"Ax! Izzy! Someone!" I'm panicking, Duff can't breathe, he's beside me in the bed clutching at his messy hair, looking wildly around the moonlit bedroom.
"Okay calm down, look at me Duff." I say clearly as I delicately take his large hands in mine and carefully straddle his endlessly long legs to get his full attention.
"Come on, look at me Duffers, it's me Lexy, I'm here, just breathe!"
"...o..kay.." He gasps between heavy and quick breaths.
He slowly looks up at me with his tear stained face, green and hazel eyes sparkling with emotion and panic, causing my heart to ache for him while perspiration on his forehead builds and he struggles to control his breathing.
"Alexis what's going on!?" Izzy clumsily runs into the darkened room in only grey boxers, furiously rubbing the sleep from his face and accidentally tripping over the previously fallen lamp to get to the small bed.
"I think he's having a panic attack." I reply quickly, gripping Duff's clammy hands tightly, receiving a confirming squeeze back from the bassist, not once breaking eye contact in fear of loosing him to the panic attack.
"Okay, whatever you're doing is working, I'll go get him some water." The guitarist adds, giving me a reassuring nod before scurrying down the hall careful not to awake the blissfully unaware Axl, Steven or Slash.
"Thank you.. Lex.." Duff whispers, wrapping his long arms around me possessively and slumping backwards onto the mattress, dragging me down with him so I'm laying on his chest, my cheek feeling very erratic pump of his strong heart.
"What caused the attack Duff?" I whisper softly.
"Nothing for you to worry about Hun, just... let me have this moment with you." He replies, wrapping his arms tighter around my small waist and staring into my tires eyes, faces mere inches apart.
"You can talk to me Duff, you're like a brother to me." Okay, he's nothing like a brother, but I'm trying to support a friend, it's the right thing to do right now.
His arms instantly loosen allowing my body to steadily flop onto the bed to the left of the now calm bassist, he turns to lay comfortably on his side facing the wall and sighing quietly.
"Water!" Izzy states as he steps into the room, expertly dodging the lamp this time around and sitting down gracefully onto the bed next to my bare legs and placing the glass of clear liquid on the floor by his feet.
"He asleep?"
"Duff?" I whisper towards his turned back.
"Duff!?" Izzy says louder, but to no reply.
"You did good kid, it usually takes one of us like an hour to get Duff to calm down, it took you about five! What did you do?" He questions, raising a clenched fist towards me.
Fist pumping him with my considerably smaller fist, "Nothing special, you know why it happens to him?"
"Sometimes it's... nightmares, sometimes it's because he's over
-thinking something. It used to happen every couple days before you were home, now it's only once a week at tops." The guitarist shrugs, scratching his smooth chest. The 'home' comment causing me to smile slightly.
"Izzy, you're basically my brother and I trust you more than anyone." I look skeptically between Izzy and the peacefully sleeping Duff before continuing. "Is he doing drugs? Are you doing drugs? Is everyone?"
Izzy's face is a fine cross between guilt and shock, "Can we talk about this tomorrow, wanna sleep with me or stay here?" He questions giving me a goofy lopsided smile.
"I'll stay here and make sure he's okay, promise we'll talk tomorrow Iz." I hold out a pinky finger like when we were kids. A legit foundation of trust. Don't judge me.
"Of course little Terror!" He shakes pinky's with me before hopping from the bed and leaving the room, politely closing the door behind himself, returning blindly to his own room for the night.
I'm shaken awake, my body jostling everywhere and the sounds of the bed protesting a high amount of weight fill the air.
"Come on Alex! We've got money, we've got no food, you're supposed to be looking after us!"
"Steven fucking Adler, leave me alone before you loose the chance of having children, a drumming career and the ability to count to three."
Opening my groggy eyes, I catch the drummer cringe at my casual threat before hopping from the small bed with a soft thud and leaving the now sun lit room like a guilty and sulking puppy only to be replaced by Axl.
"That was harsh Bails, come on, we're going shopping." He laughs hysterically at my scowl. I'm definitely not a morning person, my chipper red-headed brother leaves me alone in the room to get ready and I notice I am in fact alone, no Duff, he probably went home to shower and stuff.
Shopping for a bunch of grown man-children will be fun. Ha.
