The Trapped in an Elevator Meme

[allroadslead]

The Trapped Elevator Meme

also known as: The "How Fast Before We Fuck/Kill/Fuck&Kill Each Other" Meme

Your character steps into an elevator for whatever reason. Someone steps in with him or her and the door closes. It creaks up a few floors.

And then it stops. The emergency button shocks anyone who touches it.

Well, shit.» Make a thread with

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[buryyourdemons]

[no, we don't know why Gaara is in an elevator.

still, when the elevator halts, he glances up from his musings, looking at the door.]

[toobothersome]

[Shikamaru is in an elevator for the usual purpose: to get out of the elevator, then out of the building, then out of the desert, then back to into Konoha. But no, Suna is determined to hold onto its longstanding record of most troublesome place to visit on official business. Very official business. He has the Hokage's letter to prove it. No argument there.

If he thinks about it, it's slightly awkward (not to mention dangerous) to be stuck on an elevator with Gaara, so he decides it's better not to think about it. Instead, his current, much less existential musings are limited to what a pain in the ass it is that deserts don't have clouds. He watches the same door, though he first sits down and stretches.]

Well. That's a hassle.

[buryyourdemons]

The elevator received another moment of staring before the sand nin turned his gaze on the other occupant. Nara... Shikamaru, was it? Hm. Gaara shifted slightly, arms crossing. He had been around more lately. As the Hokage's messenger... Though Gaara did not think there was any business to attend to lately. It had even been almost peaceful the past few months. So why was the Chuunin here?

He continued staring, eyes unfathomable. "...They'll fix it soon."

[toobothersome]

Soon. Hopefully very soon. "Uh," Shikamaru said, a sound of assent, though he didn't have anything to follow it with. He really needed to stop volunteering for this stuff.

The way Gaara stared at him was creepy too, and briefly, he wondered what it would be like to never sleep. Considering how much of his own life he dedicated to it, the idea was something akin to not breathing. "Yeah. Probably. If not, we could get it moving pretty easily ourselves."

Not that Gaara couldn't figure that out on his own, but Shikamaru was trying to build some goodwill here before it was too late. He rubbed his neck. The elevator felt too warm, but he figured that was the price one paid for living in the middle of a sandy nowhere.

[buryyourdemons]

If Gaara felt the heat, he gave no notice. The other rambled slightly, and Gaara had to wonder if it was nervousness. Because he was still... He housed one of the Biju. Was that what it was? For another moment, Gaara watched the other, considering. It was regrettable, but it wasn't anything that could be changed. If that was the problem, it wouldn't soon be changing.

Finally, he glanced away, back to the doors. There was nothing that gave away a sign that the stopped elevator had been noticed. Slowly, a trickle of sand rose from the gourd on his back, trailing through the crack in the doors upward. If the other was uncomfortable with him, Gaara could at least see fit to hurry the process.

It wasn't as if he didn't have his own things to do, after all.

[toobothersome]

Oh shit. Sand. Now he was really in for it. Shikamaru resisted the urge to flinch but pushed himself to his feet, ready to bind the Sand-nin (if he could even do that for longer than a second). When the thin, grainy stream floated upward into the crack rather than thickly toward his vital organs, though, he was visibly relieved.

For now, if they focused on the door, they could avoid focusing on anything else. Gaara was pretty smart, a trait that irritatingly ran in his family, but luckily, a lowly chuunin from the Leaf village didn't attract much attention. Again, he thought about the messenger papers in his travel bag. Perfectly normal alliance business.

Using chakra was fine for someone who had a ton of it just lying around, but Shikamaru decided to exhaust all other options first. He jabbed the button with his thumb, but received a sharp shock and no sound beyond the click-buzz of shorting electricity.

Yeah. Real smart, there.

"Can you see what's up there?" he asked. Last he remembered, Gaara couldn't use his sand for

[buryyourdemons]

He could, in fact. Or he would be able to momentarily. The sand trickled upward to an open space, and Gaara slid two fingers over one of his eyes. The murmur was almost inaudible. "Daisan no Me." There was a moment's pause, and then a secondary vision filtered over his normal sight.

Of an empty hall. The sand nin frowned slightly, ignoring the other's efforts at starting the elevator. "There's nothing up there," came the low reply.

[toobothersome]

That was less than enlightening, but Shikamaru was not in a position to complain. Unfortunately, the longer this problem took to solve, the longer they'd be in the same space.

If he'd just been a little less proactive, he could be comfortably lying on a hill in Konoha right now, watching clouds drift comfortably overhead. In fact, even running around cleaning up after his father's deer might be preferable to being trapped in a Suna elevator with someone who either hated him or was moodier than Ino. Signs pointed to the latter, but either way, if he seemed nervous Gaara ever mentioned it, he'd be subjected to an hour-long mockery of the cowardice of men).

"Between floors? We could just go through the top."

He had trouble believing that there was nothing...hopefully, at least a cord or two held them in the middle of empty space.

[buryyourdemons]

His hand dropped, but the sand above stretched further, seeking. His eyes glanced over to the other. "No," he replied after a beat, then moved to the middle, looking up at the escape door. "In the floor above us."

And if there was no one? Signs only pointed to an attack, but the lack of noise was strange. He would almost guess genjutsu; everyone asleep where they stood, but for the lack of bodies. And there was still the elevator. If the floor was empty, suspiciously so, then the elevator stopping became even more unwanted. The whys continued.

His hand twitched--a bolt of sand rushed at the hatch only to crash futilely over their heads. So. They seemed to be trapped where they stood.

[toobothersome]

Sand crashing over their heads? Definitely not okay. He pulled back. "There's still electricity, so it's not an accident," he pointed out, rubbing his thumb. Unfortunately, Shikamaru knew next to nothing about it, and couldn't suggest anything about rewiring