Work Text:
They'd got through a bottle of wine each so she was in a gooey, romantic mood. Naturally, that was adorable. They left Jean-Georges an hour ago and wandered through Chelsea to the riverside, and now Chandler was leaning against the railing looking out onto the water, with Monica snuggled under his arm. He wasn't thinking about anything in particular: the river, the lights, how he'd never had a coffee-flavoured tiramisu before tonight, how he'd said, "Need to go to the bedroom," instead of "Need to go to the bathroom," at work six months ago and was still mortified by it, how lovely it felt to have Monica clinging to him like this, how he probably should have brought a coat because it felt like it was going to rain soon.
Monica sighed dreamily and rubbed her head against his shoulder. She did that sometimes, and while Chandler suspected that she thought it was innocently sweet, its actual effect was a massive turn-on.
He glanced down at her. "What're you thinking about?"
"I'm still remembering our night in London," she murmured.
Ah. So perhaps she knew it turned him on.
Chandler grinned. "Mmm?"
Monica lifted her head off his shoulder to look at him. "It was crazy, wasn't it? Has anything like that happened to you before?"
"Yes, beautiful women often come to my hotel room and hurl themselves at me,"
Chandler enjoyed the fact that Monica's face flickered between exasperated at his joke, affronted that he claimed she'd hurled herself at him, and charmed that he'd called her beautiful. Monica had always been a sucker for that (as far as Chandler was concerned, this was bizarre. How could she not know she was beautiful? How could anybody walk around with that face and that body and not think, "I'm gorgeous"?) so to solidify the charm he lent down to peck her forehead. It worked, because Monica beamed and rubbed her hand over his knuckles.
"I mean the sex," Monica elaborated, "It's never been like that the first time, where it was so…"
She glanced at him coyly, then looked away. Chandler caught a glimpse of the earrings he'd bought her a few weeks ago. She really did look fabulous in them.
He eyeballed her. "Monica, you gotta finish that sentence,"
She sniggered. "Unexpected,"
"I was thinking more: mind-blowing. Earth-shattering," Chandler proposed.
Monica's dark hair flicked as she turned her head back to face him. "Was that how it felt for you?"
She had that sultry, challenging expression on her face, the one which made him want to grip her by her elbows, press her against a wall and shove his tongue down her throat.
Chandler looked her straight in the eye: "You know it did,"
Monica swallowed. "Life-changing," she breathed.
It was true. Chandler's entire life was different now: better, brighter. Softer. Clearer. He'd told her that a few times (one of the strange things about this relationship was that he didn't find it difficult or to tell Monica how he felt. Even stranger was that she was charmed and amused by the stuff he said, even when the words came out wrong. And strangest of all was when she said the same things back), but he didn't feel like getting into it right now.
Instead, he added: "Loins-burning,"
Monica bumped her shoulder against his. "Don't ever say loins again,"
"What if I said-"
"Let's circle back to the mind-blowing, Earth-shattering stuff," she suggested, fishing for compliments.
It truly had been. Chandler had never had sex like it, least of all first-time sex. When they first climbed into bed together that night at the Marriott Hotel, Chandler had given himself a pep talk: "OK dude. This is Monica. Geller. The Monica. She's beautiful and sexy and loud and angry, she's very intense and energetic, she's had way more sex than you have and she's probably fantastic in bed, she's upset and she's your best friend and this had better be the. Performance. Of. Your. Life". But when they got going it didn't feel like a performance. He wasn't doing something to Monica: they were doing something together. They'd done tonnes of stuff together over the years: eating breakfast, grocery shopping, playing Foosball, Ross-monitoring, arguing, swapping apartments, swapping back apartments, teasing Rachel, coffee-drinking, babysitting Ben. Sex felt like another one of those. Not to mention that Chandler hadn't needed to concentrate on performance, because for some inexplicable reason, he seemed to know exactly what to do. It was like there were magnets in his fingers and mouth and on Monica's body, making touch her in the right places. He'd never got a girl off so easily before- to be honest he thought they only came that fast in porn. She touched him in all the good ways too- how did she know? Monica was usually right about everything, but how had she forseen all the things he liked in bed? Even the ways he liked to be touched that were a little weird, she already seemed to know. And they didn't feel weird with her. Nothing that night had felt weird.
