It was just before eleven before Jon realized that Martin hadn’t come in with his usual mid-morning tea. And, well, it wasn’t as though Jon was entitled to an assistant who brought him unasked-for tea between ten and ten thirty every morning, usually with a smile and sometimes with a short anecdote or small joke, but he had somehow become used to it, and its absence was… felt.

That was accurate, Jon decided. Not that he missed it, just that he felt its absence.

He left his office, noting as he did that Martin hunched down at his desk, turned in such a way that Jon couldn’t have caught his eye if he’d tried (which he was hardly going to do), his shoulders hunched up defensively.

Odd. Jon headed to the kitchen and tried to remember where everything was kept. He’d made his own tea since becoming Head Archivist, hadn’t he? At least once? Surely.

He was still rummaging around for the sugar when someone cleared their voice behind him. He turned and saw Elias, patiently waiting for him, just as the kettle went off.

“Elias. Good morning.” Jon straightened up. “Was there something you needed?”

“Actually, yes,” Elias said. “If you have some time, I’d like you to come upstairs. I was hoping to discuss the bandwidth situation with you.”

Jon felt the blood drain from his face. Had Elias looked into it? Had he seen? Were there rules against having one’s subordinates clearly and undeniably fixated on you? “I… I thought that issue had been resolved.”

“I read your email, yes, but I don’t feel that the situation has been completely addressed. Again, this is something I feel would be best suited for my office, rather than a kitchenette.”

Jon swallowed. “Of course. I’m free now.”

Elias didn’t tell him to go ahead and finish making his tea. He just nodded and led Jon up the stairs, to his office. As Jon passed the others, he took in Martin’s wide, terrified eyes, Tim’s look of sincere concern, and Sasha’s determined frown. They knew something was up. Fortunately, there was no way they could know what, exactly. Jon hoped he wasn’t about to lose his job over this.

As Elias closed the door behind them, Jon decided that he wouldn’t give anything away. He was a terrible liar, but maybe he could bluff ignorance. “What is this about, Elias?”

“I just wanted to tell you that I think you handled yourself admirably,” Elias said. “I know you and Tim had a close relationship before you were promoted, and reporting him must have felt like a betrayal of sorts.” It hadn’t. Jon had just been grateful that Tim had been there to bald-facedly lie and take responsibility. Jon wished he had thought to do so first. It would have simplified things. “I do hope he doesn’t resent you for it.”

“I… suppose. Yes. I hope so as well.” Jon hadn’t really thought about it that way. He was worried about it now, though.

Elias nodded. “I’m glad you’ve curtailed his bad habit, although I feel that I was perhaps too harsh on your department overall. You’re quite right that the travel budget for the Archives is substantial, a legacy of past Archivists, and you’re hardly likely to spend it all. Given your previous suggestion, I was hoping you’d be amenable to reallocate some funds. It wouldn’t be the entire budget, of course, but it would offset the more stringent restrictions. Of course, should you agree, any future overages wouldn’t need to be investigated as thoroughly as you’ve investigated… Tim’s.”

He knew. Jon had no idea how he knew but he knew. The wave of panic passed through Jon, only to be stamped down by his rationality. If Elias knew, they’d be having a different conversation. One that would have involved Martin, at the very least. He didn’t know. “Yes. Yes, naturally. I did suggest that solution at first, after all.”

“I know. And I was quite dismissive. I apologize. I can see now that you were just trying to be a friend to your staff, a managerial style that I find misguided, but I suppose each to his own. It was a good idea, Jon. Shall we implement it?”

There were forms to be signed and accounting would need to take a look over everything, but it was effectively done within minutes. Jon appreciated Elias’s efficiency, if nothing else. “If that’s all?”

“Mmm? Yes, I think that’s everything,” Elias said. “Please feel free to let your staff know they can resume their animal videos or whatever else they were doing. I prefer for good news to come from immediate superiors.”

“Yes, that makes sense.” To foster a sense of camaraderie, a sense that Jon had never bothered fostering and might have even broken by reporting Tim. “I’ll tell them right away.”

He returned to see his three assistants clustered around Martin’s desk. The moment he walked in, Tim stood up, hovering protectively, while Sasha placed her hand on Martin’s shoulder and outright glared at Jon. Martin just looked miserable and scared and surprisingly small. He didn’t look up to meet Jon’s eyes.

Jon cleared his throat, not sure why he felt so defensive. He’d been off-balance since Elias had entered the kitchen. “I… ah. The bandwidth issues have been resolved. You can feel free to resume whatever activities you’d been doing before this whole… mess.”

