Work Text:
"Echo Falls? Really , Tim?"
Tim let out a laugh as he sat down on the cot beside Martin, placing the bottle of wine on the floor between them. "I only had a fiver," he said, "And the Tesco Express didn't exactly have much in the way of variety."
Martin just rolled his eyes, though there was no malicious intention behind the action. "Fine, I believe you," he said, "Just make sure you let me know next time you plan on sneaking alcohol into the archives so we can buy something that isn't… you know..." His voice trailed off and Tim raised an eyebrow.
"Something that isn't Echo Falls?"
"Exactly."
Tim chuckled again, reaching into his bag and taking out two tea-stained mugs he'd stolen from the break room. This wasn't the first time they'd done this; after Martin had moved into the archives there had been several occasions where his co-workers (always Tim, sometimes Sasha and occasionally Jon, if he wasn't too busy) would join him in the evening after work to keep him company. It was a small gesture — especially considering the short length of time they'd been working together — but a much-appreciated one nonetheless, and Martin never said no to not having to be alone in the archives after work. They were creepy enough in the daytime when they were brightly lit and somewhat populated, let alone in the empty darkness of the night.
Tim handed Martin a mug filled halfway with the cheap, pink wine and he thanked him politely, taking a sip and wondering if there were any alcohol in it at all. There was silence for a few moments, though not an uncomfortable one, before Tim spoke again, grinning as he put his mug on the floor.
"Martin?" he asked, "Are you sure you can't tell me who you have a crush on?"
At this, Martin narrowed his eyes, elbowing Tim in the ribs and downing half of his drink. "Come on, Tim," he said sharply, "I thought we'd dropped this last week."
"Had we? I hadn't noticed."
" Tim." Martin’s grip on his mug of cheap rosé tightened and he raised his voice just loud enough for it to echo against the cold, brick walls of the archives. Tim rolled his eyes playfully, letting out a soft chuckle as he shuffled back on the cot, leaning against the bookshelf it was pushed up against. He crossed one leg over the other and cradled his mug of rosé between his thighs, folding his arms indignantly.
“Well if it’s not me… And not, like, Rosie or something - who’s a total MILF, by the way. Sasha’s words, not mine-”
“Tim,” Martin interrupted him, feeling his face heat up and his cheeks start to redden, “I really just… can’t tell you. It’s not that I don’t trust you, I just…”
Tim raised an eyebrow at this, confused. “Oh?” he said, “Is it, like, embarrassing?”
“...A bit.”
“More embarrassing than David? ”
“Significantly so.”
“...I see.”
There was silence for a while after that. Martin reached for the bottle of Echo Falls and filled up his already half-empty mug, letting out a sigh as he watched his reflection in the pink liquid that filled the container. They passed the bottle between them, briefly discussed a statement that Jon had asked them to follow up (something about a photographer who physically trapped his subjects in his pictures during the 1990s - pretty tame, all things considered) and eventually moved onto the subject of what Martin had been recording when Tim had first brought up his crush on… someone the previous week. Martin’s face had gone red again, and he’d looked down at his hands, which he was now wringing together in his laps.
“Promise you won’t tell anyone?” he asked, and Tim nodded.
“If we’re getting through this whole bottle tonight,” he said, gesturing to the gradually-emptying Echo Falls sat on the floor beside the cot, “Then I’m probably not going to remember it to tell anyone.”
Martin pursed his lips for a second, hesitating before slowly nodding his head. “Alright, I’ll tell you,” he sighed, “I, uh… I write poetry.” He bit the inside of his cheek, waiting for a laugh or a snarky response; when neither came he looked up at Tim, who appeared entirely indifferent. “You… don’t mind?”
Tim shrugged. “Why would I?”
“My mum seems to mind,” Martin frowned, “She says its a waste of time… So I mostly write it while I’m at work.”
“...On the clock?”
Martin shrugged, sipping his wine. “Sometimes,” he admitted, “I try not to but sometimes inspiration just… hits you, you know?”
Tim chuckled as he shook his head. “Not really,” he admitted, “Never been the creative type, if I’m being completely honest. But I get the gist.” He took a sip of his own wine then, emboldened by the alcohol, asked, “So do you have a muse?”
For a moment, Martin opened his mouth as if he were about to answer before his eyes widened in realisation and he closed it again, screwing up his nose and narrowing his eyes. “You’re just trying to find out who my crush is, aren’t you?” he said, though it was more of a statement than a question, “I told you, I’m not telling you.”
“Is it worse than poetry?” Tim asked, and he blushed again.
“Perhaps a little.”
“At least give me a hint,” Tim took another swig of his drink, “I mean, we’re both already tipsy, right? Worse comes to the worst we can just blame it on the booze.” Martin looked down at the bottle of Echo Falls (already half-empty) and seemed to admit defeat for just a second, his expression softening momentarily as he realised Tim was right before it hardened once more and he stubbornly looked back up at his coworker.
