Chapter Text
New York was strange.
Not the city itself, that’s not what was strange. The strange thing is what happened to the group of friends when they moved from Philadelphia to New York.
Topanga remained her same self-assured self. Good things would happen to Topanga, because she expected nothing less than that from herself. She got the internship that moved them to New York. She successfully transferred her credits from Pennbrooke to NYU. She successfully applied for, and was granted, academic scholarships. One of which included a housing stipend deep enough for a one bedroom university-owned apartment.
Eric remained the same for the most part as well. He was still goofy as hell, still smarter than anyone gave him credit for, and still could talk a starving man out of his last bagel. Which is how he managed to turn his temp job as an administrative assistant at a talent agency, into a permanent one within a week of starting. And he got them to agree to give him benefits. The pay wasn’t great, but the agency did manage the careers of a handful of minor celebrities, and Eric relished the thought of running into them during the course of business.
The changes occurred mostly in Cory and Shawn. For the first time ever in their lives, Cory has his life in control. Cory didn’t freak out over moving to New York. Cory didn’t freak out over not getting into NYU as a transfer student. Cory did the sensible thing, and had already applied to Marymount Manhattan as a safety, and he got in there. And with Topanga’s housing subsidy, he didn’t need to worry about providing for rent. He managed to get a small work study job through the University, mostly filing papers in the registrar’s office, to help make ends meet.
Shawn on the other hand, felt completely untethered. Seeing Cory able to pull himself together and act like such an...adult really threw Shawn for a loop. Shawn’s grades at Pennbrooke hadn’t been enough to allow him to transfer anywhere, not that he’d even tried. He applied for jobs, only to be turned down time and again. He had a terrible case of writer’s block, and couldn’t manage to throw together a decent poem or short story to save his life. Sleeping on a cot while Eric snored away on Cory and Topanga’s couch didn’t help matters much. It was one thing when Shawn was a kid or a teenager always staying at the Matthews’ house and eating their food and mooching a little parental love from Amy and Alan. But he was an adult now, and should be able to fend for himself. He shouldn’t be mooching a place to sleep, a roof, and even food (now that his meager savings had dried up) from his best friend and his best friend’s wife.
It was with relief that, more than two months after moving to New York, Shawn managed to find a job working a press at a printing company. Shawn had applied thinking he’d be printing books. But this company mostly printed letterhead, brochures, forms and file folders for offices. The commute was terrible, a forty five minute ride on the subway, followed by nearly a half hour on the two different busses to get to the scary warehouse district hidden away in the Bronx. But it was Union. Shawn was earning Union wages, which is more than his father had ever managed to do. A week into the job, which mostly consisted of setting and switching letterhead plates to print letterhead Shawn was starting to feel a little less depressed. He’d even brought one of his signature black notebooks along on his commute and managed to jot some notes on a potential short story.
___________
He got home from work late, as always after such a long commute and found Cory, Topanga and Eric sitting around the coffee table, eating pizza.
“Shawnie,” Cory exclaimed, seeing his best friend come through the door. “Sit, we saved you some pizza.”
“Thanks,” Shawn said gratefully. “What do I owe you?”
“Nothing,” said Topanga quickly. “It’s our treat.”
Shawn raised his eyebrows at Topanga’s tone, but said nothing as he grabbed a slice with the works. Say what you want about New York, there was some good pizza here.
It was silent for a moment as Shawn watched Cory and Topanga looking at each other, clearly having a silent conversation with their eyes. Finally Topanga spoke up. “Cory and I have been thinking. It’s been great having you guys here, and we’re happy to help you since you didn’t have any other place to go.”
Eric cut her off. “Don’t worry, Pangers. We’ll leave.”
“It’s not that we’re kicking you out. We’ve loved having you here. You’ve really helped make this transition to New York much easier,” she went on, clearly speaking lines that had been rehearsed and not accounting for the fact that Eric had spoken at all.
“But you’re kicking us out,” Shawn supplied.