“That’s it?” Tim asked, sounding suspicious.

Jon looked at Martin who was still doing his impression of a ball of misery before answering. “Yes. I can assure you that we will no longer be scrutinized for anything we choose to watch.” Had that been subtle enough? Jon hoped so. He wasn’t great with subtle. “There’s still the better part of an hour before lunch. You should all go back to your desks and get to work.”

Martin didn’t look up as Jon passed him, but Jon had only just sat down at his desk when Martin barged in. “D-did Elias tell you?”

“Tell me?” Jon echoed stupidly. Oh. Of course Martin would be worried that Elias had found the pornography. “Oh, about–”

“I didn’t mean to!” Martin interrupted. “It was a dumb move, but I just wasn’t thinking.”

“It’s fine, Martin,” Jon said, incredibly uncomfortable with this. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

“No, I know, I mean, I’m really not complaining about staying down here, I just–”

“I’m sure Elias doesn’t know about the porn,” Jon blurted out. “He would have said something.”

Martin froze. “Th-the porn? I-I-I was just talking about Elias catching me upstairs after hours yesterday.”

“Oh.” Jon’s eyes widened. “He did? Does he know–”

Martin shook his head. “No, I think he believed me when I said I was coming back for something. I told him you lent me your keys, by the way.”

“Right,” Jon said, relieved. “Well done. I’ll certainly corroborate that, should it come up. In the future, if you could be more circumspect…”

“Yes, sorry,” Martin said. “I really didn’t expect him to be in that late.”

“You seemed to have dealt with it as well as possible. I have a plan for if… for when Elias discovers you’ve been living here, but I’d prefer not to implement it yet.”

“Okay. Sure I… thanks, Jon.”

“Of course.” Jon tried a smile. Martin smiled back. For a moment everything was fine.

Then Martin’s smile faded into an expression of horror. “You said Elias didn’t know about the porn…”

“Ah. Yes. I. Ah.”

“I… I thought you hadn’t bothered…”

“It’s part of my job, Martin!”

“Part of your job that you never do!”

“I was told specifically to look into it.”

“I just… I never thought…”

Jon wasn’t sure exactly what his face looked like, but it felt like it was on fire. “It’s fine! It’s fine. I know full well that the type of pornography one partakes in says nothing in regards to one’s character–”

“Ohgodpleasestop.”

“–and any assumptions or conclusions one might draw from the… the choices or, or search patterns that one might use–”

“You saw what I searched for too?”

“The, the point is it’s fine. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Yeah, except that it does!”

Jon stopped. “…what?”

“I mean.” Martin looked like was mentally rewinding their conversation. “I just. Mean. That the, the choices. I made. Meant. Things.”

Jon wasn’t going to ask. “Meant what?” Except that he was.

Fortunately, Martin seemed to have reached the point where discretion was the better part of valour. “Look, Jon. If you don’t know, I’m not going to tell you. And if you do know, just… there’s still some plausible deniability here, right? The thinnest sliver of dignity. Please let me keep that.”

“Alright,” Jon said, and hated how gentle he sounded. The deniability was getting less and less plausible with every moment. “I won’t… if you prefer, we can never have this conversation again.”

“I will do everything in my power to ensure we don’t,” Martin said fervently.

Jon nodded and they looked awkwardly at each other for a while. Jon had no idea what to say, and Martin seemed to have no idea how to escape. Jon was tempted to leave, but it was his office, and it would probably just make things even more awkward.

“Do you… would you like a cup of tea?” Martin asked tentatively.

Jon nearly wilted in relief. “Yes, that would be lovely. Thank you, Martin.”

“Yeah, I’ll just… Oh, I’ll let Tim and Sasha know the situation. They’re a little… they got worried when Elias called you up.”

Hence the hovering and glares. “I’d appreciate it if you’d clarify things for them,” Jon said. “As far as you feel comfortable doing so, of course.”

“Yeah, I’m not about to… yeah.” Martin looked away. “I’ll go get your tea, then.”

The moment Martin closed the door behind himself, Jon let his head hit his desk. Sort of standing up and re-enacting any of Martin’s chosen scenarios or Martin, Jon shuddered at the thought, confessing, he couldn’t see how that could have gone worse. Jon’s curiosity had struggled with his Britishness, and fortunately the Britishness had mostly won out. They could pretend, now, that nothing had happened, that no one knew anything, and that everything was exactly the same as it had been.

