hey!! first of all as I've said before I love your work so much!! you've inspired me to write for danhausen (especially due to the drought of danhausen fics) and just to get back writing in general :) I thought of a request for one where reader and danhausen get stuck in a lift/elevator together for a long time - maybe some claustrophobia with comfort and a love confession at the end would be sooo cute !! feel free to play around with the idea i'll be happy to read anything you come up with!! pls also remember that you don't owe us anything haha it's important to take rests and not stress yourself out about writing! take care and thank you :) ❤
EEEK i love forced proximity - i went a lil off course but ah well
im so happy to hear ive inspired you!!! 💕💕💕
゛LOVE IN AN ELEVATOR ⸝⸝.ᐟ⋆ danhausen x reader
: ̗̀➛ requested! for @xtremerulez
“ Hello, mysterious elevator workers. We are trapped in your horrible metal prison. ”
⤿ After a terrible night at the arena, you get trapped in a broken elevator with Danhausen and a pile of stolen merch, leading to unexpected comfort, vulnerability, and a soft growing connection between you both.
tags | FLUFF | forced proximity | mild swearing | kiss |
The arena still pulsed with life around you, loud and restless and impossible to escape from no matter how badly you wanted to. Music rattled faintly through the floors beneath your boots from somewhere deeper in the building while distant cheers rolled through the hallways in uneven bursts, muffled now by thick concrete walls and winding backstage corridors. Crew members hurried past every few minutes carrying production cases or headsets, shouting instructions to one another without slowing down, and every single sound scraped against your already frayed nerves.
Not the satisfying kind of exhausted that came after a good match or a productive night. This was the hollow sort. The kind that settled behind your eyes and made everything feel heavier than it should have. Your limbs ached beneath your gear, your makeup felt stiff and irritating on your skin, and your head had been pounding for the better part of an hour.
Everything today had gone wrong.
Your match had fallen apart halfway through when timing got thrown off during a sequence you had rehearsed repeatedly earlier in the afternoon. The crowd hadn’t completely turned on you, but they certainly hadn’t cared either, and somehow that felt worse. You could still hear the strained politeness in the producer’s voice afterward when he told you not to worry about it because “these things happen.” Translation: do better next time.
Then someone backstage had knocked an entire coffee across your spare hoodie.
Then your bag zipper split open.
Then catering ran out of food before you even got there.
Completely dead. Black screen. No amount of pressing the power button brought it back.
At that point, you decided you were done with today.
You didn’t want to sit around backstage pretending to laugh at conversations you weren’t listening to while everyone picked apart the show. You didn’t want to smile politely at coworkers asking if you were okay. You just wanted your car, your bed, and silence.
So you headed for the elevators near the communal area that led down to the basement parking level where most of the wrestlers parked for privacy.
The corridor outside the elevators was mostly empty now, save for the occasional stagehand hurrying past. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting everything in that cold artificial glow that made exhaustion somehow feel even worse. You shifted your heavy gear bag higher onto your shoulder while staring impatiently at the glowing elevator numbers above the doors, slowly climbing upward toward your floor.
You bounced your knee impatiently while waiting, jaw tight.
The elevator finally gave a soft ding.
You stepped inside immediately, pressing the button for the basement level before leaning back against the cool metal wall with a tired exhale. The elevator doors began to close.
“WAIT. HOLD THE DOOR. VERY RUDE.”
A pale hand suddenly wedged itself between the narrowing doors and instinctively you slapped your hand against the open button before the doors could crush him. The doors jerked back open just in time for Danhausen to sprint inside.
He looked like complete disorganised chaos.
His hair was damp with sweat, sticking messily to his forehead beneath the hood pulled over his head, strands frizzed from rushing through backstage corridors too quickly. The black-and-red face paint across his face had smudged slightly around the edges during the night, the black beneath his eyes stretched faintly where he had probably wiped sweat away earlier without thinking. He was breathing hard enough that his chest visibly rose beneath his oversized black hoodie, and both arms were overloaded with a ridiculous pile of merch that looked seconds away from collapsing entirely.
Several folded Miz shirts threatened to slide from beneath his elbow. A bright pink Kit Wilson shirt hung halfway toward the floor. Some sequined accessory was tangled somewhere in the middle of it all.
Danhausen caught his breath dramatically while the elevator doors shut behind him.
For a few moments, neither of you spoke.
The elevator began descending toward the basement with a soft mechanical hum.
Danhausen finally glanced sideways toward you, still slightly out of breath. “Danhausen would like to clarify immediately that these items were not stolen.”
You stared blankly ahead at the elevator doors.
“They are being borrowed.”
You gave a tired nod. “Right.”
Usually that kind of response would encourage him into another joke, another weird rambling explanation involving curses or backstage conspiracies or how The Miz somehow deserved to be robbed. But tonight, when his eyes lingered properly on your face, some of his usual energy dimmed slightly.
