Advice No 2: Never, ever, tell anyone at your job that you are trying to leave/going to leave. A person who is known to be trying to leave will be pushed under the bus by absolutely everyone else who doesn't want to leave but knows someone needs to. If either of these people told your boss you were trying to leave, you'd become the first person fired when the boss was told the department was over budget (or layoffs needed to happen, or etc. etc.). These people clearly don't have your best interests in mind (and most of your coworkers won't, ever) so I frankly don't see what has stopped them from telling him already. I would consider this a very unstable situation at this point.
Yeah, its a ticking bomb, I learned my lesson. The next due date is the 8th of February. On that day, the boss will tell John whether he is staying or not and what project he is getting. Just need to figure out what to tell the boss. He will want to know why I don't want to do my PhD in his lab...