Work Text:
“Thanks for helping me find these files, you’re a real lifesaver,” the man occupying Jon’s spare office chair said. He was the institute’s newest researcher, who may or may not have introduced himself. Jon hadn’t been paying attention, but he vaguely recalled Martin mentioning the man a few weeks ago. Something Roberts? James? Jason?
Jon made a noncommittal noise in response and stood to get the door while Roberts gathered his things, hoping to hurry him out. Clearly no one had told the new guy that bothering the head archivist was not the system for accessing archived materials, although Jon supposed he couldn’t be blamed for all of his assistants being out for lunch. Speaking of whom, through his now cracked door it sounded like they were back.
“I still can’t believe you have a thing for him,” Tim was saying.
“And why not, exactly? Maybe if you explain a bit louder he’ll hear you-“
Tim made a noise of dismissal, but Jon missed his response, too focused on Martin’s tone of voice - challenging, rebuking, teasing, not a tone Jon had heard from him before.
“All I’m saying-“ Tim said loudly, breaking Jon from his thoughts, “is that you and I, Martin, are the two best looking bachelors in this institute, and we’re both right here.”
Was Tim... flirting with Martin? Tim was a bit of a flirt. And Martin was very. Well. Who wouldn’t, Jon supposed? Only he’d never noticed it happening before. Not, he knew, that he was particularly observant in these matters, but-
“Timothy Stoker, are you propositioning me in the middle of this office at 2pm?”
“Why, is it working?”
Martin huffed, his eye roll nearly audible, “I’m flattered, but some of us are looking for something a little more long term.”
“Nothing wrong with a bit of fun now and again,” Tim shot back with an equally audible wink, “Besides, you think you’ll get long term from him?”
“Oh, leave him alone Tim,” Sasha cut in, nevertheless sounding quite entertained.
‘Him’ again. Jon couldn’t see any of them, had no way of telling what direction they could be gesturing in. Who could Martin have such an apparently ill advised thing for? Someone at the institute, since all three seemed to know of him. Suddenly Jon wished he paid more attention to his coworkers. Not that he was interested in gossip. Just. He was curious, really, was all-
Martin scoffed, “Obviously not. But so long as I don’t have any long term prospects, I don’t see what’s wrong with having a harmless crush on my boss-“
Jon slammed his office door shut. He knew at once from the ringing silence on both sides of the door that it had been a stupid thing to do. Oh god.
Roberts cleared his throat behind him and Jon only just managed not to leap three feet into the air.
Hastily clearing his throat, Jon mumbled, “Er. T-thought I saw a spider.”
Roberts eyebrows were nearing his hairline when Jon managed to glance up at him. “Right,” he replied, clearly having heard everything.
Jon pulled the office door open just wide enough for Roberts to slip past him, staying firmly out of view behind it. He shut it much more gently this time, as if that would mitigate the damage of the first. Then he went to his desk, buried his head in his arms, and groaned loudly.
What the hell now?
*
“He’s not going to fire you!” Sasha and Tim chorused for the dozenth time.
Martin, sat at his desk with his face buried in his hands to stem the tide of his panicked babbling, was frankly surprised he wasn’t crying yet. ‘There’s still time’ a traitorous voice in his head noted, and he crushed it thoroughly.
“He really won’t! And if he does-“
“Tim!”
“-it’ll be my fault, and I’ll make it up to you-“
“Not the time, Tim,” Martin managed to mumble through his hands.
He was definitely getting fired. Jon barely tolerated Martin as it was - this was less the straw that broke the camel’s back, and more of a boulder. Jon was prickly at best towards overtures of friendship. He was likely working himself into a simmering rage at that very moment, in preparation.
It wouldn’t be so bad, Martin thought, if it were true that it was just a harmless crush. Maybe a few years ago, when Jon had been a researcher he only saw in passing, he could have called it that. At this point, hopeless crush was more like it. It wasn’t entirely true that a lack of prospects was keeping Martin from dating, these days.
He could practically feel Tim and Sasha having a conversation with only their eyebrows over his head, at the end of which Tim stalked off. He was grateful Sasha remained, her presence was always calming, and she put a comforting hand on his shoulder that helped keep him from trembling.
A few minutes later, Martin began to feel awkward about continuing to sit there in abject horror, and just as he wondered how best to break the tension, Tim returned to set a cup of tea on his desk.
He looked up with a grateful smile, and was met with Tim’s winning grin, slightly more strained than usual. He took a sip - making sure not to make a face, honestly, none of these people made tea right - and sighed. Even slightly off tea truly was a balm to the soul.
“Well, for now, we should probably get back to work,” Sasha said, practical as ever and not even slightly awkward. Martin envied her not for the first time.
He got back to work.
*
Jon is avoiding him.
Martin doesn’t know why he’s surprised. Other than, he spent the entire rest of that afternoon working himself up to be fired by an enraged Jon Sims. And the entire next day. And the one after that. The one after that, he thought, perhaps he’s making Elias do it, and he just hasn’t got round to it yet. But now it’s been over a week, and Tim keeps making I-told-you-so eyes at him, and-
He rounds the corner heading to the canteen and nearly collides head first into Jon. Who immediately turns as red as Martin feels.
“M-Martin,” he stutters out.
