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The show’s over.
The show was over and Keith bowed, over and over, to the left side and the right side and right down the middle of the arena. He was a little dizzy, now, blood rushing around his head, so he backed off and smiled and waved. To the left, Roger was smiling and waving, still personable even after two hours of screaming his head off. Pete, in a rare good mood and probably still feeling whatever uppers he took before the show, slung an arm around Roger. To Keith’s right, John stood looking out into the audience, hand up but not waving, face not betraying any emotion.
“C’m’ere, Johnny!” Keith called out, unable to resist the urge to try and crack that expression. He rushed over and hugged John, then took a step back to see the other man looking down at him, a faint smile now on his face.
Keith reached up and patted at John’s hair, then took his head between his hands and pressed a delicate kiss to his lips. John’s mustache brushed against Keith’s 5 o’clock shadow, a comfortable sensation of scruff-and-skin that felt like coming home.
To Keith’s surprise, John reached up and held Keith’s sides with his own sturdy hands, and kissed back a little. Not firmly, not for long, but he did kiss back, as easily as if there weren’t thousands of people watching.
John leaned back and dropped his hands, smile still on his face, and Keith grinned back before wrapping an arm around John’s waist and waving some more to the audience.
“Thank you! Thank you!” Roger called out, and Keith leaned his head against John’s shoulder as, for the first time that night, the audience’s cheers overpowered the sound of the Who.
-
They were stuck at the airport.
Their flight’s delayed, it’s pouring buckets, and Keith couldn’t even remember what town they were in. America was a dark swathe of woods with shining cities poking out here and there, places to conquer between so much distance. They had to take strides the length of Britain herself to get from one place to another, and that took time and effort and airplanes and baggage and waiting around.
Keith hated waiting. He’s supposed to set the pace, not anybody or anything else.
But at the same time, he was fucking tired. Late night partying, early morning wake-up, hurry up then sit down and wait. And wait. And wait. And waiting is exhausting.
Pete was still up. He was up and pacing, wearing a hole in the laminated floor between this aisle of seats and the next. Keith had watched him sit down, stand up, cross his arms, lean against the wall, pace around, sit back down, scribble in his notebook, cross out his scribbles in his notebook, throw his notebook in frustration, glance around sheepishly before picking it up, sit back down, stand back up, and start pacing some more.
The sun had set and they were still in the airport and Keith had grown tired of being impatient and had spread himself across the seats. Across the nearly-empty gate, John had tucked himself in a corner and was trying to sleep with an expression on his face that might as well be a note reading nobody fucking touch me, not even you, Moonie. Roger was reading a book, headphones over his head that pressed down on his curls in a way that looked rather funny to Keith. He didn’t want to bother either of them, not right now. Pete, however, didn’t look like he could physically be any more bothered, so it wasn't like Keith can make things any worse.
“Peeeete,” Keith called out to him, limply raising a hand to hold it out towards him. “Come sit down.”
Pete looked over at him. “Eh?”
Keith pulled himself halfway to sitting up, his other arm still draped over the back of the chair, legs still askew. “C’mon, sit down, you’re just walking in circles.”
From the look in his eyes Keith watched the gears turn in Pete’s head, probably making a noise like clunkclunkclunkclunk so fast that it sounded more like a rain storm, but after a moment, he shrugged and sat down next to Keith.
“Ach, come here,” Keith drawled, and sat all the way up, then leaned down towards the floor and in one quick motion grabbed at Pete’s ankles and lifted them up, spinning the man sideways on his not-insignificant bum, draping his legs over Keith’s own lap.
“Ack!” Pete cried indignantly, but he'd managed to avoid banging his head against the plastic seats, so there’s really nothing to get alarmed about.
“Now up this way,” Keith said, coaxing Pete to lean forward towards him, but the other man remained mostly supine, torso braced against his bent elbows.
“What’s this about, Keith?” Pete moaned, an exasperated look on his face, but Keith knew it wasn't directed towards him, not really.
“Get up here, come on now, only a few more inches,” he said with a beckoning wave, and finally, Pete relented, rising up and leaning forward to drape an arm over Keith’s shoulder and almost sit in his lap.
Pete’s face was so close to his, now, and Keith couldn’t help but raise a hand to run his fingers across Pete’s shaggy beard.
