introducing you to the concept of my (accidentally tbh) jonelias au where when jon takes position of head archivist, he sees elias as jonah at elias' age. like if elias is in his 30s or w/e, jon sees elias as jonah in his 30s. nobody else can see elias like this.
so jon's like "hm ok. i should figure out what that's about"
he manages to connect amy patel's statement about not-graham to him seeing elias as jonah so he's like "ok elias has most likely been supernaturally replaced" but he's also like "it'd be useful to get closer to him to see if i can figure out anything of substantial evidence"
then. Somehow. fake dating au commences. jon is like "what a good opportunity to get closer to the not-them and see if i can get actual elias back hey wait why would the not-them keep presumably authentic 1800s-ish clothing" (bcs i like to think jonah has at least a little bit of nostalgia) and elias is like "what a good opportunity to manipulate my archivist hey wait why am i experiencing emotions" bcs i like my elias' soft :(
when jon finds out that elias kills leitner he's like "ah. Okay. this has to end Now then" and he just goes very cold towards elias, actively avoids him, etc . except .. after he escapes nikola .. guess who he comes wandering back to .... jon's like "this doesn't mean anything i am Not in my right mind and you didn't even DO anything" and then it's like 15mins and jon's just broken down sobbing and elias is comforting him and it's around this point that elias would be like "Oh I Have Feelings"
thats basically all i have hashed out for it, except in s3 jon goes to elias' instead of georgies (he hasn't spoken to georgie in ages & doesn't know if he can make it to hers w/o being recognised, he's kinda close w/ elias at this point and he's Not Doing Great on account of. corpse) and also jon gets a corruption arc good for him! but the eyepocalypse doesn't happen they're just murder husbands
Okay, but the whole ‘oh no, I like him’ trope is SO GOOD. I absolutely love this hc. I love the idea of a JE fake dating au in general lmao. They do Be Holding each other tho