#the idea that we’re finally looking under the hood and getting to the nitty gritty

[stagefoureddiediaz]

I am very 👀👀👀👀 at the fire engine (can’t tell 100% but I think it’s the engine not the truck) in the back ground of both the Bobby&Eddie still and the Buck&Eddie stills. Suggests the two conversations are going to happen in shortish succession.

Looking under the hood?? Working on the engine - on the thing that makes you who you are. I see you and I think I like the analogy and symbolism you’re going for 911!!!!

[piratewithvigor]

Love Break My Heart: Chapter 4 (Finale)

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Summary: A half-life relationship is disintegrating at the seams. Neither of them is good for the other, but after 14 years together, they don’t know how to be with each other anymore.

Word Count: 1938

A/N: This is a prize story written for @slashscowboyboots​ that I’ve had a fantastic time blitz-writing over the last handful of days. This chapter is a little more violent and depressing than the other three and with everything going on in the world, I recommend putting off reading it if you’re not in a proper mental state for it.

We finished recording the albums a few days ago. All that remains is the little nitty-gritty details that Axl usually takes care of. We’ll say it’s a band effort, but the ideas that get put into play are his and the hired professionals he works with. Things like album art, track listings and the little bits of writing that’ll be included. All the details will be as much of a surprise to me as they will be to whoever buys it. I hope to Christ no one books me for an interview to ask about any of them. I won’t have answers. Luckily, with Axl around, that risk runs low.

I’m driving the both of us back to the house from a photoshoot a few miles north of the city. The endless drive for perfection was just as present there as during recording, meaning it’s nearly dawn already. The shoot was only supposed to be a few hours. Nothing more strenuous than having to sit in the makeup chair for a few minutes and then sit on an amp or something with my guitar while they told me to look at a spot on the floor in the distance. Something about wanting to play up my aloof personality, whatever the fuck that means. If I had driven up alone, I could have been home as soon as the group photos and my solo photos were done. But I decided to be a caring dumbass and drive Axl up as well. Which meant he had to sit in on everyone’s solo photos and insist on more takes than Stanley Kubrick.

I haven’t said anything during the drive yet, but I’ve been thinking the entire time. The little box in my jacket pocket feels like it’s been getting heavier the entire time. At some point this evening, I intended to give it to Axl, but evening became morning without me noticing and now we’re alone on a gloomy highway before the rest of the world has woken up. One would think it would be the perfect time to give him the box, and it would be, if he was quiet as well. With his mind on it the entire time, Axl hasn’t stopped talking since we left the studio.

He’s talking about the shoot, kicking himself over how he allowed it to end, with photos different than the ones he was envisioning. At some point, he starts talking about the layout he’s got in mind. How to make the albums distinct, yet clearly meant to be together. I wish I can say I’m listening. After the previous few hours, all I want to do is be in my bed, asleep, and I’m resenting him for keeping me from it.

He suddenly goes quiet and it takes me a moment to realise he’s asked me a question. And another moment to realise that I haven’t been paying attention to a word he’s said. I’m back in third grade and faced with a math problem I don’t know the answer to. So I take the same escape route.

“Sorry, what?”

Axl sighs and looks out of the passenger side window, leaning back with his foot on the dash.

“Forget it. I’m wasting my fucking breath here.”

“I just got distracted. What did you say?”

“What do you care? You’ve resented every part of making this album.”

“Can you blame me, control freak?” The words slip out from under my breath. I hadn’t actually meant to say them, but if they came out, it means I did think them. I can feel Axl’s eyes boring into the side of my skull and my knuckles turn white from my tightening grip on the wheel.

“Sorry, one more time in my good ear?” Axl asks, venom dripping from every syllable. “You know, the one you didn’t blow out with your shitty playing?”

I have to remind myself that this isn’t the time to pick a fight. Too many people end up dead because of a fight behind the wheel that ends up with the car wrapped around a tree. I can hardly feel my fingers anymore, I’m gripping the wheel so hard.

“Fuck off.” It’s all I can whisper to keep my cool. We’ll be back at the house soon and we can punch each others’ lights out there.

“That’s what I thought, you little bitch,” Axl sneers, turning back towards the window.

“Don’t call me that.”

“As control freak, I can do whatever the fuck I want.”

I pull over to the side of the road and park, turning off the engine and leaving us in dead silence. It’s too early for birds to be awake yet and too late in the evening for any of the nocturnal animals to still be making noise. We’re completely alone.

“Get out.” I’ve got one hand in my pocket containing the box and the other in my pocket with my old handgun. A leftover from our struggling dealer days that my paranoia still won’t let me leave behind whenever I go anywhere. I haven’t shot it in years. Axl, to his credit, does as he’s told. I wait until I hear the passenger door slam before I get out as well. He’s leaning onto the hood, fingers clasped together as he stares me down.

