My Friends Are Idiots

I walked in the door and I knew immediately I should have stayed at work and listened to Samantha bitch about her ex-boyfriend's goulash.

Izzy's watching TV with his shirt off and good God he needs a fucking shower, he'll start sprouting mushrooms soon. Steven has his rock star trading cards laid out all over the floor and he's trying to sort them alphabetically, but can't find his As. Sometimes I wonder how he ever got through school. Duff is playing beer pong with the wall and singing "Why Don't We Do it in the Road?". And Axl is lying on the couch, taking up prime real estate space, covered with a blanket and apparently asleep. Well fuck me sideways with a monkey wrench. Is it too late to walk back out the door?

"Er...what the hell did I miss?" I piped up in the midst of the noise and chaos. Only Steven looked over, the others (except sleeping Axl) only grunted.

"Yay! You're back!" Steven said, jumping on me like a Labrador. I coughed as his heels dug into my ribs. He smelled like sweaty cookies and bad roaches. I almost threw up what little I'd eaten today.

"Fuck, Steven, you smell! Damn, get off. Go use some deodorant. Or bathe." I mumbled, putting my bag down. I'd brought some music mags home that work was gonna throw out. Figured they make good decorations to hide the cigarette burns and stains on the wall. I'd rather look at Steve Vai than the remains of a squashed cockroach. Finally everyone else actually acknowledged me. Sort of.

"There's some weird cheese and bread in the kitchen from work," Duff said, trying to improve his aim and hitting Steven with a loose ball. "It isn't much, Izzy scarfed down most of it, but you can have what's left. Oh, and save some for Axl so he doesn't nail us to the walls with thumbtacks. He didn't eat yet."

I stared at Axl asleep on the couch. Fuck me. I wanted to sit there...

"What's his deal?" I asked, pointing to Axl. "He up all night with Kristine or whatever the fuck her name is with the funny eye?"

"Nope." Izzy said, eyes glued to the TV and eating the rest of his cheese and bread he'd swiped. "We drugged him so he'd shut up."

I stared.

"You shot him up?!"

"No. We gave him pills. Enough to knock him out for at least 3 hours." Izzy said, licking his dirty, unwashed fingers. Fucking hell. He looked thoughtful. "Come to think of it, he hadn't eaten anything all day, so he passed out in 20 minutes. Explains a lot. We covered him so he wouldn't be cold."

My bandmates were psychopaths. They got Axl. And now I'm their next victim.

"So, you...what, fed him pills so he'd stop whatever he was bitching about... and then you--covered him so he wouldn't be cold?" I said slowly, trying to piece together the weirdness that is my friends.

"Yeah, that's about right." Duff nodded, trying to twirl the ping-pong ball on his fingertip like a Harlem Globetrotter and failing horribly. I stared.

"Ok...do I even want to know what he was bitching about? And do you think he'd be mad if I shifted him over so I can sit and get off my damn feet?" They ached. My sneakers were so beat up. I once stepped on a bee because the doors were full of holes.

"A lot of shit. Us making too much noise, Steven's b.o., Duff's shitty aim, being hungry, in pain---" Izzy ticked them off on his fingers like he was recalling a shopping list. Well shit. Can't say I wasn't glad I missed that. But something stuck out.

"Wait, 'in pain'? Why was he in pain?" I asked, going to get the cheese and bread plate from the kitchen counter.

"Axl broke his wrist!" Steven chimed in, sounding way too happy considering what he was talking about. That was mean.

"What?!" I said behind a mouthful of bread. I swallowed and already my stomachache felt better. "Bullshit! Quit messing around!"

"Not messing around. It's true." said Izzy nonchalantly, picking under his fingernails. I gaped. This had to be a joke.

I rushed over to where Axl was lying and peeled the blanket off him. And for once, they weren't kidding. His left hand and arm were in plaster. His left elbow and shoulder were scratched and grazed pretty good. It was red and looked ugly. I shuddered.

"How the fuck did he do that??" I exclaimed. "And how come no one called me??"

"We were hanging out in the alley and skating. And Axl wiped out pretty good." Duff shrugged, downing one of his beer cups. "We had to call Rod and Del to give him a ride to the ER; I didn't have money to put gas in my car. We would have called you, but no one had any change for the phone either. Plus your boss gets mad when you take personal calls while you're working." That last part was true. But still!

"Well, if you call me to chat about Kat's tits or how I snore then yeah! But this is an emergency!" I gently pulled the cover back over Axl after watching his chest to make sure he was still breathing. I gently lifted his injured arm on top of him so he wouldn't lay on it. My friends are idiots. Crazy idiots.

"He's ok." Izzy said, looking surprised that I was spitting fire. "Doctor said it was a clean break and that he won't need an operation. Just six weeks in a cast. Chill."

"Don't tell me to chill, Ass-Breath." I snapped. Duff dropped his ball.

"Well, that seemed uncalled for." Izzy remarked, throwing his beer bottle in the trash and listening to it shatter. I wanted to shatter his brain and shake it around his skull like a sick snowglobe.

"Don't worry, Slash! We took care of him! He was in pain, so we have him some of the Percocets the doctor gave him." Steven smiled like the kindergartener who got a gold star from his teacher. "He seemed pretty upset and sore, so we fixed him." I couldn't even think of any words to follow that. I sighed huffily.

"The least you could have done was carry the guy to his bed if you were gonna pump him full of opiates." I muttered darkly, thinking about the horrible things I wanted to do to each one of them and making lists in my head. I reached under Axl carefully and lifted him up off the couch. He was dead fucking weight. The other three watched me leave the room curiously.

Struggling, I kicked the door to his room open. Trying not to drop him and break his other wrist, I set him gently down on the bed. He stirred softly and brushed my hand with his.

"Fuck took you so long--?" Axl slurred, slowly gliding his fingertips across my hand.

"Sorry..." I whispered close to his cheek. "If I had known...I would have left work early..."

"You left me alone with these idiots, asshole..." He murmured softly.

"I know..." I said into his ear, kissing his hot cheek. His face was flushed in the light from the window in the living room. His room had dark curtains pulled tight. I brushed his hair back from his forehead and smoothed it across his pillows. "Just sleep...I'll Come in on a little, ok? Maybe I'll see about getting you something to eat." Axl nodded, opening his eyes as best he could to look at me. He looked high as fuck. I was kinda jealous. Maybe I'd join him. I pulled the covers over him and kisses his forehead before leaving him to sleep.

I came back into the living room where all three of them were sitting on the couch, ready to rip them all fresh, new assholes. But they were all.smiling at me. The fuck?

"We were kidding, Slash. We only gave him 2 pills, like the bottle said." Duff said.

"And we made sure he was ok before we left him go." Izzy nodded over another beer bottle.

"And we knew you'd want to tuck him in yourself, so we left him go on the couch!" Steven bounced, grinning.

I stared at each one of them, my jaw on the floor. They continued to grin at me. And the more I stared, the less competent I felt.

These idiots were fucking brilliant.