New Fic: Break My Heart, Sometimes (BMW)
Break My Heart, Sometimes
Fabella, rated adult/mature.
Boy Meets World, Cory/Shawn, M/M, Post-Series.
Shawn never expected anything, but he wanted it.
Complete, 6,678 words.
*
It’s okay to lead me on.
I must admit it’s not much fun,
to be lead on by such a one,
as you are.
--As You Are (Travis)
*
On the night Cory’s divorce was final, Shawn bought him the just divorced the love of my life drinks at one of the bars near their apartment. A game played on the television in the front, and a series of boos and hisses followed a bad play, before the audience cheered their depression with another round of beer. Familiar faces worked in and out of the overstuffed crowd, claiming seconds only from Shawn, who despite coming here with Cory on the weekends for the past five months, knew none of their names.
Mostly, he and Cory came here to be alone with each other.
Tonight, Shawn had nursed a single Molson for over an hour, and watched Cory carefully for signs of the inevitable mental meltdown. It had to be coming any minute now, because if it didn’t, Shawn himself was going to scream until his throat ripped open and he finally breached Cory’s surface. Unnatural calm surrounded Cory like bubble wrap, and Shawn wanted to poke at him, burst the small pockets of air sheltering Cory’s hysterics.
“I’m okay,” Cory had said softly outside the courthouse, breathing white puffs, face to the sky. Then, to Shawn, “It’s gonna snow soon, I think. I need to get new tires.”
He’d flipped the collar of his jacket up and started for the truck, the shiny shoes he wore crunching over the dead leafs pockmarking the parking lot. Shawn followed behind him more slowly, shaken by Cory’s blankness, and saw, from the corner of his eye as he opened the passenger door, Topanga crying on her steering wheel. Shoulders bouncing, hair draped over her clenched fists, and Shawn could say, that, right there, was love, the wretched, hurting kind.
Shawn had felt for her, deeply, a twisted bump of sympathy in his gut, because who knew her predicament better than him, but it had been her choice to leave Cory, after all. And Cory had fought, and fought it, like a man with only one goal in life, until finally, one day, he’d just stopped. And Shawn blamed her for that, for being so uncharacteristically stupid that she could shove Cory out the door, and live with herself. Shawn was Cory’s anyway, even after all these years, was the one possession besides the truck that Cory had wanted to keep. Topanga would get that. She understood logic.
They were sitting in a booth near the rear of the bar, hidden from prying eyes by giant potted plants that shadowed over them. Before them sat a neat row of shot glasses and a pile of quarters that Cory had stacked and re-stacked about twenty times.
“I just think you should talk about it,” Shawn said.
Cory bounced a quarter into one shot glass, eyes beginning to look dim and glassy.
“What’s to talk about, exactly? I knew this was coming. And now it’s here. Finished, Shawn. Done. No more Topanga.”
No more Topanga.
That was the crux of the problem. Cory wasn’t supposed to excel at change.
And yet, a year and a half ago, when the divorce papers came in the mail, Cory had signed them without fuss. He’d parked himself at the kitchen table, scratching a pen across page after page, while Shawn spooned spaghetti out of a big bowl onto two plates, pretending he wasn’t flinching each time Cory rustled the papers or sighed. And then Cory had moved the documents aside, dragged his dinner plate close, and completely disregarded any attempt from Shawn to make him feel better. Stubbornly, Cory hadn’t cried once since that day. Repression worked in curious ways, Shawn had found.
“I’ll buy you another shot,” Shawn said eventually, hailing the waitress.
She was in her mid-twenties, blonde, and stacked. Some lucky gene had gifted her with the kind of figure that could make a man bite his fist and cry thanks. And Shawn was bored already. Purely for show, he slung his arm along the back of the booth, and tried a little flirtation on to see how it fit. Dusty, he found, and cobweb-y.
She seemed only mildly interested. If nothing better came along, he’d have a chance. Shawn couldn’t blame her. The equipment, sometime between Cory walking to the bathroom in his boxers every morning and the two of them eating dinner together every night, had gotten well and truly fried. Or fucked. Something.
Shawn gave up, and ordered. No big deal. He didn’t have the energy to care about rejection, not when Cory was single and unattached for the first time in ever. Shawn couldn’t imagine being balls deep in some anonymous woman when he knew in his mind he’d be worrying about Cory the entire time, wanting to be wherever he was. The waitress wrote something on her notepad, then tore off a sheet of paper, slapping it on the table.
“I’ll be right back with your drinks,” she said cooly.
Service with a smile, it wasn’t.
Shawn shrugged it off, didn’t care for the hard to get game, but Cory began to giggle uncontrollably, completely oblivious to Shawn’s lethal glare. He was too busy enjoying the numb ignorance of drunken fools everywhere.
“I’m glad to see my amazing shrinking ego is amusing to you.”
Shawn picked up one of the quarters, bouncing it right into the well of the glass. It hit the bottom with a sharp chime, and Shawn thought, make a wish, but didn’t bother trying. He’d stopped wishing for what he couldn’t have at about age three, when he’d gotten a bicycle seat for Christmas instead of the bicycle he’d hoped for. Some things he would never forgive his dead father for, but sometimes, looking back from the eyes of the adult, he understood why Chet’s expression had always been more disappointed on Christmas morning than Shawn’s own.
Cory was still laughing.
“Yuck it up, my little Cory, for tomorrow, your head will hurt much more than my shame. And I’ll make sure I’m very, very loud.”
Cory held his head, snorting back his laughter.
“I’m sorry,” he giggled. “It’s just. I’m a little drunk, maybe.”
“You think?” Shawn softened. “One more drink, and then I’m taking you home before that big skull of yours falls off.”
“Good idea.” Cory nodded with exaggerated caution. “But you don’t have to babysit me. I can handle it. I’ve got it under complete control.”
“It’s cool,” Shawn said, and Cory dropped his hands.
“No, really.” He leaned forward earnestly, face open and friendly. “I don’t plan on throwing myself off any tall buildings tonight. Go pick someone up before your love life becomes as sad and stagnant as my own.”
It already was. Shawn turned from Cory’s shiny eyes.
“Didn’t I just say it was cool?” Behind the bar, the waitress talked to the bartender as he poured Cory’s drink. Her short hair did a flippy thing all the way around, would probably look good wrapped up in his hands as she sucked him. Big red lips that would look soft and messy after a workout. And Shawn wanted none of it. “And by cool, I didn’t mean, for example, uncool.”
As usual, Cory wasn’t listening. He plowed on ahead, practically climbing over the table to grip Shawn’s forearms with warm, slick palms.
“You don’t have to come home with me. She was doing the hot/cold thing, with the hot, and the cold, and brrrrr. Trust me, man, I know a lot about that. Next thing you know, she’ll have her tongue down your throat. Swimming around. Ugh. Yeah. I feel sick.”
Cory flopped back, looking nauseous, and the top few buttons on his shirt were undone, revealing Cory’s sharp collarbone, the dipping line between his pectoral muscles. Shawn’s jaw cracked from tension, and he grabbed his Molson with the hand that had begun to twitch on the table.
“Drop it,” Shawn said, and took a swig of beer.
From the corner of his eye, Shawn saw Cory’s wobbly nod. They fell into silence, Cory destroying the pile of quarters only to rebuild the stack, Shawn watching covertly under his lashes. Six years, living under this trapdoor Shawn hadn’t watched out for, and Cory still hadn’t figured out what even Topanga had about Shawn’s poetry. Shawn sighed and pulled his jacket to him on the seat, digging a handful of change out of the pocket and dropping it on the table.
“I can’t use pennies,” Cory said mulishly.
And now comes the pouting, Shawn thought. Lots of fun.
The waitress came back with a tray, and placed a new shot glass in front of Cory, alongside the rest. She smiled a little as she took and counted Shawn’s money, and it wasn’t exactly a tongue down Shawn’s throat, but it was the hot to the previous cold. For an instant, Shawn was actually tempted. It would be so easy to fall into that pattern of self-destructive non-relationships again. But just because he couldn’t have what he really wanted didn’t mean he had to fuck his way casually through the tri-state area. Shawn didn’t smile back, and hers flickered away into confusion.
“Maybe I can use the pennies,” Cory admitted, when she was gone.
Shawn allowed himself to laugh. Cory smiled at him with boyish pleasure, teeth neat and even like the rest of him, right down to the boxers that six days out of seven matched his shirt. Straight men shouldn’t be allowed to have smiles like that.
“Do your shot,” Shawn said. “We should go.”
Cory’s bottom lip poked out, but he complied, slamming the shot, then shuddering as it burned a path down his throat. Shawn’s mouth quirked up as he stood, putting on his jean jacket. Cory got to his feet too quickly, and put a palm on the table to steady himself when he almost fell sideways. That the table had been there to catch him was purely luck on Cory’s part.
“Ouch,” Cory said, shaking his head like a wet beagle. “The floor just tried to attack me.”
“It does that.” Shawn tossed Cory his coat. He sighed when it ended up on the floor instead of in Cory’s hands, and moved behind Cory to help him put it on. After, Shawn slid his hands firmly down Cory’s back, digging his fingers in, feeling the muscles. Cory arched under the touch, and Shawn pressed his forehead against the top knot of Cory’s spine. “You balanced enough to walk, yet?”
Cory let out a shaky breath. “Sure. Walking is good.”
Shawn’s knees weren’t so sure about that, but he patted Cory between his shoulder blades anyway, and gave him a tiny shove forward.
