you and me, alright [roschel]

long island.

On Dr. Phalange's couch, Ross and Rachel sit down for their second relationship session. There are ice cold bottles of water waiting on the table, the condensation dripping onto the marble coaster reflecting the sheen of sweat Ross wiped off his forehead - and the chill seeping through his insides from the clinical walls of the office, which could seriously use a Pottery Barn upgrade.

The water is a relief after the grueling work day he's just had. On the contrary, Rachel still smells like their morning shower, her golden hair slightly damp and sticking to her thin white blouse. It's very distracting, the way a single drop drips onto her sternum and runs down the side of it, all the way down to her dangerously low neckline. It's achingly sexual somehow, and Ross flexes his palms into the couch and pinches the leather hard to focus and get his head out of the gutter. He's here to show Rachel his one hundred percent, not rip the buttons from her shirt and have a romp on the coffee table.

This past week had been so easy, and lovingly simple, going through the days knowing that it wasn't Friday. But now it is...and now their therapist is fired up like a car that's raring to deal with all the complicated stuff they would rather put in the back burner. And Ross knows it's a part of the whole process and an important one at that but he would really rather not.

Things with Rachel are in a good place (the place being Paris, or whatever blissful limbo their relationship is in) and picking it apart in therapy reminds him of that one time they made a quiz game out of Nana's apartment - except this time, he's no longer holding the questions. One word in the session can chip their repairing foundation and it's what scares him most. But he had been the one to suggest this, and being committed to getting off the plane means they have to deal with baggage as well. He just hopes that it'll work wonders, that it can help them on this new chapter instead of fumbling this, whatever this is. Because if he screws this up again, he may as well be extinct too.

"So, before we start," Dr. Phalange says, unaware of Ross's inner thoughts, and seems eager to start their engine, which to Ross, is completely understandable since she's the one who gets to ask the questions, not the one who has to answer them and have...well, whatever he and Rachel are doing these days picked apart for analysis. "I was wondering how defining the relationship is going." She waves her pen as if it's a wand and she's cast a summoning spell.

Could be better, is what Ross wants to say. "Quite well," is what he actually answers with and sees Rachel nodding and smiling beside him. And maybe it really is going 'quite well' for her, but the part of his brain hardwired for facts continues to seek out that clarity he's actually terrified to approach.

Frankly, he has no idea if he's spinning tall tales in his mind, a potent mix of heightened sensitivity and wishful thinking, but he could swear that since Dr. Phalange has encouraged them to pursue defining the relationship, he thinks they've steered back into their old habit of being oddly territorial of the other through passive aggressive action and little to no discussion - so the opposite direction.

One time he got home late from a work dinner and she greeted him wearing just a towel and a sly grin ("I guess I'm not sleepy anymore," he'd mused before giving her a peck that quickly becomes something less chaste, her delicate fingers toying with his blazer, a soft giggle escaping her lips as he set her against the closing door.). One time while out shopping for groceries, an admittedly good-looking local eyed her in the produce section while she's sifting through apples, and he found himself enveloping her waist and planting a kiss on top of her coconut-scented head, staring back at the intruder in as if it's his own personal standoff ("Hmm," she'd hummed in satisfaction, whether from his touch or from tying her bag of fruit with a flourish, he doesn't know, but they did walk all the way home with their hands clasped.).