Buttered Popcorn

Chapter 16: May 24, 1987

Jimmie sat on the edge of the seat, bouncing along with each and every bump in the road. The large tour bus she was on tended to give her headaches, and this wasn't an exception of any sorts.

After much debating and once she assumed the word got through the grapevine about what happened with Steven and the apartment, Guns had convinced her to spend the days on the tour bus with them, with the compromise of her spending the nights with Mötley- much to their (and Steven's) dismay. She stared mindlessly out of the window with the endless desert whipping by them, the horizon melting into one blur.

Duff was sat next to her, along with Slash on the other side, as they sat around and drank their days away. As per usual. Jimmie, however, didn't want to drink anymore after the night of the party, which had now been a week and a half since then. She felt it would make her revisit the horrid memories of seeing him with the girl, and she was in no position to relive that.

Slash began waving his bottle of whiskey suggestively in Jimmie's face, "You sure you don't want a drink?-" "I think she's good, man." Duff quickly interrupted after picking up Jimmie's tired and bored demeanor, taking the bottle and swigging from it. Slash shrugged it off and slumped back into his seat, but Duff was quite intrigued with how she was acting. A million thoughts were racing through his head, but he couldn't seem to sputter out even one.

"Jimbo!"

Her lazy eyes shifted over to Axl, who was quite comfortably tucked into a corner seat with a beer bottle in his hand and a joint in the other alongside a notebook in his lap. He nodded over to the seat beside him once he caught her attention, to which she slowly got up and joined him. He closed his notebook and stuffed it between the cushions of the seat while he focused his attention on Jimmie. He rarely even did that for his own band members, but she had proven to be important to the lot of Guns N' Roses. "What's got you all down?"

"I'm sure you know by now." she grumbled, making a point to look anywhere but Steven, who was guiltily placed beside Izzy across the bus. The observant guitarist didn't even want to be sitting next to his drummer after what had happened, but the small space left no other option. He had turned his music up every time Steven tried to talk to him, which was quite often, and eventually it became a consistent buzz of songs from his radio.

Axl's deep voice was now nearly a whisper as he scooted her closer to him and hooked an arm around her shoulder, though the music wouldn't allow anyone else to hear their conversation anyway, "Oh, Steven? Honestly, I don't think he really-" "If you're going to tell me that he didn't mean it and that I should talk to him, please save it. I can't handle another conversation like that from you guys."

Axl puffed out a trail of smoke and offered it to her. She caved and grabbed the weed from his fingers, inhaling a hit while he began to speak again. "Not exactly. I was just saying that I don't think he knows how much it hurt you to see him like that. I mean, yeah he looks guilty, but you've gotta really tell him how much of an asshat he was for that."

"I don't even know if I should try anymore. If he had the nerve to do that, then what else could he do when it actually gets serious? If it actually get serious." The burn in her throat grew as she hit the joint, but sustained a level expression while they spoke. "If you think it's worth it, then I'd tell him how it makes you feel. Steven isn't all sunshine and rainbows, y'know. He's got a lot of fans and all, but he's a real pain in the ass."

She choked out a laugh through the thick smoke and giggled, "Yeah, well, he's proven to be just that. Like, of course I think it's worth it, but.. I don't know if he thinks the same."

Steven stared longingly at the pair while they quietly laughed together. His blue eyes were low with sorrow, and he ached for that to be him instead of his hotheaded singer with his arm around Jimmie. He knew they were talking about him- the drummer wasn't that clueless- but it seemed to be a lot deeper than he had ever imagined. He had never meant to hurt her, or for her to even ever see him that night, but it was drunk mistake and he didn't exactly do it without cause.

Axl and Jimmie's conversation eventually melted into one of laughter and jokes, inching away from the more serious topic of Steven while they shared smiles. The weed helped, no doubt about that, but Jimmie really did like talking to Axl. When he wasn't on his mind-blowing rampages about anything and everything, he was actually very insightful. Axl mutually enjoyed her company and her sarcastic jokes at any given moment. Though they'd started out as intolerable to one another, it seemed they'd grown close with every passing mistake or incident.

Seeing a sight such as Jimmie's well-missed smile and musical laugh, Steven sulked to his bunk and pulled a small bag out before going to the restroom and locking the door. He had actually slammed the door quite hard, and the girl's eyes immediately bounced to the restroom where he had disappeared in. Her eyebrows furrowed and she looked to the other band members, who didn't bat an eye. The question sounded a bit stupid coming from her mouth, but she couldn't help but ask, "What's he doing?"

"Dunno, probably going to jerk off 'cause he saw you laughing. He's real easy, that guy." Duff and Axl bellowed out in laughter at Slash's comment with Izzy just shaking his head. Jimmie's cheeks tinted a faint red but she didn't ask any more. The feeling deep in her stomach suggested she should've, though as she stared at the dim glow of the bathroom light under the door.