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Showering on the Mother of Invention was always an adventure. Sometimes you have Agent York running around completely naked while Agent Florida is combing his hair and belting out old Earth songs with Agent South in the background, looking about ready to stab both of them. But sometimes, if you were lucky, it was completely empty. That would only happen however if everyone was already done in the shower room and the floor was wet from others and most of the warm water was already gone but if Agent Washington had had a particularly stressing day and wanted to shower in undisturbed silence, he could wait until literally the entire ship crew was done showering.
So his fingers had already turned all weird and he had foam piled onto his head in the shape of a wizard’s hat when he heard the door to the shower room open. Wash immediately stopped his silent singing and paused. Maybe someone had simply mistaken this door for the toilet.
It didn’t seem like that however, when the person turned on a shower several stalls away from Wash’s. Now he was faced with two possibilities: he could hurry up and scurry out before the person was done or wait until they were gone to leave. While wondering about that and who the fuck would shower this late as well, he heard what sounded like the person hitting their head on the shower head and grumbling. Which could only mean one thing.
“Maine?” Wash asked into the quiet of the room and got a grumble in reply. “What are you still doing up?” Another grumble. I could ask you the same. Wash didn’t want to respond that day and instead continued his shower; there was no reason to be anxious around Maine. They had been sharing a room since Wash had arrived on the ship and sure, at first Maine was damn terrifying but they’re actually more of a seven foot teddy bear. That could kill people... whatever.
When Wash had washed all the foam out of his hair, he turned the water off and quickly grabbed a towel before stepping out of his stall. Sure, they were roommates, but that didn’t mean that Maine had to see him naked. When his body was dry, he quickly put on a t-shirt and underwear, just in time for Maine to turn his shower off and step out of their stall. Completely naked.
Wash turned to look straight ahead and busied himself with drying his hair and reminding himself: “Don’t look at Maine’s dick, don’t stare, you dumb, useless gay.” When he was sure that Maine had at least put on his underwear, he dared to look over at Maine. And noticed them looking at him. With their underwear on, thank fuck.
“Pretty,” Came a growl from them. Wash, sure he must have misheard, made a questioning noise while continuing to dry off his already dry hair.
“Pretty,” Repeated Maine and yeah, Wash hadn't misheard. He hid his blushing face in his towel to maybe disguise it as drying it but Wash was sure that Maine knew exactly what he was doing.
“Well,” Wash paused to remove the towel from his face and also gather his courage because if this went wrong, he’d be in deep shit, “if we’re already doing compliments, you’re pretty handsome yourself.” There, he had said it, time to bail and run away and sulk in his dark room until he died. But when he looked over at Maine again, they were honest to God smiling. Fucking smiling . Wash had never seen them do that before and was transfixed for a while before breaking out of his gay stupor.
“Well, this has been nice, I’m gonna go now, bye, goodni-” While Wash was rushing to collect his things, Maine made a noise that could have been a snort or something that could signify that they didn’t like the compliment or that Wash was about to be pushed against a wall and- no, horny brain, that’s not gonna happen, shut up.
“Same room.” Said Maine and Wash was actually so perplexed that he stopped picking up his stuff and looked at the other until he remembered, yes, they fucking share a room. What an absolute buffoon you are, Wash.
“Ha, yeah…” So Wash actually had to fucking wait until Maine was done putting clothes on before going back to their room. And Maine didn’t say a single word and Wash didn’t know if it was good to start a conversation right now or if Maine was just being polite and Wash actually started to fucking sweat right under his boobs because there were no windows he could open to let out the humid air from the showers and who doesn’t put a window into a bathroom? Oh, right...space. Then who doesn’t even put an air vent into a fucking shower room, whoever designed this spaceship was about to catch these hands.
And eventually, Maine was done and smiled at Wash again and motioned to the door with their head. Wash tried his best not to jump up and literally sprint out of the room and calmly followed Maine to their room. The air in the hallway was blessedly cold and Wash sighed in content, thinking about curling up in his arguably uncomfortable bed with some fucking fuzzy socks and dream about some fucking cats .
