Chapter Text
“So. Martin.” Tim leaned his elbows on Martin’s desk, one of his hands immediately going to the penholder to fiddle with Martin’s things. “Any big plans for the weekend?”
Martin had barely even looked at him, but now his fingers stopped on the laptop for a moment, before resuming his typing. His eyes went to the time - 3.15 pm - and he sighed.
“Which case?” he asked.
“Hm?”
“Which case do you need help on?”
“Martin! Can’t I ask my coworker and friend whether he has any plans for the weekend without having a secret agenda?” Tim protested, dropping one of Martin’s pens in favour of pushing himself up on his hands, like the world’s tiniest push-up.
“Well you could , but you don’t, do you?”
Tim huffed, much the same way Jon always did. He had been doing that more often, Martin had noticed. Whether he was purposely trying to mimic Jon, or was just taking on his mannerisms due to exposure, was anyone’s guess.
“Actually, I was going to ask if you wanted to go out for drinks.”
Martin blinked up at Tim, not having expected that. Then he narrowed his eyes.
“Like, just the two of us, or…”
Tim threw up his hands, which made another of Martin’s pens go flying. “Alright, you got me. It’s a ploy to make Jon actually go out for once. I told him that we had plans with the whole office and he could tag along and he actually agreed for once, but now Sasha doesn’t have time and… you’re my only hope, Obi-Wan Kenobi!”
Martin stopped typing again. A ploy to get Jon out of his shell, huh. It stung a bit that Martin was apparently the last choice, but then it made sense, considering the others had all known each other before being transferred to the Archives. Martin had also known Tim, but only in the way of casual ‘how are you, mate’s in the breakroom. The others had actually been friends.
“All right, fine,” Martin grumbled, pretending to be very annoyed about the whole thing. It would probably be awkward as hell with Jon and him there, but at least he would actually go out for once on a Friday night instead of just sitting on his sofa and eating a frozen meal while watching Pride and Prejudice for the umpteenth time.
Tim pumped his fist in the air, a grin spreading on his face. “Aces, mate! I owe you one.”
Martin snorted. “You can buy me a beer.”
“Do you really think this will work?” Jon asked, for the fifth time since Tim had come into his office a couple of minutes earlier.
Tim stopped swirling around in the visitor’s chair. “Look, all I’m saying is I’m not calling it my evil masterplan for nothing, alright?”
“No, I’m pretty sure you’re calling it that for no particular reason, since there’s nothing evil or mastery about it at all,” Jon huffed.
“Hey.”
“There’s not even anything sinister about it. It’s hardly even a grey area.”
“Jon. Are you freaking out? Because it sounds to me like you’re freaking out.” Tim got off the chair to sit on the desk in front of Jon. “It’s going to work. Trust me.”
“Just… you know how I get. What if I-I ruin it?”
“Breathe.” Tim used his hands to frame Jon’s face, making him look up at him. “It’s going to work. By the end of the night, our duo will be up to thruo.”
“That’s not a word. I thought you said it’s called a triad,” Jon said. “If I don’t muck it up.”
Tim threw his hands up. “Jon. Boss. Mi amore. Do I need to get out the spray bottle again?”
Jon made a face. “I’m sorry,” he said, then took a deep breath. “We’re great, and the plan is great, and Martin is going to love us.”
“See! Was that so hard?”
Jon grumbled something under his breath that suspiciously sounded like yes.
“There we go!” Tim put down the drinks with a clank, then squeezed himself next to Jon in their little booth. It was barely big enough for the three of them, and Jon was sitting probably closer to Martin than they had ever been, but Martin was trying not to show his nerves too much.
“Thanks,” Martin just said, pulling his beer towards himself.
Jon did the same, though he peered into it with a suspicion that made it look like he had never seen a beer before, and was trying to determine its contents before taking a sip.
