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Last chapter of this series up at A03: 'Three Sex Dreams Cory Matthews Never Had, Really', part 3
Notes:
Bonus points for spotting the references from previous episodes. This one’s based on ‘The Psychotic Episode’, once again fudged with the timeline, although if you watched this show, you should be used to that.
Also, apparently Feeny teaches psychology along with Pasteur and Hamlet. He’s a polymath, what can I say?
*
It's his eighth coffee of the morning, sipped at while flossing the oven maniacally. It's only 8.30am and he's already pre-moussed Shawn’s hair, laid out both their outfits for the day, prepared their cereal and juice, and fluffed their towels to maximum fluffiness. It's amazing how much you can get done if you just stop sleeping!
Cory's aware that he'll probably crash minutes into his first class, but for now he's broken the sleep barrier and is buzzing.
He's already planned an outline for Feeny's essay on Freud, although he'll save the section on dream analysis - all this energy is dependent on fixating on anything but these damn dreams.
He's had some odd ones lately, almost nostalgic for Ms Costa Rica and Jinksy. He and Shawn even had the same one after the wedding crashing incident - he didn't ask Shawn, but for him it was almost hyperreal, not like the blurry scene shifting of regular dreams.
He can still feel the scratchy sand on his feet, sun beating down, the metal button on his jeans burning his navel, juicy grapes popping under his teeth, listening happily to the soft sounds of the lapping shore and Shawn and Jessie's moans.
These new dreams are hyperreal too, which makes them worse. His hands still feel chapped from the rope, surprisingly strong for a cheap toy. Can still picture the cherry colour Shawn's face turned, feel the sting of his nails scratching Cory, body shuddering heavy against him, gasping.
Just thinking about it is enough to have him searching for something else to do. He tells himself it’s because the dreams are upsetting in their violence. It might even be true.
*
After all the dreams recently, and spacy after 48 hours without sleep, he’s still not a hundred percent on whether he spoke to Feeny or Dream Feeny.
If it was Dream Feeny, he seemed as patient as his real life equivalent, but at Cory’s stammering over dream analysis and his recent struggles comprehending the Pankejeff-Freud case and the latency theme, he gives Cory a look of what could only be described as genuine pity.
‘Mr. Matthews’, he says, as gently as he spoke to Cory as a child. ‘These readings are not set to tax your brain or further burden your time, precious as it may be.’
At this he raises an eyebrow.
‘You and your loved ones may be meeting the world for the first time, but a little known playwright ventured there’s nothing new under the sun. Crack a book or two. You might find your problems don’t seem so unsurmountable.’
Cory moves to interject, but Feeny ploughs on.
‘…Things don’t have to work out according to a specified plan for happiness to occur. Like a flower, it can grow in many differing conditions of soil. Not every plant need fit in the same pot.’
It takes Cory a few seconds, and he can see the pain on Feeny’s face to have to simplify his metaphors to this level, but his eyes widen.
‘You’re not talking about plants anymore.’
‘A plus, Mr. Matthews’, Feeny says drily. ‘Good luck with the Freud draft.’
*
Cory doesn’t return to the dorms that night till past midnight. He meant to, he’s pretty sure Shawn’s sleep has been as fractured as his this week, and his usual Cory overreactions can’t have helped.
But he’s still a little embarrassed after the scene in class, and his blood is still at least half caffeine, so he ends up on a rare inspiration kick, polishing his essay until the letters start blurring.
When he finally does hit the sack, he’s too exhausted to worry about the dream, asleep almost as soon as his head hits the pillow.
When he wakes, this week’s anxiety is forgotten. He can feel warm sun rays streaming in through the window, smell hot coffee percolating on the stove, hear the rustle of the daily comics.
At that point, he knows this is too good to be true - the R.A. banned kettles on a power trip a while back, and while Shawn is an expert cook, his field of speciality is relatively slim, restricted to ‘stuff that can be cooked on an engine’. The stove generally goes untouched between Cory’s occasional baking binges during finals.
He’s oddly calm as he stretches, knowing somehow before the actual contact that his arm won’t extend further than a few inches due to the warm body next to him in the teeny single.
‘Morning, sunshine’, Shawn purrs, kissing his cheek.
He flips through the paper. ‘Wanna see the new Argenta tonight? It’s got three blood buckets out of four.’ He waggles his eyebrows goofily.
