Work Text:
When he received Elias’ invitation, Andrew Pearce’s first thought had been that Elias was once again courting donors for his Institute of the occult. But those events were usually group affairs, and the invitation had clearly been private.
Curiosity won, and so Andrew Pearce found himself at the doorstep of Elias Bouchard for an early dinner, but with an excuse to leave at the ready, just in case this turned out to be recruitment into some kind of ponzi scheme.
Elias and him had shared a few acquaintances and the occasional spliff, but were never exactly close, and like everyone else in their class, he’d lost touch with Elias almost immediately after graduation.
He didn’t attend reunions, he didn’t join any alumni association, and he didn’t reply to the wedding invitations of the few people who felt obligated to invite him.
And then, a few years later, the new and improved Elias Bouchard had returned to the social scene, effortlessly mingling at official events and private parties, with no trace left of the self-conscious young man who panicked whenever he had to give a presentation.
Andrew suspected a calling of faith or medication, perhaps both.
They still saw each other rarely enough that Andrew’s mental image of Elias didn’t quite match up with the middle aged man who opened the door and welcomed him with a bright smile.They barely made it through introductions, before Elias called for someone to at least say hello, causing a man wearing an apron and a hassled expression to appear in the doorway.
"And this is my partner, Jonathan,” Elias beamed.
"Please call me Jon," the man said, and held up two food stained hands in excuse for a handshake.
Andrew smiled and introduced himself, and barely managed to keep his face straight.
At no point had Elias ever mentioned a partner, or any kind of personal life. This was the kind of gossip that would be of utmost importance to the rest of their lose social circle, and Andrew decided to learn as much as he could about this mysterious Jon.
For starters, Jonathan seemed two decades younger than Elias at the least. Not that unusual, but he also didn’t look like trophy material.
Maybe he was an artistic type, he had that lean, hungry look about him. And Elias always used to go on and on about the true beauty of the universe, and other hallucinogen fueled ramblings.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, but I need to get back to my sauce,” Jon said with a clipped accent. Maybe he worked in radio.
"Do you need any help?" Andrew asked, and got only a pained grimace in return.
"Jon is very territorial of his kitchen,” Elias explained. “He refuses to let me help at all."
"I prefer my food edible," Jon said as he disappeared into the kitchen, and the besotted look on Elias' face told Andrew all he needed to know about the relationship.
Andrew followed Elias into the dining room, accepted the obligatory Gin and Tonic, and let Elias maneuver him to the bookshelf, where he dutifully admired the beautifully bound foliants.
He hadn’t heard of most of the authors, but the titles, mutations and variations of ‘ghosts’, ‘occult’, ‘secrets of’, and ‘mysteries’, weren't exactly subtle.
"So you didn't shake all of your esoteric hobbies?"
"Oh well," Elias said lightly." It is important to remember your roots. And given the work we do at the Institute, it practically counts as taking work home."
"Jon doesn't mind?"
"Jon is worse than I am. I’m afraid the home office is an absolute no go area. But we keep each other balanced and don’t begrudge our passions.”
“Sounds ideal,” Andrew conceded, and let his eyes wander around the room. It was a nice room, with a high ceiling and bright walls, broken up by a collection of framed vintage illustrations.
But on closer examination, the little eccentricities of Elias Bouchard stood out. For one, the chairs around the dining table were outrageously upholstered, the illustrations looked like they came out of med student’s notebook, there was an oil portrait over the fireplace, and on the mantle itself...
“Is that a skull?” Andrew asked, alarmed.
“Is that a rhetorical question?” Elias asked back, and laughed after a short pause.
“Owning human remains is highly regulated in this enlightened age of ours. And anything old enough to bypass that would belong in a museum. ”
It took Andrew a moment to realise that that didn’t exactly answer the question.
He was relieved when Jon called from the kitchen and Elias, apparently trusted enough to carry dishes, left.
Andrew took one last look at the skull, convinced himself not to touch it, and set down with his back to it.
Dinner was excellent. Roasted vegetables and potatoes, a roast that melted on the tongue, and sauteed green beans, all tied together with a subtle sauce.
The only one not fully satisfied seemed to be the chef himself, but after a deluge of compliments from Elias and Andrew, he conceded that the meal he prepared was acceptable.
Other than that he apparently held his work to a high standard, Jon remained a mystery.
He would interject and elaborate on any academic or cultural topic they touched upon, but barely answered any personal questions.
And at several points he seemed to lose the thread of the conversation completely, instead he just stared right at Andrew, all of which Elias ignored.
"So Jon," Andrew finally asked, "how did the two of you meet?"
"At work.”
