"Do you remember visiting Vince?"
"No."
"Do you remember what he said to you?"
"No."
"He said you needed help."
"Oh."
"Do you think you need help?"
"No."
"Do you even remember what happened to Razzle?"
"No. What happened to Razzle?"
"Lola..."
"Dude, what the fuck happened to Razzle?!"
No matter how many times she hears it, it doesn't feel real. She saw him yesterday... It was yesterday, wasn't it?
"I don't want her in the house! I don't want her in the fucking house! I don't want her near our goddamn daughter, Vince!" Sharise is close to tears when Lola knocks on the door at two in the morning. Lola's swaying and unfocused and blabbering something about Razzle.
"Sharise?" Lola finally asks weakly, and the blonde's furious gaze turns on the strung-out assistant. Vince is on the stairs, rubbing sleep from his eyes.
"Get the fuck off of my property," Sharise tells her, and Lola's lip wobbles, "haven't we gone through enough? Vince is fucking sober, finally Skylar has her father back; don't ruin this for us."
"How is she?" Lola's voice is quiet, but Sharise doesn't let her guard down.
"None of your business Lola, come back when you're sober."
Here is the moment something inside of Lola breaks; the world shifts, like one of the endings in her choose-your-own-adventure of a life had been ripped from the pages. Here is the moment Lola realises that Vince is no longer hers, no matter how much she still loves him. She'd given him to Sharise, but she'd never really let go, not entirely.
Razzle's dead, Vince has a family, and Lola has to let them go.
No more asking after Razzle time and again, getting her heart crushed each time she learns a truth she'd tried to bury in the back of her mind.
"You need help," Sharise tells her, quietly angry before she shuts the door, and Lola doesn't have the willpower to fight the scream that rises in her throat, sick and tired of hearing the same damn phrase over and over again. Sharise threatens to call the cops through the door.
Years later, when asked about 1985, Lola will only remember one thing.
Not technically fired, Lola's in as shit of a state as the rest of the band, spinning their wheels and spending money on the record label's time. Doc won't talk to her, Zutaut thinks she's a waste of money, and Tommy can barely stand to be in the same room as her.
But then there's a light, an angel, who walks in stilettos, wears her feathered hair and sundress like she's about to meet someone's upstanding parents; Nicole, the devil in disguise.
Nicole's an actress, up-and-coming, not that Lola cares. All Lola remembers is the way Nicole had looked at her, like she was the embodiment of everything her management team warned her about, and smiled. Lola remembers 'there's this thing I've been wanting to try' in Nicole's gentle mezzo of a voice, remembers needles, and taking Nicole's shaking hands, and 'it's okay, baby' will spill easily from her lips. Nicole, who's always been on the straight and narrow, will trust Lola's firm grip, will trust when Lola says 'not yet, not right away' and her sharp smile. She'll let Lola give her cocktails of drugs, but won't let her jump straight into injecting smack.
Lola remembers Nicole laying back on the bed she shares with Nikki, wearing a cute lacy bra, high on acid and writhing as Lola's tongue finds her clit. They haven't injected smack yet, Lola's adamant that she needs to try everything else before she feels what it's like to fly. Even though Lola's younger than her, Nicole trusts her judgement.
When Nicole comes, screaming, arching, two of Lola's fingers inside of her, seeing colours she can't even name, Lola, just as high, watching light somehow pour from her open mouth, wants this moment to last as long as possible. Nicole can somehow get any drug Lola asks for, the least Lola can do is to go down on her until she cries.
When Lola goes to get them water, to let Nicole rests, the woman in the bed gasps. When Lola pauses, Nicole's sitting up, looking at Lola's bare back with awe.
"You're carrying civilization," Nicole tells her seriously, and Lola shifts from relaxed to uncomfortable, turning her back to the door, walking without looking as Nicole meets her gaze.
"They're scars," Lola's tone is terse, but Nicole seems not to notice.
"It's a map!"
When Lola gets back, Nicole's smile is blinding.
"Can you feel them?" She asks, as Lola sits down.
"The scars?" Lola asks, offering her a bottle of water.
