❝You and your words flooded my senses
Your sentences left me defenseless
You built me palaces out of paragraphs
You built cathedrals❞

Burn | Hamilton

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"...You're too good for him, in fact, you're too good for every loser here!" Shawn said vehemently, not seeing the bored look on Elena's face as he continued his rant.

"Shawn-" Elena said sharply, turning to make sure Beau wasn't around.

"Except me, obviously," He paused and frowned, "Well, actually, you're way too good for me too, but, uh... Okay, this isn't going good for me. Um, what I'm trying to say is that I'm at least better than Bernie, way better," He grinned like a salesman trying to upsell his customer.

"Beau," She sighed as she rubbed her temple, "His name is Beau."

"Yeah, yeah, Bucket," He brushed her off, "Better than him too."

"We're talking about the same person," She huffed, annoyance clear as day on her face.

"Why are we talking about Bernard-"

"Beau!" Elena yelled as she glared at him.

"It doesn't matter," He rolled his eyes, "What matters is that I love you and we should-"

"You love me?" She repeated with a scoff, "Is that a fact or a weapon?"

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"Now, this next poem is quite special," Mr. Feeny told the class, "The manner in which the poet expresses emotions is truly eloquent. The piece is entitled 'An Unpublished Manuscript For J.D. Salinger'."

Cory leaned over to Shawn's desk. "Nappy time," He grinned, not noticing the tight, nervous smile Shawn gave him.

Elena's brows furrowed as she watched Shawn wring his hands out anxiously, his eyes trained on Mr. Feeny.

"It is possible to assassinate my heroes with the scope of my individualism," Mr. Feeny read, "However, by their own persistence to themselves, I believe that they have chosen me to pursue a self. What is literature but the illumination of that which I would write? Salinger speaks through me; to me; whispers, 'Where to, little boy?' My answer is the dogged pen to page which lights consistently the pathway home. It is on that road that I alone can trip my way back to myself.'"

Cory let out a huff. "Ah, come on," He scoffed, clearly unimpressed.

Mr. Feeny sighed, a headache already forming just from the sound of his voice. "Would you care to analyze this poem, Mr Matthews?"

Cory shrugged. "Yeah, I'll take a stab."

"Stab away," Mr. Feeny let out another tired sigh, knowing Cory was going to butcher this.

Cory cleared his throat as he stood up before bursting out into a yell. "You call that poetry?! Feh! And all right already with this J.D. Salinger thing. I mean hello? Name-dropping? And haven't we had just about enough of Catcher in the Rye? I mean, what's he written lately?! Am I right?!" He exclaimed confidently before faltering at the unimpressed looks all around the class and sitting down timidly.

"Well on that note, we will have to pick this up at our next session," Mr. Feeny told the class as he checked his watch.

"You people don't value my opinions," Cory grumbled as the rest of the class began leaving.

"Cory, I value your opinion as much as people value a white crayon," Elena said bluntly.

"I have a right to my own opinion," He whined.

"Not when your opinion is dumb and wrong," She corrected.

Cory frowned. "That's not how opinions work," He huffed.

Elena rolled her eyes. "It is when the opinion is yours. That poem was beautiful," She decided.

Topanga nodded. "I can't believe someone our own age wrote that!" She said in awe.

"Someone like Mr Hunter?" Mr. Feeny spoke up.

Cory's brows furrowed and his head snapped to his best friend. "What?"

Shawn's face was pink as he looked down at his shoes shyly. "Yeah, I wrote that poem," He said quietly.

Cory immediately changed his tune and patted Shawn's shoulders proudly. "I liked it!"

"Any more poems?" Mr. Feeny asked hopefully.

Shawn gave him a tight smile, all the attention clearly becoming too much. "I, uh, wouldn't really call them poems. I just write stuff down... I've been doing it since I can remember," He shrugged.

"I can't believe he never told me," Elena said quietly to herself.

Shawn told her everything, even things she never wanted to know. Like how he found the best way to comb the tangles out of his uncle's back or how he thought he was in love with someone else.

"I can't believe you never told me!" Cory yelled, clearly offended.

"I never told anyone, okay?" Shaw huffed defensively, "I just... do it for myself. Get my feelings out."

"Shawn, I host poetry readings at the Student Union, Friday evenings," Mr. Feeny said, "If you would feel comfortable sharing some of your work-

Shawn immediately shook his head. "I don't know, Mr Feeny, it's-"

Cory cut him off in typical Cory fashion. "That sounds awesome! Haha! Perhaps I could read some of my poems too?"

Mr. Feeny was clearly not buying it. "...You have poems?" He asked dryly.

"Well I wouldn't call them poems," He said trying to come off bashful like Shawn had, "I just... I just sort of write stuff down... Ow!" He yelped when Elena threw her book at him.

