Author's Notes: THIS IS THE ORIGINAL BRITISH VERSION FEATURING THE BRITISH CAST! NOT THE AMERICAN COPY! I have put this here because I couldn't find a section for the UK original which is a crime! This one features Tim and Gareth
Just a one shot about our favourite warring workmates getting stuck in a lift. Originally I was going to make it funny but, considering I've been in a rather melancholy mood lately due to having been off university for a week with a throat infection (which, funnily enough, is referenced in the following fic) it has ended up fluffier than a rabbit's bum so, prepare for fluff with a VERY mild slashy undercurrent.
Halt
Everyone had left the office but for one person; a scruffy someone of about thirty two years old. Tim was cramming in a last minute bit of paperwork to make up for being off for three days with a bad throat. He ran his fingers through his mop of brown hair and blinked hard to stop himself from falling asleep on the spot. He looked at his watch. 7:23. It was winter so the dark outside made it seem a lot later than it was. He sat in his chair in his coat and, crossing one arm across himself, he reached a hand across the desk and picked up the polystyrene cup of coffee that he'd got from the vending machine a good half hour ago and took a swig of the decidedly lukewarm contents. Pulling a face, he got up and took the cup to one of the two bins over by David Brent's office. One was recycling and one was for landfill, a common sight these days and certainly more efficient than the crappy little wire waste paper baskets that still occupied the floor near some peoples' desks.
As Tim was walking back to his desk, the door opened from the corridor. Tim looked up and immediately wished he had just ignored it. Gareth Keenan walked in. Gareth bloody Keenan! What the hell was he doing here!
"Alright?" Was all that Gareth said as he came in. Thinking he'd make some sort of effort at being courteous (Gareth hadn't actually said anything out of turn yet) Tim looked up.
"Alright, mate? How you doin'?"
"Good." Replied Gareth, simply, looking, as always, slightly puzzled as to why Tim had spoken to him. He started to pick various things off his desk and put them slowly into his bag. He kept taking long glances in Tim's direction. Used to Gareth's odd little mannerisms, Tim took no notice and continued his typing. Eventually, Gareth added his trusty stapler to his bag (long-since rendered useless after years of being embedded in lemon and lime jelly, Gareth still kept it as a sort of middle finger to Tim).
"Gettin' in some extra work?" Gareth asked.
"Yep. That's exactly what I'm doing, Gareth." Tim said. He could feel it coming, the wave of annoyance that he always felt whenever Gareth was around.
"Good. That's good. Keep it up." Gareth turned and started to walk away. Tim gritted his teeth. He wasn't going to say it. He was not going to say it...!
"What gives you the right to say that, Gareth, by the way?" Tim asked Gareth's green/grey suited back, even though he already knew the reply. Why did he do it? It was as though he deliberately went out of his way to argue with him.
"For the last time I am team leader so don't even start." Gareth said, turning on the spot, his tie swinging free of his jacket and then back.
"Oh, what? You mean that pathetic little primary school role David gave you to keep you out of the way?" Tim threw back at him.
"Yeah. Here we go. Like I've never heard this before. How many times must I say it? I'm higher up than you. David's orders so leave it." Gareth bristled.
"Gareth, you are just David's little lap dog. Face it." Tim countered. Gareth opened his mouth to speak again but Tim could already feel his blood pressure rising (though, funnily enough, it was doing nothing for his body temperature which, despite the coat, was pretty low). "No. Don't say it. I need to go home." He said, cutting Gareth off before he could even start. He stood up and began to unceremoniously stuff his belongings away in drawers. It was then that it hit him. "Gareth," he said slowly, looking down at the rucksack that Gareth had filled with half the contents of his desk. "What do you need all your office equipment for?" Shifting slightly, Gareth said,
"Just... stuff."
"Well, what stuff?" Tim persisted, curious now.
"Just stuff, alright!" Gareth snapped. "I thought you needed to go home."
Tim wasn't sure but he thought he saw a slight redness around Gareth's pale, pointed face as he turned away from him. Shrugging, he stood up and followed his blond office mate from the room. The two men stood silent as they waited for the lift and entered together, standing as far away from each other as possible. They'd been in there a matter of seconds when it happened. There was a clunk, a whir, a sort of whining rumble... then silence. It took another few seconds for it to hit Tim and Gareth what had just happened. Tim walked to the doors and looked at them for a moment. He tried pressing the buttons. Nothing happened so, instead, he curled his fingers into the join in the doors and pulled. The doors opened a little way only to reveal a wall. Tim released the doors and took a step back. The cold, his still-recovering throat and the company of Gareth Keenan was dousing any flickering embers of any kind of good mood. He crossed his arms and fell back against the wall of the lift with a sigh. After a moment Gareth spoke.
