Title: From Scratch
Author: Karen U/revivingophelia
Pairing/Character: Eve/CM Punk
Disclaimer: no one you recognize belongs to me
Rating: M/R
Summary: As John Laurinaitis continues his quest to make sure CM Punk loses the title, the WWE champion thought he was prepared for anything. Except maybe this.
Spoilers: April 2012, shortly after WrestleMania. Eve is not the executive administrator, and Beth is still divas' champion
Warnings: language, violence, adult situations

Part One

He was well and truly fucked. And not in a way that was even remotely satisfying.

He knew, of course, where the idea came from. It was obvious enough. After all, it was only a little over a year ago that Edge had been put in a similar situation... Teaming with Kelly Kelly against LayCool and Dolph Ziggler in a handicap match... With Ziggler being awarded the title if either Edge or Kelly were pinned in the match. That idea had been the brainchild of Vickie Guerrero, the acting SmackDown General Manager at the time, seeing as Teddy Long had been out because of injuries suffered in a backstage attack. Apparently Laurinaitis had decided to borrow the idea, with a few changes... Changes that would ensure the plan didn't backfire on him as it had on Vickie. After all, in the end, Kelly had managed to win the match for her team on that night, helping Edge to keep his title. But in that instance, Kelly had really wanted to win... She'd wanted to prove herself. She'd wanted to help Edge.

CM Punk couldn't say the same thing about his partner.

He jerked his hands through his hair as he glanced over the WWE title that was laying on the bench across from him, the man figuring that tonight would be the last night it would be his to carry. And it wasn't that he didn't think his tag team partner wasn't capable. He knew she was. She was better than Kelly... Better than a lot of the women on the roster. Of course, she was also someone that more than likely didn't want him to win. After all, she'd helped to make sure that Team Johnny won at WrestleMania. It was unlikely that she would want to piss the man off now, and everyone knew that John Laurinaitis would be pissed off if there wasn't a new WWE champion tonight. And just to ensure that it happened... Not only was Eve Torres his assigned partner for the night, but Chris Jericho was getting Beth Phoenix as his own partner. One of the toughest divas in the company - along with Natalya - she could beat just about anyone on any night. And even if she did have some vulnerabilities from time to time - she had, after all, needed a few tries to get the title from Kelly in the first place, and even as champion she'd lost on occasion in non-title and tag team matches - the fact remained that Eve most likely wasn't even going to bother fighting her if she got tagged into the match. And the thing was... There was nothing he could do to keep that from happening. Because if Chris Jericho tagged Beth Phoenix in, that meant that Eve automatically had to come in as well. The match was mixed tag, not intergender. There would be nothing he could do to stop Eve from being in the match, and they all knew it. There was no doubt in Punk's mind that Eve had marching orders to go out there and lay down for Beth. To just let herself get pinned. He knew it, and he knew that Beth and Jericho had to know it, too.

He had to keep Jericho from tagging Beth in. He had to keep Eve Torres out of the ring.

It wouldn't be easy. Odds were that Jericho would even try to get Beth to start the match... But he couldn't allow that to happen. He was not going to lose his WWE title faster than Daniel Bryan had lost the world heavyweight title at WrestleMania just eight days before. He would do whatever it took to make sure that he was the one that started the match, and he would do everything in his power to keep Jericho away from the side of the ring that Beth was on. He couldn't let him make the tag. Hell, he'd have to do what he could to keep the match away from his own corner as well; he couldn't take the chance that Eve would tag herself in, either, which was entirely possible.

Heaving out a sigh, the man got to his feet, reaching out to pick up the WWE title, looking at the nameplate on the bottom of it, all too aware that, after tonight, another name would likely be there. That wasn't to say he was giving up. He wasn't that type of guy. It just meant that he knew all too well when the deck was stacked against him. He wasn't going out there with a tag team partner that night, not really. A partner would be someone that wanted to win the match. Someone that was actually going out there to be his teammate and work toward the same goal he was. And even if Eve hadn't said anything about it, he knew that was the case with this 'partnership'. Her place in the company would be better if she lost this match... If she helped Laurinaitis get the best of him. In essence, he was going out there in a three-on-one situation, under the guise of one of the people that was against him being his partner. The good news was that he knew about it. He was very aware of what was going to happen out there. Of the expected outcome. He knew what was supposed to happen.

The bad news was, no matter how hard he tried - and he was going to give it his all - he just didn't know if he'd be able to stop it from happening.