A/N: Pure Chandler/Monica romance, indulging in several romance tropes, most significantly spin-the-bottle kisses. And stuff. Set post-London but before they all find out. Comments are always appreciated and welcome!

Tonight

Chandler doesn't feel obligated to work late very often; he can in fact count the times it has happened on one hand. Of course, one of those times ends up being on the night of Phoebe's 'back in the business' post-birth something-or-another celebration. From the sounds from the other side of the door the party is already in full swing by the time he finally arrives.

After Chandler has knocked it takes a while before anyone opens; then, Phoebe's face appears in the doorway. Chandler takes in her appearance with slight surprise. She is wearing a pair of cat ears attached to a headband, and has whiskers drawn in black pencil on her cheeks. Her eyes are wide and sparkling, however, which is a nice change from the melancholia that had followed her for weeks after the birth of the triplets.

"Chandler," she says cheerfully. "You're late. And you're not following the theme. Why is nobody following the theme?"

"Probably because we're not five year old, Pheebs." Chandler waits for her to step aside to let him in, but Phoebe doesn't move so he remains on the doorstep with his hands in his pockets uncertainly.

She rolls her eyes. "Oh ha ha. Lucky for you, I was prepared this time."

She reaches for something inside the apartment, and for the first time Chandler notices that her movements are wide and uncoordinated. It is somewhat surprising, considering the fact that Phoebe usually has a very good tolerance for alcohol. If that is the level this party already has reached, it makes him wary of what madness to expect once he gets to come inside.

Phoebe tugs at his shoulders to get him to bow down. As he obeys, she forces what he realizes to be another headband onto his head. He catches a glimpse of something long and gray before it disappears above his field of vision. The headband is probably intended for a younger audience and feels somewhat small on his head; the hard plastic digs into the tender skin just above his ears. He lifts a hand to feel the fake fur of the ears and he follows them up to try and identify the shape. They are long and quite thin.

"Now hold still." Phoebe has produced a black pencil from somewhere and reaches out with her other hand, clumsily grabbing hold of his chin. It is presumably meant to hold him steady, but Chandler instinctively leans away from the black pencil and she ends up drawing a line from his nose, past the left corner of his mouth and down to his chin. "Oops."

He grimaces, hoping that she has thought to use a water-soluble pencil, but remains still to allow her to draw proper whiskers or whatever it is on his face.

Finally Phoebe steps aside, giving his new appearance a look. "Best one yet."

She disappears into her apartment again, leaving Chandler alone to shrug out of his coat before he walks into the living room with a healthy dose of caution.

The lights are dimmed and the room is lit only by a huge assortment of candles, some of which appear to be scented, their smells intermingling to create an odd combination of musk and flowers. Incense had probably been lit at some point as well, and all of it reminds Chandler of any of the New Age shops that he has ever entered.

Typical of Phoebe's parties are the there will always be a wide variety of people there, from young girls with leather jackets and torn stockings to sixty year old men that reminds Chandler of the people that beg for money on the streets. What they all have in common is that Chandler doesn't know them. Tonight he can faintly recognize a few faces, but most of them are complete strangers so after getting something to drink Chandler hovers by the wall for a while, observing.

Only a few people seem to have gone out of their way to follow Phoebe's animal theme. Most people seem to have suffered the same fate as Chandler and are walking around with cheap animal headbands in various shapes and colors, their faces decorated with black pencil drawings of varying quality. It gives a somewhat bizarre look to the entire party, but it's Phoebe's party so Chandler is not really as surprised as he ought to be.

Finally he spots a familiar figure. Joey is sitting on the floor with a group of people, his head adorned with a pair of what looks like teddy bear ears. As Chandler walks over he notices Rachel in the group as well, with Monica draped over her lap. His happiness over finding Monica is diminished by the realization that they are part of a group that is forming a large circle around an empty bottle of wine.

Chandler resists the urge to groan. He hates games that involve the spinning of a bottle on principle because with his luck it usually ends up with him kissing guys. If this is the level the party has reached, he should work on getting drunk as fast as possible.

