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Jon didn’t like small talk. Everyone at the Institute knew that, or at least everyone who’d dared to broach the subject of the weather with Jonathan Sims or, God forbid, attempt to ask if he’d seen any good movies lately.
Martin knew better than anyone else the hatred that Jon held for small talk. Back when Martin had been blissfully ignorant of Jon’s attitude toward conversation, his initial inquiries into Jon’s hobbies or opinions on sports or his favourite holiday destinations had all been met with cold stares and “Not now, Martin”s. He’d learned to just not ask during his first few weeks in the Archives, after being repeatedly rejected and oftentimes just completely ignored.
Martin had, of course, assumed that Jon’s hatred of small talk was really just a manifestation of his hatred of talking to Martin, full stop. Yet, Martin had soon discovered that Jon had a similar reaction when Tim got started on his Institute gossip—who kept stealing Amanda’s stapler, who had knocked over the water cooler outside the Library, who had left a mouldy bagel in Artefact Storage—or when Sasha managed to slip in a pop culture reference in the midst of a case discussion.
It was always the same disappointed glare, the crooked downturn of the mouth, the forehead creased with resigned disapproval. Always the I’ve-got-better-things-to-concern-myself-with look.
It was enough reason for their coworkers to steer clear of Jon, not bothering to chat with him in the lift or while queuing in the canteen.
But that was the issue with Martin, wasn’t it? Despite the discouraging glances and the constant refusals, Martin wanted to talk to Jon.
Not about files, or police records, or follow up interviews, but about…well, anything that Jon wanted to talk about. Martin wanted to know— needed to know what was bouncing around in that beautiful head of his. What was important enough to get Jonathan Sims talking?
Martin was determined to find out.
Apparently, the answer was emulsifiers.
Martin had made the obligatory appreciative comment once they’d sat down to enjoy their ice cream. “Wow, this is really nice. It just melts in your mouth.”
Across from Martin, Sasha hummed in agreement, fending off Tim’s attempts to jab his spoon at her cone and make off with a bite of her ice cream.
“Tim,” she scolded. “If you wanted pistachio, you should have gotten pistachio."
“Come on, Sasha, it’s a birthday!” Tim pointed out, maneuvering his spoon into a better angle of attack.
“Not yours,” Sasha reminded him.
Tim pouted, and waiting until Sasha was distracted with stabilising her wobbly cone, he carved a spoonful from the side of her scoop.
Martin was dutifully eating his way through his cone of chocolate chip cookie dough. He peered over the mound of ice cream at Jon. Perhaps he shouldn’t have gotten the sprinkles. Was it too childish? Jon had ordered rum and raisin, for goodness sake. Martin didn’t know a single other person under the age of fifty who would order rum and raisin voluntarily, and there Martin was with his rainbow sprinkles.
Even Tim had been dignified enough to request chocolate sprinkles instead.
Was this it? Was this how they’d find out that he’d lied about it all?
Would they know he wasn’t one of them, destined for academia and respectable ice cream toppings?
Beside Martin, Jon had set down his cup of rum and raisin. (Yes! Rum and raisin in a cup. )
Jon folded his hands on the table, leaning forward slightly. “You know, there’s a lot that goes into making sure ice cream has that creamy texture.”
Jon glanced around the table, making sure everyone was following. Tim was aiming for another ambush on Sasha’s ice cream, but Sasha nodded encouragingly.
Martin was staring. Just a bit.
He couldn’t help it. There was something youthful and enthusiastic about Jon in that moment and Martin couldn’t help but soak it up while it lasted.
“Well, ice cream is an emulsion, so it consists of liquids that cannot be fully mixed together,” Jon explained. “In fact, milk naturally separates into a fattier, creamy component and a watery milk component. Fat, much like oil, is hydrophobic and cannot mix fully with water, so under ordinary conditions, fat globules separate from the watery component and sit near the surface of the mixture.” Jon had slipped slightly into his Head Archivist voice, but with all of the delight at knowing and none of the abrasive scepticism.
Tim looked to be about half a second from groaning, but Sasha jabbed the handle of her spoon into his shoulder, very clearly mouthing, It’s his birthday. Be nice.
Jon couldn’t have seen any of this because he was staring at Martin, that wild, electric light in his eyes.
