Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or the apartment, just the DVDs. There's no profit except writing practice being made here.
Nazlanmak: pretending reluctance or indifference when you are actually willing and eager; saying no and meaning yes
"No." Monica swatted Chandler's shoulder the moment she saw him kick his heels up on the coffee table.
Monica kept her eyes on his feet as she rounded the couch with the bowl of chips. She didn't sit down until he'd put them on the floor.
"This is a nice place you've got, Monica," Ross' roommate told her.
Ross, on the armchair, exhausted from helping her move, waved his hand around the room that was finally set up with Monica's things where she wanted them, not where their grandmother had left them. "Yeah, I can't believe you're going to be living here all alone."
"I can't believe you painted the walls purple," Chandler tagged on. Monica sent him a glare as she sat down beside him and she was careful not to smile when he flinched at her hate-filled gaze. "And I can't believe how good it looks."
She couldn't help herself. She smirked but hid the expression behind a handful of chips.
The three of them fell into easy conversation, same way they always did. Or, Ross and Monica fell into conversation about Monica's new job and their grandmother's new place and how Ross was thinking about proposing and how exciting that was. Chandler didn't say much of anything. He was a quiet guy, that had been one of the first things Monica had noticed about him - after the attractive neck and soft-looking lips and wild, if popular once, hair. She'd thought that solitude was because he felt awkward in the Geller home, when he hadn't been officially invited and didn't feel comfortable with strangers. But that wasn't the case, apparently. Chandler was an observer. He kept quiet and he listened, rather than spoke. He waited for the perfect time to strike.
It was her favourite thing about him.
Especially because once he did start talking, he either ripped Ross a new one and had Monica laughing at her brother's blush for days, or he gave her some insightful, unasked-for advice about how she would be brilliant at living on her own and relish in her independence, writing down his number just in case she needed company or a friend to talk to.
"Hey, Mon," Chandler tapped Monica's thigh, drawing her attention away from the television. His whole face was alight with excitement even in the darkened apartment with only the light from the city outside and the screen in front of them illuminating his expression. "When Ross gets out of the bathroom and inevitably starts talking about his new job at the museum, because he will, we both know it. The moment he does it. We should fall asleep and snore."
Monica pressed her lips together. That was exactly what she wanted to do. She was sick of hearing about the brilliant job Ross had just landed. Proud of her brother, excited for him, but over the dialogue about it. For someone who was an only child, Chandler very clearly understood how to be a sibling. As much as she agreed with the sentiment, Monica felt she should stand up for her brother. "He's just excited."
"Oh, I know," Chandler agreed, "And he should be, that job's amazing. Perfect for him. But we can't let his ego get too big."
"True."
"So, we'll do it?"
Monica hadn't known Chandler all that well for very long, but she got the distinct feeling she would quite happily do anything with him. "Yeah," the toilet flushed. "Shh, he's coming."
Chandler pinched a chip from the bowl on the coffee table and then leant back into the seat of the lounge, kicking his feet back up.
"No, no," Monica swatted his arm again but Chandler didn't move. In fact, he looked quite comfortable. So she rested her ankles against the edge of the wood and slouched into the seat beside her brother's friend, and when Ross next mentioned a dinosaur, her head fell against Chandler's shoulder and there was a shift in the air.
"No, Mon," Chandler replied, making his voice as laconic as possible. He'd had a long day at work and Monica was asking him to help her clear out the balcony so she could set up the table nicely for her second date with the line cook from her work. It was probably his own fault for coming over to Monica and Phoebe's place to read - there was something so much nicer about their place. It might have been the greenery everywhere, or that it constantly smelt clean but not like disinfectant, or the company, which was far better than Kip who was constantly talking about how hot Monica was and that he couldn't come over for dinner because he'd say something and ruin their friendship but (quite hypocritically, if you asked Chandler, which was another reason he liked to avoid his roommate) constantly invited the blonde woman he insisted he wasn't dating, or cheating on by lusting after Monica, over. This was his down time, he was not going to sacrifice that to help Monica set up candles for some guy.
And yet, Chandler found himself pressing his feet against the floor and folding over the corner of the page he was reading, leaving his book on the couch and following Monica out onto the balcony. "Where do you want me?"
Amazingly, because Monica almost never allowed anyone to help her organise anything - she asked for help but hated when it wasn't just so - Monica pointed to the table cloth and trusted that he'd spread it over the splintered wooden table so that it lay perfectly even on both sides. She didn't even nitpick when it wasn't completely straight on the far edge. Although, and Chandler couldn't quite explain it himself, he did spend a solid ten minutes more than he would have on his own on trying to make it perfect to Monica's standards.