“Onward,” Shawn said.
The waitress gave them an odd look as they passed her in the long hallway to the front of the bar. Good thing Cory was drunk, because Shawn understood the meaning behind an expression like that: Oh. Gay. That explains it. And maybe he and Cory had dealt with a lot of gay jokes at their expense, but sometimes they cut a little too close, and tonight was one of those times. He smiled at her grimly, smoothing his hand over Cory’s hip, and she quickly averted her gaze, blushing in the dirty light.
Shawn would tell Cory in the morning that they should pick a different bar.
When they stepped outside, their breath fogged the air, and the music grew muffled as the door swung shut behind them. Cory put his hands in his coat pockets, cheeks almost immediately turning red, soon followed by his nose. He watched the traffic, face shadowed and blue from the electric Budweiser sign. Shawn stood by him, and wondered if this was when it all fell apart.
“I really loved her,” Cory said, hushed. “Really, really, a lot.”
Shawn put his arm around Cory’s shoulder. “Love sucks.”
Cory looked at him, and chuckled weakly. “Don’t it, though?”
“It’s pretty sucky, a big sucky love thing.”
“And you’re supposed to be a poet.” Cory dipped his head so that it rested on Shawn’s shoulder, and yawned hugely. “I’m really tired right now.”
“Well, I can’t carry you anymore,” Shawn said, and moved the arm on Cory’s shoulder down to his waist. “You’re bigger than me. Let’s walk as we talk.”
The apartment was only two blocks away, but half dragging a drunken man who stumbled more than he walked made that two blocks feel like two miles. When Cory began floundering diagonally across the sidewalk, directly in line with a telephone pole, Shawn grabbed two handfuls of his coat and swung him around. Cory’s weight propelled them to the wall of a building, and Cory landed against it with a hiccuping noise, face blank with shock as Shawn continued forward, right into Cory.
“Ow,” Cory said, disgruntled. “Bricks are hard.”
“Sorry.”
Only, not so much.
They stared at each other too long, and Shawn couldn’t bring himself to move away from the warmth of Cory’s chest. Even through their winter clothing, Shawn could feel the thumping of Cory’s heart, and could have sworn that it picked up speed when he cushioned Cory’s shaven head with his arm, huddling them even closer together.
Footsteps passed them quickly, but there was no room left inside Shawn for any other emotion, especially one as useless as embarrassment.
“Mmm, warm,” Cory murmured, eyelashes dragging.
Shawn watched Cory’s lips, choked out, “Yeah.”
If he just. If he could just. If only once.
No.
“We should get a dog,” Cory said, randomly.
Shawn moved back an inch, so that he could feel Cory’s heat, but he wasn’t touching him anywhere except for his arm behind Cory’s head, his hand on Cory’s hip. The belt was cool under his hand, the hip beneath the jeans hot, and Cory’s eyes remained shut, eyelashes tangled together.
“You want a dog?”
“I want a dog,” Cory confirmed, breath whiting the air between them. “Don’t you want a dog?”
Shawn shrugged. “We could get a dog.”
“He’ll be all white, and we’ll call him Spot.”
Cory made no move to resume their walk, and it wasn’t like Shawn was going to be the first to break this kind of moment, so they stayed there, and more people passed, in groups, in couples, alone, and Shawn still wasn’t embarrassed. A dog, Shawn thought. That was permanent. If Cory had said, ‘I should get a dog,’ Shawn would feel less warm in all the spots a New York winter could make a guy cold. But Cory was so still and breathing so softly, and Cory wanted them to get a dog.
“Spot,” Shawn said. “I like that. But what if he’s not white?”
“Hmm,” was all Cory replied.
It overwhelmed Shawn, that sweet noise of content, but being overwhelmed was nothing new. Shawn was used to being overwhelmed by Cory, used to expecting nothing, wanting everything, and getting just a little. Two years ago, in the middle of the night, Cory had shown up on Shawn’s doorstep with a few bags, and even fewer explanations. He’d taken over Shawn’s couch, taken over Shawn’s daily life, and finally, taken over Shawn’s last flailing attempt to live in any kind of world separate from him. They became Shawn and Cory again. Cory and Shawn.
He’d known, that night when Cory hugged him in thanks, it was over for him.
Because overwhelming was just the way Cory did things. He took, but mostly he gave, and when he gave himself back to Shawn, it broke Shawn’s heart a little. He’d given up on all of that long ago. On a wedding day.
He thought he’d given up on all of that.
“Gonna fall asleep,” Cory croaked, and his weight grew heavy.
“Aw, hell, c’mon--”
Shawn scrambled forward, using the wall as leverage to get his arms under Cory’s before he sank to the ground. With some creative maneuvering, Shawn got Cory draped over him, “you have to help me here, Cor, give me your,” and Cory’s eyes fluttered open, pupils wide. Shawn did some fancy footwork as he towed Cory down the street, and Cory smiled like a dope.
“You are so smashed.”
Cory giggled.
Shawn sighed. “This is gonna be so useful as blackmail later, you have no idea.”
“Nuh-uh,” Cory muttered. The hand of the arm wrapped around Shawn’s shoulder was partway on his face, pinky nearly up Shawn’s nostril. “Nope, can’t, cause you love me. Love me, love me, love me.”
He would take the time to wince at that later
“Sure, pal. You’re the shit.”
“Nooooo. Shawn. You loooooooove me.”
And then Cory licked the side of Shawn’s neck.
A wet hot curving blade of tongue that Cory applied just where it would hurt the most, like he knew where the ache was waiting. Shawn gasped, eyes squeezed shut, went nuts inside, and stumbled over a raised block of pavement, nearly dropping them both in the process. He untangled himself from Cory, shoving, pushing, leaving him swaying in the middle of the sidewalk as he sucked air into his lungs by the curb.
“Shawnie,” Cory said, then stumbled behind him.
Shawn flinched from the hand on his shoulder, panting as the red light holding back the traffic turned green, and the cars on his side of the street began moving again.
Cory lurched to Shawn’s side. “Hey, you’re really mad.”
“You think?”
“You love me. You can’t be mad at me. It’s against the rules.”
Shawn reached up, scratching the spot damp from Cory’s tongue.
“Admit it,” Cory said, playfully. This was a game to him.
Shawn spun wildly, blindly. Betrayed.
“That I’m mad at you?” Shawn stabbed a finger against Cory’s chest. “Yes! I’m mad, okay? You don’t go around licking people. If you’re gonna finally freak out about Topanga, choose another way. I’m not your personal chew toy.”
Cory swung his arms, sheepish. “But you do love me.”
And then he turned his eyes on Shawn, the soft ones, and damn it, Shawn was ugly here, these were his sore spots, and Cory had just poked his fingers inside.
“Fine!” Shawn grabbed Cory roughly and pushed him up the sidewalk. Almost home. He’d put Cory to bed, then take a shower. A long one. And Cory wouldn’t remember a single word Shawn had said tomorrow morning, thank God. “I love you, wanna have your babies, be with you forever. Satisfied? You idiot.”
“Is that,” Cory whispered, voice wobbly near Shawn’s ear. “Is that possible?”
“So, so drunk.”
This was just like Cory. What a screwed up way to react to finalizing the divorce, getting loaded then hitting on his male best-friend that for all he knew, was perfectly heterosexual without even the slightest deviation. Only Cory could go so over the top. Only Cory could be so on target without even trying.
Shawn did sex in any form it came at him in, and that included men, but Cory had never known that. He couldn’t have, could he? Shawn had hid it so well that sometimes he himself forgot, until a nice ass in a good pair of jeans came along, and reminded him. Beyond sex, though, he’d never been in a real relationship with a man, because that would have definitely gotten him caught. So Cory better not have known all along, or all that being careful would have been for nothing.
He hustled them the rest of the way, then leaned Cory against the outside wall while he unlocked the door to the apartment building. Up the stairs, flight after flight of spiraling steps, and Cory whimpering that all the turning made him dizzy. Shawn kept his arms around Cory for the entire climb, Cory leaning on him trustingly, letting Shawn take his weight as if he knew with absolute certainty that Shawn would never drop him.
Cory was right, Shawn couldn’t. He’d tried.
The apartment was dark when Shawn tugged Cory inside, still smelled of the hamburgers they’d had for dinner. He turned the light on with his elbow and shuffled around so he could shut the door with the weight of Cory’s body. Leaving him propped there, Shawn dropped to his knees right in the entry way, where slush had melted all over the floor, picking free the laces of Cory’s soaked sneakers.
“You should wear boots,” he said to Cory’s knees. “Do you like wet socks or something?”
He would have gone on, but there were fingers in his hair. Cory’s fingers. They scratched his head, then lovingly carded through the black strands, and Shawn was staring at the front of Cory’s jeans, a moan gathering mass in his throat. No, he couldn’t talk past lust like that. He swayed forward, his mouth grazing the chilled seam on Cory’s inner thigh.
“Always telling me what to do,” Cory mumbled, slurring toward the end.
Shawn jerked back instantly, breathing shallow. Cory was drunk, drunk like Cory never was, and this wouldn’t mean anything in the morning. And that would kill Shawn.
“Because I’m secretly the smart one,” Shawn said, vaguely.
“Not such a secret. My turn to be the pretty one.”
