Mike skims headlines on his phone and exhales shakily, looking up as AJ joins him, Sara tagging along with her fingers curled in the folds of her mom's jeans, and George fussing faintly from her arms. "Hey," he says softly, taking the baby from her and tapping his cheek gently until George sniffs and looks up at him, dark blue eyes wet and wide. "It's ok, little guy," he soothes him. "I know, the world's big and it's scary, but we're gonna be alright." He presses a soft kiss to George's cheek and looks askance at AJ. "I'm not sure what to do right now."
She rests a hand on his and glances at his phone, squaring her shoulders before turning to look at him. "I know you'll do the best you can, Mike." She leans in and kisses him. "Just try to be careful, ok?"
"You won't hate me if I keep going to work?" he breathes against her lips, and she shakes her head.
"No," she murmurs. "I won't." She smiles faintly. "You just got your best friend back, and won the tag titles with him for the first time in like eleven years. I understand. It's important to you." She continues to stroke his knuckles, staring deep into her eyes. "Like I said. Do what you have to do, and then come back to us. Alright?"
He nods. "I will. I promise I will." He leans in and kisses George again before swapping with AJ, giving her George back and leaning down to scoop Sara into his lap. "Daddy's gonna miss you, but I promise, I will be home very soon," he tells the little girl, kissing her forehead and rocking her back and forth gently.
Sara leans into him and sucks on her thumb, a habit they've been trying to break, but things are so tense and stressful, he lets her have it for now.
-x
"Sorry about this," John says, hoisting his bag into the rental car. "Things are pretty uncertain now, huh?"
Mike bites his lip, shrugs. "Yeah, but the show goes on, huh?" He carries no bitterness- the business has always been this way, doing its best to continue on through the worst of situations, and he has a feeling this particular situation will get a fair deal worse before it even shows signs of improving. One plus, he thinks, glancing over once more at John as he finishes loading up his things and sliding into the driver's seat to start their drive, is I'm not alone anymore...
Exhaling quietly, he slams the trunk shut and slides into the passenger seat, offering John a half-smile while clicking his seatbelt into place. "So... are we there yet?"
John barks out a quick laugh before starting the car up. "Yeah, sure, Mike, any minute yet."
Mike smirks and settles in for a long drive, content to listen to John's music between random bursts of conversation between them.
The show itself isn't great. They're pushed into a tag match with Roode and Ziggler against the New Day and the Usos, and all Mike can do is sit and stare at the back of Ziggler's head while he runs his mouth and talks way too indepth about Mandy Rose. There isn't really any bad blood between them, no- AJ picked Mike, and continues to pick Mike every day, while Ziggler proves time and again where his priorities lie despite how far everyone else around him has come since then, with families and homes and not just able to drop everything and go on a spur of the moment stand-up tour of the country at any moment, purposely hurting guys like Otis just to have five minutes with girls like Mandy.
Once upon a time, Mike was Otis, watching from the outside in as Ziggler had done everything he could to make things absolutely impossible for Mike with AJ. But look at them now. The romantic deep inside of Mike thinks maybe, just maybe, there's hope for Mandy and Otis yet, but who knows. As John reminded him recently, never say never, especially in wrestling.
His thoughts are derailed when it's time for the match and, of course, the four of them do not gel well, and they ultimately lose. He grumbles about it up the ramp, but John soothes him with a warm hand on his back. "It's gonna be ok," he says with all the confidence in the world. "In a few days we're gonna be flying out to Saudi, and when we fly home, we'll have those bad boys on our shoulders, where they always should've been." He nods at the monitor, where New Day are shown with the tag belts as the crowd cheers them on.
"Yeah, you're right," Mike agrees with a faint smile, John's words exactly what he needed to hear right now. "We absolutely will."