Not physically exhausted. Drained like something had spent the entire day slowly wearing you down piece by piece.
Danhausen shifted awkwardly beside you, suddenly quieter.
Then the elevator violently jerked beneath your feet.
The sudden movement nearly threw both of you sideways.
The overhead lights flickered sharply once.
The elevator groaned loudly around you before slamming to a complete stop.
Then the lights died instantly and darkness swallowed the elevator whole.
Your stomach dropped with it.
A second later, dim emergency lighting buzzed on overhead, flooding the tiny enclosed space with a dull red glow that painted both of you in strange shadows.
You blinked hard. “What the hell?”
The elevator remained perfectly still.
Somewhere above you, metal creaked ominously.
Danhausen slowly looked upward. “Ah.”
You immediately stepped toward the control panel, repeatedly pressing the emergency intercom button harder with every second. “Hello?” you snapped into the speaker. “Can anybody hear me?”
Only static hissed faintly back at you.
You pressed it again. “Seriously?”
Behind you, Danhausen awkwardly adjusted the pile of merch in his arms before finally letting it collapse onto the floor beside him in a heap of shirts and sequins. He glanced around the elevator as if searching for something useful to do, though there was obviously nothing either of you could actually fix.
You laughed bitterly beneath your breath, rubbing a hand over your face. “Great. This is exactly what I need right now.”
Danhausen immediately approached the intercom beside you with sudden determination. “Move aside. Danhausen will handle this.”
You did, mostly because you were too tired to argue.
He pressed the button dramatically. “Hello, mysterious elevator workers. We are trapped in your horrible metal prison.”
“We also have several The Miz shirts for sale.”
Danhausen frowned at the speaker before pressing the button again harder. “Do not ignore Danhausen. This is rude customer service.”
You leaned your head briefly against the wall beside the panel. “Perfect.”
“Hm,” Danhausen muttered thoughtfully. “Perhaps they are dead.”
“Oh, that’s very comforting.”
Another metallic groan echoed through the elevator walls.
Danhausen suddenly brightened slightly. “Maybe if we jump, the elevator will continue it's downward journey faster.”
You stared at him in disbelief. “Yeah, and it’ll also make our journey to the afterlife a lot faster too.”
You thought the conversation had ended there.
Then he tested it anyway with a small experimental hop.
The elevator rocked beneath your feet with a horrible creaking sound.
“Oh my God!” you snapped instantly, grabbing onto the nearest handrail. “Stop!”
“Danhausen barely jumped.”
“YOU DON'T JUST JUMP IN A BROKEN ELEVATOR.”
He slowly raised both hands in surrender.
The silence afterward felt heavier somehow.
The dim red emergency lights buzzed overhead while the elevator sat unmoving around you, every occasional creak from the cables above making your stomach tighten further. The enclosed space suddenly felt too small. Too warm. You rubbed tiredly at your face before instinctively reaching for your phone.
The black screen stared back at you uselessly.
You exhaled shakily. “Can you call someone on your phone?”
Danhausen patted his hoodie pocket absently before shrugging. “Danhausen does not carry one.”
You stared at him. “You don’t have a phone?”
“That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
You laughed weakly despite yourself before sliding downward against the wall until you were crouched in the corner of the elevator, hands briefly pressed against your temples.
Across from you, Danhausen went quiet.
He studied you for a moment beneath the dim emergency lighting, concern slowly softening the exaggerated sharpness of his painted features. Up close, the red lighting deepened the black around his eyes, making the exhaustion beneath them more noticeable. Smudges of worn face paint lingered faintly along his jawline where sweat had rubbed parts of it away earlier in the night.
For a second, he glanced at his reflection in the mirrored wall beside him.
Instinctively, he fixed a streak beneath one eye with his thumb.
Then he crouched carefully in front of you.
His voice, when he finally spoke, had lost most of its theatrical edge. “What is wrong with you?” he asked gently. “Besides the obvious trapped-in-a-broken-elevator situation.”
You laughed bitterly, though there wasn’t much humour in it. “I’ve had the worst day imaginable,” you admitted quietly. “Everything’s gone wrong from the second I got here. The match sucked. I sucked. My phone died. Someone spilled coffee on my spare hoodie. And now this happens too.” You gestured weakly around the elevator. “Who even knows how long we’re gonna be stuck in here?”
Danhausen listened carefully.
No interruptions. No sarcastic comments halfway through your sentence.
Then after a moment, he said quietly, “At least you are not trapped in here with The Miz.”
“He smells like expensive cologne,” Danhausen continued gravely, “but not good expensive cologne. The kind that attacks your senses aggressively.”
A reluctant laugh escaped your chest before you could stop it.
“There,” he said immediately, pointing at you with satisfaction. “Tiny laugh.”
“No, no. Danhausen is improving morale.”
“You can’t improve morale.”
