Work Text:
Martin’s first official day as an archival assistant goes much better than he’d expected.
Not that he’d expected it to be bad! He’d been quite looking forward to it actually, both the pay raise and the general company it would bring. It’s just that Martin is generally on edge, and the combination of lying on his CV along with the worry that someone would accuse him of getting this job via less traditional methods did not exactly do a lot to soothe his anxiety.
As it happens, he needn’t have worried.
Turns out when you work in the basement of an academic institution and your job is to record and refile old statements, occasionally sending out notices for follow-up from the researchers upstairs, there’s not very much reason for anyone to come down to visit and even less reason for you to go up to visit, except to use the breakroom for lunch. There’s only ever four people down in the archives at a time, Martin included. That should maybe make him more ill at ease than it does, given how much easier it is for his coworkers to scrutinize him closely than it would have been if he was back up in the bustle of the library, but it’s always been much easier for Martin to keep up the act around smaller groups of people.
And besides that, Tim and Sasha are lovely. They make him feel comfortable, which doesn’t happen often. Martin’s good with people, yes, but that doesn’t always mean that he knows what to do with them on a personal level.
It’s easier when Sasha immediately attempts to bond with him by bemoaning the fact that she could’ve gotten better follow-up by hacking into the statement giver’s Facebook account than David-From-Research who clearly half-assed it because he had a date with Linda-From-HR that night. Sasha knows this because she’d hacked his Facebook account soon after reading the lackluster follow-up because, she’d said, the institute may have said that it was frowned upon to go poking around into the personal affairs of everyone who’d come in to give a statement just for the sake of research, but they said nothing at all about doing the same to David-From-Research.
The way to Martin’s heart always had been through office gossip. As hard as it is for Martin to tell what people want from him on a personal level, it seemed easier than anything for people to divulge as much about themselves to him as they wanted. He knew when things weren’t meant to be shared, he would never betray someone’s confidence when they clearly wanted the things they said to stay between the two of them, but it did still mean that he ended up hearing a lot of idle gossip.
Which is why, when Sasha divulges the tidbit about David-From-Research half-assing his job to go on a date with Linda-From-HR, he’s able to share that Linda-From-HR left after thirty minutes because, in those thirty minutes, David-From-Research had not said a single thing directly to her or even really acknowledged much of her presence at all except to use her as something to talk at while he apparently wrote his autobiography in real time.
Sasha is delighted.
Tim doesn’t seem to get into the gossip side of things as much, as his response to their scandalized chattering is to mostly roll his eyes and shake his head fondly at the two of them while they go on, but he still surprises Martin by endearing himself to him rather quickly. He just seems nice. Ostentatious, to be sure, loud in a way that Martin usually avoids, but he really does feel genuine. Martin doesn’t think there’s a single insincere bone in the man’s entire body, a fact that scares him more than Sasha’s ability to find out any information she wants with just a keyboard and a few hours’ time.
It comes in handy, though, when Martin isn’t quite able to hide his panic at Sasha’s apparent tendency to do a deep dive on her coworkers and Tim jumps in to assure him that it isn’t regular practice.
Don’t worry, he says, shaking his head once more, it’s only the researchers. And Martin believes him. He’s usually a pretty good read on people, and something about Tim tells him that he’s not the sort to make fun of people or lie just for the sake of getting ahead.
He also takes the opportunity to show Martin around, offering himself as a resource should Martin need help remembering the ridiculous code that the filing system uses, and that’s something Martin appreciates more than Tim probably knows.
Neither of them, much to Martin’s relief, try to accuse him of obtaining his new archival position through nepotism.
Plus there’s Jon. Even if Tim and Sasha hadn’t been perfectly lovely and easy to get along with, Martin would have been able to get through it all just for the sake of getting to spend more time with his husband during the work week.
His husband, who comes out of his office at half-past four with his bag in hand to let everyone know that they can leave early. “I’ve told my husband I would take him out for dinner tonight,” Jon says while sending a smile in Martin’s direction, barely there but no less sweet. “As I’ll be leaving early, I see no reason for the rest of you to be here as well.” He spares another glance in Martin’s direction, asking without words if he’s ready to leave. Martin waves a hand, continuing their non-verbal dialogue to indicate that he just needs to pack up a few things and he’ll meet him outside when he’s done.
As he packs up to leave, Martin finds himself smiling. He’d told Jon he didn’t need anything special for his first day at a job three floors down from his previous one, but Jon had insisted, much like Martin had expected him to.
Up until he’d been asked how soon he could be ready to start, Martin hadn’t really believed he’d even be considered for the position. Jon clearly wasn’t going to be on the hiring panel and Gertrude Robinson was perhaps the most terrifying old woman Martin had ever met, not to mention the majority of his CV was made up of lies and half-truths. He was half-afraid everyone would find out he’d lied and half-afraid none of them would like him without someone else to vouch for him.
When Martin had gotten the email informing him that the job was his and could he start by next Monday, Jon had been insufferable. Martin has no doubt that tonight’s dinner is just as much an excuse to lovingly say I-told-you-so as it is to celebrate his success.
With the last folder tucked away in his bag, Martin stands to leave, only stopping when he notices Tim and Sasha whispering.
“What’s got you two worked up?” he asks.
“I can’t believe Jon’s married,” Sasha replies.
Martin tries not to bristle too much. It’s a sentiment he’s heard before, mostly with varying degrees of disdain, and it’s not something he appreciates. Jon’s a perfectly lovely man, Martin loves him, and Martin is perfectly capable of knowing what he wants, and what he wants is someone sweet to go home with at the end of the day who makes him tea when he’s too tired to do more than make it to the couch and makes a big deal about anniversaries and holds him close on his bad days, which are coincidentally all the things that made Martin fall in love with Jon in the first place.
Sasha doesn’t really sound disdainful, and she and Tim had been so nice earlier. He wants to give them the benefit of the doubt. They really didn’t seem like the sort of people to poke fun at Martin for being married to Jon, especially when they hadn’t made a single comment about it all day.
