"I never said we weren't fine," Dory replied uneasily. Despite his body's reaction to Greengrass, his mind was convinced the walls had closed in another inch. That combined with Greengrass' nearness had his skin crawling with a pressing impulse to flee.

"We can't risk losing the window by trying to widen it lest we get trapped here for days. If one of us can get our hand through the panes then we might be able to summon someone." Dory explained whilst reaching for the knife. To him it was an obvious potential solution, but there was an air about Greengrass that made Dory feel as though he might be mental. "I can charm a letter to go to Hatchitt's desk even if we have the means to write."

  

The other Fisk seemed to be on board with this plan (or did he just go along with anything? he'd been on board with Ford's suggestion that they just wait it out, too) so maybe it was fine? Ford still had his hesitations about it, but maybe that was just him being weird about this. He didn't want Dorian Fisk to go to any great lengths for his sake, and he'd especially not wanted him to get — agitated about it, as it seemed he had been earlier. But maybe he was just projecting how awkward and tense he felt about this, after the post office and the letter exchange. Maybe Fisk would have done this with or without him. Maybe he didn't like the feeling of being locked in a room. Maybe he just liked solving puzzles, and he'd keep at this one until he had fixed it. Maybe it had nothing to do with Ford and the fact that they were stuck in a room together at all.

"Alright," he said, holding out the knife handle towards Fisk. He still felt a little strange about this, but maybe that was just... because he was tense, and feeling strange about everything. Maybe it wasn't that weird. "Good luck," he said, as Fisk reached to take the knife. He started to look away, but then he was startled to feel Fisk's hand on his. It was probably just an accident, nothing more than a thumb brushing against the top of one of his fingers — reasonable, really, because the handle of the knife wasn't that big and there wasn't that much to grab on to. All the same, it sent an unexpected jolt through Ford. His breath caught in his throat and he pulled his hand back as though he'd been literally shocked by the contact — and in the process dropped the knife, which clattered loudly to the floor.

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   Dorian Fisk

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Set by Lady!

Leonid watched as Greengrass passed the knife to his brother. Or tried to. There it was again, that odd tension between the two that Leonid couldn't figure out for the life of him. "Are you always this jumpy?" He couldn't help but ask Greengrass curiously after the knife went clattering to the floor. Maybe dealing with all those spirits made a man easily spooked.

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   Fortitude Greengrass, Zelda Darrow

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Set by MJ

Dory barely had time to register the brush of their hands before the knife clattered to the ground. One second, Greengrass was touching him and the next Leo believed there to be something wrong with the non-Fisk. He tore his attention from Greengrass immediately, choosing to ignore the shock and, presumably, disgust the other man felt to instead focus on a way out of this hellish situation.

Moving quickly, Dory picked up the knife and walked back to the window. He crouched — once again grateful for the cover his bent position gave his too-tight trousers — and charmed the blade into a sharper version of itself. Then, without any further delay, Dory smashed the larger dark red pane with the handle and set about clearing any remaining shards.

  

Ford's cheeks flushed with embarrassment, but Fisk was already moving on — Dorian Fisk, anyway. Leonid Fisk was asking him questions he didn't have any good answer to.

"I'm alright," he said, tucking his free hand deep into his pocket as though he thought it might find some other way to betray how he was feeling. "Just a little tense, I guess. I'll be fine," he said, moving to the seat farthest away from where Fisk had gone to work on the stained glass window. He could just wait this out, whether or not Fisk's scheme with the stained glass worked. He'd be fine. He just needed to put a little distance between the two of them, and not do anything else that gave the game away.

  

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Set by Lady!

Leonid didn't really believe Greengrass and made a mental note to check on him sometime after they were freed if the opportunity arose. Not that he should really care, he supposed. It wasn't like they were friends or anything but still. He felt a really odd sense of responsibility - maybe because the man was younger than him? Or because Leonid was the type to care about other humans? Or he was just nosy? Whatever it was, for now, he just gave him a concerned side eye before going over to his brother.

"Did your scheme work as you intended?"

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   Fortitude Greengrass

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Set by MJ

The glass gave way as expected, leaving only the challenge of the thin metal bars. Were he confident using magic upon them wouldn't jeopardize the opening entirely he would have simply vanished them. However, he instead was trying to gauge how any of them might fit their hand through the pane. His was obviously too large, his single attempt becoming caught at his knuckles, but maybe Leo's hands were smaller?

