When the show was over, the stripper dressed and the crowd dispersed. Joey paid her and escorted her to her car at the end of the dock. He flirted with her and got her number, but didn't invite her to stay the night, since it would be awkward with Chandler here.
When he returned to the *Mr. Bowmont*, Joey switched off the lights and joined Chandler inside the cabin, which was dark except for the moonlight coming through the windows.
Chandler was playing around with the boat's radio. "Chandler to Monica, Chandler to Monica. Here's what I think of your centerpieces--" He blew a raspberry.
Someone responded over the radio, which startled Chandler, who didn't know that he had activated anything.
Joey pulled Chandler away from the radio and replied to the person at the other end, "Uh, never mind. Darn kids playing around."
"Sorry," Chandler said sheepishly.
"It's okay. You better sleep this off now." Joey got out the sleeping bags and unrolled them.
Chandler watched him blankly, then dimly remembered something. "No sheep?"
Joey chuckled. "No, but I got some life vests for pillows. Where do you want to sleep, over here or near the door?"
Chandler shrugged and leaned against the wall, looking drowsy.
Joey came over and sat with him. "Chandler?"
He mumbled some nonsense and closed his eyes.
"Come here," Joey pulled him closer, taking off his glasses and setting them on top of the photo album. Then he undressed Chandler to his boxers, unzipped the nearest sleeping bag, and tucked Chandler inside it. "There you go," Joey said, zipping up the bag.
As he got up from the floor, Joey placed a bucket nearby, in case Chandler needed to vomit in the middle of the night. Then Joey went over to the other sleeping bag, got naked, and tucked himself in.
There was a silence as Joey lay awake, thinking about the great bachelor party and the stripper that he'd be seeing more of later. Since he had thrown the party so early, Joey wondered what other bonding he and Chandler might still do before the wedding. Hanging out on the boat? Playing with the chick and the duck? Monica had suggested a steak dinner instead of a bachelor party, and they would probably include Ross in that event.
Meanwhile, Chandler restlessly shifted in his sleep and was rudely awakened by bumping into the bucket. "Ow!" he sat up and glanced around, trying to remember where he was and how he'd got undressed.
Joey rolled over to look at him. "You okay?"
Chandler blinked and frowned. "Hey, is--is the party over already?"
Joey chuckled. "Yeah, it is."
"Oh." He tried to think coherently. "So now we're just camping?"
Joey smiled. "Yeah. Now we're camping."
"But not in a tent."
"Right." Joey was quite amused by Chandler's stilted conversation. "We're on my boat, remember? In the cabin."
"Uh-huh." Chandler lay back down and sighed. "We had a boat once. A canoe."
"Yeah." Joey hadn't thought about the canoe in years.
"And no furniture."
"Yeah, I know." As Chandler had bluntly pointed out to him at the time, it was Joey's fault that they'd been robbed.
"And now you have a sailboat," Chandler said, then giggled a little bit. "Mr. Boat."
Joey didn't bother to correct him, since he was drunk and/or joking.
Chandler asked, "Did we ever name the canoe?"
"Nah, we only had it a month."
Chandler wanted to say that they'd named the chick Yasmine in only a couple of days, but instead he shivered and complained, "I'm cold." He sounded pathetic and helpless. "It's too cold out here."
Joey sat up a little. "You want a blanket?"
"Yeah."
So Joey got out of his sleeping bag and stepped over Chandler to reach the cabinet containing the blankets. He didn't stop to put on any boxers, though, and when he returned with a blanket, he found Chandler staring at him. It was dark, but he was definitely, fixedly staring.
Joey cleared his throat and spread the blanket over Chandler. "I always sleep naked, remember?"
Chandler said nothing.
Joey shrugged and hurried back to his sleeping bag, hastily getting inside again. But Chandler still stared at him, and Joey coughed uncomfortably. "Okay, maybe I got too close to you, but you've seen me naked before. You helped me take a shower once." Joey had been suffering from a hernia at the time.
Chandler blinked and lay back, slowly recalling that incident from about a year ago. "Yeah," he said softly.
