Work Text:
Rain drizzled down at a slight angle, the clouds were more white than grey and a light fog covered the streets like the clouds wanted to come down and play in the puddles they made. The thunder didn’t sound threatening, instead of booming like gun shots in the sky it purred like a kitten and lighting never illuminated the air. Everyone seemed to stay in their houses today, if there was no need to leave then why do so? The rain wasn’t threatening but it poured down just enough to discourage people from leaving warm homes.
Ray was wet, slightly soaking as his hair stuck to his face and made it hard to see, his glasses were plagued with raindrops and his feet made a squishing sound every time he walked. He pushed open the door and the bell above him rung, alerting a very disgruntled store manager to Ray’s presence. Ray shot him and apologetic smile, he knew someone was going to have to clean up all the water he dragged into the store and he had a feeling it was going to be the manager, who looked like he could eat a box of donuts by himself in one sitting, and also looked like he woke up without the will to shave for the past week or so.
Ray awkwardly shuffled to the farthest washing machine he could find, wanting desperately to be out of view from everyone and anyone.
‘The Rooster’ seemed like a bad name for a laundromat, washing clothes had nothing to do with poultry but at least it was creative. Ray prefered a grumpy manager who stayed out of your way at a laundromat called ‘The Rooster’ than the overzealous couple down the street at ‘Washy Wash Squeaky Clean’ who always wanted to know everything about all their customers, and Ray wasn’t very sociable. Usually, he just wanted to be left alone.
The tile under his feet seemed cracked, and the checkered pattern of blue and white reminded Ray of a hospital, the sterile white walls weren’t helping either. The ceiling composed of the colour grey and it reminded Ray of the rain outside. He reached into his pocket and took out some change, he organized the quarters in his hand to be the exact number he’d need for this load of clothes and put it in his jackets chest pocket, and then buried the rest of his change into the normal pockets at his side. He opened the bag he brought filled with his dirty clothes and started to load up his whites in machine, while the dull ring of the door opening echoed into the empty laundromat. Ray heard footsteps and his heart increased, hoping that the stranger wouldn’t come all the way down to where he was. He didn’t want to nervously do laundry thank you very much.
Ray loaded up the machine with quarters, put the right amount of bleach inside the machine and made it do it’s job all while some stranger’s shoes squeaked down towards him. Ray kept his eyes on the machine in front of him while he heard the stranger click open his washing machine.
He didn’t want to look but he did, he shot a glance at the guy next to him and Ray felt his cheeks grow a bit hot.
‘Oh no he’s hot,’ Ray thought to himself as he rubbed his hand over his cheek.
“You okay kid? Girlfriend make you do the laundry today?” The stranger’s voice sounded genuinely interested and Ray’s body was telling him to flee. Telling him that strange attention was always unwanted. He ignored.
“No girlfriend, no washing machine either.”
“Ah.”
“What about you?” Ray asked, finally taking his eyes off his machine to steal a quick glance at the stranger a few machines down from him. His eyes wandered all over his face but refused to make eye contact for more than a few seconds.
“Broken. My machine. Pretty sure my non-existent girlfriend did it. The bitch.” Sarcasm rolled off his tongue like it was his first language. “My name’s Joel.”
“Ray,” he didn’t mean to deadpan his name he really didn’t, it just happened sometimes. Ray mentally beat himself up for making himself seem uninterested in the strang- Joel, and hoped that Joel would pick up the conversation again. Instead he watched him look at his wallet and go up to the manager, asking for some change.
He came back, obviously.
“Where do you work?” Ray asked like this was 20 questions.
“Manager of a greeting card business, a few blocks down. What about you?”
“I work as an IT guy, I fix computers and shit like that. Well I don’t fix, fix them if you break it in half I can’t do much, but if you like download a virus or something I’m pretty good and fixing that,” Ray rambled, Joel nodded. “What’s it like, working at a greeting card company?”
Joel stared into the distance, “Puns,” he said, staring at the nothing in front of him, “So many puns.”
Ray rested his hand on Joel’s shoulder as he awkwardly shuffled closer, “It’s okay man.”
“What about you?” Joel asked as Ray’s hand dropped down.
“Can’t say much, to be honest. My co worker, Ryan’s a fucking beast when it comes to computers. I’m pretty sure he can break into any computer blindfolded. Once he brought his kid to work, and I swear to god that five year old looked at a computer and it’s virus disappeared. It’s in his genetics or something I swear to god.”
