when you say nothing at all... (boyxboy)

Chapter 4: Over-thinking churches and roasted chestnuts.

Hi!

Here's chapter four. This one's dedicated to Gabriella_shr, just for being nice to us :D 

On the side, there's a picture of the view from the stairs of the Sacré Coeur.

We hope you'll like it!

Rolfie and the lady drummer...

Chapter 4

Daniel  POV

Half an hour later, we were back in the bus and on our way to the Sacré Coeur. I was trying to contain my enthusiasm, because I didn’t want Josh to think I was some kind of jumpy idiot who got all over-excited over a church. But to be honest, it was one of my goals to see as many churches in my life as possible. Not that I was a very religious person, but churches always seemed to hold some kind of magic. Just think about it: in a church, everybody is silent, walking together, just looking around, without feeling the need to yell at other people or to fight. There are tourists from all over the world, and even though some of them aren’t even religious, they still show a lot of respect. If only people could do that outside the church.

Okay, I’m a freak. I’m over-thinking churches. Well anyway, we’re in a bus in some kind of traffic jam and I’m bored, so whatever.

Suddenly, I felt like somebody was staring at me. I looked to my left and there was Josh, watching me like I was some kind of science experiment. I raised my eyebrows at him.

‘Yeah, I was just trying to do a bit of face reading, so that maybe we could learn to communicate in facial expressions, or something like that. We could be like deaf people, but without the sign language,’ he said.

Seriously? Deaf people without sign language? And here I thought I was the idiot.

‘OR SPIES!!!’ he said, with a face like he’d just made up the best idea ever.

I looked back at him with an are-you-kidding-me face. He chuckled.

‘Okay, maybe not spies, but…You know, I’ll come up with something.’

I tried not to laugh, but failed. My little chuckle seemed to make Josh incredibly happy, which only made me smile more. You know, he wasn’t such a bad guy. I mean, he may be an idiot, and extremely annoying sometimes (and with that I mean most of the time), but at least he was sincere and he really tried to make me talk. And somewhere I felt bad for the poor guy. I mean, having me as a buddy wasn’t optimal.

Then Mrs. Robins started yelling through the bus. Ugh, I hated that voice. It was so annoying.

‘Everybody! Listen up!’

Like we could not listen even if we wanted to.

‘In five minutes, we’ll arrive at the Sacré Coeur. I want everybody to take their stuff with them and stay with their buddy in all times. In an hour, we’ll meet back here, at the bus, and you better be there. Oh, and a quick warning: try not to get robbed. Thank you. And have fun.’

 I started to gather my stuff and saw Josh do the same. Apparently, being silent for longer than two minutes was incredibly challenging for Josh, because he started chattering to me again. I didn’t exactly follow what he said - it was something about the people and the small streets and then something about him desperately needing a barrette, which I thought was for girls - but anyway, I let him talk.

Josh POV

Daniel wasn’t listening to me. But that didn’t stop me from talking. I mean, what does?

We’d finally arrived at the parking and Mrs. Robins told us to follow her, while waving a little plastic French flag. Wow. Impressing. NOT. But we followed her anyway.

The walk to the Sacré Coeur was amazing. There were lots of cute little shops where you could buy clothes I would never ever wear, and there were people on the streets who were roasting chestnuts for no apparent reason. It felt like I didn’t have enough eyes. And that without feeling the need to say all of my thoughts out loud. Well, that was a first-timer.

Daniel was toddling behind me, with huge eyes and his camera in his hand, without making any photos.

The only bad thing about it was that people kept trying to walk over you, which seemed to trouble Daniel more than me, since I looked a bit tougher. He just looked like a little lost puppy. AGAIN.

Finally, we made it to the end of the street. There was a fence, and behind that, there was a long, white staircase, which led up to the most impressive church I’d seen so far. Not that I had seen many churches in my life, but still.

‘Waaaaaaa,’ I said. And by the looks of it, Daniel agreed with that statement.

‘I’ll meet you all back here – and if I say here, I mean HERE – in an hour. Enjoy yourselves.’

That was Mr. Johnson. As soon as he’d said that, I grabbed Daniels wrist and pulled him towards the fence. He just let me. We stared climbing the stairs along with all the other students and tourists. There were lots of people like Mrs. Robins, who were waving things through the air, trying to get people to follow them, and I was glad to have the freedom to walk around on our own.

We reached the first platform. Suddenly I felt Daniel tap my shoulder. He was faced the other way around, and pointed at the view. It was stunning. There were a thousand little roofs beneath us, which made me feel very big, in a good way. Daniel put one arm around me, guided my face with his hand, and pointed at something in the distance. I was a little bit surprised by his actions. Like I said before, he just kept surprising me. Daniel was watching me with an expectant look on his face. O right, he wanted me to see something. I squeezed my eyes and followed Daniels finger. Then I saw it. There, in the distance, quite small, almost unnoticeable, was the Eiffel Tower. It suited Daniel to pick up on such a little detail. And I was happy he did. We were like a dream team: he watched, I talked.

‘It’s the Eiffel Tower!!!’ I nearly screamed in his ear. He gave me a ‘really? I didn’t notice’ look.

‘Sorry,’ I said, ‘but that’s so exciting!’

He smiled, then said: ‘I know.’

HE TALKED!!! HE TALKED, HE TALKED, I SWEAR HE TALKED, HE ACTUALLY TALKED!!!!!!!!

My eyes were nearly falling out of my skull and he seemed to find my reaction hilarious, since he was full on laughing now. I’d never seen him like this before. He seemed so open. I loved this side of him, and at that moment I decided to make it my personal goal to bring out this side of him as much as possible.