Joey was relieved that Chandler's gaze had finally shifted. "Yeah, so let's not talk about it. You should go back to sleep anyway, Chandler. Good night."
But Chandler didn't want to say good night just yet. Huddling under the blanket, he asked, "Aren't you cold?"
"No, I always sleep naked."
"But with a girl. You always have a girl."
"No, sometimes it's just me and Hugsy. Oh, I should have brought Hugsy here!" He'd left the penguin doll on his bed at home.
That was one of the contradictions about Joey, that he could be a remorseless womanizer and yet be so sweet and adorable too.
Chandler's mind wandered. "How come you're not drunk, Joe?"
"What? I am."
"Not like me."
Joey shrugged. "Well, I had to look after you and the boat."
"But it's a party. You should have a good time."
"I did have a good time."
"Loosen up!" Chandler imitated him. "Live a little."
Joey just smiled at him.
After a pause, Chandler added pensively, "I've never seen you drunk."
"Sure you have."
"No, *really* drunk. Wasted. Stumbling around. Throwing up."
Joey shrugged. "Maybe you were so drunk too that you don't remember."
Chandler considered that, but frowned. "But we she should have stories, Joe. Pictures." With an idea, Chandler sat up and wriggled around in his sleeping bag so that he could reach the photo album. He put on his glasses and tried to look through the pictures, but it was too dark to see anything. "You got a flashlight?"
Joey sighed. "I don't know. I'll find one." This time, he stopped to locate his boxers and put them on before leaving his sleeping bag. Then he rummaged through his cabinets until he found a flashlight, which he turned on and handed to Chandler. "Here."
Before Joey could return to his sleeping bag, Chandler grabbed Joey's elbow and tugged at him to sit down beside him. "Show me where you're drunk."
Joey shrugged. "I don't remember where all the pictures are."
"Then look with me! I bet you can't find it." Chandler opened up the photo album and started shining the flashlight on the pictures, but he couldn't hold the flashlight steady.
So Joey took the flashlight from him and joined Chandler on the floor. He pulled part of Chandler's blanket around him, so that he wouldn't be quite so under-dressed while sitting this close.
With Joey aiming the flashlight for him, Chandler flipped through the photo album and kept pointing out pictures from parties and other events where most of the people got drunk, but Joey looked relatively sober.
"Lesbian wedding! You're not drunk. Rachel's birthday parties. Not drunk. Atlantic City. Not drunk."
"So what?" Joey said. "It just means I can hold my beer better than you guys."
Chandler complained, "But I wanna see you drunk! You said you get drunk."
Joey shrugged, "Well, I only get *really* drunk at bachelor parties, I guess. But nobody's allowed to take pictures at bachelor parties, you know, so that's why it's not here."
Chandler pouted. "But you're not drunk now, and this was the best bachelor party ever."
"Really?" Joey looked proud.
"Yeah!"
"You're welcome." Joey grinned happily and hugged him, glad that Chandler had let him throw the party after all.
Chandler glanced around the cabin and asked, "We got any beer left? You should get drunk now." He started to wriggle toward the cooler.
Joey distracted Chandler by pointing out a funny photo on the current page. "Remember when you had a goatee?"
Chandler nodded and giggled. "I do look like Satan."
Joey kept pointing out various pictures, until Chandler forgot his whole purpose and just got caught up in reminiscing. After all the excitement of the party, this was a nice, quiet moment to share.
There was a picture of them on their last night as roommates, before Chandler moved across the hall. They sat on the floor beside the broken foosball table and hugged.
"Aw!" Being very drunk, Chandler became excessively sentimental, and started to cry. He took off his glasses and turned away in embarrassment.
Joey could remember how much he had cried when Chandler first told him that he was moving out, so he didn't feel inclined to mock Chandler for it now. Instead, Joey just suggested softly, "You should get contacts, you know? You can pretend they hurt your eyes."
"Yeah," Chandler sniffled, and wiped the tears away.
Joey chuckled. "Plus, you can freak out Rachel all the time by taking them in and out of your eyes!"
Chandler managed to laugh, and looked down at his glasses. "And they wouldn't fog up in the steam room."
