A/N Thank you so much to everyone who is reading! Just to say, my updates may get a little slower over the next few weeks, although I will make every effort to get the next one out pretty quickly so there are no cliffhangers over Christmas!
I hope you enjoy this one!
As Monica's cab came to a halt beneath the blinking neon sign at the entrance of the Bacchus Playhouse, where Joey and the rest of the cast were readying themselves for the opening night of their somewhat quirky interpretation of a Shakespearean classic, a small smile played at the corners of her mouth. Her lips shone pearlescent with a freshly applied glaze of lipstick, and her bright eyes sparkled with rather more eager anticipation than it was usual for her to feel ahead of one of Joey's productions.
She was not sure if she could recall the last time she had ventured out alone after dark.
The accident had left her frustratingly dependent on others of late, and not only on a practical level; her mood and emotional well-being had also come to feel worryingly contingent on the actions and availability of others: Richard, Chandler, even her pet dog.
So tonight, with Richard and Tilly away in the Hamptons, Monica had prepared for an evening at the theater and relished the opportunity to reclaim a sense of self; enjoying the process of selecting an outfit, applying her makeup, styling her hair. Even the simple act of traveling alone in a cab felt liberating.
When one lives in a city for long enough, it is easy to become comfortably numb to the rainbow-bright chaos and the scandalous energy that pulses perpetually through its streets, but tonight as the car had made along Broadway, before veering off in pursuit of rather less polished entertainment, Monica had felt as susceptible to the sensory assault of sound and light as a fresh-faced tourist soaking it in for the first time.
She was invigorated by it all; empowered even; and for once, whilst the prospect of spending an evening with Chandler was not an entirely inconsequential part of her fervor; it was by no means the sum total. Monica could not wait to see her other friends too; to jostle amongst a crowd of strangers in the bar; to enjoy a laugh and a glass of wine at intermission; it felt like she was finally making tentative steps to rejoin the world that existed outside of her own apartment and of her own head.
"Do you need help with your sticks?" asked the craggy-faced, gravel-voiced driver as he collected her fare.
"No thanks, my friend's right there."
Monica grinned and waved enthusiastically at Phoebe, who was standing outside the theater awaiting her arrival. Her long blond tresses were whipping around her shoulders in the wintry breeze, and both she and the peeling white wall she was leaning against glowed an ethereal amber in the streetlights. When she spotted Monica her face lit up with an excited smile and she swiftly approached, helpfully taking hold of the crutches while Monica used the car door to haul herself up to standing.
As she struggled to her feet Monica recognized that her ability to move was being somewhat hindered by her unwise sartorial choices this evening. She had opted to wear a sage green satin blouse that was buttoned loosely enough to form a deep V at her decolletage, teamed with a pair of black pants that fitted her form so snugly, even pulling them on over her bad ankle felt like she might be risking further injury, and their close fit prevented her from making any movement that was too extravagant or too sudden.
She had no regrets though: It had been such a long time since she had cause to dress up, the decision to sacrifice comfort in the name of feeling as attractive as it was possible to feel whilst hobbling around on crutches, had been an easy one to make.
"Yay! I'm so glad you made it!" enthused Phoebe, throwing her arms around Monica's shoulders just as soon as she stood straight and stable.
"Rachel's not here yet, she said she might be late, but Joey wants us to meet him at the stage door so he can say hi before the show."
The stage door was located down a bleak and dimly lit alleyway at the side of the building, and as the two women made their way cautiously along it, the combination of poor visibility and cracked asphalt forced Monica to concentrate hard on her footing, so it was Phoebe who was the first to spot another familiar face.
"Oh look, Chandler's here too. Hey Chandler!"
Monica's core effervesced like freshly poured champagne at the mere mention of his name, and she paused for a moment to follow Phoebe's line of sight towards the open stage door.
The humming industrial halogen from the corridor within, formed a bright halo around his silhouette, and as he turned and glimpsed her his face instantly softened into one of those twinkly-eyed grins that made her heart do wild things.
"Hey! Look who it is! The elusive Mrs Burke! What happened to you all weekend? Forget how to use a phone?" he gently chastised.