As Shawn stood, tossing Cory’s sneakers out of the way, his eyes dragged the length of Cory’s body. Cory’s legs were long, muscular beneath his jeans, his hips were pitched at an angle, and his cock was partially erect under the zipper. In one dream, Shawn had bitten Cory’s jeans open, tongued the head of Cory’s cock through his boxers, and made him come, soaking the fabric. Shawn’s eyes jumped to Cory’s lazy face, but there was only humor and lust there, not understanding.
“Once you got past the awkward stage,” Shawn said hazily, and began undoing Cory’s coat. “You turned out okay.”
If he could just focus on one thing at a time, like the buttons as they were released from the button holes, he might make it out of this alive, sane, and with their sixteen years of friendship still intact. He thought he might succeed, but Cory’s heat tangled him up, reached for him when Shawn pushed Cory’s coat off, dizzying him. Cory looked as ready to fuck as Shawn was, jaw drooping, the inside of his mouth dark and wet. Shawn swallowed, couldn’t take it, deal with it, or have it. Even if he could see himself forcing Cory to his knees, opening up Cory’s mouth with his cock, showing him exactly what he was asking for.
Cory deserved better than that.
Cory deserved the best, and that certainly wasn’t Shawn Hunter.
Shawn kicked his own boots off, threw his coat to the floor, then yanked Cory through the apartment with a brutal grip on his wrist. Cory trailed limply behind him, rag doll easy, until the dark closed around them again in the bedroom, and Shawn stopped. Cory bumped into his back, moved about an inch away and stayed there, hot breath misting Shawn’s neck. Shawn grimaced, pulling for strength.
“I’ll sleep on the couch tonight,” Shawn said, turning.
“You don’t have to.”
Shawn grunted, and began unbuttoning Cory’s shirt, fingers stiff on the plastic. Cory let him, arms at his side unresistantly, and Shawn told himself, firmly, no. The goose bumps that chased electrified hairs across Shawn’s body did not agree. He could do anything, anything at all, and Cory would just stand there, letting him. Shawn wet his lips, and hooked his fingers inside the two hanging flanks of Cory’s shirt, pushing it off his shoulders.
“Oh,” Shawn said, when the shirt landed on the carpet.
Yeah, just kill him, because he was already dead.
It wasn’t like he’d never seen Cory without a shirt. They lived together. Besides, they’d known each other forever. This was different. This was years of familiar white skin, the ripple of a scar above Cory’s flat, pink nipple, and Shawn’s cock throbbing. This was after Cory’s tongue had molested his neck. This was possible. And Shawn, another Shawn, could have put his tongue on one of those nipples, the nipples of another Cory, and licked, for an hour or so, until his whole jaw went numb. Shawn clenched his fists in the air near Cory’s muscled belly, fighting to show some restraint.
“I never knew how much,” Cory whispered, voice thrilled by discovery.
“How much what?”
Cory reached out, his big hands closing around Shawn’s cheeks, fingertips like whispers sliding into his hair. And Shawn was reeled in with a kiss as soft and breakable as the fine streetlight from the curtained window. Six years of walls, maybe more, of knowing how it could be and seeing how it actually was, and all it took was a kiss to bring them down. Shawn crumbled into Cory, arms falling upward, around Cory’s neck, his tongue tumbling past Cory’s teeth.
Gin on the inside of Cory’s cheeks said to stop, but Shawn bundled his body closer. Give Shawn a mile and he’d steal an entire county, then wonder what everyone else was doing on his land. And he wanted so much, was digging his nails into Cory’s shoulders, pulling him down, thinking, kiss harder, Cor, come on, yeah, like that. A kiss is just a kiss, that was true, and Shawn was just a poet. Poets knew the heart of things: Cory’s kiss was devastating. There wasn’t going to be anything left of Shawn after.
He’d be destroyed.
“No!” Shawn broke away, gasping, but Cory caught him.
“What?” Panicked. “What?”
Cory stroked his face, over and over. Fingers butterflied over Shawn’s cheek, his nose, his eyebrows, touches that Shawn would have recognized a hundred years later, from someone else’s hands. Shawn inhaled deeply, scenting warm skin, and nudged his forehead against Cory’s collarbone.
“You’re drunk,” Shawn croaked. “You’re. You’re.”
“Shh,” Cory whispered, thumb on Shawn’s earlobe, and tried to kiss him again.
Their lips grazed, feathered together. Shawn ripped free, taking back his own air, putting several feet of hardwood floor between them. Cory looked at him, mouth tight with deserted choices, before he abruptly wove around Shawn, dropping heavily to the bed. There he wilted visibly, bare shoulders hunching, fingers dangling between his knees, head sagging low.
“I’m doing you a favor,” Shawn said, standing stiffly.
Cory didn’t move. A whipped dog would have looked less abused.
Shawn inched toward him. “Cor, please.”
Cory lifted his head. “You want it. I know.”
“Yeah,” Shawn said angrily, unable to meet Cory’s probing gaze. “And then tomorrow, when you’re sober, we can have awkward silences, then a moral to the story, and for you, a thrilling adventure to tell everyone about when you’re ninety in a nursing home, and the people around you have a thirty second memory span.”
“They want you to take the rolls,” Cory mumbled.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, but sure.”
Cory’s mouth pursed stubbornly. Music turned on in the apartment next door, too loud, then softening as the neighbor quickly lowered the volume. The woman living there liked to listen to music late at night. Shawn had written a poem about it one night when he couldn’t sleep, and all there had been to do was listen to her dance. After, he had woke Cory to read it to him from the arm of the couch, and Cory had smiled sleepily, drawing the blanket tight under his chin, listening.
For an average guy, Cory could be extraordinarily beautiful.
No wonder Shawn had to touch, had to trace the buzz of Cory’s short hair from his temple to behind his ear, where it was beginning to curl again. For almost eight months Cory had worn it like this, trimmed to the scalp, and Shawn found he missed the wild curls, even if the shaved head made Cory look less like a miracle-gro experiment gone wrong, and more like an adult.
“Ritual cleansing,” Cory had said when Shawn asked who had abducted his curly-haired pal, and rubbed his scalp self-consciously. “That’s why I did it. Now leave me alone, Shawn, I’m indulging my latent male urge to blow shit up without any risk to my own physical well-being. And, unlike you, I haven’t beaten this level yet.”
Shawn’s fingers drifted to a pinkish scar no longer concealed by a ton of hair.
“I’m not trying to hurt you,” Shawn said. “You know that, right?”
Cory shivered, made a delicate, pained noise that cut through all the bullshit, and put a hole dead center in Shawn’s heart.
He was the poet, right?
Well, Cory was a fucking martyr, and it broke Shawn, sometimes.
“Aw, Cor.” Shawn pulled him in for a brief, hard hug, scrubbing both palms down the swoop of Cory’s back while Cory breathed hotly on his stomach. “Come on, my friend, let’s get you some sleep. You’ll feel better in the morning.”
When you’re not drunk, when it’s not the day you divorced the love of your life, and definitely when you’re not tempting your best friend down the road paved with desperate drunken sex, and apparently, rolls that someone wanted them to have.
Cory nodded, nose bumping Shawn’s ribs, and let Shawn push him onto his back. He stared at the ceiling while Shawn tugged his socks off, lifting his ass when Shawn pulled on the bottoms of his jeans, his movements sluggish and uncoordinated. When he was left in only his boxers, Cory rolled over on his side and tucked clasped hands under his head, staring at the wall.
Shawn tickled the bottom of his foot, and Cory barely kicked at him.
The woman began to dance next door, and Shawn sighed, before climbing over Cory on the bed, leaning on all fours above his body. Dangerous, but he couldn’t take it when Cory was hurting. He ignored the heat under him, the way his dick got hard again, and focused on Cory’s blank face. The only expression of Cory’s that Shawn despised.
“Hey, stop it,” he said.
Cory frowned at the wall.
“I hate it when you---” Shawn bounced forcefully, shaking the mattress, and Cory with it. “Snap out of it.”
“You can go now,” Cory said pointedly. “I’m drunk, not paraplegic.”
“You’re also suffering from what I like to call the heartbreak syndrome. I can smell it on you, Cor. It’s making you do these crazy things.”
“Crazy things.”
“Excuse me for being worried when you molest me on a street corner, and then continue to molest me just because I take your shirt off.”
Having put it like that, the molesting part made sense.
Cory’s eyes rebounded off the wall, burned to Shawn’s.
Stupid trapdoor.
Cory suddenly flipped onto his back and wrapped arms and legs around Shawn’s torso, burning pressure that forced Shawn down until all his weight was on Cory. Shawn groaned loudly, erection trapped between his stomach and Cory’s hip, feeling the matching one Cory was sporting. One of Cory’s hands moved up to lock their foreheads together, and it hurt, being held captive like this, unable to take what he wanted.
“It’s not like I don’t know, Shawn,” Cory said heatedly, drunk breath beating the front of his chin. “I tried not to. Forever, I’ve tried not to. Then Topanga. It stopped. And. You won’t let me not know.”
“Cory, don’t.”
Shawn struggled to get away even as his hips struggled to get closer, thrusting unevenly against the edge of Cory’s pelvic bone, and he was panting now, hands pushing at Cory’s shoulders. Cory was stronger than him, though, had hid all that strength behind sweaters and a boyish sense of humor for years. Cory put his hand on Shawn’s ass, fingers digging between the cheeks as far as the jeans would allow, and Shawn shuddered, trying not to come.
Cory flexed his thighs. “You wanted me to know.”
“Let me up,” Shawn gasped, straining up against the weight caging him. “You’re insane. You were married for several, loving years, and now, what, you get to randomly decide one night that gay sex is hot? I don’t think so.”
