Author's Note: Just a little something I wrote to cheer myself up over Suite Life being almost finished. Inspired by Zack's line in "Shipnotized": "Hey listen, buddy, you'll never get a better candidate for Harvard. He's got a 5.0 grade point average. He's brilliant. He's written a novel, three cookbooks, an opera and all of my papers."

Well, what if that novel was a work of fanfiction….?

~La Tristesse~

P.S. The Suite Life characters belong exclusively to Disney. Sad, but true :-(

Chapter 1

Zack Martin breezed into the cabin his twin brother Cody shared with Woody Fink.

"Hey, Cody, did you ever write a paper on bananas?" he asked. "Not that I want to borrow it or anything. Just curious."

Cody sat at his spotless, cabin-sized desk, hunched over his laptop. He seemed completely engrossed by whatever was on the screen. This was not unusual for Cody, who had earned straight A's in every subject except since gym and woodshop since kindergarten.

"Cody? Hey, Codester?" Zack wouldn't stop until he had his brother's attention. Being younger than Zack by ten minutes, Cody was not allowed to ignore Zack.

But Zack got no response. Cody's eyes stayed glued to the screen, his lips moving silently as he read.

"Cody!" Zack yelled close to Cody's ear.

Cody jumped, almost falling out of his chair. "What do you want, Zack?" he grumbled, quickly recovering his composure. Every time Zack entered his and Woody's cabin, it was because he wanted something. Why, he cursed himself for the millionth time, had he let Zack keep that spare key-card he'd stolen from him?

As he awaited Zack's reply, he shielded the laptop screen with his arm – a move that only served to pique Zack's interest. Was Cody was trying to hide something from him? If so, Zack would make it his mission to ferret out his brother's secret.

Which in this case wouldn't be too difficult, since all he had to do was yank the laptop away from Cody.

"What's this?" he asked, yanking the laptop away from Cody.

Duck and run for cover, Cody told himself. "It's just my biology homework," he said, weakly. "On Tortonian stage developments in barnacle reproduction during the Miocene epoch."

"Oh, really?" Holding the laptop out of Cody's reach, Zack read aloud from the open Word document:

Sean stood alone on deck, watching Tamira deep in conversation with Ashley, Cassidy and Denise. Moonlight glinted off of her hair, creating streaks of burnished copper in her soft caramel locks. He heaved a weary, wistful sigh, laden with despair. What would it take to open her eyes – her mesmerizing chestnut brown eyes? What could he do to transform this high school crush into ever-lasting love?

Would Tamira Goldstein ever be his?

Zack broke off to gag. "Dude, what the frak is this dreck?"

"Nothing..." Cody muttered, sweating from the burn of his cheeks.

Ping.

The e-mail icon at the bottom-right hand of the screen began to blink. "Hmmm, what have we here?" Zack clicked on the icon. "Review Alert," he read from the e-mail:

Amazingly awesome chapter! I love love LOVE this story! Sean and Tamira are SO PERFECT for each other. Can't WAIT to see what happens next! Please, please, PLEASE update soon!

"Who's it from?" Cody asked, hope shining in his eyes.

Zack consulted the email. "Sugarlips69."

Cody's defeated sigh intrigued Zack further. He clicked on a link labeled "New Chapter: Dreams at Sunset." The link brought him to a webpage. " 'True Love on Deck', " he read. "A Breaker High fanfic, by The String Theorist." His eyebrows twisted in consternation, like a pair of corkscrews.

Cody flopped against the back of his chair. Denial would be useless. So would trying to reclaim his laptop with any sense of dignity. Zack had blasted through his barnacle reproduction cover, leaving him exposed to gale-force winds of humiliation.

"It's a fanfiction story," he admitted. "For a website called Fan Stories dot com. People write stories about their favorite TV shows, movies, books, video-games and post them there. Stuff they wish had happened in a TV episode, pairings they like that aren't part of the canon, alternative universes. Some of them are really creative." He gestured at the screen. "Go to the homepage and click on 'Just In'. "

Zack's response stunned him. Instead of launching into full-blown mockery, Zack, whose reading interests were limited to comic books and pranking websites, set the laptop back on the desk and complied.

"I wonder if there's any stories about Medieval Magic Quest," he said, excitedly. "Damn, I still miss my enchanted sorcerer wand."

A lengthy list of stories appeared on-screen.

Zack scanned the list. "Hey look, there's a story about twins." He clicked the link and leaned forward, his elbow on Cody's shoulder as they both began to read.

Halfway down the page, Cody's mouth froze into a horrified gape.

