KISS One-Shots

Bruce and Eric S

Stifling a yawn, I walked down the hall, just desperate to get back to my room so I could go to bed. "Hey Bruce! Hold on wait up!" Eric called, jogging to catch up with me. "Nice job at the show tonight, by the way, although I'm sure you don't need me to tell you that. You always do well," he said, giving me a grin. I smiled back, ruffling his hair. "Thanks man. Same to you, of course! You're a good drummer, one of the best the band has had." "Yeah. I do what I can. Big shoes to fill," he said quietly, and I nodded, feeling the same wave of sadness I always did any time I had to think about it. "Yeah. But you do a good job. You bring your own talent to the band. It sucks that someone had to replace him but I'm glad it was you." 

He nodded, pressing the button on the elevator and waiting. "Yeah. I do what I can," he said, half to himself, before the doors opened with a faint chime and we both walked into the elevator. It was totally silent between us and and definitely a little bit awkward. I was really regretting even bringing up Eric at all and was racking my brain, trying desperately to come up with a new topic to talk about. Turns out I didn't have to though, because there was a slight groan as the elevator screeched to a halt, the lights inside flickering for a second. 

Eyes wide, we stared at each other. "Are we at our floor?" I choked. "Um let's find out," he said, pressing the open door button. The doors slowly opened and we stared at the concrete and metal inside of the elevator shaft. We were most certainly not at our floor, because we were wedged between two floors. "Okay how about we close that," I said quietly, pressing the button to close the doors again before pressing the emergency call button a bunch of times. "So we're stuck," he said, and I nodded.

"Ohhh no we're stuck," he whispered, sitting down abruptly on the ground and holding his head in his hands. I sat next to him, putting an arm around his shoulders. "Don't worry about it. We called the emergency services, it'll be fine." Shaking his head, he drew his knees to his chest, chest heaving. "We're gonna die, we're gonna die in the elevator," he said. "Eric, we're not gonna die." "We're gonna fucking die!" "We're not going to die. Take a deep breath and calm down." 

"We're gonna die, we're gonna die. This is my worst nightmare, I hate tight spaces, I should've taken the stairs, I fucking hate elevators, I don't want to die! I'm not old enough for that yet! Oh my gosh it's Eric, he's cursed me for taking his place, Eric I'm sorry!" he wailed. Trying very hard not to laugh, I pulled him against my side, giving him a squeeze. "Eric, listen to me. One, we're not going to die. Two, Eric is not trying to curse you for taking his place. Even this is somehow related to him, he's just pranking us, he wouldn't be malicious. It's going to be fine, someone will come and rescue us soon. In the meantime, we can just sit here and talk!" I said, trying to be cheerful.

He gave me a small smile, closing his eyes and leaning against me. "Okay. Um...talk to me about something, I guess." "Hm, let me think. What do you want to talk about?" I asked. "Oh, I know! Lemme talk to you about this guy I met," Eric said, his beautiful baby blue eyes snapping open. "Alright, tell me about him," I said, feeling my heart sink. "Okay so this guy, right? He's honestly like the nicest person I think I've ever met. He's just really sweet, such a friendly guy. Any time I'm with him I just feel so like...so relaxed, you know? Like he really puts me at ease." 

"That's nice. I'm glad to hear that, glad you've got a person like that in your life," I said, feeling a wave of jealousy bubbling up inside of me. "How'd you uh...meet him, I guess?" I asked. "Through some mutual friends. Let me describe him a bit more though! He's also really good looking, in addition to being a really nice person," Eric said, face going pink. Even more jealous than I had been two seconds ago, I nodded. "Yeah, sure, tell me about him," I said, fighting to keep my voice level. 

Letting out a dreamy sigh, Eric rested his head on my shoulder, staring up at the ceiling. "So this guy, right? He's really tall, but I like tall guys, like ones that are taller than me." "Oh, so every guy?" I teased. "Hey! Shut up!" he snapped, giving me a shove. "Anyway, let me get back to what I was talking about before you so rudely interrupted me. He's also got curly hair, and I'm a sucker for guys with curly hair. I really like his hair too, he's got these kind of bang things, where it falls into his eyes and it's just so adorable. He's got really nice eyes, they're brown and soft and warm and just really pretty. He's got a nice jawline too, with like a dimple in the middle of his chin," Eric said with a smile.

Too jealous to really be able to hear what he was saying, I just nodded, mouth pressed into a thin line. "Yeah. Sounds like a great guy. You should tell him you love him," I said. "Oh, good idea! Hey Bruce I love you," he said. Blinking, I stared at him in shock. "What?" "I love you! You...you do too, right? Like that's why you said I should tell the guy I love him, right?" he asked, panic filling his eyes. "But I thought...you were just talking about a guy..." I trailed off, looking at him in bewilderment. 

"That guy was you! You dumbass, I was literally describing you! How did you not get that?!" he cried. Face burning, I ran a hand through my hair. "Well I was jealous that you were in love with someone else so I wasn't really...listening I guess," I said sheepishly. He laughed, leaning against me. "You idiot. So um...yeah, I told the guy I loved him. What does the guy say back?" he asked quietly. "The guy very much loves you back," I murmured, lifting his face toward mine and kissing him. 

He wrapped his arms around my shoulders, kissing me back, and we went at it for awhile before finally breaking apart. "So maybe getting stuck in an elevator wasn't a complete disaster," he said with a smile. "Hey, worse things could've happened," I said, slipping an arm around his waist and giving him a squeeze, pulling him against my side. Right on cue, the lights flickered again and the elevator started moving up. "I don't care what you say, that's 100% Eric playing wingman from beyond the grave," Eric said with a smile, kissing me on the cheek. 

Shrugging, I returned his smile. "Well if that's what it is, I'm glad he did," I said, heart melting as we kissed again.