Martin hums, cautious. “Almost four years now.”
Sasha’s eyes widen. “You must be rather close, then.”
Something about the way she says it makes him laugh. It’s not quite a joke at his expense, and it doesn’t sound like any sort of pointed disbelief. It’s more the sort of comment he’s used to receiving from people who are shocked that they’ve been married that long when they are still relatively young.
“Yeah, sort of,” he jokes. “Anyway, I’d better go. See you both tomorrow!”
When he meets Jon on the steps of the institute, he receives a raised eyebrow. “I was starting to think you’d stood me up.”
“Yes, my dear husband of four years, I am suddenly very uninterested in going to a nice romantic dinner with you,” Martin responds, deadpan, linking their fingers together as he speaks and bringing Jon’s hand up to his mouth to lay a kiss across the knuckles.
Jon, reactive as ever, flushes just the slightest amount at the affection. “Three and three quarters,” he insists.
“Not like you’ve been counting, though,” Martin teases, tugging him along so they don’t miss the tube. It really would be a shame if they’d planned on leaving early specifically so they didn’t have to get caught up in the end-of-the-workday rush on the way home and ended up missing it anyway because they couldn’t stop flirting on the sidewalk.
“No, if I were counting, I’d say six years and eight months.”
Martin can’t help the grin that splits across his cheeks as he lets go of Jon’s hand to crush him firmly against his side with an arm around his shoulders. It only grows wider when Jon attempts to press himself even closer.
*
A week later, Jon calls Martin into his office.
Martin, already halfway through preparing his own cup of afternoon tea, decides to quickly go about making one for Jon before heading over. When he arrives, he scoots a couple files over with an elbow and sets the extra mug down at Jon’s side as he sits down in the spare office chair on the other side of the desk.
“Afternoon, love,” he says. “Did you need something?”
Jon moves for the mug first, shooting Martin a grateful smile as he takes his first sip. Martin’s been with Jon for too long at this point to be embarrassed about the flush of pride he feels as Jon lets out a slow, pleased sigh before immediately taking another drink.
Swallowing, Jon speaks. “Yes, for you to get over here. Why are you all the way on the other side of this desk?”
Martin rolls his eyes but indulges him anyway, maneuvering the creaky office chair around the desk until he’s nestled between Jon and an old filing cabinet. Jon turns his own chair ninety degrees so that he faces Martin, scooting closer until their knees are knocking together. Twisting a bit in his chair, Martin rests his mug on top of the filing cabinet behind him, freeing up his hands to slide one through Jon’s hair while the other cups his cheek. Jon hums, leaning into the touch as he keeps his own mug cradled in his hands.
After a moment, it becomes apparent that Jon would be completely content if the two of them stayed there doing just that, Martin scratching gently against his scalp as he sat, eyes closed, and did his level best to melt directly into the floor. It’s not really surprising—Jon is almost catlike in his behavior, frequently stretching out across Martin’s lap in the evenings and unconsciously grumbling any time Martin removes his hand from Jon’s hair to turn a page in a book, and it is yet another one of the many, many things that has endeared Jon to him so sweetly.
Martin does have a job to do, though, not that he would mind being paid to indulge his husband this way. Lord knows that Jon works had enough to deserve several hours’ worth of breaks like these.
“Alright, break’s over,” Martin teases, brushing a thumb over Jon’s cheekbone once more for good measure before twisting around again to reclaim his tea. “Did you need anything?”
Jon groans in protests but eventually blinks his eyes open, straightening out in his seat and clearing his throat before speaking. “Just wanted to make sure you were settling in alright. You seem to be adjusting fine and I can tell you’re getting along great with the others, but I also know it’s only been a week and you don’t like relying on people you barely know for help, so I figured I’d ask just in case.”
Six years and eight months and somehow Jon still finds ways to make him swoon. He knows Jon would tell him that it wasn’t a big deal, that he just paid attention to him because he loved him, and it wasn’t hard to intuit what he needed and beyond that it was easy to help him and make things better. It was a big deal to Martin, though, having so much easy care and affection shown to him in a way that was both effortless and deliberate. He leans forward and Jon, easily reading his movements, presents an upturned cheek for Martin to gently press his lips against.
“Thanks, love,” Martin says softly, lingering for a moment with their foreheads pressed together before remembering the twin mugs of hot tea in their hands and sitting up straight to avoid any potential burns from spilling. “I’m alright, I think, but so long as I’m here would you mind walking me through the filing system again? Tim’s told me once, but he just talks so fast I’m not sure I heard it all correctly.”
Jon smiles and turns, waking up the screen on his laptop before opening a few files and waving Martin forward to get a closer look. There are a few documents explaining the process in detail, and a smaller file of one page in length that looks like some sort of reference sheet. “I wrote this one up after I was promoted,” Jon explains, referring to the reference sheet. “The official documents are full of so many pointless anecdotes, it’s impossible to keep straight. It’s much easier if you can just look at a quick breakdown while you’re working, I can email you a copy if you’d like?”
“That would be great, actually,” Martin says. “Trying to read through the original papers I was given and piece it together with what I could remember from what Tim told me has been a nightmare.”
“I know you don’t want people to think I’m showing favoritism towards you, Martin, but you do know you can ask me for anything when you need it?”
“Of course,” he assures, “I just haven’t had to file anything properly yet. It’s mostly been me sending out requests for follow-up research and Sasha being upset with the lack of proper research and sending them back upstairs to be fixed.”
That makes Jon laugh. “Of course it has, I should have warned you. She has a particular vendetta against—”
“David-From-Research,” Martin interrupts, “I know.” He spares a glance towards the clock on the wall and sighs. “She has promised me that the research would be done properly by two today, so I’d better go put that new reference sheet to use.”
Jon settles him with a look, knowing. “And you want to know how she blackmailed him into getting it done.”
“And I want to know what she used as blackmail, yes,” Martin admits, laughing as he gets up out of his seat and walks to the door. “Do you mind if I have you look over it before I file it just so I can make sure I know what I’m doing?”
