FicWad

Duff


Tonight I learned something new. It is possible to run out of tears. It hurts really bad too, my eyes have never been more red or throbbed with such pain. My chest aches so much. I’m not sure if it's from coke or crying, most likely the combination of the both. I feel like I just came down from a twelve hour long panic attack. I glance to the table next to me. I've killed two whole bottles of vodka and started in on the Jack Slash left.


I draw in a broken breath as Slash whimpers in his sleep. It's been two days since he left this bed. Last night's show was cancelled thankfully. Apparently Tommy had given Nikki a black eye and refused to play. There was no argument from us. Tonight is the last show with Nikki's psycho circus. The hands on the clock can't move fast enough. Our bus is already gassed up and ready to get us the fuck out of here and back to LA the second our final note is played.


I move a curl from Slash's eyes and he flinches. He flinches every time I touch him if he doesn’t see it coming, even to shoot him up. When I look in his eyes they're either full of shock and sadness or just empty. Honestly, it's like looking at Izzy after he was attacked. Slash is mostly silent though; even when he isn't sleeping. He just more or less stopped talking and only has a vocabulary of five words, yes, no, please, Duff, and Izzy. Of course Izzy’s name would be one of the fucking things he can say. The rest of the time it's like he's locked inside himself. He won't or can’t let me in. He’s in there, his mind’s perfectly fine; he follows conversation, knows when it’s time for his shot, knows he would rather be left alone with Izzy instead of Axl. But he can’t get any words out of his mouth. The most words he’s managed to string together are “Please Duff, Izzy,” when I told him that I was going downstairs to do an interview with Izzy and that Axl would stay with him. He’d looked up at me and said “No” and latched onto my shirt. I told him I had to go; that I needed to get some air and do the interview and that he would be fine with Axl. He shook his head again and that’s when he had asked for Izzy instead. I had given him a look that said I didn’t like the idea but I caved when he managed to string three words together. It was a struggle for him too; I could see him willing his mouth to form the words and I couldn’t say no to him when he worked so hard to say something to me. I was the one who needed to get out and who was leaving him here, he’d asked me not to so I might as well leave him with who he wants to be left with. I know it’s not like anything will happen between him and Izzy but I know that Izzy still really cares about him and I don’t want to feed his fantasies. Plus I’m pissed the fuck off at him anyway because if he knew that Nikki might stop hurting my Baby Boy if he offered himself up instead and he let those fuckers take him over and over again for hours and he did nothing I might have to kill him. If it meant that my sweet baby could have suffered one minute less I would have walked across hot coals barefoot. If Izzy could have spared Slash any pain but didn’t I’ll march HIM across hot coals barefoot or something even worse I swear to God.


Slash may not be able to talk but he has made sure that I know he wants me around. He flinches if he doesn’t see a touch coming but he’s pretty much the polar opposite of Axl after Nikki attacked him; Slash told me that Izzy said that Axl pulled away from him, didn’t want him to touch him, refused to let Izzy comfort him. Slash clings to me every waking minute. He doesn’t want me to leave the room and if he has his way (which of course he does; I can deny him nothing and shit, I don’t want to!) he makes sure that he’s in my arms the majority of the time and if that’s not possible he wants to be touching me and if he can’t have that he wants me within eyesight. I’m so relieved that he’s not pushing me away, I’m relieved that he’s letting me give him what comfort I can. I was afraid that he would push me away, that he would shut down and shut me out, especially when he stopped talking two days ago but when I realized that he couldn’t control it, that it freaked him out just as much as it did me then I stopped worrying about him shutting me out and started worrying more about what I needed to do to help him and honestly, other than hold him as much as he wanted and just being there for him in whatever way he needed me to be I wasn’t sure what else to do. I talked to him, asked him simple yes or no questions, tried to get him to talk but he wouldn’t, couldn’t, whichever.


