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Everything is...great. The week has gone...perfectly well. This is true, but any measure Jon can think to use: he hasn't fought with Tim since last Friday, he's divided his time neatly between Elias and his own activities without sensing any particular strain on either, work has been more or less uneventful and left him plenty of time with Gertrude's laptop, he's actually slept most nights, for the first time in weeks.
And yet, Jon doesn't feel Great or Perfectly Well. He's perpetually exhausted, in spite of all the sleeping, in a way that makes him wonder if this is what people training for a marathon feel like, except the only marathon he's running is attempting to stay awake in the space of time between leaving Elias's room at dragging himself back to his own. That's another thing - it's unsettling how quickly his brain has decided the guest room at his boss-turned-boyfriend's house is his room. There are already more clothes there now than there were before. There is a throw blanket from Jon's apartment, interrupting the pristinely white surface of the feather comforter. There's an ashtray hidden in the bathroom.
Even then, if it were only Jon's physical form that was tired, that would be one thing. It would be bizarre (he's well aware that it never actually occurred to him that getting into this situation with someone he perceives as a Normal Person would result in...a lot more physical affection than he's used to, for lack of a better broad description), but infinitely less overwhelming than the reality. And the reality is that Jon, in addition to sporting an impressive collection of physical bruises and tooth marks by now, is holding his brain together with paperclips and fishing wire.
He's known for the majority of the week that he needs to speak with Elias about the key to the tunnels. But biding his time is difficult, when the words want to come bursting out of him every time they're alone. And he has to bide his time. If he'd asked too soon, he knows, he wouldn't get his way... Besides - he was really hoping there might simply be an opportunity to steal the key back without being noticed.
There wasn't. He isn't even sure where Elias is keeping the damn thing now. Every time he's pulled out his key ring, Jon has stared at them perhaps a bit too obviously, scanning for the one he needs. It's never there. Jon had hoped he would find a way to get into Elias's office alone again, but that hasn't happened, and it's equally impossible to get into his bedroom or any other place in the house without being seen or questioned, either. The only places Jon is regularly alone are his own room and the kitchen, and it's certainly not hidden in plain sight in either of those places.
So he has to ask. Which is no terrible thing, it's what he assumed he would have to do anyway, but it is a bit disappointing, and Jon is a bit over tired, a bit over annoyed, a bit too high strung, on Saturday evening.
He argues fruitlessly over the merits of takeaway versus making supper, in the car on the way from the Institute to Elias's house, pretends to "forget" to take his shoes off before stomping across the carpet in the living room, and makes far, far too much noise for it to not be Extremely Intentional, while indeed cooking the supper he attempted to argue against.
(Not that it isn't, ultimately, nice to do so. It's the one span of time in the day, between violent and fast paced chopping and loud slams of cookware into each other, that Jon's mind actually feels clear and invigorated.)
Afterwards, he makes coffee even though it's too late for that, and gives himself jitters he tries to tamp back down with wine, but not too much wine, because he has to keep thinking, and he has to wait, because somewhere, sometime, at some point, there is going to be a right moment to rid himself of all this tension and just ask the question. Until then, he sits glowering at a book on his phone, certain he's reading, but not absorbing any of the information on the page, until at least the third time he's read over it.
This week has been, to look at it one way, an interesting experiment, rewarding and infuriating in equal measure. Elias can't say he hasn't taken great enjoyment from wearing Jon out in the middle of his investigation into Gertrude, giving him more to contend with, physically, in this first stage of their relationship than Jon has experienced in the entire last decade, but it hasn't come without certain consequences.
Elias has always known what a certain level of stress and exhaustion tends to do to Jon. He's seen it in his past, seen it personally at the office, dating back to before he'd even thought to choose him as his Archivist -- surliness, slammed doors, petty impulses. Jon can be aggressive. Jon can be petulant. Jon can be, to put it in less professional terms, a brat, and Elias has - not intentionally, but he can't say he regrets it, either - managed to cultivate the perfect conditions to bring this out in him in full force.
He has to admit, however, that by Saturday, it's beginning to grate on his nerves. Jon's desire to ask about the key has been sitting at the forefront of his thoughts like a neon sign, and any entertainment Elias might have been getting from his behaviour is dwindling. Every slammed cupboard inches him closer to remembering what a real, human headache feels like. Supper isn't even done cooking before he decides that not only is he going to indulge more of Jon's fantasies from the other night, but he's probably going to find himself meaning it, when he does. And if Jon doesn't just ask what he wants to ask, after that, Elias may just have to pry it out of him.
The meal is fine - he might have even considered it good, if he weren't so annoyed - and afterwards, Jon has notably only gotten worse. Elias can tell he's doing more sulking (and thinking about asking) than reading, from where he's sat with his own wine and an email he actually does have to answer, for once, so it's with some satisfaction and purpose that he finishes both off, closes and sets aside his laptop, and gets up, letting out a short, annoyed breath.
He's already close enough to Jon that he can just reach over and pluck his phone from his hands, so he does, and without bothering to look at whatever it was that Jon wasn't actually reading, he drops it onto the coffee table with a loud thud. "Get up."
Jon makes a loud and disgusted sound. He doesn't mean to - if anything, he would have liked not to, in the interest of appearing to be behaving himself. But it happens. It comes out of his mouth accompanied by a vicious eye roll, and Jon starts to lunge forward to pick his phone back up. His first instinct is that he's just going to keep reading, just because -
Well, just because what? Just because he's annoyed, and that isn't frankly a good reason to act this way, when Jon still has things to get done. Ugh. He does, indeed, still have things to get done.
So he pulls his hand back and gets up. He feels tired again immediately, but he shuffles himself into Elias's space, against his side, because it feels natural to now, and because he...wants to. Hm. That's another thing that's strengthened over the course of the week - the level to which Jon wants to be casually close to the other. It feels warm and comfortable and nice to grab onto his arm, even if Jon is annoyed. In fact, it almost soothes some of the annoyance, almost makes him...Well. Slightly less aggravated about the supper argument and subsequent lack of compliments, even though he knows it was good.
It's fine. He makes a loud and frustrated huffing sound, but bonks his head against Elias's arm. "Fine," he says. "I'm up. You don't need to throw my phone."
Elias scowls down at Jon as he cozies up to his arm, and he pulls that arm free, extricating it from Jon's grip. Really? Jon is not only going to continue behaving childishly, but he's going to, in the same moment, act like he hasn't just spent the entire day doing so, by demanding affection?
"I have been trying to understand your behaviour, today," he says as he wrenches his arm away, and he faces Jon, eyeing him like he still can't quite believe what he's had to put up with, this side of Jon he's seeing. "Really. Do you hear yourself? You should be embarrassed."
The scowl embedded in Jon's features only deepens. He flicks that look up at Elias and then pointedly looks away from him again, while he takes his glasses off and sets them on one of the end tables. Odds are, he doesn't need them, for the moment. Better to leave them here, where he can easily get back to them when he retrieves his phone, than accidentally leave them in Elias's room, fall asleep, and then be without them until morning.
Be careful, he tells himself. No amount of annoyance is worth ruining things. And as much as he hates it, it's true that what Elias says to him blazes a flush of humiliation across his face. There will never be a time when the implication that Jon is being immature doesn't get at him.
He can't say he's tired. He's said it too many times recently, Elias won't accept it as a reasonable excuse, anymore. Jon sighs and toes his shoes off, finally, nudging them until they roll under the coffee table and are at least slightly out of the way.
"Am I embarrassing myself, or embarrassing you?" he asks, as mildly as he can. They're the only ones here, there's no necessary sense of propriety. "Are we going upstairs?"
"Remarkably, you're succeeding at both," Elias says coolly, ignoring the question for the moment, temporarily distracted by watching Jon kick his shoes - which he shouldn't even still have on - under the coffee table. "In front of the driver, especially. -- Are you suddenly incapable of putting those where they belong?"