“So. It’s a Friday night, and we’re three dashing young lads in London,” Tim said cheerfully, and took a healthy sip of his pint. He made it sound like it was the most refreshing thing he had ever had. “I foresee an epic night in our future.”
Martin hid his pursed lips in his beer. Tim was great, really, but sometimes he was a little too forward, especially when talking about his sexual exploits. Martin didn’t really care for women, or stories about how he had ‘flirted’ another detail for one of their cases out of them, and he certainly didn’t feel like playing wingman once Tim spotted his next catch.
Tim also seemed to like men, but Martin figured that with him and Jon there, Tim would keep it to women. After all, Martin wasn’t all that open with his sexuality at work. Not that there had been many opportunities for him to talk about anyone he liked.
Martin’s eyes darted to Jon. Yeah, talking about his crushes at work would have been entirely inappropriate.
“I would be perfectly happy with a nice night,” Jon was saying, wrapping his fingers around his glass. “Perhaps even a reasonable one.”
“Aw, come on. Aim a little higher!” Tim elbowed Jon, who sighed but ended up looking at him fondly, and finally took a drink of his beer.
It was always puzzling to Martin how Tim could do that - put Jon at ease. Whenever Martin tried to lighten the mood, it usually ended up doing the opposite, causing Jon to go all stiff and frowny.
“Fine. I will raise my expectations through the roof and go for a… a great night,” Jon said, squaring his shoulders and generally looking like he was readying himself for a fight.
“That’s the spirit!”
When Jon took a very long drag of his beer, though, Tim grabbed his arm. “Woah, woah, calm down, lover boy. You do not have the constitution to drink like that.”
“Rude,” Jon mumbled, though the flush of his face after that bit of beer was pretty much proving Tim right.
Tim shook his head, smiling. “You’re a bit of a disaster, you know that, boss?”
“Yeah, well, you’re a bit of a- a meanie.”
Martin stared at him. Had Jonathan Sims, head archivist of the Magnus Institute, London, just called someone a meanie ?
He slapped a hand over his mouth as soon as he heard a giggle leave his throat, but it was already too late. Jon had heard, and he went quite red, and looked about ready to drown himself in his pint.
“Sorry,” Martin said immediately, but Jon wasn’t looking up from his beer.
“Hey, that’s what we’re here for, right? To have fun!” Tim said, gesturing wildly. “Actually, have I told you about that one time I almost got my teeth knocked out when trying to get into a club? So there was-”
Leave it to Tim to lighten the mood with a funny story, Martin thought, with a wave of both fondness and exasperation.
“Oh come on, that was one time!” Tim cried, gesturing with his hands so animatedly that he almost hit Martin in the face.
Somehow, almost without Martin noticing, Tim had ended up on his other side, and so now Martin was wedged between Tim’s left thigh and Jon’s right, both of which were pressing against his own legs.
“It was three times, actually, and we both know that you would have done it again if that old woman hadn’t stopped you,” Jon corrected him, all posh accent and smugness - and smiles.
“You don’t know that!”
“Are you denying it?”
Tim made a vague hand gesture. “I am saying that me doing it again is a purely theoretical scenario, which means that we can never know for sure what would have happened.”
Jon had been nodding along quite exaggeratedly, only to now raise an eyebrow at Tim. “You would have done it again.”
“Now, that’s a very unscientific thing to say,” Tim chastised him.
“Oh please,” Jon leaned forwards, pressing even more against Martin’s leg. “Don’t you lecture me about science, Mr. Terminator-Is-A-Documentary.”
“Hey, I never said-”
The two kept arguing lightheartedly, sandwiching Martin between them. Martin wasn’t sure if they were getting too drunk to notice him being squished in, or if they simply didn’t care, but he couldn’t help but feel extremely warm.
Only because of Tim and Jon’s body temperatures, of course. No other reason, at all.
“I don’t know what to tell you, mate,” Tim eventually said, and as he relaxed, his arm settled down on the top of the booth behind Martin.
