#i remember i found a painting n then went outside 2 look at the relevant landmark n 2 seconds later it became too foggy 2 see it sfdklfjskf

[newgroundstier]

old man addiction

[ubernoxa]

The Slippery Slope: An Izzy Stradlin FANFICTION

Chapter 3: An Apetite for Destruction

Story Summary: After leaving Guns N’ Roses, Izzy find himself in a rut, and decideds to visit the local zoo. While visiting the penguin exhibit, he meets a red head named Poppy. Will they manage to keep standing while on their slippery slope?

Chapter Summary: Poppy calls an old friend for advice, and Izzy runs into Poppy at a record store and hope to corrects things.

Tags: @slashscowboyboots @smokeandmirrorz

Masterlist coming soon, but Chapter 1 Chapter 2

“Ohh god I made such a fool of myself, he is never going to talk to me again. Why am I so awkward?” Poppy whined into the phone as her old college roommate, Lissa, sympathetically listened. This wasn’t the first time Poppy had been freaking out about a guy, and she knew that it wasn’t going to be the last.

“Calm down Poppy, you are probably overanalyzing it,” Lissa was trying to calm Poppy down, but it wasn’t working.. She wished that Poppy had called her right after the date instead of the morning after. It was clear to Lisa that Poppy had spent most of the night overanalyzing and imagining future scenarios that wouldn’t happen.

Poppy sighed as she plopped down on her bed, still holding the phone to her ear. She wanted to kick herself. She wished she became an engineer instead of a biologist, so she could invent a time machine and travel back in time.

“Do you want to tell me what happened? It might help,” Lissa’s voice cut through the silence.

“So it is all the stupid busboy’s fault!” Poppy shouted into her phone. Lissa playfully rolled her eyes at the very limited story she told.

“I am going to need more details hun.”

“So everything is going great. He is super sweet and really funny. He started off super quiet, and barely spoke at the beginning of dinner. Once the food came he became kinda chatty,” Poppy began telling the story while Lissa nodded her head as she listened over the phone.

“What did you wear?” Lissa interrupted earning some confusion from Poppy.

“I don’t see how that is relevant.”

“Hey, it helps paint a picture of you on your date at some fancy italian restaurant in the middle of nowhere Indiana,” Lissa rebuttled earning a groan from Poppy.

After a couple moments of silence, Poppy broke the silence, “I wore the short gold dress.”

“Thanks, now you can continue the story,” Lissa sarcastically replied earning a light chuckle from Poppy who wished her old roommate was here in Indiana, and not in the middle of nowhere Maine.

“As I was saying, everything was going great. The food was spectacular, and we were clicking. Every once and a while silence would fill the space between us, but it was a comfortable silence. It was when we were looking at the menu or eating. We even shared our dinners. Like Lissa...this is going to sound really cheesy, but he even fed me his food. You know, like in those romance movies we watch all the time?”

“Aww that is really sweet of him. If he has a twin I call dibs,” Lissa half joked.

“Anyway, we both finished our dinners and this busboy….ohh god the fucking bus boy,” Lissa froze as Poppy swore. She had known Poppy for 5 years, and she had only heard the girl swear a handful of times.

“What did the busboy do? Did he make fun of you or something like that?”

“No. So the busboy goes and asks ‘Did you enjoy your dinner Mr Stradlin?’ Then I mumble something like Stradlin is a silly last name which it is! It didn’t sound like a real name to be honest. Sounds kinda like a sex joke. Anyway the busboy turns to me and says ‘Well I guess that is one of the perks of being a rockstar…you get to choose whatever name you want. Plus it’s not the weirdest name, he has a bandmate named Duff and another named Axl’. I fucking froze when the busboy said that. The reason Izzy didn’t want to talk about his job was because he was a part of Guns N’ Roses. That is why he never mentioned his last name to me,” Lissa didn’t need to be in the same room as Poppy to know that she was most likely dramatically flapping her arm in the air like the penguins she took care of.

“Wait wait wait...you went on a date with Izzy Stradlin,” Lissa was attempting to connect the dots and understand Poppy met a rockstar.