“Not at all.”
“Great.” Hand on the door handle, Martin glances over his shoulder once more to smile at Jon. “I will see you soon then,” he says, “love you.”
“I love you, too, Martin. Thanks for the tea!”
When Martin returns to his own desk, Sasha is out. Likely upstairs in research, he figures, and he sits down to download his new reference sheet while he waits for her to return.
As soon as Martin sits down, Tim pushes himself away from his desk in his rolling office chair and uses the momentum to propel himself towards Martin. “You were in there for a while.”
Martin wills himself not to blush. The comment isn’t mean-spirited, not at all, but he does get the distinct impression that he’s being teased for having a romantic liaison in the middle of his workday. “Yeah,” he replies, keeping his voice steady. He doesn’t mind the teasing from Tim, and it’s certainly better than the accusations he’d expected when he first started in the archives, but that didn’t mean he was going to play into it. “Jon just wanted to make sure I was adjusting to the archives alright, he had some supplementary references that seemed helpful.”
Tim quirks an eyebrow, no doubt about to call Martin out for skirting around his teasing, but before he can Sasha enters the room, files held triumphantly in her hands.
“Here we go Martin!” she says, announcing her victory as she leaves them on Martin’s desk.
“You look way too happy,” Tim notes, turning his attention away from Martin for the moment in favor of hearing about Sasha’s latest escapade in her ongoing war against David-From-Research. “What did you do to get these?”
She launches into her story, no doubt pleased to recount the events for him and Martin. Martin, having been waiting to hear this since she’d ripped the files out of his hands the first time and sent it back upstairs with the promise that it would be done better within the week, pushes the newly approved files off to the side for the time being.
It’s a more complicated tale than he’d expected, truth be told, enough so that Tim even indulges the two of them in throwing in a few of his own theories on what’s really going on based on the information Sasha had gathered, although Martin is sure the indulgence is more for Sasha’s benefit than anything. He’s been in love for quite a while now, he knows what it looks like on someone else.
In the end, Martin does end up pulling himself away from the gossip to get started on filing, but he’s self-aware enough to admit that it’s more of an excuse for him to go in and talk to Jon again before the end of the day. Mercifully, Tim doesn’t tease him about it when he gets up and heads for Jon’s office.
*
Martin has to wait a month and a half for it to happen but finally, blissfully, Jon doesn’t have any meetings to attend to during his lunch break. They can have a lunch date. Martin has never been so excited.
Their breaks had never lined up properly, back when Martin was still working in the institute’s library, and it had turned out to be way too much of a hassle to try and arrange anything. Jon had met him upstairs once or twice a month and chatted with him for about fifteen minutes or so behind the check-in counter while they both sneakily wolfed down some cup noodles, but that had been about it. Today Martin finally gets to go out.
Yeah, it’s just down the block to a subpar chain coffeeshop to eat mediocre turkey sandwiches, but it’s so exciting.
For the first time since Martin started at the institute, he has time to take forty-five minutes out of his day to go somewhere with his husband in the middle of the day and share a meal. And they don’t have to spend it worrying about work or needing to get done in a hurry because they only have ten minutes and at least three of those need to be saved for Jon to walk back down to the basement.
At the moment Martin quite feels like he’s living a life full of luxury. He spends a good portion of his morning daydreaming about turkey sandwiches with wilted lettuce. The more he daydreams about it, the more the wilted lettuce actually starts to sound appetizing.
He can tell Jon is excited about it, too. Most of the time, while they’re at the institute, Martin is the one to make excuses to visit with Jon during the day. And that’s not because Jon doesn’t want to see him during the day, or because he forgets or anything like that, it’s just that he’s usually so busy that he doesn’t notice he’s been holed up in his office fielding emails and scheduling meetings and signing off on finished statements for three hours until Martin knocks on his door.
Today, though, is different. After ten o’clock that morning, there are no urgent matters for Jon to attend to other than the regular statements. No meetings to sit through, no fires to put out, just regular old filing. Martin’s sure he still gets emails, little requests here and there to use the library or to make copies of certain statements for outside research purposes, but if he had to hazard a guess based on Jon’s behavior for most of the day, he’d say that Jon didn’t feel all that much pressure to answer any of them right this second.
Jon flits around the archives most of the morning, never staying in his office for too long before he’s on the move again. He wants to know how the feud with research is going, wants to ask over the graduate student that Tim has taken under his wing, wants to see if the reference sheet for the filing code is serving Martin well.
It’s the first time Martin’s seen Jon leave his office more than twice in the span of three hours for no distinct purpose since he started working in the archives. Given the bewildered looks on Tim and Sasha’s faces, it’s the first time they’ve seen Jon leave his office more than twice in the span of three hours for no distinct purpose since they started working in the archives.
(There is a purpose, of course. A very valid, extremely important purpose. It’s to see Martin.)
At twelve-fifty, Jon ducks into his office to gather what he needs for lunch and darts right back out again, movements quick and full of excitement.
Martin is apparently not the only one that’s able to put together that Jon’s irregular behavior is the result of a rather good mood indeed. Tim catches him as he’s returning from his office.
“Hey, Jon, I was wondering if maybe you’d want to come to lunch with me and Sasha today? It seems like your schedule isn’t as full as usual and it would be nice to catch up.” Tim seems hopeful and Martin beams. Jon’s never sure if his assistants actually see him as a friend or just a boss that they can tolerate, and it’s always nice when they prove that it’s the former.
Jon even sounds genuinely disappointed when he responds, though Martin knows that he’s not really sorry for the reason he has to decline, not when they’ve been trying to pull off a lunch-date for years. “Sorry, Tim, I’m afraid I made plans with my husband this afternoon,” he says. “My schedule is uncharacteristically free, so we thought we’d take advantage of it.” He cuts his gaze towards Martin just slightly as he speaks, and Martin has to bite at the insides of his cheeks to keep from grinning dopily.