In truth, the mere sight of her unraveled a persistent knot of unease that had constricted Chandler's chest for days. Her lack of communication had left him genuinely worried; he had convinced himself, and almost Ross too, that perhaps Richard was failing to pass on messages to Monica, as he had when she was first released from the hospital.
If it had not been for Phoebe's assurance that Monica was feeling better and would be in attendance this evening, Chandler would most likely have turned up at her apartment all guns blazing, throwing around the kind of accusations that could only have worsened his already fractious relationship with Richard. Not that Chandler cared too much about that anymore.
Despite his teasing tone, Monica could see attentive concern on Chandler's face as he made his way to her side, his eyes carefully scanning her vicinity for any potential hazards that might impede her crutches, and his arms primed and ready to catch any stumbles or offer any assistance she might require.
She shot back a sarcastic smirk that belied her inner swoon.
God, it was good to see him. It might have only been four days, but it felt like a lifetime, and it took a great deal of restraint to prevent herself from hurling her body straight into his arms.
"Headache all better?" he checked as he placed a kiss against her cheek "You look great!"
His eyes raked appreciatively over her outfit before locking his gaze with hers, establishing a connection that felt so shockingly profound that an immediate prickle of inner heat prevented her from exhaling, much less forming words.
"And look at you, Pheebs!" Chandler quickly added, pulling his blonde friend into a quick embrace and tearing his attention from Monica for a few intolerable seconds, "Pretty dress!"
Joey had now appeared at the door, having been summoned by the attendant. His face was tinged tangerine with thickly applied stage makeup, a look that never failed to elicit a quick mocking snigger from Chandler, no matter how many plays he saw his friend perform in.
"Hey Mon! You made it!" Joey ignored his roommate's chortles and dragged Monica into an incautious bear hug that Chandler briefly feared might knock her entirely off balance, "Richard wasn't upset was he? That we gave away his ticket?"
Monica graced Joey with a fond smile of reassurance as she shook her head.
"No, he had a work thing anyway."
She paused and gulped hard before adding impassively, "He's actually out of town for the night."
Her cheeks grew instantly warm as the words left her lips, her feckless eyes absolutely desperate to flit across to Chandler to gauge what he made of that information, but she worked hard to keep her gaze focused on Joey instead.
"Hey Pheebs, where's everybody else?" asked Joey, his eyes scanning the street behind them.
"I gave Ross and Sophie their tickets earlier, they're already inside, I think" Phoebe explained "And Rachel said she might be late, so I may need to leave her ticket at the door."
"That reminds me," Phoebe turned to address Chandler and Monica, "The tickets are in two groups of three. Sophie and Ross are sitting somewhere in the middle, so Chandler, I thought you could sit with them, and Mon, Rachel and I will take the three up at the back."
Chandler looked instantly disgruntled by this plan so Phoebe provided further reasoning.
"The seats at the back are at the end of a row, so there will be more room for Monica's crutches, and less steps for her to climb down."
"Woah woah woah!" Chandler objected forcibly, "Why do I have to sit with Ross and Sophie?"
Phoebe shook her head despairingly, as if her ensuing explanation was the most obvious thing in the world.
"Well, because it would be too awkward for Rachel to sit with them, and I want to sit with Monica."
"Well, so do a lot of people!" Chandler retorted briskly, his expression revealing a hint of embarrassment when Monica raised her eyebrows and shot him an outwardly dubious but internally delighted smirk.
"What?" Phoebe eyed him scathingly.
"Look... don't you think it's a little awkward for me to sit with Ross and Sophie?" he continued to challenge. "I mean, it's already a pretty weird situation, right? Richard trying to fix Sophie up with me, and then her ending up with Ross..."
"Yeah! That is weird!" Joey agreed sternly, fixing Chandler with a look of rebuke. "Weird and stupid! Why you would pass on a girl as hot as that is still way beyond me, man."
Monica glanced towards Chandler from beneath her lashes and watched as he shifted uneasily and rolled his eyes. It was clearly not the first time Joey had aired this particular grievance.
"And if you are going to pass on hot cinematography girls to your friends, you would think it might make good sense to pass them on to the one who just so happens to work in the industry, right? But noooo, you pass her on to the dinosaur guy!"
