#sorry to the dude who thought he was gonna have the pleasant certainty of a ticket by this afternoon

[shamblz]

Sold a guy my concert ticket that I can't go to but ticketmaster transfer ticket option isn't working n its not even me who has the tickets its my friend who's now having to do legwork to see if we can get this guy his damn ticket n I feel so bad cuz I took his money thinking a screenshot would be enough but apparently there's a risk he could get turned away at the door n I feel so bad him ripppp

[slxyangel]

Long Dark Shadow (Steven Adler / Izzy Stradlin’ x Reader)

Summary: “Revenge is a really tricky fucker, but who cares at this point?” This is the second part of Shock Therapy.

Wordcount: 2.4k.

Warnings: Panic attack, a lot of angst, more angst and a little bit of angst in case there wasn’t enough.

A/N: Since this is a sequel to a story I already posted, here are the tags for the people who asked me to write this, you are the real MVPs and I genuinely appreciate u :))) izzzyjizzy wannabegonnie kairigoth youthgonewild imagines-xxx isahminski

REQUESTS ARE OPEN

Masterlist: https://slxyangel.tumblr.com/post/189625800403/masterlist

The parking lot extended in front of your eyes, almost empty, almost infinite. The pavement was noticeably hot, you could feel it burning under your feet as if you were barefoot. It was mid July and, as expected, the sun showed no mercy. The air was steaming, it scalded, it hurt when you breathed it in. Your head  was spinning but you wouldn’t stop moving, you just couldn’t risk to. It’s funny how you hadn’t noticed any of that when you stepped out to the alley a while before, nothing other than typical summer heat and a slightly more pleasant sensation inside of the studio than outside. But now… oh shit, what had you done?

You reached the first car on your way, a red Volvo and you leaned on it to recover the breath you inexplicably lacked. Well, maybe not that inexplicably, there were probably reasons, only you couldn’t process them. You withdrew your hand as soon as you touched it. Fuck, it was fire. You took your damaged fingers to your mouth in an attempt to sooth them, but the gesture soon turned into a failed attempt to cover your mouth’s accelerated respiration and stopping yourself from having a panic attack. There, beside the red Volvo, you bent down and tried to catch your breath, as two pairs of steps neared you from behind.

Steven situated himself in front of you and squatted, but he kept the distance. He was trying to make you focus your eyes on his instead of letting them freely wander around, searching for life. He had had his fair share of these with you, and he knew better than to hug you, as much as he felt that would make everything better. You needed space, you needed air, and if he was right and the root of this whole thing was the one he had in mind, he was all but going to fix it with his closeness. Izzy, on the other hand was standing there, one step and a half away from you and the drummer, biting his nails, with the very unpleasant feeling that he had caused this. Besides, he was supposed to be the calm guy, the chill dude who could handle situations like these because he had been through many of them, but he was losing his shit. Seeing you there, with tears of powerlessness rolling down your cheeks and your hands unsuccessfully trying to cover them... he didn’t know where to fucking put himself, but he sure wasn’t going to leave you alone, so he stood there, as still as a corpse and with his chipped nails as the only outlet for his own anxiety.

After a couple of minutes, your breath slowed down and evened, and your hands were finally able to dry your cheeks without the danger of tears bathing them all over again. You felt like sitting on the floor, but you wouldn’t repeat that mistake, so you stood up, wrapping your arms around yourself and turning to face Izzy. So did Steven.

-          I’m so sorry – you mumbled, almost to yourself.

-          No, why? What? – the blond sounded hurried, the same way a person does when something is escaping from their hands and they needed to catch it but don’t know how to – Why? Don’t be sorry. Please, don’t be sorry.

-          I… I don’t know, Steven. I really don’t know.

-          It’s okay, you’re okay. Because you are okay, right? Are you okay? You’re breathing, you…

-          Yes, yes, I’m fine.

