Work Text:
Jon has frequently hated his job, but he’s never considered quitting without notice quite as seriously as he is now. He could just slink away into the depths of London without fanfare or farewell and never be seen by any of his colleagues again. Sod getting references. Or paid. The most important thing is never having to look Tim, Sasha, or Martin in the face again. Mostly Martin.
God, what was he thinking?
Every time he remembers Friday evening and the office holiday party, he goes hot with horror. He can’t stop picturing the way he draped himself across Martin’s lap like an affectionate cat, and each time he does, his stomach lurches with nausea and he starts to sweat. He remembers, with appalling clarity, telling Martin that he’s too pretty to fire. Asking to lick his nose. That hug.
Plodding up the street towards the Magnus Institute with slow, heavy steps, Jon groans aloud. Martin would be completely justified in making a complaint about him for harrassment. Jon almost hopes he does. Maybe he’ll get demoted and transferred to a different department so that Martin’s safe from him. Maybe he’ll get the sack. That would be infinitely preferable to ever having to see or speak to Martin again.
Perhaps he should pretend he’s ill today. He hasn’t quite reached work yet, he could still pull his phone out, call in sick, and go back home. It wouldn’t even be much of a lie. He’s got a nasty, nagging headache that the paracetamol and ibuprofen he took before leaving his flat haven’t touched, and all he really wants to do is curl up in bed and pretend the world doesn’t exist until he feels better. But he can’t. There’s so much work to be done, there always is, and shirking it will only make it worse in the long run. For once he’s not getting into work early, so it’s only eight hours until Martin leaves and he can breathe easy again. All he has to do is shut himself in his office and not come out again until five o’clock. He's done it before. It’s simple. Of course, he’ll be faced with the same dilemma tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that, and every day until he’s sacked or dies or somehow miraculously forgets everything that happened on Friday night, but he can come up with further strategies, he’s sure. He’ll just keep sending Martin out to follow up with statement givers, or to the library to do research, or… or he’ll… well, he’ll think of something.
His insides clench as he approaches the Magnus Institute, and a sharp, stabbing little pulse of pain starts up at his temple. He feels kind of sick. It’s fine. It’s just anxiety. And guilt. And shame. And general misery. But he can push through it. Even though it’s only six minutes to nine, there’s still a decent chance that he’s arrived before Martin, in which case he can be safely esconced in his office before Martin gets here, vigorously pretending he doesn’t remember a single thing from Friday night. Yes. It’ll be fine.
He thinks someone tries to greet him in the lobby, but he speeds past them, head down, heart pounding. He should have gone in through the back, he thinks, but it’s too late now. He pushes open the door to the archives and clatters down the steps, and there they are, standing in the corridor, Sasha and Martin with their backs to him, listening while Tim holds forth about something. Jon’s heart seems to jump into his mouth as they hear him come in and turn.
“Morning, boss!” Tim says cheerfully.
Jon can’t meet his eyes. In the brief glimpse he gets of them all before he fixes his line of sight firmly on the ratty archives carpet, he sees Tim and Sasha grinning at him and Martin smiling tentatively, very pink in the face. He can’t even bring himself to be interested in Martin’s blush, because he knows what’s caused it. He’s caused it, with his stupid, unprofessional, drunken behaviour. He asked Martin to take him home, for god’s sake! No wonder the poor man’s red in the face; he’s probably terrified of what Jon might demand of him today.
“Morning,” he mutters, and practically sprints for his office.
“Jon!” Sasha calls after him, but he pulls his door closed, shutting them all out. For a moment he considers not switching the light on, just sitting at his desk in the dark. The headache isn’t a migraine, but his eyes are heavy and tired and darkness is so much more soothing. But that’s ridiculous. He snaps the light on and pulls his coat off, hanging it on the hook in the corner, then drops into his chair and switches his computer on.
