Run
Summary: Seniors in high school, the boys have a chance encounter with an old childhood friend and are shocked to find out where she ended up.
Rated T for: Sexuality, Mild Language, Underage Drinking, and Adult Situations
Chapter 1:
The pristine light of morning streaming through an open window stirred Zack Martin from Slumberland and he awoke to the soft murmur of voices and muffled laughter. He looked blearily out at the bedroom half seeing a smooth white hull and a singular eye like porthole, while the cry of gulls pricked his ears. Though, what were those voices, and who was laughing, and why was the room not moving with the lull of the ocean?
Blinking the last bits of sleep away, the white hull melted into plaster and red brick, the porthole became an iron trimmed window pane glaring out at an alley, and the cries of gulls were replaced with the various sounds of the city.
Zack sighed, rubbing at his eyes as he tossed the covers off his body and stretched languidly. It had only been five months since he and his brother had returned to Boston, Massachusetts. They had spent two and a half years aboard a luxury liner, the S.S. Tipton; which housed their former floating school, Seven Seas High School but now they were high and dry on land with no hope of returning to their beloved deck.
Zack pulled on some clothes: jeans, a t-shirt, pair of socks, and opened the door as he finger-combed his hair. He found his twin brother in the living room sitting on the coach. The other boy was the source of the talking and laughing, his laptop open in front of him on the coffee table. A live video feed of a pretty brunette filled the screen; she talked with a slight mid-western accent, and had a small town, earthy air to her tone.
"Morning, Cody," Zack greeted his brother, then to the girl on the screen, "Hey, Bailey!"
Bailey was Cody's girlfriend. They'd met at Seven Seas High and while the boys had returned to Boston, she still attended school on the S.S. Tipton.
Bailey and Cody were rational individuals, so they had decided it best to break-up but remain friends, to avoid the stress of worrying about one another's fidelity while apart. For about a month Zack put up with Cody moping around the apartment and comparing every girl he came across to Bailey. Then one night they confessed to each other that not only could they never fathom dating another, they couldn't bear the thought of the other with some one else. They threw rationality to the wind and agreed to a long-distance commitment.
Now Zack had to put up with their sappy Skype conversations at the most ridiculous hours.
"That Zack?" Bailey asked, her voice muffled through the laptop speakers. She grinned from ear to ear, "Hi Zack!"
Cody just rolled his eyes on the couch, saying over his shoulder, "Actually, Zack, its afternoon. You overslept. Oh, its getting late there, isn't it, Bailey? Should be…about…ten?"
"Yeah. I guess I should probably turn in soon. My roommate is getting a little annoyed," Bailey admitted, "I miss you."
"I miss you too," Cody agreed and it was Zack's turn to roll his eyes. He headed for the refrigerator as the couple started cooing and talking in baby voices.
As Zack started munching on cold leftover pizza, Cody closed his laptop. Though the boys were twins and sported the same blond hair and soft green eyes there were differences. Both boys were slender and lined with lean muscle, but Zack was easily the bulkier of the two, and while they both enjoyed sports and had positions on the school basketball team, he was more athletically inclined as well. Cody made up for these failings, however, with intellectuality, maturity, good hygiene, and about an inch more height.
Side by side it wasn't exactly easy to determine who was who, but individually they were easily mistaken for one another and, on occasion used it to their advantage. Only their mother and a few close friends could not be fooled.
"Where are they docked right now?" Zack questioned between chews. He meant, of course, the S.S. Tipton. The cruise ship had a satellite internet connection onboard but Bailey wouldn't risk cutting out on her precious boyfriend mid-Skype conversation because of bad weather or other varying environmental factors. Generally they chatted via cell phone and Skype-d when the ship was docked.
"Madagascar," Cody replied, joining his brother in the kitchen in search of his own lunch, scowling at the pizza Zack was eating, "You could at least use a plate."
Zack shrugged, yanking the milk carton from the fridge door and taking a swig, receiving another scowl from his brother.
"How late were you out at the party last night?" Cody questioned, slightly terse, as he pulled out leftover Hamburger Helper and headed for the cupboards to remove a plate of his own.
Zack had gone out the night before with a group of friends from school; Cody opted to stay in as he had to wake up early to chat with Bailey. It also meant he could cover for Zack, as well, if their mother decided to come home that night.
When Carey Martin, the boys' mother, had originally gotten her job at the Tipton Hotel as a lounge singer, the family had lived in one of the siutes; a perk of her job. However, when the boys returned from their time at sea, she had leased an apartment claiming that she wanted them to have a normal home life instead of the spoils of living at a five star hotel.
The boys suspected it had more to do with the hotel manager, Mr. Mosby, who had spent not only the boys' childhood with them at the Tipton but their time at sea as well. He probably, finally, put his foot down. So the boys stayed at the apartment, and their mother, who often had shows late in the evening, stayed at the hotel most of the time. Sometimes she or their father would randomly check in on the boys but otherwise she put a large amount of trust in their – mostly Cody's – good judgment. Unfortunately she had underestimated Zack's ability to manipulate his, allegedly, wiser brother.
