Love Me Tender (W. Axl Rose) (Izzy Stradlin)

Chapter Twenty-Seven

It felt like the world was spinning around me, I had to sit down or even kneel just hearing Izzy say those words. Axl on the other hand was in a rage, almost picking things up and tossing them across the room at Izzy.

Duff and Matt seemed to have urged to my side as they noticed I more so tumbled to the ground than steadily knelt.

"We fucking trusted you Izz! How could you fucking lose a baby?! Just how!" Axl's yelling continued on as Izzy dodged the occasional item that was aimed at him.

"I don't know! God dammit!"

"You a'ight Ethel? Here we'll get you somewhere you can lay down." Duff calmly helps me from the floor and pulls me up to my feet.

"Matt sort him out before he kills Izz. Try and get him in the room with Ethel. She needs him more than he needs to rip this room apart." Duff then says before leading me into the bedroom and helping me onto the bed.

"I can't just lay here, I need to find my son." I say in a weak voice.

"You need to rest some bit, we will all help find him. I promise you Ethel we will find him."

Laying down, I stared up at the ceiling as Duff left to help Matt restrain Axl. It was hurting inside my chest, the pain was bearable but I could still feel it. Tears trickled from my eyes and soon enough I rolled onto my side trying not to make a sound as I cried. I felt pathetic, I could barely stand up on my own feet and now I was laying on a bed crying to myself. This wasn't finding my son at all, not one bit.

It had taken probably five minutes until the other room fell silent and the yells could no longer be heard. Faintly I could hear a voice every so often, but it was in between my sniffles and choking sounds. Before long, I felt a weight on the bed in front of me, on the edge. Opening my eyes, I took in Axl's appearance as he sat by me, his hand now rested on my waist as I laid on my side. As he turned his head to me I could see the pink flush on his cheeks, from the obvious yelling and fighting, God knows if he started using his fists.

"Don't cry darlin'." Axl ushered. "We will find our son."

I wasn't sure exactly how long until I was back up on my feet frantically running up and down all of the floors of the hotel, banging horrendously upon other stayers. I was in an almost FBI mode, feeling as if I had to question and feel suspicious around every person that opened their door. For all I knew, they could have been the person who kidnapped my son. I didn't care who's door I was banging and barging into, I was more concerned on finding my baby. He couldn't have gone far, surely he had to be in the hotel somewhere and I was determined to find him.

Breaking down into tears, I was now stood in the elevator, the door simply closed as I was stood in there alone. Leaning against the wall, I hugged myself and hunched myself over. I didn't know what I was meant to do, how was I suppose to find my son in a foreign hotel with quite a large amount of rooms and floors and a foreign city. I couldn't trust anyone, for all I knew I could have knocked on a door already that had Nathaniel hidden out of sight. Mental images of Nathaniel being swept away in another persons arms tortured my mind. The anxious thoughts of someone doing everything in order to hurt him had me almost throwing myself onto the floor. How could someone take an innocent baby? To take it away from it's mother and father? There had to be some really sick and psychotic people in this world to do that. Obviously one's that didn't care or have a heart. They didn't care, they were blood thirsty and just to hear someone scream was pleasure to them. Music to their ears.

Hearing the doors of the elevator open, I kept my attention down as my eyes were blurred from my tears.

"Oh Ethel." Izzy's voice broke the silence, causing me to look up at him. From the tears in my eyes, I could actually see two of him. "I'm so sorry." He looked as though he was about to break down himself. He slowly stepped towards me before pulling me into a hug, I didn't hug him back I simply rested my face into his chest.

"How could you do this to me. You lost my baby. My Nathaniel." I cried into his chest, his hand tangled itself into my hair, massaging my scalp.

"I didn't mean to. I'm so sorry it was a complete accident! I swear, I love Nathaniel like he was my o- like a nephew." Izzy whispered to me, his other hand was rubbing circles into my upper back.

"I can't do this." I say pushing him back, startling him. "This isn't finding him, this is me being pathetic." I say rubbing my eyes.

"Eth, you're not pathetic, you're fucking devastated, a mother who can't find her baby." Izzy looked down at me sympathetically.

"Well, if you would have paid attention in looking after him for a few hours, we wouldn't be in this mess now would we?" I was clearly blaming Izzy for Nathaniel being missing. I had every right to blame him, yet somehow I also couldn't completely blame him. I could see Izzy already felt guilty enough, he had the world on his shoulders and the anger of his best friend and his best friend's partner on his case.

"Look, I'm sorry Izz. It's not your fault. But now I got to go." I push past him. I had to keep on searching, even with as much as I wanted to crawl into a ball onto the floor.

~

I had already knocked down every door upon the hotel before finishing at the first room on the first floor, there were no rooms on ground floor so I knew exactly that this was the final one. Standing up close to the door, I pushed my forehead against the door and breathed in deeply. At the last minute, I had noticed the 'do not disturb' sign on the door, but ignored it. Oh Nathaniel, where were you? I needed to know where you were and to have you safely back into my arms.

"Last door, huh?" Axl's voice murmured closely behind me. He knew I was a mess, he honestly didn't exactly know what to do about it either. I knew deep down he had began to love his son, and he wanted him back but he didn't know exactly how to feel about the entire situation. Of course he was enraged with Izzy, it was obvious, but he didn't know how to react. His arm slithered around my waist and pulled me a step back so we could knock.

Axl reached out and knocked rather hardly upon the wooden door and for a few moments we waited, hearing somewhat rustles and voices behind the door. Soon enough, the door was wrenched open with not an impressed looking Arnold Schwarzenegger. Surprised by who answered the door, I couldn't help but look him up and down, my eyes scanning his body building toned muscles behind his white tight fitting shirt. He was everything he was in all of the movies he starred in. He sounded and looked exactly the same, his accent was exactly the same as well. There weren't many actors like that, who looked and sounded the same on the movie screen to reality. It was refreshing to see.

"Can I help you, did you not see the 'do not disturb' sign?" Arnold was not talking to us rudely, but it was clear that he was not happy about being disturbed.

"Arnold." Axl breathed, obviously Arnold hadn't of seen Axl behind me. How? Who knows, I mean surely you couldn't miss the fiery headed Guns N' Roses front man behind me, well it was Arnie, maybe he didn't care all too much.

"Mr Axl Rose, what can I do for you?" Arnold looked rather surprised, a small smile crossing his lips.

"Sorry to disturb you Arnie, but my partner and I were wondering if you may have seen a baby? Our baby has gone missing." Axl explained. Just hearing those words, I couldn't help but tear up. That was our reality, Nathaniel was missing. Arnold's mouth almost fell to the floor, he looked shocked.

"You have a baby?" Arnold was in disbelief, that was before he shook himself out of his thoughts. "That's not the point, I'm terribly sorry for you both, but, no. I haven't seen anyone around here with a baby." I could feel my chest tighten up and a couple more tears fall from my eyes.

"Oh okay, thanks anyway." Axl gives Arnold a slight nod before we trudged off heading for the lobby. We had to now go to the lobby and of course, bring the police involved. It would now become a missing persons case.

"Axl wait." We could faintly hear Arnold's voice as we were about to walk into the elevator. Turning around, Arnold had quickly made his way over to us, sadness and sympathy in his eyes.

"I want to help you find your baby."