A/N: hi i'm back for a bit to give u guys more one shots enjoy xxx
disclaimer: not my one shot written on fanfiction.net by Analu-sam

Twenty... Nineteen... Eighteen. The numbers on the elevator's small screen were decreasing little by little as it advanced. Lily watched the numbers too closely, trying to disguise the fact that she was terribly uncomfortable with that awkward moment in the elevator.

You know that moment when you step into the elevator, see a person you don't like very much inside, mumble a hurried "good night" just out of politeness and then have no idea where to look? That was exactly how Lilian Evan felt at that moment.

She was counting the seconds she would get out of there and get rid of that silent company of the not always so silent James Potter.

She couldn't understand why the hell he'd decided to work overtime on the exact same day as her and still take the same elevator. The law firm was huge, it had several elevators, why did it have to be just that one?

Not that she had anything against him, she didn't tend to hate people. She just couldn't stand a second of his company. Okay, maybe that was pretty much the same as hating, but that's beside the point.

The fact was that James Potter was a charismatic person, so charismatic it was irritating. Always loved by all the interns, always the darling of the bosses, despite not having a perfect job like hers.

But whenever there was a presentation with the boss, he was the one who always had the most magical words that made them enchanted, she, despite her good work, was always overly nervous on these occasions. Maybe it was just overwork, but you never know.

But if that was all she would still put up with him, what was worse was his superior look and his arrogant bearing. Not that he'd ever said anything rude to her, but her arrogance was evident. And Lily had never gotten along with people like that.

Although he was indeed a good lawyer, admitting that would be death to Lily. She had always been a very proud person and patience was not her greatest virtue. Her classmates were always teasing her about the redheads' hot tempers, but Lily pretended she didn't hear. And she still couldn't stand that damn James Potter in silence, while all the others opened wide smiles to greet him. Ah... How she wished that the day when she was promoted and changed sectors would come soon.

Well, but it wasn't going to come now. At least not at eleven-thirty at night in that old elevator.

Seventeen... sixteen... She looked sideways, her damn James Potter seemed totally oblivious to that tension she put in the air, fiddling with her cell phone carelessly. He looked extremely tired, but despite that he was as handsome as ever, or rather handsome as ever. He ran his hands through his hair in a casual gesture.

Lily looked away, she hadn't noticed the other's beauty, or at least she didn't think she had. She went back to counting her precious seconds.

Fifteen...Fourteen...Wearily, she closed her eyes and sighed, the beautiful images of her warm bed and sheets came to her mind. And when she opened her eyes she realized two things were wrong.

The first was that the elevator was no longer moving. And the second is that the lights had gone out, that or she was blind of course. She bit back a scream, having just remembered that she was a little claustrophobic.

He felt a cold hand on his shoulder and this time he couldn't contain a cry. Was that death? That's what she thought, but when she heard a low laugh and turned around, she came face to face with the smiling figure of James Potter lit up by a lighter.

"I'm sorry I scared you," he said, but the smile on his face showed that he didn't feel anything at all. Despite not admitting it, he was fully aware of the redhead's hatred for him and I could even say that he felt bad about it, but that would be a lie. After all, that hatred for no reason was his greatest amusement. He had no idea how dangerous it was to mess with an angry redhead, or he had and he was terribly masochistic. Never know.

"The elevator broke down" she verified trying to calm down. At least in that light it all looked better, that's what she thought at first, but that only served to make her see the contours of the walls more clearly, making the feeling of being closed in accentuate. And worst of all, being cloistered with James Potter. However, she was Lilian Evans and would never humiliate herself showing despair in front of that being.

"I don't think it broke" James said "I think it was just a power outage."

"Just a power outage?" she said, unable to believe his calm.

"Yeah, I heard that while the emergency generators in the rest of the building work fine, there's a problem with the elevators," he said, sitting down on the floor.

"And that's it?" asked Lily still in shock "Are you just going to sit there and wait?!"

"What else could we do," he said raising an eyebrow.

She turned in annoyance. She had found his attitude too useless. She had to go home. NOW.

"HEY! IS ANYONE THERE?! HELP US! WE'RE STUCK IN THE ELEVATOR!" screamed Lily frantically banging on the closed elevator doors.

