Work Text:
Elias usually steers clear of the hospitals, finding them repulsive. But he feels it's his duty to visit Jon at least once.
The room is plain and depressing, but it's also private; once Elias closes the door, he and Jon are as alone with each other as they could ever be, and the knowledge of that makes Elias shiver. So does the sight of Jon in the hospital bed; his body is entirely still, with no breath inside him to expand his ribs, and Elias knows without touching that his skin will be icy cold, his blood as unmoving as the rest of his body. Yet as eerie as Jon is, he is also a marvel, and Elias can't stop staring at him.
Elias's plan was to drop by and take off as soon as he saw Jon, but now that he's here, it feels unthinkable to just leave; he has to approach Jon, has to touch him. He leaves his spot by the door and walks over to Jon's bed, sitting carefully on the edge of it. His own breathing sounds loud in his ears, amplified by Jon's silence. He doesn't let that stop him from reaching out for Jon's face.
"You have done so well, Jon." He strokes Jon's cheek with his knuckles; unsurprisingly, Jon is cold to the touch. "I always knew I chose well with you. You will make us both great."
It's not enough to say that out loud. Jon's mind is much more alive than his body is, but he can't hear anything; Beholding is in his brain, taking up his attention. And for the first time in his life, Elias is jealous of his god.
He wants- no. He needs to be heard.
Elias brings his hand up to Jon's forehead, brushing his hair out of the way. He leans down to kiss him there, and as he does that, he enters Jon's mind.
*
As with entering the hospital room, Elias only intends to stay inside Jon's head for a few seconds. Enough to get a sense of him, and to truly know that Jon is still there. But once the landscape of Jon's mind settles around him, Elias quickly realizes that he can't leave.
It makes him panic; Jon is vulnerable both in body and mind, and Elias doesn’t want to get stuck inside him. But it doesn’t take long until a sense of reassurance spreads inside him, telling him that the Eye is with him, and that he has been allowed inside Jon for a reason. So Elias relaxes, looking on.
The environment they’re in has been supplied by the Eye, and it’s based on last clear memory in Jon’s mind, landing both him and Elias by the remains of the blown up theater. The air is gray and thick with smoke and it’s almost easy to miss the sight of Jon, dressed in the hospital gown and kneeling on the ground, digging through the rubble. The rubble has long since cooled down in real life, but in Jon’s mind it’s still hot, burning his hands. Jon doesn’t care about the pain, but Elias does; he needs to know what Jon is trying to do. He doesn’t realize he has started to speak:
“Statement of Jonathan Sims, regarding the aftermath of the Unknowing.” There is fear in Elias’s heart, but his voice is calm. “Taken directly from the subject.”
Jon pays him no heed; he keeps pushing rubble out of his way. But somewhere above their heads, the Eye is wide open, staring down at them both.
“As far as I know, I’m dead,” Elias whispers. “I can see the evidence before me: the theater is in ruins, meaning that the bomb has gone off. And there is no way I have survived that, so this must be the afterlife or something worse.”
As Elias talks, Jon’s movements start to slow down, until they stop entirely. He stays on his knees on the ground, but now his hands just hang by his sides, fingers stiff, a tremor running through him.
“However, I don’t care.” With that, Jon starts to move again. “I need to find Tim.”
Elias isn’t without pity; it does make him ache inside that even though Jon is so certain that he’s dead, he still thinks about Tim, a man who had turned his back on him a long time ago. He also knows that what Jon is doing now is stalling; he doesn’t want to say the truth out loud, the truth that the Eye wants him to know. But just as Elias can’t stop himself from narrating what is going on in Jon’s mind, Jon can’t stop the truth from piercing through.
“I know that Tim isn’t here. Not in spirit, and not in body. I would know.” Despite this, Jon remains on the ground, his hands turning ashy as he tosses pieces of broken bricks and wooden boards out of his way, then bloody as he fails to avoid the sharp shards of molten plastic. “I know that he’s dead, and that there is never going to be a body in his grave.”
Jon stops. He stares down at his black and crimson hands.
“I know so much, but not why.” Jon’s hands curl into fists. “And I must know why.”
Falling silent, Jon stands up slowly. As soon as he is up on his feet, he turns towards Elias.
Their eyes meet across the distance between them, which turns out to be disorienting; Elias can feel Jon’s surprise at the sight of him, and sense the rage that simmers underneath that surprise, but there are also Elias’s own emotions at the sight of Jon, the pride and the fear but also intense, overwhelming need. Elias sinks down to his knees as Jon starts to approach him.
“Everything that happened here was for a reason, but only he knows what that reason really is.” A shiver runs down Elias’s spine as Jon comes nearer, as the frown on his face and the veins bulging at his temples become perfectly visible to Elias. “I will rip the truth out of him.”
Jon rushes to him, almost running. Once he’s close enough, he grabs Elias roughly by his hair, staring down at him with unblinking eyes.
Elias starts to feel pressure inside his head.
