Chapter Text
Chandler felt his brain aching as he was suddenly thrust into the world of the living. His immediate reaction upon waking up was to slowly open his eyes; an action he immediately regretted after it only intensified the pressure on his brain. He huffed and buried himself on the blankets that’d been seemingly tossed in his sleep. He trusted his circadian rhythm enough to know he had at least ten minutes or so before his alarm for work actually set off.
Behind him, he felt the bed shift as someone nuzzled his back and wrapped their arms around him out of half wakefulness. Chandler chuckled in surprise, having fully lost the last night’s escapades to the haze of the hangover.
He set his body comfortably into the embrace from behind him , something familiar about the warmth making him feel fuzzy. It was nice to think that for once in his life he’d gotten to hookup with a girl after a party, and that he already felt comfortable with her. Maybe the hookup could turn into something and Chandler wouldn’t be such a weirdo for not being able to get a girl - let alone fall in love with one. Just as long as the familiarity wasn’t because the girl behind him was Janice, then everything would be alright; and he starkly remembered not seeing her at the party after a drunken conversation with Joey where he remarked how she “somehow just always appeared”, and looked around to make sure that wasn’t the case. Out of all the things to remember from the night before… And as some small dread ate away at his heart at the idea of having stupidly ended up with Janice again, the arms pulled him in tighter (strong girl!) and calmed him down.
Chandler went to graze the arm coming around him, and suddenly everything made sense; nice thoughts couldn’t last for him. The anxiety that had disappeared thanks to those same arms quickly came back tenfold. His neck began to turn against his will, he didn’t wish to confirm nor deny his suspicion, but just to be out of this room. Then the giddy smile he’d been trying to suppress dropped. Once he managed to get a look behind him, memories shot back into his unassuming brain, breaking the hangover headache into a migraine. He remembered every single one of those memories, as well as the feelings they evoked, flustering and scaring him in equal parts.
“Fuck!” he jumped to the side of the bed, looking around for his work clothes; so what if he had time before his alarm even went off, he had to go now. Now that he was practically upright, though, he noticed just how heavy his pounding heart was, seeming to drag him to the ground. Everything in his body told him to curl up to the ground into a fetal position and play dead until he actually was. Fortunately, instinct and common sense forced him up and running. “Shit, shit, shit” He opened his closet looking around for a good tie.
“Wha” slurred Joey as he stirred awake from the bed, he sat up slowly, much unlike Chandler, and cradled his forehead on his hand “oh my head…What happened yesterday?” He opened his eyes and looked at a now fully dressed, but in no way put together, Chandler - his hair as messy as always, nothing out of the ordinary.
To save Joey from the embarrassment of the realization that was already creeping up on him, Chandler spoke up, “Listen, Joey” Joey looked up, barely out of the realm of sleep, wearing his confusion clearly on his face. Chandler tried to calm his breathing as he fiddled with the tie that he was trying to get right around his neck, if only at least to say, “I'm going to work now but don't tell anyone what happened, okay?” He raised his tone a little, becoming slightly apprehensive.
Joey’s eyes began to widen while he continued to hold his head, “Oh my god,” He ran his hand through his own hair, “I-”
“We’ll speak about it later!” Chandler headed for the door of the room, “Okay?” Joey nodded, panicked, and as soon as he received that visual confirmation, Chandler was off.
Adrenaline shook jitters through his limbs, a primitive type of fear eating him up if he stopped for even a single second; it was almost like a simulation of his ancestors running from an angry lion, except the only lion then was his damned gay tendencies. All that running didn’t get him too far, though, almost toppling over Monica right outside the apartment.
“Oh my god, Chandler, I didn’t expect you to be up and out so early,” she teased, leaning forward to shake Chandler’s shoulder before realizing she still held a trashbag in one hand, “let me throw this out and I’ll start breakfast.”
“No,” His voice wavered as he breathed short and shallow, like he’d just ran the marathon. His legs continued to shake underneath him, “no thank you, I really gotta go.”
