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Wilbur really thought his day couldn’t get any worse.
To begin with, his alarm didn’t go off - or rather it went off, and he’d smacked it in his half-awake daze and promptly fell asleep again for another twenty minutes - causing him to miss his bus for work. So he had to walk the ten blocks to his office, in the middle of the English summer, and had to sit in his uncomfortably damp suit that he’d sweated through all day at his miserable little cubicle desk. Then the vending machine was out of sandwiches so he had a packet of crisps for lunch, which was just miserable as well, and when he finally finished up the rest of his work it was already six in the evening.
To put it simply, he’d had enough, and he just wanted to go home.
Managing to stumble into the lift from the basement entrance of his apartment building, Wilbur jammed his finger into the ‘Level 8’ button before leaning his head against the metal wall, taking a deep breath in through his nose. The elevator smelled like a hotel, that artificial plastic-metal smell that seemed to haunt every elevator in the world. It reminded him of how much he longed to go on a holiday somewhere, regretting not taking a vacation that summer, choosing to work instead.
The lift made one more stop at the ground floor. This wasn’t surprising, as that’s where the main entrance was, and he barely registered the second person to enter the lift - looking just as miserable as he did on that Monday evening. Misery seemed to be a common theme that day. The figure pressed one of the floor buttons, one above Wilbur’s, and slumped in his own spot next to the door.
Wilbur wasn’t in the mood for any more social interaction, so he kept to himself, still leaning against the back wall. His head felt heavy on his shoulders. Or that might have just been the bag, hanging on the left side by its worn-out strap.
Suddenly, the lift jolted.
Now the lift was old, Wilbur knew that, and he’d definitely heard some ominous noises or felt some sinister jostles in the compartment before. But this time was different. Following the jolt, the lift stopped completely, as if it was going to open - but the doors remained closed, and the screen which showed the floor numbers was stuck on Level 3.
“What..?” Wilbur asked no one in particular, leaning forward to jab the ‘open doors’ button. If he had to take the fire escape stairs, it would be officially the worst day ever. But the doors didn’t open, and the button he’d pressed didn’t even light up. None of the buttons were lit up at all.
Wilbur’s heart leapt out of his chest when the lift suddenly jolted again, feeling like it had sunk downwards, making his stomach drop with it like he was descending in an airplane. He heard a soft shriek from the other passenger beside him, who had pressed himself as far back into the corner as he could in the metal death-trap.
Then there was silence. Wilbur attempted the ‘open door’ button again, but as soon as his slightly shaky finger made contact with it, the fluorescent lights above them flickered, before turning off completely and plunging them into darkness.
It was like something straight out of a tragic news article. Or a horror movie, Wilbur thought as the emergency power kicked in and the carriage was bathed in red light from the panel next to the doors. It was still pretty dark, but it was enough to light up the buttons.
“Uh,” Wilbur muttered, clearing his throat which was rough from disuse, “recon you could call the emergency line?”
His eyes flicked over to the other unlucky passenger, and was met with the tear-filled gaze of a very attractive young man. Wilbur hadn’t really been paying attention to him before, because he had no reason to, but he now had the chance considering they were kind of stuck together. He was wearing black slacks and a white button-up, similar to Wilbur’s work clothes, except he had a neat black tie that looked like it had been loosened around his neck. He was probably on his way home from work as well.
The stranger nodded shakily, still crammed into the corner, fishing through his pocket and pulling out his phone.
Wilbur heard a sad-sounding sigh as the man spoke in a quiet voice, “No signal.”
Taking a deep breath in through his nose, Wilbur turned towards the panel again, scanning for an emergency button. There wasn’t one, but there was a kind of hole that had ‘Fire Department’ etched in text above it.
Wilbur frowned. “You got something long and thin?” he asked, kind of cringing at his awkward wording as he fished around in his own pockets to find something to poke into the hole. He heard shuffling beside him as the stranger joined his side to inspect it as well.
He was a lot shorter, Wilbur mused, though he supposed it wasn’t hard for people to be shorter than his own 6’5 stature. The man was quite petite though, narrow shoulders and delicate features. He watched under the dim red light as his nimble fingers touched the panel where the keyhole was. He also had a wine bottle tucked under his arm, which Wilbur hadn’t noticed before. It was hard to tell what kind of wine it was considering everything had a red glow to it under the emergency lights.
“I’ve got something that might work,” the shorter’s delightful posh-London accent came out as he fished through his pockets with his spare hand and produced a ball-point pen.
Wilbur grinned, taking it from him politely and shoving it tip-first into the hole.
