I stand there, most likely with some stupid expression on my face, wondering how in the fucking bloody hell had I allowed myself to think that about someone. I can't have that kind of relationship, friends? That's fine, anything more and it would be too complicated, especially considering that he's my roommate! What the hell am I thinking, I need to shut up that side of my brain, thats final. I can't let anybody get that close. Period. James and Peter may think that they know everything about me after 2 years as friends, but I keep some things quite well hidden. But keeping stuff like…that hidden from a partner? Much too difficult for me, that can't happen.

Like he'd even fancy you, you idiot. How could that happen? You're alone, and you always will be.

Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!

I hate these shadows my mind, they can make my head pound without actually having a headache.. Why does it do this to me. It's like it's its own entity, completely separate from 'me'. Why can't I just have normal, non self destructive thoughts? Why do I have t-

Before I can continue my train of thought there is a sound that interrupts it.

"Hmm. Sorry. What was that?" I say looking back up at the beautiful -stop it- boy that has just said something to me.

"I was asking if you needed help getting anything up? I've already got all my things, so I thought I'd help with yours if you needed any," he says, still giving me a slightly confused look.

"Oh, no," I begin, "that's not necessary, all of my things should have already been brought up by the storage company this morning. This," I say swinging my duffle bag around me shoulder for him to get a clear view of, "is the only thing that I had left. It was what I took with me on my bike."

"Bike?" he asks.

"Ya, I got a motorbike so that I could go travel and clear my mind a bit before classes started again seeing as I wasn't aloud to stay here."

"Why didn't you just go back with your family?" he asks, again a bit perplexed.

Shit, I was hoping he wouldn't say anything. Think, quick.

"I- They were going on holiday to.. Florida! I really didn't feel like going, I'm not really a fan of the weather there and I'd just seen them anyways. Plus they said that it would be fine if I stayed," I say quickly, probably a bit too quickly. But if Remus noticed then he was good at hiding it.

"I see," he says, "I've never been. I have heard it's nice though."

"So people keep telling me, I don't know though, I don't really think you're missing out on anything. I much prefer here anyways. Much better scenery, nicer weather, clean water, beautiful forests, what's not to like?" I say trying to divert the topic a bit. I take to opportunity to finally set my bag down and move over to the small sofa.

"I wouldn't know," he says, "I just got here today and all I saw was the airport at Zurich, the train stations and the car up."

"Really! You've never been before?"

"Well, my parents never had much money for traveling and I was basically only able to go here with the scholarship that they gave me, so this is my first time really traveling," he tells me a bit shyly.

"Well then," I say getting up again, "we must rectify this. It's only noon now. How do you feel about going for a trip? I'll show you around some of my favourite places."

He lifts his eyes to meet mine again, "oh no, I couldn't ask you to do that."

"Don't be silly, it's nothing. I don't have anything else to do and neither do you since you said all your stuff is already up. We can make it worth while, on the way back we'll do the shopping, sound good?" I ask then remember to add, "oh and the trip is on me."

His eyes widen a bit, "I couldn't possibly let you pay for all tha-"

I cut him off, "yes you can. My family is loaded, I could buy both of us an entire new wardrobe from Burberry and it wouldn't even put a dent in my account. I think that I can handle playing for a friend."

"Friend?" he asks.

"Yes, well that is if you'd like? We are sharing a room together and you seem like a nice person, I think it could work. As long as that's okay with you?"

"Of course it is," he smiles and I swear it just make the room a bit brighter, "okay then, when would you like to go?"

"Just a sec," I say pulling out my phone, "I'll check the train schedule… it looks like there is a train leaving at- 12:22 so just under half an hour."

"Train? Where are we going?"

"Zurich, much more fun there," I put on my best grin and he seems to flush a bit, "we can take my bike down to the station al leave it there, walking would take too long. I'll go empt out this bag so we have something to put stuff in, sound good?"

"On you bike?"

"Yes," I say then add after looking at the slightly apprehensive look on his face, "don't worry, it's safe. And I'll be extra careful, it's only a couple minutes to the station that was anyways."

