𝕯𝖊𝖆𝖉 𝖉𝖔𝖛𝖊 𝕰𝕬𝕿 𝕸𝕰

The first thing Izzy noticed when she woke up wasn't the weight of Axl's arm draped over her waist, nor the soft snoring he only let out when he was fast asleep—rare and precious. It was the smell.

A sweet and sour odor, a mixture of leftover instant noodles, a forgotten cheap beer can, and something already beginning to decompose. It came from the kitchen, or rather, the corner that served as a kitchen, near the clogged sink. She opened her eyes, focusing on the ceiling stained a brown with dampness that looked like a map of a ruined country. She took a deep breath through her nose, confirming it. The trash.

It was the third day. The thin plastic bag, the kind from the supermarket that would tear if you looked at it too hard, was overflowing from the light blue plastic can. She could see the top of the mountain of debris from her bed on the floor—a pale yellow eggshell, the silver packaging from the instant noodles, the aluminum foil from a sandwich Axl had tried to make two nights ago. She had told him. In fact, he had spoken , remembered , and finally confronted him, pointing to the trash can the night before.

“Axl. The trash.”

He was slumped on the boneless sofa, the old guitar—a Les Paul copy with peeling varnish—in his lap, his fingers running the same three chords with obsessive insistence. He didn’t even look up. “I’m making music, Izz. Later.”

“Later” never came. “Later” was a black hole where all of Axl Rose’s small promises vanished, swallowed by the next storm inside his head.

Izzy carefully freed himself from his arm, sitting on the edge of the mattress on the floor. The one-room apartment in Lafayette reeked of poverty and despair. The flowery wallpaper, chosen by some hopeful soul decades ago, peeled at the corners, revealing damp plaster. The January wind whistled through a crack in the window, but it wasn’t strong enough to dissipate the stench of the trash. It was just another background sound in their shitty symphony.

She looked at Axl, still asleep. The grey light of the winter morning fell upon him, highlighting the almost translucent pallor of his skin, the sharp bones of his face, the constellation of freckles above his nose. His hair —that reddish-orange hair that seemed to have stolen all the fire available in the city—was spread across the dirty pillow like a nest of extinguished flames. He looked younger like this, fragile. Unlike the startled eagle gaze and the mouth always ready to twist into a bluesy moan or an angry growl that he carried while awake.

She knew the source of that anger. She knew every story, every shadow in his eyes when he heard a heavier footstep in the hallway. They weren't there, in that smelly cubicle, just to save money for Los Angeles. They were there running away . From him. From the stepfather with the big hands and the gruff voice. From the house that smelled of fear and cheap beer. That place, the trash, the cold, the poverty, was freedom. A disgusting freedom, but it was theirs.

And damn it, she was tired too.

She got up and put on the first thing she found—a worn-out Aerosmith t-shirt and the same jeans from yesterday, which smelled of cigarettes and cooking oil from the diner. She ran her fingers through her dark brown hair, trying to tame the chaos that mirrored the place. Ten minutes, she thought. Ten minutes of silence before he woke up and the apartment became too small for his energy.

But the ten minutes were filled with the smell. It persisted, an intruder. Every breath was a reminder: she worked all day, washed other people's dishes, counted pennies for the Los Angeles fund, and he couldn't take out the trash.

It wasn't about the trash. It never was. It was about the space. The space she gave up, the silence she swallowed, the ground she surrendered so he could exist in that particular storm. The trash was the line, and she was tired of backing down.

She looked at him again. His hand, thin and veiny, rested open on the mattress, as if waiting for something to fall from the sky. He always waited. She was the one who grabbed.

The decision came cold and clear. She wasn't going to argue. She wasn't going to remember. She was going to act.

The discount store on the corner smelled of new plastic and despair. Izzy walked through the narrow aisles, her worn sneakers making a squeaking noise on the dirty linoleum. She stopped at the household goods section. There they were: thin plastic trash cans, in colors that hurt the eyes. Egg yolk yellow, alarm red, sickly blue, acid green. They cost one dollar and ninety-nine each. She counted the money in her pocket—tips from the previous night shift. Ten cans . Twenty dollars that wouldn't go to the bottom of Los Angeles. An investment in sanity.

The cashier, with a thin mustache, widened his eyes at the stack she pushed onto the counter.

"Having a party?" he asked, trying to be funny.

"Something like that," she replied, her voice a flat thread. She picked up the large, heavy bag and left, the plastic creaking with every step.

The apartment was still silent when she returned. Axl was still asleep. The scene was almost intimate, if it weren't for the tension she carried within her. She began her work.

She positioned the first can, bright red.Next to the sofa where his guitar rested, she made a label from a piece of masking tape and a napkin stolen from the diner. She wrote in her firm, angular handwriting, using a ballpoint pen that leaked:

"REMINDS OF INSPIRATION."

The next was egg-yolk yellow, planted in front of the double-burner stove where pans were burning. "CULINARY FAILURES."

The black one ended up beside the bed, on the floor. "ROTTEN DREAMS."

A green one in front of the bathroom door (which was just a stall with a toilet). "DISCARDED HOPES."

She scattered the others throughout the shadows of the room: a blue one near the pile of dirty clothes, a shy pink one under the wobbly table. The apartment, once a gray landscape of despair, now looked like a psychedelic and depressive minefield.

Izzy stepped back, leaned against the cold wall, and crossed her arms. She observed her work. A wave of something that wasn't exactly satisfaction, but rather bitter justice, rose in her throat. There it was. The silent demand, transformed into an object. The physical proof of his negligence. She took a deep breath. The smell of the original trash still lingered, but now it had a layer of new plastic.

That's when she heard the sigh.

Axl stirred on the mattress, turned onto his side. His light blue eyes, blurry with sleep, opened. They blinked, confused, against the dim light. He saw the ceiling, then the wall, and then the field of colorful trash cans that had sprouted like poisonous mushrooms on the apartment floor.

He sat up slowly, his fiery hair a disheveled halo. His gaze swept across the room, from can to can, reading the labels. His face, always so expressive, went through a rapid whirlwind: confusion, recognition, understanding. And then it fixed. Fixed on something dark and familiar.

Izzy held his gaze. She didn't smile. She didn't challenge. She just held it.

Axl didn't say a word. His thin lips pressed together in a white line. He threw the old blanket aside, stood up—thin, almost awkward in that space—and went straight to where the guitar was. He completely ignored the red tin with its label. He gripped the neck of the instrument with a force that turned his fingers white.

He turned, his bony back visible beneath his sweaty white t-shirt, and faced Izzy. His eyes were no longer blurry. They were ablaze, filled with a silent fire she knew well. It was the fury that came before the scream, before the sound.

Without breaking eye contact, he sat on the sofa, pulled his guitar onto his lap, and gave the strings a wild strumming. The sound was a distorted growl, without harmony, pure noise. It was the only answer he knew how to give.