“Oh, whatever,” Cory shouted. “You fuck anything that has a hole!”
Anyone that turned him on, admittedly. Or he had, for a really long time. Loving Cory all these years hadn’t stopped that.
“At least I’m consistent,” Shawn muttered, teeth gritted.
Cory exhaled sharply, head dropping to the pillow, eyes closing.
“Forget it,” Cory said, letting his arms and legs fall slackly to the mattress. “You’re right, I am drunk, I have no idea what I’m talking about. Consider it a deviation from the norm. We’ll return to our previously scheduled programming tomorrow.”
“But.”
Shawn snapped his mouth shut before the objection could escape, nodding tightly. He’d trained himself well in the art of handling his feelings for Cory, but his masochistic side was showing. Or maybe he was simply disappointed that Cory hadn’t tried harder to convince him, so that he could have given in, and blamed the persuasion when Cory asked him what the hell he’d been thinking in the sobering light of the next day.
“It’s not,” Shawn said. “It’s not that I don’t.”
Because he did. He really fucking did.
Cory nodded and scrubbed a hand over his face.
“I already told you, Shawn. I know. I’m gonna go to sleep now, alright?”
Shawn crept off him, sweating where their skin touched. “Sure.”
Forcibly not thinking, he helped Cory get under the covers, then stood for a minute, angled over the bed, his hand rubbing Cory’s hip under the checkered comforter. Taking care of him like he had since the first day of their friendship, when he’d rescued Cory from the Llama pen at the zoo. Cory’s body heat radiated through the cotton, and Shawn couldn’t leave yet. The couch seemed very far away, one mile of footsteps too many. Cory looked up at him with unreadable eyes for a while, before putting his hand on Shawn’s, stilling the motion.
“Wanna kiss me one more time?”
God, yes. Shawn bent instantly, and rubbed his lips across Cory’s, then urged the kiss wide. They kissed slowly, moving deeply inside each other’s mouth. If this was all Shawn could ever have, he wanted to make it count. They kissed for a long time, with one of Shawn’s knees on the mattress, while the woman’s dance steps slowed to the change in the music, something sultry and agonizing. When Shawn finally pushed away, peeling his eyelids open, Cory was breathing evenly, eyes open only a sliver.
“Night, Cor.”
Cory’s eyes shut completely, and at the end of a long exhale, he was asleep.
Shawn sat on the end of the mattress with his head in his hands, shaking a little as he wondered for the millionth time why Topanga had divorced Cory, until finally, the woman next door turned off the music, and went to bed. Shawn turned down his thoughts out of courtesy for the noise regulations, took a shower, a sleeping pill, and fell into a joyless sleep.
*
Somehow, in some foggy dream state, Shawn’s dick discovered Cory’s mouth. Or perhaps it was the other way around. Anyway, when Shawn woke up on the couch, his underwear was long gone, sunlight was highlighting the blonde in Cory’s short, dark hair, and Cory’s head was buried between Shawn’s widely splayed thighs, tongue on his balls.
Shawn’s brain crackled warningly in his ear drums, and broke.
“Ungh,” Shawn said, and meant, What the fuck? --- but also, Stop and you die!
Cory’s head lifted anyway, and he smiled when he saw that Shawn was awake.
“Morning,” Cory said, roughly, sun on his face.
“You,” Shawn gasped. “That’s. Very good. You should continue.”
Screw the heartbreak issues Cory was dealing with. He wasn’t drunk now, and Shawn guessed that was about as good as it was gonna get. Shawn’s masochistic streak only went so far, and after that, Shawn was all about getting what he wanted. The corner of Cory’s mouth tipped up, and Shawn’s hips rose toward that crooked grin. Begging was so pathetic, and Shawn hated pathetic, but he did it anyway, guiding Cory’s mouth to his cock with a hand on Cory’s cheek, a quiet please nudging his tongue against his top front teeth.
Cory’s lips opened, red from sleep, blurry looking, and he took Shawn most of the way inside. That remaining inch didn’t matter, because Cory’s hand was there, ringing the base of Shawn’s cock. It was like falling down a wishing well, a fantasy granted, and Shawn had no idea why Cory was doing this, but he locked his ankles around Cory’s waist and knotted his hands in his own hair so that he couldn’t push Cory farther, faster, harder.
He wanted this to be good for Cory, too, not scary like Shawn’s first time sucking a guy off had been. It didn’t matter that the slow suction was killing him, because a guy couldn’t die twice, that was against some sort of natural law, and Shawn had already died last night. Let Cory do what he wanted. He’d stick around longer that way.
“Watch the,” Shawn ground out, when Cory snagged Shawn with his teeth. “No, no, it’s fine, don’t stop.”
Cory was obviously a first timer, and that was sexy somehow, like Cory was actually Shawn’s now, because Shawn’s cock was in his mouth. Shawn owned him in this one, small way. Owned the way Cory breathed desperately through his noise, made that faint noise of hunger, and surprise, and enjoyment when he tasted precum. Shawn started fucking his mouth faster, riding Cory’s tongue, definitely pushing things, and then, suddenly, not even fifteen thrusts in, it was over.
Shawn cried out. Not Cory’s name, but a sound that meant the same, said Cory in one, strung out syllable.
On the wrong side of twenty, and he was shaking in the aftermath, thighs trembling, heart wobbling on its axis. He’d never come so quickly before, and he’d had his share of blow jobs by guys and girls alike. Although, none of them had been anything like this one, from his best friend, sweet almost. Coming down the other side, he untangled his fingers from his hair, scalp throbbing from the rough treatment, and strained down to stroke the edges of Cory’s stretched lips.
Cory had pulled back so that just the tip of Shawn’s cock was in his mouth while he swallowed Shawn’s come, and now he pulled all the way off, licking the glistening tip a final time as if to say, see ya later, catching Shawn’s fingertips in the process. Shawn winced, sensitive, and Cory took pity, shifting up over him, warm and heavy, as the sunshine grew steadily brighter, breaking in through the thin curtains.
“Can I be gay, now?” Cory asked, grinning. “I want my secret decoder ring.”
Shawn choked on startled laughter, the bright sunshine kind of laughter. Unable to contain himself, too full of this weird joy, he reached up, grabbing Cory by the nape of his neck, where the skin was slick, tiny hairs flattened. He brought their faces so close his own eyes crossed, angling his nose alongside Cory’s, bumping them gently.
“A little bit bisexual, maybe.” He bit Cory’s upper lip, breathed wet air on it. “But then, who could blame you? I’m pretty prime material after all.”
“Jesus, that’s sexy,” Cory muttered, after. “I knew you would be.”
Cory let more of his weight settle on Shawn, trusting Shawn’s slighter form to hold him. Trust, now that was something cool to be had, Shawn thought, and let Cory kiss him for a long time. He really wished there was someone around to witness this moment, because Shawn felt happy, kind of bubbly in the lung region, left of the heart, and he wanted someone to see that about him. And then he opened his eyes, and Cory’s face was above his, slack with unfulfilled arousal, and - okay, epiphany time.
Someone did.
Cory saw that about him.
Everything else aside- Topanga, Cory’s family, Shawn’s dysfunctional roots, and hell, even Angela, who was long gone- that made Shawn’s entire life. Questions would come later.
After, sometime after, a week or so, they were buried beneath the blankets in the middle of the afternoon, sweating and dripping on each other, whispering secrets just like they had since they were kids, - I wrote them about you - Topanga said that, actually - She left because she knew - I figured that one out already, Cor - except this time with nudity, and cocks, and sticky bellies. Their fort slipped, and Shawn rebuilt it, pulling the blanket back over their heads. Their fronts got reacquainted as Shawn spread himself over Cory like a web, and put his mouth near Cory’s ear, brushing the outer shell with his nose.
“Hey, Cor?”
Cory yawned. “Yeah, Shawn?”
“Just so you know, I’ll probably fuck us up.”
Cory breathed on Shawn’s neck for the next few minutes. Shawn decided Cory had either fallen asleep or decided not to respond, but Cory surprised him, made it all better like only Cory could. He wrapped his arms around Shawn’s lower back, and held on.
“That’s okay,” Cory said, and the way he held Shawn, as though he’d never let go, belied his light tone. “I’m good at fixing us.”
*
End
*
Notes:
The title is inspired by a random line from Shawn to Cory in a random season two episode---“You break my heart, sometimes, Cor.”---that has no actual connection to this story, except that it fits, it sounds good, and I like it.
The song lyrics quoted at the beginning didn’t inspire the story. I just happened to be using it as white noise while I wrote. And then, when I let myself hear it, somehow it just seemed to epitomize everything this story is about - even though the song has no happy ending, and the story kinda does.
No beta reader, probably obviously, couldn’t find one - hey, are *you* busy?
Why Boy Meets World? I guess I just like rareslash. Or possibly, I’m into the angst, because there’s no way I’m getting any feedback on this. It’s just... Cory/Shawn is so addictive once you allow yourself to really think about them. I’ve already pushed all the OC writing I’ve been doing aside for them. It’s like Disney had no censorship guys following their relationship, and that’s just attractive, period.
Feedback most welcome.
I’ll end with a pimp: BMW_Slash. I created it because no one else had. It's not fully THERE yet, but you can join if you like.
ETA: 6/19/2006 -- how the hell did I forget so totally to respond to feedback on this? *facepalm* To anyone who happens to stop by and notices this lack of responsiveness, when I return from internet-less land in a month or so I promise to respond to each and every one. *facepalms again*
Fabella, rated adult/mature.
