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jamie_dakinTitle: Cat's in the Cradle
Fandom: Friends
Characters: Chandler Bing and Joey Tribianni
Prompt: #024, Family
Word Count: 426
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: "Friends" is owned by NBC and creators Bright, Kauffman and Crane. No profit, no sue, just fun.
Author's Notes: Chandler and his father at the wedding. For![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
fanfic100 of course.
Joey/Chandler prompt table...
Cat's in the Cradle
You watch him leaning against the decorated wall and can't for the life of you remember what it had felt like to bounce him on your sequined knee.
The crowd has thinned by now, guests whose primary interest in the evening had been gastronomical have all left, leaving behind immediate family and single but hopeful drunk cousins and friends.
He straightens up when you approach him, looks all of seven years old perhaps.
Suit jacket lost somewhere, shirt half un-tucked and the general air of a birthday boy who just wanted everyone to leave the party.
Some things never change.
You lean back against the wall beside him and smile a little when he doesn't flinch away from the brush of your arm across his own.
And maybe there are some things that do.
"You're sure then?" you say, not quite ready to look at him yet, though you'd thought you'd be able to when you asked this.
He can look at you however, head cocked ever so slightly to one side.
Doesn't understand.
He looks down at his shoes.
Oh, but of course he understands.
Always such a bright boy really.
Beautiful bright wonderful boy. How much the both of you have hurt him, how you hadn't known it would be irreversible.
Couldn't have known.
Your heart is thumping madly because in all your years as his father and the years later where you were not his father you had never asked him.
Measured smile, the saddest one you've ever seen and the slight angle of it reminds you of your mother's mother.
"It's a little late isn't it?" he says, fingers toying with edge of his tie.
You follow his eyes to Joey chatting animatedly at the bar with a random pretty thing in a dress that you could pull off so much better, Geller by the looks of her.
The exhilaration of finally knowing something that you've always known gets drenched and quickly drowns in the soft break of Chandler's voice.
For a moment you think you'll say 'It's never too late.'
Isn't that what parents are supposed to say?
What a father is supposed to say?
Bits of Chandler's life you've never seen before flash before you like blinding Vegas lights as you watch him twist and twist the band of gold around his finger.
Chandler's eyes leave Joey and he ducks his head again, smooths an imagined crease in his pant leg.
You're supposed to say 'It's never too late' but you don't.
With a voice lower and more honest than you've used since he was a schoolboy you stare at the ring on his finger and say "Yeah."
Title: Borders
Fandom: Friends
Characters: Chandler Bing and Joey Tribianni
Prompt: #041, Shapes
Word Count: 100
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: "Friends" is owned by NBC and creators Bright, Kauffman and Crane. No profit, no sue, just fun.
Author's Notes: Chandler drabble. The first I've ever managed to bring down to the proper 100 words. A second slightly longer fic will follow in a few hours. Just trying to grease the wheels a bit for the larger fics that are lying half finished all over my room. Forfanfic100 of course.
Borders
When Chandler thinks of Monica there are thick red geometrical borders.
X amount of allotted space in which to store his love for her and Joey and Ross and the twins.
The latter take up an unanticipated amount of much space and the evenly spaced borders stretch and bulge uncomfortably with wayward limbs and names as he pushes more and more into that space.
And there isn't enough room for everyone.
Isn't enough room for her.
When he thinks of Joey there are layers.
His love for all of them adding up and adding up and strengthening everything.
Strengthening him.
Joey's layer stretching wide and warm on top of the others and holding them all together.
Fandom: Friends
Characters: Chandler Bing and Joey Tribianni
Prompt: #024, Family
Word Count: 426
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: "Friends" is owned by NBC and creators Bright, Kauffman and Crane. No profit, no sue, just fun.
Author's Notes: Chandler and his father at the wedding. For
fanfic100 of course. Joey/Chandler prompt table...
Cat's in the Cradle
You watch him leaning against the decorated wall and can't for the life of you remember what it had felt like to bounce him on your sequined knee.
The crowd has thinned by now, guests whose primary interest in the evening had been gastronomical have all left, leaving behind immediate family and single but hopeful drunk cousins and friends.
He straightens up when you approach him, looks all of seven years old perhaps.
Suit jacket lost somewhere, shirt half un-tucked and the general air of a birthday boy who just wanted everyone to leave the party.
Some things never change.
You lean back against the wall beside him and smile a little when he doesn't flinch away from the brush of your arm across his own.
And maybe there are some things that do.
"You're sure then?" you say, not quite ready to look at him yet, though you'd thought you'd be able to when you asked this.
He can look at you however, head cocked ever so slightly to one side.
Doesn't understand.
He looks down at his shoes.
Oh, but of course he understands.
Always such a bright boy really.
Beautiful bright wonderful boy. How much the both of you have hurt him, how you hadn't known it would be irreversible.
Couldn't have known.
Your heart is thumping madly because in all your years as his father and the years later where you were not his father you had never asked him.
Measured smile, the saddest one you've ever seen and the slight angle of it reminds you of your mother's mother.
"It's a little late isn't it?" he says, fingers toying with edge of his tie.
You follow his eyes to Joey chatting animatedly at the bar with a random pretty thing in a dress that you could pull off so much better, Geller by the looks of her.
The exhilaration of finally knowing something that you've always known gets drenched and quickly drowns in the soft break of Chandler's voice.
For a moment you think you'll say 'It's never too late.'
Isn't that what parents are supposed to say?
What a father is supposed to say?
Bits of Chandler's life you've never seen before flash before you like blinding Vegas lights as you watch him twist and twist the band of gold around his finger.
Chandler's eyes leave Joey and he ducks his head again, smooths an imagined crease in his pant leg.
You're supposed to say 'It's never too late' but you don't.
With a voice lower and more honest than you've used since he was a schoolboy you stare at the ring on his finger and say "Yeah."
Title: Borders
Fandom: Friends
Characters: Chandler Bing and Joey Tribianni
Prompt: #041, Shapes
Word Count: 100
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: "Friends" is owned by NBC and creators Bright, Kauffman and Crane. No profit, no sue, just fun.
Author's Notes: Chandler drabble. The first I've ever managed to bring down to the proper 100 words. A second slightly longer fic will follow in a few hours. Just trying to grease the wheels a bit for the larger fics that are lying half finished all over my room. For
fanfic100 of course. Borders
When Chandler thinks of Monica there are thick red geometrical borders.
X amount of allotted space in which to store his love for her and Joey and Ross and the twins.
The latter take up an unanticipated amount of much space and the evenly spaced borders stretch and bulge uncomfortably with wayward limbs and names as he pushes more and more into that space.
And there isn't enough room for everyone.
Isn't enough room for her.
When he thinks of Joey there are layers.
His love for all of them adding up and adding up and strengthening everything.
Strengthening him.
Joey's layer stretching wide and warm on top of the others and holding them all together.
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no subject
Date: 2006-01-03 01:22 am (UTC)Really great stuff here. Both of them. I loved them both equally.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-03 01:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-03 08:45 pm (UTC)thanks for reading!
no subject
Date: 2006-01-04 12:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-03 04:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-24 01:00 pm (UTC)The emotions...oh gosh, the emotions. The wistful longing, the bonding, the realizing that it really is too late... Very sad, but it's a cleansing sadness. Cathartic, as it were.
If you have time, I'd love to hear your opinion about the fic I posted.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-05 04:46 am (UTC)~Sandy