Cory, despite his hazy confusion, can’t help but snicker a little. Killing time in an attempt to tread water before the inevitable chainsaw massacre starts, he ventures: ‘Ah, I don’t know, Shawnie, I got that paper for Feeny due…’
‘The Freud piece? Babe, you finished that a month ago. You feeling okay?’
Wha -? Okay, the bed thing is normal, how else do you share delicious pancakes, and he and Shawn have always been affectionate, but this sure does seem more…peaceful than his previous dreams? Cory tries desperately to think of a better euphemism, aware he can feel Shawn, half hard, casually leaning against him, in nothing but his ratty Om tee-shirt and boxers
(!UNDERPANTS!)
and even more aware that he’s not entirely immune to the situation himself, thankfully concealed by his sweats and vest.
The old dream may have been scary, but at least he knew when he was, if not where.
What if this is some Terminator style future where he tricks Shawn into a false sense of safety (‘A way better term for giving your best friend a boner!’, blurts inner Cory) before returning to smush him in some crazy new way, possibly involving robots?
‘I had a weird dream’ he tries.
Of all the possible reactions he was expecting, Shawn bursting out laughing wasn’t one of them.
In previous dreams he’s gotten pissed, worse is when he begs Cory not to hurt him or asks why.
Shawn and he trade off being the rational one, neither taking the role often leads to the wacky schemes they’re trying to put a stop to now they’re sophomores. So he gets Shawn wanting to talk him down, but flat out amusement seems a little blasé on hearing that your best friend dreamt of your violent murder - again.
‘Sounds scary’, snicker Shawn. ‘So how’d I go this time? Another cockfight?’ He leers exaggeratedly at Cory.
‘Lava down my pants?’ Without warning, he swings a leg over, straddling Cory.
‘Or do you push me down your shaft and shove a bat down my throat again? You know, you can just ask for a blow job now, Cor. I might not have aced the psych mod like you, but I’m pretty sure we’ve both got plenty of experience with repression.’
At this, he grinds a little. Not forcefully, just a lazy stroke, like it’s Sunday morning, with nothing ahead of them but the rest of their lives.
‘You know, I thought the whole dream thing was one of your freakouts, but I underestimated you, babe.’
That word again, Cory feeling the same tug of shock
(guys don’t call other guys that)
twinned with an odd pleasure.
‘Come on! You dreamed your wedding was making you rip my heart out and kill me in bizarre, homoerotic ways? I think even Eric could work that one out.’
Cory sits up a little, stung, and Shawn, sensing the mood shift, frowns a little.
‘Yeah, I’m freaking clueless. We can’t all be self-actualised Shawn Hunter and work out “I like guys” at like, 13. Excuse me for not immediately getting that, I only knew you guys like, my whole life.’
‘That’s not fair, Cor. I never stood in yours and Topanga’s way, I bent over backwards to make sure you got what you said you wanted. If you didn’t have such a Mr. Teen America complex, maybe we could have worked this out before stringing along the girls.’
Cory bites his lip. He has to bring up the elephant in the room, reluctantly.
Shawn was always moody about Topanga, one minute desperately trying to force them together, the next snapping at her name and taking shots at her.
A dream in which he and Cory are…well, sharing a bed for more than pancake consumption is unlikely to be one in which he should bring her up. But the dizzying familiarity/unfamiliarity forces him to, maybe even a little fear.
(she was getting in the way)
‘So I’m guessing Topanga’s out of the picture.’
Shawn doesn’t flip out as expected. Instead he sighs patiently.
‘Look, Cory, I know you didn’t want to hurt her. We didn’t always agree, but I love her too. But at least you guys straightened this out before her life was messed up for good. I mean, I know you guys better than anyone.
If you’d got married, you’d have stayed that way all your lives. Topanga’s never failed at anything, if she wanted to make it work, it would have.
And you’d have kept her from finding the person who loves her as much as she deserves. You think she wants to spend her whole life as her own husband’s runner up favourite?’
‘So if she and I had got married, it would have been bye, see ya later Shawn?!’
At this, Cory loses it himself. Even hypothetically, the idea of any kind of life without Shawn makes him feel sick and hollow.
He and Topanga have put him to the choice one or two times, he reflects guiltily that he probably should have decided before either of them had to ask.
But both fiery, stubborn my-Topanga and my-Shawn are a little cowed at forcing his hand too often.
Maybe neither of them were convinced who’d win that battle.
