Used to Love 'Em

Day Two.

The photographers and news reporters waited patiently outside the door, ready to swarm him the second the door opened, the second he would step foot outside the house. They wanted no needed to know if the rumours were true, if it was all true. The door knob turned as the news reporters started swarming around the door. Jesus Christ, I haven't even fucking stepped outside and they're already swarming around the door. Axl thought to himself, this was fucking ridiculous! He stepped outside and wasn't instantly surrounded by media people, clicking cameras and shouting questions, it was a pain in the ass, especially because I couldn't hear what anyone was fucking saying! How did a person handle this all the time? That was a good question that I didn't know the answer too

"Is it true that you're planning to go down the Sunset Strip again and play some shows at the bars again?" A reporter shouted.

"No comment." He mumbled as he pushed his way through them, this was crazy, insanely crazy. Cameras were clicking all around him and he was starting to see spots, that wasn't a good thing, was it?

Axl kept ignoring all the questions and the microphones and tape records that were pushed into his face, he blinked, not like they could see his face behind the oversized aviators that he had dusted off and put on again after all those years. Eventually after sometime the reporters left Axl alone, and that was it, he was just alone.

Just Axl Rose and his thoughts alone on the Sunset Strip. It was the same as he remembered the same as when he had walked down the Strip all those years ago. Most if not all the bars were still intact as Axl remembered. Vivid images of Slash, Duff, Steven, Izzy, and himself arm in arm drunk as can be at six am wandering down the Strip came back to him as he chuckled to himself softly. The memories this place held, and boy it held them like no other. Briefly a thought ran through Axl's head. Had Slash heard the news? Had Duff? What about Steven or Izzy? Had they heard about the win? Had they heard about Chinese Democracy winning next to Nickelback? Maybe they had been at the awards. Axl seriously doubted that after all, he hadn't seen Slash's mop of hair and normally they made a point to show it every year, at least eight times.

Up ahead Axl could see the familiar outline of the Whisky-A-Go-Go and The Troubadour. The Troubadour, the place where Guns N' Roses as a band had first performed, the place where Geffen records had first spotted them. Where they had gotten signed, the place where they had gotten a label and basically the place where it had all started. Axl looked at the Troubadour and shot a small smile at the faded lettering that read out the famous name, okay so it wasn't that famous but to Axl it was, to Axl it was the place where it had all started, the place where Guns N' Roses played when no-one else would even give them a second look. The place that in reality had given them the chance to make it to what they were today

Axl could almost shut his eyes and picture the five of them walking down the strip laughing and drinking, but before the thoughts overloaded him he stopped. No he didn't need to think about that, that was a different time, that was the past, and he was done with the past. He didn't need them, he didn't need Slash or Duff, or Izzy or Steven and the award from the previous night showed that. They were nothing, they were a band and they had left, bands are constantly breaking up and finding new members, that’s all it had been.

He let out a little sigh as he reached the Troubadour and pulled open the doors and revealed the interior of the bar. It was the same as he remembered. The lights were so low they might as well been off. The dark wooden tables and chairs that were strewn everywhere, the small stage where you could walk across the whole thing in four or five steps and then the bar off to the side where the bright lights shone. The base of the bar itself looked as though it had gotten a paint job, it wasn't as faded as it had looked before. It was a deep red with the same dark as the tables. A small band was performing, four people, three males and one female. They didn't sound half bad, and they couldn't have been older than twenty. They finished a song and many of the people in the audience broke into applause.

"They weren't that bad." He heard a male voice whisper to his female companion, more than likely his girlfriend.

"They were better than half the bands that normally play around these parts." She replied. These parts she obviously wasn't from around here. Axl wondered what the bands that normally played around here sounded like, were they rock bands? Or had even the strip been taken over by the techno aspect that seemed to have taken over in the last five years. Axl clapped along with the rest of the people in the bar as a tired smile broke out on the guitarists face; she did have a pretty face. Axl noticed as he made his way up to the bar. He had to push more than a few people out of the way, oh yes things hadn't changed a bit since he had been performing here. Not a bit.

"Anything for you?" A voice asked as he slid onto a bar stool, trying not to rock back and forth since it seemed to be uneven.

"Just a beer, I don't care what kind." Axl replied not shooting a glance at the bartender, instead keeping an eye on the stage, the little band had moved onto their next song. He recognized it as an old Cheap Trick song, one of their hits, I Want You to Want Me. It was a good song and the singer seemed to do justice with the lyrics.

"Here you go." The man on the other side of the bar said, Axl's head swivelled as he picked up the beer nodding his Thanks to the bartender while with his free hand he dug for change in his pocket.

"I know I have some." He muttered to himself as he pulled out a handful of one cent and five cent pieces. "C'mon." He mumbled more to himself then to anyone else as he put the change into his other pocket and managed to fish out a five dollar bill. "Just keep the change." He told the bartender who nodded his head in thanks. He sipped on his beer as he continued to watch the small band perform. They're not too shabby; Axl thought as they finished a song and went onto another cover, this time an old Motley Crue song as a frown settled upon Axl's face.

