Buttered Popcorn

Chapter 19: June 3, 1987

An aggressive jolt shook Jimmie awake from her uneasy slumber, Tommy standing at her bed while breathing at a suspiciously high rate, "Were you with Steve last night?!?"

Rubbing at her tired eyes and gently shaking her head, she attempted to adjust to the morning light pouring in from the large window. "Come on!"

He secured his larger hand around her forearm and rushed her out of bed, though she was wearing nothing but a thin shirt and her underwear. In other words, her typical sleep attire.

"What- Tommy..? What the fuck-"

He didn't hesitate as he heaved his shoulder into Duff's hotel door until it nearly broke off of the hinges as it evidently swung open. She was quickly startled fully awake and stared at him, wide-eyed, "Tommy!" He grabbed her wrist yet again and pulled her into the room.

The entirety of Guns N' Roses was crowded within the quarters, including their very distraught-looking manager. She frowned and felt a heavy silence follow the shutting door behind them. "The bathroom." Tommy muttered. His voice was rough, which concerned her even more.

Her feet cautiously took her into the restroom, where Slash was kneeling next to a body, desperately grasping onto one of their hands.

The body was limp.

They were hunched over into the toilet bowl, one arm resting at their side. The knotted blond hair was haphazardly thrown behind their shoulder and their shirt was hanging off of one shoulder. The blond hair.

Jimmie crouched down next to them and gently tucked back their hair, hoping to God that it wasn't what she thought it was.

White foam spilled from between his lips and the blue eyes that she adored so deeply were terrifyingly lifeless. Dried streams of blood spilled from his nostrils, down his cheeks and onto his neck. It only made her wonder how long he'd been left like this.

She pressed her palm against his cheek and gently stroke his jaw with quivering caution. His cool skin sent goosebumps along her own, and her fingers flinched away from him. She didn't recognize him, and it broke her to no end.

Jimmie's knees struggled to support her wobbling figure, and her mind grew fuzzy. A gasp managed to choke her while she fell back next to Slash. From all corners of her vision, a blur began to spread, and tears built in her eyes. She felt as if her rib cage began to cave in, cracking along the bones and crushing her chest with crippling pain.

Slash quickly came to her aid and engulfed her into his arms, which trembled around her sobbing figure. One of his shaking hands remained secured tightly around Steven's hand, waiting for a squeeze back. The sleeve of her shoulder grew damp with his tears while they cried.

He couldn't bring himself to look at Steven's body again. It was too familiar. The cloudy, lifeless eyes and his smile that didn't hide his pain. It wasn't the fact that he'd overdosed... It was the fact that Slash wasn't surprised. He'd been anticipating for it to happen again one day or another. Every time Steven would indulge in his bad habits, he would gamble his life. It would keep Slash up at night, with him dissecting his confusing thoughts until sunrise.

Funnily enough, it was actually a prostitute that found him. She'd dumbly followed after his staggering figure into bathroom, where he fell to his knees and didn't get back up. She screamed and Duff detached himself from the two other girls on his bed, making his way to the toilet where his drummer lay.

In a blind rush, Duff had rang Tommy and ordered him to call the paramedics before getting Jimmie. He then bursted into Slash's room, who was also with a few women, and stared him in the deep browns of his eyes. The guitarist quickly shoved the girls from his body and rushed to Duff's room, where he found that it was true. Where the single look that Duff gave him changed his life, and it was real.

Slash's band mate, his brother.... taken by the paramedics right in front of his eyes. They ushered his body onto a stretcher while simultaneously questioning what had happened.

What happened...

"Sir, we're going to need to know what happened. Did your friend overdose? Sir, is he overdosing? What did he take?"

"Uh- heroin. A- A lot of heroin. And coke. I don't know how much-" Duff managed to answer amidst the chaos. Medics rushed in and out of the bathroom and eventually left with his body. Jimmie's teary eyes watched his hand lay limply at his side while he passed, and she followed her gaze up his arm. Just before he turned the corner, the dried blood from the track marks on his forearm caught her eye, and she sobbed.

She quickly ran to the hotel room window, where she hoped to find a view of the parking lot in which the ambulance was. With no luck, she felt blind with emotions as she ran to her own room, ripping back the curtains and peering down. She could see nothing more than the medics closing the doors to the ambulance, and reporters began to swarm.

Duff found her sunken to the floor as he walked in and tried not to let the tears in his eyes fall. He took a brief breath and carefully walked toward her. Taking a seat next to her, he wrapped a long arm around her shoulder, "He's gonna be okay, y'know."

She scoffed, "Please don't start with that shit. I saw the fucking foam in his mouth, Duff. I shouldn't even be surprised.."

Duff was even more disappointed in the fact that no one, not even Jimmie, was shocked by his overdose. Steven's drug issues spiraled into a problem for everyone, and Duff let it sink in that he really could die.

"I've seen this happen before, Jim. It's nothing new-"

"Exactly. Just how many times can he get lucky?!"

Duff sighed and let a frown form on his lips, "Saying stuff like that won't help." He knew she was in distress, of course she was, but her sour outlook on the situation as a whole made him upset. Shouldn't she want him to survive?

Didn't they love eachother?

"Yeah.... I know," she carefully breathed out, "Sorry."  Following her soft words, she fell back into her own thoughts and began to cry again. Duff kept her in his arms and stayed silent.

"I need to see him."

He sympathetically leaned his head on hers, "Yeah, I know."

"Now. I need to see him now."

Before he could say anything else, she staggered to her feet with Duff following. His thoughts struggled to keep up with Jimmie's, as it seemed her head was suffocating with them. "Jimmie, hold- hold on a minute-"

"Please, Duff. Please take me to him."