14 years - Axl Rose x OC

2

–Monday, August 2nd, 1989

    For the usually sunny-go-lucky Lita Monroe, Los Angeles felt like hell in a bottle. The smoldering heat had been preventing the almost 26 yr old from finishing the last of the ballad she had been focusing on for nearly three weeks. She knew she could get it done by tomorrow, if only for the heat; the band would need it by then. The AC kicked on as Lita opened the door of her flat and wandered over to Jack's bedroom, hoping not to disturb him in the process of playing his bass. She looked at his soft features before he saw her standing in the doorway: his dusty-blonde hair, bleached, and only slightly darker than her own.

    "You don't need to stand there and watch, we didn't start a band for you to gawk at me when you can't even finish one song," he stated, only looking up slightly. Jack was always one to joke around. "I would've finished it by now, you know that. It's like the heat melts all the ideas out of my brain," Lita replied, for it was true. Their band, The Silent Cherries, would be releasing their first album in only three weeks, after only four years of composition. Geffen Records had been grateful enough to sign them to the label in late '87, stating that, since their live performances had garnered so much attendance, they would be a real money-maker for the label.

    This new composition would be for their second album, which they hoped to release by '91, if time (and the heat) allowed it. The lyrics were all over the place, however, and the sound just couldn't be found. Their first album had a true meaning, a sound, something specific that set them apart from the other artists, which is why Lita was excited for it to hit the shelves soon. That, and the fame and money could help, if she could be so selfish.

-

    A knock on the door interrupted Lita as she rewrote the second verse of her unsuccessful song currently titled "Reasons to be ugly". Upon Della's entering, Lita couldn't help but yell jokingly, "How can I stop being ugly?" Della, unprepared but unsurprised by the remark, answered a confused: "Excuse me?" Della was always one to ask questions. Ever since her and Lita met in late 1977, the relationship was a constant cycle of questions and confusing answers. Della was only 15, and she worked at the local retro diner in Olympia where Lita, 14, had stumbled into after a fight with her mother. In the twelve years they had known each other, Lita never knew that Della had been a drummer until Jack mentioned the possibility of the three of them forming a band.

    It was that same Jack that had been the one to give their band its name. On one lonely night in 1986, the two 23 yr olds, then only friends, had had a little too much to drink: Lita of the Nightrains and Jack of the Cherry Bourbon Cheer-wine; he had gotten so drunk off the night that the hangover lasted two full days; and Jack was a silent drunk, shut up in his bedroom for the time, where you could only hear the groans coming from him as he moped around. Therefore, the band was branded in remembrance of this occasion, but also because it brought Lita and Jack into their current relationship. Her band did have other members beside them: Melissa, who had answered a flier looking for a rhythm guitarist in the early formation days.

    Jack, Della, and Lita all sat in the couple's kitchen, discussing the album and the California heat, so unknown to Lita (and Jack, who had grown up in the Washington rain). It was probably Lita, bright and cheery Lita, that was the most excited for the album, for she had been working on the lyrics since before the band's formation. But now her spirit was drained and she couldn't spew out a couplet if humanity depended on it. There was no inspiration. She had only ever written about the problems in her life (their first single being about her relationship with her mother), and with everything going right for the first time in a long time, Lita felt drained, that she could never be a commissioned writer seen in the movies or the ones that write the hit pop songs the '80s were now becoming known for.

    Instead, she reached for the remote, turning on the television from her seat on the counter, and facing the chair in the direction of Jack and her small television set, pressed it until MTV came on-screen. Sometimes the music videos they showed comforted her, and the possibility that she could be that to someone else with her own music gave her the confidence to continue music, knowing that other people thought she was good.

    Presently, on the tweaking, old set, was the familiar riff sounds of a band she liked, ending their most recent song. Lita wasn't a fan of the pop music MTV liked to play. She had no problem with it, it just wasn't her style. Instead, she preferred them to play some of the older stuff, throwbacks, like the radios did sometimes: The Doors (she remembered when Jim Morrison was reported dead, it was like losing a friend), The Who, and Led Zeppelin, who she had grown to like in the years following 1976, thanks to the influence of the people in Lafayette, Indiana.

    Now the song changed, whatever it was before became irrelevant, for Della pounced towards the screen when she saw the looks of the curly, dark-haired guitarist she oh so often boasted about meeting once. Lita turned her head slightly away from the second verse, toward Della and her eyes looked onto the second-long clips of Slash that flashed the screen. Lita could tell that, after meeting him at his band's concert last year, the immense crush Della had for the man grew.

    Lita almost looked away from the screen, ready to continue the focus on her failing song, when she could've sworn she saw a familiar face singing on screen. She obviously knew who Guns N' Roses were, the same people Geffen had boasted about being a success, the reason they agreed to sign a similar-sounding band. It had been some time since she last saw those faces, but, just like sometime before, in the far-away past, she thought she recognized a face. This time, instead of the happy feeling of seeing someone new after so long apart, Lita felt cold, angry at this person she thought was someone of the past. A man that was the inspiration behind many lyrics that not even her closest band-mates, not even her boyfriend Jack, had seen. Lyrics are too personal, so much so that she could picture every piece of prose like a scene in a movie, she knew she could never put them out into the world.

    But, this couldn't be him; he was out of her life for good, thankfully, and had been for almost fourteen years. Yet, the nagging electrostatic force that drew her to him all those years ago had been seemingly stirring in these last few seconds, for Lita asked aloud, "Della, who's the singer of this band?" To which Della, being a fan since the early shows, a fan since before the fame, said, "Oh, the singer? That's, Axl Rose. I thought I knew that, Lita."

    She knew that name, or at least a slightly similar version. It was like the Red Sea had stopped its part, for the past came flooding into Lita's mind in a cascade of flashes. This man! So she had known it was him; it would always end up this way for him, he said it himself! Every lyric she had written, every confession she had made into her book of prose filled her brain; every memory of the boy she grew up with, the boy she knew, the boy that broke her into two, the boy that shaped her into the person she was now; that same boy, now a much older man, was now back into the present of her life. After fourteen years! Oh how she wished the feelings wouldn't take over, for they would be the end of her.

1467 words

A/N: Ok, I'm thinking about going back and forth every so often until the story catches up to itself (if that makes sense), so the next chapter will be back in the '70s. The storyline is still a little flip-flop in my head, but the sticky note I originally wrote this fic on is helping me piece it together, so I do know what will happen lol. Bear with me please :)