“What? She cocked her head, incredulously analyzing Chandler, as if she noticed something off about him “You’re not even usually up by now, especially with how much you drank last night, what's the hurry?”
“Just work stuff, okay?” He spoke defensively, apropos of nothing “I should be asking you the same, though, you’re never up so early either”
“One, that's not true, and two, I'm taking the trash out because someone forgot to do it last night” she remarked, passive aggressive, even if the aforementioned roommate wasn't around to hear, “Come on, just a little breakfast can’t hurt,” she tried to coerce him in.
Behind them the door opened, Joey stepped through before recoiling at the sight of Chandler.
“I thought you’d left.”
“He was going to come over for breakfast, right?” Monica looked at Chandler, who was stuck in place, red faced, and who was starting to worry his heartbeat could be heard by the whole world . He clenched his eyes, clutched his head as the earth rotated just a bit faster and tilted on its axis, nauseated. “Come on, Joey, you should join too, I’ll make some real good pancakes” Monica said, grinning and wringing her hands.
Joey, the actor that he was, smiled wide and said, “Okay!” happily at the idea of food. Chandler felt sickened at the idea of putting something in his mouth; fortunately for Joey, his mouth hadn’t been used like Chandler’s had the prior night.
“No, I really have to go” he started to turn and leave only to be stopped by an insistent hand on his wrist.
“Come on, Chandler-!” She wasn’t fast nor convincing enough at trying to keep him from going and he immediately took off again. “Okay!” she threw her hand up in the air in defeat and sighed, before turning to Joey, “Oh, Joey, you drank a lot last night too, right?" She opened the door to her apartment and beckoned him in, "Come on, I’ll add some bacon and eggs to your breakfast.” A beat later she returned outside, having forgotten about the bag in her hand.
Chandler wouldn't only describe his day at work as boring, but also dull, mind numbing, stale, insipid, bland, monotonous, and many other synonyms for “boring” that he'd caught up on after going through a thesaurus for an hour. For a while he thought someone must have been messing with the clocks, because time went painfully slow as the memories of the night prior replayed in his mind; but then again, he hadn’t come out of his office in his hours, so he had to fully rule out tampering.
Once it was around 1 PM his boss came into his office noticing that he hadn’t taken his lunch break yet and forced him to do so. He quoted some company rule about how “higher ups would get their butts if employers didn’t take their mandated breaks”. Chandler was annoyed by that, if he didn’t want to take his break then that was on him, nevertheless, he caved. Still, he remained adverse to putting food into his mouth, some weird fear of the dirtiness of it maybe; or maybe he feared that if he put something in his mouth it would remind him of the feeling of Joey, and not compare to it at all. Because, the worst part of it all was that he could not in good faith say it disgusted him - it was the complete opposite, and he hated how much he didn’t hate it. So, for half an hour, he sat in the break room, pretending to read a magazine, and swearing he could feel his face boiling.
Around two hours later he remembered his hangover, the adrenaline from the events of the morning seeming to have numbed him to it. But now that it had drained out of his system and that the only thing he’d had all day was a singular cigarette (and everything else he dared not mention even in his thoughts from after midnight that same day). It slowly started to take a toll on his body and weaken him. Maybe he deserved it, he thought, if he had to mess things up so bad, maybe he deserved to be punished.
Everything else he could excuse. He could excuse drunkenly making out with guys at parties from his late teens to early twenties; He could excuse the christmas kiss he and Joey had shared; He could excuse the jokingly flirting with Joey; He could not excuse blowing the guy. That was something he’d never be able to tell anyone or himself that it wasn’t gay; but it wasn’t just that, it was a friendship ruiner. How was he supposed to pick up his friendship from an act so explicit - and maybe it was the hangover hitting him with one of the lightheading spells, but suddenly he could feel the ground around his calves.
