"Night at the Vending Machine"
"Stupid machine, work damn it!" Ryo stressed as he smacked the side of the vending machine willing his favorite bag of chips to fall from the small slot. His belly began to growl from hunger as his eyes desperately looked at the bag of chips barely dangling from the metal coils holding it in place.
"Come onnnnn," he wined, "That was all the change I had." A very sad frown appeared on Ryo's face as he gently set his head against the glass looking in, "Please fall…please?"
It was the late shift at the 27th precinct and there wasn't a soul in sight, Dee and Drake were in the building somewhere, he just didn't know where. He tried to think back, they had said where they were going but he hadn't been listening at the time, being far to absorbed in his paper work.
"A cigarette…I think that's what they said." He spoke aloud still with his head placed on the glass peering in, he sat for a moment in silence annoyingly glairing at the teeter tottering bag of chips that his stomach so desperately longed for. "Its gotta fall eventually…right?"
It was twelve thirty at night and Ryo had obviously resorted to talking to himself, Dee and him along with the help of Drake had been doing paper work all night. Somehow the three of them had gotten stuck with the leftovers of a resent drug smuggling case, the bad guys had already been caught but there was still a lot of paper work to be done. Berkeley had been kind enough to inform them of this exactly 14 hours before the work was due, forcing the three of them to pull an all-nighter. However Ryo had no concept of work or time at the moment, his stomach was thinking for him and all it knew was that dangling bag of chips would be his before this night was out.
"That's it!" he screamed in anger as he whipped his head back off the glass of the machine, he had been leaning there contemplating for some time now on how to retrieve it. Suddenly he began to violently smack the side of the machine making the frame merely rattle. With no success he started to become angered, he had been working all day without anything to eat, and it was starting to get to him. "Come on damn it!" he said, continuing his violent assault on the side on the vending machine.
After a few moments of unsuccessful assault on the machine Ryo stepped back, he looked at the machine in contemplation. "I obviously cant smack it out" he thought "And I don't have any more money and even if I did, the second bag would just get stuck where the first one was and that would piss me off even more" Ryo couldn't remember the last time he had thought so hard about something so simplistic. "How can I get these damn chips out?"
A long silence reached the room as Ryo thought…
"I need to find more money, who cares if the next one gets stuck." Ryo turned quickly heading for the door, as he got to the frame he lifted his index finger accusingly at the bag of chips. "I'll have you by the end of the night damn it" He stormed out of the lounge quickly walking down the hall headed back to the offices, "Maybe I could dig some change out of Dee's desk or something."
He quickly began his long walk down the hall and as he began to walk he imaged someone else sneaking into the lounge and snatching his glorious chips out from under his nose. He knew there was no one in the building but paranoia caused him to pick up his pace fearing someone with money may steal his precious bag any second.
Finally reaching the offices Ryo approached Dee's desk. The desk was covered in paperwork splayed about in random piles that seemed to follow no particular pattern or order. "Like I'll ever find anything in this mess" Ryo said aloud to himself. He set down in Dee's chair feeling the need to prepare himself for the unpredictable content of Dee's desk.
Prepared for what he thought would be the worst, Ryo hesitantly opened Dee's desk, Upon opening Ryo caught whiff of an over powering odor. "Ewwww..! Only Dee's desk would smell bad, what's that coming from?" Ryo began to slowly pick though and glance over the content of Dee's desk, "There's gotta be a quarter or something in here" he wined.
However, Ryo found everything from old cookies and condoms to moldy socks and cassette tapes of Vanilla Ice, but no quarters. Ryo began to notice that there wasn't even anything work related in his desk like pencils or paper, just a bunch of random objects that majority of could rot or mold.
Ryo slammed Dee's desk in disgust, digging though that desk was like digging through the desk from hell. He only dug though it for a moment but he felt dirty and unkempt afterwards.
"Well a lot of good that did me, I dug through Dee's cesspool of a desk and I'm not any closer to my bag of chips" "Where the hell are they anyway? Drake and him should be back by now" Ryo still speaking aloud to his sleep deprived self glanced at his watch, he didn't know when they left so he really couldn't tell how long they'd been gone.