Boy Meets World, Cory/Shawn, M/M, Post-Series.
Shawn never expected anything, but he wanted it.
Complete, 6,678 words.
*
It’s okay to lead me on.
I must admit it’s not much fun,
to be lead on by such a one,
as you are.
--As You Are (Travis)
*
On the night Cory’s divorce was final, Shawn bought him the just divorced the love of my life drinks at one of the bars near their apartment. A game played on the television in the front, and a series of boos and hisses followed a bad play, before the audience cheered their depression with another round of beer. Familiar faces worked in and out of the overstuffed crowd, claiming seconds only from Shawn, who despite coming here with Cory on the weekends for the past five months, knew none of their names.
Mostly, he and Cory came here to be alone with each other.
Tonight, Shawn had nursed a single Molson for over an hour, and watched Cory carefully for signs of the inevitable mental meltdown. It had to be coming any minute now, because if it didn’t, Shawn himself was going to scream until his throat ripped open and he finally breached Cory’s surface. Unnatural calm surrounded Cory like bubble wrap, and Shawn wanted to poke at him, burst the small pockets of air sheltering Cory’s hysterics.
“I’m okay,” Cory had said softly outside the courthouse, breathing white puffs, face to the sky. Then, to Shawn, “It’s gonna snow soon, I think. I need to get new tires.”
He’d flipped the collar of his jacket up and started for the truck, the shiny shoes he wore crunching over the dead leafs pockmarking the parking lot. Shawn followed behind him more slowly, shaken by Cory’s blankness, and saw, from the corner of his eye as he opened the passenger door, Topanga crying on her steering wheel. Shoulders bouncing, hair draped over her clenched fists, and Shawn could say, that, right there, was love, the wretched, hurting kind.
Shawn had felt for her, deeply, a twisted bump of sympathy in his gut, because who knew her predicament better than him, but it had been her choice to leave Cory, after all. And Cory had fought, and fought it, like a man with only one goal in life, until finally, one day, he’d just stopped. And Shawn blamed her for that, for being so uncharacteristically stupid that she could shove Cory out the door, and live with herself. Shawn was Cory’s anyway, even after all these years, was the one possession besides the truck that Cory had wanted to keep. Topanga would get that. She understood logic.
They were sitting in a booth near the rear of the bar, hidden from prying eyes by giant potted plants that shadowed over them. Before them sat a neat row of shot glasses and a pile of quarters that Cory had stacked and re-stacked about twenty times.
“I just think you should talk about it,” Shawn said.
Cory bounced a quarter into one shot glass, eyes beginning to look dim and glassy.
“What’s to talk about, exactly? I knew this was coming. And now it’s here. Finished, Shawn. Done. No more Topanga.”
No more Topanga.
That was the crux of the problem. Cory wasn’t supposed to excel at change.
And yet, a year and a half ago, when the divorce papers came in the mail, Cory had signed them without fuss. He’d parked himself at the kitchen table, scratching a pen across page after page, while Shawn spooned spaghetti out of a big bowl onto two plates, pretending he wasn’t flinching each time Cory rustled the papers or sighed. And then Cory had moved the documents aside, dragged his dinner plate close, and completely disregarded any attempt from Shawn to make him feel better. Stubbornly, Cory hadn’t cried once since that day. Repression worked in curious ways, Shawn had found.
“I’ll buy you another shot,” Shawn said eventually, hailing the waitress.
She was in her mid-twenties, blonde, and stacked. Some lucky gene had gifted her with the kind of figure that could make a man bite his fist and cry thanks. And Shawn was bored already. Purely for show, he slung his arm along the back of the booth, and tried a little flirtation on to see how it fit. Dusty, he found, and cobweb-y.
She seemed only mildly interested. If nothing better came along, he’d have a chance. Shawn couldn’t blame her. The equipment, sometime between Cory walking to the bathroom in his boxers every morning and the two of them eating dinner together every night, had gotten well and truly fried. Or fucked. Something.
Shawn gave up, and ordered. No big deal. He didn’t have the energy to care about rejection, not when Cory was single and unattached for the first time in ever. Shawn couldn’t imagine being balls deep in some anonymous woman when he knew in his mind he’d be worrying about Cory the entire time, wanting to be wherever he was. The waitress wrote something on her notepad, then tore off a sheet of paper, slapping it on the table.
“I’ll be right back with your drinks,” she said cooly.
Service with a smile, it wasn’t.
Shawn shrugged it off, didn’t care for the hard to get game, but Cory began to giggle uncontrollably, completely oblivious to Shawn’s lethal glare. He was too busy enjoying the numb ignorance of drunken fools everywhere.
“I’m glad to see my amazing shrinking ego is amusing to you.”
Shawn picked up one of the quarters, bouncing it right into the well of the glass. It hit the bottom with a sharp chime, and Shawn thought, make a wish, but didn’t bother trying. He’d stopped wishing for what he couldn’t have at about age three, when he’d gotten a bicycle seat for Christmas instead of the bicycle he’d hoped for. Some things he would never forgive his dead father for, but sometimes, looking back from the eyes of the adult, he understood why Chet’s expression had always been more disappointed on Christmas morning than Shawn’s own.
Cory was still laughing.
“Yuck it up, my little Cory, for tomorrow, your head will hurt much more than my shame. And I’ll make sure I’m very, very loud.”
Cory held his head, snorting back his laughter.
“I’m sorry,” he giggled. “It’s just. I’m a little drunk, maybe.”
“You think?” Shawn softened. “One more drink, and then I’m taking you home before that big skull of yours falls off.”
“Good idea.” Cory nodded with exaggerated caution. “But you don’t have to babysit me. I can handle it. I’ve got it under complete control.”
“It’s cool,” Shawn said, and Cory dropped his hands.
“No, really.” He leaned forward earnestly, face open and friendly. “I don’t plan on throwing myself off any tall buildings tonight. Go pick someone up before your love life becomes as sad and stagnant as my own.”
It already was. Shawn turned from Cory’s shiny eyes.
“Didn’t I just say it was cool?” Behind the bar, the waitress talked to the bartender as he poured Cory’s drink. Her short hair did a flippy thing all the way around, would probably look good wrapped up in his hands as she sucked him. Big red lips that would look soft and messy after a workout. And Shawn wanted none of it. “And by cool, I didn’t mean, for example, uncool.”
As usual, Cory wasn’t listening. He plowed on ahead, practically climbing over the table to grip Shawn’s forearms with warm, slick palms.
“You don’t have to come home with me. She was doing the hot/cold thing, with the hot, and the cold, and brrrrr. Trust me, man, I know a lot about that. Next thing you know, she’ll have her tongue down your throat. Swimming around. Ugh. Yeah. I feel sick.”
Cory flopped back, looking nauseous, and the top few buttons on his shirt were undone, revealing Cory’s sharp collarbone, the dipping line between his pectoral muscles. Shawn’s jaw cracked from tension, and he grabbed his Molson with the hand that had begun to twitch on the table.
“Drop it,” Shawn said, and took a swig of beer.
From the corner of his eye, Shawn saw Cory’s wobbly nod. They fell into silence, Cory destroying the pile of quarters only to rebuild the stack, Shawn watching covertly under his lashes. Six years, living under this trapdoor Shawn hadn’t watched out for, and Cory still hadn’t figured out what even Topanga had about Shawn’s poetry. Shawn sighed and pulled his jacket to him on the seat, digging a handful of change out of the pocket and dropping it on the table.
“I can’t use pennies,” Cory said mulishly.
And now comes the pouting, Shawn thought. Lots of fun.
The waitress came back with a tray, and placed a new shot glass in front of Cory, alongside the rest. She smiled a little as she took and counted Shawn’s money, and it wasn’t exactly a tongue down Shawn’s throat, but it was the hot to the previous cold. For an instant, Shawn was actually tempted. It would be so easy to fall into that pattern of self-destructive non-relationships again. But just because he couldn’t have what he really wanted didn’t mean he had to fuck his way casually through the tri-state area. Shawn didn’t smile back, and hers flickered away into confusion.
“Maybe I can use the pennies,” Cory admitted, when she was gone.
Shawn allowed himself to laugh. Cory smiled at him with boyish pleasure, teeth neat and even like the rest of him, right down to the boxers that six days out of seven matched his shirt. Straight men shouldn’t be allowed to have smiles like that.
“Do your shot,” Shawn said. “We should go.”
Cory’s bottom lip poked out, but he complied, slamming the shot, then shuddering as it burned a path down his throat. Shawn’s mouth quirked up as he stood, putting on his jean jacket. Cory got to his feet too quickly, and put a palm on the table to steady himself when he almost fell sideways. That the table had been there to catch him was purely luck on Cory’s part.
“Ouch,” Cory said, shaking his head like a wet beagle. “The floor just tried to attack me.”
“It does that.” Shawn tossed Cory his coat. He sighed when it ended up on the floor instead of in Cory’s hands, and moved behind Cory to help him put it on. After, Shawn slid his hands firmly down Cory’s back, digging his fingers in, feeling the muscles. Cory arched under the touch, and Shawn pressed his forehead against the top knot of Cory’s spine. “You balanced enough to walk, yet?”
Cory let out a shaky breath. “Sure. Walking is good.”
Shawn’s knees weren’t so sure about that, but he patted Cory between his shoulder blades anyway, and gave him a tiny shove forward.
“Onward,” Shawn said.
