âmes pétillantes ~ classic rock imagines

• Ian Gillan •

Here is a well-awaited request for the lovely @EAKitty - I hope you like it, dear! I know it's a little different to what we talked about, but I hope that's okay. Let me know what you think!

--☆--

She was beautiful. Red hair flowing in the wind, sweet giggles tumbling from her perfectly painted lips, complimenting ascot tied around her slim neck, beautifully manicured hands threaded firmly across his arm. His arm. The arm you would sell the moon and the stars to hang from.

You'd spotted them through the dusty window. You'd been looking for them. Ever since Ian had proposed this casual congregation, the imposing introduction, you'd wanted to hate her. You were determined you would. But now, in the face of her twinkling green eyes and intriguing smile, you couldn't.

He held the door open for her, watching her smooth face gift him with a smile of thanks enough to make the country sink to its knees. Dazedly, he followed in after her, immediately reaching for her arm and tugging it around his own jokingly. She laughed, and snuggled into him.

They exchanged a few whispered words, and you watched sullenly as her lips formed incredible shapes so close to his skin. With a shrug, he began to scan the coffee shop.

His jewelled eyes seemed momentarily lost, a treasure buried far out at sea. As he scanned the dodgy backstreet cafe, she clung to him tighter. She didn't belong in a place like this. She belonged in Italian restaurants with high ceilings meticulously painted with glowing cherubs, theatres bedazzled with gold, boutiques dripping with velvets and golds. And yet she remained, happy, complacent, and uncomplaining with the man of your moonlit fantasies.

Ian continued to turn his head this way and that, looking for yourself and his band, who had squashed themselves into a corner in an effort to remain unnoticed upon enteringthe coffee shop. Uninterested, you had followed them.

For a dazzling moment, you thought maybe he would never see you. He'd shrug once more, lead her back out of the door and leave this doomed tryst for another, shadow-drenched moment.

But then, he saw you, sat awkwardly between Ritchie and Jon as they talked over your head. You were in little mood to be sociable that evening. But that incredible smile illuminated his face, his glimmering beam enough to make God himself turn his head away in shame.

You sighed, and did the same. But it was too late. He was already tugging her over.

Ian had been your best friend for years, since you were teenagers. You weren't sure exactly when you'd fallen in love with him, only that you had. Maybe it had happened when you were walking home from school one winter's evening after a round of detention neither of you had managed to sneak out from, when Ian had gallantly given you his jacket, only to complain the whole way home about being cold until the pair of you made it to your house and you wrapped him up in your duvet.

Or maybe it was when Deep Purple began getting regular gigs, and Ian was unfaltering in his dedication to bringing you to each and every one and setting you up in the best seat of the house so he could dedicate a different song to you each night.

All you knew is that one night you were standing awestruck backstage at a concert, watching him joyously from the wings, tracing the curve of his smile, the arc of his hair, the splendour of his fingers against his microphone, with your heart thumping like the wings of a butterfly. Then, all at once, you knew. Just like that. Like a maths solution that illuded you until, suddenly, the right answer struck you out of the blue. Only this problem was much more complicated than any you were taught in a classroom.

But it had never caused much of an issue. Sure, he had groupies lining up outside his door, but when they were brutally kicked out in the middle of the night and he returned to your side in the morning, it was easy to kid yourself that maybe, just maybe, he felt the same way.