Sometimes Jonah tells himself that it’s just the Eye that makes him check in on Jon in his hospital bed, wanting to see why one of its most important avatars is not where he is supposed to be. Sometimes he almost believes this - but he knows it’s just him, and his…
It would be incorrect to call it infatuation, much as he desires to erase the feeling. Affection isn’t quite enough either - it would be most accurate to say that he has, rather terribly and irrevocably, fallen in love with Jonathan Sims.
This is, of course, not something he can entertain. It wasn’t something he should’ve entertained, years ago when Jon was but a fledgling under Jonah’s careful gaze. It certainly wasn’t something to continue; a breakup would’ve fuelled his paranoia, and thus his desire to find the truth. It would’ve been fitting to break up with Jon after the confrontation, allow Jon some time away from the man dedicated to hurting him in as many unique ways as he can. Spend time away from the monster who intends fully to manipulate Jon to his own ends, and use him to destroy everything. Jon would’ve realised that he deserved better than Elias, and he could still find safety and comfort in Martin, or Tim, or even some stranger off of a dating app, much as Elias disapproves of not knowing his Archivist’s choice beforehand.
But he chose to continue down this dangerous and precarious path, this path that threatens to make him destroy everything he has worked so hard for every time he sees Jon smile when he thinks nobody is looking, or hears him genuinely laugh. And Jon chose to walk it with him.
i am a firm believer in the sicko4sicko relationship. characters who are obsessed with one another not in spite of, but because of, whatever bizzare or offputting or unusual things they’ve got going on. guys who look at each other and go “you’re the only motherfucker in this city that can handle me” and they’re probably right too. rivalries romances obsessions built on mutual hate undefined Close Companions. any sort of Thing. sicko4sicko.
You’re an immortal who’s lived through thousands of years of human history. Each time you die, you reincarnate with all your past memories. Today, for the first time ever, you meet someone who recognizes you from a previous life.
i think elias genuinely cannot tolerate things going off plan. more specifically when he doesnt have any backups to pivot to. elias having ocd definitely feeds into this and it becomes like a more extreme version of his obsessions. this is why he goes so off script when lietner appears cause he wasnt expecting it at all and didnt have a plan for that
youre right and you should say it (@superpussyking)
Ppl keep taking relationships that are so obviously sicko4sicko and making one of them like normal or the straightman or whatever. Stop doing this
[ID: drawing of a comparison between a relationship in “canon” and “fanon.” “canon” is a drawing of two figures with very evil smiles, holding hands and both labeled “sicko” in all caps. “fanon” is a drawing of one figure with a friendly expression crouching down and holding a second figure, on all fours with wide shiny eyes, on a leash wrapped around their neck. the one holding the leash is saying “this is my pet freak, but I can fix him,” with a heart. end ID]
(with m/f pairings its like, Always the guy being the “weird” one and the girl being the “sensible” one too)
I ❤️ self-loathing characters, characters who struggle with monstrosity (either fearing or embracing it), characters who are so lonely, who have a gaping hole in their chest, who bottle up & repress their feelings, who claw their way up & have ambitions, who fall down & lose everything, who search for identity & purpose yet can’t see themselves outside of what others want from or expect of them, who are hurt & hurt others, who long & grieve, who lie & pretend. characters who are messy & flawed & human
elias bouchard is so fucking gay and evil this shit is SO FUNNY TO MEEE
like he doesnt even try to hide it. He just does his evil villain monologues and acts gay as hell while every one of his employees hates him. what a guy.
Oh good lord, it happened again… I am trying to write a short Jon/Elias vampire AU. It was supposed to be just one scene, but noooooo, it started developing a plot… damn it.
i really want Elias to have assisted Jon in quitting cigarettes the first time. maybe they strike up a conversation early in Jon’s employment when he’s having a smoke. Jon offers one to Elias who says he’s quit them for a while now. Jon asks for tips and Elias helps him quit finally. If you read his addiction as his connection to the Web the symbolism of this is so fucking tasty
i can project onto both ppl in jonelias cuz i am both violently transgender and love menswear and also asexual and struggle with the concept of humanity ❤️
Jon re-ends the world. Destroys most of it, really, after he consumes the entities/becomes them/Becomes. Then he rebuilds. He intends to make the people he cares for happy, which includes himself, so he does not bring Peter Lukas back. Martin’s mother does not get sick, and she is good enough. Mary Keay unexpectedly dies during the birth of her son, and Eric Delano raises him. Michael Shelley and Helen Richardson remain themselves, untwisted. He makes many changes, but mostly keeps things the same.