“I guess..” Poppy mumbled back.

“What do you mean I guess. You didn’t recognize him from all of the magazines that have been littering the checkout counter at practically every grocery store ever since he left Guns N’ Roses? It was also all over the radio!” Poppy groaned at Lisa’s comment. She should have known. Izzy wasn’t a name like Mike or Mark where there are thousands of people walking around with that name. There were probably a handful of people named Izzy, if any at all. An Izzy in Indiana who is a quiet musician and has brown hair could only have been Izzy the rockstar.

“God I’m an awkward idiot…” Poppy once again mumbled. She wanted to slap herself silly.

“What else happened,” Lissa asked after a couple moments of silence.

“Well anyway, once the busboy pointed out that Izzy was a rockstar, things got awkward. The busboy left, and when the check came he didn’t even look over it. He just handed our waitress his credit card and told her to process it as soon as possible. It was clear that he wanted out,” Poopy’s heart sunk as she recalled the moment.

“How were you the awkward one?” Lissa asked, trying to follow Poppy’s questionable logic.

“I haven’t gotten to that part yet. So we start to leave the restaurant and I missed that he offered to take my hand. Then when we were outside the restaurant waiting for the valet to grab our cars, he offered for us to go and walk to a nearby gelato place that I mentioned during appetizers. The problem was that I already saw the valet driving towards us in my car, and it felt like he was doing it out of pity…so I said no. The whole drive home I was kicking myself!”

“Doesn’t sound too bad hun. Also, he might have just been trying to get out of the restaurant before everyone else recognized him. From what I’ve heard from interviews and stuff, he never was the one who wanted to be the center of attention. Poppy...getting gelato might have been because he didn’t want the date to end…” Lissa was trying to lift Poppy’s spirits by giving an alternate scenario, one that Lissa believed to be the real reason.

“You’re just stressing yourself over nothing,” Lissa added trying the break the silence once again.

“What do I do, Lissa.”

“Go to a music shop. Find his albums and buy them so you could listen to them. Worst case you case you could show up and get some music for your penguins to listen to…”

“I’m going to stand out like a sore thumb….”

“Poppy...you will not stand out in a music shop”

After 20 minutes of Lissa convincing Poppy to get dress and head to the music shop, Poppy found herself standing outside the music store. The closest one was in Lafayette which was a quick drive from her apartment. She took a deep breath before she walked in.

Poppy almost jumped when the bell on the door rang.

“Welcome to Halls Music Shop,” On the outside Poppy smiled and waved at the man who was working the register, internally she wanted to bolt out of the shop because she felt several eyes on her.

The first floor was filled with records and cassette tapes. Poppy wandered towards the section labeled rock as she was determined to find the record and quickly leave as soon as possible. She sighed as she quickly realized how large the rock section was, this wasn’t going to be as easy as she expected. She was under the assumption that there were two maybe three type of rock music; classic, punk, and heavy. There were 15, 15 type of rock.

“Hey, I’m Ryan! Are you looking for anything in particular?” A tall brunette pulled her out of her thoughts of trying to figure out which one of the types of rock Izzy’s band was.

“Yeah….umm...it’s called Guns N’ Roses,” Poppy sent Ryan a soft smile who sent it right back to her.

“Good choice! I saw them live a year ago, and it was insane. If you ever get the chance I would highly recommend seeing them live. It’s almost impossible to believe how insanely awesome their shows are,” Ryan said to Poppy remembering most of the night from the show. His ticket was worth every penny, and he was hoping they would add more tour dates soon.

“Cool, I had a friend recommend them to me. She said I’d like them,” Poppy replied trying to keep the conversation going. It wasn’t a complete lie, but it was a rehearsed one.

“You haven’t been listening to them? They’re the only thing everyone is talking about!”

Across the small store, Izzy stood on the second floor looking through their guitars for sale. Did he need one? No.

Was he looking to distract himself from his date last night? Yes.

Everything was going perfect in his book. He was playing all the moves that his old band mates had taught him. From being overly sweet like Duff to making her endlessly laugh like Steven. Then the damn busboy had to blow his cover. Granted he really didn’t have a cover, but he still hated the busboy. Once the busboy opened his stupid mouth. He knew the entire time all that was going through Poppy’s head was that Izzy was a rockstar with a rockstar lifestyle.

