A/N: I have adored Friends for such a long time I am amazed I have not caved and written something before! Anyway, this is not really supposed to be "episode length" or anything. It's more like a vignette, or a snapshot if you will. Of course, it will be C/M, because Chandler is the best thing since sliced bread . . . and all that jazz.
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Everyone was slightly nervous when they learned that Monica had, by means mysterious to all, gotten hold of a ping-pong table. No one was nervous that she had stolen the table or obtained it in any way illegal; her acquisition of the thing was of no importance to anyone but Ross, who claimed she probably flew to Nevada and conquered all the Vegas slots in order to pay for it–she was Monica, after all . . . he wouldn't put it past her . . . she was bizarrely competitive . . . she was freakishly strong . . . purchasing a ping-pong table was probably just one more way to prove her mastery of everything from rock-paper-scissors to touch football. Nobody could disagree with Ross's ideas, but they all felt he had skimmed over the point of it all – Monica's violent competitiveness was an infamous character trait, one which the five of them had spent years avoiding. Having a ping-pong table would drive her to ask the inevitable:
"Who wants to have a go?"
Monica eyed each of her friends, all of whom were in various stages of scratching their heads, sipping their coffee, and pretending to watch people outside Central Perk's window.
"Um, Monica?" said Ross tentatively. "Wouldn't the ping-pong table look sort of – tacky in your apartment?"
Monica crossed her legs, smiled obliviously at Chandler, who was closest to her and looked like he was trying to drown himself in his coffee, and said, "Well, it would, but I thought – you know, Joey and Chandler already have the foosball table, so I thought I could put it in their apartment. That way, they can play it whenever they want and all I have to do is go across the hall any time I feel up for a game."
Phoebe and Rachel exchanged glances. "So you'll probably end up playing most of your games with Joey and Chandler?" asked Rachel.
Monica shrugged. "I guess."
Phoebe looked triumphant.
"Wait, we didn't say you could put it in our apartment," Joey said, looking at Chandler with a look of panic. He had had the misfortune of challenging Monica to a thumb war and would never, never look at her competitive side the same way again. "What if we want to get something? Like … an extra refrigerator or something! How would you feel if we couldn't get that something?"
"Joey, you don't need an extra refrigerator. You always use mine."
Joey looked defensive for a moment, but backed down quickly. "She's got a point."
"And Chandler doesn't have any problem with it . . . do you, Chandler?" Monica asked him in a deceivingly sweet voice.
"I don't think I could if I wanted to," said Chandler, sipping his coffee nonchalantly.
Monica beamed. "Then it's settled."
"Do you want us to help you move it?" Ross asked her, gesturing pointedly to himself and Joey.
"I don't think you've insulted the entire room yet, Ross," Chandler told him sarcastically.
Rachel scoffed. "Oh, c'mon Chandler, you can hardly drag a cat."
Chandler glared at her and returned to his coffee, muttering something about a pot and a kettle. Rachel stuck out her tongue at him.
"Thanks anyway, guys, but it's already there," Monica said, breaking the quick skirmish with an amused glance its way.
"You put it in our apartment without asking us?" Joey asked her disbelievingly.
"Don't look so surprised," she said. "I knew you and Chandler would crack eventually."
"Yeah, but –"
"Okay, so who wants to play?" Monica interrupted excitedly. "I haven't played ping-pong in years and man am I ready to kick ass."
Phoebe and Rachel began their own conversation, Joey studied something on the ceiling, and Ross stood up and announced his destination as the men's room.
To everyone's surprise, Chandler looked up from his coffee and said, "I'll play."
"You?" Even Monica looked stunned. "No offense, Chandler, but you suck at ping-pong. I need a challenge – Joey!" Joey jumped. "Will you play ping-pong with me?"
Before Joey could respond, Chandler cut in, "I said I'd play, Mon. And I do not suck at ping-pong. I'm actually pretty good."
Monica shrugged. "If you want your cute little ass wheeled away on a stretcher, then fine, we'll play. It's your funeral."
Phoebe muttered to Rachel, "I don't think she's kidding."
"About Chandler's ass or murdering him?" Rachel whispered back.
"Well, I don't know, I guess that depends –"
Chandler looked at them with his eyebrows raised. "Could we stop talking about my posterior, please?"
"Oh, yes, about that, Chandler – if your ass is wheeled away, and, you know, you're not using it anymore – can I have it?" asked Phoebe seriously.
Monica, Rachel, Chandler, and Joey stared at her.
"So I have a fetish," Phoebe said and took a sip of her iced tea.
"Oh my God, you're in love with Chandler's ass!" Monica cried, laughing. Rachel choked on a muffin and Joey just stared at her in blatant awe.
Phoebe winked at Chandler. "It's a fine specimen, I'll say that much."
Chandler scooted away from her nervously. "Uh, is anyone else finding this creepy and wrong?"
"I think it's sweet," said Rachel, grinning. "Besides, she may have a point. Stand up and turn around; let's have a look."
"No, I will not," Chandler said in disgust; "and it's not sweet. It's just . . . weird, and twisted, and weird – Joey, back me up here."