“Incorrect. Danhausen once improved morale backstage using twenty human dollars and a rotisserie chicken.”
Another laugh escaped you, softer this time.
And somehow, sitting trapped inside a broken elevator beneath an arena with a bizarre pale man covered in smeared face paint and surrounded by stolen Miz merchandise, the crushing weight of your horrible day loosened ever so slightly from your chest.
The laughter lingered between you for a few seconds, softer now, quieter than the noise that usually surrounded either of you backstage. It surprised you a little how quickly the tension in the elevator had shifted. Not disappeared entirely, because the reality remained that you were still trapped inside a broken metal box somewhere between arena levels with no phone signal, no way of contacting anybody, and every chance that the building staff hadn’t even realised the elevator had stopped yet. But the sharpness of your frustration had dulled slightly around the edges.
Danhausen seemed to notice it too.
He settled himself down onto the floor opposite you with a tired groan, long legs stretched awkwardly in front of him amongst the pile of stolen merchandise. Up close, the exhaustion on him was much more obvious than it usually was backstage beneath all the noise and theatrics. The black paint around his eyes had faded unevenly from sweat throughout the night, smudged faintly beneath his lower lashes, while streaks of red still clung sharply across the bridge of his nose and cheekbones beneath the dim emergency lighting. His blond hair looked softer like this too, damp strands curling slightly where sweat had ruined whatever shape it had started the evening in.
He absentmindedly picked up one of the Miz shirts from beside him, inspecting it critically.
Danhausen held the shirt up slightly. “This shirt costs forty human dollars.”
“Forty human dollars for one shirt,” he continued, deeply offended now. “It does not even glow in the dark. No special effects. No curse protection. Nothing.”
Danhausen pointed accusingly toward you. “Very judgmental for someone trapped in a death elevator.”
A reluctant smile tugged briefly at your mouth before fading again.
The elevator hummed quietly around you. Somewhere beyond the walls, metal groaned softly.
You leaned your head back against the cool steel behind you, exhaling slowly. “Honestly,” you muttered, “this feels about right for my day.”
Danhausen tilted his head slightly. “Danhausen believes the coffee incident was the true villain.”
“Very tragic scene,” he continued solemnly. “One moment, perfectly normal hoodie. The next, drowned in suspiciously watery backstage coffee.”
“It was one of my favorite hoodies.”
Danhausen gasped softly. “Even worse.”
You laughed despite yourself, rubbing your eyes tiredly. “I swear everybody was staring at me all day too. Like they could tell I was in a bad mood.”
“You have very expressive eyebrows.”
You dropped your hand from your face slowly. “What does that even mean?”
“When angry, they become dangerous.”
Danhausen nodded with complete sincerity. “Very threatening. Like tiny angry caterpillars.”
A laugh escaped you before you could stop it, fuller this time, and the smug satisfaction on his face only made it worse.
“There,” he said proudly. “Danhausen is victorious once again.”
“Yet incredibly charming.”
He leaned back slightly against the elevator wall, one arm draped loosely over the stolen pile of merch like a dragon guarding treasure. The red emergency lights overhead buzzed faintly, casting strange shadows across his face that softened some of the harsher lines of his makeup. Without the usual backstage chaos surrounding him, you could actually notice little things about him properly. The exhaustion beneath his eyes. The slight rasp in his voice from yelling during the show. The way he absentmindedly rubbed at his rings with his thumb when he got quieter.
For somebody constantly performing, constantly talking, constantly making himself larger than life, there was something strangely subdued about him now.
The elevator suddenly let out a horrible metallic groan.
Both of you froze instantly.
Then the entire elevator jolted violently downward.
The floor lurched beneath your feet hard enough to throw you sideways. Instinctively, your hand shot out toward the nearest handlebar, gripping it tightly enough your knuckles immediately ached.
Across from you, Danhausen reacted with equal panic, immediately throwing himself protectively over the pile of stolen merchandise like he was shielding civilians during a natural disaster.
The elevator creaked again.
Metal screamed somewhere above you.
Your pulse exploded into panic instantly. “We’re going to die,” you muttered breathlessly, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling. “We’re going to die, we’re going to die, we’re going to die.”
Danhausen clutched the merch protectively against his chest. “Danhausen refuses to perish surrounded by Miz branding.”
The elevator dropped another inch suddenly before slamming to a stop again with a horrible jolt.
Heavy breathing filled the cramped space.
You still gripped the handlebar tightly, chest rising too fast while your heart hammered painfully against your ribs.
Across from you, Danhausen slowly lifted his head from atop the pile of shirts.
For a second, neither of you spoke.
Then he scrambled upright immediately.
“No. No, absolutely not. Terrible elevator. Evil elevator.”
He practically lunged toward the intercom panel this time, repeatedly slamming the emergency button with growing panic.