He shook his head before deciding to just pick up his new strings, and headed down the stairs to the checkout. He found this place within the first week of movie back, and was forever great fun for it.

As he headed down the stairs, he immediately saw the redhead. Unsure of what had taken over him, Izzy headed towards the rock section where he saw Poppy looking through cassettes.

“Hey Pops,” A smile grew on Poppy’s face as Izzy stood next to her pretending to look through some of the cassettes.

“Hey,” Poppy felt her heart rate immediately skyrocket when he got even closer to her.

‘Don’t be awkward. Just keep breathing. Maybe Lissa was right about overanalyzing this entire situation’ poppy mental told herself.

“Looking for anything in particular?” Izzy was slowly piecing the pieces to the puzzle that was Poppy’s brain.

“Well I’m obviously looking for the perfect album,” Poppy teased back as she continued to purposely search away from the Guns N’ Roses section. After a couple of seconds of perusing through, Poppy smiled when she found the perfect cassette to tease Izzy with.

“Ahh, here we go,” Poppy grabbed a Motley Crue cassette and proudly showed it to Izzy, earning a playful eye roll from the guitarist. Poppy didn’t know a lot about rock bands, but she knew about the tension between Axl Rose and Vince Neil. There was a solid month where that’s all the magazines that littered the grocery store checkout aisle talked about.

“Girls, Girls, Grils?” A smirk was present on Izzy lips when he spoke.

“Yeah! First off I’m a girl, so obviously this album is for me. Secondly, there is nothing hotter than guys on bikes. Lastly, these songs just speak to me,” Poppy said, attempting to hide her laughter.

“These songs speak to you? Ohh do tell!” Izzy asked, a smirk never leaving his lips.

“Well, the first song Wild Side...clearly as you can tell by just looking at me I have such a rambunctious side! Plus I have worked with wild animals.”

“Ohh I can see it now, you and your penguin sidekicks probably get in all sorts of trouble,” Poppy laughed at Izzy’s comment before continuing on with her explanation.

“Girls, Girls, Girls….self explanatory. The song is clearly written for me...a female,” this earned a chuckle from Izzy who knew that Poppy had clearly never listened to the song before.

Poppy felt the nerves vanish as Izzy laughed. She felt her cheeks and ears redden. She felt smaller against the tall guitarist.

“What about Dancing on Glass?” Izzy asked, breaking the silence between them.

“Well as an ex-ballerina I don’t not see the appeal to dancing on glass…”

“It is about Nikki’s, the guy who wrote the song, Heroin overdose, the shit he and his band went through to get to that point in time, and how he wouldn't go through that routine again. Like he said,"it's just like dancing on glass” Poppy nodded as Izzy briefly talked about the song.

“Did you write any songs?” A soft smile formed on Izzy’s lips as he headed over towards where the Guns N’ Roses cassettes were. Poppy put the Motley Crue cassette that she had no intention of buying back and followed him.

“One of the most popular songs I worked on with Guns was Sweet Child of mine. It was definitely one of those all hands on deck situations, but I provided most of the chords. The intro bit is 100% Slash’s warm up. Out Ta Get Me was another one I wrote. It’s a fun song to play,” Poppy quickly interrupted Izzy by teasily correcting him, “Out to get me….out ta get me isn’t proper English.”

“Well I’ll have you know I’m the only one in Guns to have a high school degree, so grammatical correctness wasn’t are highest concern,” Poppy simply giggles at his remark before he continued talking.

“Mr. Brownstone was another good one Slash and I wrote. It’s about what a day in the life of being a struggling LA band on the strip.” Poppy watched as sorrow grew on his face.

“What about Patience, that one doesn’t sound at all like a rock n roll song,” Poppy tried to distract him by bringing up another song on the cassette that she was holding. It was called G N’ R Lies, a rather odd name for a album, but she assumed they had some sound reasoning for it.

