Disclaimer: I do not own Friends.
Haunted
My vocation is a wild one.
It is a thing mothered by raw nature, and its every aspect reflects it origins. It is unpredictable and untamable, explored by Man but barely known. It is magnificent and noble, and yet mysterious and shadowed. It is a Beast, a Creature of the Great Abyss that is our world and universe.
And it spoke to me as nothing ever could. It tugged at every fiber in me, at my chest and limbs and skin and muscles and bones. It is in my blood, infused into my conscience before I even left my mother's womb. I pursued it as the early man pursued the forest, the mountains, and the sea. I ran after it as the American settlers ran after the West, as the Romans ran after Europe, as the fish ran after the currents and the hawks soared after the clouds.
It was my belonging place. It was my life's calling. Its path may be treacherous and full of pitfalls, but it had all the dazzling beauty of a wild rose and ragged white wolf. It was my Call of the Wild. And the winding path carried me places I never in my wildest fantasies would have conjured.
My journey mounted upon itself, and grew into a history and tall tale of its own. But its beginnings were humble, as all great beginnings are bound to be. My first real glimpse at the true, absolute glory of my destiny started on a windy winter afternoon, during my mid-twenties. I was a kit learning to hunt for myself in the jungle. My grandmother, who had nurtured me from my childhood, who had bequeathed to me all the knowledge she could of my career (which had also been hers) had recently passed away. I was fresh on my own, with only a few, beginning experiences under my belt, learning to adjust to a new apartment and a new environment.
It was a dreary morning. And it came in a modest little coffee shop.
I hadn't really noticed her before, though I'm sure she hung out there often, even more sure that should I have been a guy (or, to be fair, a lesbian), my eyes would have found and latched on to her on the spot. Her liquid-crystal blue eyes, her soft pink lips, her flowing blond hair, and her perfect figure all marked her as an object of envy.
That engagement ring on her finger was bound to strike disappointment in many a heart.
She slid down quietly onto the seat next to mine, arranging herself inconspicuously on the worn fabric of the orange couch. She turned, and locked gazes with me, leaving no doubt that she had sought me out with a definite purpose in mind. And I imagined for a moment that I glimpsed in those orbs the journal of my future opening to page one.
"You're Phoebe, right?"
I decided that there was no need for my alias, and answered, "Yes."
And so, without even knowing it, I approached a turn from my little side-street that led onto the highway ramp, about to climb up to meet an unpaved, barren path that stretched out splendidly and interminably before my young mind's eyes.
"They say you're a medium."
Those five words wrote the first mark in that journal. The rest was for my pen to fill.
Her name was Rachel Greene. And she introduced herself as a woman with a predicament.
"It's this apartment I have," she had begun her tale rather nervously, as if she couldn't believe what she had decided to do. "It belonged to a friend of mine. The thing is though…he passed away years ago, and I've been trying to let go of it, to finally pass it on to someone else."
She had hesitated here, doubt seeping into her features. Phoebe saw her trouble, and prompted her on with a gentle, "and?"
"And…and I couldn't." Here, she sighed, fiddling with her coffee mug. "It's not just that I'm attached. I've even gotten movers to do it but strange things kept happening. No one will go near it now."
"What type of strange things?"
"Wind when there were no open windows. Shaking furniture. Voices with no mouths. Tightening air, so that people couldn't breathe. One man nearly passed out from suffocation. Since then, no one would dare come near it again." She watched Phoebe carefully, trying to catch any signs of incredulity, of mocking laughter. She found none. In truth, there were none.
"Well, you've yet to get to the point. Why come to me?"
"People think it's haunted."
"And?"
"And I think so too."
"The thing is, a medium doesn't just go around trying to save as many souls as they can find. Ghosts belong to a different realm, and mediums are only employees of that realm. We do only as much as we are asked to do. Otherwise, the delicate homeostasis of the universe would collapse. It's not certain whether it would explode or implode, and no one had yet desired to test it and see."
That was what Grandma had drilled into her head. And so she told Rachel she would need a week of consideration before deciding upon anything.
She took it in the end.
Why she came to that conclusion, she wasn't sure of herself. All she knew was that she had been willed to complete this case, by some outside force beyond her reach or comprehension.
When she called up Rachel to tell her, the other woman had been ecstatic.
