Chapter Text
Five weeks until the show.
John had always thought that by twenty-nine he’d have his shit together. Twenty-nine is, afterall, basically thirty, and thirty is the sort of age where you should have a mortgage and a job where you got promoted and someone to spend Christmas with who wasn’t your ancient aunt or a couple of cats.
So far, John’s version involved breaking up with Paul McCartney who was the biggest prick he’d ever had the misfortune of meeting, and then realising that he was still hopelessly, desperately in love with him and becoming increasingly sure that, although the breakup was mostly Paul’s fault, he had probably made things a million times worse with equally prick-ish behaviour.
On top of his relationship problems, the one thing that had gone right this year, his new gig running a music group at a local youth centre, had also gone wrong because the centre had lost a chunk of its funding and John’s sessions were getting cut in the new year. He probably should have guessed it would happen, because he seemed to have whatever the opposite of the Midas touch was. Everything he went near, turned to shit.
All of which left him as a twenty-nine year old pining over his ex, with a bunch of kids to disappoint, and everyone else in his life getting their shit together like nearly thirty year olds should.
And December was just around the corner. So add that to his ever growing list of problems, because John Lennon was not going to be swept up in the belief that Christmas was all magic and fairy lights and kissing pretty men in the snow. Not again. Not when Christmas only reminded him of how old his aunt was getting, and that his Mum wasn't there any more, and that he'd thought maybe it would be okay anyway, if he was with Paul, but now that was gone as well.
He was, in fact, already in the process of trying to avoid Paul. After they’d broken up six weeks ago, John could have got someone else to take over the guitar lessons he taught at Paul’s school, but he liked the school. The kids could be a pain in the arse, but that was infinitely more fun than the schools where the kids were, no offence to them, boring little twats. Plus, it meant there was an excuse to at least see Paul which was better than spending his evenings scouring Paul’s social media for updates. (He had tried blocking him to start off with, but it didn’t last long). Paul had grown a beard which was unbearably annoying because he looked fucking great, and if they weren’t going to get back together, John at least deserved photos of it.
However, he did want to keep conversation with Paul to a minimum because it was awkward. So he’d taken to hovering outside the school gates every Thursday morning waiting until the very last moment to go inside.
Pre-breakup, Paul would have driven him there and John would have spent the child-free time distracting him in any way he could think of; badly played renditions of old songs on the piano, trying to rap to the programmed rhythms on the casio keyboards, dramatic readings of students' work. Anything to make Paul laugh, and then kissing the sound from his mouth until they were breathless, and Paul was doing a bad job at reminding him they shouldn’t be snogging at school.
As he counted down the minutes to his first lesson, he cast a look over the teacher’s car park for Paul’s stupid yellow Beetle, still decorated with the rainbows, hearts and music notes some previous year elevens had painted on. It usually stood out like a sore thumb among the sea of silver and black vehicles, but there was no sign of it. His brain immediately presented him with as many horrible scenarios as it could whip up in a split second; Paul in a terrible crash, Paul in hospital, Paul sick at home and unable to call the doctor and dying there in his flat.
Of course, Paul’s car was a heap of rubbish fueled entirely by Paul’s insistence that it still worked just fine. The most likely explanation was that it had finally broken down and forced Paul to get the bus. Or maybe he was just sagging off. Either way, he was probably fine because that was the thing that was infuriating John most of all.
The breakup had sent him spiralling, and every time he thought about it he considered jumping off the nearest building, whereas Paul seemed absolutely fine. Like the rest of the year hadn’t meant anything. The prick.
John made his way into the school to collect his visitor’s pass. The building was falling apart, although over the summer they’d given it a lick of paint as if that would hide the other obvious problems; scuffed laminate flooring, squeaky doors and general air of nobody really giving a shit. It was a million miles away from the nice grammar school John had gone to and thoroughly hated, which meant he didn’t mind it at all.
In the music block he paused outside to peer through the window on the door of Paul’s classroom, expecting to see him with the stupid new beard and need a minute to recompose himself. Only there was no Paul, Brian, the drama teacher, was taking the register for Paul’s form group.
