Home Sweet Home (REVISED)

Chapter 36

Meanwhile, Nikki was walking the streets of Las Vegas. He figured, if he could make it in L.A., hell, he could make it anywhere, right? Almost four hours of bus, and he was still upset and confused of what to do, or how to even feel at this moment. He kept running Vince's words through in his head over and over. "Hey, everybody, look! They're holding hands! How gay is that!?" Gay. That's what kept bothering Nikki, because he didn't know. How could he know? His only experience of that was back in high school, and that sure was a long time ago. Looking back at it, he remembered how it felt to be that close to Tommy, and what it was like to just suddenly end it all. He wasn't sure if he was willing to go through that again. Or if Tommy was for that matter. Nikki wanted to be with Tommy more than anything, but everyone they knew seemed to frown upon it, and Nikki couldn't take it. While thinking about it all and finding himself just walking to nowhere, he stopped in front of a building that looked like it had something to offer. He just needed something to keep his mind away from his problems for a while. A huge hotel with a casino called "The Venetian". Nikki stood outside for a while just staring and deciding on whether to stay inside or outside, but he finally made up his mind enough to just go with it.

Nikki had never been to a casino before, so he didn't know what to do but to jump into some random game and hope for a win. On his way to the Black Jack table, he bumped into this tall, blonde guy. "Oh, sorry...", Nikki mumbled, and was about to keep walking when the blonde grabbed his arm. A million thoughts ran through Nikki's head at that time. Could he be a robber? Or a rapist!? "Hey...", the blonde said, turning Nikki back around, "Aren't you Nikki Sixx?" Nikki looked fearfully up at the blonde guy; he must have been like 10 feet tall or something. Then it hit him. "Yeah... Aren't you Duff McKagan?", he replied. Nikki didn't understand why he kept running into members of Guns N' Roses all the time. "Yeah, you know who I am?", Duff asked, sounding rather surprised that he was starting to get pretty well-known, "I fucking dig Mötley Crüe, man! Too bad things didn't work out with Axl though..." How did everyone suddenly know what happened between him and Axl!? "Yeah...", Nikki replied, puking a little in his mouth just thinking about it. "Hey", Duff continued, "Why don't you come to the party later?" Nikki hadn't heard about a party... "There's gonna be one at Slash's place later, everyone's gonna be there". Nikki thought about it for a while, and deciding on just going, since he didn't really have a lot of other options of what to do that night. "Sure, I'll be there".

Slash's party was insane, but not worse than Mötley's. At one point, everyone was on the dance floor, including Duff and Nikki. What surprised Nikki was the fact that Duff could actually dance, and he was good at it. Nikki was not. They had to talk really loudly because of the unbearable, booming disco music that had been turned up too loud in the background. "Wanna leave this place and go outside?", Duff shouted. "Yeah", Nikki yelled back. They both left the dance floor and walked out of Slash's place. Duff stopped right outside of the front door, and they could still hear the song "Hit That Perfect Beat" from inside at the party. "Any particular reason why you dragged me out here?", Nikki asked, "Was it something you wanted to talk about?" He was getting kind of used to just going outside to talk about meaningless shit; it had happened on several occasions with Tommy. "No...", Duff said awkwardly, shaking his head a little. "Then why did you –", Nikki started, but got interrupted by Duff, basically throwing himself at him for a kiss. Surprised, and kind of scared, Nikki quickly pushed him away before he got any further. He simply stared at Duff with his eyes wide open, his heart beating painfully quickly, breathing heavier than normal, kind of hoping for an explanation right away. "Oh, no...", Duff started, "You've got a girl back home don't you?" He looked honestly disappointed. Nikki shook his head. "No. Uh, yes. I don't know. It's complicated...", he said, confusing himself in the process. Duff looked up from the ground. "Well, you can talk to me about it", he said, trying to make Nikki forget about the kiss. Nikki hesitated. Was he really just going to tell this guy whom he had just met that he was gay? He couldn't see any other way out of it right now. "It's... Uh, it's... It's Tommy...", he stuttered, slightly blushing and failing to hide it. Duff's eyes opened wide. "No way! So you are gay!", he exclaimed, making Nikki panic; someone might have heard it. Every time Nikki would hear someone say "gay", Vince's words would come back to haunt him. "No!", he quickly responded, "Or, uhm... I don't know... I'm really confused right now. That's why I'm here, and not back in L.A. with my friends like I should". Duff was just standing there like a complete idiot, staring at Nikki with a confused expression. "How about you explain it to me?", he asked, dropping him a million hints. Nikki sighed, realizing that it might help to just get it all out at once. So then he started explaining. He went all the way back to when he met Tommy in high school, when they went to camp, got together, broke up, and all the painful and hard years that had gone by without eachother, and all the way to when they met Axl, when they crashed and met Slayer, when Tommy comforted him after his girlfriend had broken up with him, when they had kissed at Six Flags, their conversation at his birthday party at Mick's, what Vince had said... The letter he had written, and how he ended up in Vegas. Everything. At first, Duff had trouble keeping up, since it was all so complicated, and it started way back in high school. "Oh...", Duff finally said, after listening to Nikki for 40 minutes. He didn't know what to say, as the story had all sorts of emotions and conflicts. "I... I don't know what to say, Nikki...", he said. Nikki was looking at the ground, wiping some tears that had formed as he had to retell everything he wanted to forget about. Then he looked back up at Duff, a wave of hope hitting him; he had realized what he had to do. "You can say: 'Good luck, Nikki', because I'm gonna go back to him", he called as he ran off. Duff waved to him before he climbed into the closest cab. "Good luck, Nikki!"