Title: Laundromat
Series: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Pairing: Joey/Tristan
Type: m/m
Rating: T for content
Summary: Two boys alone in an empty 24-hour laundromat at midnight. Couldn't have been finished without the two people who were wonderful enough to beta it for me – Jessi and Em. Thanks, guys.

Disclaimer: The Yu-Gi-Oh! series and the characters Joey Wheeler and Tristan Taylor are not mine, and this little fic was done for absolutely no profit. Besides. Sue me and all you'll get is an overweight cat and some pocket lint.

Tristan could see the sky turning pink in the large window dominating the far wall of the laundromat. The colors seemed brighter outside, far removed from the taupes and beiges and brushed nickel-platings of the Speed Queen. At some point the laundromat washing machines were white, and had grown old with smoke. Or maybe it was the era of the building and not the age that made the scratched enamel the color of Pet Milk. Greasy curry-orange chrysanthemums bloomed on the walls. Blue-frosting fiberglass egg chairs tipped against them.

The brunet pushed his basket of blue jeans and rugby shirts onto the machine adjacent to his and fed the primary colors into the tub, closed the lid and hunted in his pockets for six quarters. He leaned over the machine and thumbed quarter after quarter into the hungry slot until the control panel blinked options for color, white, delicates or permapress. As the heavy steel workhorse began to vibrate, his Discman played Steppenwolf and he unfolded the Motorcycle World he'd brought along, flipping through the glossy pages while his elbows warmed.

He was nearly to the classified section when Joey walked in, a yellow plastic weave basket tucked under his arm. They were friends and had been for some time, and lived in the same apartment building.

"Nice night," Joey observed, smacking his basket beside Tristan with a hollow metallic echo. "if you like snowstorms in October."

"It's warm in here," Tristan replied, "and empty. I'm not complaining."

"Well of course it's empty. Only morons do laundry at midnight." Joey's hangdog grin indicated that he understood the irony of the statement. Tristan grinned back and saw no need to point it out.

They managed their fills and agitation cycles in relative companionable silence. Inane comments about work and neighbors and families passed over the two machines as they had for the past six months. Tristan inched closer to Joey's machine. Joey, sensing that he was being stalked, began to grin more and falter some in his responses.

The 'you know what sex on a washing machine is like?' line was worn thin from so much use, and neither said it, though it hung quietly in the air between them. In a few seconds Joey met Tristan halfway and pinned the leggy brunet against a washing machine the color of condensed milk. The laundry in the tank hit the spin cycle and screamed with a loose bearing, covering the wet gasps of meeting open mouths. Tristan's magazine hit the floor as he blindly groped along the slick corners for purchase and the pages skidded underneath his palm. Joey caught him and they snickered nose to nose, alleviating the need to wring out old excuses and worn lines. Both men worked together to help Tristan leap up onto the rumbling machine, and he wrapped his long, lean legs around Joey's waist, hooking red vinyl tennis shoes one over the other.

Morons did more than laundry at midnight.