AN: Ha, I'm back! We'll just have to wait and see for how long, but hopefully for a while. I'm trying to finish the fics that I started before I "retire" from wrestling fiction, but this fic came to me in a dream, so I had "no choice" but to write it. ;; In a big way it's 'inspired' by Solita's Hollow One, so big thank you for her because that fic is just awesome. Anyway, no more rambling. Usual disclaimers apply, don't own anything, blah, blah, blah.
Onto the fic!
= = = = = [Chapter 1] = = = = =
Noise.
Something seemed to be heard in the distance, but he couldn't tell what it was. It seemed to be a mixture of mumbling with some sort of beeping; a beeping that although he knew he had heard before he couldn't remember what it was from.
The voice suddenly went quiet and all that he could hear next was just the beeping. What was that beeping? It seemed to be constant; same beat and same rhythm every time.
Beep.
Beep.
Suddenly, the mumbling started again and, as hard as he tried to hear to what the voice was saying, he couldn't figure out what it was. Was it even directed to him? But, more importantly, who did it belong to? It sounded so familiar, but at the same time it sounded so foreign to him. He tried to look around, to find the person who the voice belonged to, but it was until then that he realized that he was surrounded in darkness. Where was he? What was going on?
The beeping suddenly started quickening and, after a short moment of silence, the voice was heard again; this time more urgent and calling out his name. As he tried to open his mouth in order to respond, and ask who it was, he once again realized that his attempts were futile and that he couldn't even open his mouth. He tried to make a noise, any sort of noise in order to communicate, but nothing came out.
'Oh God,' he thought, 'what the hell is wrong with me? What's happening?'
"Dwayne? Dwayne, wake up!"
'I am awake!' he tried to explain, but no words came out from his mouth and no noise came out from his throat.
"Dwayne, please... Please, please wake up."
'Dammit, I am awake, why can't you see that? Where am I? What's happening?!'
= = = = = = = = =
"Dwayne? Damn it, why aren't you opening your eyes? Huh? Wake up!"
Steve couldn't help but start to pace as he waited for his friend to open his eyes; to finally finish that slumber that had taken him away from everyone from so long. One little thing had gone wrong, and everything had been taken away from him; from his job all the way to his family. And, with that one little thing, he had almost been taken away from them; he had almost died. Hell, he had been as close to dying as one gets without actually dying, and although he kept proving doctors wrong by surviving day in and day out, he had been way too close to actually dying.
All they wanted now was have him back.
But as the days passed by, the desperation among everybody had seemed to almost eat them alive. Waiting in that quiet hospital room for him to just twitch his finger had gotten them to the brink of insanity; but now, after so long, he had finally done it. He had started to frown and had started to move his hand on his own. Steve had been watching him, finishing his 'shift' of accompanying him while either Mick or Kurt got there, when he had noticed the change in expressions. It had seemed hard to believe at first, because it had been something that had been anticipated for so long, but now that it had finally come he wanted Dwayne to open his eyes already.
But, so far, nothing.
Suddenly, the door to the room opened quickly and Mick Foley rushed inside, frowning in concern. "Steve, what the hell? You can be heard from down the hall! Yelling at him is not going to hel-"
"He frowned, Mick. He's frowning, look at him!"
Mick stayed silent as he watched Dwayne before turning to Steve, giving him a sympathetic look. "Steve," he started quietly, "the doctor said that-"
"Screw that, Mick; he's waking up. I know that he is, ok? He's waking up."
"Well he's not awake yet, is he? Don't push him, that's not going to help anyone. Who knows, maybe he can't even..."
Steve had been looking away, furious that Mick was acting the way that he was. After days and nights of them waiting for some sort of sign that their friend was not going to die and that things would go back to normal, Mick seemed to not want to believe that it had actually happened. He was going to start yelling at him, furious for just insinuating that he had just seen things he wanted to see, but when Mick trailed off Steve frowned and turned to him. "What the hell's the matter with you?"
Mick, however, didn't answer; he seemed too shocked to really do anything. Steve, not following Mick's gaze, frowned deeper at him and was about to ask him, yet again, what was wrong with him, when he turned towards the direction that he was looking at; and it was his turn to be surprised.