The war, silent and colorful, had been declared.

The shift at the diner was a nightmare of grease and the smell of old food. With each plate Izzy carried, each plastic stool she cleaned, she could smell the stench of the apartment clinging to her nose, a layer beneath the smell of frying. But it was a warm smell, of activity. Not that static stench of neglect.

As she scrubbed a table where a trucker had left a trail of barbecue sauce, her mind wandered far from Lafayette.

She remembered the first plan, scribbled on a napkin from the school cafeteria. Axl's fiery hair leaning over the paper, his blue eyes shining with a light she had never seen in his house. "Los Angeles, Izz. That's where things happen. We form a band. We get out of this fucking city." His fingers, already marked by clumsy attempts at the guitar frets, pointed to a crude drawing of a palm tree. It looked like paradise. It seemed possible.

He remembered the escape. It wasn't dramatic, it was a suffocated and silent thing. A backpack each, the old guitars, and a night bus with eyes wide with fear and relief. Axl spent the whole trip leaning against her, trembling, not from cold, but from post-traumatic adrenaline. He had looked out the bus window at the fading lights and whispered: "He'll never touch me again." And Izzy had promised herself, only in the darkness: "Never again."

The dream of LA was the fuel. Every dollar tip was a step on I-10. Every night of rehearsal in a damp basement, with Slash and Duff joining in with their own angry dreams, was a brick on an imaginary stage. The shitty apartment was just a tunnel. They had to go through it.

But, damn it, some tunnels had more trash than others.

When she finally pushed open the apartment door, it was already pitch black. The darkness inside was almost total, broken only by the light of a streetlamp coming through the crack in the window. The silence was absolute. Heavy.

She sensed something was wrong before she saw it.

She turned on the ceiling light, which flickered cruelly before settling on.

The first sign: the overflowing trash bag had disappeared from its original light blue bin. A brief, naive wave of relief washed over her. He took it off. Maybe the message from the colored bins had worked. Maybe… Then she saw it. The red

bin labeled "LEFTOVERS OF INSPIRATION" was empty. The yellow one too. TheBlack . All of them. Empty and gleaming in the dim light, like trophies of a bizarre victory.

Where was the trash?

Her gaze swept across the room. Nothing in the middle. Nothing under the table. Her heart began to beat faster, a dull drum of premonition.

She went to the bathroom. She pushed the door, which jammed halfway. Something was blocking it. She forced her shoulder. With a creak, it gave way.

There it was. The entire trash bag, swollen and foul-smelling, piled behind the door, blocking the toilet. The smell was concentrated, nauseating. She stared at the pile of debris, saw the yellow eggshell now crushed against the plastic. A cold fury began to rise, but it was only the beginning.

She turned and went to the makeshift closet—a wooden crate where she kept her clothes. She pulled the curtain that served as a door.

There, carefully folded over her only decent black blouse, was the silver instant noodle package, still with a strand of dried noodles stuck to it. Inside one of her sneakers, a withered apple core. And in the pocket of her leather jacket, the one she had saved for months to buy, her hand found something cold and damp: the crushed beer can, the remaining liquid having leaked out, staining the lining.

He hadn't simply taken out the trash. He had hidden it. Not in one place. But in all her places. In the corners that were hers. It was an invasion. A calculated, silent, and childish violation.

Izzy stood still, holding the dirty beer can, the dampness penetrating her skin. The fury that followed wasn't hot. It was cold, vast, and deep. It was the fury of someone who gives everything—the refuge, the silence, the shared dream, the body as a shield against his ghosts—and receives in return trash hidden in the pocket of her jacket.

She heard a noise coming from outside the building—the distorted sound of an electric guitar being tested, probably by some other fucked-up dreamer. For a moment, she saw herself and Axl in that first basement, his eyes lit up not with anger, but with pure ambition. "Let's be big, Izz. Let's burn this whole thing down."

Now, they were here. Burning each other over a forgotten garbage bag.

The music from outside stopped. In the vacuum of sound, the silence of the apartment became unbearable. He was somewhere—probably on the roof, smoking and staring at the dim lights of the city that wasn't Los Angeles.

Izzy dropped the beer can on the floor with a metallic thud. She wiped her hand on her jeans. The smell was on her now. Ingrained.

The war was no longer passive-aggressive. It was just war. And she, her heart pounding a rhythm of anger and disillusionment in her ribs, was ready for the next move.

Izzy didn't think. She acted.

Fury was an icy liquid in her veins, moving her limbs with mechanical precision. She went to the crate and pulled all her clothes out, throwing them onto the dirty mattress. The folding, the care, didn't matter. The stained leather jacket, the black blouse smelling of grease from the diner, the socks. Everything was piled up.

She found the old canvas backpack, the same one from her escape, under the bed. She opened it with a brusque tug on the rusty zippers and began stuffing things inside. Each piece of clothing was a silent argument. Each personal object – a fine-toothed comb, a nearly finished lipstick she rarely used, the notebook where she jotted down lyrics when inspiration visited – was proof that she existed there, outside of it, and could get out.

The sound of the zipper closing, swallowing the little she possessed, was a loud and harsh final point. She threw the backpack over her shoulder. The weight was comforting. It was the weight of the possibility of escape. Again.

But not now. Now, she would wait.

She sat on the edge of the mattress, her backpack at her feet like a loyal pet, and lit a cigarette. The smoke mingled with the stale air, the smell of garbage and disillusionment. She smoked, staring at the door, her ears sharp for any sound in the hallway. The fatigue of the shift had evaporated, replaced by a heightened vigilance, a focus of pure rage.

Time dragged on. She heard footsteps in the hallway, voices of other tenants, the flush of the communal bathroom at the end of the hall. Nothing of him. The neighbor's guitar music started and stopped, started and stopped. Each passing minute was more fuel for the fire inside her chest.

Finally, hours later, the key scraped in the lock.

The door opened and Axl entered. He carried the smell of the cold night air, of street cigarettes, and that residual adrenaline energy he always had after walking alone. His eyes, still adjusting to the light, passed over her sitting on the bed, landed on the backpack, and returned to her. His face, which for a second may have shown something close to relief at seeing her, went flat, impenetrable.

“Where do you think you’re going?” his voice came out harsh, defiant from the first second.

Izzy crushed the cigarette on the wooden floor, not caring about the mark. She stood up.

“Far away from here,” she replied, her voice a chilling contrast to his. “Far away from this pigsty. Far away from you.”

He slammed the door shut. “Because of the trash? You’re kidding.”

