A/N: This isn't your normal happy-go-lucky Disney. This piece has adult language and adult vices, like alcohol and etc since it takes place about eight years in the future. Kind of angsty too.
Disclaimer: I don't own this show or any of its characters, just the fake guy that London is engaged to.
Cody watches the amber liquid fill the shot glass before closing a hand around vessel and knocking it back, "Thanks, Zack."
His twin brother sets the liquor bottle back onto the living room table and claps him on the shoulder, "Hey, I'm here for you, bro." He smirks, "For as long as the whiskey holds out."
Cody would laugh, or at least smile, at the remark if he wasn't in such shitty mood. His day was turning out to be a terrible cliché. He'd woken up to the sound of his alarm, readied for university, taken his classes and it'd had all been ideal. His days usually ran like clockwork thanks to his need for perfection. However, even the most meticulous calculations couldn't have prepared him for what caused his world to slip from under him. He stares at the ivory cardstock before him with detest. He knows every raised line by heart now but for some reason he's a glutton for punishment and reads over the card again:
Mr. and Mrs. Wilfred Tipton
Request the honor of your presence
At the marriage of their daughter
LONDON LEAH TIPTON
TO
THEODORE JAMES DODD JR.
Saturday, the Eighteenth of January
Two Thousand and Seventeen
Half Past Five o' Clock in the Afternoon
Westminster Abbey
The Chapter House
Dean's Yard, London
Reception to follow
London Tipton was getting married and Cody's Martin's world was ending as he knew it. Melodramatic maybe but nothing would be the same and that's why he'd felt the need to indulge in alcohol at six in the afternoon while sulking on his ratty sofa. Luckily, Zack had answered his phone when Cody had called and had burst through his front door, not even thirty minutes later, with a brown bag and Jack Daniels.
Cody welcomes the lax effect that starts to brew after his fourth glass.
"So," Zack starts hesitantly, "You gonna go?"
Cody sighs, picking up the invitation, "I don't know. I'd be a jerk if I didn't, right?"
Zack cants his head, considering the question before agreeing, "Since she doesn't know that you're in love with her, I'm going with yes. You'd be a big pile of hot douche if you skipped out on the most important day of her life."
Cody rolls his eyes. Sometime Zack could be a complete simpleton and then he has those rare moments where he decides to make sense and get all Aristotle. Damn him and his inconsistencies, "I'm not in love with her."
Zack laughs and pours himself another glass, "Yeah, tell that to someone who hasn't known you all of your life. You may be in med school, Cody, and you may have every second of your future planned out but when it comes to romance, you're still pretty juvenile."
Cody would never admit to it but Zack was right. He may be 24 years young and going but when it came to his love life, he was seriously lacking. UW Medicine placed a strangling hold on any change of a social existence. Cody, however, never found this to be a problem. Right now, he focus was on getting through medical school and finally becoming a doctor. He didn't have time for dates and clubs. Truth be told, he didn't feel as if he was missing much. Cody didn't know if the fact that he felt no void was sad or a proof of great determination. He'd like to feel not so pathetic and go with the latter. "I'm perfectly fine."
"That's why you called me from work to come baby your wounds then?"
Cody sweeps a hand over his face momentarily, "I don't know what I was thinking. I should be studying."
Zack sighs, "You're human, Cody. You can't be Teflon to everything. I'll give you credit, you're doing handling this a lot better than I ever thought you would."
"Oh?"
"I pictured you lying broken on the floor with magazine cutouts everywhere."
"Well, I'm glad that you have so much confidence in me."
Zack pushes the glass he'd pours for himself to his younger brother, "Don't worry, you'll pull through." He shrugs, "You've got three months."
&&&
Two weeks in and Cody is barely holding on. He goes about his days normally and nobody at the university notices a difference in him. It takes no effort to forge the façade during the day. It's at night when he starts to think about his adolescence and Yay Me!© He thinks about eight years ago, when he would accompany London on shore leaves, protecting her from vendors who were more than inclined to take advantage of her naivety. He thinks of nights spent on deck while she talked about her father and her plans—that he'd pinky-swore on to be kept secret—to make a difference in the world. He flashes back to a memory of crying one night after Bailey had called it off after two years and he remembers London not judging him or pitying him. Instead, she'd let him talk for hours that dwindle way into dawn. But at the forefront of his brain is her last night on the S.S. Tipton before heading off to college.
At her going away party, hey had reminisced and laughed under the stars well after all of the other guests had left bid their adieus. London has requested that Cody to stay behind, wanting privacy to give her best friend a proper goodbye. She told him that she'd miss him most of all. Not a moment later, she would comment on how cold the night air was. Cody, being the devout gentleman, had offered her his coat but smoothly London had argued, "It's a lot warmer in my cabin."
Unsurprisingly, Cody didn't get the innuendo at first. Thoughts of chatting old times in London's room with a present Bailey screamed awkward. However, when her cabin turned out to a temporary one sans Bailey—well that's when he noticed how right London's hand felt on his forearm as she lightly tugged him into the vast space.
That night had been amazing. Even with the awkward legs, elbows, involuntary gasps and premature deposits—all him—he relished in memories of olive skin, cinnamon-flavored tongue and everything London. At times, Cody could still feel her fingerprints burn his skin.
He had slipped out of her room after she had fallen asleep, after he got to watch her for a few moments, sate, peaceful and ignorant to the world. He was sure that it was a sight many didn't get to witness, if any.
About seven hours later, London left him with a chaste kiss on the cheek.
&&&
Two weeks and a day in, Cody decides that he's not going to London's wedding. He absolutely can't. It takes him only a few minutes to come up with a viable reason. Finances of course. Smartly, he had saved money over the years but London sure as hell didn't know that. It wouldn't be too difficult to lie to her…hopefully. The day he gets up the nerve to call her, Cody receives a letter with an English postage stamp in the corner. Enclosed are two tickets processed by Northwest Airlines.
And that plan goes to shit.