Jon's hatred of feeling immature only adds to the patronisation in Elias's voice. He doesn't wait for an answer, though -- he grabs Jon's shoulder, turns him in the direction of the stairs, and gives him a shove.
"Upstairs, yes. Go. I'll be up in a moment."
Not for any real reason, apart from giving Elias a second to take off his belt. Maybe he wants to see if Jon will consider looking for his key, while he's alone. Maybe he just wants Jon to wonder. It really doesn't matter.
Jon winces. Maybe he was rude in the car, and while normally, that doesn't particularly bother him, he - well, normally, he's at work, and the people there largely deserve his ire. Lucev doesn't. None of it was directed at him, of course, but maybe Jon's self absorption did make his evening worse, and that...isn't very good. He almost feels guilty.
Almost. What he actually feels is annoyed but about to rectify the situation, until Elias pushes him away. He stumbles; one of his socks was pulled half off when he removed the offending shoes, and he nearly trips on the loose part around his toes.
"I'm going," he says, and he's glad he's not facing Elias now, so he can pull a particularly nasty face. He stomps off up the stairs a little too loudly, glad at least that he knows the staircase well enough not to continue stumbling, without his glasses. The clink of Elias's belt buckle doesn't escape him. The sound prickles up his spine and makes him wonder if he'll make it up the steps.
It does indeed hit him, as he goes into the bedroom, that he's never managed to be alone here, before. He looks around, in the dark. There's the writing desk, the tables by the bed, the whole of the adjoining bathroom. But he has no idea what Elias is doing and how long it will take him to stop doing it, and he's never opened any of these drawers before, doesn't know how much noise they make.
As much as the desire burns in his chest, he knows he can't risk it.
So he sits on the foot of the bed, instead, and pulls off his socks. Continues looking around, mentally cataloguing anything his glasses-less vision can identify as a potential hiding spot. He takes off his sweater. He's just going to ask, he reminds himself, in the hopes it will quell some of the burning curiosity. He's going to ask, and if it doesn't work, then he'll figure out when to start to looking.
Elias isn't long. He takes off his belt, undoes the top couple of buttons on his shirt - he'd already taken his tie and waistcoat off, earlier - and follows Jon upstairs, taking his time, belt looped and and gripped idly between both hands.
At the top of the stairs, in the doorway, he stops, his eyes falling on Jon at the foot of the bed. It's quite dim in the room, but not dark; the light seeping from downstairs and from the streetlamps outside the window above the writing desk are enough to describe the other's form. The air feels intimate and muffled, for a moment, at least until Elias steps inside -- though, this time, he doesn't turn on the lamps. He doesn't need to borrow Jon's sight to know how he probably looks, silhouetted in the doorway like this, and call him dramatic, but he quite likes it.
With a sigh of resignation, Elias lets his hands - and the belt, still folded - fall to his sides as he gradually closes the distance between himself and Jon. "I believe I said something to you about not causing trouble for the sake of getting in trouble," he says, and he reaches to stroke Jon's jaw with his free hand. "But I simply can't imagine you're not doing this on purpose. Was our little disciplinary meeting yesterday not enough?"
Honestly, he's surprised Jon can still sit.
The image of Elias in the doorway, faint light spilling from behind him, sends a little thrill through Jon that catches his breath in his throat. It's stunningly beautiful, coldly familiar even though he's never seen exactly this image, exactly this moment, before. Pleasantly terrified anticipation thrums through him. It's so hard to concentrate. He isn't sure he'll be able to, he's still so busy thinking about...everything else. But he's damn well going to try.
He shifts on the mattress, when Elias speaks. Sure, he's sitting, but not quite flat, most of his weight shifted onto one hip. He's been sitting this way all day, it really is difficult to do anything else, but to stand or lie down at every opportunity would draw too much attention to him, maybe make Elias doubt he's good at enough at keeping himself composed.
Right. Composure. That's all this is, this is an exercise in composure.
Carefully, Jon stands, but doesn't move forward, the backs of his knees still touching the bed. It's too dark to see Elias's face clearly anyway, especially without his glasses on, but Jon drops his gaze, looks at the belt in the other's hand, instead.
"If that's what I was doing," he says, "you would know." At least for the moment, his voice is even. "I have...a lot to do, and I haven't been able to get to all of it."
"Do you, now," Elias says idly, dismissively, like it doesn't matter, like he can't imagine what Jon could possibly be so preoccupied with. He can sense the way Jon wants this - whatever this is, to him; whatever he thinks is coming - as well as the way his preoccupation with his investigation is encroaching on it, and Elias feels himself looking forward to driving those thoughts from Jon's mind completely.
He makes a quiet, thoughtful noise, and then the hand at Jon's jaw lets go, fists into his hair, instead; it twists, pulls downward, as he shoves at Jon's shoulder with the hand holding the belt, pushing him to his knees.
"That is a shame. I'd hate to overburden you with additional tasks, but... I'm sure you can handle it," he says, and he could almost laugh at the snideness in his own voice; Jon really has gotten under his skin. He's going to enjoy this. He'd enjoyed yesterday, of course, but his blood is up, tonight.
Jon falls heavily, with a sharp, startled sound. His scalp is tender, the pain is exponentially brighter, every time; his hair has been pulled so often in the past week, and Elias always finds exactly the same spot, somehow, yanks Jon's neck into exactly the same angle. One of his knees strikes the floor too hard, shock reverberating through it in spite of the rug. He sways forward, catches himself with one hand on the top of Elias's foot.
"The next time you don't want to overburden me, let me order in." He's aware it's petty, he's aware there's no point complaining about having to make a meal Elias refused to care about, but it's the only thing he can complain about, so it's going to have to serve as an effigy for everything else that's annoying him.
He flicks his gaze back up to Elias, through the strands of his hair that have fallen over his face. Carefully, he sits himself back properly, takes his hand off Elias's foot. Maybe, if he looks like he's behaving and keeping his spine straight and not touching, the attitude lingering in his voice won't be as obvious. Maybe.
It's an admirable - if bitterly amusing - effort; as if Elias can miss his tone, or the rehashing of their earlier argument, both of which flare a prickling, dangerous heat in his chest.
He lets go of Jon's hair, his gaze boring down on him, and there's a tiny, disappointed shake of Elias's head before he delivers a backhanded strike across Jon's face. Yes, that does feel good, and there's no denying that the sound, the crack, is satisfying.
"That is enough, Jon," Elias says sharply, savouring the tactile echo of Jon's skin and stubble against his hand, and he takes the belt, loops the end through the buckle, and slips the loop over Jon's head, until the belt is finally around Jon's neck -- and, gripping the hair at the top of Jon's head, pulling it backwards to better expose his face in the dark, he pulls. Just enough to shut him up. Just enough to hurt.
The sound is deafening from Jon's perspective, rattling his jaw and his teeth and his eardrums. The pace of his breathing picks up almost immediately, accompanied by a faint tingle in his extremities that he's begun to realize is the earliest sign of his brain's desire to float away into somewhere comfortable and obedient and unthinking. It's nice, when he gets there. It's lovely to float. But he has to let himself get there, and his mind is too on fire at the moment.
He pushes the feeling down, or tries, even the belt loops around his neck, some of his hair catching in the metal of the buckle and pulling even before Elias ever grabs for the top of his head. Jon grunts, one hand reaching for Elias's hand in his hair, the other instinctively grabbing for the loop of leather around his neck.
He doesn't want to pull it loose, not really. They talked about it, his heart is wild with wanting it, but it's still...
Well, it's still scary. He gulps, his throat pushing the belt, his breath dragging when he pulls it into his lungs, but he still can breath, and he forces the hand at his own neck back down, staring wide-eyed back up at Elias.
