Symphony of Sound.

Rian and Alex are, at this point, completely freaked out and thoroughly unnerved by the recent disappearance of both Zack and Jack.

When quizzed relentlessly on several occasions, Kara, Evan, Mike, Nick, Hayley and Greta all pleaded ignorance and insisted they had no idea about the situation or the whereabouts of the two boys.

So Rian and Alex are left with Paul, David and William for company, who spend most of their time bickering amongst themselves, so much so that they basically forget about the other boys’ presence.

Alex ends up taking Rian to the movie he wanted to take Jack to, and he notes how much he misses the younger boy (wherever the hell he’s vanished to) in times like this.

By the time they return from the city, it’s getting dark out and it’s cold. Mercifully, the snow has started to melt, although it leaves behind a pulpy mess that swiftly becomes lethal when it freezes –and Alex should know. He’s hit the floor at least three times in two days.

What they don’t expect to see when they arrive back and dust what remains of the snow from their jackets and enter the main room is Jack and Zack, sitting comfortably on the sofa in front of the fire.

“Where the bloody hell have you been?” Alex demands, marching quickly over to the two of them.

Zack and Jack exchange a nervous, worried glance before they both stand, and Zack mumbles something to the taller boy that Alex doesn’t quite catch.

“You can deal with this one, Jack. I’ll sort out Rian, alright?”

And with that, Zack slinks off somewhere in the direction of his dorm room. Rian frowns after him, shakes his head before following after him like a lost puppy.

Alex fixes Jack with a stern look and the younger buries his hands in his pockets uneasily.

“So? Where have you been all weekend?” Alex snaps, folding his arms and his expression quickly changing to a glare.

Jack hesitates, tugging at his sleeves with his fingers in his pockets. Alex’s expression hardens.

“Well?”

“Alex, I-” Jack starts, but Alex raises a hand firmly to stop him from talking.

Jack pauses, bites his lip and stops himself from taking a step back as Alex takes a stride towards him.

“It’s okay. I totally understand.” Alex snipes. “You’d rather spend your weekend with Zack than me, and to stop me from ‘overreacting’ you don’t tell me what’s going on with the two of you. That’s fine. It’s not like I’m supposed to be your best friend or anything. Oh, no. Heaven forbid.”

Jack bites at his lip harder, forces his hands deeper into his pockets and blinks carefully to dispel the tears starting to prick at the corners of his eyes.

“You know what, Jack?” Alex says suddenly, a fair level louder than he means to. “Just forget it. Don’t even bother.”

And with that, he turns away from the younger boy and throws himself down on to the sofa. Jack sniffles audibly and chokes on a gentle sob, which Alex hears all too clearly and immediately forces the guilt to wash over him in vast waves.

Jack heads up towards the dorm rooms, no longer even wanting to be in the same room as Alex. It kind of hurts more than he’d thought it would.

He can hear Zack and Rian having another one of their atomic arguments, and he really, really doesn’t want to get involved in that (not right now, in any case) so he heads straight for his own room, fumbles with the keys to get it unlocked.

When he eventually forces the door open, he shuts it cautiously after him before throwing himself down on his bed in defeat.

He sniffs, buries his face in his pillow so that if anyone is to enter the room, they don’t have to see him crying.

He doesn’t hear the door open and close softly around a half hour later –he guesses it’s because he’s too busy ‘thinking happy thoughts’ or something along those lines.

He feels the mattress dip beside him as someone takes a seat next to him. He doesn’t bother looking up to see who it is –it’s hardly going to be some random individual he’s never spoken to before, is it?

“Do you know what Alex and Rian think?” Zack’s voice says softly, and Jack feels the older boy’s hand rest on the small of his back. “About us, I mean.”

“I have an idea.” Jack mumbles in reply, not lifting his head from the pillow in order to speak to him.

“They think we’re seeing each other.” Zack continues bluntly, sighing a little to himself. “I don’t understand it.”

“I kind of do, Zee, I’ll be honest.” Jack starts. “Alex asked me out on a date for Saturday, and I said no, then the next thing he knows, you and I have disappeared off somewhere –somewhere he doesn’t know about- so I can see why he’s thinking it, yes.”

