A/N: This is rated T for now – please let me know if you think it should be changed to an M rating. Also, it's the closest I've ever come to smut, so, uh, please be nice I guess ^_^
He'd set ground rules with Joey, for a laugh, back in Central Perk.
Once they'd followed Chloe into the club later that night, Chandler had stopped laughing.
Chloe was – well, all the usual adjectives he'd use for a crush, and all the adjectives Joey would use, too. Charismatic (him), really, really hot (Joey), and a veritable slew of other things. But mostly those. Actually, Joey had it right. Chloe was hot. The kind of hot that maybe he'd want to bring back to his apartment and have a really, uh, charismatic night with.
Under regular circumstances, he would have already moved to the dance floor, several drinks in, halfway to the night he'd been thinking about since he'd first met Chloe, though of course he'd referred to her as "the hot Xerox girl with the bellybutton ring" for quite some time, damn his awkwardness and inability to make full sentences around women.
But this wasn't really regular circumstances, was it? She didn't just want him, she wanted him and Joey. Both of them. Um. Not for a regular date – he had a feeling that Chloe was just the kind of girl that wanted to try everything once. God, was it hot in there? Or really cold? That night club had temperature issues for sure.
Wait, what had she just said?
"Oh, it's dinosaur guy!" Chloe exclaimed with glee, hopping out of her chair and parting the dancing crowds with nothing more than a flick of her hand, dragging a very familiar (and currently unwelcome) figure with her.
"Hi," Ross said mournfully.
"Chandler, Joey, this is Ross," Chloe smiled, as they shook hands for her sake. "Ross, the guys."
"Nice to meet you," Ross said, tone not changing. "Hey, is there a phone in here?"
Chloe looked startled at the abrupt change of conversation, but recovered quickly, running her hand up and down Ross' arm. "Of course, I'll just, uh, show you where you can get a quarter, then. Be right back."
They watched her go with avid interest, but once she was out of earshot, Chandler turned to Joey.
"Did my eyes just deceive me, or has Ross just accidentally become Mr. Steal Your Girl?" he hissed urgently.
"Wha'?" Joey's attention was still on Chloe.
Chandler snapped his fingers. "Joey. Listen. If she stays with him, our plans for tonight go right out the window, land on the street, and get run over by a cab."
"What plans?" Joey said, and realized. "Oh. You mean – you weren't joking? About-" he gestured frantically between them, and then Chloe, almost smacking Chandler in the face in the process. "Whoops. Sorry. But that – were you serious?"
Sitting back, Chandler looked deflated. "Um. Yeah. No. I was kidding. Of course." He waved down the bartender, and contemplated getting a cigarette. This was embarrassing.
Joey looked thoughtful, which was really starting to unnerve Chandler. It's not like he saw that expression a lot. He stumbled his way through ordering another round of drinks for them and Chloe, the latter just in case she came back.
A moment passed, and the bartender brought their drinks. Chloe was still nowhere near them, having moved over to the other side of the bar with Ross.
This time, it was Joey who spoke first.
"Chandler! She is totally hitting on Ross!"
"What? How do you know that?"
Joey motioned to himself. "You think I don't know when a girl is hitting on someone? C'mon, Chandler, me?"
"Blah, blah, something, something, Joey has a lot of sex, can we move on?" Chandler said, somewhat irritably.
Joey gave him a look. "Don't be like that. Just look at her!"
Chandler looked. And looked some more, and still it didn't really make much sense. Chloe was just talking to Ross, and leaning in to him, and – oh. Okay. Yeah. Flirting.
"This is our chance!" Joey said excitedly. "You just watch, she's going to call for a bartender next, and then we'll swoop in with a beer for her and whisk her away!"
"Flawless plan, except you're forgetting one thing," Chandler said, to Joey's quizzical expression. "We'd have to be anywhere near her for that to work – whoops, and there the bartender goes."
"Come on!" Joey said, jumping off his chair, clumsily spilling part of Chloe's untouched beer over his hand.
They skidded to a stop in front of Chloe and Ross, trying and failing miserably to not look eager.
"Look, Chloe – I already got you a drink!" Joey said proudly.
"Well, aren't you sweet then?" Chloe said absentmindedly, then did a double take. "Chandler, Joey – I thought you two had found some pretty little thing to take home with you!"
Chandler didn't miss the singular "thing". Joey might have. He wasn't sure. "Uh, no, actually, we were – um, what were we doing, Joe?"