While it fires up, nearly as slowly as Jon himself did this morning, he rests his elbows on his desk and presses the heels of his hands into his eyes. God, he feels like shit. It’s weird, because he’s a lot better rested than he usually is on… well, any given morning, really. He was in such a hurry to get to the party on Friday that he’d completely forgotten to take any work home with him, not even his work laptop. Left with an unexpectedly free weekend, he’d ended up having a surprisingly nice time, at least once he’d recovered from the truly appalling hangover he’d woken up with on Saturday. He’d done some reading and some cooking and some half-hearted tidying, and watched several documentaries he’s been saving for ages, and last night he went to bed at ten. And then he’d somehow switched his alarm off instead of waking up, and slept in until nearly eight this morning. He ought to be bouncing with energy, and instead here he is, moving at a crawl, barely able to keep his eyes open as he tries ineffectually to soothe the pain in his head.
Jon wonders if Sasha has any of her good painkillers; she gets awful headaches sometimes too. But asking will require him to leave his office and potentially, probably, see Martin. He could text her, but even then he’ll probably get a scolding along with his painkillers. Or an interrogation about why he’s giving them all the cold shoulder. He’ll deserve both, of course, but he’s so tired, and he just wants to pretend he doesn’t remember any of what happened on Friday night. It’s very unfair that he does remember, he thinks bitterly. He should have drunk either a lot more or a lot less, and remained blissfully ignorant or blissfully innocent, depending on his choice.
Well, it’s no good regretting things now. Jon turns to his laptop and tries to remember where he got to on Friday afternoon. His brain feels heavy and sluggish and he doesn’t want to work at all. He remembers how excited he was, all those months ago, to be promoted, to get down here into the archives and get to work. When did that feeling leave him? He does the work because he’s getting paid for it, now, not because he wants to. Not that it really matters either way. It has to be done whether he has any actual interest in doing it or not.
The pain at his temple gives another nasty stab, and Jon puts a hand to his face, suppressing a groan, tries to force himself to pull himself together. He’s fine. He just needs a plan. He’ll… all right, he’ll take some more painkillers, and then he’ll start by checking his emails. An important yet simple task. And then he’ll work out which statement he was last working on. He fumbles tablets out of their blister packets and realises unhappily that he doesn’t have a drink to take them with. There’s no way he’s going to leave his office, though, not for something as small as this. He forces them down his throat, dry and horrible, and hopes that this time they’ll work.
It takes much longer than usual, but Jon does manage, at last, to fall into the rhythm of work. He doesn’t get as engrossed as he sometimes does, letting the world fall away until all that’s left is statements and research and questions and never quite enough answers, because his head hurts too much and he’s so damn tired, but at least he’s getting something done.
Still, he’s deep enough in his own thoughts that when someone knocks at his door, he jumps hard. His head pulses with pain again and he has to twist his fingers together to stop himself from pressing his hand over his temple as he sighs and says, “Come in.”
He hopes, rather forlornly, that it’ll be Tim or Sasha, come to check something brief and simple and then leave again, but the world isn’t that kind. It’s Martin. Of course it’s Martin.
“Hi,” Martin says, a bit too brightly, his face very pink. “I, er, I made you some tea?” He holds the mug up in front of him as though to prove the veracity of his statement, and Jon stares at him. Is he trying to pretend Friday never happened, like Jon? That would be understandable; he’s probably hoping that if he acts normally Jon won’t start harrassing him again. Awful thought. Or, even worse, does he think if he’s nice enough to Jon he won’t keep harrassing him? Perhaps he just thinks Jon will fire him if he doesn’t make him tea.
Jon averts his eyes. “You didn’t have to do that,” he says.
“Y-yeah,” Martin says. “I know. I… I wanted to.”
God, he sounds so nervous. It’s ages since being in Jon’s presence has made Martin sound like that, and he hates himself for making it happen all over again. He forces himself to meet Martin’s eyes.
“It’s quite unnecessary,” he says, as firmly as he can.
“Well, I know,” Martin says uncertainly. “I just thought…”
“It’s a waste of your time,” Jon goes on. He’s on a roll, now. A reassuring Martin roll. “Time you could be spending on work.” He stares into Martin’s eyes, trying to drive the message home.
Martin’s flush intensifies. “Oh,” he says. “Right.” The nervous smile has fallen from his face. Jon hopes that’s a good thing. “So, er, do you want this one? I mean, I’ve already made it, so…”
Jon drops his eyes back to his work. He’s learned, over the years, to do the whole eye contact thing fairly convincingly, but he can still never manage it for very long at a time. “Fine,” he says, trying to look as though he’s just preoccupied with his work and considers the whole conversation done with. “I suppose I may as well.”
