BILLET-DOUX ✦ CLASSIC ROCK

55 - ritchie blackmore

For the lovely xanthelia ! Deep Purple is super underrated, I'd write for the entire band. Honestly they deserve it.
❪❤︎❫
In the fading dawn of the day you awoke with a pleasant smile on your face. Beside you, Ritchie still lay slumbering in an awkward angle, his tangled mass of dark hair obstructing any view that you had of his face. He was in the same spot you had left him last night, lanky arms and legs haphazardly tossed onto you and his face uncharacteristically lax and open. Ritchie held none of the anger and moodiness he usually carried during his conscious hours, and you had to admit that you enjoyed watching him when he was in such a vulnerable state.

You brushed the faintest kiss across his brow, careful not to wake him just yet. The worst thing to do to Ritchie (besides watching him like this) was to startle him to rising when he wasn't ready. There had many a morning spent with scowls across the breakfast table and an aloof Ritchie that barely wanted to speak to you if you had woke him in the middle of a good dream.

Today, you wanted to make Ritchie's morning sweet. You had planned a large breakfast feast almost two weeks in advance to celebrate your one year anniversary and had spent hours shopping for Ritchie's favorite foods in grocery stores downtown. It was quite possible that Ritchie had entirely forgotten the special date, and you were all too prepared for that eventuality. But you would rather not think about it, especially when you were so excited to see the look on Ritchie's face when he saw the surprise that you had organized.

You slowly crawled out of bed and, almost immediately, Ritchie yanked your section of the blanket away to roll himself up into a makeshift burrito. It was hard not to laugh at the childish sight. In fact, if you had your camera on you, you would be taking pictures for posterity. Ritchie was quite an intimidating figure to the public, so mysterious and strange. The press would have a field day at the sight of the ellusive Ritchie Blackmore cuddling up in his floral bedsheets.

"You're lucky I don't have my polaroid," you whispered with a barely disguised giggle.

Ritchie turned over with a groan, muttering something that certainly wasn't very nice beneath his breath before falling back to sleep.

"That's okay, love," you said on your way out of the bedroom. "You'll be eating your words once you see what I've made for you."

You didn't bother changing out of your pajamas. Ritchie always preferred you in one of his older black shirts, there was something about seeing you in his self-branded color that served as proof of his existence in your life. That you were part of Ritchie.

He never told you any of this outright, and honestly, to any random bystander it seemed like Ritchie could barely tolerate your presence most of the time. He kept his distance, as if he was afraid to spark anything up between you, and the only time he was comfortable enough to talk to you intimately was when he was drunk or sleep-talking. It was just one of Ritchie's things. His little idiosyncrasies that made him Ritchie.

It took you quite a long time (every bit of the year that you had spent together) to pick up on Ritchie's nonverbal cues. If he thought your outfit looked particularly attractive, you would find Ritchie's hands on your hips, reeling you in for a kiss. If he grew jealous over another person in your life, Ritchie would grow moodier and far more touchy with you, trying to stake his claim. There wasn't anything Ritchie could say with his mouth that he couldn't say with his hands, and he often preferred telling you things without telling you them.