Not just any rain, Georgia rain. The kind that comes out of nowhere, ruins the entire day. One second it’s gorgeous outside, the next it’s pissing down buckets and you feel like you’re inhaling warm soup. Georgia rain gets into everything. It worms under doors and around the cracks in windows. It makes your food taste like ashes and your cigarettes taste like stale death and your liquor taste like nothing. It’s hot and wet, so humid that it drags everything down. No one goes out in a Georgia rain.
Except Izzy.
I didn’t know he was missing till Duff came to my room. Stuck his head in the door, all shaggy and puzzled, and asked me had I seen Izzy. No. What was I, Izzy’s fucking keeper? So Duff had left, wounded and drunk, to go find Slash. Guitarists are interchangeable. He just likes them to pet him and say he’s pretty. Duff’s easy like that.
I counted to three hundred after he left, just to be sure, then grabbed the room key and set off on my own quest. I wasn’t as drunk as Duff was. It occurred to me to look outside the hotel. There were several options. A gas station, a titty bar, an all night grocery store. I know Izzy, though, and I knew where he’d be. It’s a ten minute walk in the rain, but I find him. Crazy fuck.
“What’re you fucking doing out here?”
He doesn’t answer me for a while, and I start to think that he hasn’t heard. Then his head tips back and he focuses on my face, the little spark in his eyes the only sign that he’s glad to see me. He still doesn’t say anything, so I repeat myself.
“Nothing,” he shrugs, aiming his gaze back at the little bar. He looks like he’s been in this parking lot for a while, hiding behind an old station wagon. His shirt, thin and white, is sticking to him like a second skin and his jeans are so soaked that they’re black. “Just needed to get out.”
“Jesus, Izzy.” There’s not much else to say. Get out? What is he, insane? The rain is cooler out here but just barely. I’m starting to feel like I’m drowning in the humidity. “Why don’t you fucking go inside?”
“Defeats the purpose of getting out.” He’s talking so soft that I barely hear him over the pattering rain drops. I crouch next to him grudgingly and he grins a little. Fucker.
“You waiting on something?” He throws me an impatient look, eyes slanting a little towards me, lips thinning. I know that look. It’s the one he always gets when someone has said something he considers idiotic. Fuck him, he’s the one sitting out in the rain. I’m not the stupid one here.
“Did you need something?” he asks, and there’s a sharpness in the words that makes me bristle.
“Duff was looking for you.” Not really an answer at all, but it’s about on par with what he’s been giving me to work with. “I knew you’d be out here.”
“Yeah, you did.” He grins at that, like he’s just told himself a fucking fabulous joke. I notice for the first time that he’s barefoot, toes curling and splashing in the little puddles around his feet. What an asshole. “Sit,” he offers. “Listen to the music.”
“I am sitting.” Not really. Close enough. I’m not slapping my ass down on the pavement for him. Bad enough that I’m out here at all. “Anyway, I can hardly fucking hear it.” There is a faint melody issuing from the bar. Mostly all I can pick up is the bass line.
“Give it a sec.” I glare at him, but he either doesn’t notice or pretends not to. This whole mysterious loner in the rain bullshit is starting to get to me, though. “Once you tune out the rain, you’ll be able to hear.” I roll my eyes but, for some fucked up reason, I indulge him.
“Yeah, okay, fine,” I say, begrudging him each word. He fucking knows it too, I can see it in the way he slouches forward. “What song are they playing?” That irritating little smile tugs his lips and he glances over at me.
“Three Times A Lady,” comes the answer, and I nearly slap him in the head.
“That song fucking sucks, Iz.” He shrugs, a full-fledged smile on his face now. I resist the urge to smack it off. The rain beats down a little harder, and any part of me that was clinging to dryness surrenders with a wail. It’ll be three days before I dry out totally.
“It does,” he agrees, and I don’t trust the glee in his voice one fucking bit. “Reminds me of you.” I start to tackle him, but he’s expecting it and he’s on his feet and away before I can even turn.
“Asshole!” I howl, and between me yelling and him laughing and the rain pouring down, I can’t even hear the bass anymore. By all rights, I should be furious with him. I’m soaked to the bone and he’s lobbing insults at me without having the decency to sit still long enough for me to hit him. But there’s something wild about him tonight, something not quite right. “The fuck is your problem, man? Are you high?”
He shakes his head and his toes curl against the pavement, stirring rocks. I can hear that plain as day. His smile fades a little, but there’s a crazy edge in his eyes that makes me wonder. Palms out, I step forward. He starts to shy away but evidently decides to trust me, cause I get right up in his face, peering at him. It’s hard to see in the dark and the rain, but he’s not high, and I can’t smell any liquor on his breath. Fucked up.
