Warning(s): drug abuse. Again, I'm truly very sorry..
Depraved, sadistic thoughts continually dominated any sense of rationality that Nikki was even capable of mustering up, forcing him to slink back to his debased, bordering on wicked, drug depleted second self. Sikki.
An impressively hefty heroin binge with Robbin in the thirty minutes leading to the pre-ceremony meetup, saw the pair get completely blitzed and disconnected from any perception of sanity. However, despite his less than presentable state, Nikki recognized that he had to make the effort to pull himself away from his beloved indulgence.
Hardly able to hold his body upright without gripping the arm of the couch, Nikki reached for the half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels sat atop the glass. He could almost feel the vicious burn of the cheap spirit that was about to sear all the way down his throat, but he drank it up.
"Hey, do you really think that getting more hammered is gonna help--"
"--Fuck you, firstly," he cut Robbin short and began to unscrew the cap, watching as it slipped from between his fingers and bounced across the embossed rug, "and secondly, what I do is none of your God damn business! You just sat there and smoked crack while I loaded myself with heroin, so I don't think you're in any position to dictate to me what I should and shouldn't be putting in my fucking body!"
Silence.
His eyes so wide they were starting to burn under the harsh artificial light of the lounge. A long, agonizing pull of whiskey momentarily snatched his focus from the astounded blonde before him.
"Now," wiping his lips with the back of his hand, Nikki threw the bottle to the couch--Robbin watching as liquor sloshed around and spilled against the leather, "I've got twenty minutes before I'm supposed to be playing best man, so I'm gonna go find--and potentially fuck--my wife. Whatever you do next is your call entirely."
"Don't you fuckin' think about it," Robbin curtly, completely uncharacteristically, scolded, "do you really think that heading out there lookin' like that--" he pointed to his face "--is a good fuckin' idea?"
Nikki froze. Though pinned out and borderline hidden, his dull eyes zoned in on Robbin's features.
"What's it to you?"
"The fuck do you mean?"
"What's it to you?" Nikki repeated himself, "why do you suddenly care so much about if I'm fucked or not? You're always for getting jacked up, Robbin. What's changed?"
You. You have changed.
Robbin stared at him as if he had two fucking heads--not understanding why the man was suddenly so antsy. But then he realized that Sikki had begun to fester away at his friend, depleting him from the inside out until there was nothing left but a shell of the man that he once was. It was heart-wrenching to see, but he knew that there was nothing that could be done.
Attempting to get through to Nikki's black-hearted, nefarious, smack depleted alter ego was simply fruitless. Not a single thing could sway his mind, not even his wife.
"Look at yourself, man," the softer tone that he had adopted with the bassist forced a snarl to tear through Nikki's throat, hitting Robbin square in the face, "I'm not trying to talk down to you or even attempt to take the moral high ground because, well, it's me--"
Rudely interrupted by the tremulous clicking of an, almost empty, lighter as Nikki attempted to spark a cigarette while struggling to hold the Zippo between his fingers, Robbin's patience was wearing thinner and thinner by the fucking second.
Holding a deep breath in and releasing an even deeper breath out, he chewed the inside of his mouth while watching Sixx struggle.
"Done?"
Nikki nodded, balancing the cigarette between his lips, before taking a long drag. "Yup. Continue."
Rubbing his lips together, Robbin picked up where he left off. "Like I was saying--hey, asshole, fucking look at me."
A thick haze of smoke clouding around his head had cleared and, immediately, Nikki rolled his jaw in frustration because he just wanted him to spit it out so he could go about his day.
"You need to pull this fuckin' stick outta your ass, Nikki," once again, viciously, he pointed in his face, "it's your best friend's damn wedding day and you're spending the time that you should be with him, with me, getting absolutely shit faced for no reason other than needing to get so fucked that you won't remember walking down the aisle with your wife on your arm!"
He wasn't used to being yelled at by his drug-bud. He was only ever yelled at by Vince, Christine, and Vanity.