"You get extra credit for that," Mr. Feeny said gratefully to her before walking off.

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"All day long, I think of you," Cory said dramatically, his eyes trained on Topanga as if he were serenading her, "How do you do... the things you do? I love you girl... with all my heart. Because you're pretty! ...And you're smart," He paused for a drumroll on the bongos, "...To-pangaaa!"

Cory finished with a proud smile only to frown when he got forced clapping from the crowd. "It's a tough room," He sighed before perking up, "I have another-"

He cut himself off with a yelp when Elena dragged him off the stage. Now that got a standing ovation which Elena happily accepted with a bow.

"You know I bruise easily!" Cory whined as he sat down with a huff, "They would have liked the rest of my-"

"No one would have liked it," Elena said decidedly.

"The uh, final poet for this evening will be Mr. Shawn Hunter," Mr. Feeny announced, glad Shawn decided to give it a try despite his initial nervousness.

Shawn's head immediately snapped to Cory and he glared at him harshly. "I can't believe you! When are you going to learn to stay out of my business?!"

Cory just smiled and patted Shawn encouragingly on the back. "Come on, we're all here for you."

Shawn let out a heavy sigh but got up on stage. He took a deep breath and cleared his throat as he set his notebook on the stool. "You don't know it, but sometimes..." He faltered as he looked up from his book nervously. His eyes scanned the room and he immediately relaxed when his gaze landed on Elena.

His eyes stayed trained on her as he gulped before continuing. "You don't know it, but sometimes... I..." He trailed off when Beau came up behind her, pressing a kiss to her cheek before sitting down next to her and sliding her drink to her. "I-I'm sorry."

The room was silent as Shawn rushed off stage and out the door.

"It's okay, everybody!" Cory quickly reassured the crowd as he took Shawn's place on stage, "Cory's here! It's just a touch of stage fright. You know, his poems are better than mine, ha! All right, I'll just, uh, read the one that he was gonna read," He said as he picked up Shawn's notebook, "This one's called 'Top of the World'."

"You don't know it, but sometimes I go to a hill that overlooks the landscape's mask of city lights... for a sip of momentary grace. On this brink of everything I know, I can gain an eyeful of the lost Atlantis and the human soul... and a breath that fills my lungs with the air between two stars. If you were now to capture the image of this elation in the framework of your mind or find transcendence through these words... then at most you would know nothing of the beauty your existence throws to me."

Shawn had managed to calm himself down enough to reenter the room solemnly only to feel his blood boil when he saw Cory reading his poem.

"For mine is a love no experience, no measure, no words, could ever degrade into reality by virtue of degree," Cory finished softly.

"I-I don't understand," Elena said, clearly lost as she turned to Topanga with a frown.

Shawn stormed up to Cory and dragged him to the door. "Come with me," He said darkly.

The second they were outside, Shawn turned and glared at him. "Okay, how do I put this? Who do you think you are?" He asked fiercely.

Cory chuckled. "Well that's a silly question, Shawn, I'm your best-"

"No. No, no, no, no. No jokes. No back-peddling," He snapped, "Look into my eyes, Cory. I am dead serious. We have a problem here."

Cory faltered and nodded. "All right. Shawn, I'm sorry."

He rolled his eyes. "No, no, no, no-"

"I-"

"That's not what I want to hear. Not this time," His voice raised involuntarily when his eyes caught sight of an upset Elena through the window, "I want to hear that you were wrong. That I asked you to back off, and you wouldn't take no for an answer. That you totally disregarded my feelings! You went way too far this time, Cory-"

"All right, all right!" Cory admitted, "I did that! Okay, but I just wanna say-"

Shawn glared at him. "Oh there'd better not be a 'but'," He said threateningly.

"I did this for your own good!" Cory argued earnestly.

"You have no idea what my poetry is about, do you?" Shawn asked, defeated, "That poem that Feeny read in class– do you even know what that was about?" He paused, waiting for an answer before he scoffed when he was met with silence, "Nothing. Cory, I can't say certain things. So... I write them down. That's how I get them out. Now I do that for me, not for anyone else."

"I heard the poem, Shawn-"

"You heard it, but you didn't listen to it," He corrected sharply, "That poem you just read - do you even know who that was about?"

Cory didn't but he didn't want the same reaction as his previous silence brought so he took a wild guess. "Me."

Shawn let out a tired sigh. "It's about Elena. I wrote that for her."

Cory's face fell and he scoffed. "Well!"

They hadn't noticed that Elena and Topanga had come out to check on them until Elena stormed up to them. She was walking so fast that Shawn barely caught a glimpse of her before he felt his cheek sting.

