Call Me Back Again

CHAPTER 14

By the time they'd finished breakfast and watched 'The Half-Blood Prince', Paul felt emotionally exhausted. These marathons were draining at the best of times, but now there was the added strain of all that baggage coming out in bursts. He couldn't believe the things that just slipped out. What was it about John that made it so impossible to keep all that crap locked away? For some reason, John seemed to disarm him, and it was starting to look like the harder he tried to keep all that hurt hidden, the more it just poured out at the worst possible moments.

But more embarrassingly, the more Paul confided in John, the more he wanted to share those innermost secrets; an effect only very few people had ever had on him. Talking about his past made him feel closer to John who seemed to want to hear it all, especially when they seemed to have certain experiences in common. At the same time, it took so much energy to relive those memories, and to perk himself up again after another bout of verbal diarrhoea, Paul didn't know if he actually had the strength to have another heart to heart.

It was taking its toll on the marathon, too. Paul was much more emotional than he normally got. Crying was just part of the experience, that much he'd known beforehand. When he watched by himself, that wasn't an issue. Somehow, he didn't mind doing it in front of John, either. Not anymore, in any case. Maybe it had worried him for a bit, but since John had, indeed, been the first to get to that point, Paul really didn't care about it anymore. And why should he? If it was alright for girls to weep, then why not for boys? Actually getting to that point was physically a lot harder for men anyway (fucking testosterone!) so wasn't it kind of silly to fight those tears when they did finally come?

Of course, John still tried to the undeniable: that he'd lost control over his emotions when Harry wept over Cedric's dead body after using the Portkey to get back to Hogwarts. Silent tears had started rolling first but when mister Diggory started wailing over his son, Paul definitely heard a sob coming from John and even though he'd said something to the extent of 'I'm not bloody crying; I'm not a fucking bird,' he'd made good use of the hankies. The ribbing that followed was all in good fun, and Paul had rather enjoyed allowing himself to have a good cry over some fictional drama as well. None of that mattered between friends, so it didn't bother him. But fuck, if he wasn't completely knackered!

John could definitely see the charm of watching all of the Harry Potter films in less than a day. He really could. It was just that he was dead on his feet and they hadn't reached the end yet. He desperately wanted to sleep and found it increasingly difficult to keep his eyes from falling shut.

Being this exhausted had an interesting effect on his senses and emotions somehow, which made for fascinating situations. He'd always been receptive to the tricks filmmakers used to trigger certain feelings, so just like always, the emotionally loaded end scenes of the Philosopher's Stone had caused John to have an annoying lump in his throat, as did the finale of each consecutive film. Then again, who wouldn't feel all warm inside when Dobby got liberated from the Malfoys, or when Sirius and Harry had that heartwarming conversation? All of that was normal, but he'd never actually wept whilst watching a film before. That was a whole new experience. Something told John it was about to get even worse because Harry and Dumbledore had just returned from that fucking island, which meant he had to brace himself for what was about to come...

Mere minutes later, John was feeling completely raw inside. Clearly, he wasn't the only one, because he could hear Paul's appalled gasp, followed by a soft 'nooooo...' when Dumbledore fell off the Astronomy tower. What made him look sideways, though, was the audible sob at the end of that single, elongated syllable. If he hadn't been crying yet, he certainly would have at the sight of Paul, who sat next to him with his knees pulled all the way up to his chest and tears running down his face whilst frantically chewing on his thumb. He wasn't even trying to conceal it, either. He just sat there, looking utterly lost and every bit as devastated as John felt. Though, naturally, he would never willingly admit that.