.:10:.

Piece of Advice

"Hey buddy, wake up."

Cody opened his eyes and rolled onto his back to look up at Kurt, who gently shook his shoulder. Cody rubbed an arm over his face then reached out and grabbed his phone to look at the time. His eyes narrowed into slits when he saw the time. "You know I like to keep up with an eight hour sleep schedule," he murmured. "Why are you waking me up at 6 AM?"

Then Zack's face popped up above Kurt's. "Because we're going to the gym and dad thought it was a good idea to ask if you wanted to come." He paused. "I told him it was a dumb idea."

Cody glared back at him.

Kurt placed his hand on Zack's face and pushed him back out of the way. "If you don't want to come, I'll let you go back to sleep. Got to get those eight hours in, right?" He stood back, placing his hands on his hips. "You know, I wonder if things would've worked out better if I got eight hours of sleep. But when you're out on the road you have some really late nights and—"

"—Dad, before you get into another one of your tour stories, let me stop you," Cody said. He used the heels of his palms to rub at his eyes. Now fully awake, he looked his father in the eye. "Because they can go on longer than the rest of us would like to listen and I'm sure some of them are grounds for you being arrested."

"Yeah, those are the best ones." Zack grinned and high-fived his father. Kurt grinned back then noticed Cody's raised eyebrow and immediately wiped the smile off his face and added quickly, "But it's not something you should be repeating."

Zack held his hands up defensively.

"Let me just get showered and changed and—"

"Uh, the only time you need to shower is after you're done working out, dude," Zack interrupted with a snort. "That's kind of the point." He puffed out his chest. "You get that manly smell and show off how hard you worked. You get be a real man's man." He waved his hand. "It's not like that 'musk' smell you put on."

"Hey, it's done a great job of attracting the ladies," Cody defended himself.

"Sure, sure." Zack nodded. "But it just goes to show, to the buff go the babes and to the weenies…well, you get it." He leaned over and squeezed Cody's bicep, pushing his muscle done to the bone. Cody pulled his arm back and shoved Zack hard on the chest.

"Hey, knock it off!" Kurt said firmly. He glared at Zack. "Go wait for us. Cody, please just get dressed."

"No problem."

Cody threw off the covers of his bed and turned to make it back up. He knew if Zack was watching he'd make some sort of a remark about it. 'Why would you make you bed if you're just going to get back in?' to which Cody would have to quickly reply about cleanliness and how being in a routine made things easier to get the day running. Just another one of the things they continued to argue about.

"I know you guys have only been living with me for a year now, but it's starting to get really hard to get you to stop arguing," Kurt pointed out.

Cody shrugged. "We always argue, dad, it' what we do."

"I've never seen it that bad."

A look of surprise came to Cody's face as he finished tucking in the sheets. "That's not bad at all. No, bad is when we stopped speaking to each other for two weeks because we couldn't decide whose turn it was on the bike we had to share. Bad is when we had to share a hotel bed that was smaller than grandma's couch. Bad is…" Cody trailed off.

He wasn't quite sure how anything could get worse. But things weren't bad by any stretch of the word. Kurt placed his hand on his son's shoulder. "I'm just saying, Cody, that it doesn't look like your bickering is helping things much. Considering what Zack has been through lately."

"He's the one who starts it, not me."

"Cody—"

"—And why is everyone taking his side on this?" The words blurted from Cody's mouth before he could stop them. He looked his father in the eye, crossing his arms over his chest. "Even mom is treating him like he's glass and they're the ones who are always arguing. I can't ever act normally around him because I might trigger him or something. I step back and try to be supportive to help and I don't get anything in reply for me to leave him alone. What about what he did to us?"

Kurt watched Cody.

"If he…if he kept throwing up the way he did, he could've really hurt himself. He could've...he had a heart attack and blow it off like nothing happened. If he died, what would've happened? Would you still have moved back here permanently? Or would you have run away again like you did when things got hard between you and mom? And why am I the only one who's trying to help?"

Kurt folded his arm. "What make you think we're not trying to help, Cody? I go to the gym with Zack to make sure he understand how healthy eating and having a healthy workout regimen is better than not eating at all. Your mother is making sure he has the structure he needs to get his work finished and on time and—"

"—And I'm trying to be there for him but he won't let me!" Cody cried. "I'm trying everything but he keeps telling me to go away."

