Where There is a Flame Someone's Bound to Get Burned

A Snowy Chemical Wasteland

Slash

Three Months Post Breakup

It's been three months since I've held Izzy. Three months since I've heard his voice speaking to me, three months since I've felt him kiss me and seen his face light up with a smile. He doesn't smile anymore, at least not in my direction. They say things get easier with time; and in some ways they do and in many ways they don't. I'm used to the constant, dull, ache in my chest; but my heart doesn't feel like it's been ripped in two only seconds before anymore. I'm used to spending my daze in a dull, grey, hazy state; but at least they're not completely black. So yeah, in some ways time heals things.

I finally get used to fucking Axl and letting Axl fuck me. That first night was horrible but it got easier after that and one night he asked me what he could do to make it better; so I told him. He did what I asked and stopped being so rough and it got easier. Strangely enough he actually seems to care about me somewhat and seems to think I might one day have emotions again that don't involve pain. I have no such aspirations though. But when he's being nice to me, when he seems to care, when his kisses are soft and sweet, I let myself at least feel less like shit.

Five months post break-up

I don't know what to do; Axl says he's falling in love with me, Izzy won't talk to me and I'm tired of being miserable so I just let my heart go and take a chance on what's happening with Axl. I try and make it work; and for a while it does. I don't love him like I loved Izzy but I sort of care enough to at least try. I start paying for that though when I say the wrong thing one night and he slaps me while he's fucking me. I sit up and shove him off of me and am getting up to leave but he jerks me backwards by my hair and shoves me back down onto the bed. He pins my wrists to the bed and before I know what's happening he shoves himself back into me. "Get the fuck off of me asshole!" I growl.

"I'm not fucking done yet!" he yells at me. I keep fighting him and he backhands me hard and I feel blood running down my face from my nose. This seems to set something off in him and he cums hard inside of me. I just lay there looking up at him and he looks so ashamed of himself. "I'm so sorry," he whispers and then gets up and runs out of the room. It's my room so I don't go after him.

I just lay there for a second and then get up and listen at the door. It's quiet in the hallway which means I can make it to the bathroom with no one seeing me. I open the door and quickly move down the hall and into the bathroom that Duff and I share. Axl has the master suite so he has his own bathroom. I share one with Duff and Izzy shares one with Steven. I walk in and flip the light on and lock the door behind me. I pull my hair back and inspect my face where Axl hit me. It doesn't really look too bad but it's going to need some ice. I wash the blood off of my lip under my nose and no more blood runs out. I walk down to the kitchen and grab some ice and wrap it in a towel and apply it to my face.

When I get back to my room Axl is sitting on the bed wearing only a pair of jeans and tears are running down his face. "Slash, I'm so sorry! I never should have hit you! I don't, I don't know what happened; I'm so sorry! Not a word about grabbing me by my hair and continuing to fuck me after I pushed him off of me but really it was the hitting that hurt. He swore it was a one- time thing; then it happened again and then it was once a week, then every couple of days and now violence is just part of our daily routine. It's not that I don't hit back; sometimes I do but I feel even worse when I do then when I don't.

Every time we it gets violent between us though he comes crawling back to me, sobbing and crying about how sorry he is and I'm so fucked up that a lot of the time I really don't care so I just say it's fine, that I forgive him, anything to get him to stop crying. After a while getting hit and having Axl hold me down or tie me up and fuck me just gets to be something that happens almost every day. I just shoot up a little more on those nights and the block of ice in my chest that used to be my heart grows a little colder.

We start touring again; this time as the headliners. We've finally hit it big and I couldn't care less. I don't care about anything. The only person I cared about stood opposite me on the stage every night and acted like I didn't exist. He saw the bruises on my face if Axl left marks and turned away. So my heart turned into a snowy, chemical wasteland and stayed that way thanks to large quantities of dope.