As for himself, he creates a hidden place. Hidden from ordinary eyes, anyways; he can See everything now.
This place he creates is a field, and a forest, with a river in it. It’s nice. He relaxes, Knowing nothing will sneak up on him, Knowing nothing unexpected will ever happen again. He Knows everything, and everything is as it should be.
Well.
There is one problem, he thinks, curled up on his ‘bed’, a mostly flat area of the cave he deigns as his home, covered in created furs and blankets and long scrawls of paper that he summons when he sleeps and cannot suppress the instinct to write down everything.
He has no anchors. This has rendered him some sort of beast-thing, solid to the touch but rendered out of infinitely dark ink, all fur, antlers, strong paws and sharp claws and fangs, and Eyes like storms and fires and death and webs, on him and around him. One night (one of the 3.675 hours of sleep he has gotten since he reincarnated himself), he was startled awake by a sudden sound, and had opened every Eye he had, giving himself a painful migraine for what was just a branch falling from a tree during high winds.
There are very few solutions to this problem. Martin is not the Martin he knew, and besides he does not want to drag him into this. Nobody on this Earth has been touched by the Fears, and if he can help it, nobody ever will be. Passive fear of being watched and spiders and death is more than enough for him. He would love a statement, but nobody alive remembers enough to give him one.
It’s the middle of the 19th century, and everything is changing. Well - it is to most people, anyway. Jon’s not sure if he’s the only one that reincarnates or simply the only one that remembers it, but it doesn’t particularly matter. The specifics of it won’t change anything. Jon’s been here for a rather long time - since the Egyptians, at least. Before that it gets a little fuzzy.
But that man, the one in rather fancy clothing talking to some employee or another at this Magnus Institute - Jon knows him.
This is impossible. Nobody Jon has known is alive now, and he doesn’t befriend anyone, long since used to the cycle of getting close with people and then losing them to disease or injury or war or just plain old age. Inside of him is a well of grief that he has not touched in a very long time. And something inside of that well, perhaps the last part of him that is capable of retaining a desire for connection, is screaming “I recognise him!” like a baby bird begging to be fed.
He keeps catching on the eyes. Something about those eyes is pulling at him, trying to tear through the thick blanket he has covered his well of grief with, get to whatever is inside and pull it out, like a tree, or loose tooth.
Impossible.
The sensation is so strong that he barely remembers what he came here for, but he recalls it easily enough. The Magnus Institute is dedicated to researching the supernatural, the paranormal, the strange. He knows he’s a case of this, and he knows if he were discovered it would be very bad for him.
There are the Archives, supposedly real, first hand accounts of supernatural experiences or encounters, but they are likely to be rather bare bones, so he’s checking the library.
“Right,” he mutters to himself, and heads to the library, perhaps quicker than he must. This is why he misses the man’s eyes tracking him across the Institute’s lobby with curiosity and recognition.
hi @zhuzhee this is for u thank u so much for the very nice tags and the art
It takes them a week and a bit for Jon to be comfortable being away from Jonah. He clings, always touching Jonah in some way, unwilling to be made to deal with the full onslaught of Watching the entire world. Usually he’s sat on him, or leaning on him. He’s almost always Watching Jonah. It’s sweet.
Jonah had suggested making some avatars to outsource the work to - surely Jon would be able to make sure nobody would get hurt in the process - and Jon had almost bitten his fingers off, making a low rumbling noise that can’t exactly be called a growl and, for a few moments, convincing Jonah’s mind he was a very small prey animal outside of the den after dark. It’s the only sound he’s heard Jon make - he’s not sure if his body even has a mouth, although it certainly has teeth. He tells himself that this isn’t contradictory.
“It isn’t,” Jon says from a tape on the table.
Jonah simply hums, continuing to pet him. He knows he’s never going to be able to see the world as Jon does, and that’s fine. He can be content with it.
Every day, usually in the afternoon, he spends some time teaching Jon how to manage himself.
“Remaking the Crown would be the most useful thing in the short term. It’d also look good on you.”
“I’m not remaking the Crown.”
They talk about, and around, the topic of the Watcher’s Crown frequently, and never come to a conclusion. Jonah’s still not permitted anywhere but the very edges of Jon’s mind, and so has no access to this information. It bothers him - he wants to help, but also wishes that his Archivist would be more vulnerable with him, despite knowing there are plenty of reasons not to be.
