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

AXL XIV

Oh how I put my darling through hell, oh how...how I hurt him. People love to talk about how Axl Rose put his girlfriend, fiance, wife whatever through hell and he treats me terribly and all the fucking bullshit. The whole thing of how difficult it must be for me to live with him and how much of a misery he must make me.

First of all, I'm fucking married to him. I know him better than you, he drives me up the wall but in the only way I like. I would have filed for divorce months ago, hell, I would never have gotten to the marriage part.

Second, I'm human and I can be a right fucking pain as well, I can be a nightmare. He's put up with a lot from me, I didn't always treat him the best or give him what he needed when yet he always stood by me. He's a rock to me, I love him more than I ever could anything else.

We've struggled a lot but we've also been through a lot, and yet we are still standing. That's all I can ask for now, to still be here and alive.

// Skin of my teeth: A for the record interview with Adrianna Rose, 1995 (aired in 2019)

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w. discussions of past domestic violence, child neglect and abuse, suicide attempt and poor state of mental health. reference to drug abuse/overdose.  very, very brief reference to CSA.

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Axl shuffled across the bathroom tiles, awkwardly shifting as the porcelain of the bathtub pushed harshly into his lower spine, cold and uncomfortable against the thin material of his t-shirt, his blazer rolled up so it sat in odd crumples around his waist.

His knee was twisted away, trapped under his other leg which was crossed and facing the other wall. Axl had never liked crossing his legs, reminders from when he, Amy and Stu had been forced to sit on the living room floor while his step-father had taken up the couch. The rug had been threadbare, some old thing his mother had found in the thrift store.

It had been ugly, a horrible paisley pattern of different greens and beiges. There had been a blue fringe, more a mixture between red and brown, an even more unsightly color than the eyesore of a pattern. His mother had spent enough time at the kitchen sink, fingers rubbed raw after scrubbing down, with that rug pushed in the soapy water. She could clean the water but she couldn't clean her head wound, skin ripped open over her forehead and leaking out dark blood.

"And you left Amy and Stuart with him!"

Axl bit down hard over his lower lip, already split up from the cold late winter winds, the flesh was torn apart from his teeth but it was better than clenching his fists and punching them down into the tiles below him.

The overhead lights were burning holes, the spotlights aimed down over his eyes and scorching them from the inside. They lit the room up, the absence of a window to do it naturally even though any natural night from the sky had long since set. Everything was still the same from hours ago, his razor still sat close to the sink's edge and Adi's makeup was scattered across the surface. Their toothbrushes still sat in the same cup.

Nothing in the room had changed.

"I didn't have a choice. He's all I've fucking got and I have to keep this going."

"At least I can say I fucking tried it. You complain about no relationship but you cut those strings, that was your choice,"

The heating had yet to turn on but the room remained frigid. The metal of his necklaces hissed as they made contact with his skin, the metallic chains dragging across and causing hairs to stand up and the pale color to further drop shades. His knees were bare, threadbare and ripped through to the point the denim was falling off his legs and falling to the floor, messily pooled and wrinkled.