An honest smile peeked out of your lips. You always loved the way he had to make you feel cared about, he really was the sweetest boy on Earth. But still you couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong, that something was broken. I was like this dark certainty took over you, and what worried you the most wasn’t that mere fact; it was the sensation that it wasn’t necessarily negative. You wanted to fight against it, but deep down you didn’t. Your eyes flew to the guitarist’s as you were delving into this, and you found him looking at you with a familiar intensity, exactly the same one you were trying to swim against. You shook your head and looked at the floor. No. No, no, no.

-          What do you think? That I didn’t notice? – Steven’s voice sounded tired, as if it weighed ten thousand pounds.

-          What? – you stared at him, confused.

-          That – he gestured with his right hand --. This.

-          Dude… -- Izzy finally talked, with a calm that sounded so uneasy.

-          Dude, what? I’m not dumb. – his shoulders fell limp, matching the sound of his voice – Despite what everybody in here seems to think, I am not dumb. I have eyes, I see things, I realize things. Like the way you look at her as if she was the very axis of your world. Izzy, no offence, but you’re dead inside, and she sparks light in your eyes. At first…

-          Steven, please…

-          Let him finish – you interrupted Izzy.

-          Yes, let me finish  – the drummer looked at you with a gaze you weren’t able to identify –. At first, if I’m honest, I didn’t give it much of a thought. Okay, maybe I am dumb for that. But for God’s sake, you – and now he pointed in your direction – started looking back at him the same way. I see you two from the stall across the glass, sitting on the couch next to each other, you putting your legs over his, how you accept drags of his cigarettes when you don’t even like Marlboro, and how he blows his smoke in your face and you giggle at it…

-          Hey! That was only…

-          Now you let him finish. – Izzy cut you, sharp as a knife.

-          I thought “It’s okay, Steven, you’re being paranoid. She’s effusive, she’s like that” and I know you are and I swear to god I love that about you. But what am I supposed to do when I hear you – his eyes now accused his bandmate – tell Axl that you, I quote, think you fucking love her and that the guilt is consuming your soul? What guilt, man? WHAT FUCKING GUILT???

Tears escaped from his eyes with the same lack of permission words were spilling out of his mouth with, like a faucet he had opened by accident and he couldn’t close. Fuck, you should have known, you should have noticed the same way he did. You should have been more cautious. Not only about controlling your feelings for somebody else, because one can’t really put a lace around that, but about letting him fabricate the wrongest of ideas and chew on it until it was this rooted. After all this situation you didn’t know if he was your boyfriend anymore, but you couldn’t stand to see him suffering, not him, not like that, not because of that. Unlike during the rest of the conversation, you forgot that Izzy was there and that you were trying to be neutral, and you hugged Steven. You were surprised when his arms, although weakly, hugged you back.

-          Steven I… -- the guitarist spoke lowly, raggedly – I am so, so sorry. But not because of what you think… fuck. You are my fucking brother, I wouldn’t do that to you in a million years, I swear on my mother. You don’t believe me now. I see why you don’t believe me, but I need you to make the effort. Yes, the guilt consumed me and still consumes me because I am in love with your girlfriend. Fuck it. I can’t do anything about it. I want you to know I tried, I need you to know I tried. All the fucking time. I saw her with you and I saw her happy, because man, she loves you so much, it’s so obvious one can tell from fifteen miles away. And I caught myself having this sick feeling of envy and fucking rage in my guts because it was you and not me who she looked at like that. And I felt guilty because it was so fucking dark it was gonna eat me alive, and then it was gonna be the band and then it was gonna be us two, and I could see the precipice coming dangerously close and it scared the hell out of me. That’s when I talked to Axl, I needed advice. I never need advice, so imagine how lost I fucking was. But I swear to you that that’s all. Nothing happened between me and her, nothing, I need you to believe that, please.

