2021-09-27 15:58:55 ¶ ●

## The Death and the Funeral of Elias Bouchard

Written for @lonelyeyesweek

Day 7 - Death

Jonathan Sims and the rest of the archival crew really managed to do it. They prevented the apocalypse from happening and killed Elias Bouchard. They can now finally quit the institute and live happily ever after as far from London as they can. Happy to be gone they could not care less about Elias’ funeral taking place. Only one who really seems to care enough to show up is Peter Lukas…

Read on AO3

…

Funeral ceremony is about to start in a few minutes and Peter knows he should leave now because he really hates the “talking about the dead and remembering them” part but he simply cannot tear his look away from his husband. The lifeless body lying in the casket simply does not look like his Elias at all.

He knows that it is him. He can clearly recognize all his way too familiar features but there is something off about him and Peter cannot pinpoint what. The hair, the suit, the face… it all looks fine. More or less. As if some little yet important detail is missing. What is it? Maybe how peaceful he looks? Elias is was always quite restless and he looked tense even in his sleep. Or it might be the lack of facial expression? Elias is was very expressive; he could win the whole argument with just raised eyebrow. Or maybe this is the most obvious thing…

His eyes are closed.

Peter feels something weird happening inside him. Something that never happens at the funerals of his family. As if his chest was too tight and something was pushing on it. Could it be the feeling of grief he has heard so much about?

The servant of the Lonely is really glad that there are not many people. It is not really a surprise though. After Elias died he left a bit of a vacuum behind; there is no new head immediately stepping in as successor who would force all the employees to attend. Also lots of people working at the Magnus Institute left their jobs after the incident. Still in Peter’s taste it is starting to get crowded. At least in a close proximity to the coffin. So he retreats.

However, that proves to be a mistake. As soon as he moves to the more secluded part of the room he is approached by someone who apparently considers funerals a good place for starting a small talk.

“It is rather lovely. A bit small but it still has the atmosphere… don’t you think?”

“Hm.” The bits of fog start appearing around him. Maybe if he will simply ignore him…

“Ah, pardon my manners. Percival Knightly, pleasure to meet you,” the man offers him a hand. Peter does not even look at it.

“I am not in the mood.”

“Of course understandable. May I at least ask you how exactly did you know the deceased…?”

“No, you may not.”

“It was really such a tragedy. I have heard he was murdered in a quite brutal manner. Have you by any chance-”

“I mean it, Jonah. I am not in a mood for your games.” Peter sighs. He has really been quite enjoying the feeling of loss and grief but of course to enjoy it for too long would be asking too much. He cannot be a mourning widower even one day.

Young man with way too familiar gray eyes sighs. “You are taking away my only source of entertainment these days.” He drops the façade of his charming innocence of someone still full of hopes, dreams and ambitions. Peter must admit he is surprised Elias Jonah can still slip into the role with such ease. Then again he used to know him as James too and it was strange at first to get used to Elias’ face after he switched bodies.

Back then Peter swore to himself he would not stick around long enough for Jonah to skip bodies again. Yet here they are…

“Are you sure it is wise to show up here?”

“It is fine. Besides… They are not here, are they? And even if they were… They never learnt the whole truth.” They is of course referring to Elias’ former Archivist, Martin and some other people from the Archives Jonah was surely telling him about as well but Peter never bothered to learn their names.

“Did you know they could do that? Quit?”

“I am surprised none of them show up to… I don’t know. Ruin the ceremony. Curse me in front of everyone. Spit on my grave. Just to make sure I am really dead…” It is funny because Elias Percival seems to be much more hurt that they have not arrived at his funeral than he is about the part when they murdered him.

“No… but I suppose it makes sense. I am not fully alive when the… switch is happening. And this time especially there was quite a big time window.” Elias Percival frowns, probably getting lost in his thoughts. Peter lets him. They stay together in the background but none of them really pay any attention to the silly words spoken, telling the lie the life of Elias Bouchard was.

“I’ve been to enough of my funerals to know you usually don’t meet there the people you expect. On the other hand you are sometimes surprised by the presence of some others you did not expect to be there…”

“How does it feel? That you are not worthy for them to even do that?” Peter cannot help himself but ask. Elias Percival shrugs.

“Like?”

“I did not think you would come.” Peter feels those bright gray eyes piercing through him in attempts to read his intentions. He honestly regrets a bit that he came right now. He was not ready to see him yet. Of course he does not plan to tell him that.

“I like funerals.”

“You’ve swore you won’t go to another one again after James’.” Yes, he indeed did. At the time Jonah had not introduced himself to him by his real name yet nor explained his body skipping trick to him. Peter was naturally quite upset when some new Head of the Institute tried to start a conversation while he wanted to mourn deceased partner. He was even angrier when he learnt for what a fool Jonah played him. But that all was ages ago…

“I guess I forgot.”

“That sounds a lot like you.” Elias Percival nods.

They stand next to each other in peaceful silence for a bit watching the priest giving a speech. The ceremony is at its end quickly as none of the people who bothered to show up really want to add anything more to the scripted generic summary. And so it is over soon and people start leaving.

