jammed.
ccgavin:
gavin is nothing if not lazy. and he lives on the seventh floor, so he absolutely refuses to take the stairs up to his apartment. he knows it’s faster, knows it’s “better for him,” but especially after walking home from work he refuses to put himself through anything else. he’s stood in front of the elevator for ages before, because their apartment is so shitty that it only has one elevator servicing twelve floors. no matter how long he has to wait, though, it’s still better than taking the stairs.
but it’s still better to not wait at all, which is why he hurries a bit when he sees the elevator doors open when he enters the lobby. he hurries his steps a bit, raising a hand to try to get the attention of the guy stepping on. “hold the doors!” he calls, and he doesn’t know if he’s just lucky or if the guy hears him, but he manages to slip in just before the doors start to close. gavin lets out a relieved sigh and leans back against the back wall with a grin. “cheers, mate,” he says, not even knowing if the guy made any effort to hold the doors open for him. “hit seven for me, would you?”
the elevator starts moving up, and the lights to track what floor it’s on haven’t worked since gavin moved here, so he doesn’t bother watching them, instead pulling out his phone and idly scrolling through his several pages of useless games and apps. just as he’s about to pocket the device, knowing that it’s nearing time for the doors to open on the seventh floor, the elevator shakes weirdly before jolting harshly, the lights going out and leaving them in almost total darkness, gavin’s phone the only source of light in the small space.
“oh, bugger me,” he says in english, his voice breaking the surprised silence between them.
holding the door is the last thing he wants to do for some gangly limbed young man who rushes down the hall like one of those wobbly bean toys that can never fall over. michael is stuck, regardless, with the broken door button and his apparent neighbor makes it into the elevator before michael can think about forcibly closing the doors himself. he feigns indifference, though he glowers slightly at the dimly lit button next to his floor. seven, same as his apparent neighbor.
michael doesn’t say they’re on the same floor. he decides he doesn’t want to make conversation.
when the elevator has a major malfunction, michael swears, loud and in english and completely unabashed. “fuck!” they’re doused in darkness, a blueish light from the stranger’s phone the only illumination they’re left with in the stupid fucking elevator. he bangs on the door, kicking it for good measure, and the thing doesn’t budge even a crack to give them some fresh air. michael wonders if that’s supposed to happen.
he mashes the help button, the emergency button, the call button, willing any one of them to work. is it a building-wide power outage? or just the elevator? he has no way of telling, not when they’re trapped in this metal box of doom.
“you okay?” he speaks to his companion in this catastrophe for the first time, glancing over at him to make sure he hadn’t done something stupid in the thirty seconds they’ve been alone. “i don’t know how long we’ll be in here.”