John pushed the door open.
“Ah, good morning, John. Jude’s waiting for you in the practice room already,” Brian said, giving him the same charming smile he always did whenever they bumped into each other. If Paul had made any kind of complaint about John, and it would be uncharacteristic if he hadn’t, Brian hadn’t let on. John stopped himself from asking the question he wanted to ask and said his good mornings.
Jude already had his guitar plugged in and was noodling away when John let himself in. Paul always claimed that he didn’t have favourite students, however they both knew that was a lie because they both had a soft spot for Jude. The year eleven was a pain in the arse and his use of bad language rivaled John’s, but his ever growing musical talent and undeniable sense of humour meant it was hard for either of them to stay angry at him for long.
Besides, they had an understanding, or so he and Paul told themselves.
“Where’s your boyfriend?” Jude asked, as John began to get his own guitar out of its case. The practice room was cramped and John had a feeling it was supposed to be a cupboard, which had then been badly soundproofed when they’d decided this would be the music classroom.
“Not my boyfriend,” he muttered.
“Well you’re both fucking miserable at the moment, so can’t you just kiss and make up, or suck each-”
“Jude,” John said, shooting him a warning look. He would have found that funny before. Okay, he still found it a bit funny, but he wasn’t in the mood to talk about Paul unless Jude knew where he was, which evidently he didn’t.
“John,” Jude mimicked back, but had the good sense not to push it further. “Look I’ve been working on something anyway, can I show you?”
Jude composing his own music was a new turn of events. He’d done some work experience over the summer with John’s friend, George, who worked as a producer, and since then Jude had doubled down in his determination to keep improving. John nodded, and sat on the table that had been squeezed in the practice room/cupboard, above which an ancient poster about Mozart hung on by one sad piece of sellotape.
Jude began to play and John’s mind wandered back to Paul. He could just text him and ask where he was and if he was okay, but that felt a bit like losing a game neither of them had agreed to start playing.
***
The main room of the youth centre wasn’t ideal for thirty hormonal teenagers to be making music in, and John was pretty sure that the number of extension cords they had plugged in was a fire hazard. But there simply wasn’t another option and John had only started refusing sign ups when he was forced to because of health and safety. A man with a moustache had come round one night and tutted at him and Paul a lot, and told them he couldn’t have any extra people in the space and with the number of adults.
Paul had waited until the man had pushed open the double doors and then stuck his middle finger up at him in one of his totally innocuous, but funny to anyone who witnessed it, acts of defiance.
They’d started in February, when Richie had told them one night over a beer about the free space, and John had jumped at the chance. The Christmas show he’d put on with Paul was his proudest achievement, and the youth centre would give him another chance to feel like he was really doing something that mattered.
Paul had assigned himself his righthand man, which had been fine, until it wasn’t. It was supposed to be John’s thing, but when he suggested songs, Paul would suggest something different, when he was working on an arrangement, Paul would appear and just try it another way, and when John didn’t make enough of a fuss about the kid’s language or behaviour, Paul would put his teacher face on and tell them all to simmer down so they could work. And that was all before the Robert thing had happened.
John set the room up, mulling over the past resentments he’d let fester away, only leaving them be when the kids started trickling in. Chatter filled the room. Some of them grabbed instruments straight away and others crowded round in little groups, the ones who didn’t go to the same school caught up, while others disappeared to the kitchen to get water and see what snacks had been left in there. A few of them shouted over to John about the songs they wanted to help with, and he let himself get drawn in as the groups divided up.
Paul had once told him the sessions needed a ‘serious structure’, to not be so ‘aimless’, and John had fervently disagreed. The sessions were chaotic and noisy and it was hard to hear yourself think when thirty kids had divided themselves up into groups and solo acts, and were all playing music and shouting over each other. But it was fun. They helped each other out, the groups morphed and changed and out of the chaos came a sense of camaraderie, real improvement, and for the kids who needed it, somewhere safe to be on a Thursday night where they could just be a stupid teenager.
