Work Text:
"Are you feeling alright?" Martin asks. Jon looks up at him.
"Hm?"
"It's just, you sound a bit hoarse, is all. If you're sick-"
"Oh! Uh, no, no, I'm fine," Jon waves him off. "Just a um, a bit under the weather over the weekend. I'm feeling better now. Shouldn't be uh, contagious or anything."
"Oh, that's good, then. Would um, I can bring you some tea, if you like? For your throat?"
"...Yes, alright. ...Thank you."
"Of course! Be right back."
Jon clears his throat after Martin leaves, frowning to himself. When he'd woken up this morning, he'd hoped his throat would sort itself out by the time he got to the office, but unfortunately it hadn't. At least Martin seemed to buy his excuse, though if he's being honest he doesn't exactly expect too much scrutiny from him. Especially compared to the other two. Still, he is a bit worried. He doesn’t particularly want to explain the real reason his throat is sore, and he wants to endure the teasing that would surely follow said explanation even less. He sighs. Oh well. At least he has a reasonable excuse. He just needs to keep it convincing. Maybe even fake a bit of a sore throat tomorrow to make it more realistic.
He’s feeling a bit better a while later, though still fairly hoarse, when he wanders out of his office towards the archive room itself to look for a few files. He hears his name through the door though, and pauses outside it, listening.
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“So what do you think’s up with Jon? He sounds like he tried gargling gravel,” Tim says, leaning back in his chair and stretching.
“He said he was a bit sick over the weekend,” Martin explains. Tim looks at him skeptically.
“Nothing that gives you that bad of a sore throat only lasts a weekend. Not like a stomach bug.”
“It could,” Martin replies. “You’ve never had a short cold? Besides, what does it matter? It’s just a sore throat.”
Tim shrugs and grins. “Just bored and nosey.”
Martin rolls his eyes.”Well I believe him.”
“That’s fine. I’m just saying there are much more interesting ways a person can end up hoarse.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know! He could’ve been uh, you know...” Tim moves his hand in a pumping motion in front of his mouth a couple times while giving Martin a significant look. He grins as Martin’s eyes go wide, and he turns an impressive shade of red.
“Tim!”
“What? I’m just saying!”
“Well- well stop saying!”
“Fine! Fine. I’m not saying it’s likely to be that anyways. Maybe...” He snaps. “Maybe he went to some concert and screamed himself hoarse.”
Martin snorts at that, and his blush begins to fade a bit. “Yeah, sure,” he says skeptically. “Some- some metal concert or something.”
Tim laughs. “Oh no, definitely some pop star. Much more his scene.” They both laugh.
“Alright,” Martin says, turning back towards the papers on his desk. “Well you have fun trying to figure out the “real” reason. I’m going to get back to work.”
“I will. I will have fun with it,” Tim replies with a grin.
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Jon scowls at the door. He definitely does not want to know what Tim was doing to make Martin sound so scandalized, though unfortunately he has an idea. He’s definitely not happy that Tim’s doubting his excuse, even if it’s only jokingly. And oddly enough, he feels a twinge of irritation that they both seem to find the idea of him at a concert so unlikely. Maybe it’s just because of the lingering nostalgia from last night, but he’d like to think he doesn’t seem like a boring enough person to dislike music and, well, and fun entirely. And, of course, there’s the ever-present, underlying desire for Tim to just shut up once in a while.
Suddenly, an idea pops into his head. He considers it for a moment, and then turns from the door to walk towards the break room instead. If he’s going to do this, it’ll be better if they don’t suspect he might’ve overheard them.
He’s just finished boiling water for more tea when Tim walks in.
“Hi, boss!”
“Hello, Tim.”
“Say, I meant to ask earlier, is your throat ok? You’re sounding a bit hoarse.”
“Hm? Oh yes. Just a touch under the weather over the weekend. Nothing a little tea can’t help.”
“Right, of course. Just a cold or...?”
“Something like that I suspect. Nothing bad enough to need a doctor or a day off.”
“Right, right. Well, I hope you feel better soon!”
“Thank you, I’m sure I will.”
He ignores the feeling of Tim’s eyes on him as he leaves. He quickly goes to grab the files he wanted before heading back to his office. Once he’s back with the door closed, he pulls out his phone. He’s never really used facebook actively, but he knows some of his friends do — that’s how they arranged last night’s little get-together after all — and he’s sure he can find the pictures he needs with a little bit of searching. He smiles as he finds what he’s looking for and starts saving a handful to his phone. This is going to be fun.
————————————————————————————————————-
Jon makes sure his office door is open when everyone starts getting ready to leave for the day. They have to walk by it on the way out, and usually if the door is open they’ll stop and say-
“Bye, Jon! You not leaving yet?”
“Bye, Sasha. No, not quite yet. I have a couple things to finish up first.”
“Well don’t work too late, boss. You need to get your rest, after all,” Tim says, his tone slightly teasing.
“Of course. I do plan on leaving soon.”
“Good,” Sasha says with a smile. “See you tomorrow, then.”
“Yeah, see you all tomorrow.” He’s met with a chorus of “bye”s, and waits for them all to turn to leave before he speaks up again. “Oh wait, actually, Tim, could you stay a moment?”
“Sure thing, boss. You guys go on ahead.” Martin and Sasha walk off, and Tim steps through the door.
“What’s up?”
Jon looks at him for a moment, letting the others get a little further away. “Tim ...Would you like to know the real reason I have a sore throat?”
Tim’s face lights up immediately. “Yes. Absolutely.”