“There’s something I don’t get about you,” he says, eyes blazing with a hatred I haven’t seen in over a decade.

“And what’s that?”

“Why you paint yourself as the victim every goddamn day.”

“Because I’m living with a bipolar lunatic who would rather destroy everything than not get his way.”

“And that’s so much harder than living with a junkie loser who hasn’t cared about anything since he made it big, let alone cared about me.” This is new. Of all the things I expected him to pick a fight over, it wasn’t this.

“What the fuck makes you say that?”

Axl straightens up as he shrugs, not an ounce of kidding in his expression. He starts walking towards me and instinct has me clutch the gun in my pocket.

“Dunno. Maybe it’s because ever since you first shot up, I’ve been the one picking up the slack. I made sure you didn’t starve because you were too fucked up to eat for weeks. I kept this band going while the rest of you enjoyed what my work got you. I watched you try to kill yourself slowly for years, you junkie fuck!” He’s close enough to grab me by the jacket and pull me towards him. “And never once did you show me the same love back.”

My laughter is hollow as I shove away his hands. “Every bruise you gave me… that was love to you?” It’s my turn to advance on him with what a professional would probably call hysteria. I call it ‘fucking done’. “The beatings? Were they done in love too? Almost breaking my jaw with a lamp? Was that love? Get off your high fucking horse.”

He’s stunned silent and I get a flash of satisfaction. But only a flash; the silence doesn’t last longer than that.

“Don’t act like you’re a saint here. You’re not the only one who gets stuff thrown at him. You just have shit aim when you’re drunk.”

“Or maybe I’m trying to miss because I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Don’t want to hurt me? Someone alert the presses, because this is breaking fucking news!” Our voices are getting louder and they’re starting to echo, but I’m way too pissed off to care.

“Maybe I love you too, ever think of that?”

“And your version of love is so much better than mine.” Axl’s face softens a moment and he starts doing a petulant chick voice. It’s jarring, to say the least. “Ooh, I’m Izzy Stradlin, flawless prince of perfection, and I purposely miss throwing furniture at my boyfriend because I love him.” The switch back throws me off just as much. “Grow the fuck up, Izzy.”

Before I know it, the gun in my pocket is out and it’s being aimed at Axl. The other hand still in my pocket is shaking, but the one out is steady as stone. I can almost hear our hearts beating in the dead silence. Axl has his hands up in quiet surrender. He’s about to say something before I cut him off.

“Don’t. Just don’t. Don’t say anything for a second. Just stay fucking quiet,” I murmur, taking a step towards him. He doesn’t move a muscle.

“Fourteen years ago, I thought I loved you. I was so certain after our first kiss, that I never doubted it for a second. Even when you were hitting me, I was sure I loved you. Axl, I was so fucking sure for so long that I loved you that I never questioned that what we have isn’t love. It’s mutual tolerance at best. Hatred at the worst. Axl, I hate you. I hate you so much that my heart hurts right now thinking about it.”

I didn’t realise that my eyes were getting moist until the tear reached my neck. It let me realise that Axl was crying as well. The greens in his eyes were gone, leaving behind nothing except stormy grey with watery red surrounding them. He’s shaking hard. Be it with fear or anger, I don’t know, and I sure as fuck don’t care. There was a time in my life when I would have softened and felt like shit at causing him to look like that, but right now, I don’t care. I can’t imagine caring.

I pull my other hand out of my pocket and Axl flinches. “My final contribution,” I murmur, holding the box out to him. He takes it and pulls out the tape inside. My chickenscratch handwriting labels it with the title. I retrace a little and correct myself. “My final, imperfect, contribution. Do with it what you will.”

“What do you mean final?” He finally asks, turning the tape over in his hands.

“This is my resignation. I’m quitting. I’m done with you and with this band.”

“And what are you going to do?”

“I’ll keep doing what I love, and I’m going to do it without your fucking nagging in my ear every goddamn day of my life.” I chuckle lowly, my laughter breathy and wild. “I wasted half my fucking life on you. Half of it, you son of a bitch. I’m never getting it back, thanks to you.”

Axl takes a step towards me and I straighten my arm, aiming my gun directly between his eyes.

“Stay back. Stay back or I swear to God, I will shoot you.”

“So fucking do it.”

“Yeah, cause you’d let yourself die with a bullet wound on that pretty face of yours.”

“So we’ve decided you won’t shoot me in the face. What are you going to do?”

“Walk home. Not to our house. Keep whatever you want that’s there. I don’t care about any of it.”

Axl nods solemnly and looks back down at the tape in his hands. “You do that.”

I lower my gun and toss him the keys as I begin to walk away.

“Izzy, one more thing.”

I turn around and pause for a moment. I don’t know why I did it when I knew that I wasn’t going to be going back to him.

“I never want to see you again. I never want to hear from you again. On my life, I would rather slit my own throat than hear your name ever again.”

“The feeling is mutual.”