Tim snaps his fingers in a sort of disappointed motion, like a character in a sitcom from the 1970’s who may have accompanied the movement with a snappy, oh rats! “Next time then,” he says. Jon agrees, sounding sincere, and flits back into his office where Martin knows he will dip in and out approximately fifteen more times until the clock hits one and they can officially clock out for lunch.
Then Tim wheels around towards Martin.
Oh good lord. Martin really isn’t going to have a single moment of peace in these archives, is he?
“What about you, Martin?” Tim asks. “Good old archival assistant bonding, like always?” He looks at Martin with a wide grin as he waits for an answer, voice almost singsong when he asks. Martin really should have expected this.
Martin may also have to revisit his initial assessment of Tim’s character. Not that Tim was insincere or that Martin now found him genuinely unkind, no, but that Martin had also come to realize that Tim was a right bastard. In the most loving, friendly way that he knows how to express. Jon’s predilection to proudly referring to Martin as his husband whenever anyone was in earshot was cute, yes, but it was also clearly exactly the kind of fuel that Tim needed to get him started.
It’s a miracle that Martin is able to keep himself from flushing hard enough to raise his temperature several degrees.
Martin had been lonely a lot of the time, when he was younger. He’d never had the sort of friendships where you could fall in love and they would look at you and your partner and go ooh, Martin’s in love, stretching out each and every syllable until they are miles long. He finds that he’s rather ill-equipped to handle it at the age of twenty-nine, perhaps even less so than he would have been if he were still an awkward teenager.
“Sorry, I have plans,” he manages to answer, just barely able to keep himself from giggling in embarrassment.
Thankfully, the clock hits one and Martin is able to leave before he has to endure anymore schoolyard teasing about the giant crush he has on his husband. Jon is already waiting for him by the double doors of the institute, much like he’d expected.
It’s an uncharacteristically nice afternoon, for this time of year, and the walk to the café is pleasant enough that they find themselves sort of meandering along the sidewalk. It shaves a few minutes off the time they’ll have to sit and talk, but it’s worth it for the way Jon turns his face towards the sun and hums pleasantly.
“Tim asked if I wanted to come to lunch today,” Martin says as soon as they’re seated, sad prepackaged turkey sandwiches in hand.
Jon hums distractedly, pulling at the wilted lettuce until it slides, almost slimy, away from the bread. He sets it off to the side, looking distinctly offended. “Yes, he asked me if I wanted to come, too. Told him I couldn’t because I was meeting you.” Despite his obvious distaste with the sandwich in front of him, Jon brightens when he mentions it. Like he’s still floating along daydreaming about getting to spend a full, uninterrupted forty-five minutes with Martin in the middle of the day, even though that forty-five minutes has already started.
“He’s making fun of us, you know,” Martin points out.
“What, Tim?” Jon’s brow furrows and Martin has to resist the urge to smooth away the wrinkle with his thumb. As it is, his fingers are unfortunately coated with worryingly runny mayonnaise. “I thought you all were getting on?”
Martin decides to quit stalling and finally take a bite of his lunch. It is surprisingly a lot better than its individual components would have him believe. It also takes a suspiciously long time to chew; he holds a hand up in front of his mouth as he responds. “No, not like actual bullying. It’s just like…” He tilts his head, searching for the right words. “You know how in grade school when you’d accidentally admit someone was cute and your friends would just refuse to leave you alone about it?”
At that, Jon raises a rather unimpressed eyebrow. He seems to be taking a different approach of eating one piece of the sandwich at a time and raises a perfectly circular slice of turkey to his lips to taste. “Can’t say that ever happened to me, no.”
“No, me neither,” Martin assures. Finally getting the chance to swallow, he lowers his hand back down to the table. “But you know of it.”
Jon grimaces at the turkey and swaps it out for the bread. It is met with only slightly less disdain, and he shrugs at Martin’s statement, a sort of you-got-me-there gesture.
At Martin’s next bite, something hard knocks into his front teeth. It’s a bone. “We should really pick somewhere else to eat next time,” he remarks. Jon has already given up, it seems, preoccupied with unwrapping a granola bar that Martin knows he must have stashed in his pocket before they left, just in case. He breaks it in half, offering the larger bit to Martin. Martin breaks off a piece of his own half and hands it back, evening out the split. It makes Jon roll his eyes, but he ultimately accepts it.
“It’s kind of nice, actually,” Martin says, continuing the thread of conversation from earlier. “Never had friends close enough to bully me about being in love.”
Jon reaches a hand across the table and Martin meets it with his own, tangling their fingers together. A squeeze is pressed against his palm, sympathy for years’ past, and Martin smiles, squeezes back.
“It’s not like they don’t deserve just as much torment,” Jon responds, steering the conversation away from any melancholy memories. “Did you see how pleased with himself Tim looked when Sasha actually laughed at his awful pun this morning?”
“God, I know, right? And I swear, it’s like neither of them even notices.”
The rest of their lunch break continues in much the same vein, trading stories back and forth about what they’d had to endure whenever Sasha and Tim were in the same room and making a valiant attempt to finish the lunches they’d actually paid for before Jon produces another granola bar out of thin air and they finally call it.
When they get up to leave, walking back to the institute beneath the glow of the afternoon sun, Martin can’t help but think of how much he’s gained in the past few years. He’s married, he has a job he likes that doesn’t feel like pulling teeth, he’s so in love he feels like he could split in half at a moment’s notice and he has friends who like him enough to tease him for it. He’s happy. Martin really has ended up doing alright for himself, despite it all.
As if he can read his thoughts, Jon reaches out once more. This time, he links them together at the elbows, dragging Martin close until he’s near enough for Jon to rest his head on his shoulder while they walk. He turns his head just so and leaves the softest ghost of a kiss against the outer edge of his clavicle. Martin only laughs a little bit when it makes Jon stumble because he’s taken his eyes off the sidewalk.
*
When Martin finds himself squinting at stacks of boxes in document storage for a few minutes longer than he would really like after having accidentally left his glasses at home, he feels a familiar pair of skinny arms wrap around his waist from behind and he smiles. “Sorry, love, I’ll be done here in a moment, the labels on these are just so damn small.”