"Right." Joey smiled fondly and brushed his fingers through Chandler's hair. After a pause, he added, "I like you without glasses."
"Yeah?" Chandler turned back to him.
Joey nodded. "Yeah, you've got nice eyes."
Their eyes met for a lingering moment, then Joey leaned near and kissed Chandler's lips. Soon it wasn't just his lips, but his whole mouth.
Chandler dropped the photo album, and Joey dropped the flashlight, pulling Chandler close in his arms. But then Joey realized what he was doing and broke away.
"I'm--I'm sorry. I shouldn't have--" He coughed and tried to clear his head. "I'm drunk, that's all. Drunk."
Chandler started to kiss him back, but Joey said, "No," and got up from the floor, pushing the blanket back onto Chandler.
Joey returned to his sleeping bag, but Chandler followed him, rather clumsily. The blanket, flashlight, and photo album got in his way, not to mention the sleeping bag that he was still awkwardly wriggling around in.
"Joey!" He half slid out of his sleeping bag and reached for Joey's shoulders.
"No!" Joey shrugged him off and wouldn't face him. "Just go to sleep, Chandler."
"But--"
"Forget about it. It didn't happen. You're drunk."
"Joey!" Chandler kept trying to get Joey to face him. "You kissed me."
"I didn't."
"You did!"
"No!" Joey denied it stubbornly. "Why, why would I kiss you? You're engaged to Monica, and we're friends. Just two straight friends. You're drunk, and you're imagining stuff."
"Joey!" Chandler broke down into tears again.
Joey couldn't take listening to him crying, so he turned around and embraced Chandler tentatively. Chandler tried to kiss him again, but Joey wouldn't let him. "You're not gay. We're not--"
"I love you."
Joey blinked at this sudden confession, but shook his head firmly. "You don't. You're drunk and saying stuff."
Chandler sobbed some more against Joey's shoulder, until he exhausted himself. Once he fell asleep, Joey tucked Chandler back inside his sleeping bag and pushed him a safe distance away. Then he returned to his own sleeping bag and was glad that no one was allowed to take pictures at bachelor parties.
When he returned to the *Mr. Bowmont*, Joey switched off the lights and joined Chandler inside the cabin, which was dark except for the moonlight coming through the windows.
Chandler was playing around with the boat's radio. "Chandler to Monica, Chandler to Monica. Here's what I think of your centerpieces--" He blew a raspberry.
Someone responded over the radio, which startled Chandler, who didn't know that he had activated anything.
Joey pulled Chandler away from the radio and replied to the person at the other end, "Uh, never mind. Darn kids playing around."
"Sorry," Chandler said sheepishly.
"It's okay. You better sleep this off now." Joey got out the sleeping bags and unrolled them.
Chandler watched him blankly, then dimly remembered something. "No sheep?"
Joey chuckled. "No, but I got some life vests for pillows. Where do you want to sleep, over here or near the door?"
Chandler shrugged and leaned against the wall, looking drowsy.
Joey came over and sat with him. "Chandler?"
He mumbled some nonsense and closed his eyes.
"Come here," Joey pulled him closer, taking off his glasses and setting them on top of the photo album. Then he undressed Chandler to his boxers, unzipped the nearest sleeping bag, and tucked Chandler inside it. "There you go," Joey said, zipping up the bag.
As he got up from the floor, Joey placed a bucket nearby, in case Chandler needed to vomit in the middle of the night. Then Joey went over to the other sleeping bag, got naked, and tucked himself in.
There was a silence as Joey lay awake, thinking about the great bachelor party and the stripper that he'd be seeing more of later. Since he had thrown the party so early, Joey wondered what other bonding he and Chandler might still do before the wedding. Hanging out on the boat? Playing with the chick and the duck? Monica had suggested a steak dinner instead of a bachelor party, and they would probably include Ross in that event.
Meanwhile, Chandler restlessly shifted in his sleep and was rudely awakened by bumping into the bucket. "Ow!" he sat up and glanced around, trying to remember where he was and how he'd got undressed.
