Made In Basalt

Serious Need

Axl Rose sat at the desk in his dorm room, tapping his pen against the worn, second-hand textbook he was staring at. The chemical formulae on the pages were starting to blur together, and the incessant drone of his friend's voice as he paced back and forth behind him seemed to be getting louder.

"I'm telling you, man, if they get a taste of your shit, and I'm the one supplying, they'll let me be a prospect! And if I get to be a prospect, it's only a matter of time till they let me become a full-patch. This is a huge deal for me, man, you gotta - "

Axl slammed his textbook closed, spun his chair around, and and slapped his palms onto his thighs, glaring at the skinny blond idiot who'd invaded his living quarters.

"You're forgetting one thing, Jimmy."

Jimmy blinked at him, the excited light huge blue eyes dimming slightly at Axl's tone.

"What?"

Axl lifted his hands up, fingers curled into rigid claws in a gesture of exasperated explanation. He spoke very slowly.

"I don't give a fuck about you joining a bunch of motor-boners with beards. I don't care. It does not make a difference to my life, does not benefit me in any way, and if they put a little heat on you when they decide they want the actual supplier - "

Here he jabbed a finger towards his own face.

" - I have a feeling you'd sing like a fuckin' Chinaman."

Jimmy frowned, then let out a honking of forced laughter. "Oh, I get it. Because sing is like a common surname in Asia. You're - you fuckin' tear me up, you know?"

Axl was still grimacing as the sound of that shrill honk rung in his ears, letting his hands fall back onto his lap. "Kissing my ass isn't gonna work, Jimmy. You're not supplying my shit to a goddamn biker gang and that's final. Now get the hell out of my room, I have studying to do."

He hooked his foot round the bottom edge of his desk and used the leverage to spin himself around again. Growling in frustration, any attempt at flattery now abandoned, Jimmy grabbed the back of Axl's chair and spun him roughly back round to face him, nearly toppling the chair and the redhead sitting on it to the floor.

"What the fuck - "

"What are you even studying? It's August, school literally just started," Jimmy grumbled, shoving past Axl to peer at the textbook.

Readjusting himself on the chair, Axl slapped Jimmy's hands off the pages. "See, it's questions like this that are the reason why I'm on track to graduate with a 4.0 in the hard sciences, and you had to take summer classes for failing Communications."

He said the last word with a derogatory sneer in his voice, and Jimmy stuck a finger in his face.

"Communicate this. Elitist asshole."

Axl pushed the other boy's finger from his face.

"That doesn't even make grammatical sense."

"You're a selfish sonofabitch, you know that?" Jimmy snarled at him. "Give me one good reason why you won't help me out here. One good reason."

Axl scoffed, shaking his head as he looked his friend up and down disparagingly, groaning when he saw the dried clumps of dirt on his shoes, and the grey-brown footprints coating almost the entirety of the pale beige carpeting.

"How about 'I don't do favours for dirty assholes who go around crapping up my floor'? How's that for a good reason?"

Jimmy rolled his eyes. "Aw, Jesu - "