Title:Hopeful Minds
Author: finkpishnets
Fandom: Hollyoaks
Rating: PG
Pairing: John Paul/Craig
Spoilers: E4's 24/12/2007 Christmas Episode
A/N: Don't read unless you've seen the Christmas episode. Two seconds and I am completely happy: they certainly know how to make a girls' Christmas!
It's Christmas Day and he's with his family, like always. They're down The Dog having a few drinks, as is tradition, before they go home to enjoy Myra's roast. He's already braced himself for the inevitable drama, because they're the McQueen's and when are they not involved in some sort of drama or another? Besides, this is Hollyoaks where nobody seems to understand the word normal. Of course, in his opinion, normal is incredibly overrated.
The buzzing of his phone doesn't come as a surprise – he may not have many friends these days but he has enough that a text wishing him Happy Christmas isn't a shock, so he checks it half heartedly, pressing 'read' before he even looks at the number.
He barely contains his surprise.
He hasn't heard from Craig since that day in the airport. The day when he walked away because Craig couldn't admit what he was, what they were, and John Paul knew he couldn't live like that again. If he's honest, he'd assumed that Craig would have forgotten about him, wanting to put everything about Hollyoaks behind him and start a new life without the constant reminders of the people he'd hurt. The people who'd hurt him.
It's not even a particularly simple message – not the standard holiday wishes, at any rate. He says he misses him and mentions visiting Dublin and John Paul feels his heart almost bursting in a way that it hasn't since his best friend left. Or he left his best friend. It's all so complicated.
The text, a simply bloody text, reawakens feelings in him that he's been trying so hard to pretend he doesn't feel anymore. He's spent the last few months repetitively informing people that he's 'fine, thanks' but that's been of lie, of course, because how on earth could he be when the only person he's ever loved is in a different country?!
Frankie storms down the stairs, Jake in tow, shouting for everyone to leave and he almost laughs because this is all way too familiar. He gets the urge to grab the woman and hug her because she's Craig's mum and no matter how much she's disliked him, even hated him, over the past year, at this precise moment she's the closest thing he has to Craig with the exception of a tiny message on his mobile.
Outside his sisters all start singing Christmas songs, the sexy sort rather than the traditional since its Mercedes' suggestion, and he joins in even though his mind is definitely not in Chester. He can't decide whether he should text back – if he does then he's not sure what he should say; he may still love the guy more than he ever thought possible but they've been through so much and, no matter what, there's still an ocean separating them. It always comes back to the same things, the same arguments, the same choices that neither of them have ever been able to make.
Maybe he's reading too much into it, after all, it's Christmas and people always get all sentimental and nostalgic at this time of year.
Except he's John Paul and he reads into everything, especially concerning this and Craig knows that. He knows John Paul better than anyone in the world and he'd know exactly what his text would mean to him.
It's sweet and confusing and so very Craig because he's the only person to mess with John Paul's mind like this, but above all it gives him hope. After all, if his sisters are right, these things never end.