"Go up right away. I'm out of town for a few days, but I'll tell the super you're coming.
"Thank you for this, Phoebe. And please do your best. Set him free. It's long past time."
The air in the apartment was stifling, and seemed to deepen threatening the moment they crossed the threshold. A normal human would no doubt have concluded that this was due to the lack of ventilation and the fact that no one had set foot inside this apartment in over a year. Phoebe knew better. Her body felt the pressure twice as strongly, and from both instinct and what little experience she had she knew it could only be caused by the presence of a fixated spirit. And from the feel of it, this spirit was not happy to see them at all.
The pressure was intense, but the direction was vague. The existence was all around her, dispersed and mixed in with the atmosphere itself. Try as she might, she could not locate a source or center of the energy, though she knew there must be one. She took two more steps in, stopping abruptly when she was blasted with a fierce wave of troubled anger. It couldn't be clearer that the spirit did not want her here.
But yielding now was not an option. Once she had taken a case, there was no stopping until it was complete.
Carefully, she lowered the aura she'd raised in defense against the bitter, emotional onslaught moments earlier.
"I know you're there," Phoebe whispered, gazing straight ahead with steady, steel-gray eyes. Her voice was gentle and utterly confident, and she spoke it as a statement of truth rather than a brash challenge. "I know you're there," she repeated for emphasis, "but I don't know where you're hiding. Are you afraid of me?" Now a touch of teasing humor could be detected in her tone, and a slight shift in the heavy atmosphere was the response.
"Why are you hiding?" the medium murmured wonderingly, letting her fingers trail along the wooden side of the foosball table beside her. They came away covered with a fine gray layer of aging dust. "I'm not here to cause harm."
Treeger, who stood just inside the door he'd opened for her, shuddered at the sudden chill as a breeze from nowhere appeared to slice through the near-suffocating air.
"I don't know you. But the one with you has hurt me before."
These words of the soundless breeze floated into Phoebe's ears, even as they missed the man behind her completely. Her eyes flickered, a spark of uneasiness visible in them for the first time. Dealing with a reluctant spirit was by no means a new experience for her, but it certainly was a first that she couldn't pinpoint the exact location of her target, even after it had spoken. The voice came from everywhere, as if the walls and furniture themselves had answered her in flawless harmony.
There was no doubt now that she would never find the spirit unless it chose to reveal itself.
"Mr. Treeger, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask that you leave," Phoebe announced, her tone leaving no room for contradiction. The big man started, before glancing at her uneasily. "Miss, I'm not sure that's a good idea. You have no idea the kinds of things that have gone on in here. It wouldn't be safe to -"
"I'll be fine."
She spoke with absolute faith in herself, standing tall and thrusting her chin up, her posture suggesting that if she said she'd be fine, she would be fine. There was not a chance she would be swayed by any sort of argument, and so the man resigned himself and, after one more distrustful look at the empty room, left, slamming the door shut behind him.
Left free in her element, the medium stepped lightly into the living room, careful not to disturb any of the contents, well aware that interference without permission was a sure way to provoke anger from the apartment's guardian. She stopped next to a faded brown barcalounger, the leather on the seat worn down first by years of love and then by the eroding Time. Now a nervous pressure began to circulate, and she glanced around quietly. "What is it?" she asked, careful not to let too much uncertainty into her voice. "What's wrong?"
The voice came to her as it had before, reverberating, from every inch of space, soaked into the walls, ceiling, and wooden floor, and everything enclosed between them. But the tone had changed to a pleading one, laced with an almost childish quality. "Not there. Don't sit there. Please."
"Then where?"
"The stool. Behind you, next to the counter. Except, don't move it too much."
She found the mentioned stool easily enough, and carefully arranged herself onto it without moving it, as the spirit had requested. Settled as comfortably as could be expected under the circumstances, Phoebe looked back up with an expectant smile. "Well? Ready to come out now?"
For a moment, there was no response, no indication that she had been heard at all. Then a soft inquiry brushed her ears. She cocked her head slightly in curiosity; all at once, it seemed, the voice sounded much younger, still guarded, but not in the right places anymore. She had taken a corner around the walls of the defensive fortress, and somehow found herself face to face with a gaping hole that had been overlooked and unfortified, and it was here that at last she caught a glimpse of the soul within.
