Work Text:
Axl stared at the crucifix, tilted upside down just above her breast.
The swirling dim yellow of the bulb bathed it in a golden yellow, the cross’ silver shining brilliantly, almost blinding, despite the years of wear that should have dulled its shimmer.
His eyes dragged along its intricate design, a blinding crimson stone in the centre that glared at him, almost daring him to touch it.
His hands ached to run his fingers along its intricate artwork, relishing in baroque artistry. But he couldn’t, no matter how much he tried to.
He was staunchly an atheist. Or very conflicted?
He felt a strange pain in the middle of his chest, a familiar ache that squeezed his heart within a merciless grasp.
And suddenly, he was back within the carved ebony doors of the Church in Lafayette, a strange frenzy smothering him with its ornate engravings and archaic paintings.
It’s like watching an old and worn scenic film reel. But he stared at the scene, horrified.
Every inch of Axl's soul screamed with an overwhelming desire to tear the whole place down.
In front of him stood his Father, his hands running over the pages of the bible with an odd gentleness, holding the whole congregation in a trance.
Axl suddenly felt a shiver down his taut spine. He felt sick. So very fucking sick.
He never wanted to practice Catholicism or live by the principles written in the bible. Still, the cross continued burning holes into his soul with its unforgiving gaze, the blazing red tearing him down, for he fostered no purity, and his hands were stained in dripping red.
He was a true Satan incarnate with a blackened soul, charred from the fires of hell (or his Father's?), devoid of any holiness. His heart filled to the brim with a pain he could not coax, a resentment so intense that he could not soothe it.
The once dimmed and slumbering wrath surged in his blood that was already dripping with contempt and animosity of such great magnitude.
Not even the messianic role of God could alleviate his turmoil, splattered with violence, deception and sin.
His prayers to the Lord were unheard anyway, and repentance wasn’t worth the pain if it meant that he had to live a life of false virtue (as his Holy Father did).
And the Lord did take away from him, till he was left, cold and empty.
So he chose to douse himself in sins every day. He decided to fulfil his sinful desires, an attempt to reignite the warmth that was sucked out of him the day he was born.
There was no opportunity to cry for absolution either. If Afterlife existed, he’d be punished for living a life of sin.
Leaving his old Faith, although liberating from the endless reservoir of hell he called ‘Home’, didn’t give him any sort of catharsis. Only a conflicted mind remained.
“What’s wrong?” Cherry spoke quietly, sleepiness lacing her voice.
He watched her cross pendant shift and skin into the dark weaves of the brilliant chestnut hue of her hair as she moved closer to him. She perched her chin on his chest, her hand gently tracing circles over the soft skin of his chest.
His eyes skated over her artfully sculpted face. Utterly serene features dripping with innocence. She was truly a mesmerizing sight.
For somebody with such angelic radiance, she made love to him sinfully.
Sometimes he wondered if she was stupidly reckless for ignoring all the red flags he walked with.
Or she’s the kind who likes trouble, in this case, the sinner?
Sometimes he wished she was some magnanimous figment of an unholy fantasy. But she was real, very real.
He truly wished he could find a way to capture all the unbridled infatuation she evoked in him.
He placed his hand on the back of her head, and his fingers slowly smoothed down the knotted strands of her hair. He inhaled heavily, and a strong gust of cherry filled his senses with a certain warmth. Her touch was blisteringly sweet and tender.
“Axl?” He tilted his head to look at her. A stunning pair of earthy brown eyes stared deeply into his eyes, and for a moment, Axl lost himself in her eyes.
His Father would have called her a lustful whore of the Devil.
But to Axl, she was a moment of reprieve from the kaleidoscope of resilience and trauma he called ‘life’.
“Are you alright?”
The soothing timbre of her voice never ceased, despite the evident drowsiness in her voice.
A small smile bloomed on his face, his thumb softly tracing the ridge of her sharp eyebrow.
“Yeah. Just thinking.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
His eyes once again caught the cross pendant, but this time, he felt his nerves untangling and the unease in his chest fizzling out under her touch.
“Nah, it’s nothing much, really.”
Cherry hummed, reaching for her pendant, fidgeting with it for a bit.
