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The friends, minus Ross, were having lunch at Monica's apartment. Veronica was wrapped up in Joey's arms as she sat on his lap while she touched up her makeup. Joey leaned his chin against her shoulder and tightened his grip on her waist fondly.
"Mascara?" He guessed as he watched her pull out various items from her makeup kit.
Veronica smiled and pecked his cheek to let him know he was right. It was a game they'd been playing even before they'd started dating, Joey would watch Veronica apply her makeup and try and guess what she was using. If he got it right, he got a peck on the cheek.
"Which one?" Veronica asked as she showed him two lipsticks, one red and one nude.
Joey stared at the two intently before he looked down at Veronica's outfit. "Red."
Veronica smiled fondly at him. "You learn so much faster than Chandler told me you do."
Joey had quickly gone from someone who didn't even know the difference between ruby red and cherry red to Veronica's amateur fashion connoisseur of sorts.
"Hey!" Phoebe grabbed Chandler's new waller, "New wallet, huh?"
"Yeah, it was time. The old condom ring in the leather just doesn't say 'cool' anymore."
"Rachel!" Monica snapped as she stormed over to the refrigerator.
Rachel jumped and turned to her with furrowed brows. "What?"
"You just put an empty carton back in the fridge!" Monica huffed as she took the carton out.
"Oh yeah, I know, but the garbage was full," She shrugged, not seeing the issue.
Monica rolled her eyes and scoffed. "Have you ever taken out the trash?"
"Well, I thought you liked doing it," Rachel said slowly as she grabbed the trash bag from Monica. She walked to the door but froze when she realized she didn't know where to go.
"Third door on the left," Monica snapped as she crossed her arms in irritation.
"Right!" Rachel nodded but still didn't move, this time turning to Veronica.
Veronica rolled her eyes and tapped Joey's arms, reluctantly he pulled his arms away from her.
"I don't even take out the trash at the job where I'm paid to do that," Veronica grumbled.
"Speaking of, doesn't your shift start in..." Chandler checked his watch, "An hour ago?"
"Yeah, yeah," Veronica brushed him off and followed Rachel out.
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"Oh! Hey, Mr. Treeger," Rachel smiled as she stumbled into the garbage room.
"Hey," He greeted the two and paused as he watched them walk up to the trash chute.
"Ronnie," Rachel called as she turned to her for help with the chute.
"I'm just here for moral support," Veronica held her hands up and shook her head.
Rachel rolled her eyes and managed to get the chute open and stuffed the pizza box in it. She frowned when it didn't slide down the chute and tried pushing it down but gave up quickly.
"What are you doing?" Treeger snapped as he stared at her in disbelief.
Rachel's brows furrowed as she tried to figure out what was wrong. She turned to Veronica for help but she just shrugged.
"Um. Oh! I'm sorry," Rachel chuckled and pulled the pizza box out of the chute and opened it to reveal three stale slices, "It's a little old but-"
"No!" Treeger glared at her, "You're clogging up the chute that I spent a half-hour unclogging!"
Rachel's eyes widened and she smiled sheepishly. "I'm sorry. I didn't- I don't come in here a lot."
"Oh yeah, of course, you don't!" He scoffed.
"Well, we don't," Veronica shrugged with a frown, not seeing the problem.
"'Cause, you're a little princess!" He spat, "Daddy, buy me a pizza. Daddy, buy me a candy factory. Daddy, make the cast of Cats sing Happy Birthday to me," He mocked them.
Rachel sniffled as she shuffled behind Veronica. "I didn't... I never said that."
"You think you could make a mess and the big man in overalls will come in here and clean it up, huh? Well, why don't you think of someone else for a change?" Treeger yelled at them.
"Okay, I'm sorry," Rachel whined as tears stung her eyes, obviously not used to being yelled at.
"Because other people are mean," Veronica snapped as she grabbed Rachel's hand comfortingly.
The two rushed out of the trash room, the pizza box clenched tightly in Rachel's hand, and went back into the apartment.
Monica rolled her eyes when she saw Rachel crying. "God! If you're gonna cry about it!"
Rachel let out an incoherent whine as Monica snatched the box from her and stormed out.
Once Monica came back from the trash room, Veronica and Rachel explained what happened.
Joey's eyes widened. "Whoa, whoa, Treeger made you cry?"
"Yes!" Rachel's lip trembled, "He said really mean things that were only partly true about us."
Joey's jaw clenched at the mention of his girlfriend. "I'm gonna go down there and teach that guy a lesson," He growled as he stormed to the door.
"Joey, please don't do that," Monica begged, "I think it's best that we just forget about it."
Rachel scoffed. "That's easy for you to say, you weren't almost just killed."
"All right that's it, school is in session!" Joey huffed and stormed out.
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"Oh! My hero!" Rachel grinned at Joey as he shuffled into the apartment, "What happened?"
Joey rubbed the back of his neck with a nervous chuckle. "Well, I went down there and told him that no one treats my friends like that and that he'd better come up here and apologize. I'll see you later."