"We get it, dickhead! We get that you don't wanna fuckin' be here, to support Tommy, because you think his girl is a waste of space, conniving, trying-to-turn-him-against-us, flaming pile of monster shit--but that's fucking irrelevant right now! Your hatred for Heather should not determine the happiness you're feeling for your friend, Nikki! How would you like it if Tommy just turned around and, suddenly, for NO fuckin' reason started to diss Christine and spew out his unfailing hatred for your wife just because he was jealous that you were happy and he was stuck in a never ending cycle of self loathing, misery, violence and infidelity. Tell me. Quickly!"
"You know how I feel," Nikki's pathetic, borderline whimpering, accent caused Robbin to shake his head. He couldn't believe how childish he was being.
"Alright, I get it. You have spent the last--I don't fuckin' know--how many minutes? Spilling your bitterness and desire for vengeance because you're convinced Tommy nailed your wife, despite not being explicitly told that's what he did. I get that makes you angry because that's a shitty thing to think about! But unless informed otherwise, you have no reason to hold such hostility towards the pair of them!! Dude, you didn't wanna see Chris before you had a gram in you because you didn't think you'd be able to face her sober--why? What changed your mind--"
"--Vince! Vince is what changed my fuckin' mind," he rubbed at the spit around his lips, feeling a harsh sting of tears start to pool in his eyes.
Tears of sadness? No. Tears of frustration? Yes.
Realizing that he wasn't going to be leaving that room until he spilled his guts, Nikki conceded defeat.
Nikki cleared his throat, "he went in on me earlier--exactly like the way you have been--and more or less told me that I don't know my wife well enough--which I fuckin' do!" He barked defensively. "And because I know her well enough, that's how I know she's been riding Tommy's dick!"
"And how the fuck did you reach that conclusion, Sixx?"
"Because Tommy Lee is a fucking imbecile."
"What?" Robbin quirked a brow.
"He's fucked her--definitely more than once--and Vince didn't even try to deny the fact when confronted with it," the blonde exhaled, chewing his tongue.
"But still," he stated warily, testing the waters because he didn't know how Nikki would react to his forthcoming statement, "you're gonna need to hear it from either Chris or Tommy to solidify your suspicion, Nikki. There's no fuckin' use in moping about, ignoring Christine and purposely fucking T-Bone over on the day that is supposed to bring him happiness and prosperity. You're being a jerk."
"I'm not the one who fucked my best friend's girl!"
"Honey," Robbin stated.
"What?"
"You fucked Honey. She was Tommy's girl. You fucked Beth. She was Vince's girl. You fucked Angelina when I was dating her, so don't even start with that shit--"
"--But this is different! Christine is my wife, not some random slut I picked up on the side of the God damn road--"
"--You fucked Elaine!" Robbin snapped, "Elaine was Tommy's first fucking wife and you let her suck your dick despite that being your best friend's wife and you being in a 'committed' relationship with a woman who thought--and still thinks--that the sun shines outta your asshole because you've spent the best part of five years, somewhat, loving her, fucking her, and pumping her full of heroin!"
Forced to reexamine every shitty thing that he had done to his so called brothers, Nikki was dumbfounded.
"Listen to me when I say; get the fuck off of this high horse that you're sitting on, sober yourself up because you look like absolute shit--and I know I can't say anything because I'm jacked up too but you're a member of the wedding party and you at least need to be presentable for your wife if not yourself--go looking for Chris because she's probably outta her mind worrying about you, and try to conceal that malicious, vile, hatred for Heather for just one fucking day. Think you can do that, Nikki?"
Something about the way that he was glaring at Robbin did not sit right with the blonde. It was almost as if a simmering cauldron of rage was about to bubble over and scorch the pair of them.
Reaching for another, unopened, bottle of whiskey that lined the glass table, he made a dramatic show of shaking his head and snarling at the proposition.
"No. I don't think that I can."
And with that, his little declaration leaving a bad taste in Robbin's mouth, Nikki was stumbling his way from the space and out into the hallway.