“It’s not really,” Poppy nodded her head at his comment. He then went completely silent looking at the cassettes, memories of both good times and bad flooding his head.

“Well, maybe you should play it for me sometime.”

“Yeah, that sounds good.” Poppy felt a soft smile across her lips as he replied.

“You have too many albums Izzy..you make it hard to choose just one,” Poppy teased, still trying to lighten his mood.

When that didn’t work, she snatched the cassette he was holding, “Hmm Appetite for Destruction sounds like the one for me.”

“Ohh so are you telling me you crave destruction?” Izzy finally spoke again, a smirk lingering on his features.

“I’m a biologist who studies dangerous animals for a living, I don’t just crave destruction. I control it,” The words were coming out faster than she could think. What she was saying felt silly, but when she looked back to Izzy who now had his arm wrapped around her wrist she didn’t regret the words one bit.

“I would trust penguins under the dangerous animals category,” Izzy smugly replied.

“What about polar bears or mountain lions?”

“Okay, those...those are dangerous,” he didn’t look at her when he responded, but a smile lingered on his face.

“Is that all for you then today?” Ryan asked as Izzy placed the guitar strings he needed to buy on the counter.

“And a cassette of Appetite,” Izzy offered his hand and Poppy placed the cassette in his hand.

“Buying your own albums now?” Ryan asked, raising an eyebrow towards the guitarist.

Izzy shrugged before handing the cashier his credit card. Once the transaction was done, Poppy immediately reached down to grab his hand, slowly stroking it with her thumb.

“Do you have any plans for the afternoon?”

Poppy shook her head no before following Izzy to his car. She was expecting some luxury sports car, but instead he drove a burnt red truck. She couldn’t explain why, but it fit him perfectly.

He put the cassette in, and drove back to his place with Poppy along for the ride. She by no means was a singer, but she was quick to pick up on the refrains.

“You know that the song ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ isn’t very welcoming. I do not feel welcome in whatever jungle y’all were in when you performed that, and I have been to many jungles...if I may add,” Poppy said once Welcome to the Jungle finished. This earned a small smile from Izzy who was surprised that listening to his old album wasn’t making him incredibly pissed off, he figured it was because of Poppy who was dancing and poorly singing next to him.

About half way through ‘It’s so Easy’ Poppy just started cracking up.

“What?”

“It’s nothing,” Poppy tried to hide her giggle as she spoke.

“Sounds like something,” Now Izzy was curious to see the red head’s opinion on the song.

“It’s so easy, when everyone is trying to please me!” Poppy jokingly sang, mocking the song. Was his band seriously that cocky?

“Mock all you want, but that song is inspired by the life we lived,” Poppy dialed back on the mocking and continued to jokingly dance in her seat, clearly earning stares from nearby cars.

By the time Nightrain came on Poppy was pretending to play guitar and drums. Izzy couldn’t help, but smile at the reaction she had to his music.

“Your place is beautiful,” Poppy said as they pulled up to what she assumed to be Izzy’s place. It wasn’t an extravagant LA mansion, but it was home. It was also was a huge fuck you to Axl, since they both talked about living in the house growing up.

“Thanks,” Izzy replied as he unlocked the door. He couldn’t have unlocked the door faster.

Once Poppy made it inside she practically felt herself slammed up against the now closed front door. She looked up to see Izzy, who wore a look that made her want to melt. Holy fuck he looked hot towering over her.

“So, is this how you welcome most guests?” Poppy asked, unable to look away from his eyes.

Even though it was no later than 3pm, the foyer in his house was dark. His face was partially hidden in the shadows, but she could still see the outline of his face and his deep hazel eyes that she swore changed color in the afternoon sun.

She expected him to taste like a mix of alcohol and cigarettes, but she was quickly proven wrong. He tasted like caramel. The type of warm Carmel that you would find in pie. It was calming, as she felt his fingers dance down her sides.

As if on reflex, Poppy intertwined her fingers in his hair. Her mind went blank, unable to focus on any single thing as she felt Izzy’s tongue in her mouth. Izzy began to slowly guide Poppy towards his couch with intentions that could only be described as those belonging to a rockstar.