Seconds to Minutes • •

[fern cedar misty moranth]

There were plenty of times in Fern’s life when she wondered (and sometimes desperately hoped) if she was adopted. Her family was just that dysfunctional at times that there was no way she could share their DNA. She knew wishing or wondering was hopeless though. She had the same blue eyes as Dharma, the red hair that was unique to just her and her mother, and the height of the father who called by when the mood to tolerate his lover took him. How they had managed to have eight children was something of a complex mystery, but the distance they put between themselves seemed to work for them when they were reunited again. They were like young sweethearts all over again and for a brief moment here and there the cynicism of Dharma vanished. Alas, the soppiness of the reunion between her parents was enough to turn Fern’s stomach. She didn’t need to live in the middle of a rom-com when her life was already a giant mess at the best of times. Dad being home was the only reason she had come out with Coral today. She would have rather been at the college campus but her bag with her textbooks in was in a room that was otherwise occupied by her parents, and it seemed the babies had been shipped out with Gramps at the first sign of daylight.

Coral might have been her sister, and Fern did secretly love her, but times like this she wanted to push her off the Empire State Building. She had dragged her around countless stores and tried to coerce her into trying on dresses and skirts Fern would never wear in a million years. She was taller than almost every guy she encountered and having been forced into guy’s clothes by Dharma to deal with that, she was not remotely comfortable in feminine clothes now. Her legs were too long, dresses too short, but Coral wanted to treat Fern like she was a redheaded walking talking Barbie doll. Fern said no so many times and with such volume that store assistants looked uncomfortable, but Coral always just swanned off to the changing rooms with her arm loaded with her own choices from the rails. It was not how Fern wanted to spend her day at all. She eventually lost her cool when Coral was trying to talk her into lingerie shopping, forgetting any attempt at being discreet and very loudly commenting on what she had seen in Fern’s wardrobe last. Screaming how she wasn’t trying to pick up a guy, or look good beneath the baggy shirts she always wore, Fern stormed off.

She didn’t know where she was going, but she could only handle her sister in small doses and she had officially gone way over the limit today, maybe even the week. Fern was still in a sour mood when she found the elevator at the end of the way, stepping aside first to let the family with the three kids and the pushchair go ahead of her. She’d wait for the one on the left. After growing up with so many siblings she had a sympathetic heart for the big families, as much as she claimed to loathe her own. In reality, she’d walk the earth and back for the Moranths; something she wished she could change at times. There was a low ding and the doors to the elevator opened. Fern stalked inside the empty square and pressed the button for the bottom level, pausing only to hold the door for someone she just caught making a speedy walk to the elevators. She might have been pissed off at Coral, but that didn’t mean she would take it out on the rest of the world. She wasn’t that type of person. The slow descent should have been over in seconds really, but there was a clunk, a flicker of the lights and then the elevator stopped moving but the doors didn’t open. “Er, what is happening? Is this stuck?” She pressed one of the buttons once, just to see if anything whirred back to life, but there was nothing.

• • •

TAGGED! Levi Samuel Gallagher
WORDS! 695!
OUTFIT! Tall and Tired!
LYRICS! Unsafe Safe - - - The Hush Sound
NOTES! <3

[Levi Samuel Gallagher]

Levi much preferred being in the lab than out and about. He was tall, he was trim and he wasn't the ugliest beast on the planet. In a city like New York, it was hard to be even remotely good looking in anyway. People were constantly strutting up to him, asking if he were a model, or if he'd like to be one- he definitely did not, or that they recognised him and proceeded to name off a half dozen movies of some actor or another that to him, had little resemblance. He was constantly thrown into uncomfortable situations and his captain thought it was hilarious! It didn't help that the man took every chance he possibly could to shove Levi out into the city. It had gotten to the point where the poor CSI made sure his initialed, city issued jacket was on his back and the issued, initialed blue baseball cap was covering his thick, dark hair. Levi much preferred his work with bugs than he did with people. People, especially women were a species he would never fully understand no matter how many years worth of study he put into them. Oh, he would continue though and use his good looks and charm to his advantage whenever he headed out for a night on the town.

The CSI much preferred his job over the ones he was constantly being offered. They didn't appeal to him in any way at all. He knew there were some who might have jumped at the chance to break out into Hollywood but for Levi the whole thing was just weird. Besides, he'd worked for years to get the degrees he held with pride and didn't want to throw them away for some awkward moments and a "winning smile". Besides that, Levi didn't consider himself to be Hollywood stunning. He was a nerd, a super nerd and he felt like he looked it. Other people didn't, but he did. Just as he didn't believe he could ever be the leading man these people said he could be. He wasn't that naïve and really, he would much rather his lab work over his "model looks"; a term he believed to be utter bullshit.

