Symphony of Sound.

Alex nods at Jack, motioning him towards the dorm rooms. Jack nods, leading the way out in front of Alex as he heads back towards their rooms.

Alex unlocks his door and gestures for Jack to go inside, to which the younger boy obliges, perching awkwardly on the edge of Alex’s bed.

“So, are you going first or am I?” Alex asks. “Because I need to explain some things too.”

“I will, if you don’t mind.” Jack replies, quickly and quietly.

“Go ahead.”

“Zack and I… We were away this weekend because it was the anniversary of my grandmother’s death. We were close –you know that. And I knew that I wouldn’t be able to make it on my own, and when I mentioned it to Zack, he said he’d go with me. So we took the train to Baltimore on Friday night, arrived Saturday morning and went to the service, before getting back tonight. We didn’t have some romantic ‘couple weekend’ like you and Rian thought.”

“The only reason we went, really, was because I needed to be there for Mom, May, Joe and Dad. It’s been five years now, Alex. Remember that. It’s not some stupid little commemoration service that we do for the fun of it. This… This is big. And Zack, he knows what it’s like to be in that position. He understood.”

Alex remains silent, simply moving his hand to rest gently on Jack’s knee. The younger boy whips his head around to look at him in confusion, eyes wide.

“I know… I know what it’s like, Jack.”

“How? How on Earth do you know what it’s like!”

“Remember my brother, Mason? I talked about him a lot. I think I might have shown you a photograph too. He… He died in a car accident in 2009. It was a four car pile up. There was nothing… they couldn’t do anything for him. He died on impact. I remember… I remember Mum calling me in tears, trying to explain to me that ‘Mason’s not coming back’ and I just couldn’t believe it.”

“He was only twenty one… He was coming back from a violin recital when it happened. I never said goodbye because I thought he’d be back by midnight, and then… He didn’t even come back at all.”

Alex winces then, closes his eyes and blinks back tears. Jack moves his hand down to knit his fingers gently with Alex’s.

“It’s okay, ‘Lex. I had no idea, I swear. I’m so sorry.”

Alex gives him a strained smile and Jack squeezes his hand.

“Do you actually need to find Hayley and Andrew?” Rian asks as Zack drags him across one of the school’s many courtyards towards the senior block.

“Kind of. I need to know what song Hayley’s planning on singing, so I can dig out the sheet music.”

“She’s performing?”

“Yeah, in the spring break concert. She sings too, remember.”

“She does?”

Zack sighs and rolls his eyes at the older boy.

“Rian, she’s sung something in literally every concert since we’ve been at this school. You idiot.”

“Oh.”

Zack pushes open the doors to the senior block as Rian speaks, and they walk down the corridor together. Zack doesn’t even bother to knock as he throws open the doors to the senior common room.

Jersey Moriarty and Alex Lipshaw look over at them from the couch (after Jersey has very surreptitiously removed his arm from around Alex’s shoulders) and flash them small smiles.

“Yeah?” Jersey asks, jumping up from his seat and all but bouncing over.

“Have you seen Hayley or Andrew? Or do you know where they might be?”

“They’re in the auditorium.” Alex says, standing up and coming over to stand beside Jersey. “They went with Grace about half an hour ago.”

Rian sighs, and Zack nods at the two seniors as a thank you. He pretends not to notice the way that Jersey takes hold of Alex’s hand as the two of them return to the sofa to finish watching whatever’s on TV.

Rian is reluctantly dragged to the auditorium next, where, as predicted, they find Andrew, Grace and Hayley.

Grace is on stage at this precise moment, partway through singing a pretty impressive cover version of Barbra Streisand’s Don’t Rain On My Parade.

Grace Potter is a… weird girl, really, if Zack’s being totally honest about it. She’s kind of quirky, doesn’t really tie herself down to anything that could distract her from her schooling. She’s nice enough, though, and Rian and Zack clap exuberantly when she’s done.

She gives them a fond smile, and Hayley appears from backstage and runs towards them.

“Zack! Hey, how are you?” She asks with a wide smile.

“I’m good, I guess. Been better.”

She gives him another soft, almost apologetic smile and takes his hand, pulling him in the direction of Andrew and the grand piano.