There's just that silence between them, for a moment: breathing, tense, as Elias holds the belt taut and watches Jon's instinctual reaction, watches him push past it. He really does admire Jon's lack of concern for his own safety. Elias had known it would serve him well, but really, he'd had no idea, had he?
Without breaking eye contact, he lets go of Jon's hair again, reaches to unbutton his own trousers and slip his hand inside, and he palms over the beginnings of his erection, not pulling himself free just yet.
The look on Jon's face is perfect. Almost.
"Good," he says quietly, condescendingly, eyebrows quirking, and, as if struck by a sudden thought, he pulls his hand from his trousers, instead forcing three of his fingers past Jon's lips, into his mouth. "Clearly I'm going to have to keep your mouth otherwise occupied until you've lost the attitude. Take them."
Jon holds the stare; that, at least, has gotten easier for him, over the past week. He can look at Elias longer, without losing his nerve. When the lights are on, he can almost feel himself disappear in the other's eyes, a part of the floating.
The floating he still can't quite access now, with his nerves too high, and the room too dark and blurry around him. He grips at his own thigh, fingernails digging in, his other hand squeezing tighter, looser, tighter, pulsing around Elias's wrist.
He starts to shake his head when the fingertips press into his lips, tries to shut his mouth and keep it closed. But that doesn't work, he isn't fast enough, Elias's fingers but into his teeth and then they're sliding over his tongue, feeling ungainly and too heavy. Jon makes a sound, his tongue bouncing and pressing against Elias, but unable to form words.
He squeezes harder at the other's wrist, though he's not sure entirely what he's trying to communicate, just that he is trying to.
At once, Elias tugs at the belt and thrusts his fingers deeper into Jon's mouth, holding down his tongue, bumping against his teeth, fingertips curling over the back of that convulsing muscle and threatening to press even deeper. There's no point to this, really, apart from the fact that he can, that Jon clearly doesn't want him to, and that a little slickness on his fingers when he returns them to his cock certainly won't hurt.
"I told you to take them, Jon," Elias says lowly, very aware of the squeeze of Jon's fingers around his wrist, and the look in his eyes, which Elias meets with impenetrable coldness, just tinged with derision. "It's not too much for you, is it?"
The squeeze around Jon's throat makes his whole face feel tight, a pressure that creeps around his jaw and into his cheekbones and behind his eyes. It makes his throat feel tight, even with Elias's fingers only just starting to press into it, and the air he drags in through his nose is too warm.
He should stop making noise, but he can't. At least, this time, it's vaguely affirmative, if whiny. His heart hammers and his breaths are too quick and too shallow, but he closes his lips around the fingers in his mouth and suckles at them, pressing his tongue into the space between two of them, letting his mouth water and his saliva pool around them.
It's difficult, but he wrenches his hand off Elias's wrist and reaches forward to rub at him through the front of his trousers. It's not just his strained, small breaths that burn, his whole face feels too hot, and he does wonder, in a faintly detached and academic way, what will happen if Elias keeps squeezing and sticks something down his throat at the same time.
Before Jon reaches for him, Elias relaxes his hand into Jon's mouth, rubs the pads of his fingers over Jon's tongue, and yes, that's it, good --
But then Jon moves his hand, presses against him, and he feels his cock twitch in response -- Elias makes a noise of irritation and pulls his hand back, taking a mess of saliva with it, to bat Jon's hand away and curl those now-slick fingers around himself, again, and stroke.
"Don't," he warns, though he does loosen the belt, for now, to let some blood back into Jon's head, to let him breathe for a moment while Elias works himself up a little more. He feels his pulse picking up, feels his breaths getting heavier. "No surprises tonight, Jon. As I recall, you were the one who asked for adequate punishment when it's warranted."
At least Jon has the sense to choke out a "Sorry," on the tail end of a cough that would have sprayed the rest of his mouthful of spit straight at Elias, had he not thrown his arm up in front of his face, before it happened.
As soon as he gets a blissful, cooling, full breath of air in his lungs, he feels less sorry. If Elias doesn't want him to touch, he thinks, he should say. Jon doesn't think it's fair to play a game where one party only knows half the rules. He'll do it, he doesn't have much of an option, but he has noticed - it's always like that. Elias is always holding cards he doesn't show Jon, and punishing Jon for failing to divine them.
(Which, in a way, if one asked him when he was feeling calm and agreeable, Jon would say he likes that. It's exhilarating, it lets him forget himself and relinquish control of himself in a that feels fulfilling and pleasant. It's an accomplishment, to roll with the metaphorical punches and sort out the parameters he's meant to follow.)
But Elias is right. Jon did say that, and he did mean it. He sucks in another rattling breath that shakes his chest and makes him dizzy as the oxygen rushes back into his lungs. Just for good measure, he sneaks in one more touch, dragging his palms down the fronts of Elias's thighs, and then drops them behind his back. "I did," he agrees. "It's...whatever you say is fair."
Elias responds to that touch with another sharp tug of the belt, but Jon does put his hands behind his back, so it's not as sharp as it could be. They won't be here long, anyway; he's just getting started.
Finally, he pulls himself free of his trousers, pulls the belt tighter around Jon's throat again. He's almost disappointed with the ready agreement after that flare of frustrated insight from Jon, but that's not going to matter, shortly.
He doesn't wait, doesn't ask. Elias reaches, pries his thumb in between Jon's teeth, pulls his mouth open, and presses inside with a low, intent sigh.
Jon coughs and his body bows forward into the intrusion. He should be as used to this as he is to anything else, but normally Elias lets him start it, lets him take him in at his own pace at first.
This is not that. This is a yank on his jaw and saliva welling over his bottom lip and the gag in his throat as the belt pulls tighter and his air rapidly depletes. He wriggles in place, struggling to keep his arms back, his hands gripping at his own wrists and then fisting in the back of his shirt.
The impulsive lean forward almost gags him but he can still fight it down, swallowing thickly around Elias and closing his lips again to suck at him while he tries to pull a breath in through his nose.
He knows he should relax. He knows better than not to, but it's hard coming, even as he tries to tell himself he knows what this is, that this is the fair punishment for his behavior.
He sways. Between the tightness of the belt around him and the gasping over indulgent breath of air beforehand, he's light-headed. But he can do it. He works his tongue against Elias and tries to stay quiet.
Even in the dark, Elias can see Jon's struggle, internal and external, clear as day -- a fine replacement for the attitude. He doesn't want to keep at this for long, but he can't resist letting himself enjoy Jon's mouth around him, the way he's still trying even as Elias changes the game by charging into him like this. It's as attractive a quality as it is baffling.
"That's better," he hums, moving his hips just enough to enjoy the friction, to work himself up to what's next. "Much better."
The what's next can wait just a moment, though -- Jon had been curious, and Elias is sure he can reward them both with an answer. He rocks deeper into Jon's mouth a couple of times, suddenly, and then he's pulling the belt tight, and then he's going as deep as he can go, for a few seconds, into the squeezed-too-tight heat of Jon's throat, a rush flaring all the way through him --
And then before Jon's lightheadedness can progress to a point of any real concern, before his body can instinctively fight too hard, Elias lets go of the belt and pulls from Jon's mouth completely.
For a split second, Jon wonders if he said something out loud, at some point. No, of course not - this is only the natural coming together of what they do anyway, and the added element of the belt around his neck. Still, he feels a little naked and strangely as if he's been waiting for it, anticipating it, when Elias pushes into the back of his throat.
No amount of imagined anticipation makes it easy, though.
If he thought he was dying the night Elias pulled him back over the arm of the couch, he thinks it much more firmly now. His neck feels like snapping, his skull like it's going to explode, his throat like a frail and tiny thing with no opening at all. There's a cough stuck in his chest that is so violent and so trapped that he convulses, his whole ribcage feeling stuck to itself, the same awful, seizing, burning as breathing in a mouthful of pool water.
