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Summer came to London completely by surprise, and with the spring breezes went any hope of staying cool in the basement of the Magnus Institute. The aircon had been broken for months now, but Elias had put off fixing it despite numerous requests because “they still had a few weeks of spring left, they’d survive without it.”
And holy fuck, was it hot in the Archives . That was all Martin could think about as he sat at his desk, flapping the collar of his shirt in a desperate attempt to give his neck some airflow. He hadn’t been able to focus for hours. It seemed like Tim and Sasha were in the same boat: across the assistant’s bullpen he could see Tim sitting with his legs sprawled, button-down undone to expose a white tank top. Sasha hadn’t made any wardrobe changes yet, but Martin could see sweat glistening along her hairline. He recognized the look of fake concentration she angled at her laptop.
Despite the heat being unbearable for a few days now, Jon had still showed up that morning in his typical frumpy librarian look, cardigan included. Martin had no idea how he could stand it; he’d swapped out his knit sweaters for linen shirts as soon as the temperature had cracked 22 degrees, sweat stains be damned. Jon hadn’t emerged from his office all day either, which Martin was sure had zero air flow to speak of.
“Alright, I can’t take this.” Tim’s proclamation abruptly ended Martin’s staring contest with a random file on his desk. “I’m going to grab some coffees and spend much longer than I need to in the café’s aircon.”
“Iced tea for me, please. Largest they have,” Sasha chimed in.
Tim pulled a face, “ Iced tea? Remind me why I’m friends with you.”
“I agree, that’s blasphemous,” Martin laughed.
“Hey, the Americans are onto something. Don’t knock it ‘til you try it.”
“Well, I won’t be trying it,” Tim replied. “Anything for you, Marto?”
“I’m alright. Ooh, unless they have a lavender latte, then I’ll have one of those, please.”
Tim shot him a thumbs up, then headed towards Jon’s office and rapped on the door. Martin could hear Jon make some sort of affirmative noise from inside, prompting Tim to open the door and poke his head through. Martin couldn’t hear their conversation clearly, but Tim retreated back into the bullpen quickly, so he assumed Jon had declined the offer– or chewed him out for bringing outside drinks into the archives, a rule which Jon seemed to both care deeply about and break constantly.
Tim turned back around to Sasha, a look of confusion and glee on his face. “Did you know about the…?” he whispered, gesturing to his forearms.
Sasha smirked, “Yeah, pretty sick, right? I think he’s had them as long as I’ve known him.”
Martin, for his part, had absolutely no idea what they were talking about. Tim wolf-whistled to himself and grabbed his wallet, walking up the steps out of the Archives before Martin could ask him what was going on, so he turned to Sasha instead. His confusion must have been clear on his face because Sasha just smirked again.
“Try and find an excuse to go talk to Jon today. I promise you won’t be disappointed.”
“Oh… kay?” Martin replied, staring at the door to Jon’s office, even more puzzled than before.
–
On days like this, Jon really regretted his choice in aesthetics.
Elias still wasn’t answering his damn emails about the aircon. His cardigan overheated him almost immediately, and the wool scratched the back of his neck from where it lay over the back of his chair. His hair went up into a bun shortly after. The hair tie he usually kept around his wrist had disappeared, so he had to settle for a pencil and pray it would hold. By lunch, he’d had to undo a button from around his throat and roll his sleeves up to the elbows, and decided to hole up in his office so that his assistants wouldn’t see him looking so unkempt. His office which had no windows. His office which sported only the measly electric fan he’d brought from home that was doing nothing more than moving around already-too-stuffy air.
And so the day went by, writing research notes and reading statements– most of which recorded to his laptop just fine, earning them a place in the oh-so-highly-regarded “Discredited” section of files.
Sometime in the afternoon, there was a knock on Jon’s closed door – Tim, judging by the cadence – and Jon let out an approving “hmm,” inviting him inside.
“What can I do for you, Tim?”
“Hey boss, I’m making a coffee run,” Tim began, but as he looked at Jon’s state his eyes widened. “Want me to get you anything?”
Jon met his gaze and narrowed his eyes, “I’m alright, thank you.”
Tim nodded, still staring at Jon. At his arms, Jon realized– he shoved them onto his lap under his desk, embarrassed. Tim gulped and nodded again, yanking his head back out of the door and clicking it shut.
Damn it. He’s never going to let me live this down , Jon thought. He grumpily shoved his sleeves down to his wrists, groaning quietly, and dropped his forehead to his desk with a thunk.
So much for professionalism.
–
“Hey Martin, I’ve got to run to document storage for something, would you mind delivering this to Jon?” Tim waltzed back into the basement looking refreshed, a cardboard container balancing four drinks in his hands. He took out a large cup of ice water and placed it on Martin’s desk, along with a large latte sweating with condensation.
“I thought he didn’t want anything?” Martin questioned.
Tim shrugged. “Figured he’d at least need something to cool him off. All those layers certainly aren’t doing him any favors.”
“Suppose so,” Martin grabbed the water and headed to Jon’s office. After knocking and receiving a positive-sounding grunt – seriously, when will this man learn to use his words – he entered. And nearly dropped the cup.
Jon looked up and met his eyes. Well, he would’ve met Martin’s eyes if Martin hadn’t been transfixed on the swirling details that covered Jon’s forearms. Sweeping planes of black offset by swaths of brown skin. Dark patches of night sky weaving between freckles, making the spots look like stars. Both of his arms were decorated with waves and swirls that disappeared under his sleeves. They must have traveled all the way up to his shoulders.
Jon had tattoos. They were beautiful. They were hot . Martin was sweating .
“Martin?”
Martin’s gaze snapped up to Jon’s face. He was red all over, he just knew it. His ears burned.
“Uh– Tim told me to give you this. He got it at the café,” Martin stumbled forwards and practically shoved the water towards Jon, begging it not to slip out of his shaky grasp. Jon took the cup without any spills or other, worse disasters. Like their fingers brushing. Or Jon’s forearm muscles flexing right when Martin was up close and personal with them.
“Oh. Give my thanks to Tim,” Jon said absentmindedly, pulling on where he’d folded his sleeves up like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to leave them where they were or not.
“Yep– I’ll just– be going then,” Martin stuttered and spun on his heel. He’d managed to wrap his hand around the doorknob when Jon muttered something unintelligible from behind him.
“What did you say?”
Jon coughed and rubbed the back of his neck, accidentally bringing his tattoos right back into Martin’s field of vision.
“I said– well. Do you like them?” Jon repeated quietly. He seemed almost sheepish, like he didn’t really want to know Martin’s answer. When Martin stared at him dumbly, he quickly added, “The tattoos, I mean.”
Martin gulped, “Yes– I mean, you look great. With them! You– they look great. On you. Very, um. Yes.”
“Very ‘yes?’” Jon smiled. There was a hint of a tease in his voice. Martin was going to keel over.
“Yep. Exactly,” Martin nodded and stood straighter with what he hoped looked like confidence. Then abruptly turned and walked out of the room. He didn’t even want to see what Jon’s face looked like after that, he felt like his own was about to explode.
Jon’s office door shut behind Martin. He took a deep breath, locked eyes with Tim and Sasha– who were both staring gleefully at him, the bastards – and proceeded to let out a long-suffering sigh that can only come from a man who just discovered his crush-also-boss had sexy dark black sleeve tattoos.
“Not a word,” Martin pronounced to the basement at large and headed back to his desk. There’s no way he’d be able to focus now.