"What the hell's taking them so long?"….
"Talking to yourself?" Ryo jumped up from Dee's chair in surprise, looking up his eyes found the janitor standing in the doorframe. Ryo couldn't remember his name but he had seen him around, your typical uncomfortable creepy janitor.
"Umm, yeah I guess I was huh?" Ryo giggled as he said this and for an unknown reason to him the janitor gave him an awkward look, lifting an eyebrow in confusion. Ryo responded with an equally questioning look, as a momentary uneasy silence took place.
"Yeah…" the janitor stated with a simple and un-emotional voice, slowly he began to turn out from the doorframe walking down the hall.
Suddenly Ryo began to think… "Wait!" Ryo screeched running out the door after the creepy janitor.
The janitor turned quickly staring at Ryo still rather awkwardly, Ryo blurted out "Ummm, you wouldn't happen to have any change would you? My chips got stuck in the machine and I'm all out."
The janitor paused for a moment, almost as if he was debating the question. He looked down reaching in to his pocket where he extracted one quarter. Ryo's eyes widened in excitement, even for just one quarter that would mean he was half way there, he could taste his delicious chips now.
Ryo's hands anxiously began to reach after it however the quarter was pulled back "I tell you what" the janitor said. "I'll give ya this quarter, but I'm gonna want something in return for it"
Ryo's head pulled back and the anxiousness left his face to be replaced with hesitation and skepticism "Like what?" Ryo said. A million horrible ideas flying through Ryo's head of what this creepy uncomfortable janitor would possible want from him.
"Well…" the janitor's eyes skimmed Ryo up and down…
"That's a nice pen you got there", the janitor's index finger extended pointing to the pen in Ryo's shirt pocket.
Normally this would have been a fine trade, but that just happened to be Ryo's favorite pen. So now the question was, would he trade his dear favorite pen for the quarter? Ryo thought quickly "Is it worth it? My favorite pen for a quarter, I'll still only be half way even with the damn thing" Ryo became nervous, a bead of sweat rolling down his face as he contemplates the deal.
"….Ok" Ryo frowned in sadness, his poor pen sold at the lowest bitter. "Cool" the janitor exclaimed as he snatched the pen from Ryo's shirt pocket gently placing the quarter in its place.
"Nice doing business with you" the janitor said as he turned away examining his new pen, he quickly proceeded down the halls disappearing into a near by stairwell before Ryo had any time to protest.
Ryo reached in his pocket pulling up the quarter, he frowned in sadness as he looked at the individual quarter, feeling deep buyers remorse for losing his favorite pen.
"Its ok" he said to himself "Now I'm halfway there, if I can just find one more quarter, but how?"
Ryo began to slowly walk back down the hall to the lounge again, deep in thought. His eyes traced the ground of the hall looking to see if maybe, just maybe some one had dropped a quarter on the ground. Anything would do, a nickel, dime, he was so desperate to find money and retrieve his glorious chips from the jaws of the horrible vending machine.
Ryo stopped at the doorframe of the lounge looking in; there he saw his chip bag, still dangling from the metal coil. Holding his one quarter Ryo began to stare at it, contemplating… "How am I gonna do this?"
Suddenly Ryo remember something, his eyes grew big and lit up in excitement. "Maybe its still there!" Ryo had remembered that just last week he had seen a dime on the floor in the fire exit stairwell. Quickly Ryo turned around beginning to run towards the stairs, however somehow, in a feat that could only be described as an amazing display of poor balance, tripped over his own feet and came crumbling to the ground.
As Ryo hit the ground the pain was not what he noticed, but instead he felt his grip loosen and the precious quarter slip from his fingers. Like a marble bouncing on the ground the quarter gently began its journey skipping and rolling across the floor. Ryo could see his chance at salvation slipping away, he jumped up quickly darting after the quarter, however as all inanimate objects do its cunning bouncing skill eluded him.
Then the worst possible scenario that could happen happened. Ryo saw the quarter speedily approaching the air vent low to the ground, he panicked. Running as fast as he could and swinging his arm after the cunningly fast quarter Ryo dove at the last second hoping to catch it just before it plummeted to the depths of the air vent. However all his work was in vain, as the quarter bounced a final time propelling itself in to the air vent, never to be seen again.
