Dance with the Dragon

Chapter 1

8 May, 1964

The Iowa corn fields outside John's window were rustling in the wind, and he couldn't seem to close his eyes.

Being careful not to rustle the bedsheets, he slowly sat up and squinted in the dark, searching for any of his bandmates who might have had the same problem.

George's long legs were nearly hanging off the edge of the bed, face buried in his pillow, and a figure that he could only hope was Ringo lay still under a large mound of blankets. Stu, it seemed, had given up on competing with George for space, and was curled in a ball on the floor. Paul, next to him, was snoring so loudly that he could barely gather his thoughts together, and John turned around and pressed his jaw closed.

"Why don't you sound as pretty as you look, Macca?" he whispered to himself, and Paul merely turned the other way in response, mouth falling back open. John let out a huff and, still sitting upright, propped his chin on his hands.

Their endeavors in Clear Lake hadn't been any different from their other tours. Hundreds of screaming girls had occupied the Surf Ballroom, battered from screaming and yelling and pushing each other aside, and the four of them had tried -- and failed -- to produce any nice-sounding bit of music that would drown out the noise.

At any other performance, the ordeal would have annoyed him, but tonight he had been far too preoccupied to care. He had played on the stage where perhaps Buddy Holly had stood exactly in his place, with his same glasses, and perhaps a similar guitar, and...

Before the crowd had filtered in he had run the length of the room, running his hands over the walls, tapping his feet on the floors, playing a riff or two on his guitar before whispering, "Whoa..." Paul hadn't been far behind, going so far as to sing a bit of Love Me Do in a Texan accent, and George and Ringo had watched amusedly from where they set up their amps, sharing knowing glances with each other and shaking their heads. Even now, as Paul's snores grew even louder, the thought echoed in his head: Buddy played here. Buddy played here...

...and Buddy died here.

Giving his legs a stretch, John walked to the window and drew back the curtain. The road their hotel was facing was nearly devoid of cars, and beyond the street lamps that illuminated it swayed the fields of corn. Bordering them was a forest, and the rare car that whizzed past him revealed Buddy's memorial in its headlights, the large pair of glasses flashing at him for a split second before blending into the shadows once more.

His theories from his teenaged years came rushing back to him. Hours and hours were spent in that bedroom, crouching over his radio until his back ached, one hand clutching a pencil and the other a notepad, marking down times, locations, reports by the Clear Lake police, anything that led to the conclusion that the plane crash had only stolen three lives instead of four...

A strange emotion took a hold of him, and John decided to go for a walk.

--O--

The staff of the hotel, John came to discover, became as dead at midnight as the streets were. 

One poor man lay passed out on the front desk, working clearly a few shifts too late, drool pooling from the side of his mouth. A sweatshirt, inferredly his, was resting next to him, and John gingerly placed it around his shoulders before exiting the building and continuing on his way.

The tension immediately drained out of him as he felt the cool night air surrounding him, and his breathing grew slower. Here he could walk the streets without crowds chasing after his every step, monitoring his every movement. Here, instead of John Lennon, the witty Beatle, he was simply John.

A soft breeze blew his hair about, and he gazed upwards to find thousands of glittering stars winking at him from the ink-black sky. Hello, simply John.

He let out a content sigh, and waved at them with a smile. Hello, stars.

Aimlessly, he made his way across the empty street, shoes clicking on the pavement as he danced to the other side. He curiously ran his hand along a tall stalk of corn -- during the other tours, he hadn't the time to wonder what one actually felt like -- and ambled down a small dirt path that separated corn and trees, kicking up clouds of dust that quickly dissipated in the wind.

Hello, corn. Goodbye, dust. And then, as his eyes could make out the fast-approaching shape in front of him -- hello, glasses.

The memorial stood rigid against the stars, as if on guard, watching for something John couldn't perceive. Perhaps it was looking for Buddy. Perhaps this pair of glasses was waiting for its owner to return to it. 

The thought sent a chill of excitement through him, and he drummed his fingers on his leg, suddenly anxious to move on.

The cover of the trees began to grow thicker. Their branches, rattling slightly in the wind, blocked out more and more of the friendly stars that had invited him down this path, and John swallowed, desperately trying to ignore the dryness in his throat. Surely he didn't have to say goodbye to the stars just yet, just as he was beginning to feel accepted in this friendly place.

The idea of returning to the hotel room weighed his bones down as if they were filled with lead. For just once, he didn't want to confine himself to the limits of what the public wanted him to be. Society couldn't trap him in a cornfield as easily as it could shove him into a crowded hotel room...

Gradually, he became aware of a presence, something other than his thoughts, or trees, or stars. Footsteps matching his as he slunk through the night. Hands curling around a tree trunk as his curled into fists at his sides. Something his size was matching his movements, and though he dared not look to his side, he knew.

Maybe it's Stu, trying to get me back into bed, he tried to reason with himself, but the half-formed notion died soon after it was created. Stu wouldn't sneak around like some kind of animal -- or even find the proper motivation to wake himself up at an hour like this.

There was a noise -- someone's breath, and John whirled around, the cold air cutting against his skin with a whoosh. A shadow darted behind a bush, and he cried, "Are you the one who took Buddy Holly away?!"

The silence that followed was near deafening. Even the trees stilled themselves to gaze down on him with incredulity.

A puff of air punctured the stillness: another breath.

Then another.

Wheezing.

Someone was laughing.

The sound grew more substantial, eventually becoming a voice instead of just air, and the laughter, clear and higher-pitched, developed a body, one that stepped out of the undergrowth to hunch over, so large was its amusement. After a second or two it straightened, gave its shoulders a brush, and crossed the gap between them, entering a patch of moonlight to reveal tired brown eyes and a mess of dark curls. It offered a shy smile, seeing John's shock, and reached a hand behind to rub its neck, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot.

"Well," replied Buddy, voice soft and cracked from lack of use, "I s'pose that'd be a damned strange situation."