Archive of Our Own ^beta

It’s not that Suzie had thought the elevator in her building was haunted; she knew it was haunted. 

Her apartment building was on the older side, built before the Titanic had sunk. Once, the lady who lived down the hall from her had mentioned that their elevator was one of the oldest still operating in the city. But of course, she just had to rent an apartment with character, and the cheaper rent had definitely been a contributing factor.

The last time Kori had been by her apartment, she had, in no uncertain terms, told her that she would rather take the seven flights of stairs than use that creepy elevator. At the time, she had laughed and called Kori a coward. Surely, after today, Kori would be laughing her ass off.

She was already running late for her rehearsal, and her bag was weighing heavily on her shoulder, so she had opted out of taking the stairs. 

Tapping her foot impatiently for a few moments, the old elevator stopped at her floor with an unassuming ding.

She stepped inside and had to stop herself from audibly groaning. 

That was another downside of her apartment.

Jewels Sparkles lived directly above her.

Jewels was standing near the back of the elevator, bundled in an obnoxiously fluffy and pink jacket. She was scrolling on her phone, pointedly ignoring Suzie’s existence.

Suzie stepped inside the elevator and brought out her phone in turn. If she wanted to ignore her, then that was perfectly fine with her. Despite living in a major city, the theatre world was still small and tight-knit, so the two of them often ran into each other at auditions. It’s not that she thought Jewels was untalented, no, of course not, it was that she was fake. 

She would smile at you in rehearsals, make inside jokes with you, and offer to run lines together over cups of coffee, ask you out for drinks after hours… And then three weeks later, you would catch her talking shit about you behind your back.

Or at least, that was her experience.

It definitely hadn’t haunted her dreams for weeks on end, Jewels’s high voice telling Lexi that she was “Just like… Sooo obnoxious! And pretentious! Did I mention pretentious? She totally fucked up that performance. She didn’t deserve it!”

It definitely hadn’t hurt her feelings

Not one bit.

But there wasn’t time to think about Jewels today, no matter how much her mind wanted to focus on it. She was running one of her important scenes today, and she had to be at the top of her game. She knew the lines, she knew the character inside and out, and she knew her number like the back of her hand. 

She wouldn’t let herself be distracted by Jewels’s sweet-smelling perfume, her long dark hair, or her fluffy pink jacket. I mean, sure, it was cold out, but that couldn’t possibly be practical, right? What if you spilt food on it? Or your coffee?

Coffee. Suzie had forgotten her coffee.

Maybe, if the wait time on Uber wasn’t too bad, she would be able to stop in somewhere to grab one. Yes, that would take her mind off things.

She was just opening the Uber app when the elevator groaned.

With a sudden lurch, it stopped dead in its tracks, stuck between floors.

Shit. The elevator was stuck.

Fuck, she was stuck with Jewels.

She looked up from her phone, and in her peripheral vision, she saw Jewels do the same, “Shit, are you serious?” She pinched the bridge of her nose and raised it upwards towards the ceiling. Of course, of all the days she could get stuck in an elevator, it was when she was already late. Of course, of all the neighbours she could get trapped in a small space, it just had to be Jewels. This was practically a Saw trap right out of her nightmares.

“No, no, no…” She was unceremoniously shoved aside by Jewels, who began pressing every floor button, just for good measure. 

“Oh, yeah, cause that’ll definitely fix the elevator.” She crossed her arms. “Great idea, Sparkles, you should really add Elevator Tech to your stunning resume.”

Jewels shot her a look. “Don’t be a bitch, Suzie,” she snapped before pressing the elevator call button.

Just their luck, the call button wasn’t connected to anyone who could help them. Instead, they were directed towards a very confused operator, who offered to call them emergency services.

“No, no. We should be okay.” Suzie butted in, “I think I have the building manager’s phone number somewhere; we can probably take it from here.”

“Who, Phil?” Jewels asked once the call had been disconnected. Of course, she was on a first-name basis with their fucking building manager. “I don’t think he’s in today, but I can give him a call, if you want?”

“If I… If I want?” Suzie sputtered.

Jewels cringed, “Oh, right, yeah. Duh.”

Phil was, in fact, out today. But, at the beck and call of his favourite tenant, he assured the girls that he would be by in about an hour to fix the elevator.

“An hour?” Suzie groaned, sliding down the elevator walls and onto the floor. The space was already becoming overwhelmingly hot, so she removed her jacket.

Jewels raised a perfectly arched eyebrow at Suzie before telling Phil that she would see him soon. Once she was off the phone, she slid down onto the floor across from Suzie.

