A/N: Sorry for the wait! Ladies and gentlemen, please fasten your seatbelts. We're now approaching the climactic point. You've now entered the Twilight Zone. Hehe.

Disclaimer: I do not own The Suite Life of Zack and Cody or The Catcher in the Rye.

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Zack collapsed into the bathroom, face stained with tears and eyes red and wide. His stomach ached in pain and a steady flow of blood trickled down from a little cut on his cheek. Gripping the sink for support he sunk down and smacked his head back onto the cold wall, watching as black dots danced before his eyes.

They'd cornered him after fourth period history.

All of them. All of the faces, all of the hands and the voices and the feet that kicked, kicked, kicked until he screamed for them to stop, stop, stop! He had curled up in a ball and tried to wait out the storm, but still the fists rained down and still he cried out softly in protest.

And then when he was about to give up, stop, close his eyes, let them kill him everything stopped. His attackers had scurried away, the laughs and taunts and leers had faded to the squealing of rubber shoes on the floor, and a dead weight of hurt had fallen upon his shoulders.

He'd dared to raise his hand, eyes squinted in pain and arm draped across his chest protectively even as it ached. His old friends had fled and in their place was an empty hallway. An empty place.

Zack had crawled over to a locker, used the combination lock to push himself up and had staggered to his feet. Just as he was about to turn to come to the back bathroom he caught sight of a figure at the end of the hall and his stomach, bruised, battered, and heaving did a double back flip.

It was Cody.

His brother had reached, reached, reached for him as though to help him-

-No-

-And to hug him-

-NO-

-And to tell him that he was sorry, so sorry for not being there-

-NO!-

-To help him through…

But Zack had somehow mustered enough strength, enough energy and willpower to bolt through the halls and back to this sanctuary. He'd always been more athletic than Cody and this time, it seemed, despite all that had happened he could still beat his brother.

And then he started to cry and he couldn't stop. Holden wouldn't cry right now, and neither would Jack or any of the other great liars. But he wasn't Holden. He wasn't some great hero or anyone who evoked great change.

He was just…Zack.

And humanity sucked. Pity sucked. Anything fickle sucked. Confusion sucked. He turned to the wall and to the ongoing conversation he'd been having with Holden.

I, lone wolf, am no longer king.

Hello, long wolf. Are you not king?

Once I was king. Now I'm alone.

The first king is alone upon his throne.

This is my throne, now. Are you king?

Every man is a king, every voice is his throne.

Too many kings mean too many rules.

And Holden had added:

Too many rules means too many kings.

Zack blinked and reread the last remark several times. Rules were stupid. Really stupid. They obviously meant nothing or he wouldn't be sitting in here, hurt, aching, bleeding, and his heart as heavy as lead.

What were rules, anyway? Little sentences written down on paper, little words meant to rule society? Please. All they did, all they had ever done, was cause anger and frustration and spark rebellion.

You tell a man not to open the door and the first thing he does is disobey, whether he wants to or not. Zack had always been the one stealing the cookies or throwing the football or kissing the girl—and he'd been happy then. He'd paid no regard to rules or limitations.

In fact, the more that he thought about it rules were the entire reason he was in the back bathroom in the first place. Because he'd refused to go against his own personal morals and had turned down the weed. Because he hadn't wanted to break the rules. The one time he actually listened to these limitations they dig his own grave. Get him beat up. Destroy his social life.

Rules sucked.

The scribe writes down one hundred words on a paper and of those hundred only one does not command. Irony triumphs and it is that one word that makes the difference. That one word that changes the world.

Loneliness.

Humanity.

Pity.

Confusion.

And everything about it was so fake that Zack, again, had no trouble understanding Holden Caulfield's hate or anguish or fury because all of this was so wrong! It was unfair and unjust and it was destroying him and the rest of the world!

He angrily wiped away tears and yanked off the cap to his black Sharpie, pointing it directly underneath Holden's last remark, prepared to write down what he really felt, what he really meant, what he really wanted to say…

The king should not make rules. The rules should make the king.

And he pulled back to read what he'd written and felt an odd sort of pride blossom in his stomach. A pride that made him feel strangely whole, like he'd actually done something with his time in this self-inflicted prison sentence.

Zack scooted over to the back of one of the stalls (wincing as a pain in his side flared up suddenly) and grasped the jar that held his stash of lunch money. The outside of the jar was covered with a label and it was tinted so that one could not see inside. Zack unscrewed the lid and reached his hand in to grab a dollar. He was thirsty and they sold water bottles in a vending machine down the hall.

His hand touched glass, not paper.

Frowning, he withdrew his arm and looked inside, expecting to see the dozens of five dollar bills he'd stuffed inside littered with the occasional penny or nickel or quarter or dime, but instead he saw something that made his heart skip a beat.

There was no money in his jar.

In its place were four black Sharpies.

He hid in here a lot.

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To Be Continued

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P.S. If you're a fan of the movie Stand By Me I've begun a small fic under another username (SameBlueSky). There aren't a lot of fics in that category so go and support the wonderful stories if you're a fan of the film :).

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