“Nope, absolutely not,” he said, “I’m not about to get myself fired over a stupid crush. ” It took a good five seconds for him to process the words that had just come out of his mouth, compared to the mere three that it took for Tim’s brow to raise and his slightly lopsided, tipsy smirk to turn into a full-on shit-eating grin.
“ Fuck off, ” he exclaimed, “Martin, you’re not serious, are you? Are you actually into-”
“You don’t need to say it out loud.” Martin’s face was completely red now, and he downed the rest of his wine in an attempt to hide (or perhaps drown) his embarrassment. “And you can’t tell anyone, okay?”
“I won’t,” Tim promised, “But… holy shit, really? ”
Martin picked up the bottle, went to pour it into his mug, then let out a sigh and took a swig directly from the bottle. “Yeah…” he sighed, just as disappointed as everyone else in his taste in men, “Go ahead and judge me for it…”
Tim just shrugged. “I’m not judging you,” he said, “I mean, I kinda… get it.”
“...Really?”
“I mean, he’s not my type, but he’s hardly ugly, all things considered.” Tim brought his mug up to his lips to drink, pausing when he realised it was empty before reaching for the bottle, which Martin gladly passed him. “I just wasn’t expecting you to go older, if I’m being honest.”
Martin blinked in surprise, holding out his hand for Tim to pass the bottle as he drank from it, no longer bothering to drink it from a mug (as if that had been a normal thing to do in the first place). “He’s not that old, is he?” he asked, “I mean, I don’t know his exact age but… I didn’t think he was, like, old old.”
Tim laughed again, wiping the rim of the bottle before handing it back to him. “It’s okay, you don’t have to defend him,” he told him, “He’s… distinguished, let’s just say that.”
Martin snorted at this, rolling his eyes. “Not the word I’d use.” He drank from the bottle again, the sickly sweet of the cheap wine masking the taste of any alcohol actually in it; by then he was way past the point of embarrassment, the colour in his cheeks now a result of drinking nearly half a bottle of Echo Falls over the course of a few hours rather than humiliation or shame. He knocked back another mouthful of it, letting out a sigh as he handed the bottle - now nearly empty - back to his coworker. “It’s a bit pathetic, isn’t it?” he said, “Crushing on my boss.”
Tim nodded in agreement, the paused as he pursed his lips and furrowed his brow in thought. “Is that really the bit you’re focussing on?” he eventually asked, and Martin frowned in confusion.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, sure it’s bad that you’re crushing on your boss, but I think the fact that he’s got, you know, at least fifteen years on you and a bloody husband is worse.”
The silence then was so heavy that Martin could practically feel it hanging in the air between them (though, again, that was probably a side effect of drinking half a bottle of wine in one sitting). He opened his mouth to reply, closed it, then repeated that action several times as he narrowed his eyes and struggled to form a coherent response to what Tim said. He then raised his hand, signalling for Tim to hand him the Echo Falls, downed the last few dregs before putting the bottle down on the floor and turning to face him.
“ What the fuck are you talking about?”
Tim blinked in confusion, then in surprise as his eyes widened in realisation. “Oh…” he said, then again with utter horror, “ Oh.”
The silence lingered between them once more before Martin eventually broke it, letting out a long, heavy sigh of exasperation. He rubbed his temple with his forehead - partially in frustration and partially in an attempt to ease his coming headache. “Tim,” he said, “Who did you think I was talking about?”
Now it was Tim’s turn to go red, red spreading over his cheeks and up to the tips of his ears. “...I mean, you said you could get fired and, well, I just thought-”
“You thought I had a thing for Elias, didn’t you?”
“...Yeah…”
With no more alcohol to chug and Tim’s confession (and Martin’s mortification) hanging awkwardly in the air, the silence that followed was now uncomfortable and tense. Martin looked up at Tim, who seemed to be actively avoiding eye contact, and silently scolded himself for letting the whole ‘getting fired for a crush’ thing slip. He sat forward on the cot, clasping his hands in his lap and focussing on a particularly interesting patch of the floor, where a large brown stain had formed on the slightly-lighter-brown floorboards. He didn’t know what it was, but he made a mental note to not tread in it without shoes on. He wrinkled his nose in disgust when he thought about having a crush on Elias of all people, and nearly gagged when he remembered Tim calling him ‘hardly ugly’. He then made a second mental note to never let Tim make fun of anyone’s taste in men, mentally highlighting that note in the bright shade of red he could imagine.
When the silence was finally broken it was Tim that spoke, his face significantly less red than it had been before as he shuffled forward to sit next to Martin, nudging him in the side playfully as if he hadn’t just accused him of having feelings for Elias.
“So,” he said, his signature, shit-eating grin returning to his face, “Jon, huh?” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.
Martin’s response came in the form of a pillow to the face.
Neither of them talked about it the next day, and Tim seemed to keep his word about not telling anyone. The only thing that had changed was the lack of eye contact between him and Elias when he came to hand him some complaints about the Head Archivist. It serves him right, Martin had thought, before going back to scrawling out lines of poetry about Jon in his notebook.