While the "best man" was pathetically attempting to regain his composure, and balance, In the exact spot that Christine had left him, Vince felt his heart clench within the restraints of his chest. A violent throbbing sensation caught him off guard as a foreign emotion swept through his frame, almost debilitating him.
For a brief moment in time, he felt completely empty. He didn't think that for a second she would go through with her deluded plan to leave Nikki, pack her bags, and take the first flight from Van Nuys to Vancouver. But she did. And he guessed that he had her impulsive nature and lack of self-control to thank for that.
Vince also never imagined that he would find himself in such a convoluted predicament. It truly was so very bizarre.
Despite the painfully ambivalent nature of Nikki and Vince's "relationship", he really had to consider the moral implications of all that he was about to do. Had he kept quiet about knowing the whereabouts of his wife, Vince knew for a fact that hosting that sort of information would begin to fester away at him until he folded and spilled his guts to Nikki. But he had also made a vow to Christine that he was to be the only person with knowledge of her location.
He was stuck between a rock and a hard place, that's for sure. And it made it all the more troublesome because Vince was never usually the one that had to deal with people's feelings--nobody ever turned to him for advice, help, or just about anything that wasn't related to sex. So, in some way, he felt privileged that Christine trusted him enough, but he knew that it was just a case of being the only other person that was aware of the lust-fueled, marriage-destroying, heart-wrenching liaison she had taken part in.
Recognizing that if he had dwelled in that room for any longer Nikki might have wondered if he was also fucking his wife, Vince picked up the carton of Malboro red that she had kindly left on the vanity for him, and put one of the cigarettes loosely between his lips.
He found himself grinning at the red lipstick stain smeared across the cardboard, and the small indents that definitely came as a result of her signature, much too long, red long nails clawing into the sides as she attempted to peel the plastic that once encased the packet.
Vince, once again, felt this hulking sadness cloud around his head while he sparked up and took the longest drag he could muster. The cigarette itself suddenly smelt awful, but the room held that soft aroma that he could only assume was the last few particles of her favorite fragrance wafting through the air.
He remembered how she and Beth would always wear the same perfume, though the two of them would smell completely different. While his ex-wife's overly-musky, vanilla aroma was a perfect complement to her domineering demeanor, Chris always had more of a floral, rosy essence which he felt fit her extremely well.
He knew that despite Nikki's verbal revulsion for the 'girliness' of his wife's favorite smell, he would hardly cope without the random wave of Chanel No.5 that would filter through rooms as Christine wandered around the house, or walked past him, or even just the way it would always linger on his jacket because he always insisted on making her wear it seeing as she never wore her own, and he never wanted to see her cold or uncomfortable. He knew that Nikki would miss it.
"For fucks sake, Vince," he mumbled to himself. "Why the fuck are you letting this happen to your friend?"
Suddenly, he was overwrought with perplexing emotion--his brain working so quickly it was a wonder to him that it didn't start to spark.
In a futile attempt to shove each and every wicked notion that bled through his brain, Vince began to chain smoke the remainder of the cigarettes.
Thinking about Christine forced his stomach to churn, twisting and turning in every which direction, just attempting to deduce the best way to reveal her departure without explicitly admitting to knowing about her plans to never return.
Damn it.
He would be a fucking fool if he thought that he could execute any plan. No matter how much time he spent deliberating the different scenarios, playing them out in his head, he came to the straightforward conclusion that nothing was going to work.
Though she was not maid of honor, she was still very much an integral part of the wedding party and Heather would be frantic when she realized that Chris was missing.
He had to bite the fucking bullet.
Anxiety was not an emotion that Vince experienced all too often, not even when it came to performing to the masses, but hit with the notion of having to tell Nikki Sixx that his wife had left him--for good--because she didn't know how to confess her most blatant wrongdoing...it was safe to say that Vince was shitting bricks.
Almost instantly met with the most rigid aura in "The Groom Room"--the name given, by none other than Tommy, to the lounge that the groomsmen were set to congregate in before the ceremony--Vince reached for a glass of whatever spirit was on offer to him.