I read to him, it was just a spur of the moment thing, I’d gotten a new book, a murder mystery that I really wanted to read but Slash kept stealing it from me before he was attacked so that he could read it. We were in roughly the same place so yesterday when he was laying in bed with me and we were both tired of the TV and obviously leaving the room wasn’t on the menu so I started reading the book to him. It had calmed him down; he had been staring at the TV and fidgeting and looking like he was going to cry and nothing I did made him less fretful but when he started listening to me read he’d stopped fidgeting, his breathing had slowed, and he had snuggled up under my arm and relaxed against me and listened to the story. I’d read to him until he fell asleep at which point I asked Axl and Izzy to watch him and went down to the hotel gym and ran off some of my frustrations.


Later that night he’d handed me the book again and managed to whisper “Please?”. So I read him some more of the book until he fell asleep again. It seemed to calm him down, maybe make him sort of happy or something close to it? At least not devastated? He’s spent the past two days in a heroin induced fog so he’s not feeling most of the physical pain from the tearing and bruising where Tommy had ripped him open. His injuries aren’t as severe as what happened to Izzy, nothing like that but the damage Tommy did was going to be painful for a long time to come, weeks, a couple months, maybe more until all of the bruising heals internally; the tears will heal before that. What won’t heal anytime soon though is the emotional damage that’s been done. The feelings that come with being raped- the shame, the sadness, the lonliness because you feel like no one understands, the depression, the anger, the fear, that shit takes a long time to go away if it ever really does. Axl, Izzy, Stevie, and I, we’d all been there but Slash, although he’d had sex he really didn’t want to have had never really been forced into sex against his will and he still had this child-like happy glow about him, this innocent, sweet, light. He still saw the good in people and the world and he trusted most people not to hurt him. But now that light was gone. My sweet Baby Boy has been stolen from me.

We tried so hard, all of us, just to keep this from happening to Slash, but we failed. Nothing we did saved him. We just delayed the inevitable. Having to watch it happen to him killed my soul. How did Axl and Izzy live past watching the same things happening to each other? When Slash screamed while Tommy ripped into him I felt like somebody was clawing my heart out and tearing it to shreds;especially when he cried for me, sobbing my name while those two fuckers went at him; if I had been Izzy and had to watch a baseball bat be shoved into Slash while he screamed for some sort of mercy I would have given Slash a choice of overdosing with me or not but I don’t think I’d be able to go on hearing those kinds of screams over and over in my head for very long. Maybe I'm just not cut out for this life. I always knew Slash wasn't, but I drug him into all this and I'm just as much to blame as all those industry perverts, as much to blame as Nikki and Tommy. I did this to the love of my life. I'm the reason he's doped up in that bed and flinches every time I touch him. He knows it's all my fault too.


And yet again, I didn't save him. It was Izzy, as usual. In this case all of this was only Izzy who could save him. I'm glad he did. I'm thankful he did what he did, but I'm so mad at him for letting Slash suffer for hours before he did anything. Why did he wait so long? Why did he let them stick their filthy cocks in my Baby Boy? But I can't kick his ass for it, that would just upset Slash. Besides, I’m sure Axl will do it for me eventually. Axl's changed a lot lately. Things between he and Izzy are strained, to say the least. This was probably going to push Axl over the edge when the shock wears off. But Erins coming today, maybe she can actually distract him...them.


Everything was supposed to be great when we went home. We were gonna get a nice place to stay and spend some of this cash we've been making. We have a number one song and video. Things were supposed to be god. We made it but there is no joy in it, not like we thought there would be. It doesn't matter. It doesn't mean shit at all. We sacrificed our bodies and souls for this...and we aren't even able to enjoy it.


I just want to walk away and never look back. Fame is nothing like we thought it would be. We damn sure never thought it would cost so much. Why continue? The thrill was gone. The joy tainted. And all of us have been forever changed. How do we go on now? How can we continue to write music when we feel nothing? How can we smile at fans? How can we keep up with our lies in the press? Why would we want to continue doing something that we've come to hate?