Cory and Topanga flinched at the sound her palm landing on his cheek made.

She stood for a moment, glaring at Shawn before deciding her slap said enough. She turned on her heel and made her way back inside to find Beau.

He turned to glare at Cory, a deep frown on his face. "Thank you," He scoffed sarcastically.

Beau had been none the wiser to what was going on. Well, until he noticed Shawn's notebook was still on stage and none of his friends were around. So like the Southern sweetheart he is, he decided to take the notebook to keep it safe for him.

That's when he unintentionally glanced over the page and saw Elena's name scribbled in a heart right next to the name of the poem Cory had just read. And that's when everything clicked.

"Beau."

He turned around at the sound of Elena's voice, his face solemn and the notebook clutched in his hand.

Her face fell and her eyes widened when she saw the opened notebook in his hand. Elena swore she was going to make Cory kill himself, that was she got rid of him without the criminal conviction.

"Please, please, let me explain," She begged.

After a beat of silence, he nodded slowly. "Okay."

So she told him how she didn't know that poem was about her, about how she didn't care because she had him. Her mouth was running a mile a minute and her words were beginning to blur into one as she rushed to reassure him.

Beau softly put his hands on her shoulders and shushed her but that didn't work so he kissed her. She relaxed immediately as her arms came up around his neck.

He pulled away with a soft smile and pressed a quick kiss to her nose when he saw her confused expression.

"Why are you kissing me?" She asked in disbelief, wondering why he wasn't mad.

"Because you're pretty as a peach when you're anxious," He said warmly like it was obvious.

Her brows furrowed. "So you don't care about any of the stuff I just said?"

"Well, I already knew Shawn still liked you. There's a tree stump in a Louisiana swamp with a higher IQ if I didn't," He chuckled at the shocked expression on her face, "Elena, he called me Banjo Frycook once and I know I don't have a difficult name to remember."

Elena really wondered how well Shawn would do in school if he put as much effort into his work as he did coming up with outlandish names for Beau.

"And I don't care if he still has feelings for you because I don't blame him. And it doesn't matter anyway because you told me you chose me and I trust you," He finished, shocking her with how simple his reasoning was.

"So I have a crazy ex-boyfriend who is still in love with me and very much in my life and you just don't care?" She repeated before she sighed when he nodded, "I'm sorry I can't be with someone who has such bad taste in women," She sighed before bursting into laughter when he tickled her.

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"...I don't know what to say," Cory admitted, clearly feeling guilty for what he'd caused.

"Well that's a first," Elena chuckled tiredly before she sighed, "Look, Cory, I know you always mean well but it never seems to end well."

"Listen, I- I'm sorry I read Shawn's poem. And-" He paused and shook his head, "No! I'm not sorry I read Shawn's poem! I mean, don't you see that he would love to tell you how he feels?" He asked exasperatedly, "Elena, he's writing poems for you... I mean he - he obviously is still in love with you. And I know you still love him. Remember? You told me. We were in the bathroom and you were in a towel and we hugged-"

"I remember!" She cut him off, "Maybe I do still have feelings for Shawn, okay?" She admitted before she gave Cory a pointed look, knowing he would get his hopes up and try to do something about it, "But that doesn't mean we should be together. I'm finally okay! I started to move on."

Cory arched a brow, clearly not convinced. "Then what was the slap about?"

"He doesn't get to do that!" She argued with a frown, "He doesn't get to be the reason we broke up and then be the one crying over us not being together anymore. You know, he broke up with me. He's the one that wanted to meet new people. And now, this?" She faltered, taking a deep breath to calm down, "It's like he only wants me when he can't have me."

Cory shrugged. "Well uh, it's not in my nature to interfere," If Elena had been in a better mood she would have laughed at the irony, "But I dunno, maybe... his poetry is the only true way that he can tell you how he feels. Y'know? So... meet him halfway. Tell him how you feel," He suggested warmly.

"When did you get smart?" Elena chuckled, "You only passed high school because Feeny didn't want to get stuck with you for another four years."

"I resent that," He huffed with a frown, "My brain is a sponge for knowledge."

"Cory, you've got a dog brain," She corrected, "You're lovable and loyal but you're this close to chasing cars all day."

He scoffed. "I think you have me mistaken for Shawn."

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"Elena," Shawn breathed out and jumped to stand when she walked over to him, they were the only two left in the student union.

"Go ahead," She nodded for him to talk.

"...You sure? Not gonna hit me again are you?" He grinned, trying to lighten up the mood.

She paused to think about it. "We'll see."

Shawn's eyes widened in fear and he gulped before letting out a forced laugh. "Nah, it's cool. I probably deserved it."

"You did," She said seriously.

