Day One
Someone was pushing on his chest, hard, rhythmically. It hurt.
"Breathe! God damn it, breathe!" a familiar voice exhorted. He knew the voice, with its soft Irish lilt, but couldn't put a name or a face to it.
Triple H tried to raise his arms and push away the hands on his sternum but his arms felt like two strands of overcooked spaghetti. He opened his mouth to tell the person pumping his chest to cut it out but before he could get the words out he heard the voice curse again.
"Ah, damn it to hell!"
Strong fingers pinched his nostrils shut, lips clamped over his, he could feel the tickle of a mustache. Hot air was forced down his throat and into his lungs. The lips lifted long enough for the single breath of air to rush out of his lungs then they clamped down again and inflated him again like a party favor.
It suddenly occurred to Triple H that maybe the painful chest pumping and male lip locking would stop if he breathed on his own, so after the next lungful of someone else's stale air was forced down into his chest he did his best to push it back out in a whooping exhale that turned into a choking fit of coughing.
"Ah, thank god!" Sheamus said in relief, helping Triple H sit up. "Are you OK?"
Triple H opened his eyes, squinting against the bright sun. He found himself sitting on a beach, soaking wet and cover from head to toe in gritty sand. Sheamus was kneeling in front of him, looking him anxiously in the face.
Triple H rubbed his lips with the back of his hand, panting. "Were you giving me CPR?" he asked.
Sheamus nodded, "Of course. Did you think I was taking my liberties while you were unconscious? You're not that pretty, Hunter."
Triple H looked around, they seemed to be the only two on the beach."What happened?" he asked in confusion.
"I should ask you the same thing, Captain," Sheamus said sarcastically as he pulled Triple H to his feet.
"On minute I'm sitting on deck enjoying a nice pint, the next I'm floundering in the sea without so much as a by-your-leave."
The sea, Triple H suddenly remembered the yacht, the reef, the accident. Shit, the yacht! He ran to the edge of the surf, looking out over the water. He could see random debris, all that was left of Vince McMahon's luxury yacht, floating on the waves.
"Where is everyone else?" He demanded.
Sheamus pointed down the beach,"Everyone else has been accounted for, except for you and Big Show. The rest of us split up to look for the two of you. Yer a lucky fella I caught sight of you bobbing around though I though fer sure you'd been drownt."
Triple H groaned, he remembered everything now; volunteering to take Vince's yacht out to the exclusive WWE Resort island for the Fan event, the Big Show spilling a drink on the instrument panel on the bridge, trying to steer blind, running up on that reef and ripping the bottom out of the ship, and finally everyone having to jump overboard to escape the sinking ship.
"Do we know where we are?" he asked.
Sheamus shook his head, "As far as we can tell, this island is deserted. We'd better hope that boat has some kind of emergency homing beacon or otherwise we're fecked. "
Triple H spotted someone running toward them. As he came closer, he recognized The Rock.
"Well, well, well, look what THE ROCK has found! Our intrepid captain!" The Rock yelled."Real nice job, Captain!"
Triple H winced. "Look, it wasn't my fault!" he snapped, "Show spilled beer on the instrument panel. He shorted it out. I-"
The Rock scowled and pointed admonishingly at Triple H, "THE ROCK, does not accept excuses! Besides, we haven't even found Show yet so why don't you wait to see if he's alive or dead before you start pointing fingers?"
Oh God, Triple H sometimes forgot how tiresome Dwayne Johnson could be when he insisted on being in character.
"Ye know," Sheamus pointed out, "Technically, I found Hunter first."
Dwayne gave him a raised eyebrow,"Oh THE ROCK knows, Sheamus. THE ROCK saw how happy you were to find Triple H."
Sheamus's mouth dropped open, "He was drownt, you fool! I was giving him CPR!"
Dwayne held up a hand, "Hey, it's OK! THE ROCK doesn't judge. THE ROCK believes what happens between two consenting men is their business. "
"Let's just go and find the others?" Triple H suggested before this could go any further.
They walked up the beach and hadn't gone very far when they saw a small group of WWE Superstars standing just above the tide line and pointing out to sea.
Triple H was relieved to see one of the men was his best friend Shawn Michaels.
"Hunter!" Shawn shouted when he caught sight of them.
"Shawn!" Triple H grabbed HBK in a rough hug, "Am I glad to see you!"
He heard Dwayne whisper to Sheamus, "So, THE ROCK takes it you and Triple H aren't exclusive?"