Jon’s response is in the fabric of Martin’s sweater, mumbled between his shoulder blades and impossible to parse any meaning from.
Martin chuckles. “One more time, please?”
Sighing, Jon lifts his head and Martin can feel him stretch onto his toes in order to comfortably hook his chin over Martin’s shoulder. “I said, I told you that you’d forget your glasses eventually if you kept leaving them in odd places around the house. They’re probably still on top of the fridge.”
“Well, we can’t all be pretty enough to pull off the librarian chain look.”
Jon hums. “You’re right, you’re much too pretty for that. Would pull too much attention away from your face, and that just won’t do.”
“Exactly,” Martin agrees. “Plus the chain makes my neck itch. I feel like bugs are crawling all over me.”
Of course, that’s when Jon decides it would be funny to scratch his beard lightly against the back of Martin’s neck, causing him to scrunch inward and let out a rather embarrassingly loud squeak. “God, you’re evil,” Martin protests, shoving Jon playfully backwards and just as quickly turning around to reel him in once more. The way he looks at Jon as he grabs him gently by the hips betrays any sincerity the statement could have held.
“And yet,” Jon starts, “in exactly six weeks it will have been four years since you agreed to go through with marrying me. Strange.”
“I’ll have you know that I was the one who asked you,” Martin counters, sliding his arms around Jon’s waist and clasping his hands against the small of his back. Jon responds by shuffling closer and trailing his hands up the front of Martin’s sweater before letting them come to rest against his chest, a couple fingers reaching out to adjust the collar of his undershirt before lying flat.
“Mm, but only because you saw the ring I was hiding and decided you had to beat me to it.” As he speaks, Jon stretches upward to land a kiss at the edge of Martin’s jaw.
Rolling his eyes, Martin retaliates with a kiss of his own, this one landing right on the tip of Jon’s noise. “I’d been planning for months, Jon—”
Jon cuts him off this time, placing his next kiss on the corner of his mouth and effectively muffling any further argument. “So you’ve said, yes.”
“And,” Martin goes on, punctuating his continuation by tightening his hold on Jon’s waist and lifting him just slightly off the floor in order to kiss him properly, “if I have to be the one to remind you, you made me let you ask me immediately afterwards, without even answering my question first.”
He may have only left solid ground for a sum total of two seconds all told, but Jon’s eyes are still wide as his feet return to the concrete floor beneath them, lips slightly parted as he looks up at Martin as if he thinks he’s floating. Martin smiles softly down at him, never more pleased than he is when he can reduce Jon to silence with nothing more than a few soft touches.
Eventually Jon blinks, clearing his throat before speaking. “Felt like my asking you was a pretty clear indication that the answer was yes.”
“Yes, well you did preface it with ‘Martin, I love you, but please let me ask first,’ so I suppose it was a bit of a dead giveaway.”
Jon snorts, leaving a chastising tap against Martin’s cheek with two fingers. “Yes, exactly,” he maintains. “I want you to remember that I did manage to at least tell you that before running off to grab your ring. I think I deserve some credit for that.”
Martin looks down at the ring on Jon’s middle finger, all black with a triplet of small, glittering stones set in the center. He idly twists his own with his opposite thumb, matching in nearly every detail except for the stones laid in the metal; while he’d opted for something flashier for Jon, Martin’s was much more traditional. “Still can’t believe we managed to have the same exact idea for those, by the way.”
As he often does when Martin brings up that detail, Jon smiles wide, showing the gap in his teeth. “I remembered us lamenting that we’d never gotten ourselves one, back when we first started dating,” he admits. “It seemed appropriate.”
“I know,” Martin responds, “that’s what I’d thought, too. Knew you never liked how plain they were, though, so I had to get one that fit you better.” He reaches a hand up to poke teasingly at the myriad of piercings in Jon’s ear, making it clear that he’s referring to Jon’s propensity for bolder jewelry, often opting for whatever lets him wear the most of it at one time.
He’s always said that Jon is catlike in his behavior, but it’s never escaped Martin’s notice that much of Jon’s preferred style is very reminiscent of that of a bird—whatever’s shiniest and glitters in the sunshine is likely to be preferred over most anything else.
After nearly seven years of being together, Jon is well aware of most of the avenues Martin uses as an opportunity to tease him, and this one doesn’t escape his notice any more than any other would have. He rolls his eyes, although without any heat, and finally parts from Martin’s embrace with a gentle kiss to his neck, just above where the collar of his undershirt ends.
“Which box were you looking for again?”
Martin rattles off a number, cursing when Jon informs him that he’s nowhere near the right area of document storage if he ever wants to be able to find it, glasses or no. It’s no easier to read the labels, when he does get to the right section, but Jon is at least able to pick it out before Martin gives himself a migraine trying to read the damn things.
Moving through the stacks, Martin insisting on carrying the box when it proves itself to be deceptively heavy, Martin begins to hear a third set of footsteps. Before they’re more than a couple shelves away, they discover Sasha.
“Oh, you’re both here!” she notes. “Good, I had a question for you two, actually.” Jon nods, signaling for her to continue. “Right, the last statement you filed, Martin, it looks like Jon filed it differently after you sent it off, and I can’t quite tell which one is supposed to be correct.”
She holds out a post-it with two numbers scribbled across it. Martin has no earthly clue if either number is related to any of the statements he’s filed. He may have gotten a handle on the code for the filing system since he’d started, but that means absolutely nothing for how well he’s able to remember which number correlates with which statement. If you gave him a summary, he’d be able to tell you when he filed it, but without looking at it directly, at the point he is right now in this position, he couldn’t even begin to guess what code he’d used.
Jon, however, seems to have no such problem. After squinting at the two numbers for barely a couple seconds, he straightens and points to the second number on the post-it. “This should be the right one, I’ll have to fix that. I’m afraid I must have slipped and accidentally typed a seven instead of a six.”
