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At the center of the Panopticon, Elias’ vision is utterly unobstructed. There is a crystalline clarity to everything in sight. Were Elias not burdened with the limitations of a mortal mind, so to speak, omniscience would be well within his grasp.
Ah, well, he can’t have everything. C’est la vie.
He hears Jon coming before he sees him. Beholding’s influence keeps Jon intact, but his lungs are burdened with too little exercise and too much stress-smoking. Every step is accompanied by a laboured breath as Jon drags himself to the top of the tower. Exhaustion weighs on the slope of his shoulders, but so does dedication. Elias couldn’t have dreamed of anything better.
Jon leans in the doorway to catch his breath, seemingly not noticing Elias’ presence.
“Ah, Jon,” Elias greets, mostly as a formality. “I was almost worried. You found your way alright.”
“Yes,” Jon breathes. He blinks slowly, like a man waking up from a deep sleep. “Yes, I did.” There’s another moment of wavering frailty, then his gaze sharpens. “How?”
“Suffice it to say, I called you.”
It’s important to be reticent with information; Jon is on the edge of a precipice, and Elias will gladly act as the tight-lipped bait if it means Jon will leap into the ocean and drown. Although, strictly speaking, Martin is the lure in this scenario.
“What is this place?” The expression on Jon’s face is a horrified sort of awe, his head tilted in curiosity as he stares at their surroundings.
Still. Reticence. Bait.
“Hm. A complicated question, and time is—”
“The Panopticon,” Jon breathes, eyes dark with wonder. Elias can’t help but smile, pride and affection and self-satisfaction all mingling into one. He’s fully aware that the gleam of his grin is insufferable to Jon, but Jon will have to suffer it a little longer.
“My, you have grown.” Jon’s cheeks colour in the darkness; in anger or appreciation? Who’s to say. Elias doubts that Jon himself knows, in all honesty.
Taking a rare pity on Jon’s confliction, Elias turns, waving a hand at the view. Smirke’s construction was first-rate, and the adjustments Elias made so long ago only perfected it. This place is as close to a temple as the Eye has in the modern day — Elias is of an old-fashioned temperament for that sort of thing.
“Yes. A masterpiece, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Jon breathes, after a long moment of terror — worried that enjoyment of a perfectly fine piece of architecture means detrimental things for whatever self-concept of humanity he still clings to. Adorable. “It is.”
Jon seems to shake himself, stepping closer to Elias. He stares down at the eyeless body that once held the consciousness of Jonah Magnus. Its chest still rises and falls.
“And that’s you there? Your… body?” Jon’s chin is raised in defiant challenge.
“Not anymore,” Elias says, easy-going. “But not really. Although if you harmed it, it wouldn’t go well for me. Or any of your friends, for that matter.”
“Maybe it’s worth it.” The ruthless edge to Jon’s voice is muted by his exhaustion, but it’s there.
“Maybe,” Elias concedes. “And I’m sure in another circumstance, you would be more than happy to take your chances for a shot at revenge.”
“But?”
Elias’ smile turns sharp, the kind of smug malice he knows Jon expects from him.
“But for Martin, time is very much of the essence.”
Jon’s eyes go wide with predictable fury. See? Hook, line, and sinker. It would be almost dull if Elias weren’t enjoying himself so much.
“Where is he?”
“Peter Lukas has him. Cast him into the Lonely, and with every passing second, he gets further away from you.”
“How do I bring him back?”
Some long-blackened part of Elias smarts at having to direct the hunger of Jon’s eyes in another direction. He has been known to have a possessive streak, and he wants to claim Jon’s gaze for himself, an infinite loop of flaying consumption. Martin Blackwood, for all his delights, doesn’t deserve any part of it.
Elias focuses on the positives, of which there are many. Like Daisy before him, Martin is a means to an end — much of a muchness as long as he provides the tools for Jon to grow. And Peter will have incurred Jon’s wrath with this. Elias craves to see Jon’s rage tear Peter word from word. Creatures of the Lonely are at their most fascinating when struggling against the things that watch them.
“From out here? Impossible.”
“You want me to follow him?”
“No, Jon,” Elias says, and it’s really only half a lie. “You want you to follow him. I simply want you to know that if you do so, you are almost certainly not coming back. To go into the Lonely willingly is as good as death.”
Jon doesn’t hesitate. Admirable and annoying and exactly what Elias needs.
“How do I do it?”
“Wasn’t too long ago,” Elias comments mildly, showing no signs of his delight or of his displeasure. He gestures Jon closer, until they both stand at the centre of the chamber, barely inches from each other. “And I’m sure traces of their passage still remain.”
Elias raises one hand to cup the nape of Jon’s neck. It’s as gentle as he knows how to be, an attempt at affirmation and acceptance from a man unused to giving both.
“Just open your mind. Drink it all in. Know their route, and simply… follow it.”
Jon blinks, and then his eyes go very wide. All tension drains from his body as he lets the Ceaseless Watcher gift him everything he wants to know and more. Elias’ other arm slips around his waist as he sags, until Elias has him in what a romantic person would characterise as a dip. A rest in the dance of their back-and-forth, man to man and monster to monster.
The Lonely’s kiss is playing at Jon’s lips, turning his skin corpse-cold. His gaze dances with fog, a silent pressure in the empty air. He grasps the remnants of Forsaken with both hands, letting it lead him somewhere icy and insubstantial. He grasps Elias’ suit lapels with both hands, and his grip is tight enough that Elias fancies Jon will never let go.
“Very good,” Elias purrs, running a steadying hand through Jon’s hair.
To an outside observer, it would seem as though Jon were looking at nothing in particular. Elias, of course, knows better — Jon, at least for this moment, is seeing everything in particular.
“Are you scared, Jon?” Elias asks, the question as much of a kindness as it is a barb.
“Yes,” Jon breathes, staring past Elias, caught in the snare of communion and unable to convince himself he wants to be freed. His eyes are wet with tears, trailing down his face in lines of ice. He is terrified, pure and simple.
Elias smiles again, a slash of teeth. In over two hundred years of life, he has never experienced anything more gratifying than the Archivist, here in his arms, all appetite and alarm. They’re going to do wonderful things together, there’s no doubt of that.
“Perfect.”