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair for probably the hundredth time that night, it was starting to look like a bird's nest. "Look I've been going over these words over and over again in my head, 'cause... I wanna say this right. We used to talk. I mean... really talk. I miss that."

Elena nodded. "I miss it too," She admitted.

"Things just got weird. I mean, I - I got weird," He corrected with a wince, "But I don't want us to ever stop talking... I couldn't stand that."

"Neither could I. And when I heard that poem-"

Shawn cut her off before she could finish. He'd been up all night thinking about everything and he came to the conclusion that Elena deserved better. She deserved better than someone who broke her heart to preempt his own heartbreak that may or may not have happened. She deserved someone who didn't hurt her, who wasn't broke and broken.

So he decided that for once, he was going to put her first. He wasn't going to be selfish and drag her down with him just because he loved her. He was going to stop using love as a weapon against her and let her find a better love.

"Yeah, the poem - that's what I wanted to talk to you about. I wrote that a long time ago," He explained, not looking at her because she could always tell when he was lying.

Her brows raised in surprise. "You did?"

"Yeah!" He asked a little too quickly and his voice a little higher than normal. He cleared his throat and nodded, "Like, way before we broke up, so you don't have to feel weird, and... y'know, and everything's okay."

"Oh. Well... Great! Because, um, it would've really been awkward knowing that you still had feelings for me," She let out a forced laugh, "When I've- when I've clearly moved on," She said decidedly, a genuine smile spreading on her face as she thought of beau.

"Yeah, yeah, Bucket's a great guy."

"You know that is not his name," She grumbled.

"What kind of name is Bojangle anyway? Where's he from? I mean I don't really know what that accent is," He mused with his head tilted in though as he tried to place the accent.

"American," Elena answered dryly. It was times like these that she felt so bad for Feeny.

Shawn scoffed. "I speak American. That doesn't sound like American."

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"Hey, Shawn, is that the book you wrote the poem in?" Topanga asked and frowned when he nodded, "Isn't that the book that I gave you for your birthday?"

"What's your point?"

"Well my point is that you and Elena broke up before your birthday," She said shrewdly, "So you couldn't have written that poem two months ago..." She froze, "Shawn?"

"Okay!" He huffed, "Okay, you caught me. I wrote it after we broke up."

"How long after?" She asked excitedly.

He shrugged, not wanting to answer. "Not long after."

"How long after?" She insisted.

He sighed. "I wrote it two weeks ago," He admitted almost shyly.

"Oh Shawn you do still love Elena!" Topanga cooed happily.

He quickly looked around the student lounge before shushing her. "Okay, let's keep it down, let's keep it down," He let out a sigh, "I can't get her out of my mind, you know? I miss her... I miss how she made me feel. I miss the fact that I could tell her things that no one else understands– not even Cory."

"Well then tell her that, Shawn!"

He immediately shook his head. "I - I can't tell her that."

Her face fell and she frowned. "Why not?"

"Because I told her that I needed my space. I told her that I wanted to meet new people. I did this! I hurt her, I broke her! And now... I need to let her go," He gave her a sad smile, resigned to his punishment if it protected Elena's happiness.

"If you two love each other you should be together!" Topanga said shrilly, as if it was a command, "Maybe if Elena knew how you felt-"

"No, it's too late. Elena's not in love with me anymore. She told me– she's over me, that she just wants to be friends."

"And you believe that?" She asked because she definitely didn't.

She knew Elena genuinely liked Beau but she also knew her feelings for Shawn hadn't just disappeared.

"No," Shawn admitted.

"Then why are you just giving up?!" Topanga yelled in disbelief.

"Because she deserves for me to finally respect what she wants. I've been ignoring what she wants since middle school-"

"But this isn't what she wants," Topanga tried to argue.

"It's what she says she wants," Shawn corrected, "And I need to listen to her for once because what I've been doing? It's not fair to her, it never was."

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"Your parents were weird," Elena mused after witnessing a sweet moment between the older couple.

Cory frowned in confusion. "Then why were you always over at our house?"

"Because you had food and sober people. Like I said, weird."

Cory left to get the gift for Topanga he'd hidden in his room instead of his dorm. Alone, Elena let herself get lost in her thoughts and a frown made its way onto her face.

"Elena, what's wrong?" Alan asked as he walked into the kitchen.

"Boyfriend problems," She sighed.

"With Beau?"

"No, Shawn."

Alan's brows furrowed. "But Shawn isn't your boyfriend."

She smiled tightly. "Ah, so you see the problem too."

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〚𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐑'𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄〛

So, I finally updated!!

This chapter was a bit of a mess because I hope you guys still liked it. There's only 2 chapters left before season 7 starts! what do you guys think is going to happen?

Please don't forget to comment!

Have a great day and stay safe ♥♥