"Aren't you at all afraid of me?"
It was just a child. There could be no other explanation for the rush of naive curiosity that whirled around her. It was only a child, confused by this strange woman who could speak both to him and to them, who stood and faced him when all else turned away. It was only a shy, uncertain existence that surrounded her. Through the crude, rough outer wall and pass the brash anger, she could see now, exposed, a fragile and very much human being. Only a child. Nothing more.
"No," the medium answered clearly. "Why should I be?"
"Everyone else is. Everyone else avoids me."
"Everyone else can't know you as I can, if only you'll let me."
For a moment, the room held its breath, the very elements preparing themselves for their master's decision. And then, slowly, the guardian inhaled, and gathered, remembered the form it had once possessed, and took shape. From the chest outwards: trunk, limbs, fingers, toes, neck, and –
He manifested on the foosball table, legs dangling off the side and swinging back and forth in a youthful manner.
Phoebe found herself staring into a pair of softly haunting chocolate-brown eyes, set in a face that, even in its mid-twenties, had yet to lose all its childhood roundness. Dark bangs flopped over and tickled the eyelids, tender lips contrasted beautifully with the tanned Italian skin. They made handsome, charming features, set on a nicely muscled body that, she could not help but note, was artfully sculpted, firm and lean.
The young man slid off the table, never breaking eye contact. His landing was soundless, and yet a soft thump reached Phoebe's ears.
They say the eyes are the windows to the soul. These in front of her were green-spring eyes, sprouting eyes, eyes that spoke of melting frost and chilled fresh dew. They sang the song of Spring's first robin, of a mate's first dance, of life first conceived under the premature moon and rising golden sun. There were in them no trace of weathered fall or bitter winter, only the promise of a life yet lived.
"You're not scared." Now his voice reached her almost solidly, on a level only slightly above the one of the mortal realm. He watched her carefully and yet carelessly, trying to be observant and yet somehow making a mockery of it in his childishness.
"No," Phoebe answered firmly.
He gazed at her for a few moments more, before suddenly tearing his eyes away and looking down, scuffing his foot against the floor, a slight hint of a sheepish, submissive blush on his cheeks.
Only a child. Nothing more.
Her knocking the stool over was a complete accident, but it was an accident that had to happen, and she was glad it did sooner rather than much later. As painful as the experience was, it was also a tremendous breakthrough in her relationship with her young new charge.
It occurred on her sixth visit. The boy hadn't been too cooperative with her in her search for his Reason. Though he had grown much more familiar and comfortable around her, there still existed something she couldn't put her finger on – a lock she could neither see, nor obtain the key to open. He remained largely a mystery to her; and she was sorely tempted to get impatient with his stubbornness.
Perhaps the most meaningful thing she had managed to get out of his mouth was his name, and even a thing so simple took three visits to accomplish. It wasn't that he had it in his heart to drive her crazy, nor was it that he didn't want to trust her; but there was something holding him back, warning him against giving too much of himself away. He knew perfectly well that the one who held both his identity and his history also held much of his very existence.
As such, it took a lot of wheedling and coaxing on Phoebe's part to finally gain enough confidence from the boy to get his name.
"I want to help you. And you know you need my help. How much longer can you stay here before you start to forget who you are? How much more can you take before you lose your soul? Let me in. There are doors you can't touch that I can open for you. Trust me. Please."
The boy had finally sighed in resignation.
"It's Joey. My name is Joey."
It had been a small first step.
He had not allowed her to touch anything expect that stool, nor walk anywhere except upon the path it took to get to the aforementioned stool, possessively and jealously guarding the apartment and every speck of dust within it.
She finally knew why.
A sense of horror by no means her own flooded her system as she watched the old stool clatter to the floor, uprooting gray dust from their resting places and causing a loud crash to vibrate around the walls. Before the chair even met the ground, a sharp gasp of pain reached her ears. And the next time she looked up, Joey was doubled over, gasping harshly and habitually for the breath he did not need.
"Joey?" she asked, stunned. Whatever reaction she had expected – be it anger or frustration or disappointment – it had not been this. "Joey, sweetie, what's wrong?" It was pretty hard to hurt a ghost physically, but she had somehow succeeded.
That was when she saw the chains.