Though he’d already made sure his clocks weren’t tempered with, he made a mental note to check for ghosts, as the day seemed to suddenly surge forward to its end. Conveniently enough, too, this was one of those “lucky” days where he had no work left over to excuse staying in late. He didn’t want to go home and see Joey, talk with him, and see the end of their friendship. He didn’t know who had lied to him and said that there was nothing so painful like heartbreak from a lover; Nothing had ever hurt more than when Kip had decided to move away. This wasn’t Kip, however, no, it was Joey. Joey who he was much closer with than he could ever have been with Kip. His heart started tearing apart as he imagined what would happen when he was back home - and as it broke, its pieces had nowhere else to go but inside of his body, so he could feel them falling and hitting his other organs, making him want to curl up over his abdomen. Eventually the pieces would pool up along his feet, making him sink much further into the ground. As if it wasn’t hard enough to have to walk with his legs dug up in the concrete. But maybe it was better, it slowed down the inevitable, but it gave him more time to prepare. It didn’t matter much anyways, the only way he saw things between them not ending would be if Chandler put a bullet in his own brain right then and there; then again, that would have prevented him a lot of mess ups and he’d come so far from all those moments, he couldn’t let that all go to waste now. He would give himself the pleasure of dying only if when he was middle aged he was still as miserable as he was now.
It was an absolute mystery to him how he made it up the stairs while sinking to the ground, he dragged the beautiful, polished, wooden floor as he made his way to the door. Reaching for the knob he knew his muscles were stretching, but he was just close enough that they wouldn’t tear. With a big inhale and with a, thankfully, beating heart he opened the door, initially leaving only a gap for him to see. Then opened it wide upon noticing the darkness of the place.
It was suspicious, he thought— Joey was never this late, unless he was out with a girl, but would he be after the night they’d had together? Chandler shook his head at the thoughts of some jealous girlfriend and felt the ground eat at his legs just a little more. At least in some way he was relieved that Joey wasn’t there. Maybe the best possible outcome was that they just never talk again and avoid the awkward conversation all together, Chandler knew how it would end anyways.
At that moment something thudded heavily against the door, a sound that made Chandler nearly jump out of his dress shoes. He was making his way back towards it to check out what it was when it suddenly burst open, with Joey and a girl kissing coming from behind it. Of course Chandler’s suspicions were correct, and of course his heart only skipped a beat at the scare of the door opening. Never mind that his knees were beginning to sink in.
Joey and the girl came apart, the former grinning giddily, something which made memories of looking up at him the night before flash before Chandler’s eyes.
“Hey, Chandler!” This was the first time he’d ever experienced whiplash, surprisingly enough it wasn’t when he was younger and headrests were not a thing at all in cars. Chandler tried to pull his face into something that wasn’t shock; some expression he would have worn before he made a stupid drunk decision, but he had forgotten who he was while normal. “This is Daisy, you don’t mind if we…” Joey pointed towards his room, “right?” Then he smiled an innocent smile, nothing but that behind it. Chandler wanted to curse him, how dare Joey be completely normal while he was sinking and sinking like all solid ground had turned to quicksand.
“No, of course!” Chandler shrugged and hid his hands into his pockets. He watched the pair disappear into the room and could immediately hear the moistness of their lips coming together and apart, impatience becoming obvious on the sounds that came out quicker and quicker, sometimes disappearing into breaths and faint sounds of touch. Chandler could barely bend his legs anymore.
Whatever it was that his body or the world wanted from him to stop sinking into the ground, he had no idea what it was; and even if he did, he felt deep somewhere in his gastric folds that he could not have it. What he did know was he really badly needed another cigarette, but he’d end up dry heaving if he started smoking more on an empty stomach. Then again, he already felt sick just having to hear Joey and the girl in the other room; and for a second he thought the feeling to be reasonable, then he sank and craved a cigarette a little more and he wanted to punch the yearning out his belly.
As a distraction, Chandler sat in front of the TV and browsed the channels knowing he wouldn’t find anything interesting. He settled on a kid’s channel, and, to his own surprise, he found it to be as entertaining to watch as it was whenever he was sick. Once the squeaking began from the other room he tried his best to focus entirely on the strainingly colorful characters and told himself it would be over soon. Joey having loud sex had never been as painful as it was right then, and Chandler would not take his blindfold off; he found it scared him much less to stay without seeing it.
