A/N:
Guest: Hi, thank you for the review! I'm unable to reply to guest reviews through FFN, so I have to reply this way and hope you see it. Interestingly enough, I WAS considering doing a scene from AJ's POV soon so... I guess the answer is maybe. :D
After some restless tossing and turning next to AJ following spending all Tuesday afternoon, night, and part of Wednesday morning in Alberto Del Rio's hotel room, helping Ricardo keep an eye on his fever and making sure he got some rest and stayed hydrated, Mike sits in the hotel lobby and stares blankly ahead, too many thoughts racing through his mind. He barely reacts when the door to the hotel entrance opens, someone walking over and looming over him. He does, however, glance around when Alex Riley sits down next to him, smiling wanly. "Hey," he mutters, subdued. "I'm glad you're here. Ricardo needs all of us around him right now."
Alex nods softly, blinking. "What happened?" He sits silently, taking it all in as Mike explains the day before, how Del Rio had been suffering from jetlag and stress due to everything going on, causing him to fall ill and spike a fever, his claims about why he'd lost the World title turning into some insane sort of self-fulfilling prophecy... How Ricardo had taken it upon himself to see the older man through the whole situation, despite everything that had happened between them the past few months. Mike's voice trembles a bit as he recalls Del Rio only settling when Ricardo began to call him El Patron once more, the visible pain it'd caused the younger man to rehash all of the old memories of fonder times between the two.
"I wanted to tell him so badly," Mike hisses, staring at his hands. "I just... I couldn't. Not then. Not when he was already hurting so much, not when Del Rio was too out of it to explain his side of it... Ricardo deserves to know, but... I don't think it's my place. Even after everything, I just can't be the one to try to explain this all to him." He kicks his heel against the couch viciously and groans. "Del Rio is such an infuriating asshole, especially when he thinks he's doing the right thing!"
Alex sighs heavily, closing his eyes as he ponders everything Mike had just told him, the impact it could- and will- have on his roommate. "Dammit," he breathes. "Where's Ricardo? I can see him for a few minutes before I have to go to Main Event."
Mike's eyes darken slightly at the mention of this, the main reason Alex being in England now being because he'd been requested to come commentate Main Event and Superstars, which gives Mike even less to do this week, but he bites down his displeasure at once more being overlooked and leads Alex to their hotel room, where the exhausted ring announcer is sitting on the edge of his bed, staring at his hands. As Alex wanders his way, resting a hand between his shoulder blades, Mike heads over to where AJ is sitting with her title, stroking it with soft fingers. He quietly sits next to her, knowing better than to disrupt her pre-match ponderings, content to sit and watch her for a few minutes.
No matter how many things are wrong with his personal and professional life right now, he can't completely complain because he has her, after so many months of painful longing and guilt, and she's beautiful and strong, incredible... When she looks up finally and catches him staring at her, she smiles back and puts the title down, reaching out for his hand with which she interlaces her fingers before resting both on the cool plate of the belt. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah," he nods, smiling at her. "I'll be accompanying you to Main Event tonight. Alright?" He'll have nothing outside of watching her compete to do, which had become depressingly common the last couple of weeks, but when her eyes light up and she nods happily, he knows it's worth it.
Once Alex finishes talking to Ricardo, who still seems worn out but a bit more emotionally stable once he's done, the four of them leave him behind to get some rest while they go to the arena, once again stuffed in a small taxi, Tamina and Alex sitting side by side while AJ takes back her place sitting in Mike's lap, her title held protectively in her hands. As soon as they arrive, Alex goes immediately to meet with Josh at the announcer's desk and the divas take their leave as well, so AJ can stretch and do other preparing to compete type things, Mike standing blankly in the hallway and looking around for a monitor to watch the show in peace.
He finds one not long before the show starts, blinking when he hears the opening moments of the show echoing back from a ways further down the hall. Peering around during a lull in the action, he blinks upon finding that Tyson Kidd is not that far off, staring intently at his own monitor, all attention on his wife as she makes her way to the ring. Mike can't help but roll his eyes at this, hoping for a number of reasons that AJ retains. Not that it was Tyson's fault, fully, but his leaving Ricardo in the lurch, officially leaving Los Locales in the dust with little to no notice, had rubbed the Awesome One the wrong way, knowing that it's just yet another blow the former ring announcer didn't need right this moment.
