how soon is now? || w. a rose [i/v]

AXL VII

"Some people just can be pushed to the brink, and some people enjoy watching that person be pushed. I just think that Axl had had enough, he'd overdosed back in 86 and never ever touched anything again, he isn't even a heavy drinker. There was something about watching them all waste their lives to heroin that I think really pushed him to finally say something, he may have been late to the gig but at least he would be standing for the next one."

// Tom Zutaut on "Brownstone" incident

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w. reference to overdose, death, suicide, poor mental health

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The store room was stupidly small, it could barely hold the boxes off equipment, and his sneakers were pushed up against the wall. It smelled of dank cardboard and ashy smoke, but that was his fault really, he was smoking in an unvented, closed space with easily flammable materials.

Maybe he'd set the fucking building on fire, the whole thing being consumed by bright flames and stangling ash, melting through the metal and wood and flesh that would be in it's way. But it would be warm, his skin would feel the pattering of embers gentling encasing him, wrapping him up like a blanket. It would hurt and singe through his cells, disintegrating his muscles and flesh and bone until he was nothing, he often pondered on where he would be buried and what name would be on the headstone, but this would be a cremation. He would be nothing but a pile of ashes to blow away in the wind.

His step-father said that only the sinners burned, the pure would be welcomed into God's Kingdom while the sinners would be purged and burned for all eternity, screaming in agony as the fire disintegrated through bodies. How a benevolent God could make someone feel all coming pain for, well forever, was a question not lost on Axl. Not that ever said anything to the bastard, pain for all eternity, but Axl...Bill,  didn't want to wake up at midnight with a torn back and molten tears. He wondered if his real father was burning.

He took another drag of his cigarette.

Only the pure would be saved so Axl supposed he wouldn't be welcome anyway, fucking nobody in this entire building would be welcome, turned away at the door and told to never come back. Perhaps he would be made pure when he burned, all of his evils burned away for good, taking his sins with him.

He looked up at the ceiling, the blank space staring right back through him. He carved his fingernails into his palms, the sting anchoring him to the reality of where he was as tears started to spear through his vision.

"These will be the last Guns N Roses shows you'll fucking ever see. Cos I'm tired of too many people in this organization dancing with Mister Goddamn Brownstone,"

"Well, I hope you liked it, fucker, because it's the last fucking one!"

Axl pushed his forehead into his knees, the rough denim scratching against his skin. He had always struggled to keep his mouth shut, as much as he didn't argue Christian philosophical dilemmas with Stephen he had argued about enough to earn punches and good kicks.

Maybe that's why he had come in here after all. The claustrophobic space that reminded him far too much of the kitchen cupboard under the sink, he had always tried to squish down into it, no matter that he was far too large, anything to escape the belt, even if he could never avoid the boots.

His stomach twisted, his abdomen curling at the phantom boot prints bruising into his ribs. Was this punishment? To continuously be locked in hell just for speaking the fucking truth.

He hadn't lied, he hadn't, that Axl would swear by. They were addicts, they were killing themselves and this for all they knew would be the last performance. None of them fuckers, on stage or otherwise had sit with Steven when he's been in that hospital all night, wondering if that's where Guns N Roses ended, an overdose of heroin and casket in the dirt.