Slash shifts positions and moans but doesn't wake up; I’m sure that there will be more than one nightmare that will wake him up soon enough. Then I hear a tap at our door that's joined to Axl and Izzy's room. The door opens and Izzy's standing there. His eyes flutter from mine and down to Slash and I watch as a soft, adoring, look crossed his face, the same look I know I get on my face when I look at Slash when he’s not watching...I have to take a deep breath and consciously refrain from punching the shit out of Izzy.


"Is he getting enough sleep?" He softly asks.


"Yeah, I upped his shot so he's sleeping pretty soundly," I say. “Doesn’t stop the nightmares though.


Izzy nods and says “Yeah, I hear him screaming, it scares the shit out of me every time. I’d come and make sure everything’s ok but I don’t want to piss anybody off; Axl’s got his fucking hackles raised all the time for whatever reason, don’t want to make it worse.” I nod as he shuts the door behind him, first checking to make sure Axl is still asleep. Then he crosses over to me and sits next to me. He looks at the lines of coke lined out on the table next to me. "What about you? You sleeping Duff?"


"I'll get plenty of that when I'm dead," I shrug lighting up a cigarette.


Izzy’s quiet a long while as he just watches Slash sleeping. I can see him having some sort of internal battle with himself and his eyes fill up with tears. "I'm sorry Duff. I let this shit go farther than it should have. You know I never wanted the kid to have to go through anything like that. I blame myself. That morning after Nikki's party I woke up naked with Nikki naked and spooning me. I should have known I slept with him...but I thought Nikki was straight. I didn't remember it until Axl told me. It's like it jogged the memories out of me. I should have fucked the son of a bitch months ago. Everything he did to us was my fault. I'm not a good person Duff and I've taken you all down because of it. That night I just wanted to hurt Axl; I wanted him to love me again...but as usual I fucked everything up. Now all of you, my best friends, my brothers, you've all suffered because of me. I wish I was fucking dead. I wish Nikki would have killed me because having to look you all in the eye now hurts so much. You should all hate me. And I don't blame you if you do. It's my fault Slash isn’t how he was, like, he was like lit up from the inside out you know? Like a little ball of light that always made even the worst days seem a little brighter. I know how much you loved that light in his eyes...and it's gone now and all my fault."


"What do you expect me to say Izzy? I'm not mad? Well I can't. Want me to kick your ass so you feel better? Sorry, I don't have the energy. Besides, what the fuck would it accomplish? It's not going to change anything; you can't take it back. Fuck, it won't even teach you a lesson. You do exactly what you want, regardless of the outcome or who gets hurt. Nikki was right, you are like him. You are cold and you don't fucking care about what anyone wants but you. You're selfish."


Izzy wipes away a tear and nods, " You're right. And I hate myself for it. I was too scared, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I never wanted anything bad to happen to him, I thought between the two of us we could keep him safe! Then when they were hurting him I kept telling myself to speak up and tell Nikki that I’d fuck him since I knew that’s what he really wanted but I just froze every time I managed to convince myself to talk. Every time I tried to open my fucking mouth I’d feel a pain in my gut just like the pain from when Tommy almost fucking killed me with his god damned cock"


"Well Izz, if you came looking for sympathy you came to the wrong place. I have none to give. I have nothing to give at all. In fact, I'd appreciate it if you get out of our room. Go get Axl's forgiveness. For some unknown reason he loves you and always buys your apologies. Him and Nikki are the only people whose love you deserve. You don’t deserve Slash’s; you’ve done so much shit that’s ended up hurting him. Just stay away from me and Slash. We need time away from you. So why don't you just give us some time."


Izzy wipes away more tears and rises to his feet. "Yeah, I know, believe me I know that I’ll never be good enough to deserve him; why do you think I brought him back to you? He deserved better than me, he deserved someone who could love him with everything they had; I had to deal with Axl and couldn’t do that. He needs you more than ever right now; don’t get frustrated and angry at him, that’s what Axl would do. Give him lots of love and affection, it’s what he needs. I know you don’t want my advice but I’ve been through it more times than I care to remember. Again, I'm sorry," he mumbles and returns to his room. I sigh and gulp some Jack. Fuck I hope I can be what my Baby Boy needs.