𝚛𝚘𝚜𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚛𝚗𝚜 // 𝚊𝚡𝚕 𝚛𝚘𝚜𝚎 [𝚒𝚗𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚙𝚕𝚎𝚝𝚎]

I: If I Stare Too Long

Hello everyone and welcome to my story! This is my first bandfiction and first Wattpad story, so feedback/votes are welcomed, thank you! Thank you for what will hopefully be a journey together through this story and I hope you enjoy reading as much as I enjoy writing. 

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Axl POV

As much as he hated to admit it, Axl Rose fell in love hard, often, and painfully fleetingly. 

And when he first caught sight of Estay Lawrence, she was no exception to the creed of his heart.

~

He, Izzy, Steven, Duff and Slash had been rehearsing their oft-performed covers to perfection, knowing all too well that they would soon have to have the many drafts of original material, scattered orderlessly in various areas of their apartments, consolidated into a few songs to perfect in the same way. They all knew this, even as Slash strummed the riff Axl so often thought would tip into Wish You Were Here; even as Steven nodded his head to the beat in appreciation; even as Axl almost whispered, "...and it makes me wonder," into the microphone. So when Stairway to Heaven was finished, again - such a familiar, yet frustrating, feeling by now - the annoyance that had been bubbling between them for weeks finally raised its head in the form of Izzy's voice.

"I know we're all thinking it, so I'm just going to say it. When are we going to sort through all the ideas for our own songs? We've gotten ourselves into this groove of practising, but we need to be us. We need to stop being a cover band, and start being Guns N Roses."

The sighs that ran around the room were barely visceral as, even though they shared the same trains of thought, no one wanted the others to know their excitement and yet nostalgic reluctance to move away from their much-loved covers and into the new era of truly being Guns N Roses. Despite this, they all knew the truth of the rhythm guitarist's words. That was the thing with Izzy: he said what needed to be said. What they needed to hear.

"I think we all know. I guess the place to start is to sort through the material we've got. Decide what's a drunken hell-no and what's a decent starting point." Axl pointed out, knowing full-well that the drafts in his apartment, in any case, were most likely the terrible results of drunken minds trying and failing to be poetic.

"Then there's no point stalling." Slash broke the words they all anticipated in his measured, deep voice. "It'll be strange, but we gotta start somewhere. Why don't we head to our apartments, dig up the drafts and meet back here in an hour?"

All 5 of them agreed, enthusiasm for movement varying between the high levels of ever-excited Steven and the low levels of still vaguely hungover Duff. Nethertheless, they all stepped out into the corridor of the studios and parted ways.

That was when the lingering Axl caught sight of her.

He had taken a few steps down the corridor, and the door to the next room along was ajar, open halfway. He hadn't meant to linger, but something about the light caught Axl's eye, and he stopped a little further down the hallway, looking back. His heart may have been a stupid, thoughtless romantic, but his mind was sure that stopping and staring blatantly through the door, especially when the person inside was female, was not a good idea.

He soon realised that the room was darker than Guns' due to the fact that the blind was mostly down, but what surprised him the most was that the girl leaning against a stool leg with her back to him, strumming her guitar, was alone - no band, no duo. 

The second thing he noticed was her beautiful hair. Compared to his long ginger locks, of course, it was mundane, but that didn't stop the chocolate-brown crinkles tumbling down her shoulders and falling around her face as she played intently, being beautiful. Wish You Were Here - the very song he had been wishing to hear during its tantalising presence in Stairway - was the melody that flowed from her fingers on the strings, he acknowledged dully.

For once, his captivated mind didn't make that sound dirty. Axl - 1, the brain in his head that Axl both loved and hated - 0.

Unfortunately, said brain was also beginning to realise both the jumps of his heart and the length of his pause in walking. 

He was staring. 

And, forward though it was, Axl could already feel his stupid heart beginning to tip and fall.