"The glass broke just fine. It's the opening...try and fit your hand through there," he instructed his brother, sliding away from his crouched position. They could remove the bones from one of their hands in order to fit it through, but Dory wasn't accomplished with that spell and the thought of permanently maiming any of them was daunting.

Then, he looked quickly towards Greengrass. "Have you ever charmed a floating note before?"

  

Just when Ford thought he had successfully extricated himself from the situation, Fisk called over to him. He'd been planning on just sitting on the other side of the room and waiting it out, until the door either reappeared on its own or until the two Fisks fixed it. Fisk trying to get him involved again was vexing. There were other people in the break room, so why single him out? Presumably the other people in the break room would have been better at charming notes, too; Ford hadn't had any reason to do it since Hogwarts. He didn't want to admit to lacking confidence in his spellwork, though (particularly to Fisk, whose whole job was doing advanced and maybe slightly experimental magic all day long), so he wandered back over towards the door.

"I can manage it, yeah," he said with a slight frown. "Where are you trying to send it?"

  

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Set by Lady!

Leonid felt a stab of insecurity when he realized that he was the shortest among the three. Still, that didn't mean his hands were small.  Still, Leonid stuck his hand and felt a sense of vindication when it didn't fit at all.

"I do that all the time," he added on when Dorian asked Greengrass if he had ever charmed a floating note. "Should we send out more than one to ensure that it is seen?"

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   Fortitude Greengrass

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Set by MJ

"To Hatchitt, definitely." Dory answered with a shrug. His boss was likely more competent at fixing this issue than most in the building, as this was what they dealt with on the regular. Zelda might've been the right second choice, too, because of her expertise, but Dory was already in an awkward enough situation with Leo present. He wasn't going to add more siblings to the mix.

Additional notes was a good plan, though. "Do either of you have colleagues who aren't at lunch?" He asked. Someone who would receive the missive quick was preferable over someone who wouldn't see it for an hour or more. Dory was already on edge as it was with how near Greengrass was, he didn't want to linger longer than he had to. "Maybe one to the department of mysteries, they might know too."

  

Ford did have a colleague who probably wasn't at lunch, but George Robins was almost certainly not going to be much help in this situation. The only thing George might do would be to direct someone else's attention to it, and he might not even manage that (but maybe Ford was being uncharitable? George was probably better at magic than Ford was, but he just didn't seem the type to be a quick problem solver in a strange situation).

"I'll get the one to Hatchitt," he volunteered. The note he wrote was brief: Door to third floor breakroom disappeared; stuck inside. Please help? and with a swish of his wand it was out to the hallway. It at least looked as though it had worked, which was gratifying — if he'd said he could help and then the note ended up doing nothing but flopping around on the floor like a fish out of water, that would have been a little awkward.

"I'll send one to the welcome desk, too," he decided. "They're required to have someone staffed all day, aren't they?" He didn't think the welcome witches would be much help themselves, but they could probably find someone who would help.

  

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Set by Lady!

Leonid figured he would send notes to people in his office. They could find the right people to help. Charming his notes they went off, fluttering through the air.

After a while he heard the sounds of other people beyond the small window they had made. He also thought he heard the laughter of one of his closest work friends. Oh great. Leo regretted sending the man a note.

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   Fortitude Greengrass

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Set by MJ

Oh, good, other people were showing up. They were saved. Or, he was saved — there had never been any particular danger to the break room in general, Ford thought, and the only specific danger had been that he'd have to suffer through more awkward moments in close quarters with Dorian Fisk.

"Thank goodness," he muttered under his breath as the folks on the other side of the wall began discussing what to do. Presumably they'd try all the same things Fisk had, that hadn't worked, but probably eventually they'd get some traction.

It actually happened fairly quickly. Ford was a bit surprised, and he wondered with a vaguely guilty glance towards Dorian Fisk if maybe he'd been too... distracted to cast as well as he usually did. But, no, probably not. Ford was probably just projecting. He'd been the one to drop the knife, being tense and jumpy and awkward. Dorian Fisk had been making plans and problem-solving the whole time they'd been in this predicament, so it was probably just Ford who was feeling so stuck here.

The door reappeared, and Ford hung back just long enough that it wouldn't look as though he were bolting out at the first possible moment. When the door opened and showed off a few people in the hallway (their saviors, he supposed), Ford shot a rather awkward but grateful smile towards both of the Fisks and then scurried away. His cheeks grew red as soon as he passed Dorian Fisk on his way to the door, but he didn't look back as he headed down the hallway and back towards his office.

  

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Set by Lady!