Chapter Text
There was a long, long silence, which as it drew on Martin became increasingly certain was going to be interrupted by a burst of laughter from one or both of his coworkers. Honestly though, he wasn't sure he could blame them if they did. He knew it wasn't the most believable story – Jon, their uptight, over-professional boss who never had a kind word to say about Martin, saying he loved him.
Maybe not in so many words. After all, "You are loved" was used by people all the time, not necessarily in a romantic context. Although Martin wasn't exactly thinking about it in a romantic context – that would have been too much to consider, even in the current circumstances. But those words coming from Jon… There was no context in which Martin would be able to make sense of it.
He pulled himself out of the spiral he was beginning to fall into, and realised Sasha and Tim were still standing in blank-faced shock before him. He cracked a small, sheepish smile. That seemed to snap them out of it.
"What," Sasha said, the question entirely lost in her flat tone.
"I knew it!" Tim cried, punching the air with a fist. "I knew he'd crack someday." Martin watched with a mixture of confusion and dawning horror as Tim turned a smirk on Sasha. "Told you he's been pining just as hopelessly as Marto here."
Martin's undignified squeak at that statement went entirely unnoticed as Sasha's expression shifted to a thoughtful one. "That depends though." She turned towards him and said in a straightforward yet not unkind manner, "What exactly did he say, Martin?"
"What exactly happened, Martin?" Tim followed up, with a level of pure glee in his voice that would have been offensive coming from anyone but Tim.
Martin recounted the details as closely as he recalled them – which, given the event had occurred minutes ago and would surely be branded into his memory for years to come anyway, was accurate movement for movement. He kept his eyes closed as he spoke, not wanting to see the expressions on his coworkers' faces, at least until he had finished.
And – "And he said, 'You are loved'," Martin closed up. "And then he made this- this face like something was physically hurting him, and he ran away." He opened his eyes.
Tim's expression had morphed into something just a little heavier, though he was still somewhat smiling. "I guess he's more repressed than we thought?" he said, the end of the statement lilting upwards into a question.
"I don't know." Sasha, on her part, was wearing an expression partway between contemplation and concern. "Something about it seems… off." She looked to Martin, who met her eyes with difficulty, and seemed to make a decision.
"Alright!" she said. "Tim, go and check on Jon please." Tim nodded, and disappeared from the room. Then, Sasha's voice and expression softened. "Are you okay, Martin?"
Martin blinked. "Uh. Yeah. I'm okay." Recognising the audible uncertainty in his voice, he laughed nervously, and amended, "Well, I'm confused, obviously. Really confused. But, uh. Otherwise okay."
"You're sure?"
"Yeah." He gave his most confident smile.
Sasha smiled back. "Alright. Should we…?" She tilted her head towards the door.
"Right, right. Just waiting for my tea to cool down…"
"I'll carry it, don't worry." Sasha reached out for the mug, but draw her hand back as soon as her fingers made contact. "What have you- Leather fingers or something?" she said with a laugh.
Martin joined in quietly, his tension fading away as he picked up the tea and followed Sasha into the main office. "Practice, I guess?"
𓁺𓂁𓂄𓁺𓂁𓂄𓁺
"Hey, boss."
Jon froze in the middle of a spiral of panic at the voice. There was no question of its origin, but there was a curious tone in it – some mixture of amusement and guarded concern – that instantly gave away that the visit wasn't a mundane one.
With the speed of someone who'd had far too much practice in it, Jon gathered the pieces he had fractured himself into, and pulled them together into what he hoped would be a semblance of his usual attitude.
"What is it, Tim?" he asked as his assistant entered, leaning against the doorframe instead of entering the room. Jon congratulated himself silently for the level tone of his voice. At least, it was close enough to level that Tim seemed not to have noticed, as the concern washed out of his expression, leaving only amusement, and a hint of what Jon recognised tensely as mischief.
"Oh, nothing really," Tim answered, sauntering over to lean over the desk, one arm propping himself up against it. "Just dropping in to say hi, see how work's going… Ask if you've made it out of the room today, you know, things like that."
Of course. Now the presence of another had forced Jon into pulling himself into a shape capable of somewhat rational thoughts, he recalled the two vague, assistant-like shadows he had passed on his way back to his office.
He resisted the urge welling in him to drop his head in his hands on the desk and cry. He didn't want to do this – to have to act normal again around Tim of all people.
At least it isn't Martin, he reminded himself forcefully, and met Tim's eye with a raised brow. "I have," he said acerbically. "What of it?"
Tim grinned, that half-teasing, half-genuine quirk of his that had always secretly warmed Jon's heart during their initial friendship. "Good, good! You wouldn't happen to have run into Martin, did you?"
"I did."
That was when Tim dropped all pretense of innocence. He twirled around to face away from Jon, leaning back against the desk with both hands. "Weeeeeeell," he drew out richly. "Seems to me like someone has a crush…"
It was fortunate that Tim's back was turned at that moment, as Jon found tears prickling his eyes. Of course he had- Well, more than a crush. Far more. But the Martin he knew – the Martin he loved, the Martin he would help with the fog and the Loneliness and anything, anything he needed or wanted or might have even possibly desired – was not there any more.
Of course, Martin was present. But not his Martin. He'd forgotten that, for a moment.
He couldn't forget that again.
Jon drew himself up in his seat and let out the huffiest, most indignant sigh he could manage, as he wiped the beginnings of tears from his eyelids. "Of course not, Tim, don't be ridiculous," he said briskly, in some half-formed hope that flat denial would make his assistant lose interest and leave.
He hadn't accounted, he supposed, for the man's curious nature – an untold measure of time without his friend hadn't done his mental assessment of him any good. Tim only leant back further until he was sitting on the desk, his legs swinging off one side, and his eyes still facing the wall. "Mmm, no, of course not, because that's not the simplest explanation for the situation at all."
Jon massaged his head gently, wishing it could relieve the tension behind his eyes. "Tim," he said in a low voice, "my headache is still very much as present as it was last week, and your incessant nonsense is not doing it any good. If you would please refrain from interrupting me during work hours… At the very least wait until an appropriate break time before coming in to harass me."
It seemed there was at least something effectual in the plea, as Tim slowly slid off the desk and turn to face Jon with a more subdued expression. His tone when he next spoke was still light, but laced with concern rather than the provocative excitement it had held a moment before. "You should have done something about that earlier, Jon. Headaches aren't supposed to last a while week."
Jon shrugged in answer, which only prompted Tim further. "Sasha's got some paracetamol in her drawer if you need it," he said softly.
There was something in his voice that made Jon look up.
As he did so, he was hit with a wave of longing and regret and gratitude for the man he used to have known. He stopped himself just short of reaching out to touch him, to see if he was real – to see if that understanding in his eyes, that soft and genuine care, was more than just a trick of the light.
It took all his self-control to steel his expression into neutrality, and so nothing was left to stop his voice from dropping to a whisper as he said helplessly, "I'm sorry, Tim." He knew it was an overreaction to the simple help his friend had offered, but there were no other words on his tongue or on his mind at that moment.
Tim gave him a comforting smile, and said nothing of Jon's lowering voice or overly soft tone. "Alright," was all he did say, gently. "Just shuffle over any time you change your mind."
Jon nodded, finding his throat too choked to let out words. He resolved there, at that moment, to do whatever he could to make sure Tim would never turn into that bitter shell of himself he had grown to be. That would never come to pass.
Jon swore it.