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Joey Tribbiani doesn't know much about music, but when Phoebe Buffay sings, he swears it's the most beautiful sound in the world. And maybe he's crazy, maybe it's ridiculous, but he wants to be the guy she's singing about.
The first time he hears her sing, she's in the shower. He's just come back from yet another failed audition, and when he heads into the giris' apartment - hoping to raise enough sympathy from Monica that she'll cook him something - no one's there.
Joey sighs, opening the fridge. Maybe Monica will have left something in here, knowing he'd be by at some point. But before he even has time to look through the containers and try a little bit of everything, he hears singing.
It's certainly not Monica - it's lower and raspier in the kind of way that makes his heart jump into his throat in a way that can only mean it's her roommate Phoebe. Joey follows the sound of her singing, leaving the refrigerator door wide open. He follows it all the way to the bathroom door, a grin sliding onto his face.
He can only make out every other word or so through the sound of running water, and from what he understands, It's either about a really great night with a guy or the weirdest dog show he ever heard of. Knowing Phoebe, it could very well be either one. But if it is the first one... Joey kind of wishes some girl would think about him that way, like him enough to write a song about him. Cause sure, he's not looking for anything serious right now, but it must be nice to know someone cared about him like that.
He doesn't know how long he stands by the door, just listening to her sing. Sometimes she'll start a line, then interrupt herself with a oh no, that doesn't work right, what about - It sounds like she's coming up with them on the spot. It's magnetic, really, how talented she is. It keeps him wondering, wondering all sorts of things that Monica would probably slap him for thinking about Phoebe. He's so lost in the thought of some girl who looks suspiciously like Phoebe singing to him that he almost doesn't notice the sound of the water turning off.
By the time it registers in his brain, Phoebe's still humming as her footsteps sound right by the door. Joey's eyes widen and his heart pounds as the doorknob turns and he's about to bolt when Phoebe walks out. She's got a soft pink towel tied around herself, and she nods, in that casual way of hers as she says, "On hi, Joey."
"Hey, Pheebs. Did you write all those songs yourself?"
She nods brightly. "Yup!"
"I didn't know you could sing like that, you're really good," he says, just the tiniest bit awestruck.
Her cheeks flush the same color as her towel and wow, she's just so pretty as she giggles, “I know!”
Joey grins. He loves how confident she is about the things she does well. Again, he can't help but think what else she's good at, what else she can make sing.
“You should sing in public sometime, " he tells her, if only for something to say, to distract himself from thinking about her like this when she's right here.
"You think so?"
"I know so," he says earnestly. And he means it. He knows she can do anything, and she'll do it with that breezy smile on her face, colorful and wild.
Phoebe smiles from her doorway. "Well, maybe I will then. Thanks, Joey!'' She closes her door and he doesn't even have time to miss her when it opens again. "Oh, make sure you shut the refrigerator door. Monica will kill you if any of that food goes bad."
The door closes again, leaving Joey alone in the living room, leaning against the couch. He does indeed make sure the fridge door gets shut, after he finds a slice of pizza and a chicken sandwich. He takes it back to his apartment, eating it while he watches TV. By now, he's forgotten about why he was even so upset in the first place. Forgotten about everything but how good it felt when Phoebe smiled at him.
When the bar beneath their apartments is converted to a coffeehouse, a pretty blonde with a guitar makes her musical debut. Her name is written in pretty blue cursive on the chalkboard outside, and when she's finished her song about a smelly cat, nobody claps harder than Joey.
(He swears she winks at him when she leaves.)
Sometimes when Joey and Chandler come over to the girls' apartment, Phoebe is on the couch with her guitar.
She has a piece of paper on the table in front of her, a pen beside the paper and one tucked behind her ear. She'll sing a line, strumming quietly, then nod emphatically and scribble whatever she just sung down on the paper.
Tonight though, she doesn't seem to be having much luck. Chandler, Ross, Rachel, and Monica are playing cards at the kitchen table, but Joey wanders into the living room before they can ask him to play. He can practically feel upset radiating from Phoebe as he takes a seat beside her.
