Chapter Text
Martin goes color shortly before the four of them are transferred to the archives.
Over his time on the research team, he’s taken to bringing everyone tea sometime in the mid morning. It’s a helpful, nurturing sort of routine that Martin finds comfort in, and no one else seems to mind in the slightest. By this time, he knows exactly how everyone on the team takes their tea: Chamomile for Sasha and Beth, Green tea with lemon for Tim and without for Al, mint tea for Leah, and Earl Grey with just a dash of sugar for Jon.
He’s doing the last of the rounds before returning to his desk with his own cup of steaming green tea. As he drops by Jon’s desk, the man looks up briefly, murmurs a thankyou and reaches to accept his cup. Their fingers brush for a quick moment, and in that moment, something in Martin’s vision shifts, and suddenly Jon’s tea is a very different shade than the greyscale Martin’s viewed the world in all his life. It’s a warm, middling sort of shade that catches Martin’s eye, and he can’t help but stare.
Jon clears his throat, and Martin snaps back into reality. Jon is giving him an odd, inquisitive look with eyes that are the same color as the tea Martin has just passed off to him. Martin clears his own throat and hurriedly returns to his desk, where he pulls out his phone and hesitates a mere moment before typing “color of earl grey tea” into his search engine
The color Martin’s seeing in Jon’s tea, as it turns out, is Cinnamon Brown. The online color encyclopedia Martin finds describes it as a warm, reddish hue.
Martin sets his phone face down on his desk, then picks it up again moments later to look at the color again. It’s still there, vivid against the rest of the grayscale screen. He risks a look at Jon, who is hunched over his desk, tapping something rapidly on his keyboard. Then, he returns his gaze to his phone and makes another search query.
Jon’s eyes are chestnut brown.