And Martin was staring right back, energised by Jon’s fascination. Watching as his lips pulled back, spilling forth the enunciated words. Watching as the sentences came and moulded with them the dark curve of his eyebrows, lifting and scrunching back down again. Watching and listening because it was the same voice as always, but the aloof flatness was gone, replaced by the hurried thrill of making others know.
“The fat globules actually have proteins on their surfaces that in the process of homogenisation can anchor them in place and prevent the globules from clumping together. But ideal conditions for ice cream require the fat globules to partially coalesce, providing a structure to maintain air bubbles in the mixture.” Nothing had changed in Jon’s methodical delivery. No stammering or fumbling for words could slow him down now.
And okay, sure, maybe Martin didn’t understand half of what he was saying anyway, but it sure sounded exciting the way it was coming out of Jon’s mouth.
“Churning the ice cream can help to destabilise the emulsion and encourage partial coalescence, but there won’t be enough fat globules clumping together, which is why an emulsifier is added. Emulsifiers further destabilise the emulsion by displacing the proteins on the surface of the globules, so they are no longer anchored in place.” The corner of Jon’s mouth quirked upward, pleased with himself.
“Like egg yolks?” Martin said hesitantly, calling on his very limited pool of emulsifier-related knowledge.
“Yes,” Jon confirmed. “Lecithin in egg yolks proves very useful as an emulsifier.
What was that look? Was he impressed? Martin didn’t exactly have a baseline for deciding whether Jon looked impressed, but whatever that look was, it made Martin’s chest feel partially coalesced. Martin smiled into his ice cream.
Emulsifiers. Thank God for emulsifiers.
Jon cleared his throat. “I suppose I went off on a bit of a tangent there.”
Sasha shook her head, already crunching her way through the bottom of her cone. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Thank you for the ice cream, Tim,” Jon said sincerely.
Tim grinned. “No problem, boss, but I can’t take all the credit. Consider this the Institute’s treat.”
Jon cautioned, “I don’t think Elias would want you to—”
“Elias can piss off,” Tim interrupted.
Sasha giggled.
Jon lapsed into a smile, a tense one.
Rainbow sprinkle by rainbow sprinkle, Martin ate his ice cream.
And Martin finally understood. Jon wanted to talk and he wanted people to listen.
But he wanted to talk big.
So, Martin would have to make his small talk a bit…bigger. How hard could it be?
Martin had never expected for there to be so much to say about ice cream. Research after research paper about phospholipids and diglycerides and polysorbate blends and that wasn’t even the half of it. Martin hadn’t finished secondary school, much less attained a degree in ice cream science. There was only so much he could grasp when he had to wade through such field-specific terminology while making sure to close the tab every time Sasha passed by behind him, or when Tim, without warning, spared a bored glance at Martin’s computer screen.
Martin did his best to jot down a few of the more scholarly sounding terms, which he hoped might give the illusion of actual knowledge about the subject if sprinkled into conversation at the right time.
However, he didn’t know if there would be a right time. How could he bring up ice cream in the absence of ice cream?
“So how about that meltdown performance?” and “any thoughts on the creaminess factor?” were objectively weak openers. Martin couldn’t afford for Jon to become disillusioned. He had to think of something better.
Martin was seriously considering running out to the store to pick up some ice cream for the break room freezer, and hope that someone would take the bait. That’s when Jon emerged from his office, brushing past on his way to document storage.
Jon had just barely made it past Tim’s desk when the crinkling of a paper bag stopped him cold. Tim was unwrapping a sandwich at his desk.
Jon studied him nervously as Tim took a bite, eyes glued to his computer screen. Martin knew that Jon was searching for crumbs on the statement forms spread out across Tim’s workspace.
Martin winced. He would never forget the absolute fury in Jon’s eyes when Martin had lost his grip on a cup of tea, soaking through and ruining a file he’d left lying out. Martin assumed crumbs would warrant a similar response if they were to fall.
Tim took another bite, still seemingly unaware of Jon looming over him.
Jon coughed and Martin braced himself, desperately wishing for Sasha to return from the toilet before things had a chance to get ugly.
But Jon didn’t open his mouth to reprimand Tim.
No, instead, he asked, “Is that…turkey?”
Tim glanced up at Jon, chewing. He was silent for a moment.
“Yes.”
