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Izzy could still taste the vomit in his mouth, the acidic taste of stomach acid making his throat burn, the taste lingering in his mouth.
He was dazed. Thoughts came slow, jumbled in a sea of regret. Izzy hadn't meant for this to happen, he didn't mean for it to happen, why, why, why, tears burned and he swallowed back more acid.
Drugs made him feel sick. It didn't make him feel good, Izzy didn't know why he kept coming back to this.
A familiar blonde head lay on the floor - Steven. Snoring, a fucking trumpet, maybe that was what woke him up in the first place. Izzy inched backwards, away from the younger man, feeling his spine press flat against the wall.
He was in a bathroom with Steven Adler and he was drugged out of his normal mind and everything ached in some level. Izzy looked around, no, they weren't alone, the door was open and somebody was laying in the threshold, and the fog cleared slightly to tell him who.
Nikki. Of course.
Izzy breathed in, breathed out, grabbed the bathtub and gripped the porcelain and heaved himself onto shaky, newborn deer legs. The world rolled. Izzy fell forward and hit the sink, grabbing it frantically to keep himself from falling onto the sleeping blonde below.
The impact jarred his ribcage, sent pain through his tired body.
"I don't know what I was expecting." A voice said dryly from behind Izzy. Dry and unsurprised, Izzy knew who it was immediately.
So, he didn't turn his head immediately. Izzy didn't know what to say, he never did, the words clogged his throat but wouldn't come.
Axl had probably just woken up, he wasn't an early riser and Izzy knew it wasn't too late in the day. "But I was hoping a little bit better from you." Axl said.
Disappointment, nothing but disappointment because Izzy always fucked up.
But he couldn't lash out like Axl, or drink on stage like Slash, or just fuck girls silly like Duff, or throw himself into patties like Steven, to get rid of the emotions.
Izzy couldn't feel nothing, that's what he couldn't and could do.
"Then - then don't expect nothing." Izzy whispered.
Axl sighed, long and low. "I can't do that." He replied. "C'mon, Iz. C'mere." He was reaching out and Izzy felt Axl's fingers wrap around his arm.
Izzy couldn't fight, he just went along with it. He tripped over Steven (who grunted) and Nikki (who immediately woke up) and Axl pulled him along, tripping and stumbling, all the way into warm arms.
Axl embraced him. All of the nasty words Axl spoke about people like them faded away, and he was soft, and warm, and Izzy closed his eyes.
"What am I gonna do with you." Axl said, not a question, cupping the back of Izzy's head and cradling him close like he was a child.
Izzy closed his eyes, inhaled Axl's spicy cologne.
"You're killing yourself." Axl said. "You're killing yourself and I'll do anything to save you." He kissed the side of Izzy's head.
Not anything, no. Izzy knew better, everybody had limits, even the man who pressed him so close together, cracked against his chest, that their hearts seemed to become conjoined and beat together as one.
"You know I love you." Axl whispered. "So let's get you back home so we can get you cleaned up." He said it so simply.
Izzy didn't know if it meant washing the taste of vomit from his mouth and between his teeth, if it meant Axl turning the shower on and washing the grease from his hair, if it meant Izzy trying to clean himself from these drugs and Axl promising him the world, he didn't know.
But he just nodded instead of asking. And Axl ushered him from the dirty apartment that smelled like alcohol and vomit, and kissed him and touched him like Izzy didn't carry the scars of a thousand men.
And it was beautiful.