"Okay," he says after a little bit of internal deliberation, "I'll trust you. Go easy on me though, I have never been on a motorbike before."

"Will do!" I say jumping up from the couch, "I'll go dump this stuff on my bed and get the other helmet, be right back."

I get up and head to the door opposite the one Remus was standing in when I came in. As I opened it I saw that all my matching black luggage was already in there as I thought it would be. I go over to one of the bigger ones and fetch the spare helmet from it before zipping open my bag and emptying it contents onto the small double bed. Well here it goes, I think to myself, don't fuck this friendship up.

Like it's possible for you not to fuck it up, that's what you do.

I pull at my hair a bit and catch myself whispering 'no' under my breath repeatably before my thoughts subside and I pull myself together again.

I quickly peel off the slightly dirty shirt I'm wearing from my ride and throw on the new Downer Shirt DD shirt before I fish around for my wallet and umbrella and throw them in the now empty bag. I take a deep breath just to prepare my facade before I walk back out to Remus holding up the helmet, "Ready?" I ask.

"As I'll ever be I suppose," he replies and we head out the door.

When he sees my bike he says under his breath, but of course I hear, "thank god, it's not one of those loud ones."

"You mean Harley's?" he nods, "don't worry, those aren't my style, I prefer to have more power and attract less attention. With how quickly I drive sometimes it's better that way I think. I'd rather fly through silently."

"Good to hear. Those ones make my ears hurt, our neighbor had one when I was growing up and it would always wake me when he got back at one in the morning. It got quite frustrating," then he gets this big grin on his face and continues, "this one time I rented this amplifier, pointed it out my open window and set off the fog horn sound at 3am, 5am, and 7am. It was great, he somehow never figured out it was me. I think he though I was too quite of a person to come up with it," he giggled, literally giggled.

This guy is just way too cute.

And you'll never have him you freak.

"You know," I say, still trying to recover from my thoughts, "I don't think I would have through you to be capable of that either. Now I'll be sure not to do anything to annoy you, I might wake up to a room covered in post-it notes or without any gas in my bike or... something."

He laughs at this, "You're right, must be careful around me. I'm soooo dangerous," he says, his voice positively dripping with sarcasm as he takes the helmet from me, "so how do you work the fastening?"

"Here, just let me do it for you, then you can watch me do mine and figure it out for next time, we need to be getting to the station before our train leaves," I say taking it from him again and helping him with it. I stow my bag under the seat, hop on, and start up the bike, "I hope you're okay with holding onto me."

"I think I can manage," he tells me as he gets on an tentatively wraps his arms around my waist. That changes when we actually start moving, then he is holding on for dear life. After a couple of minutes he relaxes, of course we are almost to the station by that point and by the time he is really relaxed and possibly even enjoying himself we are parked and getting off the bike.

"Not to traumatic I hope?" I ask as I stow our helmets and retrieve the bag.

"You know, after I got used to the feeling it was quite enjoyable, I can understand how you find that fun. Still far too dangerous for me, I have enough scars."

I cringe a bit, "They aren't bad," I tell him.

"Ya they are, but I have gotten used to them," he tells me.

"I think they add character," I say with a smile.

He grins as well, "thanks for that, nobodies said that before."

"Well then they were just idiots," then I motion to the station, "ready to go get tickets?"

"Sounds dandy to me."

I give him a funny look for his choice of phrasing, but he doesn't seem to notice. He takes a shot at the ticket machine without any luck, "they are different here," he tells me.

"I know, here, let me," I say and proceed to buy tickets for both of us, "Ok, looks like we are ready to go on platform.. 9. We better hurry though the train will be leaving in a few and we have to walk all the way down to 2nd class."