As Ryo lay on the ground staring into the vent, sadness began to overwhelm him. Like when a child loses a balloon in the wind or drops an ice cream cone, Ryo felt as though he could cry. He had gone to so much work and all he wanted was a simple bag of chips.
Being the little girl that Ryo is, a tear began to run down his face as he rose up from the ground wiping it away. He stepped slowly back to the lounge room entering it as he approached the machine.
"I hate you" Ryo said aloud. "You Stupid machine!" Ryo began swing at the machine punching the glass head on "Gimme my god damn chips!!" he screamed
Ryo backed up afraid of breaking the glass, yet at this point he wished he could just steal his damn chips from the bowels of this vicious machine.
In an agitated rage Ryo began to think again "There's no way to get this bag out dammit, I'm right back where I started"
Silence filled the room as Ryo contemplated in rage….
Suddenly Ryo was hit with a not so bright idea, looking at the machine he began to tilt his head to one side thinking about what would happen if he lifted one side of the machine up then dropped it back down abruptly. Being the logical yet not so bright guy Ryo is, he thought this sounded like an ingenious idea.
Quickly stepping towards the machine again Ryo bents his knees and crouched down to one side, slipping his hands down on ether side he slowly began to lift the machine about two or three inches from the ground. This whole time Ryo remained completely oblivious to the warning label on the side of the machine depicting an image of a small stick figure man in the same position as he, getting crushed to death.
"Having trouble Ryo?" suddenly Ryo's eyes shot around to find Berkeley Rose leaning against the doorframe of the room, gently smiling at Ryo and scanning him over in his awkward position.
Startled Ryo lost his grip on the heavy machine accidentally letting it go, as it came down Ryo realized his foot was in a bad spot and the tip of his shoe was slightly crushed by the machine landing. Yelping pathetically in brief pain he ripped his foot out from under the leg of the machine and stumbled backwards falling.
Rose gave a girlish giggle at Ryo's painful landing before stumbling over to help him up, reaching a hand down and scooping him up somewhat quickly by the arm. "You should be more careful mister MacLean, being crushed by a vending machine would not be the most joyful of deaths" he said.
Blushing slightly from being found lifting up a vending machine Ryo replied with a quick and nervous, "Ummm no sir, I guess not"
"Well I guess a death involving a vending machine would at least be entertaining now wouldn't it?" Rose began to laugh uncontrollably, as if he were intoxicated. Ryo began to wonder if he and Dee where not the only ones steeling weed from the evidence locker.
Soon noticing the strange looks being given from Ryo, Rose placed his hand on Ryo's shoulder and boldly stated with a smile of pride "You'll have to forgive me Ryo, I've been heavily drinking all night" Ryo's eye's grew wide in shock "Holy shit" Ryo thought as it dawned on him the obvious behaviors of a drunk.
"The vending machine stuck?" Rose said quickly looking at the ever so annoying machine. "Some Doritos would really hit the spot right now" Rose stumbled ungracefully over to the machine peering in "A, 9 hmm?"
"Yes sir, I haven't eaten yet today and mine got stuck as you can see" Ryo approached and began looking in to the machine as well "Rose could help me" he thought to him self. "He's been trying to get in my pants for about a year now, the least he could do was give me fifty cents."
"Well I think we can fix this without you crushing yourself to death" Rose stated proudly, reaching in to his pocket to retrieve two shinny quarters. "Really? Oh thank you so much sir!" Ryo suddenly became overjoyed, Berkeley had become his temporary savior. "I'm going to get my chips after all!" he thought in excitement.
"Anything for you Ryo" Rose said with an evil grin appearing on his face as he turned to look at the younger blonde. "We can't have our officers working on an empty stomach, can we?" At that very moment Ryo's stomach made an angry growl for food, causing him to blush and Rose to giggle with laughter at the poor hungry man.
Rose slid the two quarters into the slot then pushed the correct buttons, slowly the coils began to turn, sending Ryo's bag of chips falling to the bottom. However the second bag that was supposed to follow only became stuck in the exact place Ryo's bag had been previously stuck. "How typical" Rose said watching rather annoyed.
