A/N: Another short one. Bear with me.
Chapter 9:
Cryptic Warnings on the Side
Breakfast was a disaster. Rachel didn't trust herself to speak, maintaining a nervous silence while they ate; in contrast, Chandler didn't trust himself to shut up. He chattered anxiously throughout the entire meal, misinterpreting Rachel's occasional nods and "mmm-hmm"'s for encouragement. Joey, clearly suspicious of their strange behavior, sat back against his chair, arms crossed, studying the two of them with blatant distrust. Finally, after their plates had been cleared away, he thrust his elbows onto the table and regarded them both seriously.
"OK. Both of you. What's going on?"
Chandler fidgeted nervously, twisting one corner of his discarded napkin into a very fine point. "Wha – wha – whaddaya mean, Joe?"
"I mean – this! You two are both acting funny, and I want to know what's up!"
Rachel cleared her throat, trying to project total normality with her tone of voice. "Nothing's up, Joey!" she insisted, forcing a laugh and flashing her brightest smile.
Joey rolled his eyes. "You two, gimme a break. Do you really expect me to buy this?"
Chandler scoffed. "Buy what?? What are you talking about?"
"Look, Chandler. I grew up with seven younger sisters. I watched all seven of them go through puberty, junior high, high school. Trust me: I know when someone's hiding something." He took a long sip of his coffee. "Now. What is it?"
Chandler exhaled, slowly, through gritted teeth. He could practically feel Rachel's tension beside him.
Joey continued. "I hate secrets, you guys. Come on."
Rachel stared at Joey, remembering the amazing friend he'd been to her for the past four years. She didn't like lying to him. This is pointless. He's going to find out eventually. Out loud, she said, "We may as well tell him, Chandler. I think we can trust Joey."
Chandler nodded, fumbling around in his pocket for his cigarettes. Ignoring Joey's look of disgust, he lit one, dropped the pack and his lighter onto the dingy Formica tabletop. "Well, you see, Joe, in London, Rachel and I…we kind of…well, we…"
"…realized something. About ourselves," Rachel interrupted. "Something big."
Joey settled slowly back into his chair. When he spoke, his voice was tentative. "You guys slept together, didn't you?"
"No!" Chandler denied.
"Well, not exactly…"
Joey pushed his chair back, pointing at both of them in capitulation. "I knew it!" He dropped his napkin beside his cup and leaned forward intently,
curiosity sparkling in his eyes.
"When?! That first night?"
Chandler shook his head, grinning sheepishly. "Not really until after the rehearsal."
Joey raised one eyebrow, saucily, then winked at Rachel. "Oh, my."
Rachel flushed and folded her arms across her chest. "Wasn't like that, Joe."
Chandler nodded his agreement. "And we haven't actually done anything…yet."
Joey's brow furrowed. "Well, why the hell n – " His face became more serious as he watched them exchange worried glances. "Oh. Yeah." He sat up straighter. "So…what are you gonna do?"
Chandler drew deeply from his cigarette, exhaling toward the ceiling. "We're gonna wait until Ross gets back and sit down like three adults, talk about it."
Joey's half-smile slid off of his face as he seemed to mentally consider the implications of the situation. "So are you guys…together? Or…or what?"
Chandler studied the burning tip of his cigarette while Rachel became increasingly interested in her fingernails; neither offered an immediate response.
Joey frowned. "Guys?"
Rachel sighed. "We don't know what's going to happen, Joey. It's only been three days." Chandler visibly relaxed, clearly relieved to hear her echo his thoughts.
Joey, however, did not seem pleased with the answer. "But…if you aren't going to be together, like, seriously, then why the hell would you talk to Ross about it? Why would you upset him for no good reason?"
Chandler grimaced. "But if we don't talk to him, and then it does get serious…he'll know we've been hiding it from him, and he'll definitely be pissed off. We have to talk to him first. We don't have a choice."
Joey's face was an approaching thunderstorm; Rachel watched, uneasy, as the clouds rolled in slowly, settled there, something dark and unpleasant brewing within. "And what if things don't work out between you two?"
Chandler took another deep drag from the cylinder between his fingers. "We'll deal with that if and when we get there," he replied, exhaling through his words.
Joey's frown deepened. When he spoke, his voice was deep with suppressed displeasure. "You had better be sure you know what you're doing. That shit can ruin a friendship, man." He stood and stepped back from the table, pushing his chair in with a loud screech. "Everything is different when it's with a friend. More serious. More people involved. You should think about that before you do anything you might regret."
