BILLET-DOUX ✦ CLASSIC ROCK

54 - jimmy page ⁶

Requested by 26aguzek ! I thought that this idea was so cute. As a side note, I know just about nothing concerning the occult, so please don't come for me, this information is fictional at best.
❪❤︎❫
Rainy days on the Thames were always sluggish for you and Jimmy. These were the days when you would retreat to your respective corners of the house, doing your own things to pass the time. You always had trouble being away from Jimmy, as most of your waking moments were spent in his presence. Without him, you felt insubstantial and prone to floating off into space unnoticed.

It felt as though you were in another world right now, sitting in Jimmy's book nook and staring up at the large collection of writing towering before you. There were hundreds of books ranging from Grimms' Fairy Tales to informational pieces on the occult and black magick.

You often paged through the dustier occult books out of pure curiosity alone, trying to make sense of the lengthy explanations and confusing, rambling text of Aleister Crowley. The ambience of the rain outside and the rumbling of the thunder overhead was enough to make you choose one of the occult books – the spookier books, as you called them, much to Jimmy's barely hidden irritation – to read for the day.

There were a few diagrams in this book. You imagined that they were for conjuring or bringing to life all of one's darkest fantasies. Oftentimes, you wouldn't try to bother reading the dark magic books, as most of the words were either in Latin or extensively archaic English that you couldn't begin to transcribe. For now, you were content on looking at the pictures and drawing up your own conclusions about them.

It felt as though hours passed, even if it was a few minutes as you laid there on the hard floor paging through countless informative paragraphs detailing spells, chants, and just about anything else you could think of. You wondered how seriously Jimmy took this book and how much he'd been using it for practical purposes over the years that you'd known him.

The idea made you shudder. Had Jimmy done sacrifices in this very space? Underneath this hardwood paneling had he conjured demons and crafted spells to lure you in? The mere thought of a cloaked Jimmy hovering over a mismatched pile of herbs and sheep's blood, chanting nameless mashes of syllables in a forgotten tongue was enough for you shudder again.

There were a few bookmarked sections that you took notice of. Things like incantations for bad luck upon your enemies and charms for lovers. It was the latter chapter that you honed in on, running your fingers across the page and attempting to follow along a very wordy mass of text. Was there a reason why Jimmy had this marked?

You rose your eyebrows at a few of the subheaders, immediately thinking them to be made up. Love spells? Chants and concoctions to attract someone to you? Jimmy wouldn't have used any of this on you... right? There was no way. What you felt for Jimmy was real. It was in the thudding of your heart and buried in the sinews and tissues of your brain. Like you were wired to love Jimmy from the start.

The day that you had met was still etched into your memory. The club cloudy with cigarette smoke and the barely out of tune guitarist playing lead on some horrible rendition of a Bo Diddley number. You remember Jimmy approaching you – sneaking up behind you, rather – and making his distaste for the band known. He'd wrinkled his nose up at the guitarist's playing style and critiqued his foul notes like a reporter would a bad news scoop.

By the end of the night, you two were laughing together, sharing cheap beer out of the same mug and talking like old friends. Conversation quickly drifted from the poor music to Jimmy's own life as a session musician and your low-paying job working at a packing plant just inside the city.