“HELLO?” he yelled into the speaker. “WE ARE STILL TRAPPED. THIS IS VERY UNPROFESSIONAL.”
Static crackled faintly back at him.
Danhausen pressed the button harder like aggression alone might fix it. “THE ELEVATOR JUST DID SOMETHING VERY THREATENING.”
“We ARE GOING TO DIE IN HERE WITH STOLEN... I MEAN, BORROWED MERCHANDISE.”
You let out a shaky laugh despite the panic still squeezing your chest.
Danhausen continued anyway, fully spiralling now. “IF SOMEBODY CAN HEAR THIS, DANHAUSEN DEMANDS COMPENSATION. FINANCIAL COMPENSATION. OR CHIPS.”
He stared at the speaker in disbelief before pressing the button repeatedly again. “HELLO? TINY ELEVATOR VOICES? ANSWER DANHAUSEN IMMEDIATELY.”
Danhausen continued aggressively stabbing at the intercom button for another few seconds, each increasingly frantic press followed by another burst of static that only seemed to irritate him further. The dim red emergency lights overhead buzzed faintly while his voice echoed around the cramped elevator walls, bouncing back at both of you in distorted fragments.
“HELLO? THIS IS A VERY BAD CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE,” he snapped into the speaker. “DANHAUSEN WOULD LIKE TO FILE A COMPLAINT.”
He hit the button again. “WE COULD BE DECEASED SOON.”
You let out a long, exhausted sigh from where you sat gripping the handlebar, your pulse finally beginning to slow now that the elevator had stopped moving again. The adrenaline still lingered unpleasantly beneath your skin though, making your hands feel shaky and cold.
“Stop,” you said tiredly.
He pressed the button again. “VERY DEAD.”
He finally looked over his shoulder toward you, one pale hand still resting dramatically against the speaker panel.
You rubbed a hand slowly down your face. “Nobody’s coming right now.”
His expression shifted slightly.
Not quite disappointment. More like reluctant acceptance.
You leaned your head back against the elevator wall with another tired exhale. “We’re probably just going to have to wait until somebody notices we’re missing.”
The reality of that settled heavily into the silence afterward.
Somewhere above you, the building groaned softly around the elevator shaft. Distant vibrations from the arena still hummed faintly through the walls, reminding you that life upstairs was continuing completely normally while the two of you sat stranded underground in a broken elevator no one even realised had stopped working.
Danhausen slowly lowered his hand from the intercom.
“Well,” he muttered after a moment. “That seems poorly organised.”
You let out a weak laugh beneath your breath.
The floor beneath you was becoming increasingly uncomfortable now that the adrenaline had faded slightly. The metal was cold and unforgiving beneath your legs, and every awkward shift sent stiffness through your hips and lower back. Your muscles already ached from your match earlier, and sitting cramped against the corner of the elevator certainly wasn’t helping.
You adjusted slightly with a quiet grimace.
Danhausen noticed immediately.
Without saying anything, he crouched back down near the pile of stolen merchandise and rummaged through it briefly before throwing two folded shirts toward you.
They landed awkwardly in your lap.
“Sit on those,” he said matter-of-factly. “Miz merchandise finally becomes useful.”
You stared down at the shirts. “You’re giving me stolen goods as a cushion.”
You huffed another quiet laugh before reluctantly unfolding one beneath you. Annoyingly, he was right. The fabric softened the cold metal floor immediately.
“There,” Danhausen said with visible satisfaction before settling himself back down opposite you, one arm draped lazily over the remaining pile of merch beside him.
For a little while, neither of you spoke.
The elevator felt quieter now somehow. Not physically quieter. The hum of emergency lighting still buzzed overhead and the occasional groan of old metal still echoed faintly through the shaft around you. But the frantic edge had dulled slightly. Your breathing had steadied. The panic had settled into something more manageable.
You tilted your head back against the wall behind you, eyes drifting shut for a moment.
Across from you, Danhausen watched quietly.
“You know,” he said eventually, voice softer now, “Danhausen thought you were going to strangle someone earlier.”
Your eyes reopened slowly. “What?”
You groaned immediately. “Was I that obvious?”
“You looked like somebody had just insulted your entire bloodline.”
A reluctant smile tugged briefly at your mouth before fading again.
The memory of the match still sat heavily in your chest. You could still picture every awkward second of it too clearly. The missed timing. The weak crowd reaction. The producer trying to reassure you afterward in that careful voice people used when they absolutely were judging you but didn’t want to say it outright.
You stared down at your hands quietly. “I hate bad matches.”
Danhausen nodded once. “Yes.”
“I know everybody has them,” you continued quietly. “I know that logically. But it still feels horrible every single time.”
The red emergency lighting cast soft shadows across the elevator walls while you spoke, the dim glow catching against Danhausen’s rings as he rested his hands loosely over his knees. He listened without interrupting, his expression unusually calm now.