His eyes are closed, but spots pop darkly behind his eyelids, anyway. The dizziness rises and rises, a cloud forming at the top of his skull, and then he drops.
Really drops, his hands flying out to catch him and narrowly missing landing on Elias's feet or trousers again. The belt hangs like a leash and Jon's vision goes white and then clear again, that cough welling out of him finally and shaking his whole body.
Elias takes a step back, watches Jon fall, feels a sort of satisfaction at seeing him shudder on hands and knees at his feet like this. He gives him a moment to recover, to drag air back into his lungs and finish dripping spit onto the rug, before he bends and tilts Jon's face roughly back up to look at him. To think he looks this wrecked already, when Elias has barely started.
"Take your clothes off," he says simply, once he's sure the dizziness and disorientation have subsided just enough that Jon can actually take in what he's saying. "Leave the belt."
How? flickers through the front of Jon's mind. The lure of giving in and comfortably floating away has never been stronger, looking up at Elias and trying to follow the unfocused shape of his lips in the dark as he speaks. But he feels... Well. Like it's somehow Elias's fault he can't get there, that if he wouldn't have stopped, would have kept going once he started it, Jon would be there by now.
Maybe that's the punishment - never quite letting Jon drop into that space in his head.
"Give me a minute," he says, his voice wavering. He shakes his chin free from the other's hand, too defiantly for someone whose neck already feels raw where the rub of the leather intersects with the lingering tenderness of earlier bite marks.
Jon's fingers feel too unwieldy to do it, but he manages to get the hair tie off his wrist and around his hair so it isn't half stuck between the belt and his neck, anymore. He takes another trembly breath, pulls his shirt off before he decides to work up the nerve to stand again. It only makes the blood rush to his head a little too hard.
He makes an executive decision, mid-shedding of his trousers and his underwear, that he's going to get on the bed. If that's wrong, well - it'll be easy enough to yank him back on the ground. But his knees hurt, and kneeling isn't even remotely helpful to the bruises speckling the back of him from his waist to his knees. Mattress is better. Lying down will be even more better, if he's allowed to. But for now he sits.
Elias straightens back up and watches Jon undress, allowing himself a small smile in the darkness; he looks into Jon's mind rather than just letting his thoughts brush past, and he sees Jon come to a conclusion he'd hoped he would. No surprises tonight, no, and also no settling into nothingness. Not in the usual way, anyway. Jon has done that enough times, this week, and although Elias has enjoyed it, he wants Jon's presence, this time. He's not going to check out of this.
He makes no move to remove Jon from the bed; no, that's exactly where he wants him. Instead, as Jon gets settled, Elias finishes undressing, too, then crosses the floor to the closet. It's dark, almost impossible to see inside, but Elias knows what he's looking for -- he reaches in deep, into one of the little shelves for his work shoes, and pulls out a soft length of rope, tucking it into his hand.
"Lie down," he says curtly, returning to the end of the bed. "And roll over."
It almost makes Jon mad, it really does, that no matter how he feels, it's so natural to listen to orders in this context. Anywhere else, any time else, it's not. But here, with his lungs still burning and his bruises aching and the darkness of the room pressing comfortably around him, it's too easy, even if he's annoyed, even if he's trying to be petulant.
He eyes Elias warily, but he can't really tell what he's doing, and it's pointless to try without his glasses. He huffs loudly, more for show than anything else, just a reminder that he's in a bad mood, lest either of them be tempted to forget it. And then he does lie down on his stomach, just far enough down the bed that his head doesn't quite touch the pillows.
Only after he's there does it occur to him that it will be infinitely harder, if not impossible, to get his fingers inside the belt if he has to, the next time it tightens. The thought makes him shiver. He curls his fingers in the comforter and tells himself the shiver is all excitement, and that he's not afraid.
He's a little afraid.
"What would you do," he muses out loud, though it's mostly a rhetorical question, "if I hadn't?" Mostly rhetorical. He does want to know how this would go, if he said no, or simply refused to move, without formally safewording out of the situation. If he didn't need to ask about the key, he might have tested it just to see, but - well, he knows there's a limit to how far he can push his luck tonight.
Jon certainly is a little afraid, and Elias can feel it, feel an echo of his shiver, like its own kind of caress.
He climbs onto the bed, over top of Jon, and just for the tone - and, really, for the question itself, because he's still feeling a bit spiteful - he delivers a slap to Jon's backside, unconcerned with the placement of any of yesterday's bruises, before moving up his body just a little more.
"I don't know, Jon," he says airily, like he absolutely does know, "Use your imagination. You've seen where acting out has got you so far."
To wit: Elias drops the rope to the side and grabs Jon's arms, wrenching them both up above the other's head as he straddles his lower back. Gripping tightly, Elias reaches for the rope again, finding the end and beginning to lash Jon's wrists together with a practiced confidence that he hopes scares Jon just that little bit more.
Jon jerks against the bed with a yelp. That slap, like the one to the side of his face, earlier, reverberates through him, through every other tender place on his skin. Painful as it is, it's nice, it's familiar; now that he's lying on his stomach, he almost wants it to keep happening, see how long he can tolerate it before he's unable to sit or move at all.
The wanting almost makes him miss what Elias is saying. He hears the tone more than the words, and then his brain catches up to what's happening, just in time to make a belated and futile attempt at resisting. He tugs back against Elias's grip, but he doesn't have enough leverage to do anything except twist his own wrist in the other's grasp.
And then that spike of fear Elias waited for does come. If Jon was aware a moment ago that it would be harder now to free himself of the belt, it's now undeniably going to be impossible. The knowledge prickles over his skin like needles. Combined with Elias's answer to Jon's question, this feels like a threat. He twists, rolling his shoulder back to test how much room he has to move, how close he can get to turning onto his side, how much slack there is in the grip on his hands, and - well. And nothing really happens; he's securely pinned, and his arms are being held too securely between the rope and Elias's lingering grip, for him to get anywhere.
Vaguely, he remembers they...talked about this. Sort of, anyway. Not really. It was late, Jon was in his own flat, but he did say it was all right. He asked. So, he tells himself, he ought to be able to calm down, and stop breathing so shallowly. He can't, so he thinks he'd better say, "What, um. What do I do if I need you to stop?" Surely he won't be able to speak, and he doesn't think Elias has anything in the room that Jon can hold and drop, but he also wonders if maybe that's part of the point and there is no answer to this question, either.
Elias reasserts his grip on Jon's wrists, holds him down for a moment until he stops squirming, and then resumes. That panic and resistance do send a pleasant chill through him, though, and he breathes out a low sigh, grinding down against Jon's back as he finishes tying his wrists together.
There. With that done, Elias shifts a bit, grabs Jon's arms, drags him roughly just a couple inches further up the bed, and starts securely tying his bound wrists to one of the wrought iron posts at the head.
"You do trust me, I assume, or you wouldn't have asked for this." He ties off the knot, checks the hold -- good. "I'll Know."
He smiles wryly to himself as he straightens back up. Look at that, an honest answer, and Jon can't even appreciate it.
With his wrists pressed down, Jon almost does start to regain control of his breathing. The steady pressure is reassuring, even if he knows it's only a reminder to stop moving around. Careful, deliberate, he sucks in a full, deep breath and holds it, craning his neck to look up at the place where Elias's hands are joined around his wrists.
He holds the breath until he's yanked upwards and lets it back out with a startled, half-pained noise. His shoulder was at an odd angle from his shifting around, and it grinds unpleasantly against its socket, threatening to dislocate before Jon is settled again and can roll it back into place. "Careful," he spits out, and he's scowling again, and he knows Elias won't be, but he has to just nod along with what he's being told anyway, because -
Because, well, it's true. There are plenty of points on which Jon definitely, one-hundred-percent, does not trust Elias. This isn't one of them. He doesn't think, rationally, that there's any benefit for the other, to cause Jon any kind of serious harm. And Elias doesn't do much that doesn't directly benefit him, so Jon supposes he has to conclude that he has nothing to worry about. "Ok," he agrees, nodding and trying to swallow, but his mouth feels terribly dry. "You are right. I, uh-" He gives the headboard an experimental tug. The ropes is tied so firmly, his wrists barely shift on the bar, even when he pulls harder. "I'm all right. Go ahead."