"Shut up you idiot!" Sheamus growled.
"Hey! THE ROCK was just checking," Dwayne said.
Triple H looked out over the water, trying to see what was so interesting, "What are we looking at here?" he asked.
"Well, "Shawn said, "I'm not sure, But I think that's The Big Show out there."
Triple H gave him a startled look, "Show's out there in the ocean?"
Shawn shrugged,"Either it's Big Show or it's a very large leather couch."
C.M. Punk was sitting on the beach, using a broken seashell to idly scoop a hole in the sand. "$50 bucks that big lug can't swim to shore, "He said. He looked around. "No takers? $100?"
Alberto Del Rio stalked up to Triple H, "Triple H, I have a complaint to file! I am the blood of royalty, how dare you cause me this inconvenience! I have had to have Ricardo swim out at least five or six times to fetch my luggage from the sea and still there are missing items! If I had know this would happen I would have had my own personal luxury yacht take me to this resort…."
Triple H waved him off, "Not now Del Rio!" He snapped. If Big Show was really floating out there, why wasn't anyone doing anything to help him?
"I will not be ignored!" Del Rio protested,"I am your better. You will treat me with the respect I deserve!"
"Hold, hold, hold it!" Dwayne butted in, "THE ROCK has heard just about enough out of you. "
Del Rio scowled,"You cannot talk to me in that fashion!" he said,"Do you know who I am?"
Dwayne looked Del Rio up and down, "No, who the blue hell are you?"
Del Rio started to answer, "I am Alberto Del-"
"IT DOESN'T MATTER WHO YOU ARE!" Dwayne interrupted him, "THE ROCK is THE most ELECTRIFYING man on this island, and when-"
"SHUT UP!" Triple H roared. "YOU" he pointed at Del Rio."And YOU!" He pointed at Dwayne,"SHUT UP!" He waved out at the tiny dark spot bobbing in the ocean,"What are we going to do to help Show?"
John Cena leaped into action, "I'll save him!" he said, "I was captain of the swim team in high school. I'll bring him back or die trying!" he quickly stripped down to his boxer briefs, saluted and dove into the waves.
They watched anxiously as Cena swam swiftly out to Big Show. After a brief moment, they could see him swimming back with Big Show in tow.
"Wow," Dwayne remarked, "THE ROCK is impressed. Fruity Pebbles can swim."
Cena emerged from the waves, carrying Big Show over his shoulders like a sack of grain. He brought Show all the way up to the beach and dumped him on the sand.
"Show! Are you OK?" Triple H asked anxiously.
Big Show's eyes were tightly shut and he clutched the sand for dear life. "Oh my god, Oh my god, I'm never going on a boat again. "
Triple H breathed a sigh of relief. He looked around, "So, you said everyone else was accounted for?" he asked Dwayne, "Where are Bryan, Kane and ….Lesnar?"
Dwayne shrugged. "The last time THE ROCK saw Brock Lesnar he was running into the trees with a homemade spear. Kane and Daniel Bryan went to see if they could find fresh water."
"OK," Triple H said, "Well, I guess we're going to need to figure out what we're going to do now."
"Well, I can answer that!" Shawn Michaels said. "First things first, we need shelter, water and a fire. In fact I've already started on the shelter over there," he gestured at what looked like a pile of driftwood up on the beach.
Triple H walked over and looked skeptically at the framework of branches and vines Shawn had rigged. "Are you sure that thing is safe? It doesn't look very stable to me." He said.
Shawn looked insulted. "Hey, is it you who has a hunting show on the Outdoor Channel? Oh, wait, no that would be me!" He slapped Hunter reassuringly on the shoulder. "Why don't you leave this stuff to me and I'll leave things that you're good at to you, like steering a boat. Oh, wait! Didn't you sink our boat?"
Hunter glared at Shawn,"Nice," he said.
Shawn looked at him innocently,"What?"
Hunter left Shawn to his hut building and looked around at the others, "SO, I guess while Kane and Bryan are looking for water and Lensar is…doing whatever he's doing, we should gather some firewood."
Del Rio snorted," I am Alberto Del Rio. I do not do manual labor! Ricardo! Go and gather wood!"
The hapless valet nodded obediently and ran into the trees.
Big Show wandered over, "Is there anything to eat?" he asked plaintively.
Sheamus and John Cena went to look for firewood but C.M. Punk lingered,"Hey," he said, "Who the hell made you the leader here? Aren't you the reason we're here in the first place?"
