Guns For Roses (Frerard)

Chapter 18

(the song is only there because you deserve to hear it because holy fucking shit frank)

I know this is a really sad chapter and it was supposed to be much longer but I'm having a fucking horrible week and needed an out. (this one's dedicated to you, Renae. thank you for making me make that promise last night)

so like, I cried so freaking much while writing the next two chapters, and I am... so sorry

TRIGGER WARNING: Funeral. Loss/grief. Withdrawal. Vomiting/illness. Panic/anxiety attacks. Talk of death, suicide, and murder. Hallucinations. Depression. Mentions of nightmares.

I woke from a bad dream with a soft jolt, quickly coming into awareness of the car I was sitting in. Frank was beside me in the driver's seat, and right when he noticed that I'd come to, he wordlessly reached over and covered my cold hand with his, sliding his warm fingers safely around my white knuckles.

I closed my eyes and leaned my head backward to my seat, breathing slightly heavily, still recouping from the minor nightmare I'd just awoken from. 

That whole week was a haze. It's not like I don't remember any of it, though there are some parts that are still fuzzy to me, but it all happened so quickly that it almost didn't feel real. When I was in the thick of it, I definitely wasn't sure when the fuck was what, but even afterward I still couldn't figure it out.

We were on the way to Lindsey's place. I knew already that it wasn't going to be an easy trip, but I wasn't expecting the withdrawals to hit so quickly and so badly. It was early morning, still dark out. I was looking out at the thin blue stripe across the horizon, waiting the late dawn to come and signify the new day's coming, but it seemed to take hours to rise.

The baby was asleep in the backseat. Thankfully. She really didn't like all these long car rides we were making her sit through. Frank was a total godsend, every time she woke up, he would stop somewhere, and he'd get her out, change her diaper (which he said was a pull-up, so she was apparently near done potty training), get her something to eat, and then he'd play with her until we had to get back in the car. 

I didn't do much. I was too sick. If I wasn't puking, I was sleeping, or at least trying to. Frank wouldn't even let me know when the baby had woken up, I'd just found out myself when I woke up alone in the car and saw him sitting with her on a playground. 

I didn't deserve him, but we've been through that already.

Mama would be arriving at Lindsey's sometime in the late morning that day. Frank and I were going ahead of her, to check things out and get the baby back into her own home's setting. I'd be looking forward to seeing my mom, if the thought didn't bring along the knowledge that I was going to be majorly fucked up that week. 

Actually, I wasn't feeling much at all. I had a pounding headache, a sensitive stomach, and the shakes were so bad I could barely buckle my seatbelt alone. And emotions, other than bone-chilling fear of course, were nonexistent.

As the sun rose, I watched the tiny, glowing skyline of Las Vegas stream by. Despite being December, the sky was blue and cloudless. I definitely preferred Nevada's temperature, versus, well, anywhere else's. The dryness was chapping my lips and reddening my eyes, but the warm desert breezes were a million times better than a threat of snow.

We entered a small town, Tonopah, and Frank, because he pretty much has a map inside his brain, found Lindsey's house like he'd been there a hundred times.