In From The Cold 6
Xander opened his eyes and glanced over at his alarm clock. *Mmm,
It smelled.
"Whoa, laundry day," Xander muttered. He tried not to breathe too
deeply as he padded his way in sock-covered feet first to the bathroom to pee
and then to the kitchen. *Bowl. Cocoa Puffs.
Milk. Spoon. Mmm, chocolatey goodness.*
Into the shower, which was nice and warm... until it
wasn't. Out of the shower and the air was cold, cold, cold as he dried himself
vigorously and ran to the bedroom to get dressed.
At least the laundromat would be warm. Xander cupped
his hands over his nose and mouth and breathed into them to warm them up as he
stood and surveyed the clothing scattered around his bed. He picked up his
laundry bag and began shoving things in it, starting with the rank sweatshirt
from the bathroom floor. Socks, yes. Boxers, yes. Uniform, hell yes. He picked up a tee shirt and did the smell test. Not bad -
it could wait till next week. He picked up another
shirt and sniffed again. That one definitely could not wait.
When the bag was full, he put on his coat and shoes, grabbed his roll of
quarters, his laundry detergent, and his dryer sheets - because who doesn't
want their clothes to be Snuggle fresh, or grocery-store-brand fresh, in this
case? - and headed out the door.
The walk to the laundromat always took seven minutes.
Xander knew this because The Price Is Right was just ending when he
passed the electronics store downstairs, and The Young And
The Restless was hitting its first commercial break when he walked
into the laundromat.
*Some day, I so need to get cable.*
Skipping the first washing machine because the clothes always smelled funny
when they came out of it, Xander took the third machine down the row, popped in
his quarters, dumped in his detergent, shrugged, and dumped in his clothes.
Sorting was for people who could afford more than one load of laundry at a
time. After a moment of thought, and a sniff that made his nose hairs want to
crawl away and hide, he dumped the laundry bag in after the laundry and shut the
lid.
A glance up at the lone laundromat television
confirmed that The Young And The Restless was in full swing, and while
the three women watching it seemed happy enough, Xander just couldn't get lost
in the sea of shifting relationships, foreclosures, miscarriages, and whatever
was the trauma of the week.
He'd had enough trauma, thanks.
Instead of watching, he settled into one of the molded fiberglass seats and
squirmed around until it didn't dig in anywhere
painful. He stared at the floor, counting tiles until the rhythm of the laundromat around him settled again and he became part of
the background, until the eyes watching him lost interest and turned to the
television or their laundry or newspapers.
When Xander felt safely - invisible - again, he lifted
his eyes and checked out the scene.
He recognized the three women watching the soaps - a brunette
and a dirty blond who'd been coming to the laundromat
much longer than he had, and the newest member of the laundromat
troika, whose hair was curly. They came often, always during the soaps, and did
a negligible amount laundry but were known to linger
for hours, laughing about their lives and their men, exchanging fond complaints
about Mr. Dirty Blond and Mr. Curly Hair. They all seemed to work late shifts, and these jobs were a source of less fond, more
bitter bitching. But Xander's favorite topic of conversation on which to
eavesdrop, by far, was the never-ending debate over which pairs of male soap
characters ought to be screwing each other. It had sort of
wigged him out at first, but eventually he'd had to admit, they had a damn good
grasp of subtext.
But the conversation was on crap jobs for the moment,
and Xander had one of his own, so he shifted his focus to a young married
couple he'd seen a couple times in the past month. It was cute the way that
they were still so enamored of each other and their newly wedded state that
they actually enjoyed going to the laundromat
together. Their hands and arms brushed constantly as they loaded the machines,
and in between cycles they cuddled themselves into one
chair and whispered sweet nothings in each other's ears. Cute...
or possibly nauseating. The jury was still out on that one.
Contemplating the couple, Xander didn't notice the
arrival of a young, decidedly single-looking woman until it was already too
late to perform evasive maneuvers. Her gaze settled upon him instantly, like a
finely tuned homing device. Xander did a mental eye-roll as she approached.
"Excuse me." Shy look perfectly executed beneath fluttering
eyelashes. "I seem to have forgotten my detergent. I'm always doing silly
stuff like that." Sweetly ditzy smile with hand flutter.
"Do you think - is there any way I could borrow a cup of yours?"
Xander held it out to her and forced a smile. "Help yourself. And I'm
gay."
The woman took the detergent - because how could she not at that point? -
smiled awkwardly, laughed even more awkwardly, and moved away quickly. Xander
went back to his people watching.
Twenty minutes later, Xander had just finished transferring his clothes to the
dryer, when he turned around to find a young man hovering behind him.
"Excuse me, I hate to bother you, but I was wondering if you could spare a
dryer sheet..."
Xander held out the box and forced another smile. "Sure, take two. And I'm
straight."
The man took one sheet, mumbled "thanks," and shuffled off. Xander
returned to his fiberglass seat and slouched down, trying to work on that
invisibility thing. The Young And The Restless
was about to end, and Xander started mapping the fastest route to the
television in his head. If he could get there before anyone else, he could
change the channel to X-Men. If he couldn't, it
was another date with All My Children.
Young Married Couple were sitting face to face by then, and Wife was combing
through Husband's hair. *Observe the grooming habits of the species Young
Marriedus Bohemianus.
The female mounts the male to establish her claim and assumes grooming
responsibilities, putting her scent-mark on 'is fur.*
Mental Xander seemed to have an Australian accent that day. *Shh. Don't startle them. There's a good chance that if we're
lucky, they might just mate... mate.*
Xander's dryer chugged to a halt and he groaned, getting up to open the door,
slam it shut, jiggle the coin slot, and punch the button again - and pray. With
a whir and grumble, it started up again, and Xander sucked his finger where
it'd gotten caught in the coin slot. Doing laundry was
gonna cost him a finger some day.
And speaking of things that could cost him a finger,
Xander needed to get to the hardware store that afternoon to pick up some
apartment-repair supplies. The actual risk to his fingers was minimal though
because, since getting the apartment, Xander had discovered a real talent for
do-it-yourself projects. In fact, such projects took up most of his free time
these days. The only frustrating thing was the additional discovery that doing
it yourself just wasn't as cheap as the name implied.
But the painful cost of supplies was well worth the feeling
that came from taking a smooth, heavy tool in hand and harnessing its power to
pound... and, *damn*, Xander thought, *I really need to get laid.*
But hey, in the meantime, Xander hoped that his sublimated energy might at
least turn his low-rent dive into a decent place to call home one of these
days.
You know, one of these days in the future, when old-man
Xander was still flipping burgers for a living and bitching about how his
teenage co-workers had no work ethic, but earning an extra fifty cents an hour
to spend at the hardware store. And when, you know,
nuclear war had somehow reduced most of the world's really nice homes to rubble
yet magically left his apartment intact, making it look like pretty sweet digs
by comparison.
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