She stared at her for a minute or so, and Suzie felt herself becoming more and more overstimulated under her gaze.

Finally, Jewels asked whatever question she seemed to be burning to ask, “What? Are you running late? Do you have a date or something?”

“Oh yes, a hot date at 11 am on a Wednesday.” Suzie couldn’t help but roll her eyes. Perhaps she was being a little bit hard on her, but she always brought out the worst in her. “No Jewels, I have rehearsal.”

“Oh.” Jewels was silent for a moment. She curled a strand of hair around her perfectly manicured finger as she thought of what to say next, “Is it for that production of Fun Home you booked? Congrats on that, by the way. I heard you practicing Changing My Major. You were good... Like really good.”

“You could hear me?” Suzie asked. She told herself that she wasn’t blushing, that she wasn’t preening under the compliment.

“Diva, your window was like, wide open.”

Shit. She really had to stop doing that. It was a small miracle that she didn’t get nearly as many noise complaints as she already did.

“Right, thank you. Congratulations on booking that production of Spring Awakening.” She paused; she supposed that she should repay the compliment, it was only right, right? “You’re going to make a fantastic Wendla.”

“Oh, you think so?” Jewels perked up immediately, “Thanks! I was sure that Plasma was going to book it, but the director told me that I had just the kind of energy that she was looking for. She saw me in Bare: A Pop Opera last year, so I guess I’ve been typecast.”

“It’s not going to be an easy role, you know?”

“Oh girl, don’t I know it!” Jewels hid her giggle behind her hand, and it twisted something in Suzie’s gut, “We need to get an intimacy coordinator and everything. The guy who got cast as Melchior is nice and all, but it's still-.”

“I mean, yeah, but that wasn’t what I was talking about... All the trauma she goes through, the physicality of it all… Do you even understand the show at all?” Suzie shouldn’t have said that last part, and she knew that. It was like she said, Jewels always brought out the worst in her.

Jewels paused and narrowed her eyes, “Suzie. I booked the role. I’ve been in rehearsals for like a month now. Of course, I understand the show.”

Jewels looked annoyed and frustrated, but there was something else in her eyes, too. Hurt? Suzie felt a pang of guilt in her chest and took a breath before responding, “Sorry, that was uncalled for.”

“Yes, it totally was.”

She had her arms crossed over her chest, and her lips were forming a pout. If she really tried hard enough, she could imagine steam coming out of Jewels’s ears. It was just Suzie’s luck, really, that on top of being annoyingly talented, Jewels was also gorgeous. Breathtakingly so. Frustratingly so.

Fuck her weak lesbian heart.

The tension was thick in the small space, and silence seemed to hold its own deafening sound.

“I’m sorry. Can we start over?” Suzie asked once she could no longer stand the silence, “I feel bad, it’s not your fault that we’re stuck here.”

“I don’t know, will you quit throwing strays at me?”

Suzie stifled an awkward laugh, “I don’t know, but I can sure try.”

Jewels gave her a small and unreadable smile. For someone who wore her heart on her sparkly pink sleeve, Suzie found it hard to figure out what she was thinking half of the time. “How are rehearsals going?”

“They’re alright, most of it I’m not too involved in. Today we were going to run Thanks for the Care Package.  Do you remember Lydia? We did that production of A Chorus Line together? She got cast as Joan. I’m a little bit terrified that Kori is going to murder me.”

“Oh dear god, yeah, she might actually.” Jewels agreed, “Do you think Lydia has broken the news to her yet?”

“I haven’t received any threatening texts from her yet, so I don’t think so. I'm just hoping that she tells her before opening night. I could totally see Kori running up on stage.”

Jewels laughed at the image, and this time it twisted Suzie’s gut again for entirely different reasons, “Oh, Lydia would kill her if she did that. It would be funny though, I’d totally pay good money to see that.”

“What, the happy couple’s fight of the century?”

“No, the Suzie Toot and Kori King throwdown. It could be a fight for charity! Sam makes a killer banner; she could totally help organize it.”

“Sam? Like, Sam, who was in Oklahoma! the other year? How do you know her?”

“Oh! Right, I guess you wouldn’t really know, would you? She’s my cousin! We’re super close. We did beauty pageants all the time growing up together.”

“Beauty pageants?” Suzie blanked, “Like Toddlers and Tiaras?”

Jewels covered a snort with her hand, and fuck, it was kind of adorable, “Yeah! Exactly like that. The big poofy dresses, all the makeup, the whole nine yards.”

