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“I’m just saying, it would be way easier if we just—oh, not again.”
The door to the Archives shuts behind Tim, cutting off the faint murmur of the Institute proper and leaving behind only the buzzing of the shitty overhead lights and the sound of sharp voices from further down. Tim considers, just for a moment, turning right back around and eating in the canteen instead. But Sasha arches an eyebrow at him and he sighs before following her down the stairs.
After all, he does have a running bet with her about who will win more arguments—Jon or Martin. Sasha’s currently in the lead by a hair, and that just won’t do.
“Maybe Jon’ll be the one to cave first this time,” he says conversationally as they reach the bottom of the stairs. “Extra fiver says that Martin leaves him speechless?”
“Oh, I’ll take that bet.”
Tim locks pinkies with Sasha and squeezes. She smirks at him, then turns and brushes past him to enter the bullpen. Tim rolls his eyes and follows her in.
Maybe it’s a bit unprofessional to place bets on the increasingly fervent arguments that Jon and Martin have been getting into lately. But the situation as a whole is probably unprofessional. Also, it’s fun, and Tim will take all the entertainment he can get down in this dark, dusty basement.
Jon doesn’t seem to notice when Tim and Sasha enter. He stands with arms folded, giving Martin a glare that could peel paint off a wall. Martin, seemingly impervious to it, stares back impassively, like the entire discussion isn’t worth his time. This, predictably, only seems to be riling Jon up more.
“—please, by all means, explain to me how it makes sense that a hot dog—a hot dog, Martin—is a taco?”
Martin sighs and points to something on his desk. “I’ve drawn it for you. Tacos have a container on three sides and a filling. Hot dogs have a container on three sides and a filling. Therefore, hot dogs are tacos.”
Jon opens his mouth, then closes it, then opens it again. Tim looks at Sasha with one eyebrow raised, and after a few more moments of stunned silence, Sasha sighs and surreptitiously slips Tim a fiver. Honestly, she could have folded it into a paper airplane and thrown it at him; the two of them still wouldn’t have noticed.
“They are completely different foods!” Jon makes a frustrated noise, like he’s exactly two seconds away from stomping his foot like an angry toddler. “And I suppose you’re going to tell me next that Pop-Tarts are ravioli? Or that cereal is soup?”
Martin hesitates. “Well. I mean.”
“Martin Blackwood.”
“Oo, full name,” Sasha whispers. “Intense.”
“Look," Martin says, “clearly you’re a materials purist, not a form purist, which is—fine.” A pause. “Wrong, but fine—”
“Oh, don’t you—”
Tim can’t hold back a snicker when Jon snatches up a paper from Martin’s desk and folds it in half, then stuffs a pen into the crease. He holds it like it’s committed some great offense to him personally. “Well? Is this a taco?”
“Jon. Don’t be ridiculous. Of course not.”
Jon’s face lights up in triumph. “Ha! I thought you said anything with a container on three sides and a filling is a taco?”
“It has to be edible. Come on, Jon.”
“Don’t you—don’t look at me like—it is a perfectly reasonable rebuttal, and I will not be—”
“I mean, reasonable is a bit of a stretch, but I suppose if you were really reaching, you could—”
“Sasha.” Tim holds up his sub sandwich and wiggles it at her. “Hey, Sasha. My sandwich has bread on three sides. Is it a taco?”
“That depends. Do you think it’s a taco?”
“Mm, well played, Miss James.”
Martin throws his hands up in the air and spins around in his chair so his back is to Jon. “That’s it. I’m not entertaining this anymore. You’re clearly unwilling to admit that you’re wrong, so I’ll just get that follow-up for the Potts statement that you were asking for and—”
“I’m unwilling to admit that I’m wrong?” Jon laughs humorlessly. “Right. And you’re just always right.”
“I—I mean, not always, but in this specific circumstance I really think—”
“Oh, of course, because what you think is all that matters.”
Martin closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. “No. I’m done.”
Jon jabs a finger at Martin. “We are not done here. How can you—?”
Just as Tim lifts his sandwich to his mouth to take a bite, Jon’s sentence—reaching a tremoring crescendo—stops abruptly. Tim lowers his sandwich and turns to see Jon staring off into the distance, hand still halfway extended. Tim follows his gaze, but there’s nothing there—just a blank wall with a row of haphazardly filled shelves along it. Tim is about to turn to Sasha to make some joke about Jon finally snapping—and maybe to brag about tying up the score again—when he hears a small hitch of breath, barely audible above the hum of the lights.