“IT’S NOT JUST THE TRASH, YOU SELFISH PIECE OF SHIT!” The explosion came from such a deep place that it even made her shudder. She approached, pointing an accusing finger at his thin chest. “IT’S EVERYTHING! It’s you thinking the world stops when you have a ‘little song’ in your head! It’s me killing myself at the diner to scrape together a penny while you smoke on the roof staring into space! It’s you thinking you can shit and walk all over what’s ours! BECAUSE IT’S OURS, AXL! THIS FUCKING DREAM IS OURS, OR IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE!”

Axl took a step back, not out of fear, but from the impact of the words. His eyes narrowed, a fire igniting within them. “Wow? You think without me you’d be saving up to go to Los Angeles? You think without me you’d have a dream other than marrying some loser from here and having a bunch of kids? I AM THE DREAM, IZZY! THE MUSIC! THE TALENT!”

“TALENT FOR MAKING TRASH AND SPREADING IT ALL OVER MY LIFE!” she yelled back, tears of rage now burning her eyes, but she didn’t let them fall. “You hid trash in my coat, Axl. In MY coat. What kind of person does that? What kind of person I LOVE does that?”

The word – love – hung in the air between them, heavy and poisonous, an artifact from a time before the stench.

Axl seemed to clench inside. His defense shifted, the arrogance giving way to something sharper, more dangerous. “Ah, so it’s about love now? Love is putting up with it! Love is understanding that I’m not normal! You know where I came from, you know what he did… I don’t know how to do these things right, damn it! Taking out the trash, remembering things… my head won’t STOP!”

“AND MINE DOESN’T STOP?” Izzy took another step, now they were an inch apart. She could feel his heat, the vibration of his anger. “My head does stop, Axl! It stops to count the money. To calculate how much is left. To remember to buy food. To wake you up when you have nightmares screaming. To hold you when you tremble. My head STOPS ALL THE TIME TO MAKE ROOM FOR YOURS, WHICH NEVER STOPS! AND THE ONLY DAMN REQUEST I MAKE IS THAT YOU TAKE OUT THE TRASH, AND YOU DO THAT? YOU PAY ME BY HIDING TRASH IN MY THINGS?”

She was breathless. The room seemed to spin. The backpack at her feet was a tempting promise.

Axl stared at her, his face a mask of conflict. Anger, guilt, old pain, helplessness. He opened his mouth to shout something back, but the sound that came out was hoarse, broken.

“I… I didn’t know it was like this.”

“OF COURSE I KNEW!” she cut in. “You know. You just think it doesn’t matter. That I don’t matter enough. That Axl Rose’s big dream is all that matters, and Izzy, Izzy is just… the road. The crutch. THE DAMN LAFAYETTE MUSE WHO’S THERE FOR WHEN YOU NEED HER!”

That hit him hard. He paled. “Don’t call yourself that.”

“Why not? That’s who I am here! The muse of the stinky apartment! The muse of the trash! Inspiration for hate lyrics and nothing more!”

“THAT’S A LIE!” He finally exploded, his voice tearing his throat in a scream. “You are everything! You are the only real thing in all this! Without you I won’t go to Los Angeles, I’ll go to hell, I WILL GO BACK TO HIM, I…”

His voice broke completely. He wasn’t crying. Axl Rose wasn’t crying. But his whole body trembled, and he looked away, his fists clenched, his shoulders hunched forward as if he were taking a physical blow.

Silence fell again, now heavy with nuclear fatigue. Izzy’s fury still burned, but now mixed with a weariness so deep it ached in her bones. She looked at him, that skinny, broken boy she loved, who was at once an unbearable genius and the most lost person she knew.

She didn’t pick up her backpack. Instead, she fell back onto the edge of the mattress, her strength suddenly abandoning her.

“I can’t take it anymore, Axl,” she said, her voice now a harsh whisper. “I can’t fight his ghosts and you at the same time. I’m exhausted.”

He didn’t move for a long moment. Then, slowly, as if every movement ached, he knelt on the cold floor in front of her. Not to beg forgiveness. Not to touch her. He just… fell there, defeated.

“Me too,” the admission escaped his mouth almost inaudibly. He looked at his empty hands. “Everything’s a mess. And the only thing that isn’t a mess… I’m messing it up.”

He looked up, and his blue eyes, now free of the fog of anger, looked frighteningly young and scared. “Don’t go,” he pleaded, and it wasn’t an order, it was a desperate sigh. “Don’t go, Izzy. Please.”

Izzy closed her eyes. The smell of the garbage was still there. The dream of Los Angeles was still thousands of miles away. The backpack weighed heavily on her back.

And the broken boy lay at her feet.

When she opened her eyes, there was no forgiveness in them. Only a bitter, familiar acceptance.

“Take out the trash,” she said, her voice emotionless. “Now. And wash my coat.”

It was a truce. Not peace. Just a ceasefire, negotiated on her terms.

Axl, still kneeling, only nodded once, quickly.

The trash war was over. Nobody won. But, for that night, nobody had lost everything.

The weeks that followed weren't a miracle. They were an adjustment. A watched truce, cold at first, that slowly thawed under the weak sun of genuine effort.

The first change Izzy noticed was the silence. Not the heavy silence of before, but a new one. Axl was no longer disappearing into long, chaotic guitar sessions or smoking on the roof for hours. He wasSitting at the table, the same black-covered notebook, scribbled on, open in front of him, the pen moving with a concentration she rarely saw outside of a stage. He wrote. Not just angry lyrics, but structures, verses, bridges. He showed it to Slash, discussed it, went back and crossed it out. It was work. Real work.

The second was the trash. It simply disappeared from the radar as a problem. Every afternoon, around five, he would get up, tie the bag, and go down to the large bins behind the building. Without needing to be reminded. No drama. Sometimes he would even clean the sink after making a sandwich. Small actions, but in that context they seemed like monumental gestures of care.

The third was the money. He picked up some "odd jobs," as he called them. Carrying boxes at the neighborhood market for a few hours. Cleaning the basement where they rehearsed in exchange for a discount. Once, he even helped a mechanic friend of Duff's, leaving with his hands black with grease and a handful of bills which he deposited in the glass canning jar that was his Los Angeles piggy bank. "Another twenty in the account ," he said, without looking at her, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. The sound of the coins and bills falling into the jar had a new melody.

And the fourth, the most disconcerting for Izzy, was the touch.

They weren't grand gestures. It wasn't romance. It was his arm that, on the sofa, met hers and stayed there, a casual contact that had been rare before. It was him passing behind her in the cramped kitchen and, for a second, resting his hand on her waist, as if to orient himself in the small space. It was him, in the morning, before leaving, touching his lips to the top of her disheveled head—a quick kiss, almost a thought spoken aloud. It was a caress that asked for nothing in return. It wasn't to calm a crisis or ask for forgiveness. It was simply… being there. Present.

Izzy watched everything with the skepticism of a survivor. Part of her hoped for a relapse, the day he would forget everything again, and the old anger would return, more justified than ever. But day after day, the new routine continued. The glass jar grew fatter. The letters in his notebook multiplied.

