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The shitty rehearsal space the band rented for 15 bucks an hour was so suffocatingly hot and stuffy that Axl could feel his breath clinging to his throat. He felt damp, lightheaded, and uncomfortably tight in the chest…
But maybe it wasn’t the rehearsal space at all. Maybe it was the expectant gaze his guitarist was leveling at him from across the room.
Slash was sprawled out on the ratty, threadbare couch, his guitar safely within arm’s reach as always. To Axl, he was the very picture of contented lethargy with his legs spread and outstretched, one of his arms laid out on the back of the seat while the other dragged a cigarette butt through the ashtray beside him. He was wearing a pair of brutally shredded jeans and a t-shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his shoulders; nothing special – but then, with Slash, it didn’t have to be.
As usual, his soulmarks were shamelessly on display. Thorny stems climbed the blue veins of his wrists, each crowned with a lush, jewel-toned rose creating a wide cuff of blossoms around each of his forearms. Tucked inside a well-loved pair of cowboy boots, Axl knew that both of his ankles bore matching bouquets.
Slash didn’t give a shit about who saw his marks; never had as long as Axl had known him. Everyone on the damn Strip had seen his soulmarks, and sometimes Axl thought that if his mark was as beautiful, he’d show it off too. But the truth was, he’d never showed his to anyone, ever. Not his mother, not his girlfriends, not even Izzy.
At least, not yet.
“So…” Slash drawled, eyeing him as he lit a fresh cigarette. “…You wanted to talk about something?”
“Right,” Axl said, reminding himself more than Slash. He wanted to do this, to be open and honest with Slash – even if doing so felt like handing Slash the keys to drive a truck over his heart. “I want…" He took a deep breath. "I want to show you my soulmark.”
“…Okay," Slash responded after a pause, carefully measured and even. He leaned forward, attentive but still as outwardly calm as ever.
Axl almost resented him for it, how the fuck was Slash always so composed? No matter what he was feeling, Slash knew how to maintain a front of impenetrable coolness. He wanted Slash to be shocked or angry or even disgusted, to ask why the fuck he’d ever wanna see his mark and freak out so that Axl could freak out in return, buying him time to work up his nerve and justifying the panic he was struggling to suppress.
Instead, the only noise in a room oozing with tension was the sound of Axl’s breath, unnaturally heavy and rasping in his own ears as he slowly unbuttoned his jeans and pushed the waistband down over his right hip.
"It’s on my leg,” he warned, so Slash wouldn’t think he was about to flash his dick at him. He turned a little to the side and, there – on the outside of his thigh, just below his hipbone, was a musical staff.
Five parallel lines, a treble clef, and eight notes that Axl knew by heart.
He might as well have shown Slash his dick, he felt equally exposed. He waited a few seconds, resisting the urge to squirm while Slash got his eyeful, then decided enough was enough and pulled his jeans back into place. He was more comfortable with his mark concealed, but his breath still caught when he finally looked up to meet Slash’s gaze.
Slash was silent, his hair pushed out of his eyes and his lip caught nervously between his teeth.
“Well? Aren’t you going to say anything?"
"Axl, I can’t read music."
…Oh.
"Right.”
That was why he was doing this in the rehearsal room, after all. In addition to the grimy couch, the room also provided an ancient, beaten-down upright piano that was almost-but-not-quite in tune. Axl’s heart was pounding as he turned around and walked over to the piano shoved against the opposite wall, his blood rushing louder than it ever had at his piano recitals as a child.
When he sat down, he heard Slash rise and pad across the room to stand closer to him, but he couldn’t turn to face him. Instead, he took a deep breath and held his trembling fingers over the keys.
He’d played these notes a thousand times before, and he lied to himself that this time wasn’t any different. Muscle memory took over as his hands came to rest on the keys, and a familiar tune filled the studio, a tune they’d recently come to know as the introduction to Sweet Child O Mine.
When he finished, Axl continued to stare down at the piano for a long silent moment. The keys were stained with age and worn down by oily fingertips, leaving rough gray patches and hairline cracks where a decade ago there was nothing but slippery ivory. Why wouldn’t Slash say anything? The smell of cigarettes burned his nostrils as Slash exhaled a lazy plume of white smoke. Axl heard a soft laugh, and his heart dropped.
He was wrong. He was an idiot to have faith in something as irrational as a soulmark, finding your soulmate just didn’t happen for people like him. He was wrong, or else… he just wasn’t good enough for –
He flinched when Slash’s arms wrapped gently around his shoulders, startling him out of his thoughts. “Play it again,” the guitarist requested.
“What?" Axl twisted in Slash’s embrace, finally facing his – his soulmate? Slash was smiling at him, practically glowing.
"You’re happy?”
“Why wouldn’t I be? I finally know what your soulmark is,” he giggled. “So that’s why you got so excited about that little riff…”
“So I really am your –”
“Soulmate? Of course you are, Rosie." Slash unfolded his hands, baring the marks on his wrists as if to say, Who else could they be for?
"You knew?” Axl accused. In his eyes, it wasn’t so simple: Rose could be a woman’s name, or someone’s favorite flower, or a symbol of how the two soulmates would meet – there was no real way to tell what a soulmark would mean until you felt it. And even when he finally did, when heard Slash play those familiar notes as a warmup exercise of all things… Axl was too afraid to trust himself.
“Well, when we first met, I felt so certain it had to be you! But then you saw my marks and you didn’t say anything for so long that I was starting to worry…" Slash’s eyes darted downward and his smile turned a little sadder. "I’m really relieved that your mark matches,” he confessed.
“I –" It was finally starting to sink in. Slash wanted to be his soulmate. Slash wanted him. "I’m relieved too,” he said, and it was true – he’d never felt so fucking relieved in his entire life.
His eyes stung. He tried to duck away to hide the drops welling in the corners of his eyes, but Slash sat down beside him on the bench and pulled Axl into an even tighter embrace.
With his nose pressed into the crook of Slash’s shoulder, inhaling the scent of smoke and shampoo that clung to his curls, Axl choked on a sob. It was just too much to hold in, years of doubt and uncertainty finally spilled over in the form of salty tears as he shook in Slash’s arms and clung to his chest. It fucking figured that the first thing he did after finding his soulmate was to have a breakdown, but Axl was beyond caring. The more he cried, the more his fear was replaced by relief, hope, and comfort that he hadn’t felt in years.
“Shh. Hey,” Slash murmured soothingly in his ear. He stroked Axl’s back and his hair, undeterred by his soulmate’s emotional display or by the tears soaking into his shirt.
“It’s okay. I’m here.”