Flames

Another Ambulance, part 1

Seth should have known something was up when he and Becky arrived at the arena and were directed straight to Creative. Every wrestler they passed coming out of Creative either gave them a sideways glance or avoided looking at them all together. "Did you post something on Twitter again?" Seth asked. He was trying to keep his spirits up, but he knew Becky would catch the wariness in his voice. "Because if we're fired, they could have just called us at home and saved us the trip. . . ."

Becky shut her eyes and sighed. "I'm not in the mood for Ronda today," she muttered. "Wondering which of her two facial expressions she'll use is too much suspense for me."

Seth pulled her closer, chuckling into her hair. "Don't forget how she was learning judo in the womb or some shit like that." He still hesitated in front of the door labelled Creative, though. "You ready?"

"Yeah, might as well be." She gave Seth a look when he held open the door for her, but went through anyway, kissing him on the cheek as she passed him. "Hey, Hannah. What do you have for us? Everyone who's walked past us looks like they're going to a funeral."

Hannah was the longest-serving intern in Creative and she got along well with everybody; that was why the higher-ups in Creative usually left her to deliver the bad news, hoping it would soften the blow. "Sorry," she said simply, handing papers to Seth and Becky. "For what it's worth, I wasn't working on your segments tonight."

"No hard feelings," Seth assured her. "You're just doing your job." The room held two tables, now mostly cleared of scripts, and a scattering of chairs. Seth and Becky sat in ones near the door and started paging through. "Andrade's not going to win the gauntlet match. Charlotte will be pissed."

Becky only shrugged. "But Maria's winning the 24/7 Belt? WWE's women making history again, I guess. I should go after her and be Becky Two Belts again." When she got to her highlighted segment, she rolled her eyes. "For fuck's sake. This is damn cliché bingo. Alexa fakes an injury. I beat Nikki and then get double-teamed." She followed the arrow to the next page. "But wait, there's more!" Her fake infomercial voice, coupled with her accent, never failed to make Seth laugh, and he quickly paged ahead to catch up with her. "Make that triple-teamed. Almost. I guess Nattie's at least going to wait until they've done their worst. Very sporting."

Seth read further down. "At least you don't tap to the sharpshooter," he pointed out. "And you get to ambush her 'earlier today', which will probably be about five minutes from now."

Becky bumped his knee with hers. "Is that a hint? Fine, fine, I'm reading." Then she jabbed him in the side. "Oh, look! Cole calls you my boyfriend again! The cliché bingo players are going to have full cards tonight." She set her script aside and slumped in her chair. "I'm so tired of all these juvenile storylines they're giving the women. Fake friendships! Hurt feelings! We aren't in fucking school anymore."

While Becky ranted about the petty angles the women were getting, Seth also skimmed ahead, hoping to catch anything worse before she did. He was going to have a spot with the Street Profits, which should be fun. His match against Dolph should be good too, nice and athletic; the fake-out with Shawn Michaels's music would rile up the crowd, and then—

Shit.

Seth shut his script as quickly as he dared, trying not to attract Becky's attention to it. "Hey, Becks. You should go find Nattie and get ready for that earlier-today spot. There's only a few hours before she show starts."

But Becky wasn't buying it. Sitting back, she eyed him suspiciously. "What is it? What haven't I got to yet?" She turned to reach for her copy of the script, but Seth reached across her lap and grabbed it. "What is it?" she repeated, more worried than annoyed this time. "Hannah, what's he going on about?"