Jon manages to get to the point where he can separate from Jonah. Not for very long, only an hour and a half or so, but he can. He sighs, staticky through the tape.
“I should be better at this.” Jon says.
“You went from comparatively nothing to being every single entity, and then you destroyed and remade the entire world, Jon, as well as much of the observable universe, and you did it on your own. I think that’s more than good enough. You’ve done very well.”
One of his favourite things to do is to tell Jon exactly what a good Archivist he’s been. And he has been - he’s worked very, very hard, and endured so much. Jonah couldn’t be more proud. Jon’s reactions are fantastic too, always getting so bashful, trying to internally disprove Jonah’s words whilst also desperately wishing for them to be true. Jonah loves him.
It’s still terrifying to admit that to himself. He’s been more than content with being the monster. Being a monster has meant being powerful, and power is safety. If he doesn’t care about anyone, he can’t be upset if they leave, or despise him. If he hurts people before they hurt him, they’ll be too scared of him to try and kill him.
Well, except Jon. But Jon also brought him back.
The vulnerability of it all - the fact that he loves Jon, and Jon loves him back, in whatever way he can now that he’s comprised of dirt and rot and darkness and death and eyes and viscera and teeth and fog and blood and madness and strangers and stars and threads - is almost too much to bear. Whatever muscle allows him to be vulnerable has long since atrophied in both of them, and it hurts to be using it after all of this time, all of this fear.
But he will, because Jon needs him to be. Jon needs him to be vulnerable, needs him as a frame of reference for humanity, and as a source of emotional fulfilment.
The first time - where Jon had told him I needed you and Jonah thought he would die (again) from how beautiful he was - was the only time Jon had been vulnerable with him. Nowadays he just… doesn’t, which is fine - Jonah will keep pushing him as he always has - but it does make him a little upset. He feels, strangely enough, like he’s been rejected, even though he hasn’t.
Now that Jon can spend time away from him without adverse side effects (or without very many adverse side effects, as Jon won’t tell him if he’s still in pain or not) he wonders what he’ll do with it. Perhaps he’ll go on walks. Maybe he’ll get up before Jonah does, make breakfast for himself.
He doesn’t, though. He still spends as much time as he can pressed up against Jonah, head in his lap or on his shoulder or using ethereal Eyes to nuzzle against his face like a cat. Adorable.
It is a little worrying, though. The cottage is, quite literally, in the middle of nowhere, and he’s concerned that Jon’s… stagnating somehow. He does very little - Jonah does most of the housekeeping, and Jon mostly sleeps or rests - and Jonah can’t tell if he’s bored, or depressed, or just no longer has any interest in human activities.
“Do you think you can use your Threads to knit things?” he asks. Jon glares at him - it’s another one of Jonah’s inane questions - but considers it for a moment.
“Yes.”
“…well? You could make some gloves. Maybe a hat. I think a scarf would fit you, even with the fur.”
Jon sighs, and summons some Thread and knitting needles. He probably takes a moment to Behold the necessary information to knit, and begins to work. The Thread seems difficult to work with, especially with paws instead of hands, but he starts to get the hang of it.
Jonah knows this won’t be enough to bring him out of whatever funk he’s in - not on its own, anyways - but it’s a good start.
He continues with this - convincing Jon to breathe fire, at least once, just for fun; gets him to learn how to use the Dark to turn the lights on and off, which Jon immediately takes full advantage of to not have to get out of bed and to scare Jonah; insists he uses the Vast to make an especially detailed landscape painting, which he does. Upon closer inspection, there are eyes everywhere in it, which makes Jonah smile.
It seems to have a tangible effect, too. Jon goes from being made of god-knows-what (or Jon-knows-what?), darkness or ink or simply nothing made real shifting in impossible ways to accommodate his existence, to an actual animal. When Jonah touches him he isn’t near freezing, and doesn’t make his hand go strangely tingly. Now Jon is warm, and Jonah can feel muscles shifting, a heartbeat. Jon still manifests Eyes around the place, but his body typically has two, and in the correct place. Jon’s teeth get smaller, still sharp and impressive but less Hunt-ish, and his antlers lose their fractal qualities. His fur is impossibly soft, and gets tangles in it that he works out with his hands. Jonah takes great delight in informing Jon that he should probably be bathed, and even more delight in adding to his internal list of catlike qualities Jon now possesses, an aversion to water.
