Title: Greg versus the Laundry
By: it-glitters
Pairing: Nick/Greg
Rating: PG
Summary: There's something that just doesn't sit right with Greg when he's staring at the piles of laundry he has folded.

***

It wasn't something that should have freaked Greg out, but it was freaking him out nevertheless. He didn't like the way it was just... laid out. Granted, he could have easily banished the piles, but, at the moment, he was content to stare at them and contemplate what it was about their very existence that bothered him.

He popped another Flaming Hot Cheeto into his mouth, knowing that he would pay for it later. Knowing that in just a little while, he would be waiting for Nick to return from the store with a bottle of extra strength Pepto. Come to think of it, he probably should be calling Nick right now to ask him to pick it up on his way home.

But, as it was, he couldn't. He couldn't because the piles were in his way. Quite literally as it was, since he had started folding the laundry directly on top of his cell phone. It wasn't one of his brighter decisions. And the house phone was all the way on the other side of the room and he certainly wasn't about to get up and get it.

So, he continued to look at the piles. It wasn't the near identical piles of shirts or stack of pants waiting to be hung that bothered him. No, specifically it was the two piles of underwear that was causing him the most grief. To his left was a neat pile of boxers, folding the long way, and to his right, a neat pile of briefs, folded into squares.

He almost wanted to shuffle them together like a deck of cards. There was something unnatural about their current state.

And there was, he mused. Of course there was. He didn't normally do the laundry. Nick did the laundry because he claimed that Greg would mess it up. That Greg wouldn't use the right amount of soap or fabric softener or that he would leave it in the dryer too long and it would get wrinkled. All of which was true, but Greg had gotten his laundry done just fine before Nick came along.

This week, he was doing laundry simply because Nick was in court more often than usual, and he was exhausted. That, and Greg really was trying to surprise him. He had even used the measuring cup to pour out the right amount of detergent instead of eyeballing it like he usually did. And there was just something wrong about the underwear.

He popped another Cheeto into his mouth. His index finger and thumb were stained a permanent shade of red, and it didn't matter how many times he sucked on the stained digits, the coloring wouldn't come off. A sure sign that he should stop eating them. That and the fact that the bag was near gone. Way more than the recommended serving size.

He threw the bag on the coffee table in disgust and stuck his index finger in his mouth, trying in vain to get the color off. He was going to figure out what was so wrong with the underwear. It was either that or go insane, and he really wasn't up for insanity at the moment.

Removing the index finger, he stuck his thumb in its place. The underwear was cleaned, and it was folded the way that Nick preferred it. Or, at least t he way Greg assumed Nick preferred it because that was how it always looked in their drawer. Well, before Greg got to it.

...And there was the problem. The underwear never stayed the way it was. Firstly, in the drawer it never stayed that way, because Nick had them folded for specific wear. You took one out, used it, then the next day you would take out the next pair. It didn't matter to Nick that you never wore plaid on Monday's and Wednesday's you always had to wear something with purple in it. That just didn't matter to Nick. It was the stacking of the underwear that dictated the day it was worn.

Which, of course, made sense for Nick. He just had plain cotton briefs. Twelve identical pairs that he bought in two six pack packets at Target every six months like clockwork. Every January and July, Nick went to the store and bought new white cotton briefs and threw away the twelve old pairs.

It drove Greg nuts. Greg had more boxers than he could count - at least two for each holiday, and then at least one pair in every color of the rainbow. And whenever he was in a bad mood, he had to wear a pair with the smiley faces on it. Didn't matter what color it was. Unless, of course, he wanted to wear smiley's on a Wednesday, in which case they had to be purple.

The only other time he saw underwear was when it was flying off their bodies. He personally liked to try and fling Nick's at the ceiling fan, which Nick hated, because if they were damaged, then he would only have eleven pairs of white cotton underwear until either January or July, whichever came first. The man would not deviate when it came to underwear.

Greg was torn. He now had in his power, the capability to end the white cotton underwear discussion forever. He could destroy them, thus forcing Nick to wear his boxers... It all sounded very evil genius in Greg's head. But it also could end in an ugly little tiff over nothing, and Greg missing out on morning sex (morning being relative, since it really was evening sex when they were waking up). And he really liked his morning sex. And Nick had worked said morning sex into his very involved routine.

Nick was a man of routines. Before Greg, he would get up, do his sit-ups and then brush his teeth as he set the coffee maker up (a feat that still mesmerized Greg to this day). Then he would shower as the coffee brewed, dress as he drank the coffee and progress from there.

It had been a struggle to integrate Greg. And Greg was integrated into the time between making the coffee and showering. That way, as Nick put it, his breath could be mint-y fresh for Greg, and once the sex was done, the scent of coffee would pull Greg from the bed.

Nick was right. He was good at being right.

Greg wondered if it was really worth throwing off the routine in order to get rid of something he barely saw anyway? Probably not, but the piles really were starting to bother him. And his thumb was pruned.

His stomach gurgled up at him. Definitely too many Cheetos, and that was just going to throw Nick's coming home routine off as well. And really, Greg lived to mess with Nick's routine.

He put the underwear back in the drawer, just the way Nick did, knowing that tomorrow was Wednesday, and there weren't any purple boxers near the top. Tomorrow, he would destroy the underwear drawer. Tonight, he needed Nick to take care of him, and his upset stomach.

***