Phike: Familiar Faces Trilogy 2 Chapter 31, a friends fanfic

A/N: Hey guys, this is just me reminding you guys for the reviews and suggestions for any improvements I could make to keep coming and to read all the chapters leading up to this one and the other books. Please also keep in mind that strong themes of bereavement and mental health issues will feature from now on for quite a while across all three books, and so if you are sensitive towards that topic, I ask you to keep that in mind before continuing to read on with the trilogy. Thank you so much for your continued support, and I hope you have a good day whenever and wherever you're reading this!

Chapter 31 – Joey

I followed Gina through the JFK airport to the entrance, where Mike would be waiting to pick me and Gina up and take us to his and Phoebe's house, where we would be staying during our whole trip. At first, the trip had been planned only whilst I was filming in New York but Gina had been able to pull some strings to allow us to stay in New York for longer to be able to join Phoebe and Mike and the others for the holidays as well.

When we were standing outside the airport entrance on the sidewalk opposite the cab bay, I took my phone out from my pocket and checked to see if Mike had sent a message providing any updates on whether he had arrived yet or whether he was still on his way. He had not, and so I decided to send him a quick text, to which he said that he was going to reverse his car out of his current parking spot and come and pull up next to the cab bay that we were standing opposite.

Sure enough, a couple of minutes later Mike's car pulled in. He opened his car door and came round to the sidewalk, asking Gina and I whether we wanted an extra hand to help us get our stuff into the trunk of the car. We both accepted the offer, and I told Gina that she should get into the car and give me her stuff to put into the trunk of the car. Reluctantly, she got into the car and then Mike and I got to work on trying to fit everything into the car.

It took less time than I might have expected, and soon enough all three of us were back in the car and making our way back to Phoebe and Mike's house. Though I was a little tired from travelling, I was mostly excited at the prospect of finally being able to see everyone in what had been at least fifteen years since we last properly would regularly hang out as just the six of us.

I was particularly excited to meet all the kids, whether it was my first time seeing them at all, or if it was just seeing how much they had grown, since all the kids that fit into that category were significantly older than they were when I first met them.

"So, how are things with you nowadays?" I asked Mike, as I was sitting shotgun to him and there would be no point in making conversation with Gina since we saw each other daily already.

"Not too bad," Mike said, sounding jolly even though understandably his main focus was the traffic ahead of us. "Actually, I'm not sure if Phoebe or I mentioned this, but we have Monica staying with us at the moment whilst her and Chandler sort a few things out."

From how vague Mike was being about exactly what was going on between the two of them, I gathered that it was not a subject that anyone particularly enjoyed talking about. Nevertheless, I said that I was really happy to be able to get the chance to catch up with Mon, as I'm sure she was me.

The journey from the airport to Mike and Phoebe's house was far more quick and pleasant than I'd expected it to be. Mike offered to help Gina and I take our bags to the two guests rooms that we were staying in, but I refused. Once I had sufficiently unpacked, which consisted of leaving it until later, I walked back down the corridor from the guest rooms that Mike said would take me to the door to the kitchen.

Sure enough, I found a door at the far end of the corridor that I thought it was fair to assume was the one to the kitchen, and pushed it open. I couldn't help but feel slightly relieved to see Phoebe and Monica sitting at a table over a couple of cups of coffee towards the centre of the room, and walked over to join them.

"Joey!" Phoebe cried when she saw me, immediately halting whatever she'd been saying to Monica and standing up to accept my hug.

"So good to see you, Pheebs," I said, then pulling away from Phoebe after a couple of minutes. "You too, Mon," I added, walking around the table to where Mon was sat.

She stood up as Phoebe had done, and we hugged for a couple of minutes. "You look good," Mon said to me when we had pulled away from each other and were sitting back down at the table.

"Thank you, you do too," I said to Mon, as I noticed Phoebe get up from the table and move her lips as if she was about to start talking to me.

"Can I offer you a drink?" Phoebe asked me as I had predicted that she was going to.

"A beer would be great if you have any," I answered, as Phoebe started walking towards the fridge, presumably to get a beer out for me.

Sure enough, she came back to the table a couple of minutes later with a can of my favourite beer, as she clearly hadn't forgotten my favourite types despite how long it had been since any of us last hung out.

"You remembered!" I exclaimed as I took the can off of her, flipping up the pull tab on the can and taking a hearty swig.

"Of course," Phoebe said, sounding shocked that I wouldn't have expected her to remember as she had.

"You're an extraordinary human and I love you," I said to Phoebe, unable to stop smiling because I was just so happen even with this mini reunion.

"Not as extraordinary as yourself, that I can assure you of," Phoebe replied back to me, chuckling a little as she spoke.