“There’s a girl named Barbara at my work, she makes so many puns it’s unbelieveable. I’d pay her to stop but she doesn’t, even when we’re not at work she’ll text me with card ideas. It’s so horrible but we pay for this kinda stuff.” Joel looked at the void again.
“Co workers am I right?”
Ray’s machine beeped and he walked over to it, his clothes were soaking wet but he didn’t really care as he drapped some of it over his shoulders, hugging tightly the other half of the clothing he could balance on himself as he opened a dryer. He stuffed all the clothes into it, took out his change, and punched the machine to make it go.
Joel had a smile on his face when Ray came back to his washing machine.
“What?”
“You’re all wet.” Which was true, whatever parts of Ray’s clothes that have dried from the rain became soggy once more. He shrugged.
“Well you know,” he answered nonchalantly.
Now Joel’s machine beeped. The older carried his clothes more gingerly, making a few trips to make sure he didn’t get wet. Joel was more experienced with washing machines, and he didn’t fear his clothes bleeding into his whites so he mixed everything up in the washing machine, color wise. Material wise, Joel separated everything by silks and whatever wasn’t. He also hated washing his pants and shirts together, and his socks and underwear were divided up. Sometimes he’s wash his socks and pants together and sometimes he’s wash his underwear and pants together. Most of the time he didn’t care.
Either way, Joel’s hoodies and shirts were now tumbling in the dryer.
“You sure you’re not cold or anything?”
“I’m used to being wet. I walk everywhere so-”
“No car?”
Ray nodded, “Or licence. From New york, never needed it, we have subways and taxis and shit like that.”
“Why’d you move to Austin?”
Ray shrugged, “Needed a scene change.”
There was a pause as the manager coughed.
“Wanna see my party trick?” Ray asked, his face brightened with a mischievous twist.
“Sure.”
Ray put every single piece of clothing that was left into his machine.
“Wait, does this party trick involve death?” Joel asked.
Ray closed the machine, with some difficulty, loaded up a little bit of soap and put in some quarters, he then made the spin settings go on high.
In a few seconds, the machine started bouncing up and down, it hit the ground and made a few loud booming sounds.
“Hm great, property damage.” Joel said dryly.
Ray climbed the machine and stood on it.
“Ride ‘em cowboy!” He yelled, the machine vibrating under his feet and he quickly got off and opened the machine. He pulled some clothes out, wet still, and changed the settings.
“What kind of parties do you go to where you can call that a ‘party trick’,” Joel asked.
“Parties with hosts who don’t have balance. Also drunk hosts. I do weddings.”
Joel rolled his eyes as he heard his dryer utter the noise that means it’s done it’s job.
“Wait no why is your dryer done first?”
“Because I know all the dryer tricks.” Joel took out his clothes from the dryer, he set aside a hoodie as he took off his shirt, Ray looked to the side.
“What are you doing?” Ray asked.
“Clothes, right out of the dryer,” Joel said like it was the most obvious thing in the world, “Gives you the best sensation on your skin.”
Ray’s vision blackened as he felt something warm envelope his face.
“You just washed this.”
“Yeah I did,” Joel shot back, “Put it on, you’ll catch a cold or something.”
And Ray did, he peeled off his water stained shirt and dropped it on the floor.
It felt wonderful, even if it was a few sizes too big.
“There.”
Ray’s washer beeped and he moved all his clothes into another dryer. Then the dryer he was using beeped and he started to fold all of his wrinkled clothes into his bag again.
Until he felt another warm article of clothing his his face.
“What the fuck?” Ray said with a giggle choked in his throat.
Another article of clothing his Ray’s body and he grabbed it so it didn’t hit the floor. I mean they just washed their clothes for christ’s sake.
“What’s the matter?” Joel asked as the threw a sock at Ray, to which Ray threw back the shirt that impaired Ray’s vision, only to find out that his vision was foggy from the heat.
Ray then took cover behind a machine, watching as socks and their pairs flew by the side of his head. Ray grabbed one that was near him and sent it flying, only to find there was no Joel in sight.
No Joel at all.
His face dropped for a second until he felt a shirt hit him from behind. He spun around and threw a sock right at Joel’s face.
“You got me!” Joel yelled, “You got me now I’m dead, I’m dying.”