“Jon,” he squeaks, immediately wishing for the floor to swallow him.
Jon’s mouth flaps uselessly for a moment (do not think that it’s cute, Martin tells himself firmly), before stammering, “R-right, well, I-I should-“ and starting to move past him.
Martin felt himself stepping to block Jon’s path and the more anxious part of his brain told him this was a terrible idea, if Jon was willing to ignore it had ever happened, avoiding him forever couldn’t possibly be that hard-
“Jon.” He watched as Jon stilled and turned wide, panicked eyes up at him. That inner part of him could relate, but now he just felt- frustrated. It wasn’t as if Jon had spilled any embarrassing secrets, and if Martin’s crush was honestly that repulsive to him then they couldn’t expect to work like this. Martin wished Jon would just suck it up and get it over with, which is why he blurts out, “Just fire me already.”
“What?” Jon snaps, his tone not at all matching the expression on his face.
Smooth Martin. Still, he kept trying, “If, if what you heard is this much of a problem then, then just fire me already, Jon, because we can’t work together like this!”
Jon’s mouth started working without producing sound again, but Martin’s impatient huff spurred him to find his words faster this time, managing, “I-I-I don’t want to fire you.”
“You... don’t?” Martin said, deflating instantly.
“No, I- I just- I don’t understand.”
“You don’t understand... what you heard?” Martin hazarded.
“Yes. Well, no I mean, I understand what it meant. I just don’t... why me?”
“S-sorry?”
“Why would you. Why would you feel. Ah. That way. About me?”
It was Martin’s turn to not be able to form words. Jon’s gaze slid off to stare over Martin’s shoulder rather than look at him.
“It just doesn’t make sense,” Jon continued, clearly having thought about this a lot, “We hardly know each other, I’m your boss, I’m not. Good at- with people, and I, I’m not even nice to you!”
“That’s a way to put it,” Tim said, making Martin and Jon both jump about a foot in the air as he stepped out of the canteen. “Don’t mind me, just leaving before this gets any more awkward to overhear!”
When his footsteps receded down the stairway to the archives, they were still studiously not looking at each other, both back to being red faced.
“I guess I just,” Jon continued after a moment, pretending the interruption had never happened, “Don’t see the appeal. Is all.”
Martin cursed himself for being affected by the self deprecation in Jon’s tone, saying, “Well. There, ah, there definitely is appeal. I mean it’s, it’s not hard to tell you aren’t… great with people,” he and Jon both winced at that, “So I, I know not to take it too personally I suppose. And it’s not as if I don’t know you at all, it’s. There’s little things.”
Jon scoffed at that, and Martin bit his lip to stop rambling, knowing he’d said too much.
“Little things, right,” Jon said with a surprising amount of bitterness. “That still doesn’t account for-“ he gestured so vaguely Martin had no idea what he meant, “considering you’re. Well. You.”
Ouch.
Jon kept going, though.
“You’re. You’re kind, Martin, and you care for everyone, and you’re hard working even if I- even-“ he let out a frustrated huff, “You clearly are good with people, it’s. It’s big things. With you.”
Martin’s head was spinning. He didn’t think Jon had complimented him before, ever, and he wasn’t sure he’d ever gotten a compliment that nice or that sincere in his life.
He must have said part of that out loud, because Jon was red again, and mumbled, “It’s only true,” which did not help with the head spinning.
What the hell now?
*
Well, Jon’s plan to avoid Martin indefinitely was certainly out now.
He could feel his face flaming, couldn’t even remember the last time he had blushed before all this. Martin seemed to have been rendered speechless. Jon noticed that Martin’s blush made his freckles stand out.
God. What was the professional way to handle this?
Jon gathered himself and cleared his throat. “Nevertheless,” he began, “I am your boss, and it would be inappropriate to act on any-“
“It isn’t against company policy!” Martin blurted, louder than he meant to if the way he immediately hunched his shoulders was any indication.
“It- what?” Jon said, instantly losing his train of thought.
“Tim. Er. Tim told me. He looked it up. There are no company rules about employee relationships. Not that you- if, if you’re trying to let me down easy, you can just say you aren’t interested.”
“I...” Jon trailed off. Was he interested? He’d certainly been interested in Martin’s crush before he found out it was on him. And then he’d spent the next several days determinedly not thinking about it. Which was really an answer in itself.
There were other considerations of course. Just because there were no rules against it, didn’t exactly make dating his direct subordinate ethically correct. And he still didn’t understand what Martin could possibly like about him. He’d always been better at pushing people away than pulling them close.
But, what if he tried it? Just this once? Pulling Martin close and...
Jon realized he had his hand halfway to Martin’s shirt and froze. Martin seemed to be holding his breath.
Jon teetered at the precipice of bold action only a moment, before thinking, oh fuck it.
He grabbed Martin’s lapel, using it as leverage as he went up on his tiptoes and planted his lips on the other man’s.
It wasn’t a particularly long or incredible kiss, and Martin didn’t do much more than angle his face into it slightly, clinking their glasses together, but it was enough to make them both breathless. “I am interested,” Jon said, just to make sure he got his point across.
“Right,” Martin said, clearly dazed but with an uncontrollable grin beginning to take over his face. “Right. So, dinner tonight?”
He really had such a lovely smile.
“I’d like that.”