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pumpkinhrat · 11 months

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Martin nearly drops his glass of wine in his lap when the notification pops up. A bit does splash over the lip of the glass and nearly ruins his freshly folded laundry, but he can’t bring himself to care. The message blinks at him from his phone screen: Tinder (now) – Somebody Super Liked you! Find out who.

Martin stares blankly at it until the screen starts to go dark. A Super Like. A Super Like? It’s been a week since Martin opened the account and he’s barely had 5 matches in the time since. He’s not even really sure what a Super Like is besides the fact that Tinder keeps trying to make him buy them. Did someone pay to match with him? Martin’s pulse quickens and before he can talk himself out of it, he’s typing in his passcode and pulling up the app. Immediately, a profile pops up with a bright blue star under the scowling face of–

Jonathan Sims.

Martin freezes, the skin of his neck prickling suddenly. What… He takes a furtive look around his flat, suddenly and bizarrely self conscious, as if someone’s gonna pop up beside him to judge his every reaction – ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous. He takes a large swallow of wine.

Martin’s first instinct upon discovering that his boss Super Liked him on Tinder of all places is, of course, to deny, deny, deny that it’s really happening. Because, really, imagining dour, dry Jon sitting down to set up an online dating profile after scoffing at Tim’s own profile so hard that he’d set himself into a coughing fit is unbelievable. It doesn’t help Martin’s denial, however, that the third picture on Jon’s account is one of Tim and Sasha crowding beside him at a bar. It also doesn’t help that Martin remembers that night very clearly and knows for certain that after Sasha had taken that selfie of the three of them, Tim had insisted on a photo with Martin as well. (“Gotta have documentation that I actually managed to drag all three of you out at once!” he remembers Tim shouting in his ear.)

Martin clicks through the rest of the profile with a deliberate sort of detachment, though his cheeks warm against his will. It’s not his fault that every previously unseen photo of his stuffy, starched shirt boss in jeans and a flannel ignites a new wash of fire down his back. The blue Super Like star continuing to glow merrily under each photo doesn’t help, either.

Martin mindlessly scrolls down a bit further and encounters the description he’d missed while scouring Jon’s photo album. The bio reads: ‘Stressed, depressed, well dressed. Put the bi in bibliophile. Looking for someone to raise a cat with.’ Martin’s attention catches on the second line, specifically the word ‘bi’. He knows that Jon had dated at least one woman before but he never wanted to assume anything about his preferences. It’s nice to know, he supposes, as his traitorous body sends another wash of elated heat down his back.

This is bad. Very, very bad. Jon had been alluring enough when he’d been Marin’s mean, unfairly hot boss who’d occasionally dress him down in a way that made his hands tingle. Cold, strict, and gloriously, mercifully unattainable. It’s been a few years since those rocky beginnings, though. Now, Jon has settled into his gig as Head Archivist and the spiky walls of his glaringly obvious inferiority complex have disappeared entirely. He still snaps and snipes, of course, but that’s to be expected no matter how close you are to Jonathan Sims.

This, unfortunately, means that Martin’s… interest (he refuses to say ‘infatuation’ as Tim had) in Jon has taken a bit more of a realistic turn. In the past year or so, Jon has turned into something of a friend, which is incredible on its own but also has disastrous implications for Martin’s ability to maintain his self control. And this? This is bad.

The wine (a thank you gift from Jon for hosting his birthday party at his flat the year prior) sits warm and soft in Martin’s belly as his thumb hovers over the swipe right and left options. Nothing about this makes a lick of sense, but Martin’s imagination never really needs much to go on in order to find the most ridiculous course of action and convince him to act on it.

He downs the rest of his glass in one go and swipes his thumb to the right. Who needs self control?

––

“And what, exactly, do you mean by concerned?”

Sasha cringes slightly at Jon’s sharp tone but Tim just slings an arm around his neck, snatching his phone and the offending Tinder account away from him. “Oh come on Boss Man, you know we worry! We’re just looking out for you! Consider it a favor.”

“A favor.” His tone is so dry that even Tim grimaces but he quickly recovers.

“Yeah! You were just whingeing about how terrible company Sash and I make on a night out, always running off for a bit of fun and leaving you by your lonesome. We thought we’d solicit you some company!”

“Must you phrase it that way? It sounds as if you’re hiring me an escort.” Jon gripes without much bite, crossing his arms where he leans against Sasha’s desk. Tim grins at him so widely he rolls his eyes and looks away. “So, what, you want to find someone for me to interact with while the two of you go off to- to do whatever it is you do? I’m just supposed to stay behind and rendezvous with some stranger?”

“Well,” Sasha says slowly. Jon turns his imperious look on her. “We tried to encourage you to, um, rendezvous with someone at the bar when the two of us break off but you didn’t seem to like that idea either.”