He has to fight not to laugh when Tamina enters and kicks Natalya right in front of the referee, allowing AJ to retain by DQ. It's not a clean win, no, but a title retention is a title retention, no matter how it comes about, and he knows that that's what matters most to his girlfriend, so he's happy for her. Besides, he can hear Tyson muttering in annoyance under his breath from feet away and that makes it even better. Especially when AJ finds him, leaping into his arms with her hair raining down around them, and they can both hear Natalya crying to her husband about this being her only chance at the Divas title, and it being ruined. AJ brushes her hair out of her eyes and leans down, kissing him thoroughly, her pleasure thrumming through both of them as he supports her so she doesn't fall out of his grip. "I'm happy you retained," he whispers to her between kisses.
She grins and presses closer to him, the weight of her title cool against his back, causing him to miss being champion yet again with a cold, cruel ache that he hasn't been able to find the words to describe just yet. "Let's get out of here."
He nods, glad she'd suggested it. Alex is busy commentating, he won't mind, he tells himself, carrying her out of the arena to find a taxi as Tamina follows behind quietly.
Since the last time Mike had been on Superstars, its schedule had changed, the show now happening on Thursday nights. Alex is doing commentary here as well, but it's just them for once, as AJ is in London for a houseshow with Tamina. He has a match with Primetime Players against Khali and the Usos, Mike doing all he can to keep his growing aggravation with the situation he finds himself in tamped down until they lose. Disgusted, he walks quietly side by side with Alex to yet another taxi, his former NXT rookie thankfully knowing enough to not speak, let Mike have his time to think and decompress after the crappy week he's so far been having.
He's so disgusted that he barely responds when they enter the hotel room to find Ricardo waiting for them, the younger man wiling time away until Smackdown the following night, waiting to see if Vickie will find a place on the card for him... When he asks if they're hungry, Mike shakes his head and ducks into the bathroom, wanting nothing more than to get in a quick shower and crawl into bed and put this European tour behind him, doubting that Smackdown will give him anything worthwhile to do either. He closes his eyes as water sluices down his face and neck from the showerhead, breathing heavily. The Authority, he sneers, eyes dark as he stares at the tile. Even when they're on vacation, they succeed at ruining everything...
The next day does little to ease his turmoil as he wakes up to Alex lightly shaking his arm, Ricardo hovering next to him. It's mid-morning, and the two before him had clearly allowed him to sleep in... which he would ordinarily be annoyed over, but there's a strange, tense look on their faces, and... He swallows and blinks, sitting up. "What's happened now?" The two men exchange looks before Ricardo holds up Mike's cell phone, the man blinking through the blur of sleep to focus on the words written there.
Text from: AJ
Mike, I guess you're asleep right now, but I wanted to let you know before you read it on some dirt sheet... I collapsed at the houseshow in London last night. But I'm FINE. Just a (2/2) little dehydrated... some water and rest, and I'll be good. I promise. I'll see you at Smackdown tonight.
He stares blankly at the screen, swallowing. His chest hurts. While he had been feeling sorry for himself, bemoaning his lack of having anything substantial to do, AJ had been far, far away, ill and with only Tamina around for support. Though he knows WWE doctors are some of the best around, more than capable of getting their competitors back to full health, it still leaves him shaky. "Dammit," he hisses, leaning over and burying his face in his hands. His focus had been locked solely on Del Rio's health and Ricardo's mental stability so much the last few days that AJ and everything else had mostly slipped through his fingers, and he sees now he'd been desperately trying to keep himself busy, his thoughts anywhere else instead of on his lack of a title belt, or any sort of significant role in the WWE, when before he was commentator, wrestler, anything and everything they'd wanted from him...
It's not fair to any of them. It's definitely not fair to his girlfriend. He finally uncurls from himself to stare up at Alex and Ricardo, who are leaning over him with equally worried looks on their faces. "I'm sorry," he finally breathes out, especially towards Alex, who he'd slowly been growing a sort of bitterness towards without even fully caring enough to stop it due to the younger man getting more time on the commentary desk than he'd had the past few months. "I'm so sorry." When Alex's face clears in some understanding, he pulls Mike into a hug and mutters comfortingly to him, careful not to break the hug until Mike makes the first move to do so, giving him the time just to sit there and think, re-dedicate himself to being a better friend. A better boyfriend. If given a proper chance, a better competitor and announcer... Time for a change...
When they all meet up for Smackdown that night, Mike greets AJ with a bottle of water and she stares up at him, blinking in some confusion before she realizes just how deeply worried he has been since receiving her text, her expression clearing as she takes the bottle from him, taking a few sips from it until he looks moderately calmer, kissing her temple as he tugs her closer. "It's not exactly the best gift I've ever been given," she hums, smiling up at him as he stares down at her, searching her face as if trying to determine her health by doing so. "But I suppose it'll do... as long as you don't give me a crate of bottles of water for Christmas next month."
