Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or the apartment, just the DVDs. There's no profit except writing practice being made here.
To me, there is nothing better than a Künstlerroman, and I think Chandler is that character. He's always loved writing and wished he was a writer. Recently, I discovered, I am not the only one with this little headcanon. This one is dedicated to our like-minded little group.
Inspiriting: Giving impetus or spirit; animating, encouraging.
"You got a letter, babe," Monica flapped the envelope between them haughtily. She'd seen the emblem in the top corner. She knew who it was from and was desperately trying to keep her excitement hidden from her husband. "What's it say?"
Chandler spun around in his chair and plucked the paper from her fingers, cavalier and unaware of what was inside. He didn't even look to see any of the symbols on the paper, just tore the envelope open with a pointer finger hooked beneath the flap at the edge and tearing. Badly.
Monica had overcome a lot of things over the years, being married to someone who didn't see your organisation and cleanliness as a burden but a sweet little quirk did that to you. I he could accept it, she could accept a little mess every now and then. Dirty diapers and two infants crawling around, twins who liked to be chased around the house and play with stuffed toys did that to you. Thankfully, the twins were fairly well behaved and absolute sponges from a young age, they put their things away when they were done with them, at first because mum did it, then later because everything was so well labelled there was no other place to put it. Monica assumed a lot of that had to do with Chandler asking them to put things away "to make mum's life easier." She definitely enjoyed sitting in the driveway for an extra minute after she had pulled up, knowing you could hear the rolling wheels from inside the house. Those few extra minutes gave the twins some extra time to make things neat, but really, they were pretty good at keeping things in order, even as teenagers, and didn't really need the Mum's home signal to spur them into a quick clean up.
Still, the way Chandler opened the envelope, all jagged tears into the front and back of the envelope causing him to be unable to tear it completely open, made her wince. Especially because there was a letter opener sitting on the desk beside him. He struggled to get the letter out of the envelope.
She'd seen the publisher's emblem on the envelope, one of the ones in the big bookstores. It was a thick letter. At least four pages thick. Rejection letters weren't thick. She was so proud of him but tried to bite her lip, trying to not let her fingers shake with excitement, so Monica gripped his shoulders instead, rolling her fingers harshly against his collar as though she was soothing them both.
"Do you think it's what I think it is?" Chandler asked. Monica had seen his fingers shake four times in her life. Their first day in New York after they got back from London. The night they proposed. The first time he changed a diaper and Erica's first dance recital, where he'd been so shaky she had to take the camera away from him.
This was the first time she'd seen him nervous for himself alone.
"You sent it to four publishers a few weeks ago," Monica rested her chin on Chandler's head to hide her smile. "It's about time you got a response."
Chandler worked his jaw. That was what his silence meant, Monica knew. He wasn't just nervous, he was reluctant too.
She kneaded his shoulders, softer than she would have liked her own back to be massaged, she liked it so hard she couldn't form sentences, but Monica knew Chandler liked things softer, more tender, so she massaged him in that manner, caressing the back of his neck.
Chandler turned his head to look at her, knocking Monica off the top of his head so they could look at each other. His blue eyes were wide, not quite fearful, but guilty. "Am I doing the right thing?"
Monica smiled softly and kissed him. That had been Chandler's biggest worry the whole way through this process. He'd always wanted to write, for as long as Monica had known him, Chandler jotted down things at the dinner table - he was the only person who ever used her grandmother's desk back when they lived in the city - but he'd never done it seriously despite having all the tools and connections at his disposal. Even when he quit his job in Tulsa, when Monica thought he might use all his spare time to finally do it, he hadn't.