"Waitin' for you," Joey said smoothly, without a hint of his earlier apprehension. Chandler was impressed. "Didn't know where you'd got to."
"Oh," Chloe said, looking mischievous. "Ah, yeah, alright."
She took a swig of her beer and patted Ross on the shoulder. Ross, poor guy, had his head whipping back and forth between Chloe and the boys, clearly put out at being interrupted. For a second, Chandler almost wanted to be in his position, but the fears were quenched as Chloe slipped off her stool, downing even more of the alcohol.
"Would you prefer to drink straight from the keg?" Chandler said acridly.
"Haven't done that since college," Chloe grinned. "Nah, I don't think I need to be that drunk. You could probably do with a couple more, though."
She turned to Ross. "You're sure you don't wanna dance?"
Ross shook his head sadly. "No, I don't think so."
Chloe sighed, defeated. "See you later then, dinosaur guy."
"Bye, Chloe," Ross said, nursing his drink and fixing a stare at the bartender, who was really bound to notice sometime soon, and would probably get the wrong idea, and Chandler did not want to be there when that went down. He was giving himself abs just thinking about the cringe.
Then again, he was being a bit hypocritical, wasn't he?
"I'll dance with you!" Joey offered, eagerly and just a bit too quickly.
Chloe grinned, and pulled Chandler along with them to join the mob on the overcrowded club's dance floor.
Even with his senses blurred by the people around him and the beers he'd had, Chandler let his mind drift back to the conversation he'd had with Joey in Central Perk. That one. Earlier that day. About the ground rules.
It really had been awkward, thinking back on it. They hadn't really set up any ground rules at all, what with their only option – eyes closed at all times – being quickly contradicted. After all, he didn't want to reach out in the total dark and touch something – something. Yeah. Something that wasn't Chloe.
But they'd been joking! It was just that – not a serious conversation. They hadn't had a serious conversation about this, and judging from the way she was sandwiching herself on the dance floor between the two of them, Chloe was not and had never been trying to pull their legs.
Chandler felt himself flush. He knew, he knew if he didn't do anything, where this would lead to. And what then? What about when he'd have a panic attack in the middle of it all, because he'd start thinking about his dad, he'd be just like his dad doing this, he'd bet his dad did this sort of thing all the time –
"Chandler! Buddy! What's going on?"
Ah, so Joey wasn't entirely distracted by the belly button ring.
"Nothin' – nothing, I'm good," Chandler replied on autopilot, trying to get his body back into the groove of the music, trying to make his heartbeat calm down.
"No you're not," Joey said, more seriously than he thought Joey could get after a couple drinks – heck, more serious than he thought Joey could get at all. "Chloe, baby? I'm gonna have a quick word with my friend here. Would you mind goin' on back?"
Chloe bit her lip and didn't stop moving. "Just name the place, hey?"
"Yours," Joey said, winking, and expertly manoeuvring Chandler through the crowd, towards the bathrooms. Despite the protests, he pushed them both into the single stall men's bathroom and locked the door.
He turned to face Chandler, traces of flirty demeanour gone. "Okay. Spill."
"Are you crazy? There's nothing to spill about!" Chandler said. "I can't believe you just pushed me into a bathroom!"
"Well, you know I am pretty strong," Joey grinned, then shook his head. "No, you can't distract me like that! I know that trick!"
Chandler sighed, putting his palm to his forehead. "Okay. Nothing's wrong. Can we please go?"
"Yeah, but, go where?" Joey said. "Go to Chloe's place?"
No response.
"Go home?" Joey said, quieter.
"I," Chandler started, but Joey looked resigned.
"It's alright, man, I get it. I'll call her. Maybe she's still got a chance with Ross?"
"If that bartender didn't get to him first," Chandler cracked, and Joey laughed, a warm sound, as he unlocked the door.
Chandler sighed, yet again. "No. Wait."
Joey turned.
"I do actually want to do this. But," - oh dear God, Joey's face was positively lighting up – "we've gotta have some proper rules, man, not just the stuff we talked about before."
"Sure," Joey smiled, and opened the door, letting in the noise of the club outside. "We'll talk in the cab?"
Chandler was the first to break the relative silence, once they were in that cab. He took a deep breath, about a million questions, retorts, jokes and answers running through his mind at once, but what came out instead was "Do you think I'm gay?"
"Huh?" came Joey's completely creative and imaginative answer. "Uh. No. Maybe bi."
"Oh." Chandler said. Well, that was that. Except it wasn't really that.
"Why d'you ask?"
