Author's Note: This is it. The last chapter. The mother of all music jokes.
Dean reluctantly tightened his tie. He had an aversion to the dratted thing, but Chuck's eye had begun to twitch when he mentioned wearing jeans instead. After ten more minutes of grooming, Sam and Dean set out in the Impala for the school. Upon arriving they discovered that the others had begun tuning. It was catastrophic. The violas tried desperately to tune their untunable instrument. The saxes, already in tune, were playing overtop of everyone else's efforts. The piano was out of tune to begin with and others were using it to tune themselves. Chuck appeared to be wearing earplugs and was smiling happily. After a while the cacophony died down and the students (all tuned either flat or sharp) looked expectantly at Chuck.
Chuck had given up all hope of a good concert and had elected to let them do whatever they liked. He only hoped that Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, which they were playing last, would go well. The three bassists, Cas, a caustic girl named Pamela and Garth were not overly thrilled about that one. As there was a long break for basses nearing the end they were told to put down their basses and return later.
Cas caught Dean's eye from across the school gym and blushed. Jo and Gabriel wolf whistled and were promptly met with the Wrath of Dean Winchester tm. Sam was on a cloud.
Parents began to arrive.
Chuck removed his ear plugs and took out the scores.
"Are we playing the piece with the really long trill on the piano at the beginning?"
The question came from Zachariah in the viola section. Not a bright boy (they seldom are) he had the astonishing ability to not even play and still be out of tune.
"Which is that?" Chuck asked.
"You know..." he began to hum the first few bars of Fur Elise. It should be pointed out again that violists are not particularly popular in orchestral circles. Chuck shook his head. Ash rolled his eyes from his position with the alto clarinets.
The concert went well. The audience loved it. It was an exquisite demonstration of musical genius conducted with poise and aplomb.
These are the words I long to type. To say that nothing went wrong and the band was wonderful.
It's not too late to stop reading.
Seriously.
Just leave the site.
Go on Tumblr or something.
You asked for it.
The concert was horrific. Concert pitched instruments were decidedly Bb pitched. Bb instruments became Eb and so on. Bows snapped.
It.
Was.
Bad.
Then came Beethoven's Ninth.
The beginning went well. Chuck even felt cautiously optimistic. When the basses left he could almost have been called happy.
The trio made their way backstage. Pamela proposed drinking. Cas and Garth, who had neither had alcohol before, saw no reason why not. Pamela pulled a stash of alcohol from seemingly nowhere and they settled down. Garth fainted within a minute. Cas was well through his third bottle before he 'began to feel something'. He stood to return and suddenly the alcohol hit him. He staggered. He and a stagehand carried Garth and Pamela (who had since fainted) out onto the stage. He was unworried about being late because Pamela had assured him she had a plan. Her plan became apparent when Chuck came into view. She had evidently tied the last few pages of the score to make it more difficult to conduct. Chuck was trying desperately to untie them. Cas smiled faintly at Dean and then promptly slipped and slid straight into the conductors stand. Chuck was furious. After all,
It was the bottom of the Ninth.
The basses were loaded.
The score was tied.
Two men were out.
And then one slid home.