He was probably too stressed to turn out anything good back then, frustrated about not getting her pregnant yet, and desperate to find a job that would both sustain their family and satisfy his creativity. Money was tight back then and they were only saved by Joey's generosity and the rent control on their apartment. Even after he got his internship, they budgeted more than ever before and saved all their pennies for doctors' appointments and then the expensive adoption process. At least by then Chandler had been given a proper role in his new company and when they applied for a loan they had enough money saved up and high enough incomes that they could manage the mortgage of the property of their dreams. The surprise twin had been a shock, one Chandler rightly worried about, and money had been tight for the first year. Double the amount of formula and diapers and furniture and insurance and then daycare that they hadn't been prepared for. After the twins were born, the pair of them had time, certainly not enough time to pen a novel at least. Nor was there the inclination, Chandler had said it himself, he'd much prefer to be out in the backyard of an afternoon or at the zoo or the park on the weekend, spending as much time with their family as possible.
Then the kids had been little and they'd finally had afternoons together without needing a babysitter. He could have written it then, and genuinely discussed writing. But put it off.
"What's it say?" she asked her husband to turn his attention to the letter in his hands.
Monica leant over, her armpits at Chandler's shoulders, and her hands at his chest. She dipped her fingers beneath the top button of his business shirt and threaded the hair at the top of his chest through her fingers, palming over his heart.
Monica heard her husband gasp and smiled. She pressed her lips against the back of his head, burying her nose in his greying locks.
"It's the rights," Chandler said, as if that meant anything. "They want me to sell the rights."
"It's an autobiography," Monica furrowed her brow. Chandler flicked the paper out in front of him, letting the horizontal crease in the centre of it pop towards him. She let her hands swirl circles against Chandler's chest, moving forward and bending lower at the waist, her arms opening outwards so his shoulders were trapped between her elbows. Then Monica hooked her chin over Chandler's shoulder so she could read what the letter said.
"Semi-autobiographical," Chandler corrected. "It's going in the fiction section when it gets published."
"Yeah," Monica rolled her eyes, pinching his stomach. "But it's about us."
He hummed, "Vaguely."
Monica unwound her arms from his shoulders and swatted Chandler's back. "London's in it."
"Vaguely."
Monica pressed her nose to her husband's sharp cheekbone and squinted at him, his long eyelashes catching on the sunlight filtering through the window. Except for the frustratingly unhelpful vagueness of his responses, she really lucked out in finding him.
"Joey's Freud! play," she'd loved that chapter, as much as it hurt to know. This book bared things about Chandler Monica hadn't realised. He told her that on some level she probably had noticed these things about him, and it was very clear that the story involved all points of view not just his, to make it more relatable to an audience and authentic to everyday life, which was Chandler's aim. But reading his point of view of the whole scenario, wanting to be loved completely, throwing himself into the wrong woman's arms, her pushing him in that direction, was still a surreal and painful experience. If they hadn't wasted so much time with their eyes closed, they might have gotten together sooner. Or they might not have grown the way they needed to in order to finally be ready for each other. Even knowing that and loving the way and the pace things had turned out for them, some moments were difficult to look back on without wondering what on earth her past self hadn't seen in him when he'd so clearly always been looking for the same things she had.
"Bamboozled. That time Phoebe found a thumb in her can."
Chandler twisted his head around to look at Monica. Their noses bumped and the skin around his blue eyes wrinkled. Back when they first met, that fateful first Thanksgiving, even that college party and the Thanksgiving after, Monica didn't think she'd ever see Chandler smile. But he smiled so often and so widely since then that his face bore the marks of a truly happy life. She preened proudly that those wrinkles were, at least in part, because of her.
"There's a lot of things that aren't in there. Like our first night together, our first night with the kids," he listed, "and anything earlier than Rachel joining our little group."
"Why is that?" Monica teased. They'd been talking about that for a year or so. He had set out on not writing an autobiography. That had been important to him. But he'd wanted his novel to be authentic, to have real characters that were flawed and complex and complicated.
Chandler swivelled the chair, bending his knees beneath the seat to make a half revolution and then planted his feet on the floor, one on either side of hers. He wound his arms around her middle and pulled her against him, looking up at her with bright, happy blue eyes. "Our story's just for us."
