Evanescent          

Chapter 14

"Who the hell made him supervisor?! Seriously, take a retarded monkey…yeah, that would make a better supervisor than him."

Okay, so you know those Got Milk? adds? How they say to drink milk cuz 15% of your height is added during your teenage years? Yeah, they definitely lie. Because I have definitely not grown at all since I was 12. So that would be none of my height added during my teenage years. None, zip, zilch, nada, rien…And don't say that there's still hope that I'll grow cuz both of my parents are short. But I've made my peace with being short. So, yeah, I just thought that I'd point out that little bit of false advertising :) And I'm done now…Oh, and the way this computer formats HTML is different from the way my computer does it…I think cuz it's a different version of Word…but anyway, if this is messed up, bear with me, I'm trying, lol.

Your words to me just a whisper

Your face is so unclear

I try to pay attention

Your words just disappear

'Cause it's always raining in my head

Forget all the things I should have said

So I speak to you in riddles

'Cause my words get in my way

So I smoke this whole thing to my head

And I feel it wash away

'Cause I can't take anymore of this

I want to come apart

Or dig myself a little hole

Inside you precious heart

'Cause it's always raining in my head

(Epiphany, Staind)

Chandler half rolled over, unconsciously burying his head in the crook of Monica's neck, tightening his arms around her. They'd stayed up for most of the night talking, eventually falling asleep on the couch. They'd gotten everywhere but nowhere, a lot accomplished but nothing really.

Ross walked into Chandler and Joey's apartment. The night before he had decided that he needed to apologize to Chandler and explain everything.

"Hey," he smiled at Rachel, Joey, and Phoebe who were all there already, eating breakfast, receiving nods and hello's in return. "Do you know where Chandler is?" he asked, glancing up at his open door and assuming that he wasn't in there.

"I'd guess right there," Joey nodded toward the couch by the window where he and Monica were still asleep. "Leave him alone," he added when Ross started over toward them, and Ross turned back to him, almost confused. "Just leave him alone right now. Let him sleep. If you're going to talk to him or whatever later, then fine, but just…let him be right now," he said, almost protectively, and Ross finally conceded, walking back into the kitchen.

Chandler smiled against Monica's neck; he was awake. He just hadn't been able to convince himself to get up yet. He'd been laying there for close to half an hour, running his hand slowly up and down her back, just listening to the conversations going on, letting himself forget about everything. Pretending that it was like it had been before, all of them sitting there, talking, laughing, letting themselves believe that the world was no bigger than their safe little world that existed within the walls of Central Perk.

But he knew that that wasn't true. There was so much more than that. It wasn't a safe happy little world.

"So when are you going to give us our apartment back?" Monica whispered, causing Chandler to almost jump. "Sorry."

"I didn't know you were awake," he smiled, pulling back so that he could look at her. "And if you really want your apartment back then you're welcome to it. Or at least I don't care, you might have to talk to Joey, though," he continued to whisper, knowing that as soon as everyone else knew that they were awake he'd no longer have an excuse to lie there. "How long have you been awake?"

"For a while," she smiled. "But I figured if you wanted to rub my back for the next hour I wasn't going to stop you."

Chandler laughed, leaning down and tenderly kissing her forehead before standing up, untangling himself from her.

"Good morning," Joey smiled, seeing them both get up.

"Morning," Chandler replied, offering a smile in return before glancing up at Ross. Ross started toward the door, motioning for Chandler to follow. "What?" Chandler said, closing the door behind him once they were out in the hallway.

"Look, I just wanted to apologize."

"For what," Chandler looked at him, face emotionless.

"For not telling you that I was getting married," Ross continued, the fact that he was actually apologizing for something killing him.

"So when is it?" Chandler finally asked quietly.

"May 13th." (I'm so BS-ing the date, lol)

"Wait, isn't that in like…two weeks?"

"Yeah…"

"So how long have you been engaged but not told me?" Chandler looked back up, even more hurt than before.

"Not…that long," Ross paused. "Look, I just…I didn't know how to tell you that…I asked Joey to be my best man."

Chandler stared back at him in disbelief.

"Chandler, I'm sorry, but-"

"No, no, don't you be the sorry one. I should be the one who's sorry. I mean, what, did my back hurt your knife?"

"Chandler-"

"No, it's cool, whatever," he shook his head, turning toward his door and walking back inside, leaving Ross alone in the hallway.

~*~

"Hey," Rachel and Monica both greeted a confused Chandler as he walked in.

"How long was I at work?" he asked, looking around the apartment.

"You said you didn't care if we switched back, so," Monica shrugged.

"Whatever," he laughed, sitting down at the kitchen table with them.

"So you're coming this weekend, right?" Monica asked, and Chandler just sighed. "Chandler, it's Ross's bachelor party…"

"Yeah, I know," he looked up at her.

"Well even if you refuse to go to the party, you're still coming to Atlantic City with us," Rachel added. "I have to go, you have to go."

"So why are we going to Atlantic City again?"

Monica shrugged. "Ask Joey. I think it's kind of a mini (LOL, yeah, so I could not spell that word right for the life of me…seriously, and it's not like it's a hard word! m-i-n-i. *sighs*) vacation since Phoebe can't come with us to London."

"Whatever," Chandler shrugged again, and the girls just looked at each other.

"So will you come then?" Rachel asked again after a few minutes.

"Yeah, I guess…" he finally said causing the girls to grin at each other.

Getting him to go was a victory…a small victory, but a victory…

Tbc…

Yeah, um, this wasn't all that major of a part, but it was my everything-falls-into-place part so I'm jumping up and down doing my happy dance over here, lol. And I'm pretty sure there's gonna be two more parts of this…maybe three…or maybe I don't know, lol. Oh, but I gotta shut up and go, Friends is on (*laughs at the face eathing* hehe) :-D so please review, thanks :)