When John had called to call in a favour, you weren't expecting to play maid while he lazes on the couch, half-asleep with a cigarette between his teeth. You'd expected something more... Nefarious, considering John's track record, but he'd greeted you at the door with a shit-eating grin on his face and a maid dress just your size draped across a chair.

You'd refused adamantly to wear the maid dress, much to his amusement, and he'd relented with a smile that told you that he didn't really expect you to wear it. Still didn't save you from having to clean up his cesspool of an apartment.

Honestly, you're half convinced you're going to find the cure for the common cold in here, and you've barely cracked his bedroom.

"Oh, stop bitchin', be glad this is the favour and not your firstborn." John calls out over his shoulder, trying to decide if he wants a gin and tonic enough to justify getting up and walking all twelve steps to the kitchen.

Meanwhile, you steel your nerves and take a deep breath, preparing to tackle the closet. Just as you'd feared, a mountain of old tomes, clothes, and magical artifacts pours out at your feet. But at the very back, something catches your eye.

An old guitar covered in a thick layer of dust lies propped up in a corner, and when you wipe off the dust, there's a signature scrawled on it — 'Johnny Con-Job'.

"Hrm? Who said you could take a break? Or did you change your mind about the maid dress?" John opens one eye when he hears you approaching, but when he sees the guitar, his fifth cigarette since you got there falls out of his mouth and also traces of humour is drained from his voice. "Where'd you find that?"

He doesn't look too happy as he extends his hands, making a grabbing motion until you hand him the guitar. You're half scared that he's going to smash it, but he just wipes away more of the dust, revealing more names on the back, all in different handwriting.

Gary Lester, Beano, Chas Chandler and Veronica Delacroix. John runs his fingers over the names carefully, as if scared that he might smudge the letters. "Didn't know I still had this," he murmurs, drawing his hand back from the instrument and picking his cigarette back up, taking a slow drag and taking care that no ash lands on the guitar.

John exhales a plume of smoke, testing out the strings. "Did I ever tell you that I used to be in a band in my teenage years and early twenties? We broke up after an... Incident, let's say. Mucous Membrane, we were called."

He didn't tell you, but Chas did once. The incident in question being the Newcastle Incident, after which John admitted himself to Ravenscar Asylum. You don't think it's a very good idea to tell John that you know what incident he's referring to.