He hadn't meant to, but those characters he was writing had started out as himself and Monica. At which point he realised he was writing too similarly to his mother's preferred genre and wanted to add another character. Soon enough, he found that he was writing about all of his experiences. Soon, Chandler had found the story following his and Monica's love story, rejected the idea for the sake of the children and insisted on the story following all six of them.
He'd interviewed his friends about their favourite memories from their time living in the city. The novel stayed on the lighter side of things, frivolous and fun, with hints of real and raw emotions. It was about six friends growing up, chasing dreams, and finding themselves. Romance wasn't the focus anymore, it was about friendship and learning that friendship could still remain as each of them found their independence. It was about learning to be selfish and learning to be selfless, finding a family that was better than the blood one they were born into and making a family out of people in need.
His main issue was the children. Anything he wrote would be read by them, by their friends. He knew what that could be like. So, Chandler had refused to take any of his ideas seriously until their children were old enough to have a say. Or to understand what was being discussed, to have friends who were mature enough to deal with it, or have a resilient constitution to deal with the inevitable discussions had by the people around them.
Monica had never been prouder of how mature their children had been when Chandler sat them down. He had a properly outlined idea and had a conference with the kids about it. He told them he was writing about "me and mum" and the three of them had cheered. The story of their friendship was their favourite bedtime tale, and Erica particularly liked her father's sense of humour. They'd hugged him as a trio, excited for him and encouraging him to dispel his fears and worries.
Chandler had wrapped his arms around the three teenagers and looked across the table with such surprise on his face that Monica had laughed. Their children adored their father - she imagined it was difficult not to reciprocate Chandler's love, especially when he was so obvious and open about it - they were proud of him. Just like she was. Monica hugged her family. With their approval, Chandler had begun to write.
"So what do you mean 'the rights'?" she asked.
Chandler blinked up at her and then unwound an arm from around her and turned his gaze back to the paper in his hand. "They want to turn the book into something for the screen."
Monica fisted the fabric of his blue shirt and pulled Chandler out of his chair, their noses brushing. "They want to make a movie?"
At the start, when he decided what he wanted to write, before he'd received a mountain of acceptance letters and two rejections - it seemed everyone wanted a story about the mundane at this stage, everyone was interested in not having another one of the pedestrian reproductions of a crime novel on their hands, and thought having a comedy about friendship would stand out as it differed from all the regular romances - Monica had watched facial expressions she hadn't seen since the children were babies cross his face.
Doubt.
Even then, those expressions had been few and far between and more familiar to her all those years ago before they'd been together, if she could even recall those days which seemed like a hazy dream.
Knowing the man he was today, the husband, the father, the boss, it was difficult for her to reconcile that with snippets of memories of him being worried and cynical and closed off all the time. But sometimes those doubts crept back in and reminded Monica that they were together for a reason; he taught her to love herself the way she is and she encouraged him when he had lost faith in himself. They made each other better and supported each other every step of their individual and combined journeys. She wasn't doing to let Chandler doubt himself now.
"A TV show," Chandler was still furrowing his brow at the paper in his hand like he couldn't quite believe what he was reading. She could feel one hand wound tightly around her waist, holding her close, their chests pressed together like he was about to topple into her after the momentum of her pulling him up.
Close as they were, Monica pulled his shirt so that they would stand closer. She twined her arms around her husband's neck grinned up at him, astounded.
"A series?!" If he wasn't going to jinx anything by getting excited, or was too shocked to do so, Monica could compensate for him. She let go of him a little and Monica squeezed his shoulders again, shaking Chandler a little. "Oh honey, that's wonderful! I knew you had it in you! A series. Wow!"
She knew the book was good. Chandler was her husband, so Monica might have been a little biased, but she'd read through every draft and laughed every time. His words made her smile and cry and groan in frustration.
She knew the book was funny and sweet and might have glossed over how difficult some moments were, but didn't leave them out, chosing to see hope for the future and laughter in the present, rather than let the obstacles bog down the narrative with negativity, even if that was what his interviews and experiences indicated they were feeling at the time. The world needed that lighthearted fun, apparently, if the influx of acceptance letters was anything to go by.