Shocked, actually.
Dwayne's eyes were starting to open very slowly, as if he was battling some sort of battle against consciousness and his eyes were getting weighed down by lead, but he seemed to be awake. Or, at least, waking up.
"Dwayne?" Mick asked in a low voice, afraid that what they were seeing was simply an illusion. That this was some sort of dream that would just get their hopes up and later make them see that nothing had been real. That Dwayne was still asleep and with no chances of waking up.
That, however, was quickly proven wrong as Dwayne's eyes slowly turned towards the direction where Mick's voice had been. He was alert, at least, and that brought relief and happiness to both Steve and Mick as they rushed to his bed.
"Dwayne?"
"Hey, buddy, how are you feeling?"
At that, Dwayne tried to smile but even attempting was simply exhausting. Very slowly, he started to open his mouth and a voice that sounded too dry and too weak to be his own suddenly answered, "Where am I...? Wh..."
Both Mick and Steve turned to look at each other, unsure if they should answer. Afterall, he had just woken up; they didn't want to confuse him even more with things they weren't sure he would even remember.
"Um," Steve started. "In the hospital, but you'll be ok. You just need some rest and you'll be just fine. Do you need anything?"
"Tired," Dwayne simply answered as he closed his eyes again. "So...tired..."
Mick took Dwayne's hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. "Sleep then, just make sure you wake up this time, ok?" He smiled down at his friend and sighed in relief as he saw him go back to sleep. After so long Dwayne had finally woken up, and he couldn't even begin to explain the happiness that he felt inside. One of his best friends had been close to dying, but now... He had woken up. He had finally woken up.
Maybe everything would actually be ok afterall...
= = = = = = = = =
The faint beeping that Dwayne had heard as he had started to wake up the first time seemed to welcome him yet again, except this time the voice was gone. Even if he had barely been able to realize that he hadn't been alone and someone had been wanting him to wake up, he had liked the feeling of knowing that he wasn't alone; that someone was there with him. Now, though, there was no one asking him to wake up.
Opening his eyes, he blinked slowly as his eyes tried to adjust to the light that filled the room and, unconsciously, he let out a groan. It was too much light, way too soon. Even though he had opened his eyes slowly, the light that was in the room seemed to flood in so quickly that it was making him hurt and his head to start throbbing.
Flinching back the morning sunlight, although he didn't know that that was the burst of light, Dwayne shut his eyes. Almost in an instant, however, the noise of curtain blinds closing and a small click of a lamp was heard. Opening his eyes once again, he frowned slightly and turned towards where the click was heard; and he was glad to see that he wasn't alone.
Kurt was there with him.
"Hey, jabroni," he said in a small voice, still sounding exhausted.
Laughing lightly, mostly in relief to see that what Steve and Mick had told him was true, Kurt grinned widely and went to sit down next to Dwayne's bed once again. "Hey, man. How are you feeling?"
"Like if a truck ran me over and I had to lift it off of myself. I'm so tired..."
"Then I guess it works out that you're in a hospital, since you need a lot of rest. You want something to drink before, though?"
Now more awake and alert than the first time he had woken up, Dwayne shook his head slightly and swallowed some sort of knot that seemed to have been in his throat. "No, it's ok. I'm in a hospital?"
Kurt stayed silent for a moment. "Yeah. Have been for a while."
"What happened?"
"You don't remember?"
Shaking his head very slowly, Dwayne had to fight back the unconsciousness yet again in order to stay awake how he wanted to. "No, what happened?"
"Dwayne," Kurt started in a quiet voice, not wanting to be the one having to tell him. "Why don't you go to sleep again?"
At that, Dwayne frowned. "Just tell me."
"Dwayne-"
"Kurt."
Without even saying anything else, Kurt knew that any attempts at trying to convince him to go back to sleep was useless. It took him a while to gather the courage to even start, but after a while he simply took a deep breath and let it out in a deep sigh before starting to talk. "You... While filming one of your movies one of the cables for your stunts broke. It... It let you fall, from a really high distance, and you were in a pretty bad condition for a while." Silence. "You almost died, Dwayne.
"That's...not it, though. You suffered a big blow to the head, and you've been unconscious for a really long time. A really, really long time."