When the fingers of that hand brushed against Martin’s shoulder, Martin felt himself blush.
These two were going to be the death of him, and they didn’t even know what they were doing.
Somehow, Tim had convinced Martin to come home with them, and so now they were stumbling into Tim’s flat, still giggling from his last story, though the exact contents of it were already fleeing Jon’s mind as he thought of what might come next.
“Sooo I’ve got a couple of beers in the fridge, or there’s whiskey under the TV,” Tim was saying, already taking off his shoes.
“We are not drinking whiskey,” Jon said sternly as he followed suit and walked into the living room. “I would like to remember this night tomorrow, thank you very much.”
“Oh, now you’re watching your alcohol levels.” Tim huffed out a laugh as he got three beers from the fridge, and put them on the coffee table.
“Actually, maybe water would be better,” Jon said, sitting very stiffly on his end of the sofa while Martin sat down on the other.
Tim wedged himself between them, wrapping an arm around Jon. “Oh come on. You’re not drunk yet, are you?”
“No, and I would prefer to stay not drunk.”
“Aw, look at him.” Tim turned to Martin, with Jon still under his arm. “Isn’t he cute?”
“Oh, erm…” Martin stuttered, unable to deny it, but certainly not ready to say yes and get fired.
Jon rolled his eyes. “I am not, and never have been, cute.”
Shaking his head, Tim unwrapped his arm from around Jon, and instead moved to wrap his other one around Martin. “Fine. Then I guess if I want to have a cute boy in my arms, I need to make it Martin.”
Oh Jesus, just how drunk was Tim? Martin shifted on the sofa, but there was no polite way to pull away without getting off the couch, and so he simply sat there, his back aching with tension as Tim put his head on his shoulder.
“That is the only logical conclusion,” Jon said, very seriously.
Were they both calling Martin cute ?
Either they were both incredibly drunk, or they were making fun of Martin.
Tim let out a little sigh as he leaned more heavily on Martin.
“Your shoulder is actually the perfect height. I’m just going to stay here forever.”
“Well, sorry for being small,” Jon muttered, crossing his arms in front of his chest.
Without opening his eyes, Tim held out a hand to him. “You’re perfectly hug-sized. Just not put-my-head-on-your-shoulder-sized.”
Jon grumbled a bit, but moved to sit next to Tim, who wrapped his outstretched arm around him.
Martin had no idea what was going on. Were these two always so cuddly when drunk? But they had gone to the pub a few times for after-work drinks, and none of those occasions had ended up with a cuddle pile .
“Um, guys?” Martin asked carefully.
It was still entirely possible that they were pulling his leg, of course. Martin didn’t think they would use his sexuality against him for a prank, not that Jon was even the kind of person to participate in pranks, but… Martin was really running out of explanations for this kind of behaviour, was the thing.
“Hm?” Tim moved his head on Martin’s shoulder, which brought his face extremely close to Martin’s.
The thing was, Tim was a good-looking man, to the point where it was almost unfair that someone could be so hot and have such a winning personality. Despite having looked at his face many times over their several months of working together, though, Martin had never noticed just how green his eyes were, with just a swirl of brown in there.
“Um,” Martin made, his throat suddenly dry, his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth. Whatever he had wanted to say fled his brain when Tim licked his lips, Martin’s eyes following the movement, only to then be caught by how soft those lips looked.
Then those lips pulled into a grin. “See something you like?” Tim asked teasingly.
Martin’s face caught fire, and his body jerked backwards, though he was still wedged between Tim and the end of the sofa. His eyes darted through the room, trying to settle on anything that wasn’t Tim’s face - only to fall onto the sight of Jon’s intense gaze on him.
Martin knew that Jon’s eyes were a deep, rich amber. He had been trapped under their scrutiny far too often not to remember the way they seemed to almost literally spark with fire when he got angry. Right now, though, they were calm, even if no less intense, like the gaze of a cat waiting to see what the mouse it’s tracking will do.