The waitress gave them an odd look as they passed her in the long hallway to the front of the bar. Good thing Cory was drunk, because Shawn understood the meaning behind an expression like that: Oh. Gay. That explains it. And maybe he and Cory had dealt with a lot of gay jokes at their expense, but sometimes they cut a little too close, and tonight was one of those times. He smiled at her grimly, smoothing his hand over Cory’s hip, and she quickly averted her gaze, blushing in the dirty light.
Shawn would tell Cory in the morning that they should pick a different bar.
When they stepped outside, their breath fogged the air, and the music grew muffled as the door swung shut behind them. Cory put his hands in his coat pockets, cheeks almost immediately turning red, soon followed by his nose. He watched the traffic, face shadowed and blue from the electric Budweiser sign. Shawn stood by him, and wondered if this was when it all fell apart.
“I really loved her,” Cory said, hushed. “Really, really, a lot.”
Shawn put his arm around Cory’s shoulder. “Love sucks.”
Cory looked at him, and chuckled weakly. “Don’t it, though?”
“It’s pretty sucky, a big sucky love thing.”
“And you’re supposed to be a poet.” Cory dipped his head so that it rested on Shawn’s shoulder, and yawned hugely. “I’m really tired right now.”
“Well, I can’t carry you anymore,” Shawn said, and moved the arm on Cory’s shoulder down to his waist. “You’re bigger than me. Let’s walk as we talk.”
The apartment was only two blocks away, but half dragging a drunken man who stumbled more than he walked made that two blocks feel like two miles. When Cory began floundering diagonally across the sidewalk, directly in line with a telephone pole, Shawn grabbed two handfuls of his coat and swung him around. Cory’s weight propelled them to the wall of a building, and Cory landed against it with a hiccuping noise, face blank with shock as Shawn continued forward, right into Cory.
“Ow,” Cory said, disgruntled. “Bricks are hard.”
“Sorry.”
Only, not so much.
They stared at each other too long, and Shawn couldn’t bring himself to move away from the warmth of Cory’s chest. Even through their winter clothing, Shawn could feel the thumping of Cory’s heart, and could have sworn that it picked up speed when he cushioned Cory’s shaven head with his arm, huddling them even closer together.
Footsteps passed them quickly, but there was no room left inside Shawn for any other emotion, especially one as useless as embarrassment.
“Mmm, warm,” Cory murmured, eyelashes dragging.
Shawn watched Cory’s lips, choked out, “Yeah.”
If he just. If he could just. If only once.
No.
“We should get a dog,” Cory said, randomly.
Shawn moved back an inch, so that he could feel Cory’s heat, but he wasn’t touching him anywhere except for his arm behind Cory’s head, his hand on Cory’s hip. The belt was cool under his hand, the hip beneath the jeans hot, and Cory’s eyes remained shut, eyelashes tangled together.
“You want a dog?”
“I want a dog,” Cory confirmed, breath whiting the air between them. “Don’t you want a dog?”
Shawn shrugged. “We could get a dog.”
“He’ll be all white, and we’ll call him Spot.”
Cory made no move to resume their walk, and it wasn’t like Shawn was going to be the first to break this kind of moment, so they stayed there, and more people passed, in groups, in couples, alone, and Shawn still wasn’t embarrassed. A dog, Shawn thought. That was permanent. If Cory had said, ‘I should get a dog,’ Shawn would feel less warm in all the spots a New York winter could make a guy cold. But Cory was so still and breathing so softly, and Cory wanted them to get a dog.
“Spot,” Shawn said. “I like that. But what if he’s not white?”
“Hmm,” was all Cory replied.
It overwhelmed Shawn, that sweet noise of content, but being overwhelmed was nothing new. Shawn was used to being overwhelmed by Cory, used to expecting nothing, wanting everything, and getting just a little. Two years ago, in the middle of the night, Cory had shown up on Shawn’s doorstep with a few bags, and even fewer explanations. He’d taken over Shawn’s couch, taken over Shawn’s daily life, and finally, taken over Shawn’s last flailing attempt to live in any kind of world separate from him. They became Shawn and Cory again. Cory and Shawn.
He’d known, that night when Cory hugged him in thanks, it was over for him.
Because overwhelming was just the way Cory did things. He took, but mostly he gave, and when he gave himself back to Shawn, it broke Shawn’s heart a little. He’d given up on all of that long ago. On a wedding day.
He thought he’d given up on all of that.
“Gonna fall asleep,” Cory croaked, and his weight grew heavy.
“Aw, hell, c’mon--”
Shawn scrambled forward, using the wall as leverage to get his arms under Cory’s before he sank to the ground. With some creative maneuvering, Shawn got Cory draped over him, “you have to help me here, Cor, give me your,” and Cory’s eyes fluttered open, pupils wide. Shawn did some fancy footwork as he towed Cory down the street, and Cory smiled like a dope.
“You are so smashed.”
Cory giggled.
Shawn sighed. “This is gonna be so useful as blackmail later, you have no idea.”
“Nuh-uh,” Cory muttered. The hand of the arm wrapped around Shawn’s shoulder was partway on his face, pinky nearly up Shawn’s nostril. “Nope, can’t, cause you love me. Love me, love me, love me.”
He would take the time to wince at that later
“Sure, pal. You’re the shit.”
“Nooooo. Shawn. You loooooooove me.”
And then Cory licked the side of Shawn’s neck.
A wet hot curving blade of tongue that Cory applied just where it would hurt the most, like he knew where the ache was waiting. Shawn gasped, eyes squeezed shut, went nuts inside, and stumbled over a raised block of pavement, nearly dropping them both in the process. He untangled himself from Cory, shoving, pushing, leaving him swaying in the middle of the sidewalk as he sucked air into his lungs by the curb.
“Shawnie,” Cory said, then stumbled behind him.
Shawn flinched from the hand on his shoulder, panting as the red light holding back the traffic turned green, and the cars on his side of the street began moving again.
Cory lurched to Shawn’s side. “Hey, you’re really mad.”
“You think?”
“You love me. You can’t be mad at me. It’s against the rules.”
Shawn reached up, scratching the spot damp from Cory’s tongue.
“Admit it,” Cory said, playfully. This was a game to him.
Shawn spun wildly, blindly. Betrayed.
“That I’m mad at you?” Shawn stabbed a finger against Cory’s chest. “Yes! I’m mad, okay? You don’t go around licking people. If you’re gonna finally freak out about Topanga, choose another way. I’m not your personal chew toy.”
Cory swung his arms, sheepish. “But you do love me.”
And then he turned his eyes on Shawn, the soft ones, and damn it, Shawn was ugly here, these were his sore spots, and Cory had just poked his fingers inside.
“Fine!” Shawn grabbed Cory roughly and pushed him up the sidewalk. Almost home. He’d put Cory to bed, then take a shower. A long one. And Cory wouldn’t remember a single word Shawn had said tomorrow morning, thank God. “I love you, wanna have your babies, be with you forever. Satisfied? You idiot.”
“Is that,” Cory whispered, voice wobbly near Shawn’s ear. “Is that possible?”
“So, so drunk.”
This was just like Cory. What a screwed up way to react to finalizing the divorce, getting loaded then hitting on his male best-friend that for all he knew, was perfectly heterosexual without even the slightest deviation. Only Cory could go so over the top. Only Cory could be so on target without even trying.
Shawn did sex in any form it came at him in, and that included men, but Cory had never known that. He couldn’t have, could he? Shawn had hid it so well that sometimes he himself forgot, until a nice ass in a good pair of jeans came along, and reminded him. Beyond sex, though, he’d never been in a real relationship with a man, because that would have definitely gotten him caught. So Cory better not have known all along, or all that being careful would have been for nothing.
He hustled them the rest of the way, then leaned Cory against the outside wall while he unlocked the door to the apartment building. Up the stairs, flight after flight of spiraling steps, and Cory whimpering that all the turning made him dizzy. Shawn kept his arms around Cory for the entire climb, Cory leaning on him trustingly, letting Shawn take his weight as if he knew with absolute certainty that Shawn would never drop him.
Cory was right, Shawn couldn’t. He’d tried.
The apartment was dark when Shawn tugged Cory inside, still smelled of the hamburgers they’d had for dinner. He turned the light on with his elbow and shuffled around so he could shut the door with the weight of Cory’s body. Leaving him propped there, Shawn dropped to his knees right in the entry way, where slush had melted all over the floor, picking free the laces of Cory’s soaked sneakers.
“You should wear boots,” he said to Cory’s knees. “Do you like wet socks or something?”
He would have gone on, but there were fingers in his hair. Cory’s fingers. They scratched his head, then lovingly carded through the black strands, and Shawn was staring at the front of Cory’s jeans, a moan gathering mass in his throat. No, he couldn’t talk past lust like that. He swayed forward, his mouth grazing the chilled seam on Cory’s inner thigh.
“Always telling me what to do,” Cory mumbled, slurring toward the end.
Shawn jerked back instantly, breathing shallow. Cory was drunk, drunk like Cory never was, and this wouldn’t mean anything in the morning. And that would kill Shawn.
“Because I’m secretly the smart one,” Shawn said, vaguely.
“Not such a secret. My turn to be the pretty one.”
As Shawn stood, tossing Cory’s sneakers out of the way, his eyes dragged the length of Cory’s body. Cory’s legs were long, muscular beneath his jeans, his hips were pitched at an angle, and his cock was partially erect under the zipper. In one dream, Shawn had bitten Cory’s jeans open, tongued the head of Cory’s cock through his boxers, and made him come, soaking the fabric. Shawn’s eyes jumped to Cory’s lazy face, but there was only humor and lust there, not understanding.