Jon nodded thoughtfully.
“Do you…want some?” Tim offered.
Jon shook his head. “No, it’s actually, well—”
And here, he shot a look at Martin, cautious, hesitant, almost like he was asking for permission. Martin didn’t know what Jon needed permission for but he nodded anyway, giving him an encouraging smile.
Almost quickly enough for Martin to believe he’d imagined it, the uncertainty in Jon’s expression was chased away by that look—that radiant look—Martin could only describe as well-informed confidence. God, Martin loved that little know-it-all smirk.
“You’ve heard of tryptophan?” Jon asked, directing the question at a very uninterested Tim.
Tim shrugged, waving a file in his free hand. “Do I look like a scientist to you?”
“Tryptophan is an amino acid that is linked to controlling sleep,” Jon explained patiently.
Martin looked down at his notes, mystified and admittedly a little panicked. But what happened to emulsifiers? What happened to fat globules and partial coalescence and homogenisation?
Was Martin expected to look into every food-related piece of trivia known to mankind? Is that what it was going to take?
“It’s just that a lot of people have the misconception that consuming copious amounts of turkey results in unusually increased drowsiness, when really— ” Jon leaned into that last word, pausing for emphasis.
Martin grinned despite himself. Jon really did have a flair for the dramatic sometimes.
Undeterred by Tim’s obvious efforts to tune him out, Jon continued. “Other meats and sources of protein have similar levels of tryptophan. It’s actually that people tend to conflate the effects of consuming turkey with the effects of eating a large meal, the latter contributing to sleepiness due to increased blood flow to the digestive system and away from the brain.”
Tim slow clapped, which was impressive considering he was still holding half a sandwich in one of his hands. “And there you have it, everyone,” Tim declared to the Archives, projecting his voice for an invisible audience. “Jonathan Sims, eradicating ignorance from the world one turkey sandwich at a time.”
“That’s quite fascinating,” Martin blurted.
Jon’s eyes widened, turning on Martin, clearly surprised by the sudden expression of interest.
“I didn’t know that,” Martin supplied. “A-about the tryptophan.”
“Yeah,” Jon said. “There’s a lot to learn, isn’t there?”
He gave Martin a small smile that Martin was pleased to find looked sort of grateful, before disappearing into the document storage room.
Right, so, tryptophan then?
Martin could look into that.
Martin’s recreational research, as he’d come to think of it, didn’t leave much time for, well, his professional research.
The cases were stacking up and Martin simply didn’t have the time to juggle two priorities at once.
So, certain that he’d regret it, he asked Sasha to cover a few reports for him. It wasn’t strictly moral, and it didn’t make Martin feel particularly good about his work ethic, but he did have a favour to cash in with Sasha.
She owed him for cat-sitting a couple of weeks ago. It was a favour he hadn’t really intended to take advantage of (minding Sasha’s cats felt like enough reward in itself) but this was important. This was Jon. Martin had to stay focused.
So, he did.
He researched and researched, browsing through dissertations and studies on amino acids, staring until somehow something on his screen made sense, a nugget of information clicking into place.
And he took notes, writing anything of use in rambling, run-on sentences that stretched in long, spidery strings across index cards, sticky notes, scraps of paper, and later were spelled out on Martin’s own palms when he wanted to have an especially important phrase or conversational starter always within reach.
At one point, Martin must have pressed a hand to his face because Sasha was kind enough to warn him, “Erm, Martin? I think you’ve got ‘et al’ smudged across your forehead.” She tapped her finger at the skin above his right eyebrow.
Maybe he was going a bit mad.
It was nearly five by the time Jon finally drifted toward Martin’s desk under the pretense of collecting follow up notes for the day.
Martin had a whole other sort of notes ready, and maybe he still had ink smeared on his face and his mind was reeling with big words, but he was ready.
Tryptophan. Martin knew tryptophan. Finally, there was talk big enough for Jon, and Martin had it ready, all lined out in front of him, notes in his hands and on them too.
Martin swallowed, steeling himself.
“Martin,” Jon said.
Here we go, Martin thought. Tryptophan. I can do this.
“Did you know that koala fingerprints appear so similar to those of humans that they could be mistaken for human fingerprints at a crime scene?”
Martin blinked, completely caught off guard.
Fingerprints?