He didn't have anything against the band per say, he had more than a slight grudge against the singer Vince Neil and how he talked shit about Izzy and how he should keep his fucking oversized mouth shut.

"Well that's all for me." Axl said out loud though there was no reason for him to be talking out loud; he wasn't talking to anyone, just himself. He took his beer and pushed his way through the crowd ignoring the few faces that recognized him and just trying to get out of the Troubadour, he had come for a beer like the good old times but now it was time to leave, time to go and move on and maybe see a few more things on the strip. On the way out he managed to spill the remainder of his beer all over some other unlucky soul that had smashed into him. "What a waste of money." He grumbled as he placed the beer bottle on the nearest table, earning a look of distaste from the people that were sitting there. It's not like it really mattered though, the bartender wasn't going to charge them for having a beer bottle on the table for Christ's sake.

He managed to squeeze out of the dark bar and back into the LA sunlight knowing exactly where he was off to next. The Whisky-A-Go-Go, another place where they had managed to hang out back in the day, and cause more than a bit of trouble.
It was just down the street from the Troubadour, a five minute maybe ten minute walk at the most. Axl could see the bright red building from where he was. He pushed his aviators back onto his face before continuing on his way towards the Whisky.

"Hey you're Axl Rose aren't you?" A voice asked as Axl walked by, he shot them a look but didn't say anything simply because he didn't need to, not to mention if one person knew who he was the media would surely just be one step away, right?

He ventured down to the Whisky and walked in without hesitation, like the Troubadour not much had changed, or at least the changes weren't obvious. Maybe something had been added here and something else had been taken away but that was it, nothing jumped out at him and screamed "look! Look at me!" It was virtually the same as the last time he had been there. Which was quite some time ago. He stood inside it for a minute just looking around, the stage at the front of the place was empty but it looked as though they were setting up for something, something big, maybe a bigger band was performing at the Whisky that night, or even a smaller band that had some money. He just stood and looked around, taking in the bar before he left just as quickly as he had come.

"And now homeward bound I am." He told himself with a little chuckle as he headed back up the Strip towards his house even though it was quite a walk. He wasn't going to explore the entire strip in one day, it was quite the area and not much seemed to have changed but just because something looked the same didn't mean it was the same. He walked back past the Troubadour, past the other little bars that were scattered across the strip, past the huge poster of Slash and his guitar, the Gibson advertisement. Seeing the picture Axl stopped for a moment to look at it, Slash was a part of Guns that was true, no it wasn't he had been a part of Guns, he wasn't anymore. He had left along with Duff and Matt leaving Axl to have Guns N' Roses. They didn't want anything to do with it anymore, they were through. Even though Slash had been gone for quite some time, he had left Guns in October of 1996 but some of his material, some of his guitar pieces were on Chinese Democracy. "I can't believe I'm doing this." Axl mumbled to himself as he pulled out his phone and clicked the little call button next to Slash's name. So he had Slash's number, that was no big deal, after all he knew that both Duff and Slash had his, there was nothing strange about it in Axl's mind.

"Hello?" Slash answered sounding slightly wary, probably because he had no idea who was on the other line.

"Hello Slash its Axl." He started as he cleared his throat; he could almost hear Slash groan.

"Yes, is there something you would like?" Slash said as his voice seemed to stiffen almost, like he didn't want to talk.

"Actually I just thought I'd call and say congratulations on the win. Chinese Democracy won yesterday at the awards, and since some of the tracks you are the guitarist I just thought I'd be proper to thank you." Axl said explaining wondering how stupid he sounded, probably on the scale of one to ten he was probably off it by now.

"Um, thanks?" Slash replied, sounding more than slightly confused, "but I think that the reason it won was because of you and congratulations on the win, now I'd better go." Axl felt a flicker of panic, no he didn't want this conversation to end, not this fast.

"No." Axl blurted hearing Slash hum on the other end of the phone in mild confusion. "Listen, since Guns won another award, I thought that maybe we could have a drink to celebrate it, not a word of the past just a drink?" Axl said quickly. On the other end of the phone Slash raised an eyebrow, this didn't sound like Axl, but who knew maybe he had grown up since the last time they had spoken, and one drink couldn't hurt.

"Sure Axl that sounds good, I guess." Slash answered half-heartedly, "but I've got nothing so it'll have to be at your place and I don't know the address." Axl's eyes widened, he had actually accepted? That was strange, he did not expect Slash to accept that easily, he thought for sure that there would need to be more bribes, or another offer would need to be put out.

"Of course and my address it's..." Axl read out the address as Slash hummed and wrote it down.

"Alright I'll be there in a bit, maybe half an hour at the most." Slash told him as they both said goodbye and Axl disconnected with a smirk on his place. This was working out perfectly, just perfectly; everything just seemed to be falling into place. It was great.

A few miles away Axl Rose was destroying his house.

"Fuck, I had it just yesterday where the hell is it!" He swore as he opened and slammed drawer. Behind him was a wreck of the couch cushions that he had pulled out and hadn't managed to put back on. "It couldn't have gone that far, I mean it's not like it has legs and walked away." He muttered as he checked his pockets for what seemed like the billionth time. What was he looking for? His cell phone which had gone missing, his cell phone that contained Slash's number.