"Never mind," Chandler muttered, embarrassed somehow. He really wasn't drunk enough for this.
Joey thought. "I did when I met you, you've just kinda got this –"
"Quality," Chandler sighed. "I've heard."
Joey reached over and patted Chandler's knee, making him flinch. "It's alright! It's the 90's! Let loose! Like who you like!"
"But I'm not-" Chandler started. He couldn't say it. All this, and he was going to end up like – like his dad, swinging in a room full of feathers that had been their living room, getting yelled at by the mom that was trying to work, who knew there was nothing left for them anymore.
"No," Joey pronounced, loudly, making the cab driver jump this time. "No, we're not – you're scaring me, bro! That's twice now you've got that weird look on your face, it's killing the mood here." He leaned forward. "Could you take us to Central Perk, please?"
As Joey rattled off the address, Chandler slumped further into his seat. That was it, wasn't it? He'd gone and screwed it up. Damn it, damn it, damn it! He felt very, very tired, all of a sudden, kinda like he wanted to curl up in a ball and sleep for a week.
"What face?" he said instead, neutrally.
Joey attempted the look. Chandler snorted.
"I'd be flattered you were imitating me if you didn't look like Marcel, but more constipated."
"Hey!" Joey defended. "I'll have you know I practice my faces, all good actors do!"
"No doubt," Chandler said, a hint of the smile still in his tone. This was nice. This was fine. This didn't have that weird sexual undertone he'd been thinking in ever since Chloe's proposition.
Joey smiled, too. Well, lookie, now the sexy thoughts are back. It was like thinking about your own breathing. And now he was focusing on his own breathing. Great. Perfect. This was wonderful. Not.
He tried to regulate his breathing. That was something he could do, something he had done before a million times without having to think about it too much. Inhale and exhale, and Joey wouldn't really mind if he didn't speak for the rest of the cab ride.
They'd have to call Chloe. She'd be disappointed. Oh, God, what had he gotten himself into?
Next thing Chandler knew, he was being handed a mug of coffee. Funny, that, he didn't remember getting out of the cab, or ordering it, or sitting down. Joey looked serious, and vaguely worried.
"You okay?" Joey said, and he sounded so gentle. "There. Have caffeine. I'll call Chloe."
Chandler's mind hadn't caught up to his body yet, but he managed a nod, and Joey smiled as he left to use the phone. Chandler took a sip of his coffee, and it was nectar of the gods – sweet, dark, and hot enough to scald his tongue, the coffee managed to both wake Chandler up and sober him. Which was, uh, not always a good thing, but it this case, thankfully, it was.
His moment of introspection was interrupted when Joey flounced – there was really no other word for it – back into his field of vision, and collapsed into a chair petulantly.
"What happened?" Chandler asked.
Joey glared, though it wasn't directed at him. "Ross picked up."
"Oh my God," Chandler said, sitting up straight. "But Rachel said-"
"Apparently," interrupted Joey, "they were on a break. But I guess we'll leave that to them."
"You didn't try to stop them or anything?" Chandler asked incredulously, then stopped and shook his head. "What? Of course you didn't. Nothing you could do."
"Nothing I could do," Joey echoed. "Maybe this'll pull Ross out of that funk."
"Maybe," Chandler agreed, sitting back. "Well, in any case, Chloe's off the table."
Joey's eyes widened. "You were thinkin' about her on a table? Nice!"
Chandler almost corrected him. Almost. He took another sip of his coffee instead.
"Shame," Joey said. "It would've been a great story!"
Chandler remained silent, somehow not knowing what to say. He simply nodded.
"Hey, man, you alright?" Joey asked, putting down his mug and sitting down next to Chandler on the couch, and whoa, that was an abrupt pop of the personal space bubble.
He shrugged. "I don't know, Joe. I just don't know if I would have been able to – y'know, go through with it."
When Joey next spoke, it was quiet, but casual. "It was me, right? The thought of being with me, that grossed you out or whatever?"
"Aw, c'mon, don't be like that."
"Like what? 'Cause it definitely wasn't Chloe you were all weird about. And all the stuff you were goin' on about in the cab, all the being gay stuff and whatever. What's wrong with me?"
Joey looked lost, all of a sudden, like he'd been given a map, had followed all the directions, and had realized that the building he'd wanted to go to had never existed. Betrayed, and confused, and Chandler suddenly felt an urge to just stop it, make that look go away.
He couldn't bear the thought of being the cause of Joey looking like that.