Chandler gave a withering tut "I didn't "pass her on" Joey, she's not a virus! And please! "The industry"? When I told you I was going to a Fellini exhibition, you thought he was an Italian soccer player."
Monica chuckled as she caught Chandler's eye, but he wasted no time in turning his attention back to Phoebe's seating plan.
"Look, I really think you should sit with them, Pheebs. If I keep showing up every time they're together Sophie might think Ross and I are trying to... I dunno... encourage her into some kind of... throuple... or something."
The mental image caused Chandler to grimace, which in turn prompted a snigger from Monica.
Phoebe sighed loudly as she considered the predicament.
"And anyway, Sophie really likes you!" Chandler continued, knowing that flattery was generally the best way to Phoebe's heart, "She was just saying earlier how great she thinks you are... She said you were really funny... "
Phoebe's pensive pout indicated that she was becoming gradually more pliable, so Chandler continued to apply gentle pressure "And pretty..."
"Huh!" Phoebe gave a lightly smug nod, before her eyes narrowed thoughtfully and she mused, "Maybe she's trying to get me in a throuple?"
Monica and Chandler exchanged a wide-eyed glance of amusement at Phoebe's subsequent dramatic sigh of resignation and declaration of defeat.
"Fine! I'll sit with them".
Joey's jaw had dropped open slightly as he listened along, and his eyes were suddenly ablaze as he jabbed a threatening finger in Chandler's direction, "If Ross gets a throuple out of this, I swear I'll never forgive you."
Monica suppressed a laugh as both Chandler and Joey stared curiously towards Phoebe, who offered nothing more than a nonchalant shrug in return.
"Joey, shouldn't you be getting ready to go on stage?" Monica reminded him gently, provoking a look of alarm from the distracted actor.
Monica, Chandler, and Phoebe offered words of encouragement and hugs before leaving Joey to prepare for the performance and making their way towards the theater.
There was still no sign of Rachel but it was not long before they spotted Ross and Sophie enjoying a cosy drink at the bar. Sophie was laughing riotously at something Ross had just said, her hand draped intimately over his shoulder as he smiled back with unconcealed adoration.
Monica's weekend had been full of tortured imaginings of spectacular Sophie beguiling Chandler with her beautiful smile and witty conversation, so the sight of her fawning over her brother instead was somewhat bewildering, and the look of astonishment she could not keep from her face drew a vindicated arch of an eyebrow from Chandler.
Ross's lovestruck giddiness was made even more apparent by the unbridled enthusiasm with which he greeted his sister, scooping her immediately into a loving embrace.
"Monica! We've all been so worried about you! Are you feeling better?"
She nodded her assurance and returned Ross's embrace as best she could, despite being uncomfortably crushed against his shoulder.
When she observed her brother's soppy-eyed buoyancy a smirk curled Monica's lips; she could not help but feel doubtful that either she, or anything remotely akin to worry, had crossed his mind this weekend.
However, when she glanced towards Sophie, Monica thought she sensed a hint of wariness, and she knew immediately that the woman was most likely concerned that there may be a degree of judgement about the manner in which she had taken up with Ross, fresh from a blind date with Chandler.
Monica was keen to allay her concerns and acknowledged her with genuine warmth. After all, far from feeling any animosity towards Sophie, she was beyond grateful for the way those particular dice had fallen.
"Great to see you again, Monica", Sophie's shoulders dropped with relief as she returned Monica's amiable smile and she pushed a bar stool towards her so that she could take the weight from her crutches.
"I'm glad you're feeling better, you look great! I said to Ross, you really did look poorly when I met you last week. Hey, Richard's not annoyed that I stole his ticket for this play is he?"
"Well, he did mention something about firing you from the practice.." Monica deadpanned, watching Sophie's green eyes grow momentarily large, before shooting her an impish grin and placing a reassuring hand on her arm "I'm kidding, he doesn't mind at all. He had to go away for a work thing anyway."
Sophie chuckled broadly before asking in more confidential tones "And he wasn't offended that things didn't work out quite as planned at the exhibition, was he?" she looked guiltily between Chandler and Ross, who were now mid-conversation, "Richard seemed pretty invested in the idea of Chandler and I hitting it off - I think he fancies himself as a bit of a matchmaker!"