“Not a word,” Pete griped, but Keith simply gave a loving pat to his cheek.
“Wouldn’t dream of it. I love your beard,” Keith said, completely earnest. “Makes you look like a… whaddaya call… one of those blokes who goes out looking for enlightenment.”
“A monk?”
“No, not that.”
“A… missionary?”
“Definitely not that.”
“A guru?”
“No, not that either, it’s- well, no matter. I-” Keith leaned in to smooch Pete’s cheek, “think-” another smooch, “you’re-” yet another, “cute.”
And with that, he lifted a hand to Pete’s opposite cheek, and gently tilted his face towards Keith, so he could lean forward to give a tender kiss. Pete leaned in, too, kissing back a little, but he was tired, and Keith could tell. So Keith let him lean, forehead against his own, scruff warm against his face, until Pete all but collapsed onto him with a hug.
Keith ran a hand down Pete’s back. “There, there.”
“Don’t you dare,” Pete mumbled, but it was half-hearted, and they fell into comfortable silence.
-
“I’ve figured it out!” Keith announced to the tour bus.
Well, he announced it to the back of the tour bus, where only he and Roger were at the moment. John was at the far end, reading a book, last time Keith saw him; and not only that but with, against all odds, Pete’s head in his lap, asleep.
Such a rare and peaceful scene as that only served to tempt Keith to intervene, but he found he simply didn’t want to. So, he’d wandered back to the back, and sat in ponderous silence as Roger leafed through a magazine, before making his announcement.
“Was wondering when it was coming,” Roger said, eyes not even leaving the magazine.
“For ages hence, humanity has wondered what could possibly be the answer to this question! The greatest geniuses of history have considered it, lost sleep over it, hung themselves in disgraceful failure! But I-” Keith stood up right as the bus shuddered, nearly sending him tumbling, “-Dr. Keith Moon, have solved it!”
Roger finally looked up. “Alright, what is it?”
Keith spun around as he sat down to land himself on the seat next to Roger’s, hitting the worn cushions rather hard. But he was too invested to be deterred.
“How is it that Roger Daltrey is so goddamn pretty?” Keith revealed with a wave of his hands.
Roger snorted. “Christ, Keith, no need to flatter me.”
But Roger looked up with a faint smile, shining blue eyes meeting his, and Keith couldn’t help but smirk. He’d gotten him good, and now he was hooked.
“But it’s a real mystery, right? We start out as the ‘Oo and we’re all a bunch of yobbos, right?” Keith said, poking at Roger’s shoulder. “But then here we are now, and our frontman’s a bloody rock ‘n’ roll Adonis. What gives?”
“Keith, if you want in my pants, you can just ask,” Roger said with an amused- and fond- huff.
“But where’s the fun in that?” Keith said, tipping his head up with a smile, then back down to look at Roger. “I mean it, though!”
“All we had to do was ditch the mod stuff, yeah?” Roger said, seemingly earnest.
“No, no, that’s not it at all!” Keith said with a vigorous shake of the head. “You weren’t this pretty before, were ya?”
Roger frowned. “No, but that’s ‘cos I was a bloody teenager.”
“And think about it. If ya hadn’t joined the band, ya wouldn’t have looked like this, right?”
“No, but- that’s ‘cuz I’d be working in a factory.”
“And I’d be drumming for the Beach Boys, but,” Keith batted his eyelashes, “It’s worth it, slumming it here with you three, because I love you all too much. Anyways, yeah, ye would’ve singed all your hair off by now, but that’s not it either. See, ya could’ve joined the band and not been pretty, even after dropping the Dippity-Do.”
“Enough about the bloody Dip-”
Keith held up a finger. “Let me finish. You see, this ugly Roger would still be singing for the Who, but we’d all be broke and miserable, you follow?”
“No,” Roger flatly admitted. “Get to the point, yeah?”
“True, true, even geniuses would struggle to follow in my footsteps,” Keith agreed, “But the answer is: yer pretty ‘cos yer nice.”
Roger laughed, full-on laughed at that; after a moment, he managed to say, “Good one, Keith!”
“I mean it, Rog! I’m not pulling yer leg,” Keith insisted. Why did Roger find it so hard to believe? “You’re nice, and it shows on ya, you see? It’s like, you’re so goddamn nice that it shows through yer skin.”
