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

AXL XVI

IZZY STRADLIN AND NEW MYSTERY WOMAN SPOTTED AT WEST HOLLYWOOD RESTAURANT

GUNS N ROSES guitarist Izzy Stradlin has been spotted leaving a West Hollywood restaurant with a mysterious woman by his side. The new beauty, a woman wearing a pale pink dress and high white stilettos, covered her face when leaving and entering the taxi but her dark hair was visible.

This is one of the first times he has been seen since leaving rehab, court ordered after the incident on the flight last August, choosing to keep a low profile and mostly only seen going to the studio, where there has been reported clashes with drummer Steven Adler (see more about the rumors surrounding the drummer and his possible future in the band on page 17).

This is only the latest in romantic news following the band, with Mind the Gap guitarist seen out with Guns bassist Duff Mckagan being seen together outside the Roxy for yet another night, alongside the ever developing engagement between their lead singers.

Is the new mystery woman going to be joining the band as well? Keep reading as we try and find the identity who has the heart of the elusive guitarist.

// Dailymail article, May 1990

_______________________

w. discussions of drug abuse and overdose and poor mental health

_______________________

Axl pressed his head to the back of the brick wall, feeling the hard clay press into his skull. The sun was slowly moving out of the horizon, the sky a mixture of burnt oranges and dark purple. He'd been up since before it had even risen, when it was blacked out with only a ghost of clouds hiding the stars beneath.

It hadn't even been the phone calls, they'd been slowing if only for a small respite. Adi had remained curled down into the mattress for just a few more hours, her face pushed deep into the silk of the pillow and her legs curled up towards her chest. Her hand had been wrapped with his own, resting over her waist as his other arm slowly became numb under her shoulders, the short curls around her temple tickling at his nose. Jasmine. Some things didn't change that much.

Though he wouldn't have called her sleep peaceful, her head often turned and her eyes pinched tightly and jaw clenched, the bones crunching with the movements. Her nails dug down deep into the back of his hand, half moons imprinted into the pale skin until it turned pink underneath the pressure. They were a deep purple color, the same shade that he had met her in.

Axl never pulled his hand away, instead clutching harder. He liked to believe that it eased what plagued her, that she could feel the calluses of his fingertips into her skin that it would be felt within her ribs and heart, slowing its racing beat and calming over the nerves.

She was waiting for a call, one that wasn't arranged and one that never came either. But the one that had started the whole shitshow to begin with hadn't been planned for and that had managed to keep her up all night then, shoulders shaking as she kept the phone pressed to her ear, hands shaking as she asked him to find something to write on.

Axl looked down at the leather notebook in his left hand. It was where his mind had first gone to pick up, as well as the first thing that had been in his eye line on the nightstand, between his glasses and the half empty bottle of pills. They should have been that anyway for when his prescriptions were due.

He hadn't missed one in over eleven months, slowly approaching by the start of June. Even back in December, he had remembered to take them at the correct time. Out of routine more than anything, it had just been easy to set the pills in his hand rather than the steel alloy of the double barrel.