Chapter Text
The first thing Martin noticed during his introductory meeting with his new boss was how gorgeous he was in a strangely familiar way. Maybe not in the traditional sense, but something about his silky smooth salt and pepper hair was intoxicating as he casually flipped a stray lock back behind his shoulder. His warm brown eyes were constantly in motion as if he was running calculations in midair, framed by thin wire-rimmed glasses perched above his high cheekbones. All of this matched his thin, bird-boned stature perfectly, unlike his own curvy (lumpy, on particularly bad days) body.
It was only when those warm eyes locked onto his own that Martin realised he’d been staring and waxing poetic for much longer than was reasonable for meeting his new boss. Whoops.
“Right. So in case you haven’t already been told, I’m Jonathan Sims, the new Head Archivist. As I am sure you noticed when you arrived, we will have plenty of work to do… The previous Archivist, Gertrude, seemed to not be a fan of organisational systems. We will be starting with digitisation of statements and following a Dewey decimal system, but as we start to get a sense of what we’re working with we will be developing our own classification system to start organising the mess that was left behind. Any questions?”
Jon’s torrent of information, coupled with the strange sense of déjà vu he felt when looking at him, brought a seemingly endless number of questions. But the classification stuff should probably be self-explanatory with his supposed credentials, and he was sure he would remember someone so… Unique.
The second thing Martin noticed, only as he started speaking, was just how freezing cold the room was.
“Sorry, but isn’t your office a bit cold?” Martin blurted out.
At this, Jon’s eyes stopped moving and focused on Martin. His eyes seemed to pin him under his gaze, and it was more than a little intimidating.
“I suppose it is. Anything else I can help you with Mr. Blackwood?”
“Ah- Martin’s fine.”
There was another beat of silence as Jon’s eyes flitted away to stare at an empty patch of wall.
“Jon,” he said plainly.
“Pardon?”
“Jon’s fine,” he repeated as his hands ghosted back towards his keyboard, lithe fingers brushing over the keys.
“Oh, got it! Thank you Jonath- Sorry, Jon.”
Martin may not have gone to Oxford, but he had enough common sense to know when a conversation has ended. With that, he got up, politely pushed his chair in, and enjoyed the calming embrace of warm air as he exited the office. Jon’s office.
Once everyone had settled into the swing of things in the Archives, it became an easy rhythm between them all. Well, almost. Sasha was an incredible researcher that could trawl through databases with ease, Tim was charming enough to get information from anyone, and Jon seemed like he’d been born for this. Martin though, he was still out of sorts. He was catching on quickly, but it always seemed like he’d get turned around the second he started thinking he finally understood.
Statements were always misfiled, follow up research was always either not thorough enough or the wrong direction, it went on and on. But Martin had briefly done a stint as a barista before they ““scaled back his hours,”” and he knew he made a decent cup of tea. So he made tea.
It was a dreary day in London as rain drizzled down. It was like just about every other day in London, but Martin’s umbrella had broken the week before and he hadn’t quite had the money to replace it. When he finally made it through the Archive’s doors he was soaked enough for the chill to have entered his bones. He quickly changed into the spare sweater he kept in his desk, a bright yellow thing that he'd picked up in some charity shop a few years back that he was never quite a fan of, but even that couldn’t get rid of the chill.
He sneaked a look over at the tiny kitchenette the Archives shared, which was currently sitting empty. On a whim he glanced back over at his coworkers. Sasha was engrossed in her work like always, idly brushing the tip of her ponytail across her lips as she scanned whatever database she had open, while Tim had his feet kicked up on his desk as he tilted his head up towards the ceiling, holding his latest statement to follow up on above his face. Martin nodded resolutely to himself, then got up to put the kettle on.
Fifteen minutes later he slid his coworkers each their usual teas, with Sasha’s favourite Söder tea set carefully in front of her computer and a chai tea with way too much cream and sugar placed into Tim’s eager hands. That left him with two identical plain earl grey teas, one for himself and one for Jon. Martin set his own (in his favorite mug, of course) on his own desk, then steeled himself for approaching Jon’s office.
