Two Roads Diverged, Chapter 7
Title: Two Roads Diverged (7/12)
Pairing: Cory/Shawn
Rating: This is more relationshippy than sexy, but there's some description of blow-jobs and hand-jobs, so rate that how you will.
Length: ~50,000 words over 12 chapters
Summary: Years after a falling out, Cory and Shawn reconnect in New York City and help each other through some big changes. This takes place about eight years after the end of the series, so roughly 2008-2009.
Note: My earlier BMW stand-alone fics " Idiot Savant" and " Average Boy" can be read as the backstories to this story, but you do not have to have read those to follow this one.
~~~~~~
Cory stares at the photo of the little girl who looks so much like his friend, letting it sink in. Shawn is a dad. Shawn has a kid. Shawn beat Cory to it by six years. Shawn is responsible for someone else's life.
"Shawnie, how did you not tell me?"
Shawn is very still and very quiet. He takes the phone back from Cory, closes Sadie's photo, and sets it on the nightstand. He crosses his arms and folds his shoulders forward, as if protecting himself from a cold wind.
"I don't understand how you could not tell me something like that. I've been here with you for days. And not one word. No, 'Oh by the way, Cory, something big happened while you were gone-Had a kid!' Nothing. What is the matter with you?"
Cory stares at Shawn, waiting for a response that doesn't come.
"Well, I want to meet her," Cory says resolutely, "I'm guessing she lives with her mother? Where is that? In the city?"
"She lives in New Jersey." Shawn still is not looking at him. There is no inflection to his voice.
"That's not too far. Let's do it. I want to meet your daughter."
"You can't meet her."
"Why not?"
Shawn starts to say something and his voice fails him. He cocks his head a little and tries again, but still no words come out.
"Hey," Cory says softly and puts his hand on Shawn's arm, "What's the matter?"
"I haven't even met her," Shawn manages finally. He puts on a smile that just looks terrible and broken. "I didn't even know she existed until two months ago. Anna never told me."
The pieces start to fall into place in Cory's mind then. The legal and financial rearrangements. He is setting things up to take care of her. And the self-destructive wasting away. In Shawn's mind, he is as bad as his own father. He's been falling apart these past two months out of guilt. Of course he has. That is exactly how Shawn would react to finding out something like this.
"You didn't do anything wrong," Cory tells him, "You didn't know."
Shawn gives no sign that he's heard him. He leaps out of bed and makes as if to leave, then stops and comes back for his coffee mug. Then he pauses again before he gets to the door and comes back to pick up his plate, like it's suddenly important now that he tidy up. The plate shakes in his hand and the fork bounces off onto the bed, taking the remainder of his toast with it.
"Shit," Shawn says.
"Hey," Cory says, hopping to his feet and taking the plate from Shawn, "Hang on." He sets the plate on the floor and takes the coffee mug from him too. He wraps him in a hug and can feel Shawn's heart beating fast. A sense memory pops into his head of scooping a white rabbit up from its cage in high school biology class. Its heart had felt exactly the same in his hands.
"It's all right," Cory whispers, trying to soothe Shawn's heart like that rabbit's.
"It's not all right," Shawn pulls away from him, "I have fucked up that kid's life already and I didn't even know I was doing it."
"I don't understand. How could you have done anything if you've never even met her?"
"I wasn't there." Shawn is speaking loudly now, throwing the words across the room, "Already she has to be the kid who doesn't have a dad. Because she had to have the shitty luck of having me for a dad."
"But you had nothing to do with that. If her mom didn't tell you..."
"Anna didn't tell me because she knew Sadie was better off not having a dad than having me. Do you know how fucked up I was back then? I was not a good person. I was a shit. I was a nightmare to everybody around me. After I gave up on you, I didn't care about anything. I became an asshole like you've never seen. And I still am."
Cory tries to push aside the immense feelings of guilt and sadness this statement has stirred up in his belly. He sits down on the edge of the bed and keeps his voice low and steady, still trying to soothe the rabbit. "Look at everything you've accomplished in the last few years. You're not whoever you were back then."
"Yeah, and look at last night. Give me an inch and I will fuck things up. I will fuck myself up and take everybody around me with me."