“I don’t know,” you muttered after a moment. “I think sometimes it just gets exhausting constantly feeling like you have to prove you deserve to be here.”
The words slipped out before you could really stop them.
You laughed weakly afterward, shaking your head once. “That sounded dramatic.”
“No,” Danhausen said quietly. “It sounded honest.”
Your throat tightened unexpectedly at that.
You looked away from him instinctively, eyes fixing on the dull reflection of emergency lighting against the elevator doors.
“I just feel stupid sometimes,” you admitted softly. “Everybody else seems so confident all the time. Then one thing goes wrong and suddenly it feels like I’m failing at everything.”
Danhausen was quiet for a few seconds.
Then he leaned his head back against the wall behind him with a tired sigh of his own.
“Confidence is mostly pretending,” he said eventually.
You glanced toward him again.
He shrugged one shoulder lightly. “People think Danhausen walks around feeling very powerful and important all the time.” His mouth twitched faintly beneath the smudged paint. “Very incorrect.”
There was something strange about hearing him speak this quietly.
Without the exaggerated voice.
The dim red emergency lights softened the sharpness of his face paint, made the exhaustion beneath his eyes more noticeable somehow. Up close like this, you could see the places where the black around his eyes had worn away slightly during the night, the faint shine of sweat still lingering against his skin from rushing through backstage earlier.
“I think people forget we’re still people underneath all of…” You gestured vaguely toward his face paint.
Danhausen snorted softly. “The nonsense?”
“They see the character first,” you said quietly. “Not you.”
For a moment, his expression shifted.
His gaze dropped briefly toward the floor between you before he rubbed absentmindedly at one of the rings on his fingers with his thumb.
“Yes,” he said finally. “That happens.”
The silence afterward felt different now.
The kind of silence that only settled when two people stopped trying so hard to keep conversation light.
Outside the elevator, the arena still lived and breathed somewhere above your heads, loud and bright and chaotic.
But down here, beneath all of it, sitting on stolen Miz merchandise beside a strange exhausted man covered in smeared face paint, the weight in your chest didn’t feel quite so unbearable anymore.
Time passed strangely inside the elevator.
Without phones, without windows, without any real way to measure how long you had been trapped there, everything started blurring together into the same dim red haze of humming emergency lights and creaking metal walls. Minutes stretched long enough to feel like hours. Conversations faded into silences and then somehow started up again naturally, neither of you really questioning it anymore.
At some point, you had stopped thinking so hard about the fact you were trapped.
Not because the situation had improved.
But because the presence beside you had.
Danhausen remained sitting across from you for a while longer after the conversation drifted quieter, one knee loosely bent while his arm rested lazily over the pile of remaining merch beside him. Every now and then he absently fiddled with one of the rings on his fingers or adjusted a sleeve that kept slipping down his wrist. Without the constant noise of backstage surrounding him, you noticed small habits like that much more easily now.
He was calmer than you expected in silence.
You had always associated him with movement. Noise. Energy. Constant jokes and commentary and bizarre little remarks muttered under his breath while walking through hallways backstage. Even when he sat still around people, it always felt temporary, like he was moments away from bouncing back into motion again.
But here, beneath the soft red emergency lighting, he seemed oddly comfortable just existing quietly with somebody.
It made the elevator feel smaller somehow.
You shifted slightly against the wall again, trying to stretch out the stiffness in your legs. The Miz shirt beneath you had helped, but only so much. Your muscles still ached unpleasantly from your match earlier, and now the cold from sitting on the elevator floor so long had started creeping through your gear too.
Danhausen noticed instantly.
“You are shivering,” he said.
“Very suspicious answer.”
You rolled your eyes faintly. “It’s freezing in here.”
He tugged absentmindedly at the sleeves of his oversized hoodie for a moment before speaking again. “Danhausen would offer you his hoodie, but then Danhausen becomes cold and dramatic.”
A small smile lingered briefly at the corner of his mouth before he shifted himself off the floor properly.
You frowned slightly. “What are you doing?”
Instead of answering immediately, he grabbed another couple of folded shirts from the pile beside him before moving closer toward where you sat against the wall. Not directly beside you. Not yet. But near enough that the elevator suddenly felt much more cramped than before.
“There,” he said, tossing the shirts onto the floor beside you. “Additional luxury seating.”
You snorted softly. “You’re really committed to stealing these shirts.”
Danhausen lowered himself onto the floor beside you this time rather than across from you, back resting against the wall only a few inches from your shoulder. The movement was casual enough that you weren’t entirely sure he realised how much closer it made the two of you.
The warmth radiating from him hit you almost immediately after sitting alone in the cold elevator air for so long. Faint traces of face paint, sweat, and something earthy from his hoodie lingered around him, not unpleasant, just lived-in. Familiar in a strange way.
You became suddenly, painfully aware of how close your knees were.
The elevator creaked softly overhead again.