We end up catching it with no problem, this time of day doesn't see much traffic either so we are left in a nearly empty car just slowly getting to know each other. I tell him about my music and concert obsession and he informs me that the best thing on earth is chocolate. From there we go into this long discussion about the different forms of chocolate and I make a mental note to buy him some of that stuff from the bio market in the station. He tells me how much he likes dogs even though that's where the scars on his face come from. Of course the more he speaks about animals I realize he's an animal person, not a dog person. No dog person talks that enthusiastically about cats. I tell him about my trip when he asks. And then just as we're beginning to talk about school and the classes we share, only one and possibly the travel, the train comes into Zurich HB. We exit and I begin to show him around.

We head through the park along the river first and over the blue walking bridge at the beginning of the "most beautiful river" he as ever seen. I agree with him and promise to take him swimming every weekend that the weather is nice enough. We get a small lunch at one of the more local places to eat along that side of the river and I tell him about all of my favourite street art, especially the Eulen Heulen. Then walk along the river towards the larger bridge that leads to Limmatplatz and one of the larger tram stations admiring the beautiful and sometimes hilarious work that is done in that legal graffiti area. I purchase us day cards and then we wait for the one that will take us over to the big glass building. I try to explain all this to him so that if he needs to come here again alone he'll be able to. I remember on the train he mentioned that he needed to buy a new book bag because his had been falling apart so we get off and I head him over to the Freitag tower.

When we get there he looks up an says, "wow, that is much more interesting than that glass building. They just took shipping containers and made them into a tower, that is such a fantastic idea. Can we go to the top?"

"That we can, the top level is actually a rooftop balcony of sorts. I also want to look at their bags," I inform him.

He finally looks into the windows, "they make bags then?"

"That they do, really nice ones too."

"Cool," he says and we head up.

After we're done admiring the view, which is absolutely beautiful, I ask him to help me pick out a new book bag. After a bit of wandering he comes up to me and says, "this one is quite nice," he's holding out a dark green messenger bag with some sort of writing from whatever train car cover they took this from.

"That one it is then," I tell him and we head back down the metal stairs to the register.

Once we're outside and back on a tram again so he isn't able to refuse and make me take it back I hand him the bag, "happy new friendship, hope you like it," I tell him with a smile.

"You- you mean this is for me? Is that why you had me pick it out? Sirius, I can't take this, it's far too expensive."

I stop him, "it's no problem, you needed a bag, it's better to get one that will last for a long time then one that will break easily. I'm making an investment for you. And you aren't aloud to give it back," I add firmly.

"I don't really know what to say, thank you, this is a very nice gift," he tells me before reaching in and hugging me. I swear my heart skips a beat and I can feel my cheeks heating as I hug him back.

"It's nothing, I'm glad that I could be of assistance. We need to get off at the nest stop though. I want to go into the old city, there is a tea shop that I adore. You wont find better quality anywhere. Then we need to be getting back before the Migros closes back in our town."

He lets go and smiles at me again, "sounds good to me."

As we walk though the old city I tell him little tidbits of information that I know about various buildings or people or the history of the city. That particularly interests him so I continue with the things I know. By the time we reach the shop just around the corner from the Russian book store and small play park I have run out of interesting historical information and am glad that I don't have to tell him this.

We go in and I buy enough tea to "last though the next world war" according to Remus. I try to tell him that I drink a lot of tea and that this is also for him to use, but he sticks to his claim. Once we get back to the station we have a bit till our return train leaves so I am able to show him the bio market, Egli, and to buy some dry fruit, bio juices, tofu products, rice milks, some cereal, and, most importantly, nearly their entire supply of chocolate. I swear I could see Remus' mouth water when I put the bars in my cart.

"This is stuff for the room, meaning it's for both of us, you can have whatever you like, that't why I'm getting extra. I'll get the speciality items, you can do the more common stuff," I tell him, "oh, but one request? Don't put any open meat around the vegetables? I don't care if you cook it or eat it, it just doesn't sit well with me..." I trail off embarrassed waiting for him to make fun of me.

"So you're vegetarian?"

"Ya..."

"That's cool, I don't eat much meat anyways, I save it for going out or something. I'm more interested in what you'll cook up. From the way you talk about cooking it seems like you know what you're doing," he tells me flashing a grin again.