Rachel got to her feet, slowly, deliberately, ignoring the curious stares of the surrounding patrons. "We don't need the lecture, Joe. We've thought about all of this, you know."
"Have you? Have you really?" Joey yanked his wallet from his back pocket, dropping several bills onto the table. "I thought you'd learned your lesson after what happened with Ross, Rach."
"My 'lesson'?!" Her eyes narrowed. "That's not fair. Not fair at all. This is a completely different situation."
Joey's eyes burned into hers. "Doesn't seem very different to me."
White-hot anger simmered inside Rachel. How dare he be so judgmental!! "Does it seem any different from, say, your own situation, Joey?"
Joey stopped short. His voice clipped, he said, "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
Rachel leveled her eyes at him, lowering her voice. "Why don't you tell us what's going on with you and Monica, Mr. 'I Hate Secrets'?!"
Joey returned her glare, not blinking. "I'm outta here." Without any further explanation, he stormed out of the restaurant.
Rachel huffed, throwing herself back into her seat. "Well, that was…bizarre."
Chandler exhaled two thin streams of smoke through his nose, his mouth a grim line of displeasure. "Scrambled eggs with cryptic warnings on the side." He stubbed out his cigarette, angrily. "The breakfast of champions."
***
Rachel queued up to pay for their food while Chndler went after Joey. He caught up with his friend a few blocks away from the diner. Panting, he grabbed Joey by the arm and swung him around so that they were face-to-face. "You wanna tell me what the hell that was about?"
Joey narrowed his eyes and resumed his pace, addressing Chandler as he strode determinedly through the throngs of Monday morning pedestrians. "Everything is going to be different now. We saw it when she broke up with Ross; I didn't know if we were all going to make it through that. And now – you two…" He gritted his teeth and increased his gait.
"Dude! You were the one being all, 'That's never all…', back in London! You practically ridiculed me for not hooking up with her that first night!"
Joey's face twitched; for a moment, Chandler experienced a brief moment of relief that his anger was ebbing, but when he spoke again, the resignation in his voice was worse than the fury he'd demonstrated before. "Yeah, I did say that. But that was before…" He broke off.
Chandler sped up, circled around and blocked Joey's path, forcing him to stop for a moment. "Before what, Joey?"
Joey clenched his jaw and crossed his arms over his chest. Exhaling roughly, he replied, "Look. I've already lost one friend this weekend because of this kind of thing. I just – I don't want to see it happen to anyone else."
"You're gonna have to explain that one, Joe. You're giving me nothing here."
Joey moved around him, but his stride was much less hurried than before, allowing Chandler a chance to catch his breath. "Rachel was right, back there. Something did happen between me and Monica. And since the wedding, she's been all…distant, from me. And now…now she's gone for another week, and I just…I'm just worried that I've ruined my friendship with her." He shoved his hands into his pockets, clamping his jaw shut.
"What makes you think that you've ruined things?"
Reaching their apartment building, Joey ambled up the first two stairs and collapsed, the very picture of misery, onto the concrete stoop. Resting his elbows on his knees, he sighed, deflated. "She was depressed over there. She was lonely. She asked me…anyway, I should've known better than to let anything happen. I should've…I should've been smart enough not to let things go as far as they did."
Chandler eased down beside his roommate, threw a cautiously comforting arm over his stooped shoulders. "Joey, you can't take the blame for the both of you. You're both grown-ups; you're both your own people. If Monica let anything happen between the two of you, it's only because she wanted it to happen. You can't beat yourself up about this."
Joey's eyebrows squeezed together, his beguiling innocence – despite all of his experience – shining in his eyes. "Chandler…what if…what if she won't even talk to me, when she gets back? What if I've fucked everything up, forever?"
"I'm sure that isn't the case, Joe. It's gonna be okay, buddy. You'll see. Monica will get back from Greece, the two of you will talk it out, everything will be fine. Try not to worry." He watched the passersby, measuring his words. "As for me and Rachel…it's not just sex with us, Joey. I think I…it's…it's more than that." He stared at his feet. "I've never felt like this before. I can't explain it."
Joey was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was calmer, no longer angry. "What about Ross?"
Chandler sighed, heavily. "Well, like I said before, that's why we haven't done anything. Rachel doesn't – it's been over between them for a long time. But we have to – we owe it to him to wait until he gets back. Talk to him. Explain things. Then we'll decide where we're going with this. Hopefully, he'll be okay with it."
Joey spotted Rachel approaching them from the end of the block and frowned, sadly. "But Chandler, what if he isn't?"
Chandler squeezed his eyes shut, trying not to think about it. "He has to be."
***
