The rest of the day remained tense between Joey and Chandler; they met the others at the coffeehouse and at Monica's apartment as usual, but found it difficult to make conversation. Ross took them both aside to discuss his continued worries about Rachel's attractive co-worker Mark, but soon realized that they weren't listening.

"Hello? Focus here!"

Joey and Chandler each mumbled apologies and made excuses about still being sleepy.

Ross noticed their lack of eye contact with each other. "Chandler, are you still mad about Joey keeping you up last night? Come on, get over it, man! If you're mad, why don't you bring home your own date and keep Joey from getting to sleep?"

Chandler looked horrified. "No, I'm-I'm not in the mood for sex right now."

"Not in the mood? Come on! You need to get over Janice-preferably not by making out with Joey's sisters again."

He scowled at Ross for bringing that up.

"Come on! Me and Joey will take you out to the strip clubs tonight. Won't we, Joe?"

"No!" Chandler refused firmly.

"Yeah, let's-let's just leave him alone," Joey chimed in.

Ross looked at both of them with irritation.

Joey swallowed and hoped that nobody could see how Ross's suggestion had filled him with a wave of jealousy. Just like with the eggs, he didn't want Chandler to have sex with somebody else, woman or man, and like it better than he liked sex with Joey. He knew it was crazy to feel so possessive, but he couldn't help it somehow.

That night when Joey and Chandler returned to their apartment, they were intensely aware of being alone again.

"Um, well, I gotta go hit the sack now," Chandler said.

"Wait, wait, don't go to bed yet!" Joey pleaded.

Chandler stopped in his tracks, but hesitated to turn around. "What, Joey?"

"You know what! Come on, look at me, please? I want-I want us to talk again and be like normal. This weirdness is just driving me crazy!"

"It's not exactly a picnic for me, Joe, but I can't just go back to normal like that." He snapped his fingers.

"Why not? You were the one who said that we should pretend like nothing ever happened."

"Well it's easier said than done, okay?"

"So, so what do we do, then? How do we move past this?"

"I don't know!" He gave a frustrated groan. "It would be a whole lot easier if I could just forget, you know? Get all these, these memories out of my head."

"Well I guess we should think about all the times that we didn't have sex. Like last week. Or like..."

Chandler shook his head and interrupted. "Look, maybe, maybe this is the wrong approach we're taking. Maybe we need some distance from each other. Like, one of us should move out of here, or maybe both of us should start fresh in new places."

"What?" Joey viewed that suggestion with horror. "No! No way! Remember how awful it was when I moved out last year and you had that freak Eddie move in? Nobody should move. We should just, we should stay and work this out somehow. Come on, Chandler, you're my best friend. Don't throw us away."

"You should've thought about that before you crossed the line with me!"

"Hey, you were the one who said we should sleep together!"

"I said we should start to! I said we should be disgusted! Damn it, why weren't you disgusted?"

"I don't know! I-" He threw the question back. "Why weren't you? Huh? If you ask me, you liked every minute of it. You loved it."

"W-what about you? With your moaning and your 'Oh baby' and your slipping me the tongue on that first kiss. Why did you ever have to kiss me, anyway? First it was New Year's and now last night. You-you can't keep your lips to yourself!" he accused.

"You didn't want me to keep them to myself! You were the one begging for a kiss at midnight."

"I wasn't asking you!"

"Oh yeah? Why'd you get drunk at my birthday party and kiss everybody, including Ross?"

"I was depressed about Janice."

Joey scoffed. "You know why you hit on my sisters, and all our friends? 'Cause you wanted the next best thing to me!"

"No I didn't!"

"Yeah you did! And you know something else? You-you-" Joey was so angry that he could hardly find words. "You're just a... a pathetic, lonely, not funny..."

That particular insult stung Chandler, and Joey could see the hurt on his face, which affected him more than he thought it would. Suddenly it didn't seem right anymore to call him a loser and tell him that he would die all alone just like Mr. Heckles.

Joey stared at Chandler and felt pangs of friendship and warmth and desire. Unable to hold back, he suddenly came over and pulled Chandler into his arms, kissing him long and hard.

Chandler did not fight him off at all, and just melted into the kiss. He met Joey's eyes at last and whispered, "Let's-let's do it again."

Joey nodded and took his breath away with another kiss, then they raced into Joey's bedroom together.