Home Sweet Home (REVISED)

Chapter 52

Since Axl was playing DJ for the night, Queen, which was his favorite band, blasted out of the speakers. Everyone was having a great time, and Matt Sorum turned out to actually be a pretty cool guy. Nikki, Duff and Tommy were all talking, getting even closer than before, if that was even possible after all they went through only a little more than a year back. Vince stood at the DJ table along with Axl, who was acting like a controlling bitch, and Matt, who didn't really know where else to go. Slash, Mick and Izzy were standing by the non-alcoholic punch, talking guitar stuff and other things that nobody else would care to take part in. As soon as "Somebody to Love" was over, Vince looked down at the DJ table, which was his, since they were in his house after all, only that Axl was kind of pretending to know everything about it already. Axl looked back at him, looking as if he owned the place – and the DJ table. "Don't look at me", Vince said, "You're the one who's playing DJ". Axl just rolled his eyes. "No, not that, stupid", he said, sighing unnecessarily loudly, "Let's go do something fun". Matt was just observing the conversation, not really knowing if he should act like he was paying attention or just walk away. Vince scratched the back of his neck. Why, this was fun wasn't it? "But I thought –" "No, it's really not", Axl interrupted, pointing at the others, "They think that this is fun because they're boring". Vince felt offended, even though Axl wasn't talking about him in particular. "Hey, that's my friends you're talking about!", he said, thinking that Axl was being kind of unfair. Axl rolled his blue eyes once again. "Oh, just come with me!", he complained, grabbing Vince's arm and leaving Matt behind at the party.

"Where are we going?", Vince asked, being dragged by his arm by a redheaded singer in the middle of the night, to nowhere as far as he knew. "To the nearest closed store around", Axl replied. Vince twisted his arm out of Axl's grip, now even more confused than he had been when they left his house. "Why?", he asked, "You've got drugs or something? 'Cause I don't do that anymore". Axl just glared at him, kind of confused himself. "No!", he exclaimed, "Geez, I don't do stuff like that; I only drink till I drop". Vince rolled his eyes, and listened to Axl go on. "But that's not the reason why we're here", he continued, then lowered his voice, "We're gonna rob that store over there". He nodded towards a grocery store called Kroger on the other side of the road. Vince immediately shook his head. "No, no way, I'm not doing that", he said, "I've been in jail before, and I do not want to go back there ever again". Axl looked at him with a face that looked like it was going to laugh at him at any moment. "I knew you'd chicken out", Axl chuckled, thinking that he would just rob the store without Vince if he wasn't going to join. Feeling kind of pressured, Vince didn't know what to do next, or if he should act like he actually had some guts in front of Axl, which stood out as this though guy with no fears. He just blurted out the first thing that came to mind. "Fine, I'll do it".