The faintly illuminated hands of John’s watch winked out at him from the bedside table between sleepy eyelashes as he felt rather than acknowledged himself coming slowly back to wakefulness. 1:12 AM, and his left arm was moving of its own accord – after a moment, he realised that Keith was trying to slip out from the slackened grip around his waist without waking him and drew his arm away drowsily. Through half-closed eyes, he saw the drummer hesitate and look back at him, but when John did not move again, Keith slid off the edge of the bed and tiptoed into the darkness of the uncharted rest room without a word.

Trying to work out a guess through the haze of alcohol-assisted exhaustion, the big bassist decided that he was probably using the bathroom and rolled away from the small pocket of lingering warmth towards the cooler side of his pillow, closing his eyes as he curled up and tried to drift back into the swiftly-fading idea of unconsciousness. Texas in July was unmerciful indoors and out – even when he wasn’t sharing a bed, John had been waking up in an uncomfortable sweat during the past few days they’d spent in the largest American state. Sensing wakefulness prodding at the edge of his mind with some irritation, John groped out in the dark for the bottle of wine he knew he’d left on the bedside table hours before and sat up just enough to take a long swig, dropping back down again with a huge sigh.

He drifted in and out of consciousness for a while, not thinking so much as letting his thoughts drift to random images of what he supposed was the day before, now, seeing as it was technically morning. A good day – a rest day for some holiday or other, splashing around in the pool a bit with Pete, going for a drive, getting satisfyingly drunk and then collapsing back in their room in a happy daze with Keith.

Keith…

Grunting softly, John reluctantly pried open an eye again and felt a little jolt of shock at the angle of the tiny hands on his watch – nearly a half an hour had passed since he had woken up, and half the mattress was still disturbingly empty. Something had to have happened – he never took this long in the bathroom, he wouldn’t have gone to play a trick on someone or something like that without deviously recruiting John for his latest master scheme, and he wasn’t exactly sober yet…

Awakened by an ugly punch of concern, John pawed hurriedly at his eyes with his knuckles and sat up, peering around the room as he started to draw the covers back. Before he could swing his legs over the side of the bed, however, the distant-seeming door quietly swung open and shut, and a small shadow flitted over to slide into bed at his side, looming out of the dark to reveal Keith’s hopelessly messy hair and earnest bright eyes reflecting the darts of moonlight spilling through the gaps in the curtains.

“There y’are – where…th’hell-”

Keith cut him off by clamping a small hand firmly over his mouth, shaking his head with a sly, drunken grin. “Don’t worry about it, Oxface,” he whispered. “Here – listen-”

He fell silent, and abruptly John was aware of a steady rumble in the distance, a sort of ominous vibration that was close to buzzing at the windows of the hotel. After a few moments, he was able to distinguish the sound of individual explosions and whistling from the background and realised uncertainly that he was hearing exactly what his mum had described of the Blitz – he could literally hear Queenie’s voice in his ear telling him stories of endless silhouetted rows of Heinkels blocking out the stars for months on end over the city, bombed-out neighbours, buzz bombs screaming overhead. Shoving his long, mussed forelock out of his face, he stared at Keith hard, trying to jump-start his still-befuddled brain as the drummer reached out to thoughtfully smooth down his hair. “Wha’…wot th’fuck di’you do?”

“Nothing!” Keith got a raised eyebrow in response and widened his eyes innocently. “Honest to God an’ everything, don’t you remember what today is?”

“Some…American thing, isn’t it?”

“Christ, you’re thick.” The drummer neatly dodged his irritable swat by hopping off the bed and tugged persuasively at John’s arm, giving him an imploring look. “C’mon, Johnny, you gotta see – get up an’ get dressed quickly, come on!”

Both of those two things were at what was perhaps the very bottom of John’s list of things he wanted to do at the moment. Making an incredulous noise, the bassist sank resolutely back into the bed, dragging Keith with him with his superior weight, but his drummer resisted, hauling hard at his arm as he protested, “No, no, stop, c’mon, you really have to see! John – come on, please, get up, really quick, I promise, but you’ve gotta see!”

John heaved another sigh, growling under his breath as he stared up at the ceiling. “See what, for Chrissakes? If this is another one of your mad ideas…”

The drummer hesitated for once in his life, and John’s curiosity prompted him to glance over to where Keith was suddenly looking a little hurt and at the same time embarrassed, his eyes drifting to the comforter on the bed as he, looking absurd all of a sudden standing in John’s too-big bathrobe in the dark at one-something in the morning, muttered, “It was a surprise. For you.”