"You had too much to drink. In your own apartment. You threw up. You went to sleep. Who did you hurt?" Even as he says this, Cory realizes that Shawn's thinking the same thing Cory's been thinking since last night: Shawn's always just teetering on the edge between one lousy night and out-and-out destruction.
"Fuck. Fuck!" Shawn kicks the bed. "Look at me! Jesus Christ, I'm a fucking mess. I sold more books last year than any other writer in America and I can't even get them to guarantee me a goddamn life insurance policy. Look at me!" He jabs himself roughly in the ribs in emphasis. "Risk, risk, risk! I'm just a big, fucking risk! I shouldn't be allowed near anybody..."
"Shawn..."
"Goddammit, my head hurts. I need some air." Shawn grabs some clothes quickly and starts pulling them on while making his way to the front door.
Cory scrambles after him. "Don't run away, Shawn. Don't do this!"
Shawn gives him a tired look as he puts on his coat and steps into his boots. "I'm not running away. Don't worry. I'm just going for a walk."
"Please..." Cory reaches out to stop him as he's stepping out the door but Shawn shrugs him off.
"I'll be back," he says and closes the door behind him.
While Shawn is gone, Cory fixes himself a drink (when in Rome...) and settles into the sofa to think.
This is what life with Shawn would be like: drama and self-destruction and worry. Is this what you want? Would you give up everything in your life to have this?
Cory puts his feet up on the coffee table and leans back, sips his drink, and closes his eyes. He tries to imagine what he would be doing back home right now. Laundry, maybe. Checking the job listings (god, he hasn't checked the job listings in days). Looking up stupid stuff on the internet. Writing up a shopping list. Telling himself not to think. Thinking is dangerous when he's home alone. It always just leads to hating himself or thinking about things (or people) he shouldn't.
It occurs to him that he's been forgetting to hate himself this week. He's done plenty of thinking about how much he hates his life, but he hasn't done much thinking about how much he hates himself. It's surprising to realize this. It feels...good.
Is this the life you want?
I don't know.
He tries to imagine how he would fit in here. Would it just be a series of days like this-Cory waiting and worrying, hoping Shawn comes back from whatever dramatic tear he's gone off on, hoping Shawn doesn't do anything thing too stupid? But didn't he already have this life? How much of the first twenty-one years of his life did Cory spend waiting and worrying on Shawn? And he always came back. Except that last time and Cory doesn't want to think about any of the things that happened after Shawn left and didn't come back that last time. Every new detail he finds out about that period of Shawn's life just breaks his heart that much more. And Cory can't help but feel responsible for those years.
And yet...Despite the drama, despite Shawn breaking his heart a tiny bit more with each new reveal of information, despite all that, Cory feels oddly content sitting here. Maybe even happy. He is in his wheelhouse, after all. There's nothing in his life that Cory does better than manage Shawn's drama. It feels nice to be needed again. No wonder he's felt so empty these past eight years. The one thing he does better than anything has been missing.
But is this happiness? Is it possible for you to ever be happy at all?
After an hour or so, Cory hears Shawn's key in the door and his heart leaps up. Shawn shuffles in and sits down beside him still wearing his coat. His cheeks are ruddy from the cold and Cory warms them with his palms, making Shawn smile.
"I'm sorry," Shawn says.
"I love you," Cory replies.
Shawn slips off his coat and settles in deeper to the sofa. When he speaks his voice is much more calm than earlier and the first thing he says sounds as if he's been rehearsing it in his head for several blocks prior. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I had no idea how to talk about it. And I was worried if you found out you'd just try to fix everything."
Cory wedges himself in beside him so they are shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip. "What's so wrong with trying to fix things?"
"Sometimes they can't be fixed."
Cory rolls his eyes. He feels like they've been having this same disagreement their whole lives. Everything can be fixed. Shawn just never believes it. "I'm not going to let you just say 'everything is awful' and act like we can just stop talking about this. I want to know the whole story."
Shawn holds up his hands in surrender.
"So, we left off with you being a terrible, horrible person," Cory says.
"Yes, I'm scum."
"Great. Why did Anna decide to tell you about Sadie now if you're such scum?"
"She didn't. She still thinks I'm scum. Her sister contacted me. I guess she finally found out who Sadie's dad is and when she heard who I was...well, she feels pretty strongly that Sadie's entitled to some of my money."