Pushing inside a girl was always thrilling and giddying, but there was anxiety too: would it feel good for her, would it hurt her, would he blow his load too quickly. There was always a moment of tension and breathlessness. Chandler had felt that moment with Monica too, but it was swiftly followed by a sense of calm and comfort. He'd never felt horny and relaxed at the same time, but right then he felt both incredibly horny and incredibly relaxed. They found their rhythm easily and dear Lord she looked stunning, all flushed and drunk and revved-up and beaming. She slid her hands up to the nape of his neck, half-stroking and half-pulling his hair. Usually Chandler didn't enjoy any talking during sex (sleeping with Janice was enough to put anybody off that) but when Monica began chattering away it seemed natural to talk back. Normally he had to remind himself over and over to keep his face under control, but with Monica it didn't matter because her face looked so happy. His pep talk had been wrong: this wasn't the Monica, it was just Monica. Regular Monica. Ordinary, gorgeous, insane, resourceful, resilient, annoying, devoted, extraordinary Monica.
His Monica, Chandler thought, back at the railings looking out over the Hudson. It'd be best not to mention that he thought of her with a possessive pronoun, but after ten of the best months of his life, after all the time they'd spent together and how much he loved having her as his girlfriend, he was kind of starting to think of her as belonging to him. Not in a possessive way but in a...close way. Like they were connected, she was a part of him. Chandler had never felt this close to anybody- not his parents, not a girlfriend. Well, perhaps he was this close to Joey, but Joey didn't give him blowjobs like Monica did. The serious relationship and emotional intimacy were frightening and certainly strange, but they were a lot less frightening and strange because of Monica. If Chandler had to be in a serious relationship with anyone, he'd choose her. His Monica.
Well, until Yasmine Bleeth became available.
Chandler had gone quiet, and Monica hoped that that meant he was thinking about their Earth-shattering London sex, and not if the duck needed to go to the veterinarian this month. She'd never known anything like their night in that hotel room. Sex which had felt so instantaneously safe and comforting, while also being invigorating and fresh. Afterwards (when they were breathless and sweaty, and he wrapped her in a cuddle, tangled their legs together and kissed her all over her face. Monica had shivered with delight because it made her feel so beautiful. She should have known then that this would never be something casual and that they could never not get feelings involved. Friends with benefits didn't kiss each other like that, and they didn't make each other glow with joy), her head had thrummed with the words, "Rocked my world. Chandler Bing just rocked my world". It made her want to snigger yet at the same time there wasn't anything funny about it.
The need for him during those first few weeks after London was insane: craving him every day, twice a day, five times a day. Sex in the closet at Central Perk, in Chandler's office, in his bedroom with Joey watching a movie nextdoor (once, Monica had given him a blowjob on the couch while Rachel was doing her make-up in the bathroom, and she would never forget the look on Chandler's face). It was ridiculous that Chandler, who she'd known for a hundred years and a hundred ridiculous haircuts, who was grating and gawky and jittery and weird, who wore dorky sweater vests and shirts that were too big for him, who made incomprehensible gargly noises when irritated and who barely knew how to speak to girls, had turned her into a walking hormone. And yet it also made complete sense: Monica had always thought he was cute, and she'd crushed on him on-and-off over the years. He'd always been sweet and supportive to her, and she admired what a good friend he was to Joey. Plus, he and Monica touched a lot. They sprawled across each other on the Central Perk couch, or they wedged in together on Monica's big armchair. Chandler had a habit of draping his arm around the back of a couch or chair, and when Monica sat beside him it was a little like he had his arm wrapped round her. That had felt good. One of Chandler's less endearing habits was to sit on the arm of the coffee-house couch with his shoes on the seat. Monica had often found herself on the couch cushions beside him, sitting almost between his legs. She'd hardly ever reprimanded him for putting his feet on the cushions, and now she wondered if that was because she was simply so excited to be close to him. How long had this attraction existed between them without either of them waking up to it? (Had Chandler woken up to it? Monica hadn't got round to asking him yet, but she was intrigued to know if he'd been infatuated with her before London and if he'd had crushes on her like she'd had on him. Had he not been joking that weekend at the beach when he kept needling her about being his girlfriend? Because he was very quick to jump into bed with her that night at the Marriott).