"You know... This isn't going to do much good. The only person in this building besides us was the janitor and the last time I saw him was on the 20th floor and he was listening to Iron Maiden in the heights with a headset, no I believe he will listen to you."

"But...but...what about the guards?!"

"Well...we're on the thirteenth floor and they're on the ground floor, do you think you can scream that loud?"

"HELP!" screamed Lily much louder this time.

"That wasn't a challenge, you know?" said James covering his ears, but with a slight smile on his face.

And, well, she knew, but she hadn't resisted. She ended up sitting as far away as possible from the being she directed her hate at in that little cubicle.

Silence, silence, silence. So quiet it sounded like screaming.

"The cell phone!" said Lily relieved.

"Mine is out of bounds," muttered James, who despite the non-optimistic response had been happy to break that awkward silence.

She slammed her hand down hard on the floor before muttering:

"Mine too" lowered his head.

And then the silence returned. One minute, two minutes, five minutes, seven minutes. James ended up remembering that he was claustrophobic at this point too.

Claustrophobia and silence, the two would go crazy!

"The weather is nice today isn't it?" both asked at the same time.

"Not really" the two replied in unison again.

They looked at each other, each measuring the other suspiciously and inevitably started laughing.

Lily was irritated by her own laughter. Had she matched James Potter and was laughing? She should have been burying herself in the garden. But she inexplicably she couldn't stop laughing.

He didn't seem too willing to stop either.

And then it became a competition, nobody wanted to stop first. Either that or they just couldn't stop laughing their asses off. Anything was better than silence. But you never know.

But people's breath runs out and they had to stop for an hour.

"Well, the weather really isn't good today. I have a feeling it's getting colder and colder."

"It's not like you. The heater must not be working because of the power outage" James said.

"And we're in England, and it's winter. We're going to die," Lily said dramatically.

"Calm down, little redhead, someone's going to show up to get us out of here sooner or later."

"How can you be so calm?! And who gave you permission to call me a redhead?!"

"For both questions I have only one answer. It's simple, I'm drunk."

"WHAT?" she said widening her eyes "DID YOU COME TO WORK?"

"Of course not" he replied calmly "I'm drunk now" he said holding out a small gray bottle that the redhead hadn't noticed.

"Did you bring Vodka to work?!" she said no less shocked.

"That's what it looks like, isn't it?" he muttered in amusement, bracing himself for the lecture he was about to receive.

"Give me that" she said taking the bottle from the boy's hand and drinking a lot at once.

He was static in surprise for a moment, but then a sly smile appeared on his well-shaped lips.

"Geez Lily, I never thought you'd be like this again."

"What do you mean by that?" she said handing the small bottle back, suddenly everything was hotter, was it her impression or was the elevator moving again? But why was he turning and not coming down?

"Nothing. I was just remembering a red-haired, green-eyed girl I met in college who ended up turning them all over, spent the night with me, and the next day didn't remember a thing."

"WHAT?" she screamed much louder than before this time. The caretaker must have mistaken it for some noise from his Iron Maiden song.

"Is this...is this serious?!" she continued to stutter a little.

"No," he said, chuckling before continuing, "but now I know you got drunk a lot in college."

She was so pissed off that she would have smacked him in the face if he'd been close enough or if her legs hadn't been so wobbly. Why had she even been drinking? She was always terribly dizzy and out of control when she drank. Ah... it was because of the cold. That and because of the look of complete certainty that she would never do something like that he gave her. Or at least that's how it seemed to her. Well, what's done is done.

She was pretty sure that even drunk she would never get along with that guy, the best thing was to try to forget the cold and wait.

That's what she thought and not what she did.

Several more swigs of Vodka were taken. And against all odds they looked like giggling best friends, playing band name pick-up, the dumbest game they could think of at the moment.

"Now it's L," said Lily.

"Linking Park" said James

"Clean Bizkt!" said Lily triumphantly.

"Led Zeppelin!" James suddenly remembered. It was his last resort.

"L'âme Immortelle!" cried Lily triumphantly.

"Isn't this that Swiss band that sings in English and German and has two bizarre vocalists?" he asked in a horrified tone.

"Er..it is" she blushed.

"Lily, Lily...I like music weird" and like a good cheery drunk he started to laugh "But I admit you won"

"Haha I've always been superior sir James Potter" she said triumphantly.

