Chapter Text
Jon was tired when Georgie called him, unbelievably so. He had spent the entire night prior awake, he had work to do. Almost as soon as he had entered his flat, so late it was practically morning already, his phone buzzed with the tone of an incoming call. Jon only got calls from one person. Georgie.
"Wh- hello? Why're you calling so late."
"Because if I called you at work I would never hear the end of it! Obviously!" Jon responded with an incoherent grumble.
It turns out that Georgie had called to invite Jon to a small New Year's party she and her girlfriend, Melanie, were hosting.
"It's really just going to be me, Mel, and…" she paused "like 4 other people? They're just some of our friends. And I know for a fact you're not doing anything so don't try to come up with an excuse!"
"I would never!" (he would.)
"Sure you wouldn't. I'll see you there then? I would say you could bring a plus one but I mean I'm pretty sure I would know if you weren’t single anymore." Georgie was teasing, but Jon was far too exhausted to coherently understand, let alone respond in a way that wouldn't doom him entirely.
"What if I wasn't?" Jon was. He felt like being difficult at that moment.
Georgie let out a dramatic gasp.
"Jon. Are you telling me you're seeing someone?"
"Maybe I am." He was not. He had a shovel, and the hole was only going deeper.
"OOOOH! well, now you just have to bring this mystery person to the party! See you there Jon!" She abruptly hung up, and in a brief moment of mental clarity, Jon realized what had just happened.
Shit.
—----
Jon had been putting off his… situation for as long as possible. he felt like he had dug himself into a hole too far to backtrack and tell Georgie that he wasn't seeing anyone. And of course, claiming that he and his ‘partner’ had broken up would just bring down the mood, and Jon was far too used to being the emotional dampening of parties. No, he had settled on the fact that he would either have to A) find someone to date him within the next two weeks or B) find someone to pretend to date him for long enough to go to the party then stage a breakup.
That's where the issue started. If he was being realistic, Jon’s only close friend was Georgie, the host of the party, who was taken, and the one Jon was trying to fool. That left the other people he could even be considered acquaintances with, his co-workers. Jon thought that he had been making progress in befriending them, after a well-deserved apology for his… unjust behavior when he had first taken on the role of head archivist, Jon had made an attempt to be more social towards them, and he thought he might have been making progress after going out for after work drinks a few times.
Jon didn't like the implications of asking someone who was technically his employee to pretend to date him, but it was between that and disappointing Georgie, which was one thing that Jon wanted to avoid at all costs.
And so it was that Jon stood in his office, mentally preparing to socialize with the others while they took their break, and discretely figure out if any of them were even available on New Year's without exposing his dilemma to everybody there.
Ideally, Tim would be the best out of the three archival assistants, Jon felt like asking Sasha would be an uncomfortable situation, and Martin Jon didn't even know where to start with him. At first, he had properly hated the man, given the whole ‘dog incident’ (Jon was known for keeping grudges long past when your average person would let it go). But after a well-deserved reality check from the archival assistants, he had accepted the fact that Martin was not… terrible. And he made an uncomfortably good cup of tea. Although clearly some of Jon’s resentment towards the man hadn't entirely dissipated. But in short, Tim would be the ideal choice.
Jon stepped out of his office, quickly making his way through to the break room, where Tim and Sasha were sitting at the table, while Martin was standing over the counter by the sink, preparing four mugs of tea.
“So the boss emerges! What can we owe this occasion to?” Tim broke away from the conversation he was having to lean back in his chair with a grin.
Jon huffed a response
“Would it kill you to believe that I'm here to take a break?”
In response, Tim dramatically flung himself over Sasha
“It would! It really would! Oh, Sash, I think I'm seeing the light!” he let out an exaggerated gasp “My dying wish… is for glitter at my funeral.” he flopped over in mock death. Jon let himself have a small smile as he sat down across from the two, who had quickly started up an argument about how much glitter would be socially acceptable at a funeral. Martin joined them, distributing tea, and Jon let the sound of the others’ conversation wash over him, a nice contrast to the draining silence of his office.
After the conversation had naturally found its way to the weather, and the coming off time for the holidays, Jon figured it would be the best time to figure out his plan.
“So, you all have… holiday plans? And the new year of course.” If Jon was not known to be conversationally inept, that would have sounded odd. But by now the archive team was well used to it.
“Well, Sash and I are going to be so busy for the entire break! crashing parties is a time-consuming business!”
“Yep. no sleep for us, only party crashing since that's what we’re doing now... Martin, what about you?” Sasha grinned
“Oh!” Martin seemed like he had to think about it for a moment, his posture growing more rigid as he did. “Not really anything, aside from visiting my mum. Jon?”
Jon scowled “Likewise, but I suppose I’m going to be enjoying my peace away from reading statements.” Jon scowled, trying (and failing) to hide his frustration at the fact that Tim seemed out of the picture, leaving just Martin who, once again, was not the preferred choice.
After a few more minutes Jon excused himself to get back to his work, with an implied suggestion that the rest of them do as well. Although actual work did not get done due to the fact that Jon was far too occupied trying to figure out how he would approach it. He figured it would be best to ask Martin at the end of the day, given that he usually left last (and if he was about to leave it would put him in a less uncomfortable situation if it did not go as planned.)
—-----------
“You- I- what?”
Jon had approached as Martin was packing his bag for the day and had briefly summarized the problem he had found himself in, all the while Martin stared at him with an expression Jon couldn't place.
As Martin fumbled for a response, all of Jon's thoughts backtracked, being pushed aside by a wave of anxiety, followed closely by embarrassment.
“Actually- you know what! Nevermind. I- uh- please forget everything I just said to you, Martin. Or go ahead and report me to HR. I'm sorry, this was a stupid idea.” Jon took a step back, in preparation to turn around and rush straight to his office, when Martin put a hand out to stop him.
“Jon, it's fine. I can help you out, I mean, it clearly means something to you since you ask me of all people.” Martin smiled at him, and Jon felt his cheeks growing warm.
Warm with annoyance.
Clearly, Jon was annoyed at Martin, there was no other explanation for the sudden uneasiness he felt. Martin immediately agreed without even a second thought was , of course, something to be annoyed about, he was being far too nice! To Jon of all people, who, for the first few weeks of working at the institute, berated Martin for the smallest of mistakes! Less constructiveness and much more criticism. Jon pushed down the feeling so that he could reasonably respond.
“Oh! I- erm… Thank you.” words were not coming easily.
“I assume you want to, I don’t know, meet at some point to discuss the… details of it all? Get together a believable story?” at Jon's blank stare of a response, Martin raised an eyebrow.
“Im assuming that you didn't think of that and were just expecting to wing it without a good background?” Jon scowled.
“I suppose that would be a good idea. I will text you to figure that out.” he whipped around, walking quickly to his office door, still slightly ajar. Jon paused at the entrance and added a small
‘Have a good evening.’ as he shut the door.
Jon did not like the feeling that seeing Martin’s small smile once more caused. Not in the slightest. And he did not think about it for the rest of the day.
Not at all.