There materialized an iron chain snaked around the stool. It was stretched taut, tugging brutally on its other end, which was hooked into the young spirit's ghostly flesh.
And suddenly, her eyes were opened to the massive web of tight chains and sliver threads that anchored Joey's very body to every inch of space within the apartment.
"Put it back!" the poor boy wailed, clutching the arm where the skin was on the verge of being ripped out with the tangled chain. "Put it back! Put it back!"
"Why can't I move these things, Joey? Why do they hurt you so much?" Phoebe ran a somber finger over one of the infinitely many chains she now knew anchored the boy to the apartment. They were normally so pale that she could not see them unless she tried, and allowed Joey to move around the place as he pleased. But the moment something was uprooted and disturbed, they solidified and constricted. "It feels like my skin is being torn off," Joey had said. "Every time those movers came, it felt like I was going to die again of pain. I hadn't wanted to hurt them. They hurt me first! It wasn't my fault. Don't you see? It wasn't my fault!"
Phoebe knew he spoke the truth, knew that whatever fixed him here was stronger than just about any bond she had seen, or even heard about. And she was positive that the reason for those chains was also his Reason – it was why he had been trapped here for so many years.
"Joey, I need to know," she murmured, placing a gentle hand on top of his. "I can't ever set you free if you won't tell me. It's time to let it out, sweetie. You've been holding it inside for too long." She wrapped her fingers around his comfortingly, and waited. He downcast eyes hid his emotions from her, but when he looked back up, she knew she had won her first victory.
"Because they're waiting for someone. Just like I am."
"Chandler Bing," Rachel replied instantly to her inquiry. "They were best friends for years, ever since they became roommates when Joey moved in. God, but they were inseparable. Which led to many jokes about their being gay. He moved out shortly after Joey…after Joey died. Does that help you at all?"
"It does," Phoebe nodded, staring absently out the window. "It does."
"He promised to come back!"
Joey's words were harsh and bitter, as his frustrations finally spilled over. All she had to do was mention his best friend's name and he unraveled from there at an almost frightening speed. She sat and watched as he paced around and around the room. "He promised me he wouldn't stop coming even after he'd moved. He said Monica wouldn't keep him away. He said I was still his best friend! He said so, said that he'd be back for foosball and beer and…and…"
He stumbled to a stop, and turned to look at her. All the fire had suddenly fled from his now tired and weary eyes. He collapsed onto the barcalounger, and curled up like a small child, desperate for someone's supporting arms, for a kiss of affection, a sincere embrace. Phoebe got up and carefully sat down beside him, offering the caress he so needed. He leaned his head on her shoulder, despondent and helpless.
"I only ever wanted him not to forget me," Joey whispered in a tone of utter defeat. "I only wanted him to come back like he said he would. Was that too much? Was I an idiot to think he would still care about me even after he found her? I love them both, and I'm so glad they found each other, but…but…!"
"I get it," Phoebe murmured softly into his ear. "I understand."
His Reason was such a simple one.
"Are you Monica Geller?"
Monica looked curiously at the tall women who had rung at her door thirty-odd minutes before midnight. Behind her late-night visitor, the half-obscured moon spilled liquid silver onto the iconic suburban bleach-white picket fence, and illuminated the women's blonde hair to an orange glow, casting an almost surreal shade to her pale skin and steel-gray eyes. Suspicion was her first instinct, curiosity her second. It had been a long time since her last name had been named Geller. She had been Mrs. Bing for over seven years.
"I am," Monica answered after a momentary lapse. "How may I help you?"
"I'm looking for a Chandler Bing." That tone of voice on anyone less out of their element might have been called commanding. As it were, however, this was Monica's turf, and this other woman looked as though she'd been plucked straight off a New York City subway station, with her lean figure and fiery aura that would have an assuredly hard time blending in here in Westchester.
Monica threw her head back, standing a little straighter. "My husband? May I ask why?"
The women cocked her head slightly, before letting a smile slip on. "Ah. So you did get married?"
Monica frowned, caught off-guard. "What?"
"I need to talk to Chandler Bing," the women repeated as though she had not spoken her last line. "This is urgent."
"You'll have to give me more than that."
Phoebe sighed, knowing she really ought to have expected this from the beginning. She knew she had only one plausible card to play that would gain entrance into that two-story house taken straight out of a magazine, and play it she did: "Rachel Green sent me."