"Not long. The party was lame so we left around midnight," Zack answered.
It wasn't quite a lie. The party had been lame. Zack and a group of people, not necessarily the friends he'd gone with, had left the party about midnight. He just didn't go home right after. He didn't mention that though, as it would have prompted questions that he wasn't comfortable answering; like, where did you go and what did you do there?
"Oh good, then you'd be up for a few hoops, right?" Cody responded, heating up his food and taking it to the table to eat. Zack quirked a questioning brow so Cody went on to explain. "Jason Stenor called this morning and wanted to know if we were interested in playing a street game. He said he had one arranged but a couple of his teammates bailed. I told him sure."
Jason was on the school basketball team with the twins. He was starting point guard and a fairly decent player. While the boys got along with him well enough, they weren't exactly friends. He was probably desperate if he'd resorted to calling them. Zack subconsciously made a face but shrugged and muttered a 'sure'.
After he finished eating and with a bit of nagging from Cody, Zack went to brush his teeth and wash his face. Then he waited for his brother to finish and they left the apartment together, walking several blocks to the basketball courts.
It wasn't in the best part of town and most of the teens in the area looked like thugs and wannabe gangsters; dressed and playing the parts of criminal delinquents. The boys chose to ignore the drug deal that appeared to be going on under the bleachers and headed towards Jason, whom they spotted among a group of teenage boys, none of which the twins recognized.
Jason was tall, towering over the Martin boys, with shaggy brown hair and doe eyes. He wore an oversized jersey and large jean shorts, expensive red sneakers on his feet. He grinned toothily when the two boys approached him, though the others in the group looked at the newcomers reproachfully.
"You guys made it," Jason exclaimed, clapping Cody on the shoulder and bumping fists with Zack, "Everyone, these are the twins, Cody and Zack," he motioned to each respectively, "We're playing full court, five on five like a regular game. Call your own fouls and we're playing first team to fifty. You boys are on my team along with Jermaine and Ricky." He pointed to two boys in the group and they greeted the twins.
Jermaine was tall and lanky like Jason. He had black hair cropped close to his scalp and intense dark eyes. Ricky was short and stout. He looked like a ball of muscle with a face full of freckles, sandy colored hair, and bright blue eyes.
"Who are we playing against?" Cody questioned, looking around at the different faces in the crowd.
"Us," a husky voice piped up and the twins turned to the speaker.
The boy was shorter than Zack by about two inches and looked and sounded a few years younger than everyone else, his voice wasn't very deep. He was slender, with sinewy muscle, dressed in red mesh shorts and an oversized worn white t-shirt. Some brown strands of hair poked out from under his red beanie, and his dark brown eyes were sharp and narrowed, his mouth pursed in a frown. A basketball was tucked neatly under his arm. Standing beside him were an odd set of four boys, each rough in appearance and seemed ready to brawl rather than play.
Zack exchanged a look with Cody and both seemed to be in agreement. There was something familiar about the red-capped boy, in the way he stood and the way he spoke, but neither could put a finger on it. Zack turned his attention back to the kid and tried to catch his eye searching for recognition in that piercing gaze, but the younger boy flicked his attention to Jermaine as though dismissing the twins altogether.
"We ready to play?" he demanded and Jermaine nodded stiffly.
Cody glanced worriedly to his brother. Something didn't seem right. As the boys headed out to take position on the court, Zack caught hold of Jason's elbow.
"This is just a friendly game, right?" he questioned the other boy. Jason laughed in response.
"Friendly. Yeah. Those two are just really competitive is all," he chuckled, "Don't worry. Just play ball."
With a sigh, Zack shrugged at Cody and ushered him forward onto the court. Jermaine and redcap took position for the jump ball.
A/N: I have to admit, I'm not actually an avid viewer of the Suite Life series. I've seen a few of the first episodes, and some of the On Deck episodes. Don't get me wrong, I like the show, I just wasn't very young when it came out, so I wasn't interested. I tell you this because there will be things in this fanfic that are very unintentionally AU-ish and I apologize to the fans that will spot those things. However, some things, like the boys being back in Boston, Bailey and Cody never having broken up in Paris, etc. are intentional. Mostly because, I needed them back in Boston and I like Cody and Bailey together. The beauty of this is, I don't have to tell you which ones I intended and which are actual goofs. ;P
I'm going to try updating every few days but that's if I remember...reviews help my memory (hint, hint). I don't know if the story is very good, I personally like it. I tried to keep it in the tone of the show despite the dark subject matter, but in places the boys will seem OOC, for which, I deeply apologize. There's quite a bit of drama in later chapters also; I felt like I was on an emotional rollercoaster ride writing it, and hopefully you feel the same while reading. There's not a lot of slapstick humor or outright ridiculousness for which the show has come to rely on to get cheap laughs but I hope that some places will make you chuckle.
And now I'm rambling. So let me know what you think and I'll update soon.