Kurt reached out and grabbed onto his younger on, pulling him into his arm. Cody leaned against Kurt's chest and listened to his father's heartbeat. There had been a time where he begged his father to come back from his tour to be with them. Remembered how ad he would be when Kurt would promise he'd be somewhere and not show up. Now that he was here, he was begging for things to go back to normal with his own brother, who was still with him.

If it wasn't for the seriousness of the situation, Cody probably would've laughed. As it was, a moment of being comforted was good enough. Sometimes he hated how he was so emotional compared to Zack, who could let things roll off his back like they were nothing.

If it was actually nothing, then he wouldn't have let everything get to him, Cody reminded himself.

"Then I'm going to tell you the same thing your mother told me," Kurt said. "That I needed to stop being there in the way I thought you wanted rather than the way you needed. Instead of trying to help Zack, just be there as his brother. Stop trying to force him to talk and just hang out with him like everything is normal. Then he'll open up to you."

"I don't know…"

"It worked with you, didn't it?"

Cody took a step back and looked his father in the eye. Admittedly, as much as he wanted Kurt to be back, there had been many times he'd pushed his mom to date. Pushed her to be serious with boyfriend she wasn't serious about, pushed her into getting married when the time came. He had resented his dad for a long time, having had chosen to galivant around the world rather than be there for his children. It took a long time for Cody to understand why but it still hurt.

I guess I never realized how much it still hurt to see him, Cody thought.

Zack dribbled a basketball across the court then did a lay-up to the basket. The ball bounced off the backboard and hit the rim before falling to the ground. "Too close," Cody remarked. Zack glanced at him as he joggled to catch the ball. "You were too close to the backboard. You didn't have the right angle to get the ball in."

Cody held his breath when he noticed the irritation that came to Zack's face. This was what they fought about in the first place. What started it all. Zack had been annoyed that Cody and Tapeworm were playing basketball. Or rather, Zack was annoyed that Cody was playing basketball. Sport weren't Cody's thing but he'd been told by the principal that he wouldn't be able to graduate if he didn't have a sport credit. At first, he'd hoped working as the team manager or a towel boy would suffice, but no. He had to actually participate on a team.

Basketball was the first one that came to mind. Tapeworm had the idea of trying out and asked Cody to help him. With their scientific minds, scanning the court for open space to make the correct shots based on angles was easy. It was the conditioning that was the hard part. Soon, Cody found himself enjoying the sport a much as Tapeworm did, easily reminding them of the times they'd played on their middle school teams together. He'd hoped Zack would've liked him on the team a well, finally playing a sport again.

Next thing he knew, Zack was having a heart attack in the middle of the gym all because he couldn't handle sharing the spotlight. Or else, that's how he took it.

"Don't try to be there for him in the way you think he wants, be there for him the way he needs."

I have to admit, he gives good advice sometimes, Cody thought. But only time would tell if it'd actually help when executed. Cody took a deep breath and said. "The trick to basketball isn't just about conditioning and studies of plays. It's about the hoop diameter, the length from hoop to hoop, the diameter of the ball…"

"Blah, blah, blah," Zack opened and closed his hand to mime a working mouth. It was obvious he didn't care much for the conversation topic.

Cody lifted his eyebrows. "You want to improve your shooting?"

"My shooting's just fine."

"If you consider making about half of your shots 'fine'," Cody taunted. Zack looked back at Cody with a quizzical look, mild irritation dancing behind his blue eyes.

Cody held out his hands for the ball. Zack passed it to him and Cody hugged it against his chest. He leaned forward and lowered his voice, ready to drop a revelation. Zack leaned back towards him. "It's the secret to how Tapeworm and I got better so fast."

"You finally decided that wearing heels wasn't actually going to make you taller?" Zack cracked.

Cody frowned. He felt his cheeks enflame with a wave of embarrassment he hadn't felt in a few years. "That was just for ballroom dancing." The favor he and Zack had done for Esteban to help him send money back to his little sister had been okay. Fun even.

How else would he have been able to get close to Janice and Jessica without an excuse to do so? Zack had gone on and on about how having their chests pressed together was just a step away from being able to get them to agree to making out. Cody had been eager to impress the girls and thought appearing taller would help him.

"And yet you haven't seemed to have gotten rid of those ugly shoes." Zack folded his arms. Now his eyes danced with mirth. "I mean, I always said you had bad style but—"

"—Those were moms."