“Wanna dance?” he teases, snaking an arm around my waist. I start to shake my head, shove him away. He’s being a total asshole tonight, and I’m not in the fucking mood. But he pulls me flush against him and there’s something about the way we fit together, sodden and lean and, somehow, mostly sober that makes me pause. That’s all the invitation Izzy needs and before I know it, he’s sweeping me around the parking lot, laughing into my ear.
“Fucker,” I mutter to him, but I don’t mean it. I like the way I can feel his amusement rumbling through his chest, and I like the way his wiry arms feel around my waist. It’s sick and fucked up, but hell. We’re in a shithole parking lot in a shithole city dancing to a lousy song, and Izzy is laughing it up like it’s the best night he’s ever had. All I can really do is surrender to the surrealness.
It actually gets to be kinda fun. Like something we would have done back when we were young and stupid, swiping cases of beer from the gas station down the road and getting drunk behind an old warehouse. We’re not wasted now, but there’s something kinda hazy about tonight, something warm and loose that makes everything hilarious.
“All right already,” I tell him as the song ends. Somewhere during the dance, I started hearing the music. Maybe Izzy was right and I just needed to tune out the rain. Maybe it’s something else. Either way, it’s done now and we look like a couple of assholes. “Song’s over, dipshit. Let me go before people think we’re a couple of fags.”
He stops, all the laughter and fun draining out of him. I can feel it beneath my hands, the way he deflates like a fucking popped balloon. “Yeah, right,” he mutters. “Fags.”
“C’mon, Izzy, don’t fucking be like that.” I don’t mean to snap, but it comes out that way. If he doesn’t understand, that’s fucking fine, but he’s usually real good about not pushing my boundaries. “I danced with you.” The more I think about that, the weirder it gets. The fuck is this all about? Izzy’s losing his goddamn mind.
“Guess you did,” he answers, but his arms stay right around my waist. It’s starting to get uncomfortable being so close to him. Even through the rain, I can smell him. Cigarettes and free hotel shampoo and old beer. Fucker needs to bathe and wash his clothes. We all do. I start to shove him away again, but he’s faster than me. He’s always been faster than me.
His lips are on mine and I react on instinct, tipping my head back. It’s so fucking weird that I don’t even register the fact that it’s Izzy for a second. All I know is that I’m getting kissed and, slut that I am, I respond to it. Izzy kinda pauses a second, like he’s surprised, then his head tilts and his tongue is in my mouth.
You never really think about how your best friend is gonna taste if and when you finally get around to kissing him. It’s just one of those things that never seems to occur to you till it happens. I sure as hell never thought about it. It’s strange, though, because when you know someone the way I know Izzy… it doesn’t really surprise you. He tastes like cigarettes and chewing gum with a little alcoholic tang there in the back of his throat. If I’d bothered to consider it for a second, that’s exactly what I would have expected.
He pulls back after a second, cool and calm, watching me while I pant and flush in the rain. I suck at hiding how I feel, so Izzy can see it all. The anger and guilt, the disgust, the confusion. The arousal.
“Let me go.” He does, without even thinking twice, and that stings a little. He wasn’t kissing me like he’d die if he didn’t have me, but still. Fuck. I think I’m worth fighting for, but evidently he doesn’t. “You fucker. Why the fuck would you wanna do something like that?”
“You didn’t mind it,” he answers, all mild and soft. It makes me want to hit him. Hell, it makes me want to bash his fucking skull in. Asshole! I don’t, though, because I’m pretty sure Izzy could take me, and I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t hesitate to do just that.
“The fuck I didn’t,” I sputter, throwing my shoulders back, all bravado. Izzy rolls his eyes at me and I start rethinking my decision not to smack him.
“Fine, Axl, just go back to the fucking hotel and jack off,” he mutters, shifting to face the bar again. I just kind of stare at him for a minute, shocked. No one brushes me off like that, especially not if they’ve just kissed me. Asshole. Motherfucker. I’ll fucking show him.
Izzy’s not expecting me to grab him by the shirtfront, so he stumbles a little when I haul him around. Perfect. With a little growl, I crush my lips to his, considerably less graceful than he was a second ago. That’s not really my concern. I’m more interested in tasting him again, and in making him want me.
I don’t have to try to hard for that one, it seems, because as soon as we’re touching, he takes over. Arms around my waist, hands pressing into the small of my back. He forces me to bend back a little so that I’m the one off-balance now. Fuck it, I don’t care. I’ve got Izzy back where I want him; wanting me. He even moans a little, and I suck the sound up greedily, swallowing it down.
The rain is the only thing that gets between us, omnipresent, trickling into the gaps between our lips as we shift and war for control. My hair sticks to my face and his skin is obscenely slick beneath my fingers as I run a hand roughly down his neck. Soaked as they are, our clothes do a terrible job of hiding our arousal; I can feel his prick, thick and hard and needy against my thigh as we gasp and clutch and cling.