“Right,” Martin says again, rather quietly. Jon surreptitiously watches his big, soft hand as it puts the mug down on a coaster. He’s always liked Martin’s hands. They look so gentle, but they’re strong, too. No, shut up, what is he doing? He’s supposed to be making Martin understand that Jon isn’t thinking about him like that. Why can’t he just stop?
He realises that Martin isn’t leaving his office, but is instead hovering in the periphery of his vision, shifting anxiously from foot to foot.
“Was there something else, Martin?” he snaps, not looking up. Why doesn’t the man just go? He can’t be finding this conversation any less excruciating than Jon is.
“Not…” Martin starts. “I just wanted to check, are you okay?”
Jon looks up at him in surprise. “What?”
“You seem sort of… off. If you’ve got a headache I can…”
“I’m fine, Martin,” Jon snarls, alarmed by the surge of warmth that sweeps over him at Martin’s words. How does he know Jon’s got a headache? Why does he care, especially after Friday? Why is he so… so nice? It’s too much. Jon scowls at him, ignoring the new stab of pain next to his eye. “At least, I will be fine if you’ll get out of my office and let me get on with my work. Don’t you have enough to do?”
“Yeah, plenty,” Martin says. “Sorry, I just wanted to make sure. E-especially after Friday. You…”
Everything inside Jon seems to tighten at the words. “I apologise for my behaviour on Friday,” he says stiffly, before Martin can start listing every awful thing he did. “I was entirely unprofessional, and I regret everything. You may rest assured that it will never happen again.”
“Oh,” Martin says. His eyes skate away from Jon. His blush is finally receding. His shoulders hunch in, making him look smaller and oddly breakable. “Okay. Okay, yeah. Got it. Sorry.”
“Well, if that’s all…”
“And you’re sure you don’t have a headache or anything? Because I’ve got some painkillers in my desk if you need them.”
“Martin!” Jon snaps. He’s reaching the end of his tether with this conversation. “I am fine.” He feels hot and prickly and deeply, desperately uncomfortable. He needs to make Martin leave. “I have a lot to do and I would appreciate being left in peace to actually do it.”
“Right. Sorry.”
“And for heaven’s sake,” Jon adds, for good measure. “Do at least attempt to format your final report properly. I’m sick and tired of having to correct you.”
“Okay,” Martin mumbles, head down.
“And if you must add handwritten notes, please try to make them somewhat legible. It’s like trying to decipher a four year old’s scrawl.”
Martin nods and as he turns quickly to leave Jon realises, with a cold rush of horror, that Martin’s mouth is trembling and his eyes are wet. He fumbles a second for the door handle, pulls it open, closes it quietly behind him, and is gone. Jon is left behind, sitting in his stupid big chair in his empty office, hands gripping the edge of his desk. What has he done? What has he done? He wants to jump up and run after Martin and beg his forgiveness. He wants to pour out all his shame and confusion. He wants to explain that he was just lashing out, saying whatever came into his head, because there’s a strange, terrifying whirlpool of feelings inside his chest and he has no idea how to sort it out or talk about it or exist in the same space with it at all. Martin’s handwriting isn’t even hard to read! He likes Martin’s handwriting!
Jon doesn’t do any of these things. He puts his hands over his face and bursts into tears.
It’s a ridiculous overreaction. It must be because of the headache, not because of what just happened with Martin. Except if that’s the case, why is the only thing he can see, as though it’s tattooed on the insides of his eyelids, Martin’s stricken face, his tear-filled eyes? Why does he keep replaying that last, quiet, okay in his mind? He hadn’t meant to hurt Martin. He hadn’t wanted to. He’d just wanted him to to stop being so concerned, so genuine, so kind. Why is Jon like this?
Also, why is it so bloody hard to stop crying once you’ve started?
Jon struggles to calm himself down, taking deep breath after deep breath, blowing his nose for the final time at least four times, scrubbing viciously at his eyes until they’re sore and the headache seems to have spread around his entire skull. The goddamn painkillers haven’t done him any good at all. He should have called in sick today. Somehow he’s taken the catastrophe that was Friday night and made it worse, something he previously would have said was impossible.