"My point exactly."

Cody let out an irritated puff of air. "Do you want to know or not?" He'd dealt with Zack too many times to let it truly get to him. Still, he had unwavering patience for his twin brother. A short fuse. But unwavering patience.

Zack feigned sudden boredom, patting the air in front of his mouth as if he were yawning. "If I have to sit through boring lectures in schools then I guess I can sit through one from you."

Cody rolled his eyes. "Thanks." He spun the ball in his hands, pressing his index fingers into the ball and used his thumbs to spin it around. "When you're shooting a basket you have to take into consideration that you're working with three factors." He held up three fingers. "Angles, impulse, and the positions of your arms." Zack lifted an eyebrow. "You apply a greater angle when making a field shot, but a smaller one when you're hooting from inside the free throw zone." He motioned to the empty court, making Zack twist around to see what Cody was looking at. He continued to look unimpressed. "Then, of course, you need to shoot higher when you have defensive players in front of you. Then the parabola—"

"The ebola?"

Cody sucked in a breath through his nose. "Ebola is a virus that makes you very sick."

"You think I can use it as an excuse to get out of my next math test?"

"Would you focus, please?"

Zack held up his hands defensively, widening his eyes innocently.

"The parabola is the downside curve made in every shot. When you're shooting, the higher the parabola, the cleaner the shot to the hoop. The lower the parabola, the wort it i. That's what the follow through with your writ is for, it gives a back flip effect to aid the ball when you're shooting. Get it?"

Zack lowered his hands to his hips and flipped his hair from his eyes. "I stopped listening when you started talking." Cody let out a frustrated groan. "But I think I get it. Don't just shoot at the basket. Whatever. Pass me the ball and I'll show you how I do it."

Cody moved the ball behind his back. "Let's make it interesting."

Zack slowly started to smile. "I'm listening."

"If I win you have to give up your rights to the TV for the next week," Cody said. "There's a documentary coming on that I want to watch."

Zack pursed his lips. "If I win you have to give up blankie for a week."

Cody blushed again, his eyes frantically darting back and forth as he looked to see no one was listening to them. He spoke through gritted teeth, "I told you, I don't sleep with blankie anymore."

"Well, you might not sleep with him anymore but I'm pretty sure I've seen it used for something else you do in be—"

"Do you want to play or what?" That was so not a conversation Cody wanted to have. There was a reason it was called 'locker room talk' and the basketball court certainly did not qualify as that. Cody shifted the ball back to his front, took a step back and lifted his arms above his head. He calculated for a second then lobbed the ball through the air. The twins watched it arch towards the basket before cleaning falling inside.

With a smirk, Cody folded hi arms and leveled his gaze to his older brother's. Zack eyed him in response then muttered, "Lucky shot," before jogging to get the ball. He grabbed it with his foot and rolled it backwards so he could juggle it up to his knee then to his hands, much like a soccer ball. Then, once he had it in his grasp, Zack started to bounce the ball back and forth between his legs. "Try and take it from me."

"Try and stop me," Cody replied.

He jogged across the court to stand in front of his brother. The twins looked each other in the eye as Zack continued to bounce the ball back and forth. Cody continued to look Zack in the eye, waiting for him. Just because Cody was teaching Zack doesn't mean he was teaching him everything he knew. An one of those things was how well he knew his older brother. Zack had a habit of letting his eyes betray his emotions and when he was playing a sport, it betrayed where he was going to make a move.

Cody was ready for him.

When Zack's eyes shifted to the right, Cody quickly moved in the same direction and stuck out his hand, grabbing the ball. "What?" Cody charged towards the basket and with a push off of his right foot did a easy layup to get the basket. He grinned, catching the ball on the way back down. Zack blew his bangs off his forehead and lifted his hand, motioning for Cody to come at him.

This time, Cody was on the offense while Zack was on defense. They ran back and forth across the court, twisting back and forth to keep the other from prevailing. Ultimately, Zack faked Cody out and managed to get the ball, scoring a basket himself.

"Oh yeah, baby!" Zack cheered. "You can't stop me, so don't even try!" He dropped the ball and made a show of flexing his muscles while giving wrestling growls. Cody rolled his eyes but was unable to keep form laughing.