"How's the song going?"
She angrily blows a curl out of her face. "Horrible. I think some vengeful spirit decided today was a good day to block all my creative outlets. It's like, you know that feeling when you're sick and your whole nose is stuffy so you sniff like your life depends on it but nothing happens except a big ole ugly snort?"
He nods, because of course he knows exactly what she means.
"Well, that's like how my brain feels right now.”
Joey winces, sticking his arm around her shoulders. He doesn't entirely know how to comfort women but a there, there and a little cuddle never hurt anyone, right?
Phoebe shifts over till her head is in the crook of his neck. And yeah, the top of her guitar may be digging into his side like a splinter, but his friend is curling into him for comfort, so who is he to complain?
"Hey, if you need some new song ideas, you can always write about me." He says it jokingly, but he really does mean it, wants to know what she would think about it.
He can feel the tickle of her breath against his neck as she murmurs, "Maybe I will. " She leans back so he can see the scrunch of her nose and the mischievous glint in her bright blue eyes.
In this moment, Joey wants nothing more than to kiss her, find out what it would feel like for her to place whispers of kisses up his neck, if she would giggle when his hands drop lower-
A knock sounds on the door, the smell. of pizza wafting into the apartment. Phoebe shoots up, her head knocking Joey's chin as she excitedly cries, "Ooh, dinner!"
"Geez, Pheebs!" He rubs his sore chin, any irritation that may have welled up instantly gone when she leans over and kisses right between his cheek and jaw.
"Sorry," she says sweetly, walking into the kitchen to get a slice of pizza. He's still thinking about her as he eats his pizza, about how comfortable it felt to have her pressed against him like that. He's never had a girl want to be near him just because she simply likes him instead of because he's promised her an incredible night in bed. But Phoebe was happy to just sit and strum, and he was happy to just sit with her while she figured things out. That's never really happened before either.
Hm. He's going to have to talk to Chandler about this.
Chandler says it's a crush, diagnosing Joey like a goofy doctor with puffy hair and a cocky smile
They're sitting in the coffeehouse, mugs steaming in front of them, but Joey almost forgets they're there. His forehead wrinkles, and he's about to scoff that he's a Tribbiani, he does not get crushes. Crushes are for girls, for people who don't know any better.
And then Phoebe blows into Central Perk like a breeze, bags on both arms and a guitar around her back, words fumbling out of her mouth like the conversation's already started-
Then he can't argue.
Maybe he does have a crush.
She was telling them about her new boyfriend. His name is ‘Jonathan without an h' and he's a vet. According to Phoebe, he's an incredible cook, snorts when he laughs, and loves chocolate almost as much as he loves saving animals.
He's perfect, she's still gushing two months later.
Joey still smiles over at her because Phoebe is happy. And he's always happy that she's happy. She's his best friend (besides Chandler, of course) and she deserves someone who cares about her, who will do anything for her, who will always be there for her....
Okay, so maybe that applies to him too. But it's fine. This is just a crush. It'll pass. Soon he'll go back to thinking regular, best friend feelings about her and everything will be the way it's always been.
But when she sits on the stool at the front of the coffeehouse, her eyes shining as she sings about her "lover with a J", there's a twisting feeling in his stomach that could just mean he's eaten too many scones. But he knows it's not.
He still wishes that she was singing to him.
Sometimes he's able to forget about it. He's able to make jokes only she understands, able to play cards on the balcony with her at midnight because she can't sleep. In these times, she's just Phoebe, Phoebe who knows and understands him, Phoebe who makes him smile because she never tries to be anything else.
But sometimes it's hard to forget. Because there are nights when they're all watching a movie together and she gets scared and ends up burrowing her head into his chest. (He wonders then if she can feel the way his heartbeat skips through his shirt.) He wraps his arms around her, always holds onto her for as long as she needs. In these moments, she's someone he wishes would never leave, who would realize that he's someone worth staying for.
(It's in these moments that he thinks it's more than a crush, but he doesn't want to think about that.)
