Before reading: I desperately wanted to do something like this since I first saw the film, so here it is: done, finally.
Personal OOC warning: Only my Charlie can be so sensitive…(sighs)
"The secret box"
Running through the thick walls, came the radio guy's voice from above the desk. Charlie rubbed his eyes and got on the exhausting smoking task. His eyes were slowly closing up when Henry Muller entered through the door with a letter on his right hand.
"Hey, Dalton! Mail!" Charlie could barely lift up his head as he threw a cigarette aside. Henry sat down next to him, since the bed left room for one more.
"Look at it, I don't think it's from your parents" assured Henry, swinging from one side to another. He was a good fellow, this Henry Muller. He was tall and ungainly, used glasses, and was obsessed with maths. Also, he had this thing about biting his nails whenever he was nervous and loved reciting Latin phrases.
"Obviously, they can hardly see me it's logical that they won't write me either"
"C'mon, they can't be that bad" and so the boys rushed on the floor looking at the last months' playboy's covers.
"Leave it, it's probably from Sally" Charlie rolled his eyes when he picked up the envelope "Or Jennifer…or Mandy, or Ashely, or…" Henry smiled. Then, suddenly, another exultant Oxford student got nearer to the door "He, Dalton, we're almost ready to go, will you join us?"
"Sure, at nine?" Gareth nodded and while he was putting on his jacket, he shouted a 'see you later' far from the hallway. Henry left the room running after him to ask for a telephone number, leaving Charlie completely alone, resting in his own room.
And, determined to turn round the trash that was accumulated over his desk from previous months, he found a little grey box and inside, sheets filled with the stretchy and unorganized Neil's handwriting. Charlie couldn't read them all, for the tears were struggling to come out, but he could see they were all poems or thoughts; about life, about love, about friendship, and everything else.
Charlie was tempted to cover the box and to forget about it, but a greater force kept him looking below Neil's sheets of paper, to find a photo. This was a gorgeous photo, picturing the poets, when they were just freshmen. On the other side of the picture it could be read the word Us.
There was yet another picture, taken in 1959, in the football field. This time, Keating and Todd joined them. On the other side it was now written My beloved poets and the Captain
Memories were too many and Nuwanda couldn't keep himself from crying and pressing the box against his chest so hard that he feared to break it.
One single sheet, with stains of tears which were not his own, fell down to his hands. It was a poem, and he believed, the most beautiful Neil has ever written. It was all wrinkled and Neil had crossed out many words.
There's been a long time since those meetings in the Indian cave, perhaps even too long, and thereafter, Charlie has been living in England. He had entered Oxford but not to turn himself into a banker. And he spent all those good years, trying to live every single day as if it were his last.
His vision was clouded. Outside, Gareth was calling him from inside his car, and Charles Trenet was on the radio, singing La Mer.
Charlie came back to reality. Left Neil's stuff inside the little box, but before hiding it, he hesitated whether or not he should be leaving the poem, and though he knew it was written for Anderson, his hands pressed it as if it was made for him before throwing it into the waste-bin.
Notes: please, do tell if you notice anything wrong with grammar. I don't know when Charles Trenet's song La Mer was made, it's a great song and I wanted it to appear in the fic.