Despite not even knowing which statement the string of numbers references, Martin feels a surge of pride. “Wow, Jon,” he says, allowing a lilting note to slip into his voice so Jon is sure that he’s joking. “I can’t believe I’ve only been here a month and I’m already coming for your job.”
Sasha raises an eyebrow at that, and she looks back and forth between the both of them. Martin gets the distinct impression, from the look on her face, that she’s seconds away from poking fun at the two of them for having blatantly spent the past half hour canoodling in document storage and somehow still not being able to contain themselves.
Mercifully, Jon responds before she has the chance to say anything. “Yes, Martin, very funny,” he intones, affecting an extremely exaggerated posh accent to play into the joke. A small smile slides across his lips as he rolls his eyes, turning back towards Sasha. “Thanks for pointing out the error, Sasha, I’ll get it corrected soon.”
With that, Jon makes his move to leave document storage and head back to work. Not keen on sticking around for Sasha to rib him about his love-life, no matter how good-natured he knows it is, Martin takes the out and follows.
*
Jon gets his annual cold at the same time Martin decides to get food poisoning. It’s less than ideal.
“Well,” Jon comments, congestion softening the letters as he speaks, “at least we’re both miserable together.”
A tickle creeps into Martin’s throat and he tries not to cough, lest it devolve into more lurching in his stomach. He hopes it’s just because the air in the room is dry and not because a cold is creeping up on him as well; he’s never put much thought into how it would feel to have both food poisoning and a head cold at the same time, but he doesn’t quite want to find out.
"Speak for yourself,” he says. “I would’ve stayed home with you if you’d asked me to regardless, I could do without the excess vomiting.”
From beside him, Jon sniffles and Martin wordlessly holds out a tissue. Jon thanks him before blowing his nose, groaning as the tissue rubs against the already raw skin there.
“Suppose that’s fair,” he allows, throwing the tissue in the direction of the garbage can. “Although, if you had just heeded the expiration date like I’d told you, we wouldn’t need to be sitting in our tub because you’re afraid to leave the bathroom in case you accidentally get sick on the carpet.”
“Christ, yes,” Martin relents, “fine, I’ll pay attention to the expiration date next time. It didn’t look like it had gone bad.”
“Never does,” Jon counters, “that’s why they have the expiration date.”
Martin rolls his eyes, even as he pulls Jon closer with an arm around his shoulders, shifting so that they fit better together in the small porcelain tub. When Jon pushes his face against Martin’s neck, groaning with quiet relief as the chill of his skin balances out the fever in Jon’s own, Martin rubs a gentle hand through the tangle of curls at his nape. “Still have that headache?”
Jon shakes his head slowly, mumbling an answer that gets lost in the hollow of Martin’s throat. “Might have to come up for a minute, love,” Martin prompts, charmed despite the sweat beading up around his collar and the urgent squeeze within his abdomen. He swallows against it, hoping that this time it passes without him having to heave over the toilet. Miraculously, it does.
Lifting his head, chin digging into Martin’s collarbone just slightly, Jon repeats himself. “It’s mostly gone, just the fever that’s doing my head in.”
Martin hums, the hand he has in Jon’s hair drifting upwards until he can scratch gently at the base of his skull. “You can still take the paracetamol for that.”
“Not for another hour,” Jon corrects. “Don’t think I haven’t been counting.”
It wouldn’t be a surprise to Martin if Jon had even set an alarm for it. He’s dreadful when he’s sick, treating every common cold like it’s the end of the world even though he is the only person Martin knows who can have a cold one day and be perfectly fine the next.
Not that Martin really minds so much, how terrible a patient Jon is. He gets to spend all day with Jon curled around him, pressing into his touch everywhere it lands, gets to hear how unapologetically whiny Jon lets himself get when Martin strays away for more than a moment at a time. It’s nice to feel wanted that way, to know that as much as Jon needs paracetamol for his fever and cough medicine for his throat, he still needs Martin to feel better.
That all being said, he would still greatly prefer it if he could do all that without having to feel like his insides were rearranging themselves just because he ate cheese that was two days past its expiration date.
Martin winces when a sharp pain cuts through his abdomen once more. Sad as it is, something of a routine has formed around this already. Jon loosens his hold on Martin, wiggling slightly away in case Martin suddenly has to lunge towards the toilet. Martin takes a breath, steadying himself. When he doesn’t immediately feel a pressure in his throat, he settles back and Jon rubs a gentle hand over his belly, curling back in to press a kiss against his neck.
After a few more deep breaths, Martin sits up experimentally. When his stomach doesn’t immediately protest, he stretches slowly and pulls himself to his feet. Jon follows, taking hold of Martin’s hand for leverage.
“I think,” Martin says tentatively, “I might be alright to brave the living room now.”
Jon doesn’t outwardly show his obvious relief, but it’s a near thing. And regardless, Martin can still tell. He knows Jon thinks it’s a little ridiculous, how Martin makes a home for himself in the bathroom whenever he’s ill because he’s paranoid he’ll ruin all the furnishings otherwise. Martin always insists it isn’t necessary for him to stay with him, when he’s like that, but Jon refuses to leave him alone. If Martin is going to lay down in an uncomfortable bathtub for most of the day, Jon says, then Jon is going to be there too.
I’m not going to leave you alone, Martin. A line appearing between his eyebrows, incredulous. You always help me feel better when I’m ill. If this helps, I’ll be there with you.
Still, Jon is very obviously pleased to be able to curl up around Martin on the comfort of their couch—an overpriced thing that they’d let themselves splurge on because the cushions were soft and Martin could fit his entire body, lengthwise, without having to curl his legs into his chest—instead of cramped in the corner of their already too-small bathtub.
On the way into the living room, Martin detours towards the bedroom to grab his phone. He hasn’t checked it since he and Jon called out earlier in the morning, and he’s hoping there might be something on it that will distract him from the hollow ache in his stomach that he is unable to tell, at this point, if it is being caused by the food poisoning or the fact that he hasn’t been able to eat anything since he’s woken up or both. The move to the couch is almost certainly going to lull Jon right back to sleep, and Martin is loath to try and keep him awake when he’d already woken up halfway through the night sniffling and trying to muffle his coughs.