Was the cross her symbol of her descent into sin?
Or perhaps she was a sinner, born of Lucifer and his Original Sin, quite like him.
As his Father would have believed him to be.
In a way, he was right.
From the moment he was born, evil bloomed all around him. Perhaps he was a conduit of all evil.
Axl closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, expelling all the rage churning in him.
It was a long time ago. It doesn’t matter anymore. It never did.
He pulled her closer, his lips touching her exposed shoulders, and the poisoned sweetness of cherries embraced him, intoxicating him.
His Father would have killed him once and for all if he saw what Axl had gotten himself into.
Oh wait, his Father had already killed him in the most unspeakable ways.
All that was left of Axl was bitter, broken pieces that he hid under his façade, pulp fiction of arrogance and rage.
He was nothing. A nobody. Even if he becomes a star one day, he would still be the broken man with a diabolical heart.
No matter how much he tried to shed the ashes of immorality that his past forced him to wear, it never came off. Only blood dripped off, thickened with misery and woe.
Axl gently ran his fingers over the curve of her waist, the silken fabric of her clothing a stark contrast to his calloused fingers.
She was in a white babydoll dress, fit for an angel. Golden shadow on her half-lidded eyelids and remnants of her vermilion red on her lips. She was really lovely to look at, tucked under his chin.
And that’s when he noticed her pendant now lay on his chest, just above his heart. But it didn’t burn him or ache him anymore. It just lay there, cold and hard.
With shaky fingers, he touched the cross. He ran his fingers over the rusty ivy-like designs and, finally, the crimson stone that seemed to channel a certain rage towards him. But when he touched it, he felt nothing.
Nothing at all.
No divine epiphanies struck him, nor did any unholy liberation from abandoning his faith.
He felt absolutely nothing.
Was it a sign of abandonment from the heavens above?
His teeth bit her bottom lip, pressing just shy of hard enough to break the skin. A curious emotion rose along with a writhing agony filling him up again. And guilt too.
Why he felt guilty, he never knew.
Perhaps because of the Catholic guilt that was forcefully shoved down his throat.
His mind raced back to the day he tried to find some sort of solace in the Lord when he uttered the words “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned” for the first and last time.
The only answer he got was that he was so blindly entrenched in his sins that it prevented him from seeing right and that his wrath goes hand in hand with his pride.
As if he already wasn’t aware of it.
He opened himself to God as he was- twisted mind, broken bodied and bruised heart slashed with several lacerations.
God is benevolent, they said.
Yet Axl was maimed and mutilated over and over again.
Until he abandoned the path of the Lord.
Perhaps God’s unflinching and unyielding love was never meant for Axl, for his soul was devoid of anything pure.
Or was God a manifestation of some sort of nefarious blasphemy to those he doesn’t want?
Axl’s eyes flickered, a familiar feeling of abandonment and failure gushing from his mind into his eyes.
One tear slipped, dribbling down his sharp cheekbones and curving around his jaw.
He closed his eyes tightly, not letting anymore escape.
“Axl…” Cherry spoke, her voice velvety and husky.
When he opened his eyes, he was greeted by her stunning pair of soft brown eyes, filled with such warmth and comfort that he almost surrendered.
Her gaze, however, was sharp and disarming, as if she was piercing into the depths of his soul and tearing him down to the barest of his bones.
That terrified him because, despite his violent and harsh exterior, he was fatally tender.
But he truly wanted to revel under her touches, the sheer contentment of being known consuming him.
He closed his eyes, feeling her lips sealed over his, delicate and tender.
He felt the cool metal of the pendant burning his skin with such a scathing stinging. But her touches, so carnal yet tender, a stark contrast to the searing touch of the charm, eased the hue and cry of his fragile.
Perhaps he was way too ruined to appeal to God for salvation.
Perhaps he was forever meant to be this unruly beast, enveloped by the pure cacophony and uncontained rage, relishing the sheer excitement and unbridled arousal he knew he could invoke. A sinner in every essence of the word.
Maybe Cherry was all he needed, the effortless reprieve he so yearned for amidst the obscurities of the world he lived in.
For now, he decided he would indulge in the moment of solace she provided him wordlessly.