Who: Aidan and Ethan What: Everyone needs clean clothes Where: A Launderette When: Early Evening Rating: PG Status: Complete
Realistically, Aidan was well aware that he could take his clothes home to his mom. She'd shake her head and pretend to despair of him whilst inside she'd be doing a happy little dance because on some level he still needed her and he often had calls from her bemoaning the fact that now he was a man and an adult he didn't need her so much anymore. It was a lie, she was his mom and he was a single gay man in his early twenties, of course he still needed his mom. He was always going to need his mom.
It was that time again, where he'd put it off for as long as he could, and now just about every item of clothing he had was dirty and all he had left were his 'laundry day' clothes: a pair of ripped jeans and a threadbare t-shirt that was slightly more... fitted than the clothes he preferred to wear. His jeans rode lower on his hips than he liked and the whole way to the launderette he kept tugging on the waistband like that would make them sit higher. Two seconds later and they'd slid down again though so it wasn't really very helpful. A fruitless endeavor, some might say. Not that it stopped him trying, Aidan wasn't a fan of the clothes that tried to show his underwear to the world. His sneakers were old and worn too, comfortable shoes that he wore whenever he was doing something that he really didn't want to. His friends at work always despaired of him; he wasn't a typical gay guy, he wasn't really great with fashion or make up and he certainly didn't sound like a woman when he talked. He drank beer and liked cars and sure, he played music but there was nothing particularly gay about that and he certainly didn't bother separating his whites and his colours when he washed his clothes: all the years he'd been mixing the two, he'd only lost a pair of socks and a white shirt to the bleeding of colours phenomenon. People just tried to put him in boxes and he refused to pay them any heed. Boxes were a waste of time, in his opinion, humble as it might have been.
He pushed open the door to the launderette with his ass (by backing into it, of course) as his hands were full with the bag of laundry that was almost as big as he was and he was so glad when he saw that one of the larger machines was free. It would have been expensive if he'd been stuck trying to spread his monster load out over three or four machines. Not that he was fond of hyperbole or anything; his washing probably would have filled two, but not much more than that. He was just feeling overly dramatic.
Celia at work had been flaunting her old wrinkled self again and the part of Aidan that could appreciate female beauty had turned over, curled up in a corner and tried to commit suicide because she was older than his mother and trying to flirt with people Aidan's age was just dirty-bad-wrong. It severely grossed him out. Ugh. And there was a distinct lack of cute guys at work too, so he was just stuck with no one to distract him from Celia and the way that her face looked like it was held together with invisible tape.
He ignored the way that the fabric of his clothes seemed to bite into his skin; he was having another moment, apparently. Sometimes his skin was just way too sensitive, his mother had never thought about it seriously before, just that maybe it was something his biological mother had had a problem with. Allergies or something, but other than the occasional bout of sensitive skin, Aidan was totally healthy. He stuffed them into the washing machine, feeling somewhat like the bag that was over half his size (not at all an exaggeration, no) was trying to eat him, and God help him if anyone saw him like this.
It was a nightmare just waiting to happen, a mortal embarrassment that would be superseded only if he managed to actually fall into the machine and get trapped. His shoulders tensed a little and he rubbed the back of his neck, a sock that had rebelliously hooked itself around his finger sliding off and hitting the floor where it sat in an unhappy black puddle. Not that he saw it though, he'd heard something hit the floor, but it might have been something that belonged to the handful of people that were in the launderette at the same time as him.
The man in the corner was a little disconcerting, he had a slight wheeze to the way that he was breathing and his eyes kept flicking around the room like he was expecting it to suddenly turn into a monster and eat him. Aidan was also kind of offended by the way the guy's clothes smelt. Not that it seemed to be bothering everyone else, or maybe they were just used to being around smelly men. Or maybe Aidan was imagining things again. Whatever. Not important.
What was important? Well, getting his clothes in the washer, making sure to put the right stuff in the right drawer and finally getting rid of the change in his pocket that was - in Aidan's opinion - the sole cause of why his jeans kept trying to migrate to his ankles. It had nothing to do with the fact that they were low-riding jeans anyway, and it certainly had nothing to do with the fact that he'd lost a little weight (which he was proud of) since he bought them six years ago.