Knowing full well that Richard had no clue that his plans for Chandler and Sophie had fallen flat, Monica was unsure of how to respond, and she was relieved when Ross interrupted.
"Guys, I think we should go find our seats, the show starts in less than ten minutes"
There appeared to be a general sense of movement from the bar towards the theater, and the three women began to gather up their coats and purses. Before Monica could rise from the stool she was perched upon, however, Chandler placed a gentle hand on her shoulder.
"You and I should hang back."
"Why?"
Chandler's suggestion flew in the face of Monica's punctual nature and he smirked fondly when he saw an instinctive flare of panic in her eyes.
"The doorway into the theater is pretty crowded right now, I'm worried somebody might knock into you." he reasoned. "Also, there are still a ton of people here in the bar and we're at the very end of the row, so if we're the first in our seats we'll have to keep standing up to let people go past us."
He gave her crutch a sage tap with his knuckle to illustrate why that would be far from ideal.
"Good thinking, Bing." Monica conceded with an impressed nod, and she could not help but feel a little touched by his solicitude.
"Good commitment to not having to stand up." rectified Ross, convinced that Chandler's rationale was borne of personal laziness rather than any genuine sense of chivalry. "We'll see you guys at intermission. Enjoy the show!"
As Phoebe, Ross and Sophie joined the ever-increasing shuffle of people abandoning the bar in search of their seats, Monica took a quick scan of the room.
"Still no sign of Rachel," she observed.
"Yeah...I don't think she'll come", Chandler predicted.
"Why not?"
"Because she told me earlier she probably wouldn't." he confided, "She said she may have to work late, and I think that Josh guy she won't shut up about was due to come in, sooo..."
Monica looked at him wide-eyed.
"And you didn't tell Phoebe any of this? She could have sat with us!"
"Rachel only said she might not come! " Chandler defended his decision to keep his knowledge to himself.
"And anyway, look at them!" he nodded towards the door to the theater, where Phoebe, Ross and Sophie were chatting and smiling animatedly as they queued, "Pheebs is having a great time! They make a lovely throuple!"
Monica dissolved into a giggle but Chandler suddenly looked a little serious.
"Look, the truth is, I kind of wanted to get you on your own anyway.."
Monica's breath caught in her throat and her head swung automatically towards him, but she suddenly felt so tense that she struggled to meet his eye.
"I guess I just wanted to make sure that... we're OK..."
Her shoulders relaxed a little as she exhaled.
"Yeah, of course we are" she breathed reassuringly.
"You know, despite her obsession with Joshua, I think Rachel's a little pissed off with me for introducing Sophie and Ross, and you heard what Joey thought about it. I guess I was a little worried that you might be annoyed too."
Monica was momentarily baffled by the suggestion that she could possibly have felt anything but joyous relief that it was Ross and not Chandler with whom Sophie had discovered a mutual attraction. In fact, if she had to guess, she would say that she was probably happier about the whole situation than Ross himself.
"You told me that you wanted me to forget... everything .. and give the date a chance. And, well, I didn't... not really..." Chandler stammered quietly.
"I couldn't, Mon."
Monica's lungs jolted into tingling paralysis once again and she glanced up to search his face, his ocean eyes holding up a mirror to both her nerves, and to that heavy aching longing that seemed completely impossible for either of them to shift.
"Yeah well... I had second thoughts about that idea myself," she admitted gruffly, holding his pained gaze as she spoke.
He paused as he absorbed her words, swallowing hard before slipping an arm around her waist and planting a firmly chaste kiss against the top of her head.
"We should probably head inside" he mumbled as he squeezed her tight against his heart before slowly standing back. "Almost everybody else has gone in now."
She gave a small nod and they made their way silently towards the theater.
As Phoebe had indicated, their seats were conveniently located right on the very back row, meaning that Monica had very little distance to travel and just one step down to navigate, and as they reached their spot Chandler folded down both of their rather tattered and rickety red velvet cushions so that she was able to lower herself to sit, propping her crutches in the aisle next to her.