“But I don’t get why Rian’s getting so annoyed about it! It’s none of his business, really.”

“I see your point, Zee, I really do, but you are his best friend, remember. He’s supposed to be interested in your relationships and how they’re developing. You’d be annoyed if he wasn’t bothered, wouldn’t you?”

“I suppose.” Zack says begrudgingly.

“I don’t believe them!” Alex says, loudly and in an exasperated tone as Rian sits down in the seat beside him with a gentle, hollow thud.

“And why is that?”

“How could they do something like that?”

“Like what?”

“You know what?”

“You think they like each other, don’t you?” Rian says with a small, amused smile, shaking his head at the ever so slightly older boy.

“Yes! What the hell else could it be?” Alex asks, raising his arms and moving them wildly in accompaniment to his words.

“Well, considering Zack told me that it was because Jack had a family matter this weekend and wasn’t exactly emotionally ready to deal with it on his own. And he said that you were hardly there for him when he wanted you to be, so Zack had to do it.”

Alex swallows, the guilt quickly beginning to overwhelm him.

“Uh, did he say what it was that was bothering Jack?” Alex asks awkwardly after taking a long, anxious breath.

“No, he didn’t.” Rian replies, shaking his head slightly to emphasise. “I tried to get it out of him, but he wouldn’t tell me. He said it was Jack’s call whether he told or not. And I kind of agree with him on this, Alex, I’ll be honest with you.”

Alex purses his lips and frowns in the younger boy’s general direction, before flicking his honey brown eyes back in the direction of the TV above the quietly burning fire. A rerun of The Middle is showing –and despite living in the country since the age of nine, Alex still doesn’t thoroughly understand American humour.

“Okay, now you’ve gone quiet. Stop it. I’m sure Zack was telling the truth. Why would he lie about something like that, especially to someone like me? You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

And in that moment, Alex realizes he’s been pretty stupid –colossally stupid, if he’s being totally honest with himself.

Of course Zack and Jack would never date each other –Zack is pretty much head over heels, and completely and utterly in love with Rian. Or at least, he was the last Alex heard. And that was only a few months ago, and Alex knows Zack well enough to know that he’s not that fickle that he’d fall out of love that quickly.

Alex sighs to himself, forces his skinny fingers through the knots in his short, pale brown and blonde bangs, frowning at the floor when he looks down with guilty eyes.

“I’m an idiot, aren’t I?” He says with another sigh, tugging his fingers from his hair and burying his hands deep into his pockets.

“In short, yes. Yes you are.” Rian replies curtly, swiping the remote from the gap on the sofa between them, flicking aimlessly through the channel’s until he finally settles on one that’s airing an episode of The Simpsons that they’ve both seen countless times.

“You feel bad now, don’t you?” Rian says with a small sigh that he barely hears himself. He sets the remote down on the arm of the sofa and tears his eyes away from the screen to look at the taller brunette beside him.

“Yeah, just a bit.” Alex replies in a slow, shaky voice.

“Then tell him. Tell him you’re sorry, and that you know it isn’t like that. That you made assumptions you shouldn’t have earlier, and that you’re really sorry. It should work.”

Alex stands to head towards the dorm room corridor, and Zack appears in front of him, emerging from Jack’s room rather than his own. He gives Alex a stern look, rolls his eyes in mock disgust and pushes past him to talk to Rian.

“Rian, will you come with me to find Hayley and Andrew?”

“I don’t know, Zack, I-”

“Rian, I really think you should come and find them with me.” Zack interrupts, and Rian stares at him for a minute before understanding quite what the blonde boy is getting at.

“Oh. Yeah, okay. I’ll come with you. Where do you think they’ll be? Senior block or auditorium?”

“We’ll check both.”

Alex watches them leave with raised eyebrows, confused at their swift departure.

He quickly understands, however, when he sees Jack leave his dorm room and struggle with the key to the door.

He watches as the younger boy walks hesitantly towards him, hands buried deep in his pockets as he tries to make himself appear as small as possible.

He stops suddenly in front of Alex, his sad, teary eyes looking up to meet Alex’s.

“So, I guess I have some explaining to do.”