So Fine ( A GnR- Duff McKagan Fanfic )

Touch

Steven  was jamming in the recording booth when Duff and Slash walked in. He looking like a little kid who had just been handed candy, with a huge grin on his face and his popcorn hair bouncing up and down with the groove.

The more Emily watched him, the wider her smile grew. Steven's bubbly mood was  simply infectious . He spotted her through the glass and winked at her. Izzy who was sitting next to Em, gave her an amused look and took a puff of his cigarette.

Slash walked upto them and squeezed himself into the tiny gap between Izzy and Em on the couch.  Izzy made an irritated noise as he got pushed against the corner, and was even more annoyed when he saw that Slash had put his arm around Em, who was similarly squished but looked amused instead.

Izzy clicked his tongue and turned to Duff "Look who finally showed up" Izzy said sarcastically.  " You're lucky Axl's not here yet. Where the hell were you two?"

Duff was silent as he grabbed a beer from the table and chugged down the entire thing. He then popped open another and chugged that one down too, and slammed it back on the table kinda hard.

Slash, Izzy and Em stared .

He then reached for a third. King of beers he may be, but this was getting weird. " Damn Duff, slow down there...." said Izzy, cautiously.

Duff eyed him while he downed the third bottle. Slash whistled  " Rad, bro....."

He kept the bottle on the table and it toppled. He saw Slash mouth the word ' Mandy' at Izzy's questioning look and his expression changed to shock.

"Someone call me when it's my turn.... I'll be up...." he quietly said and left, just like that.

Duff made his way up the stairs and got to the roof. The hot wind blasted on to his face. He cursed the fact that he didnt grab a couple more bottles with him, as he was nowhere near as tipsy as he wanted to be. I guess years of substituting beer for water will do that to ya, he thought.

He stared down at the street below. The studio was at one of the ugliest parts of town. It was always congested and very dusty and the people on the streets were rough and constantly brawling, but the concrete roof always gave Duff a place to be alone and calm his nerves when he felt anxious in the studio.

He sighed. Why did he have to run into Mandy, why? he thought. Why did she even seem so shocked? It was she who took him for granted after all, twice in fact. And Heather had looked so excited.He knew the two of them were best friends and shared every single thing about each other.

Duff frowned.

'Don't tell me that she still has feelings for --' he thought and shook his head. How ridiculous. The last thing he'll do is get back together with Mandy.

He heard the door to the roof open and turned to see Emily. He automatically straightened up as she  walked towards him and stood next to him. She peered at the street below.

"Enjoying this amazing view?" She smiled mischieviously. Duff felt himself relaxing and  smiling back at her . "Haven't you heard? Most exotic view in L.A ."
She snickered, eyes twinking. They were silent for a few minutes as they stared at the chaos below.

"Do... you wanna talk about it?" She said gently,  breaking the silence. Duff knew this was coming and was prepared for it.

"Not really." He didn't turn to her.

"Okay."

They spent a few more minutes just standing there. It was a comfortable sort of silence and Duff was grateful that Em didn't press him further.

He sighed again and then glanced at Em. She met his eyes. "So basically I ran into my ex today..... " he began and  told her the whole story. Everything from how they met to the messy breakup. She stood and listened wordlessly until the end. When Duff was done, she still hadn't said a thing, but suddenly moved closer to him and took his hand in her own. Suprised, he stared at it, and felt his heart rate picking up. Then she proceeded to nuzzle up to him, until the sides of their bodies were now touching. Duff was so suprised, he didn't know what to think. This sort of comforting cuddling was so new to him, but she did it so naturally. And she hadn't made him feel  even a little bit ashamed of the big deal he was making over this. If he said all this to Slash, Steven or even Izzy, they would've teased him to death.

She craned her neck and looked at him. He always found it adorable how she only reached up to his shoulder. He smiled inwardly.

"Hey...I know how you're feeling. Don't let stuff like this get you down, you know. Well, ironically, I'm not one to talk, given as how weepy I've been lately." She winked at him "but I did feel loads better when you were there to comfort me when I did, Duff. It got me thinking that it's not worth thinking about the people who don't care about us. So you should forget this even happened. I know it's not easy but, well it's a start......" she trailed away.

Duff's palpitations slowly settled down as her soft brown eyes bore into his. "I guess you and I both have some moving on to do then, huh?" He said.

She nodded. "Yup." She whispered.

She cleared her throat and moved away and tugged his arm towards the door, playfully.  "Okay Duff, you did promise me ice cream yesterday. Now cheer up and let's go drown our misery in a ton of it!" She beamed at him.

He laughed, feeling instantly better,  as he allowed her to drag him away. She was tiny compared to him but was doing a pretty good job at it.

"Dang, Em. How are you this strong?" He smirked.

She gave him a sly look. "Well lets see. Cake, chocolate, ice cream. Oh and more cake," she giggled. " and don't lecture me about diabetes either."

Duff felt happy. Right now, Mandy wasn't even in his mind.
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When they got back to the others, Slash was recording his parts. He had his eyes closed and almost looked like he was making love to the damn thing.

Izzy walked up to Duff. "You alright?" He asked and took out his cig from his lips.  How he managed to remain looking cool in all situations was beyond Duff.

"Yeah.... amazing actually...." he still had his eyes on Emily who had got ambushed by Steven on the couch.

Izzy watched Duff. "Hm. She has that effect on people... huh?"

"Yeah...." Duff breathed out.

The door suddenly banged open, making everyone jump.  Axl stood there, looking like an absolute mad man. His red hair was messy and his bandana was lopsided. The rip on his jeans were more ripped than usual. He looked like he'd been running. "Yo motherfuckers! I got us a gig! For tonight! Some last minute shit! I got into a fight over it too!" He laughed crazily.

"A gig? Tonight? Talk about short notice, dude." Said Izzy.

"Yeah, yeah something's better than nothing ain't it? Hey I bashed some asshole's head in for this thing, so we better bring it tonight." Axl beamed across his handsome face.

Duff patted Izzy on his back and went over to Em.

"Ready to go?"
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