All In The Name Of...

One

By the time I got home, most of the guests were gone, and I assumed that Axl had given them their gifts; I hoped so, at least. However, there were a couple of people still here: Nikki, who probably made his family stay, and an unknown car. When I walked in the house, I realized it was that of John Corabi, though I was surprised he was still around. He certainly had no personal reason to be that I knew of.

Axl, to all my relief, didn't seem to be mad when I got home; rather, he was concerned. "Baby, are you okay?" he asked the second he saw me, pulling me into his arms. "And how's Vince?" I knew he was more worried about me, which I understood, but I appreciated that he asked about Vince anyway.

"Vince is doing okay," I told him, making sure it was loud enough for Nikki especially to hear. I was a little annoyed at the fact that neither him, Tommy, or Mick decided to go see him, but I wasn't going to be too immature about it; quite frankly, I had bigger issues than the relationship of the guys in Mötley Crüe. At the same time, though, I wanted my digs.

That being said, I turned to Nikki and John anyway. "I'm surprised you stayed," I half-laughed, not wanting to sound rude, even though it probably came out that way. Nikki shrugged, clearly trying to avoid his ex-singer. 

"Brandi passed out drunk a little bit after you left, so I dropped her in the guest bed and figured it'd be better for you if I didn't just leave her here by herself, since you and her ain't exactly the best of friends." I nodded respectfully, because I did appreciate that. 

John, on the other hand, wanted to speak for himself. "I didn't wanna just leave you guys to clean up by yourselves or anything, and you seemed pretty stressed when you left, obviously... So I stayed to help Axl here clean up. Plus, uh, Nikki's my ride. Oh, and I'm glad Vince is doing alright, too. Just because I may have replaced him doesn't mean I'm gonna be a dick about it."

I glared at Nikki for a moment with a smirk on my face before turning to John. "Well thank you, John, I really appreciate that a lot." It was a sincere statement, but I chose to act it up because he was being the mature one about Vince. I wasn't particularly too much better by being petty about it toward Sixx, but I also didn't have to be.

Axl most likely noticed what was going on, so he decided to step in before Nikki or I could say something else. "Sixx, you can take the guest room with your wife over there." He pointed up toward the stairs, and Nikki respectfully nodded toward him, saying goodnight before he stumbled up there. "Corabi, you wanna take the couch?"

At first, he shook his head. "I could just call a cab, y'know, my apartment's only like a half hour away." However, since he had been so nice about helping Axl out, the two of us convinced him that he should stay, and I got him some pillows and a blanket, so we left him to his own.

Finally, it was just Axl and I. "Are you mad?" I finally asked, frowning at him. Of course, he hadn't shown it when I first came home, but the paranoid little part of me wanted to be sure anyway. I watched his expression, and he frowned back at me, pulling me close to him.

"Babe, I understand. Would I have done the same thing for Vince? Probably not, unless it were maybe Izzy, and I don't even think I'd do it for him anymore... but that ain't the point. He's one of your best friends, Stella. Besides, I think that it's the kind of thing that makes you a good person, that you're willing to drop everything for the people you care about. Not a lot of people would."

I sighed. "Sharise ran into me at the hospital, actually." I felt Axl's body tense a little, and I bit my lip, waiting for him to reply.

"How'd that go?"

"Well, she yelled a lot, told me that everything was my fault, blah, blah, blah." I paused for a moment, and then took a leap of faith that Axl wouldn't kick her ass. "And then she pushed me into the wall... but Vince tried to stop her as much as he could, and now they're taking a break..." I added in quickly, though as I assumed, it did nothing.