Elias makes a quiet, thoughtful noise, drawing his nails idly down the bare skin of Jon's back, over the curve of his shoulderblades. The gradual smattering of bruises toward his hips really is beautiful, especially in the dark, and Elias just takes a moment to massage over them; not pressing too hard, but assuring they'll ache.
"You know, Jon," Elias says, sliding his hands back up towards Jon's shoulders again, "I've given quite a bit of thought to the things you shared with me the other night. Some of it was rather alarming, but I do have to admit that I was also... intrigued."
By now, he's gently shifted the belt enough around Jon's neck to get the end of it out from under him and into in his hand, and pressing in between Jon's shoulders with his other hand, Elias slowly, relishingly tightens the loop until the fact of Jon's constricted blood flow and his fear start drifting into his awareness.
He's holding firm. He's not letting go. His own breaths get a little shallow as he watches.
"You know I can hardly pass up a learning experience."
Do it, do it, please, faster, Jon silently begs in the drawn-out, dwindling, impossibly long seconds of Elias speaking and touching. Of course it's not really a long time, Jon knows this, he tries behind the loop of words running through the front of his head to tell himself it'll only be a second more, surely, but - the agony of anticipation knows no limits.
He twitches under the aching press on his hips, the way the pain sparks then radiates, dull, from one bruise to the next. It's warm and pleasant and tight in the pit of his stomach, but the bigger thing, the more overwhelming one, is still the Not Knowing, the way his breath hitches and stalls when Elias runs his hand up Jon's back, leaving a prickling trail of goosebumps in its wake.
Breathe, he reminds himself, as the leather shifts around his neck. No holding it, no gasping, just breathe. It's shaky, but he does, filling his lungs as much as he can without inducing that uncomfortable, over-full feeling that would only make him exhale too fast. And that isn't much, he realizes in the second before the loop pulls tight around his throat, because that press on his back is limiting his ability to fill his lungs to capacity, anyway.
The realization pulls a worried mmf of sound out of him, but he keeps his lips and eyes pressed tightly shut and presses his forehead into the comforting darkness of the mattress. His fingers are tingling again, and he can't tell if it's that lovely headspace trying to reassert itself once more, or the angle at which they're tied, or the restriction of his breathing, or all of it at once.
His face is too hot. He makes another sound in the back of his throat, twists, his forehead rubbing into the mattress, like that movement will help him suck another breath in. It's not bad yet, he thinks, as his ribs start to burn. The back of his too-tight throat works in quick, clicking gulps as he tries to hold his lungs still just a little longer, a little more, don't let all the air out yet.
But as it always does, when one tries to hold their breath, it becomes impossible with a violent, coughing suddenness, and there it is, it's gone, he's empty and his eyes hurt and his fingers are numb.
This is fine, he tries to tell himself, but he can't actually form even a mental impression of the words that's clear enough in front of the other thought, that nope, he was wrong last time, and he was wrong the time before that, and this time, he is definitely dying. Trying to remind himself that he knew he would feel this way, that Elias is right there, that nothing is going to happen, does precious little in the face of the kick of his animal brain. And that animal part of him makes him twist his head as if a clearer space of air will make it possible to breath, and when it's not, it makes him thrash and tug against the headboard.
And then the blackness is popping in front of his vision again. His head throbs, the pain in his lungs is unbearable and there's no room to scream against it. He thinks this, that he would like to scream, that his fingers are burning, and the blackness gets bigger, and he thinks nothing, unless the concept of horror and temporary regret are a thought.
And then the blackness is the only thing, and then there's nothing at all as he loses consciousness.
The progression of Jon's thoughts plays out in front of Elias like gradually shifting images: the impatience, followed by anticipation, followed by realization and fear and rationalization and horror and regret in such quick succession that he almost misses actually, physically watching Jon struggle and pull and thrash and make those near-silent noises beneath him.
This is not the first time Elias has strangled someone, and not the first time he's done it with mutual pleasure rather than murder in mind, but he's never been more certain of exactly when to stop. Jon's unconsciousness washes over Elias like it belongs to him, like it's embracing him, and he moans softly, cock twitching, as he releases his hold on the belt, letting the strip of leather fall to the bed next to Jon's peaceful, slack face.
Everything is so quiet and still, in that moment, save for Elias's heavy breaths; such a contrast to the stomping and slamming and snarking that has plagued this place all evening. He takes a moment just to breathe, but only a moment, before shifting back down the bed, down Jon's body, kissing down along his spine as he goes -- he reaches his tailbone, and he straightens back up, lifts Jon's hips with a quiet grunt and bends each of the other's dead-weight legs underneath him until he's kneeling, folded over himself.
"I really almost prefer you like this," he says under his breath, stroking the day-old welts on Jon's hip, and he takes one more moment to take in Jon's still, prone form, with his arms stretched before him as though prostrating himself, before Elias gives his own waiting cock a few firm pumps -- and then he presses himself, slowly, into Jon, the complete lack of resistance drawing a true, involuntary moan out of him.
It doesn't take long to stretch him, to start moving. Elias grasps Jon's hips, grips them tight, draws another quiet, shuddering moan of a breath from himself as his hips meet Jon's body, as the sensation crests, and then he does it all again. He stays out of Jon's mind, for now; he wants to feel him, actually feel him, start to wake up.
In the blink of an eye, Jon sees again. He's not awake, but he's seeing. And what he sees is not the room he's in (where was he, again?), but the infinite blackness behind his eyes coming together into one, stark ball of darkness. It must be some kind of eclipse, he thinks; he can clearly see the outline, but everything behind it is black, too. Actually, it's more than that. It's simply nothingness, the total absence of even the faintest shred of light or colour. Perhaps he shouldn't stare at it. Perhaps it's dangerous.
But he does, and he feels, the longer he stares, how heavy it is. It seems to be high up above him, but he knows it's pressing down on him, crushing him, even though he can clearly stare up at it and observe the impossibility of its outline. He is standing and watching it, but he is lying on the ground (the ground? There's no ground.) and that thing that is nothing is smothering him and grinding him apart like a bug under a boot.
Except it's steadier and slower than that. He can feel its immovable weight falling into him and into him and into him and his bones should crack, he should be smashed to bits under it, he keeps waiting for that to happen, and it doesn't. Still the thing presses into him. He is not moving or breathing, and he is alive. The thing is not there and has no mass and no surface and no nothing at all, but still it is on top of him and it is making him nothing, also.
This takes hours.
It also takes less than a minute.
And when it stops being hours-and-less-than-a-minute, Jon is jostled abruptly back into consciousness.
He's disoriented and can't feel, especially not his fingers, and at first the sensation is - well, his brain nonsensically decides that he's in a box being thrown around, that's the only vague sense it can make out of the limp, rhythmic shift of his body against the mattress.
But it only takes a second for his brain to catch up. And when it does, that limpness abruptly vanishes. This is - how is this actually happening? He jerks his arms, tenses around Elias with a sharp gasp that immediately becomes a series of loud, panting breaths. His head is pounding, absolutely screaming with pain, but all he can think is how mindbogglig it is that Elias really, actually, did what he described. He buries his face in the side of his outstretched arm to muffle a moan.
