Yesterdays | Slaxl ❦

E I G H T

"And yet I have had the weakness, and have still the weakness, to wish you to know with what a sudden mastery you kindled me, heap of ashes that I am, into fire."

In 1996, Axl truly believed love had departed from his heart, that all invested inside of him could never pertain to the beauty in romance. He was left in what he thought to be a pit, a dark hole he could never get out of before his own desolation and despair could swallow him. But love never disappeared, not when Axl was able to look back on all of his memories of Slash with a heavy heart, and not when he was severely impacted day by day with the grief of losing his greatest partner in life.

And now he had to say goodbye to who he wished would come back into his life again. He had to say goodbye to the possibility of a greater romance, and leave it all at a dead-end of friendship, a barrier in which inscribed the declaration that nothing more could happen.

Axl thought his life was full of illusions, that life was meant to build upon your dreams and fantasies. But the illusion Axl put the most faith into was a massacre in itself, the first sliver of reasoning that dreams don't always come true, and not all desires are meant to be fulfilled. Axl was dropping the illusion that perhaps it was meant to be; perhaps Slash was always to remain his lover. But the reality was brutal, that life had granted Axl a partner he'd be on top of the world with, and at the pique of the fame they'd endure together, it would crash down. He wanted to curse the world, to yell and scream at it for giving him such a wonderful gift with such a harrowing consequence. But it was life.

And Axl didn't regret it.

He didn't regret cuddling Slash for warmth in Hell House, where they were too broke for a heater, and too broke for food and all the basic needs of existing. He didn't regret wrapping an arm around the guitarist on stage, holding him close and taking a moment to salvage the spark of reality he brought to him when the crowd before them only felt like a fantasy. He didn't regret pushing through those wilderness years with the only thing keeping him going being the idea that Slash was searching for his own happiness and purpose. Axl didn't regret bringing Slash back into his life, to not fill the holes in his soul that the latter had carved, but to shine a light through them and show what was needed through the consistencies of desires that weren't.

Axl didn't regret loving to the point of no return. For, he had so much love to give, and so little time in life that elucidated the need for dependency. Axl didn't want to be alone. He didn't need to be.

He was worthy, and he was tender, understanding, and kind. He was everything people overlooked in his past days, and he was everything people didn't want to see. He was loving, and he was willing. But he was damaged from the inside out, and all of it was leading up to this twisted conclusion that perhaps he could have it all again, if only he would be understood.

Axl stopped outside of Slash's dressing room an hour prior to the show, knocking faintly with the remaining audacity wallowing in his spirit. It only took a mere few seconds before the door swung open, and Axl was yanked into the room, an excited brunet wrapping his arms around him.

"Slash-"

"I don't want to go on stage. I don't want to keep pretending, Axl."

"Slash..."

"I want to lose her.. I want to be yours only—"

"Slash, no," Axl spat, biting his lip as he weakly pushed the other's arms down from around him. Amber eyes peered back at him, tear-glazed and squinted with confusion, and Axl felt remorse for what he had caused, but determination to establish his reason behind it. "We can't be with each other."

Slash said nothing, his lips trembling, but his eyes remaining transfixed on the singer. And Axl felt as though he knew what was going through the other man's head, perchance all the memories of what they've created and accomplished together, besotted with each other though afraid to reveal that emotion to waning crowds over the years. Perhaps he was rethinking the bitterness enforced between them, how Axl had ruthlessly ranted about his differences with the guitarist, and how the latter made known he was officially over the band they'd brought fame to together. But now, Axl was letting it go. He needed to.

"We can't be with each other," he repeats, this time holding either side of Slash's face. "But goodness, I love you..."

"How does that make things better?" Slash growls, though remains inert.

"Because I don't want you to think you aren't enough. I don't want you to feel what I endure every single day, because goodness Slash, out of the two of us? You are so loved, and it's because you did everything to deserve that appreciation." Axl frowns, pulling Slash into his arms, his lips just barely feathering along the side of his face. "Letting you go is for the best.. You were never mine to keep, Slash. And she? She's so good for you. She supported you when I couldn't..."

Slash sighs, resting a tense hand on the older man's hip. "But she isn't you. All the things we've been through—"

"Mean the world to me, but they can't keep us from moving on in life, Slash. We're in our fucking fifties!"

Slash scoffs, and the look of amusement that dances across his face for even a mere second manages to make Axl's heart skip a beat. "We knew all along it couldn't last.. Why the hell did we keep trying?

"I guess that was the beauty in it. The idea that we still loved each other but were too afraid to stop it from embellishing."

"Then why stop it now?" Slash's asks, and Axl stares at him for a long moment, bittersweet memories shrouding his mind as he thinks back on everything. He thinks back to the way he rejected Steven, and the way he frustrated Izzy to a point of no return. And he thinks about how he had so brutally ended things with Slash, pushing everyone else away from his life, even those who admired him for his music. He thinks about how he put himself into a position where he rethinks his own faults day by day, hiding behind a facade of confidence and pride when all he felt was shattered. And it wasn't for the best to barbarously destroy the lives of his former friends as he wrecked his own, but it was inevitable. Axl was a transmit for conflict.

He looks back at Slash, and the words that hang off the the tip of his tongue lack the well-endowed bitterness within him. Instead, they are apologetic, and deeply rooted to the thoughts of his very soul.

"Because I love you too much to destroy you."

The End

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"The time will come, the time will not be long in coming, when new ties will be formed about you--ties that will bind you yet more tenderly and strongly to the home you so adorn--the dearest ties that will ever grace and gladden you."- Charles Dickens (A Tale of Two Cities)
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A/N

I couldn't write a happy ending, as things haven't been so happy for me lately, though I tried to write this story as ruefully and beautifully as I could, and I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you so much for those of you who read through, even though the idea of the setting it in the Not in This Lifetime era seemed less interesting then a plot in their AFD days.
I do have another story in mind, though I haven't gotten to fully writing it through. So for you Izzal fans, I assure you a very bittersweet hometown plot within time. If that isn't posted before Christmas, I hope you all enjoy the holidays!
Once again, thank you <3