"Joey – I didn't-"
"I woulda done it, you know," Joey continued. "I would have, with you and her. And if you didn't want to, well, that's okay, but you were so psyched before, y'know? I just kinda feel like I did something wrong, or else you'd still be excited and everything."
He sighed, and scrubbed his face in his hands. That new feeling of Chandler's grew tighter, like someone had wrapped a string around his heart and pulled on it. And Joey still looked so sad – but he wasn't moving, he was staying right where he was, right next to Chandler, even when he was hurt.
Chandler's hands were sweaty and his heart racing, but he'd never been steadier in his life. He set down his mug.
"Chan? What're you do-" Joey was cut off when Chandler put his hand under Joey's chin, very gently, and quickly guided him into a soft kiss.
Joey didn't struggle, or even look surprised – he melted into it, catching Chandler's lips with his own as Chandler instinctively went to move away, elongating the kiss, stretching out the moment like dulce de leche, soft and sweet and tasting faintly of coffee and sugar.
Finally, Chandler broke the kiss, coming up for air. Joey didn't miss the quick glance he shot around the shop to make sure nobody had noticed, but there were only a few stragglers in the shop, night owls who brought their textbooks to study in the quiet, soft music filtering through the stereo.
He studied Joey's face. It was never impassive; Joey couldn't hide his emotions if he tried. Chandler watched him quickly flip through surprise, delight, confusion – and settling on what? Resignation? Had it gone wrong?
"You don't need to like – pity kiss me," Joey said, reading Chandler's own face. "Don't do that to me, man, just because I was making it about me," he turned his face, and the rest came out muffled. "You didn't need to prove it or anythin', don't do that, it's not – not nice."
"I wasn't," said Chandler, and wow, that was a squeak. He cleared his throat. "I wasn't, it wasn't, uh, a pity kiss."
Joey's face whipped back around. "You mean-"
"I wanted to," Chandler confirmed, forcing out the words, the hardest goddamn thing he'd ever had to say, and he could barely get the words out coherently. He tried to let his own emotions show on his face, the way Joey could so easily. How did people do this all the time?
He shook his head again, willing himself not to cry, because he was evidently going all or nothing here. "I liked it, I wanted to, and it was great, Joey," because Joey's smile was growing, encompassing his face, and the whole coffee shop seemed to have lit up with its glow. "It was really, really great."
"Does that mean, maybe," Joey started, a little bit of his old, teasing, smooth tone in his voice, "that you'd like to do it again, Chan?"
He smiled at the Casablanca reference – and that string squeezing his heart? Yeah, that was gone. Chandler nodded, once again not trusting himself to speak. He leaned in.
"Nah," Joey said quietly, and a split second of panic rushed through Chandler, but Joey was still smiling. "Upstairs, I think. They'll be closing soon." He paused. "You're alright with that, right?"
Chandler grinned. "Yeah!"
"Okay, let's go!" Joey exclaimed, a note of wonder in his voice, and they hastily fled the coffee shop, leaving their mugs on the table in their wake.
They didn't make it upstairs before Joey was grasping at Chandler's shirt in the stairwell, putting him in danger of falling, but it didn't really matter. Not when Joey's hands were on him like this.
"I can see the girls' apartment from here," Chandler suggested halfheartedly, anyway, and tensed when Joey stopped.
"Ah, no, the girls," Joey frowned, starting to move again, up the stairs, and this time Chandler actually did fall. Joey caught him by his hand and hauled him upright. "Gotcha. If Rachel, like, comes outta there in a huff, she's not gonna want to see," Joey explained. Chandler, dazed by the almost-fall and the fact that Joey's hands were still on him, merely nodded.
It was rather ironic that the thing Joey had fumbled with most that night was the key in their door, but there they were, and he'd had to let go of Chandler to do it. He couldn't keep the paranoia from setting in again, glancing towards the girls' door as though any second they'd burst through it and catch him and Joey in the act – of what, though, exactly? Opening the door?
It would be fine. It was all fine. He just couldn't think about it too much.
Joey finally got the damn thing open, and Chandler practically tripped over himself trying to get in. Joey, pushed backwards by that force, caught up with his own feet in their living room, and faced Chandler, who was locking the door.
For a moment, they just looked at each other.
"I need to know," Joey said, then stopped himself. He swallowed. "Chandler – I need to know you're not gonna back out of this too."
Chandler could only stare.
"Don't look at me like that," Joey said. "You're – you're my best friend, okay? And I don't think – if you backed outta this now, I'd be okay, I think, but later? I don't want this to ruin us."