Elias can feel consciousness return to Jon in the moments before it actually does, and then it comes all at once -- Jon jerks, gasps, and tenses, and Elias gasps sharply, responding to that return of resistance by pulling Jon onto his cock with more force than he even really intends to. He grits his teeth, swallows back a moan, and picks up his pace; he's not stopping, not slowing, letting Jon lie in that feeling of he did what I asked until it sours like an over-rich dessert.
It's not possible to lie anywhere else. That feeling of regret mingles sickly in Jon's stomach with an embarrassing level of arousal. But it's a strange arousal that sits in his stomach and the base of his skull, frothing his brain into an unthinking frenzy, without ever, really, reaching his cock.
He hears himself, but distantly, groaning into the comforter, his bottom lip dry and stuck to the surface of it, his teeth longing, aching to bite into it, but he's afraid that if he does, he'll grasp and rend and tear and shake and ruin it somehow, and then Elias will be genuinely infuriated with him, which won't suit his needs.
Oh, yeah. He almost forgot. He has needs. The key was never getting itself.
His toes curl at the mere thought, but he shoves himself back against Elias. The motion makes him whine, shift, wriggle his knees farther apart. He's almost flat again, his hips are spread so wide, and he flexes his fingers, runs their numb tips against the rope, then grips around the bar holding them in place. "I'm ok," he says, into the bed, like it matters very much to either one of them.
There's something about Jon's thoughts returning to the key in the middle of all of this that gets to Elias. He's already reeling slightly with pleasure, taken off-guard by Jon bucking back against him; he's already close to peak, and now annoyance is rearing -- he grips Jon hard around the waist, drives him back onto himself again and again, building and building until --
Until he reaches that peak, and he finishes, pulling out and gasping through gritted teeth as he does; he strokes himself through those final waves, spilling over Jon's lower back, finally fully appreciating the look of the other completely splayed out like this, hardly able to enjoy the very thing he'd fantasized about. How unfortunate.
God, it's warm. It's almost pleasant, too, and Jon moans at the dampness spilling across the small of his back, burying his face deep in the softness beneath him, shifting backwards until his arms are far too stretched before him, as if he could get closer to Elias again. As if he could connect them again, stay fastened to him where, in spite of the lingering fear of the knowledge that he was just unconscious, he feels strangely safe.
It's almost all right, really; as long as he's connected to Elias, he's comfortable and warm and secure, no matter what came before. So he's sure, now, that...Well, everything must be all right. He breathes out a sigh, squirms his hips wider again, grinds himself against the bed. It's nothing, it doesn't matter, but it's nice for the moment. His fingers are tripping, light reflexes, against the knot binding them to the headboard.
"Ok," he breathes out, more to himself than to Elias, determined. This feels nice, he could stay this way forever, but he has things to do. He moves, now that Elias isn't pinning him down, and looks back at him, with his wrists still fettered to the iron above them. "I need to talk to you," he decides out loud.
Still quietly panting, Elias follows the path of Jon's thoughts, marvelling silently at... him, really. Just him. That he's so comfortable at his side or under his hand, whether that hand is giving or around his throat. Jon wants to be here.
But he doesn't spend a great deal of time on those thoughts, because the moment Elias supposes he's been waiting for all day has arrived at the most ridiculous - but unsurprising - time -- finally, finally Jon is asking. It almost feels like a release on its own, but unsatisfying, because he knows what Jon is doing -- he'd wanted to make him happy, first, to get his way. It's not the first time he's done this, and Elias knows it won't be the last. Jon is always up to something -- or thinks he is, anyway.
Elias scoffs tiredly, incredulous, and meets Jon's gaze. "And I suppose it can't wait?"
Under the weight of the question, Jon is unsure. Can't it? There's a temptation, sometimes, in spite of everything going on (in his meager life, in the plot that surely is against it, in the Institute itself, in the world), to believe that if Elias says a thing, it must be true. And if it's true, it must be followed, and if it must be followed, then Jon can hollow himself out and let it blow through him.
It's only a temptation. Though there's nothing "only" about that, he supposes. It's as bad as the temptation to smoke and drink and stay at work until all hours of the morning. Jon chooses to give in to most of those, so why not to this? Why not to Elias?
Because it feels more dangerous.
So he scowls and pulls his numb hands against the rope. His wrists are throbbing, his pulse radiating painfully into his tingling fingers and up his arms from where it beats under his skin, against the rope. "No," he decides. "It can't."
Pain returns to his body, the raspy soreness in the inside of his throat and the matching strip of reddened skin on the outside, under the press of the belt. (He'll notice it every time Elias wears this particular one, now, he knows. He'll notice it and he'll Want and the wanting only makes things harder.) The joints of his hips ache, and that's his own fault, for pressing himself so flat and spread out against the bed. Jon shifts, pulls his knees up under himself and then rolls as far onto his side as he can, his wrists twisting painfully in their binds.
Even without his glasses, it's easier to look at Elias, now that his eyes are used to the dark. A deep and unrelenting headache is settled behind them, though, and he blinks furiously up at the other. It would be nice to simply lie here, to maybe hope that Elias would kiss him and rub life back into his hands until he falls asleep, but that... Well. That isn't going to happen, so he tugs again at the headboard, more insistently. "Let me up."
Elias watches Jon flatly as he shifts positions, still shaking his head slightly in disbelief. He could easily ignore Jon's request for a little longer, drag him to the edge again and again until he can no longer remember what he'd wanted to ask, but no -- Elias has had just about enough, and anyway, Jon is only human, and that rope has been around his wrists for just a little too long.
"Fine." He sighs and climbs over Jon, reaching in the dark for the end of the binding and working it loose from the iron rung. Once he does, he gives it another couple of tugs, and it loosens around Jon's hands, as well. If he didn't know better, he supposes he might think Jon wants to talk to him about how he'd handled this, but he does know better, so he takes his time, lets Jon handle pulling his arms back down on his own, and reaches to unloop the belt from his neck, pull it away, and drop it aside. It's hard to see, in the dark, but the mark is there, and Elias wonders how he's going to manage hiding that come Monday.
Still feeling spiteful, Elias doesn't offer any additional comfort; he shifts himself aside until he's no longer straddling Jon's legs, and reaches for the discarded rope to bundle it back up. "Well? What is it that's so urgent?"
Jon moves faster than he should, sending a blinding rush of blood into his skull, which only fuels his headache. He scrambles up to sit, pushing himself close enough to the opposite edge of the bed that his legs dangle off, and manages to pull the tie loose from his hair before the throbbing behind his eyes overwhelms him. With a groan, he drops his head into his hands and digs the heels of them into his eyes.
Time feels strange. It hasn't been long, not really, but that blip out of consciousness has scattered Jon's perception of the hour. It feels both that they were only just getting home, only just sitting in the living room, and also that it's been hours that Jon has been cracked open and raw and struggling here in this room. The cumulative effects of the week don't help matters. The pain and exhaustion in his body is a painting, layer after layer of thinly bleeding watercolor ink, building up and up and up and blooming darkly against the paper.
Jon lowers his hands and looks back at Elias, his face partially obscured again by the veil of his hair. His throat hurts, when he swallows, and then, with a grunt somewhere between exertion and annoyance, he stands and pads his way around to the foot of the bed, where his clothes are heaped.
He breathes out, loud, through his nostrils. "I need you to give me the key to the tunnels." Ok, so he can't really read Elias's expression right now, anyway, so he stoops to grab up his shirt and his underwear, and pulls the latter on. "I know, I know, there aren't meant to be copies, for security or - but Gertrude had one. I'm certain she did, and I know I shouldn't have-" He pauses, pulling his shirt on, to decide which word he wants to use - "Taken yours, before, but what was I supposed to do?"
Elias finishes off tying up the rope, watching Jon get up and forge forward with a mixture of incredulity and exasperation. He really does not stop. Elias would feel more impressed - fond and hopeful for how well this bodes for his plans, even - if not for the fact that he'd been officially sick of this key mission hours ago. Jon's determination and insistence, at least in this instance, are a harsh light in Elias's eyes every time he so much as glances the other's way.
