Chapter Text
Jon muttered something unintelligible but rather rude to himself as he browsed trough random people's uninspired profiles on a dating site that was in dire need of a better graphic designer.
Its colors did not make sense together and the fonts were all over the place. The profiles on the site were easy to browse and sort through though, and that was the part that actually mattered to Jon.
Somewhere deep at the back of his mind, he was aware that he was just as, if not more, pitiful as the lonely people whose names and faces he scrolled by without a second thought. The awareness grew heavier with every profile he discarded, but he kept going anyway. Jon scrolled past three Michaels and a Helen, whose profile turned out to be, save for the name, identical to the second Michael. He briefly paused to wonder what kind of scam was going on there, before continuing his seach.
He had been searching ever since he got back to his flat. Few hours at least. His natural aptitude for acquiring knowledge did not seem to help the least in either the technological arena or in dating. His first few unfortunate Google searches had found him people who did this sort of thing for money and the kind of pictures of Hot Singles Around You that had made him shut his computer altogether. When the nauseating discomfort had passed and only mild embarrassment remained, Jon had made a profile on a proper dating site.
He was not, thankfully, actually looking for love from the cold computer screen, he just needed someone to accompany him for one night. Had the event occurred on Christmas or Valentine's Day, he figured it would have been simpler for him to find someone to go with him at such a short notice, since those occasions were notoriously difficult times for single people, and some lonely soul would have been bound to take his offer.
Jon was looking for a companion to bring to the corporate midsummer party, so his list of potential options was much smaller than it would have been for any normal event. He wished, and not for the first time, that his workplace could do anything normal, even just once. At least the food would be reasonably good, and some of his coworkers were not too horrible company, and so he still held some, perhaps misguided, hope that two weeks was enough time for him to find someone to pretend to be his date.
Summer Solstice was a popular event for witches and pagans, so it made a certain amount of sense that the Magnus Institute would commemorate it in some way. Jon himself had read and reorganized a small library's worth of statements, old and new, regarding incidents happening around and during the time. Thinking about all the time he had wasted on those, he wondered if he should contact Good Energies, a tarot shop he knew for professional reasons, to see if any would-be witches would be interested in midsummer festivities in a paranormal institute.
Jon still thought closing the place for summer vacation would suffice as a celebration, but Elias had insisted on holding an institute-wide party, and as a head of the said Institute, he always got what he wanted though Jon didn't know why he wanted this. Surely a man of Elias' status and fortune had better people to bother with his parties. Perhaps he simply thought he was being funny? It was hard to tell what that man was thinking. At least he was bothering the whole Institute and not just the Archives.
Jon considered this party to be Elias' second most divisive idea of late. Appointing Jon as the new archivist had proved to be a task he was unprepared for was still in the lead, as it had also created some unfortunate tensions with Sasha and Tim, both who believed Jon had bypassed Sasha rudely on the succession line. Jon had worked hard to be worthy of his title, but the tensions remained. A social event like this could have helped to bring them closer, if it hadn't been for the unfortunate white lie Jon had told them.
With a heavy sigh, he quit scrolling, leaned back in his chair, and pondered his options again. He enjoyed making lists and charts and trying to sort his irrational feelings into neat categories that made sense.
The easiest and the most sensible option would be just to give up and go alone. It was not like even a prick like Elias Bouchard could make having a date mandatory for a workplace event. It was not even that anyone expected him to have a date.
That of course was the core of his problem.
Everyone knew Jon the Workaholic would, once again, turn up to an event alone. It was a thing so usual that at first, Jon had not even thought anything about it. He had only sensed the gossip in the air when the conversation about the upcoming party had utterly died down as they had seen him enter the breakroom.
He had been fine, well, mostly fine, with it until later that day when he heard that Georgie would be there too. Not only was his newest employee dating his only serious ex-partner ("Georgie, Georgie Barker? She has this paranormal podcast you might know?"), but she was coming to his workplace party. He had not seen Georgie in years.
Jon didn't miss her, not like that at least, but somehow her soon-to-be appearance back in his life had thrown him into some sort of panic that had led to him telling Melanie that he too, had a date for the event. Melanie had simply nodded, said "cool" in an flat tone, and then, for some reason Jon could not understand, proceeded to let the rest of the office know.
Jon didn't know Melanie well, as she was a new addition to the archives. He suspected she didn't like him, but then again, not many people did. It was often his own fault. Still, he suspected that she had already told Georgie Jon had a date, and Jon found the idea uncomfortable.
After a weird grin from Tim across the archives, a surprised face from Sasha when he passed her in the corridor, and quick thumbs up from Basira, who had come to share some information with Melanie, Jon knew it was too late to back down without thoroughly embarrassing himself. While he had not given Melanie any details, as there were none to give, he was sure the assumption was that he had at least a semi-serious relationship.
