Work Text:
It starts when Tim brings two wagon wheels to work as part of his lunch by accident, instead of one.
That’s what he tells Jon, at least, when he dips into his bag for an afternoon snack and brings them both out.
“Help a pal out?” he says, putting the spare one down on the desk and flicking it with a finger to send it whizzing across the smooth wood veneer to fetch up against Jon’s computer keyboard.
Jon looks at the wagon wheel and blinks, then looks up at Tim. “What?”
“I brought two by mistake,” Tim says casually.
He already knows Jon well enough to be sure he won’t catch him in the lie, because of course he brought the extra biscuit for Jon. It’s incredible, frankly, that nobody else in Research has noticed that Jon skips at least one lunch break a week, sometimes two. Well, Sasha has, of course, because she likes watching people and knowing things about them, but it wouldn’t occur to her to do anything about it. She, like Jon, is the sort of person who waits for other people to come to her and is always vaguely surprised when they do. Tim thinks she and Jon will get on well, once he gets them in the same place for long enough to get past the initial conversational awkwardness.
Anyway, today is one of the days Jon has worked through lunch. It’s now almost three and the canteen’s about to close. Thus, the wagon wheel. It’s not much, but it’s way better than no food at all. When Jon just stares at him, Tim flashes him a quick grin.
“Seriously, you’ll be doing me a favour if you’ll eat it,” he says, and turns back to his own computer. Jon’s a skittish kind of guy. He doesn’t want to put pressure on him by staring at him until he eats or something.
Out of the corner of his eye, as he pretends to type, he watches Jon eyeing the wagon wheel for a while. When he picks it up it’s hesitant and he glances across at Tim as though expecting him to suddenly spring up and snatch it back out of his grasp. Tim stares fixedly at his computer screen and types for his life, and after an excruciatingly long pause, Jon finally puts the wagon wheel down again, this time at the edge of his desk, between his keyboard and his own body.
It’s almost ten minutes before Jon picks the wagon wheel up again, and Tim honestly isn’t sure whether Jon realises he’s doing it at all. He’s peering at his screen, reading something with his eyebrows all scrunkled in a fierce frown, and it takes him a while to absent-mindedly fumble the plastic packet open. Tim bites at his lips to stop himself from grinning triumphantly.
A good thing, too, because once he’s got the packet open, Jon doesn’t actually eat the wagon wheel. He puts it down, scrolls and clicks a bit on his computer, and then, once he’s reading, picks it up again. He peels the packet open down the middle and lays it out flat, then puts the wagon wheel itself down, carefully, right in the centre.
A strange, delighted, bubbly feeling is growing in Tim’s chest. He’s never seen anyone eat anything, let alone a slightly shitty chocolate biscuit, in such a studied, ceremonious way that’s yet so very absent-minded. He’s seized with an unshakeable conviction that Jon has eaten every wagon wheel he’s ever encountered in his life in this exact way. Not that Jon’s actually started eating it yet.
He does, eventually, a few minutes later, but he doesn’t just pick it up and bite. He’s still reading whatever’s on his screen with an almost ferocious concentration, but his left hand drifts down towards the wagon wheel. For a moment, his fingertips hover above it, motionless. Tim holds his breath.
Then Jon’s fingers descend the few millimetres left, and, still without ever taking his eyes off his article or whatever it is, he breaks a tiny piece of the top layer of the wagon wheel off. He brings it up to his mouth, pops it in, and then his fingers drift back to hover above the wagon wheel on its splayed out packet, and he brushes his fingertips together to get rid of any lingering crumbs.
Tim has to press his lips together very hard to stop himself from smiling. That’s maybe one of the most endearing things he’s ever seen in his life.
Jon’s jaws barely move; the bit of biscuit he’s broken off so tiny that he doesn’t really need to chew it, but his throat bobs visibly as he swallows, and Tim once again has to concentrate hard to stop himself from just turning his chair and staring.
Now that Jon’s fingertips are clean, his hand returns to his keyboard and he types swiftly for several minutes. Tim waits with bated breath until, at last, Jon’s typing slows and he resumes reading and, once again, his hand drifts towards his wagon wheel. The process is repeated exactly as it was the first time: a small piece broken off, conveyed, apparently without thought, to Jon’s mouth, chewed minutely and swallowed, Jon’s fingertips, hovering carefully above the plastic packet, brushing themselves off before they return to his keyboard.
It takes almost twenty minutes for Jon to eat his way through the top layer of biscuit a tiny, broken off piece at a time, absently and carefully brushing his fingers clean in between bites. Tim watches him sideways the entire time, unable to take his eyes off the careful little movements of Jon’s hand, the way his lips part minutely for each bite, the movement of his throat as he swallows. He still hasn’t looked down at the wagon wheel once. Has he noticed he's eating it?
