Sweet Agony (Slaxl)

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A/n: This fiction contains graphic depictions of suicide and suicidal thoughts. Please, if you feel a strong connection to these themes, you need to get help. Seriously. 

Axl's POV:

I'd learned to tie knots when I was a kid. They always fascinated me. When I became a teenager, I would use them to break open doors to the stores that I would rob. I once used them to keep car doors shut to get away from my asshole 'father.' But when I got older, when those doctors who pretended to care about me put me on pills, I learned to tie them for very different reasons. 

They told me I was depressed. They told me I had a very high IQ, and that I was bipolar. What a load of absolute bullshit. When were they planning on actually doing something about that depression? Never? Fine by me, I'll just use my knots instead. 

I threw the rope over the tree in the park, the noose already at one end. There was just something poetic about going out by hanging. The thought of someone finding your body, suspended there, limp and unmoving, it warmed my icy heart a little bit. And suicide solutions? You've got reasons to live, they tell you. People care about you, they tell you. Well, I'm here to tell you that that is also a load of absolute bullshit. They don't care about you until it's too late, and even then it's just for attention. I stood on the bench, putting the noose around my neck. 

"Don't do it!" A familiar voice screamed, grabbing my legs and stopping me from stepping off of the bench. I looked back, seeing the mess of curly hair. Was he insane? Why did my fucking guitarist want to stop me?

"Why not?" I asked. I was so far outside of my own mind, so far gone. My voice was distant and no longer my own. I wasn't the one in control, I was just playing along.  "Why can't I?"

"I'm counting on you to show up tomorrow. I don't want to take you off of this tour in a body bag." He got up on the bench, pulling the noose over my head. "That'll hurt too bad." Contrary to popular belief, Slash is basically a girl. He's a little bit gay, very emotional, and very forward. I'm numb, acting in passion. We clash like black and white. The fact that we're practically best friends? Unlikely. The fact that he has a small crush on me? Very likely. "Come back on the bus with me. Everyone's wondering where you are."

I didn't move even as he pulled on my hand. "I'm not going back. This is the last place I want to see." I sat down on the bench, and the guitarist followed suit. 

"Have you been cutting?" He asked me, pulling my sleeves up a little bit. He found a few bruises from brutal bar fights, but nothing aside from that. His calloused fingers ran over the yellow and blue marks, and he frowned at the sight of them. "It's still hard to see you all beat up."

"I didn't do it on purpose," I grumbled. "You saw that asshole yesterday. He started the match."

"You've gotta let those fights go." Whenever tensions got too high, Slash would always step in to stop me, always taking a punch if it meant that no one else got to get hurt. He was too nice, too kind. And, like I said, basically a girl. He checked my neck to make sure I hadn't gotten desperate and tried to choke myself, relieved when he found no bruises in the shape of my fingers. 

"Are you done worrying about me?" I snapped. His eyes widened a little bit at my tone, but he shook his head. I knew the answer already. I'd heard it a thousand times. No, he wasn't done worrying about me. He'd never be done worrying about me. There was nothing that Slash would enjoy more than spending an entire day worrying about my well-being.

And I know what you're thinking. You're thinking: So if that's the case, then why should I want to kill myself?

Let me ask you, then. If everyone in the world ignored you, or treated you like you were nothing more than a face on a page, or another notch in a bedpost, and one person treated you like you were made of glass, on the verge of breaking any second, would you feel loved or pretty worthless? I personally believe the latter of the two. Maybe it's different for you. 

"Are you going to stay here until you're sure I'm coming back?" I asked.

Slash shook his head. "No. I'm going to take you back, even if I have to carry you the whole way there. You're not getting off the hook again, this is the third time this month you've tried to kill yourself." He wasn't wrong. Flashbacks of other times when he'd stopped me ran through my mind. "And the seventeenth time this year!" He added. It was only June, if that's of any consolation. "What's gotten into you lately? You're freaking me out a little bit."

"C'mon, Slash, you know I don't talk about that shit. No one talks about that shit except you." I looked at the sky, noticing the stars. If they fell out of the sky, no one tells them to stop because they've got reasons to stay. What makes me so very different? 

"I'm sorry, man. But you've gotta fucking get over yourself. I'm not losing you to the murderer that lives in your brain!" He slammed his hand down on the bench, startling me a little bit. "I want you to talk about it. I want you to tell me what's going on up there."

"Keep dreaming." I crossed my arms. "You're getting nothing outta me." Seeing that I wasn't lying, he stood up. I thought that he was going to leave, but he grabbed me by the waist and threw me over his shoulder. "What the fuck?! What the fuck is wrong with you?!" I wiggled, but he kept his grip on me tight. "Put me down! Let me go!"

"Never."

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Alright, guys. This one's a little bit different. Trying to get that romance going right off the bat. But also, the depression is real.