Instinctively, both of you glanced upward.
Neither spoke for a second.
Then Danhausen muttered quietly, “If this elevator kills us, Danhausen hopes they mention the merchandise during the investigation.”
You laughed softly beneath your breath, the sound quieter now than before. More tired. More genuine.
Your shoulder brushed his lightly when you shifted again.
Neither of you moved away.
The silence that followed settled comfortably around you now instead of awkwardly. Somewhere far above your heads, the arena crowd erupted loudly again for something happening during the show, the muffled roar vibrating faintly through the shaft walls around you.
You stared ahead at the elevator doors quietly. “Weird hearing the crowd from down here.”
Danhausen hummed in agreement beside you. “Feels far away.”
“No,” he said softly. “Not physically.”
You looked toward him slightly.
His gaze remained fixed ahead, expression quieter than usual beneath the smudged paint. In the dim emergency lighting, the exhaustion on his face looked softer somehow. More vulnerable. You could see where parts of the black paint beneath his eyes had faded unevenly during the night, the redness around the edges of his makeup worn down from hours under arena lights.
“You ever feel like that?” he asked after a moment. “Like everybody else is upstairs somewhere and you are…” He gestured vaguely around the elevator. “Elsewhere.”
The question settled heavily in your chest because you knew exactly what he meant.
All day, you had felt disconnected from everything around you. Like everybody else backstage knew how to exist properly while you stumbled awkwardly through every interaction and mistake and conversation.
You nodded slowly. “Yeah.”
Danhausen rubbed absentmindedly at his thumb ring again. “Sometimes after shows,” he admitted quietly, “Danhausen gets back to hotel rooms and everything suddenly becomes very quiet.”
“It is strange,” he continued. “Thousands of people screaming all night. Cameras everywhere. Everybody wanting pieces of you.” His voice softened slightly. “Then suddenly nothing.”
The vulnerability in his tone surprised you more than the words themselves.
You glanced sideways toward him.
Up close like this, you could properly see the tiredness in his eyes. Not just physical exhaustion. Something deeper. The kind that built slowly over years of constantly being watched, expected to perform, expected to entertain no matter how drained you actually felt underneath it all.
“You hide it well,” you said quietly.
Danhausen let out a soft laugh beneath his breath. “That is because if Danhausen becomes visibly sad, people on the internet start asking very strange questions.”
“But,” he added after a moment, quieter this time, “sometimes it is easier to be a character than a person.”
The honesty in that made your chest ache unexpectedly.
You looked down at your hands resting loosely in your lap for a second before speaking again. “I think I get that.”
Beside you, Danhausen turned his head slightly toward you.
The movement brought him closer without meaning to.
Closer enough that you could see the faint smudge of red paint near the curve of his cheekbone. Close enough to notice the subtle scratchiness in his breathing after hours of wrestling and talking and running around backstage all night. Close enough that the warmth from his shoulder pressed steadily against yours now.
The silence between you no longer felt awkward.
That was the strangest part of all.
Normally, silence backstage lasted maybe a few seconds before somebody filled it with noise. Wrestling lived in constant movement, constant chatter, constant chaos. Somebody was always yelling down a hallway, laughing too loudly in catering, arguing over match times, music cues, travel plans. Even exhaustion usually came with noise attached to it.
But here, beneath the arena in the dim red glow of emergency lighting, silence had softened into something calmer.
Your shoulder rested lightly against Danhausen’s where the two of you sat side by side on the elevator floor, surrounded by crumpled stolen merchandise and cold metallic air. Every now and then the elevator groaned quietly around you, reminding you both that you were still trapped in a broken metal box somewhere between arena levels, but the earlier panic had long since faded into something quieter now. Manageable.
You weren’t even sure how long you’d been stuck down here anymore.
Long enough that your frustration had exhausted itself.
Long enough that your muscles had started aching from sitting on the floor.
Long enough that being beside him had stopped feeling unusual.
Danhausen stretched one leg out with a tired groan beneath his breath. “Danhausen believes his spine is deteriorating.”
You snorted softly. “Well, we are sat inside a metal box.”
“Yes, an unfortunate event. But aren't you at least a little glad you are not alone?”
A faint smile tugged at your mouth before fading again as another shiver crept unpleasantly through your body. The elevator had gotten colder over time. Sweat from your match earlier had long since cooled against your skin beneath your hoodie, leaving a chill that settled deep into your muscles no matter how much you shifted around trying to get comfortable.
You rubbed your hands together absentmindedly.
Beside you, Danhausen noticed immediately.
“You are still cold,” he murmured quietly.
You glanced sideways toward him just in time to see his expression tighten slightly in thought beneath the smudged paint. The red emergency lighting softened the usual sharpness of his makeup, the black around his eyes worn unevenly now from sweat and exhaustion. Damp blond strands curled messily near his forehead beneath his hood, and for once he looked less like the exaggerated larger-than-life persona everybody knew backstage and more like an exhausted man at the end of a very long night.