Joey rolled over to look at him. "You okay?"
Chandler blinked and frowned. "Hey, is--is the party over already?"
Joey chuckled. "Yeah, it is."
"Oh." He tried to think coherently. "So now we're just camping?"
Joey smiled. "Yeah. Now we're camping."
"But not in a tent."
"Right." Joey was quite amused by Chandler's stilted conversation. "We're on my boat, remember? In the cabin."
"Uh-huh." Chandler lay back down and sighed. "We had a boat once. A canoe."
"Yeah." Joey hadn't thought about the canoe in years.
"And no furniture."
"Yeah, I know." As Chandler had bluntly pointed out to him at the time, it was Joey's fault that they'd been robbed.
"And now you have a sailboat," Chandler said, then giggled a little bit. "Mr. Boat."
Joey didn't bother to correct him, since he was drunk and/or joking.
Chandler asked, "Did we ever name the canoe?"
"Nah, we only had it a month."
Chandler wanted to say that they'd named the chick Yasmine in only a couple of days, but instead he shivered and complained, "I'm cold." He sounded pathetic and helpless. "It's too cold out here."
Joey sat up a little. "You want a blanket?"
"Yeah."
So Joey got out of his sleeping bag and stepped over Chandler to reach the cabinet containing the blankets. He didn't stop to put on any boxers, though, and when he returned with a blanket, he found Chandler staring at him. It was dark, but he was definitely, fixedly staring.
Joey cleared his throat and spread the blanket over Chandler. "I always sleep naked, remember?"
Chandler said nothing.
Joey shrugged and hurried back to his sleeping bag, hastily getting inside again. But Chandler still stared at him, and Joey coughed uncomfortably. "Okay, maybe I got too close to you, but you've seen me naked before. You helped me take a shower once." Joey had been suffering from a hernia at the time.
Chandler blinked and lay back, slowly recalling that incident from about a year ago. "Yeah," he said softly.
Joey was relieved that Chandler's gaze had finally shifted. "Yeah, so let's not talk about it. You should go back to sleep anyway, Chandler. Good night."
But Chandler didn't want to say good night just yet. Huddling under the blanket, he asked, "Aren't you cold?"
"No, I always sleep naked."
"But with a girl. You always have a girl."
"No, sometimes it's just me and Hugsy. Oh, I should have brought Hugsy here!" He'd left the penguin doll on his bed at home.
That was one of the contradictions about Joey, that he could be a remorseless womanizer and yet be so sweet and adorable too.
Chandler's mind wandered. "How come you're not drunk, Joe?"
"What? I am."
"Not like me."
Joey shrugged. "Well, I had to look after you and the boat."
"But it's a party. You should have a good time."
"I did have a good time."
"Loosen up!" Chandler imitated him. "Live a little."
Joey just smiled at him.
After a pause, Chandler added pensively, "I've never seen you drunk."
"Sure you have."
"No, *really* drunk. Wasted. Stumbling around. Throwing up."
Joey shrugged. "Maybe you were so drunk too that you don't remember."
Chandler considered that, but frowned. "But we she should have stories, Joe. Pictures." With an idea, Chandler sat up and wriggled around in his sleeping bag so that he could reach the photo album. He put on his glasses and tried to look through the pictures, but it was too dark to see anything. "You got a flashlight?"
Joey sighed. "I don't know. I'll find one." This time, he stopped to locate his boxers and put them on before leaving his sleeping bag. Then he rummaged through his cabinets until he found a flashlight, which he turned on and handed to Chandler. "Here."
Before Joey could return to his sleeping bag, Chandler grabbed Joey's elbow and tugged at him to sit down beside him. "Show me where you're drunk."
Joey shrugged. "I don't remember where all the pictures are."
"Then look with me! I bet you can't find it." Chandler opened up the photo album and started shining the flashlight on the pictures, but he couldn't hold the flashlight steady.
So Joey took the flashlight from him and joined Chandler on the floor. He pulled part of Chandler's blanket around him, so that he wouldn't be quite so under-dressed while sitting this close.
