Chapter Text
Jon is beautiful. Elias isn’t vain enough to have chosen his new Archivist purely based off of looks, but they certainly drew his attention in the first place. He wanted for Jon to be a good fit for the role, and was very pleased when that turned out to be the case. It’s easy, to worship him.
“What is it that you wanted, Elias?” he asks, wary, standing in front of his desk.
Elias smiles. “To celebrate your progress.”
“My progress? I’m afraid I haven’t made any recent discoveries regarding the Unknowing--”
“No, Jon. Your progress. You’re growing nicely into what you’re supposed to be.” He stands up from his chair and circles around his desk until it no longer separates them. Jon takes one instinctive step back from him as he approaches, until he remembers his pride and stands firm.
“What I’m supposed to be?” he asks. His Archivist, eternally curious, always wanting to know more, even the answers to the ugly questions, as if the truth will help him. Elias knew he was the one from the first day.
His resolve wavers as Elias reaches his personal bubble and then keeps going, casually crossing the distance appropriate for a boss and his employee, acquaintances. His entire being subtly leans back, away from him, and Elias reaches out and curls a hand around Jon’s wrist to keep him where he is. Jon is very, very tense now.
“The Archivist,” he says simply. “Your abilities have been growing, haven’t they. You’ve noticed.” It is a fact. He knows that Jon has noticed, and he knows that he has promptly buried the worry beneath a dozen other urgent questions and issues, because this is something that he can do nothing about, this is something deeply horrifying to him. His Archivist is good at denial past all reason, which is perhaps the least appropriate thing about him. But that trait is slowly crumbling away with time and repeated damage. Soon, he will be perfect.
Jon tries to tug his hand out of Elias’ grip. He doesn’t have to so much as shift his weight. It’s an adorable effort. Jon is a short man who frequently forgets to eat. Elias is six feet tall and enjoys a fine steak. It’s really no competition.
The uneasiness in Jon’s eyes spark their way to true fear. Elias shivers very slightly with delight.
“Forgive me if I don’t want to celebrate that with a glass of champagne,” he bites out, words sharp with that fear, retreating behind disdain as is his custom. Elias smiles down at him, fond and warm. Jon tries to pull his hand away again, harder, less subtle. Elias continues not to let it go without strain. The polite fiction that Elias isn’t restraining him is rapidly dwindling.
“I’m afraid that I didn’t think to bring champagne, but I do have a bottle of wine here somewhere, if you’d like it.” He imagines it. Jon, soft and hazy and weak on wine. It’s a good image. Such a pity that Jon barely has any memories of being drunk at all, since he graduated from his university. Too dignified for it, and he doesn’t like the sensation of it, of losing control of himself. But he thinks that in this case that Jon would perhaps appreciate it. The dulling of sensations and memory.
Jon’s free hand curls around the one Elias is using to hold Jon’s wrist in place, tries to pull it off with enough force that he trembles with the effort. “Let-- let go,” Jon says, and the polite fiction collapses in on itself, abandoned.
“We’re going to celebrate in a more traditional way,” he says, not letting go. “Would you like to ask me what that is?”
“Elias,” Jon says. Elias skims the surface of his thoughts. Images of knives and blood.
“Oh, that’s charming. But no, not quite. I’m more of a hedonist than a masochist. If you ask, you’ll know,” he goads. “Don’t you want to know what’s about to happen to you? Compel me, Jonathan.”
He does want to compel him, Elias sees. He wants to ask, to know, to make Elias tell him the truth, as if he can use it, can shield himself with it. But the fact that Elias is pushing him to do it is making him hesitate, as if there’s a trap waiting for him. Elias tsks ruefully, and then his other hand closes down on the nape of Jon’s neck, broad and firm. He pulls him in, up, tilting his head back. He leans down and kisses him, long and satisfying. Jon is a warm line pressed unwillingly up against him, and he freezes, his mind going still and blank with shock. Elias savors the taste of him like a fine wine, and then leans back with a smirk.
“Can you guess now?”
Jon stares up at him for a long moment, and then he abruptly throws his entire weight away from Elias, desperately trying to get out of his grip. But his hold is firm as iron. Elias doesn’t so much as sway. Jon is still close, with a hand clamped down on the back of his neck and on his wrist. He doesn’t stop struggling to get away, trying to twist away from him. He’s only giving himself bruises.