“Once you got past the awkward stage,” Shawn said hazily, and began undoing Cory’s coat. “You turned out okay.”
If he could just focus on one thing at a time, like the buttons as they were released from the button holes, he might make it out of this alive, sane, and with their sixteen years of friendship still intact. He thought he might succeed, but Cory’s heat tangled him up, reached for him when Shawn pushed Cory’s coat off, dizzying him. Cory looked as ready to fuck as Shawn was, jaw drooping, the inside of his mouth dark and wet. Shawn swallowed, couldn’t take it, deal with it, or have it. Even if he could see himself forcing Cory to his knees, opening up Cory’s mouth with his cock, showing him exactly what he was asking for.
Cory deserved better than that.
Cory deserved the best, and that certainly wasn’t Shawn Hunter.
Shawn kicked his own boots off, threw his coat to the floor, then yanked Cory through the apartment with a brutal grip on his wrist. Cory trailed limply behind him, rag doll easy, until the dark closed around them again in the bedroom, and Shawn stopped. Cory bumped into his back, moved about an inch away and stayed there, hot breath misting Shawn’s neck. Shawn grimaced, pulling for strength.
“I’ll sleep on the couch tonight,” Shawn said, turning.
“You don’t have to.”
Shawn grunted, and began unbuttoning Cory’s shirt, fingers stiff on the plastic. Cory let him, arms at his side unresistantly, and Shawn told himself, firmly, no. The goose bumps that chased electrified hairs across Shawn’s body did not agree. He could do anything, anything at all, and Cory would just stand there, letting him. Shawn wet his lips, and hooked his fingers inside the two hanging flanks of Cory’s shirt, pushing it off his shoulders.
“Oh,” Shawn said, when the shirt landed on the carpet.
Yeah, just kill him, because he was already dead.
It wasn’t like he’d never seen Cory without a shirt. They lived together. Besides, they’d known each other forever. This was different. This was years of familiar white skin, the ripple of a scar above Cory’s flat, pink nipple, and Shawn’s cock throbbing. This was after Cory’s tongue had molested his neck. This was possible. And Shawn, another Shawn, could have put his tongue on one of those nipples, the nipples of another Cory, and licked, for an hour or so, until his whole jaw went numb. Shawn clenched his fists in the air near Cory’s muscled belly, fighting to show some restraint.
“I never knew how much,” Cory whispered, voice thrilled by discovery.
“How much what?”
Cory reached out, his big hands closing around Shawn’s cheeks, fingertips like whispers sliding into his hair. And Shawn was reeled in with a kiss as soft and breakable as the fine streetlight from the curtained window. Six years of walls, maybe more, of knowing how it could be and seeing how it actually was, and all it took was a kiss to bring them down. Shawn crumbled into Cory, arms falling upward, around Cory’s neck, his tongue tumbling past Cory’s teeth.
Gin on the inside of Cory’s cheeks said to stop, but Shawn bundled his body closer. Give Shawn a mile and he’d steal an entire county, then wonder what everyone else was doing on his land. And he wanted so much, was digging his nails into Cory’s shoulders, pulling him down, thinking, kiss harder, Cor, come on, yeah, like that. A kiss is just a kiss, that was true, and Shawn was just a poet. Poets knew the heart of things: Cory’s kiss was devastating. There wasn’t going to be anything left of Shawn after.
He’d be destroyed.
“No!” Shawn broke away, gasping, but Cory caught him.
“What?” Panicked. “What?”
Cory stroked his face, over and over. Fingers butterflied over Shawn’s cheek, his nose, his eyebrows, touches that Shawn would have recognized a hundred years later, from someone else’s hands. Shawn inhaled deeply, scenting warm skin, and nudged his forehead against Cory’s collarbone.
“You’re drunk,” Shawn croaked. “You’re. You’re.”
“Shh,” Cory whispered, thumb on Shawn’s earlobe, and tried to kiss him again.
Their lips grazed, feathered together. Shawn ripped free, taking back his own air, putting several feet of hardwood floor between them. Cory looked at him, mouth tight with deserted choices, before he abruptly wove around Shawn, dropping heavily to the bed. There he wilted visibly, bare shoulders hunching, fingers dangling between his knees, head sagging low.
“I’m doing you a favor,” Shawn said, standing stiffly.
Cory didn’t move. A whipped dog would have looked less abused.
Shawn inched toward him. “Cor, please.”
Cory lifted his head. “You want it. I know.”
“Yeah,” Shawn said angrily, unable to meet Cory’s probing gaze. “And then tomorrow, when you’re sober, we can have awkward silences, then a moral to the story, and for you, a thrilling adventure to tell everyone about when you’re ninety in a nursing home, and the people around you have a thirty second memory span.”
“They want you to take the rolls,” Cory mumbled.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, but sure.”
Cory’s mouth pursed stubbornly. Music turned on in the apartment next door, too loud, then softening as the neighbor quickly lowered the volume. The woman living there liked to listen to music late at night. Shawn had written a poem about it one night when he couldn’t sleep, and all there had been to do was listen to her dance. After, he had woke Cory to read it to him from the arm of the couch, and Cory had smiled sleepily, drawing the blanket tight under his chin, listening.
For an average guy, Cory could be extraordinarily beautiful.
No wonder Shawn had to touch, had to trace the buzz of Cory’s short hair from his temple to behind his ear, where it was beginning to curl again. For almost eight months Cory had worn it like this, trimmed to the scalp, and Shawn found he missed the wild curls, even if the shaved head made Cory look less like a miracle-gro experiment gone wrong, and more like an adult.
“Ritual cleansing,” Cory had said when Shawn asked who had abducted his curly-haired pal, and rubbed his scalp self-consciously. “That’s why I did it. Now leave me alone, Shawn, I’m indulging my latent male urge to blow shit up without any risk to my own physical well-being. And, unlike you, I haven’t beaten this level yet.”
Shawn’s fingers drifted to a pinkish scar no longer concealed by a ton of hair.
“I’m not trying to hurt you,” Shawn said. “You know that, right?”
Cory shivered, made a delicate, pained noise that cut through all the bullshit, and put a hole dead center in Shawn’s heart.
He was the poet, right?
Well, Cory was a fucking martyr, and it broke Shawn, sometimes.
“Aw, Cor.” Shawn pulled him in for a brief, hard hug, scrubbing both palms down the swoop of Cory’s back while Cory breathed hotly on his stomach. “Come on, my friend, let’s get you some sleep. You’ll feel better in the morning.”
When you’re not drunk, when it’s not the day you divorced the love of your life, and definitely when you’re not tempting your best friend down the road paved with desperate drunken sex, and apparently, rolls that someone wanted them to have.
Cory nodded, nose bumping Shawn’s ribs, and let Shawn push him onto his back. He stared at the ceiling while Shawn tugged his socks off, lifting his ass when Shawn pulled on the bottoms of his jeans, his movements sluggish and uncoordinated. When he was left in only his boxers, Cory rolled over on his side and tucked clasped hands under his head, staring at the wall.
Shawn tickled the bottom of his foot, and Cory barely kicked at him.
The woman began to dance next door, and Shawn sighed, before climbing over Cory on the bed, leaning on all fours above his body. Dangerous, but he couldn’t take it when Cory was hurting. He ignored the heat under him, the way his dick got hard again, and focused on Cory’s blank face. The only expression of Cory’s that Shawn despised.
“Hey, stop it,” he said.
Cory frowned at the wall.
“I hate it when you---” Shawn bounced forcefully, shaking the mattress, and Cory with it. “Snap out of it.”
“You can go now,” Cory said pointedly. “I’m drunk, not paraplegic.”
“You’re also suffering from what I like to call the heartbreak syndrome. I can smell it on you, Cor. It’s making you do these crazy things.”
“Crazy things.”
“Excuse me for being worried when you molest me on a street corner, and then continue to molest me just because I take your shirt off.”
Having put it like that, the molesting part made sense.
Cory’s eyes rebounded off the wall, burned to Shawn’s.
Stupid trapdoor.
Cory suddenly flipped onto his back and wrapped arms and legs around Shawn’s torso, burning pressure that forced Shawn down until all his weight was on Cory. Shawn groaned loudly, erection trapped between his stomach and Cory’s hip, feeling the matching one Cory was sporting. One of Cory’s hands moved up to lock their foreheads together, and it hurt, being held captive like this, unable to take what he wanted.
“It’s not like I don’t know, Shawn,” Cory said heatedly, drunk breath beating the front of his chin. “I tried not to. Forever, I’ve tried not to. Then Topanga. It stopped. And. You won’t let me not know.”
“Cory, don’t.”
Shawn struggled to get away even as his hips struggled to get closer, thrusting unevenly against the edge of Cory’s pelvic bone, and he was panting now, hands pushing at Cory’s shoulders. Cory was stronger than him, though, had hid all that strength behind sweaters and a boyish sense of humor for years. Cory put his hand on Shawn’s ass, fingers digging between the cheeks as far as the jeans would allow, and Shawn shuddered, trying not to come.
Cory flexed his thighs. “You wanted me to know.”
“Let me up,” Shawn gasped, straining up against the weight caging him. “You’re insane. You were married for several, loving years, and now, what, you get to randomly decide one night that gay sex is hot? I don’t think so.”