"Do you want hanging lights or something out here?" Chandler asked, shoving his idle hands into his pockets and swirling the toe of his sneaker against the concrete Monica had just finished sweeping.
Monica shook her head. "The city lights are enough, I think."
Chandler crinkled his nose. It was nice with the streetlights glowing beneath them, romantic even. But that was because the sun was setting now. By the time Monica's date got here, it would be pitch black. And candles would just blow out.
"You sure," he asked, hoping to convince her, for her sake. "Some of those yellow Christmas lights in the basement that we strung up on the roof on the Fourth of July might be nice."
He didn't understand why she shook her head again, but he'd do whatever she wanted, and Monica didn't want him stringing lights. She wanted him setting the table with salad forks and plates stacked one on top of the other at each setting.
So Chandler set the table for Monica and then let her push him out of her apartment where he ate yesterday's pizza on a napkin over the sink and waited for the tell tale sound of her door closing at nine before sneaking back over to help her clean up.
"No, Chandler," Monica laughed at her best friend, down on his knees. "I'm not going out with that guy."
He wasn't offended this time. She didn't think he'd been offended since that first time, and even then, Monica hadn't realised she'd hurt his feelings until they were pressed shoulder to shoulder in the back of Phoebe's taxi.
Chandler was going to a lot of effort to knock on the back door of the beach house as a different character every time she opened it for him. He was goofy and being absolutely ridiculous about asking her out, turning it into a game, and Monica had to wonder if he was intentionally trying to make her laugh and distract her from her mess of a life. Monica found it working, if that's what he was doing. She hadn't been this happy in a long time.
Only, Monica suspected there was a little bit of ego at play on Chandler's part too. He wasn't normally like a dog with a bone when it came to throwaway jokes and one-liners. Normally, he'd joke about dating her, or her finally seeing him, and then he'd drop it for a few months, waiting until she needed a good laugh, and then brought up how offended and disgusted Ross would be to make her smile again.
This time was different. She hadn't realised.
If only Chandler stopped playing a character when she opened the door, if only he knocked like himself, or just barged right in the way he always did when he was entering her apartment.
She'd say yes if it was to him.
"No, hon," Chandler told his fiance, apologetic but not really. "There's no way I'm dancing at our wedding. It's just not going to happen."
It was a lie he had to keep telling Monica, pretending he wasn't giving in to her wide blue eyes and puckered pink lips as she pouted at him, telling him that was fine and nobody cared if they danced badly, but she wasn't missing out on the tradition. It was sweet of her, honestly, and she was far too good to him as she tried to reassure him that bad dancing would not ruin her big day. She'd seen him dance, and still said that. Monica, he decided, was either a brilliant liar or had wonderfully deluded herself to his benefit.
Either way, that wouldn't stand.
He just had to keep telling her no, or else she'd figure him out.
"And no kissing my neck."
Please understand. Monica had a moment of hesitation. Chandler was a firm believer in anger bringing out the truth, he'd grown up in a household that preached that statement. He was also constantly aware, more than anybody Monica had ever known, of no meaning no. Probably because of his mother's profession and how readily she opened up about sex and consent - both in her books and interviews and in regular conversations. For a moment, Monica was afraid that Chandler would take her words as gospel, forgetting that just as he spoke in sarcastic tones almost exclusively, that she also reversed her meanings just as much.
She needn't have worried. He got it, absolutely, and it didn't even miss a beat. Her husband lowered his voice, gravel and aggression colouring his voice just as she needed. In fact, Monica was very glad she'd already turned around and started pulling her teddy up her torso, or else she suspected the desire in Chandler's eyes would have resulted in them conceiving against a wall. And she knew Chandler was totally against anything other than mad passionate love-making being the way they made their baby.
"And lost of kissing your neck."
"No."
"Erica," Chandler warned.
"God, Dad, I'm coming." The movement was slow but Erica did pull herself off the couch and trudged toward the kitchen.
Monica chuckled from the breakfast nook where she and Jack were playing Upwords. "Don't look at me, hon," she told her husband who had attempted to make eye contact with her over their teenager's outburst. "You're exactly the same."
Chandler sputtered as though he was insulted - that she thought he behaved like a fifteen year old? Monica wasn't sure - and then beamed at his daughter as she donned a pair of gloves to help him with the washing up.