Without really saying anything else, he shifted slightly closer.
Then carefully, almost awkwardly, he lifted his arm and wrapped it loosely around your shoulders.
The movement caught you completely off guard.
Your breath hitched softly.
Danhausen immediately looked straight ahead afterward like he hadn’t just done something that made your entire chest tighten all at once. “Body heat,” he explained quickly, voice quieter now. “Very scientific.”
You couldn’t help the small smile that appeared.
“Scientific,” you repeated softly.
His arm settled more comfortably around you after a moment, the sleeve of his hoodie warm against your shoulder. Instinctively, your body relaxed slightly into the warmth before your brain even fully caught up to the fact you were doing it.
The difference was immediate.
You hadn’t realised how cold you actually were until now.
Danhausen’s warmth radiated steadily beside you, grounding and solid beneath the freezing elevator air. You could smell faint traces of face paint, worn fabric, and sweat lingering on him beneath the colder metallic scent surrounding the elevator itself.
Neither of you acknowledged how close this suddenly was.
Your knees brushed lightly together now from the cramped space, his arm resting securely around your shoulders while your side pressed fully against his. The steady rise and fall of his breathing became noticeable after a while too, slow and calm beside you.
Outside the elevator, another distant roar from the crowd vibrated faintly through the walls around you.
The show upstairs was still going.
Life was still happening.
But down here, time had slowed into something strangely soft.
“This,” Danhausen said eventually, voice quieter now, “is probably the longest Danhausen has willingly sat still in years.”
You laughed softly beneath your breath. “I was literally thinking earlier that I’ve never seen you quiet for this long.”
“Danhausen may be malfunctioning.”
The corner of his mouth twitched faintly upward.
You tilted your head slightly toward him, finally looking at him properly again.
Up close like this, the exhaustion on his face was impossible to miss. The emergency lighting cast soft shadows against the smudged edges of his makeup, and without the usual backstage lighting and noise surrounding him, he looked oddly vulnerable.
Damp hair curling slightly at the edges from sweat.
He caught you staring this time.
“What is it?” he asked softly.
You blinked once before looking away again. “Nothing.”
A small laugh escaped you.
Danhausen narrowed his eyes suspiciously before instinctively lifting his free hand toward his face. “Is the makeup horrible?”
“It’s smudged,” you admitted quietly. “But not horrible.”
He tried glancing toward the reflective elevator wall nearby, attempting to inspect himself through the dim lighting with very little success.
You shook your head faintly. “Hold still.”
Danhausen immediately froze.
Slowly, before you could overthink it, you shifted slightly beneath his arm and reached up toward his face. The second your fingers brushed gently beneath one of his eyes to wipe away the smudged black paint there, he went completely still beside you.
The slight pause in his breathing.
The way his arm around your shoulders tightened just barely.
The way his eyes flicked toward yours.
“There,” you murmured softly, thumb brushing lightly along his cheekbone. “It smudged a little.”
Danhausen stared at you quietly.
Up close like this, you could properly see the blue of his eyes beneath the makeup. Softer than you expected. Tired too. But warm.
Neither of you moved away.
The elevator hummed quietly around you while your hand lingered against his face for one second longer than necessary.
And suddenly you became painfully aware of just how close the two of you actually were.
Close enough to feel the warmth of his breath.
Close enough that his arm around you no longer felt casual.
Close enough that your heart had started beating noticeably harder in your chest.
Danhausen swallowed softly before speaking. “You are…” His voice caught slightly. “Very close to Danhausen currently.”
A breathy laugh escaped you immediately, breaking the tension just enough to stop it becoming overwhelming.
“Sorry,” you whispered, though your hand lingered for another moment before lowering.
“No, no,” he said quickly. “Danhausen is simply making observations.”
Your smile widened faintly.
His arm never left your shoulders.
And sitting there beneath the arena in the dim red emergency lighting, pressed warmly against a strange exhausted man covered in smudged face paint and stolen Miz merchandise, your terrible day no longer felt quite so terrible anymore.
You realised suddenly that Danhausen had gone unusually quiet again.
His gaze flicked briefly downward before returning to yours.
Your pulse stumbled awkwardly in your chest.
The elevator creaked softly overhead.
Neither of you reacted this time.
Danhausen’s thumb shifted slightly against your upper arm absentmindedly, a tiny movement that somehow made the warmth rushing through your chest even worse.
“You seem less sad now,” he said quietly after a moment.
The sincerity in his voice caught you off guard.
You swallowed lightly before answering. “I think maybe being trapped in an elevator with you has distracted me.”
“Hm.” The corner of his mouth lifted faintly. “Danhausen is very distracting.”
“That’s one word for it.”
“Devastatingly handsome is another.”
