It's Always Darkest Before The Dawn

Bad Dreams

The show that night leaves Slash white faced and whimpering with pain. He shoots up when we get back to the hotel and I help him take a shower. He still won't put any more ice packs on his ribs but he does let me bind them tightly with the ace bandage. We both collapse into bed tangled up in each other and pass the fuck out. I'm woken up by someone flailing and crying out in the dark later and it takes me a second to realize that it's Slash. He wakes me up twitching around and mumbling in his sleep. I stroke his hair a little and he settles back down for a few minutes and I start to doze off again. Suddenly he sits bolt upright and shoves me off of him and swings his arm out like he's trying to fight somebody off and he yells out "No!" I move behind him and put my arms around him from the back (just like I used to do with Axl, how ironic is that, that mother fucker has now passed these types of nightmares on to someone else, wonder how he'd feel about that?) and hold his arms still at his sides and whisper quietly to him that he's safe, that he's dreaming, it's not real, whatever it is he's seeing, that I'm here with him, and that I love him, and I just keep telling him that until he stops fighting me and goes slack in my arms. He's sweating and shaking and making tiny whimpering sounds. "Izzy?" he whispers.

"Yeah baby doll, it's me. You were dreaming, but you're safe now, nobody's going to get you. What were you dreaming about? "

"Axl," he whispers and hangs his head. I turn him around so his head is on my shoulder and his forehead is leaning against my cheek.

"Sweetness, you don't have to be embarrassed. It's ok, you're with me and I love you." He's still shaking. I pull the blanket up around our shoulders and stroke his back to calm him down. I feel tears start to run down my chest and I lean down and kiss the top of his head and then I lift up his face and softly kiss his lips. "Cry all you want baby, it's good to cry sometimes. I squeeze him tighter and the trickle of tears turns to sobs. I just let him cry and stroke his hair, hold his hand, tell him I love him, hold him tighter. "It's ok baby doll," I tell him as I rock him, it's ok. " Finally he settles down. "Want a hit? I ask him. He nods and I cook up a fix for him, enough that he'll sleep soundly for the rest of the night. I tie him off and inject that brown comforting liquid into his arm. We're both using way too much. I'm going to have to send someone out to score tomorrow. I fix too and soon we're both lost in a narcotic haze and then blessedly sleep.

The next day and night are pretty much the same. I send truck out with an assload of money and he comes back with a baggie partway full of smack. Slash and I shoot up before bed and everything is fine until I wake up in the night briefly wondering where I am and why in the hell I'm awake in the middle of the night (yeah, I have sleep issues ok?) and I breathe in deeply and sigh without opening my eyes. But when I breathe in I smell that familiar smell of leather and whiskey, my lover, my whole world, Slash. I smile and move closer to him and put my arm around him and snuggle my face into his back and hair. That's when I realize he's burning up. I reach up to feel his forehead and face, shit he's got a hell of a fever and I know why, I've been dreading this. The injuries he got from Axl are infected. He hadn't been feeling well for a couple of days but he didn't have a fever and he refused to go to a hospital. Now he's going to have to go or he's never going to heal. He groans in his sleep and starts shivering where I moved the blankets off of him, poor baby now he's got the chills too. I cover him back up and reach up and stroke his hair. He groans again and mumbles my name. "You awake baby doll?" I ask softly.

"Izzy, I'm sick," he whimpers.

"I know I woke up a second ago and realized you were burning up. You're hurting too aren't you?"

"Yeah," he says weakly, it hurts really bad, just kill me now please..." he moans.

"No, but I am going to take you to the hospital, just let me get up and get dressed and get Pete or Ronnie ok?" He just makes a pained noise and curls up in a ball. I get up and get dressed and brush my teeth. I grab a clean t-shirt for Slash and some shorts and walk back over to the bed. Somewhere in here is a thermometer I bought just for this reason. I look around and see it on the dresser and bring it over. "Baby, let me take your temperature," I ask him gently.
He glares up at me but he opens his mouth for the thermometer. I wait until it beeps and look at what it says. Fuck 103.7! He's really sick, we need to go soon. "Slash your temperature is 103, almost 104, we need to go to the hospital right now; sit up and let me get you dressed. He tries to sit up but he's pretty weak so I pull him up the rest of the way and pull the t-shirt over his head. I lay him back down and uncover him and pull the shorts on over his boxers. I get his shoes and socks on him and call over to Ronnie and Pete's room. They answer, grumbling.