Roger put a hand to his face, still giggling, “Moonie…!”
“Stop it! Stop that,” Keith said, putting a hand against Roger’s shoulder to shake it. “‘Mm not joking!”
Roger did one of those smile-frowns he did when he was confused, “Whaddaya saying? All that drinking’s really gettin’ to ya.”
“See, that’s part of it! You don’t drink as much as the rest of us ‘cos yer always having to mind us. That’s nice!”
Roger snorted. “Have you forgotten the time I bloody well near killed ya?”
No, he hadn’t, but he didn’t really like to think about it, either. “Yeah, but- that was cuz you wanted the best for me. ‘Sides, I started it.”
All amusement dropped from Roger’s face. “That’s… that don’t make it right.”
The sight of Roger’s expression was too much to bear, so Keith slapped his shoulder, “Well I say it’s a’right, so it’s a’right, you got me?”
“Alright,” Roger agreed, then added, “But I’m not nice.”
“Yes-” Keith poked his shoulder, “you-,” another poke, “are!”
Then, he thought about it for a moment. “No, ‘old on, yer not nice. You’re… kind.”
Something crossed Roger’s face at that. “Huh. I- I hadn’t thought about it that way.”
“Yeah, see, ‘s not the same thing,” Keith continued, mouth moving just as fast as his mind, “You’re a mean bastard but you always do what you think’s best for us. Pete’s a mean bastard but he’s so caught in his head about it he thinks he can’t do what’s best, yeah?”
“You callin’ him ugly?”
“No! ‘Course not. But he’s not…” Keith waved his hands, trying to find the words, “Well, he ain’t you, is he?”
Roger shrugged. “Sure, alright.”
“None of that now,” Keith said, nudging his shoulder, “And John can never settle on being a mean bastard or being kind, so he’s a bit in the middle of you two.”
“And it makes sense for you, too,” Roger said with a nod.
Something passed through Keith like the feeling of being stung with a whip. He hadn’t thought about himself at all. But… he supposed it made sense.
“Right- yeah,” he managed to say, mouth dry as sawdust.
“Keith- oi, no, that’s not- listen!” Roger said, taking both of Keith’s shoulders in his hands and forcing him to look at him, right at those wide, pretty, kind blue eyes.
“You- you look lovely, you know that, right?” he said.
“You’re just sayin’ that.” Of course he was. Roger was kind like that. He probably even believed it.
“Keith. Keith John Moon, you listenin’ to me? You are- yer cute as a button, and when you wear that eyeshadow yer fuckin’ hot, you know that, right?”
He couldn’t look away from Roger’s eyes. The man couldn’t hide his emotions to save his life. He really, truly believed what he was saying.
“You… think so?” Keith asked, voice much too small.
“And when you wear a dress, you’re beautiful,” Roger said, voice painfully soft.
“But- but I’m not nice,” Keith protested, “Or kind.”
“Keith, you silly man. You just spent ten minutes telling me how kind and pretty I am,” Roger said, smile returning to his face like the sun coming up in the morning, “And you’d do anything to cheer us up. That’s kindness, yeah?”
“Yeah…” Keith said, mouth moving ahead of his mind, but his thoughts were catching up. He did hate to see them sad, he hated it so much, whenever the other three were fighting or in a pickle or broken up about something it was like there was a hole in Keith’s chest and he’d do anything to fill it. Was that how Roger felt, too? Like there was something inside him that was going to eat him from the inside out if he didn’t set things right?
He wasn’t sure if that counted as kindness, if you were only doing it to save yourself, in the end. But… was the hole only there because he cared so much? Could he choose to ignore it, instead? To avoid the pain at the cost of not caring about anyone?
That was sort of what Pete had been getting at with all that Tommy business, come to think of it. Then… that was right, wasn’t it? He’d been right all along!
“Thanks,” Keith said, nodding once. “You proved me right. S’ppose we’ll have to share the Nobel.”
Roger laughed. “Gladly.”
And goddamn was that laugh too lovely. Keith leaned in, taking Roger by surprise as he pressed his lips to the other’s, but after a moment Roger reciprocated, wrapping his strong arms around Keith and pulling him close. They kissed, slow and soft, and Keith found it just a little easier to believe that he was right.