Jon puffs out an exasperated little sigh that is honestly endearing as fuck and levels a flat look at Sasha. “You know perfectly well that that is not something I’m–”

“That’s not what I meant,” she cuts in quickly. “It’s perfectly possible to make friends at bars even if you’re not looking for anything else.”

“Maybe for some people,” he mutters, looking away, and Sasha’s heart squeezes much in the way that had made her start this entire endeavor. She opens her mouth to explain just this but Tim beats her to the punch.

“That’s kinda the point, Boss Man. We know you aren’t particularly comfortable having full blown conversations with strangers, so we thought this would be is a great solution! Match with a few people, see who fits the best, then you can meet the ones who you think you’d actually survive socializing with.” Jon takes a breath and Tim quickly barrels on. “Aaaand if you don’t find anyone who meets that bar, then no harm done! Just delete the app and you’ll never have to think about it again.” He gently pushes the phone across Sasha’s desk toward Jon, the app open to the ‘matches’ page.

Jon stares down at it with clear disdain before eyeing them both doubtfully. “I appreciate the effort,” he starts carefully and Sasha has to bite her tongue to resist interrupting. “But isn’t this an entirely unnecessary endeavor? It’s not as if we go out all that often, anyway. Everyone’s far too busy to agree on nights to go out, and Martin hasn’t been able to attend in months.”

“Well, y’know, that’s also kind of the point, Boss Man,” Tim says. He yanks out a chair and sits on it backward beside Sasha so they’re both looking up at Jon. He taps his phone pointedly. “We want you to get out there, mingle with other people now that Martin’s lost his weekends to his mom and Sash and I are dipping into territory you’re not as comfortable with–”

“You two do know I am capable of hearing the word sex without bursting into flame, yes?”

“–and, hey, we get it, you’re not the most social guy. But everyone needs a little bit of time with a friend or partner. We don’t want you to miss out on that because our little quartet has encountered a few scheduling conflicts.”

Jon stares at them, a look Sasha does not like filling his eyes, and his lips thin slightly. “You think I’m lonely.” He says the word with such a tone of accusation that Sasha cringes again.

“We don’t think you’re lonely,” she corrects quickly. “We just think you’d benefit from new social connections now that we’re less available.”

“And we still wanna go out,” Tim adds. “As often as we can. We just want–”

“Me to have more options than just you three, yes, I understand the premise.” He turns his attention back to Tim’s phone and gingerly pokes through the app, huffing and making more Jon Noises. Precious. After an excruciating amount of time, he heaves a gigantic sigh. “I suppose it won’t hurt to- to test it out. See if your theory holds any weight.” He sounds reluctant but Tim and Sasha share an excited glance, Sasha giving an endeared little nose scrunch at the wording. What an utterly Jon thing to say. “It has– It’s been a while since Georgie, so I believe now is as good a time as any to ‘get back out there’. I hadn’t thought there’d be anyone particularly interesting on apps like these but…” He trails off as he clicks through one of his matches’ profiles and Sasha just barely catches a glimpse of a foggy silhouette on a mountain.

“We handpicked a few people that we thought you might gel with,” she cuts in quickly, before Jon can expand on his ‘but’ and shut the whole thing down. “The one you’re looking at right now is Tim’s favorite, though I think he’s a bit boring.” Tim makes an affronted noise but Jon just hums, scrolling slowly through the profile’s long winded description.

“Yes, quite,” he says, clearly not paying any attention to what she’s saying. Tim grins at her.

‘Told ya so!’ He mouths and Sasha gives him the finger under her desk.

“Well, whaddya say, Boss?” Tim asks after another few minutes, which Jon spends entirely on Martin’s profile. “Shall I get you all logged in on your phone so you can start chatting him up? Or am I gonna lose my phone entirely to you and this ‘Martin’?” Jon looks up at Tim, surprised, then back down at the phone.

“Oh, right, yes, this is–“ He fumbles to return the phone to Tim, as if looking through it hadn’t been the entire point of the account, and pulls out his own phone. “I’ll just take over from you now, shall I? It is, ah, apparently my account, after all.”

He says the last bit with no small amount of pointed wryness but Sasha ignores their squabbling, leaning back in her chair triumphantly. Another successful mission in order to expand Jon’s little world, this one possibly the most satisfying. She glows a little with the feeling of a job well done.

After all, what could possibly go wrong?

ANON YOURE BACK, THANK YOU FOR WRITING MORE I absolutely love it 😭

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UPDATE: You can read the whole story by JJanuaryRain on AO3! Go give them lots of love -> "all's fair in love & tinder"

#anon's tma!da au fic #tma!da au #asks #jonmartin #jmart #tma fic #AAAAAAA #im so happy im crying #this is so cute

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