what if i was the orchestrator of your apotheosis, and you were the godhead at the center of two centuries of my all-consuming devotion… and we were both boys
the first of hopefully several “the silence of the lambs” jonelias redraws!! I watched it for the first time with @paradisepuppet today and we had some….. feelings :)
i’ve been thinking of a scenario where in late s3 jon is in elias’ office discussing plans for stopping the unknowing and when jon asks a question elias pulls the ol’ “try to know” trick and jon whines and is like “i have no idea what that means, tell me what the hell i’m supposed to be doing” and elias very calmly condescends “it’s like exercising a muscle, jon, i can’t do it for you”
and then after some vague platitudes about breathing deeply and focusing with intent jon… does know. he knows where to find the answer to his question, knows exactly the right statement. knows exactly where it’s filed away. and then he knows the answer intuitively, without even reading it. and then he knows more. he knows quite a lot, actually. he knows… actually quite a bit more than elias would have expected at this stage.
and suddenly the exercise has gotten away from him. jon’s pupils are blown wide. his expression is manic, “elias… i can see it. i know what to do i know how to stop it, i-” he rises from his chair and elias shrinks back into his.
“i can see,” jon says, breathlessly, “i can see the things that i point my mind to, i- i- i can see rosie, just outside the door. i can see- tim! tim is at his desk for the first time in… god, in weeks. a- a- and martin, i can see martin, he’s- he’s filing through our historic foreign language statements and-”
jon stops suddenly and turns towards elias, who can feel his gaze on him like a lead weight dropped squarely in the center of his chest. a moment of deafening silence stretches between them. then quietly, haltingly, jon rasps, “i can see… you.”
the way this is the first and only time jonah compels jon and the fact that he can do it implicitly through written text but without ever explicitly stating an order to continue onward in that text 😩😵💫
the way even with the tremendous amount of power jonah has to make jon read this in the first place it’s still just a tug in a direction he was already leaning
the way that like any voyeur (like any comic book villain ;) jonah’s greatest wish at the culmination of his many lives’ work is to be seen. to be known. by the one person in the whole world who was fit to be crafted in his master’s image.
ok i should give this a caption. day 5. uhh religious devotion. cult au also if u ignore the fact that its very very catholic. legit used a catholic priest and that guy from placebo as a reference. yeah.
i actually. ok. so i think MAG 160.2 jonny says for the characters dnd classes elias would be a cleric, which makes sense. and jon would be a warlock that thinks hes a druid. also makes sense. this is that.
A horrible, uncomfortable little laugh bubbles in his chest as this chunk of his magnetic tape heart pulls away from the rest, as his wet eyes search Jon’s eyes and eyes and eyes, their two figures framed by those still, silent wings. Of course it was always going to lead to this. Perhaps there won’t be anything left of him, by the time Jon is finished. Perhaps Jon already started devouring him the moment they first crossed paths all those years ago.
He holds out the piece in his bloody palm, nothing more than a dark tangle still attached by a few strands, and takes a slow, shaky breath.
“Take it.”
JonElias Week 2023, Day 6: Dreams and Nightmares. This is an excerpt from a scene @paradisepuppet and I wrote during NaNo last year.