“That certainly was one of my weaker funerals,” Jonah sighs as they leave the building side by side as Peter has not had any plans for the day anyway and so he lets his partner in yet another new body to choose their path. There seems to be something that is still bothering him as one can easily recognize by the fact that he is silent and not already informing him about his new plans or complaining about the state of his Institute.

He does not have to ask nor wait for too long to learn what is on his mind.

“I suppose I owe you now. For what you’ve done… There is quite a high chance I would die without your assistance.” There is no way Jonah would survive without his help. However he doesn’t bother to correct him. He is very grateful for the way he worded it.

“I guess you do…” The incident Elias Percival is referring to now… well… Peter is not sure what exactly happened that day as he is always trying to know as little as he can about his Institute. It probably started a few weeks back when Jonah’s precious Archivist woke up from coma and joined the tense situation in the Archives. They were still unhappy how they failed to frame Elias for murder.

Apparently they decided to take a different approach to removing Elias. They managed to find and hide away some artifact that could cut the connection between the avatar and the entity they serve. So naturally they decided to murder Elias with it – removing his usual regenerating powers and his tie to the institute. Peter does not know any details as he only found Elias’ body lying lifeless in his office when he came by later that day. He tried removing the artifact which he easily pinpointed as the cause. He assumed it might lead to his Eye regenerating powers activating again. But it did nothing. Elias was still very much dead. And it seemed so unreal to Peter that he could have really been caught off guard like this. That there is no backup plan this time. That this might be it? Elias- no, Jonah Magnus might really be dead…

Even though… his eyes were still there, opened in the terror of the attack he did not see coming for once and the eyes should be the only thing that really mattered right…?

It was probably stupid idea trying to save him. He really tried it just because he did not believe it could work. The body of the host, Elias, was dead. Jonah’s original body… well Peter could never find a way to panopticon on his own so no point in checking that one. So it was really almost just an experiment out of curiosity. So long story short and spared all the gory details, Peter grabbed the first employee that went around and performed the whole eye switching thing. It somehow worked as the man currently standing next to him is proof of that.

Even though curiosity is against Peter’s nature he wonders what was happening to Jonah in those hours his eyes were left in a dead body. Was he conscious in some weird way? Was he dead for a while? Peter may wonder but he will certainly not ask and so he will probably never learn the answer. He looks at Percival carefully trying to notice something off about Jonah he knows… Some signs left after his near death experience…

No there is nothing. Percival looks exactly as the same smug bastard as Elias and James before him.

“Actually I will give you a way to repay your debt immediately.” Percival looks like he would love to protest which is understandable. The man he took over used to be just some regular librarian. It will very likely require lots of arguing, blackmailing and maybe even help from the institutes main benefactor (so Peter again) for Jonah to get himself in the position of the Head of the institute. But debt is a debt. He nods.

“I am listening?”

“Don’t talk about it. Ever. It never happened and our relationship will continue as if I was not involved at all in your latest body skip.” Peter does not want to be reminded of this failure of his toward the Lonely. He had the perfect opportunity to abandon him and let die the only person he ever cared about yet… He just could not do that. He just had to save that annoying voyeur

“As you wish.” Elias Percival raises an eyebrow and licks his lips. He looks like there are many questions going through his head and that he is also drawing a lot of conclusions but Peter is content with that as long as all the thoughts stay in his head.

The awkward silence falls on them. Not for long though as Jonah still appears to be very much himself.

“Now with that thing solved… I will need to go with you over few things I might use your assistance for. First thing I will need you to withdraw Lukas family funding contribution so-”

Or maybe not because this does not sound as anything Jonah would request with a sane mind.

“What? You want me to stop sending money to your institute?!”

“Oh no, not really. And don’t interrupt me! What I was getting to is that I need you to only pretend you and other benefactors are concerned about the future of the Magnus Institute, you know with all those ridiculous doubting the institutions and just because of a little murder,” Percival takes a deep breath as he is getting a bit aggravated, “Anyhow that is not the point. The important is the part where you proclaim that in the end you changed your mind after a talk with me. Percival is too young to be considered for a future Head otherwise. And since I do not have any documentation naming him prepared I need to do something to get myself into the spotlight. This little success might be enough to at least consider me for the position. Then I can deal with the concurrence through good old fashioned black mail… Any questions?”

“Uh… just… can you tell me just what exactly am I supposed to do without all the other information?” Percival smiles and takes his hand.

“Yes, yes I will walk you through it. Though it would be easier doing it over dinner… don’t you think?”

…

So this kind of overlap with the prompt new body and I originally wanted to post two fics yesterday but I didn’t manage to finish my afterlife fic so apologies this is falling in the rebirth category now! Though of course I claimed Death to be the official prompt in attempt to fool you and make you at least for a bit believe I would really just kill Jonah…

Also apologies to my dear friend Percy for stealing their name for Jonah’s new body. It just sounded like a name he would like…