“I am the victor!”
“Dead, dying here,” Joel said as he kneeled on the ground, “Oh the pain, the gore, all my blood, everywhere.”
Joel ‘fell’ on his side.
“Tell my family that they can have the frozen lasagna that’s in my freezer.” Joel coughed and sputtered and closed his eyes.
Ray clapped and came over to Joel, “Fuck greeting cards,” he said, “You should be an actor.”
“Not in this universe,” Joel muttered.
“What?”
“What?”
Ray outstretched his hand and helped Joel up.
Joel towered over him, because Ray was short.
Joel put his hand on the top of Ray’s wet hair.
“You’re like a tiny mouse or something.”
“Squeak squeak motherfucker.”
They went back to folding their clothes. Ray finished first, and he moved to Joel’s dryer, he sat criss cross applesauce on the top of one and watched Joel fold his garments.
“Hi.”
“Hey,” Joel returned with a soft grin.
Ray rubbed the back of his neck as Joel put the last of his shit into his bag.
“Do you want your hoodie back?”
Joel studied Ray’s face a for a second.
“If I say no, do I get a date?” Ray’s face went lukewarm for a second.
“I cannot be bought with extremely comfy hoodies.”
“Damn.”
“But I don’t want to take it off-”
“Naturally.”
“And you don’t seem like a serial killer-”
“Well looks can be deceiving.”
“And this is the most fun I’ve had doing laundry-”
“Of course, I’m a fungi, but I hate mushrooms.” Joel mentally killed himself.
“You seem married to your work,” Ray cocked an eyebrow up.
“Just,” Joel sighed, “ignore me.”
“Let’s have a date then.”
“Yes, cool okay,” Joel took his phone out of his pants pocket and gave it to Ray, who promptly put in his number with the name ~*~*Laundromat Cutie: Ray~*~* to which Joel rolled his eyes and felt the pressure to make his name on Ray’s phone something cute, something witty, so he put his name as ‘The soldier you killed in the great clothes war’ But it didn’t fit, so he had to deal with ‘Clothes War Loser: Joel.’ Ray laughed at the name and hopped off the dryer he was sitting on.
“We can settle the details of the date later.” Ray said as he reached his hand down to grab his bag of new freshly cleaned clothes.
“Alright,” Joel said as he lingered a bit longer than considered normal.
‘Is he getting cold feet?’ Ray thought to himself, ‘Does he regret giving me his number?’
Turns out, it was none of those things.
Joel pressed a gentle kiss to Ray’s stumble, it wasn’t a peck, it wasn’t quick, it lasted just enough for Ray’s face to burn quietly and long enough to feel like Joel genuinely wanted to go on that date with Ray. When it was over Ray’s hand pressed against the place where Joel’s lips just were and instead of saying goodbye Ray’s face gave Joel a smile that seemed to make the rain let up for a bit.
“See you later,” Joel said, satisfied with himself.
“Yeah,” Ray breathed out.
“Don’t forget my sweatshirt.”
“It’s called a hoodie.”
“Same thing,” Joel called out as he opened the door to leave, he waved his left hand into the air as a final gesture of goodbye. Ray watched as he ran across the street and opened the door to his sleek rain soaked black car. He watched Joel fumbled over his keys and drive away.
Ray exhaled, sometimes it pays to be uncharacteristically sociable. Ray made a final scan of the laundromat to make sure he didn’t forget anything, picked up a stray yellow sock Joel left behind and rolled his eyes, then ran down the block towards his apartment.
~
When he opened the door to his apartment, Ray sighed a nice sigh, like one where you’re out all day and you can’t wait to get home, only when you get home you realize you’re more tired than you originally thought. He dumped his bag on the counter in his kitchen and left it there, deciding that ironing could wait. He kicked his feet up onto his coffee table because fuck you it’s his house and he’ll fucking not use a coaster when he drinks out of a cup too.
There was a faint vibration emanating from Ray’s pants as he unlocked his phone and saw the text that’s been sent to him.
So, date idea. We rent a fighter plane and invade Russia in the dead of night, take over all their laundromats and demand a small army in return for their services.
Ray sent back:
I think a first date isn’t the best time to plan world domination. I know a restaurant that’s pretty good a few blocks from here.
Come on kid dream big.
But that sounds nice. “)
*”)
God damn it smiley face.