Andrew is softly tinkling the keys, playing a melody that Zack recognises as Beethoven’s Fur Elise. He shows Zack a smile before going back to playing the piece.

“I’ve decided on a song.” She grins. “I’m going to do Stay by Shakespear’s Sister.”

“Awesome.”

“I got your sheet music for it, by the way. So you don’t have to get it from Mr. Smith’s obsessive archive of violin accompaniments.”

Zack smiles, takes the sheets from her and scans over it quickly.

“I don’t suppose you happened to bring your violin with you, did you?” Hayley asks, cocking her head to one side inquisitively.

“No, I didn’t.” Zack replies, silently cursing his own stupidity. “But, I can send Rian to go get it, if you want to do a full practice now.”

Rian’s head snaps up at the sound of his name, and he finds himself staring across the room at the other three people.

“Ri, you couldn’t go get my violin, could you?” Zack asks. Rian is about to say something along the lines of ‘no, get it yourself, you lazy git’ until he sees the puppy eyes Zack is giving him.

He sighs, moves over to them and gives him a small smile.

“Fine, give me your keys. Is it where you usually leave it?”

“Yeah, it should be.”

“Alright, give me fifteen minutes, tops.” Rian says, taking the keys from Zack’s hands and turning on his heel, heading back towards the junior block.

It doesn’t take him all that long to get back, but finding Zack’s violin is a different story. It is not, as Zack had suggested, in the place where he usually left it. In fact, far from it.

He eventually finds it leaning against Zack’s closet, about ten feet away from where he usually keeps it. He grumbles absently to himself as he picks it up, and as he leaves he can hear Jack and Alex talking in hushed voices in Alex’s room.

He decides not to dwell too long in the corridor, for fear of hearing something he shouldn’t.

So he scurries away and leaves them to sort out their differences, heading straight back to the auditorium with Zack’s violin.

“I didn’t… I didn’t turn you down on Saturday because I didn’t want to go out with you,” Jack says, twisting his fingers in the hem of his shirt, “I turned you down because if I’d have said yes, I wouldn’t have been myself all day –I’d have been worrying and wondering what was going on back home and how they were getting on without me.”

“I get that. I just wish… I wish you’d said before you left, you know? I was worrying all weekend about where you’d gone.” Alex replies almost shyly, looking at the younger boy through his lashes.

“You worried about me?”

“…Yeah.” Alex says, feeling a blush begin to spread over his cheeks.

“Cute.” Jack replies, blushing himself.

Alex feels his cheeks immediately start to burn, and he bows his head a little, the blush almost overtaking.

“Hardly.” He says with a small smile, looking back up at the darker haired boy.

“Yeah, it is.” Jack replies, turning to face Alex properly. “Although, it’s not quite as cute as you are.”

Alex laughs incredibly shyly, runs his fingers through his unruly hair and looks up at Jack.

“I’m hardly as cute as you are. Have you looked in a mirror lately?”

Jack decides then to bite the bullet and moves a shaking hand to cup Alex’s cheek, which causes the older boy to look up at him with his honey eyes.

“Okay, so this will either go horribly wrong and screw everything up,” Jack explains in a nervous voice, “or it’ll do the complete opposite.”

Alex stares at him for what feels like an age, before either of them do anything.

There’s some sort of mutual understanding between them as their eyes meet, and Jack dips his head to kiss Alex.

It’s not exactly a shock, but Alex still didn’t fully expect it to happen, and for the younger boy to actually collect the confidence to do so.

But still, it’s not a bad thing, not by any means, so Alex kisses him back almost eagerly and he feels Jack smile against his lips.

What Jack has kept to himself over the years is that, up until now, he’s never been kissed. Alex is his first, and if he gets what he wants, maybe his only. He knows that Alex has been kissed before now, probably back when he went to school in Oregon, but all that matters right now is that he’s the one who gets to kiss him at this moment in time.

Alex pulls back from him, but only to smile, and shift one of his hands up to cup one of Jack’s cheeks, before pressing their lips back together with a smile.

And in that moment, they both find themselves thinking the exact same thing.

I could get used to this.