John had created the thing he’d needed when he was their age, and now he needed to tell them it was over.
That’s what caring got you; a big fat pile of nothing.
“Evening,” Rich said once John was done tuning a guitar for one of the younger kids. He slung an arm around John’s shoulder, and John snuggled against him as they kept an eye on the room.
“Any chance you want to share the news?” John asked him.
“I think they need to hear it from you,” Richie said, giving him a last squeeze then stepping away. “Also Mo says you’re not to keep me out late and that it’s rude you didn’t invite her.”
“I’ll make it up to-” he stopped himself and pushed Richie with his shoulder. “Idiot, you invited me.”
Richie just laughed, then disappeared into the chaos. “Desmond!” he called over to a drummer from one of the not-Paul schools. Desmond was dating the lead singer of their band, Molly, and they’d thought it very funny and clever of themselves to have simply called themselves The Band.
John grinned at his friend getting stuck in, then noticed Jude slipping into the room quietly. “You’re late!” he shouted over to him.
“And you’re an ugly cunt!” Jude yelled back, as he slipped his guitar case off his back and greeted his bandmates. John definitely should have been an adult and expressed some sort of concern at Jude’s language, but he undermined himself by laughing immediately.
It wasn’t long before Jude sidled over to him anyway.
“Had a good day?” John asked.
“Not really,” Jude said.
“In the mood to elaborate?”
Jude scuffed his shoes against the floor then shrugged. “Not really,” he said again.
“Want me to come over and hear how you’re getting on with Green Day?” John asked and Jude nodded at that, so John followed him over, wishing, not for the first time, he knew whether he was doing the right thing with Jude. Whether he should push for answers when Jude didn’t want to talk, or if letting him talk when he was ready was okay. He worried about him most days because Jude’s Mum seemed as useless and John’s had been growing up, and Jude had the added stress of a little brother to take care of. But if John ever broached it, Jude would just insist everything was fine.
John left it and listened to them playing American Idiot. Jude always threw himself into performing with his whole body in a way that must have been cathartic, and John could relate; sometimes it felt like playing music was the only thing that kept him sane.
With Richie charming his way around the room, John sat back on the one of the tables he’d pushed up against the wall and got his phone out of his pocket. He had been moments away from texting Paul all day, had gotten as far as typing out a message, but couldn’t bring himself to hit send. He brought up their DMs again.
It wasn’t that John wanted to ignore him. He’d drafted replies each time, then rewritten them and stressed over them, and asked Richie or George what they thought, then ignored their advice and simply never responded. He supposed deep down, or not even that deep down at all, he’d wanted to see how long Paul would try for. It turned out the answer was only a few weeks.
He closed his messages and opened them again.
John’s heart pounded when within seconds, Paul’s status changed to ‘online’ and the dots indicating he was typing appeared. John stayed glued to the screen, half overjoyed at the ease of it and half more nervous about reopening the line of communication than anything else had ever made him.
Paul stopped typing, and John waited.
Paul went offline again.
John stared at the screen as if he could telepathically get Paul to come back and reply, then remembered it was hardly like he deserved a reply after all the messages he’d left unanswered himself. Even if Paul did reply, it wasn’t as though he would have anything nice to say.
Paul didn’t reappear, so John shoved his phone back in his pocket and went to find someone who needed something and mentally cursed himself for being so weak. He should have blocked Paul’s number weeks ago so he couldn’t even be tempted. But there was always that little bit of hope that Paul might try one last time, and if he did, John might have been ready to talk.
He left the noise of the main room for the relative quiet of the corridor, where one of the girls was sitting cross-legged with a cheap acoustic guitar, scribbling in a notebook on the floor next to her.
“Alright, Lucy?” he asked. Lucy was one of Paul’s students, she’d once caught John off guard by bursting into tears due a bout of stage fright when there wasn’t a real adult around to comfort her, only John. He’d done his best and she’d ended up getting on stage with the rest of the choir, no harm done thankfully.