They played again.

"Now it's C" said Lily

"Coldplay!" said James before Lily could even breathe.

"Ahh no I was going to say that one" she pouted.

"Haha I've always been superior Miss Lilian Evans" he smiled triumphantly as she had just done.

"Even my phrases you're using against me now are you? I should've been...AH! The Cure!"

"Ahhh, no, it starts with "the"!" he said in a very childish way that Lily thought it was cute, but mentally reprimanded himself for it... He'd had too much to drink...

"Christina Aguilera then!"

"She's a singer and not a band!" he protested

But Lily didn't give up this time.

"Of course it does!"

"Right, right. Chris Brown then." again, this was James' last resort.

How could he lose out on a band name fanboy for a woman?! He had completely underestimated the redhead, and as strange as that might sound, that fact only made it all the more fun.

"Children of Bodom!" cried Lily triumphantly.

"Okay Lily, now your taste in music is freaking me out. Aren't they that band that did a freaky Britney Spears cover and got a name from that murder case they had at Lake Bodom back in Finland?"

"Look who's so horrified by the bands I know you know a lot about them don't you?"

He just laughed. She walked towards him in order to give him a little slap across the face, just for fun, but ended up failing miserably. She forgot about her dizziness and ended up tripping over her own legs. And do I need to say she landed right on top of James? After all they were in a small elevator, there really wasn't much space to fall into.

They looked at each other and started laughing maniacally, the sound of their laughter enveloping the other. And when they finally stopped they realized they were very close to each other. Too close.

And while she noticed how beautiful he looked smiling like that with his messy hair and his greenish-brown eyes half open, so close to her, he looked at her and thought that she was completely different from what he imagined and how beautiful she was with her face blushing, a smile on his face and red hair falling gracefully over his very green eyes.

The next second she took off his glasses, she thought she didn't know why the hell she was doing this and he was trying to figure out what she was going to do exactly. And in the next second neither of them was thinking about anything, their lips had met and they had started a slow kiss that soon became ravenous and desperate, their tongues meeting in a frantic dance.

They could no longer think of right and wrong or anything else. Everything felt right now.

But by an irony of fate, the inconvenient caretaker had chosen at exactly that time to notice that there were people inside the elevator and open the door.

Needless to say, this was extremely embarrassing for all parties involved in the story. You can probably imagine the young janitor opening the door singing the song he was listening to on his phone and running into the two executive lawyers, as he would say, "making out."

And so the two ended up going home as if nothing had happened. And I can certainly say that both of them thought a lot about what happened before they fell unconscious, each in his own bed.

But the story did not end there.

The next day the two were playing the same stupid game of pretending nothing had happened. Treating each other as they had always done, each one looking in the smallest gestures of the other for some clue if that pretense was just because they didn't know what to do, or if everything that had happened was nothing. But the headache that the vodka will present them with didn't help much in their discernment, they ended up not reaching any conclusion.

Lily blamed herself saying that she should never have made anything like it, it had been the Vodka. Without the drink she would never have kissed someone she hated so much. But when she thought about it, she couldn't remember the reason for her hatred that had once been so obvious.

And he looked at her confused, he had never been able to understand that redhead. And eventually he realized that the fun he had of being with Lily playing with her hate wasn't just fun anymore and it wasn't the hate he wanted anymore.

The two, not knowing what to do, ended up giving themselves to work.

By the time Lily looked at her watch, it was already eleven o'clock at night. She sighed and realized that it was time to go home. She promised herself that the next opportunity she got she would talk to James.

But as she got into the elevator and ran into him, she almost wanted to get out the doors slammed shut before she could make a move. And then she found herself staring at the small panel and counting the seconds again.

Twenty... Nineteen... Eighteen... She couldn't be a coward! She was about to say something, looked in his direction, but ended up doing nothing.

Seventeen...sixteen...fifteen...James realized she'd glanced in his direction. He had to do something. He was going to put his hand on her shoulder and ask her a direct question, but his hand stopped midway.

Fourteen... Ah! It couldn't stay like this!

And just like that, they both realized that they had pressed the elevator stop button at the same time.

"Trapped" on the thirteenth floor again. They looked at each other and smiled.

This time it was going to be a lot more fun.