"The people," Nicole's hand moves to Lola's hip, fingertips brushing the scars on her back, "you've got mountains and plains and cities, it's right there!" And Lola, for the first time in her life, lets someone else explain what they see when they see her scars, and it brings her a strange sense of peace. Nicole's fingers trace the topography of Lola's back with gently awed touches as she explains the civilisations that she sees among the scars, twisted, knotted and shiny.
Nikki comes back to Lola asleep, and Nicole staring intently at her back, as if trying to divine the secrets of life.
"Nicole -"
But she shushes him and waves him over, explains in hushed whispers that there's a team trying to scale Lola's shoulder. He doesn't see anything, but Lola looks so peaceful, so he plays along. Nicole gives him the last of the acid that Lola had set aside for him, and they fuck in the shower while Lola stays asleep on the bed.
Nikki knows where they're headed, the slippery slope Lola's leading Nicole down, but Lola's happy.
When Nicole gives Lola head, it's sloppy and inexperienced, but she's trying so hard, wanting to keep her and Nikki happy, since they're willing to show her the ropes to the things everyone else is too afraid to even contemplate. Lola fists her hand in Nicole's hair, and whines and gasps enough to wake Nikki, and he instructs her on the best way to get Lola off.
Lola remembers being with Nicole as a blur of highs and orgasms, remembers so clearly the sting, the rush, the weightless high, the weight of Nicole's hand on her belly, keeping her pinned, with her head between Lola's thighs while Lola loosens the cord around her arm, lets the heroin circulate through her veins with the erratic beating of her heart.
Then, she'll remembers the gentle way they'd coaxed Nikki down to their level, like he was an animal about to spook. Soft touches, a shoulder bite, murmurs of 'its the best high I've ever had, babe, just trust me', and he does, he gives in to Lola's warm smile and unfocused vision, gives in and then there's a needle in his arm in the bathroom of the recording studio, and Lola's on her knees, unzipping his pants, while Nicole caps the needle and presses messy kisses to his gasping lips as Nikki's eyes roll back into his skull.
"So you're fucking Nikki and Nicole now?" Tommy hears himself asking on one of the few days Lola shows up to the studio. Vince is recording his part for a song that Lola's already forgotten the name of. He's not sure why it hurts, but it does. He's been seeing Heather for a few months now and she's fucking perfect; he tries not to think about Lola, or worry about her, because if he wants to be good for Heather, he's not allowed to get pulled into Lola's spiraling like he would have let himself before.
Lola doesn't answer, just blinks slowly at him. It takes him too long to realise that she didn't even comprehend what he'd said, and by then, she'd left.
Tommy asks Nikki what they're on, and Nikki promises it's the best high he'll ever have. When he shows up to Nikki and Lola's house, he's on edge, waiting for her to pop up, looking sweet and strung out, or mean and feral, and either way he'll do whatever she says.
"She's at Nicole's," Nikki says, when Tommy is sitting on the edge of his sofa, nursing his beer, looking like he's worried the cops are about to bust in, "said you can't be around her, right? Well I still want to show you this, so; compromise." Nikki's bringing what looks like a kit of some sorts from the bedroom, and Tommy agrees quietly.
"You guys all, like, together, like we were?" Tommy asks, and Nikki snorts.
"Like we were?" He asks, and Tommy takes a long sip of his beer to try and hide his flush, "are you asking if Lo loves her?"
"Nah, dude," Tommy tries to brush it off like that exact question hadn't been bothering him since he'd found out about them, "just wanna know what to warn Doc about." Tommy laughs and Nikki rolls his eyes, smiling.
"Lo loves sex and smack, so in one regard, yeah, she loves Nicole, but nothing will ever come close to what we had," he paused where he was preparing the heroin, and Tommy swallows hard at the sight of the needle, "that woman's a hurricane, T-Bone," Nikki told him with a strange sort of seriousness, and Tommy's not sure what to make of it.