Ryo quickly bent down pulling his precious bag of chips from the machine in excitement, "Yes!" he expressed slightly trying to keep his excitement at a minimal. Yet inside he was more than excited, the fact that he had finally got the bag of chips he so desperately longed for pleased him immensely.
"Thank you very much sir, I really appreciate it" Ryo said standing back up and turning to look at Rose, avoiding direct eye contact with the man.
Rose turned his body placing his shoulder against the machine glass, "No problem" he said smiling down at the fidgety man before him. "I'm sorry you have to be here so late"
"No, no its nothing" Ryo replayed quickly, his eyes bolting from his bag of chips to the door, then back to Rose. He needed to get out of here fast, any second now Rose would start making his moves. But he desperately wanted to eat his bag of chips and avoid being molested, so he needed to come up with a reason to leave the room. If he could get out of the room he could get back to the safety of his office, where he could indulge in his delicious chips. "Think Ryo, Think!" he thought in his head.
"You seem tense Ryo, however I do always seem to have that effect on you don't I?" Rose's eyes stayed locked on Ryo's jolting around the room. Ryo blushed slightly, looking down to the ground.
"I'm, ummm I'm sorry, I've just got to get back to work, it's been a long day sir" Ryo stuttered as he spoke. "Its alright Ryo, you should take a break maybe come have a drink with me, let the others handle it"
"And here we go" Ryo thought, he greatly wanted to eat his chips in peace and not have to deal with the typical yaoi story line playing out here. Wasn't it enough that he had to deal with a sufficient amount of that from Dee on a daily basis? His eyes shot back to his bag of chips in his hand, they where all he could think about. He then began to make his way around Rose who was still leaned up against the machine watching him. "Thank you sir but, I really should get back to work"
Rose abruptly reached out gently holding Ryo's arm, saying "Come now, I'm sure Dee and Drake can live without you for a moment" Still with Rose holding onto his arm Ryo turned back to face the man slightly annoyed at the drunk man's attempts to have even the briefest of moments with him.
"Sir I, thank you for your help but you know Dee and Drake, they can't do anything right on their own." Just as Ryo began to gently shake his way free from the man, Rose leaned in closer to him getting a better grip on his arm.
"Is there something about me that bothers you mister Maclean?" Ryo looked at him in shock, that wasn't quite the question he had expected. "No sir, I just…I'm sorry" Rose laughed still holding on to Ryo's arm, "Its all right Ryo, I was just curious, since you seem to be avoiding me"
Ryo suddenly became even more tense than before, "This is bad" he thought "Sir, I mean, Berkeley, I really must be going" Even in this dreadful situation all Ryo could really think about was that bag of chips still dangling in his hand, he was so hungry, and this bastard wouldn't stop hitting on him.
Ryo pulled his arm back with a little force, stopping momentarily to look at Rose's eyes sending him a slightly sad, pleading look in attempts to pity his way out of the room. However this look only caused Rose to become excited, making him do something that if he weren't drunk and in a yaoi, he definitely wouldn't do.
Abruptly he pulled Ryo to him, forcing a lustful kiss on him. Ryo tensed up, dropping his precious bag of chips on the floor and using his free hand to push at Rose's chest, trying to pry the man off of him.
Rose grabbed Ryo by both his arms twirling the man around forcefully pinning him up against the vending machine. This impact caused the second stuck bag of chips inside to fall from its coils and land in the tray below. Ryo screamed into the kiss, arching his back from being slammed against the machine.
Ryo frantically curled his fists and began to push and smack at Berkeley's chest physically demanding that the man release him. Berkeley reluctantly pulled back from the kiss in need of air, immediately Ryo screamed "What are you doing!?"
Rose still pushing his body against Ryo's, bent his head down to whisper in Ryo's ear, "Come now Ryo lets not ignore the obvious here, I know you want me too."
Ryo's face became a bright shade of red, before saying "I do not! You're the one that keeps…" Ryo was abruptly cut off once again by Rose firmly pushing a rabid kiss upon him. Forcing his tongue into his mouth as he held Ryo against the machine struggled beneath him.
