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"Ugh!"
Charlie could hear Adam's frustrated groan before he'd even got halfway down the hall to their dorm. He knew that groan. That was a laundry day gone wrong groan. Again.
Once the team made the switch from JV to Varsity Junior year they'd had to move into the dorms, and Adam, to the utter amusement of the rest of the Ducks, had been forced to do his own laundry for the first time in his entire life. Week one was a classic disaster of bleach where bleach did not belong, and he'd had to wear spotted jeans for days until the weekend when he could go home and switch his ruined clothes out for different ones. He'd started to separate his clothes then, making smaller loads just in case one got ruined, and Russ and Charlie walked him through the steps of the different wash and dry cycles a few times each.
He suspected a few other Ducks had also advised him on the exact same procedure, but Adam never mentioned it, and Charlie hadn't wanted to rub salt into the gaping wound that was his inability to do basic chores.
"What is it this time?" Charkie asked, laughing already as he rounded the corner into their shared dorm room.
He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Adam, his cheeks flushed with an annoyance that was bordering on outrage, the plain white t-shirt that was his go-to pajama top clinging desperately to his skin as if trying to fuse to the bones underneath.
"Oh" Charlie gasped, no longer laughing as his own cheeks blushed, and a sudden warmth twisted savagely on its way from his chest to his gut. "Shirt" he added stupidly, realizing he was staring and trying for anything that might make that less awkward.
"I don't even know what the hell I did wrong" Adam fumed, bending down to grab his bag from the floor to rummage around in.
And Charlie wanted to listen to whatever it was Adam was saying as he pulled some piece of paper out and looked it over, talking animatedly with those furrowed brows, but he couldn't. His full attention was drawn to Adam's back, and how the too-tight shirt highlighted every movement of the newly developed muscle underneath the thin fabric. How the collar was stretched out just a little bit, like Adam had been pulling at it since he put it on. How when he moved his arms at all, the edge of the shirt rode up enough to show his abdomen, putting the jut of his hip bone on display as it peaked out over the elastic of his loosely fitted sweatpants.
"Charlie" Adam sighed, "Are you even listening to me?"
"Hmm? Oh, sorry" he said, mentally scolding himself, "I'm just tired. What were you saying?"
Adam rolled his eyes and handed Charlie the paper he was holding, a how-to for the laundry written in what he recognized as Connie's handwriting.
"I did exactly that" he said, gesturing to the paper before crossing his arms moodily. "I think the washer and dryer are just out to get me."
Charlie chuckled, spotting the header and immediately knowing where he had gone wrong.
"This is a how to for your hockey clothes, like, jerseys and shit. You can't just wash and dry everything on high heat like this and hope for the best. It's not the same material..."
Another frustrated groan spilled out as Adam snatched the paper and looked it over again, and Charlie watched as his chest expanded beautifully with every breath.
Fuck fuck fuck.
When did Adam get so hot? And why was he even noticing it?!
"I can't believe I have to tell mom I ruined another batch of laundry" Adam mumbled, pulling another obviously shrunken shirt out of the basket of clean clothes and holding it up to his chest. "God I'm fucking hopeless at this."
"You're not" Charlie laughed, the sound coming out far higher pitched and breathy than he'd intended. He cleared his throat, and then, hoping Adam wouldn't feel rushed to ask his mom for new shirts-
"It's not that bad" he lied. "I barely even noticed."