Martin’s eyes are wide, his mouth hanging half-open as he stares at that same non-existent point in the distance. Then, as Tim watches, Martin slowly uncrosses his arms and brings a hand up to his mouth. He presses his palm down tightly, like he’s trying to hold something in.
“Um,” Sasha whispers. “What is happening right now?”
“I—I don’t…” Tim’s eyes shift from Martin to Jon again, who now looks stricken. Jon’s eyes drift down and land on his hand, hovering in the air. He slowly straightens his fingers, wiggling them like he’s unfamiliar with the shape of his own hand. Before Tim can think too deeply about the implications of that, Jon’s eyes find Martin, and an expression crosses his face that Tim can’t quite place.
Well. Tim can place it, actually. But it doesn’t make any sense.
“M … Martin?” Jon says softly.
Martin’s sharp intake of breath is audible even with his hand over his mouth. He spins quickly in his chair and just stares at Jon. It’s such a sharp contrast from the situation literally ten seconds ago that Tim doesn’t know what to do other than to just sit there and think, blankly, what the hell?
“Jon?” Martin says, just as softly.
Tim gives Sasha a look that plainly says that he doesn’t know what the fuck is going on. She gives him one in return that assures him that no, he’s not seeing things—this strange, off-kilter scene in front of them really is happening, and it is weird.
Tim has just about gathered the wherewithal to speak up when Martin stands abruptly. His chair spins away from him, wheels squeaking on the cheap lino floor. The tension between him and Jon has reached never-before-seen levels. Tim could probably cut it with a knife. Or a particularly sharp spoon.
Then, Jon lurches forward and half-clambers atop the desk and kisses Martin, and Tim drops his sandwich.
Even more shocking, Martin kisses back. Enthusiastically. There’s tongue. Tim can see it. Tim is going insane.
He stands, perhaps even more quickly than Martin, and grips Sasha tightly by the shoulder. “Sasha. Sasha, please tell me that you are seeing this.”
Sasha is staring wide-eyed at the Jon-and-Martin spectacle currently blowing Tim’s entire mind. “What,” she enunciates. “The fuck.”
Tim couldn’t have said it better himself.
When the two of them finally come up for air—after a ridiculously long period of time during which Tim feels his soul slowly ascend toward the heavens—Jon cradles Martin’s face tenderly. “I—I thought that you—I thought we—”
Martin grips Jon’s forearms like if he lets go, Jon will slip away. “You’re okay,” he says hoarsely.
Jon pinches his lower lip between his teeth and nods. “I—I’m okay. We’re … we’re okay.” Then, with a bit of a frown. “Is this … are we in the Archives?”
His eyes find Tim’s at the same time that Martin’s do, and they both freeze in tandem.
Tim raises a hand and waves it slowly. “Hi, guys. Um. Just a—a quick question. Yeah, uh. What the hell?”
Jon, still kneeling on top of the desk and apparently incapable of removing his hands from Martin—what the fuck—keeps staring at him wordlessly. Martin just echoes, “What the hell.”
“Hey, I asked first.”
Sasha, apparently recovered from the shock of the minor miracle they’d just witnessed, points an accusing finger at the two of them. “I knew it!”
“Oh, you absolutely did not,” Tim says. “I call bullshit.”
“Prove it, Stoker. You can’t.”
“You would have made a bet about how long it would take for this to happen if you knew.”
Sasha deflates slightly. “Fine. You’re no fun.”
When Tim looks back at Jon and Martin, Martin is pressing a kiss to the top of Jon’s head. Which is somehow weirder than the full-out snogging they’d just witnessed. And which is also somehow weirder than Jon and Martin saying completely straight-faced that they’d just gotten years’ worth of future memories downloaded into their brains.
Then, Martin says with a frown, “Oh. We don’t have our wedding rings anymore,” and Tim’s brain flees his body entirely. Tim.exe has stopped working. Complete system malfunction. Reboot required immediately.
“I’m going to go make some tea,” he says faintly.
He turns and walks across the bullpen, trying to scrape together some higher brain function. Just before he reaches the corridor, he hears Sasha say nonchalantly, “So, Jon. I have a question for you.”
“Mm?”
“It’s very important. Essential, even.”
“Right. Er, go—go ahead, then.”
Sasha’s grin is audible. “Would you say that a hot dog is a taco?”