#jon‚ inevitably‚ the moment he gets home: passes out on the sofa

[literatehiss]

Munchies

Read on AO3 here Peter had been the acting Head of the Institute for about four months and he thought it was going swimmingly. Martin had accepted a position as his assistant and was already pulling away from his old co-workers. Elias was in prison and no amount of pompous posturing could hide the fact that he was missing his creature comforts.

Really, he deserved a reward for everything going so well, a celebration of sorts.

He had found just the thing tucked away in a draw in Elias’s desk. Well actually it was his desk now, so anything inside it was his as well and that is what he would say to Elias when he inevitably rung complaining about it.

Peter had smoked before, only with Elias though, and only in fairly small amounts.

What was in the desk was not a small amount and it didn’t quite look like the same plant that he had smoked before. Despite the few signs of something being wrong, it didn’t stop Peter from lighting up and leaning back in Elias’s large office chair.

Several hours later Martin was jerked out of sleep as his phone rung. He checked the screen to see who was calling, he had started to do that when Jon had tried calling him at home. A deep, exasperated sigh crawled its way up his throat. He accepted the call.

He didn’t even manage to get his groggy “Hello Peter” out before the older man’s deep laughter interrupted him.

“Martin! Martin! I- I can’t feel my legs Martin!”

Oh lord.

“Peter what have you done? Is it some artefact? I would have thought you would be just smart enough to know better than that.”

More deep laughter. The laughter of someone who was perhaps, a little inebriated. Was he drunk? No Peter got even more depressing than usual when he drunk. Well… Peter got happier when he was drunk, it was Martin who had to deal with the morbid nonsense that would flow out of his mouth.

“Martin I’m hungry and my legs feel weird.” Hungry? Wait.

“Peter are you high?”

“Mmmaybe”

Martin groaned and climbed out of bed. He rooted around in his kitchen for whatever random snacks he had lying around before getting dressed and making his way to the Institute. It was early in the morning and he really didn’t want to be doing this. Throughout all this, Peter was still on the phone babbling about whatever nonsense passed through his drugged mind.

“What have you taken Peter? And where the hell did you get it?”

“Weed! And it was in  Elias’s desk. No! It’s my desk now, not his!”

“Yes, yes, Peter, it’s your desk. And how much did you take?”

“All of it!”

“Oh for fucks sake-”

“Can you get me fish and chips?”

“No Peter it’s three in the morning. I’ll be there in a few minutes” Peter groaned, upset that Martin wasn’t going to search the entirety of London for the one chippy that was still open at three in the morning.

He cracked open the door to Peter’s office and waved away the smoke that billowed out, coughing slightly. He saw the man staring at his hands, his large form curled up on the small couch. He dropped his assorted snacks on the sofa next to him and let Peter attempt to figure how to get in them while he went and cracked open all of the office’s windows to let the smoke out.

By the time he came back to Peter, the man had demolished two packets of crisps and a can of the cheapest off-brand cola he could find at Aldi. It was amusing to see Peter, a man who regularly drunk champagne with his lunch, eating an armful of snacks that couldn’t have cost more than a fiver in total.

He was vaguely listening to Peter’s rambling when the phone rang. The office one this time, rather than his own personal mobile.

Peter started to try and get up to stumble to the phone. Martin pushed him back down onto the couch and picked it up, hoping it wasn’t anything of importance.

He almost put the phone down. It certainly wasn’t anyone important. Tinny laughter rang out into the office.

“Hello Martin, how are you doing? How is Peter?”

“Get stuffed Elias,” the man just laughed harder, “what do you want?”

“Oh nothing much, just wanted to check in on my darling ex-husband. I am sure he is going to be a delight.”

“Are you going to be any help?  Or are you going be as useless as you have been every time we have needed help?”

Elias hummed, still clearly amused.

“Hmm, well keep him fed and don’t let him drink or he’ll turn into a terror. Good Luck with that.”

The phone beeped as Elias hung up on him. Martin turned back to Peter who was staring at his hands again. “Martin my hands... they're hands Martin!” Peter sounded so excited and so very confused. “What did you expect them to be Peter?” Martin sighed. “Less… hands…”

Martin shook his head and flicked through take-away delivery places that were still open. He didn’t even look up as Peter started complaining again. “I need Jaffa Cakes Martin” "You are not paying me enough to traipse through the city in the middle of the night to buy you a pack of Jaffa Cakes" "What if I pay you more?" "No Peter"

He went silent for a moment, watching Martin frown at his phone. He stumbled to his feet at wobbled over to the bottle of scotch he knew Elias had hidden in the cabinet. He pulled it out and cracked open the bottle when it was ripped from his hands. He whined like a wounded animal as he was firmly lead back to the couch and he was left to his thoughts yet again.

"What if you bought all of the Jaffa Cakes Martin?"

Martin looked at him, confused and irritated. What was Peter on about now? "What all of them in the world or the company? I'm not sure even you can afford that." Peter just laughed, muttering about Jaffa Cakes and staring into space.

Martin’s phone alerted him to the driver downstairs. He gave Peter a warning look and went downstairs to pick up the kebab he had ordered, taking the scotch with him to Peter’s disappointment.

He trudged back upstairs to see Peter falling asleep on the couch. Martin dumped the delivery bag next to his head and draped the man’s coat over him before heading home for what few hours of sleep he could grab.