Work Text:
Jonathan Sims is very good at compartmentalizing.
Whenever he feels something, he sorts it into the categories Useful Feeling or Useless Feeling. He deals with his useful feelings, uses them to further productivity, and discards or ignores his useless feelings.
Obviously, this is healthy and good. Or, at the very least, it's working.
But ever since the Prentiss incident, Jon finds himself having fewer and fewer useful feelings. He's certain he used to have some drive outside his natural dedication to work, but he can't figure out what's changed. He knows that he should want to talk to someone about it, but Tim would think him crazy, Sasha would insist he take a couple days off, and Martin would... Actually, he isn't sure how Martin would react. He doesn't know Martin very well. He's always been somewhat cold towards Jon, though never outright rude or cruel.
Even aside from the level of cool professionalism between them, Jon thinks Martin isn't a very social person. He doesn't remember him mentioning any friends to visit or events he's heading off to. He remembers, vaguely, that Martin had once mentioned going to visit his mother over the weekend. He wonders how different Martin acts around the people he cares about. Does he make his mother tea? Does he bring her thoughtful gifts? He thinks Martin knits. Does he knit things for his mother?
He isn't sure where he got the impression that Martin knits, actually. He doesn't have the hands for it, all stiffness and formality. Each motion he makes is precise, like he's a robot still calibrating its movements. But, for some reason, Jon is sure that Martin knits. He doesn't know when he would have learned this; Martin doesn't go to work functions unless they're mandatory, and they're not friendly enough for him to have just told him. Trying to remember when he found this out is like looking through a magnifying glass wrong, the image warped and mangled. It's too much effort for one small fact, he decides. He can leave it alone.
After all, he's very good at compartmentalizing.
Over the months, he has more and more useless feelings. He's dehydrated all the time and he doesn't know why. He thinks he misses someone, though he can't for the life of him figure out who. No one has left his life recently except- except Georgie. Is that who he misses? She's been gone for a while, but it's not out of the realm of possibility. But when he thinks about it, that doesn't feel right. He does miss Georgie, but he knows what missing Georgie feels like. He's missed her for a while. He understands the shape of missing her. This other feeling, this missing... someone, it feels different. Missing Georgie is comfortable, safe. He's used to it. It's a cold little knot he can pick up and move when it gets in the way. But this other missing person, this is a fresh wound. This is a gash, bleeding and obvious and he can't just move it to the side when he needs his heart, which is very annoying. He can't just sort it into useless and throw it out.
He can't just ignore it.
Because, unlike all his other useless feelings, this one comes with a mystery. Jon can't just let himself throw it away if he doesn't know the answer yet. So instead he sits in it, simmers in his hurt like a sauna. At this point, he thinks, for just a second, about talking to Sasha about this. She's kind and smart; she likely both could and would help him figure this out. However, to talk to her about it, he would have to talk to her about it. Jonathan Sims doesn't need the pressure of another person knowing about his stupid feelings.
So he just keeps shoving his feelings away when he doesn't need them, when he isn't actively working on figuring it out. For months on end.
And then, one day, he's in Artifact Storage. He's checking something for follow-up; a statement giver supposedly gave them the locket from her statement, which contained a picture of her she'd never seen before when she opened it up. She'd mysteriously gone missing a week after her statement, and Jon isn't an idiot: he's not going to open the locket, even if he finds it. However, his searching is interrupted when he comes across the table from Amy Patel's statement. He feels himself taking a step towards it, then another, but before he manages to pull himself away, someone clears their throat behind him.
He whirls around, feeling like a kid caught with their hand in the cookie jar, only to come face to face with Martin. For such a small guy, he sure can loom. Jon nods at him in greeting.
"Hello, Martin. Did you need something?" he asks pleasantly. He always feels vaguely like Martin is disappointed in him, no matter what he's done or how cordial Martin acts.
Martin smiles coolly at him. "No, Jonathan. I simply wanted to inform you that Ms. James was asking for you," he answers, matching Jon's pleasant tone, if slightly colder than Jon had been. Jon nods again, this time in acknowledgement.
He heads back out of Artifact Storage to find Sasha, not asking Martin to call him Jon. He's told Martin a few times that he can call him Jon, but every time they talk, all he gets is Jonathan. Tim gets the same treatment, but at least they get first names. He doesn't think he's ever heard Martin call Sasha her first name, no matter how many times she's told him he can. He finds her standing by Martin's desk, some tapes and pictures in her hands. She looks a level of composed that can only ever be forced. As he takes a step towards his desk, Sasha looks up at him. For just a second, panic and heartbreak are clear in her eyes. But then they're replaced with professional calm as she quickly excuses herself, heading into her office and closing the door. Now, that's odd. Sasha usually leaves her door open in case someone needs her.