Most painful, though, was that he’d have no confirmation from Joey on their friendship and where it stood. However, if he knew his roommate at all, Joey was probably just as torn up and was distracting himself with sex. At least, Chandler hoped so. It was nice to stay believing that his best friend regarded him with as much importance as Chandler did; that every hug meant the same amount to the both of them.
As the pit on his stomach grew and grew so did his confusion. He asked himself if he should even care so much, maybe it would all be better if he didn’t if it went without being brought up at all. Then, that way, there was no risk of an awkward conversation that might end up leading to the inevitable end of their friendship far too soon.
Chandler knew how it would all end, though, all the branching paths ended in the same place. At this clarity, he couldn’t help the intense feeling that at some point in the near future he’d end up with a metal barrel pressed to his temple by his own hands; and that feeling, that frightening feeling that came accompanied with immediate apathy, was something he hadn’t felt since he was fifteen. At that moment his heart beat the slowest it had and would in a long while. Sluggishly, he pushed himself up off the couch, feeling like a turtle struggling on its shell. Then, while he walked to the kitchen, supposing he’d get a glass of water, just to do something, Joey walked out his room, bottom half covered up. Chandler stared, only half turned, but still surprised at not having noticed the lack of noise – he swore he could still hear the squeaking, and the screaming, and the shuffling, and the wetness, and the skin coming together all swarming in his head.
Joey halted at the sight of him, as though Chandler had no right being in the living room that very instant. He closed the door behind him, and Chandler knew right then that a conversation would have to be had. His hand was being forced. Joey was the most confident man he knew, he’d never before closed the door where his prize of the night was just to speak to Chandler for a bit. It meant Joey thought whatever conversation they would have, good, neutral, or bad, was not for the ears of her.
“Hey,” Joey spoke and ran his palms across the front of his pants, immediately being disappointed by the act not helping the wetness of them go down in the slightest. Those pants had barely any more absorption capacity left at that point.
Chandler echoed his, “Hey,” and looked down.
“Oh, sorry, were we too loud?”
“Nah it’s,” his hand moved to the back of his neck, but did so as if insecure of where his body was in time and space, “It’s fine, I was just watching some stupid show on TV, didn’t bother me much”
“Oh,” Joey brought his hands together and outstretched his arm, rubbing his slick palms against each other, “ok good, good.”
They stood, time passing as it always had, but the seconds being absorbed and counted, each sixty of them per minute.
“Okay I’m-” Joey started.
“Hey, are we-” Chandler closed his eyes tight and pushed on, “are we good?” and to that Joey’s expression became undecodable. With the months of living with the actor he had never quite seen him like that, but if he had to decipher it then it would be a face of anxiety barely concealed as nonchalance. Chandler knew Joey wasn’t the best actor ever, but he was definitely better than that.
“Yeah, why wouldn’t we be?” He smiled.
“Well, y’know…” Joey looked down and crossed his arms, putting his fool face on. In academics he might’ve been stupid, and he probably would go to Washington state while having to go to the capital of the country, but things like these were sure to be an act.
“No,” he looked up, “no I think I don’t,” sure of himself he went on, “I don’t think anything happened, in fact” and Chandler’s eyes jumped up. It hit Chandler then the realization that of course, of course he wouldn’t want to talk about it either. “So we’re alright” Joey smiled widely as if entirely having convinced himself that nothing had gone on between them.
“Right”, Chandler nodded, and there it was, a silent agreement between the both of them. As long as neither of them spoke about it again, , to each other nor to anyone else, everything would be fine. Rather not acknowledge what’s not there, because there wasn’t an elephant that would be mad not being addressed. There was no elephant that would trample Chandler once only his head was above ground, so there was no need to mention it. Everything would be fine between them because Joey said it would be.
Then Joey continued on what he intended to do before he’d stopped on his tracks at the sight of Chandler, and the latter went to his room. With his hips sunk to the ground, he went to sleep.