Sirius and Remus did not unpack for a week. They lived out of the boxes. Lived out of the plastic grocery bags Remus came home with. Nothing was cooked. It was sandwiches day after day for every meal. Neither would say more than two words to each other, but every night they would lie on the couch together. Not even a kiss was shared for that week. James and Lily stopped in every day to sit. Peter brought pie on Wednesday. He was the only one who had not lost a relative. The rest of them were either left with the worst bit of their family or nothing at all.
Remus felt he lost his childhood.
He wanted desperately to visit the rubble. Perhaps that would sooth his pain. Perhaps to touch the headstones of his childhood friends, of his grandparents, aunts, and uncles, would ease the heartache.
Sirius thought it was a bad idea. He would not go.
Lily did not want any of them at her parent's funeral. It would be immediate family only. The only time she had broken down and cried was when she first heard the news. Remus and James were worried that she had not cried since. She came back from the service dry eyed, almost smiling. She cooked a meal then, that Friday, and still did not cry. She went grocery shopping with Remus Saturday. She broke down in the personal product aisle. Remus held her on the floor in the midst of anti-perspirant and toothpaste as she sobbed. She cried for fifteen minutes. He did not try to move her. When she walked in the door of the flat and saw James, she did it again. She shook for over an hour then.
After that, James woke up to a wet pillow. He would not tell Lily why it was wet. Claimed for the three days after it happened that it was just drool.
Remus shook in his sleep, his back to Sirius.
Sirius sliced a lot of onions.
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"Remus, I'm bored."
"Sirius, I'm reading," Remus replied calmly, amusement in his voice, his eyes never leaving the page.
"I think we should shag."
"I think not."
"Let's go to the park."
"Oh, you're six again, are you?"
Sirius shot him an icy glare. Remus did not look up to receive it.
"I need to get out of this flat."
"I want to finish this book."
Something shone in Sirius' eyes. If Remus had glanced up he would have put a stop to it.
"Mooney, do you hate me?" he asked slyly.
"No."
"Do you want to shag now?"
"No."
"Will you come to the park with me?"
"No."
"Can you stop reading for two seconds?"
"No."
"Will you get mad if I go off and shag another bloke?"
"Yes!" Remus shouted, standing up and flailing the book in Sirius' face. "He finally told her! God! Two hundred pages later –"
He trailed off and Sirius sulked.
"Walk?" Remus asked lightly, marking his place.
Sirius was at the door, grinning like an idiot, before Remus had his shoes on.
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"I think I'll write a book."
They had not found the park, it was beginning to grow dark, and neither man had said anything remotely interesting for the last half hour.
"A book?"
"Yes."
"Like one in the library?"
"Well, I would rather it be in a bookstore first so as the public can have the opportunity to –"
"What?"
"I want people to buy it."
"Oh."
"Yes."
"Would it be about me or you?"
"Probably both, but with different names, and definitely as heterosexuals."
"You'll be the woman, won't you?"
"Shut up, Sirius."
Sirius only grinned.
"I mean," Remus continued, "a book is really a deep expression of … whatever. And I know you think I'm too deep, and believe it or not, I think you're deep, but I mean, maybe if I wrote a book I'd be a little less deep, or at least able to open up a bit more."
"Mmm," Sirius said wisely.
"There's just so much to write about, I would want all these characters, and all of them would have to interact in some way, and have feelings, thoughts, emotions, background stories, –"
"It would be a book about feelings?"
"Not only feelings," Remus countered, "just most of them. I mean, no one can go around having no feeling or emotion or thoughts."
"So … feelings and thoughts."
"What's wrong with thoughts?"
"Everything is wrong with thoughts."
Remus rolled his eyes. "Well unfortunately, I have thoughts, and that's one of the reasons I want to write a book."
"Why can't you just say them?"
He hesitated. "It's – it's not that easy."
"Sure it is."
"I can't."
"Try," Sirius pressed.
Remus lapsed into a silence.
"Stop thinking thoughts and say them."
"What if we died," he burst out. "What if we don't wake up one day? Or wake up and realize we've wasted all this time? Or that there was something else, something different, something better? Or what if this is all we'll ever have? I don't want to go out of this world wondering if someone wasn't the way I thought they were, or not done something I wanted to do with them." Remus' voice grew in volume and speed. "And I don't want it all to end in a question mark. A big, fat, ugly question mark. I want it to end with an exclamation mark. Lots of them! I want the air to be filled the uncanny sense of exclamation marks! (see note at end) No questions asked."
"What are you trying to get at here?"
"I love you," he revealed quickly.
They had stopped in front of the park. Sirius was smiling and Remus was looking as flustered as only Remus could.
"Good."
"Good?"
"I love you, too."
"Good."
"No question marks?"
"None."
"We should go home."
"But what about the park?"
Sirius smirked. "My exclamation mark issue shouldn't be resolved in the park."
It took them only minutes to run home and lock the door to their flat before falling on the mattress in a sweaty heap.
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If you don't recognize this reference to the Shoebox Project on LiveJournal, you need to read it. Now. Today.
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So. I'm horribly sorry for the very long wait. Hopefully this made up for it. xoxo