"What happened there?" Tim inhaled deeply.
"In a word, we're stuck." He said. There was a pause.
"Well, that's two words."
"Doesn't really matter, does it, Gareth?" Tim snapped. Gareth pulled his head back in an exaggerated manner to reinforce his feigned shock. Tim slid down the wall so he was sitting on the floor. "I think it is safe to say that we are stuck here for the night. No. Rephrasing: I am stuck here with you for the night."
"Well," Gareth started, choosing his words carefully "Someone will come and let us out won't they? I mean, someone will notice."
"Yeah, Gareth? How? How will someone notice when we're the only ones in the building until about 6:00 tomorrow morning? Go on, Einstein. Tell me." Tim said, putting on fake interest, complete with a fake smile but his eyes were hard and made Gareth wilt slightly and he fell silent. For a moment anyway.
"We'll be alright, though." He said. "I'm trained in survival so..."
"Gareth, don't even start that now, alright! I don't care."
"No, all I'm saying is that, as long as I'm here, we'll be safe." Tim gave Gareth a venomous look.
"As long as you're here, I'll want to kill myself!" He said. "Everything you do drives me round the bend! You are the most irritating person I've ever met in my life, Gareth, OK? So stay as far away from me as possible and don't talk. At all!" He added as Gareth went to speak again. He coughed, raggedly and put both hands to his face and made an aggravated noise through his fingers as Gareth simply looked on. After a second, Gareth reached into his pocket and pulled out a half packet of strepsils and threw them into Tim's lap. Tim lowered his hands and looked at them.
"You drive me nuts too." Gareth said. "But, I'm just saying that, if this was a life threatening situation, I'd be able to keep us safe. I think you're a cock, yeah, but I wouldn't let you die or anything." With a self-righteous look at Tim, he turned his back on him and leant against the wall.
"Well..." Tim said, surprised. "We're not gonna... die here, Gareth."
"Yeah, I know. I'm just saying." Gareth said, shortly and then fell silent.
As silently as he could, Tim popped one of the strepsils out of the packet and put it in his mouth without a word.
3 hours later...
"So, what you're saying is that things like houses are male yeah? And objects within them are female?" Tim asked. Gareth nodded.
Both men were sitting on the floor of the lift. Tim sat cross legged but skinny little Gareth sat hugging his knees looking, for all the world, like a child. The heating in the building had been turned off and the temperature was dropping fast.
"Yeah, because it's that old thing of men being supportive and protective but women doing all the work, safe in the knowledge that they're... well... safe." Gareth answered, nodding. Tim nodded.
"OK, so what's a cupboard? A hermaphrodite?" He asked, giggling at his own joke.
"No. It's male because it's attached to the wall and is containing and "protecting" smaller objects. Therefore, male." Gareth responded, pulling his knees in tighter and looking smug.
"What about if you take it off the wall? Then it's both an object and a container." Tim pointed out. "Much like you." He added, giggling. With a cynical fake laugh, Gareth stopped for a moment, thinking.
"Well, then you could say the same thing about... I dunno... a pencil case."
"Hm... Interesting concept. Hermaphrodite pencil cases." Tim said, giggling. After a second or too, Gareth's expression broke and he started to laugh too. There was silence for a moment.
"What did you need all that office stuff for, Gareth?" Gareth looked at him for a second before answering.
"Had my computer stolen. Been getting behind, steadily so I thought I'd take some stuff home and catch up." He said, shrugging as though he didn't care.
"You had your computer stolen?" Tim repeated. "Not your laptop? Your computer you said? From your house?"
"Yeah." Gareth said, simply.
"What, you don't have stationary already?"
"Well not anymore. It was all torn up or smashed all over my house if you must know." Gareth said, defensively. Tim put his hands up.
"Alright. Just asked. So, you were properly burgled then? It wasn't just the computer? They ransacked the house?" Gareth nodded. "They take anything else?"
"They took everything alright! Bloody everything! Now drop it!" Gareth exploded.
"Yeah, you're right mate. Sorry." Tim apologised. He paused for a moment then said "Did you report..."
"No, I didn't! Now can we change the subject? I don't want to discuss it." Gareth shifted himself where he sat and the two sat in silence for a moment.
"So why did you join the army?" Tim asked Gareth, suddenly, not entirely sure why he'd asked.
"For the basic training." Gareth answered. "Learn self-defence, you know?"
"Self defence?" Tim repeated (he seemed to be fond of repeating Gareth this evening. Maybe it was just a way of filling the time). "What do you need self defence for?" Instead of answering, Gareth just said quickly
"Is it me or is it getting colder in here?" He pulled his legs in even tighter so he now looked rather small.
"Well what would you normally do? Keep moving? Keep the blood flowing and everything?" Gareth just sniffed and shook his head.
