Symphony of Sound.

Zack’s sitting in his dorm later that night with the sheet music from orchestra sitting in front of him, his violin out as he glares down at the notes on the page.

It’s not especially difficult, he’s heard and played this song countless times before, but he’s never done the solo part before. It’s not even that he can’t do it; it’s more that he’s kind of afraid to.

But he bites the bullet, rests his violin on his shoulder, presses his chin against the rest and draws his bow up to the strings, starting to play.

He fumbles more notes than he’d care to admit to, glaring at the creased paper lying on the bed in front of him as he messes up again.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid.” He curses himself, tossing his hair from his eyes without moving his violin, starting the solo over again for what feels like the hundredth time, but is in reality only the fifth.

It’s not that he can’t do it, he convinces himself; it’s just that it’s too fast and he’s let himself fall out of practice over the summer.

He decides then to play the whole piece, which goes decidedly better than he had first hoped –he hardly screws up at all on the second solo this time.

He smiles to himself, proud of himself and he plays it again just to prove to himself that he can.

Except Rian decides to come waltzing into his room at precisely that moment.

“Okay, violin boy, we get it. You’re better than the rest of us already. Now quit rubbing it in.” He says with a laugh.

“I’m not better than the rest of you.” Zack says indignantly, turning around and giving the older boy a stern look. “You didn’t hear some of the first practices.”

“Actually, I did.” Rian says with a soft smirk. “Thin walls, remember.”

Zack blushes fuchsia at the thought the Rian heard all of the times he screwed up, quickly recovering and looking back at him.

“Why are you here, anyway?”

“I just wanted to ask what you were doing for the Music assignment.”

“I’m with Jack, before you ask, and we’re doing Love Story by Taylor Swift. And before you ask, no, I do not know which instrument will sound best with a contrabassoon.”

Rian looks crestfallen for a second.

“Damn it. I was hoping you wouldn’t have a partner so I could work with you.”

“Tough luck.” Zack laughs, sticking his tongue out as Rian sits down on the bed beside him. “How on Earth did you end up playing contrabassoon anyway? Couldn’t you have picked something more, you know, normal?”

“I thought it was a saxophone. That’s why I picked it.” Rian says, shrugging.

“But it looks nothing like a saxophone!” Zack splutters, trying and failing to hold back from laughing at the older boy.

“Hey, shut up.” Rian says, laughing and pushing playfully at Zack’s shoulder. “I was eight and I come from a family of woodwind musicians, how was I to know what a saxophone looked like?”

“Common knowledge?”

“I was eight! Cut a guy some slack!” Rian says, laughing and trying to push Zack off the bed.

“Your point? I knew what a saxophone was at eight.”

“Oh, shut up.”

“Thanks. I love you too.”

“Just because you were more musically aware than me at eight.”

“Movie?” Zack suggests, like Rian had a few days previously. Zack knows that, eventually, they will run out of movies and end up watching them again, like they did last year, but he doesn’t care all that much. It means he gets to spend time with Rian, at least.

“I’ve got Seventeen Again and Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs handy, if you want to watch one of those.”

“How about no. Hang on.” Rian says, disappearing and returning a few seconds later with a copy of The Blair Witch Project in his hand.

“Jack and Alex catcalled me on my way back,” He says, rolling his eyes and pushing the DVD into Zack’s hands.

“Oh no, we are not watching that.” Zack says, waving his hands around and shaking his head.

“Yes we are. Your girly movies bore me.”

Zack rolls his eyes, but lets Rian put the DVD into his laptop and set it playing.

He regrets this about half an hour in, when he’s curled up against Rian’s side, nearly in tears, hands fisted in the older boy’s shirt.

“Okay, no more Blair Witch Project.” Rian says after a few minutes, leaning over Zack’s shaking form to eject the disk.

“I told you it was a bad idea.” Zack chokes out, not looking away from the rather odd view of Rian’s side that he has right now.

“I know, I’m sorry. Next time just beat me up until I listen to you.”

He feels Zack nod, but the younger boy doesn’t look up, so Rian leans over him again and fishes out the Seventeen Again box from Zack’s nightstand, pushing the DVD into Zack’s laptop and pressing play.