One night, he arrived home late, with an envelope in his hand.

"How much?" she asked automatically, drying a plate.

"Forty," he replied, and there was a restrained glint in his eyes. Not of euphoria, but of satisfaction. "The guy at the market put me on the Friday unloading shift. It's permanent." She paused, the dish towel in her hand. A job. Almost a real job. "And the rehearsals?"

"I'll adjust. We'll adjust."

We. The word sounded different.

Later, already in bed, in the dark, he spoke, his voice a murmur against the pillow:

"I'm thinking of a name.""

"For what?"

"For the music. The one I'm writing. The one with… the percussion. The tin cans."

Izzy turned her head to look at his figure. His face was turned toward the ceiling.

"And what is it?"

"'The Garbage War of Lafayette,'" he said, and in the darkness she could hear the slight smile in his voice. It was a sad, self-conscious smile, but real.

She didn't answer. But she felt something inside her, a rope that had been taut for a long time, loosen a little.

The next morning, before he left for the market, Izzy stood near the door. He wore an older jacket than his, prepared for hard work.

"I'm going to pick up some things at the market after my shift. Do we need anything?" he asked, tying his shoelaces.

She looked at him—his red hair tied back haphazardly, his posture a little less hunched, his eyes with a focus that went beyond the next crisis. The boy who had hidden trash in his coat was still there, but there was someone else trying to get out, someone carrying boxes, taking out the trash, and writing songs about his own failures.

"No," Izzy said, and her voice wasn't sweet, but it wasn't cutting either. It was just genuine. "Just come back. You have rehearsal at eight."

He nodded, and for the first time in weeks, his eyes met hers and held for more than a second. There was something there. An acknowledgment. A silent promise that he was still trying.

He left, and the door closed without slamming.

Izzy stood there for a moment, listening to his footsteps fading down the stairs. Then she turned and looked at the apartment. It still smelled of mildew. It was still a pigsty. But the trash was out. And in the center of the table, open like a map of new territory, was Axl's black notebook. Next to the glass jar, which was now so full she could barely see the bottom.

She approached the table and, with the tip of her finger, moved the notebook just a little to retrieve her own notepad from underneath. As she did so, her eyes fell upon a line scribbled on his page, crossed out and rewritten several times:

"Love is a negotiated truce / With garbage bags on the stairs / And a dream of escape that hasn't yet arrived / But we've already started climbing."

Izzy closed his notebook with a soft thud. She didn't smile. But she took a deep breath, and the air, for the first time in a long time, didn't smell of defeat. It smelled of work. Of patience. Of a long and difficult road that, perhaps, just perhaps, they were learning to travel together.

The extra shift at the diner was a sentence. More hours of greasy food, forced smiles for tips, the smell of burnt oil clinging to every hair. But Izzy endured it through gritted teeth because the manager, a tired-eyed woman named Darlene, had made her an offer: cover the entire night, on a chaotic Saturday, for a special bonus.

When the last drunk customer was pushed out for the night and the doors were locked, Darlene counted the bills in her hand without ceremony. "Two hundred. And you deserve every penny, girl. This place is hell."

Two hundred dollars. The weight of the wad of bills in Izzy's hand was more real than any Los Angeles dream she'd ever dreamed of. It was almost a quarter of what was left in the glass jar. It was bus tickets. It was a week in a cheap motel. It was breathing. A sudden, weary euphoria washed over her, making her knees weak. She thanked him, her voice choked with emotion, tucked the money into the innermost pocket of her leather jacket, and stepped out into the freezing night.

The reality of the danger only hit her when the biting Lafayette wind struck her full force. It was almost three in the morning. The streets around the diner were desolate, lit only by streetlights that cast a dirty yellow glow on cracked sidewalks. The corner bar was emptying its last customers, hoarse, aggressive voices echoing in the silence. She hadn't told Axl she'd be leaving so late. The thought of him, alone in the apartment, perhaps worried, made her walk faster, her footsteps echoing too loudly on the concrete.

She was two blocks from the building, her already cold fingers searching for the pack of cigarettes in her pocket, when a shadow detached itself from the wall of an alley ahead.

Her heart leaped into her throat. Her hand closed around the keys, the longer end sticking out between her fingers like an improvised claw.

The shadow took a step toward the light.

It was his leather jacket, more worn than hers. His reddish-orange hair, now dull under the lamplight, fell over his eyes. Cigarette smoke rose in lazy spirals from his mouth. He was leaning against the lamppost, hands in his pockets, as if waiting for a bus that would never come.

Axl.

The relief that washed over Izzy was so violent it almost knocked her over. The tension in her muscles, the heightened fear, all dissolved in a second. Without thinking, she ran.

Her footsteps echoed in the empty street. He raised his head, his eyes meeting hers in the darkness. He didn't smile, but dropped the cigarette and crushed it with his heel.

She didn't slow down. She threw herself at him, her arms wrapping around his neck with a force that made him stumble back a step, a "umpf" escaping him. Her backpack hit his back. And then, before he could say anything, before she could breathe, Izzy grabbed his face between her cold hands and pulled his lips to hers.

The kiss wasn't sweet. It was need. It was relief, it was adrenaline, it was the two hundred dollars in his pocket, it was the fear of the dark street, it was the smell of his cigarettes and sweat and home. It was despair and triumph mixed together. She kissed him with all the force she had, her teeth clashing against his, her tears—which she hadn't even realized had come—mingling with the taste of tobacco.

Axl stood still for a fraction of a second, surprised. Then, his arms enveloped her, pulling her closer, returning the kiss with the same rough intensity. It was an anchor point in the middle of the hostile night.

When she finally pulled away, breathless, the words tumbled out in a whirlwind, hot against his lips: "I made two hundred, Axl. Two hundred. I worked all night. Darlene gave me a bonus. Here it is." She patted his coat pocket, her eyes gleaming with an almost feverish light. "It's almost what we needed. We… we can do it."

Axl looked at her, his dark blue eyes sweeping over her face, the traces of weariness, the euphoria, the tears. His hands were still firm on her waist, as if holding back from floating away. He took a deep breath, and a smile began to form, slow and disbelieving, from his eyes to his lips. "Damn, Izzy…" he murmured, his voice hoarse from the night and the emotion. "You're fucking awesome. You're the most fucking awesome person I've ever met."

He pulled her into another hug, less desperate, deeper, burying his face in her neck. "We're going to make it," he whispered in her ear, his voice heavy with a new, stony conviction. "We're going to Los Angeles and we're going to become the biggest fucking rock band this world has ever seen. We're going to burn everything down."

Izzy laughed, a muffled sound against the leather of his jacket, light and free. "You first, with that fiery head of yours." He laughed too, a rare and genuine sound that vibrated in his chest against hers.

Then he pulled back enough to look into her eyes again, and his expression turned serious, intense, as if he were seeing something far ahead.

