"Hey!" Cena chirped cheerily upon the sight of his best friend. His megawatt smile lighting up the entire room.
"Hey!" Randy responds, extending his arms for a hug. John's eyebrows twitch before he complies, and lightly hugs his friend. However, Randy applies a slight of pressure to the hug, which makes John wince in pain, as a soft sigh escapes his lips.
"Whoa.." Randy says, quickly releasing his grip once he notices John's painful twitch. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah. I'm just...sore" John says, as Randy detects some uncertainty in his voice. Not wanting to make the situation uncomfortable, he slowly sits down on the chair and notions toward John, who does the same.
"So, how've you been?" says Randy, breaking the silence. "We haven't seen each other for a few weeks."
"It's good I guess. All the normal shit that you do happened." Cena says, as a small smile creeps upon his face. Randy chuckles before lowering his drink to talk to John once more.
"How are you and Corey?" Randy asks in a polite tone. John flinches at the question, as if it startled him to be asked about his relationship. John's reaction surprises Randy, who's expression quickly changes from that of happiness to confusion at his friends reaction to his seemingly normal question. A few seconds pass before John musters up a response.
"It's...good" John says, with fear creeping into his words as he spoke. Randy simply nods in response and leaves them both in silence for a few seconds.
John stretches his right arm around his torso as he lets out a small, painful moan. Randy turns to notice a mark appearing from under John's small shirt sleeve. Before Randy can think of what to ask him about the mark, before he spots Corey walking towards them.
"Hi Randy" Corey shouts from across the room. Randy waves as a response while Cena jolts his head around, before cementing his gaze onto the floor.
"How's it going, Corey?" Randy asks politely, while John remains staring at the floor, as if to try and pretend Corey wasn't there.
"I'm alright. I've just come to pick this one up. He's been out for a while. Ready?" Corey says sternly, which provokes a confused expression to appear on Randy's face, as he looks at John, who quickly moves his head into Corey's direction, followed by a small smile and a nod.
"See you tomorrow, John." Randy says, but is met with only a nod in response as Corey grabs John's hand as they begin to walk away.
"That's...odd." Randy mutters to himself, sitting back down and looking over at John's now empty seat; his drink still sat on the arm rest.
Why was Corey acting like that? More importantly, what was up with John? Where did that bruise come from?
Randy sat pondering at his thoughts for what felt like only a few minutes, before he is snapped out of his gaze by a buzz in his pocket. He shakes his head and blinks quickly a few times before placing his drink carefully on the ground. He reaches into his pocket for his phone, and upon it's retrieval, he realizes he had been sat without John for about 10 minutes. He looks at the message icon, which is lit up with John's name. Randy raises an eyebrow before opening the message, and his reaction rapidly changes from confusion to fear once he reads the words lit up on the screen.
B56 quick please
That was it. Why would John text Randy his room number? It wasn't like John to do that, and to text him with such a short message. However, this thought almost immediately left his mind once he realized what the message really meant. John needed him. John never admits to needing help so this must be serious. Randy quickly rises from his seat and paces over to the bar where he pays for his and John's drinks, before quickly leaving and running up the stairs towards the "B" floor of the hotel.
Once he arrived, he saw that the door to B56 still had the key card stuck in the lock. He knocks quietly before opening the door as slowly as he could, so he didn't make any noise.
"John?" he whispers into the darkness, but he is met with no response. As he steps in, he feels something knock against his foot. He bends down to pick up John's cell; completely destroyed. He slides it into his pocket before continuing into the room. "John?" he whispers one more but is once again met with nothing but the small echo of his own voice. He continues on for a few steps before hearing a soft whimper come from the bathroom. He stops completely still and tries to detect the source of the sound. He hears it once more, only this time it is followed by a sharp intake of breath and a faint sob. He walks toward the bathroom and slowly pushes open the slightly ajar door, to reveal a purely horrific sight.
John was curled up in the corner of the room, sobbing uncontrollably as he held on to a towel with a ferociously tight grip. John's shirt lay torn next to the door, stained with an all to familiar crimson color, as was John. John sat covered in a mixture of blood and tears, gripping the towel as if his life depended on it. Scratches covering his chest and back, and blood seeping from cuts around his legs. The hand he had been clutching the towel with completely white. It was as if somebody had completely removed any ounce of life from his body.
Randy ran over to John and knelt down beside him. John seemingly ignoring this, he just remained curled up, sobbing.
"Oh my fucking god. Oh my fucking god." Randy repeated; breathless. He was knelt down, facing his best friend, who had been beaten to a bloody pulp. It was like a nightmare, and Randy wished it was.
"We have to get you to a hospital. Now." Randy exclaimed, the tension and anguish clear in his voice. The sound of these words snapped John out of his trance as he quickly turns his head towards Randy, and grabs his shirt with his free hand; digging his fingers firmly into the fabric.
"No...no hospital. I can't. He's coming back...I can't" John explains, in-between frantic breaths and shallow sobs. Randy, stunned beyond words, absentmindedly complied with his friend, and slid one of his arms under John's knees, and the other arm around the other man's neck before lifting him up. John threw his arms around Randy's neck, clasping on with almost inhumane grip as he attempts to speak.
"Help...please Randy...please..." John spits out, almost inaudibly as he breathes at an alarming pace. Randy exits the hotel room, not bothering to kick the door closed as he rushed towards his room, which was situated only a few floors down from John.
Kicking the door open, Randy walks in, John still tightly gripped around his neck. He quickly rushes over to the bed, and lay's John down, who returns to the curled up position he was sat inside the bathroom. Randy places a chair in front of the door as a substitute for the now broken lock, as he rushes back over to the now blood stained bed, as John remains sobbing; clutching on to the towel.
Lost for words, he does all he can to clean John up. Slowly wiping over his skin with wet towels, and placing anything he could find over John's cuts. Randy begins to remove John's sneakers as he notices that they, along with his socks, were covered in blood. The crimson stains remained as a horrible reminder of the way he had found John just mere minutes ago. While doing this, he looks up and notices John's breathing had relaxed. However, he remained sobbing.
"I'm...I'm so sorry." John stutters, "I'm so...so pathetic" he breathes out, his breathing patterns once again picking up in pace.
"No John. No you're not." Randy said softly, removing his focus from John's legs to John's tear filled eyes.
"It's okay. It's okay, you're safe now. I promise nothing will hurt you now." Randy whispers.
He should have known. The mark, the strange reactions to his questions, hell, even the hug. He should have known something was up.
"I'm sorry Randy...I'm so sorry." John whimpers; the pure terror he was feeling still lay evident in his tone.
"Don't apologize. You don't need to be sorry about anything. You're okay here, you're safe." Randy whispers, as John falls apart in front of his eyes. Randy feels a horrible cloud of guilt surround him as John buries his head into Randy's shoulder; tears streaming down his face.
The room remained silent apart from the sounds of John's tears, and Randy whispering softly into John's ear as he runs his hands through John's short, brown hair.
Like this it remained, until they both heard and incredibly forceful bang at the door.