He squeezes her and shakes his head, burying his face in her hair. "Don't worry me like that ever again," he mutters. "The concussion was bad enough but... I was reading through stuff from people at the event and some claimed you had a seizure and-"
She presses a hand to his lips and stares up at him, eyes flashing until he stops rambling. "People on the internet are ridiculous drama queens. That's why I sent you that text, I knew there'd been a bunch of misinformation around, and I didn't want... I didn't want this. I didn't want you to worry unneccessarily. I'm fine, I'll continue to be ok. The doctor won't let me do anything that I'm not healthy enough for. Alright? Besides, I don't have a match tonight. It's all Tamina, I'm just going to be watching from the sidelines."
"Good," he sighs. "But either way, now that I have you here..." She releases a muffled squeal as he leans down and picks her up, carrying her bridal style the rest of the way to her locker room, where Ricardo and Alex are already sitting, staring hesitantly over at a lingering Tamina. As he settles her down on the couch, she peers around the room with a vague smirk on her face. He pokes her nose gently until she looks up at him, tilting her head. "What is it?"
"I was just trying to figure out the exact moment this locker room changed from the Divas Champion locker room to Miz and Friends' locker room," she tells him, her smirk growing into a haughty kind of grin as he leans closer to her.
"I guess somewhere between this moment," he whispers, kissing her softly, "and the moment I told you I loved you." She murmurs against his lips and he laughs. "What was that?"
"I guess you're right," she breathes. "Well, thankfully the room is huge, and I'm relatively small, so there's plenty of room for all of this madness." As he watches her fondly, she stands back up and skips off to change out of her street clothes and into one of her merch shirts for Tamina's match.
Mike sits down next to Ricardo and eyes his bright red wrestling gear, raising an eyebrow at him. "Any luck?"
"No, they have no matches for me tonight," he mutters, picking at his mask halfheartedly. "I asked but Vickie all but ignored me and granted a match instead to Hunico and Camacho."
Mike winces and claps his shoulder. "I'm sorry, man." Ricardo nods but says very little as the show starts, the group of them watching as Tamina loses to Natalya after being sent into AJ by mistake, Mike's jaw tensing until he sees that she's relatively ok, Tamina seeming worse off than her. Still, he has more water on hand when she returns, and she releases a blustery breath but once more obliges him, drinking slowly from one of the bottles while they join the men to watch the rest of the show.
Mike had been tempted to suggest they leave after the divas match, all of them in need of rest one way or another, but he'd taken one look at Ricardo's face when Del Rio challenged Cena to an arm wrestling contest had been announced, knowing immediately that it wouldn't be happening. So he curls AJ close to him and rests his chin on the top of her head as Alberto is shown walking towards the ring, a dark look on his face.
Ricardo speaks up, his voice low and a little broken as soon as it goes to commercial. "Did... he look pale to anyone? I mean..."
Mike and Alex move at the same time, both reaching over to pat his back or squeeze his arm in comfort. "Maybe a little, but he looked fine otherwise. And as AJ said, the doctor won't let us do anything that we're not able to. And it's not a match, just a quick arm wrestling contest. He'll be in and out of there in, say, five minutes," Miz says, trying to smile at the fretful young man. "And the trainer knows everything he was going through, he'll know what to watch out for. Don't worry, man."
But it's clear that's exactly what Ricardo does through the whole segment, his tension only growing when Cena answers the challenge, accepting it. Mike starts to worry he might vibrate right off of the couch, his whole body thrumming with anxiety so roughly that they all can feel it. If not for the way that this week had been going, Mike thinks he might've laughed when Del Rio lost not once but twice to the World Champion in a matter of seconds but he takes one look at the pale, grim look on Ricardo's face and loses all humor, shaking his head glumly.
He's so focused on the ring announcer, he barely notices the moment Del Rio begins attacking Cena and, although his attempts at locking his arm in the chair fails, he does manage to send the other man through the table that had been used for the arm wrestling props, the five of them staring at the TV with varying emotions on their faces. "Damn," Miz finally breathes, glancing once more at Ricardo, who has a distant look in his eye. "Are you ok?"
"Si," the ring announcer mutters, watching as a pleased Alberto taunts Cena while he's still in the wreckage. "Can we go now?"
"Sure, man," he agrees easily, wishing that he had suggested that himself after all, but certain that Ricardo wouldn't have wanted to until he at least had a glance of Del Rio, saw what was going to happen to the older man. "Come on, guys, let's get out of here."