"And you're going to be there. With me. On stage, backstage, everywhere." He paused, his fingers tightening around her hips. "You're going to be the mother of my children one day, you know?"

The air left Izzy's lungs. The euphoria froze for a second, replaced by a sudden, overwhelming heat that rose from her chest to her face.She felt her cheeks burn, a sweet and bewildering shame that made her look away.

"Axl… stop," she murmured, her voice weak, trying to break free, but her arms wouldn't obey her.

"It's true," he insisted, softly but stubbornly, tilting his head to try and catch her eye again. "Who else? Only you, Izzy. Only you can put up with this mess that I am. And create something good in the middle of it."

She couldn't look at him. The idea was too big, too scary, too sweet for that dimly lit alley in Lafayette. It was a future painted over a present that was still so precarious. But coming from him, at that moment, with his warm hands on her hips and the scent of their dream—stinky, real, tangible—in the air, it sounded not like a fantasy, but like a promise.

She finally raised her eyes, still embarrassed, but facing him. "First we take out the trash in Los Angeles," she said, her voice regaining a thread of its usual sarcasm, but without the sharp edges.

He smiled, that sideways smile that promised trouble and glory. "Sure. First the trash."

And, hand in hand, the money that would change everything safe in her pocket, they turned and began walking back to the apartment that was no longer a cell, but a springboard. The night was still dangerous, but now it was two against two. And the future, for the first time, wasn't a mirage on the road, but a sweet, warm weight she carried in her heart, as real as the dollar bills against her chest.

Years later. Los Angeles. A mansion in Hidden Hills.

The silence in the mansion was of a different kind. It wasn't the absence of sound, but its absorption. The echo of a final guitar riff, now coming from a soundproof rehearsal room, died away in the wide hallways and thick carpets. It smelled of new leather, polished wood, and, in a corner of the marble kitchen, a strange mixture of prenatal vitamins and leftover Thai food that Axl had sent for at 3 a.m.

Izzy stood on the balcony, leaning against the railing, gazing at the pool illuminated by underwater lights that cast blue reflections on her face. She wore a loose cotton dress that draped over the gentle curve of her five-month pregnant belly. Her full, sensitive breasts swayed slightly beneath the fabric with her movement. She had matured. Her facial features, still thin, had softened, not with age, but with a hard-won peace. Her eyes, however, retained the same observant and weary gaze, now framed by a better-cut fringe and a few discreet silver strands in her dark brown hair.

Inside the house, the sound intensified. An argument. Slash's exasperated voice. Axl's response, a guttural growl that pierced the walls. Same old story, different stage."That's it," Izzy thought, without turning around. Arguments about arrangements, about delays, about the excessive use of bells and cymbals in a new track. Guns N' Roses was the biggest band in the world, and the arguments were proportional to the size of their egos and empire.

The balcony door slammed open. Axl stepped out, slamming it shut with a thud that made the glass tremble. He was breathing deeply, his nostrils flared. He was different. The body of the skinny boy from Lafayette had filled out, gaining the broad shoulders of a man carrying the weight of a planet of fans on his back. His hair, still that iconic reddish-orange, was tied in a low ponytail. His carefully trimmed beard highlighted the taut line of his jaw. He wore only a silk robe open at the chest, loose cotton trousers, and was barefoot.

"You stubborn bastard, you idiot…" he muttered, more to himself, before seeing Izzy. His expression changed. The professional fury faded, leaving behind only a familiar weariness and, upon seeing her, something softer. He approached, his gaze sweeping over her body, lingering on her stomach.

"Did he kick today?" he asked, his voice lower.

"All the time. Maybe he inherited your sense of rhythm. And your temper," she replied, a hint of humor in her voice.

Axl let out a grunt that could have been a laugh. He stopped behind her, not touching her immediately. His hands, large and adorned with silver rings today, finally landed on her hips, on the fabric of her dress. He tilted his head, burying his face in her neck, taking a deep breath.

"It smells different," he murmured, his lips brushing her skin. "Everything smells different to me. Even you. You smell of expensive incense and anger."

"It's my new perfume. 'Eau de Déspota'," he said, and she felt his smile against her shoulder.

His hands moved up, tracing the curve of her waist, until they found the fullness of her breasts beneath her dress. He sighed, a deep, satisfied sound.

"Damn, Izzy…," his voice came out husky, full of raw, possessive admiration. "You're… beautiful. A fucking rock 'n' roll fertility goddess."

Izzy let her head fall back against his shoulder, closing her eyes. The compliment was typical of him: obscene and devoted. His hands warmed her, calmed her in a way only he could—mixing desire and belonging in a way that disarmed all her defenses.

"Take me inside," she whispered. He didn't need to be asked twice.

In their huge, dark bedroom, lit only by candles and the Los Angeles light filtering through the blinds, he laid her down with a reverence that contrasted sharply with the fury of minutes before. His robe fell to the floor.Her dress was carefully lifted, not torn like in the old days.

He watched her, lying among the dark silks, her round, glorious belly, her heavy, full breasts with more visible bluish veins, her darkened nipples. His gaze was one of pure possessiveness, but also of reverential awe.

"You did this," he said, as if it were a miracle he couldn't comprehend.

Then he touched her. His mouth, famous for shouting glass-shattering notes, was incredibly gentle on her breasts. He kissed them, licked them, cupped them in his hands, feeling their weight, while a deep moan escaped Izzy. The heightened sensitivity of pregnancy transformed every touch into electricity.

He positioned himself between her legs, which she opened for him. When he penetrated her, it was with a deliberate slowness, a deep and familiar filling that made them both sigh at the same time. He was wider, more solid. She, tighter, warmer, different.

"God… Izzy…", he groaned, burying his face in her neck, beginning to move with a cadence that was pure lust, deep and rolling.

Izzy wrapped her legs around his waist, her heels pressing against his muscular back. Her hands gripped his broad shoulders, feeling the muscles contract with each thrust. Her breasts swayed to their rhythm, a heavy, sensual movement that Axl watched, mesmerized, before capturing a nipple with his mouth again, sucking hard as his hips quickened.

It was different from the sex before. It wasn't the desperate fury of two hungry teenagers on a mattress on the floor. It was slower, deeper, more intentional. Each movement carried the weight of all the years, all the fights, all the escapes, all the songs, all the money, all the trash they had ever taken out together. And it carried the future—the life growing inside her, the fruit of this dysfunctional and utterly unbreakable union.

Her orgasm came like a warm, expansive wave, starting in her womb and radiating to every cell. She screamed, not a muffled scream like before, but a full, free sound that echoed in the room. He followed moments later, with a muffled guttural roar against her skin, his body trembling violently against hers.

He collapsed beside her, panting, sweaty, one hand immediately resting on her belly, feeling the small post-pleasure contractions and, beneath, the vigorous kick of the baby, as if protesting against the agitation.

