Work Text:
martin has never taken a smoke break.
hell, he doesn’t even smoke- sure, he pretended to at first, but once tim and sasha caught him sipping tea by the cold ashtray, they wouldn’t let him call it a “smoke break” anymore.
however, desperate times call for desperate measures, especially when you quite literally live at your office- and before he knew it, martin finds himself at the back door of the magnus institute, his hand pausing on the handle. surely the worms had the decency to wait a few minutes for him to get his fix, right? whatever that meant.
martin can’t kid himself into being surprised that jon is outside, sheltering his lighter from the rain that dusts his glasses and paints the london afternoon a wet grey. he tries to be disgusted, but there is something fascinating about seeing jon outside of his element, facade shed somewhere within the depths of those archives and left behind in favor of this place where only he -and martin- remain.
he tries to cast that thought aside as he walks towards jon and tries to appear as nonchalant as possible. the door slams shut behind him and jon flinches, but does not turn around.
damn it.
martin shuffles towards him, closing the rest of the distance awkwardly. jon does not look at him.
“um. hi, jon.”
jon sighs, understandably.
“hello, martin.”
a beat of silence.
“bring any worms with you?”
martin double checks to make sure.
“actually, no! the weather is so good-er, bad, that they must be having plenty of fun without me.”
martin laughs unconvincingly.
another beat of silence.
“come out to smoke?”
martin swallows. “um.. yeah. yeah, i have. need something to, uh… take the edge off..?”
jon actually nods, clearly somewhere else in thought, and wordlessly hands the near-empty pack of cigarettes and his spiderweb lighter out to martin, who nearly drops all of them.
martin flips open the pack and stares at the contents.
“not a fan of mayfairs?”
the silence is broken by a shit eating grin from jon.
“you’ve… never actually smoked, have you?”
“yeah, about that.”
“and you want to start now?”
“i mean… can things get much worse?”
jon shrugs.
“fair point.”
jon lights up again, the strong scent of petrichor and smoke and him combining in a way that martin could only define as dangerous. he watches as jon takes a long drag and exhales politely in the other direction, then offers him the cigarette.
martin briefly forgets why he went outside in the first place until jon glances at him expectantly.
“OH, yeah, right, i suppose it’s my turn now. um. thank you.”
“don’t want to waste one. in case you change your mind.”
martin takes a hurried drag and instantly coughs on it, quickly handing the cigarette back as he struggles to regain his breath. jon looks on amusedly.
red faced and frustrated, martin decides he will not indeed be pursuing a tobacco addiction.
“you really shouldn’t be smoking those, you know. bad for your health and all that.”
“fair point,” jon says, and promptly puts his cigarette out on martin’s pant leg with a quick sizzle. jon, expecting at least some sort of reaction, carefully prepares his signature deadpan expression- but when he looks up, martin is already staring at him, his gaze unflinching.
the two stare at each other for quite some time.
martin waits for jon to break the silence.
the air is thick.
“…for what it’s worth, i don’t care that you and tim are… acquainted. just don’t let it interfere with work.”
that got the reaction.
“what- what the hell are you on about?” martin stammers. jon doesn’t let him catch a break.
“i heard bits and pieces between that poetry you were reading. you really should be careful with those tape recorders- i didn’t know you got a hold of your own, but it could’ve easily been mixed up with something.. i don’t know… actually important.”
“I’m not an idiot- that tape recorder was already in the room when I got there. I don’t know what got it into your head that tim and i are even remotely interested in each other. And I’ll have you know that I consider my poetry actually important,” martin says.
something flickers across jon’s face.
“i’m sorry about your pants.”
“hey, it’s okay, i… was probably going to grow out of them anyway?”
jon chuckles at this and takes another drag. his shoulders drop and he sighs. he sees martin watching each of his motions intently from the corner of his eye and has an awful idea.
“you want to try again?” jon asks, gesturing with his cigarette.
“um, i mean i did it pretty badly last time. don’t quite feel like coughing up another lung.”
“let’s try it this way. do you trust me?” jon stares martin down with a sudden intensity, the latter becoming very aware of the distance between them. or lack thereof. jon has shifted suspiciously close to him. but he is just looking too far into it- martin writes it off, as jon was rarely immune to the intensity of his own thoughts.
he realizes he has been staring off into the horizon just past jon’s face and snaps back into reality.
“i mean, um, yes,” and the words barely have time to leave martin’s mouth before jon takes a calculated drag and leans impossibly close to him. before he can even process what is happening, jon has his jaw held steady in one hand and his lips on martin’s, hot smoke hitting the back of his throat.
martin closes his eyes.
jon looks terrified when they separate. martin, still taken aback, doesn’t ask any questions.
“better?”
“yeah, better.”
“we should get back to work.”
martin nods and stands up, offering a hand to jon, who doesn’t take it.
“for the record, i rather enjoyed listening to your poem- at least, what i could gather before it was interrupted.”
“oh! um… thank you!”
“you’re welcome, martin.”