We are greedy greedy bastards. So, stuck in a lift about to piss ourselves and we had to ask the handsome stranger to hold us up while we try to pee in a bottle.... What now?
Also, you teased us. We never got to pee, let us finally piss.
ok :)
(tw: talk of suicide - not joe or reader, but it comes up in conversation)
Wordcount: 3.2K
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Between Floors and Feelings
part one - part two - part three - part four - part five
You weren't quite dissociating, but, if there was ever a moment you wished you could will yourself to step out of whatever situation you were in, this was the time.
Now you just sat with embarrassment that you could feel, so you'd absolutely love it if none of what had just happened turned out to be real.
Unfortunately, however, the proof of it was staring you down from its designated corner.
You hoped that your embarrassment would become entirely too much where it would break a barrier inside of you and it would then round back to confidence. Like when something was so unbelievably ugly, it kind of became cool in its own right. Or when something was so stupid, it would turn a corner and suddenly be fucking hilarious.
No such luck yet, though.
"Sorry for trauma dumping on you earlier,"
You couldn't quite look him in the eye just yet. Not with that bottle of your urine, that was surprisingly clear by the way, something you hadn't expected but were definitely glad for, across from you.
Capped.
Of course it was capped. You weren't animals.
Looked a bit like a sports drink now.
"Oh no, you're good," Joe was definitely pretending this was the most normal situation for two strangers to have found themselves in.
He had just held onto you to make sure you kept your balance as you had pressed the mouth of the water bottle he had just drank out of moments before against your vagina. With Joe's knees in your back and one of his hands holding onto your free one tightly, both biceps flexing and fingers white-knuckling, you had peed until your bladder was empty.
"Don't look at me!" you'd panicked, but knew there was nothing but a lot of tulle for Joe to see from where he towered over from behind you as you crouched down and hung into his hold.
Joe's eyes had shot up towards the light boxes in the ceiling anyway.
Ever the gentleman.
You'd prayed for the millisecond you were granted that you placed the bottle over your urethra correctly. That you weren't just going to feel the stream trickle down your hands right beside it.
Thank fuck it had all gone in.
Sort of.
In a controlled manner your muscles hadn't let you down, and slowly but surely, you actually peed into the water bottle a stranger had given you moments before. There were no drops on the floor at least, which was good. Saved you the humiliation of quickly using a boot to hide whatever spillage Joe could see.
"Sing!" you'd shouted when you could hear yourself, and Joe had panic-stumbled into random la la las until they turned into the na na nas from Hey Jude by the Beatles. Again, way off pace, tempo upped to not leave any silences in between.
You tried to think if you knew anyone, someone who you actually knew, who would've done the same for you. Who wouldn't have hesitated to help you, to hold you, to almost fucking guide you into relieving yourself whilst stuck in a lift together.
You came up empty, but could name exactly who wouldn't have been as helpful. Who would have made you feel awful, actually. Would've made the bad situation so much worse. Would've said you were a gross girlfriend and would have practically inserted the embarrassment right into your veins.
Good thing this twat was no longer your boyfriend, now.
It was a shamefully small amount of urine that had plagued you. You'd filled the bottle just over halfway. And your underwear was definitely wet for lack of toilet paper, but you were also definitely pretending that it wasn't.
"You're a good listener," you complimented Joe, doing your best to pretend none of what had just happened, had just happened. And of course Joe was kind enough to just go with it.
"Thanks, I've had lots of practice,"
"Oh yea? Are you like, a therapist or a psychologist or something?" and before Joe could even answer you added, "I never know the difference."
Joe gave a half-shrug, and said, "Sure feels like it sometimes,"
You frowned, gave him a confused look and saw he was looking at the bottle.
"Stop looking at my piss,"
"Sorry,"
You took a glance yourself. It was awful that you couldn't hide that bottle somewhere so you didn't have to look at it the whole time. When you turned your head back to Joe, you saw he was still had his eyes trained on it.
"That's pee in the corner," Joe softly sang, almost under his breath, to the tune of losing my religion.
"Oh my God, stop," you used both hands to block his view.
"Sorry, sorry, sorry," Joe smirked, and then used his hands and legs to move away from his position next to you. He moved himself, working to not drag his bum over the floor until he was sat in front of you, legs criss-crossed like yours, cleverly obstructing your view but foolishly making the two of you each other's.
"Social work?" back to guessing this guy's job.
"No."
"Teacher?"
"Nope."
Hmh. What other kind of job could involve people sharing their traumas? You narrowed your eyes at him and thought out loud, "You don't look like a doctor..."
Joe gasped, pretending great offense.
"Are you a nurse?"
"I don't think you're going to guess it." Joe smiled with a slight nod and then didn't say anything else.
He wasn't sharing. Like his job was a demeaning secret he wanted to keep to himself.
"Good." you then said. "Stay all mysterious. I'll tell people I was stuck in a lift with either the CEO of Google or a male escort, depending on who I'm talking to."