"She is."
"Of course she is. Anna won't take anything from me, though. She said she's going to get a restraining order if I even try contacting her again at this point. But don't worry-" Shawn sits forward, "I've taken care of things. I'm working it out with my lawyer and we're putting together a trust for her when she's eighteen. The money from the apartment sale, all the options money, a percentage of the books and merchandising...she's never gonna have to worry about college and she can travel, buy a place, whatever she wants. She won't have to worry about any of that. I can make that happen for her, Cory, and I feel good about that."
"That's great, Shawn."
"I'm going to take care of her one way or another. Whether Anna wants me to or not. She can't stop me once Sadie's eighteen."
"She can't stop you now. What's your lawyer doing about getting you your rights? Money's great and everything, but what about you getting to see her?"
Shawn sinks back into the sofa and says softly, "I'm not trying to see her."
"What?"
"I'm not. Anna's right on that. I just want her to let me help the best way I can."
"The best way you can? Shawn, money doesn't make everything better."
"Money makes a lot of things better. You'd know that if you never had any."
Cory wants to strangle him. Money's always been such a big hang-up for Shawn and it's so typical that he's hiding behind it now, using it to block all logic. "Well, sure," Cory says, "but it's not a replacement for being her dad."
Shawn sighs. "I don't have any business trying to be somebody's dad. I'd just fuck it up. I'd mess her up. I just...no, Anna's right about that. She's better off not having a dad."
"Not an hour ago you told me that you hated that she had to be a kid without a dad. How is that better than having you now?"
Shawn is quiet for a minute and Cory turns to look at him. There are circles under his eyes and stubble outlining the sharpened angles of his face. The gel in his hair from yesterday has stiffened it overnight into a waxy, haphazard mess. He looks like shit. He looks like he has spent the last two months being as cruel as he possibly could to himself.
Finally, Shawn speaks. "Look at me and Jack. He didn't know his dad and he was a lot better off for it. He didn't end up fucked-up like me."
"This is a completely different situation. You're not your dad."
"Oh, yes I am. I am exactly like him."
"You're not perfect, Shawn, but you're not like him. You would never do to your kid what he did to you."
They both fall silent. Cory had only meant to refer to Chet's failings as a father in a general sense but he realizes with some horror that he's unintentionally implied something else. They have never spoken about whether or not Shawn's dad ever raised a hand to him. Cory never knew if it was true-the idea hadn't even occurred to him until Topanga mentioned offhand once a few years back that she'd always suspected Chet Hunter was a mean drunk. Now Shawn's silence seems to confirm this. Great. One more heartbreaking thing he's learned about his friend this week.
"You would never leave her," Cory clarifies belatedly.
Shawn closes his eyes and puts his head back. "I already left her."
"Yeah, but you didn't do it on purpose."
"Cory, even if I had known at the time, I probably still would have left. I was hellbent on getting as far away and as fucked up as I could and nothing could have stopped me."
"But you're not that person anymore."
"Of course I am. I am always just one little slip-up away from becoming that person again. The only thing reliable about me is that I will reliably fuck up again. I will always find a way to do that. Look at me. Ever since I found out about Sadie I've been sliding backwards. I'm falling apart. It's already started."
"You're not falling apart. You're scared."
"I'm fucking terrified. And I don't have a good track record of handling that well."
"Well, you've been trying to do it all alone. I'm here now. I'm going to help you whether you like it or not."
"You're going to be gone next week."
"I'm here now."
"Oh, great," Shawn says, almost to himself, "You're doing that thing you always do."
"What?"
"You're ignoring your own problems by focusing on mine."
"I don't do that."
"You've always done that. I don't know what you did with yourself all those years I wasn't around. Other than giving strange men head in the Target bathroom. Guess that's a good way to avoid your problems too."
Cory grumbles but doesn't say anything in response to that.
"Anyway," Shawn stands up then with an air of finality, "I gotta get to work. You should go out and do something. Topanga's gonna kill me if she finds out I made you spend your whole vacation playing nursemaid."
Shawn heads into his office and Cory remains in the living room for a while. Then he puts on his outerwear and prepares to leave and find something to do. He pokes his head into the office before he goes.