Lola doesn't call Nicole their girlfriend, because Lola tells herself that she's not replacing Tommy or Vince with the first person to show her kindness. When pressed, however, Nikki will call her his girlfriend, because otherwise he'd be calling her his dealer, and having two girlfriends is better than admitting Little Miss Perfect gets him and Lola heroin.
Tabloids pick it up, and soon Lola's name is back in the headlines like it is whenever Motley tours. So Lola and Nicole stay inside while Nikki and the rest of the band are practicing their stage show for the upcoming tour, and Lola pretends like it's for Nicole's sake, and not because Tommy had walked into rehearsals grinning like he was walking on air, announcing that he'd proposed to Heather.
It hasn't felt like long, but Lola doesn't even know what year it is anymore, so she buries her hurt heart and fucks Nicole like her life depends on it, because maybe if Tommy can replace Lola with someone as beautiful as Heather, Lola can find solace in someone as beautiful and willing as Nicole.
Nikki knows better than anyone that Lola's hurting, so the three of them live out of Nicole dirty apartment, where Lola doesn't see the ghost of Tommy on every surface.
Lola doesn't come to rehearsals much anymore, but Nikki tells Tommy that she's happy for him.
"No she's fucking not," Tommy rolls his eyes, and Nikki shrugs.
"She wants you to be happy," which is the absolute truth, no matter how much it hurts Lola.
So it's only adding insult to injury when Nicole's manager calls and threatens Lola for ruining Nicole's image.
"You say that," Lola slurs, leaning her forehead against the wall of Nicole's kitchen, "like she's not the one supplying me with smack, dude," and Nicole swears in the other room, demanding to know who it is on the phone with her.
"Calls himself Gary... somethingorother," Lola shouts back, and Nicole swears again, bolting from the room, snatching the phone from Lola's grip. Immediately, her voice is gentle and placating as she tries to calm down the man on the other end. Lola hears him hollering insults, slurs designed to sting, and Lola gives a lazy grin, falling to her knees. Pushing Nicole's underwear to the side, she delights in how Nicole has to bite her lip to muffle her whimpers, but soon enough she's shoving Lola away.
"Not now," she hisses, and Lola wrinkles her nose, heading back into the bedroom.
When she comes in, she's in tears, and Lola tries to comfort her, but Nicole's wrapped up in herself, and the disgust her manager had leveled at her.
"The studio wants me to make a statement, want me to- to- to tell them I'm dating Nikki, and you're just-"
"That I'm nothing," Lola says flatly, the realisation hitting her, though Nicole reaches out.
"You're not -" she tries, before swallowing thickly, pleading expression on her face, eyes full of tears, "I know you're not, baby, but apparent- apparently," she sniffles, "parent groups are boycotting the movie because- because they don't want a dyke tainting their children."
"Even though you're not."
"I'm not allowed to like women, Lola -"
"Because those track marks on your arm show that you always do what you're told," Lola's words ooze sarcasm as she sits back on the bed, ankles crossed, and Nicole looks down at her arms, as if realising for the first time, that injecting heroin as frequently as they had been, had left a mark. Swearing again, tears start making their way down her cheeks.
"Do you like me?" Lola asks, and Nicole looks at her through her hazy, tear-stained gaze.
"I'm not allowed."
"Bullshit. It's a yes or no question."
"Some of us have to care about how people see us!" Nicole cries, but Lola's stony expression waits for an answer. "No," she finally whispers, "it's not allowed."
"Did you just fucking remember that?" Lola asked with a half-crazed laugh, "just decide when you were told you weren't mass-marketable anymore that you'd go back to being the straight part of straight and narrow? I'm a drug-addicted alcoholic dating Nikki fucking Sixx, you should have known from the start that someone like you liking someone like me wasn't fucking allowed."
"Do you like me, Lola?" Nicole hissed, and Lola's mouth snapped closed, "or did you like that I got you smack and made you cum? Or did it get you fucking wet knowing you were corrupting me? Do you fucking love me or not?"
Lola's hands are shaking again, rage and pain coiled tightly in her chest. Lola doesn't cry; Nicole doesn't have that power over her.
