[Joey x Chandler] COMPILATION OF SHORT STORIES FROM AO3

Not Kissing Joey

■●□○AUTHOR: AMEDIA○□●■

"You're home early," Chandler slurred, squinting at Joey over the open door of the refrigerator.

"So are you. Earlier, even. 'Cause I'm home early, but you're already here." Joey beamed, looking pleased with his own cleverness; he appeared slightly less inebriated than Chandler, but equally disappointed. "Any beer in there?"

"Uh huh." Chandler handed him a cold bottle and took one for himself. They stood in the kitchen for a while, just concentrating on opening the beers, not saying anything.

Joey broke the silence first with a sudden outburst. "She said I had the IQ of a toaster oven!"

Chandler patted his shoulder. "That's an improvement, isn't it? That girl who dumped you last week said you had the IQ of a toaster."

Joey brightened. "That's right!"

"So you're moving rapidly up the appliance chain. Next week I bet you'll be a Radarange."

"Thanks, man." Joey took a swig of his drink. "What about you? What happened to your date?"

Chandler took a long drink from his beer. He didn't want to answer; the girl's words had said cut him to the quick. But this was Joey. Chandler had a certain respect for Joey's emotional transparency; Joey generally didn't hide things from Chandler, mostly because he couldn't hide anything from anybody, and Chandler didn't like to hide things from him. "She said I was a boring kisser," Chandler finally admitted.

Joey grinned. "Now there's a problem I've never had," he said with a happy and artless confidence that should have been annoying. Chandler found it endearing instead. Joey was dangerous that way. "Hey, why don't you show me how you kissed her, and maybe I can give you some pointers."

Chandler stared at him. "Are we that drunk?"

"Yeah, I think so," Joey said with a shrug. "Besides, you're my friend, I wanna help you."

Well, as long as he's doing this to help me get girls, thought Chandler. He took hold of Joey by the shoulders, leaned forward and kissed him on the lips. He might ordinarily have found the experience either unsettling or arousing, but he just kept thinking to himself over and over, I'm not kissing Joey. I'm showing him how I kiss.

When they broke apart, Joey looked thoughtful. "That wasn't bad," he finally said.

"Not bad?" said Chandler. "Not bad!" He tried the words out with varying expressions. "NOT bad. Not BAD. Hey, there's a shred of my ego left over there somewhere. Be sure you stomp on that piece, too."

"I'm sorry," Joey said sincerely. "I just mean...." he trailed off as if he couldn't put his thoughts into words. Chandler was used to that, and waited.

Joey's face went through some interesting convolutions as he struggled with the difficulty of expressing his ideas, then lit up as he clearly reached a breakthrough. "Tell you what. Let the T-man show you a trick or two."

Chandler started to say, "Let WHO do WHAT?" but Joey had put his hands on the side of Chandler's face and backed him up against the refrigerator, and was kissing him with such intensity that the most Chandler's overwhelmed consciousness could come up with was a little voice in the back of his head wondering whether "intensity" was the right word or whether "ferocity" would be more accurate. It wasn't until Joey released him and Chandler had gotten his breath back and refocused his eyes that he was able to resume his mantra. Joey wasn't kissing me. He was showing me how he kisses.

Joey was grinning at Chandler's reaction. "Hey hey? You see what I mean?" he said proudly.

Chandler stared at him. "That was...." He tried reformulating the sentence half-a-dozen times in his head and finally gave up. "Wow. How'd you do that?" Now that his heart had stopped pounding, it was quiet enough in his head to notice details. He raised a hand to his mouth. "Are my lips buzzing?"