‘What do you think?’ Shawn says sarcastically.
‘You know what it would have been. It would have been me playing follow the leader after you two until she or I broke. I’d get to feel like shit that I didn’t have the balls to walk away and let at least one of you be happy, and she’d find out the only way she gets her husband to herself is to give up Yale and have kids, so you can spend your whole life telling yourself you’re Joe Normal like your perfect family!’
‘Topanga would never have gone for that’, Cory mutters after a pause, embarrassed.
No matter how his dream go, it always comes down to this choice, and in a thousand different endings, he always end up hurting them both with the years he didn’t choose.
For two people he pretty much worships, he sure has found a way to make them both feel like they’re not enough.
‘She doesn’t have much faith in’ he air quotes ‘traditional marital structures, her parents have been fighting for years.
To get a degree from the same college as you, me and Eric,’
-Shawn smirks a little, reluctantly -
‘so her first time with a guy could be with me picturing you? So we can have kids who grow up knowing that they’re here because the best thing that ever happened to me was another guy, so I settled for my best girl? No way. Never.’
Shawn shrugs. ‘You know I would have come back. Maybe if Angela and I made it work, it could take the pressure off. Topanga loves her, it wouldn’t look so weird. We could be…I don’t know, neighbours. Cool uncles to each other’s kids.’
‘I don’t want my life to be somewhere for you to visit. Or to hide the stuff you’ve given me where my wife can’t see it.
I don’t want to keep wanting stuff because I’m supposed to. I want you to be my life. And…I wanna wear your ring.’
Shawn cuts him off then with a kiss, almost swallowing Cory’s last syllable, desperate. Like he’s been waiting his whole life to do it.
Later, much later, fuzzy with sleep, he murmurs. ‘I want this to be forever.’
Shawn licks his lips a little. ‘Is this what you’ve been dreaming about?’
‘I think so. I just didn’t know it. How long would you have waited if I’d kept on being a big stupid?’
‘I’ve waited thirteen years. I guess I’d have waited a few more.’
In the morning, he opens his eyes. He’s not okay.
He never has been, not with change, and despite rushing into marriage his whole life, not with the future.
But the promise that, whatever choices he makes, change is inevitable doesn’t feel so much of a threat anymore, as a promise.
A secret hope.
There’s still time.
Notes:
Bonus points for spotting the references from previous episodes. This one’s based on ‘The Psychotic Episode’, once again fudged with the timeline, although if you watched this show, you should be used to that.
Also, apparently Feeny teaches psychology along with Pasteur and Hamlet. He’s a polymath, what can I say?
*
It's his eighth coffee of the morning, sipped at while flossing the oven maniacally. It's only 8.30am and he's already pre-moussed Shawn’s hair, laid out both their outfits for the day, prepared their cereal and juice, and fluffed their towels to maximum fluffiness. It's amazing how much you can get done if you just stop sleeping!
Cory's aware that he'll probably crash minutes into his first class, but for now he's broken the sleep barrier and is buzzing.
He's already planned an outline for Feeny's essay on Freud, although he'll save the section on dream analysis - all this energy is dependent on fixating on anything but these damn dreams.
He's had some odd ones lately, almost nostalgic for Ms Costa Rica and Jinksy. He and Shawn even had the same one after the wedding crashing incident - he didn't ask Shawn, but for him it was almost hyperreal, not like the blurry scene shifting of regular dreams.
He can still feel the scratchy sand on his feet, sun beating down, the metal button on his jeans burning his navel, juicy grapes popping under his teeth, listening happily to the soft sounds of the lapping shore and Shawn and Jessie's moans.
These new dreams are hyperreal too, which makes them worse. His hands still feel chapped from the rope, surprisingly strong for a cheap toy. Can still picture the cherry colour Shawn's face turned, feel the sting of his nails scratching Cory, body shuddering heavy against him, gasping.
Just thinking about it is enough to have him searching for something else to do. He tells himself it’s because the dreams are upsetting in their violence. It might even be true.
*
After all the dreams recently, and spacy after 48 hours without sleep, he’s still not a hundred percent on whether he spoke to Feeny or Dream Feeny.
If it was Dream Feeny, he seemed as patient as his real life equivalent, but at Cory’s stammering over dream analysis and his recent struggles comprehending the Pankejeff-Freud case and the latency theme, he gives Cory a look of what could only be described as genuine pity.
