Work Text:
Drayton sat on the floor of the elevator, lightly knocking his head back as he listened to Soka mutter to himself. He was pushing buttons at random, fingers pressing harder and more frantically as nothing responded to his touch.
“Baby,” Drayton tried, but was ignored in favor of Soka letting out a loud growl and curse he punched the control box.
“That isn’t gonna help.”
“I don’t see you doing anything about it,” Soka snapped, one thumb twitching against his thigh rapidly.
Drayton sighed. He got so difficult to work with when he was upset. He knew he didn’t mean anything by it, he was just freaked the fuck out, but he still felt a twinge of annoyance in his temple at his boyfriend’s tone.
“I’m waiting,” he responded, keeping a level voice.
“Oh, for what? God to come down here and pry open the doors Itself?” Soka scoffed.
Drayton’s eye twitched.
“We were supposed to be there twenty minutes ago. Someone will notice.”
“Because you’ve never been late before,” Soka muttered under his breath.
“What,” Drayton said, voice taking a sharper turn.
Soka glared at him, fingers digging against the door, “We are stuck. In an elevator. We have no service, we haven’t been heard, and it’s twenty minutes past curfew. Nobody is fucking looking here.”
“Freaking out isn’t gonna make it better. This is the main elevator for the entire damn school, someone will notice in the morning.”
That was not the right thing to say, apparently.
“Morning?!” Soka exploded, “I’ve seen that so-called Director’s sense of fucking- SENSE! It wouldn’t even cross his mind that someone could be stuck and then he’ll take forever getting maintenance over here and I know how long those people take and before you know it WE’RE GONNA BE FUCKING DEAD!”
Soka was breathing heavily now, body shaking, “And you don’t give a damn because you can’t be bothered to give a shit about anything. Fuck. This’ll be a real fucking ‘gotcha!’ to your family huh? Their darling favorite son, dead because he just doesn’t care! About them, or himself or anything. Least of all fucking me, well I’m not gonna fucking die in a fucking elevator and least of all with YOU.”
Drayton bit the inside of his cheek hard enough to taste blood, balling his fists in his cape.
“Take that back.”
“Why? What’s wrong with it? Pretty accurate assessment from where I’m standing!”
Drayton pushed himself to his feet, glaring up at Soka, “You’re being an asshole. Stop it.”
“Oh, I’m hurting your feelings, am I?” he scoffed again, looking away, “Bullshit.”
“Well I’m not the one whos such a fucking control freak! Everything has to be your way and everyone has to conform to you! Shit happens! Learn to deal with it instead of flipping your lid every time something even slightly abnormal happens!
“You freak out at the smallest of things, then get mad when someone tells you you’re blowing it out of proportion. You’re an asshole all the damn time because in your fucked up little mind everyone is against you and you push me- everyone away because you think we’re all gonna leave you and you want to make a villain out of me to service your fucked up delusions! Fuck you. You don’t know anything. Of course I fucking care, I’m just not gonna freak out over it because it doesn’t. Do. Any. Good.”
Drayton’s voice dropped to scarily level, low tone, “If you’re so damn convinced you’re gonna die here, then do it. Shut up and die and leave me alone.”
He was hugging himself as he yelled, fingers digging into his skin and leaving angry, red welts. Soka’s arms were braced against the walls of the elevator, creating a wall of himself between them as they glared. Suddenly, he smashed his prosthetic arm against the control panel, jerking his head away.
The elevator lurched, not happy with the treatment of it, and fell a few floors sending Soka stumbling forward with wide eyes. Drayton fell back when he bumped into him, the both of them crashing into the wall behind them. Soka’s prosthetic came up the brace themselves against their fall, his other hand flying to the back of Drayton’s head.
They grunted as they hit the wall, Soka crowding him against it even long after the elevator had stopped again. Drayton could feel both of their hearts racing wildly, their mixed breath out of rhythm.
This close, Drayton could feel just how badly Soka was actually shaking.
Before he could do anything about it though, his body started to go slack.
‘Fuck,’ he thought, feeling his legs give out as he slipped to the ground. Before he could really fall though, Soka caught him under his arms, carefully lowering them both down. His head lolled back, arms limp at his side.
‘Fucking stupid disease,’ he thought, slurring nonsense as his brain tried to make his body function again.