"Well, um, thanks. I hope you like it. And thanks for not making fun of me,"

"Why would I do that? It's not like you were making fun of me for eating it, why should I make fun of you for not. If something doesn't sit well with you then it's better to trust that feeling."

"Well, thanks anyways. I'll be paying for this now, just one second," I say then walk up to the counter.

The trip back is comfortable. We talk about nothing in particular, but it's nice. We get back and I show him where he largest Migros is and we stock up on everything we could possible need. The first shopping day is always the most expensive and heavy. Luckily most of it ends up fitting under the seat with a few exceptions that Remus has to wear on his back on the duffle bag.

We get back to the apartment and spend a great deal of time unloading and messing about before we finish and are about to retreat to our own rooms because that's what expected of us when Remus says something.

"Want to do something else for the night? Watch a film or something? We can set up a stand for a lap top."

I smile, "I've got something better, move the sofa around and I'll be right back."

I dash into my room and start to go though another bag looking for my little projector and the smaller Bose till I finally come across them with their cords still right where they belong. I come back out to see the sofa flipped and facing the big white wall and I hold up the contents of my hands.

"You're kidding. This is brilliant! What are we going to watch?"

I think for a moment then say, "have you seen The Fountain or Mr. Nobody?"

"I've seen The Fountain and love it, but I haven't seen Mr. Nobody yet. The fact that you even list those two together makes me want to see it though. How about we start with that," he says and moves to help me set everything up.

He then starts the kettle while I get the movie set up and the sound correct, "grab a couple bars of that chocolate too, I have been craving so bad it's driving me bonkers!" I tell him as he brings one of the bedside tables from his room over to be used as a coffee table.

That night is perfect. We spend it watching movies, he decides that this is in fact the best chocolate in existence and that Mr. Nobody is quite amazing.

"How could anybody not love Jared Leto?" he asks, "that man seems so interesting. And he makes good music."

"You know the band!" I say jumping up and probably startling him.

"Of course! I grew up on them. I love their stuff."

"This is fantastic! Have you hear of AFI then? They toured with them a while back, they have been my favourite since I 2005! Sing The Sorrow? Oh my god, that was the best! And Burials! AND THERE'S A NEW BLAQK AUDIO THIS YEAR! AND POP KIDS SEQUEL! I am freaking out incase you couldn't tell. Why are you laughing?"

"You're just-" he begins but is cut off by is own laughing, "just so enthusiastic! I didn't know other's could be that way. I am like that with Sherlock!" he says, laughing again.

"Me too! We have to do a Sherlock marathon!"

"Deal my friend," he says finally betting ahold of his laughing fit, "okay time for The Fountain."

"Works for me!"

This is how we spend our night. Laughing, joking, and yes, crying at some parts in The Fountain... All in all it was a fantastic day. The only problem is that now I find myself glancing over at Remus, the person who is so gorgeous inside it makes him even more physically attractive, and I realize that there is probably no way that I'll be able to avoid developing a much larger crush on him. And with that comes an entire other set of problems.

That's right, once he sees the real you he'll run as far away as he can. You deserve that, it's what you get for being worthless.

I try to block out my thoughts but it doesn't work. Why can silence be so violent?

I put my head in my hands and pull at my hair. Please, just leave me alone!

Once my head stops pounding I find my headphones and phone and put the album Vessel on repeat and try to lose myself in sleep. Eventually, this works and all I dream of is a certain scared boy.

...

Hello again! I have decided that I will update this story at least once a month (unless something drastic happens, but I don't think that it will). You have no idea how happy I am that people are even reading this, I was kind of expecting it to go unnoticed. So thank you to all of those who are reading, bookmarking, or leaving kudos, it means a lot to me.

The tea shop I mention is called Shui Tang and I just found out that that began shipping to America! I wasn't joking about how great their tea is either, so good..

I made Sirius a vegetarian because I felt like it worked well with the character I am forming. This will not be some sort of preach one way or the other, it just worked correctly.

And again, so many song references!

Best wishes to you all!