It all seemed to surreal; this couldn't be happening. Not to him. Not to The Rock. Not to Dwayne Johnson. "Wh... A coma?"
"Something like that."
"So...now that I'm awake I'll be fine, right?" Dwayne expected a quick answer; a 'Yes, of course!' and an encouraging smile, but all he received was a sympathetic smile.
"The doctor's optimistic about it, yeah."
Not wanting to think about what those words meant, he decided to take his attention away from Kurt to look around the room for the first time. He had been placed in a private room, and flowers, cards and balloons seemed to be a big decorationt heme in it. Was that all for him? Without it the room was probably too bear and empty.
Suddenly, something came to mind and it made him turn quickly to Kurt again. "Kurt, what about Amy? Is she ok? Is she here...?"
The dreaded question had come, and Kurt was definitely sure that he didn't want to answer it. He wanted a doctor to come inside to interrupt; to kick him out of the room so that he could give Dwayne his check-up now that he was awake, but no such luck. An awkward silence filled the room and, for a moment, Kurt didn't know what to say. "Wh- Amy?"
"Yeah, you know, my wife..."
"Sh- She..."
"... She, what?"
"Dwayne...she... She remarried already. She comes once in a while to see you, but... I'm so sorry, I didn't- I didn't want to tell you, but..." He trailed off, knowing that whatever he said wouldn't matter; it wouldn't change anything. "She's living in Tampa now, with her new family."
The weight of Kurt's words seemed to be too much for him to handle, and with each word that he said he felt as if someone was throwing a bucket of cold water at him. How could...
No. He was lying. He had to be, he had to be lying. He and Amy loved each other; she couldn't...
Could she?
"How... How long did..."
Without finishing the question, Kurt already knew it; he wanted to know how long he had been 'gone.' "Almost... Almost seven years, Dwayne. You... You were just here, asleep. Not alive, but not dead either. No one knew when, or even if you were going to wake up, and..."
Once again Kurt trailed off, not knowing how to finish. There was no right way of finishing. Instead, he sighed softly and looked down at his lap.
Dwayne, not wanting to hear anything else, simply turned his head towards a side where Kurt wouldn't be able to see him; hiding the hot tears that were falling from his eyes. His life had slipped away, all while he slept.
Now nothing would ever be the same.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Onto the fic!
= = = = = [Chapter 1] = = = = =
Noise.
Something seemed to be heard in the distance, but he couldn't tell what it was. It seemed to be a mixture of mumbling with some sort of beeping; a beeping that although he knew he had heard before he couldn't remember what it was from.
The voice suddenly went quiet and all that he could hear next was just the beeping. What was that beeping? It seemed to be constant; same beat and same rhythm every time.
Beep.
Beep.
Suddenly, the mumbling started again and, as hard as he tried to hear to what the voice was saying, he couldn't figure out what it was. Was it even directed to him? But, more importantly, who did it belong to? It sounded so familiar, but at the same time it sounded so foreign to him. He tried to look around, to find the person who the voice belonged to, but it was until then that he realized that he was surrounded in darkness. Where was he? What was going on?
The beeping suddenly started quickening and, after a short moment of silence, the voice was heard again; this time more urgent and calling out his name. As he tried to open his mouth in order to respond, and ask who it was, he once again realized that his attempts were futile and that he couldn't even open his mouth. He tried to make a noise, any sort of noise in order to communicate, but nothing came out.
'Oh God,' he thought, 'what the hell is wrong with me? What's happening?'
"Dwayne? Dwayne, wake up!"
'I am awake!' he tried to explain, but no words came out from his mouth and no noise came out from his throat.
"Dwayne, please... Please, please wake up."
'Dammit, I am awake, why can't you see that? Where am I? What's happening?!'
= = = = = = = = =
"Dwayne? Damn it, why aren't you opening your eyes? Huh? Wake up!"
Steve couldn't help but start to pace as he waited for his friend to open his eyes; to finally finish that slumber that had taken him away from everyone from so long. One little thing had gone wrong, and everything had been taken away from him; from his job all the way to his family. And, with that one little thing, he had almost been taken away from them; he had almost died. Hell, he had been as close to dying as one gets without actually dying, and although he kept proving doctors wrong by surviving day in and day out, he had been way too close to actually dying.