For the next hour the two continued to play, running back and forth and taking as many baskets as they could. Eventually, Zack instructed Cody to give him the ball at one point and they worked out a play they could do if they were ever on the court together. It was a difficult move, an illusion of sorts that would make a defender confused with the twins on the court at the same time. It had to look like one person was teleporting with the way they moved, but it also meant they couldn't look at each other and had to rely on each other getting to the right place when they through the ball.

They were working on that play when Zack threw the ball towards Cody, who didn't get to the ball fast enough and careened towards someone who was tentatively moving through the door to the gym.

"Heads up!" Zack called.

Cody ran faster and grabbed the ball, his feet skidding across the floor, stopping him just in time. He let out a sigh of relief. "Sorry about that."

"That's okay," Sadie replied with a warm smile. She clasped her hands together in the front pocket of her sweatshirt. "I see you guy are getting some hard work done." Her eyes shifted behind Cody and she waved timidly. "Hey, Zack."

Zack lifted his hand in response but didn't otherwise respond. Even though Cody wasn't looking at his brother, he could tell Zack was still very angry with her. He hadn't said anything about it, but when she came up in conversation, Zack didn't say anything at all. And he always had something to say about girls. Even Ella, the girl Zack tended to get into a screaming match with when they were working in some sort of competition with each other (of which had been why they didn't work out), Zack had nice things to say about.

So far Max and Riley had been the only ones who could handle Zack's competitive side in stride, an even match with their own level of competition. Then again, Zack and Sadie never really had a meaningful relationship Cody reminded himself.

"I didn't think I'd see anyone here so early," Sadie continued, giving Cody a pleasant smile. "Especially you."

"Yeah, well, my dad and Zack were already going to come and they talked me into coming," Cody said. He didn't take offense to her comment about being surprised to see him. It was still hard for some people to see him as an athlete no matter the attention he'd been getting as of late. Not the attention you really want, the voice in his head reminded him as a image of Rhuben appeared.

Surprised, Cody blinked and shook his head. Sadie tilted her head a she watched him. "Sorry, just had a bit of sweat in my ear," he quickly lied through his teeth, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. Like he had been caught cheating in some way. "So, what are you doing here?"

"Oh! Don't you know? My dad own this gym, and the chain." Sadie waved her hand around the complex. "I get free entry so I come in early to do some of my stretches and splits for the dance team." She took a step towards Cody. "We've got some new tricks we're trying out at the next game."

"I'm sure they'll go well," Cody said politely. "The dance team's looking pretty good." Not that he was able to see much. Usually the guys were in the locker room getting a pep-talk for the second half of the game. But he did tend to have his attention drawn over towards the sidelines and stay there when he wasn't playing currently in play. He was starting to get as bad as Zack.

Sadie's smile widened at his admission. "That so sweet of you to say."

"I mean—"

"I hope you like what we come up with next. It was my idea." She stepped forward and grasped his wrist, rubbing the skin with her thumb. "Why don't I show you now? Get your opinion? We want it to be a crowd pleaser and I could really use a guy's perspective."

Alarm bells were now going off in Cody's head. Abort. Abort. Get away before you do something stupid. Before you do something you regret. Before you ruin your chance with Rhu. Cody frowned, doing his best to push the thought away and took a step back. Sadie's hand dropped from his wrist.

"Zack and I have a lot of practicing to do and then we were going to meet with our dad for breakfast." Cody quickly added a, "Sorry," hoping it sounded sincere.

The smile never left Sadie's face as she returned her hands to the pocket of her sweatshirt. If anything, they became more pleasant, lashes almost batting at him. "No problem, Cody. I'll just catch you later." She paused, waiting for him to respond. When he didn't she said, "At the next student government meeting?"

"Oh. Right. Yeah." To finalize if they'd be doing a beauty pageant. "See you then."

"Bye." Sade finger-waved at him and left the gym, her hips and ponytail swinging in time as she went.

"Piece of advice," Zack said slowly, quietly, coming up behind Cody. "Keep an eye on her."

"It's nothing," Cody said quickly. "We're on student government together so we have to talk. I'm not going to do anything with her." He looked meaningfully at Zack. "Not after what she did to you."

Zack smiled back.

A/N: So, did you guys see Zack's new movie, Dismissed? I freaking loved it! An I'm probably going to write a fic based on it as well. Let me know what you guys think of this chapter, I find the dynamic with the Martins to be very interesting if thought of enough and it'd been a while since I've showcased them.

Cheers,

-Riles