Yesterdays | Slaxl ❦

T H R E E

"In the hour of my death, I shall hold sacred the one good remembrance—and shall thank and bless you for it—that my last avowal of myself was made to you, and that my name, and faults, and miseries were gently carried in your heart."

Axl slams the book shut, throwing it elsewhere in the clustered hotel sweet. He allows those tears that had so despondently stained his cheeks to soak into his pillow, and the words that he continues to read over and over in chapter 13 of the complex book to mock his own thoughts and feelings. Axl doesn't recall ever reading this book and finding it more interesting than he did now; how scrupulously his thoughts related to that of Sydney Carton's, and how simple emotions can make something dangerous of a love so sweet and beautiful. It was a feeling of obstinate desire, something Axl regarded with everything inside of him, and that alone was brazenly petrifying.

The Virgin Mojito resting on his nightstand doesn't look as desirable as he'd hoped it would. And neither does the lack of cigarettes around his room. But he's given everything, and he's surrendered all of his burdening urges to the idea of making Slash proud of him. Making Slash accept him. And Axl wonders how much else he could offer, just the way he's offered his sense of restriction the night prior, how he had come so close to tasting the guitarist on his own lips.

But he keeps telling himself that it's an illusion, just the way Slash keeps telling him that yesterday was nothing more than a moment lost. A moment lost that accompanied the beautiful reality of their love.

When Axl finds motivation within himself to actually get out of bed, he schlepps to the bathroom and sits on the toilet for a good hour; also spending that time to find motivation to continue about his day. Then he goes to the sink, grabs his toothbrush, and leans over the faucet while finding more motivation to simply brush his teeth. After cleaning up, however, Axl still feels like shit.

The messages Dizzy Reed proceeds to send on his phone signal nothing more than what he's wished to hide from in the longest while.

'Havin' brunch in the lobby. Come down!'

And Axl doesn't want to. He doesn't want to sit with tens of peoples who only add onto the mess that was once Guns N' Roses. And out of all of those faces, he doesn't want to find the only two familiar ones that reflect everything that once was. He wonders how they could be comfortable with this band anymore, how they had surpassed the lineup of five people into a plethora of musicians who prance around stage extraneously. Somewhere inside, Axl felt like he had lost what he once called home.

He wishes Izzy would be here, as much as obstinance tells him otherwise. And although Steven had joined for a few shows, he was nothing more than a lost friend, and Axl found that hard to swallow as well. As many ties that Axl has cut off, he couldn't find it within himself to save just one.

He dresses and then schlepps down to the lobby, finding his bandmates— all bajillion of them— conversing lackadaisically amongst one another, passing butter and jam, and sharing confections that Axl felt too nauseas to merely glance at. He caught a glimpse of Slash's dark round glasses at the corner of his eyes, but only made his way over to Dizzy, sitting beside the only other withstanding member and releasing a frail sigh.

"You look like shit," Dizzy musters, snorting. But Axl isn't paying attention to him and more so listening in on the light chuckle erupting from Slash's throat. He steals a look, ears ringing with the high-pitched voice of Slash's sweetheart as she speaks, and Axl wonders if that was what the guitarist simply enjoyed.

Perhaps it was the contrasts between him and this new partner, how much she served to be everything Axl was not; everything that Slash could no longer stand. The lightness of her voice that sang lullabies in which Axl could only obliterate with the deepness of his own. And the frailly of her figure, the petiteness of her hips that looked so perfect with Slash's hands gliding along them. Moreover, Axl could see the happiness she brought Slash, and that was where he comprehensively lost.

Axl was not her. And Slash only wanted her.

"Hey man—"

"I'm fine," Axl says sharply, and he could feel Melissa, their dainty keyboardist, peering at him curiously. He gives her a small smile, but everything he looks at intwines into this spur of nauseating panic. The bright blue of her hair, the smell of the sugary glaze coated over donuts and pastries, the brightness of the foyer, and Slash's laughter.

Slash's damn laughter.

Axl growls, standing up briskly to which the chair falls back behind him. Vertigo pivots through his head, and he rests his hands on the table to regain his balance before seething at all of them, "I'm fine."

Axl was fine. Because Axl had already spent two decades of his life wallowing in this threatening solitude, one of which he suffered through rebuilding an image for himself once again. He'd spent month after month hearing about Slash's success, hearing about the way his antecedent bandmates rallied together to create a supergroup, a band that didn't need him. And he spent those years comprehending how useless he was, how his talent meant nothing to them, how they could go on jubilantly without him. Axl was doing fine, as he had served each morning to loneliness, gazing astringently at the vacancy of his own bed. Or perhaps what added onto this feeling of being okay was having spent each day hearing the ceaseless comments on his changed appearance, and the differences in everything he used to be and what he was now. Axl was fine.

"Axl, just put something in your stomach now," Duff speaks, and Axl snaps his head in the bassist's direction, and he was enraged.

"How could you?" He growls, watching as the expression on Duff's face flicker from ease to astonishment. "You fucking let them say shit about me, you and your stupid Velvet- Gun- Revolving band, whatever the fuck that mess was called!"

"Axl." Duff let's the name exude from his mouth in a strict tone, years of being a father ostensibly showing in his flinty demeanor.

But Axl had years and years of being an asshole up his own sleeve.

"Ya know what, fuck you, Duff. Fuck both of you," he growls, glaring at Slash. "You guys reformed a band with all of the same people— excluding me! You didn't leave Guns N' Roses. You left me."

Axl looks around at all of them, and the tension coalescing within the room speaks louder than any words they could ever dare to emit. Slash glances up at him, and his expression is ambiguous behind his shades, and Axl can no longer tell whether it was age or stress that formed the wrinkles on his face.

Although, Slash doesn't say anything either before Axl retreats back to his sweet.

•.•.•

A/N

Currently up north visiting my family, so this update was a bit short and not as good as I'd hoped it would be.
My apologies, I promise you the next one will be longer and more endowed! <3