“Do you know where Mr. McCartney was today?” she asked, muting the strings.
John shook his head. “I’m sure he’s fine.”
“He’s not fine,” Lucy said, who had recently perfected the eyeroll of a pre-teen who thought every adult she knew was unbelievably stupid. Maybe she was right, but Paul seemed fine to him. “You’re both sulking, like, all the time. And if you’re both sulking, that means you’re both sad. And if you’re both sad, you can make up. See? Easy peasy.”
“We don’t need to make up because there’s nothing wrong,” John said, and before she could argue, asked, “did you figure out that F chord yet?”
Lucy shook her head. “My hands don’t do that.”
“Rubbish,” John said. “Show me.”
Lucy demonstrated, stretching her index finger over the first fret and then strumming, to show him how awful it sounded. “See?”
“Do you want a cheat?” John asked.
“There’s a cheat?” Lucy said. “Since when?”
John crouched down and repositioned her fingers, so she only had to barre the top two strings. “Try that, don’t strum the bottom two” he said. The effect was immediately better on the ears. “There you go, keep practising the other version but that’ll do the trick as well.”
Lucy agreed and John left her to see if any of the groups wanted to perform for everyone else before they left. Jude’s group crushed American Idiot, The Band played some Paramore, and John tried to get Lucy to show whatever she’d been working on, but like every week, she shook her head and refused. While her confidence had grown since Christmas, she couldn’t stand the idea of performing by herself. John was working on it.
As they started packing up, John cleared his throat. They all looked at him in confusion sensing the strange emotion in the room because John didn’t do serious announcements. Again, he was not a proper adult and this was definitely something a proper adult should be telling them.
“I need to tell you all something,” he said. Richie stepped up next to him, keeping quiet, but there in a way John appreciated. The kids moved in closer, forming a semi-circle around him. Kids he’d spent months forming into a little community, kids who were talented and gobby and hard-working and deserved so much better than this. He took a deep breath.
“Look, there’s not an easy way to say this. But you know those fucking goverment twats? Well they’re using all the money for stupid shit and it means that in the new year, this place isn’t going to be getting as much. And the people that run things here have to make decisions about what needs to stay.”
He could see it dawn on them what he was about to say.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Jude said, before John could confirm their worries.
He shook his head. “We’re out,” he said. But he couldn’t do it, he couldn’t leave it there, not with them all looking at him, waiting for the fix, the answer, the joke. “But we’re going to sort it, right, Rich?” he said, turning to his friend for support.
“Uh-”
“How?” Molly demanded.
“Well… we’ll do a performance, yeah? Show everyone how important this place is and what you’ve all been working on,” John said. The kids exchanged glances. Which was fair enough because what the fuck was he saying?
“But what if it’s not enough?” Lucy asked, clinging to her guitar.
“Let’s not think about that now, let’s just pull our efforts into trying, yeah?” John said. There was a murmur of agreement, but Jude was still looking at him furiously.
“We can’t have fucking anything,” he said, and kicked a nearby chair, causing the other teenagers around him to make space. “It won’t work,” he told them all.
“It’s shit, I get it,” John said. “It’s a fucking joke and it’s exhausting, I know. But unfortunately I don’t want to stop seeing your grubby little faces every week or hearing your horrible playing that you insist is music-”
Some of the kids started laughing at this.
“So I’m going to try and find the money another way, and if you want to help, we’re going to need as much of it as possible. Or,” John looked at Jude. “If you want to be a whiny little baby about it, be my guest.”
One of Jude’s friends thumped him on the back, and his scowl began to disappear. He gave John a small nod, and that would have to do for now.
“What was that about?” Richie asked, the moment the noise level was high enough again that they could exchange words in semi-privacy. He’d assumed, in his split second of lunacy, that Richie would be on board. He was hurt by the cuts even more than John was, since he worked for a charity that kept young people out of gangs, and youth centres were a huge part of how he offered alternative spaces, education and support.