“Come on, there’s no need to be embarrassed.” The hand that had been lying on Martin’s shoulder now poked his cheek, trying to turn his face back towards Tim. “The rumours are true, after all. I am simply irresistible.”
Jon huffed, and Tim tangled his fingers in his hair to shake his head around.
“What?” Tim asked. “You have any comments or corrections on that, boss?”
Seeming mostly unbothered by the rather rough treatment, or the tousled state of his hair, Jon just rolled his eyes, a slight smile tugging at his lips. “Of course not. Go on, oh irresistible one.”
“Right.” Tim turned back to Martin. “So, where were we? Oh yeah, you were about to succumb to my devilish charms.”
He leaned in. Martin was so surprised that he didn’t move, a part of him still believing that it was a joke - right up until soft lips met his, and a warm hand settled gently on his face, pulling him in further.
Tim was kissing him. Tim was kissing Martin, which meant this was either a prank taken too far, or a dream. Still, Martin’s lips responded almost on instinct, and before he knew it, Tim was nipping at his bottom lip while a hand was trailing from Martin’s neck down his chest.
Martin’s mouth dropped open for several reasons, but before Tim could stick his tongue into his mouth - because that seemed to be what he wanted to do, Jesus Christ - Martin pulled back, letting out a nervous hiccup.
“Erm, Tim…” Martin’s eyes fell on Jon, who had apparently been watching , his gaze still as intense and expression as unreadable as before. “Wh-what-”
“Relax, Marto,” Tim said, curling one hand into Martin’s hair while the other rubbed over his pecs through his jumper. “It’s just us.”
“... And Jon,” Martin added, his eyes darting to Jon for a moment.
Jon blinked, as though surprised that his presence was acknowledged - and he looked to Tim with an expression that almost looked like worry.
“And Jon,” Tim confirmed, taking his hand off Martin’s chest to pull Jon against himself. “How could I forget. No need to become jealous, though.”
And then Tim was kissing Jon, and the weirdest part was that Jon was kissing back .
Martin was beginning to think that he might have taken a wrong turn that morning and wandered into some kind of alternate dimension, where his colleagues freely kissed their boss.
And him.
Some kind of dimension where Martin was considered cute , apparently.
Breaking the kiss with Jon, Tim turned back to Martin, though he still held Jon against his chest.
“See? Now he got his dues. Back to you.” Tim let go of Jon to get both his hands on Martin again, and Martin was still too baffled by everything that was happening to put up a fight.
Not that he would have wanted to fight - Tim was hot, and the Institute had no policies about sleeping with your co-workers (Martin had checked, purely out of curiosity and not with any ulterior motive whatsoever, no Sir). The only thing that had been holding Martin back from trying to flirt with him was that Tim was woefully out of his league. Martin had figured he would just muck it up and make things painfully awkward at work.
And now Tim was cradling his neck and rubbing a hand down his front while kissing him, humming when he reached Martin’s belly, tracing its curve up, then down, coming dangerously close to his thighs.
With something like regret, Martin wrenched his mouth free. “Tim…” he breathed, unsure himself if he wanted him to stop so they could talk, or to never stop so he didn’t have to think about the consequences of where this was very obviously going.
“Hm?” Tim leaned in to leave featherlight kisses on Martin’s neck. “Everything alright?”
Martin didn’t really have an answer to that. Honestly, he would have liked to turn that question around on Tim, but he kind of feared the answer.
What if asking made Tim realise what he was doing, and that he didn’t really want it?
“Y-yeah,” Martin said, and Tim leaned back in to nibble at his neck, then started sucking a mark there. “ Oh .”
The thing was, with Tim leaning down, Martin had a clear line of sight on Jon, and vice versa. And Jon was back to staring , though now he wasn’t watching Martin’s reactions so much as tracking the movement of Tim’s hand, which had wandered further down to squeeze Martin’s thigh.
