Symbols and Smartasses: A Led Zep Fic

"You know, if you stare at your hands long enough, they start to change colour... have you ever noticed that?"

Robert lifted his head to see if the bassist was paying attention. He had his head emerged in a book, as usual. Reading. Move along, Robert. Nothing to see here.

"Jonesy...?"

"Hm?" came a minimally-attentive grunt.

"Have you ever noticed that?"

"Noticed what?"

"Nevermind." Robert sighed. "Why are you always reading when I try to talk to you?"

"Why do you always try to talk to me when I'm reading?" Jonesy replied, without batting an eye.

"Why can't you just answer me like a normal human being instead of answering me with more questions all the time?" Robert growled. "That's something smart-asses do to make life difficult for everyone."

No reply. Jonesy was back in his book, and Robert was alone again. Bonzo never pulled this shit on him. Bonzo would agree with him. Bonzo would start staring at his hands right away, and then reply in that thundering voice of his, "Bloody fuck, Robert!" And he would be impressed, and Robert would feel like a genius of man, laughter would ensue, and no feelings would be harmed... but you couldn't talk to Jonesy that way. Oh no. He had to make things difficult.

Robert tried to remove his sweater, but it caught onto the inside of his t-shit, and he ended up pulling the entire thing off his body. He groaned, and struggled to untangle one piece of fabric from the other.

When he'd finished his work, he heard a car door slam just outside the building. He pulled the shirt down over his abdomen, walked to the window, and pushed aside the curtain to see who had arrived.

"Jimmy's home." Jonesy stated.

"You don't know that." Robert snapped, turning towards him. "You can't see the window from there."

"I don't need to." Jonesy answered. "His car makes that strange clackity noise when it slows down. I'd recognize it anywhere."

Robert scoffed and turned back to the window. He let out a pained sigh when he saw that Jonesy was, in fact, right.

"How the fuck can you hear THAT, and not me, when Jimmy is outside on the opposite end of the building, and I'm three feet from your face?"

Jonesy shrugged.

Robert had another bitter remark half-formed, when the front door opened, and Jimmy casually walked in carrying a brown paper bag. A gust of fresh autumn air wafted in, and was cut short when he cooly shut the door behind him. Robert smiled at his bandmate, saying "hello", as Jimmy walked into the room. He didn't answer, but nodded and sat down on the couch opposite Jonesy, and picked up a leather-bound book out of his bag and began to read.

Robert's face fell. "Fuck, seriously? What is it with you quiet people? Does it kill you to pull your noses out of your precious books and interact with another human being?" He groaned and walked into the next room, and started clanking some dishes around.

"What are you doing?" Jimmy shouted.

"Making a sandwich, thanks for asking." Robert shouted back.

Jimmy exchanged a look with Jonesy, who shrugged again, and resumed reading.

"Is he okay?" Jimmy asked.

"Yeah." Jonesy said, turning a page.

A few minutes later, Robert returned with a sandwich on a plate, and sat down on the other side of the couch. Jimmy stared at him, as he took a bite.

"What?" Robert prodded, licking his fingers.

Jimmy opened his mouth to say something, but he instead flipped his hair in front of his face and sank deeper into the couch.

"Thought as much." muttered Robert, taking another bite. "What are you reading, anyway?"

Jimmy perked up. "Oh, it's a symbology text... and it's quite old. I picked it up at the antique bookshop on the way over. I had some ideas for our next album cover."

"Yeah?"

"Yes, see... I was thinking... well..." he flipped to a section of pages and passed the book over to Robert, who scooted himself closer to the guitarist on the couch. "I was thinking we could do something with the number four. It's our fourth album... there's four of us... I dunno. It just rang some kinda bell."

Robert scanned the pages, gently tracing some symbols with his finger. "What did you have in mind?"

"Well initially, I thought about putting some kind of master symbol on the cover... but then I thought, since we've all been working on this album... maybe we could each chose our own symbol, and feature all of them. That's why I got the book, see. You guys can all pick one from there."

Robert smiled, scanned the odd marks and sigils on the page. "Which one are you going to use?" He asked.

Jimmy was silent for a moment. "Well actually... you won't find it in this book. I have some different ideas for mine."

"You're not going to use the book at all?"

"Nah." he replied.

"And he says I'm the one that makes life difficult for everyone." Jonesy smiled, eying Robert, who grinned.

"So what are you going to use? Can you show me?"

Jimmy hesitated. "Well it's... it's like... uhm... " his voice faded into a quiet mutter. Robert picked out "Saturn" and something about a Rouge Dragon, but it was clear that it was a personal matter for Jimmy, and he wasn't all that comfortable talking about it.

"You don't have to explain it to me, can I just see it?"

Jimmy nodded, and picked up a pen from the table. He looked around for a piece of paper, couldn't find one, and decided to just use his arm. Robert watched as Jimmy tenderly etched out his symbol in black ink on his forearm. The marks brushed together to form an odd lettering that looked like some kind of oddly-fonted word.


"Zoso?" Robert asked. "I thought you were looking for a symbol."

"It IS a symbol."

"It says Zoso."

"No... well... it LOOKS like it says Zoso, but it doesn't really. It's just a doodle. It's not supposed to read as anything."

Robert saw Jonesy grinning from behind his book. "Smartass." he mouthed.

Robert smiled, but tried to ignore him. "It's a fantastic symbol, Jimmy. I think it looks rather ancient and mysterious."

"Doesn't it, though?" Jimmy smiled, admiring his impromptu tattoo.

Robert was about to ask Jimmy more about his album ideas, when Bonzo thundered through the door.

"ROBERT!"

"What?"

"I was at the coffee shop, and I noticed... I noticed..."

"Yeah?"

"If you stare at your hands long enough, they start to change colour! You ever notice that?"

Robert smiled and shook his head. He looked down at his hand. "Bloody fuck, Bonzo!" he said with acted childlike surprise.

"I know!" said Bonzo, taking a seat next to him on the couch. Jimmy glanced at his hands, curious, but trying to be discrete about it.

"Congratulations. You're a genius of man." said Jonesy, not looking up from his book.