The weekend goes by quickly even after Alex and Ricardo return to Florida following Smackdown, Sunday thankfully bringing with it the end of the European tour, Mike beyond glad to see it go. He breathes a little easier once he and AJ are back in the States as well, the girl thankfully not having any more fainting spells or dehydration issues since that house show in London. Even so, he dreads seeing what they'll make her do on Raw, not wanting her to exhaust herself further considering all she's been going through, until Stephanie announces it in the very first five minutes, his shoulders slumping in some relief when she places the Raw GM in a match against her for later that night. He hugs her close to him, kissing the top of her head before pulling away slowly. "I'll be back soon, I have to go find Kofi," he tells her with a small smile, kissing her once more.
"Alright," she breathes into him, smiling when he struggles just to fully move away from her. "Good luck with the match."
"Thanks," he says, though he doesn't think he'll need it. Not now. Not after all of the thinking he's done the past few days. He'd let his focus go in various directions the past few months; trying to be all that the fans wanted, trying to impress the Authority, stretching himself way too thin to be any good to anyone. Much less to the people that matter the most to him, such as AJ, Morrison, Alex and Ricardo... He had lost his way so thoroughly the past year that it disgusts him to even reflect back on it. AJ fainting and his frustration at not being able to be there for her had opened his eyes to what he was allowing to happen to himself, his career, his relationships.
And so he watches as Kofi gets double teamed by the so-called Real Americans, finally getting enough distance to lunge towards their corner, trying to tag Mike in. Now, he thinks, waiting until the last second to drop to the floor, avoiding the tag expertly. Kofi looks shocked, his dark eyes flashing with betrayal and some surprise, followed by bitter realization. But it only lasts a second as he's once more dragged into the middle of the ring, beat down further before eating the pin as Mike watches from the outside, smirking.
It's with a revitalized spring to his step that Mike heads backstage, no longer feeling the need to acknowledge the fans trying to get his attention or even talk with the other superstars milling around. He does, however, stop when he sees AJ waiting for her match against Vickie Guerrero at the gorilla position, staring down at her while he waits for her verdict on what he's done. She blinks up at him a time or two before wrapping her arms around his neck and dragging him down to her level, staring at him. "That was so sexy," she mutters, kissing him deeply.
He laughs at her, feeling slightly relieved. Though he hadn't thought she'd have minded, it's still nice that she at least seems to be alright with his decision, understand his actions, before he'd even needed to say a word to her. Now as long as Alex and Ricardo are cool with it, he thinks, lips pursing against hers as he ponders what the two easy-going men would have to say. However, they're both distracted when they hear Vickie on a nearby monitor, calling out for help. AJ turns sharply in time to see her opponent look around shiftily before collapsing outside of the trainer's office. The Divas champion sucks in a deep, angered breath, Mike's eyes narrowing as well. "No way," he mutters, grimacing at the gross imitation too similar to what AJ herself had truthfully gone through only a couple of days ago.
AJ glares at the monitor before pulling away from him and grabbing Tamina, heading to the ring with no lack of determination. Thankfully, Stephanie doesn't fall for it either, ordering Vickie to be sent to the ring anyway, where she's rolled off of the cot into the waiting champion, who waits patiently, anger visibly growing as the GM scrambles around, repeatedly faking fainting spells in and out of the ring until AJ pretends to want to help her cool off, just to twist her around in the Black Widow, Vickie quickly tapping out from there as the girl laughs at her.
When she and Tamina make their way backstage, she's still smiling slightly, but there's a bitter sort of anger in her dark eyes and Mike brushes her hair out of her eyes, staring down at her. "I hate her," she breathes. "So much, for everything."
He nods, leaning closer to her. "I know. I feel the same way about her." For the first time in perhaps ever, their eyes lock and there's full understanding there. Whereas when they'd first caught each other's eyes, and she had been about to marry Daniel and he'd been tag teaming with Eve Torres, or every moment since, when he had either been trying to get John his job back by using her or being a good guy and trying to entertain the WWE Universe, and she had been all about Daniel-Punk-Kane-Cena-Dolph, or being GM, or the title, or whatever else had kept them apart, now... now there's no denying. He understands her, she understands him. Yes, they had been together the last few months, and it had been great, but now everything just clicks. They'd both been hurt and misjudged, overlooked by the fans, underrated by management, and both had had more than enough of it. AJ long before Mike, yes, but still. He strokes her hair back once more and breathes, "You're beautiful."
She does smile at this, deep brown eyes locked on him as he lifts her up into his arms, kissing her thoroughly, slowly. The longer they linger, the more intense everything becomes between them until finally he pulls away and rests his forehead against hers. "We'll always have each other. No matter what anyone else does or says."
"Yes we will," she sighs as he resumes kissing her, neither of them caring that they're still by the gorilla position, or who may be watching.