“Oh, whatever,” Cory shouted. “You fuck anything that has a hole!”
Anyone that turned him on, admittedly. Or he had, for a really long time. Loving Cory all these years hadn’t stopped that.
“At least I’m consistent,” Shawn muttered, teeth gritted.
Cory exhaled sharply, head dropping to the pillow, eyes closing.
“Forget it,” Cory said, letting his arms and legs fall slackly to the mattress. “You’re right, I am drunk, I have no idea what I’m talking about. Consider it a deviation from the norm. We’ll return to our previously scheduled programming tomorrow.”
“But.”
Shawn snapped his mouth shut before the objection could escape, nodding tightly. He’d trained himself well in the art of handling his feelings for Cory, but his masochistic side was showing. Or maybe he was simply disappointed that Cory hadn’t tried harder to convince him, so that he could have given in, and blamed the persuasion when Cory asked him what the hell he’d been thinking in the sobering light of the next day.
“It’s not,” Shawn said. “It’s not that I don’t.”
Because he did. He really fucking did.
Cory nodded and scrubbed a hand over his face.
“I already told you, Shawn. I know. I’m gonna go to sleep now, alright?”
Shawn crept off him, sweating where their skin touched. “Sure.”
Forcibly not thinking, he helped Cory get under the covers, then stood for a minute, angled over the bed, his hand rubbing Cory’s hip under the checkered comforter. Taking care of him like he had since the first day of their friendship, when he’d rescued Cory from the Llama pen at the zoo. Cory’s body heat radiated through the cotton, and Shawn couldn’t leave yet. The couch seemed very far away, one mile of footsteps too many. Cory looked up at him with unreadable eyes for a while, before putting his hand on Shawn’s, stilling the motion.
“Wanna kiss me one more time?”
God, yes. Shawn bent instantly, and rubbed his lips across Cory’s, then urged the kiss wide. They kissed slowly, moving deeply inside each other’s mouth. If this was all Shawn could ever have, he wanted to make it count. They kissed for a long time, with one of Shawn’s knees on the mattress, while the woman’s dance steps slowed to the change in the music, something sultry and agonizing. When Shawn finally pushed away, peeling his eyelids open, Cory was breathing evenly, eyes open only a sliver.
“Night, Cor.”
Cory’s eyes shut completely, and at the end of a long exhale, he was asleep.
Shawn sat on the end of the mattress with his head in his hands, shaking a little as he wondered for the millionth time why Topanga had divorced Cory, until finally, the woman next door turned off the music, and went to bed. Shawn turned down his thoughts out of courtesy for the noise regulations, took a shower, a sleeping pill, and fell into a joyless sleep.
*
Somehow, in some foggy dream state, Shawn’s dick discovered Cory’s mouth. Or perhaps it was the other way around. Anyway, when Shawn woke up on the couch, his underwear was long gone, sunlight was highlighting the blonde in Cory’s short, dark hair, and Cory’s head was buried between Shawn’s widely splayed thighs, tongue on his balls.
Shawn’s brain crackled warningly in his ear drums, and broke.
“Ungh,” Shawn said, and meant, What the fuck? --- but also, Stop and you die!
Cory’s head lifted anyway, and he smiled when he saw that Shawn was awake.
“Morning,” Cory said, roughly, sun on his face.
“You,” Shawn gasped. “That’s. Very good. You should continue.”
Screw the heartbreak issues Cory was dealing with. He wasn’t drunk now, and Shawn guessed that was about as good as it was gonna get. Shawn’s masochistic streak only went so far, and after that, Shawn was all about getting what he wanted. The corner of Cory’s mouth tipped up, and Shawn’s hips rose toward that crooked grin. Begging was so pathetic, and Shawn hated pathetic, but he did it anyway, guiding Cory’s mouth to his cock with a hand on Cory’s cheek, a quiet please nudging his tongue against his top front teeth.
Cory’s lips opened, red from sleep, blurry looking, and he took Shawn most of the way inside. That remaining inch didn’t matter, because Cory’s hand was there, ringing the base of Shawn’s cock. It was like falling down a wishing well, a fantasy granted, and Shawn had no idea why Cory was doing this, but he locked his ankles around Cory’s waist and knotted his hands in his own hair so that he couldn’t push Cory farther, faster, harder.
He wanted this to be good for Cory, too, not scary like Shawn’s first time sucking a guy off had been. It didn’t matter that the slow suction was killing him, because a guy couldn’t die twice, that was against some sort of natural law, and Shawn had already died last night. Let Cory do what he wanted. He’d stick around longer that way.
“Watch the,” Shawn ground out, when Cory snagged Shawn with his teeth. “No, no, it’s fine, don’t stop.”
Cory was obviously a first timer, and that was sexy somehow, like Cory was actually Shawn’s now, because Shawn’s cock was in his mouth. Shawn owned him in this one, small way. Owned the way Cory breathed desperately through his noise, made that faint noise of hunger, and surprise, and enjoyment when he tasted precum. Shawn started fucking his mouth faster, riding Cory’s tongue, definitely pushing things, and then, suddenly, not even fifteen thrusts in, it was over.
Shawn cried out. Not Cory’s name, but a sound that meant the same, said Cory in one, strung out syllable.
On the wrong side of twenty, and he was shaking in the aftermath, thighs trembling, heart wobbling on its axis. He’d never come so quickly before, and he’d had his share of blow jobs by guys and girls alike. Although, none of them had been anything like this one, from his best friend, sweet almost. Coming down the other side, he untangled his fingers from his hair, scalp throbbing from the rough treatment, and strained down to stroke the edges of Cory’s stretched lips.
Cory had pulled back so that just the tip of Shawn’s cock was in his mouth while he swallowed Shawn’s come, and now he pulled all the way off, licking the glistening tip a final time as if to say, see ya later, catching Shawn’s fingertips in the process. Shawn winced, sensitive, and Cory took pity, shifting up over him, warm and heavy, as the sunshine grew steadily brighter, breaking in through the thin curtains.
“Can I be gay, now?” Cory asked, grinning. “I want my secret decoder ring.”
Shawn choked on startled laughter, the bright sunshine kind of laughter. Unable to contain himself, too full of this weird joy, he reached up, grabbing Cory by the nape of his neck, where the skin was slick, tiny hairs flattened. He brought their faces so close his own eyes crossed, angling his nose alongside Cory’s, bumping them gently.
“A little bit bisexual, maybe.” He bit Cory’s upper lip, breathed wet air on it. “But then, who could blame you? I’m pretty prime material after all.”
“Jesus, that’s sexy,” Cory muttered, after. “I knew you would be.”
Cory let more of his weight settle on Shawn, trusting Shawn’s slighter form to hold him. Trust, now that was something cool to be had, Shawn thought, and let Cory kiss him for a long time. He really wished there was someone around to witness this moment, because Shawn felt happy, kind of bubbly in the lung region, left of the heart, and he wanted someone to see that about him. And then he opened his eyes, and Cory’s face was above his, slack with unfulfilled arousal, and - okay, epiphany time.
Someone did.
Cory saw that about him.
Everything else aside- Topanga, Cory’s family, Shawn’s dysfunctional roots, and hell, even Angela, who was long gone- that made Shawn’s entire life. Questions would come later.
After, sometime after, a week or so, they were buried beneath the blankets in the middle of the afternoon, sweating and dripping on each other, whispering secrets just like they had since they were kids, - I wrote them about you - Topanga said that, actually - She left because she knew - I figured that one out already, Cor - except this time with nudity, and cocks, and sticky bellies. Their fort slipped, and Shawn rebuilt it, pulling the blanket back over their heads. Their fronts got reacquainted as Shawn spread himself over Cory like a web, and put his mouth near Cory’s ear, brushing the outer shell with his nose.
“Hey, Cor?”
Cory yawned. “Yeah, Shawn?”
“Just so you know, I’ll probably fuck us up.”
Cory breathed on Shawn’s neck for the next few minutes. Shawn decided Cory had either fallen asleep or decided not to respond, but Cory surprised him, made it all better like only Cory could. He wrapped his arms around Shawn’s lower back, and held on.
“That’s okay,” Cory said, and the way he held Shawn, as though he’d never let go, belied his light tone. “I’m good at fixing us.”
*
End
*
Notes:
The title is inspired by a random line from Shawn to Cory in a random season two episode---“You break my heart, sometimes, Cor.”---that has no actual connection to this story, except that it fits, it sounds good, and I like it.
The song lyrics quoted at the beginning didn’t inspire the story. I just happened to be using it as white noise while I wrote. And then, when I let myself hear it, somehow it just seemed to epitomize everything this story is about - even though the song has no happy ending, and the story kinda does.
No beta reader, probably obviously, couldn’t find one - hey, are *you* busy?
Why Boy Meets World? I guess I just like rareslash. Or possibly, I’m into the angst, because there’s no way I’m getting any feedback on this. It’s just... Cory/Shawn is so addictive once you allow yourself to really think about them. I’ve already pushed all the OC writing I’ve been doing aside for them. It’s like Disney had no censorship guys following their relationship, and that’s just attractive, period.
Feedback most welcome.
I’ll end with a pimp: BMW_Slash. I created it because no one else had. It's not fully THERE yet, but you can join if you like.
ETA: 6/19/2006 -- how the hell did I forget so totally to respond to feedback on this? *facepalm* To anyone who happens to stop by and notices this lack of responsiveness, when I return from internet-less land in a month or so I promise to respond to each and every one. *facepalms again*