Chapter Text
“Kill the Beatles,” Tim said, counting off on his fingers as he leaned back in his chair. “Fuck the Stones. And marry Madonna.”
“Tasteless,” Sasha said, shaking her head disapprovingly. “The Beetles have the highest mortality rate of them all and you’re just going to finish them off like that?”
“Well what would you do, then?”
“Kill the Beetles,” Sasha said, without any shred of shame. “Fuck Madonna. And marry the Stones.”
“Ha!” Tim threw his head back with the laugh, leaning his chair back on its rear legs far enough that Martin started to worry it was going to tip over entirely. “Could’ve called that. You’re getting predicable, Sasha.”
“Never,” Sasha said, deadpan enough that Martin almost believed her. “How about you?”
“Uh.” He thought for a moment as she turned the question his way, then grimaced. “Oh, come on! I’m the only one here who isn’t bi, this is unfair.”
“Your loss,” Tim said easily, righting the chair with a thump.
“You can’t make me kill Madonna!” Martin protested, then sighed. “Fine. Kill Madonna, marry the Beetles, fuck the Stones.”
“Excellent taste,” Tim said. “My go, then?”
Martin and Sasha nodded, and Tim pursed his lips in thought. They waited patiently for him to say something.
And waited.
“God, I’m running out,” he eventually admitted. “Pass.”
“I’ve got nothing,” Martin said. “Unless you’re willing to spend a few minutes googling Romantic poets?”
“Pass,” Sasha said. “You guys are going to hate this, but I do have one more go.”
“The floor is yours.” Tim waved a hand for her to continue.
“Well,” she said, and had the grace to look a little embarrassed. “There are four of us working here, so. Fuck, marry, kill… us.”
Martin groaned. Tim grinned.
“Sounds like a good sendoff to me,” he said. “Dearest Sasha… you go first.”
“Oh, damn you,” she muttered. “Fine. I’d marry Martin, kill Jon, and fuck you.”
Sasha delivered the line with a wink and a knowing grin, and Martin tactfully looked away to take a bite of his lunch. He had certain suspicions regarding Tim and Sasha’s relationship, and what they may have done in the past (or possibly been building up to), but he was not getting involved in that if he could at all help it.
“Alright, I can respect that,” Tim said, returning the grin. “In that case fuck you, marry Martin, and kill Jon.”
Sasha nodded approvingly, and they both turned to look at Martin.
He froze.
“No,” he protested.
“Oh, come on,” Tim wheedled.
“No!” he repeated, louder. “You both said I was marriage material, you can’t make me pick between the two of you!”
“So are you not marrying Jon, then?” Sasha asked innocently, and Martin glared at her.
He knew his feelings for Jon were an open secret, but that was just unfair.
“I didn’t say-”
“What are you all talking about?”
Martin’s mouth snapped shut as Jon wandered into the breakroom. The look he was sending their way was innocently curious, so he probably hadn’t overheard too much, but still. There were some conversations it was fine to have with friends and coworkers, that were very much not fine to have with bosses and crushes.
And then Tim said: “Fuck, marry, kill,” leaning his chair back again as he gave Jon a pleasant, friendly smile, and Martin could have smacked him upside the head. “Me, Sasha, or Martin?”
Jon blinked at him slowly. “...Sorry?”
“Kiss, marry, kill,” Tim repeated, gracefully swapping out words in deference to the black ring Jon wore on his right middle finger. “It’s a party game, you have to choose.”
“I see.” Jon frowned, turning from the conversation and walking toward the fridge. The other three watched him with bated breath. It was hard to tell sometimes, with Jon, if he thought a conversation was so far beneath him that it didn’t even dignify a response, or if he was just thinking deeply about what had been said.
Privately, Martin hoped it was the former.
Jon pulled a plastic container out of the fridge and fetched a fork from one of the drawers. Then he turned back to them, and nodded firmly.
“Martin,” he said.
Martin sat up straighter. “Yes?”
“No, I-” Jon made a small, annoyed sound. “In response to Tim’s question, I would choose Martin. We don’t have a longstanding friendship like I do with Tim and Sasha that would make kissing you uncomfortable, we seem to share several interests and values outside of work that could lead to a strong marriage, and given how often we’ve butted heads over your performance in the workplace, I could certainly foresee a future situation in which we ended up killing each other.”
Dead silence.
Tim, Sasha, and Martin stared at Jon. Jon stared back, looking more and more uncomfortable as the moment stretched.
“What?” he eventually asked.
“You, uh,” Tim said. “It’s meant to be an either/or sort of game. You pick one of us to kiss, one to kill, one to marry, sort of thing.”
“Oh.” A faint, pink heat started to rise in Jon’s cheeks. “I wasn’t aware of that.”
“Yeah, I got that impression.”
Jon cleared his throat. “In that case, I’d kill Tim for not explaining the rules properly. Now if you’ll excuse me-” He turned sharply on his heel and strode out of the room. Sasha leaned to call after him.
“Does that mean you’re still kissing and marrying Martin?” She waited a beat, but there was only silence. “Ah, he’s gone.”
“So…” Tim said archly, spinning back around to look at Martin. “Care to give your answer now?”
“Kill both of you for putting me in this situation,” Martin said petulantly, and, to their credit, Tim and Sasha dropped the subject.