He laughed, breathless. "Look at that. Already has an opinion."

Izzy laughed too, breathless, her eyes closed. The peace was chemical, temporary, and perfect.

It was in that moment, in the sweaty, full stillness, that he propped himself up on his elbow and looked at her. His face was serious, the rockstar mask completely absent.

"Remember Lafayette?" he asked, his voice hoarse.

"The garbage war? How could I forget?"

"I thought… we've been through so much shit. We built all this." He made a vague gesture with his head, indicating the mansion, the career, the world outside. "But the only thing that always made sense, the only place that always felt like home … was you."

He moved, getting out of bed. He knelt on the expensive Persian rug beside the bed, completely naked, his powerful body illuminated by the candles, his face serious. He took her hand.

"Izzy Stradlin," he said, and his voice didn't tremble, it was clear as a bell. "You already carry my child. You've carried my heart for a lifetime. Marry me. For real. Not by contract, not for appearances. Marry this mess that I am. Forever."

There was no ring. Just him, naked and vulnerable, and her, pregnant with his child, in bed. It was the most Axl Rose proposal possible: obscene, intense, made in the heat of sex and, in truth, the rawest version of events.

Izzy looked at him, at that complicated and brilliant man who had been hers since they were two young runaways with a dream bigger than themselves. She remembered the smell of garbage, the cold, the fear. She remembered the sound of cans being banged together. She remembered the two hundred dollars in the dark alley.

Tears came, silently. She couldn't speak. She just nodded, pulling the hand he held to her lips and kissing it.

He climbed back onto the bed and wrapped his arms around her, the two snuggling in the warmth they had created. Outside, the city shone, tireless. The band's fights would wait. The tours, the records, the fame, everything would wait.

That night, in that bed, there was only them. The muse and the hurricane. The mother and the father. Izzy and Axl. Together, as they always had been and, he was absolutely certain—with the faith of a convert—as they always would be.

Izzy had never felt as exposed as the first time he wore the skirt.

It was pleated, dark blue, short enough to show his thighs — those thin, pale thighs he always hid under baggy pants and worn-out jeans. He bought it at a thrift store, in secret, his heart beating so hard it hurt, pulsing in his throat like it wanted to escape. The old woman behind the counter didn't even look at him, just took the crumpled bills and wrapped the fabric like it was the most normal thing in the world.

At home, he tried it on in front of the mirror.

The room was tiny, the mirror cracked in the corner, but Izzy saw enough. He saw his pale legs emerging from under the hem of the skirt, saw his thin waist that the fabric accentuated, saw his own face — his wide brown eyes, his parted lips, the expression of someone discovering something forbidden and delicious.

He spun.

The skirt twirled, light, loose, beautiful.

Izzy smiled.

He liked it.

He liked it so much he bought more. Light dresses, thin-strapped, that showed his shoulders. Skirts of all lengths — long to the floor, short to mid-thigh, a black leather one that hugged his hips like a second skin. Delicate blouses, lace, silk, see-through.

He hid everything at the back of the closet, behind the worn-out shirts and faded jeans. Like a secret. Like an addiction.

When he went out, he wore the cloak.

It was red, long, with a hood. He found it at a thrift store too, hanging in a dusty corner, and it seemed like the perfect solution. Underneath, he could wear whatever he wanted — a flowery dress, a flared skirt, a lace blouse that showed his nipples — and no one saw. The cloak hid everything, wrapped around him like a hug, like permission.

He was just another skinny young man with dark hair walking through the streets of Los Angeles.

No one needed to know that, under the red cloak, he felt truly beautiful.

Axl smelled him before he saw him.

He was in human form that night, walking aimlessly through the dark streets of the city. The moon was almost full — hanging in the sky like a white eye, vigilant — and that made his senses sharper, more intense. He felt every smell, every sound, every movement around him. A car exhaust three blocks away. A rat's heartbeat in the sewer. The smell of greasy fast food from a diner.

And then he felt that.

Sweet. Warm. Familiar in a way that made no sense, that had no explanation, that simply was.

His body stopped before his brain processed it. His legs froze, his eyes widened, his hands began to tremble. His chest — which didn't need to breathe, which could go hours without air — suddenly felt empty, desperate for oxygen.

Mate.

The word came from nowhere, instinctive, ancestral. It came from the depths of his being, from a place that wasn't human, had never been human. The smell was of a mate. The person the moon had chosen for him, forever, for all his life. The person his body recognized before his eyes could even see.

Axl followed the trail.

His legs moved on their own, fast, silent. He crossed streets, dodged lampposts, ignored the few pedestrians still wandering through the early morning. The smell grew stronger with each step, more intoxicating, more necessary.

He found him in an alley, leaning against a wall, smoking a cigarette.

He was thin — so thin it seemed a strong wind could knock him over. Dark hair falling over his shoulders, messy, soft. Brown eyes that watched the street movement with silent distrust, the caution of someone who's already learned the world isn't kind. He wore a long red cloak, strange for LA's weather, absurd for the warm early morning, but it suited him in a strange way.

Axl stood at the corner, just watching.

The smell was even stronger up close. It invaded his nostrils, went down his throat, settled in his chest like burning coal. He wanted to approach. He wanted to touch. He wanted to devour. He wanted to bury his face in that neck and breathe until he forgot his own name.

But he controlled himself.

He just watched.

The next night, he watched again.

And the next.

And the next.

Izzy noticed the stranger on the third night.

A red-haired man, tall, thin, with eyes so blue they almost glowed in the dark. He appeared in the most unexpected places — at the bar corner, on the park bench, on the sidewalk in front of his building. He never did anything. Just watched.

It wasn't an ordinary look. It was a look that seemed to pierce through skin, that seemed to see things Izzy hid even from himself. A hungry look, devoted, terrifying.

Izzy should have been afraid. Maybe he was, a little. His heart raced every time he saw that red silhouette outlined against the streetlight. But there was also curiosity, an attraction, a hot thing in his stomach every time he saw that icy blue fixed on him.

It was as if his body knew something his mind hadn't processed yet.

On the fifth night, the redhead disappeared.

Izzy missed him.

A week later, Izzy was in his room.

It was early morning — two, three AM, he'd lost count. The building was silent, the neighbors sleeping, the city outside reduced to a few cars passing and the distant hum of an air conditioner. He'd locked the door, closed the curtains, like he always did.

He undressed slowly.

He put on a short skirt — black, lace at the hem, so short it barely covered mid-thigh. The lace scratched his skin in a good way, teasing. Then a white blouse, thin, almost see-through, that showed his nipples underneath — dark, hard, obvious.

He looked at himself in the mirror.

He liked what he saw.