He'd barely left and already the reasons for being at the Rockefeller Center were beginning to blur and leave him altogether. It might have been a good thing, it might not have been. He couldn't get beyond how full of cotton his head felt. Levi was just happy when the elevator doors opened and he could walk inside. The sooner he was away from the building, he felt like he would finally wake up again. He was expecting to lean against the wall, wait for the quick ride down to be over and be on his way back to the lab to finish up what he'd been dragged from in the name of duty.
Levi had not expected the usually smooth elevator to throw a tantrum and ruin his plans of getting to the ground floor quickly. The tall woman stuck beside him did what anyone else would do and Levi agreed it was the first step. "someone down in maintenance probably elbowed the control panel." Levi said with a shake of his head even as he pulled his phone from his pocket and checked the signal. It was weak, being in an enclosed mental box but it was there. First though he would check the emergency phone for a connection. "I'll see if this phone is working first." he offered, sort of automatically taking control. It was unintentional, just training really but it occasionally pissed people off and Levi didn't always clue in with things like that. The phone did, thankfully, connect and the CSI let out a relieved sigh before explaining the pair were stuck in the elevator. He even went further to explain he was a member of the NYPD but the answers the other man were giving were much the same; settle in. Frustrated, Levi hung up. "We're better off getting comfortable. Something bottomed out with the transponders responsible for this building. And the emergency gens are basically for the lights. It'll be about an hour "at most"." He said with finger quotations and an unimpressed scoff.

♦ ♦ ♦

Tag || fern cedar misty moranth
Words || 711
Clothes || Handsome Mechanic?
Music || Stay Awake --All Time Low
Notes || <3

[fern cedar misty moranth]

Fern hated standing out. After nineteen years she thought she might be used to being unusual for a multitude of reasons, for having people stare one way or another, but she wasn’t. She still caught herself snapping, asking what the hell they were looking at, and flushing hot as she stalked away with long heavy strides. There was nothing glamourous or elegant about herself and Coral once said her giraffe like appearance actually sounded more like an elephant stampede through the house. Fern had replied saying it was rich coming from an over-accessorised clown still trying to fit into the same clothes she had worn since she was fourteen. Fern didn’t want to be like other girls in skin tight mini-skirts, and drinking at night clubs every weekend. She was more interested in her textbooks and what the next independent movie would come into the Tribeca. Coral lived the wild life enough for the both of them…and probably the rest of their younger siblings while she was at it.

Fern knew she came across as bitter and sullen to people who didn’t know her, but she honestly liked being different. It just didn’t translate well when she was in a bad mood or having to save Coral from another stupid mistake. On a good day though, Fern liked being able to forage for food, or having the chance to listen to her mom scare away someone who dared look at their family the wrong way. She was proud of where she came from, even if it was an unconventional mess every second of the day. Fern couldn’t put it into words, and she had stopped trying. Instead she chose to make a path for herself that steered her away from her family. She didn’t intend to walk away from them, but she needed her own space and a chance to be herself without screaming kids, or Dharma threatening to maim someone with a wrench like it was typical of a Tuesday. Zoology and NYU was her chance for that; or it would be if she ever got out of this elevator. Maybe her body would be found in three months’ time, half wasted away and still trapped in a metal coffin, forgotten by the maintenance workers. Dharma’s cynicism and Coral’s dramatics were really starting to rub off on her.

She watched the stranger beside her take control, neither impressed nor annoyed by it. It was a job someone in the elevator had to do and he simply stepped up first. When he had some semblance of an answer to give, Fern groaned and slid down the cool metal wall. “Good job I have nowhere to be then.” She said offhandedly, trying to stretch out along the floor, but her feet hit the opposite wall before her legs were comfortably straightened out. She glared, silently cursing her obscene height, and pulled her knees back up to her chest. It was a good job Coral didn’t know where she had stormed off to, else Fern was certain her sister would hang around for an overly dramatic reunion the second the lift was operational again. This was already bad enough without her slightly older sister needing to act like she had come home from battle after it. Fern fiddled with the rolled up sleeves of her shirt, and examined a fading bruise, going so far as to poke it experimentally. She hissed at that, realising – rather dumbly – that it still hurt. It hadn’t been her finest moment, but there was a severe lack of entertainment in a broken down elevator.

• • •

TAGGED! Levi Samuel Gallagher
WORDS! 699!
OUTFIT! Tall and Tired!
LYRICS! Unsafe Safe - - - The Hush Sound
NOTES! <3