Chapter Text
Martin scratched his chin nervously. He hadn’t shaved the past two days and a dirty-blond stubble was itching at his skin. He clutched the stack of folders, overflowing with papers, closer to his chest as he entered the research assistants’ bullpen.
Jonathan Sims was standing with Tim at the water cooler, his hair neatly slicked back, if a little long where it rested against the nape of his neck.
Tim laughed. A gentle but present sound that made everything so much easier for those around him. Martin envied him his easy companionship, charisma, good nature. Jon was smiling, too; whatever Tim had said was enough to coax a wry upturn from his lips.
Martin was only just about to make his presence known when he looked down — a terrible habit which he recently picked up and which has only led to far more flustered encounters than before, which he didn't think possible.
He looked down at Jon’s tie.
It was crooked.
As always, Jon’s tie was loosened and the top button of his shirt collar was undone. The tie hung down to brush his belt buckle and the tail of it — the tail — was slightly askew. It hung out at an angle, showing a little tag and the seam.
It would be so easy to walk over and straighten it, fix it for him. It was precisely the kind of disorder that always nagged at the back of Martin’s brain and kept him from focusing on precisely what he should.
The twitch in Martin’s fingers as this thought occurred to him was enough to set two of the papers in his hands swooshing to the floor, making Martin shift the rest of the stack to one arm as he bent to pick them up. This, of course, caused the whole stack to avalanche, scattering under desks in a fan, one of the sheets settling on a brown oxford shoe that had stepped over to help.
Tim got on one knee to collect the scattered paper.
“Honestly it’s okay, here, let’s sort this out. No need to apologize.” Tim let an easy laugh pass his lips as he tapped the papers back into a neat stack against the floor.
“Sorry.” Martin said once more before he could stop himself. The often-used words had made it past his lips without him registering their appearance at all. Tim just gave a friendly roll of his eyes and offered a hand out to Martin, pulling him up from the floor.
Tim rifled through the stack. “See?” he handed it back to Martin. “No harm done.”
A scoff from the water cooler. Martin’s cheeks burned under the stubble. He set the stack of papers on Jon’s desk and headed back out the door without taking his eyes off of his shoes.
At the end of the day when Martin had collected himself, he went back to the bullpen. The lights looked to be out and he figured that it was late enough that the assistants would all have left and Martin would be able to re-sort the offending papers into some kind of order. There was no way Jon had gotten to them today, but Martin still felt embarrassed for leaving without setting them straight earlier. He had just gotten so flustered.
He walked into the room without much consideration and froze in his tracks. Jon was sat hunched over his desk, jaw clenched, the lamp on his desk the only light on in the room.
“Oh, um, hullo,” Martin said dumbly. Jon glanced over his shoulder and rolled his eyes before focusing back on the papers with a shake of his head. “I didn’t think anyone would still be here, it’s getting on half six.”
Martin stepped closer to the desk, shuffling his feet. Jon had the stack of papers in front of him, fanned out so that the organizing numbers could be seen at the top. There were many different small piles that coordinated and Martin could see that Jon had, in fact, gotten around to them today. Damn.
“Ah, you’re um. Sorting through those, hm? Seems a tough job.” Martin knew exactly the sort of job it was — it was supposed to be his job.
“Yes, well, it wouldn't really need doing if you hadn't dropped them all earlier today, would it?" Jon snapped at him. He took the bridge of his nose between his forefinger and thumb and leaned back in his office chair. “Is there something you need, or can I get back to fixing your mess?”
His tie was still crooked. It caught Martin’s attention as he stumbled through his next words, distracting him again, making a fool of himself again.
“Right. Um well. No. Well — yes — that is —” Jon threw him another look that could cut glass. “Well I came to put it right, I came to sort them again I didn’t think you’d get to them today, and I left in such a rush earlier because of the papers falling all over and I had just sorted them before bringing them up to you and basically — um,” Martin paused his rambling. “Basically, would you like some help with that?”
Jon didn’t respond. He studied Martin carefully in the glow of the desklamp where he shifted from foot to foot. Eventually, after what felt like an age to Martin, he turned back to the papers and let out a heavy sigh.
Martin took this as optimistically as he could and pulled a chair up to the opposite side of Jon’s desk. He took some papers from the bottom half of the large unsorted stack and began diligently and efficiently sorting through them. After about five minutes, he looked up to see Jon’s dark eyes staring into his own. His breath caught in his throat.
Jon’s jaw was set, his eyes narrowed, and his chin rested on the heel of his hand, his fingers in a fist over his mouth. Studying. Again.
“Well, there doesn’t seem to be any sense in both of us being here. We have completely different systems of organization, this is pointless.” He said this almost to himself, there was a bite to it, but not malice as was so often the case.