It was a perfect line, delivered with just the right amount of feeling, but Joey wasn't that good of an actor. He meant every word. Chandler could take that offer. He could just go to bed; he knew it'd all be forgotten. The next thing he knew, they could be watching Baywatch in their boxers and ordering a late-night pizza and doing all the things they usually did after an unsuccessful night out, even.
Chandler realized, in full, what Joey meant – if they kept going now, and he regretted it later, he would have broken Joey's heart. And Joey would rather never it happen, keep whatever this was buried deep inside and passed off as a wrongly assumed drunken mistake.
Joey was his best friend, because he'd do that. Chandler trusted him, oh, he trusted him with everything he had, and as much as he didn't want to acknowledge it, now it pounded loud and clear, in sync with his heartbeat.
"Joey," he said, shakily raising his head and making eye contact, name falling from his lips like a prayer from where he held himself up against the door. "Joey."
Chandler swallowed. "Get over here and kiss me."
Joey didn't need to be told twice. In one fluid move he was up against the door, mouth crashing against Chandler's, breathing him in like a drowning man finding out oxygen still existed. He had one hand up against the door, one hand on Chandler's face, and it shouldn't have been this hot, to be completely trapped between Joey and the door, but it was, it was, and Chandler grabbed the back of Joey's neck and pulled him in closer, like they were each other's life support.
Chandler briefly closed his eyes, inhaling, savouring the smell of Joey's cologne and the feeling of being completely enclosed by warmth, when a thought came to him unbidden. He laughed, short and sharp.
"What's so funny?" Joey said, drawing back, and no, come back, he missed the warmth. With his hair ruffled and face flushed, Joey shouldn't have still been able to look like a confused puppy, but he did anyway.
"Rule number one," Chandler grinned. "Never open your eyes."
Joey stared at him for a moment before it clicked, and then they were both laughing breathlessly, Joey's head somehow buried in Chandler's shoulder, though they were the same height. Funny how that had happened. Chandler supposed maybe his knees had buckled a little. God damn, Joey was a good kisser.
"Should we move?" Chandler suggested, after a while.
"Yeah, maybe."
"Recliners?"
"Oh, yeah, okay."
They stumbled over to their respective chairs. Joey sat in his, and Chandler started to sit in his as well, but that wasn't really accomplishing anything, was it? Joey looked nervous, like he almost expected Chandler to sit down by himself. He was still unsure. Maybe this was new for him too, but Chandler doubted it.
Ah, fuck it.
Chandler straddled Joey on his recliner, once again pressing their mouths together, just not as desperate this time – softer, sweeter, like a surprise continuation of their first kiss downstairs. Joey reclined the chair unexpectedly, making Chandler scrabble for purchase of his hands and try not to tip the chair over. Joey grinned against his mouth and okay, yeah, this was a lot better.
Chandler didn't think – well, that sentence could pretty much just stop there, he wasn't really able to think, not with Joey's hands idly running through his hair and lips moving eagerly against his – but he didn't think they'd make it to the bedroom, if they were going to do – that – at all. He was thinking too much again. Best just to, what was it, go with the flow. He smiled back, and drew away to look at Joey.
Joey's eyes were dark, skin flushed and sweaty. He couldn't seem to stay still, shaking with – what, exertion? Need? – and couldn't keep his hands off Chandler at all. He looked desperate, but still, after all of this, was waiting for Chandler to make the call.
Chandler's heart swelled. He felt like the Grinch at the end of the movie, heart full and three sizes larger than it had ever been. Joey's hair was in his eyes, the gel he'd put in it no match for Chandler's hands, and he gently pushed it back. The feeling was strangely familiar. He supposed it had always been there.
"Don't hold back," Chandler told him. Joey's eyes sparkled devilishly, but without malice. "All right, I won't," he told Chandler, and flipped them over. The chair wobbled precariously, but stayed in its current position, thanks to any benevolent deity out there.
And then Joey was on top of him, and the feeling of being closed in completely was back, but it didn't feel like a cage. It felt like finally coming home.
Chandler didn't know what would happen next, either that evening, the next morning, or right then. He didn't know how his friends would react, or if they'd even react at all in the massive Ross and Rachel blow-up that would surely follow. He didn't know what this made him and Joey, if anything huge would change, or if they'd just be the same as they always had been. He hoped for that, but he really didn't know.
But somehow, somehow, that was okay. He'd taken the leap. He had Joey. And he was going into whatever this was with both eyes open.