next to him and he watches her wearily as she sits down on the floor next to him, that small smile actually back on her lips as she stares at him.
He's not sure why she's here, or how come her touch just feels right to him, but it's much better than being alone as the trainer continues to talk softly to him, trying to suss out if there's anything worrisome for him to focus on right now. He decides to not overthink it for tonight.