Martin opened his mouth and closed it again, blanking. What did Martin know about fingerprints?
He needed to say something. He needed to salvage the conversation before Jon decided Martin was ignorant and a waste of his time. But what could he say?
“I-I didn’t know that,” Martin admitted.
And Jon beamed.
“Fingerprints are really quite interesting,” Jon added. “Stresses due to rapid growth of the basal layer of skin, which lies beneath the upper layers of the epidermis and above the dermis, cause the layer to create complex folds. The blueprint of the fingerprint lies beneath the skin, which is why it can’t be disrupted by damage to the upper layer of skin on the fingertips.”
Jon paused, suddenly self-conscious. “Sorry, erm, I suppose I’ve gone on for a bit too long.”
Martin shook his head emphatically. “No, no, not all. Really, I’d like to hear more.”
So, Jon kept going, talking about ulnar loops and whorls and friction ridges.
Martin listened, loving every word, every amused quirk of the eyebrow. He loved the way knowing carved Jon’s voice in trenches of hidden truths and peaks of soaring, childlike wonder. He selfishly savoured the knowledge that the tape recorders would never hear this side of Jon—this secret dimension of Jonathan Sims that was all his because he’d dared to listen.
Martin had figured out the listening part; now he just needed to figure out the talking.
The issue was as follows: if Martin was going to find a handful of random, conversation-sparking facts to add to Jon’s collection, he needed to know what Jon didn’t know.
But he didn’t.
At least, not yet, he didn’t.
There would be nothing worse than presenting a piece of information, glittery and fresh, only to be answered with an “I know” or an “I think I read that somewhere.”
This was a task beyond the scope of the internet, beyond the scope of scholarly databases and WikiHow.
No, if Martin was going to endeavour to surprise Jon, he’d have to conduct research of another kind entirely.
“Tim, what’s the last obscure interest Jon rambled about to you?”
Tim sighed, shaking his head in disappointment. “You know I block half of that rubbish out anyway.”
“Please,” Martin begged.
“Ask Sasha.”
“No, thank you,” Sasha chimed in.
“Sasha’s busy,” Martin relayed to Tim.
“So am I,” Tim answered, clicking at his computer mouse.
Martin made a small, frustrated noise, catching sight of the distinctly green background on Tim’s monitor. “Tim, you’re playing solitaire.”
“Yeah, like I said, busy.”
“Please,” Martin tried again.
Tim considered for a moment, sifting through his memories, and then shrugged. “I told you.” He tapped his right temple. “It’s all cleared out.”
Martin shoved an orange sticky note at him. “Do any of these look familiar?”
Martin watched as Tim scanned the list of topics, eyes darting over the cramped letters.
“Christ, Martin,” he concluded. “You’ve gone full nerd.”
Sasha snorted abruptly and then gave Martin an apologetic smile.
“I—I have not!” Martin huffed indignantly.
Tim wrinkled his nose sceptically. “You’re studying for Jon like he’s a bloody exam.”
“No, I’m not I—” Martin stopped himself because he was sort of doing exactly as Tim said.
“Can’t I know things too?” he asked weakly.
Tim handed him back the sticky note. “The whales one is no good. I think he mentioned something about that last week.”
Martin nodded, immensely grateful. “Thank you, Tim.”
“No problem.” Tim waved his hand dismissively.
He paused, pointing at Martin, deadly serious.“But if you start lecturing me on my sandwiches too, I’m afraid our friendship will be officially over,” he warned. “Understood?”
“Sure,” Martin said.
So, whales were out.
It was during lunch the next day when Martin was finally able to put days of research to use.
He had specifically waited for Tim and Sasha to head down to the canteen. It was already hard enough without the addition of Tim’s teasing and Sasha’s giggles to the mix.
But it was now or never.
Martin marched up to Jon’s office, pushed open the door, and poked his head inside. “Do you know Pringles?”
Jon glanced up from his laptop and stared at him, confused.
Instant regret flooded through Martin. Dear God, what was he doing? Barging in and challenging Jon’s knowledge of crips?
“Yes?” answered Jon, hands poised above his keyboard, hovering.
