Elevator Games

"Dammit Rian! It was a STUPID FUCKING BET! HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU!?!?”

“YOU DON’T HAVE TO TELL ME ANYTHING, ALEX!”

“THEN WHY ARE YOU STILL YELLING!?!”

“DO YOU EXPECT ME TO ACT LIKE THIS WASN’T A BIG DEAL?”

Rian and Alex were at it again. Although their relationship normally appeared to be in tact, today was an off day. Everyone was scared when they fought. The two constantly carried the motto “Love hard, fight hard”. Their love must’ve been something worse than the vilest combination of dirty and spiteful for them to come up with such remarks to say to one another. No person ever dare repeat what Alex and Rian yell at each other to their own significant other. Any sensible couple would be split up in a heartbeat. Not these two.

“I already told you,” Alex gritted his teeth. “It was a bet. A simple-minded, no harm, no foul bet. It’s over.”

“It’s not fucking over, Alex. You make it seem like this is some game.” Rian argued, dropping his voice and hissing his words just like the man across from him had done.

“It is a game! It is a game when I’m with Jack! That’s exactly what I’m trying to say! Jack could never match how much you mean to me!”

Jack. The name that drove Rian insane. Rian slowly closed his eyes and created a fist. Bright blue veins snaked their was across the top of his hand while a tiny one began to pop out near his temple. That only happened when he was stressed, and boy, was Rian past the part of fucking stressed.

Rian remained silent as Alex murmured something about going out. He attempted to block it out of his mind until he heard Alex yelling again.

“DO YOU EVEN FUCKING CARE ABOUT ME?”

Rian quickly got off of the bed and into the hotel room’s kitchen, where he found Alex in a leather jacket, putting his wallet in his back pocket.

“Well, I asked you a question.”

“I could ask the same god-damn thing to be honest, Alexander.” Rian sneered. Did Alex not really see what damage had been done here?

“Oh God. Are you fucking serious? Full name-calling? Are we FUCKING KINDERGARTENERS RIAN? You’re acting like such a pussy. You blow every damn thing out of proportion. You’re not a boyfriend. You act like you’re my father. I can’t believe for a second that I was ever in love with you.”

As soon as the words left Alex’s serpent tongue, he instantly regretted them. The boy refused to let his face falter until he slipped out of the door. Once he heard the satisfying ‘click’ that signaled there was some sort of barricade between him and his lover, he began to sprint towards the main corridor with tears brimming the edges of his eyes. He slammed his back up against the closest wall. At first he was silent, nothing but the sound of his shirt sliding against the paint of the hotel, settling him on the floor. Yet soon enough his body rambled out a shriek, making himself aware that he had screwed up once again. He needed to clear things; his head, his heart, his friendships- and he wanted to do it now. After a simple five minutes of wallowing, he set foot onto the elevator and pushed for floor twenty-one, where he’d tell Jack once and for all that this –them- their stupid kisses and drunken butterflies needed to stop. It was tearing Alex and Rian apart.

On the other side of the door most recently slammed, Rian stood, unsure of whether to scream or cry first. Or maybe vomit. Alex’s words had hurt worse than anything Rian had felt in his entire life. Before he could make up his mind, a loud crack of thunder struck, rumbling the entirety of the hotel (or at least the room).

“Please don’t”, Rian kept convincing himself. “Leave it alone…”.

With two more claps of thunder and lightning brightening the sky for miles, he realized what he had to do. Although Rian felt as though he had been shot, he knew for a fact that Alex was probably hiding somewhere, to anxious to move due to the storm. Rian quickly raced out to go look for his missing half, jamming the button for the elevator so far in that it was practically stuck. Did he even go up? Rian started thinking. Maybe he went outside. Oh God…

Rian began to get antsy – how long does it take a damn elevator to get here – but the tapping of hands soon stopped when the doors opened. He immediately turned around, beginning to march straight back to the room. I checked on him. He’s fine. I did what I said.

But Alex was persistent. He grabbed Rian’s shoulders and dragged him back to the hallway. Rian let Alex guide him onto the elevator. Rian had been staring, his gaze locked on Alex, but soon broke the glare to watch the doors close. His eyes wandered over to map of buttons, all gridded out in descending numerical order. Only one floor was lit. Twenty-one.

“Twenty-one,” Rian softly breathed. “Were you going to go have another make-out session, or…”

Alex shut his eyes. He was back on the floor again.

“I was going to try to make things right.” Alex grunted.

The two remained silent until a rough shake was exposed to the elevator. They quickly glanced at each other while two more shakes followed. Within a matter of seconds, the lights began to flicker as the machine shut off. Soon it was just Alex and Rian again, enclosed in total darkness. Only this time, things went from silent to serious fast.

“Rian…” Alex whispered, afraid to move from the corner he had glued himself into. Rian began to feel around in the dark until his hands had rested on Alex’s head. He soon crouched down next to the boy, hushing him quickly and letting Alex fall into his arms.
“Shh, shh, it’s okay. It’s fine baby. It’s just a little power outage.” Rian soothingly announced. It had happened twice today but both accounts had ended up being fixed in under an hour.

“Small…space…” Alex’s words were getting more and more unclear.
“Breathe. It’s okay, I promise. Nothing’s going to hurt us.”

But Rian wasn’t sure if he could keep that promise. After thirty minutes of being stuck with an anxious Alex, things were looking towards the downside. They had called for help, but the team seemed unable to locate a problem with the cables, leaving Rian to continuously coddle Alex until he wouldn’t shake any longer.

An hour had soon passed, and hardly any words had been spoken until Alex had opened his mouth… onto Rian’s lips.

The two kissed passionately, like they hadn’t seen each other for so long they forgot what it was like to be loved. Slowly Alex pulled away, then jumbled out everything he possibly could.

“Rian, I’ve been a douche. A prick. I don’t even know what I was thinking. You are my everything. Mine. I want you so bad, I can’t even describe it. And I hate that I’ve hurt you. You need to leave; leave me. You don’t deserve the kind of treatment I give you. I fucking love you. I’m so sorry. So, so sorry baby… please… please forgive me.”

With that, the lights had blinked back on. The elevators motor was running. Everything was back to normal. Certainly Alex’s apologetic words didn’t fix all of this…

But whatever did fix the machine was pointless. Rian and Alex kissed again, Rian’s tongue explaining that he accepted Alex’s apology. As the doors opened to floor twenty-one, the ding had interrupted the two’s session of forgiveness.

They quickly glanced at each other. Rian got up, pressed floor one, then sat back down and started giving his apologies to Alex; with less words and more of his lips, of course.

This time, they both hoped the elevator would stop again.

Notes

My very first one shot. Please give feedback, I'm trying to improve as a writer c: I hope you've enjoyed this and tat you have a great day.