Archive of Our Own

"So, what are you thinking?"

Jon looks like Hell; the bags under his eyes are deep, so he hasn’t been sleeping, and his lips are chapped, so he probably hasn’t been drinking water either, and the hunted edge to his voice hasn’t softened much in a few days. He’s fidgety today, too, and Martin hasn’t figured out yet if that’s better or worse than the days when he goes very, very quiet. He can’t really believe Jon invited himself along, although maybe even he has to get out of the Archives sometimes.

"I need more information about the Institute. Its actual purpose." He’s looking at his feet while he talks, picking at his cuticles. Or, well, maybe he’s zoning out and just facing his feet.

So much for “out of the Archives,” then.

"O.. kay. Not saying you're wrong ,” or ‘ Jesus , Jon’ or ‘ please go take a nap’ or ‘ you’re sort of scaring me’ or any other of the number of things Martin would really like to say, but the queue at the cafe probably isn’t the best place for most of them. “But I actually meant, y'know. Lunch."

Jon blinks when he looks up at him, like he’s just remembered where they are. He just looks so tired . "... Right." Martin watches but does not comment on the quick darting of Jon’s eyes around the room before he actually gives the selection a very brief glance, and he can see the moment Jon’s train of thought leaves the rails and plummets into the river below, sandwiches utterly forgotten. Martin sighs.

“Jon?” He tries to keep his voice even, but something in it makes Jon look up a little guiltily, which wasn’t the goal. “Sandwich. Preference?”

“I don’t really have one,” Jon says, obviously hoping to prickle his way out of actually having to pick. Martin scoffs loudly enough the person in front of them looks behind them and makes a face in Martin’s direction. They turn hastily away again after a well aimed glare from behind Jon’s glasses, which Martin seems to assume is aimed at him. Just as well.

"You don't have a sandwich preference ? At all?" Martin sounds absolutely flabbergasted.

"Not.. really. And it’s hardly a revelation worth all that .” There’s a pause as Jon considers turkey. It doesn’t sound unappealing, but it’s just turkey. And bread. Nothing special. “Is it that weird?"

" Yes , it's weird!” Martin laughs, though. “That's like saying you don't have a tea preference."

"I don't, actually. Not enough of one to bother, anyway." This is more or less true, if not entirely; everyone has some tea preference, but he has to try now. Jon expects more of the astonishment at his declaration of ambivalence, but not the full stop he gets, and the people behind him begin to grumble at the hold up as he narrowly avoids crushing his sandwich against Martin’s back.

"Wha- You're joking,” Martin says, turning to face him and making no sign of showing he was aware of the traffic jam he’s single handedly causing. Jon raises an eyebrow.

"I am not . Go."

"You can't be serious."

"Martin!” Jon gestures forward with his sandwich and shakes his head at the quiet apologies Martin tosses to the people queued behind them. Their continued grumbling at his back makes Jon’s hair stand up, but Martin’s still going on and he focuses on that instead of trying to pick out pieces of the garbled mess behind him.

“You don’t have food preferences?” Martin makes a show of choosing an apple, pointing to bruises and discoloration in emphatically neurotic fashion. Jon absolutely doesn’t chuckle, just once. Especially not at his own expense. Martin persists. “You’re the most persnickety person I know, and you don’t have-”

“ Persnickety?” The genuine offense in his tone is palpable.

Martin rolls his eyes and offers Jon a yogurt that he doesn’t take, frowning at the suspicion burning in Jon’s eyes. He takes a breath and the yogurt. “I’ve seen you lose your mind over an oddly colored paper clip and you don’t care what’s on your sandwich?”

“I did not lose my mind over that paper clip,” Jon says, distractedly walking past the drinks, watching something across the room a little too intently.

"Get a bottle of water." Martin says it so casually that it almost doesn’t register as the command it was. Almost.

"I am not a child ,” Jon says, grabbing a bottle of water.

Martin sighs, deeply, and steps up to the till, handing over a card and gesturing towards Jon’s sandwich before Jon can protest. "I didn't say you were . I’m just worried. " Martin leads them both to a table away from the majority of the people in the cafe and moves to take the seat with his back to the room. Jon quiets a little when he sits down, but only meets Martin’s gaze for a second before his eyes dart back out to the room behind him.

“So you’ve said.”  He’s quiet, a little of the edge dulled for a moment, but it’s obviously exhaustion and not comfort softening the blow. There is a not quite comfortable silence at the table as they start eating, but it’s companionable enough. For a while.


“Are you ever actually going to eat that?”

“I am eating it.” Half of the turkey sandwich is untouched, and the other being eaten in mostly prompted bites between bouts of tense fidgeting and pointed stares from table to table over Martin’s shoulder. He is not, currently, eating it.

“ Jon.”

“ Martin.”

“You don’t have to stay, you know,” Martin says. “You didn’t have to come with in the first place, I would’ve brought you a sandwich. Especially since apparently you don’t care what’s on it, which I still don’t believe.”

The thought of the pile of statement folders on his desk makes Jon’s ears ring, makes him dizzy, and he shakes it away as best he can. “I just don’t see the necessity in fussing the way you do.”

“I don’t f-” Martin starts, but thinks better of it.

If you listen very closely, you can hear the beginning of a smirk that almost wasn’t caught in time, schooled back into something neutral and setting off another bout of awkward not-quite silence.

“Can I do anything?”

“What?”

“It’s just.. You’re not taking care of yourself, Jon, and I get worried when my friends aren’t... I just want to help.”

“Are we friends?” Jon sounds for all the world like the simplicity of that answer simply hadn’t occurred to him.

There’s an awkward beat between them, and the muffled background chatter encroaches upon the table uncomfortably before, in much the same tone, Martin asks “Are.. are we not?”

Jon runs a hand through the mess of loose hair in his face and fixes him with a well practiced clinical expression. With the hair out of the way, though, there is eye contact.

Martin’s breath catches at the single flash of desperate hope through the overwhelming fear there and Jon scratches at the back of his neck, where the chills keep starting back up. “Do.. Martin, do you really not feel that?”

Martin exhales, slowly. “I guess not?”

“No. No, of course not.”

“Jon, can you just... tell me what’s wrong ?”

“I don’t know , Martin! I don’t know what’s wrong, and I am trying to find out, but everything in the damn Archive is misfiled or mislabeled or just missing , there are tunnels hiding who knows what, leading God knows where beneath the Institute that no one else seems to think might be worth a moment’s consideration, and there is something going on! I know it.” Jon’s hands are in his hair, eyes locked firmly on the table. He looks very lost. “There has to be.”

Otherwise, he’s just losing his mind, which he might have just said out loud.

Martin’s voice is very soft and warm when he speaks. Jon bristles at the perceived pity. “Jon, don’t.. Look, don’t take this the wrong way, but-” Jon gives an exasperated bark of a laugh. “When’s the last time you slept?”

“... I need to get back to work.” He stands abruptly, causing the chair to squeal across the floor. His sandwich is half eaten when he tosses it in the bin, but he does take the water with him.

“Jon.”

“Thank you for lunch, Martin.”