February 26th, 1891 — Ministry Break Room

Ford couldn't make a habit of planning overnight trips on work-days, because he'd been tired all morning as a result. At least today was Friday, though, and no serious work ever happened on Fridays, in his experience. He'd muddled through his morning and made it through to lunch, so half the day was gone already, and the afternoon promised to be even lighter than the morning had been.

He usually brought a lunch with him from home (it saved money, though he might have made up some excuse about it feeling cozy or something if anyone ever asked him about it), but coming straight from the manor he hadn't bee able to do that today. On his lunch break he ventured out into Muggle London just far enough to secure an apple and a cup of hot broth, which would get him through until it was time to go home, he supposed. He'd finished the broth and half the apple when suddenly Dorian Fisk walked in to the break room he'd chosen to eat in that afternoon.

He hadn't seen the other man since their encounter in the post office, and had no desire to talk to him now. He wasn't sure he could get through a conversation without saying something he might regret, and his last letter had been too curt to be deemed polite. The letter alone would have been enough to make him nervous about trying to talk with Fisk again, but with everything else... there was no way he could manage it. Fortunately, an apple was a mobile food item — he could just take it with him, and get out of the break room before he had to say anything at all.

That was his plan, anyway, but when he stood to leave, the door had disappeared. He stopped, staring at the wall for a moment, then shot a hasty glance towards Fisk as if he might have done it on purpose. Probably not, though — if he wanted to talk, he could have just asked, without resorting to weird magical tactics. And if he'd wanted to talk, he wouldn't have picked a break room where other people were sitting around eating lunch.

"Uhm," he said, shifting his weight to the other foot. "Anyone seen the door?"

(Dorian Fisk and open to 1-3 other Ministry employees, 2 days or 2 posts!)

  

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Set by Lady!

For once, Dory was having something of a quiet day. It wasn't a sentiment he dared speak aloud, for he knew the second he did his desk would explode with urgent matters. Toddlers would set their house aflame, debutantes would make themselves and everyone around them invisible (again). That old man with the farm equipment that nearly killed Hatchitt would have some sort of crisis. Something would go wrong and ruin his weekend, so no. He was keeping his head down and going about his day quietly.

Or such was the intention until he awkwardly spotted Greengrass in the same breakroom Dory used on a daily basis.

The message Greengrass was trying to get across in his last letter had been received loud and clear, so Dory didn't think it prudent to join the man as he might've prior to the post office disaster. He still hadn't managed to distract himself from his thoughts, but talking to the main star of them all would only fan the flames. No, best to avoid Greengrass at all costs. Which, evidently, wouldn't be difficult as Greengrass soon made to leave, anyway.

Good riddance.

He made sure to sit with his back to the direction Greengrass was walking, determined as ever to ignore the other man. Naturally, that was when his perfectly quiet day decided to implode, causing Dory to sigh heavily into his stew. Rising from his recently taken seat, he walked over towards where the door ought to be (careful to maintain a ridiculous distance from Greengrass) and stared the space in contemplation.
It was just a solid wall, no frame work for the door existed anymore. Bloody hell.

"If this is a practical joke, best to end it now." He muttered, looking about the few others in the room with them.

  

Leonid was minding his business and eating his lunch since that was typically what he did in the break room. He looked up briefly when his brother came into the room before going back to eating. Then his ears perked up as Greengrass spoke about the door. He stood up as well.

"Well, it wasn't me," he said as he came up beside his brother to peer at the... now bare wall. He was clueless to the weird awkwardness between the other two.

  

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Set by MJ

Ford had been vaguely hoping that Dorian Fisk might ignore his question entirely and let someone else solve it, which was silly now that he thought about it. Dorian worked in magical accidents and catastrophes, and this disappearing door was certainly one of the two; it was literally his job to fix things like this. All the same, the hair on the back of his neck stood up when the other man approached. It was ridiculous to expect that anything would happen here, in the Ministry break room, but the post office wasn't exactly a private place either, and he could certainly remember the feeling of having Fisk on top of him there, and the tension between them so thick one could cut it with a knife. Should he move away, just in case something happened that pushed the two of them too close? Would it be obvious what he was trying to avoid, if he did? Maybe not to everyone else in the break room, but certainly to Dorian.