He’d managed to mostly get himself together when Martin returned with the tea, which had been a horrible idea because now Martin was here, serving him tea, and he knew that Jon knew and they were both trying not to behave as if either of them knew and…

Jon’s thoughts stopped for a moment as Martin, for the first time since Jon had known him, spilt some tea.

His hands had been shaking, part of Jon’s brain informed him dispassionately. They were still shaking as Martin set the cup down and groped around for something to tidy his spill. It wasn’t much, and it had missed all the papers on Jon’s desk, but Martin was getting more and more flustered the longer it was taking for him to find something. Jon grabbed some tissues from the other side of his desk and reached to mop the spill up, his hand landing on Martin’s where Martin had slipped his jumper up over his palm to soak up the tea.

The moment their skin touched, Jon felt a shock run through him. Martin yanked his hand back so quickly that he bumped his elbow on the back of Jon’s chair, wincing as the pain shot through him. Without thinking, Jon grabbed his forearm with one hand and rubbed his elbow with the other. Martin stared at him with a look of panicked desire, some strange combination of fight-or-flight-or-something-else-equally-instinctive-and-impulsive and a longing that Jon, to his shame, actually recognized.

Had Martin always had that look in his eyes when he looked at him? Surely not. Jon would have noticed, wouldn’t he? And yet, it was such a familiar aspect to Martin’s face that it almost just seemed like Martin’s face.

“Sorry,” Martin said. Because of course he did.

Jon didn’t ask what he was sorry for. Spilling the tea, perhaps, or hurting himself even. Even without saying a word, Martin was a walking apology. Jon shook his head. “It’s alright, Martin.” Not forgiveness, but reassurance. Martin had nothing to apologize for.

“I, uh…” Martin wasn’t looking at him. It was suddenly important to Jon that Martin look at him. “I’m… I can…”

Jon released Martin’s arm and stood up, the movement finally drawing Martin’s gaze towards him. “You’re fine, Martin. It’s okay.”

“It’s not,” Martin said in a soft voice. “It’s not okay. Because I was happy keeping my thoughts and feelings to myself, but now every time I look at you, I want to kiss you.”

Jon had thought they were going to be British about this. But he wasn’t actually upset. A part of him wanted this, wanted Martin’s secrets, Martin’s thoughts and feelings and desires. “You mean you didn’t before?”

Martin flushed. “I did, but… like the same way you want to fly when you’re high up. It’s a passing thought, a pleasant little fantasy. Now it’s all I can think about.”

“It wouldn’t live up to your expectations,” Jon said dryly. It worked; Martin gave a small, surprised laugh. “It’s unfortunate that you were… exposed this way,” Jon said, trying for delicacy and likely only making things worse. “And I can’t exactly say that I return your feelings, for… several reasons.” Martin looked disappointed, then immediately resigned. “But I don’t think any less of you for them.”

Martin laughed again, and it was much less happy. “How could you possibly think less of me than you already do?” Jon flinched. “No, I–I’m sorry. That was unkind. You’ve been very…” Martin took a deep breath. “Very understanding. About this, about Prentiss, about everything. I’m grateful, really. Despite… no, especially because I know you don’t really think much of me.”

“I didn’t,” Jon admitted. There was no point in hiding it. “But you’ve shown determination and cleverness and a surprising resilience dealing with Jane Prentiss. I will admit that I might have underestimated you. And, also, I feel somewhat responsible for what’s happened, given that I dismissed your concerns about Carlos Vittery as vehemently as I did.”

“That’s okay,” Martin said. “Demonic spiders doesn’t really make a lot of sense, even if–”

“Yes, you’ve said, spiders don’t do that,” Jon said, imitating Martin’s inflection. Martin huffed at that, but his lips were curved up in a small, still slightly sad, smile. “I’m sorry all this has happened to you, and I’m not just referring to Jane Prentiss. I am… I do find myself somewhat curious as to why, but I will absolutely allow you that last inkling of privacy.”

“Thanks,” Martin said, and his sad smile made his eyes soft. “I might tell you one day. When things are less… raw.”

“If you do, I promise to listen,” Jon said. “But I reserve the right to critique those reasons. I’m not… I hope they fade with time. You deserve… you can do better, Martin. I promise you.”

“I really don’t think I could,” Martin said softly. Then he shook himself, and his smile brightened. “Especially not while I’m hiding here in the Archives! Which, again, thanks for that, Jon. It’s really… thanks.” Martin backed out of the room, knocking into the side of Jon’s desk as he left. His eyes had been bright and his smile and been wide and Jon wondered how often Martin had worn that expression that he was able to put it on in seconds, and have it look so genuine.