Soft, slow, shy… a timid exploration of trust. For a moment, Chandler was lost in the warmth. He could taste his tears mingled with another new flavour. Purely Joey. Joey! His gut instinct to push him away kicked in and he used his arm to prise Joey's top half backwards. Caught unawares, Joey fell back and balanced on one foot before finding gravity again and planting the second firmly back down. Chandler scrambled out of the chair to stand behind it, making a definite boundary between them. He flailed his arms and stuttered, "Why-why, why why-why, why did you DO that?" Joey scratched the back of his neck. "Well I just remembered that you didn't get a kiss at midnight, and the last time you missed out you got all freaked out until I kissed you so this time I was just planning ahead."

          "It's NOT midnight anymore Joe!"

          "I know that, I told you I forgot."

          "Buh… I mean… how…" Chandler fought for the right words to use but all sanity escaped him. Joey stopped scratching his neck. "Ok I'm sorry if it freaked you out. Next year I'll be far, far away from you."

Chandler bit his lip and said, "Not far away; just not… kissing me unexpectedly." Joey shrugged. "You've gotta work on your homophobia."

          "WHAT? I've been told I'm gay by countless people, my father whipped the pool guy in front of me when I was a kid - traumatising me, I'm pining over my ex-wife, who's going on a date with a gay man who used to have a crush on me and you KISS me and tell me I'm a homophobe? I've had a LOT of patience with gays so far." Chandler was almost spitting in fury and was leaning over the recliner too far forward. It collapsed backwards and he fell into the seat. "Dude are you Ok?" Joey rushed forward.

          "DON'T TOUCH ME!!!" Chandler screamed grasping at his hair. "I'm thirty-fucking-five years old. Why am I divorced, and still living in a grubby little apartment watching Baywatch? I should be living in a house with a white fence and have a wife and kids where I chat to the next-door neighbour about sports and cars and lawnmowers."

          "This is New York…"

          "Well I wouldn't stay here obviously!" he slid back off the chair allowing it to fall back with a thud. Joey picked it back up then followed Chandler who was headed towards his room. "Stop, wait! You can talk to me, you know that. What's with this house and family stuff? When did you start thinking this way?"

          "Ever since..." There was no way to speak of the moment. Not without completely succumbing to his subconscious. The memory was locked away, hidden. Could he speak of it to him, to Joey? His best friend?

          "It was so long ago, I'm not sure when it was. We'd pretty much given up on trying for a baby. We fought… we were constantly fighting. We blamed each other but it was just one of those things. I spent most nights sleeping in the spare room. So that made trying for a baby more difficult. Our patience frayed… nerves shot. That's why we went to the coffee house so little. It wasn't because we were 'trying yet again' as Rachel put it; we were either arguing or enjoying the silence between spats. Then one night, we tried again. Put it all behind us and started anew. But afterwards Monica confronted me. She claimed I said someone else's name at climax. That was a HUGE fight… we called each other every name that could stir up bad feelings. We opened old wounds and they just didn't heal this time. We hurt each other too deeply. Mentioned things that shouldn't even have been remembered. Things we'd promised to forget. Unforgivable, below the belt, cutting remarks and rebuttals - I cant even begin to tell you how low I stooped. I was shameless and she… such a bitch. But no worse than me. Until…"

          "Until?"

          "I can't tell you. But that's when I knew I couldn't stay. A few weeks later she told me she was pregnant by that night."

          "When you said the wrong name."

          "Yes." Chandler had remained fairly emotionless throughout the tale. But as he said that one insignificant word, his eyes swam in the tears and he had to turn away.

          "What name?" Joey almost knew the answer already. But he wanted to hear it from Chandler himself.

          "I… I've forgotten." Joey brought Chandler out from under the doorway and sat him in the recliner. "Liar," he whispered.

"Joey…"

"Yes?"

"No. That's what I said… that was the name." He pulled his arm from Joey's tense grip and awaited a reaction. But Joey just looked at him for a while. Then he took one of Chandler's hands and stroked the knuckles with his thumbs. They barely scraped the surface of the skin. It felt like a butterfly quivering and shimmering on a petal. "Chandler… I'm not gay but… we have something here. Agreed?" Chandler nodded fearfully. He was afraid this would be one of Joey's few shining moments where he made sense and could convince any jury that the sky was made from chocolate and that sheep were angels. Joey spoke again. "We both prefer women, sexually I mean. But we connect together on a much higher plain than that. We're soul mates, and we don't have to express how much we care for each other… not physically. Love and sex exist on different levels and they can meet, of course. Sex rarely leads to love directly. And if it does, it's rarely real. That's why I never cared about how many women I slept with. If they left, it wouldn't really matter. I never loved them. It's just the sex was great. But love… Love should lead to sex not the other way. Love can exist without sex, but for the two lovers to feel like its official, everywhere in and out of the universe, sex is the best way to define the raw emotion."

"You've been reading Rachel's relationship books haven't you? That was page 73 I believe," Chandler sighed, knowing that such poetry couldn't come from a Tribbiani mind. Joey smiled, and continued massaging Chandler's hand with his soft skinned thumbs. "Yes, but I understand and agree with every word."