John wearily guessed that there was a bit of practise to that injured face, but his heart melted nonetheless and he sat up in defeat. Sensing a change of heart, Keith stepped back with a grin, waiting with an obvious attempt at restraint as John slid reluctantly out of bed and fumbled about in the dark for a bit for his clothes, finding yesterday’s carelessly discarded shirt and trousers after a few minutes and yanking on the pair of trainers on top of his suitcase. When he was ready, the drummer grabbed his hand and hauled him into the equally dark hallway, pausing only to snag the spare key and stuff it a pocket of the bathrobe that flapped ridiculously around his ankles. The small metal object clinked against glass as they crept into the hall – a moment later, John made out the distinctive shape of a bottle of Jack Daniels poking out from the same pocket.

Feeling uncomfortably exposed being led around by the hand by Keith in the middle of the night on some anonymous hotel floor, John shuffled hurriedly after him, glancing habitually over his shoulder just to make sure that no one had seen them. He nearly ran into Keith’s back when the drummer stopped abruptly at a specific door, which he realised a moment later led to Pete and Roger’s room. For a moment, he wondered if the party was continuing here before wryly dismissing the thought as he reaffirmed whose room this was – but why else would they be here…?

Keith was fumbling with the doorknob with his left hand, John’s hand still clutched firmly in his right, and the bassist decided that he was not too surprised to see what was probably Pete’s key flash between his fingers when he peered down to closer inspect the operation. “Why don’t you just knock?” he whispered, keeping his voice down instinctively.

Keith did not look up as he replied, still working on the lock. “Well, dear, I would, but that would involve waking up Pete or Roger, wouldn’t it?”

“Why are you-”

“Just keep it down, willyer?” Without another word, Keith pushed open the door and quietly withdrew the key, stepping boldly into the dark room and tugging a bemused John with him. When they were in, the drummer cautiously swung the door shut and paused until they were both able to make out the shapes of their bandmates under the covers of the two beds, Roger’s blond curls peeking over the edge of the blankets closest to them and Pete’s soft snoring rising from the bed next to the window. Nonplussed, John shot Keith a quizzical look, squeezing his hand urgently to get his attention.

Keith gave him his best patronising smile and raised a hand to pat him gently on the cheek, pulling him towards the foot of Pete’s bed and releasing his hand to balance himself as he pushed the curtains aside and clambered onto the windowsill.

“Keith – what the hell are you-”

“Shhh.” Without turning around, the drummer deftly twisted the lock and inched the window open, craning his neck around the curtain to check on Pete, who was lying on his side with his face half-hidden in his pillow. Knowing full well that their lead guitarist was a very light sleeper, John uneasily pressed himself closer to Keith with his own eyes still locked on Pete, whispering, “C’mon, hurry up, he could wake up any bloody moment…”

Keith paused, a guilty smirk creeping onto his features. “Not with all that booze we stuffed in him tonight, he won’t.” When he saw John’s sceptical eyebrows rise, the drummer made a soft noise of scorn and recklessly leaned forward to kiss him by way of making the point, breaking away to duck under the window to the ledge outside.

Blinking, John hesitated only a moment before awkwardly clambering after him, doing his best not to bump the edge of the window and rattle the old glass or rearrange how the curtain shed moonlight over the room. At Keith’s hissed urging, he slid the window closed before abruptly taking stock of where they were – nearly thirty feet off the ground in an alley on a ledge a few inches wide.

“…So…is this the surprise, then? Waving like idiots to Daltrey when he wakes up?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Keith said fondly, his face half-hidden in the extreme shadow of the alley as he turned his head slightly. He nodded decisively to their right, indicating a rickety-looking fire escape a few feet away. “We gotta jump to there so we can get on the roof.”

“The – where?” The Ox felt his head begin to swim at the idea. Never overly fond of heights and still barely awake, he was beginning to wonder why he’d let Keith rope him into this idea at whatever time in the morning this was. He’d brought his watch and checked quickly, the movement suggesting habit – 1:49. Fuck.

When he looked back up again, Keith was already edging to the lip of the ledge, teetering dangerously in Roger’s line of sight were the lead singer to wake up suddenly before bending his knees and leaping unsteadily to hit the iron stairs with a muffled bang that echoed the distant volley of explosions that were subdued by the tight space of the alleyway. John winced instinctively, straightening up slightly to see how Keith had fared. “You alright, luv?”