When Jon finally says the words, Elias barely has to put on his reaction. Jon isn't looking at him, already busy with getting dressed as though he hadn't just been unconscious a few minutes ago, but once he does, even though Elias has dropped the rope bundle and shifted to sit at the end of the bed, gripping the edge of the mattress with both hands, nothing has changed: flat disbelief.
"Yes, I now see how this needed bringing up the moment I finished," he says, the tired, sarcastic bite in his voice nearly as palpable as that earlier slap. "Jon, there's nothing down there."
As he speaks, Elias hears a sound somewhere behind the tick of his bedroom clock, just barely out of sync: the click of a tape recorder. A chill finds its way down his spine, but he doesn't react beyond tightening his grip on the mattress just slightly; he keeps his eyes on Jon, waiting to see if he's noticed, ready to carry on if not. Whether it's an early manifestation of Jon's Becoming - one he's never seen before in an Archivist, granted, and that perturbs him - or something else, he's not about to interfere.
A flash of realization, sharp as an ice pick stabs into Jon - shit. He was in so much of a hurry, he started pulling on clothes without wiping himself off, and now he can feel it, the back of his shirt plastered to his damp skin.
It raises the ire in him back to boiling point immediately. He whips his shirt back off, scrubbing it across his lower back before dropping it back on top of his sweater and trousers. Maybe there's no point picking any of it up. Elias was aggravated enough with Jon's shoes under the coffee table - what's one more pile of dirty laundry, in the grand scheme of things?
"You know that's not true," he spits back. God, this is not what he wanted, it is immediately not what he wanted, and it's his own fault, for waiting, and his own fault for letting himself make such a stupid, disgusting mistake with his clothes. "I told you what happened."
It had perhaps been foolish of Elias to think that something as small as choking Jon into unconsciousness might do anything to make him less unbearable. He's only worse, now, and Elias can't quite find the energy to do much else but let him tire himself out, at this point.
He just watches Jon react to his unfortunate lapse of memory before once again fixing him with the same tired-but-pitying look he's given him since Prentiss; since the intervention; since Jon told him about his previous trip into the tunnels; since he started down this rabbit hole of investigation.
"You told me you wandered around in the dark for hours at a time, shortly after suffering an incredibly traumatic experience."
Why is he bothering with this? Jon aches to storm off, to remember that catalogue of potential hiding places he made note of in this room alone, to canvass the rest of the house while Elias sleeps. His brain whirrs too fast - he's never been on the third floor, he's not sure he could get past Elias's door and up the steps without waking him, but there seems a decent potential that he could get through the ground floor, right?
He shifts in place, trying to ignore the pain and stiffness in his hips. Standing now doesn't feel much better than sitting, but hopefully that will rectify itself quickly. For now, he's sure his legs are made of jelly.
He's shaking his head, while Elias speaks. No, no, none of that matters. When will people stop implying there's something wrong with Jon, something that went wrong, after the worms attacked. He isn't that weak. It didn't break his mind, he isn't having a trauma response (mentally, he surrounds the phrase with air quotes). They just don't understand what's important now, the way he does.
Wrapping his arms around his chest, he scoffs. "So, you're saying I imagined it," he says, and he's glaring at the ceiling, not at Elias, and wishing he had his glasses, so he could at least make a proper decision about how angry Elias's expression is making him.
"It's a possibility," he says firmly, standing up from the bed, before Jon has even finished speaking. He's aware of how strong Jon's certainty is in the belief that what he'd experienced in the tunnels had been real, but it's not going to stop Elias pushing this angle, not when there's still so much Jon doesn't know -- not when his state of paranoia is lining him up perfectly for what Elias hopes is an eventual encounter with the thing pretending to be Sasha. Even if he's only able to wedge in the tiniest sliver of doubt, that's enough -- but at the same time, he supposes he can't entirely brush it off, not when Jon has been nearly killed by one thing already. That would be obtuse.
Now that he's standing, he tries to meet Jon's gaze in the dark. "The other possibility is there's something very dangerous down there." He raises his eyebrows, insistent. "Neither makes me particularly inclined to unlock it."
Jon intentionally turns his head, glaring at the faint street glow leaking out from the edges of the dark, drawn curtains. Elias isn't right, Jon refuses to believe that he is. It's not a possibility, it's not, and if there is a dangerous being under the Archives, then of course he needs to be aware of that, it's exactly the opposite of a good argument.
He shakes his head again, mostly at himself. Absently, he reaches up and rubs his knuckles across the angry mark on his neck. It itches, the edges are notably raw, where Jon twisted against the belt. "So what do you plan to do about it?" He finally looks up at Elias and, oh - they're closer to each other than he expected them to be, and that sends a niggling, mocking ribbon of heat through his veins, into his wobbling legs. "Send someone else?"
Elias watches Jon touch the mark, meets his eyes when they raise to his, and nearly finds himself distracted, tripped up in the swerve of Jon's thoughts, though only momentarily. His eyes briefly dart to the ceiling, and he rakes a rogue lock of hair off his forehead.
"We really don't have the budget for that."
It's a handy and reliable excuse, if particularly flimsy in the face of Jon's rampage, but it's something. He's not going to give in that easily, even if he is sick of this discussion already.
Jon bristles. It's a worse sensation than any number of pins and needles rippling through his fingers. This is stupid, this is a lie, Jon could rant for an hour about CEOs and heads of academic institutions pocketing the vast majority of donated funding, only to leave the library in sad repair and people like Jon in charity shop clothing and getting up at four in the morning to make it to the farmer's market for truly cheap produce.
(He wonders, in the very back of his mind, if Elias realizes this. If Elias knows that Jon suffers quietly in an existence that requires him to spend the vast majority of his salary on the privilege of living in his flat furnished with secondhand furniture. He wonders if Elias even vaguely understands that it's a novelty to go to the far-more-expensive grocery store with him, this last month, and buy anything he wants, buy what he knows he needs to make things right, instead of cutting corners. Does Elias understand that his booze Jon drinks too much of is far better and more than anything Jon would bother to buy himself? Does it for one second occur to him that Jon is only free to do whatever he wants, whatever he knows is the Right thing, when it's Elias placing a possessive hand on the small of Jon's back and passing the credit card to the store clerk?)
This is why Jon needs the key.
He looks at Elias, finally, his eyes flashing quick from the window to the man stood in front of him, making instant and violent contact with his boyfriend's gaze, in spite of the dark and his lack of glasses. He's sure, for an instant, he can see Elias in total, pure focus, even without them. "So, nothing," he spits out, derisive. Of course not. Of course. This is always the way that it is - act like what Jon wants at home is something, and what he wants at work just isn't.
Jon can have all the expensive ingredients and new suits and warm blankets and pretty hairpins he wants, but if he wants something that matters, then it's this, isn't it? "You're just going to leave it." He wants to hit Elias, push at him, throw him back into the dark folds of the room, and leave it.
It's incredible how, when it comes to Jon, it often doesn't matter if Elias is trying to see his thoughts or not; they come to him anyway, in one way or another, brushing up against his leg like a cat. A byproduct of staying so close these last few months, he supposes; useful and aggravating in equal measure.
This ire, specifically, is familiar, and even as it nudges at him, Elias chooses not to dig too deep, to acknowledge it beyond meeting Jon's angry gaze (there's almost, almost a certain sharpness to it, for a moment) and holding it, unwavering, daring Jon to do any of the things he's thinking about; to say any of what he's not saying, at all. He knows he won't. He likes this - Elias, the drinks, the gifts, the sex - far too much. He needs the key too badly.
But if he's going to keep trying to brute force his way into getting what he wants, Elias isn't going to bend.
"For now, I think that's for the best."