Martin was only glad that Tim was blocking Jon’s view of what was forming between his thighs. They hadn’t even taken any clothes off yet, but he was already getting hard, Tim’s gentle but sensual touches riling him up.
Tim definitely noticed, though, as he moved his hand to Martin’s inner thigh and it brushed against the tent in his trousers.
Tim hummed against Martin’s neck, then pulled back enough to grin at him. “Now what should we do about that , hm?”
He palmed Martin through his jeans, making him throb as he grew even harder.
“Jon, you wanna lend a hand here? Or, you know, a mouth?”
Martin swallowed air as he failed to breathe correctly. Tim couldn’t be suggesting what he thought-
Jon moved off the couch, and went to his knees between Martin’s legs.
Jesus fucking Christ.
Martin’s face was burning when Jon’s hands went to his belt, but then Martin was distracted by Tim, who was nipping at his lips again. When Tim’s tongue slipped inside his mouth, Martin forgot everything else for a moment - until he felt cool air around his prick.
And then a cool hand, and a very hot tongue.
Fuck.
Jon’s tongue left flaming stripes against his prick, and then his lips wrapped around him, enveloping his prick in more of that soft, wet warmth. Between that and Tim’s wandering hands, which scratched his belly and grazed his nipples, Martin was sure that he would come within seconds.
His own hands moved, frantically looking for something to hold onto, but all he found was Tim’s hip and Jon’s hair. When he buried his fingers in the latter, Jon moaned , and Martin pulsed inside his mouth, becoming impossibly harder.
He was going to die here. This was some kind of fever dream, and Martin would surely never wake up from it.
Not that he wanted to wake up.
In the end, it almost snuck up on him. One moment, he was overwhelmed by the feelings of Tim sucking on his tongue and Jon on his prick, and the next he was spilling down Jon’s throat, and moaning so hard that it broke the kiss.
In between panting breaths, he reiterated, this time aloud: “Jesus. Fucking. Christ.”
Martin almost instantly regretted it when he opened his eyes and saw Jon easing himself off his prick, and then licking his lips. It was a sight so glorious that it should have been painted on Church windows - though only if the parishioners were meant to die of a heart attack.
Tim was leaving kisses all over Martin’s neck, sucking at one spot particularly enthusiastically.
“There you go, baby bear,” he murmured, and kissed Martin’s cheek. Turning towards Jon and Martin’s crotch, he said: “Christ, look at you two. I need to fuck one of you.”
Since Martin’s brain needed a moment to come online again, he didn’t immediately notice that first Jon’s, and then Tim’s eyes were on him.
He swallowed. This really was either a fever dream, or a really realistic wet dream.
“Oh, erm- okay, yeah,” he heard himself say, even as his heart was beating in his throat.
Tim leaned in to kiss him again. “Good thing I invested in a king size bed.” He smirked at Jon. “And you thought it was too lavish.”
Jon rolled his eyes while getting to his feet. “I apologise for my crude misjudgement,” he said so dryly that Martin was almost sure that it was a joke.
Almost.
Then Martin’s eyes caught on the bulge in Jon’s trousers, and all higher brain functions went into strike.
Either not noticing, or ignoring Martin’s predicament, Jon turned and walked towards the living room door. Martin hadn’t really noticed before just how tight his trousers were, showing off the contours of his buttocks.
If Martin had been forced to vocalise what his brain had to say on the matter in that moment, it would have probably been something like ‘awooga’.
“Alrighty.” Tim got up, pulling Martin with him. As they stood caged between the sofa and the coffee table, Martin could feel Tim’s prick poke his hip. “Let’s follow his prissiness, shall we?”
“Oh, erm… y-yeah?”
Tim kissed him again, then led him by the hand towards the bedroom. “That’s what I like to hear. I hope you don’t have anything planned tomorrow, because we’re not going to sleep any time soon.”
That’s alright , Martin thought. I’m probably already dead and in Heaven, anyway.