His heart skipped a beat when the other man mentioned a practical joke, because the first thing that came to mind was that someone might find it funny to trap Dorian and Ford together, which would mean someone knew. Ford wasn't even sure he really knew what had happened between the two of them at the post office, but he certainly understood how mortifying it would have been to have a third party play witness to it. But he was being stupid — Dorian probably didn't mean a joke on them, just a joke generally speaking.

"Wasn't me," he added quickly, when the other man spoke. Another Fisk, which in any other circumstance would not have been remarkable (there were a lot of them, and most worked for the Ministry), but now had him paranoid all over again. Dorian wouldn't have said anything about him, about them, to his brother, would he? Ford hadn't said anything about this to Noble, and they were close — they shared nearly everything. But this was... different. It was new for Ford, which meant he was unwilling to spend much time even thinking about it and would rather have feigned a violent illness than tried to talk about it, but maybe Dorian had... more experience with Quidditch, and didn't have quite so many inhibitions about it as Ford did.

"D'you think it's just hidden, or that it's actually gone?" he asked, trying to force his mind to the problem of the door rather than obsessing over exactly how many inches remained began him and Dorian Fisk.

  

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Set by Lady!

Leonid wasn't the likely suspect, which left Greengrass and the two others in the back of the room. That Greengrass had been trying to leave suggested to Dory it wasn't him, but then who? And, more importantly, how? A practical joke wouldn't last long, he didn't think, but was there something awry within the Ministry? Was this some sort of new lockdown procedure none of the underlings were aware of?

Dory stepped towards the wall and tapped along the length of where the door used to be, listening for what he assumed would be the studs holding up the wall. The firmer knocks proved that the door wasn't hidden but vanished, almost as though it hadn't existed at all. Reaching for his wand, Dory cast his usual barrage of spells he used when trying to determine what strange magic he was working with. Only to come up empty handed once again.

Fuck.

Without the distraction of casting spells and trying to determine where the door had gone, Dory became immediately aware of how little space existed between him and Greengrass. To which he inched to the side without so much as looking at the man. Dory had other outlets now, none of whom were men. That was the nonsense at the post office, he'd just needed to get laid. Any lingering attraction to the other man was purely the result of lingering tension.

Tension that would be worked out later with someone else entirely.

"Without being able to see what's on the other side of the wall, the door appears to have been vanished." He replied firmly. There was a window that they could send a letter through, but with no owl that letter wouldn't get far. Fuck. Dory didn't often suffer from claustrophobia, but the thought of being locked in this room with Greengrass made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. "We might be able to conjure one. Magic always functions so oddly within the ministry."

  

Leonid sipped his coffee as Dorian unleashed the usual sort of spells including the ones Leonid would personally have thought of. It didn't work. Maybe the Department of Mysteries was up to something again. Aside from the door, there was another mystery presenting itself in front of him. He was a bit of a perceptive sort and he could sense something awkward between Greengrass and Dory but he didn't know what.

"Since a finite and jinx reversal spell isn't working, maybe it's something a lot stronger?" He suggested in a bid of trying to be helpful. "You could try a small door first, just to test things?" He sipped more of his coffee, still puzzling this odd tension between the other two.

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Set by MJ

A small door wasn't going to get him out of the break room, which was the only thing Ford wanted at the moment. It wasn't as though he had any better ideas, though. He'd never been the sort to be intuitively good with practical magic; what he did regularly was smooth and reliable only through practice. He was hardly the sort to go experimenting with unknown spells to try and solve a problem. Honestly, the Fisks probably would have done better without him, and he briefly considered walking back to where he'd been eating before and just waiting for them to figure it out. At least then he'd have several feet between himself and Dorian Fisk, and could pretend not to be paying attention. Since he'd been in the middle of leaving, though, he wasn't sure he could manage it without looking strange.

"Well, uhm," he said a little helplessly. "You want to try, then? You're the expert."

It was an innocent statement, and factually true — this was literally Dorian Fisk's job — but it was also only a few syllables away from the you're my hero comment he'd made at the post office before he could think better of it. Ford's cheeks flushed red at the memory. He looked at the floor a few feet away, just to not be looking at either of the Fisks for a moment, and awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck.

  

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Set by Lady!

Had Greengrass not made his rejection explicitly clear, Dory might've read more into the 'you're the expert' comment. It was reminiscent of 'you're my hero', after all, and thus enough to make him wonder what Greengrass was getting at. (Really, if the younger man had any sense about him he'd step back and allow the two qualified ministry officials do their best.) Dory didn't dare look at Greengrass and was truly doing his damnedest to ignore the man's presence altogether, so he missed the flushed cheeks and awkward neck movements.