He swallowed down that same swelling at the very back of his throat, feeling a sheen of sweat coat his forehead as he paced across the rug to the middle of the room.
"Where the fuck is she?!"
Before Vince had the chance to even consider settling down against the taut leather couch, Nikki bounded through the oak doors with a bottle of Jack and visible wrath. Again, he gulped.
"Chris is not in our suite, Heather and Sharise have no fuckin' clue where she's gotten to!" His eyes roamed the room, noticing a mixture of alarm and irritation sail across Tommy's features.
Nikki's attention suddenly docked on Vince.
"Dude--"
"--Where is she--" violently, his hand met the blonde's collar and shoved him up against the wall.
Had Nikki not been intoxicated to within an inch of his life, maybe he would've had more control over his appendages and maybe what he did to Vince would have caused the blonde to experience searing pain. But, thankfully, he was too hammered.
"I--I don't know what you're talking about--"
Another bout of ire fuelled lament forced Nikki to bite back an abundance of tears, hoping that the blacked-out sunglasses pushed right against his eyes would conceal the water brewing in his tear ducts.
"--Tell me where she is," he continued his attack, though easing off on Vince when he let go of his shirt. The blonde rubbed at his neck and made a mental note to check for any red marks or scratches ahead of meeting with Sharise.
"Nikki, look at me," he reared his head, forcing his attention to focus on the blonde, "take off the shades, man. Look at me."
Ripping the frames from his face, Vince's pulse quickened at the mere sight of dark circles underneath dull, gray--formerly green--hues. His heart sank.
"Tell me where she is," Nikki muttered, jaw clenched, "now."
"I don't know where she is--but she's gone--"
"--Gone?!" He took a step back, "the fuck do you mean, 'she's gone'?! Like she's left and she's coming back, or she's fucked up and--"
"--She walked out, Nikki! She is fucking gone!"
Ringed fingers rubbed promptly across ragged features, Vince's eyes closing only to open moments later and reveal crippling emotion brought on by debilitating guilt.
But Nikki was struggling to comprehend.
Instead of lashing out, he laughed. Right in Vince's face, Nikki snickered malevolently, refusing to read the room and the sincerity that was slapped against the face of the man before him.
"You're shitting me," his smile refused to falter, "she just walked out? Just like that?"
Vince simply nodded. Words had failed him--which was a first.
"Well, I can't say that I'm sorry."
"What?"
Nikki attained another glass of whiskey, swirling the spirit around for a few moments before guzzling it in one simple sip.
"She did me a huge fuckin' favor, that's for sure," he stated casually, "yeah, for weeks I've been trying to decide whether it's Chris or Vanity that I wanna be with. I guess Christine made that choice for me."
This is the heroin speaking. He doesn't mean any of it.
"Maybe that slut walking out on me is for the best, man," he smirked, readjusting his crooked tie, "I mean, after all that she did, I never knew how I'd be able to forgive her. Ha, guess I don't have to now, right?"
Slowly, uncertainly, Vince nodded. "Yeah. Right."
Agony ripped through him. But displaying such an emotion was hardly the first thing that he wanted to do in that situation. Revealing to everybody that he was about to explode into a fit of hysterical tears was absolutely not an option.
Nikki, while still grinning from ear to ear, let him past to go talk to Tommy like what he had originally planned--only now, Vince had to forewarn the drummer of any potential outburst, and inform him that Christine was not going to be witnessing him marry the love of his life.
Covering up his enervating despair with dull humor and snide comments was just as much as use trying to quit his heroin addiction by continually snorting cocaine, popping pills and drowning his sorrows in cheap whiskey. It was futile.
Nikki was, whether he cared to admit it or not, staggering towards the edge of a fully-fledged mental breakdown that would only fuel his impending downward spiral in the year that would follow.
Due to his fierce inebriation, blacking out and forgetting the entire ceremony--even the parts that involved getting into a brawl with Robbin--was just the harsh, ugly reality of the event for Nikki. Not that he was sorry, of course. Being at that wedding was the very last thing that he wanted to do.