I laughed as well, because I was far from extraordinary, though it was still incredibly sweet of Phoebe to claim that I was.

"Twins home yet?" I asked, looking around the kitchen as if I thought that they would suddenly materialise in front of my eyes this second.

"Few hours to go yet," Phoebe sighed, miming wiping her forehead as both Monica and I laughed. I was sure that Monica had laughed because of the shared understanding of how challenging looking after twins could be, something that I have no experience on.

"They really that difficult to cope with?" I asked Phoebe, realising that perhaps she really hadn't been joking.

"You'd be surprised," was Phoebe's fairly nondescript answer.

Once we had finished catching up, the three of us decided to watch a bit of trashy TV to pass up the time until the rest of the family would get back. Mike arrived home with the twins, which Phoebe looked grateful for albeit a little surprised, though so was I.

Mike appeared to notice the fact that I looked a little surprised as he started saying, "Either Phoebe or I usually pick up the kids, as we both feel that they're still too young for us to feel comfortable with them getting themselves home yet."

I nodded, understanding now why he had disappeared for so long and then suddenly reappeared with his son and daughter.

"Uncle Joey!" the daughter exclaimed as she ran towards me, who's name I realised that as much as I'd been worried about forgetting their names, luckily this didn't seem to be an issue with Adeline or Christopher.

"Good to see you, Adster," I said, giving Adeline a big bear hug. "How's school?" I added, once we'd broken apart.

"Meh," she answered, with a shrug. "Not bad, not that interesting either."

"School was boring for me too," I said with a chuckle, which Adeline joined in on.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Phoebe give me what was pretty damn subtle but clearly was still a death stare, probably with the intention that I don't reinforce any negative ideas around school as both kids would understandably still be very impressionable and definitely wouldn't benefit from any more encouragement to dislike school.

Adeline changed the subject, asking me about what it was like to be on a film set, as clearly Phoebe and Mike had told both twins about my more unusual career choice.

"It's usually just as fun as you would imagine it to be," I replied. "But sometimes you get really horrible people on set, and rather than being able to be honest about how you feel towards them, you're forced to be nice anyway."

"Yeah, that's gotta suck," Adeline agreed. "Have you met anyone famous yet?" she added, her eyes lighting up at the prospect of me having stories about meeting celebrities to share with her.

"Not of anyone you would know, unfortunately," I replied, hoping that Adeline wouldn't feel too disheartened by it. "I'm yet to work with some of my biggest inspirations yet, so you definitely can't have quite everything you want even if it's in your most favourite job."

Adeline nodded, not looking too unhappy at what I said but still looking as curious as before. After a few minutes of waiting for what she wanted to say to me next, I realised that she seemed to be struggling to think of any more questions, and decided to give her a hint.

"Want to hear any of my most embarrassing stories on set?" I asked her, as she nodded profusely.

We both walked over to the couch, as we both seemed to agree that sitting on the couch to hear the stories I had to share was going to be more comfortable than standing up where we'd previously been.

"So I once had to nip to the restroom before starting a take," I started saying, as I made eye contact with Adeline to make sure that she still seemed interested as I didn't quite fancy her first proper memory of me in a long while being one of being bored to death. "And by the time I'd come back out and walked round to the set, it was clear that everyone had started filming and I just kind of stood off the side of the set, not wanting to walk on and disturb things but knowing that I should be there and feeling incredibly guilty about not. Nevertheless, I stood there for about fifteen minutes until the director noticed me, and at that moment I just wanted more than anything to suffer a heart attack on the spot because I was so embarrassed and ashamed."

Much to my own brains' delight after cringing very hard over the amount of pain that memory caused me, I noticed that Adeline was trying very hard not to laugh clearly because she thought it'd be rude of her to do so, but I could see that she was having real trouble with it. In spite of myself, I said, "It's fine – you can laugh; it was a noob error from ages ago."

The relief that fell over her facial expression when she burst into laughter really showed me just how hard it had been not to laugh at this particular story, which I had since understood very well after recounting this anecdote umpteenth times and witnessed the same reaction from almost everyone who'd listened, both fellow colleagues and just general friends or family members.

"Honestly, one day I aspire to be even one bit as truly iconic as you are," Adeline said to me, once she had regained composure from her laughter.

"That's incredibly sweet of you," I said, smiling back in the hope that it would convey just how much that compliment had meant to me. "Honestly, I just have a habit of doing chronically noob-like things, and then I guess I have many stories to tell, but I also have quite a few people who aren't as fond about me because of it too."

Adeline did look as if she understood what I'd been trying to get across, but I didn't seem to have persuaded her that I was nowhere near as cool as she seemed to think and was actually just pretty damn stupid and unfortunate. Still, I had to admit it was nice having a fake niece think of me as an inspiration to her.