Joey looked at him strangely. "Is there something wrong with you or something? What's weird with hot girls checking you out?"
"Actually, what's really weird is you not finding it weird," said Chandler, who felt that, once again, Joey's intelligence was in question.
Monica, who had begun to look slightly impatient, interjected quickly. "Okay, as much as I'm sure Chandler appreciates the sentiment, could we please come back to me and my ping-pong table?"
Everyone muttered their "sures" and "okays".
Monica rubbed her hands together. "Yeah, okay, well – I don't really know what to talk about, but – I'm just so excited about my ping-pong table! Who would've thought, Monica Geller owning a ping-pong table?"
"Who would've thought," Chandler muttered under his breath.
"What was that?" snapped Monica, turning so quickly he wondered if she had gotten whiplash. "Do you have a problem with my table, smart-ass?"
Phoebe burst out laughing. "Oh, oh, I got that!"
"No," Chandler answered swiftly, situating himself on the couch so that his arm wasn't in pinching range of Monica's fingers. "I just – I think – and I know everyone will back me up here – that, well, it was only a matter of time before you . . . obtained an . . . outlet for your . . . thing."
Monica made a noise of complete confusion.
"What Chandler meant to say is that you are a nutcase with a competitive streak so wide you could cross the Amazon with it," Phoebe offered helpfully.
Chandler shot up from his seat like a bullet. "Phoebe, watch what you say! Monica is not a nutcase! She's a perfectly sane person with no abnormalities!"
"Oh." Monica's voice was flat. "I see. So you think I'm a nutcase."
"No!" he cried. "No, Monica, don't be stupid –"
"So you think I'm stupid?" Monica asked, her voice rising threateningly.
Chandler desperately looked for support, but everyone was much too involved in this little fray to give either side an advantage. It doesn't matter anyway whose side they chose, Chandler thought, she is already much scarier than I am. He considered voicing this aloud, but then thought the better of it.
"So you think I'm stupid?" Monica repeated, watching him with narrowed eyes.
"I'm not a girl!" Chandler found himself saying. "I don't say things I don't mean!"
Rachel gasped and pointed. "Sexist, sexist man!" Phoebe made a rude motion with her hands.
"No, no, no. No, no," Chandler said, backing up. "That's not what I meant –"
"Okay then, Chandler, what do you mean?"
As Chandler was considering this carefully (one wrong word and he was unlikely to return with bodily functions), he saw Ross return and Joey distinctly ask if he had popcorn.
"Well," said Chandler uncomfortably. His tongue suddenly felt too large for his mouth. "Basically, I think that you're – overly competitive? But I also think you're the most beautiful woman ever. Ever," he stressed. He looked at Rachel and Phoebe out of the corner of his eye. They had their arms crossed and looked mutinous. "Besides Rachel and Phoebe, of course, who are miniature Aphrodites themselves."
"Of course," Phoebe said.
"I'm not overly competitive," Monica said defensively, clearly deaf to any other part of Chandler's apology. "I have a healthy dose of enthusiasm. I mean, so what if I like to win?"
"Monica, there is a definite problem when you turn Monopoly into a brutal dictatorship with each hotel serving as a ghetto for the unfortunate souls who can't pay their rent."
"That's so not true! I did not do that!"
"You held my piece at fake gunpoint for a half hour, just because my playing piece happened to stray across the borders of the jail!"
"Those bars are there for a reason!"
"There is no rule in the handbook that says anything about petty technicalities and scary obsessive ladies who threaten you with a thirty-year-old popgun!"
"Do you want to talk about petty technicalities?" she yelled, getting angrily to her feet. "For your information, Chandler Muriel Bing, if there were no technicalities there wouldn't be a game! You'd get handicaps, I'd doll out the dough, and you'd finally win at something!"
"I do too win at stuff!"
"Do not!"
"Do too!"
"Do not!"
"Do too!"
Ross looked at everyone somewhat incredulously. "I feel really out of place here. Is that wrong?"
Phoebe, Joey, and Rachel nodded their heads, murmuring agreement.
"You know, if this was an erotic novel, Chandler and Monica would be doing it right now," said Phoebe.
"What?" Rachel sputtered.
"Oh, yeah, it's an erotic novel rule. Like – when two people smile at each other a lot, they're totally turned on. When they see each other wrapped in a towel, they're totally turned on. When they watch each other eat, they're totally turned on. When they start yelling at each other, they're totally turned on. You start to notice these things after a while."
"Um, Phoebe, I hate to tell you you're wrong … but you are," said Ross in a self-aggrandizing tone. "There are no underlying sexual innuendos about this – it's just an argument, period. There's nothing to prove that either or them are turned on by this –"
"You just wait and see, Ross Geller," said Phoebe mysteriously. "As soon as they make an excuse to leave they are off to have sex in Chandler's bedroom, mark my words."
Ross laughed scornfully. "Why on earth would they make an excuse –"
"Ping-pong. Your place, now."
As the doors of Central Perk swung shut, Phoebe smiled knowingly and sipped her iced tea. "I guess I'm not the one to get Chandler's ass after all."