“Izzy… fuck…” I almost hate the whine in my voice. Almost, and then his teeth are on my jaw, grazing my skin, and I know it’s over. He fucking wins.
“Jeff,” he corrects roughly, and I laugh at him. That’s so fucking cute.
“Jeff,” I answer back. His teeth close on my earlobe, tugging sharply, and I reward him with a soft yelp. I can feel the smug smile against my neck, then his lips part and he’s sucking and licking the water off of my skin. “Fuck,” I breathe, tugging at his shirt. “Let’s go back…”
“Back where?” he mutters, genuinely confused. God, what a fuckface.
“Back to the hotel, asshole,” I answer, tangling my hands in his hair. The sodden strands seem to wind around my fingers, holding me there. It’s an uncomfortable sort of thought. “I’m not gonna fucking make out with you in a parking lot, for fuck’s sake.” To hell with making out, I want a lot more than that. My mind hasn’t quite finished cycling through my options, but I know that somehow the end result is going to involve me and Izzy and a pronounced lack of clothing.
Izzy draws back a little, shaking his head to dislodge my hands. What the…? “I’m not going back to the hotel,” he protests. It’s so dark that I can’t actually see his eyes. They just look like black hollows in his angular face. There’s a thinness to his mouth, though, that wasn’t there before. The fuck is going on?
“Why not? You some kinda exhibitionist or something?” I laugh a little, sidle closer. Izzy pulls back again, mouth turning down in an expression I know all too well. It’s his stubborn look, the one he gets when he’s got his mind set on something and doesn’t intend to budge. “C’mon, man, what the fuck is your problem?”
“I’m not gonna fuck you, Axl.” It kind of feels like getting punched in the gut. I don’t even know that I wanted him to fuck me, but the fact that he’s turning me away so casually is… insulting.
“Maybe I don’t want you to,” I snap, wrapping my arms tight around my torso and shivering. The rain is getting steadily colder, and I don’t have much in the way of protection. A thin jacket over my t-shirt and a bandana on my head. I can’t even feel my toes anymore. Izzy isn’t worth all this, not even close. “Fuck, Izzy, you’re the one that kissed me, remember?”
He shrugs and I almost swing at him. I fucking hate when he does that. I fucking hate watching him roll over and accept whatever I lob at him. It’s been happening for years and it never stops getting on my nerves. Especially because I know that when it matters, he’ll fight me.
“What’s this all about then, huh?” I shove him a little, just my fingertips against his shoulders, but he takes the step back and ducks his head. Goddamn it! “You just figured you’d have some fun or something? Act like a fag and then back off? That’s not fucking funny, Izzy!”
“That’s not it,” he says, lifting his head. I still can’t see his eyes, but I know they’re focused on my face. I can almost imagine how they look, eyelashes clumped together by the rain, pupils dilated in the darkness.
“Then why don’t you tell me what the fuck it is?” The bar is going to close soon, people are going to come out to their cars. It isn’t a situation I relish. Izzy just shifts, feet shuffling against the rough concrete of the parking lot.
“I can’t.” It’s a simple statement, but I know Izzy. I know the way he is, and what he’s saying when he doesn’t actually say it. He thinks that whatever is going on in that fucked up brain of is, I’m not gonna get it. He’s already made that snap judgment about me, and it’s likely that nothing I can do is going to change his mind. Find. He can have his goddamn secrets.
“Whatever, man. I’m going back.” He shrugs and turns back to the little bar, eyes fixing on the flickering neon. He looks real good like that, dark hair plastered to his face, eyes all sad and brooding, lips swollen from where I’ve kissed him. I fucking hate him for looking so good.
It’s a long walk back to the hotel, and the rain doesn’t seem so romantic anymore. I snort and shake my head a little. Did it ever seem romantic? Yeah. It did, when Izzy was sweeping me around the parking lot, kissing me like his life depended on it. Yeah, it seemed romantic. Like a goddamn Hollywood musical. Fuck you, Stradlin.
Duff catches me before I can make it to my room, and his puzzled little alcoholic stupor just irritates me more. “You found him!” he says, and I stare at him like he’s lost his mind. He doesn’t notice. There’s a fresh bruise on his neck, little rosy tooth marks against his pale skin. Fuck that. Fuck him and fuck Slash. They can all just go to hell.
“Yeah,” I mutter, slamming into my room and closing the door firmly in his face. There’s a muffled protest from outside, and I pace into the bathroom to take off my dripping clothes. I’m not getting any sleep tonight, I can already tell that. I’ll be too busy waiting for Izzy to knock on my door, even though I know he’s not going to. Bastard.