~~~~~
After the humiliation at lunch, Jon waited until well past closing time to leave his office again. When he did, it was only to drop his mug off in the breakroom sink and hurry away before there was even the slightest chance of running into anyone.
Of course, given his luck, Martin was already in the breakroom when he got there.
“Ah,” Jon said, stopping in the doorway. “What are you still doing here?”
It came out a little more accusatory than he’d meant it to. Martin turned from the sink to look at him, raising an eyebrow.
“Oh, Jon! I’m, uh.” He lifted his own mug. “I was just cleaning up. I had to stay late waiting for a call back on a statement follow up.”
“Ah,” Jon said again.
“But I’m just finishing up.” Martin stepped aside to allow Jon access to the sink.
The unfortunate thing about the Archives’ breakroom was that it was quite small. As Jon stood at the sink, washing his mug, Martin was only a step away from him finding space for his own in the drying rack. It was a trick of Jon’s imagination, he knew, but he almost thought he could feel the heat from Martin’s body, so close to his own.
“I’m sorry about earlier,” he found himself saying, against his own will. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
“Sorry?” Martin said.
“With Tim’s game,” Jon clarified. “I should have asked him to explain first.”
“Oh.” Martin blushed and looked away. “You, ah, you didn’t make me uncomfortable.” He gave a small heh of a laugh. “Kind of flattering, honestly.”
“Even though I said I’d kill you?”
Martin shot him a look. “With our track record, I’m surprised you haven’t already.”
It took Jon a moment to realize that was meant as a joke.
“Heh,” he echoed, stepping forward to place his own mug next to Martin’s. “Only if you don’t kill me first.”
Martin chuckled again, a light, warm sound. “Besides,” he added, almost teasing. “You also said you’d kiss me.”
“I would.”
It was only when Martin’s eyes widened that Jon realized he had spoken the words out loud.
The thing was… for all that Martin’s work drove him crazy, they did get along. They both shared fascinations for niche, involved topics that often seemed boring to outsiders, and they had passed many stimulating conversations as Jon explained how the escarpment gear functioned in mechanical clocks, or Martin regaled him with the histories of the lives of several poets from the early 19th century. Though they disagreed about spiders on principal, Martin was more than happy to ‘rescue’ - as he described it - the little monsters from Jon’s office whenever they appeared, and what had started as lectures about their importance to the ecosystem had turned into a series of passionate and well-researched debates as he championed their values, and Jon gave free voice to every fact he’d ever learned about deadly bites and the way their webs could damage buildings if they were left to build up too long, trapping moisture near vulnerable wood.
They’d only ever touched on their personal lives briefly, as befitted colleagues, but from all Martin had said about his mother Jon could tell they both would have a deep sympathy and understanding for each other’s childhood family experiences, if they ever dared to share more.
And, he was cute. That didn’t hurt at all: his soft dark hair, his deep brown eyes, the way the jumpers he wore accentuated the curves of his body, highlighting instead of hiding and driving Jon ever so slightly batty with the desire to swoop in and kiss him senseless.
So Jon had started falling for him, slowly at first and then faster each day as the feelings built up steam.
He’d just never intended for Martin to find out.
Martin was staring at him, unmoving. Jon was very close to him now, both of them hovering by the drying rack with the damp slowly evaporating off their hands. Jon still had one hand on his mug, and the awkward position made him lean forward slightly, into Martin’s space, pressing him back against the cabinets.
Cornering him.
“I’m so sorry,” Jon said, after far too long a pause, and dropped his arm. “That was completely inappropriate of me to say, please forget I ever-”
“You could.”
Jon’s turn to stare now, caught, breathless, on the words.
“...If you wanted,” Martin added.
Jon lifted his hand again, setting it gently on Martin’s cheek. He felt like he was moving in a dream. “Yes?” he whispered.
“Yes,” Martin answered.
Jon kissed him.
Martin’s lips were warm and soft under his own; he tilted his head up, slightly, to meet Jon leaning down. Jon’s fingers moved over his cheek, caressing the curve of his cheekbone, and Martin’s hands reached out, tangling in the front of Jon’s shirt and holding him close.
There should have been fireworks, or explosions. Instead, there was the gentle ticking of the clock in the corner, and the soft sound of an inhale as they breathed together.
Martin was smiling when Jon finally pulled back, his eyes still closed.
“Wow,” he said, then coughed, blushing again as his eyes flew open. “I mean-”
Jon laughed, releasing Martin’s cheek to grab one of his hands instead and lacing their fingers together. “I’ll take ‘wow’,” he said.
“Right,” Martin huffed a laugh, ducking his head, and squeezed Jon’s hand.
“Martin?”
“Hm?”
“It may be a little too soon to think of marriage,” Jon said, “but are you free to come out to dinner with me tonight?”
Martin stood up a little straighter. “R-really?”
“Yes,” Jon said, and then admitted: “I’ve actually wanted to ask for quite some time. It just didn’t feel appropriate, considering that you’re my assistant. But given what just happened…”
Martin smiled. “I would love to come out to dinner with you, Jon,” he said.
“Good.” Jon squeezed his hand again and then, reluctantly, let it go. “Let me grab my jacket, and then we can go.”
Because he wanted to, and because he could, Jon stole another kiss on their way out the door.