He's still trying to stop his ridiculous gulping and sniffling when there’s a tap at the door and before he has a chance to shout, “Go away!” Tim enters.
“Look, Jon,” he says, the second the door is closed behind him. “You can’t talk to Martin like that. I thought we were past…”
He cuts himself off. Jon, who has reflexively covered his face with his hands in a hopeless attempt to conceal his tears, resentfully mutters, “I know that.”
Tim looks down at him for several long seconds. Then, more gently, he says, “You too, eh?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jon says. A small sob makes him hiccup again, immediately giving the lie to his words.
Tim sighs. “C’mere,” he says.
Jon looks at him between his fingers. “What?”
“Come here,” Tim says, raising his arms invitingly. “You clearly need a hug.”
“Martin needs one more,” Jon mumbles, but he nevertheless obeys, and Tim’s arms wrap around him tightly. He buries his face gratefully in Tim’s shoulder and closes his eyes.
“Martin’s getting one, too,” Tim says calmly. “Sasha’s on it.”
“Oh. Good,” Jon says. Tim sways him gently from side to side, and, despite everything, Jon feels the tension begin to seep out of him. “I didn’t mean to make him cry,” he confesses into Tim’s ridiculously loud shirt.
“Glad to hear it,” Tim says, not stopping his rocking motions.
“Was just trying to make things better.”
This does make Tim pause, just for a moment, before he starts up again. He pats Jon’s back. “Of course you were,” he says, and Jon can hear the grin in his voice.
“’S not funny,” he says.
“No, no, I know. It’s just, only you, boss. Only you.”
Jon snorts rather wetly against his shoulder. “Don’t know what you mean.”
“Yeah, you do,” Tim says. “You get all tangled up in your feelings and end up lashing out instead of saying what you really want to.”
Tim knows him too well. Jon stays silent for long moments, letting the pressure and the swaying leach more of the tension away. Even his headache is starting to feel better.
At last, he says, “Not sure what my feelings are. Don’t know what I want to say.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” Tim says. “Only with taking it out on other people.”
Jon sags against him and groans. “I know, Tim. I… I know, okay? I just… I honestly was trying to make things better. Let him know that I wasn’t going to… to start harrassing him at work. But he kept being so nice and I was… I felt all…”
Tim waits for him to finish, and when he doesn’t, suggests, “Uncomfortable?”
“I suppose so,” Jon admits grudgingly.
Tim pulls back, keeping his hands on Jon’s arms, so that he can look him in the face. “How are you feeling?”
“Fine.”
“Okay. How are you feeling really?”
“Better,” Jon says, knowing full well that Tim will just keep prodding until he answers truthfully. He’s relentless when he thinks he needs to be.
“Good. And how’s your head?”
“My… what?”
“Martin said he was pretty sure you had a headache, and you know he’s got a sixth sense for that sort of thing. Not that he needs it with you. You’re incredibly obvious.”
“I hate you,” Jon mutters.
“I know.” Tim pats his shoulder cheerfully. “Now, we’re going to get some of Sasha’s good painkillers into you and then you’re going to make things right with Martin. Okay?”
“Or I could change my name and move to Australia,” Jon says, and Tim snorts with laughter.
“Let’s keep that for plan B, eh?” he says. “And for what it’s worth, what you were saying before, about letting Martin know you weren’t going to harrass him? That’s definitely not how he sees the way you were with him at the party.”
“Isn’t it?” Jon looks at him doubtfully as he produces a blister packet of Sasha’s painkillers and pops a couple out, handing them to Jon along with a bottle of water. “It’s hard to see how else he could be thinking of it. I was… Tim, I lay in his lap!”
“I remember. It was adorable.”
Jon feels himself flush to his ears. “It was wrong! I’m his boss!”
“Yeah, I don’t think Martin cares about that.” Jon stares at him. Tim shakes his head. “Sadly I swore on the life of my favourite shirt that I wouldn’t tell you exactly what he does care about, but for Christ’s sake, Jon, you need to talk to him.”
“Fine, yes, I’m going to,” Jon says, and squints his eyes as the pain in his temple stabs at him again.
“And take those sodding tablets,” Tim adds.
“I’m doing it!”