‘Mr. Matthews’, he says, as gently as he spoke to Cory as a child. ‘These readings are not set to tax your brain or further burden your time, precious as it may be.’
At this he raises an eyebrow.
‘You and your loved ones may be meeting the world for the first time, but a little known playwright ventured there’s nothing new under the sun. Crack a book or two. You might find your problems don’t seem so unsurmountable.’
Cory moves to interject, but Feeny ploughs on.
‘…Things don’t have to work out according to a specified plan for happiness to occur. Like a flower, it can grow in many differing conditions of soil. Not every plant need fit in the same pot.’
It takes Cory a few seconds, and he can see the pain on Feeny’s face to have to simplify his metaphors to this level, but his eyes widen.
‘You’re not talking about plants anymore.’
‘A plus, Mr. Matthews’, Feeny says drily. ‘Good luck with the Freud draft.’
*
Cory doesn’t return to the dorms that night till past midnight. He meant to, he’s pretty sure Shawn’s sleep has been as fractured as his this week, and his usual Cory overreactions can’t have helped.
But he’s still a little embarrassed after the scene in class, and his blood is still at least half caffeine, so he ends up on a rare inspiration kick, polishing his essay until the letters start blurring.
When he finally does hit the sack, he’s too exhausted to worry about the dream, asleep almost as soon as his head hits the pillow.
When he wakes, this week’s anxiety is forgotten. He can feel warm sun rays streaming in through the window, smell hot coffee percolating on the stove, hear the rustle of the daily comics.
At that point, he knows this is too good to be true - the R.A. banned kettles on a power trip a while back, and while Shawn is an expert cook, his field of speciality is relatively slim, restricted to ‘stuff that can be cooked on an engine’. The stove generally goes untouched between Cory’s occasional baking binges during finals.
He’s oddly calm as he stretches, knowing somehow before the actual contact that his arm won’t extend further than a few inches due to the warm body next to him in the teeny single.
‘Morning, sunshine’, Shawn purrs, kissing his cheek.
He flips through the paper. ‘Wanna see the new Argenta tonight? It’s got three blood buckets out of four.’ He waggles his eyebrows goofily.
Cory, despite his hazy confusion, can’t help but snicker a little. Killing time in an attempt to tread water before the inevitable chainsaw massacre starts, he ventures: ‘Ah, I don’t know, Shawnie, I got that paper for Feeny due…’
‘The Freud piece? Babe, you finished that a month ago. You feeling okay?’
Wha -? Okay, the bed thing is normal, how else do you share delicious pancakes, and he and Shawn have always been affectionate, but this sure does seem more…peaceful than his previous dreams? Cory tries desperately to think of a better euphemism, aware he can feel Shawn, half hard, casually leaning against him, in nothing but his ratty Om tee-shirt and boxers
(!UNDERPANTS!)
and even more aware that he’s not entirely immune to the situation himself, thankfully concealed by his sweats and vest.
The old dream may have been scary, but at least he knew when he was, if not where.
What if this is some Terminator style future where he tricks Shawn into a false sense of safety (‘A way better term for giving your best friend a boner!’, blurts inner Cory) before returning to smush him in some crazy new way, possibly involving robots?
‘I had a weird dream’ he tries.
Of all the possible reactions he was expecting, Shawn bursting out laughing wasn’t one of them.
In previous dreams he’s gotten pissed, worse is when he begs Cory not to hurt him or asks why.
Shawn and he trade off being the rational one, neither taking the role often leads to the wacky schemes they’re trying to put a stop to now they’re sophomores. So he gets Shawn wanting to talk him down, but flat out amusement seems a little blasé on hearing that your best friend dreamt of your violent murder - again.
‘Sounds scary’, snicker Shawn. ‘So how’d I go this time? Another cockfight?’ He leers exaggeratedly at Cory.
‘Lava down my pants?’ Without warning, he swings a leg over, straddling Cory.
‘Or do you push me down your shaft and shove a bat down my throat again? You know, you can just ask for a blow job now, Cor. I might not have aced the psych mod like you, but I’m pretty sure we’ve both got plenty of experience with repression.’
At this, he grinds a little. Not forcefully, just a lazy stroke, like it’s Sunday morning, with nothing ahead of them but the rest of their lives.
‘You know, I thought the whole dream thing was one of your freakouts, but I underestimated you, babe.’
That word again, Cory feeling the same tug of shock
(guys don’t call other guys that)
twinned with an odd pleasure.
