3.
He knocked on the door of Zack and Marcus'. Zack opened it.
He avoided the same eyes, which had stared back at him in the mirror; only they were real, kinder, and sweeter.
"Marcus?" He grabbed his pillows and quilt, "I was wondering if we could swap beds tonight. Zack asked me to help him revise for the math test tomorrow."
"What? I did not-"
"Please, Marcus?"
Marcus looked at him with puzzled looks on his face, but he nodded and packed his stuff.
"What the heck, Cody? Marcus and I were gonna play cards-"
Cody put his things down onto Zack's bed, sitting down at the edge of it. He bowed his head.
"Dude this is so not cool..." Zack's tantrum went on, getting really annoyed by his younger twin's strange behavior. "What's your problem, anyway? Missing Mommy? Want me to call her for..."
"Zack." He said calmly, trying hard to keep it together, "Please."
He did not know how to explain this awful intrusion, which had started to look like a mistake. He wanted them both to calm down. This was the last method he would resort to… to find out the truth.
He needed Zack to stay quiet for him, for a while.
"I just need to clear my head, you know." Cody mumbled in the smallest volume Zack could hear, "I have to figure things out."
But, what was there to figure out? Somehow he didn't even have an answer for that. Acting just upon a tingling sensation that may or may not have existed wasn't a signature Cody Martin Mr. Perfection behavior at all.
None of this matched his plans, fit his tracks of thoughts, or even partook in his imaginations before. Did it matter? So what if it did?
Cat got his tongue.
"What is it?" Zack folded his arms, leaning against his cabinet, staring down impatiently at the seemingly crestfallen Cody.
"I can't remember the last time you acted like this... woah man, not since Bailey became your girlfriend."
"It's not about Bailey, or my relationship. Or her. I don't know." Cody looked up, only high enough to see his brother's shoulders. That was the place he dared to reach without going nauseous again.
"Maybe it is. All of them."
Zack inhaled loudly in a worried way, then exhaled. He always did that when he reconsidered the situations, and found them to be more serious than he thought, remembered Cody. Like when they were five, Cody told him he was too frightened to watch those scary movies they weren't allowed to watch. Naturally Zack found a way to make him watch it. After Cody ran off crying and hiding under the bed, he sought to Cody that night, with heavy breathings inside his apologies.
"You sound really weird, Cody," Zack put down his arms, walking towards the bed and sat down beside his brother. "'You sure it's nothing Bailey can help you with? She's bigger of a help in this kind of-"
"Will you not mention her in this, please?" Cody snapped, standing up abruptly and violently, away from Zack.
He paced up and down the room, thinking he did the right thing by shutting Zack up. He was about to question something vague and unknown. He wanted to leave and pretend nothing had happened. But he knew there had to be a grave necessity of demanding the truth.
Zack had started to stare at him with a dubious expression on his face.
He had to say something. NOW.
"I'm sorry, man. There's just something really wrong about me lately… It's like there's this thing between me and Bailey…" He grabbed hold of something invisible in the air, and dug his fingers into the object painfully, "It makes me think twice about her, you know? Every time I tried to go near her, a rejecting voice would echo in my head."
Cody thought he was going towards the wrong direction. How could he blame this on Bailey? He would completely misguide Zack at this point. It wasn't about Bailey and him! Not entirely, at least. But he was telling the truth, some of the truth. That was a good start.
"Did she do anything? She's not cheating on you, is she?" Zack questioned him in interest more than concern, "I thought you guys were madly in love with each other. This morning she was all worried sick about you being ill, wasn't she?"
This morning. That dreadful, deceitful morning.
"I wasn't ill. I was just feeling a little… out of shape."
He chickened out. He didn't want to get to the point so quickly. Talking about him may or may not have been ill certainly led to him questioning about that mistaken kiss on the forehead, the pit of all these doubts- or so he wanted to blame, badly.
"Should you ever doubt yourself for something?" Prompted Cody. He didn't know how to continue this false conversation anymore.
"What's there to doubt if you have already accepted yourself?" Answered Zack, with squinting eyes now.
Zack stood up, keeping his eyes focused on his poor, lost brother. He seemed so lost, so confused, so shameful with something he wasn't willing to say with honesty.
"You know, little brother," Zack's voice became low and mysterious. "Sometimes, those things require not thinking, but feeling."
He undid the top three buttons of his shirt, walking towards Cody. Zack's stronger arms reached Cody, grabbed of his upper arms and shoved him against the wall.
Cody felt the ground whirling as he was firmly locked in his brother's arms. His strength had leaked out through a puncture in his heart, making him powerless to break free, even he really wanted to.
"Let go, Zack." Cody said with a calm voice close to a whisper, "This isn't funny."
His brother did not answer. Cody's shirt was pulled up from his pants, unbuttoned from down to up. A warm hand slid into his clothes, feeling him, bringing sensations too great to exist from those late night fantasies of his.
He panted as this stronger man before him breathed down his neck. His cheeks were on his cheeks. His heating body warmth made him want to do those twisted things he could only dream to do…
Zack was nibbling on his earlobes, it was shameful to say but he nearly begged when Zack pulled away. Cody shut his eyes, feeling the soft and wet touches of his brother's tongue exploring its way around his chin, to his chest, then down to his abdomen. He wanted this. It would be a torment if he stopped there and walked out the room…
"My baby brother…" Zack stretched one of his arms deep inside the shirt and felt Cody's neck from behind, while he tilted his face with his other hand. His abdomen was pressed hard against his, and Cody's legs were between his.
Cody was sweating in a pleasant but dangerous way. Anyone would know if he had met the very only thing in the world that would make him happy, even make him think that dying this instant wouldn't be a shame. As turquoise eyes meet, Cody swam his fingers into Zack's dirty blonde hair. His scalp was hot, even sweaty. An insane thought flashed through his mind: He wanted Zack's hands down his crotch, undo the zipper of his jeans and bring him the joy he couldn't achieve himself deep in the nights.
But this had to come first.
This initial contact that would bond his brother and him forever close must take its place first, before they embarked on something irreversible, something wonderful.
Zack had no idea how bad he wanted this.
"Yes, Zack?" Cody murmured as he panted, bringing himself closer to Zack as he stretched his arms around Zack's neck.
In a moment of revelation he knew what he was looking for. His answer to all, his solution to all his problems and doubts… It was Cody Martin's final clarification. It was on the tip of Zack's tongue, which had just licked his neck. It was around his lips, for which he could not say how much he had craved. He could taste it already… He was waiting… just a second away he could and he would… the sweet taste of those set of…
TBC