Monica is the one that spots him first. She blinks and smiles up at him, lifting one arm in a lazy gesture that is very uncharacteristic of her.

Chandler smiles back, endeared, and grabs her hand to pull her into a sitting position. "Hey, you okay?"

She doesn't reply, but tugs at his hand to make him sit. He does, squirming to get comfortable on the floor in his work clothes. Monica immediately leans against his side, making herself comfortable with her head on his shoulder. Chandler momentarily panics, wondering if the way she is acting will give them away, but forces himself to calm down. He looks at Rachel quizzically over Monica's oddly disheveled hair.

"She's drunk," Rachel explains unnecessarily, dragging out the 'r' enough for Chandler to understand that she isn't exactly sober, either. He had seen sangria being served at the table and he wonders exactly how strong it had been.

Rachel fumbles after something on the floor, grabbing it triumphantly and reattaching the headband that Monica must have dropped at some point. The ears are round and gray and probably meant as an imitation of a mouse's, Chandler thinks.

Monica blinks and raises one hand to her head. Chandler straightens the headband for her, allowing himself a moment to smooth out her hair. It smells familiar and sweet and cancels out all the odd sensory impressions in the room. Her face is adorned with the same type of drawings as everybody else. Chandler wonders just how drunk Monica had gotten before she had allowed Phoebe to do that to her.

"You're such a cute bunny." Monica is relaxed and warm against him. Chandler allows himself to indulge in it, hoping that the guys will think of their closeness as a result of the high levels of alcohol in Monica's blood. It is so rare to see her like this, without stressing over details or appearances.

"Thanks," he says, patting her head fondly. "It's hereditary."

She laughs quietly against his shoulder; he wonders if she got his reference to their previous conversation.

So much of Monica is found in her odd quirks and obsessions, some of which are charming, many of which are downright annoying, but they are all parts of Monica and so, Chandler deals with them. He can enjoy even the most infuriating parts of her if it means that he gets to make out with this beautiful woman every moment they can manage to catch alone with each other.

Rachel rolls her eyes impatiently. "Spin the bottle. Wanna play?"

Chandler really doesn't, but any excuse to remain here with Monica practically in his lap sounds pretty good so he nods, resigning himself to the game.

Thankfully, the circle of people is quite wide and the bottle seems to be favoring other people for once. Chandler has time to both finish his beer and steal Monica's cup of criminally strong sangria before the bottle finally interrupts his bliss by landing on Monica.

He doesn't know the guy, tanned and broad-shouldered, but he hates him on a principle as Monica has to disentangle herself from Chandler's lap and crawl over to kiss him. Jealously inflates in his chest like a balloon and makes him jittery with insecurities.

Monica returning to lean against his side helps to calm him down somewhat, but he has to resist the urge to put his arm around her to mark her as his.

True enough to his earlier fear, Chandler ends up having to kiss both Joey and some random, pale-faced guy that he has never met before, all to the amused catcalls of the other participants. With Joey it feels bizarrely, reasonably, okay, if only because they can share rueful grimaces both before and after the kiss. Luckily, Chandler has manged to drink enough to dull the worst of the embarrassment.

The responses from the participants slowly grow less and less enthusiastic as people get tired of the game. People leave the circle and new people have joined by the time Chandler spins the bottle again and it oh so slowly settles to point at Monica. He feels a pang of pure glee instantly prick a hole in the balloon of jealousy from before.

"Ohh," Rachel says, intrigued, leaning forward.

Monica smiles at him. "C'mere loverboy."

Chandler tries to grimace, but it is difficult to fake awkwardness when he is finally getting to do something that he has longed for the entire evening.

They lean towards each other. Chandler hesitates for one short moment, trying at the last second to appear uncertain, but Monica is still drunk enough to have difficulty with such concepts, it appears. She draws him in, tasting like the sour red wine from the sangria, but her kiss is warm and deep. Chandler feels his body respond to it. It is like he has been conditioned to react to any feeling of Monica by now. Anything she does seems to invoke a tingle beneath his very skin, pleasure deep in his gut. It almost hurts that he has to pull away.