“Well-” John gestured at the room. “Look at them, we can’t just-”
Richie threw his arms around him, and John supposed that was alright then.
“Thank you,” Richie said, patting his cheek. John would quite literally die for Richie, so putting on some sort of show with a bunch of kids that were pretty good anyway, wasn’t really that mad.
As they began to lock the doors and leave the building, he finally checked his phone which had been weighing heavy in his pocket.
Stupid. What had he expected? That he could ask one question and Paul would beg to see him again? He turned his phone off completely (the safest option to stop himself sending a stream of consciousness), and followed Richie out.
***
They found a cosy corner table at the pub, it wasn’t busy and the barman greeted them by name. Every month, the pub ran a jamming session which they regularly joined in with. It had been once of these nights that John and Paul had spent time together outside of a work capacity. And the first time Paul had met George and Ringo. And the first time John had realised he was well and truly fucked when it came to all matters Paul.
George met them there and had got a round in while he waited. John had known George since school, where despite being a couple of years younger, he was the only kid who could match John musically (John would never admit he was already a million times better).They’d met Richie while George was at university, and John was living in a hovel in Peckham trying to write music and Richie was drumming with a local band. They’d been inseparable ever since.
George gave them both a hug in turn as they reached the table, and eyed up Richie suspiciously who was grinning like the Cheshire Cat.
“What’s happened?” George asked as they all took their seats.
“John’s just announced to everyone that he’s going to save the youth centre money,” Richie said. George’s eyebrows shot up.
“I don’t think that’s what-”
“You said we’re going to sort it and I have thirty witnesses,” Richie said.
“With John in charge? Good luck,” George scoffed.
“Git,” John said, kicking him under the table. George just grinned at him with a mix of teasing and genuine affection. The truth was, if they weren’t winding each other up at every given opportunity, something awful would happen like having to admit their deep, abiding love for their oldest friend, which was a hideous prospect to all involved.
“Well,” Richie said, uncharacteristically nervously. “Look, I know you’re not going to like it, but you and Paul put on a hell of a show-”
John’s pint was halfway to his mouth, and he all but slammed it back down when he realised what the end of Richie’s sentence was going to be, splashing the table as he did so.
“No.”
“He knows how to do this stuff,” Richie said.
“I know how to do this stuff,” John insisted. Would it be easier to ask Paul for help? Sure. But that was going to happen over his dead body. “How hard can it be? The kids will perform and they’re good, great in fact, all on their own, the last thing we need is fucking McCartney getting all him about it.”
“Alright, alright,” Richie said, holding his hands up in defeat. “No Paul, I hear you.”
George hid a laugh by taking a sip of drink.
“I’ll make some calls tomorrow then, make sure we can get permission from the people who run the place,” Richie said.
“I’ll ask around at the studio, we can probably get some equipment and extra pairs of hands to help,” George said. So it was agreed then, which was completely fine, because John definitely knew what he was doing, and definitely wasn’t going to freak out once he got home about the amount of pressure on this working.
“Oh by the way, I proposed to Pattie while we were away at the weekend,” George then said, so nonchalantly that it took about ten seconds of silence between the three of them for John and Richie to register what he’d said.
John’s stomach plummeted. George couldn’t get married. George was younger than him. He couldn’t have both his best friends married while he was still pining over an ex and living alone with two cats. Oh god, he was the spinster of the group. He was going to die alone and the only people who might care were a ragtag bunch of teens he saw once a week.
Richie had cheered and stood up to grab George in a big bear hug while John internally spiralled.
“It’s good news!” George said while Richie patted him on the back. John forced the biggest smile he could and joined in the hug. Some of the beer he’d spilled earlier had dripped onto his lap. He wanted to go home.
“This is fucking brilliant, mate,” he said. He was happy for him. He was going to be nice and normal and happy for his friend. “Shall we start taking bets on how long it lasts?”
Richie whacked him around the head which was fair enough.