With Joey aiming the flashlight for him, Chandler flipped through the photo album and kept pointing out pictures from parties and other events where most of the people got drunk, but Joey looked relatively sober.
"Lesbian wedding! You're not drunk. Rachel's birthday parties. Not drunk. Atlantic City. Not drunk."
"So what?" Joey said. "It just means I can hold my beer better than you guys."
Chandler complained, "But I wanna see you drunk! You said you get drunk."
Joey shrugged, "Well, I only get *really* drunk at bachelor parties, I guess. But nobody's allowed to take pictures at bachelor parties, you know, so that's why it's not here."
Chandler pouted. "But you're not drunk now, and this was the best bachelor party ever."
"Really?" Joey looked proud.
"Yeah!"
"You're welcome." Joey grinned happily and hugged him, glad that Chandler had let him throw the party after all.
Chandler glanced around the cabin and asked, "We got any beer left? You should get drunk now." He started to wriggle toward the cooler.
Joey distracted Chandler by pointing out a funny photo on the current page. "Remember when you had a goatee?"
Chandler nodded and giggled. "I do look like Satan."
Joey kept pointing out various pictures, until Chandler forgot his whole purpose and just got caught up in reminiscing. After all the excitement of the party, this was a nice, quiet moment to share.
There was a picture of them on their last night as roommates, before Chandler moved across the hall. They sat on the floor beside the broken foosball table and hugged.
"Aw!" Being very drunk, Chandler became excessively sentimental, and started to cry. He took off his glasses and turned away in embarrassment.
Joey could remember how much he had cried when Chandler first told him that he was moving out, so he didn't feel inclined to mock Chandler for it now. Instead, Joey just suggested softly, "You should get contacts, you know? You can pretend they hurt your eyes."
"Yeah," Chandler sniffled, and wiped the tears away.
Joey chuckled. "Plus, you can freak out Rachel all the time by taking them in and out of your eyes!"
Chandler managed to laugh, and looked down at his glasses. "And they wouldn't fog up in the steam room."
"Right." Joey smiled fondly and brushed his fingers through Chandler's hair. After a pause, he added, "I like you without glasses."
"Yeah?" Chandler turned back to him.
Joey nodded. "Yeah, you've got nice eyes."
Their eyes met for a lingering moment, then Joey leaned near and kissed Chandler's lips. Soon it wasn't just his lips, but his whole mouth.
Chandler dropped the photo album, and Joey dropped the flashlight, pulling Chandler close in his arms. But then Joey realized what he was doing and broke away.
"I'm--I'm sorry. I shouldn't have--" He coughed and tried to clear his head. "I'm drunk, that's all. Drunk."
Chandler started to kiss him back, but Joey said, "No," and got up from the floor, pushing the blanket back onto Chandler.
Joey returned to his sleeping bag, but Chandler followed him, rather clumsily. The blanket, flashlight, and photo album got in his way, not to mention the sleeping bag that he was still awkwardly wriggling around in.
"Joey!" He half slid out of his sleeping bag and reached for Joey's shoulders.
"No!" Joey shrugged him off and wouldn't face him. "Just go to sleep, Chandler."
"But--"
"Forget about it. It didn't happen. You're drunk."
"Joey!" Chandler kept trying to get Joey to face him. "You kissed me."
"I didn't."
"You did!"
"No!" Joey denied it stubbornly. "Why, why would I kiss you? You're engaged to Monica, and we're friends. Just two straight friends. You're drunk, and you're imagining stuff."
"Joey!" Chandler broke down into tears again.
Joey couldn't take listening to him crying, so he turned around and embraced Chandler tentatively. Chandler tried to kiss him again, but Joey wouldn't let him. "You're not gay. We're not--"
"I love you."
Joey blinked at this sudden confession, but shook his head firmly. "You don't. You're drunk and saying stuff."
Chandler sobbed some more against Joey's shoulder, until he exhausted himself. Once he fell asleep, Joey tucked Chandler back inside his sleeping bag and pushed him a safe distance away. Then he returned to his own sleeping bag and was glad that no one was allowed to take pictures at bachelor parties.
