EVERLASTING. ━ joey tribbiani

⌞ v. | ❝who's the fatso now?❞ ⌝

⌞ v. | ❝who's the fatso now?❞ ⌝

     MONICA GELLER SAT AT the bar in Central Perk and flipped through a magazine when Ross, Rachel, Chandler, Joey and lastly Cassidy entered the café with their shoulders hanging and dressed in softball gear. With her eyebrows raised, the raven-haired woman turned on her bar stool and to her friends as she spotted them, watching them walk over to the sofa dejectedly, not sitting down, but standing around it.

     "Hi ... " she greeted the group carefully. "How was the game?"

     Ross lowered his gaze when he replied, "Well ... "

     Cassidy, however, didn't manage to keep up her downcast façade for a second longer and instead announced beamingly, "A-freaking-mazing!"

     Her friends joined her in cheering and told Monica that they had won the game, while Cassidy pulled her ponytail, tied under her baseball cap, tighter because it had loosened during the game.

     "Fantastic!" Monica praised them, but remained skeptical. "I have a question: How is that possible?"

     Monica's question was justified. It was an open secret that their group was awful at softball. It was almost painful to watch them play and lose big time, because no matter how bad their opposing team was, they were always worse. Cassidy usually ran out of breath after ten minutes, because even though she was one of her team's not-so-bad players, her lack of stamina couldn't keep up – Chandler usually did the same (he also couldn't catch a ball, even if his life would depend on it) and so they ended up sitting on the bench to watch their team lose.

     Their hopes always remained on Joey and Ross, but the latter wasn't a team player at all and preferred to act as the team captain he was not. That only left Joey (with Rachel all hope was lost) and it was just that not a single man could win a game against an entire team. Today, however, everything was different and the reason was ...

     "Alan," Cassidy and Joey replied at the same time.

     "He was unbelievable," Ross added enthusiastically. "He was like that—that—that Bugs Bunny cartoon where Bugs is playing all the positions, right, but instead of Bugs it was first base—Alan, second base—Alan, third base ... "

     In the meantime, Rachel went behind the bar to get a bottle of water. "I mean, it—it was like, it was like he made us into a team."

     "Yep," Chandler agreed, "we showed those Hassidic jewellers a thing or two about softball."

     Blankly, Cassidy looked at her best friend. "A thing or two? Dude, we owned their asses!" she grinned proudly and high-fived the boys one after the other.

     "Can I ask you guys a question?" Monica asked seriously and rose from her seat at the bar so that she was now completely turned towards them. "D'you ever think that Alan is maybe ... sometimes ... "