True to form, it only takes Jon about six minutes to start snoring once they get themselves settled in the living room, nestled closely against Martin’s chest with the throw blanket from the back of the couch draped around his shoulders. Martin brushes the sweat-damp hair away from his face, unable to keep from smiling reflexively when Jon mumbles a bit in his sleep and cuddles in closer.
He keeps one hand busy combing through Jon’s hair as he wakes his phone with the other, scrolling through the unread notifications from the first few hours of the morning.
At the top of his notifications bar is a text from Tim.
>> martiiiiiin where are u
The message is time-stamped at around ten minutes after Martin’s workday would usually start and is followed by six more messages of the same tune. He rolls his eyes fondly. Tim couldn’t make it longer than ten minutes without him to talk to, apparently, and it’s the nicest thought that Martin can imagine.
<< out sick :( sorry I didn’t think to mention it! it’s been a pretty gross morning
Despite being left waiting for hours, Tim answers immediately.
>> ugh rude. jon’s out too I can’t believe u guys didn’t tell me we were all taking sick days
Martin snorts at the implication. The noise makes Jon whine a bit in his sleep and Martin presses a kiss to his forehead in apology.
He would take a sick day just to hang out with Jon, is the thing. One day, when Martin can convince him that the institute isn’t going to fall apart just because Jon takes one single day off, he is absolutely going to do just that. As it stands, however, Martin has already thrown up three times and it’s not even noon. He spent four hours curled up in a bathtub with his husband. He’s only just decided he might maybe be able to eat something soon.
If Tim is going to make fun of him for wanting to spend time with the love of his life, he might as well do it with all the facts attached.
<< yeah we’re pretty out of it rn. lmao sorry we’ll make sure to keep u in the loop next time
The response, once again, is immediate. Martin laughs a bit under his breath. It’s nice to think that he and Tim have gotten close enough at this point for Tim to be waiting by the phone to check up on him when he misses a day of work. Who would have thought that he’d make his closest friends at twenty-nine, working in the dusty basement of an academic institution that specializes in horrific nightmares.
>> oh damn you’re with him rn! that’s cool it’s nice that u guys take care of each other
Of course he’s with him right now. Where else would he be? Martin is about to ask what, exactly, Tim thinks married couples are supposed to do when they’re both sick, but his phone buzzes against his hand once again before he can type out his response. Might be for the best; he isn’t so sure what sort of joke Tim would have ready for that one.
>> oops g2g I think sasha might have actually just declared political war on research
Martin is definitely going to want to hear about that when he goes back into work tomorrow. Hopefully the food poisoning passes before then. For now, though, he clears the rest of his notifications and sets his phone on the coffee table, turning to the side afterwards so that he and Jon are facing each other. Jon stirs and makes a noise of protest when the movement disturbs him, reaching out to grab at the front of Martin’s shirt and pull himself back against his chest. After Jon gets himself settled, falling back into a deep sleep quicker than anything, Martin tucks his head under his chin and lets his eyes drift shut.
The ache in his stomach has settled considerably over the past few hours. Martin decides he may as well try and get caught up on some sleep himself.
*
Going to work on your anniversary kind of sucks. Even when you work together. Maybe even especially when you work together.
They really should have just opted to take the day off. Done what Tim was assuming they’d done a couple weeks ago and take a sick day just for the sake of it, just because they wanted to spend the day alone together. Next year, Martin is sure, they will.
Because it’s not like they’re really getting anything done anyway. They might as well be at home “sick” from work, with the amount of time they’re actually spending sat down at their desks doing their actual jobs.
It starts with them showing up eight minutes late. Jon wakes Martin up with a kiss in lieu of letting his alarm sound and has breakfast ready by the time Martin gets out of the shower, and it’s only fair that Martin returns the favor tenfold. Which is to say, they were eight minutes late to work because they’ve officially been married for four years now and the most appropriate way Martin could think to celebrate was by lifting Jon by the hips and depositing him on the kitchen counter so they could trade kisses until they were both breathless.
Luckily, by the time they had arrived both Tim and Sasha were elsewhere in the institute. It wasn’t something Martin particularly wanted to explain to his coworkers. Yes, sorry, I am late, but in my defense, I have a really good reason! My husband is very pretty and he made me breakfast and I had to make out with him about it.
Once they’re actually at work, Martin only lasts about twenty-two minutes before he gets up and ventures into Jon’s office under the guise of getting him to look over a statement.
“I’m technically here to talk to you about a statement,” he announces as he closes the door behind them. “But really I just love you.”
Jon ducks his head but there’s no hiding the wide smile that appears at Martin’s words. “I was actually about to come out and see if you wanted any tea,” he admits. “I love you too.”
They’re not able to spend more than fifteen minutes being sappy in Jon’s office before they really have to get back to work.
They’re not able to spend more than thirty-seven minutes actually doing their work before Jon calls Martin back into his office.
“I got Rosie to reschedule my meetings this afternoon,” Jon says as soon as Martin opens the door. Martin can’t help the way he hops a little as he receives the good news. He could kiss Rosie.
“How did you manage that?”
Jon straightens in his seat, looking distinctly proud of himself. “I told her it was our anniversary and I wanted to take you to lunch.” Martin raises his eyebrows. Jon relents, rolling his eyes. “And I promised that the next time we went to that fancy grocery store you like, we’d bring back some of that tea you gave her for her birthday last year.”
She can have nice tea twice a week for the rest of Martin’s life if it means she reschedules more of Jon’s meetings to be at a more reasonable time than during his lunch break. He says as much to Jon.
“I’ll be sure to let her know, Martin,” Jon laughs.
This time, when Martin leaves Jon’s office, he’s sure they’ll be able to work through the next couple hours until lunch. They don’t need to make excuses to see each other now that they have a guaranteed forty-five minutes, after all. He’s only half right.