Ryo began to scream into the painfully forced kiss once again, his eyes widening in panic and shock at the nature of situation. Rose ravished his mouth pushing and forcing himself onto Ryo, eventually pulling back from the kiss, Ryo screamed in anger "Stop damn it!"
Dee was walking into the office where he had originally left Ryo, telling him that he and Drake where going to smoke a cigarette on the roof. "Ryo?" he said in confusion not expecting the man to have vanished in the small time it took to smoke a cig, "Ryo?" he said once again.
"Well where the hell did he run off to?" he said aloud, walking back to the doorframe to peer down the hall in search of Ryo.
"Stop damn it!"…Dee heard it, it was a slight scream more like a yelp he thought, and it was coming from the direction of the lounge room. He only barely heard it though for the lounge room was quite a few corridors down, but he still heard it nonetheless and it sounded like Ryo.
"Ryo?" he called out with a slight concern in his voice beginning to walk quickly in the direction of the yelp. He didn't think there was any reason to worry, but he felt the need the check. "Ryo! Is that you?" he called out again, picking up his pace.
"Dee!!" Ryo screamed from the room calling out in desperation as if he was being attacked, Dee suddenly went from a fast passed walk to a full out sprint flying down the hallways to reach the lounge. He didn't now what to expect but he planned to tare a new one for whoever was hurting his Ryo.
However when Dee slid into view reaching the door to the lounge the first thing he noticed was the sound.
SMACK!!!!
Dee's eyes were met by a sight he would never forget, Rose flailing backwards toward the ground. His glasses and a small drop of blood flying into the air behind him as Ryo's arm retracted from a punch.
Silence filled the room after Rose hit the ground, Ryo and Dee's eyes meeting in confusion then glancing back down at Rose examining the scene.
"Yeah!!" Dee screamed in excitement as if he was celebrating, jumping up in the air with a hand raised, he strutted in stepping over Rose proudly. Rose stumbled quickly from the ground fearing Dee would continue the assault, jumping up grabbing his glasses and almost sprinting for the door.
"Yeah you better run you little bastard, or I'll be the one to do it next time" Dee said in the manliest voice he could as he reached Ryo. "You ok babe?" Dee said placing a hand on Ryo's face. "Yeah, I'm fine I think, he was a little drunk but I don't know what came over him. I didn't think he'd go that far" Ryo said with concern in his voice, still shaken from the whole ordeal.
Dee scoffed, "Doesn't surprise me, I know what came over him" he began to walk out of the room to check the hallway making sure Rose had left. Suddenly he saw Drake down the far end of the hallway, "what the hells going on down there?" Drake asked, "I heard all this fucking noise"
"Its nothing dude" Dee said trying to cover up the situation, "were just getting something to eat, will be there in a second"
"Well you sure made enough fucking racket" Drake said with a curious look on his face, slowly turning around and heading back to the office where they where working.
Dee turned around looking back in the lounge room, Ryo was reaching down picking up the bag of chips he had originally dropped when Rose grabbed him, also noticing that the second bag had fallen from the machine during the struggle, he reached in grabbing it as well.
Ryo slowly began to walk out of the room, almost as if he had forgotten about the whole ordeal now that he had his precious bags of chips in his possession once again.
"Are you sure you're ok?" laughing yet still concerned Dee continued to say, "That was totally awesome the way you decked him"
"Yeah, I'm fine, I just wanted my chips that's all" Ryo chuckled slightly opening one of his bags of chips. "Chips huh?" Dee laughed happily wrapping his arm around Ryo as they began to walk back down the hallway.
Ryo only smiled, laughing at the long story he wouldn't even begin to explain to Dee, however this thought was quickly lost along with all the memories of tonight as he began munching on his delicious chips that he had waited so long for. "Wanna chip?" he asked.
Authors notes: This story took me a fairly long time to write however I am happy with the way the characters and the plot have turned out. This is only my second fan fiction so the writing is still a bit typical but I hope you enjoyed it. This story was also beta read by my dear sister Azmidiske, so you have her to thank for the lack of miss spelled words.