-1

Chapter 1

I want breathless confessions stumbling from swollen lips while he's standing half in, half out of the elevator, trapping the damn sensors so the doors won't close and our private, grieving, sick and wasted love life is laid bare for the empty foyer to see and the doorman ten meters away to hear, maybe, if he hasn't fallen asleep yet. I want a mad dash of explanations, each one sordid, each one abused, each one just as stale as the truth and I want them tripping over one another- one just started before it's abandoned, sick and wailing on the pavement while the next ones just about to begin. Earnest, guileless, pleading faces chasing each other from ear to ear across his face, a merry-go-round without the mirrors, the lights and the music to hide just what it is that I don't want.

The truth, painful, simple, gut-wrenchingly obvious. We're over, it's over, and he's not coming upstairs with me tonight.

I don't want the cold, glass walls of the elevator behind my back, the plastic ridges - two rows of six, twelve in all- prodding gently, giving under my weight until I have, unknowingly, pressed floors six, eight and twelve. I don't want his stuttering to slow and, gradually, stop. I don't want to ignore him, but I do.

He leaves, the doors slide silently closed, and I sink onto that generic, red and purple patterned carpet, the brassy fittings of my little, moving hell tarnished and blurring while I cry.

I don't want this truth anymore- I want to fling it back into the streets it came from. But I'll get over it, sooner or later. I'll get over him.

But probably not before the doors open again, which is a shame, because there's someone waiting for the lift on the fourth floor, and they look pretty concerned to see me hunched in the corner, face damp with salty tears, mouth twisted in a sob.

"Um..."

There's a sound that's alarmingly similar to a honk, and oh- that's me.

"You... okay?" The question's hesitant, soft and I don't know where he gets off thinking I'm capable of intelligent speech. I'm having enough difficulty just breathing, thanks ever so much.

I hiccup in response.

"Uh, yeah. So is this your-"

I start crawling out of the elevator while the guys talks.

"Level. I guess so."

I navigate my way over the bumpy divide between elevator shaft and hallway, chilling my fingers on the metal as I do so, and slump defeated against the wall.

"Seriously, though," he crouches in front of me, concern wins out over hesitation! "Are you alright?"

I bend the gasping hic-ups to my will long enough to grate out, "M'fi-" hic "-ne."

He doesn't look convinced.

"Look, do you need a hand to your place, or something?"

I'm pretty sure he's looking at his watch as he asks me, but then, that could just be my current hatred of humanity leaking through along with these stupid tears. So I try to brush him off and stand up, but something's wrong with my knees.

"Okay," he's got an arm under mine and it's snaking around my back. "On three, you stand. One, two, Three-and-up!"

Would you look at that.

"What number?"

"Twenty-six." I mumble, and we lurch to the right.

He deposits me at my door and I fish around in one of my pockets for my key chain, and while I try to get the door to open he props me up against the wooden surface.

Which means that when the hinges give we end up on the floor, my boots and his... thongs? In this weather? just peeking over the threshold and into the hallway.

"Ugh." My knight in shining armour winces as he levers himself up onto his elbows, into a sitting position, and finally onto his feet.

I co-ordinate my limbs just enough to crawl the two meters onto carpet. Sweet, forgiving, pale cream carpet.

"Okay, then. Well. I'll be going, now."

And he does. Go, I mean, closing the door behind him.

I spend the night on the floor.

The morning dawns in my small apartment rather horrifically. Hangovers are bad enough when you've memories of a night well spent with alcohol (or no memories at all) but I've got to say I feel hard done by when I wake up with my head pounding, mouth dry and carpet tickling the inner cavity of my left nostril and no previous drunkenness to account for it. Just a heart-wrenching break-up, for which I believe I will spend the day feeling sorry for myself and moping with loud, angry music and chocolate as my only companions. Then the thong wearing feet from last night enter my line of vision. Oh, Jesus. I broke down in an elevator and a stranger followed me home.

"What are you doing here?" I slur, only it comes out more like, "whaaadoinnnn" and ends with me snuffling the carpet.

The feet shuffle a little and suddenly there's something hauling me, yanking my armpits up and of course the rest of my follows behind. This does nothing for my stomach, or my head.

I think I'm going to be sick.

"Hokay. There we go," the voice is way, way too loud, and I'm dumped on my couch. "So, ah, I came back this morning to make sure you hadn't thrown yourself off the balcony. Obviously, you haven't, although I gotta say, seeing you there in the hallway, I was pretty sure you'd just suffocated at some point during the night."

The constant monologue isn't doing a whole lot for my head. I wince and try to bury my face in one of the pillows. "'I'm not suicidal," the stuffing inside the pillowcase cushions the venom out of my voice and I shift, grudgingly, until I can glare at my... intruder. "Why are you here?"

He shrugs. "Urges."

"Urges?"

"Well, yeah. I mean, I don't know you, right? But people are, I don't know, herd animals. Or something. There's the whole "look after your fellow man" urge. Which translates, somehow, to me feeling a ridiculous sense of obligation towards people I find sobbing -"

"I was not sobbing! I was... contemplating a very distressing issue!"

"- distressed people, then, in elevators."

There's a bit of a silence there.

"Also, you're my new neighbour. Or I'm your new neighbour. Want some coffee?"

--

AN:

This might be a bit long. Firstly- new story. There's no plot as of yet- also, you may have realised, no names. I'm sure they'll arrive eventually. Flights delayed, and what not.

Secondly, I know I have stories I haven't updated in ages ... I'm finding it hard to "re-connect" with my characters. That's a weak excuse for not liking what I've written anymore, just so's you know. These things mostly start out as writing experiments... they're hard to maintain over any amount of time.

Hopefully, this one will be easier. I'm planning on keeping it fairly short with a smaller cast.

Well, and that's about it.