The pressure is different from the pleasant tingle that Elias felt when Jon compelled him for the first time; it doesn’t hurt, but it’s like a fist is slowly closing around Elias’s brain, ready to squeeze his secrets out. His mind is still full of Jon’s feelings, to the point he can feel Jon’s anger and sorrow battle it out with each other while the desire to know rises to the surface, blinding Jon even to himself. Elias shivers, reaching up to grab Jon’s wrist, but all he can do is hold on. Jon grips his hair tighter, as he wants to grip Elias’s mind.
It’s almost impossible not to give into that.
But Elias doesn’t, steeling himself against the onslaught of Jon’s power. He doesn’t like how much effort it’s taking him to resist, but at the same time he couldn’t be prouder. He looks up at Jon, whose stern expression is starting to break apart with hesitation.
“I can’t break through,” Elias speaks up, for Jon. He can feel it as Jon’s grip on him starts to loosen, as doubts start to sink in. “I can tell that he’s afraid, but he’s also ecstatic. Why is he ecstatic?”
“Because you are beautiful,” Jon says for Elias, and Elias moans, falling forward.
The words are confusing now, Jon’s thoughts coming out from Elias’s mouth while Elias’s thoughts are coming out of Jon’s mouth, but actions are easy; Elias grabs the hem of Jon’s hospital gown and pushes it upward to Jon’s waist, revealing his thighs and hips. Jon isn’t wearing any underwear and Elias can see his cock resting soft between his thighs. Clutching the gown, Elias leans forward, darting his tongue out.
“Because you are my creation, and I’m proud of how far you have come,” Jon mutters. His fingers are still gripping Elias’s hair, but he neither stops Elias nor pulls him forward as Elias starts to lick along the length of his cock, trying to stir it to life. “I’m beyond thrilled that you survived. I need you to wake up as soon as possible, so that we can continue our work together.”
Jon moans, knees shaking. His cock warms up beneath Elias’s tongue, responding to his touch.
“Why did you send us to the Unknowing?” Elias mutters against the soft skin of Jon’s cock, voicing Jon’s thoughts. “I know you said it was to stop the world from ending, but what was the real reason?”
Elias must resist, not give Jon any true answers even here, and to help himself with that he takes the head of Jon’s cock into his mouth, giving it a light suck. Jon shivers again, his fingers curling tighter into Elias’s hair as he starts to focus too, and the pressure around Elias’s head starts again.
“The Unknowing needed to be stopped,” Jon says. “You needed to be the one to do it. You’re the only one who could.”
It’s not a lie; the Unknowing needed to be stopped to prevent it from causing useless damage, and Jon needed to be the one to benefit from it. Elias takes Jon’s cock deeper into his mouth, continuing to suck gently, reveling in it as his mouth fills with Jon’s taste, with his warmth. The pressure starts to ease up as Jon breaks into another moan, and this time he shoves Elias’s head, further towards his groin.
“I know you’re lying.” The words are muffled and unclear, but Elias can understand them, and he knows Jon does too. “I will make you regret that.”
With that, Jon thrusts deep into Elias’s mouth, making him gag. And Jon doesn’t stop there; he starts to rock his hips at a fast pace, fucking Elias’s mouth as hard as he can. It’s graceless and harsh, and Elias can sense that Jon is angry, but also desperate, and painfully curious. Beholding is feeding it all, eager to see how far its acolytes will go.
Elias has never felt more like a tool, a mere vessel to his God’s needs. Yet, as lowly as that is, there is no place in the world he’d rather be at.
It doesn’t take long until the cock slamming into his mouth becomes unpleasant to bear, and yet Elias can hear himself moaning, his own cock hard within his slacks. He clutches Jon’s arse, eyes watering as Jon gets rougher and rougher with him.
“I will know!” It’s hard to shout Jon’s words while his mouth is being brutalized, but Elias does it, even as his throat aches.
“You will.” Elias’s words come out soft from Jon’s mouth, reverent. “I know you will.”
Jon says nothing more after that; he breaks into cries, his cock pulsing within Elias’s mouth as he comes.
Elias can feel Jon’s spunk hit the very back of his tongue, and he swallows quickly around Jon’s cock, milking everything he can out of him. Jon falls silent, his whole body shaking as he folds over, shaking as Elias embraces his legs.
He doesn’t need to see the Eye looking down at them to know that it’s satisfied.
“It’s all right,” Elias whispers, this time with his own, raw voice. “It’s all right, Jon, you will be all right, you-”
“Go away.”
Jon backs up from him, the hospital gown falling back down into its place. Elias crawls after him, tries to reach for him, but Jon’s entire mind shudders around him, and pushes him out.
*
With a sharp gasp, Elias opens his eyes.
Elias finds himself partially lying on top of Jon, his mouth still pressed against Jon’s forehead; he draws away from him, glancing down at himself. His cock is thick underneath his clothes, still in the state of arousal. Elias stands up from the bed, lifting the covers of Jon’s bed up enough to see that there is no stain in his hospital gown, no sign that Elias was ever within him at all.
For a moment, all Elias can feel is fury.
Sitting back on the edge of the bed, Elias settles down to wait for his erection to go away. He’s not going to touch it, and once it’s gone, he won’t be coming back.