He meets Monica's eyes for a short moment. The pupils are dilated with what Chandler is pretty sure is pleasure and he takes some pride in that. When they sit back, however, they both make sure to put some distance between each other and Chandler knows that she has finally remembered the importance of not appearing to be together in public.

The broad-shouldered guy from before glares at him, however, and Chandler smiles back, feeling entitled to be smug.

The game eventually ends as more and more people drift away to entertain themselves in other ways. Monica and Chandler stay apart from each other for a while, which at least on Chandler's part is a strategic decision, both because he wants to avoid the suspicion of his friends and because he thinks his body might explode with desire if he stays close to her.

He ends up being ambushed by Ross, who is moping about the fact that Phoebe had invited Carol and Susan to the party, and spends quite a while consoling his friend.

It is quite late when Chandler bumps into Monica again as he is leaving the bathroom. She appears to be even more unsteady now and Chandler grabs her elbow as she stumbles.

She leans close against his chest, almost instinctively. Chandler swallows. Her warmth is almost intoxicating.

"Can we leave now?" she says against his neck, her voice a puff of warm air against his skin, tickling pleasantly. "I'm tired."

"I bet you are." He looks around but spots none of their friends looking in their direction. Nonetheless, he moves away, but keeps his hold on her arm. "Can you manage alone? I'll follow you in five minutes."

She nods, but doesn't seem to be paying much attention. He directs her towards the door and she goes, Chandler watched her worriedly for a moment as she struggles to find her jacket before he feels the need to act casual and walks away. He feels like the very antithesis of a gentleman.

He walks around the party, feeling jittery and unfocused as he waits, steering away from Joey to avoid getting caught up in conversation. After roughly five minutes have passed he slips out into the hallway, nearly tripping over himself in his hurry.

As he opens the front door he finds Monica leaning against the wall in the corridor directly outside, looking very, very sleepy.

He closes the door behind himself, amused. "When I said 'wait outside' I meant a bit further away."

Monica pushes herself to stand, somewhat unsteadily, and puts her arms around Chandler's neck. "You're slow."

He allows himself to be pulled down into another sloppy, drunken kiss. It feels like a drink of refreshing water after this odd night, comforting and enticing at the same time as his body awakens again at the feeling of her body pressing against his. He deepens the kiss, letting his hands rest at the small of his back, marveling at the way she seems to fit against him so perfectly.

Finally, the most sober part of Chandler's mind reminds him of the semi-public nature of the hallway and he pulls away. "Home?"

"Mhmm."

Once they get outside, the cold air seems to have a somewhat sobering effect on Monica. She straightens and seems able to walk without help, even though she allows Chandler to hold onto her anyway.

She plucks away the headband from her head, frowning at it. "Damn thing has given me a headache all night."

"Ah, but you make such a cute mouse." Chandler grins, because Monica is really anything but a mouse. In the bleak, cold light from the sun that is starting to rise, the drawings on her face are doing her no favors, smudged and messy. He doesn't even want to think about they way he must look.

She snorts, but seems pleased, chucking the headband into a nearby trashcan. Her state of inebriation seems to do nothing to her amazing aim. Chandler tries to do the same thing with his, but naturally misses.

They walk in silence for a while, arm in arm. The streets are as empty as they can be on Manhattan at five o'clock in the morning. They probably make a ridiculous sight, but Chandler feels almost overwhelmed by the sense of contentment that is filling his chest. It has been a long and weird night, but the quiet moment he can share with Monica right now, this chilly morning, makes it seems worth it.

"I want to have sex with you," Monica says bluntly, effectively ruining his private moment but giving way for a whole other set of enjoyable feelings that Chandler tries to tame. "Now."

"Can't you wait until we get home?" Chandler teases lightly.

"I wanna make love," she sings softly, a bit teasingly, a bit drunkenly, reaching up to trace over the stray black line that Phoebe had drawn on his chin earlier. "All night long."

Chandler feels pleasure tingling in his stomach at the thought, even as he is becoming more and more certain that Monica will fall asleep they moment they finally get to a bed. It is fine, though, he thinks, wrapping an arm around her. As a certain southern belle once said: tomorrow is another day.