“There’s something very religious about sex, to me,” he says. “So I feel like it would be appropriate.”
That, and he’s wanted to do this since the first time he laid eyes on this man. He’s desired him, and Elias isn’t in the habit of denying himself the things that he desires. And Jon is growing more and more perfect every single day. More the Archivist, more a monster, more what Elias and the Beholding need for him to be. More irresistible.
“No,” Jon says. He’s too panicked to come up with a proper argument, anything to actually convince Elias to let him go. Just base instinct, just the fearful truth. Warmth coils in the pit of Elias’ gut. He looks up into Elias’ eyes, the white of his eyes so visible even in the dimly lit room. “Elias, don’t-- don’t do this.”
He sighs softly with want, with luxurious satisfaction. This is already everything he’d hoped it would be. Closeness, fear. He takes a step backwards without loosening his grip on Jon, forcing him to stumble after him.
“Why not? What should stop me? Morality?” He chuckles. He watches memories flit through Jon’s mind. Jurgen Leitner’s blood and brain matter splattered inside of the Archives. Elias informing him that Gertrude Robinson had died in the line of duty. Listening to the tape with Melanie’s shaking breath, sobbing, as he mercilessly branded the truth of her father’s death into her mind.
“I’ll be uncooperative if you do this,” he says, grasping desperately at the possible avenue of escape. Elias takes a few steps and steadily pushes him into place, so that he’s standing pressed up to the edge of Elias’ desk, length wise.
“You’ll let the world end?” he asks, amused. “My dear Jonathan, even if you were able to convincingly lie about it, please do remember that I can see what you really think. You’ll do what I need for you to do no matter what.”
He feels helplessness climbs up Jon’s throat, making his thoughts frizz at the edges with panic, his hands starting to shake. Beautiful. It’s starting to sink in for him that there’s no way out for him in this situation, but through. A fact so horrible that he wants to deny it, ignore it, but how could he, with the matter so pressing and present?
“Elias,” he says, voice going soft with pleading, broken. “Please.”
The warmth in his gut grows until it feels like he’s swallowed a furnace. He leans in and kisses him with bruising force, letting base want and need take him over, indulging himself. Jon feels so small and so right in his arms, in his proper place. He lets go of his wrist to tug up his white button up shirt and dark green sweater, his hand settling on the vulnerable warmth of his flesh underneath. He digs his fingers in harshly until Jon inhales sharply with startled pain, and then he slips his tongue in. Oh, it’s good. Warm. Tastes like Jon.
Jon’s fingers clench down on Elias’ suit vest, holding on desperately as he tries to pull away uselessly. Elias is still holding onto the back of his neck. He hopes it bruises, a dark handprint claiming him. His hand up Jon’s shirt slides up and down slowly, appreciating. His ribs are so stark.
“You’re perfect,” he breathes against Jon’s lips as Jon gasps for breath. He isn’t used to breathing through his nose through a kiss, because he doesn’t like deep kisses. The inexperience is endearing.
His hand on Jon’s neck slides up into his hair, dark and graying and getting too long, and his fingers curl around the strands, close to the roots. A perfect handhold. He pulls Jon’s head back slowly, revealing the brown column of his throat. He puts his mouth to it, tasting the salty sweetness of his skin, feeling his pulse thrum underneath his tongue.
“Stop it,” Jon says weakly before he’s regained all of his breath. He sounds breathless, like he wants it. Elias can see that he doesn’t, but the sound of his voice makes the heat inside of him spike anyways. He bites down too hard on his throat and Jon makes a strangled sound of pain. He sucks, endeavoring to leave behind a string of bites and hickeys in plain sight on him. Jon struggles weakly against him, and it’s almost indistinguishable from the squirming of someone who is overwhelmed with sensation. It makes his mouth water, want surging inside of his veins.
“My Archivist,” he says, feeling dark eyed and possessive. He finally lets go of Jon, only to push him onto his back on the desk, a large sturdy thing made of oak. He looks gorgeous sprawled across it, his lips kiss swollen, his throat ravaged, his shirt and hair in disarray, chest desperately rising and falling. Right where he’s supposed to be. How many times has he imagined bending Jon over this desk, making him sit in his lap in his office chair, going to his knees in the space underneath it? But this way is best. He can see it all, this way.