The thin body, yes, but now it looked intentional. His legs on display, long, pale, ending in bare feet on the worn carpet. His thin waist, narrow hips, the curve of his ass under the black lace. His chest, his nipples visible, almost provocative.

He was beautiful. Not despite the thinness, but because of it. He was beautiful in a way that hurt.

He lay on the bed.

The vibrator was in the nightstand drawer, hidden among socks and old t-shirts, wrapped in a cloth so no one would find it. It was black silicone, medium, with curves he knew well — the tip slightly curved to hit the prostate, the base wider to stretch, the ridges that vibrated against the skin.

He turned it on low.

He felt the vibration travel through his palm, a low hum, promising. He closed his eyes.

He ran the toy over his chest first.

His nipples hardened at the contact, the vibration spreading waves through his body. Izzy moaned softly, his mouth open, his breathing accelerating. He went down his stomach — slow, teasingly — feeling his skin prickle, his muscles contract.

When he reached between his legs, he was already wet.

Not just damp. He was dripping. Pre-cum ran from his cock, clear and sticky, while natural lubrication had already started appearing behind, ready, waiting.

Izzy pushed the vibrator against his entrance.

Slowly.

The tip pressed, resisted for a second, then gave way. The toy slid in, gliding easily on the lubrication, filling him. Izzy moaned loudly, biting his lip not to make noise, but it was hard — so hard — because the vibrator hit everything.

He pushed deeper.

He felt his prostate, that jolt of electric pleasure, and moaned again, louder. The vibrator buzzed against the right spot, massaging, torturing. Izzy moved it in and out in a slow, deliberate rhythm, his eyes closed, his breathing accelerating.

He imagined someone.

He imagined the redhead.

Those blue eyes, those long hands, that mouth. He imagined him there, doing this, holding his wrists, calling him mine. He imagined the redhead's hands instead of the vibrator, cold or warm fingers — he didn't know — entering him, opening him, possessing him.

The vibrator sped up.

Izzy moaned louder, his legs trembling, his whole body contracting. The orgasm was coming — he felt that wave rising, growing, about to explode. His free hand gripped his cock, pumping in rhythm with the vibrator, pre-cum running through his fingers, making everything more slippery, more obscene.

"Ah… ah…" he moaned, without control, without shame. "Like that… like that…"

And then the window shattered.

Izzy screamed.

The vibrator fell to the floor with a wet thud. He curled up on the bed, his eyes wide, his heart racing fit to burst. The curtain flew inward, torn from the wall, and behind it…

The redhead.

But it wasn't the same redhead from the streets.

His eyes weren't blue — they were red, red like embers, like blood, glowing in the dark with their own light. His hands had claws — long, dark, sharp — that scratched the windowsill as he climbed in. His body was bigger, broader, covered in reddish fur that gleamed in the moonlight. And there was something about his face — the snout slightly elongated, the pointed ears, the bared teeth, enormous canines ready to tear.

Izzy opened his mouth to scream again, but the redhead was on top of him before he could make a sound.

"Who", the voice came as a growl, guttural, animalistic, "who was it?"

The weight of his body pressed him down, hot — too hot, like he had a fever — and trembling. Trembling with anger, with jealousy, with hunger.

"What?", Izzy managed to ask, his voice failing, his whole body paralyzed with fear and with something else — something he didn't want to name.

"In your head. When you were touching yourself." The claws gripped his wrists, not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to hold. "Who were you imagining?"

Izzy swallowed hard. His heart beat so strongly it hurt. The redhead's smell — because it was him, the redhead from the street, but transformed — invaded his nostrils, animal, wild, intoxicating.

"You", he admitted.

The truth came out before he could think, instinctive, raw.

The redhead froze.

His red eyes widened. His breathing — if that beast even breathed — grew heavier, more irregular.

"Say it again", he demanded, his voice a command.

"You", Izzy repeated, firmer now, defiant despite the fear. "I thought of you. Every night. Since I started seeing you on the street."

The redhead growled — a low, guttural sound that vibrated in both their chests, that seemed to shake the whole room. And then he kissed him.

It wasn't a soft kiss. It wasn't romantic, didn't ask permission. It was hunger, it was possession, it was finally. His tongue invaded Izzy's mouth, hot, demanding, wild, and Izzy responded with the same intensity, his hands flying to the red hair, his fingers burying themselves in that fiery mane, pulling, holding, taking.

When they parted, both were gasping. The redhead's eyes were still red, glowing like beacons in the darkness.

"My name is Axl", he said, his voice still a growl, but more human now, more controlled. "And you're mine."

The next night, Izzy woke up chained.

It wasn't a gentle awakening. It was a shock — his eyes opened, his breath caught, his body tried to move and couldn't. His wrists were chained to the bed's headboard by thin but strong chains — cold metal links against warm skin. His ankles too, spread open, immobilized.

He was naked.

Almost.

Someone had put a collar on him. Black leather, soft, lined inside, with a ring at the front — the kind you use to attach a leash. And ears. Bunny ears, white plush, attached to a headband resting on his dark hair. And a plug. A plug with a fluffy bunny tail sticking out — white, soft, absurdly cute — already inside his body, filling him, stretching him.

Izzy held his breath.

Axl was at the door.

In werewolf form — or something between the two forms, the thin line where human and beast meet. Taller than in human form, broader, his enormous shoulders, his chest covered in soft reddish fur that gleamed in the moonlight coming through the window. His red eyes glowed in the dim light, fixed on him. His ears were pointed, fur-covered, and his teeth — his teeth were sharp, enormous canines that showed when he smiled.

Between his legs, his cock was erect.

It was enormous. Thicker than Axl's fist, longer than his forearm, red at the tip, pulsing. The base was even wider, a mating knot that Izzy had only seen in books, in drawings, in fantasies.

"Good morning, little bunny", Axl said, his voice a low, satisfied growl.

Izzy swallowed hard. His own cock — his human, ordinary one — hardened instantly, betraying any pretense of fear.

"What… what is this?"

"Roleplay." Axl crossed the room in slow, deliberate steps, each movement a threat and a promise. The claws lightly scratched the floor. "You're a lost little bunny in the forest. I'm the wolf who found you."

"And the chains?"

"So you don't run away." Axl sat on the bed, beside him. The weight made the mattress sink. The clawed hand moved slowly over Izzy's thigh — slowly, teasing — his skin prickling at the contact, the red fur brushing against pale skin. "Runaway bunnies need to be disciplined."

Izzy felt his cock harden more, if that was possible. The tip was already leaking pre-cum, a clear drop slowly running down his stomach.

"And if I don't want to run away?", he asked, his voice hoarse.

Axl smiled — a smile full of teeth, of canines, of promises.

"Then you're an obedient little bunny. And obedient bunnies get rewards."

His hand slid to the plug. His fingers — the claws, but he controlled them with precision — squeezed the base, pushed it lightly. Izzy moaned, his whole body responding.