"I'm not trying to be the leader," Triple H protested, "But we need to get things done and sitting around making sand castle ain't one of those things."
"Yeah, you're doing a great job so far," Punk said sarcastically.
Triple H was about to snap at him when Brock Lesnar appeared. He was stripped down to the waist and had some kind of dead animal slung over his back.
"What the hell is that?" Triple H asked staring. Lesnar threw the animal, it looked like a wild pig, down on the ground, produced a large knife and began gutting it.
"Dinner," he said shortly.
"Food?" Big Show said happily.
Between them they managed to gather quite a bit of firewood. Even C.M. Punk grudgingly helped. Brock Lesnar worked tirelessly, like a pack animal, bringing entire logs to the campsite. But once they had all the wood, they stood around, stumped as to how to light it. No one had a lighter or dry matches and no one knew how to make a fire without them.
"C'mon!" Triple H said, "Weren't any of you Boy Scouts or anything?"
John Cena jumped up, "I was an Eagle Scout! I know how to make a fire by rubbing two sticks together!"
Triple H rolled his eyes, "OK, would you mind showing us?"
In no time at all Cena had everyone gathering tinder and making wooden drills, except Alberto Del Rio who instructed Ricardo to do the work in his place.
It turned out none of them, not even Cena was any good at making a fire by rubbing sticks together. Big Show kept breaking the sticks, C.M. Punk put minimal effort into it and Brock Lesnar looked like he couldn't tell which way to rub two sticks together.
Triple H had just about given up and was wondering if wild boar was OK to eat raw when there was a loud rustling from the trees and Kane emerged, dragging Daniel Bryan.
He tossed Bryan down onto the sand.
"Don't be so damned sensitive!" Bryan shouted, holding the top of his head.
"What happened?" Triple H asked.
"Nothing! I just made some comment about circus sideshows. Big, dumb freak is just too touchy! "Bryan said defensively.
"Hey, THE ROCK has an idea!" Dwayne said suddenly."Hey Big Man. We need some fire over here. You mind giving us a hand?" he gestured at the pile of firewood.
Kane walked over to the wood and looked at it. Everyone held their breath as he slowly raised his arms then threw them violently down. The pile of wood exploded into flames. Everyone cheered, they had their campfire!
Kane and Bryan had found a clear running spring about half a mile into the woods. They brought some water back in a few scavenged containers from the boat but there would need to be a second expedition tomorrow to bring back enough for the camp. Now that they had their fire, they started cutting up and cooking the pig. Dwayne improvised a pit lined with hot coals and wrapped his meat in leaves and buried it in the makeshift oven. Soon the delicious, savory scent of roasting pork came wafting up through the ground.
"Mmmmm," Dwayne said, "Can you smell what THE ROCK is cooking?"
Soon, everyone was eating. Big Show munched happily on a entire leg of pig while Ricardo cut the meat up into tiny pieces and hand fed Del Rio. Brock Lesnar ate an enormous amount of meat and then sat by himself, talking to no one, making more spears out of some long straight branches he'd found.
Triple H sat staring glumly into the fire. So they had a fire and their stomachs were full but how the hell were they going to get off of this island? Shawn came over and plopped down next to him.
"Sooooo, why the long face?" he asked.
"Shawn, how the hell are we going to get out of here? I mean, if we're not rescued within the next few days, the chances of anyone finding us are next to nothing."
Shawn shrugged, "What can we do? I'll take a few guys, scout out the island tomorrow. We keep this fire burning, maybe make some kind of distress signal on the beach that can be seen from a plane. We'll get out of here. Hell, Vince probably has a search party out for us as we speak."
Triple H nodded. Shawn was probably right.
One by one, they went under the makeshift shelter Shawn had built to sleep for the night. Del Rio grumbled that he had to share the shelter.
"Tomorrow, Shawn Michaels, you will make Alberto Del Rio his own shelter!"
"Shut up and make it yourself, Del Rio!" Shawn yelled back.
"Ricardo! Tomorrow you will make me my own shelter!"
"Yes, Boss," Ricardo said resignedly.
Big Show wandered over, stuffed to the gills. He burped, and rolled over. His foot hit one of the poles and the entire structure came crashing down on top of everyone. There was silence.
Then Triple H said, "Shawn?"
"Yeah?"
"Remember when I said…"
"Oh shut up and go to sleep, Hunter."