Frowning, Dory cast one more spell to summon the door that too failed. "You think they'd warn you before making adjustments to doorways," he muttered more to himself than the others in the room. Conjuring even a door large enough for a mouse would be difficult with all the wards the ministry had in place.

Still, he had to try. If only to escape Greengrass' presence.

Aiming his wand at the wall, Dory attempted to make a doorway where the old one used to be. Only, rather than make a door of any size a small stained glass window appeared. "Bloody hell." He muttered again.

  

The stained glass window was sort of pretty, and very ornate given its size. Given how Fisk was cursing about it, though, Ford didn't think he'd much appreciate a compliment on the subject. He clearly hadn't intended to conjure a stained glass window (though really, that made it all the more impressive that it was so perfectly scaled and beautifully colored).

"Well, it's got to sort it self out eventually, doesn't it?" he asked anxiously. If it was something the Ministry (big M, Ministry, as opposed to the people in this room) had done, they would either reverse it or sort out the kinks sooner or later. They were probably aware of the problem, or they would be sooner or later — he didn't imagine that they'd leave a room full of employees to just languish and starve to death, or anything. If they were stuck here long term, maybe one of them would have the courtesy to stick around as a ghost after they died, so they could just float through the wall and alert others to their predicament — but it probably wouldn't come to that, because surely someone would notice if they all didn't come back to their desks for the afternoon. Certainly by Monday morning. At any rate, Ford was less concerned with the chances that they might be stuck here forever and more concerned by how agitated Dorian Fisk seemed to be about the whole thing. With the swearing, and the hasty spells, and his body language — it was all sort of frantic, and it was making Ford feel frantic too just due to proximity.

"It's not the end of the world if I'm stuck here another twenty minutes," he said, a sort of olive branch. It was true, too; he had no pressing work to attend to and hadn't even been planning to finish his lunch break until Dorian Fisk had walked in. "So — well, no need to get worked up for my sake," he concluded, cheeks flushing again. "I can wait it out."

  

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Set by Lady!

Leonid was in agreement with Mister Greengrass. It was slightly weird to see his brother so agitated. Wasn't this something he dealt with on the daily, being in the squad in all? Or was this just how Dory typically did his job? "Yes, I'm sure we just need to wait it out a bit," Leonid said in agreement. Leonid couldn't help but notice how Greengrass seemed to assume that his brother was getting worked up for the mans sake. But why? What did the two even have to do with one another? Nothing came to mind so he didn't focus too hard on his vague curiosity about the tension between Dory and Greengrass.

"Let us just hope no one needs to use the washroom in the meantime." Though now that he had said it, he kind of needed to go.

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   Fortitude Greengrass

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Set by MJ

Truth be told, Dory would've preferred both his brother and Greengrass to leave him to figuring out this latest disaster. It was difficult to focus with Greengrass so close, the rejection too recent for Dory to have sorted his newfound ... immoral tendencies back into its box. Winnie ensured him other men suffered from the same affliction, that it wasn't as unnatural he initially thought it to be. But Greengrass didn't, which meant the subtext of every conversation they had hadn't existed at all.

Which left Dory beyond confused and frustrated.

He pushed a hand through his hair in an effort to keep himself from showing any other visible sign of his frustration. The room felt hot and he was certain the walls had closed in a few inches, too. Dory needed out, not for Greengrass's sake or Leo's bladder, but for himself.

"Yeah, sure. We'll just wait." He agreed with a tense nod and stepped back further away from the wall. The window still taunted him even as he sat upon one of the nearest tables. Perhaps they could work a pane of glass out to fit one of their hands through? Dory was hesitant to use magic on the metal itself for fear of losing the window altogether. But, careful cutting along the sides of the pane could work. The only remaining issue there was his hands were too big to fit through even the largest section, and with no women present it was unlikely any of the other men's would either.

(That Dory immediately thought of the likely softness of Greengrass' hands embarrassed him further. Moreso when his body had a minimal reaction to the thought, as well.)

Leaning forward, Dory rested his elbows upon his knees. "Anyone have a knife handy?" He asked, feeling even more foolish for leaving his in his desk.