Jon picks up his phone and starts tapping at it casually, unlocking it and opening his photos as he walks over to where Tim is standing.
“It’s because over the weekend,” he explains, scrolling, “I met up with my old punk band from uni.”
“...Wait, what?”
“We decided to play some of our songs for old time’s sake. Just a bit of fun,” Jon elaborates, handing Tim his phone after pulling up what he wanted. He moves around Tim and closes the door, just in case. “I was the lead singer.”
Tim scoffs.
“Uh huh. You’re hilarious, Jon. But what...” He trails off as he finally looks at the phone, his eyes going wide. Jon tries to suppress a grin.
“We used to play at these seedy, late-night bars near campus,” he continues as Tim scrolls through photos of a much younger Jon and his friends, all in heavy make-up, on the stages of various colourfully lit, smoke-filled rooms. Jon’s hair was notably longer back then, and lacking its current gray. And the clothing he was wearing was... well, it certainly wasn’t anything like what he generally wore to work. “We had sort of a whole backstory thing, for our stage personas. The music was all about these grand, epic adventures and tragedies in space. A lot of them written by me, actually. It was all quite dramatic. And loud.”
By this point, Tim's hands are visibly shaking a little. Jon can’t hold back his grin anymore.
“Anyway,” he finishes, “we got a bit carried away last night and I sang myself hoarse.” Tim looks up at him, having finished looking through the photos, mouth agape. He closes and opens it a couple times, clearly trying to think of what to say. Jon smiles pleasantly at him.
“W-why are you telling me this?” he finally manages.
“Because,” Jon replies, plucking his phone out of Tim’s hand and selecting all of the photos. He sees Tim’s eyes go just a fraction wider as he hits “Delete.” “No one will ever believe you.”
He lets Tim stand in shock for a moment, revelling in his success. Finally, he gives him a pat on the shoulder.
“Alright, I won’t keep you any longer. It is getting a bit late, after all.” Jon opens the door and gently hurries Tim out. “Get home safe. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Jon closes the door just as Tim turns around. There’s a few seconds of silence, and then footsteps heading away. Jon waits until they completely disappear in the distance before he lets himself crack up laughing.
————————————————————————————————————-
Tim is halfway home before he gets over his shock enough to actually process what happened. He immediately pulls out his phone to tell Sasha and Martin in their group chat, but then he stops. Jon was right, he realizes. The others would never believe this. It's Jon after all. Jonathan "Such A Stodgy Old Man Inside It's Making His Hair Gray Early" Sims. Hell, Tim didn't even believe it himself until he saw the pictures.
But he has to tell the others! He can't just keep this to himself! And he certainly can't let Jon get away with pulling something like this on him. No, he needs evidence. He starts to plan.
If Jon hadn't deleted the pictures off his phone, Tim could've just swiped that, but no luck there. But... the pictures. Jon was in the pictures, meaning he hadn't taken them himself. So they have to be somewhere other than his phone, right? Someone else has to have copies. But how to find them? Facebook, maybe? He doesn't know if Jon uses it much — he doubts it — but maybe there's something on there?
He quickly checks when he gets home, but with no luck. They're not friends on it, and Jon has all his privacy settings too high to get any useful information. He tries Twitter on a lark, but doesn't have any luck there either. He thinks he found an account under Jon's name, but there's no activity and the privacy settings are also maxed out. He'll have to figure out something else.
He considers what he does know. Band from uni. Not hard to find where Jon went to school. And the music he described was unique enough that there can't be too many bands fitting that description. Especially if he narrows his search down by the years Jon was in school. Tim grins to himself. He's just going to have to do a little bit of research. And considering his entire job for the past several years has been researching things with very little to go on, he's pretty confident he can find something, even if it's just a couple pictures or a shitty, early 2000s phone video. It might take a little time, but he's never minded playing the long game.
————————————————————————————————————-
As it turns out, "the long game" in this case lasts about two weeks. A little longer than Tim had guessed, but between Jon's astonishingly small digital footprint and the obscurity of the band, it hadn't been an easy task. But eventually, he hit the jackpot. He didn't just find pictures. He found videos. And even better, proper recordings. Once he'd figured out the name of the band ("The Mechanisms"? What dramatic nerds.) he'd found that one of them had made a youtube channel, and oh had that been a pleasant surprise.
Walking into the office on Monday, he's practically bouncing with excitement. Sasha raises an eyebrow at him.
"Someone's in a good mood for a Monday."
"I am! And you're about to be too. I have something unbelievable to show you. You too, Martin."
Sasha and Martin share a look of wary intrigue. Tim just keeps grinning as he turns on his computer.
"Jon's not around, is he? I didn't see him in his office."
"No, I think he's over in the breakroom. Why?" Sasha asks.
"Well. You remember a couple weeks ago when he had that sore throat?"
————————————————————————————————————-
Jon's on his way back to his office, tea in hand, when he hears something coming from the archive. It sounds like... music? He gets closer, and the sound grows louder. Then, his stomach drops.
He knows that music.
He opens the door slowly, dread filling every inch of him. The door creaks slightly, and the three figures huddled around Tim's desk look up. Sasha and Martin's eyes are wide. Martin's mouth is slightly agape in shock. Sasha's is curved into a delighted smile. Tim leans back in his chair and grins broadly as Jon's voice growls out of the speakers.
"Mornin' boss! I was just introducing Martin and Sasha to this great band I just discovered recently. Maybe you've heard of them."
The feeling washes over Jon, cold and sudden, that he may have made a mistake.