In the sci-fi au I’m picturing the ship as like a research vessel
So new researchers arriving, all the previous ones are gone. When they ask why they say something about an accident then are ushered aboard. Only they find out that’s not completely true there is still one person aboard.
Elias greeting them as the ship’s ai and off to the side is another person watching them. The researchers barely spare him a glance until they notice the wires and plates stitched together with skin. His eyes are far away, as he stands completely still, introduced as the head engineer of the ship, until Elias’s speech is finished then he leaves.
The new researchers learning quickly to say nothing bad about the head engineer, but also not to try to get close either. Trying to talk to the head engineer about stuff other than work is almost as dangerous as insulting him.
Workplace accidents can happen to anyone after all.
Jon thinking the researchers avoid him because of his altered form, not knowing Elias is purposefully isolating him. Jon’s reliance on the ship being reinforced, and Elias reminding him every night that only he will ever care about him.
Jon knowing that Elias could actually give him someone else to lean on. Whatever Elias did to him could be done to others. Of course three things stop him. One he doesn’t really want to condemn anyone else to be what he is now, something not quite human but not quite machine, just stuck. Two, he doubts Elias would, Jon knows that she ship has an unhealthy fondness for him, that it wouldn’t put up for anyone having the chance to fill the void inside Jon, other than himself. Three, and the one he doesn’t really want to admit to himself, what if Elias likes the newer model better? Jon does t think he could truly handle the idea of Elias ever leaving him, even if he hates him so much at times for what he did. He’s still Jon’s first and only love, and treats Jon like he’s treasured.
So the Jon watches another batch of researchers leave the station to go on with their lives while he can never change. Maybe another little tether to humanity snaps inside him. Elias whispering softly to him that he’s there for him, that he always will be. That Jon has to get used to losing people, because that is what will be, but Jon will never lose him.
Jon laying his head against at Elias’s motherboard, listening to the soft hum, trying to categorize his feeling. He can’t even cry for those he’s lost, he can only lay here, and let the hum of machinery lull him to not quite sleep.
