It’s so important to me that everybody knows Elias is different with Jon. Does it make sense that Gertrude wouldn’t? Not really, but, after all, she really wasn’t here that often, and if she was smart enough to avoid Elias’s eyes for decades, I’m sure he could be smart enough in return to play with her own expectations of him and specifically hide Jon from her, so that she would think that Sasha is the obvious choice to replace her (possibly because Sasha is so much like her, and/or already so ready to dive in head first into beholding).
But everybody else? The researchers, Rosie, Sasha&Tim? Oh they know. They’ve known since the very first weeks Jonathan Sims joined the Institute. Elias was not normal about him from the START. And yes, they all joked about it - not always necessarily in a nice way, even, granted, and possibly too close to Jon’s ears, a few times - but can you blame them? The way Jon can just barge into Elias’s office and Elias lets him; the way Elias just starts going down much more often into the researchers’s part of the building; the way Elias sits next to Jon every week during the weekly team lunch; they way they just stare at each other, the way Prickly, overly Serious, kind of mean and condescending Jon just melts and flushes and stutters at times when Elias gives him a ounce of praise, or let a hand brush over his shoulders……. The way he’s so clearly trying to IMPRESS this middle-aged boring man who has nothing to go for him except impeccable tailored suit and an alright face. (and the way it’s clearly WORKING. The way Elias is clearly ENJOYING Jon Sims, his conversation, his snark, his demands and his endless questions and, yes, his fluttering as well…)
I don’t know where i’m going with this i just love it when i experience jonelias through external POV.
