"...that's good, I was worried it was significantly more, uh, not PG-rated."

“—Oh! Oh. No, it wasn’t— nothing like that! Oh, God, I didn’t mean to imply— no, it was. Uh. Kind of cute, honestly, nothing—no. Sorry.” Oh hey look at this tea isn’t it the most incredibly interesting thing to stare at. 

Lev is also staring into his tea. 

"...I miss him."

“Yeah. I... yeah. That. Makes sense. I’m sorry.”

...Tentative hand on Lev’s shoulder?

Tiny smile up at Martin!

"I keep thinking I should date again but. It's hard."

“...Yeah. Yeah, I— that’s really rough. I’m sorry.”

(aaaaaaaa why is Lev talking about this to him aaaaaaaa)

"Especially since I've never wanted to date anyone else really? I don't know. Maybe I'll only ever be interested in him."

“That sounds... really hard. I. Hope you can find someone eventually? But it sounds like it might— take a while. And that’s, that’s okay too. You just lost him, you know? Maybe you just need, uh, some time.”

(Shut up brain shut up you already knew you had no chance you’re his employee. And Asher was brilliant at everything.)

"Well. Eighteen months ago. --He disappeared, no one's found the body, and I didn't know whether he was going to come back and I didn't know if I'd done something wrong and he'd left me-- and I am not really a very social person, I didn't have anyone else to talk to, and they were all his friends and I didn't want to-- in case he--"

(He's starting to sniffle.)

“Oh, oh no, shhhh, I’m really sorry, that sounds terrible—“ Martin grabs a bunch of tissues from the corner of the desk and offers them to Lev. The hand on his shoulder is much firmer now. 

Lev takes the tissues. "You're good at this."

Weak smile. “I, um, try?”

"I'm getting better at all. I'm back to working objectively ridiculous hours."

“Oh, good! That’s... a good thing? I wasn’t sure.”

He smiles through his crying. "I'm kind of just like this."

So, objectively kind of ridiculous and smart and the kind of person who dates someone like Asher Kane. He knew that, that’s. Fine. He smiles back. “Well, as long as you remember to eat.”

"I think mostly you are remembering that I eat. --I would eat eventually. I think it's called intermittent fasting or something."

“Well, as long as someone remembers? ...It’s good that you would eat eventually, I was... genuinely unsure. You get really into your work.”

"I did in fact live without you for several years and I didn't die."

Blushing! “...This is true. Sorry.”

"Although to be fair I did have Asher for most of it. --He was objectively kind of a ridiculous person."

“Oh?” Martin asks, like a reasonable person who didn’t internet stalk his boss’s dead boyfriend. 

"Six two, a professional dancer and he looked like it, and a genius-- he practically coauthored all my papers, he wrote poetry and did math I could barely understand-- and he was so fucking charismatic. The room lit up when he was in it. That's not just because I'm in love with him, everyone commented on it. --I am sort of worried dating him just raised my standards to a level literally no one else can meet."

Martin already knew all of this. Asher is dead, it doesn’t make sense to be jealous of him. And it really shouldn’t feel like salt being rubbed into an open wound. 

And yet. 

”...Wow,” he ends up saying, and okay fine yes he is maybe a little jealous. Possibly more than a little, even. “That’s. A lot, yeah.”

"...It wasn't all great. It was hellish trying to get him to relate to a normal person problem."