Elias takes his knees and pulls them open, stand in the space between them. Jon moves to sit up, and he shoves him back firmly with a hand to his chest.
“Stop,” Jon repeats himself, but this time with force instead of begging, like he can will Elias to do as he pleases. Like a proper Archivist. He shivers with pleasure, smiles with his teeth.
“You’re not of the Web, you know,” he says, amused. “Why would the Eye help you get away from experiencing something? Something you’ve never been through before? Don’t you want to see what it’s like?”
“No,” he says forcefully.
“Liar,” he says. “You’ve been curious. Well, now you finally get to know.”
“I don’t want to--”
He takes a hold of Jon by one of his thighs, pulling it up and yanking him close until he can grind his crotch against Jon’s. Jon yelps. Yes, something inside of Elias thrums with satisfaction, with desire for more. A very human part of him.
He reaches down and grabs the hem of Jon’s shirt and sweater, pulling it up, revealing scarred skin, and Jon sputters as it goes over his head, snagging on his glasses and pulling them off on the way. He leaves the whole tangled mess around Jon’s arms, uncaring. It’s not really an effective restraint, but he doesn’t need any. Although Jon would look lovely in rope. An idea for later.
Jon gets the shirt off his arms and onto the floor in time to try and stop Elias from undoing his belt, hands closing in desperately around his own. Elias could ignore him and continue, but that sounds annoying, clumsy. He looks at Jon, whose face is very close now, and raises an eyebrow.
“Elias, don’t,” he says, tense and miserable and desperate. “I-- I’ll give you a handjob.”
“I appreciate the offer, but no,” he says, amused by the bargaining.
“I’ll-- suck you off.” It looks like the offer pains him.
Elias imagines it. Hands buried in Jon’s hair, thrusting into his open mouth, so warm and perfect, feeling him choke and try, gently wiping away reflexive tears from his face, being the only one able to speak, to say anything he wanted to with Jon only able to suck his cock. Jon on his knees, as if in worship, barely able to breathe.
“You drive a hard bargain,” he murmurs, blood heated, skin warm. “But no. That’s not good enough for our god, is it?”
He watches fear and despair break across Jon’s face, plain to see. He has to kiss him again. Jon doesn’t even try to move away, just sits there like a statue, with his eyes squeezed closed.
“This is going to go much better for you if you cooperate, Jon,” he says into the shell of his ear, close close close. “I don’t want to hurt you. Just to be close to you, inside you. Like prayer.”
Jon hides away from Elias by burying his face in the crook of his neck and shoulder. Elias closes his eyes and takes it in, Jon shaking against him. So much delicious fear. It fills his lungs like an intoxicating perfume. He rubs his hand up and down the small of Jon’s bare back, and he can feel the want to flinch away from it, except that would only press him even closer up against Elias. No getting away from him. No avoiding it.
He feels the resignation rise up inside of Jon, and it tastes so, so sweet.
He waits for confirmation, though. He wants Jon’s undeniable surrender to him. Finally, there comes a small nod against his neck. He grins.
“What was that?” he asks.
He tastes the bitter hatred that floods Jon’s mouth at that, the way his teeth grit.
“Fine,” he says.
“Fine, what? What do you want for me to do, Jon? Tell me.”
He’s teasing now, taking more than he needs just because he wants to. And why shouldn’t he? This is a celebration. He should be enjoying himself as much as possible.
Jon spends a long moment just breathing, nails hatefully digging into Elias’ muscles. And then he sits back enough to look him in the eye.
“I want for you to fuck me,” he says clearly, a scowl etched onto his face.
Elias smiles, delighted. “Oh, I do so love it when you’re being commanding, Jonathan.”
Jon bares his teeth at him. Such a beautiful man. He kisses him, and Jon very deliberately doesn’t take the opportunity to bite him. He hums against his lips, rubbing his hand up and down Jon’s forearm once in reward, a quick condescending headpat for a well behaved pet. But Jon’s much more than a pet. He’s holy. He just needs to learn to accept that.
