if you’re seducing your younger self make sure to leave room for the specter of your former lovers that he doesn’t know you (indirectly) killed
i just think that elias would evoke the memories of them on purpose. to feel how jonah feels thinking about them. it’s innocent and naive and elias feeling that pure yearning secondhand is so very nostalgic for him.
because he doesn’t feel that way for them anymore. it’s almost hard to remember how it feels to care for someone without ambition and devotion to his god eclipsing all else in his life. and yes, jonah is ambitious, he’s devoted to the Watcher, but he’s not yet had to choose between his friends and his goals. his feelings for his dead companions are sweet and not uncomplicated but still so much simpler than elias’s. and perhaps elias enjoys being able to feel that again, even if the emotions aren’t actually his own.