‘Come on! You dreamed your wedding was making you rip my heart out and kill me in bizarre, homoerotic ways? I think even Eric could work that one out.’
Cory sits up a little, stung, and Shawn, sensing the mood shift, frowns a little.
‘Yeah, I’m freaking clueless. We can’t all be self-actualised Shawn Hunter and work out “I like guys” at like, 13. Excuse me for not immediately getting that, I only knew you guys like, my whole life.’
‘That’s not fair, Cor. I never stood in yours and Topanga’s way, I bent over backwards to make sure you got what you said you wanted. If you didn’t have such a Mr. Teen America complex, maybe we could have worked this out before stringing along the girls.’
Cory bites his lip. He has to bring up the elephant in the room, reluctantly.
Shawn was always moody about Topanga, one minute desperately trying to force them together, the next snapping at her name and taking shots at her.
A dream in which he and Cory are…well, sharing a bed for more than pancake consumption is unlikely to be one in which he should bring her up. But the dizzying familiarity/unfamiliarity forces him to, maybe even a little fear.
(she was getting in the way)
‘So I’m guessing Topanga’s out of the picture.’
Shawn doesn’t flip out as expected. Instead he sighs patiently.
‘Look, Cory, I know you didn’t want to hurt her. We didn’t always agree, but I love her too. But at least you guys straightened this out before her life was messed up for good. I mean, I know you guys better than anyone.
If you’d got married, you’d have stayed that way all your lives. Topanga’s never failed at anything, if she wanted to make it work, it would have.
And you’d have kept her from finding the person who loves her as much as she deserves. You think she wants to spend her whole life as her own husband’s runner up favourite?’
‘So if she and I had got married, it would have been bye, see ya later Shawn?!’
At this, Cory loses it himself. Even hypothetically, the idea of any kind of life without Shawn makes him feel sick and hollow.
He and Topanga have put him to the choice one or two times, he reflects guiltily that he probably should have decided before either of them had to ask.
But both fiery, stubborn my-Topanga and my-Shawn are a little cowed at forcing his hand too often.
Maybe neither of them were convinced who’d win that battle.
‘What do you think?’ Shawn says sarcastically.
‘You know what it would have been. It would have been me playing follow the leader after you two until she or I broke. I’d get to feel like shit that I didn’t have the balls to walk away and let at least one of you be happy, and she’d find out the only way she gets her husband to herself is to give up Yale and have kids, so you can spend your whole life telling yourself you’re Joe Normal like your perfect family!’
‘Topanga would never have gone for that’, Cory mutters after a pause, embarrassed.
No matter how his dream go, it always comes down to this choice, and in a thousand different endings, he always end up hurting them both with the years he didn’t choose.
For two people he pretty much worships, he sure has found a way to make them both feel like they’re not enough.
‘She doesn’t have much faith in’ he air quotes ‘traditional marital structures, her parents have been fighting for years.
To get a degree from the same college as you, me and Eric,’
-Shawn smirks a little, reluctantly -
‘so her first time with a guy could be with me picturing you? So we can have kids who grow up knowing that they’re here because the best thing that ever happened to me was another guy, so I settled for my best girl? No way. Never.’
Shawn shrugs. ‘You know I would have come back. Maybe if Angela and I made it work, it could take the pressure off. Topanga loves her, it wouldn’t look so weird. We could be…I don’t know, neighbours. Cool uncles to each other’s kids.’
‘I don’t want my life to be somewhere for you to visit. Or to hide the stuff you’ve given me where my wife can’t see it.
I don’t want to keep wanting stuff because I’m supposed to. I want you to be my life. And…I wanna wear your ring.’
Shawn cuts him off then with a kiss, almost swallowing Cory’s last syllable, desperate. Like he’s been waiting his whole life to do it.
Later, much later, fuzzy with sleep, he murmurs. ‘I want this to be forever.’
Shawn licks his lips a little. ‘Is this what you’ve been dreaming about?’
‘I think so. I just didn’t know it. How long would you have waited if I’d kept on being a big stupid?’
‘I’ve waited thirteen years. I guess I’d have waited a few more.’
In the morning, he opens his eyes. He’s not okay.
He never has been, not with change, and despite rushing into marriage his whole life, not with the future.
But the promise that, whatever choices he makes, change is inevitable doesn’t feel so much of a threat anymore, as a promise.
A secret hope.
There’s still time.