Jon decides it isn't his place to question her. When he leaves for the day, she's still working. Tim and Martin had both left earlier, but he had something to finish up. As he packs up and heads out, he thinks he sees her look up, but he can't be sure, because when he looks again, she's staring down at her desk.
The next day, when he comes into work, there's a stranger in the break room. He's tall, ginger, freckled. He looks soft and warm. The feeling of missing someone flares up again when Jon sees the stranger lace his fingers together like he's holding something, even though he isn't. He doesn't have time to puzzle it out before Sasha calls him and Tim into her office. Once the door has closed behind them, he looks over her. She looks frazzled, the least professional he's seen her. Half of her hair has escaped her high ponytail. She's shivering, also.
He opens his mouth to ask her what's wrong, but then she begins to explain. She shows them the pictures, plays them the tapes. He sees the face of the man in the break room, hears a comforting voice he can't remember. He thinks about missing someone he doesn't know. He thinks about Martin knitting. The Martin in the pictures, in the break room, has the hands for knitting. He looks like he moves smoothly when he needs to. In one of the pictures, he has a callus on the middle knuckle of his right pointer finger. Jon drinks in every detail of him, makes a constellation out of his freckles. He feels, suddenly, incredibly guilty.
How could he not have put it together? The Martin he remembers is cold, distant. Why would he go visit his mother? Why would he knit? Jon has been dehydrated lately. He thinks about a warm voice asking Sasha if she'd like any tea before she starts, because, well, he's making some for Jon and Tim and he would feel rude if he didn't offer her any. He thinks about Sasha answering with a fond 'thank you, Martin.'
He feels like he's betrayed Martin by not figuring it out. When Melanie had come back, had she not scoffed something a different Martin as she left? He looks down at his hands. He thinks about missing Martin.
Sasha takes them into the break room. Tim runs to hug this Martin, who looks warm and soft and kind. Jon sees the both of them melt into the hug. He shifts in place and thinks about how he'd needed to get his weighted blanket back out a month ago. He looks down. Sasha sighs fondly at him, grabbing his arm and pulling him into the middle of the hug. He wraps his arms around Martin gently, feeling, all of a sudden, very warm.
He thinks about missing Martin.
If he holds on for just a little too long, no one comments on it.
Over the next few weeks, he tries to reconcile the two Martins in his head. The Martin he remembers, he tries to forget. The Martin who now sits across from him, brings him tea thrice a day, makes sure he has lunch, asks him if he's sure he doesn't want to come with when he, Tim, and Sasha go out for drinks- that's the real Martin. He tries to remember Martin before Prentiss, tries to recall tea and hugs and kindness, but he can't.
One thing he does manage to remember, however, is his crush. He remembers it all at once, because one moment he is lost in his work and the next Martin is calling 'Jon?' from somewhere over his shoulder and suddenly, he remembers just how hopelessly into him he'd been.
He knows he's being weird around Martin. He's scared that if he does talk to him, he'll either reveal his feelings for him or be completely rude as a defense mechanism against feelings. So he just doesn't talk to him, feigning busyness and fabricating distance between them. Every so often, however, he breaks. The man he's been missing for so long, the man he's ever-so-slowly remembering, is right across from him. He's three feet away, and Jon doesn't have enough self control to just sit there all the time and not say or do anything. When Tim and Sasha are out of the room, sometimes he'll ask for a hug. Every time, Martin lights up and opens his arms welcomingly. Every time, the hug is just as warm and comforting as the first one.
Tim and Sasha talk to him about how weird he's being around Martin. He tries, he really does, but he's terrified of doing something wrong. In what he assumes is retaliation, they set up Archives Staff Sleepovers. Sasha makes them mandatory, so Jon attends them, but he still tries to avoid Martin without making it too obvious that he's avoiding Martin.
Of course, Tim finds a way to make him explain himself. He tells Martin half the issue- that he's scared he'll hurt Martin because of how he'd felt about the other Martin. Of course, his Martin is perfectly understanding, reassuring him that it's okay. After that, he hangs out with Martin much more. He's still careful not to do anything that could betray his feelings, but it's much easier now that he only has one secret to keep from Martin.
Sasha sends them on missions, just the two of them, too often for Jon to think she doesn't know how he feels. He stubbornly refuses to say anything on these missions, however, because there's just no way Martin likes him back. Him, Jonathan Sims. Brusque, chilly, anxious, weird Jonathan Sims. No way does soft, kind, warm, gentle, wonderful Martin like him back. And even if he did confess, Martin would be polite and let him down gently and somehow that would be worse. So he doesn't say anything, simply pines after Martin from afar.
It's fine.
Jonathan Sims is used to compartmentalizing.