The Less I Know The Better [complete]

38 ;; christmas

"Mimi, calm yourself." He chuckled, momentarily forgetting what he came to her for. He knew he couldn't get out of helping her a bit, though, so he agreed to do so. "I'll help cut the potatoes, sure."

"Thank you," she sighed, looking incredibly stressed. John never really understood why she always got so worked up about events like Christmas. He figured it was because it was always important to her. She liked those holidays because it was an excuse to spend time with family and also show off her expensive (and quite frankly, odd) decorations and porcelain figures or whatever. He never set much store by those things himself, though, but he didn't mind them very much. But right now, in the bizarre headspace he was in, he couldn't imagine anything worse than having to endure Christmas Eve with extended family members and pretend like everything was okay when, for him at least, it really wasn't. He had to get out of it.

As he - rather clumsily - cut up the potatoes on the chopping board on the kitchen counter, he spoke up.

"Hey, Mimi-" He paused. "I've agreed to go to Paul's place tonight for his family's Christmas party. Is that okay?" John turned to look at her. She had paused in slicing up the carrots, watching him curiously. "Sorry I told you this late," He added. "Just forgot about 'til now."

"Ah, okay." She nodded. "Alright, John. But be back by no later than eleven, alright? No funny business." She stared him down in her usual stern manner.

"Sure." John shrugged.

She smiled softly at him, in an unusual moment of tenderness. He smiled back, feeling just a tad comforted through all the negative feelings that were currently churning inside him; she then nudged his shoulder with hers before turning back to the rest of the veggies.

"That's enough potatoes, now. Start on the peas, yes?"

After a few hours or so of helping her prepare the food and guest rooms as well as cleaning the rest of the house for their relatives, he finally was able to use the going-to-Paul's excuse and get the hell out of the house that had felt increasingly stifling and overwhelming to him. It was about four in the afternoon and the streets were stuffed with freezing, pure white snow that made him pull his coat and scarf closer in on himself; there were a few people about in the streets, some of them obviously doing some last minute preparations, carrying groceries needed or Christmas decorations like pine trees and tinsel, harried and annoyed. He almost found the sight amusing - Mimi would never be caught forget something like that.

Now that he was outside, no longer with any real place to go, he felt a little lost. He wasn't going to Paul's, and he wasn't spending time with Mimi either; he was all alone. He considered for a moment going to Ringo's or George's, but he knew that they would be in the midst of their own Christmas preparations and celebrations, and he couldn't just turn up announced and say 'hey, can I hang here but not participate in Christmas stuff because I really don't feel like it?', so they were a no-go. He then thought that maybe the fish and chip shop was a good bet, or the record shop or even a library if he was desperate, but he realised that he couldn't. Lots of places would be closed on Christmas, so they probably wouldn't even be open at the moment. He had no idea where to go.

So he walked. He trudged and trudged through the streets for a long time, striking up cigarettes and smoking them completely, only to immediately light another one; he sometimes glanced into the windows of houses that he passed by, watching happy families in their homes with their Christmas trees, wrapping presents, children playing in the snow, Christmas songs played on record players.. All throughout it, he just felt a sense of numbness, deep in his bones, partly from the cold and from his own emotions. Like there was a separation between him and the rest of the world - like he was watching himself shuffle through the streets, smoking cigarettes, wind tousling his hair and clothes. As if he wasn't really there.