Monica started at her old friend's name, staring at her visitor with a searching, critical gaze.
"Come in, then," she said at long last, opening the door a bit reluctantly. "And wipe yours shoes off there."
Chandler was the standard suburban husband-and-father entering middle age. It was hard to believe such a mundane man could have caused so much grief in another. In fact, for a few moments, she honestly thought she had the wrong man.
But then she brought up Joey's name, and she saw his whole body freeze.
This was Joey's Chandler.
"You made a promise, Chandler Bing," Phoebe whispered, her voice abruptly dropping down to the border between the tangible and supernatural. Chandler's heart beat grew frantic, blood rushed in torrents past his ears accompanied by the sonorous rhythm of drums. The medium's voice was no longer her own, haunted as it had become, it now spoke the words of another plane, transgressing time and space, future and past, to arrive at one point in the present. In that moment, in that place, Chandler heard the words and saw the shadows from a decade gone past. The voices grew distinct, the blurred forms took shape, and somewhere in his mind a lock clicked, and the memories spilled out, glimmering in the orange light from a late-dusk sun that had paused in the clouds, unable to rest, that had been abandoned, left quivering desperately for ten long years.
Joey's expression when she arrived at his apartment in the dark hours before dawn was one of surprised curiosity.
"I brought someone along," she informed him. "He's no medium, but if you drop as close as possible, I'm sure he can contact."
Then he stepped through the threshold.
And the promise made ten years ago was at last completed.
"I love you, Joey," Chandler choked down a sob, wrapping his arms around himself tightly. "God, I love you so much it hurts. You're my little brother, you're everything I needed you to be, everything I hoped for, everything I pictured when I imagined what my perfect family would be like. It hurt so damn much to even think about how – how you would never be waiting for me again when I came home, how you would never stay up all night with me, or pester me for money, or ask me to read lines with you. How when I go to the movies, you'll never be next to me, cracking a comment after every line and telling me to shut up when I make a dumb joke. How I'll never get to see you smile again, or hug you when you want to cry. It rips me apart to even think about us never getting drunk together, or hanging out together, or getting coffee together. All those little things that we did – and every moment of my life there's something to remind me of you. When I open the fridge, everything's just as I left it – even the things I set in front knowing you'd come by to steal it sooner or later. And when I call your name, I'll never get to hear you answer."
Chandler shuddered violently, voice cracking as he went on, knowing that this had to be done, knowing that if he stopped now, there'd never be another chance to make things right. "It hurt so much I thought I'd die every time I so much as glanced across the hall. I'm a coward, Joey, I got too scared to deal with it and – and it was just so much easier to lock it away and pretend nothing was wrong. To forget what we had, because what I don't know can't ever hurt me. I couldn't let go, couldn't move on, there was no closure, because it was so much easier that way. God, if I knew how much it'd hurt you, I swear I would never have even considered it. I would die for you, Joey, really, I would."
Joey's expression looked so lost and confused that it took everything Phoebe had not to snatch him into her arms and hug him close, smothering those wild thoughts she knew must be racing through his mind right now. But this was something he needed to do on his own. He needed closure as much as Chandler did. This was his passageway, his tunnel, and one only he could ever walk through.
"I...I don't get it," the spirit stuttered softly after a pause. "I thought – I though you didn't care about me anymore. You had Monica, you were so happy, and –"
"No!" Chandler's head snapped up, and Joey jumped at the harshness of his tone. "No, don't even go there! Monica could never replace you! Monica could never be Joey! I love Monica, but she's not my best friend. She's not the person who first taught me how to live. She's not you, and I was an idiot to ever even consider that she could somehow fill the hole you left."
Chandler took a tentative step forward, "She's not you, Joe, and no one could ever be," he repeated, voice strained with emotion. "Do you get that?"
"If you loved me, how come you never came back? How come you never did like you said you would?"
"Because I was an idiot." One step closer. And another. Three more would take him face to face with Joey. But those three steps were not for him to take. "I was a fool, and I was afraid that seeing this apartment empty would just about destroy me." Chandler reached out a hand, stopping with a finger quivering in mid-air, bare inches away from Joey's cheek. "Forgive me," he begged, because there was nothing else that could be said, because it was something that should have been said too long ago. "Forgive me for being a coward, for not realizing that what we had was so much more than one shared apartment, for being too stupid to recognize that life and death and the universe itself could not change what we had."