"Wow." He whispered, beaming, and kissed her softly.
His eyes had that same faraway wonder, like he was looking through her to some imagined future and into her very soul all at once. She'd seen in them a handful of times over the years; that fateful night in London, that afternoon back in New York, Vegas - both times they'd been there - and the night he tried to propose. Monica hated the way his blue eyes went wide and disbelieving, just as much as she loved the expression. It only ever cropped up when Chandler didn't think he deserved something, or didn't think someone else could possibly want the best for him, or see the best in him.
"Wow." He breathed excitedly. "They want me to sell the rights to make the book into a series and they want me on staff as a writer."
She was so proud of him, shaking her head and smiling, trying to let him know she wasn't surprised at all.
Monica stroked her right hand up Chandler's neck to cup the back of his head, her left hand yanking his collar until his lips collided with hers with a gasp. His lips were supple and his kiss was innocent and experience simultaneously. Like a wave lapping against the shore, Chandler kissed her slowly, his mouth massaging hers. He had turned his head, lowered himself to her to capture her in a kiss before returning to his full height with their lips locked.
In doing so, Monica had to stretch up on her toes to keep them together, but she managed it. Chandler arched backwards with a happy hum. Monica's body contoured to his, crushed against him in a tight embrace as his soft kiss made her tremble with his passionate contradiction.
She sighed against his mouth as her best friend continued to discover her as though he had never done it before and had all the time in the world to memorise her, grinning wickedly against him when she tugged the ends of his greying hair in the way she knew Chandler liked.
With a gasp and a chuckle, Chandler crumpled beneath her touch. He must have taken a seat on the edge of the desk, his mouth slanting upwards as she stepped between his legs to keep their bodies together, their foreheads touching, their lips brushing, as they separated for air.
"Wow," he smiled against her lips.
Monica rolled her eyes playfully. After all these years, her husband's eyes could still take on that glazed expression after a particularly fervent kiss. She felt it too, so Monica wasn't all that surprised.
After all these years, he sometimes played up that surprise and wonder.
"You know the writing of it was the easy part, right?" Chandler told her, still smiling but the tone of his voice sounding like he was a long-suffering victim of circumstance. "Everyone's going to want a say in the casting."
"A problem for another day," Monica shrugged. Then she squinted at her husband. She knew how difficult it had been for him to be completely open and stray just this side of fiction when he was writing the events in the book. She knew it wasn't the thing he'd ever set out on writing, but that he was proud of himself nonetheless. "Unless you don't want it to be. Screenwriting wasn't something you ever thought about."
He shrugged against her. "That's not an indication of anything, Mon. I didn't let myself think about a lot of things."
His smoulder was insufferable and contagious. Monica pressed her lips together and rubbed Chandler's shoulders, flattered to be one of those dreams he didn't think he'd ever achieve all those years ago.
"Your alphabetical list of jobs you made for me all those years ago," Chandler recalled, "Was television writing ever on it?"
Monica remembered spending a day thinking up jobs Chandler would thrive in. She'd had a whole file of them sorted, some of them less likely to pay the bills than others, some of them still in an office focused on mathematics. She'd organised them alphabetically. Advertising first. 'Author' had been the second job she'd listed for him, one he would have considered if he hadn't thought advertising was a perfect blend of business and creativity. Situational comedy writing? That hadn't been in the folder. But it should have been. Monica had tried to limit the folder to jobs that they had connections to - a friend of a friend, or a backdoor entrance through Chandler's current position in a sister company or under the tutelage of Chandler's mother, even. She should have seen that Joey was right there, Chandler could spend time on set getting chummy with the writers, if they even spent time on the set with the actors, or Joey could put in a good word, or put his resume on a producer's desk. That could have been his in.
"Yes," she told him. "And if you hadn't been so impatient, you would have found it out."