Forty minutes later the painkillers are starting to do their work and the mud of pain in Jon’s head is clearing in a way that, by this time, feels almost magical. Deeply relieved, he gets up from his desk, where he’s spent the last half hour painstakingly drafting his apology to Martin and committing it to memory, and opens his office door. Tim, Sasha and Martin all look up as he enters, in a perfectly synchronised movement that might be amusing if his stomach wasn’t churning quite so badly.
“Could,” he starts, throat dry as sandpaper. He clears his throat and tries again. “Could I speak to you a moment, Martin? Please?”
If he weren’t looking for the signs he’d probably think Martin looks entirely normal, but Jon can see the slight pinkness around his eyes and the movement of his throat as he swallows nervously.
“Er,” Martin says. “Yeah. Yeah. Okay.”
As he gets up, Tim takes advantage of Martin’s back being turned to flash Jon a smile and a double thumbs up, and Sasha gives him an encouraging grin, too. Jon flushes, but he feels a little buoyed up by them all the same.
Legs acting ridiculously shaky, Jon leads Martin into his office and closes the door behind them. He doesn’t sit down. He feels too agitated for that. Instead he stands beside his desk, takes a few deep breaths, and looks anywhere and everywhere but at Martin.
“So,” Martin starts, after a while of this. “You… you wanted to…?”
Jon makes himself look at Martin. Now that he’s closer, his red-rimmed eyes are clear to see, and Jon feels a surge of anger against the person, himself, of course, who made that happen. He takes one more slow breath.
“I want to apologise,” he recites, memory grasping gratefully onto the words he’s just finished memorising. They aren’t anything special, as apologies go, but Jon’s afraid that if he tries to wing it it’ll go just as badly as last time. He really, really doesn’t want to find out if he can make this situation even worse. “For… for what I said.” Why is his mouth so dry? He isn’t looking at Martin any more. Can’t, if he wants to get through this. “Before. About… about you wasting your time. And having to correct you, and your handwriting. It… I didn’t mean any of it. Your handwriting’s… it’s fine. And your work is really quite good now. And your tea… I like your tea. I appreciate that you…” He swallows, trying to moisten his mouth, and starts to lose the thread of what he’s saying. “I was feeling uncomfortable and I lashed out,” he says, quickly, before he can forget his lines. “And I’m very sorry.” He chances a glance at Martin, who is staring at him with his mouth slightly open and his eyes almost comically wide. Jon averts his eyes again, staring down at the floor instead. “Very sorry,” he repeats hoarsely, and has to clear his throat several times. “Ah, that’s all.”
There’s a very long silence. Eventually, unable to bear it, Jon lifts his gaze to Martin. Martin looks as though he’s undergoing some sort of deep personal crisis, or possibly a religious experience. When Jon meet his eyes, he blinks rapidly several times and says,
“Er, wow. I… er. Okay. Er. Th-thanks, Jon, that’s… that’s… yeah, that’s okay. I mean, not okay, I guess. I… that didn’t feel great, before. But, er, it… it means a lot that you… yeah. Thanks.”
He smiles at Jon, and it’s not the weak, anxious smile from earlier, but a proper one, and Jon’s chest seems to expand with relief. Martin’s forgiven him. He finds himself smiling back, wide and happy.
“I hope you know that you’re…” he starts, and then hesitates, not entirely sure what he’s trying to say. “I mean, I’m…” He looks desperately up at the ceiling, then back at Martin, who’s looking puzzled but waiting patiently for him to finish, and finally back down at the carpet. “The archives wouldn’t be the same without you,” he mumbles. It isn’t what he wants to say, but since he still doesn’t know what that is, it’ll have to do.
“Oh,” Martin says. He’s staring at Jon, and Jon can’t tell if it’s a good look or not. “Jon, that’s… that’s…” And, to Jon’s horror, his eyes fill with tears again. Before he can think better of it, Jon is moving forwards, catching Martin’s hands in his.
“No, no!” he says urgently. “I’m sorry, Martin, I’m sorry, I was trying to… I was trying to be nice, I swear, I didn’t mean to make you… please don’t cry! Should I get Tim? Or Sasha?”
Martin dashes a hand across his eyes. “God, no, Jon, I’m fine. Sorry, it’s just been a bit of an emotional morning, hasn’t it?”