Three steps. Three steps to the half way point, to the end of the corridor, to the light that had been eluding him for ten years. Joey found himself staring into a pair of too-familiar sky-blue eyes. His saw the hand that had given him so much, and taken its share in return. Three inches to touch. Three steps in between. Three decades, three millennia – what does it matter? It boiled down to this, and it was his choice to make.
His body appeared to trip forward as his feet ate up the swift distance. His head met Chandler's caress, and the outstretched hand guided him inward. He crumpled against the other man's body, melting into the embrace, ten year's worth of tears abruptly springing into his eyes.
Chandler swallowed harshly against the lump that had arisen in his throat, oblivious to the tears of liberation streaming down his own cheeks. He buried his face into Joey's hair, a crooked smile creeping onto his face as he recognize the scent of the shampoo he used to buy for both of them. Joey's whole body was wrecking with sobs, Chandler's own shaking arms wrapped securely around his shoulders being the only things keeping him upright.
Phoebe smiled softly, watching the boy she'd come to know so well finally find his way. Perhaps the door had been there all along. Only now, the person who held the key to unlock the bolt had finally reappeared. The chains were fading, rusting before her eyes, and falling to the floor in shattered bits and pieces or scrap metal. The molecules of the air were relieved of their duty to this master, and the tension lifted as they faded back into their undistinguished selves.
Time was relevant, and how long they stood there, Phoebe was destined never to know. But she knew when the time came, as she'd known it would. She knew when the final step had to be traveled, and the incantation completed.
Walking forward, she placed a hand on Joey's dark, down-soft hair, and bent down to whisper in his ear. "It's time to go, sweetie."
Joey stirred slowly, obviously reluctant to let go of Chandler again so soon. But Phoebe found his hand, and took it firmly.
"Time to go, huh?" Chandler sighed. He rubbed his hands over his friend's back and shoulders, absently reminiscing of the days long gone past, when a hug was only a simple expression of brotherly affection. Perhaps it still was, somewhere buried beneath the weight of ten lost years. He felt Joey back away timidly, and grasped his hand before it could free itself from his hold.
Phoebe waited quietly. A few more seconds couldn't hurt, and it seemed Chandler had a few more words.
Chandler waited until Joey's wandering eyes cautiously met his once more, before smiling contently. "Hey," he whispered, tugging teasingly at his friend's hand. "It's not over, you know. This isn't goodbye. Just a 'see you later.'"
Joey blinked, and his momentarily blank expression was so cute and familiar that Chandler almost laughed out loud. Joey caught the glint of humor, though, that danced in his eyes, and copied his smile. "Yeah. I know."
Their hands parted slowly, fingertips lingering for one wistful moment longer. Chandler raised the hand to a wave as Phoebe tugged her charge forward. Joey started backwards, stumbling slightly. "Time to look ahead, Joseph," the medium commanded gently.
The boy nodded. He raised his own hand to wave back in turn, wearing the same brilliant, carefree grin Chandler had first seen the day they first met. "See you later, then," Joey called, before turning to fall in step with Phoebe.
And suddenly, Chandler was all alone in a dusty, empty apartment.
He looked around one last time, knowing he would probably never set foot back here again. But this time, the parting was a good one. This time, it was complete. It was time to close this door, to let someone else find their own magic within these walls. His story here was near finished, though ten years too late, it was at last written and bound, and had found its place in his library. Surely, someone else's was waiting to begin.
He retraced the steps he'd once taken every day on the way to work, on the way downstairs, or on the way across the hall. He brushed the wooden side of the foosball table, which held the little men that all had names. He paused to erase the magna-doodle into a blank slate. Now his hand rested on the knob, and he was at the threshold.
Glancing back, the apartment itself seemed to wave farewell.
"See you later, then."
There was no one around to hear it, but it reached all the ears it needed to.
Finished at last, the hinges swung together, and the lock clicked. The footsteps soon faded down the stairs.
And time started moving forward once more.
Hope the style of writing didn't confuse anyone...it was meant to be a bit ambiguous, but I can't really tell if I overdid it. Please leave a review!