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Mickey slouched through the empty hallway of the hospital, deciding he should probably get home and cook dinner for just himself. It was 9 PM already and he hadn’t had anything but coffee and a dry sandwich that day. Not that he was any good at cooking or that he actually felt like cooking after such a busy day. Mickey had just brought his sister Mandy to the hospital after she got a blow to her head by her abusive boyfriend. A concussion, the doctor had said, but she had to stay the night at the hospital to be sure it was nothing worse. The boyfriend had fled their house before Mickey could shoot the asshole through his fucking face. Mickey still wanted his revenge, though.
Mickey dropped himself into a chair inside the empty and dark lobby. Visiting hour was long over but he didn’t feel like going home to his chaos house without heat which was probably just as empty as this lobby because all his brothers had girlfriends with houses where they’d rather be sleeping, his father was (thank God) in jail, and of course Mandy would be spending the night at the hospital.
His stomach rumbled again and his gaze fell on a vending machine that looked like it hadn’t been used in years. There was some candy in it though, but Mickey wondered if it was still edable. He checked his wallet and only found a single dollar bill. That should at least be enough for a fucking candy bar.
He shrugged to himself and figured that if he went home now he’d probably order a pizza for the third time in a row and that didn’t really seem any healthier than chocolate. He stroked the bill a few times to make sure the vending machine would take it in and waited until his Snickers bar dropped. But it didn’t. Of fucking course.
‘You gotta be fucking kidding me,’ Mickey mumbled to the machine. He smacked the side of the vending machine, in the hopes the candy bar would drop. He shook the whole machine but it didn’t seem to work.
‘Jesus fucking Christ…’ Mickey grumbled as he got down on his knees and stuck his arm inside the opening of the vending machine, trying to reach the candy with his hand. He struggled for a minute but startled when he heard footsteps getting nearer.
‘Can I help you with something?’
A male nurse was standing in front of him and Mickey’s face was on level with the man’s crotch and it made him uneasy. Looking up, Mickey’s eyes made contact with the most beautiful redhead he’d ever seen. Mickey kept his head cool though, he didn’t want to seem like a creepy guy. He cleared his throat and shook his head, ‘no, no I’m fine…the candy got stuck even though I put money in…’ he tried to explain but the nurse smirked.
‘Happens to me all the time. They should replace these shitty things,’ he said.
It was Mickey’s turn to smirk but he agreed with the nurse. He pulled his arm out of the machine, but struggled to get his hand out of the opening. Mickey frowned and tried to wrench his hand out but it was stuck. ‘What the fuck?’
‘You’re stuck?’ the nurse asked, trying to look inside the vending machine to see where it was holding his hand down.
‘Yes, isn’t that fucking obvious?!’ Mickey snarled while wrestling with the machine and putting his whole body in the battle to get his hand out. It was starting to hurt and Mickey was sure his hand was already bleeding from being so rough with it.
‘Yeah, it is,’ the nurse grinned and Mickey was sort of glad he didn’t take offence to his coarse language. ‘What’s your name?’ the nurse asked.
Mickey looked at him as if he just asked him something really inappropriate. ‘This isn’t really the moment for introducing rounds, is it?’ he snapped.
‘Sorry. I’m Ian. Hey, I got an idea. You know when you got a ring stuck around your finger people use soap to loosen it up? It’ll probably work for this too. I’ll go get some,’ Ian explained and before Mickey knew it, Ian was gone running down the hallway looking for some fucking soap.
Mickey sighed in disbelief; his siblings would laugh in his face if he ever told them he got his hand stuck inside a vending machine and a nurse had to help him out with soap. That was when he decided not to tell anyone and he had to make the nurse swear not to joke about it to his colleagues in the fucking lunch break the next day or something.
He got back as soon as he left, holding – not a bar of soap, but a bottle of lubrication.
‘Sorry, couldn’t find the soap soon enough, but lube would work too I figured,’ Ian explained and smirked at Mickey’s annoyed face.
‘You work in a fucking hospital and you couldn’t find any soap?!’ Mickey asked in disbelief. ‘What the fuck are you waiting for? Get the fuck on with it, nurse Jackie,’ Mickey snarled when Ian waited for a response.
‘Yeah, yeah, alright,’ Ian nodded hastily and put some lube on his hand and reached inside the vending machine for Mickey’s hand and rubbed it on. Soon enough Mickey could move his hand again and it easily slipped out through the opening of the vending machine.
‘That went well,’ Ian grinned at Mickey, who was rubbing his injured hand on his jeans to get the lube off.
‘Fucking finally,’ Mickey mumbled, ‘but I still don’t have my fucking dinner and that machine ate my dollar.’
‘That’s your dinner?’ Ian asked dubiously, nodding at the Snickers bar still hanging between the tabs in the vending machine.
‘Would’ve been, if this stupid thing had worked,’ Mickey said.
‘You want to come over to my place and have some dinner? My shift just ended and I haven’t eaten yet either, but I already cooked before work so I just have to warm it up.’
Mickey thought about it; a free offer for dinner… but at this weirdo’s house who he just met in one of the most awkward situations ever?
‘It’s yes or no, but if you want to think about it a little longer, I’ll be waiting in the car. I’m fucking hungry,’ Ian said and he walked towards the exit of the hospital. Mickey sighed and felt weak when his head told him no but his legs and stomach said yes and followed Ian to his car.
‘I still don’t know your name,’ Ian said.
‘It’s Mickey,’ Mickey grumbled.
‘Like Mickey Mouse?’ Ian smirked and pinched him between his ribs. Mickey dashed sideways and scolded at Ian but Ian just laughed.
‘Shut the fuck up, Dexter.’