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Seven months had passed since Joan and Izzy had met at a small bar in Los Angeles.
It would be an understatement to say that since then, they had become inseparable. However, it took a while for the two of them to be completely comfortable with each other.
The first time that they established their companionship was almost a month after they had first met. Izzy had gotten more plastered than he had planned on and stumbled out of the bar he had been at. With somewhat of a struggle, he made his way to the nearest phone booth. Without quite realizing what he was doing, he punched in the number of the blonde rocker that he had memorized not too long after she had given it to him.
After a few rings, Izzy had heard the voice of Joan that was somewhat muffled due to both the phone and the fact that she had been asleep when he called. After all, it was after one in the morning. "Hello?" She asked through the phone, not expecting to hear the slurred words of Izzy Stradlin. Especially since they had only spoken a few times since the night that they met.
"Listen, Izzy, I can't understand a word that you're saying," Joan told him truthfully. To her, it sounded like he was just making noises into the phone and passing that off as speaking. "Just, uh . . . stay where you are, and I'll be down there soon. Can you tell me where you are?"
Joan was lucky that she had been to almost every bar in the area because she was able to make out the name of a bar from the words that Izzy was stumbling over. After repeating that she would be there soon, she hung up the phone and grabbed her keys.
Once she had driven downtown and found him nearly passed out on the sidewalk by the phone booth outside of the bar, she wasted no time and helped him into her car and drove back to her apartment. She let him crash in her bed and she took the couch, letting him sleep off the alcohol. She knew that he would have a killer hangover the following morning, so she wanted him to be at least somewhat comfortable to not add onto the headache. Advil and water had been placed on the nightstand next to the bed for whenever he woke up.
It was somewhat strange for Joan to just let someone that she hardly knew crash in her apartment, let alone in her bed, but even from that one night of talking to him, she could tell that he was a good guy. A genuine one, at that.
The next morning, Joan had been sitting on the couch with a small plate of food when she first interacted with Izzy. He looked like a mess - eyes squinting due to the brightness of the morning sun, hair a mess, a hand on his temple (most likely due to a killer headache that Joan was certain that he had), and an expression that consisted of both confusion and embarrassment mixed into it. "Morning, sunshine," Joan teased, raising an eyebrow at the man. "Sleep well?"
"How . . . where am I right now? Did you - oh, shit, did I pass out again?" Izzy sighed, hoping the blonde didn't see him in a terrible state. He didn't black out very often, but that didn't change the fact that it did happen occasionally. And, of course, this time it happened in front of someone who wasn't one of his friends in the same situation.
"Almost, you weren't quite there yet," Joan shrugged, downplaying the situation so he wouldn't feel worse than he already did. "Listen, if we don't talk about it, then it never happened. So just forget about it because it wasn't that big of a deal, okay? There's food in the kitchen, get something in your system or else your head will get worse and you'll feel shitty all day."
He couldn't help but stare at her for a moment in gratitude, not quite sure what to say in response. He couldn't thank her enough, but all he could do was give her a nod and do what she told him to do.
Although she told him to just forget about the whole situation, he never did. Not a day went past throughout their seven months of friendship without the scenario playing through his head.
After that day, they had begun to contact each other a lot more often. After a while of simply calling and writing to each other, they had started to hang out at each other's places. They didn't live too far away from each other, about a 10 minute drive, so they tried to hang out as often as they could. It was their second month of friendship that she went to one of his gigs. She had been pestering him about going to one of them, and he finally invited her to one after being broken down by her persuading.
It was then that she had first met the band known as Guns N' Roses. Of course, she had heard of them before from flyers and advertisements, but she had never been able to see them perform live before.
Joan would be lying if she said that she wasn't pleasantly shocked at their music when they began to perform. The singer's voice was incredibly unique, but it worked well with their music. All of the instruments blended well together in a harmonious mix, and each one of them was extremely talented with their instruments respectively.
Izzy had never mentioned it to her, but he was nervous beyond imaginable for that gig. He wanted his friend to genuinely like his band and the music they played, so he absolutely couldn't mess up. Throughout the entire performance he continued to steal glances at Joan to see if she seemed to be enjoying the music, and he couldn't help but crack a subtle smile every time he saw her dancing contently with the music.
Izzy introduced her to the band right after the gig, and almost all of them took an immediate liking to her due to her carefree personality. The only one who wasn't too sure of her at first was Slash, as he wasn't one to trust someone immediately. It took a while, but they finally became close as well after Joan had hung out with the group quite a bit. As it did take a longer amount of time for them to become friends, their initial genuine insults towards each other became insulting to tease. That's what their current relationship consisted of - joking insults and endless bickering.
It didn't take long for Joan to become 'one of the guys,' which allowed her to have levels of comfort and trust within the group that she hadn't ever really felt before. It was nice for a change.
In the time that she had been friends with Izzy, Joan hadn't been able to find another band to become a part of. Although it hurt her to not be able to do what she loved, she made up for it by being the biggest fan of Guns N' Roses. From the first show she had ever seen, she had fallen in love with their music and never hesitated to let them know. They would invite her to band practices for her to help out and give occasional tips based on her opinion. Sometimes, Duff would have her give him pointers on breaking out of his adopted punk sound and mold it into more of a hard rock sound.
They appreciated her more than words could describe, and she felt the same way towards them.
None of them would have it any other way.
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