Joe laughed, then smiled at you with his head tilted to the side but still, he wasn't sharing. You gave him a look, one that said, well go on then. Joe gave you a look back, eyebrows raised up high and it said, I don't know. Like he was panicking and didn't know what to tell you.
"Unemployed." you then concluded, obviously joking, because the clothes Joe was wearing were far too sophisticated for you to believe this man wasn't making any money. But you tried to keep a straight face, and said, "You're broke, absolutely penniless–"
"Skint," Joe joined in on the bit.
"And this was all part of the plan," you gestured wilds arm around, which felt fine now that you no longer had to worry about wetting yourself.
"You've trapped the billionaire runaway bride in a lift, made her be indebted to you, helped her through a panic attack, saw and heard her pee which you can use to blackmail me– did you get my boyfriend to cheat on me with my boss? Is this is how you planned to get your hands on some cash–"
"You shouldn't," Joe interrupted and immediately softly winced at himself for doing so.
He took a second to work up to the rest of that sentence before he finished it.
"Shouldn't call him your boyfriend," and it made your face drop. Your playful mood instantly switched to a more solemn one, and then you apologised.
"Sorry,"
Joe frowned at himself for what he said and for how you reacted to it. No fucking need to say sorry. His face made you want to apologise for apologising, but you managed to keep it inside.
"I'm an actor." Joe then revealed, and you instantly felt bad for pushing the joke, for pushing the narrative that Joe was a golddigger who'd completely set you up. Not that there was any gold to dig for. You'd just quit your job, there was no way you were going to be able to keep affording rent for much longer.
It silenced you. Joe was right, you would've never guessed he was an actor.
"I, um, I play pretend... for a living," Joe explained like you didn't know what being an actor meant, and he said it like he was delivering the worst, most cringey secret he had, and couldn't even look you in the eye for it.
"And you... forgot something in your dressing room and were on your way to go retrieve it?" you tried to puzzle his evening together. Fill the blanks he'd left you with.
You assumed he did theater, what with him getting off at this particilar stop, one that was nowhere near where he lived like he'd said earlier.
"No, I–" Joe softly smiled, and then sighed. His whole demeanor had shifted now that the focus was all on him. Seemed shy and a little apprehensive.
"Okay, so, last year," Joe took a moment to think, then continued, "No, two years ago... nearly two years ago, someone ran off a platform right in front of an oncomming train and died,"
"Jesus," you spoke on an exhale, not expecting the topic to shift so abruptly.
"I had seen him standing on the platform, and I got onto the tube and it was weird that he didn't... he seemed normal, but I remember the look in his eyes so vividly,"
You looked down to see that Joe had started fidgeting with the hem of one of your layers of tulle, slowly feeding fabric into his hands. It was dirty, a little grey, but... everything inside the lift you were sat in was dirty and a little grey.
"He'd jumped not long after that, and it was months later when I read about it and realised that I'd actually seen him, on that platform, and," Joe took a deep breath that made him sit up a little. "For a while it made me not want to see anyone's face when I'd take the train anywhere, just in case I'd read about them later, which I know makes no sense, and I realised it made no sense, but then I did a weird one-eighty and I find myself scanning as many faces as I can,"
Listening to Joe made you want to cry for him a little bit.
You wouldn't. Things were weird enough as they were, and you had definitely cried enough tears in front of this guy.
More and more fabric got fed into Joe's grip, and it made you rearrange the top layer so he had better access. When he noticed, he grinned to himself and returned his fingers to the very again.
"I don't take the tube loads, not really... I'm not a daily commuter, I was on my way home from Boston Manor, and I was meant to get off at Green Park, get on the Victoria Line, but then..." Joe trailed off and his eyes shot up to look straight into yours.
Joe looked at you like he had done when you'd seen him watch you from his spot near the end of the carriage.
"I don't know," he shrugged but it was so small, barely detectable.
Joe knew.
Joe just didn't want to say it out loud.
"Oh,"
Joe didn't need to.
"Oh no," reality set in. "Did you think I was going to..."
Joe shrugged again, eyes back on his fingers that played with dirty tulle.
It was silent for a moment, when you accidentally let a soft giggle escape you. You instantly slapped a hand over your mouth and said, "I'm sorry, I wasn't laughing at you."
"No it's fine," Joe said, obviously not buying it before he let go of your dress and shifted on his bum a little. "Here I am, doing something nice for once, and look how that turns out," Joe bit, clearly sarcastic, making more giggles escape you. It took just a second for him to join in.
"I'm kind of surprised you didn't notice me,"
"Oh, I saw you,"
You'd seen Joe look. Several times.
"You saw me on the platform?"
Oh.
No.
You hadn't seen Joe until you'd stepped into the lift and had gotten stuck in there together. Fuck, had he waited for you?
"I was right behind you, and then you just... stood there? For a minute?"
"Yea,"
If you were honest you didn't really remember much from getting off the tube and your walk towards the lifts. You knew you must have looked pretty out of it, but, never before had anyone looked at you and thought 'yep, she's gonna kill herself if I don't step in'. At least not that you knew of. Not anyone that knew you, let alone a fucking stranger.