After flopping down beside her into his own slightly lopsided seat, Chandler leaned back with a leisurely stretch and a relaxed sigh, enjoying the fact that they did not have anybody sitting behind them, as well as having a vacant seat to his left, thanks to Rachel's continued absence.
Monica regarded him accusingly, "Is that why you wanted to sit up here so badly? So that you can go to sleep? Don't think I won't jab you in the ribs!"
"No!" he refuted softly, "The reason I wanted to sit up here is so I could hang out with you. I haven't seen you in like.."
Before Chandler could work out how long it had been since they had seen each other Monica completed his sentence.
"Four days..."
They exchanged a rueful glance.
Chandler could have sworn it had been much longer and he looked down at his lap, feeling suddenly embarrassed.
"I'm sorry Mon", he said quietly, "I've been really selfish. I just totally hijacked you when you probably wanted to spend some time with Phoebe. I'm guessing you haven't seen her in way longer than four days. I could swap seats with her in the intermission if you want -?"
But Monica grabbed his hand in protest.
"No!" she told him with intense certainty, searching his face as she tentatively weaved her fingers through his. "I want to be with you too."
A hint of a confused frown bothered his wistful smile as his eyes explored the depths of hers.
Their hands remained intimately entwined as the house lights began to fade, bathing them in a sweet mellow darkness that felt, for just an instant, full of possibility.
However, their moment of unlit serenity was immediately smashed to smithereens when the cast of Montagues and Capulets, including Joey as a vividly smouldering Tybalt, stormed the stage to a flood of dazzling light and the anthemic bass riff of "Two Tribes" by Frankie Goes to Hollywood.
Chandler felt Monica's startled fingers grip his hand more tightly as she leaned closer and whispered,
"Oh God! I totally forgot about the karaoke theme! Does Joey have to sing?"
"Yep!" Chandler's reply was full of glee "He gets to murder Young Guns by Wham! Right before Romeo murders him!"
As their eyes adjusted to the dark and they found each other once more in the shadows, they shared a quick wry grin, before returning their trepidatious gazes towards the action on stage.
Monica had just started to relax when she felt Chandler's thumb begin to slowly massage tender, feather-soft circles against her hand and her heart immediately clenched tight. She pressed her eyes briefly closed as she contemplated the almost painful realization that even this most benign of touches sent her pulse rampaging into a rhythm of near indecency.
How the hell did he do it?
Her eyes darted towards him and she discovered that his attention was still firmly on the play, apparently oblivious to the effect his unconscious strokes were having on her.
She sat rigidly still for a long time, her own eyes now glued fast to the stage, but eventually she had to accept that her mind was entirely tethered to the sensation of his skin against hers.
She allowed herself to drift and get lost in his touch for a while, but passively luxuriating in Chandler's affection was simply not enough for her any more.
She moistened her lips as she dared first to mirror, and then to advance his gesture, allowing her own fingertips to roam his hand in unhurried, sensual exploration, mapping the jagged ridge of a chewed nail, tracing soft veins and the deep crease of his lifeline, noticing how the weathered dryness of his knuckles contrasted with the smooth warm skin that dipped between his fingers.
When she felt the throb of his pulse against the pad of her thumb something unseemly stirred in her core.
She shuffled in her seat, moving her body as close to his as the decrepit theater seats allowed.
She could feel the weight of his inquisitive gaze glancing upon her, but now she was the one staring fixedly ahead, unsure of quite what she was hoping to achieve with this timid escalation of intimacy, her foolish heart thrashing restlessly in her chest.
This meager physical contact was more frustrating than it was soothing, and Monica spent the majority of the first half of the play torn between wanting to stay here forever, wrapped in a safe blanket of darkness, entirely immersed in the touch of his hand, the warmth of his thigh pressed against her own, and the occasional faint waft of his cologne; and wishing that intermission would arrive to shatter the unbearable tension that hung between them
After around an hour had passed her head was practically fevered, and she could barely recall a fraction of what her distracted eyes had been blindly staring at on stage.
Her poor concentration was not aided by the fact that Joey had been absent for a number of scenes in a row now, however, the current scene featured another of the more engaging performers in the ensemble, and Monica straightened her back and redoubled her efforts to pay attention.