All they wanted now was have him back.
But as the days passed by, the desperation among everybody had seemed to almost eat them alive. Waiting in that quiet hospital room for him to just twitch his finger had gotten them to the brink of insanity; but now, after so long, he had finally done it. He had started to frown and had started to move his hand on his own. Steve had been watching him, finishing his 'shift' of accompanying him while either Mick or Kurt got there, when he had noticed the change in expressions. It had seemed hard to believe at first, because it had been something that had been anticipated for so long, but now that it had finally come he wanted Dwayne to open his eyes already.
But, so far, nothing.
Suddenly, the door to the room opened quickly and Mick Foley rushed inside, frowning in concern. "Steve, what the hell? You can be heard from down the hall! Yelling at him is not going to hel-"
"He frowned, Mick. He's frowning, look at him!"
Mick stayed silent as he watched Dwayne before turning to Steve, giving him a sympathetic look. "Steve," he started quietly, "the doctor said that-"
"Screw that, Mick; he's waking up. I know that he is, ok? He's waking up."
"Well he's not awake yet, is he? Don't push him, that's not going to help anyone. Who knows, maybe he can't even..."
Steve had been looking away, furious that Mick was acting the way that he was. After days and nights of them waiting for some sort of sign that their friend was not going to die and that things would go back to normal, Mick seemed to not want to believe that it had actually happened. He was going to start yelling at him, furious for just insinuating that he had just seen things he wanted to see, but when Mick trailed off Steve frowned and turned to him. "What the hell's the matter with you?"
Mick, however, didn't answer; he seemed too shocked to really do anything. Steve, not following Mick's gaze, frowned deeper at him and was about to ask him, yet again, what was wrong with him, when he turned towards the direction that he was looking at; and it was his turn to be surprised.
Shocked, actually.
Dwayne's eyes were starting to open very slowly, as if he was battling some sort of battle against consciousness and his eyes were getting weighed down by lead, but he seemed to be awake. Or, at least, waking up.
"Dwayne?" Mick asked in a low voice, afraid that what they were seeing was simply an illusion. That this was some sort of dream that would just get their hopes up and later make them see that nothing had been real. That Dwayne was still asleep and with no chances of waking up.
That, however, was quickly proven wrong as Dwayne's eyes slowly turned towards the direction where Mick's voice had been. He was alert, at least, and that brought relief and happiness to both Steve and Mick as they rushed to his bed.
"Dwayne?"
"Hey, buddy, how are you feeling?"
At that, Dwayne tried to smile but even attempting was simply exhausting. Very slowly, he started to open his mouth and a voice that sounded too dry and too weak to be his own suddenly answered, "Where am I...? Wh..."
Both Mick and Steve turned to look at each other, unsure if they should answer. Afterall, he had just woken up; they didn't want to confuse him even more with things they weren't sure he would even remember.
"Um," Steve started. "In the hospital, but you'll be ok. You just need some rest and you'll be just fine. Do you need anything?"
"Tired," Dwayne simply answered as he closed his eyes again. "So...tired..."
Mick took Dwayne's hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. "Sleep then, just make sure you wake up this time, ok?" He smiled down at his friend and sighed in relief as he saw him go back to sleep. After so long Dwayne had finally woken up, and he couldn't even begin to explain the happiness that he felt inside. One of his best friends had been close to dying, but now... He had woken up. He had finally woken up.
Maybe everything would actually be ok afterall...
= = = = = = = = =
The faint beeping that Dwayne had heard as he had started to wake up the first time seemed to welcome him yet again, except this time the voice was gone. Even if he had barely been able to realize that he hadn't been alone and someone had been wanting him to wake up, he had liked the feeling of knowing that he wasn't alone; that someone was there with him. Now, though, there was no one asking him to wake up.
Opening his eyes, he blinked slowly as his eyes tried to adjust to the light that filled the room and, unconsciously, he let out a groan. It was too much light, way too soon. Even though he had opened his eyes slowly, the light that was in the room seemed to flood in so quickly that it was making him hurt and his head to start throbbing.