Tim watches, entranced, as Jon brushes away the stray crumbs from the last of the top layer of biscuit and peers, scowling, at his computer screen. How is Jon going to deal with the marshmallow layer? Biscuit crumbs are one thing, but surely he’ll notice when his fingers are sticky with marshmallow residue.
He has to wait, by the clock on his computer, eleven and a half minutes to find out. He’s never seen anyone eat anything so bloody slowly.
But eventually Jon huffs a loud, irritated sigh at his computer. He pushes his keyboard away from him and leans his elbows on the desk, one on either side of the wagon wheel, and scrubs his hands over his face. For the first time since he unwrapped it, he looks down at the white marshmallow of the wagon wheel. He sighs again.
His head turns slightly and his eyes slide across to Tim. Tim is typing away at his computer, entirely immersed in his own work like a good little worker bee and certainly not paying a probably mildly creepy amount of attention to the way his not-quite friend eats wagon wheels.
Jon’s attention turns back to the wagon wheel.
One slender finger comes out and picks gently at the edge of the wagon wheel’s marshmallow disc. Tim finds his own fingers stilling on his keyboard. Jon peels the marshmallow back from the bottom layer of biscuit, slowly, carefully, so as not to tear it. Or, as it soon transpires, so as not to tear it until he’s ready to tear it.
He has to put a finger on the portion of the marshmallow he isn’t yet eating so as to tear it in the right place, and that finger remains there, waiting, as he delicately lifts the torn off part off his fingertip with his teeth and closes his mouth over it.
This little process, too, is repeated half a dozen times, until all the marshmallow is gone and only the bottom layer of biscuit is left.
Tim exhales and hastily returns to the nonsense he’s been typing for the last god even knows how long, lest Jon notice his interest as he raises his head. But he still watches from the corner of his eye, so he doesn’t miss the way Jon looks back down at his hands and wrinkles his nose in such an adorable way that Tim’s pretty sure his heart skips a beat.
For a moment Jon hesitates. His eyes dart first towards Tim, who is once again tapping away at his own keyboard, apparently lost to the world, and then to the other side, even though Jon’s workstation is next to the wall and nobody can possibly see him from that direction.
And then Jon lifts two fingers and sticks them in his mouth. They remain in his mouth for several long seconds, and then he withdraws them and puts the index finger of his other hand in, the one he was holding the marshmallow steady with. Tim continues to type at a steady pace. He’s fine. He’s fine.
He’s really, truly, absolutely fine right up until Jon dips his hand into his pocket and brings out an honest to god handkerchief. Tim’s pretty sure he’s never met a person who carries a handkerchief before, but of course Jon does. Of course he does. He proceeds to wipe his fingers carefully and thoroughly, and then replaces the handkerchief in his pocket.
Tim wonders whether it’s possible to die from watching someone wipe their fingers on a handkerchief.
While he’s trying to stop himself from having a heart attack from sheer overload of cuteness, Jon, entirely oblivious of the danger his desk-mate’s life is in, has returned to whatever research he’s been doing all this time. He rests his elbow on his desk and his chin on his hand and starts reading again. Tim takes several deep, steadying breaths.
It’s several minutes before Jon starts on the final, bottom biscuit layer of his wagon wheel. Tim doesn’t even attempt to get any work done during the wait. His research into the McTier case is supposed to be finished by the end of today and it’s definitely going to be late. He doesn’t care.
In the end, it’s much the same as the eating of the first biscuit half. Jon absent-mindedly breaks off a tiny piece every so often, eats it, brushes his fingers clean, reads or types for a minute or two, and then drifts down for another tiny piece. It takes forever, and Tim can’t look away.
At last, much too soon, the entire wagon wheel is gone, only a few crumbs left scattered across the plastic wrapper. Jon, apparently unaware of this, lets his left hand move down for another piece, but as his fingers descend, they find only thin, cheap plastic.
He blinks and looks down, realises for the first time that the wrapper is empty, and gives it a sad, betrayed look. Tim once again has to press his lips together to stop himself from laughing. He should have given Jon both wagon wheels, clearly.
But Jon merely gives a little sigh and picks the wrapper up, folding it carefully into a tiny square and then tucking it into his pocket. He retrieves his handkerchief and wipes his fingers again, and puts the hanky back.
Tim releases a long, slow, breath.
Over the weekend, he decides, he’ll bake a Battenberg.
He’d love to see what Jon does with a Battenberg.