"I do like you, Nicole," she says with a thinly-veiled rage, "I could get heroin and an orgasm from any dealer in LA, but I liked you and your fucking company; I was doing you a favour, Miss Mary-Lou, lookin' like a little angel, right? Well you've had your walk on the wild side, whether or not you'll admit to yourself that you like ladies too, that's your fucking business. Ticked weed and crack and smack and acid off your bucket list, now you won't die wondering," Lola rolled her eyes, "but love you? I barely fucking know you."
Lola, high and hurt and spiteful, can't bring herself to go home, instead trudging from Nicole's apartment to the Whiskey-A-Go-Go, just as the night is coming to life around her. People still know her, kiss her on both cheeks and offer to buy her drinks, which she accepts. Every time. There's still various drugs in her pockets, and a guy who she thinks has got cheekbones and a jaw like Tommy lets her do a line of coke off of his chest, and a woman with hair kind of like Heather's offers her a lighter when someone passes Lola a spliff, and everyone starts looking more like them the higher, and drunker that she gets. Heroin up her nose, she finally tries to head home.
She doesn't fight, she falls, breaks her nose on the concrete and stays there, blood pooling, drugs burning through her system, alcohol having her heaving, even unconscious. A passer-by turns her on her side, has someone call 911, and her life's on a knife's edge by the time the EMTs pick her up at the bartender's insistence. Blue lips and unresponsive, her breathing's shallow, and she's rushed to hospital. They pump her stomach and pump her full of chemicals to stabilize her, bandage her nose, and she's pulled back from the brink against all odds.
Nikki shows up the next morning, white-faced and panicked, demanding to know what the fuck happened. News along The Strip is that she died outside the Whiskey.
"Alcohol poisoning," Lola tells him groggily, giving the nurse a pointed look when she makes a surprised expression at Lola's omission of the full truth, "and I broke my nose; everyone's so dramatic." Her voice is low and raspy, and Nikki looks doubtfully at the various IVs, but Lola tries to smile, "they're trying to sober me up all the way; turns out they need some help." She shakes her arm weakly, with a cannula in both her elbow and wrist. The nurse makes a noise, but Nikki's high in his own right.
"You want me to organise a jailbreak?" Nikki stage-whispers, "or a conjugal visit with Nicole?" Which just hurts Lola's heart, her expression falling.
"Nicole doesn't wanna see me anymore," she says quietly, and Nikki wants to ask, but under the supervision of the nurse, he keeps his mouth shut, just nods, "if you want to organise me a fuckin' pizza though, I'd be so grateful, I'm starving." And without further ado, Nikki's off to find the nearest phone.
"Miss Gone, you died last night," the nurse tells her gently, and Lola coughs and clears her throat, "there are some fantastic rehabilitation programs here in Hollywood," she tries but Lola rolls her eyes.
"You don't get paid enough to deal with me," Lola tells her flatly, and throws the remote control for her bed's reclining system against the wall hard enough that it shattered, "I just wanna get out of here and to not worry my boyfriend."
The nurse tries to process that had just happened, but she doesn't have the words.
"You're making a mistake -"
"I've been doing that a lot lately," Lola spits, wincing as she tugs on her cannulas, trying to see if she could get it loose. It wasn't working.
"Please, Miss Gone -"
"Help me out of here," Lola demanded, "or I'll cut my way out." And when she fishes out her pocket knife, the panicking nurse rushes to her aid. By the time Nikki comes back, Lola's almost free, and he seems relieved.
"Mister Sixx," the nurse starts, but Lola shoots her a murderous look, and the nurse wilts, "we just need you to sign some paperwork saying that you'll be getting her home."
"Pizza first, but yeah," Nikki grins, before turning back to Lola, "and the band's glad you're alright; don't worry, they gave you the day off." He jokes, and Lola gives a weak smile. They'd worried about her.
"Fuck, man, I'm so sorry I worried you guys, I was being stupid and went too hard, it was nothing," she tries as they leave, and Nikki wraps an arm around her, tells her it's not a big deal as long as she was alright.
And Lola, recently deceased, feeling the ache of it with every step, tells him she is.