âmes pétillantes ~ classic rock imagines

• George Harrison (II) •

Short, unedited, and written in a hurry - as all good fiction should be(!!!!)

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Your relationship with George was a profoundly silent one. A love shared through meaningful touches, expressive glances, knowing smiles, through your separate lifes co-existing comfortably rather than meshing haphazardly into one.

Not that you didn't talk. You did, constantly. And laughed, and argued, and joked, and bantered, and cried. Diminishing the world and its problems into profound dinner time conversation. But you didn't shy away from silences either.

And certainly not on nights like this.

It had been a long day for both of you, endless minutes lived separately, yearning for the comfort of your shared silence without the need to recount your individual exploits. One look, and you both knew.

You were sat cross-legged on the plush arm chair in what had become known as the observation deck - a near-bare room with high ceilings and three large bay windows overlooking the flourishing gardens and pond. Two arm chairs, side by side, sat in front of the middle window. One for you, one for him.

However, tonight, George was sat on the floor, leaning against your chair, legs stretched out and crossed at his bare feet, guitar on his lap. Here, he could play freely, and cup your ankle as he noted down thoughts on music and lyrics. Distantly, you could hear him working out a new tune, humming and singing nonsensically beneath his breath, while you read To Kill A Mockingbird with an all-encompassing focus.

Rain lashed against the bay windows, a steady beat beneath George's disjointed guitar playing. The clock on the wall ticked steadily, announcing the passing of every quarter hour with a quiet, tinkling sound. As it chimed for 8 o'clock, you looked up to the revolving hands, sucked from Alabama's dusty roads and claustrophobic court houses by a raging thirst that hadn't been satisfied since you'd first settled into the chair almost two hours before.

You shuffled in your seat, the old chair creaking beneath you, and George looked up momentarily. He caught your eyes with a curious, distracted expression, smiled softly, then turned his attention back to his well-scibbled paper.

You watched him scrawl down a lyric, his handwriting almost ineligible in his reverie. Before the tossed pen hit the paper, he was already strumming the chord pattern that had become familiar to your subconscious over the past hours.

Despite his occupied focus, you cupped the back of his head, leaning over to kiss his crown, unkempt hair bunching beneath your loose grip. Before you could pull away, George's guitar playing ceased, and his fingers, guitar pick still held between them, captured your cheek to draw you into a leisurely kiss.

You smiled as he withdrew, unable to stop yourself from pressing your lips onto the tip of his nose. He scrunched up his face, smiling as you laughed.

While you held his attention, you tilted your head to the door, through which one of the house's numerous kitchens lay. George shook his head, understanding you without so much as a word.

As his strumming pattern continued, you left your book face down on your seat, and disappeared into the shadows beyond the door. Although the rain clouds darkened the day, you knew the house well enough to navigate into and around the kitchen without a light, and returned in moments with a glass of water, already half empty from your desperate slurps.

George had been busy in the minute or two you were gone. Your book now lay on the floor, and he had taken it's place on the seat, guitar held preciously against him, notepaper spread out on the arm rest.

His eyes met yours as you emerged into the rain-soaked light. They had been waiting for you. Glimmering. He tapped his knee, and made a show of pulling his guitar closer against his chest.

Lips quirked, you followed his wordless instruction, placing your glass on the floor before spreading yourself carefully across his knee. It was rather crowded with you and his guitar, but you managed.

As soon as you were situated, you let your head fall back, eyes crossing, tongue lolling, a crass play on a dead body. When George laughed, you shot back up, the expression of an angel painted across your face.

But George's attention had already been stolen. He was focusing on his guitar neck and the paper beyond it, situating his fingers. One quick glance to you, eyes wide and focused solely on him, then he began singing.

It was new, the one he'd been working on all evening. George was meticulous in his working, and you knew chords and melodies and words and harmonies would be added, discarded, or changed. But, sitting there witnessing its infancy, from nothing except his slightly out of tune guitar and rugged, unused voice, you couldn't imagine it any other way.

Your cheek fell against your shoulder as you watched him in his element. The song was beautiful, and fell effortlessly from his lips like a sermon, a prayer, an incantation. And he looked beautiful singing it, eyes half-lidded, tongue darting out to wet his lips between verse and chorus, shoulders set and square as his strong, rough hands moved along the guitar neck as carefully as they moved along your body.

When the song was finished, you asked him, with a quiet voice not used for hours, to play you another.

"Later," he mumbled, and carefully discarded his guitar to lean against the chair. With barely a nudge, you took its place against his chest, held just as reverently, just as carefully. His body was warm, his arms safe.

You slipped into another silence. Well, you fell into it. Settled into it. Welcomed it in with open arms. Another silence that would not be broken for an hour or two, when George would keep his promise and serenade you with another half-finished song he had been composing in his head while sat there with you on his lap.

In the meantime, you held his hand, and watched the rain fall across the flowers, feeling the gentle lull of his breath cycling beneath your ear, and wondering how lucky you were to be known.