The intensity of Elias's stare is always too much for Jon. It's too much like glass - it's the Snow Queen's mirror, stabbing into him and leaving pieces of itself behind that make Jon weaker and...worse, somehow. He's sure he's worse for all of this, worse for knowing there was a point when he could have walked away, and now there's not.
Because it's true that it isn't quite just about Jon's fear of being left utterly alone. It isn't just that, and it isn't just that he needs things only Elias has the power to give him - it's also just this: standing close enough that Jon can almost feel warmth radiating off the other body, knowing just how far forward he would have to move to slot his head into the space where Elias's neck and shoulder meet, where he fits perfectly. It's knowing he still wants that, in spite of standing here aching and angry, that under all of that he would still prefer to say screw all of this, forget it, and wrap his arms around Elias's waist until he's forced to concede that it won't be so bad if Jon stays here for the night.
That's the thing - he can want whatever he wants, but it doesn't change what he needs.
But his eyes feel watery under the force of the other's gaze, and the more Jon looks at him, the more the traitorous, soft part of him remembers that it's always possible he's acting ridiculous, that maybe he has been unbearable today, that maybe he... Should just stop.
He blinks hard, hoping that laser focus will magically come back to him again. It doesn't. "Please, Elias," he says, reaching for the other's wrist, and squeezing it, "I need to know."
It comes like a rush of cold, clean air. Those words accompanied by that hand around his wrist (accompanied by the distant but clear sense of Jon's longing to slot against him, familiar now) reach further than any of Jon's arguments so far, and Elias feels his gaze soften just as surely as he feels what he's sure is a connection, a longing; the Eye grasping for him through Jon, still so weak, but growing. He'd been right not to give into Jon asking - no, demanding - out of pure human stubbornness; this is what he'd been waiting for. The acknowledgement of what he needs - actually needs - more than the key itself. He needs to know.
There you are, Jon, he thinks. Just like that.
The annoyance rushes out of him, at least for now, as he sighs, shaking his head and glancing aside; somewhere, the tape recorder is still whirring, quiet and warm, adding to this strange and sudden feeling in his chest that something has just clicked into place, here and now.
He reaches to tuck a loose lock of hair away from Jon's eyes. In the dark, it's easy to imagine them greener than before. "You really think that this will help?"
"Yes," Jon insists. In some other, better life, where Jon is a better person, one who isn't made up of too many angles, doesn't have too many hastily patched lines of dysfunctional code in his system, he can see himself leaning into that touch, knowing that merely saying yes is enough.
But Jon isn't that. Jon is prepared for more of a fight, and the touch, the little ghosting of Elias's fingertips and his own hair against his temple as it's tucked back shoots a path of goosebumps down the back of Jon's neck. It's only half the touch itself. The other half is that he's certain Elias is only trying to placate him, maybe make some empty promise he doesn't intend to keep.
No, Jon has to answer better, he has to impress that he's serious, this is important, even vital, but his thoughts are all jumbled up in the shivery feeling that spreads from Elias's fingers, all across his scalp. He's paused in that feeling for too long.
"Yes," he repeats, "it's getting-" he pushes the hand away from him. The push is a little rougher than he meant for it to be. "Harder and harder to work down there without being sure..." His eyes are searching again, scanning the darkness behind Elias, over his shoulder. For what? For the right thing to say, for the Thing that will Mean Something to Elias. For the thing that is exactly what Jon means, at all. "What's underneath me."
He shakes himself. The scowl is back, there was nothing to find in the dark. "So either give me the key, or find a new Archivist."
And just like that, the feeling is gone. Elias rolls his eyes at Jon's return to obstinacy, pulling his wrist from the other's grip and turning to bend and pick up Jon's pile of discarded clothes.
"Oh, good Lord -- don't be so dramatic, Jon." As if Jon would quit over this, even if he could. As if it's anything but an empty, childish threat. Elias knows Jon would sooner risk getting caught rooting around his house for the key than follow through with this ultimatum, but he's aware that saying so isn't going to end this conversation any faster; only make things worse. Elias can pretend, for a moment, that that threat holds any weight at all.
He pushes the clothes into Jon's hands, lies with something true before he even realizes how true it is: "You know how hard it would be to replace you."
Shaken, embarrassed, by the tone in Elias's voice, Jon fumbles the transfer of the pile into his arms, and nearly drops one of his socks. The bunched-up pile of his soiled shirt presses coldly to his stomach.
"I-I don't, actually?" he fumbles verbally, too, with a tight little shake of his head. The furrow in his brow is more taken aback than angry, now. What does that mean? How can it mean anything, when Jon isn't even sure to what degree he meant his threat. Or what, exactly, he was threatening. If he did try to make good on it, then what? Surely he wouldn't still be welcome here.
Anxiety wells up in him, thick and too warm, a sickness in his chest. Exasperation aside, it sounds like Elias means that, and here is Jon just... Well, saying things that are tantamount to a threat to break up with the other, if he doesn't get his way. Is he a person who does that? Is that where Jon is, right now?
"But," he decides, "thank you, I suppose." It's too curt. It's too impersonal, but what else is he supposed to say? His clothes feel heavy in his arms, all his insides are too heavy, too.
Once more, Elias pins Jon under his gaze, like he's assessing his answer -- and he is, in a way. Jon is thrown off, losing his bluster again, unsure of what to do with what Elias supposes is a compliment, and there's something satisfying in that. All of that plotting, today, and it's just led here.
Elias seems to finish his assessment, and he sighs, nudging the sock more firmly onto the pile. "I’ll have a copy made for you on one condition: be careful." There's a note of concern in his eyes as he pointedly raises his eyebrows, even as he continues: "No more impetuous subterranean adventures, understand?"
Jon's heart thuds, and he squeezes the pile of clothes tighter, mind racing. Was that a yes? He almost misses the second part of that statement, that there's a condition. Metaphorically, his ears perk up, and he nods along. Yes, right, be careful. That's not too much, is it? Of course he can be careful. He should be careful, for all the favours he just did himself, threatening to end all this.
But what will Elias know, asks the nasty thing in the back of Jon's head, of what Jon does at night when he's alone? His mind is already racing forward, to sneaking into his old school, sneaking out of his student housing, the good parts of the snooping he did a few months ago, before he got sloppy. Yes, he learned something, there. He won't make the same stupid mistake, again. He won't do it while his emotions are high. But if Elias thinks he won't sneak out, he's wrong.
"Of course," he promises and lies at once. Yes, he'll be careful. No, he won't avoid trips out at night with no permission. "Of course. Understood."
To be fair, he rationalizes to himself Elias only said they couldn't be impetuous. That's to say nothing of a planned, highly intentional subterranean adventure.
Elias waits for his answer, watches and looks for the sign that Jon isn't actually going to do as he says, and there it is, just as expected. If Elias were a more petty person, he would plan to 'accidentally' stumble upon Jon sneaking out, but that wouldn't serve any purpose but to give himself some bitter satisfaction. The tunnels, like anything else built by Smirke's design, are dangerous, but there's nothing to be gained by keeping Jon from them. If he's lucky, Jon will lead him to whoever is still living down there, whoever was helping Gertrude, and he'll survive whatever encounter that may be. If he's unlucky... well. He supposes he really will have to find a new Archivist.
But it probably won't come to that.
Regardless, they're in agreement, now, more or less. Elias places a hand on Jon's shoulder, starts to turn him gently towards the bedroom door. "And for God's sake, get some sleep."
"Right," Jon nods. "I-" He doesn't quite look over Elias's shoulder at the bed, but he thinks about it, about saying something. What, he doesn't know. He got the thing he really wanted. Best not to push his luck. "I suppose I should."
He steps forward and presses a quick kiss to the corner of Elias's lips, his armload of clothes bumping into the other, between them. Then he turns himself away, and forces himself out of the room and back down to the living room, as fast as he can, so he won't change his mind.