It took a few moments for Zack to catch up. When he did, his face broke out in an identical expression.

"Ewww," he exclaimed. "This story is about twins doing it. Dude, that's sick!"

Their eyes met in a shared moment of horror. Then they looked down. At Zack's elbow resting innocently on Cody's shoulder.

"Ewwwwww!" they shrieked, jumping apart. The chair clattered to the floor.

A few uncomfortable moments passed in the small cabin, which now seemed uncomfortably smaller.

Ping.

Another review? Thankful for the distraction, Cody dove for the laptop, side-stepping the chair impressively.

Keeping a respectable distance, Zack read over his brother's shoulder:

Best. Chapter. Ever. String Theorist, you are truly my hero. Your story brings joy to an otherwise empty, meaningless life. Promise me you'll never stop writing.

Btw, do you think you could add something about pirates? There's nothing sexier than a pirate. And I do mean nothing :-)

The review was signed "Showgirl1980."

Seeing Cody's frown, Zack returned to the topic at hand. "So you're writing fanfiction about Breaker High?" He shook his head. "Doesn't ring a bell."

"It's a teen sitcom from the 90s," Cody explained, "about a group of students going to high school on a cruise ship. They travel around the world and have various adventures. Bailey's older sisters got her hooked on reruns."

Zack snatched the laptop from Cody and scrolled through a dropdown list of chapters. An incredulous look replaced his smirk. "This is eighty chapters long! How long have you been writing this?"

"Since Thursday," said Cody, his voice just above a mumble.

Zack checked the date on the laptop. "Since last Thursday? It's only Tuesday today." He felt the proverbial lightbulb flash on above his head. "Wait a minute! This is about you and Bailey, isn't it?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Yes, you do. You're writing a sappy love story all about you and Bailey."

With the last remnants of his cover fluttering in the post-tornado breeze, Cody accepted his fate. "Okay, okay," he snapped, going crimson again. "It's part of my six-month plan to win Bailey."

Before he could continue, the laptop issued another ping.

Great story! I missed out on half of a Mexican buffet last night getting caught up on the last 10 chapters. Time well spent. Write more soon.

Your number one fan,
Plywood

"I think I know who that is," Zack remarked.

Cody nodded. "Woody loves fanfiction. SpongeBob Square Pants, Teletubbies, Myth Busters."

Zack raised an eyebrow, wearing a perplexed, slightly disturbed expression as though picturing their grandmother wrestling in Jello. He grimaced then and clicked to a page showing all the reviews for Cody's story. "And what does Bailey think of your epic soap opera?" he asked.

Ping.

Zack opened the latest review, wondering if he'd find the answer:

This story is a pleasure to read. You are a supremely talented writer, TST. If you haven't already, you should seriously consider writing fiction as a career. I await the next chapter with baited breath.

"Just a wild guess here," he said, "but I'm betting 'AfroDisiac' isn't Bailey's pen name, is it?"

Cody shook his head in mournful agreement. "I don't get it," he burst out. "Bailey reads and reviews practically every Breaker High story. But she's never reviewed a single chapter of 'True Love on Deck.' Not a single one. I just don't get it." Pouting, he pointed to a sentence on-screen. "I even named a character after her. See? One of the deck hands. A really, really pretty deck hand, too."

Zack had never considered himself a writer, or a literary expert of any sort, but he felt entitled to give Cody an explanation. "Simple," he said. "Your story is crap."

"It's not crap," Cody retorted, bristling with outrage. He grabbed for the laptop. " 'True Love on Deck' is the most popular story in the Breaker High fandom. It has over nine-hundred-and-fifty reviews."

"Crap."

"It has Proustian subtext."

"Crap."

"And Foucauldian post-structural themes."

"Crap."

"Well, I wouldn't expect you to understand those elements," Cody said, haughtily. He folded his arms.

It was time, Zack decided, to take the situation into his own hands. "Quit whining, you sound like a girl." He carried the laptop over to Cody's bed and sprawled across it. He clicked on 'Create account'. "Let your big brother show you how it's done."

Cody didn't like the sound of this. "You're not a captain," he protested, hovering as Zack hen-pecked at the keyboard. "And you're not, nor will you ever be, awesome."

"Like you would know anything about being awesome." Zack chuckled and kept typing, swinging his feet in the air. He had grown a thick skin to deflect Cody's nay-saying. "Now watch and learn, little brother, watch and learn."

What will Captain Awesome write? Will it be awesome? More importantly, will his story capture Bailey's interest? And who are Cody's, aka The String Theorist, many reviewers? Stay tuned for Chapter 2... and please review! :-)