There was an unpleasant beep, followed by a crackling, like static.
“Fire Department, what’s your emergency?”
Sighing in relief, Wilbur leaned forward. “Hi, yeah, we’re trapped in an elevator?”
It was a ridiculous situation and he knew it, but the words almost made him laugh out loud. As it had turned out, there was indeed a way that his Monday could have gotten worse.
He quickly explained the situation to the bored-sounding guy on the other end of the receiver, and was notified that it could take at least an hour for them to get the lift working again, depending on what the problem was. If they were close enough to one of the floors, they would see if they could wrench the doors open and get them out. That was after they got there of course, which would probably take a while. London wasn’t exactly known for its efficiency.
“I hope you didn’t have anything important to do tonight,” the shorter male huffed when Wilbur was done talking to the fire department, probably trying to make polite conversation despite the uncomfortable situation.
Wilbur shrugged, “No plans at all, thankfully. I’m Wilbur by the way.”
“George,” the shorter replied meekly.
He watched as the now not-stranger slid down the back wall into a sitting position, gently placing his bottle of wine on the floor next to him. Wilbur shrugged his own bag off his shoulder and let it hit the ground, wincing a little as something hard and solid hit the linoleum with a cracking noise. Likely his metal water bottle. He noted how it made George jump.
Wilbur frowned. “Are you scared of elevators, George?”
The smaller gave a small nervous laugh. “Only when they stop functioning, funnily enough.”
He had a good point. Wilbur hummed, still standing as he slouched against the wall, “I guess there’s all those stories about it happening, though I’ve never had the honour of experiencing it myself.”
The silence that followed wasn’t awkward, more contemplative. Their situation had really started to sink in - for Wilbur, at least - as all of the following possibilities ran through his mind. Was he going to be stuck there all night? Would the fire service forget about them, or decide that it wasn’t an urgent-enough emergency to warrant a callout? Would the elevator make more ungodly noises before plummeting back to the basement towards their deaths? A charming thought, but he always was the type of person to imagine the worst-case scenarios.
Though surprisingly, his mind shifted off of possibilities and started to think about distractions. Things he could say to distract George, who was sitting on the floor, crisp white shirt now looking a little wrinkled.
“What’s the celebration?”
Wilbur gestured to the wine bottle sitting next to the male, before sliding down next to him against the wall of the elevator, making sure there was a little distance between them so that he didn’t scare him off.
George held up the bottle in question and laughed - a lovely melodic sound, like wind chimes, that Wilbur wished to elicit from him again.
“The celebration is surviving a rough day at work.”
“Ah,” Wilbur hummed, “a perfectly valid reason to celebrate.”
“That is if I manage to survive this, of course.”
It was Wilbur’s turn to laugh at the irony, and George followed his smile with dancing eyes. He could tell the shorter was still a little freaked out with the situation, more so than himself. Thankfully though, it seemed his distraction was somewhat working. He no longer had tears in his eyes.
Given the odd situation, he wasn’t sure how to properly bond with the young man sitting a few feet beside him. If it was a college party or something, he’d ask him about his degree, his job, future plans. If he was introduced to him by friends, he’d ask him about his connections and how he met them. Though there were some things he could deduce on his own - he looked like he was in his early twenties, he lived in the same building as Wilbur, he obviously had a professional job - there were a lot of base-level things that he didn’t know.
It kind of reverted him to an easier time, where small talk was asking simple personal questions that could be answered without much thought. Without thinking about the social consequences of your words, or the need to impress and exaggerate.
So Wilbur asked him.
He asked him his age, his favourite colour, his favourite animal. And it seemed like George was quite content with answering the questions before throwing them back at him to hear his own response, then waiting with quiet anticipation for another one. He learned that George was the same age as himself. He also learned that his favourite colour was blue, because he was colourblind and it was one of the only colours he could see, and his favourite animals were cats. He was afraid of heights and his favourite drink was hot chocolate, he didn’t like pineapple on pizza and his middle name was Henry.
He supposed George was learning just as much about him too, as he asked “How about you?” after all of his tentative responses.
It had been around half an hour before their personal pop-quiz tapered off into comfortable silence, simply because Wilbur couldn’t think of any more questions to ask. He leaned back with his head against the wall, knees pulled up to his chest as he fiddled with a loose thread on his pants by his ankle. It seemed George wasn’t the type to initiate conversations, though Wilbur didn’t mind. He definitely could have been stuck with much worse people in the ridiculous situation he’d found himself in. In fact, meeting George was possibly one of the best outcomes that Wilbur could have wished for.