Jon flushes. “Yes, I suppose it has.”
“But those were happy tears. It’s… it’s fine. That was a, a really nice thing to say.”
“Oh,” Jon says, relieved. “All right, good. Sorry.”
He realises he’s still clutching at Martin’s fingers and pulls his hands away quickly. He’s supposed to be not touching Martin; why is it so hard to keep his hands to himself all of a sudden? To stop himself reaching for Martin again, he retreats around his desk.
“It’s okay, Jon. Um, thanks for, you know, being so nice.”
Jon is personally of the opinion that his behaviour today probably averages out to somewhere around barely acceptable, but he’s glad that Martin, at least, thinks he’s being nice.
“Yes, well,” he says. “I just…” He stops. He doesn’t know what he just. Why does he keep starting sentences when he has no idea how to finish them? He sneaks another look at Martin’s face, and realises that Martin, for the first time during this conversation, isn’t looking at him. His eyes are lowered, his head tilted down and slightly to the side, looking at something on Jon’s desk.
Jon follows his line of sight as best he can, and suddenly knows exactly what Martin’s looking at. Heat flares again in his face and in a flash he’s flipped the sheet of paper over and slapped his hand over it for good measure.
Martin looks at him. His eyebrows have gone up and there’s a small smile on his face. His eyes are crinkled at the corners. Jon loves looking at Martin when he’s happy. It’s like he fills the whole room with a sunlit glow, even down here in the dingy, windowless archives.
“Jon,” Martin says, sounding utterly delighted. “Is that… did you draft out your apology and memorise it?”
“No!” Jon says. He scrunches the paper up tightly in his hand, looking anywhere but at Martin’s smile, which is getting brighter and brighter. His dimple is showing, damn him. “I… I just… I…”
“You did, didn’t you?” Martin says. “It was all written down on there, exactly how you said it! I saw it, Jon, you can’t pretend you didn’t.”
Jon pushes a harried hand through his hair, forgetting that it’s supposed to be in a bun. Most of it falls down around his face, and he pulls the bobble out of his hair and snaps it round his wrist instead.
“Fine,” he says. “I did. Yes. I… I know it’s weird, all right? But look what happened when I tried to just say words! I ended up making you cry! I get all confused and uncomfortable and then I say stupid things that I don’t mean, and… and I just… I wanted to say what I meant, that’s all. It’s stupid, I know.”
“Hey, no,” Martin says, the smile fading from his face. “It’s not stupid at all. It’s… I actually thought it was really sweet. Y-you know, that you were being so thoughtful about what you said to me, even before you explained. I still do. I was just teasing, I didn’t mean to make you feel bad.”
“Oh. All right.” Jon feels his shoulders untense, and, ah, he’s smiling at Martin again. Well, there’s nothing wrong with that. Martin should be smiled at. And he’s smiling back, bright and beautiful, his eyes fixed on Jon’s face, and for once in his life Jon doesn’t want to look away. Something’s changing in the air between them, something sweet and honeyed, making Jon’s heart beat hard in his chest.
And then Martin’s blue eyes flit away from his and the blush sweeps his cheeks again.
“Right!” he says, a bit too loudly. “So, er, I… I should go and er, er, get on with work. Right. Yeah. Er. Unless there was anything else you, er…?”
“Ah, no, no,” Jon says. He feels a bit dazed. What was that? He feels a ridiculous urge to stop Martin from leaving, to tell him to stay here and keep smiling like that, keep… keep making Jon’s heart try to thud its way out between his ribs and his mouth beam and his face burn. He wants to reach out with his hands and wrap them around Martin’s and never let go. He wants… “No, there’s nothing else,” he says. “Yes. Or rather, no. That’s all. Ah, thank you, Martin, for… for…” He hestitates. This is why he wrote a script for himself. Eventually he just nods and says, “Thank you,” again.
“No worries,” Martin says, still very pink and flustered looking. “Cool! I’ll get out of your hair, then.”
He smiles at Jon one last time, his dimple showing again, and Jon can’t help but answer it.
And then Martin is gone and Jon is left alone, still with a lingering smile on his face. He sits down.
That… went a lot better than he’d expected.