"You gonna be okay?"
Shawn is already deep in concentration over his laptop. He waves Cory away with some annoyance. "Go. Have fun."
"Yeah," Cory says. He buttons up his coat and heads out.
Cory gets a danish and a hot chocolate and watches ice skaters at Rockefeller Center, another touristy activity he never took part in while living in New York. It's oddly relaxing, watching strangers go round, alternately gliding and stumbling. He decides that he's going to talk Shawn into going skating here before the week is over. Shawn always loved skating.
When he needs to warm up, Cory starts wandering in and out of stupidly pricey stores. He sees a handbag that reminds him of Topanga-it's exactly the type of thing she'd like and suddenly, more than anything, he needs to talk to her. He ducks out of the boutique and into a bodega where his being on a cellphone will be less annoying. He's surprised and relieved when she picks up.
"Shawn has a kid," he blurts out before she even says anything. Then he proceeds to tell her the whole story, carefully leaving out anything to do with himself. He doesn't specify what led to Shawn's years of self-destruction, but tells her about his drug use and sleeping his way through New York, Europe, and Asia. He tells her about the head injury that prompted Shawn to join NA and how things had been seemingly going well in the years since then until Anna's sister contacted him in November and told him about Sadie. He tells her about Anna refusing to let him have anything to do with Sadie and Shawn's incomprehensible willingness to go along with this.
"I think he's been alone too long," Cory says as he finishes bringing her up to speed, "He's all caught up in his own head and in his head it makes perfect sense to him that Sadie's better off not knowing him."
"Is he sure she's his? There's a lot of people who would take the opportunity to target somebody as rich and well-known as he is now."
"I've seen her picture. There's no doubt that's his kid."
"Well, they're still going to need to do a paternity test. That's just how it works. Especially if it's contested and he's not on the birth certificate."
"God, it's like an episode of Maury."
"No offense to Shawn, but his whole life's always been like an episode of Maury."
Cory laughs a little to himself. "He used to always say all his family get-togethers were like an episode of COPS."
Topanga's tone softens a little. "How's he doing? He's going to pieces, isn't he?"
"You should see him. It's just awful."
There is a moment where she doesn't say anything and he can hear her typing. Then an email notification dings on his phone.
"I just sent you the contact info for my friend Sheila. She's doing family law in Manhattan now. Pretty high-profile stuff. Shawn should get in touch with her. He needs a lawyer who specializes in this. Sheila's great."
Cory's heart swells with sudden gratitude. "Thank you," he says.
"Of course. Tell him if he wants to talk about it, he can give me a call. It's not my area, but I can give him a pretty good idea of what he's probably looking at."
"Thank you. I'll tell him that. If I can talk any sense into him at all."
"Cory? Are you having any vacation at all?"
"Yeah, I-what do you mean?"
"Well, I just want to make sure you're still managing to have some quality time away and not letting everything get sucked up into Shawn's vortex of drama. I wanted you to have some time to just relax and be happy on this trip."
"I'm happier than I've been in years!" The second the words pass out of Cory's mouth, he instantly regrets them.
There is silence on the line.
"Wow," she says finally.
"Topanga...I didn't mean-"
"That says something, doesn't it?"
"Topanga..."
"Listen, Cory, I have to go. We'll talk about this later."
"Please, wait-"
"Also, I should tell you that I didn't get the next round of injections and I've stopped taking the pills."
"What? Why?"
"Because I'm starting to think this is not a good time for us to be trying to bring another life into this family."
Cory is speechless. Topanga sounds like she's about to cry. "Anyway," she continues, "We'll talk about this later. I really do have to go."
She hangs up. Cory just stands there in this Manhattan bodega, staring at his phone. Shit.
Cory gets back to the apartment just as the sun is setting. His stomach is growling and he's preparing himself for a fight to drag Shawn out to dinner. But when he gets inside, Shawn is making spaghetti. There's some sort of lively classical music playing and Shawn is wearing an apron while stirring a pot of red sauce. He leans over and gives Cory a kiss before returning his attention to the stove.
Cory can feel a stupid grin taking over his face as he removes his boots and takes in this little tableau of domestic happiness. Everything that has been occupying his mind for the past few hours fades away.