“Fine, fine, dear boy.” Grimacing, the drummer turned around and went up a few steps, looking over expectantly at him. “Your turn, c’mon!”

John bit back a protest and chanced a glance downwards – it was only a short distance to jump, very possible if his decidedly out of shape drummer had made it, but it was also a very long way to fall. And – dammit, how the hell had he gotten from his nice warm bed to the outside of the bloody building when it sounded like there was a bombing going on?

Suppressing a sigh, John took a deep, steadying breath, glanced through the window to make sure that Roger’s eyes were still closed in the next bed over, and closed his eyes before hurling himself into space. An instant later, all the breath was knocked out from his lungs as his full weight slammed into the unforgiving metal of the fire escape and the spindly staircase itself screeched an angry complaint, swaying dangerously while John clung to its thin frame and Keith giggled helplessly a few inches above him.

“C’mon, Johnny, you’re not gonna fuckin’ die…y’look like you fell out of a plane or somethin’…”

Growling curses, John hauled himself upright gingerly and dazedly stumbled after Keith, who was eagerly clambering towards the roof. A few breathless sets of iron stairs later, he found himself abruptly bathed in bright moonlight and had to blink a few times to clear his still-blurry vision as he stepped gratefully onto the decidedly more solid roof. Keith was waiting, the nighttime desert wind ruffling his hair and plucking at his too-big bathrobe as he stepped over to determinedly grab John’s hand without a word and pull him down by a sheltered part of the roof near a large protruding part of the ventilation system.

Glad for this chance at catching his breath, John couldn’t help but wonder what they were waiting for – he still wasn’t sure leaving bed had been a good idea. “What happens now?”

“Watch!”

As if on cue, the empty sky in front of them literally exploded in a raging star of booming red and gold accompanied by an enormous clap of thunder and a quick, whistling scream. John felt Keith jump beside him, but he could feel his excitement buzzing through both of them at the sight and had to grin as the realisation hit him.

“The Fourth of July – their Independence Day, that’s it, right?”

“Jesus Christ, Entwistle.” Keith dropped his head on John’s shoulder and pulled his hand into his lap, chuckling. “You really are thick, aren’tcha. Haven’t you noticed all the American flags an’ all that other shit they’ve been throwing in our faces this week? We’re an English band, that’s why we’ve been lyin’ low and not doin’ shows this week…”

“Well, it worked as a surprise, I s’pose,” John murmured wryly, looping an arm around Keith’s shoulders and pulling him close. The drummer happily snuggled up against him, huddling under his arm and slipping the bottle out of his pocket for them to pass back and forth as another round of fireworks was sent up a mile or so away, illuminating what they could see of the bare skyline in shades of red, blue, green, and yellow. He hadn’t forgotten, not really, just hadn’t remembered what the day was called or what particular significance it had, but he hadn’t really anticipated a celebration like this.

The American day of independence…well, even now, he didn’t feel qualified to participate in the celebration considering his own nationality, and so it felt quite like a secret, watching from the top of some roof with another sort-of-a-secret beside him. No one was here to see them or tell them off, however, and as the fireworks display continued and Keith’s eyes danced with the different colours, John felt himself beginning to truly relax for the first time in weeks. With the explosions near enough to feel on his exposed skin, the booms sounded less like an admonishment and more like a thrill – look up.

Uncounted minutes passed with the two of them craning their necks like children at the blossoming sky, huddled close as the cooler layers of the Texas wind swept the rooftops and filled their nostrils with the pleasantly exhilarating reek of sulphur and gunpowder. As the finale roared to life in a spray of dragon-sparks and rippling curtains of sparkling streamers of light, Keith slowly tipped his head back against John’s collarbone and whistled outright in awe.

“Beautiful.”

The bassist could see the reflections of the blazing fireworks in Keith’s dark eyes, each flame individual in its clarify. “Yes.”

Keith realised that he was staring, and the fireworks slid out of focus as the drummer came back to himself and really looked back, his brown eyes warming with their own lights as he scanned John’s quiet face. “Hey,” he murmured, reaching up a hand to stroke John’s cheek with real tenderness this time. “You got firecrackers in your eyes.”

“So do you.”

They each examined this phenomenon for a few seconds, eyes tracking the other’s face, before bending into a slow kiss that was this time no longer a challenge or a tease, but rather something honest. It felt good, John thought vaguely. Felt…well. There wasn’t anything to run from up here, that was why. The fireworks didn’t care, merely lit up the night for them as they burst their way through into oblivion and the two figures on the rooftop below fell into a deep embrace.