Unfortunately, the only person in the whole world that would have no doubt agreed to pretend to be his partner was his friend Gerard, who was currently in New Zealand with his grandmother and would not return for a while. It was a shame really; Gerry was much more fun at parties than Jon ever could be. As a party trick he loved to tell people he had a tattoo on every joint in his body and then laugh when people's eyes wandered downwards.
Jon had weighed two other options he had: taking a sick day during the week of the event, and quitting his job. Both had felt too obvious, however, so he decided against them. For now. He would still keep them on his list, just in case.
Defeated by the lack of viable options, Jon went back to the profiles. All he needed was someone reasonably normal, aged 25 to 40, who had one specific evening free. He didn't think his standards were unreasonable. The only problem was that he wanted the date to understand this was all just pretend.
His own profile had bare minimum information, just enough so the site did not consider him to be a spam bot. He had not even filled in the field for sexuality, though he had ticked the option "all" as what gender is looking for.
The topic of his asexuality was hopefully unlikely to come up during a workplace event, though he was sure it would have been a delightful source of office gossip for some. If he'd get to the point of making plans with someone, he was planning in no uncertain terms to make it known this was not a sex thing of any kind. He thought it was clear from the plans, but he had been wrong about people's assumptions many times before, and it had led to awkward situations he'd rather not remember.
It was not too rare for people to be looking for a date for a specific event, the problem was that instead of a fake partner of sorts, most of these people were just looking to have an actual first date in a specific museum exhibit or something. An office party was not a popular spot for a first date.
For a brief moment Jon considered messaging a woman looking for a "nice man" to go to a cat show with her. She seemed perfectly nice herself, and for that reason, Jon couldn't bring himself to send a message. He wanted one evening to fool his coworkers and ex-girlfriend to think he had a social life, and then stage a breakup. He didn't want to lead on any nice, unsuspecting cat ladies. The cat she had in her photos was adorable, though.
Perhaps Jon should just get a cat instead of a date.
Jon was about to close the dating site, maybe for the night, maybe for good, and do something more productive with his evening, when a profile caught his eye. This one was from a man with even more pathetic problems than Jon had. Jon leaned closer to the screen, all other plans already forgotten.
According to his short profile, Martin, 29, was looking for a fake boyfriend to introduce to his sick mother, who was in a care home. The request was time sensitive, no strings attached, and as thanks, he promised to treat a beer or three either before or after the meeting according to the fake boyfriend's preference or level of nervousness. Jon didn't need a drink, he needed a favor, and now he was confident Martin would at least hear him out.
While Martin's situation was undoubtedly sad, it somehow delighted Jon to find someone in a similar mess. He read the profile a few times, with the same attention he usually gave to work statements. With every read, Jon spotted more typing errors and grew more comfortable with the idea of asking Martin to be his date for the party.
He felt more at ease knowing he could spin this as a favor to the other man, rather than him being in this stranger's debt. He disliked owing people favors. If Martin agreed to meet up with him, he would suggest they'd go visit Martin's mother first. Jon hoped that this Martin would see it as a friendly gesture, though Jon's main hope was that meeting once beforehand would make them appear at least somewhat comfortable around each other at the party.
Unlike Jon, Martin had properly filled his profile, though there was not much to say about him. He was gay, worked odd jobs here and there, and during his free time wrote poetry. The only thing that made him seem interesting in any way, was the mention of his pet tarantula called Annabelle, which Jon sincerely hoped never to see. Martin thoughtfully had not uploaded any pictures of spiders or any other beast normal people preferred not to see, though he had put up a few of himself. Jon clicked the pictures open with mild interest.
Martin was tall and fat and had the same nervous smile on his face in all three pictures. The pictures were from an unflattering angle and slightly unfocused, clearly taken by someone who did not care enough to take good ones. Jon idly wondered if Martin had known what he would use the pictures for when taking them.
Jon was not particularly interested in the looks of people, even when he was looking for a genuine date, but Martin's pictures pleased him. He looked utterly forgettable in a way that made him perfect for what Jon needed him for. In the eyes of his coworkers, Martin would be a perfectly believable boyfriend for the bookish, reclusive Jon, but one would think it strange he had never mentioned Martin before.
If Jon had managed to get Gerard to go with him, the reaction would be vastly different. Gerry was a flashy kind of guy, and people would have many questions. They had been friends for a long time, and Jon had always been the dull and forgettable one of them. People sometimes wondered how they were even friends as they did not seem to have much in common.
Jon congratulated himself for the perfect find that Martin was, as he smiled alone in his empty flat. Perhaps this terrible plan of his would actually go somewhere after all. He glanced again at a photo of Martin nervously tugging on his sleeve before opening private messages.
"Hello, Martin," Jon wrote, "I believe we could help each other."