You laughed softly beneath your breath, shaking your head slightly. “There it is.”
“Danhausen has earned the ego.”
“You literally threw yourself over stolen Miz shirts like a bodyguard earlier.”
Your laughter lingered between you for a few seconds before quiet settled over the elevator again.
But this silence felt different now.
Your eyes drifted downward briefly before catching on the faint smudge of black paint still lingering beneath one of his eyes despite your earlier attempt fixing it.
Without really thinking, you reached up again.
Danhausen immediately stilled beside you.
Your fingertips brushed lightly against his cheek, wiping carefully beneath his eye again. The stubble there scratched faintly against your skin, softer than you expected. His breath caught almost imperceptibly beside you the second you touched him.
“There’s still some here,” you murmured quietly.
His voice sounded quieter now too.
You became painfully aware of the fact that your face was only inches from his now.
Danhausen’s eyes flicked between yours slowly.
The warmth of his arm around your shoulders tightened ever so slightly.
Your heart was beating hard enough now that you were convinced he could probably feel it through your chest.
The elevator hummed softly around you while somewhere above your heads the arena crowd roared faintly again, distant and muffled and entirely unimportant compared to this moment unfolding quietly between you.
Danhausen’s gaze dropped once more toward your mouth before quickly returning to your eyes like he wasn’t entirely sure he should have done that.
Your breath caught softly.
Very carefully, like he was afraid of startling you, Danhausen leaned slightly closer.
Close enough now that you could feel the warmth of his breath against your skin.
Close enough that one small movement would close the distance completely.
“You should be made aware,” he murmured quietly, voice rougher now beneath all the softness, “Danhausen is trying very hard to behave respectfully currently.”
A nervous laugh escaped you softly. “How’s that going for you?”
Your smile widened before fading again as the space between you disappeared even further.
The hand resting against his cheek lingered there instinctively now, thumb brushing lightly along the smudged edge of red paint near his cheekbone.
Danhausen looked at you like he was waiting.
Giving you room to pull away if you wanted to.
Instead, you leaned in first.
The kiss happened softly.
The kind of kiss born entirely from exhaustion and warmth and hours spent slowly unraveling around each other beneath dim emergency lighting.
His lips were warm against yours, gentler than you expected immediately, and for a second neither of you fully moved beyond that initial contact. It felt almost disbelieving. Like both of you were still catching up to the fact this was actually happening.
Then Danhausen’s hand shifted carefully against your shoulder, pulling you just slightly closer as he kissed you properly.
His lips tasted faintly like energy drinks and mint and something uniquely him beneath it all, and your chest tightened painfully at how unexpectedly tender it felt.
When you finally pulled back slightly, neither of you moved far.
Your foreheads nearly touched.
Danhausen stared at you for a second with an expression you’d never seen on him before. Something softer than teasing. Softer than confidence.
A quiet laugh escaped you.
“That sounded surprised.”
“Danhausen was not fully prepared for success.”
A soft laugh escaped you immediately. “You kissed me back.”
“Yes, but Danhausen was improvising.”
You shook your head, smiling despite yourself. The terrible weight that had sat in your chest all evening felt so distant now it was almost hard to remember why you’d been so upset in the first place.
Danhausen looked at you carefully for another moment before speaking again, softer this time. “You look happier.”
“Good” The corner of his mouth lifted slightly. “Very good.”
Your head rested lightly against his shoulder again afterward, exhaustion finally settling heavily into your limbs now that the adrenaline had worn off completely. Danhausen adjusted instinctively to let you lean against him more comfortably, his hand rubbing absentmindedly against your upper arm through your hoodie.
Outside the elevator, another muffled cheer from the crowd vibrated faintly through the walls.
Then suddenly, static crackled loudly through the intercom.
“Hello?” a distorted voice shouted through the speaker overhead. “Anyone stuck in there?”
Danhausen immediately leaned forward toward the panel. “YES. VERY STUCK.”
You laughed tiredly under your breath while the voice continued through heavy static. “Maintenance is on the way now, alright? We’ll have you out soon.”
The speaker clicked off again.
Silence settled back over the elevator.
For a moment, neither of you spoke.
Then slowly, Danhausen looked over at you again. “Well,” he said thoughtfully, “Danhausen may start breaking elevators professionally.”
You snorted softly. “Please don’t.”
“Hm. Fine.” He glanced toward the pile of stolen merch beside him. “But this was still the best elevator ride Danhausen has ever experienced.”
Your smile softened as you looked at him.
Somewhere along the way, between the panic and the jokes and the terrible emergency lighting and the stolen Miz shirts, the worst day you’d had in months had somehow turned into something you didn’t want to end just yet.
And honestly, that might have been the strangest part of all.
ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ ouchhausen notes!
all i could think abt while writing this is the aerosmith song lmao
love in an elevator, livin it up while im goin down
anyways ty for the request!!!! 💕💕
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