Suzie shook her head in disbelief, “How did you guys turn out… normal after that?”

“Diva, I’m not sure that we did. Have you ever met anyone who's actually well-adjusted in our industry?”

“Touché.”

Suzie could feel herself relaxing into an easy rhythm with Jewels until she remembered the way she had laughed at her with Lexi, and she lifted her guard back up.

Jewels hadn’t caught onto the memo, though, and continued talking about anything and everything to fill the silence. 

“Suzie, do you think our building is haunted?”

“Suzie, do you think that ghosts are real?”

“Suzie, the other night I saw Joella fall, and I thought to myself, is the whole point of life laughter? Do you think that our purpose is to find something so ridiculous, so briefly delightful, that we forget for just half a second that we’re mortal?”

She had shifted beside Suzie as she philosophized, and now they were pressed hip to hip. It was too much for Suzie, who was already overstimulated and undercaffinated.

“Diva, I don’t know! What do I look like, a scientist?” She finally snapped.

Jewels fell silent, and they sat there for a while, ruminating in silence before she decided to break it again.

“Suzie. Can I ask you something?” Jewels was wringing her hands together nervously, as if Suzie could conceivably put her on edge.

“I think you just did, Diva,” Suzie responded.

“Why do you hate me?” Jewels asked. Her pretty brown eyes were misty, and she searched Suzie’s for answers. She looked so… so genuine.

But Suzie knew better.

She scoffed before replying, “I don’t hate you, Jewels.”

“You could have fooled me. I mean, I thought that we were on our way to becoming friends, you know? Then you got all… cold.”

“I thought we were friends, too. And then I heard you telling Lexi how annoying and pretentious I was.” Suzie wrapped her arms around herself, “It sucks, you know? I’m very familiar with people talking behind my back; high school was full of that, but I thought we all left that behind when we graduated.”

Jewels was stunned into silence for a moment, “You thought that I was talking about you?” She asked after a moment.

Wait

“You weren’t?”

Jewels laughed, she genuinely laughed, and the sound of it filled the tiny space that they were trapped in, “I was watching Glee with Lexi. I was talking about Rachel Berry. You know that episode in season 3 when she gets into NYADA over Kurt? I guess it doesn't really matter.”

Oh God.

Oh God, she had been so cruel to Jewels for no reason.

“I would never say that about you.” Jewels reassured her, placing a tentative hand on Suzie’s knee, “I think you’re smart, talented, funny, pretty-“

“You think I’m pretty?” Suzie could feel her cheeks reddening, and her heart began to beat faster.

“Of course I do. That’s why it hurt so much when you became so distant, I was… I had the biggest crush on you.”

“You did?”

“I did.” Jewels’s eyes flickered down to Suzie’s lips, “I do. You’re kind of hot when you're mean.”

Jewels sat up on her knees and scooched closer to Suzie, “I really do.”

Suzie sat up in turn, and she and Jewels were face to face, nose to nose, “Can I kiss you?”

Jewels’s pretty brown eyes sparkled, of course, everything about her sparkled without her even trying. “Please.”

When their lips met, it felt like forgiveness, like the start of something new and beautiful. Jewels’s manicured hand came up to cradle Suzie’s cheek, and she tasted like lip gloss.

Arms then wrapped around her neck and drew her in closer, like Jewels couldn’t bear any distance between the two of them, like she wished for them to meld into one, imperfect being. Suzie’s hand drifted down to Jewels’s fluffy jacket. It was so obnoxious, with its pink and sparkly appearance. At that moment, she couldn’t think of a time she found a piece of clothing so beautiful, only because it was so Jewels. 

Like magic, the elevator began to move, and the two broke apart, breathless, and made whole.

“Can’t Phil give us, like, ten more minutes?” Suzie complained, her lips still tingling.

Jewels giggled, her cheeks still flushed, “That would make you even later for rehearsal, silly.”

“Fuck the rehearsal,” Suzie replied and gave her a chaste kiss.

Soon, the doors would open, and a very apologetic Building Manager would be there to greet them. There really was no reason to apologize; getting stuck in an elevator with Jewels Sparkles was the best thing to happen to her in months.

* * *

The next day, when Suzie exited her apartment, there was a bright red sign over the elevator buttons which read “PREVENTATIVE MAINTENANCE. For your safety, this elevator is OUT OF SERVICE.”

While this might have annoyed her on any other day, she really couldn’t bring herself to care. After all, she had a beautiful actress waiting for her one floor up from her own to finish what they had started in the elevator yesterday.