What the hell was going on now? Your body and Steven’s were slightly more separated now than when Izzy started ranting, but you were still holding his hand. Again, you had been left with no words. You didn’t know what to say because you didn’t even know what you thought. Your feelings were a blur of guilt, love, sadness, frustration, longing and a million other unidentified things, and the way you heard the brunette talk about you and him and Steven hadn’t helped clear it out. All you were absolutely certain about was that you needed the drummer to know he wasn’t right, at least not entirely. You looked at him with again watery eyes and nodded, reassuring the part of Izzy’s discourse the other boy was surely most worried about. You wanted to talk, but you weren’t sure your voice wasn’t gonna crack in the process. You tried your best:

-        I promise. I promise you nothing ever happened between us two. Nothing but this kiss. Please, you have to believe me, Stevie… Steven. – you wanted to bring him closer to you by calling him that, but you were afraid it was only going to pull him further apart, like an attack to happier memories, so you backed down -- I want to be honest with you, as honest as I possibly can, because you deserve it. I’m so sorry I can’t tell you that you are entirely wrong and that I don’t have feelings for someone else, I wish I could do that, I mean it. But at this point I don’t even know what I feel. I am extremely confused. That’s why I panicked before and that’s also probably why I planned the whole thing in the first place. I don’t know, I want to believe that seeing you with the girl triggered things in me, things I didn’t know were there, and I pulled that up as a defense mechanism, and it turned out entirely wrong. I should have thought about it, I know that. The only thing I am certain of is the love I have for you, that was never arguable and will never be. And also I know that I need you to stop torturing yourself with the thought that maybe something happened between your best friend and your girlfriend, because there is absolutely nothing further from the truth.

You managed to fight the lump in your throat and finish your speech without starting to sob, though tears had been freely dancing all over your cheeks while you spoke. The man you were devoted to now looked at you with a new expression of a broken soul. His eyes didn’t look doubtful anymore, he wasn’t waiting for the brick wall of a certainty he had been chasing to crash him so hard he wouldn’t stand up again. No, he was saved from that. Instead, he was full of void. A huge emptiness that, despite how little he wanted it to, understood every word you had just said and tried to adapt the corners of his soul to this reality, new to him. He was plain and simply sad, yet saying that was an understatement.

-          Maybe it was my way of getting your attention? Maybe, I don’t know, I never thought of it like that, but now that I put together all of the things that had me doubting even myself... yeah, maybe it was. Wrong way? Most definitely, I have no excuse, and you have no idea how sorry I am and how much I wish I could take it back. But I can’t. I can’t undo what I did wrong and I unfortunately can’t redo what I clearly haven’t been capable of getting right the first time.

He let go of the hand you were still holding him with, and walked away. Pain shot through you like a poisoned arrow, and you wanted to run behind him and hold him so tight you could glue back all of the pieces you felt guilty of having shattered him into. But you couldn’t do that. It was his grief, it was his sorrow, it wasn’t yours to take and manipulate, even if you wanted to move it towards what you felt was a better direction and with the best of intentions. He had to heal at his own pace, and trying to make things better would only make things worse. So instead, you stood there, looking at the corner he had disappeared behind, with two big tears rolling down your cheeks and an excruciating pain in your throat you wish could cover the pain in your heart.

A long, dark shadow approached you with doubtful steps and hugged you from behind. It was Izzy. It was obviously Izzy. What were you going to do now? You sensed there were parts of you fighting each other, but you couldn’t tell them apart. A trembling, almost weepy sigh abandoned your lungs, not even a significant portion of what you were holding inside. But you were tired. You were infinitely tired of fighting an invisible enemy, so in the middle of the inner and outer storm, you let yourself do what felt the least bad. You turned around in his embrace, just enough to face him, and you pressed your front against his. Your arms surrounded his waist, below where his arms were holding you; and your face hid in his chest, distraught tears wetting his t-shirt. There were no words, there was no need for them, and it didn’t feel any better, but it didn’t feel any worse; that was all you could have asked for. Thinking about it, in case the pain in your throat couldn’t cover the one in your heart, it was comforting to know that a long dark shadow was there to try its best to fix it.