It was Chandler's turn to squint at her. He tilted his head, his interrogatory expression unnerving her. It shouldn't surprise her how well he could read her, not after all they'd been through together in every possible relationship type possible, but it did. He still took her breath away, that someone could know her so expertly.
That someone would want to.
"Impatient?" he huffed amusedly at her word choice. "I think you mean driven. Bored out of my mind, even. I'll take strapped for cash, too."
Monica swatted his shoulder, laughing. Money had been tight back then, but she hadn't been too worried although in hindsight she probably should have been. But at the time they hadn't known they'd want to adopt, let alone how expensive it would be. Their budgeting had been putting a small sum aside for a future child, and a mortgage if they'd had anything left over to save, and if they had known they'd be having twins, they definitely would have cut down further than they had. Even so, Chandler had not jumped impatiently at the first job that beckoned. He knew what it was like to hate his work life, his work persona, and the people he worked with, as well as the restless feeling of unfulfillment. He'd worked since he was sixteen, bussing tables and then interning and then falling into promotion after promotion and been unable to escape the rat race, he had deserved a break and that time in their marriage - before they had a mortgage and children, after Joey didn't need to borrow money every once in a while to keep the lights on, had been the best possible time for him to take it. He had definitely gotten antsy without the direction of a proper job, but never to the point of moodiness. Such a thing might have even prompted his writing, but Chandler had never reached that stage. Besides, Chandler had loved advertising. But he'd always dreamed of writing, and she was so proud that he'd finally done it.
"Do you really think this is a good idea? Our lives as a T.V. series?" his voice dropped to that cautiously optimistic whisper she hadn't heard since he presented her with his first draft, the same soft tenor he'd had when he worried he wouldn't be a good father at the worst Thanksgiving of her life.
Monica gripped the back of his neck so that Chandler would meet her eyes., just to doubly ensure he understood her meaning. "Chandler Bing, if I didn't want this life with you, I wouldn't have lived it. I'm proud of every moment we've shared and I'm glad it's all been documented now. Even after all these years, I want to stand on that old balcony of ours and shout to the city that I married my best friend and have this wonderful family, this wonderful life, with him. Your book lets me do that."
He pecked her quickly, squeezing her hips. "You think the kids will feel that way when it's on television? Because I know I didn't."
"They're much older than you were, they know what's going on and they know what the story's about too," Monica reminded him, trying to placate his fears again. It could be frustrating, battling his same fears over and over again, this one childhood memory of Mistress Bitch being passed around spurring the self-doubt, but ultimately the fear remained because of how desperate he was to not allow the cycle to repeat, and Monica couldn't have loved him more for that. "Besides, it's a little bit fun to embarrass them, and it's not like any of their friends don't already know the stories."
Chandler nodded.
"Besides," Monica continued. "It'll be nice to be the hot mum again. The mum all the other mums at the PTA are are bit wary of. You better make sure whoever plays Monica used to be a model or something. If I'm going to be immortalised in a comedy..." Monica trailed off when she felt her jaw twitch and Chandler pressed his lips against the irritation.
She'd put on a bit of weight over the last few years, nothing like her teenage years, just filling out in the curves from a healthy and happy lifestyle, but sometimes she caught herself in the mirror or saw herself in pictures where she was sat beside Chandler on a big orange couch in a coffee shop she never really learnt the name of, and she realised she looked different. Older. Changed. Motherly.
"The other mums could never be wary of you, you organise everything so efficiently and make the best cookies for the bake sales." Chandler's voice dropped an octave and the sound vibrated pleasantly against her cheek. He always did know what to say. "And you've always had a hot bum."
Her dour expression cracked and Monica laughed, beaming at her husband who kept his expression stoic and serious and pinched her rear for added effect.
"I love you."
His eyes wrinkled again, "I love you."
"Let's go tell the kids."
"They know," Chandler promised.
Monica reached around him and picked up the discarded letter, swatting his arm with the paper. and rolled her eyes, taking his hand and pulling him into the living room. "I'll let you tell them, but you should probably prepare yourself, hon, because they're probably going to want to celebrate this."