AN: Ho hum. This is an alternate take on...well, pretty much everything weassume about Kip. You know Kip, the guy that we never saw, dated Monica, Chandler's old roommate, left the hibachi, got phased out? Anyway, Implied slash. Part 1 of 2. This kind of skips around in tenses and times. Deal with it. (wow, I sound kinda bitchy. Sorry.)

Chapter 1- Kip

Kip has been in love with Kasseniya since before he knew what the word meant, and really, that’s the problem. Their parents have been writing wedding plans since they were born, swapping ideas, deciding who will pay what. They’ve been teased about it for as long as he can remember. So once he started noticing girls, he wasn’t surprised that he noticed Kasseniya, because she’d always been there on the periphery, being crazy and weird, and he always knew that eventually, they’d fall in love.

He thinks it’s much easier if love is already decided, if he doesn’t have to worry about it or think about it, or date a girl and wonder, “So, is this it, is this love?” because he can always think, “No, this isn’t how I feel about Kasseniya, and I’ve always loved her.”

Falling in love with Kasseniya is the easiest thing Kip has ever done, because it doesn’t involve doing anything. All the work is done for him. It’s like one of those drawings you do when you’re little, connecting the dots. He goes from one to two to three to four, and eventually he’ll finish the picture of the perfect family, him and a dog and Kasseniya and some kids and Chandler. (Maybe a cat, cause Chandler's afraid of dogs.)

He’s never been able to get Chandler out of the picture, and that’s what it’s all about. People have never made wedding plans for them, and the other kids didn’t make fun of them when they were little, and he’s never had to think about whether or not he loves a given girl more or less than Chandler because it’s too stupid to even think about. Of course he loves Chandler more. Girls come and go, but Chandler is above that.

Kasseniya and Chandler both have their own special categories, and it never really occurred to Kip to compare the two, because, no matter what Coach Ruben says, Chandler isn’t a girl.

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So it never occurs to Kip not to move in with Chandler when he finally finds an apartment. It never occurs to him to as Kasseniya to move in with him instead (which was what she’d been expecting, Chandler tells him later). And so him and Kasseniya are over, which might be for the best, because he’s sure he’d spell her name wrong if they ever wrote letters to each other.

Chandler, later, asks him why he’d give up a relationship that’s been going on practically since they were born for…this. Living in a crappy apartment with his elementary school friend, working at jobs they hate.

He can’t explain why.

It’s that it’s Chandler, and he and Chandler have been together forever, and are like the two musketeers or Batman and Robin or those all those Greek guys they read about in History class, and everyone thought they were sleeping together, because going around together like that is so gay. And he’s really amazed more people haven’t noticed how “gay” he and Chandler are, because he’s pretty sure they are because, come on.

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Homeostasis:

The tendency of an organism to maintain a uniform and beneficial physiological stability within and between its parts; organic equilibrium.

He's been doing it all of his life, "maintaining equilibrium", but it's never stable.

He's always thought of him and Chandler as one part- always finishing each other's sentances, always being there for one another. He and Chandler have been working forever, to try and maintain a uniform and beneficial stability between them.

Except that Chandler never had to work at it.

It's always been Kip who needed to work at maintaining the status quo. Only him.

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Things have changed so irreparably that he doesn’t think things can ever change back to normal again; like when they were ten and inseperable; catching fireflies and trying to avoid mentioning the upcoming summer, when Chandler would have to visit his dad in Las Vegas.

Nothing would ever be that simple anymore, but it would always be the two of them. Kip and Chandler. Inseperable.

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But it’s not at all how he’s expected it to be.

Maybe it’s all those movies he watches that gave him the wrong impression; movies for optimists. Or maybe it’s the fact that Chandler and him watch those movies together, eating popcorn and making sarcastic comments.

But whatever the reason, he doesn’t like the way Ross and Chandler seem to blend seamlessly into the best friends that they were at school, while Kip stupidly attended UCLA. They’re trading anecdotes about continual worsening hairdo’s, their college band, and “the really hot girl dating the guy across the hall”.

And then there’s Monica.

Kip especially doesn’t like the way Chandler looks at Monica.

It’s a little weird that the reason he doesn’t like it isn’t that he’s dating her.

It’s right then that he knows it’s time to call up Kasseniya.

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There are times when Kip wishes he didn't know himself as well as he does. He doesn't have the luxury of pretending that he's madly in love with Kasseniya or that he wants to sit next to her, picking out wedding cake styles for the wedding.

He just seized what he could get, because if he’s going to settle, he’s going to settle on his own terms.

So he keeps the tattered photograph of Chandler and him folded in the pocket of the jeans that he no longer wears, and just this once, he's glad that he's never needed more than he could have.