Martin cleared his throat, and the door swung forward a few centimeters more. “Well, the man who created the can for the crisps—the tube, erm, cylindrical sort of thing.” Martin found himself outlining the shape of the iconic can with his finger, tracing the air like an idiot, and promptly shoved his hands into his pockets. “They put him in a Pringles can when he died. I-I mean he was cremated first, of course, so it was really ashes they put in the can, not his—” Martin swallowed. “Not his, you know, actual body.”
Jon had always savoured the explanation, the slow unfolding of details, almost leisurely, but the words had spewed forth from Martin’s mouth, gnarled and nonsensical. He felt a bit ill.
Jon was still frozen, processing Martin’s outburst.
Had it been too morbid? Would a more light-hearted, warm-up sort of fact be preferable? Martin’s hands itched for his sticky notes.
It was so, so quiet.
He wondered if now would be an appropriate time to dig that index card with neatly printed citations out of his pocket. Did Jon need proof? Because Martin had it, he really did, and if Jon didn’t believe him then he could always—
Jon coughed. “A bit macabre, but it’s nice he was so proud of his work, I suppose.”
“Uh, yes, I suppose,” Martin echoed. “I wouldn’t want to be buried down here.” He chuckled awkwardly.
Jon smiled grimly. “No, I don’t think Elias would take kindly to finding my ashes in a filing cabinet.”
Martin snorted. He was fully standing in the office now.
But then there was silence again, the natural conclusion to a conversation.
That couldn’t be it, could it?
Martin wracked his brain, scavenging for some excuse not to go.
“Did you know komodo dragons tend to cannibalise their young, so little komodo dragons roll in fecal matter to avoid being eaten?”
Martin bit his tongue. Definitely too much, but it was too late to take it back.
Nice work, Martin, he chastised himself. Hope you enjoyed your first and final conversation with Jon.
Jon tilted his head, thinking. “I didn’t know that.”
He was still smiling faintly. Why was he still smiling?
Martin made a strangled sound, half-way between a squeal and a cough. “See you around then.” He ducked out of Jon’s office, certain he had made a complete fool of himself.
But most importantly, Jon hadn’t known .
Martin had managed the impossible.
And if he celebrated back at his desk by pumping his fist in the air victoriously, well, that wasn’t anybody’s business but Martin’s.
And so the rest of the week passed, every single one of their conversations beginning with an eager “did you know?” and ending with the sudden all-encompassing realisation that Martin was, in fact, a bit of a nerd—when it came to Jon, at least.
They talked about all sorts of things (the odder the better) from cacti to nuclei to fungi to octopi—or octopuses or octopodes, depending on whom you asked.
Martin hadn’t even known there had been a fierce etymological debate about the plural of “octopus” but apparently Jon was very invested in it, a dedicated opponent of the incorrect Latin pluralisation “octopi.”
It was through discussions of mollusks and tannins and electron spectroscopy that Martin realised how Jon had somehow become a regular presence at Martin’s usual lunch spot in the canteen, and come to think of it, he didn’t seem to be too far from Martin’s desk at any given moment.
In the Library, Martin spent nearly a quarter of an hour listening to Jon talk about the illustrious history of bookbinding. It was nice to have Jon’s voice all to himself, soft vowels nestled between the shelves.
In the lift, Martin described the dominance hierarchy of carpenter bees while Jon listened attentively, humming pensively.
It was great. Better than great.
Yet, one undeniable truth remained: there were only so many facts to find, only so many exchanges of knowledge to be had before Jon grew bored and the transaction came to an end.
The list of things that Jon presumably did not know was growing smaller and smaller. Martin knew he was in trouble when he began to seriously consider the dripping rate of melted candle wax to his potential topics.
But what else was there?
Every new idea seemed recycled, stale, or just a bit too far past Jon’s nerdiness threshold.
Come on, Martin, really. Who would care about the manufacturing process of aglets?
He had long run out of sticky notes, so the research slowly invaded every spare piece of paper kept tucked away in his desk.
Speculations about venus flytraps wrapped around bullet points on Martin’s grocery list and half-finished citations of medical journals highlighted lazily drawn doodles of dogs.
The research had claimed every aspect of his being, on and off paper, and had so heavily cluttered both his desk and his life, that it was no wonder when on a Wednesday afternoon, with Jon calling for Martin’s notes on the Gillespie case, the report was nowhere to be found.
