Still thinking about pre-established jonelias and how it would be affected by canon events and how it happened in the first place.
Just imagine Jon, a fresh face at the Institute, recently graduated from uni and still unsure about what he was doing at this strange but fascinating organization. He’s probably shy and nervous, reluctant to try to make friends because he knows that people don’t usually like him, and probably still raw from his recent breakup with Georgie. He’s used to everyone looking down on him, unimpressed by his age and his slight stutter and his hunched posture and the way he never meets their eyes, and his new coworkers aren’t any different from anyone else he’s met.
But then there’s Elias.
Elias, with his perfect and pristine suits and his carefully styled hair and his cool smile that softens just a bit when he looks at Jon and his intense gray eyes that seem to stare right into your soul. Elias who is older and handsome and ridiculously wealthy, and then intelligent and charismatic on top of that. Elias, the head of the Institute, paying attention to Jon like no one ever has before. Not just letting him talk, but actually listening and paying attention. Making sure that Jon is eating and not spending his nights in Artifact Storage, bringing him coffee and pastries from the cafe, inviting him to dinner… … .
It progresses from there. Jon would probably be really unsure at first, scared of the expectations that Elias might have for him and of the implications that come with dating a wealthy, older man, especially when that man is also your boss.
But time passes and their relationship blooms and that unease falls away into a soft domesticity, both of them just falling for each other like it’s where they were always meant to be.
And Jon still has his flat but he spends most of his time at Elias’s “house” (read: mansion) and they spend lazy mornings in bed together and get lunch at quiet cafes and go home together at the end of the work day. And they’re happy, genuinely and purely happy.
And then Jane Prentiss happens. And everything goes straight to hell.
Suddenly, all of Jon’s insecurities are back but a million times worse in different ways. He’s not worried about things like sex anymore, doesn’t think about terms like “sugar baby” or “workplace relationship disclosure” or anything like that. Now he’s worried about the implications of them being avatars of the Beholding, about Elias knowing about everything and manipulating things from the sidelines as well as any avatar of the Web. He suddenly wonders if any of their relationship was ever real, or if Elias was just grooming him, preparing him to take the role of Archivist and act as a catalyst for the apocalypse.
It was real. Elias may have initially seen him as the Archivist and nothing else, but it hadn’t been that way in a very long time. But Jon doesn’t Know that, probably wouldn’t believe it anyway.
And the worst part is that even after all the pain and suffering and betrayal and distrust, Jon still loves him. More than anything, honestly. This is a man who he had spent his recent life with, who he had fallen in love with so easily, who he wanted to marry one day. And no matter how much his assistants yell or look at him like he’s betraying them, Jon can’t just turn those feelings off, can’t just stop loving someone.
He doesn’t even really want to stop. Would it be so bad, to embrace the Beholding and their purpose? Would a world with no secrets really be so terrible? He doesn’t know anymore.
But it doesn’t matter because then they stop the Unknowing and the next thing Jon knows, Elias is gone. Locked away in some prison, a god trapped in a gilded cage, and Jon is alone again. No allies at his side, left alone in empty archives and an empty mansion and an empty bed. There is someone he doesn’t know sitting in his lover’s office and his nights are spent tossing and turning because he misses the comfort of arms around him and he’s just so hungry all the time. And he can’t even get the comfort of visiting Elias in prison because security won’t let him in, tells him that Elias doesn’t want to see him.
He misses Elias. Misses the way he laughed and the methodical way he’d get dressed in the morning and the gentle press of his lips when he came to get Jon to go home every night and the way he couldn’t cook if his life depended on it but he still tries. Jon just misses everything about him, about their relationship.
I doubt he would resist the Beholding after that. I doubt he’d fight against Knowing and Seeing when it’s the only thing tying him to the man he loves. When Elias gets out of prison, Jon would crumple against him and they’d finally be truly united.
Hoo boy, this got long.
After he wakes up from the coma and retrieves Daisy from the Buried and has to learn how to live without someone at his side, Daisy and Georgie are the only people who support and help him.
Martin is jealous and bitter, Melanie is furious, and Basira is just disappointed and wants nothing to do with him. But Daisy hovers over Jon at work, snarling at anyone who so much as looks at him wrong, and helps him feel safer and more secure when he’s alone. And Georgie doesn’t understand but she knows him and loves him and doesn’t want to see him suffer, so she invites him over to her flat and keeps him company in his big, empty house, cuddling on the couch with him and sharing meals and bringing the Admiral over for play and cuddle time.
Neither of them get it. But they get Jon, and they’ll be there for him just like he’s been there for them.