Your brain worked hard to fill the gaps of lost memory. What had you seen when you'd stepped out of the train onto the platform?
Way out.
To the lifts and stairs.
This staircase has 193 steps.
It's quicker to wait for the lifts, which run every few minutes.
If you were honest, you didn't know if the memories of all the signs you'd seen were from tonight, or if you just knew the entire station off by heart. You could close your eyes and visualise the exact way, every single step, from each platform to the exit. Could sometimes also pinpoint which ad posters were in which spots, because they were slow to replace them sometimes.
You wondered if any of the faces you saw every day maybe belonged to the ghost that Joe had mentioned. Just a dude that seemed to be commuting just like any other guy, only to vanish the moment he'd pass you.
Ew, no. You didn't like that thought. Creeped yourself out a little.
Maybe Joe had learned about the actor ghost in actor school. Actor school? Drama school.
"Hey,"
You felt weight and pressure on your knees that quickly zoned you back into reality, and you saw Joe's hands, squeezing them.
"You understand my worry?"
When you looked at Joe, you were met with his soft concern, and you worried you'd been in your mind for too long. Long enough for it not to be weird, at least.
"I wouldn't have–" you started, but your breath hitched and it made you clear your throat.
Joe didn't let you finish that sentence.
"How would I have known had I not seen you leave this station in one piece?" Joe reasoned, and his face kept projecting kindness. Eyebrows knitted up. Eyes all big, rounded. Sort of smiling, but not really. Soft.
"That would've then been on my mind for weeks, if not months,"
"Do I really look that depressed?" you said it like it was a joke, even though you knew it wasn't.
"How do depressed people look?" he then challenged.
It was a rhetorical question you knew didn't need an answer from you.
Depressed people looked like any people. Joe knew. Joe had met plenty of people who would tell him they battled with anxiety and depression and they always looked just like everyone else. A little nervous as they would ramble through their sentences because they would only have a short moment with him, but the things they'd share would never be things he would assume from just looking at them.
So Joe had tried to stop assuming.
But then you'd sort of floated onto the train he'd been on, and every single thing about you looked like a warning sign. Red flags. Blaring alarm bells.
You were surprised to feel a sudden lump form in your throat. Just because someone you didn't know cared for you in a way you hadn't anticipated anyone to ever care for you. Joe had missed his stop by quite a few and got off the train when you had, just to make sure that he saw you make it out of the station alive. Joe had then gotten stuck in a lift with you, and boy, what a fucking ride that had been so far.
And it started looking like you were going to be trapped until morning.
Guilt. Joe was stuck in there with you because of you.
If you weren’t all wrung out already, you’d start crying again.
"You don't look depressed," Joe then said, voice all sweet, and somehow, that reassured you. Made you feel a little better, because it kind of felt like you'd almost tricked Joe into this lift with you. "You look very tired, though,"
"I am,"
"Come here," Joe said, but instead of making you move towards him, Joe shuffled back into his former position, legs and arms working until he was sat right next to you again.
You didn't really know what Joe was planning on doing when he started taking his suit jacket off.
Great.
The bottle of pee was in your line of sight again.
"Here,"
Before you could even comment on what was happening, Joe draped his jacket over your front, hooking the shoulders over yours to keep it in place. Like a blanket.
You were about to say, you don't have to, and, I'm not cold, but the instant warmth it provided made fatigue grab you in a chokehold. You wondered how you'd been able to keep your eyes open for so long.
"If we lean into each other, we could both maybe squeeze in some minutes of uncomfortable sleep,"
Your heavy eyes kind of dumbly scanned Joe's shirt, and then you looked down at his jacket that now covered your frame.
Joe took hold of a sleeve and placed it over his stomach and said, "I'll have this," before you could say anything about him getting cold now. Then, he snuck an arm behind your neck and pushed your head towards him until it found his shoulder.
"This all right?" Joe asked after having created the perfect nook for you to snuggle and sink into. He dropped his head onto yours, heavily leaning his cheek into your hair and, it was all right. You already felt yourself slipping. You shuffled your hips a little for maximum comfort - as much as you could find on a hard surface - self-soothingly folded your arms close to your chest underneath Joe's jacket and took a deep breath before you exhaled into relaxation.
Sleep.
"Don't look at my pee," you said by ways of saying sleep tight, your eyes already closed.
"My eyes are closed," Joe replied, and even though you were so tired and could literally fall asleep the second you allowed yourself to, you moved a hand up to touch his face. To feel if his eyes really were closed.
You fingers ghosted over scruff, cheekbones, some side of nose, and then eyelashes.
They were closed. Good.
"Did you wash those hands?"
Absolutely not.
"Hmh," was all you managed to get out.
Just before you drifted off completely, you felt Joe shake with silent laughter just before his arm tightened around you, squeezing you into him even more and you felt something bloom inside your chest.
Oh, fuck.
Careful, you thought. Careful now. Sleep first, and then whatever that feeling was, later.