"It's just jar sauce," Shawn says apologetically.
"It's great." Cory takes a seat at the bar and watches Shawn drain the pasta. Cory stops himself from intervening as Shawn clicks off the burners and starts to pour the pasta into the sauce pan instead of the other way around. As Cory knew it would, the smaller pot overflows slightly, but Shawn takes it in stride. It's not the first time this week that Cory has wondered how Shawn has managed to live alone so long and not yet burn an apartment down. There's still time, though, he supposes, to find out more secrets. There's probably a burned down apartment story still to come.
Shawn plates them up two dinners with a touching amount of care and then takes a seat beside him at the bar. "I know there's a million great Italian places in the city I could take you to, and I'm obviously no great cook, but I wanted to do something nice for you."
"Really, this is perfect."
They eat in companionable silence, the record continuing to play until it eventually runs out. Shawn gets up to flip it over and when he comes back, he doesn't sit back down. Instead he stands at the bar uneasily.
"What's up?" Cory asks.
Shawn smiles slightly uncomfortably. "So, I've been thinking a lot these past few days about what would make you happy," he begins.
"Oh, you have?"
"Yes. And I mean, it's not like just taking up meditation or racquetball is gonna do it. You know, it's not like that's what is missing from your life. It's not that simple a thing."
"Okay..."
"And so I've been thinking and thinking and thinking about it and I think the thing-one of the big things, at least-that could really help is if you had some reason to get up in the morning. Like, something you really wanted to do, every day. I mean, I have it with my writing, right? I love the hell out of those stories; I love making them happen. So even though I have nothing else in the world I want to get up for-no partner I love, no kids or pets to take care of, no co-workers counting on me, no family-I still get out of bed every day because I want to see what happens to that dumb kid in the book. I want to see where I end up taking him."
Cory is just smiling, waiting to see where this is going.
"So I thought about what you like to do. What things always made you happy, what you loved. And I remembered how when we were in high school you really wanted to be a filmmaker. And how that sort of got pushed to the side after you guys got engaged and you started thinking you had to be this good provider suburban dad type. And I know, I know, it's not like you're just gonna drive into Hollywood and start making movies, or something, but I thought maybe you might find doing some kind of film work interesting. More interesting than insurance, anyway, which doesn't seem to be working out all that great from the sounds of it."
Shawn reaches into the pocket of his jeans and pulls out a paper and unfolds it. "Anyway, I got in touch with my friend Tom this afternoon. He, uh, works in film production. Advertising stuff, but it's a lot steadier than movie work, actually, from what he says. And he could, if it was at all something you were interested in, take you on in this editing position he's hiring for. It's entry-level stuff, doesn't pay much, but according to Tom it's a really great way to learn a lot and get your foot in the door. He says it's the kind of thing that if you did well at you could really start moving up from there pretty quickly."
Cory is flabbergasted. Shawn gives him another nervous smile and then continues talking a mile a minute.
"And, yeah, it's in New York and I fully understand that there's a 99% chance that you're going back to California next week but...well, it's an option if for any reason you decided you might want to stay. But if you didn't...you know, if you do go back to California and that's all great and everything, Tom did give me the names of some folks he knows in L.A. who you can contact and he says he could easily set you up with something like that out there."
Shawn stops then and waits for some response from Cory. When Cory says nothing, Shawn starts babbling again.
"I mean, it's just an idea. Obviously, you might not want to be starting at the bottom in some other industry. I'm sure you need a 401k and all that stuff and you probably haven't even thought about the filmmaking thing since high school and it's just me being an idiot and remembering some dumb thing from our childhood and still thinking it must be true but..." He cuts himself off and pushes the paper across the counter to Cory. "Well, there's Tom's contact info and the stuff for the guys in California. You can do whatever you want with it."
Cory stares at the notebook paper with Shawn's scrawly handwriting on it.
"Please say something," Shawn begs.
"I really don't know what to say."
"Okay, I overstepped my bounds. I'm sorry. It was just an idea."
"That is the nicest thing anybody's done for me in a really long time."
Shawn gives a little relieved smile. "Really?"
Cory grabs the bib of the apron, pulls Shawn toward him and kisses him deeply.
Two Roads Diverged
Previously:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Next:
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12