[Joey x Chandler] COMPILATION OF SHORT STORIES FROM AO3

the one where joey finds out

'Somebody kiss me! It's midnight" Chandler shouted, gesturing wildly at his glum cluster of friends in the kitchen. His appeal was met with a discouraging lack of enthusiasm and everybody remained where they stood. When his gaze landed upon Monica, she awarded him a look of disdainful dismissal and turned to Rachel, who muttered something under her breath. Both girls snickered into their knuckles and Chandler shot them a glare.

'Somebody kiss me!' he persisted. Several of the party-goers surrounding the television looked up and Chandler realised, with a substantial loss of dignity, that his voice had increased radically in volume. Whatever embarrassment he would have ordinarily felt, was stifled by an overwhelming desperation and he ignored the raised eyebrows and the various heads turned his way. 'Somebody kiss me, it's midnight!'

The remainder of Monica's guests had stopped listening, for which Chandler was fairly grateful, and so, it appeared, had his friends. Phoebe had barely even registered he'd spoken and was staring glumly down at the floor, Monica rubbing her shoulder affectionately, still deep in conversation with Rachel who still had a smirk playing on her lips.

Chandler gesticulated furiously at them, realising with dismay that he had dumped his only chance at New Years romance when he'd sent Janice home in tears. No, Janice was not his first choice of girlfriend or even his first choice of fling-material, but she'd had lips, hadn't she? She'd been a woman who actually cared enough to pay him even the most fleeting bit of attention and, for reasons he had temporarily forgotten, he'd callously ditched her.

Chandler grumbled something under his breath and pulled his hands from where they had automatically settled in his pockets. 'It is almost one minute past midnight and I have still not been kissed.' he declared with exaggerated misery.

Rachel and Monica finally looked up from whatever they'd been talking about, Rachel rewarding him with a waspish glare.

'Chandler, I swear to god, I will take this ladle-' Rachel pointed furiously at Monica's neatly arranged jar of kitchen utensils, 'and shove it down your-' she seized a wooden spoon and brandished it violently, compelling both Joey and Ross to duck, '-useless esophagus if you don't stop talking!' the last word was punctuated with a sharp slap on his elbow.

He yelped indignantly and Monica yanked the spoon from Rachel's grip, smacking her lightly on the hand.

Chandler began to shout a retort but Phoebe cut him off. 'For gods sake, somebody turn him off!'

'Kiss me and I'll turn myself off!' Chandler yelled in response. His jibe was rewarded by a cacophony of loud objections and protests, but he didn't even begin to hear any of them because hands had seized either side of his face and yanked him forwards. Lips were pressed over his mouth that kissed him with a ferocity that almost left him bruised and he felt something kick violently in his chest as though someone had closed a fist around his lungs. To begin with he thought that perhaps Phoebe, in desperation, had kissed him purely to shut him up, but the fingers pressed to his cheekbones felt too firm to belong to her and the ghost of stubble told him that it definitely was not.

Chandler blinked in shock and when his eyes opened, he saw that the face pressed against his own belonged to Joey. Violent panic turned Chandler's muscles to boiling marble and for a moment he forgot how to breathe as his friends lips closed around his own, hot and full and startlingly soft - something that Chandler vainly pretended he didn't notice. His first urge was to rip himself from Joey's grip, but his body didn't agree in the slightest and it was all Chandler could do to stop himself from kissing Joey right back.

And then it was over. The strange act of passion had lasted less than a second and when Joey's lips and hands had vacated his face, Chandler's cheeks were left scorched a deep scarlet and his lips damp and throbbing. He was disoriented and reeling, sweat beginning to blossom on his forehead and his eyes stinging as though suddenly Monica's dimly lit apartment was far too bright. Swallowing what felt like a lump of rock, Chandler leant heavily against the blue counter behind him, forcing his fingernails into the brightly coloured wood to prevent his entire body from crumpling like an old newspaper.