Jon sits very still through the whole process - carefully wetting his fur, and then shampooing him, and then washing him off, and then insisting on clipping his claws, which earns Jonah another growl. This, too, has changed - it’s, curiously, far more animalistic than the first growl had been, and doesn’t soak him in primal terror down to his very marrow. It’s also much more adorable than it is intimidating. Jon glares at him, and tries to bite him for that thought. Jonah uses a hairdryer instead of a towel to annoy him even further.
Jon fills the house with paintings. There’s no real theme that Jonah can distinguish. Some of them are landscapes, nature, some of them are people. Some of them are incredibly photorealistic, some are just blocks of colour composing an understandable image. The ones of people (which are rarer than the others) aren’t people he’s ever met.
He asks, once, about a woman in the living room. She’s not hanging over the fireplace - that is reserved for an entirely blank, slightly off-white painting (would it be called a painting?).
“She was important once.” Jon says, cryptic as ever. Jonah doesn’t ask again, and instead decides to take this as a good sign, that Jon is decorating.
They’ve been working on his control throughout, and they’ve gotten up to almost an entire day before Jon needs to rest. Jonah goes on walks more often, learning their surroundings. Jon wakes up before him, and makes breakfast. Jonah walks in on him doing this once, and is rather startled to find out that Jon - having difficulty standing on his hind legs - has simply deigned to use the Vast (he thinks, it might be a very complex web that he’s using) to telekinetically control everything he needs from the comfort of the sofa. Jonah’s sort of jealous, if he’s being honest (which he is, because Jon needs him to be honest).
And, despite still not having a mouth, Jon smiles much more often.
hi @zhuzhee this is for u thank u so much for the very nice tags and the art
It takes them a week and a bit for Jon to be comfortable being away from Jonah. He clings, always touching Jonah in some way, unwilling to be made to deal with the full onslaught of Watching the entire world. Usually he’s sat on him, or leaning on him. He’s almost always Watching Jonah. It’s sweet.
Jonah had suggested making some avatars to outsource the work to - surely Jon would be able to make sure nobody would get hurt in the process - and Jon had almost bitten his fingers off, making a low rumbling noise that can’t exactly be called a growl and, for a few moments, convincing Jonah’s mind he was a very small prey animal outside of the den after dark. It’s the only sound he’s heard Jon make - he’s not sure if his body even has a mouth, although it certainly has teeth. He tells himself that this isn’t contradictory.
“It isn’t,” Jon says from a tape on the table.
Jonah simply hums, continuing to pet him. He knows he’s never going to be able to see the world as Jon does, and that’s fine. He can be content with it.
- Elias can play the piano quite well and likes to play Jon classical romantic songs on it (perhaps even those Jonah grew up hearing)
- Simon Faichild likes doing the Functionally Immortal Friends equivalent of parents pulling out the baby pictures in front of your ctush, so he tells Jon alll about all the embarrassing things Jonah has done (like how he's secretly a Swifty)
- Once Jon found out (and came to terms with) that he's actually dating Jonah Magnus, he went absolute HAM on asking him all about the Victorian era ("were hospitals really that bad??" "they used to pride themselves on how much blood was on the surgeon's clothes")
- Elias is incredibly soft with Jon 🥺 Like. "Gets up early to make super fluffy pancakes" Soft 🥺
Simon should absolutely embarrass Elias :D And, lmao, Elias is gonna regret everything once Jon starts asking him a million questions a day. Although I gotta be honest, thinking about 19th century medicine is making me anxious ;-; I am also having Feelings about Elias being soft with Jon!!!! …. When he isn’t actively pushing him under the bus, that is :’)
a lot of jonelias fics feature a sort of role reversal during the apocalypse where jon is suddenly much more powerful than elias- this is all well and good. sexy. i approve. however what i think we desperately need is fic where jonah gets every single thing he wants in the apocalypse and makes jon his little pet as a reward for doing so good
characters who are so inauthentic. characters who only show what they want other people to see of them. characters who simply must have control over every part of themselves. do you even get it
characters who are inauthentic even to themselves. characters who cannot allow the mask to slip. characters who struggle to have an identity past what they project out to the world.
oh wait. i see it. s2 jonelias time loop au. only jon and elias remember the events of the past loops so ofc jon is forced to work with elias despite his paranoia. and obviously jon ends up trusting elias. maybe he justifies it to himself like “well nobody’s going to remember the time loops so nobody will care if i kiss him. just one loop tho and then i’ll keep working on solving this”
