Comfortably Numb
Slash's POV
When we all got back to hell house it was just after dawn. We had brought home some chicks from the Cathouse. The idea was to fuck them but a note taped to the front door sorta put a hault to our fun.
"Hey who's that from?" Stevie asks taking his attention away from some strippers neck.
I pull it off the door and read it. It's short and straight to the point. "It's from Axl," I say. "Izzy fucking overdosed. He's in the hospital."
"What hospital?" Duff quickly asks with worry flashing in Nikki's eyes.
"Doesn't say," I reply and turn the piece of paper over to see if anything else is written there but it's blank.
Nikki looks to Steven, "Start calling the hospital's."
Steven finally managed to find out what hospital Izzy was in. It was downtown. Nikki had to spring for a taxi to get us there. At the hospital they're hesitant to tell us anything. Duff tells them that he's Izzy's brother and they finally tell us his room number. We find the elevator and go up to the fourth floor. We search the long hallways trying to find his room number. We finally locate it. I gently push the door open. I see Axl sitting next to Izzy's bed holding his hand with tears streaming down Izzy's cheeks.
In the bed Axls body lies motionless. There's tubes down his nose and mouth. There's several IV's in his arms. A machine by the bed shows the rhythm of his heart, blood pressure, oxygen levels, and makes a beeping noise each time his heart beats. Axl is generally pale, but in that bed he matched the sheets. His lips had no color at all. I have to remind myself that this is izzy and not Axl.
"Axe, what happened?" Duff asks and rushes to Izzys side. He gently pushes back Axl's bred hair from Izzy's forehead with Nikki's hand.
"I don't know," Axl cries, " I found him with a needle still in my arm and my empty valium bottle next to him."
"Did you guys have a fight or something?" Nikki asks.
"No...not really. He just went upstairs and didn't come back down. I got worried so I went up to check on him. He wouldn't answer the fucking door. It was locked so I had to kick it in," he explains.
"What do the doctors say?" I ask and sit on the window seal.
"They got him stabilized but he's in a coma. They don't know for how long. It was really touch and go for a while. He flat lined a couple times. They gave him counteracting drugs, adrenaline, pumped his stomach...he almost fucking died. If I wouldn't have checked on him he would have." Axl says and sounds so incredibly distant.
Duff sympathetically rubs Axl's shoulders, "Hey you did good. He's not dead. You saved his life. He's gonna be ok, he just has to sleep it off."
Nikki looks at Axl shaking Duff's head in disbelief."You should have seen this coming. He's been trying so hard to reach out to you but you just kept pushing him away. What was he thinking?" Nikki asks, "He knows your body has no smack tolerance."
"I somehow doubt he was thinking about that," I sigh.
"I don't get it, Izzy's the most careful junkie I know," Steven scratches his arm.
I watch as Nikki trains his eyes on Axl in Izzy's body. "It wasn't an accident, was it?" He asks.
Axl covers Izzy's face with his hands and sobs into them.. I somehow get the feeling that Axl might be behind whatever happened to Izzy. "Axl, what happened?" I ask him.
Axl just slowly shakes Izzy's head. "I've been avoiding him since that night we... He's tried to get me to talk about it, to tell him where we stand now but I just can't give him answers I don't have. I thought he was just going upstairs to sulk. Then you guys came and I thought he had gone to sleep. But he didn't make a sound all day. I started to worry just after midnight so I went up to check on him...and I found him. I called 911 and tried all I knew to try to wake him up but he just wouldn't wake the fuck up. Now he's in a fucking hospital in a fucking coma because I was too chicken shit to try to talk things out with him. This is all my fault."
"Yeah, sounds like it," Nikki nods Duff's head.
"Nikki," Duff nudges his side.
"Well, it's probably fucking true," Nikki shrugs.
Axl just starts to cry all over again. Way to go Sixx. But since he brought it up, it does make sense. I've seen the way Izzy tries and the way Axl pushes him away. I watch Izzy mope around looking like the saddest person on the entire planet. And Axl has been very quiet and distant to us all. I imagine Izzy figured that a fix would make him feel better. But it doesn't explain the fist full if valium he took on top of it. Izzy knows that can be a deadly combination. Was he trying to kill himself?
"I think Nikki's right," Steven says. All eyes dart up to him. "Izzy loves you Axl. Maybe if you told him the same none of this would have ever happened."
"Mind your own fucking business Steven," Axl says in Izzy's monotone voice.
But you know what, I agree with Stevie. I mean, obviously Axl was in love with Izzy too or he would have never fucked him. But he avoids Izzy like he has the fucking plague. Why would he do that to Izzy? Why couldn't he just tell Izzy that he loved him? That's all Izzy wanted, to be able to love Axl and feel him love him back. I guess he just got tired of waiting. Maybe it just hurt him too much to carry around all that love and never get any of it back. Goddamn Axl could be such a stubborn asshole.
"I'll never be what he needs," Axl says in Izzy's faintest whisper. "He wants to be with me and I don't know how to be with him."
"Well you better start digging a hole," Nikki smirks, "I don't think Izzy cares to live without you."
"That's exactly what I mean. This is what my kind of love does to people. I don't want to hurt him. Izzy's my best fucking friend."
"All I can say is I'm sure as hell glad you aren't my friend," Nikki huffs and walks out the door.