  

Dorian Fisk seemed to accept that, which meant there was nothing to do but wait. Ford bit his lip and glanced from Fisk to the window and back, but was distracted when Dorian ran his hand through his hair. He stared, watching the way it fell back into place bit by bit as Fisk's hand moved past it, and the way each individual piece momentarily caught the light. It would have looked even better in the sunlight, but if they were in the sunlight they wouldn't have been in this predicament to begin with.

Ford realized he was staring and forced himself to look away, at some nondescript point in the break room. He hoped Dorian hadn't noticed. Hoped his brother hadn't noticed, either. He wasn't sure which one would have been worse, honestly. Leonid Fisk catching on to Ford's inner turmoil would be mortifying, but at least he probably wouldn't do anything about it. If Dorian caught on, he might... well, Ford wasn't sure what. He might do something about it. There was too much in their previous conversations for him to not have been thinking some of the same sorts of things. Too many implications, suggestions. Ford wondered suddenly what Fisk's hair would feel like between his fingers. He wondered if he'd ever have the chance to run his hand through it, the way Dorian just had. Maybe if he'd answered that last letter a little differently, but probably not now.

He bit his lip harder, trying to push those thoughts away. Dorian asked about a knife, and Ford looked over at him with some surprise. He didn't see how that was going to help them, especially since they'd just agreed to wait it out. "There's probably one around here somewhere," he pointed out. It was a break room, after all, and cutlery tended to collect in the drawers below the counter in the back of the room as people forgot things here and there. Surely one of the drawers had a knife in it?

He moved to go check, thankful for the excuse to put some space between him and both Fisks — it would be harder to read the tension in his body language, he thought, if he was halfway across the room. "What are you going to do with it?"

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   Dorian Fisk

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Set by Lady!

Probably one of the unfortunate things for Greengrass and Dorian was that it was part of Leo's job description to be able to read the room. Which, with him, was hit or miss. This moment was turning out to be one of those hits. The thing working in both mens favor was Leonids mild ignorance about men having actual crushes on men - and not just a 'I want to be just like Arven Fisk or Alfred Darrow when I grow up despite the fact I'm almost 30' type of crush thing like he had.

So, he just gave Greengrass a 'you're a bit of a weirdo, huh?' type of look before joining in the rummaging of drawers. Maybe Dory owed Greengrass money. As for knives, there was typically a couple around for people to make use of for fixing their lunches. Like if they had apples and such.

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Set by MJ

A knife used on apples or bread wasn't exactly the sort Dory was picturing when he asked. He was more hoping someone to have a hunting or pocket knife handy. Something with a precise blade he could use to cut along the panes of the glass after smashing through it with the handle to prevent an injury. With how narrow the gaps were Dory didn't relish the thought of his brother or Greengrass slicing their hand on miniscule shards.

He was about to voice such explanations, too, except Greengrass was staring in a way Dory would claim to be mesmerized and biting his lip and Dory was rendered speechless. He wanted to bite Greengrass' lip (and more). The thought of what he might taste like came so instantly that Dory had to shift subtly forward to further hide his body's reaction. There was no way he could join the hunt for a knife when his trousers were becoming uncomfortably tight.

Eventually, he was able to think again once both men had their backs to him, leaving him able to answer with, "I'm going to try and cut a hole large enough for one of our hands to fit through." Someone would notice a waving hand, right? And then they wouldn't risk the one exit they had.

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   Fortitude Greengrass

Ford had reached the nearest set of drawers by the time Fisk answered his question. He looked back at him over his shoulder for a moment, caught off guard by the answer. That didn't seem... productive. What were they supposed to do if they did get a hand through? It wasn't like there was a doorknob on the other side that they could just reach for, if the door had actually disappeared entirely. And the wall was too sturdy for them to do anything with just a hand, if that was what he was thinking. It was also pretty much the opposite of what Ford and his brother had both just suggested — not doing anything stupid and waiting it out until someone else fixed this. Which Dorian had agreed to, right before asking for a knife.

There was a knife in the drawer, and Ford picked it up but hesitated to hand it back to Fisk. "It's fine," he told Dorian Fisk with a frown. "Honestly, we can wait it out. We're all fine."

  

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Set by Lady!

"Oh, good plan. And even if no one sees a hand sticking out, they will surely hear yells." Leonid didn't know how loud the others could be but combined, they could create quite a din, he was sure. At the very least, maybe it would draw the attention of one of the messenger owls that tended to swoop from department to department. And he did see one of the ones who had sat back using a parchment and quill earlier.

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   Fortitude Greengrass

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Set by MJ