After a congratulatory drink they said their goodbyes, and John began his short walk home. He found his headphones in his bag, and as he went to put some music on (something appropriately melancholic to make him feel like he was in a coming of age film) his phone buzzed into life and he had another notification from Paul.
John’s heart soared at the sight of those four words. It had been sent over an hour after Paul’s first reply. Had he spent the following minutes waiting for John to respond? Had he stressed over sending another message, and what to say?
Well, he wasn’t going to make it that easy. The ball was back in his court and he was going to take his time deciding what to do with it. He gave Paul’s message a thumbs up, and picked some considerably cheerier music that he’d planned to accompany his walk home. He even forgot to be annoyed at the houses who had adorned their houses in Christmas lights weeks early.
Four weeks until the show.
Paul’s car was back, which meant so was Paul, and for the first time in weeks John didn’t hover outside the school building for quite so long. The kids that didn’t care about being late were still trickling into the entrance as John collected his pass and made his way across the playground, to the smaller building where the music and drama classrooms lived.
“Are you on time? Who are you and what have you done with John Lennon?” Paul’s voice came from behind him, as he started up the stairs. John turned and almost had a heart attack at the sight of him. He still had that stupid beard and he was smiling which frankly, shouldn’t have been allowed. Those soft creases around the edges of his eyes, and full cheeks that without the beard, took ten years off him.
“I’m his evil twin, John Lemon,” he said, holding out a hand. Paul laughed and shook it. The last time they’d touched was the night John insisted Paul get out of his flat and not come back, Paul begging him to listen, his hand on John’s arm trying to keep them both there, eking out the seconds until the inevitable.
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Lemon,” Paul said, with a grin. John didn’t want to let go of his hand, but they couldn’t just stand in the stairwell all day holding hands and pretending to be other people.
“What makes you evil?”
“I’m on time, but I’m a terrible teacher,” John said, beginning the climb up again.
“Oh, Lennon thinks he’s a good teacher, does he?”
John threw him a scowl, and waited for Paul to open up the classroom and let the kids in that were milling around.
“Hey,” Paul said, tugging on his coat sleeve and pulling him over to the side of the classroom. John let himself be moved. “The kids told me about the youth centre, I’m so sorry.”
John shrugged. “To be expected really, isn’t it? No one gives a shit about these kids, you should hear some of the things Richie tells me.”
Paul bit his lip, his bunny teeth pressing into the soft skin that John had spent countless hours staring at.
“They said you’re going to try and find the money another way,” Paul said.
“Yeah, I’m putting on a show. A fundraiser. Sell the tickets, take donations there, all that… jazz.” That sounded like a showbusiness-y type of thing to say. He was fine, he knew exactly what he was doing. He, Richie and George had been slowly working through a list. A list that John had put together. Perhaps based on one he’d found after some Googling but that was just doing research, nothing wrong with that.
“Okay,” Paul said. He was waiting. John knew he was waiting for him to ask for help, but he wasn’t going to. He made himself smile, and opened the door to the practice rooms. He wasn’t giving in that easily, no matter how many sad, doe eyed looks Paul wanted to give him. He’d only turn it into the McCartney show and he should probably be concentrating on whatever end of term musical he and Brian were cooking up anyway.
Jude turned up for his lesson, and immediately started pressing him for details about what was happening like he’d taken a leaf out of Paul’s book and was ready to take over at a moment's notice.
“Well, Richie’s been speaking to people,” John said, letting it hang in the air. “And we’ve got the go ahead. I’m going to tell everyone else tonight.”
Jude brightened for a moment, then remembered his I’m-a-teenager-I-don’t-give-a-shit face and started strumming his guitar.
“You gonna get Mr. Macca to help?” he asked.
“Why would I do that?”
“Because he… you know, he’s a weirdo, but he’s good at the show stuff, right?” Jude said. “Didn’t you say we should do everything we can?”
“We can do everything we need to without him,” John said. Jude pulled a face and John had to stop himself calling the sixteen year old a name and sinking down his level, because he wasn’t also sixteen years old and would do well to remember that. He had a list, after all.
