Anastasia

Off The Edge

1992

"Slash!" I ran after him, my blood was boiling at the fact that he wasn't listening to me, and the drugs and alcohol were not helping me at the moment in coping with this stubborn man.

"What?! What the fuck?! You don't fucking expect me to go back in there!" he motioned at the door behind the both of us, "I'm not in the fucking mood to deal with his ass, we're leaving." he took my arm and dragged me out of the hallway and into another empty dressing room where his guitars were. I snatched my arm away from him and rubbed it, his grip had left it red. I glared at him and sat on the arm of the couch. 

"You can't just get angry, shut up, and not deal with this shit. What're you going to tell the press? Manager? The label?" 

"That's it right there," he pointed his finger at me as he started packing his guitar, "It's all turned into a fucking commodity. I don't have a say in shit all anymore, unless that son of a bitch, " he pointed at the wall referring to Axl, "Allows me to? What the fuck you think I'd sit around and wait for them to call me and convince me, and be nice to me and let me make my own musical decision? It doesn't work that way Anastasia, not anymore." 

I blinked more than usual at the sound of him using my full name, he never did that, only when he was actually talking like an adult and pissed off and he was pissed off, more than that time Axl jumped into the crowd and left the stage. Well, that was a few times, but Slash had always had to stay, talk to the crowd and clean up after his bullshit. 

I stood up and walked over to him, grabbing his hand away from his guitar case and holding it as I pulled him into a hug kissing his neck, "It's not worth getting angry over, trust me. If this all falls apart tomorrow," I shrug, "it does and we move on to better things. You're so extremely talented, you're more than just this band." I pushed away his hair out of his face and kissed him. He hugged my back almost desperately and buried his head in my neck this time, "Thank god you're here."

The door opened as Duff walked in "Okay so our flight is tomorrow morning here are th- Oh sorry." he came to a halt when he saw Slash and me hugging. Slash broke the hug and wiped his face with his hand.

"It's okay, what ya got?" 

"Just the tickets, you okay man?" Duff said walking towards him and putting a hand on his shoulder.

"Yeah, I just-umm you know, nevermind." he took the tickets from Duff's hand.

"You don't need to say anything, I get you. Sorry about what happened back there man," he offered Slash the vodka bottle that was in his hand which Slash gladly took and gulped down. 

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and gave the bottle back to Duff, "It's okay, you don't need to apologize. It's kind of all our fault." 

"Yeah, man whatever. You guys down for the party tonight right?" Duff said chugging more of his vodka. Slash and I both nodded quietly as he continued to pack up his guitars. "Okay, well see you guys back at the hotel." he smiled and walked out through the door. 

"You don't have to go to the party if you don't want to, we can just do whatever in the room." I shrugged massaging his shoulders. 

"We'll go for a few minutes then if I don't feel it we can go to the room. I don't want the rest of the guys to think I'm in a 'bad mood' or whatever." he stood up holding both his guitars. 

"Okay, sounds good babe. Just relax and we'll have fun okay? You just finished a huge concert, there's no reason to be upset right now, especially not even with him, okay?" I chuckled "You deserve to have some fun." 

"Yeah," he laughed "It seems like I've been on this tour my whole life. Fuck this." 

--

The night had gone a bit too off the edge...as per usual and I left early scared that I would get dragged into anything that I didn't want to deal with or do. Slash continued to do whatever with the boys as I slept with drunk thoughts. The phone call abruptly woke me up and I sprung out of the bed to grab it.