In this offbeat interpretation of the play, instead of the traditional nurse character, Juliet's assistant and confidante was represented by a flamboyant, sequin-drenched drag queen who by this point in the narrative was in the middle of aiding and abetting the secret marriage of the star-crossed lovers.
Chandler suddenly leaned so close that a shiver ricocheted down Monica's spine in anticipation of the heat of his whisper against her ear.
"She really looks like my Dad."
She had not expected this small-voiced admission, and it stilled the frenzy of her feral heart. She had scarcely dared to look at Chandler all that time their fingertips had been engaged in their excruciatingly insufficient mutual caress, but as she glanced gently towards him now she saw that he was gazing towards the stage in wistful contemplation.
Monica had never met Chandler's father, and as far as she knew, Chandler seldom saw or spoke to him these days, but she had of course heard a little about both his former struggle with his sexuality and his relatively successful career in drag, and crucially, she was acutely aware of the impact Charles Bing's undoubtedly tumultuous personal journey had on his young son.
Despite Chandler's tendency to use humor as a means of downplaying the emotional scars of his chaotic childhood, Monica knew that his relationship with his father was one of devastating complexity and a source of great pain.
She clasped his hand more securely as she joined him in looking back towards the stage, her right arm crossing her body to impart a tender squeeze against his bicep as her head drifted to rest upon his shoulder. She felt him shift a little in order to accommodate her proximity more comfortably, and though she could not be certain, she thought she felt his lips graze her hair.
The sound of jangly keyboards and guitars began to crescendo over the Shakespearean dialogue signaling the beginning of another karaoke number, which Monica eventually recognized to be Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time".
She was not sure if the song was an ode to the nurse character's endless devotion to Juliet, or something to do with Juliet's newfound bond with Romeo, but Monica felt rather pleased with herself for making any attempt to contextualize it, given the woeful lack of attention she had been paying to the story.
As the vocals kicked in, despite having been mentally absent from almost everything that had happened on stage so far, she could not help but be drawn into this particular performance. The drag queen's voice was as sumptuous as rich dark chocolate, soulful, expressive, and woven with such emotional depth that the audience was able to feel every note.
"She's got some good lungs, I'll give her that" Chandler acknowledged in a murmur, feeling Monica's captivated nod of agreement against his shoulder.
"Does your Dad sing?"
"Not well" Chandler replied sardonically.
When she looked up to offer him a small smile she suddenly found that she could not turn away.
The reflection of the indigo lighting on the stage painted his crystalline eyes an astonishing blue, and although his gaze was still fixed on the singer, his faraway expression told Monica that he had been transported to another time and place entirely.
As she contemplated his distant melancholy, she was overwhelmed by a surge of emotion so intense her eyes began to sting, her heart suddenly consumed by a frighteningly desperate need to bring him back to her.
She could not tear her eyes from those deep and abstracted cerulean pools, and despite having known that face for years; every line and freckle committed to her memory; she suddenly felt like she was seeing him for the very first time.
Her breathing became uncontrollably rapid once more as her lungs struggled to feed her raging pulse.
This was it. That seminal moment of epiphany that somewhere deep in her soul she had always known would come.
God, she wanted him.
Every last bit of him.
More than just his handsome face and his twinkling smile.
Even more than his humor, his silliness, and his endless gentle capacity to make her feel cherished and wonderful;
She wanted it all.
She wanted his hurt and she wanted his pain; She wanted to take each trace of anger, every lingering insecurity; to crush it all violently against her own heart, to absorb it as her own; to soothe it and remold it into everything he deserved.
Red hot tears flooded her eyes, and she stifled a gasp as she wrapped her arms around tight around his waist and pressed her face into his shoulder, inhaling him deeply, drawing strength for what had to come.
She loved him.
That was what this was.
She loved him with everything she had.
She felt the muscles in his torso twitch against hers, startled and concerned by her unexpectedly ferocious emotional embrace. He looped an instinctual arm around her shoulder and dipped his head worriedly towards hers, attempting to read her face.
When she slowly and deliberately lifted her chin to meet his beautiful, anxious eyes, she could not deny herself any longer.