Jon stood up and shuffled some papers into his satchel. As he began to walk away he seemed to remember something, and turned back to Martin.
“Right, um. Thank you.” It was stilted and strange coming from his mouth. “Um, I… Sorry. What was…?” Jon trailed off and looked as uncomfortable as Martin had ever seen him.
Oh. Right.
“Um.” Martin swallowed. “Martin?” Too quiet. He cleared his throat. “Martin. Martin Blackwood.”
“Right. Um. Jonathan Sims.” Jon turned mechanically on his heel and left, leaving Martin with a half sorted stack of papers and an empty feeling somewhere in his chest.
Two days later, Martin had another occasion to visit the assistants’ bullpen. Sasha was sat at her desk, Tim leaning against it and nitpicking her choice in sandwich for the day.
Martin walked up to the pair of them, the air much more easy on its way in and out of his lungs than it had been the other day. Still, Martin gave a quick glance around the office before opening his mouth to speak.
“So, no Jon today?” He tried to sound nonchalant.
“No, Jon’s here,” Sasha replied, looking up from her turkey on rye “I think he’s just out for a coffee.” She smacked Tim’s hand away from where it strayed dangerously close to an overhanging leaf of lettuce.
“Ah. It’s only just… well he asked for the specs on that spooky painting? I have the details here.” He unclipped a laminated paper from his Archival Storage index, waving it loosely in the air.
“Well I’d say you could wait for him,” Tim had given up on annoying Sasha, then “but I would be absolutely accommodating should you want to leave it here with me.”
“What?” Martin laughed, the smile reaching his eyes as it was wont to do in Tim’s company. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It just means I know that my coworker can be a prick, Martin.” Tim rolled his eyes. “If you want to leave the info sheet in his in box, I’ll be sure to tell him it’s there.”
“ I’ll be sure to tell him it's there, Martin,” Sasha chimed in, “you know this lump won’t remember.”
Martin laughed again as he placed the info sheet into Jon’s box.
“I’ll admit, you two are far more pleasant to deal with.” Martin sat down in the wooden chair opposite them. “At least I know that you both actuallyknow my name, Jon’s probably forgotten again by now.”
“He what? ” Sasha exclaimed, her half eaten sandwich having been set down rather emphatically.
“Oh, no, did you not hear about this?” Tim’s eyes lit up. “Martin was here until midnight the other night sorting through Jon’s paperwork —”
“It was quarter ‘til eight, Tim, don’t—”
“The bastard stood up and left him to it , but—”
“It really isn’t as dramatic as all that, I was the one who—”
“—not before asking for Martin’s name as if the bloke isn’t in here every other day doing fetching for us.”
“Tim, really, it isn’t that big a deal. I was coming back up to sort the papers anyway, I wasn’t expecting him to actually still be here working.”
“But your name , Martin!” Sasha sounded horrified. “You’ve been working together for two years. ”
“Yes, Sasha, I’m aware.” Martin said this quietly, and the other two exchanged a glance unseen by him. “I mean, what did you expect, really. How often have you actually seen him acknowledge my presence or speak to me?”
Martin seemed to be looking somewhere in the space between Tim and Sasha.
“I mean, the only time he even seems to know I’m here is when I make a terrible fool of myself, and who would want to associate with that?” Martin looked up then, meeting their eyes once more with a smile back on his face. “Anyway, lots to do. Please make sure Jon gets that.”
Martin stood up again, grabbing the index binder from where he’d set it on the floor and gave a little wave to the two research assistants before swinging open the door.
Directly into Jonathan Sims.
“Oh!” Martin let out a small gasp and the door swung shut behind him. He mercifully kept his grip on the binder.
“Martin!” Jon held an empty cardboard coffee cup aloft. The tail of his tie was too long. Martin stared at the spot where it stuck out all crooked against the white button-down.
“Jon! Jonathan.” Should he be calling him Jonathan? It occurred to Martin that this may be the first time he had actually addressed the man to his face. Yikes.
“Just Jon is fine, Martin.”
“Right. Okay, then.” an incredulous corner of Martin’s lip tugged ever so slightly upwards. “Um, I’ve put the Fulsetti painting specs in your in box, take your time with it. If you need to actually see it, just, um, let me know, I suppose.”
“Excellent, Martin. I will let you know, Martin.”
Ooo kayyyy… Martin’s eyebrows knit together in amused confusion. This was a little strange, and his heart felt like it was being run by ten excitable butterflies. Instead of saying anything else, Martin gave a slow nod and walked back down the hall to the stairway. Behind him, Jonathan Sims was once again pinching the bridge of his nose.