It only lasted maybe a minute, like usual, but that entire minute he could feel and see Soka hunched over him, supporting his head with his limp body in his lap. He couldn’t see his face, messed up hair over his eyes, but he could feel that he was still trembling bad. His breathing was heavy and stuttered, like he was trying not to cry.
Drayton tried to swallow the forming lump in his throat and only ended up whining. When he finally regained control of his limbs, sensation coming back slowly, he weakly pat at Soka’s arm in an attempt to comfort. When he could sit up he pulled him into a hug, leaning back into the corner of the elevator.
They sat in that corner, Soka’s knees tucked under him with Drayton’s legs over his lap just holding each other for a long time as they both calmed down. Soka was hunched over weirdly to bury his face in Drayton’s chest, fists balled in the back of his jacket. Drayton had an arm slung around his shoulders, head in his neck and other hand clinging to Soka’s shirt.
When he felt like he could breathe again he whispered, “I’m sorry.”
“Me too,” Soka rasped, voice rough and ragged.
“I didn’t mean it. Or, well, I did but I wanted to be nicer about it. And I don’t want you to die,” Drayton continued, feeling like he needed to speak.
Soka swallowed thickly, nodding slightly.
“You were right. I didn’t mean it, neither. I w’s just… scared. I am scared.”
Drayton moved his hand to Soka’s hair, pulling him closer.
“I know. I am too, but we gotta trust that people care about us too much to let us go missing too long.”
Soka nodded again, shifting his body around a little to lean into him more.
Drayton sighed, looking around.
“It’s stupid nothings working, though. At least the fire button should be.”
Soka gasped, wrenching himself out of Drayton’s hold. Drayton blinked at him, bewildered.
“Smoke detectors!”
“Um. Uh-huh?”
“There’s smoke detectors in hallways outside elevators and this elevator is too long not to have as many recall points as possible. Hopefully. There might be smoke detectors in the shaft.”
Soka stood up, looking at the ceiling, then to Drayton.
“Here, come here. I can’t quite reach.”
Drayton took Soka’s hand, allowing him to pull him up. Without warning, he gasped as he felt Soka lift him. The space wasn’t high enough for him to put Drayton on his shoulder but he held him on his forearm and told him to push the tiles up and move them out of the way. Once he did he hoisted him to his shoulder so Drayton could see if he could spot a smoke detector.
“I dunno… nothing really looks like one. What are we gonna do with one anyway? We have no way to start a fire, and I don’t think that’d be a good idea anyway.”
Soka was quiet for a second, then said, “Don’t say anything.”
“What?”
“Just don’t. This is really not the time.”
Drayton looked down in time to see Soka balance him on his shoulder and reach into his pocket for a lighter and pack of cigarettes. Drayton’s jaw ticked, but he chose to listen and not say anything about. Yet.
Soka took one from the mostly empty box and put it between his lips. He pocketed the box again, avoiding eye contact even as Drayton was staring. He lit it and took a deep drag. He exhaled in a sigh out his nose, a little bit of tension melting out of him.
He took another drag and then handed it to Drayton, who scrunched his nose and held it gingerly between his pointer and thumb.
“Hold it up, we might get lucky. If it detects smoke it’ll recall so long as it’s not knocked out of place. Even if it is it should at least set off the fire alarms,” smoke billowed out of his mouth and nose as he spoke, floating up Drayton who grimaced at the smell.
Drayton nodded, reaching up to hold the lit cigarette in the air, outside the elevator. Just when his arm started getting tired, beeping started up in the shaft, the fire lights going off inside the elevator. It clicked down a few ticks, Soka quickly lowering Drayton back down, then started to roll back up.
Soka plucked the cigarette from Drayton’s hand as they grinned at each other. He took one last pull from it before putting it out on his prosthetic, holding Drayton by the waist.
Drayton watched, smile tight. Whatever. It didn’t matter right now. He pulled Soka into a tight hug right before the elevator reached the top, doors sliding open with a screech. They stumbled out, doors attempting to close behind them but stopping halfway.
“Fuck,” Soka breathed, “Thank God that’s over. I’m never getting in an elevator again. I’m petitioning the Director to add stairs.”
Drayton laughed, squeezing the base Soka’s neck.
“Alright, I can humor that. But we’re talking about that after, though.”
“We don’t have to,” Soka sighed, head dropping to his shoulder.
Drayton pat the back of his head, chuckling, “No, we definitely are.”