They got on with their lesson, but it became clear that Jude wasn’t completely invested. He fumbled chord shapes that John knew he could do in his sleep, and struggled with a riff they’d been playing for months. John began to worry if he should ask, if that was something within his job role, or something he should just let Paul know.
John called time a few minutes early, when Jude yawned in the middle of one of John’s explanations.
“Sorry,” Jude muttered, rubbing his face. “Was playing games all night, stupid.”
“That’s all, you’re just tired?” John asked and Jude nodded and so that was that, he supposed. “Er, if it’s… anything else you can talk to me.”
“Right… thanks,” Jude said. They both tried to look anywhere but each other, which was basically impossible in a room two people could barely fit into anyway. Jude jumped up, unable to sit in the awkwardness, and shoved his guitar back in the case.
“And you’re really not gonna ask Sir to help?” he asked.
“Nope,” John said. Why were they back on this? Hadn’t he made himself perfectly clear?
***
“For the last time, no,” John said. Lucy’s eyebrows shot up at John’s harsh tone, which made him sigh and pull a face. “I’m sorry, Luce, it’s just everyone is asking me that and it’s just not going to happen. Pau- Mr. McCartney’s got enough on his plate and I’m perfectly capable.”
That was, if perfectly capable meant running on pure stubbornness and spite.
“It’s not that,” Lucy said. “It would just be fun, wouldn’t it? Like last year?”
And god it had been fun. Paul was incredible with the kids and cared so much that his joy was infectious. There had been the car rides home in the dark and decking Paul’s classroom in Christmas decorations to cheer him up, and the constant crackle of electricity between them. John had been happy. Infuriated that Paul had made him wait so long to get in his pants, but he’d been happy nonetheless, and Paul had been so, so lovely.
“Things are different now,” John said. “Come on, let’s do some chord changes.” He got his phone out to set a minute on the clock.
Three other kids had asked him the exact same question during their lessons, because they were, as John had started to forget amidst his growing fondness, a bunch of little shits. Which they were about to prove further.
Lucy reappeared at the very end of the day, when John was packing up his guitar. He and Paul had been the most cordial they’d been to each other in weeks, which was nice, but it didn’t change anything.
“John, I just had a quick question,” she said. She looked nervous, and in hindsight, John should have been able to tell she was up to something.
“Hm?”
“Er, my parents said they’ll get me a better guitar for Christmas maybe, if there’s a good one that’s not too expensive. Do you have any ideas?”
John gave her a few makes that might do the trick and she scurried off again.
“Yeah?” Paul said, sticking his head round the door moments later, once John had turned back to his guitar case.
“What?”
“Lucy said you wanted me?” he said, stepping fully inside the tiny room. Before John could say that he hadn’t, and also that if he’d wanted to talk to Paul he would have done so in about thirty seconds when he came back through the classroom, the door was shut by someone outside.
This was followed by the sound of a key turning in the lock. They both stared at it, dumbfounded.
“Paul, where are your keys?” John said, turning to him the best he could in the enclosed space.
“On my desk,” Paul said, as they held each other's gaze.
“Is there any chance they're now in the hands of a child who’s about to get a year’s worth of detentions?”
“We’re not letting you out and until you talk,” came Jude’s voice. There was a giggle and a muffled whisper, then a shush. They’d planned this. They’d been tricked by a group of idiot kids. John banged on the door.
“This isn’t funny, Jude,” Paul called through to him. “Let us out, right now.”
“No,” Jude said. “We’re doing this for your own good.”
Paul tried the handle and shouted in frustration. There was the shuffle of people walking off and another bout of giggling. Then nothing.
“I’m going to kill them,” he said, and turned around to face John. There was a long silence and the corners of John’s mouth began to tug into a smile without his permission. Because of course, the only way this was to get sorted was if he and Paul were physically trapped in the same space together. And right after he was done being angry with the kids, he might spend his limited savings on whatever Christmas presents they wanted.
As the seconds ticked on, the situation became funnier in John’s head and to his delight, Paul started to smile back.