But after such a grueling morning, afternoon, and evening of slamming shot after shot, line after line, needle after fucking needle, a come down that would rock his shit was the ultimate retribution for all that he had imposed on his best friend.
"Chris?" Hopefully, Nikki called out as he stumbled through the front door, hoping to hear that velvety tone breeze through the room when she noticed that he had gotten home.
Refusing to believe that she had walked out, just like that, was so very naive of him.
"Baby, come on," he laughed, "I'm not mad that you left me at that wedding on my own, but if you don't show me that pretty face soon I'm gonna start to get a little pissed."
With tears in his eyes, starting to accept the impending doom, Nikki's smile wavered while he ascended upstairs.
"Christine," sternly, though broken, he called again. Nothing.
A dim, though blatantly present, glint of artificial light bled into the hallway through the bedroom door that was cracked open ever so slightly. He was almost certain that she must have drifted off in there, which would've explained the absence of any form of response on her end.
How very wrong of him to assume such a foolish notion.
A piece of crisp white paper decorated with the cursive handwriting that he recognized as his wife's, caused a sensation of nothing but numbness to percolate within his body.
Denying it was no longer an option. He had to accept that this was it.
"Damn it," he sniffled, internally scolding himself for allowing the dam, that'd been building up all day, to burst its banks upon getting a glimpse of the way that Christine would dot her i's with little hearts.
Much like Vince, he had to bite the big fucking bullet.
He had to accept the fact that Christine was gone.
Nikki,
Desolation has ripped through my body, attacking my vital organs, at a velocity that has completely exhausted me and, because of this agonizing hurt, I can only imagine how much pain I have caused for you, honey.
I am so sorry.
I'm sorry for every single fucking thing that I ever imposed on you, Nikki. And I know that me walking out on you, writing a shitty letter in an attempt to convey my innermost thoughts, does not display my genuine desire to repent for my sins, but I need you to believe me when I say; I have never felt more certain about any single thing like I am about this.
Despite a multitude of issues along the way, the last three years of marriage have been the best of my whole life. I've felt more than privileged to call you my husband, and I really hope that you've felt the same way about me. I guess that now, especially after all that has happened, you don't feel that same way, but I just need to to know that my opinion of you is never going to change.
I know that you spent a majority of our relationship protecting me and thinking that you were never good enough for me. Currently, I'm laughing about that. Nikki, it has always been the other way around completely.
I have spent the last three years protecting you from the real threat to your life--me
You were always too good for me. Always. Whether you care to admit it or not, you were always able to do so much better than me.
And that's why I'm leaving--to make sure that you move on, and make happier memories, with somebody who deserves such a kind soul to call their own. I know that you don't think you're a total sweetheart once your tough shell has been cracked, but you are. Absolutely. I wouldn't have devoted my life to you if I just thought you were a huge asshole.
I'm certain that I'm going to regret making such a move, because I've only been away from you for about three hours and I'm already sobbing uncontrollably. But this, whatever this cluster fuck may be, is for the absolute best.
I know that you're aware of what I did and, despite this hurting me to write, I don't expect you to forgive me. I do, however, want you to listen to and vindicate Tommy--he is your best friend, Nikki. He needs you. Of course, I need you too--more than any fucking thing on this damn planet--but you don't need me.
You might think that you need me, but you don't. You thrived before me and you can definitely thrive after me. I'm certain of it. I have every faith in you, like always.
Despite not saying it as often as what I could have, I am really proud of you. Yeah, you're a fucking jerk when you wanna be, Sixx, but you're my jerk. And I'll always think about you, in the most positive light, until I'm unable to think anymore.
I, with my whole heart, wish that the rest of your life brings you an abundance of unconditional love and support from the people that mean the most to you. I also hope that one day you will start to love yourself the same way that I have, and will always, and take care of your health and happiness. Losing you would be the most heart-wrenching thing.
I love you more than words will ever allow me to illustrate.
Goodbye, Nikki. Please don't ever forget me
— The woman who will forever cherish every moment that you have spent with her, Christine. x