His hands go down to undo Jon’s belt, and though every single muscle in his body goes tense, he doesn’t move to stop him. He unbuckles it, and then pulls the leather out of its loops. He could use it to restrain Jon’s wrists. But that wouldn’t be as fun as fucking Jon with his hands free, nothing stopping him from attacking Elias but the unchangeable knowlege that it wouldn’t go well for him. He tosses the belt onto the floor, undoing his trousers now, as he tastes the inside of Jon’s mouth. Jon doesn’t reciprocate, but Elias doesn’t need for him to do so. He can just take and take and take.
He lifts Jon up by his arse with one hand, pulling his trousers and pants down with the other, to pool around his feet. He goes to his knees to remove his shoes, his socks, his pants. Jon looks down at him, and Elias looks up with half lidded eyes, feeling so perfectly at home. This is where he’s supposed to be; at his knees, worshipping his perfect Archivist, raising him into his power, doling out all necessary knowledge slowly as he sees fit. He won’t let this one go to seed. Won’t have to get rid of him and start over.
He kisses Jon’s shin, his knee, the inside of his thigh. Jon’s fingers clench around the edge of the desk with dread, making himself not move away. Elias really can’t resist touching Jon’s cock, with all of that fearful hoping that he won’t, the dread that he will. He’s soft. Elias isn’t insulted. Jon isn’t one to be aroused easily, and being terrified and furious clearly doesn’t do it for him.
Elias could make him be hard. He could fill his mind with happy, safe, intimate memories of Georgie Barker, everyone he’s ever been halfway attracted to for fleeting moments, until his body would be convinced that he was somewhere else with someone else, and then he could take Jon down to the root of him and make him come.
Another time. This is their first time together, and his cock throbs with needy impatience. He needs to be inside of Jon.
He gives Jon’s cock a parting kiss, languishes in how much Jon wants to push him away and yet him not doing so, and then he rises back to his feet. Jon completely naked, revealed, himself fully clothed. He grins, takes Jon’s hand and presses his palm up against his crotch for some momentary relief. He groans, and Jon looks away. He can see him try and disconnect himself from the current happenings, to go away to some other place in his head until this is over.
He chuckles and doesn’t let him. Inserts the way Elias feels in this moment into his head, the hot arousal, the possessive want. Jon flinches away, eyes wide, and Elias pushes him back onto his back on the desk. Undoes his own belt, pulls his hard cock out of his trousers. Reaches into his pocket and tears a packet of lube open with his teeth.
Something inside of Jon’s mind goes dizzy with relief at the sight of the lube despite himself, and Elias makes a chiding sound at him.
“Really, Jon? You’re my Archivist. I wouldn’t hurt you like that. Not when you’re cooperating.”
Jon’s lips go thin as he thinks, against his will, uncontrollable, about what it’d be like if he wasn’t cooperating. Far more bruises, certainly. That belt, cinched tight around his thin wrists. Elias squeezes the lube out of the packet, thrusts into the grip of his own hand with a soft exhalation of pleasure, slicking up his cock. Jon lies very still, watching him without blinking, and he revels in it. He can feel Jon sizing up his cock, trying to brace himself for how it will feel inside of himself.
“Are you sure you want this, Jon?” he drawls, unable to resist. “You seem tense.”
Jon bristles, eyes narrowing. “I’m fine.”
Elias could make him beg for it. But he decides to go easy on him, this time. He’s so nervous, the poor thing. He reaches out with his lube slick hand, and slips a finger into him. Jon sharply inhales, eyes going wide, spine straight. Elias grabs the underside of his thigh and hoists it up for a better angle, probes deeper. His fingers are thick. Jon’s breath shakes on the way out. He wants to clutch at something, anything, but there’s nothing for him to hold, not even sheets. Elias wonders if he should invite him to his home someday. Hold Jon in his arms as he falls asleep out of exhaustion, watch him more deeply than any other person can watch as the nightmares spool across his mind.
He inserts another finger, curling it into the tight warmth of Jon until a sound escapes him, against his will. It’s more a faint sound of distress, if anything, but those can sound very similar to sounds of arousal. He grins down at him. “Enjoying yourself?”
