Ross. How do you define him? Personally I could dissect this character just as much as Chandler, but I'm going to focus on one of my favourite Ross 'types.' Early Ross was sweet, naïve and all around good guy… but he was still self important, a bit of a know it all and craves routine (something I found common with Chandler.)
I believe in a situation like this Ross wouldn't intervene unless commanded to and would feel it best to leave it alone until it dies and would have his own way of dealing with things.
Side note: College breakdown? Plausible! don't judge me! You don't go around with that much hurt and don't crash ever- but so you know Ross is making it into a bigger deal because of said importance.
…next up Rachel guys- what the hell should I do with her?!
Exintaris god looking at it now I was planning on editing that chapter more… but instead I wrote another chapter… opps. Anyway I think everyone has multiple versions of themselves for different people but Chandler's just extreme enough to get away with it being a problem. My fav example of this which I sadly haven't (but will) gone into is Chandler with Rachel- it suggested that they go to lunch constantly (especially in the earlier seasons) and they come in to scenes together a lot (like Phoebe and Chandler too!) he just seems so placid with her until he shifts into 'all friends' Chandler.
Champers had agood binge read did you? Nothings better I say! I'm glad you like them, and I was worried they didn't seem to flow from one chapter to the next, but if you read them all at once and like them I guess they do… yay! Thanks for reviewing.
Six of 1 wow. None has ever begged for a chapter before… while I really appreciate the comment I was swamped with work (I have two jobs now) and school- but I finally had a little time and was reminded of this comment so wrote this. Heh I guess you sort of inspired me to do it… good work! I hope you like this.
p.s mysterious past idea I said about is completely edited out because it just didn't work…sorry
Ross is annoyed that people acted like he was ignorant.
It's not like he's stupid or something. He's a doctor! Well… okay not the medical kind of doctor, but he didn't spend years at school with his head in dusty books even his lectures classified as 'too complex' ie. Boring- so people would treat him like an imbecile.
Okay, so he realizes that maybe book smart isn't the same as people smart- but even he can see when something is wrong.
Or at least seriously wrong.
Because Chandler is his oldest friend. And if this had been any other Wednesday in the coffee house he would have been making some witty remark about how he had thought 'we were on a break' was now his favourite catchphrase or that he was having some sort of illicit affair with a dinosaur. And that was normal. The others would laugh their half patronizing, half routine laughs and Ross's chest would tighten a little for a second until Chandler sent him the look- his half rueful half apologetic half please smile and everything was alright. Because it's what they did. It was routine, because no one wanted to change.
Least of all Chandler. Or him.
Because a smile always seemed to confirm years of friendship, it showed something beyond what people saw, it showed everything from the first time Chandler had laughed and told Ross that he was his best friend, to that only time Chandler had talked to him seriously about his work and told him that his passion was really admirable.
And all the pain of the comment would rush out and he would put up a token protest before they slipped back into whatever the group had been talking about. This was always constant. It had taken so long for them to get there, he didn't think it would ever change.
But it wasn't some other Wednesday, It wasn't like any other day in time frozen coffee shop- that he privately knew most of them went to out of habit that they used to go there to get completely shit-faced and it was the simple accessibility and routine which had felt as completely natural as it did now to meet and drink coffee.
But that wasn't the point. It didn't matter where, when or even really how, because Chandler wasn't there… or at least not totally and he was messing with routine! Which meant something bad had happened, because really the only thing they had ever had in common was their tendency to unexplainably repel women, that they were both incredibly lonely and most importantly there need for everything to stay constant.
Ross knew his reasons; as much as he hated to admit and would never tell anyway in fear it would get back to Chandler or Monica, he had a slight anal retentive and neurotic streak it him. It ran in his family. But he was quite good at grinning and bearing it, but everything had to have a place, and sometimes things were unavoidable like his wife turning out gay, or Phoebe who wouldn't stay still enough for him to peg hole her.
But Chandler had always been a constant. He live in the apartment he got when they graduated college, he lived with Kip- who was Chandler's constant (and his other best friend)- he worked in a job where nobody was sure exactly what he did, and hated it. But he was good at it, so he wouldn't change.
And that's the way it was. And while it was not without bumps in the road (like Ross's disastrous- and quite secret- blow out with Kip which was the straw that broke the life long friendship) but Chandler stayed the same and that comforted him.
And it comforted Chandler too. Because he was the friend that spent years trying to give him normalcy. He was the friend that knew.
And not in the crappy metaphorical sense either.
Everyone else met Chandler after the breakdown in college. Not that they ever talked about that. But he knew more than anyone else about how deep the problem of his past was, past the camp gay dad, sultry mum and questionable cousins.
Ross of course never knew how to deal with situations like this, he had, had a perfectly normal childhood free from psychologist, poisoned family pets, bedwetting, divorced bitter parents or any of the other crap he found out about his friend.
But he did the best he could so he humored him at Thanksgiving, and pretended like Chandler's estrangement to his father was as simple as what he told the other friends, kept secrets from everyone, and got three in the morning calls about things that could probably wait but he took them anyway.
and they would drink coffee, and joked with each other about their weird taste in women and Ross pretended it was all normal.
Because he was sure Chandler might die if Ross ever told all those things that had happened, so funny stories from their early friendship were punched up or stretched thin if not completely fictional and thing were normal.
That's because Ross knows with slight glee – but much personal disgust with himself- and seriousness that whether he like it or not he held power of Chandler that no one else did. All in the simple fact that Ross simply knew too much. He knew because of this he would never really cross him, besides jokingly and Ross knew this would make him have at least one permanent ally no matter what.
At that felt great and horrible at the same time
Because it seemed knowledge- as he always had suspected- was power.
So he knew what the others had been saying privately, they could call him dense he suppose, if they stated it he would deny it and he knew they would privately disagree.
Because Monica would think she knew him better than anyone.
And Joey would be positive he did.
Rachel probably wouldn't even know what was going on and Phoebe wouldn't probably even care.
And if Kip or Janice or anyone else had been there to see it as it was and perhaps they would have called his reaction cruel.
But Ross knew even if Chandler was in the coffee shop on this particular Wednesday making some sort of joke he noticed was not directed at him in the slightest, and he was gesturing with his hands the unconscious way that he'd picked up from Joey. He knew it was all a front.
Because Knowledge is power. And he knew that day a week ago when he came in looking for Chandler things would be bad for a while, and Ross wishes he could erase the fact it had ever happen from everyone's memory because it was a black stain on everything everyone else knew about Chandler.
And here in knowing all this Ross sat and did nothing. No Ross sat and laughed his half patronizing, half routine laugh and they drank coffee, and would joke with each other about their weird taste in women and Ross pretended it was all normal.
Because it wasn't like ignorant. No, he knew better than anyone when something was wrong and he would deal with it like they always had until it was back to normal.
Until then, he'd just pretend.