FicWad

Axl

When I came back inside the house was pretty vacant. Tommy and Duff sat on the couch drinking, snorting, and shooting the shit about nothing in particular. I wonder where everyone else had gone. “Where’s everybody at?” I ask them.

“Oh they went out,” Tommy says nonchalantly and turns to continue his conversation with Duff.

“Out where?” I shrug.

“Shopping,” Duff says as his eyes flutter away and he takes a drink, “said they’d meet back up with us at the studio tonight.”

“And he didn’t fucking say shit to me?! That son of a bitch!” I yell and feel my blood boiling. I have to vent this rage so I drive my fist into the fucking sheet rock on the living room wall. “Did that fucker Nikki go with them?” I ask ignoring the pain in my hand because I see Nikki’s Vette still at our curb.

“No,” Tommy shakes his head, “Sixx was too throwed off still to drive so Izzy drove him home and I’m taking his car back to my place.”

I just nod. “I might have wanted to go shopping too, that little fucker,” I pout a little that I wasn’t even invited, but wait, I’m supposed to be mad at Izzy, right? Why the fuck didn’t he invite me? Did he have to get away from me that bad?

“You and me can go shopping,” Duff smiles, “I wanna look into this bass I saw at Music Center.”

“Guys this advance is to produce our record, we can’t spend it up.” I sigh and brush the hair out of my face.

“Oh it’s cool,” Tommy interjects, “We blew ours too, they still got us out there.”

“Typical fucking Izzy, leave me here alone to deal with this producer shit tonight,” I shake my head. Something seemed fucking fishy about all this. I look at Tommy and Duff. Duff is figity and seems nervous. Is he fucking lying to me?

“Nah, they’ll make it, Izz promised,” Duff tells me assuringly. But for some reason I get the gut feeling something will go fucking wrong. Something always goes fucking wrong.

My brain goes crazy. Why the fuck would Duff stay behind? Him and the kid are fucking inseperable. No, something’s off here. Izzy, Slash, and Steven all just spontaneously decide to go shopping together? Duff was lying himself or had been lied to also. Tommy says Izzy drove Nikki home. Was this a lie too? There was just something that didn’t feel right.

“Why didn’t you go?” I cut a suspicious glare at Duff.

He instantly looks away, “Hangover, just didn’t feel much up to it,” he shrugs.

“But yet you just said you wanted to go to Guitar Center?” I skeptically ask him. Now I know he’s goddamn lying to me. Something was wrong. I slowly put it all together when I think of the four people who left here in that car together. “So you thought that the four junkies who were here all leaving together wasn’t a bit…odd?” I question Duff rather condescendingly.

Duff’s lips part like he may speak but he instead just looks away. My eyes shift to Tommy. He just looks away too.

“They didn’t go fucking shopping did they?” I ask looking back and forth between them.

Sheer silence. Zero eye contact.

“DID THEY?!” I yell feeling all the boiling rage of someone who has just been lied to.

The motherfuckers just sit there staring at the goddamn floor like they were ignoring me. I’m about a split second for coming after someone when Duff just shakes his head no.

“They’re going to get high, aren’t they?!” I shout at him knowing that’s the real truth and because he fucking let them go.

“Actually they are going to score,” Tommy answers as he looks at me only briefly. He looks to Duff and shrugs.

“And you fucking let them Duff?!” I shout at him.

He rocks in place for a moment as a weird smirk plays on his face. It isn’t sarcastic, it isn’t humorous. He grabs his bottle of Vodka hoists himself up and storms from the room. What the fuck?! How could he knowingly let them all leave like that? Motherfuckers. Over half my band is goddamn junkies now!

“Fuck it, I’m going over to Erin’s,” I throw my hands up and head out the door.

It’s weird to actually have money to take a fucking cab. I had gotten so used to walking and bumming rides. When I got to Erin’s she greeted me with a smile and a kiss. For a moment I forgot all about how pissed I was. We go in and sit on the couch in front of the TV. She curls into my side and looks up at me.

“You ok?” She asks.

I just nod. She hasn’t seen me since last night when me and Izzy were rolling across the lawn. She had no clue what all went down after that. Fuck I don’t even know where she went once I went upstairs. She never said goodnight.

“So what did Izzy do to that guy?” She softly asks.

Well, apparently she was down stairs while I was comforting the kid upstairs. But she hadn’t seen what happened? “Weren’t you downstairs?”

“No,” she shakes her head, “Izzy cleared the whole house. He made me and Angela leave as he was pulling out his gun. He didn’t hurt that guy did he?”

“Made him piss his pants and let Duff beat the shit out of him.” I can’t help but smirk in justice when I think about it. I wish I could have watched it go down myself.

“What did that guy do?” She asks.

“Tried to fuck Slash,” I answer flatly since Erin knows too much shit anyway. No need to lie to her about this.

“Is he ok?” She asks genuinely concerned.

“Yeah,” I nod, “Hey, where did you disappear to when the cops came?” That I really wanted to know. I actually worried about her for a moment when the cops started raiding the house. We had done lines together just before shit started going down.

“I…I got out of there. I ran down the alley. I was so scared and alone, then choppers came. Izzy was out there and got me out of sight just in time. We lay low in a building down the road until the lights went away,” her voice almost seems to quiver.

“I guess he forgot to mention that while we were fighting all night,” I sigh.

“Did you guys make up?” She asks.

I’m a little stunned and a bit weirded out that she’s even asking. “Do you really want to know the details of mine and Izzy’s love life honey?” I cock my eyebrow at her.

“Well he is part of our equation now isn’t he?” She huffs. But it’s not a jealous girlfriend huff. Things had never been that way with her really. She knew from day one where my heart was.

I shrug, “I thought so, but the bastard took and snuck off to score with Slash and Steven and fucking Nikki.”

“Don’t be too hard on him when he comes back,” she says softly, “he blames himself enough.”

I pull back and look at her, “How the fuck would you know?” She and Izzy came off as anything but friends. Izzy was the one who acted like a jealous bitch. And when Erin was around him she kinda got that vibe going too. They definitely didn’t like one another. Now she’s defending him? What the fuck, did they bond while hiding out from the cops or what?

Her eyes flutter down, “Just something he said last night…He really really loves you Axl.”

“What? You two girlfriends and shit now because you hid out from the cops together?” I can’t help but chuckle a little. Izzy was not a bonding kind of guy, especially not to someone like her.

“Let’s just say…I look at things a bit differently now where Izzy is concerned,” she answers.

I give her a curious look.

“I guess it was the coke…anyway I get him now. You weren’t wrong when you told me he was a good guy behind that smack,” she shrugs.

I sit there silently and relish in this moment. It was nice with no animosity between her and Izzy. They were both a part of my life that was necessary. I loved Izzy. But to be a rock star I couldn’t show it. Erin understood and accepted it. Angela too for that fact. Don’t get me wrong, I care about Erin, probably as much as I ever could care about a woman. But my soul would always belong to Izzy. I find my fingers soon tracing the smooth skin on her arm as we watch TV. She places a hand on my thigh and slowly moves it up. I look at her and she looks at me and leans in and kisses me softly.

“Let me calm you down before Izzy comes back,” she whispers, “maybe then you’ll be nicer to him.”

I smirk and give her a nod.