They were cut from the same cloth. Chandler was permanently agitated like she was (except while Monica channelled her anxiousness into control, cleanliness and organisation, Chandler channelled his nervous energy into flapping his hands a lot). They both took care of their room-mates, though Joey was much higher maintenance than Rachel. Chandler's devotion to him was phenomenally endearing. He accompanied Joey to auditions and helped him learn his lines. He paid for Joey's rent and bills and food and acting classes, and probably a hundred more things which Monica didn't know about. Chandler rarely even considered all that because it wasn't a big deal to him. It was something he did instinctively for his best friend. He was such a good guy, and Monica was ridiculously lucky that she got to date him and spend so much time with him and call herself his girlfriend.
She let go of Chandler's arm and moved to hug him properly, pressing against him. He was stronger and broader nowadays than he'd been a couple of years ago (though he still wasn't particularly strong or broad) and Monica loved the feeling of his shoulders and chest and hips against hers. Sex nowadays was still frequent (she knew they'd definitely make love tonight, perhaps twice) and still utterly fantastic, though it wasn't as ravenous as it had been for those first months. When the insatiability first began to fade, Monica had panicked. She'd worried that Chandler would get bored if their sex life slowed down. He'd never wanted a committed relationship, and if could be having more fun, more sex and less responsibility if he ended things with Monica and went back to casual dating. But when she'd finally admitted to him that she was feeling jealous of Phoebe's non-stop sexcapades with her new policeman boyfriend, Chandler had reacted in the opposite way to what Monica had feared. He'd told her that being in this long-term relationship was more riveting than constant voracious sex. Monica had been bowled over, not only because that was the loveliest of all the lovely things he'd said to her, but because Chandler had acknowledged that this was a serious relationship. And he liked it, he felt content and excited in it, and he'd said that Monica was the reason why. Chandler was becoming less terrified of commitment, and it was because of her. He was changing, and the change was making him happier, and Monica was trusted with his precious, fragile heart while he navigated what he'd always been afraid of. It was unbelievably sweet and flattering, but it was pressure too. Thank God he'd done that stupid dance so Monica could roll her eyes and glare at him for being an idiot.
Back on the riverbank, she felt Chandler wrap his arms around her.
"Cold?" he mumbled.
Monica shook her head.
"Still thinkin' about London?"
"Kind of," Monica answered cagily, "And the stuff that's happened since then. Can you believe it's been ten months?"
She snaked a hand out to fiddle with Chandler's jacket buttons.
"Can I believe I've managed not to screw this up for ten months? No,"
"What makes you think you haven't screwed up?" Monica pointed out.
"Okay, I have screwed up. But I was charming enough to convince you to forgive me," Chandler suggested. He slid a hand up her back and smoothed her hair, "Or maybe you're the most patient girlfriend in the world,"
"One of the two," she shrugged.
"Probably the first one,"
"You're worth it, you know? No, don't make a joke, just shut up for once. Chandler, you are a lot of effort and you are totally and completely worth it,"
Chandler paused for a couple of seconds, then asked, "Can I make a joke now?"
"No. You have to take the compliment for another twenty seconds,"
"I'll use that twenty seconds to think of some really good jokes,"
"Oh my God," Monica grumbled, rolling her eyes.
Another pause, and then he mumbled, "Thanks,"
"Hmm," she answered.
"You're worth changing my bedsheets for,"
"That's the best joke you could come up with?"
"That was some of my best material!" Chandler protested. He left a beat, then clarified, "As in bedsheet, fabric, materi-"
"Yeah, I got it," Monica sighed, leaning her head against his chest, "You're right, honey- I am the most patient girlfriend in the world."