Surprisingly, George was the next to break the silence between them, a few moments later.
“Should we crack into it?” George grinned as he nodded towards the bottle of wine, pearly white teeth sneaking out from his upwards-curled lips. Wilbur was mesmerised by how much he’d opened up in the short period of time, his true personality dazzling him in all its glory.
Wilbur laughed, his smile reaching his eyes, “We don’t have any wine glasses, George.”
George just shrugged, mumbling something about being uncivilised and swigging it out of the bottle, before twisting the lid and letting a hiss of air escape and vibrate in the confined space.
In all honesty, Wilbur was a hopeless romantic, and there was something about their situation that made him feel like they were in some kind of tacky romantic comedy, or a hallmark movie with some cliché storyline and happy ending. He couldn’t help but feel some kind of longing, a desire for bonding with this attractive stranger who wasn’t so much of a stranger anymore. He didn’t believe in the fate of the universe, but he believed in something while sitting on the floor of the broken elevator next to George.
He loved the small lisp in his shy words as he carefully spoke. He loved the flickering bright eyes, which looked darker in the red light they were bathed in, and wondered what colour they usually were. He saw the thin delicate fingers peeking out of the cuffs of his crisp white sleeves, and wondered if they were warm or cold. He wondered how he’d never seen him in passing before, given they lived in the same building. He was hopelessly fond of George, wondering everything about him though he’d already asked all of his questions.
He watched in fascination as the smaller male took a small sip straight out of the bottle, holding it in his mouth for a moment before swallowing and squeezing his eyes shut. Laugher came out of his nose as he smacked his tongue, shaky fingers offering the bottle to Wilbur silently.
“How does it taste?” Wilbur asked as he took the bottle, noting how their fingers grazed together for a moment. George’s hands were warm, but the bottle was cold.
George gave him a challenging look, eyeing the bottle as if instructing him to find out for himself. So Wilbur did - maintaining eye contact as he pressed his lips to the mouth of the champagne bottle and tipped it back, letting the fizzy liquid coat his tongue and slide down his throat. His eyes watered up a little at the strong initial taste, making him break out into a grin as George laughed at him.
“Ah, I see,” Wilbur laughed, wincing as the aftertaste tingled in his sinuses, “It tastes like it cost you three pounds at the supermarket. Noted.”
“Four pounds actually,” the smaller male huffed as he reached for the bottle again with outstretched fingers.
They sat like that for a while, passing the bottle back and forth and saying a few words about the shitty wine, moscato, and their fingers brushing together were colder and colder as the chill from the bottle seeped into their skin. Wilbur felt his cheeks get warmer, and the tips of George’s ears had turned pink by the time they’d made it through most of it. He hadn’t even bothered checking how much time had passed - as it turned out, he didn’t quite care.
~*~
It was an hour before they received any more communication, true to word. A crackling voice came through the speaker and told them that there was a repairman on the job, and that they’d be out of there as soon as they managed to pry the doors open. They were on the third floor, almost perfectly aligned with the landing, which was good news.
Wilbur felt a little tipsy when he stood up to stretch his legs, and huffed out a laugh when he looked over to see George making grabby hands at him to help him off the floor. So he did, interlocking their fingers clumsily and pulling the shorter male up with ease, laughing again when he stumbled forward a little and almost crashed into his chest. He wondered how many standard drinks were in the bottle of moscato, which was now empty and rocking sideways on the linoleum floor without its cap.
In his intoxicated haze, Wilbur almost leaned down and kissed him. It seemed like a natural thing to do, which was startling, considering he barely knew the guy. But there was something about George that was so alluring, that made him feel like he’d known him for years, and kissing him would be the most normal thing in the world to do. He stopped himself though, in fear of popping their intimate little bubble that they’d been building over the last hour with curious questions and shy glances.
“We should do this again,” George said quietly as he took a step back, finding his own footing though looking just as bothered as Wilbur at the distance he’d put between them. A missed opportunity, ringing in both of their minds.
Wilbur slung his bag back over his shoulder and waited next to the door, expecting it to open soon. “In slightly different circumstances, I hope.”
George rolled his eyes. “Obviously, I meant the wine thing. Not the getting trapped in a metal death-box thing.”
“Yeah?” Wilbur gave him a sideways grin when he heard a drilling noise from the other side of the door, indicating someone’s presence, “How about tomorrow?”
“Level nine, room 904.” The smaller’s eyes danced with hope, strikingly beautiful under the dim red light. As far as first impressions went, there was no forgetting the way that George looked at him in that moment.
“Leave the wine-buying to me next time, that moscato was atrocious.”