Martin pawed through the whirlwind of research, digging and digging through emulsifiers and tryptophan, growing more frenzied by the second. He’d finished the notes for this one, hadn’t he? Or maybe Sasha had helped out with this particular one? If only he could get to her desk—
But there was no time, and right as Martin figured all was lost, he found it: a thick, bright sheet of paper, the kind they used for reports. Martin snatched it up, hurtling into Jon’s office and depositing it on his desk.
“Thank you, Martin,” Jon said neutrally, eyes roving over the document.
Martin turned to go just as Jon mumbled, “Who’s Susie?”
Martin froze, saliva clogging in his throat. “Sorry?”
Jon traced a finger over the bottom corner of the page, and lowered his head to get a better look at whatever was written there. “Thank you gift for Susie,” he read. He glanced up, watching Martin with curiosity. “Who’s Susie?”
Martin’s eyes widened, realising what was going on here.
Those were not his notes on the Gillespie case.
Wait, but that meant—
“She’s my neighbour,” he answered, a bit high-pitched. “Across the hall.”
Jon had that look in his eyes, the quiet fascination that lingered there whenever Martin presented him with a new “did you know?”
“My refrigerator broke down last week, but Susie, my neighbour, she just moved in and she was nice enough to let me keep a few things in her’s,” Martin explained. “I was thinking that I ought to get her a gift or something in return, but I don’t really know her all that well. I mean, I know she’s got a cat, but it feels a bit personal to get a gift for someone’s cat when you barely know them, right? I was thinking I could bring her some biscuits or sweets, but I don’t know if she’s allergic to anything or if she’s on a diet or if she hasn’t got a sweet tooth. You know some people are just like that.”
Martin paused, going red. “Oh God, I’m so sorry. I, uh—you didn’t ask about that.”
Jon was watching him thoughtfully. “No, no, it’s quite the dilemma. What to get for Susie?”
Jon frowned at the paper, lost in thought, and Martin thought that might be the end of it, but evidently, he had forgotten what was on the rest of that sheet.
“Martin?” Jon asked, deeply perplexed. His eyebrows were doing the scrunching thing but less in the way of intense focus and more in the way of what-the-hell-is-this.
“Talking to Jon,” Jon read.
Oh no.
Martin squeezed his eyes shut, and blinked rapidly, hoping that when he opened them, this would all go away.
“What’s this for?”
Martin opened his eyes. It hadn’t worked.
“It’s, erm…” Martin faltered.
He knew what it was, of course he did. Jon was holding an extended version of the list Martin had first shown Tim, edited to keep track of every topic that had already been discussed.
Jon scanned the list. Martin could see his eyes moving left to right as he read.
“Some of it’s crossed out,” he observed.
Martin inhaled sharply. Like ripping off a plaster. “It’s a list of things to talk to you about.” He got the sentence out all in the space of one breath.
Jon looked from Martin to the list and back. “A…list? Why would you—”
“Because I wanted to talk to you,” Martin blurted because it was the truth and God his heart was beating quite fast now. “And you don’t really like talking about…”
“Normal things?” Jon finished.
“Yeah.” Martin bit his lip. “I did some research.”
He lowered his eyes, hoping that it would disguise the immensity of that understatement.
“Research?”
Martin nodded. “I thought maybe you’d want to talk to me if I knew about things like you do.” Martin winced at how pathetic he sounded.
Jon had set the piece of paper down on the desk.
“But I-I don’t really know anything about emulsifiers,” Martin confessed pitifully.
“Martin,” Jon said softly. “I don’t care what we talk about.”
Martin met his eyes again. “No?”
The soft edge of a smile had crept into Jon’s voice. “No.”
“I thought you didn’t like small talk,” Martin pointed out.
“I’d hardly call the Susie dilemma small talk,” Jon said sternly. “Besides, there are plenty of topics to choose from that are not on this list.”
“Oh?” Martin asked, feeling a bit dizzy.
“Within reason of course,” Jon clarified, his tone flattening out into professionalism. “The Archives is a place of academia, after all.”
Martin nodded, trying to be serious. “Of course.”
“But like I said,” Jon continued. “There’s a lot to learn.”
Jon arranged a couple of the papers on his desk, clearing his throat. “Now if you would bring me your actual report, Martin?”
Martin hurried out of the office, trying to bite back a huge, idiotic grin.
Martin could only thank the power of research.