“Nn-- hah!” He strokes his fingers inside of Jon as he speaks, interrupting him. He can see the way his thoughts and composure are unraveling inside of him at the intrusion, the tangible violation. His chest is rising and falling desperately, his hands visibly trembling.
“You’re beautiful,” he tells him, a fact, overcome for a moment by the vision that is his Archivist taken to pieces on his desk, at his mercy, pinned like a butterfly to a board.
Jon has nothing to say in response. He continues to finger him, until he’s so overstimulated that he has to bury his hand in his own hair, tugging helplessly, biting down on the other one to try and hold back the noises, to ground himself in pain. He’s too tense to unclench, but Elias doesn’t mind. He wipes his slick hand off on Jon’s thigh, and then grabs him, casually manhandling him, positioning him to his satisfaction until his cock is lined up with Jon’s hole.
Elias feels almost feverishly hot with excited anticipation, with want. He’s wanted this for so long, and now he’s taking it, and it’s perfect.
“Ready?” he prompts, like the considerate lover he is.
“Is this,” Jon gasps, “is this the last time you’re going to do this?”
There’s strength behind that question, even as his voice wavers. Compulsion. Elias could ride it out, as the beating heart of the institute. He doesn’t want to. He lets it sink into him, and he answers easily, with holy pleasure. “No.”
A wave of misery crests inside of Jon, and he pushes himself into him in time with it. His eyes close, his mouth falling open, and this is it. This is communion. Tied so close to his Archivist, in fear and cruelty and pleasure and witnessing.
“God, you’re tight,” he compliments him, voice low with heated pleasure. He knows that he should stay still for a moment to let Jon, who has stopped breathing, adjust. But he can’t stop his hips from small twitching movements, the wonderful warmth of him wrapped tight around his cock. He groans from deep in his chest, as he watches Jon, exposed and debauched on his desk, looking like he’s been hit by lightning. Filled.
After a long moment, Jon takes a shuddering breath in. Elias takes that as his signal to go, and begins thrusting in and out of his Archivist. A noise tears out of Jon’s throat, and it could be agony or overstimulated pleasure, they all sound the same, don’t they? He thrusts into Jon again and again, and immerses himself in Jon’s feeling of being filled up too much, too big, too sudden, and gives him the feeling of warmth clenching down on his cock in return.
Jon says things, during. He says no and stop and fuck. Elias says you’re perfect and beautiful and mine. Jon makes wordless noises, and so does Elias. He braces his legs and fucks Jon on his desk, and it’s everything he could have ever wanted. He comes inside of him, and it’s bliss. He wraps Jon around in the feeling as he does, shares it, forces him to see every part of this. When he opens his eyes, dazed and satisfied, he looks down at Jon’s hardening cock and grins.
“See?” he says, teases. “It isn’t so bad, is it?”
“Elias,” Jon says, fucked stupid, more dazed from Elias’ orgasm than Elias himself. It makes sense. He’s had far more of them than Jon has. He wraps his hand around Jon’s cock, his dick still inside of Jon. He starts stroking slowly, lovingly, luxuriously.
Eventually, Jon starts twitching, his hands going to Elias’ forearms, his breath shuddering in and out, nails digging into his skin, shaking his head.
“This is going to feel good,” he tells him. “You don’t get this often, do you? But this is a celebration. You should get something special.”
“No,” Jon says, but he’s helpless, under Elias’ power in this place. His duty is to witness, not avoid. Jon closes his eyes and turns his head away, and Elias burns what he sees into him, Jon naked and hard with Elias’ cock inside of him and hand on his dick, breathing hard. “You-- you bastard--”
Jon comes with a soft, ragged cry, in bittersweet surrender. Elias immerses himself in his forced anguished pleasure and tastes his seed spilled on the back of his hand, pushing the taste onto Jon so that he can feel it on his own tongue.
“See?” he says. “That was lovely.”
He reaches down and wipes the tears away from his face and kisses him softly, even as Jon tries to lean away, weak with orgasm. He likes this ritual, he decides. He thinks he knows why it’s so popular in religions throughout the world, now. Such a perfect way to show worship.
He holds his beautiful Archivist in his arms where he can’t get away, right where he belongs. Trapped, with him.