Martin doesn’t make any excuses to see Jon, even manages to focus for long enough to get a few statements filed, but Jon, apparently, can’t wait. He comes by about an hour later to settle a warm mug on Martin’s desk. Before Martin has the chance to tease him, he says “this doesn’t count, I was planning on bringing this to you earlier and you beat me to it,” and hurries back to his office.
Blissfully, Martin isn’t subjected to any friendly heckling through any of these moments. When they come in late, the basement is empty. When Martin visits Jon in his office, he pretends it’s to ask about a statement. When Jon calls him back in, Martin realizes he’d left the statement from earlier on Jon’s desk on accident and uses that as an excuse when he returns to his own desk. When Jon brings him tea, Sasha is upstairs pestering research and Tim is out in the library talking to graduate students. He’s not sure how he manages to avoid it, but he knows he’s grateful.
Imagine pining for the man you’ve spent the last seven years being in mutual love with. And then imagine that your two friends are there to witness it. It’s a little embarrassing.
He’s lucky enough to avoid all that up until they return from lunch.
The archives are empty, at first. It lulls Martin into a false sense of security.
Jon lingers by Martin’s desk instead of immediately returning to his office. He clears a small space at the edge of Martin’s desk and hops up to perch on the edge of the surface. And Martin had genuinely been intending on getting a few more things filed before the end of the day, but if Jon wasn’t going to put up a pretense, then Martin wasn’t going to try to, either.
So instead of sitting back down and checking his emails or returning to the statement he’d left open before he went out to lunch, Martin shuffles closer to Jon until he’s standing in the space between his legs and reaches out to tug at one of his curls. Jon hums, holding out his hands until Martin complies and grabs them with his own, pulling them to wrap around his waist. Martin’s own hands settle gently over Jon’s shoulders.
“Can I help you, Mr. Blackwood?” Martin asks, a teasing lilt to his voice. They’d never officially changed their names, after getting married. Not because neither of them wanted to take the other’s, but because both of them wanted to take the other’s. They simply couldn’t agree on whose name to keep, and the only thing they could agree on was that hyphenating would just make it an even bigger hassle to sign off on official documents at work. And it would have been foolish to simply swap them. So, in the end, they’d each just kept their own.
That didn’t stop either of them from referring to the other by their own last name, of course. Martin especially. He’s self-aware enough to admit that it’s half because he likes the way it makes Jon beam at him when he does it, and half because he’d once watched Pride & Prejudice every single night for two months straight when he was a teenager and to this day the ending of that film will not leave him alone.
Jon’s lips curve into a gentle smile. “Not at all, Mr. Sims,” he says, playing into it. “Just thinking about how lucky I was to meet you when I did.”
It’s then that Martin’s own luck runs out.
“Mr. Who?” Sasha’s voice rings out at the same that Tim’s shouts “you two have been married this whole time?”
Martin doesn’t even get to be embarrassed. He’s just confused. “Yes? You two knew already?”
“No, we didn’t,” Tim answers.
“We didn’t even know Jon was married until that day a few months back when he mentioned a husband,” Sasha adds.
“Yes,” Martin says. “That’s me. We were celebrating my getting hired.”
Sasha’s eyes light up in recognition. “Oh! That’s why you were so quick to say how long it had been.” She cringes. “God, and then I asked how close you two were. Nice one, Sash.”
Martin nods. “We really thought you knew. It’s not like we’ve been subtle about it.”
“I’d say nearly four months without letting anything on is pretty subtle,” Sasha argues.
“Sasha, when we ran into you that day in document storage, we’d just spent a full half hour kissing in front of dusty old boxes,” Martin confesses.
“I thought he was about to fire you for saying you could do his job better than him!” she counters. “I didn’t know that was married flirting!”
Martin wheels around to face Tim, dislodging himself from the hold Jon had had on his waist. It strikes him, just for a moment, that it was perhaps embarrassing that up until now he’d been having this conversation completely intertwined with Jon, not even noticing until they were no longer connected.
“You made fun of me for taking a sick day with Jon!” he insists. “You thought we were begging off work to-to make out, or something, and I was vomiting for most of the morning!”
Tim’s eyes widen, bewildered. “I thought you were just mates taking care of each other, I thought it was nice of you!”
“Why,” Jon finally chimes in, “would we just be mates. It was eight in the morning. Why would two mates, one of whom is married, just be ‘taking care of each other’ at eight in the morning after calling out sick from work?”
“You never mentioned him by name,” Tim accuses, “I assumed that meant we didn’t know him!”
It’s hard to find the blush on Jon’s skin, but Martin knows what to look for. He goes slightly still, the skin around his ears darkens. There’s a single freckle right at the apple of his cheek that fully disappears. Jon’s been caught out, and Martin’s the only one that knows it. Finally the heckling will be turned onto him, even if it had, apparently, been unintentional when it was directed at Martin.
“Ah,” Jon says, more of a sound then a word. “I just like to say it.”
Tim looks positively delighted to hear this information. Martin can tell that they’re in for at least a few weeks of Tim exclusively referring to him as “Jon’s husband,” now that he has that bit of information in his lexicon. “That’s adorable,” he says. His tone proves Martin’s point. “Jon’s husband, Martin. How sweet.”
After that minor embarrassment, Jon is apparently all in. He groans and leans forward until he can hide his face in Martin’s shoulder. Martin rubs sympathetic circles against Jon’s temple with his thumb.
“Now you know how I felt,” Martin says.
“Oh, you don’t even know how you feel, Martin,” Tim counters. “I didn’t know you were married before, all that was completely by accident. I have nearly four whole months to catch up on, and as your friend I intend to make good on all of them. I’d expect you to do the same for me.”
Martin thinks it’s probably not appropriate to make good on that promise now. Not when Sasha is right there and Martin still isn’t sure what she and Tim are, really. As soon as Sasha leaves, though, it’s fair game. All things considered, he’s pretty sure he and Tim are at least equal with how embarrassing they are about their respective crushes. It’s just that Tim thinks his is still a secret.