Cory shook his head. “Not kicking you out. You guys take all the time you need. We just thought that since you both had jobs now,” he did this rolling motion with his hands, as though that finished up his thought.
“Not a problem,” Eric said. “We’ll find something, right Shawn?”
“We will?” This was news to Shawn.
“Well, I don’t think either one of us makes quite enough money to get our own apartment. But we could be roommates, right?”
“Sure. I mean, if we can find something we can afford,” Shawn said. He sounded cool, non-chalant, when he said it, hiding the queasiness he felt on the inside. Truly, Shawn liked Eric. Eric had been a good big brother to Cory, and by proxy, a good big brother to him. But he’d be lying if he said that he always felt entirely comfortable around Eric.
Shawn told himself that it was the fact that Eric was Jack’s best friend. And whenever there was a brotherly battle between Jack and Shawn, Shawn was sure Eric took Jack’s side.
If he was going to be completely honest with himself, the real problem is that Shawn knew how well Eric could read people. Eric sometimes seemed to be a mind-reader, the way he could interpret subtle body language. If there was one thing Shawn wanted, it was to have certain things kept secret.
___________
“Eric, we are not doing our bathroom in a rubber ducky theme,” Shawn said forcefully.
“But.....duckies!” Eric said excitedly. They were standing in an aisle at Target, shopping for a few things for the apartment they’d just signed a lease on. Two months had passed since Cory and Topanga had, for lack of a better word, kicked them out. It wasn’t as easy finding a place as Eric thought it would be. Shawn wanted a location to shorten his commute by at least a little. They needed to save up for first and last months rent. Not to mention saving up for furniture and household items. They finally ended up finding a somewhat reasonably priced (as New York apartments go) one bedroom, which managed to cut a good fifteen minutes off the subway ride for Shawn. A two bedroom was just out of the question, price wise.
“There’s a reason that set is in the children’s bath section,” Shawn pointed out.
Eric stuck out his lower lip and looked at all the rubber ducky bathroom schwag Target had to offer. He thought it was fate, coming to Target on this particular day when all the rubber ducky bath accessories were on sale! There was a shower curtain patterned with duckies, a bath mat in the shape of a ducky, hand towels, a toothbrush holder, a cup, a soap dish, and a hand soap dispenser. All in the bright yellow rubber ducky pattern. Not to mention that Eric had found several actual rubber duckies to add to the pile. “You’ve never appreciated the duckies like I did,” Eric accused Shawn.
Shawn laughed, “You say that like it’s a bad thing.” Shawn took careful notice of the way Eric’s lower lip protruded in a pout, and realized this is part of how he always got his way. Shawn sighed, “I’ll agree to the toothbrush holder and the hand soap thingie.”
“The shower curtain and bath mat?” Eric asked hopefully.
“Don’t push it,” Shawn warned, and Eric turned away happily, putting everything except for the toothbrush holder and hand soap dispenser back on the shelf. Shawn scanned the clearance racks, and managed to find a set of bath towels and washcloths in the same yellow as the rubber duckies and added them to their cart. Fifty percent off, he thought, satisfied. When he turned to add the towels to the cart, he saw that Eric had added one of the rubber duckies. Shawn rolled his eyes, but figured two dollars wouldn’t be worth arguing over.
They headed over to the kitchen section, where Eric was admiring a gleaming set of aluminum all-clad pots and pans. Shawn went right to the clearance rack and spotted a cheap set that would suffice for now. When Eric tried to argue Shawn into getting the all-clad, Shawn asked how they would pay for it.
“Credit?” Eric asked, shrugging.
Shawn sighed. This was not a good sign. “Eric. You have to pay off credit eventually. If you don’t, bills pile up and sometimes you can’t afford to pay them. And then the repo man comes. We’re buying the cheap set.” Shawn looked down at the box, “Look it comes with a one quart and a two quart sauce pan, a stock pot, a ten inch fry pan, all with lids and a griddle. And look, it’s on clearance and is only thirty five dollars.”
