Wild Oats
"Okay. What's up?"
"I kissed another guy."
"...and you're telling me this because you thought it would make me happy?"
"I kissed another guy, and I realized that I want to be with Cory. Forever." She gave him an earnest, very Topanga look.
Shawn grinned enthusiastically. "Now, that's what I like to hear."
"But..."
"Why must you continually jerk my emotions around like this?"
"I want to be sure that Cory loves me."
"Topanga. He's been a complete wreck since you dumped him. He can't function without you. Last night, he wrote seven sonnets in your honor. I think it's safe to say that he feels the same."
"Shawn, forever is a long time."
"I'm aware of that," Shawn told her, a little irritably.
Her look became even more earnest. "I want him to be sure he doesn't want anyone but me. I want him to be happy."
"Then you should get back together with him."
"No. First, I want you to do me a favor."
"Me?"
"Yes. You."
"All right."
"Take Cory somewhere...wild. Tell him to sow some wild oats."
"Wild? Like the skiing lodge?"
"Is that the best you can come up with?"
"Well, he seemed to have good luck there before..."
"Fine."
"It won't work, though. He's too busy pining."
Topanga relented a little. "Did he really write sonnets?"
"Yes. They're terrible. But it's the thought that counts."
"You always have to remember that with Cory."
"I know. I'll take good care of him."
She smiled, a weirdly bitter smile. "You always do."
Cory collapsed onto his bed as if a great weight was pressing him there. Started out of his stupor when Shawn waved at him from the desk. "I'm glad you're home."
"Geez, Shawnie, give a guy a heart attack." He clasped his hands melodramatically over his chest.
"Cor?"
"Yeah?"
"Your heart's on the other side."
Cory snorted. "Like it matters. Besides, Shawn, I donít have a heart, remember? It's been broken. Smashed into a thousand pieces. Shattered beyond repair."
Shawn sighed. "So I've heard."
"...crushed into oblivion. Smushed into an itty-bitty-Cory's-heart pancake."
"Actually, I'm here to do something about that."
"You can't, Shawn." It was Cory's turn to sigh. "Nothing can ease the pain."
"Cory. I talked to Topanga."
"You did?" Cory looked like a dog about to leap on a bone.
"Yes, I did. And there's something we have to do before she'll take you back." He threw a duffle bag onto Cory's lap. "Let's go."
"Go where?"
"To sow some wild oats!" Shawn announced, hefting his own bag out onto the landing.
Cory followed him, squinting. "Shawn, am I supposed to know what you're talking about?"
"You'll just have to wait and see."
It was a very long bus ride.
"Is Topanga going to be where we're going?"
"No, Cory."
"Is Angela going to be where we're going?"
"No, Cory."
"...is anyone going to be where we're going?"
"No, Cory."
"So we'll be completely alone?"
"No, Cory."
"Are those mountains?"
Shawn smiled at the view. "Yes, actually they are."
They stepped off of the bus and into the cold.
"Shawn, is this the ski lodge?"
"Well done, Cory."
"Why are we here, exactly?"
"Wild oats."
"You said that before."
"I know."
"I still don't get it."
"Topanga wanted us to come here."
Cory gave him a long look. "Women are far more mysterious and confusing than I ever imagined, apparently."
"She wanted you to...you know, look around. Make sure that she's the only one you want."
"She is, Shawn," Cory said firmly.
"I know. That's what I told her."
Smiling in spite of himself, Cory picked up his bag and looped his other arm around Shawn's shoulders. "You're a good friend, Shawn."
Shawn smiled back, lifting an eyebrow. "That's what she told me."
"So I guess we're stuck here for the weekend?"
"Yeah."
"And then Topanga will take me back?"
"Yeah."
"Oh well. Maybe I'll get some skiing done this time." He headed for the door.
Shawn rolled his eyes. "Somehow I doubt it."
Unsurprisingly, they ended up wallowing. Cory wallowed in post-break-up misery, and Shawn wallowed in whatever it was Shawn wallowed in.
"It's a cold, cold world, Shawn," Cory moaned from the bed.