In that moment she did not care about anything beyond the man whose face was now so achingly close to her own. She had no time for morals or principles or vows made with idiotic naivete: If the world had decided that a feeling as pure and true as this could ever be considered a crime or a sin, then there was something wrong with the world.
She stared deeply into his eyes as she stroked his cheek with gentle fingertips, trailing them softly through his hair, then bringing her hand to cup his jaw; watching as the reverent tenderness of her touch began to transform his fear into a want as dark and devastating as her own.
Her lashes fluttered as she finally dared to bring her lips to his in a tentative but lingering brush so divine that it stole the air from her lungs and sent an ecstatic tremor down her spine.
She heard him swallow hard as she drew back again, just a fraction, just enough to delve deep into his eyes, begging him for permission to continue.
His nose nuzzled intimately against her cheek, the humidity of his panting breath tingling against her skin, but his hesitancy was as palpable as his ardor, and she became gripped by a fear that he was going to pull away from her entirely, and she felt a consequent whimper of frustration building in her throat.
But that electrifying graze of a kiss had obliterated any shred of resolve Chandler might have mustered. He touched his forehead to hers and as he stared back into her eyes, the rest of the world faded to grey.
Their lips met again, with renewed hunger this time, and Monica exhaled a low hum of bliss as she melted into him, completely oblivious to the disgruntled tut from the middle aged man sitting in front of them. He did not exist and neither did anybody else.
There was only music, a velvet quilt of inky darkness, and the thrill of the soft lips that captured hers over and over again; ebbing and flowing between a desperate, crashing passion, and a slow, aching tenderness; occasionally pausing for just long enough to allow them to gasp lungfuls of oxygen and seek reassurance from one another's eyes; but always returning for more.
Unpredictable, relentless, exhilarating, lulling, like the caress of waves against sand.
But eventually a low rumble of applause indicated the end of the first half of the play and the callous brightening of the house lights forced them brutally apart.
Speechless and breathless, they could do nothing but stare at each other wild-eyed for a moment, but as Chandler's gaze dropped to Monica's swollen, exhaustively-kissed lips he sprung into action, leaping to his feet, gathering up her crutches, purse, and coat and grabbing her hand.
"Come on, let's go" he commanded in a graveled whisper, desperate to protect their perfect, dizzying enchantment by escaping the intervention of harsh reality, that would undoubtedly soon arrive in the form of Phoebe and Ross.
The heat from the hand he placed on the small of Monica's back as he guided her urgently through the exit and past the bar seared through her shirt and ignited her hyper-sensitized skin in such a way that it made her doubt her ability to walk any further, wishing that she could simply devour him, right there and then.
But on they forged, and they were among the first to make it outside into the welcome chill of the street, accompanied only by a handful of anonymous smokers with cigarettes twirling like miniature batons in their agitated fingers ready to feed their eager lungs just as soon as the heavy glass doors swung closed behind them.
Chandler and Monica jostled their way past them, and their clouds of newly ignited tobacco with impatience, sure that their own bodily compulsion far outweighed any mere nicotine addiction.
"Where are we going?" Monica breathed, as he hurriedly wrapped her coat around her shoulders and continued to shepherd her away from the main entrance.
Her question remained unanswered until they reached the opening to the dim alleyway that led towards the stage door, and Chandler pulled her into the shadows and pressed his lips to her waiting mouth. Their frantic bodies collided heatedly against the icy wall, the reconnection of their lips causing each of them to let out a rapturous groan of relief.
"I think we should leave. Let's find a cab," he managed to growl between kisses.
"We can't."
Monica's gasped objection sounded weak, even to her own ears.
"Joey dies real soon anyway." Chandler insisted, passionate fingers carding through her hair and burning down her spine.
"Who's going to share a cab with Phoebe?" she whimpered as he attached his lips to the soft patch of skin beneath her earlobe, and she threw back her head, craving more of his hot breath against her throat.
"Ross'll take care of Phoebe,"
The smooth satin of her blouse allowed his palm to glide across the curve of her breast like water over glass, and as her skin rippled and tightened in electrified response, her decision was made.
"Yeah, OK, let's go."
But they barely had time to peel their aching bodies apart before an inquiring voice from the end of the alleyway slapped them like a violently launched pail of frigid water.
"Monica?"
To be continued...