Eric scrunched up his nose. “It probably won’t cook evenly.”
“Since when are you a gourmet cook? We’re probably not going to do much more than boil mac and cheese or scramble eggs.”
“Fine,” Eric said. “You take the fun out of buying new things.”
“Speaking of new things,” Shawn said, “I saw a thrift store around the corner from the apartment. We should look for furniture there.”
Eric turned and looked at Shawn, eyes wide. “Come on.”
“I’m serious. I’m not spending money on brand new furniture. Do you have any idea what a new couch costs?”
“It can’t be that much.”
“Hundreds, Eric. Hundreds of dollars that we don’t have.”
“But used?”
Shawn rolled his eyes for what felt like the hundredth time since they got to Target. “You’ve been spoiled Eric. You might be surprised what you can find at a thrift store.”
__________
Eric may as well have been in Disneyland. The thrift store was enormous and Eric couldn’t believe what they could find. There were five couches to choose from- five! And all were in decent shape, and the most expensive was only seventy five dollars. Sure three were hideously ugly and the fourth had an unpleasant odor, but knowing it was going to double as a bed, Shawn readily agreed to buying the seventy five dollar couch, which he had managed (to Eric’s embarrassment) to get knocked down to sixty five. Eric turned out to be a natural at finding thrift store treasures and Shawn a natural at haggling. Maybe not a natural, he’d been practicing since he was a kid with not enough money for a hotdog from a vendor at a Phillies game. Eric also got them a twenty four inch television, A TV stand, a small round dining room table with three matching chairs, a coffee maker, a set of four matching coffee mugs, curtains that would fit their living room window exactly, and most importantly, he found an entire set of ten blank black notebooks, exactly like the ones that Shawn uses to write in for just a dollar. Shawn hid his face from emotion when Eric chivalrously insisted on buying the notebooks as a gift to Shawn.
They lugged the smaller stuff around the corner to the apartment, arguing over the best way to get the larger items home from the thrift store. They were given twenty-four hours to pick up their couch, television, TV stand and dining room table. The couch would be the only one to give them a problem.
Finally, at Shawn’s insistence, they went back for everything but the couch that same night, and would try to strong-arm Cory into helping them move the couch tomorrow because the new mattress (Shawn had acquiesced on the mattress being new) would be delivered. So it was one last night at Cory and Topanga’s house.
Shawn wondered if it should have hurt his feelings a little bit that Cory and Topanga seemed so excited to have the apartment to themselves. It would have bothered Shawn more, except that he’d just had a great time shopping with Eric. In all honestly, it was probably the most fun he’d had since he came to New York. Cory and Topanga obviously felt a little guilty, because they bought a DVD player as a house warming gift for Shawn and Eric.
“You just spent your next two paychecks. You aren’t going to have money to do anything but stay inside and watch movies,” Cory said when Shawn started saying he couldn’t accept it.
Eric shoved Shawn, “Hell yeah!. We just got a free DVD player! Don’t ruin this for me, buddy.”
“Seriously guys, if there’s anything we can do to help,” Topanga offered, smiling.
“Cory can help us move our couch tomorrow,” Eric said bluntly.
Cory blanched, but quickly hid it under a smile. “Yeah, of course.” He paused. “Anything else?” Cory asked, arms wide.
Shawn shook his head. “You’ve done too much. Letting us stay here for four months. Rent-free.”
Cory enveloped Shawn in a big hug, “Shawnie. You’d do the same for me.”
Shawn melted a little, the distance he’d been feeling from Cory the last few months suddenly vanishing. Shawn grabbed Cory’s hair in the back, “Don’t you dare become a boring married couple,” he warned Cory, loud enough so Topanga could hear and laugh. “Eric and I will still be here to make sure you don’t.”
Topanga turned her back to grab more drinks from the refrigerator. Eric noticed Shawn turn his head slightly so his nose was buried in Cory’s hair and inhale deeply but subtly.