It wasn’t that he was afraid of Jon, he could never be afraid of the tiny man he so adored that just happened to be his boss. No, it was the ever present chill of his office that gave him pause. He was already so cold after his commute, and he knew the icy cold that would greet him the second he entered would only contribute to the aching chill he felt in his bones.
Martin paused in front of the door, his mind turning over itself like a child poking at a loose tooth. Maybe Jon would be recording a statement and he could just leave his gift in front of his door for when he finished. But he didn’t sound like he was recording a statement, so Martin knocked lightly on his door.
“Come in,” Jon called out almost immediately.
Martin had half a mind to curse, but he held steadfast and swung the door open.
To his credit, Jon had definitely become less prickly after he grew accustomed to Martin bringing him tea. In the beginning he would grill Martin mercilessly or snap at him for interrupting his train of thought, but today he simply nodded in acknowledgement of his presence and motioned for him to shut the door behind him.
Despite the small warmth that simmered within him whenever he was in Jon’s presence, the chill of the room quickly cut into him. Martin didn’t understand how Jon could stand to work like this, especially as slight as he was. Then again, maybe that’s what the tea was for.
“Thank you Martin. Do you have any more information on case #0071304?”
“Oh!” Martin exclaimed, quickly setting Jon’s tea down, “The Hill Top Road case, yeah? I wasn’t able to find the exact date that the old place was built, but I found some records of its ownership from the late 1800s to the present, I can get those to you ASAP. I think I found another report that might be linked to it though, I figured I might as follow up on to see if there’s anything else there.”
Martin fidgeted under Jon’s gaze and under the icy cold atmosphere of the room, hoping that would be enough for his impromptu report. Jon finally nodded his approval after what seemed like a lifetime, or at least as close to approval as Martin could get.
“Satisfactory. See if Tim can organise an interview with Mrs. Kasuma to see if she has any further information.”
A moment of silence, as if Jon was considering something.
“Please.”
Hoping the conversation was over and that he could finally escape to his much warmer desk, Martin quickly nodded in agreement and made his exit.
He took a moment to sit at his desk and sip his tea, basking in its warmth and subtle flavour as it curled into his stomach in a comforting heat. Once he felt less like he was about to freeze to death, he leaned over into Tim’s space.
“Tiiiim, Jon wants you to follow up with that nurse.”
“Ugh, the one from that Hill House case? I don’t see how she could have anything else to tell us, and I don’t think Jon appreciates that these little chit chat coffee dates have started adding up!”
“Oh no,” Sasha chimed in with a grin as she glanced over from her own desk, “You have to flirt with people on the clock instead of doing paperwork in this stuffy old office, that must be awful for you.”
She then looked over at Martin, and furrowed her brows at whatever she saw in him.
“Martin, you look just about blue! Talking to Jon can’t have been that bad.”
The tips of Martin’s ears flushed red at the reminder of Jon’s constant chastising him for subpar work, and he stammered for a few seconds before managing to string his words together.
“No, no, Jon was actually halfway decent today! It’s just, ah, his office is always so cold. You’d think with the money Elias makes, they could afford to put a thermostat in Jon’s office or something.”
If anything, this only seemed to further perplex Sasha.
“Martin, every room in the Archives has its own thermostat for temperature control. It’s key for an adequate document storage environment, it can’t be too warm or too humid. However, there’s no reason for it to be that cold.”
“Maybe he purposefully keeps his office just as frigid as he is!” Tim offered.
Sasha and Martin both turned to give Tim a deadpan stare as Tim performed his own *badumtss* on an air drum set.
“I guess you’re right Sasha, I think it just got me because it’s already so chilly out. No worries though, I’ve got my tea to warm me right on up!” Martin pointedly ignored Tim’s pout and held up his still steaming mug as proof.
“Good idea Martin! Wouldn’t want you to catch a cold,” Sasha responded.
Martin took a sip of his heavenly tea as Tim gathered up a copy of the Hill Top Road and his cellphone.
“No one in this office is any fun, let's see if Nurse Kasuma has a better sense of humour than you two,” Tim joked as he exits to one of the countless empty hallways to make some phone calls.