"Nah. I'd rather conserve my energy." Gareth replied, his voice breaking suddenly. Tim looked at the skinny, blond man in front of him and noticed he'd begun to shiver in his thin suit. Safe in the knowledge that he couldn't be seen...
"Erm... Gareth. Do you..." Gareth looked up at him. "Well... you're cold so... I just thought... this coat's rather big. It's not mine so... if you want to keep warm..." He pushed an arm out so that one side of the coat opened like a wing. Gareth looked at the coat and then at Tim's face suspiciously.
"You havin' a laugh?" He asked. Tim's arm dropped.
"No, Gareth, I'm not." He snapped. "I was trying to... help you. You know?" He pulled out the nearly depleted strepsils. "Return a favour? But, you know what? Forget it." Gareth suddenly jerked forward slightly.
"No!" Tim looked at him. Gareth cleared his throat awkwardly. "No... um... that's fine. Thank you." Tim held the coat out again and Gareth shifted himself ungracefully into place, all arms and legs. They both sat there in the big, heavy coat for a moment, Tim having removed his arm from that side of the coat so that he could cross his hands in his lap. It was a while before Tim spoke again.
"So why do you need to know self-defence?" he asked. Again, Gareth shifted where he sat.
"Just... bullies and stuff. You know... small." His voice trailed off. Tim guessed that by "small" Gareth was referring to himself and nodded. Yeah. He knew about that one but he guessed that it had been slightly harsher for spindly Gareth and he didn't push the issue any further. Tim couldn't help but sit there, thinking. Gareth had had a lot to put up with. Somehow it had turned him into one of the most unbearable men he'd ever met and yet... what? He wasn't sure. He tried to imagine being at work and Gareth not being there. It didn't work. Life would just be unbelievably boring. All those times winding him up with Dawn just for the hell of it, the various war facts that drove him round the bend, the bizarre phone calls with Oggie, the battles over desk space, stationary and God alone knew what else... all gone. Everything that Gareth did, everything he was and the insanity he caused people were what made life interesting. Life wouldn't just be boring, it would be wrong. The world needed Gareths in a strange and terrifying way.
It had to be nearly 11:00 now but he couldn't get to his phone to check without elbowing Gareth in the ribs. The time was vaguely given to him, however, when he heard a small snore from his right. He looked at Gareth, whose head had fallen sideways away from Tim's shoulder. Tim looked around him, needlessly. All that surrounded them were the four walls of the lift. He looked at Gareth again.
"Mate," he said quietly "don't ever stop annoying me, OK?" Gareth suddenly twitched, making Tim jump, and his head changed direction so that it was now resting on Tim's shoulder. Tim sighed, knowing his arm would go dead in minutes. As gently as he could he pulled his arm up so that he had it round Gareth's shoulders. It was now that Tim realised just how fragile his blond workmate was. Sharp bones could be felt beneath thin skin and Tim thanked the Lord he had never felt inclined to hit him. If he had, he felt he would have broken him. Gareth was still shivering so Tim pulled the coat closer round him with the arm he had over his shoulders.
Tim knew what would happen. It had to. That's what happened here. He'd fall asleep in this stupid lift with his arms around Gareth Keenan only to be discovered by half his colleagues in the morning. They'd never let him live this one down. Still, it was better than the guilt he would have felt at leaving him shivering on the cold floor of the lift.
In the morning...
As luck would have it, Tim was woken up by the alarm clock on his phone at 6:30. Unfortunately, this also woke Gareth.
"What are you doing!" He piped up immediately, shifting himself away from Tim's embrace.
"I was just trying to stop my arm going dead, mate." Tim said, completely in earnest. "And you were cold." He added, unable to pretend that that hadn't been at least part of it. Gareth seemed torn as to what to say in reply. He settled for...
"Well... thank you but no thank you next time, ok? ... Bender." He added for good measure.
Tim chortled.
"Next time, Gareth? You contemplate this happening again do you?"
"Better not." Was the reply as Gareth hugged his knees again. Tim shrugged, still smiling at Gareth's first statement. There was a sudden, grinding whir. The lift started moving again. Immediately, the two men jumped up and brushed themselves down. Gareth combed his hair with his spindly fingers and Tim readjusted his tie which he'd loosened the previous evening.
The doors opened on one of the maintenance men.
"You alright there, lads? Sorry about that. You been in there long?" Gareth and Tim looked at each other.
"Erm... No. Just a matter of minutes really." Tim said, shrugging and smiling. The maintenance man smiled.
"Oh good. Well, I'll leave you to get to work then." He walked off down the corridor, leaving Tim and Gareth to walk to the office.
Nothing had changed and, with any luck, nothing would.