"What a minute," Monica narrowed her eyes at him, "What did he say?"
"He said that he wasn't gonna apologize because you guys are living here illegally, so instead what he's gonna do is have you evicted," Joey mumbled quickly, "I'll see you later."
Rachel's eyes widened and she gasped. "What?! You got us evicted!"
"Oh, my God!" Veronica cried, "I can't be homeless yet!"
"What do you mean 'yet'?" Monica stared at her incredulously.
"Phoebe isn't done teaching me how to be street smart in case something like this ever happened," She explained simply, as though that was a totally normal thing to do.
Monica's brows furrowed. "...What do you and Phoebe do when you hang out?"
Veronica shrugged. "It varies. But that doesn't matter, we're homeless!"
"I told you not to go down there!" Monica snapped as she started hitting Joey.
"Well, he made Rachel cry!" He defended himself as he jumped away from her.
"Rachel always cries!" Veronica snapped heatedly.
"That's not true!" Rachel whined as she ironically started crying.
"Will you stop hitting him," Veronica grumbled as she pushed Monica away, "He's an idiot but he's still my boyfriend."
"Now Joey, you go down there and you suck up to him," Monica demanded as she pointed a finger at him, "I mean you suck like you've never sucked before!"
"All right! I'll try! But if I can't, you can stay with Chandler and me until you get settled."
The three shared a look, clearly in agreement about how much they hated that idea.
"Go!" They snapped in unison.
"All right, all right. I mean I'll have to check with him first, but I think he'll be cool with it."
"He won't have to be cool with it because it's not happening!" Veronica growled as she marched over to her boyfriend, Joey taking a step back in fear, "Because you are going to fix this, or we are never doing that thing you like doing."
Joey's eyes widened. "Wait, the thing I like doing or the thing I really, really like doing?"
"Both," She said flatly as she glared at him.
"Ah!" He cried before he rushed out of the apartment, tripping on his own feet, "Treeger!"
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"Punctuality is the number one rule in my employee handbook, which I've adorably named the Han-book," Han reminded Veronica as she walked into the diner.
After finding out they were possibly going to be evicted, Veronica had rushed off to change for work. She figured if they were going to be homeless, she couldn't be broke too. Well, more broke than she already was anyway.
"Relax, Han," She rolled her eyes as she tied her apron, "Nobody's gonna die if I'm not here to drop off a tuna melt. In fact, they're more likely to die if I do drop it off."
"It's payday! And I'm not talking about the delicious little treat with nuts.
"Han, not cool to brag about yourself," Veronica chuckled and gave Earl a high five.
"Here, Veronica, maybe you can use the money to buy a new attitude," He huffed as he handed her the paycheck.
"New attitude?" She arched a brow teasingly, "Isn't that the name of the boy band you're in?"
"And Oleg, you'll notice I docked your pay 'cause you didn't even come in yesterday."
"I told you, I was working from home," Oleg reminded him before heading back to the kitchen.
"There you go, Earl. Don't spend it all in one place," Han smiled warmly at the older man.
"You think you pay me enough to spend it in two places?" Earl scoffed.
"Oh, my God, that's all I made?" Veronica's jaw dropped, "This is less than it cost me to get here today. And I walked."
Before they could discuss their lackluster paychecks any further, Joey and Treeger walked into the diner. Joey had convinced the building manager to let him treat him to lunch to discuss not evicting the girls.
"You can serve yourselves," Veronica called, having not seen who walked in just hearing the bell, "I clearly don't get paid enough to deal with you."
"Huh, same attitude, different place," Treeger scoffed as he gave her a cold look.
Veronica spun around and stared at him in disbelief before she plastered a bright smile. "Oh, Mr. Treeger, I didn't see you there. Why don't you guys sit at the booth over there and I'll get you a slice of pie. On the house. Han, unlike me, can afford that."
"Take the whole thing," Earl huffed as he took out a new cherry pie from the display case, clearly still annoyed over the paycheck issue.
"Please don't kick the girls out," Joey begged desperately, "This wasn't their fault, it was mine."
Treeger raised a brow. "You want me to kick you guys out instead?"
Joey's eyes widened. "No you can't do that, where would the chick and the duck live?"
"You have pets?!"
"No, no, no, no," Joey shook his head vehemently and chuckled nervously, "Those are nicknames. I'm the chick and Chandler is the duck."
Treeger nodded slowly. "Huh, I would've thought it was the other way around."
"Come on man, just let the girls stay, I'll do whatever you want."
"Really? You'll do anything?"
"Yeah, yeah, absolutely."
Treeger paused, clearly embarrassed. "...Can you be my dancing partner?"
Joey thought it over with a frown. "That's not, prison lingo, is it?"
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〚𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐑'𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄〛
I'm sorry this was a short chapter but I hope you guys liked it anyway. Please let me know what you thought! I promise to get the next chapter out soon to make up for this one. How are you guys liking season 4 so far? Please leave any suggestions you have for the next chapters.
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(Comments really help motivate me to continue writing and update faster)
Have a great day and stay safe ♥♥