Elevator

[antimonyschnuck]

Elevator

Fandom: The Witcher

Ship: Emhyr/Geralt

Rating: Teen+

A Tumblr meme gave me brain worms: "You are trapped in an elevator with the person on your lockscreen."

So here's the (tweet-)fic "Stuck in an elevator with Emhyr et al" aka "the clown car" - it's not a cringy self-insert, I promise.

This used to be a tweet fic and has only 708 words under the cut

Elevator

So, I'm riding an elevator and suddenly a portal opens and plopp, the Emperor of Nilfgaard stumbles out. There's not a lot of stumbling because lack of space. Portal closes and I get stared at. Also: dagger at my throat.

The elevator does a little hitch and stops moving. Fucking portals.

The emperor speaks Dutch with me and uses his knife for punctuation. Mainly exclamation marks.

I'm just me so I heroically whimper in a very much not sarcastic way. He gets bored after a while because I'm clearly not a threat, and looks around, finding himself trapped in a box.

"Uh, it's an elevator," I say, hoping Nord isn't Polish today. It's Thursday and Nord is English.

"Like the lift on Skellige? Without the acrophobia? But it's stuck." I slowly move my index finger to the call button and press.

Nothing happens. It's Thursday and the elevator maintenance contract hasn't been renewed since 2018.

I'm considering what preamble he'll need to accept the existence of mobile phones because I prefer the stare he's giving me to his knife, if I absolutely *have* to be skewered by something today.

"Where are we?" Yes, definitely skewering.

"Different universe," I incriminate myself. "That wasn't my portal, I didn't do anything. Except if I'm hallucinating you, in that case I'm very sorry."

There's more skewering. Then there's a thump. The elevator is bobbing a little and there's the sound of screeching metal.

Nothing more happens.

I exhale and something big drops through the ceiling and seems to take up all available space in the elevator box.

When I open my eyes I have a knife to my throat. If I were a story character I'd say "this was getting old" but it didn't. Knife. Throat. "I'm the innocent bystander," I croak.

Geralt hrmphs and backs up into the emperor. "Witcher-", "Sorry-", "Ouch-", "My bad-", they are sorting themselves out. It's not a large elevator. "Thought I'd drop by," Geralt says and the emperor throws him a smize. "How?"

Geralt gives me some suspicious side eye and explains that *someone* made a second portal that opened on top of the prison cell. There was no time for a better plan than to dump Geralt here.

I'm clearing my throat and ask if anyone would object if I took out my... xenovox... and call someone to pry us out of the elevator. There are no objections (but two knives). While I'm fumbling for my phone I remember my background wallpaper. At least this week it's no nude. "Uh. Big fan. Yay Nilfgaard," I explain coherently and look for the number of the doctor's office in this building I was originally headed for.

I explain on the phone that 3 people are stuck in the elevator and get chided because it clearly says 2 persons only.

After I hang up there's a lot of surrepticious glancing; basically normal elevator behaviour but with more knives. I'm thinking this would be funnier with some merciless elevator music but alas, this isn't a hotel.

Instead, there is another woosh coming from somewhere above. Geralt is through the ceiling within seconds. There's fight noises and then blood dripping through the improvised skylight.

The emperor shuffles a little more to the left and because it would be impolite to stand too close to him I sigh and step into the small puddle. Geralt drops back down to us and says a name I've never read before. Or forgot. The emperor nods. "I thought he'd be the one behind this."

I'm throwing some tissues into the blood puddle when there's yet another woosh and someone drops down into the last bit of elevator space. My face meets Geralt's armour and I'm feeling vindicated in my descriptions of Geralt-smell. (No bird poo, ambutwrites' kiddo!)

"Do you need rescue, too?" Ciri offers helpfully and I explain again that this is just an elevator, even though right now it's more of a clown car.

With a flash they are all gone.

The elevator gives a hiss and moves to the next floor. As the doors open there's a bump from above and the mechanic finds me in the elevator together with a fresh corpse wearing LARP garb.

I should have left with them.