"Do you want your reward, little bunny?"

"Yes", Izzy answered, without shame, without hesitation. "I do."

Axl pulled the plug slowly.

Very slowly.

Centimeter by centimeter.

Izzy felt every movement, every drag of the silicone against his inner walls, every vibration of the bunny tail swaying. He moaned, arched his back, pulled at the chains instinctively. When the plug finally came out — with a wet, obscene sound — the bunny tail swung in Axl's hand before being dropped on the floor.

"You were already so open", Axl murmured, his red eyes fixed on Izzy's entrance, which clenched around nothing, wet, ready. "Did you prepare for me?"

"I dreamed of you", Izzy admitted, his voice breaking. "I woke up wet. I was already… already like this when I woke up."

Axl growled — an approving, possessive sound.

He leaned down and licked Izzy's entrance.

His tongue was hot — much hotter than a human's — and rough, like fine sandpaper, like fire. He licked once, twice, three times, tasting, exploring. Izzy screamed — not in pain, but in pure, raw, overwhelming pleasure. His tongue entered, finally, pushing inside, deeper than any finger, deeper than any toy.

Izzy arched his back, a scream caught in his throat, his hands pulling at the chains hard.

"Axl…"

"Easy, little bunny." His tongue continued, pushing, licking, tasting. "I'll take care of you."

Axl licked him for a long time.

He licked his entrance, his perineum, his balls. He licked his thighs, his groin, the base of his cock. He licked until Izzy was moaning nonstop, his legs trembling, his cock leaking so much pre-cum that his stomach was all wet, slippery.

When he stopped, Izzy was on the edge of orgasm. His whole body trembled, his muscles contracted, his breathing was ragged, uncontrolled.

"Please", he begged. "Please, Axl…"

"Please what?"

"Fuck me. Fuck me, please. I need you. I need your cock."

Axl smiled — that dangerous, satisfied smile of someone who's just won the prize.

"That's how you ask, little bunny."

He positioned himself between Izzy's legs. His enormous cock pressed against his entrance — just the tip, and Izzy already felt the stretch, the pressure, the promise of what was to come.

"Relax", Axl murmured. "It'll hurt a little at first. You weren't made for this. Not completely."

"I want it", Izzy answered, firm. "I want to feel it. I want everything."

Axl pushed.

It was slow — so slow that Izzy felt every inch, every vein, every pulse. His entrance stretched, resisted, gave way. The tip entered, then the middle, then more. Izzy moaned, held his breath, moaned again. His hands gripped the chains so hard his knuckles were white.

When Axl buried himself to the hilt — to the base, until the knot began pressing against his entrance — they both moaned together.

"Fuck", Axl murmured, his forehead resting against Izzy's, his red eyes glowing. "So tight. So hot. My greedy little bunny. My perfect little slut."

"Move", Izzy begged, his voice breaking. "Move, please. I need… I need you to move."

Axl obeyed.

The first thrusts were slow, deep, each one making Izzy see stars. His cock filled every space, hit his prostate with every movement, tore out moans Izzy didn't know he was capable of making. But quickly the rhythm sped up — because Axl was a werewolf, because the moon called, because Izzy was his, his, and he needed to mark, possess, claim.

"Mine", he growled with every thrust. "Mine, mine, mine."

"Yours", Izzy answered, his voice failing, broken. "All yours. Always yours."

Axl's hand wrapped around Izzy's cock — his claw closed carefully, not hurting, but firm — and began pumping in rhythm with his thrusts. The other held his hip, the claws lightly scratching his skin, marking.

The sound was obscene. The moans, the growls, the wet sound of bodies meeting, the rattling of chains. The smell was of sex, of desire, of possession.

Izzy felt the orgasm rise like a wave.

"I'm gonna come", he warned, his voice shattered, his eyes rolling back. "Axl, I'm gonna come…"

"Come", Axl ordered, his voice a growl. "Come for me, little bunny. Come on my cock. I want to feel you."

Izzy came with a scream.

The orgasm exploded like never before — more intense, longer, more everything. His whole body clenched around Axl's cock, his muscles squeezing, massaging, pulling. Izzy's cock spurted into Axl's hand, hot cum running through his fingers, dirtying his stomach, his chest, everything.

His orgasm triggered Axl's.

The werewolf growled, buried himself deep — deeper than seemed possible — and came inside him. His cum was hot, so hot, and seemed never-ending. It spurted in waves, filling, overflowing. And then Izzy felt the knot.

The base of Axl's cock swelled.

Swelled inside him, widening, stretching, locking.

Izzy moaned — not in pain, but from the sensation, the extreme stretch, from being completely filled, completely possessed.

They stayed like that for a moment — panting, sweaty, glued together, trapped.

Then Axl moved.

Or tried to.

"Shit", he murmured.

"What?", Izzy asked, still dizzy, still floating on the orgasm wave.

"The knot."

Izzy looked down. He saw where their bodies met — saw the base of Axl's cock swollen, widened, stuck inside him like an anchor, like a link.

"Is… is that normal?"

"For werewolves, yes." Axl seemed embarrassed, almost ashamed. "It happens after orgasm. It keeps us together for a while."

Izzy blinked.

"How long?"

"About twenty minutes. Half an hour. Depends."

Izzy was silent for a moment, processing. Then he laughed.

"You're stuck inside me."

"It's not funny."

"It's a little funny."

Axl tried to keep a serious expression — his red eyes still glowing, his pointed ears still erect — but couldn't. He laughed too, a low, hoarse, surprisingly human sound.

"Sorry. I should have warned you."

"Now I know. For next time."

"There'll be a next time?"

Izzy looked at him. At his red eyes that were slowly returning to blue. At his still transformed body, still covered in fur, still threatening. At his slightly goofy expression of an in-love, worried, hopeful werewolf.

"Yes", he answered. "Many."

They stayed like that for half an hour — stuck, embraced, exchanging kisses and laughter. When the knot finally shrank and Axl could pull away, he took care of Izzy with a gentleness that violently contrasted with everything that had happened before.

He carefully removed the chains, massaging his marked wrists. He cleaned the cum running between Izzy's legs with a damp cloth — and there was so much cum, running in thick strings, mixed with lubrication, dirtying the sheets.

"Does it hurt?", he asked.

"A little", Izzy admitted. "But it was worth it. Every second."

Axl kissed his forehead.

"I'll prepare a bath."

"In the bath, you come in with me?"

"Of course."

"In the bath, can we do it again?"

Axl laughed, shaking his head.

"Naughty little bunny."

"Perverted wolf."

In the bath, they did it again. And in bed, after. And in the morning, once more.

When Izzy finally slept, exhausted, satisfied, his body aching in a good way, Axl stayed in the armchair — watching, guarding, loving.

The red cloak was thrown on the floor, forgotten.

The wolf had found his bunny.

And he was never letting go.