"Then come and sit in front of the fire, moron," Shawn told him, and Cory got him back by sprawling over the entire couch.
He let his head fall onto Shawn's thigh. After a minute, thin fingers carded into his hair and began moving against his scalp, scratching him like a big dog. He and Shawn were kind of freakishly close, he realized.
"You have nice hands, Shawn. Angela's a lucky girl."
Shawn laughed a little. "I'm a lucky guy."
"I've always thought you'd make a good girlfriend." Shawn's hand stopped moving. Cory wondered what the hell he'd been thinking -- something he had occasion to wonder more often than he'd like.
"Cory, I'm not a girl," Shawn said, sounding tense.
Cory smiled uneasily, suddenly very aware of their positioning. "I know. I mean, you did look really hot, that one time..."
"Cory."
"Yes?"
"Can we end this conversation? Like, right now?"
"Fine. Blame it on the depression." He sat up and slid to the other end of the couch.
"I will!" Shawn said righteously.
"Well, good. Because I'm depressed."
"So I've heard," Shawn sighed. "I wouldn't make a good girlfriend," he said a minute later. Cory surmised that he had changed his mind about the conversation.
"Shawn. You were. Like I said."
"Yeah, Cory. When I was dressed like a girl. Not otherwise, at least not to you." He sounded very sure, and he was smiling the way he did when he thought something was ridiculous.
Much surer than Cory, anyway. "Actually..." Because there had been moments, there had been times when Shawn wasn't dressed as a girl, and Cory had still been hit with something that had made him unable to stop looking at Shawn.
"WHAT?!"
Cory studied his toes, which were dutifully trying to dig him a tunnel through the carpet. "You're. Always." He tried to take a normal breath. "Kinda." One look at Shawn's shocked face made him backtrack rapidly. "I mean, not that it..."
"Cory." Shawn's voice sounded husky, like it did sometimes when he was really scared. "Don't say stuff like that."
"I mean it, Shawn," Cory said angrily. He grabbed Shawn's hand. "I'm telling the truth."
Shawn stared down at their fingers. Cory could see his breath hitching under his sweater. "Oh god," he said, and then he bridged the gap between them and Cory finally knew what all those girls had meant when they'd talked about kissing Shawn.
It was the best thing he'd ever felt--people were always saying things like "why don't you two just wear one big shirt?"--and hey, maybe they were right, because he felt an awful lot like burying himself in Shawn and never leaving. He was proud, too: this was Shawn, who was moaning in his arms, grinding himself as close as two people could get without actually taking off their clothes.
This was Shawn's back under his fingers, arching and sliding. Those were Shawn's hips moving desperately against his, Shawn's mouth losing a lot of its finesse as Cory gripped him tighter, pulled him in closer as they slid sideways onto the couch cushions.
He'd slept in the same bed with Cory before, of course.It was something he liked to do, because Cory would always drool on his neck and snore in his ear in a way that was very familiar.
It had never felt like this before, though. This was pretty much the nicest thing he'd ever felt, barring all the stuff that had happened last night. This was the feeling of finally having found exactly where he was supposed to be, an end to his wandering, somewhere that was home.
He shoved Cory away as quickly and roughly as possible.
"Ow!" Cory glared at him from his new position on the floor. "What'd you do that for?"
"We need to go home."
Cory blinked, suddenly much more awake. "Shawn, we need to talk about this."
"No, we don't."
"Yes, we do."
Shawn took a deep breath. "Cory. You love Topanga. You know it, I know it, our viewing audience knows it. Things have been that way since we were four years old, and they're not about to change now."
"Shawn..."
"I don't want to hear it, Cory."
"But what if I..."
"No. You have Topanga, I have Angela, that's the way it should be, okay?"
Cory swallowed and didn't look at him. "Fine. Let's go home."
They were on the bus before he spoke again: "You know, I don't think we've ever had a problem that we didn't solve."
"Shut up, Cory."
"Or, really, that Feeny didn't solve."
"Shut up, Cory."
He did. They drove home.