"Office romance? How cliche." He hoped to get some kind of reaction out of the man, but Jon just shrugged and smiled.
"You could say that," Elias added. "But we have a lot in common outside of work, I like to think the Institute was simply the right place at the right time."
So they definitely went to the same oddball church. Good for them. Andrew returned to enjoying his meal, and decided to report on Jon as ‘strange but seems harmless’.
"That was lovely,” Elias said, the last one to put his cutlery down.
“Jon, would you care for dessert?"
“I know I would,” Andrew interjected, but Elias and Jon just stared at each other as if he wasn’t there.
“Excuse me,” he tried, and Jon turned towards him and Andrew recoiled under the intensity of his gaze.
The whole universe was reduced to him and Jon, everything else turned into a silent void, meaningless before the bright eyes before him.
Andrew didn’t dare to move, who knew what would happen to him if he broke the silence?
And then Jon spoke.
"What is the worst thing you have ever done?"
For a few moments, Andrews head was nothing but a mess of scattered sentence fragments and unpleasant emotions in turmoil.
And then, without him willing to do so, his mouth started moving and he listened to himself speak.
“I set my brother up to take the blame for our fraudulent marketing. We knew the dye could be harmful to younger children, but changing the production process would have cut our profits by more than half. We just needed one person to sign off on the inspection, and I asked him to do it. He didn’t even question what might happen to him if we got caught. Nobody believed him that he didn’t understand the content of the form. Not even his wife. He died of a heart attack two years into his sentence, and the worst the company suffered was a small fine.”
Jon nodded, and Andrew knew with absolute certainty, that he truly knew all the context, the preparations necessary to pull this off, all the chances to come clean he’d ignored.
Jonathan saw and understood and his face stayed completely passive, as if he didn’t care at all.
A sudden clap from Elias brought the rest of the world back into focus. Andrew could feel the tears running down his cheeks, but he couldn’t turn away even as Elias started speaking.
"This has been a lovely evening, but i think it's time to -"
"No," Jon interrupted, "that's not quite it."
He tilted his head slightly, as if he needed to figure out a mildly challenging crossword-puzzle.
"You needed a scapegoat, but it didn't need to be your brother. Still you picked him, out of all the possibilities. Why?"
Andrew’s hands burned, he had to be drawing splinters from the table and if he could only look down, focus on that pain, instead of the scrutiny that pinned him to the spot like a bug in a display case-
“Tell me.”
"Because he needed to learn,” he finally said, words wrenched from his throat.
“That sometimes being charming and funny and good looking isn't enough. Sometimes being stupid and thoughtless has consequences.”
The bitter words left a burning pain in his mouth, and he trembled so hard the chair shook with him.
“We are done here,” Jon said with a satisfied smile, he blinked, and Andrew sobbed with relief at being able to move again. He turned to Elias, hoping for support, a terror equal to his own, confusion even, but Elias still stared at Jon with pure adoration.
Finally, as if he’d just remembered Andrew was there, Elias turned to him and said, with a terrible friendliness:
“Do you want me to call you a taxi?”
*
Jon watched as Andrew stumbled out of the building, disoriented and very very scared. He didn’t look up, which was a shame, Jon was certain he looked very dramatic framed in the living room window, and would have enjoyed one last moment of terrifying eye contact.
He didn’t turn as Elias entered, he didn’t want to miss a moment of the wretched man hurrying down the street.
Elias joined him by the window, wrapped his arms around Jon from behind, and rested his head on Jon’s shoulder with a wistful sigh.
"This was a wonderful day."
"Really? You aren't bored by petty sibling rivalries yet?"
"Are you?" Elias asked, sounding wounded. Jon extracted himself just enough to kiss him on the cheek.
“Of course not. This was interesting. He hadn’t even realised his own motivations until he had to tell me. But there wasn't anything related to an entity."
"There will be now. All his petty little secrets laid bare before the Archivist, conduct of the Eye."
"Hmm. I don’t know, I guess from how excited you were about this dinner I suspected something more elaborate."
“Oh, I never bothered to actually look into it, Andrew Pearce is a thoroughly unremarkable man, even in his vices. But I wanted to see you unwrap this present. Could you tell that it was related to family?"
"No."
Elias pulled him closer again. "Don't worry, it takes time. And even if you never learn this particular skill, you'll always have me."
Jon wanted to object, he should be able to do it by himself, learn, grow, be self-sufficient.
But right here, with the last rays of the evening sun streaming through the window, the taste of Andrew Pearce’s terror fresh on his tongue, Elias’ arms around him, every possible hunger sated, Jon smiled, and simply allowed himself to be happy.