Flinching back the morning sunlight, although he didn't know that that was the burst of light, Dwayne shut his eyes. Almost in an instant, however, the noise of curtain blinds closing and a small click of a lamp was heard. Opening his eyes once again, he frowned slightly and turned towards where the click was heard; and he was glad to see that he wasn't alone.
Kurt was there with him.
"Hey, jabroni," he said in a small voice, still sounding exhausted.
Laughing lightly, mostly in relief to see that what Steve and Mick had told him was true, Kurt grinned widely and went to sit down next to Dwayne's bed once again. "Hey, man. How are you feeling?"
"Like if a truck ran me over and I had to lift it off of myself. I'm so tired..."
"Then I guess it works out that you're in a hospital, since you need a lot of rest. You want something to drink before, though?"
Now more awake and alert than the first time he had woken up, Dwayne shook his head slightly and swallowed some sort of knot that seemed to have been in his throat. "No, it's ok. I'm in a hospital?"
Kurt stayed silent for a moment. "Yeah. Have been for a while."
"What happened?"
"You don't remember?"
Shaking his head very slowly, Dwayne had to fight back the unconsciousness yet again in order to stay awake how he wanted to. "No, what happened?"
"Dwayne," Kurt started in a quiet voice, not wanting to be the one having to tell him. "Why don't you go to sleep again?"
At that, Dwayne frowned. "Just tell me."
"Dwayne-"
"Kurt."
Without even saying anything else, Kurt knew that any attempts at trying to convince him to go back to sleep was useless. It took him a while to gather the courage to even start, but after a while he simply took a deep breath and let it out in a deep sigh before starting to talk. "You... While filming one of your movies one of the cables for your stunts broke. It... It let you fall, from a really high distance, and you were in a pretty bad condition for a while." Silence. "You almost died, Dwayne.
"That's...not it, though. You suffered a big blow to the head, and you've been unconscious for a really long time. A really, really long time."
It all seemed to surreal; this couldn't be happening. Not to him. Not to The Rock. Not to Dwayne Johnson. "Wh... A coma?"
"Something like that."
"So...now that I'm awake I'll be fine, right?" Dwayne expected a quick answer; a 'Yes, of course!' and an encouraging smile, but all he received was a sympathetic smile.
"The doctor's optimistic about it, yeah."
Not wanting to think about what those words meant, he decided to take his attention away from Kurt to look around the room for the first time. He had been placed in a private room, and flowers, cards and balloons seemed to be a big decorationt heme in it. Was that all for him? Without it the room was probably too bear and empty.
Suddenly, something came to mind and it made him turn quickly to Kurt again. "Kurt, what about Amy? Is she ok? Is she here...?"
The dreaded question had come, and Kurt was definitely sure that he didn't want to answer it. He wanted a doctor to come inside to interrupt; to kick him out of the room so that he could give Dwayne his check-up now that he was awake, but no such luck. An awkward silence filled the room and, for a moment, Kurt didn't know what to say. "Wh- Amy?"
"Yeah, you know, my wife..."
"Sh- She..."
"... She, what?"
"Dwayne...she... She remarried already. She comes once in a while to see you, but... I'm so sorry, I didn't- I didn't want to tell you, but..." He trailed off, knowing that whatever he said wouldn't matter; it wouldn't change anything. "She's living in Tampa now, with her new family."
The weight of Kurt's words seemed to be too much for him to handle, and with each word that he said he felt as if someone was throwing a bucket of cold water at him. How could...
No. He was lying. He had to be, he had to be lying. He and Amy loved each other; she couldn't...
Could she?
"How... How long did..."
Without finishing the question, Kurt already knew it; he wanted to know how long he had been 'gone.' "Almost... Almost seven years, Dwayne. You... You were just here, asleep. Not alive, but not dead either. No one knew when, or even if you were going to wake up, and..."
Once again Kurt trailed off, not knowing how to finish. There was no right way of finishing. Instead, he sighed softly and looked down at his lap.
Dwayne, not wanting to hear anything else, simply turned his head towards a side where Kurt wouldn't be able to see him; hiding the hot tears that were falling from his eyes. His life had slipped away, all while he slept.
Now nothing would ever be the same.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =