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

ANDY IX

"I remember in December 1989, that I found Axl with a gun next to his piano. It was stupidly cold for Los Angeles, it was really windy but it wasn't raining and I was just coming home with shopping, groceries, beer stuff like that. I enter the living room through the hallway, and I dropped everything, things broke, they rolled around, they smashed because he was hunched over the piano and it was sawed off and single barrelled, if I remember correctly, and it was sitting in his hands. He was silent and he wasn't pointing it at anything, not me or himself, it was just sat in his hands. I was still shit scared but it was better than if he was pointing it at himself.

There was also a broken platinum record on the floor, he'd fully kicked in the stereo near the TV, everything had obviously built up over a while, he had been at the studio and things had been getting worse and worse for a while, GNR just couldn't stop arguing ever since, well ever since August to be honest, but especially after Izzy went to rehab.

I'm not going to say it's all about heroin, there were a lot of creative differences in how they wanted the band to go, and what even the sound of Guns N Roses was going forward. But there is no mistake that it was to do with heroin, the others were getting worse and just dropping more each day. It was hard, on all of us, but especially on Axl."

// Council Housed and Violent: Adrianna Rose in her own words, 2008

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w. heavy discussions of suicide, some body horror, past domestic abuse

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Axl was still yet to move. Even with the intrusive violent sound of the crashing cans and glass on the floor, and the obvious knowledge that she had now entered the dwelling. That was the closest it could be described, the now deep expanse of the night sky visible through the window, all traces of daylight gone, and the dark walls of the living room closing in the room.

The broken and destroyed stereo, with its ripped up wires resembling great vines sweeping across the floor, and the smashed glass of the platinum record providing a dangerous path towards the instrument in the corner. Andy was glad she was still wearing her shoes, as she looked down at the laces of the steel toes, she could swear the dark walnut floor was a squeaky uncomfortable grey.

Every step would be like walking in a jungle, the dangers and traps lining the floor, all in the attempt to find the lost animal in the corner. But this was no loud tiger that had been outside the Vegas studio, bared snarling teeth and wild blazing green eyes all gone, leaving only the splayed, split ends draped across the glossy piano top, the rusty strands falling down the side like blood.

No sharp claws and screaming roars. Only a silence sometimes split by the odd whisper of a cry. A wounded fox, encircled in a trap, the metal shackles bleeding across the floor as they held firm, completely blocked from trying to run. His feet weren't even on the floor, the bare skin pressed firmly down into the stool, tucked under his chest and his shoulder curled protectively down.

The gun still sat perched between his fingers, they were no were near the trigger, thank fucking God. She was under assumption that the safety was off, or whatever. What in the fuck did she know? It wasn't directly pointing towards anything, himself, her, nothing in particular.

But it wasn't fucking nothing, in what universe was your boyfriend holding a fucking shotgun normal?

She felt like tearing her hands through her own hair, ripping and pulling at the strands because what was she supposed to fucking do? And how hadn't she known? He must have been in so much fucking pain, his body bleeding and bruised, his mind twisted and torn to even be in this situation.