"And this is just a long, complicated, obscure yet direct way of asking me… what exactly? To sleep with you? Well I'm flattered Joe, I really am.(!) That you'd pay more attention to my feelings and take more care in seducing me than with women you meet in bars," he shouted, growing irritable by this sudden display of affection and he undeniably felt petrified by the idea of Joey wanting him just because of some lobster theory Phoebe obsessed over. Joey's gut ached seeing Chandler's horrified expression and curt observations of his feeble attempt at explaining his feelings. Truth was, he had no idea. He had never loved anyone this much, he thought, but to… with a guy. That'd take a LOT of love. But maybe they had enough between them. It could be feasible. Try again, a voice inside him urged. Kiss him again, it groaned with frustration. I could lose everything, he told the voice calmly, but his knew his body wasn't listening to the inner squabble and it was moving over to Chandler. His head leant to the left and he met his lips once again.

Chandler felt the urge to push him away again. But he wondered, as Joey tried to prise his anxious lips apart, if it wasn't just fear, rather than repulsion. He softened to the kiss. He'd let Joey enjoy the moment before he let him down again. He opened his mouth slightly and began to revel in this teasing. He could sense Joey's shoulders tense as he pushed further into the kiss, begging Chandler to yield to his demands. Surrender to what they both knew could happen, should happen, would happen. Chandler sat back into the chair and Joey followed onto him, his knees taking his weight onto the cushion and his hands gripped the arms of the chair. Chandler ran his hand tenderly on Joey's and he paused as Joey flinched at the touch. Joey took it as a good sign and the kiss became harder and more passionate. Chandler's mouth opened in surprise and Joey took full advantage turning the playful tease into an arduous display of fire. Ok this is enough, Chandler decided and wriggled away from Joey's head. The kiss broke off and Joey moved off, panting heavily. "Wha… why?"

"We aren't gay!"

"No but I though we could-"

"No Joe. I pretty much know what you're thinking. Be together but have women too. And what about jealousy? What if one of us finds a girl we really like. Marriage crops up again…" Joey tried to think up a counter-argument but Chandler waved it away and shook his head. "No more. I can't handle more deceit and lies and broken relationships. I just want one person. Wherever they are. Just them. Forever. Can you quit women forever Joe? No, neither can I. Goodnight." With that, he stormed into his room. Joey stayed there, perched on his haunches for a few seconds. Chandler burst back out of the room, "Ok, it's only 11am…" Joey fell back laughing. "Trust YOU to make light of this," Chandler huffed. Joey got up and grabbed his coat. "I'm going to my audition. Still want to come?"

"You wont mention-"

"No."

"…Ok then."

They did their best to act like nothing happened. Joey's audition went well, amidst the comments from other actors that they made a cute couple. Each time that happened, they were silent for a brief interlude. Then somehow they found a way to begin again and continued joking and chatting. The late afternoon was spent in Central Perk with the others, which gave them some relief from pretending to be happy around each other. And they even persuaded Phoebe and Andy to join them at the cinema, so that bought them a lot of time. But when the taxi harbouring Phoebe and Andy inside revved away from outside the apartment building, they were left alone. The chatter didn't come as easily as it had earlier. They went up in silence and they entered the apartment with a degree of gloom and anticipation. "Ok," Chandler said. "NOW it's goodnight." He went towards his room but a 'clink' sound made him turn around. Joey was putting the chain across the door. "Why are you locking up?" he questioned him with an air of nervousness.

"I'm going to bed."

"Oh." Relief washed over him, until he spied Joey staring forlornly at the recliner. "What are you thinking about?" he timidly asked, knowing the answer but hoping he was wrong. Joey shrugged. He walked past it and into his room. Chandler caught his arm as he went. "Joe… I think, I'm ready to talk about this."

"Nothing to talk about according to you."

"Why the FUCK are you being so angst-filled?"

"It's a slash fanfiction that's why!"

"Huh?"

"What?"

"I…" Chandler was completely lost now. He sat in the recliner and rubbed his hands over his head and face. Joey perked up slightly at where he had subconsciously chosen to sit. "I sat here because it was nearest," Chandler mumbled through his fingers as if psychically picking up on Joey's thoughts.

"Whatever you say man." Joey knelt in front of him. He prised Chandler's hands from his face. "So, you wanted to talk?"

"This lobster thing… if I have a soul mate I want it to be just them. And I'm not into lobsters. I need mermaids."

"And you know what you like?"

"Don't you?"

"I've always thought I'd love a woman mostly. But I love you more than any person in the world. I should be embarrassed by saying that, but the Italian in me doesn't mind."

"Well the um… Bing in me does mind. But I do feel that way, Joe."

Joey felt satisfied by that and patted him on the knee, "So it's just a sex problem we have. We need sex, but not from each other."

          "All guys problems begin and end in sex. That's just the way it is." Joey nodded in accordance. He scratched his neck and added, "If that's so, then where do we go from here?" Chandlers eyes lowered. He twiddled his thumbs. He suddenly felt compulsive and launched himself at Joey, drawing him into another kiss like before. Slow and tempting at first, then fast-paced and burning into a climatic finish. The first kiss they had without one of them pushing the other away. The pusher before was Chandler, but for once he initiated it. And he was glad. But panic gripped him again when he opened his eyes and saw Joey's kind face. If it all went wrong… he'd lose Joey. He fled into his room, leaving Joey bemused.