Joey is trying to reach the pack of Oreos he's hidden on top of the fridge when the apartment door flies open. The cookies soar out of his hands, and into the foosball table. One lands on a red guy's head, and he's about to point it out because it's got to be Chandler, but no, it's Phoebe. He's still going to tell her because she's Phoebe, and she's probably got a great joke about it, but his laughter dies when he sees the look on her face.
Her lips are pressed into a deep scowl. It reminds him of the look Monica gives when he gets fingerprints on the TV screen.
He frowns. "Hey, Pheebs, what's the matter?"
"Oh nothing," Phoebe says sharply, hands waving around her head like she's trying to brush away gnats.
"Pheebs..." He reaches out, his hand brushing her arm as she pushes past him.
She whirls around, standing in front of the recliners, eyes flashing. He's never seen her so upset.
"Jonathan and I broke up, okay? But it's okay, I'm fine, I'm still happy.”
Joey feels like his heart is breaking. He steps over to her, sliding his arm around her back, gently sitting down with her on the recliner. "Hey," he says quietly, "it's okay to be upset. He was a really great guy."
"I know!" Her sniffles are buried in the fabric of his shirt, her legs curling over his knees. Every time she sniffs, it feels like another piece of his heart cracks. He hates to see her cry like this. "Say mean things about him so I don't like him anymore, please, Joey?"
"Of course," he says immediately. "His goatee made him look like a high schooler."
Phoebe gives a sad little giggle. "It scratched, "she admits, tapping her lips with a finger.
"Hm... Oh, he always talked about those nasty sick animals when we were trying to eat. What was up with that?"
Phoebe wrinkles her nose, pressing her face into his chest, adjusting his arm so it now rests on her waist. "Not the only good times that he ruined with that. "
"Ew," he cries, grimacing. "Geez, I'm sorry.”
"Anything else?" She looks up at him, blinking watery blue eyes.
He swallows. Their faces are so close. "He never clapped hard enough when you sang songs about him. If you write a song about someone, they should never stop clapping."
Her lips curl up at the edges. "My songs are really good, aren't they?”
"The best," he answers, his voice much softer and quieter than he's realized.
Phoebe laces her fingers in his. His breath catches in his throat. He's noticing every detail of everything like camera flashes: her nails, round and painted baby blue; an old callous on her thumb from playing the guitar; the shiny emerald ring on her index finger that rubs against his. "If you were my boyfriend, would you ever stop clapping?"
"Never."
They really are so close. It would be so easy to close that distance between them, cradle her face in his hands, press his lips to hers... And for a heartbeat, he's about to. But just as quickly, he realizes he can't.
She's just broken up with her boyfriend. Normally that doesn't stop him - he can certainly make it up to a girl.
But this is Phoebe. Joey knows that if he ever wants things to really be different between them, he can't do the same old things he's always done.
So he doesn't kiss her. He just holds her until her eyes are dry, until her breaths taper off into sleep.
When he's sure she's asleep, he brushes back stray hairs from her face. Her head is resting right above his heart.
"I'll always be cheering for you, Pheebs," he whispers. He does place a kiss to her forehead though, and he swears she smiles.
Phoebe doesn't sing at the coffeehouse for almost two weeks. She hasn't talked to Joey much either since then, and he's trying not to let it bother him as much as it does. Was it something he said after her breakup? Did she realize he had been about to kiss her?
He feels more relieved when Rachel introduces Phoebe one rainy morning at the coffeehouse. Phoebe brushes hair out of her face as she leans into the microphone. "My first song," she announces, "is called 'What Will it Take to Get Joey to Kiss Me?.’"
He hardly hears the laughter and gasps from the crowd or from any of his friends around him. All he can hear is Phoebe.
"What will it take to get Joey to kiss me?/When will he realize that I know-y,/ that the only person I want to kiss/ is my very favorite Joey?"
She straightens up at the stool, a teasing smirk on her lips. "Thank you."
Joey grins so wide his face hurts. But he never stops clapping, not even as he strides across the room, not until he's kissing her. Even then, he is definitely clapping on the inside.