21 with jonelias? :3c
“I don’t want it,” Jon says in shaky refusal, squeezing his eyes shut as the corona grows brighter. He’s already on his knees, trembling too badly to move as he waits for it to kill him or take him. Make him want it.
You never wanted this, Elias told him, back at the beginning of it all, that infuriating patronizing look on his face, but I’m afraid you absolutely did choose it.
Jon never wanted to complete the Watcher’s Crown. Never wanted to bring the Eye into the world. All Jon wanted to do was–save Martin, save Daisy, stop Dekker, and finally rest.
“That’s not entirely true,” Elias says, brushing his hand against Jon’s cheek. His voice is thick, glutted with some unknown emotion. “You wanted more than that, Jon.”
It’s true. He wanted to know. He hadn’t wanted to die without finally knowing the mystery, the secret that will define his death as it defines his life, the–the truth at the center of the labyrinth. He wanted to know, and he wanted to save the people he loved, and he wanted to stop the Extinction, and he didn’t particularly care about living, and that led him here, to this stone room, clutching the man who did this to him for balance, a terrible victory about to swallow him whole.
“You see,” Elias says, stroking his thumb against Jon’s cheekbone, his other hand fitting itself to Jon’s skull, tipping his head up to the crackling ring descending over them both. “Your choices really have been your own. Not so bad, is it?”
“It’s–the–end of the world,” Jon chokes out from between his teeth, keeping his eyes stubbornly closed. He chose that, he supposes, and the Eye hasn’t even granted him the courtesy of, of ignorance. There’s no anesthetic, no place beyond fear for him. The world behind his eyes grows brighter, the corona obviously nearly upon them.
“It isn’t going to hurt,” Elias says, and if he weren’t so obviously wracked with–anticipation, or arousal, or joy, or whatever it is he’s feeling–Jon might call his voice amused. “Nothing can hurt you now.”
“I’m–I–still–don’t–want it,” Jon manages, and then flinches hard when Elias lets out a high, shocked sound, his hands suddenly clawing at Jon’s skin.
Jon can’t help himself, and that’s exactly the problem, isn’t it? The reason the world is ending, the reason the Eye has never taken pity on him, the choice he can never stop himself from making. He opens his eyes, and looks.
Elias is–
Elias has been–
Elias is crowned. The second corona is in his hands, electric and impossible. He’s crying.
“Oh,” Jon says, the air punched out of his lungs. It is–beautiful.
Look, Elias says, or–thinks, or–wants, somewhere in the center of Jon’s chest, in the ache behind his eyes. He lifts the crown in his hands. Come and see.
Jon cannot stop himself from wanting it, cannot help himself from saying yes.