“You’re red.” Maine decided to disturb his thoughts about tiny, whiskered animals with something that first really, really confused Wash and then really embarrassed him.
“Yeah, I get pretty red when I’m hot. Like, it was hot in the room, not that you- Like, you are hot! It just wasn’t because I was looking at your- which I wasn’t, by the way! Just… the air. Was hot.” And now, a blush actually darkened the red. If Wash couldn’t do anything but ramble his ass off, huh? But Maine next to him just made that same noise, that Wash was almost sure was a snort, and continued.
Wash almost walked past their room because he was so preoccupied with mentally beating himself with a broom but Maine stopped and opened the door and legit waited for Wash to enter before following. Wash unceremoniously dropped his dirty clothes into their hamper and threw the rest of his stuff onto the box at the foot of his bed before plopping down on his bed. Which, admittedly kind of hurt, but that hasn’t stopped him before and it wouldn’t stop him now. He burrowed his face into the blanket and reveled in the feeling of not being able to breathe for a bit before he noticed Maine was snorting. Again.
“Okay, so what’s up with you today, big guy?” Wash propped himself up on his elbows and turned his upper body to look at Maine, who was… were they seriously looking at Wash’s ass? When Wash sat up, once again embarrassed, Maine looked away and at Wash (Yeah, they had absolutely been looking at his ass. Haha, assolutely .) and had the audacity to smile again and then shrug before turning around and putting their stuff away.
Wash huffed and climbed under his blanket. What was different today than other days? Sure, Wash had noticed Maine looking at him more often and maybe today wasn’t the first day that they had given him compliments but it had never been this many and sure, there had been lingering gazes on his butt before but that didn’t mean- Oh my God , Wash, you absolute gay disaster. He shot up straight and looked at Maine who was now sitting on their bed.
“Have you been flirting with me?” Wash blurted out before he could feel anxious or embarrassed or any kind of emotion really. And Maine rolled their eyes in the most dramatic way possible and nodded. And Wash- Wash short circuited. Because what the fuck! A really attractive person that he had been crushing on since forever- Wait when did that happen? Yeah, but he had definitely crushed for a while without fucking notice, you dumbass , but they said they were flirting. Holy shit.
And because Wash was still sitting there, frozen in his bed and looking at his blanket with wide eyes, Maine took it upon themselves to get up and physically move him over so that they had enough space so sit down next to Wash. This finally made him unfreeze and actually look Maine in the eyes for the first time in forever. He always forgot how deep and honest their brown eyes were. Wash apparently found what he was searching for because he started to smile and eventually laugh, too.
“I’m such a dumbass.” A grumble. Yes . “Oh, shut up.” Never . Wash noticed that Maine’s hand was deliberately placed with palm up and only hesitated for a bit before taking it. He knew that Maine was way bigger than him but their hand, Jesus Christ, it must have been twice the size of his. Maine turned their hands around and actually pressed a kiss to Wash’s and if he hadn’t been dead yet, he sure was now. So he basically blacked out for a bit but he must have done something right because he ended up sleeping in Maine’s arms that night. It was cramped as fuck but Maine was very, very warm and allowed Wash to squeeze his feet in between their calves because he had forgotten to put on his fuzzy socks.
But instead of sleeping and dreaming about very small cats, Wash was still lying awake half an hour later, wondering how he had ended up here, half on top of Maine and having one of his hands on top of one of their pecs and just all around being content and holy shit, their chest was very firm and defined and if Maine was already asleep he could totally let his hand go down to their abs and-
“Gay.” Wash stopped in his tracks and snapped his head up to look at them in shock.
“Okay, you’re not asleep yet, okay, got it, yep!” And all Wash wanted to do was turn out of Maine’s embrace and, much like a slinky, fall off the bed and roll under it and never emerge again but Maine only made that snorting noise again and pressed a kiss to Wash’s forehead.
“Sleep.” Maine sounded sleepy and it was the cutest fucking thing that Wash had ever heard and he was about to go absolute ham but eventually the warmth made him drowsy as hell and his head eventually shut up about Maine and instead filled with Maine and tiny, tiny kittens and Wash slipped off into sleep.