“I’m sorry.” Rian repeats himself, tugging Zack a little closer.

Zack falls asleep before the movie finishes, and Rian, despite his earlier reluctance, finds himself watching it all the way to the end because, hey, it’s not as terrible as he first thought.

He shuts down Zack’s laptop, sits it on his nightstand carefully and is about to get up to leave when he realizes he can’t because Zack’s fallen asleep clinging to his shirt.

He sighs a little, somewhat concerned by how okay he is with falling asleep holding his best friend, rolls onto his side as best as he can without disturbing Zack and tries to get comfortable, nuzzling against Zack’s curls and trying to look past how odd this feels.

Almost everyone in the dorm corridor is asleep when Alex goes stumbling from his room and next door into Jack’s, knocking quietly until the younger answers the door –wearing only a t shirt and boxer briefs.

“This is, uh, embarrassing.”

“I’m too angry to be embarrassed. Now help me find my pants.” He hisses, dragging Alex by the arm into the room.

“I’m not even going to ask why you’re looking for your pants at this ungodly hour.”

“I took a nap before putting them on and now I can’t find them.” Jack replies, cursing as he rummages through another pile of clothes. How he’s managed to make such a mess in so few days, Alex doesn’t know.

“Why are you here, anyway?” He asks, before crouching down and sticking his head under his bed. There’s a noise of triumph not long after, and he resurfaces with his pyjama pants.

“Can’t sleep.” Alex says with a half-hearted shrug. “And I don’t dare go in Zack’s room; I never heard Rian leave earlier.”

“They wouldn’t.” Jack says, shaking his head as he tugs on his pants. “They’re not like that. And besides, even if they do like each other, they’re both so clueless they’d never notice.”

“This is true.” Alex says, perching on the edge of Jack’s bed as the younger sits back down.

“Why can’t you sleep?” Jack asks, changing the subject suddenly.

“Nightmare.” Alex replies, shuddering slightly.

“Hug?”

“Alright, why not.” He says, crawling over to Jack.

And that’s probably how they fall asleep in each other’s arms.

When they both surface from the rooms the next morning, it’s less of a ‘walk of shame’, more a walk of ‘how the Hell did this happen’ and as they head down to breakfast, they discuss how Zack is never going near a copy of any horror movie ever again, ever and how Jack should really keep track of his pants.

Evan and Kara sit with them at lunch, and the younger boy picks up on how Zack hardly says anything to her, because he’s wrapped up in a conversation with Rian about something that he could care less about.

He silently wonders to himself how Rian hasn’t noticed the way Zack looks at him, the way it’s so obvious that he just wants to be around him.

It’s cute, in a strange, pitying sort of way, but then Evan remembers how everything cute usually makes him want to throw up, so he looks away and focuses on his cereal.

He and Zack are early to string quartet that day, and they sit with their violins on their knees, eating ‘fresh’ salad from the cafeteria that looks about three weeks old.

“So you like Rian, then?” Evan asks, taking a bite out a lettuce leaf gingerly.

The way Zack splutters and stares at him tells him everything he needs to know.

“What? How did you...? I haven’t even told anyone!” Zack says, more to himself than to Evan, but maintaining his stare on the younger boy.

“It’s obvious.” Evan says with a shrug, picking around through his salad without looking over at the older violinist. “Just, everything about the way you are around him just screams ‘I love you’.”

Zack stares at him, obviously completely terrified of the fact that a boy he hardly knows just summed up his love life slash big dumb crush in a sentence.

“Yeah, I know that probably totally scared you, but it is really easy to see. That, and I’m a very good judge of how people behave. I have to be, with my crazy family.”

Zack shakes his head a little, confused, before looking back at the wilted green leaves in the clear plastic bowl in his hand.

“Just... Don’t tell anyone, alright? I don’t want anyone to know.”

“Okay, I won’t.” Evan says with a small nod.

Jack and Jonathan arrive at that moment, raising their eyebrows at the way the two violinists turn and stare at them like deer in the headlights.

Zack can’t help but keep glancing over at Evan throughout practice –it is just too creepy for him that a kid he’s never really spoken to before has summarized his feelings for Rian in about a sentence.

But, he seems like a nice enough kid, he concludes, so it’s probably worth getting to know him.