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The head of the institute is almost exactly what one would expect: middle-aged man, clean face and haircut, sharp suit. Just a little more strongly built than Jon predicted. Bland features. A blank slate for Jon’s infernal brain to instantly paint with all the absurd pornographic clichés of the archetype of the man in power who would take advantage, the faceless perverted boss with more cock than personality. Wide chest, thick limbs, probably strong enough to overpower Jon; could easily pin him over the desk and Jon wouldn’t be able to run. Large hands, enough that one could wrap around Jon’s neck and choke him, killing his cries for help in this throat as he’d fuck him over the gleaming antique desk. Jon grabs his own mind by the scruff of the neck and forces it back on track, as roughly as the man could slam his face down against the leather desktop, makes himself look the man in the eye and remember his name even as the Jon in his mind is physically quite incapable of that, remember the facts about this place he looked up when preparing this interview, the fact that this is an interview for a job and not a workplace assault kinky roleplay scene, Christ, Jonathan.
He opens his mouth to speak and the man across from him shifts in his seat, as if spreading his thighs, as if to accommodate an uncomfortable erection, or to make room for Jon, and Jon's thoughts don't so quite derail as simply spin round his brain, circling around that central concept of being knocked down to his knees on the waxed floorboards and his interviewer's cock shoving into the orifice, slotting perfectly into place between his lips, filling the useless cavity of his mouth. He clears his throat, but it is tight and painful, like he's choking on a dick, like he's being throat-fucked.
He knows he isn’t going to throw up (he never does), but that doesn’t stop the feeling.
He still wants the job, though. He'd still want the job if this were to happen, he’d still beg to keep the job and the money if he were raped by his boss, because he has no respect for himself, either. Nor should he, despicable filthy whore who projects all the awful thoughts his vile mind comes up with onto perfectly decent innocent people. Yet he still wants the job, as though he’d deserve it.
Elias blinks.
Interesting.
This kind of thing isn't rare by any measure, of course, in itself. Jonah has had ample sample to confirm the fact that rape fantasies feature amongst the most common, encountered indiscriminately in all sorts of minds from straight-laced Georgian high society ladies to gogo-boys in Soho Village. But it has been a while since he's happened onto that violent a train of thought without expecting it at all. The — he glances at the birth date on the CV — boy doesn’t let his face or demeanour betray any of it, nor of the distress it is causing him: clipped tone, straight back, laced hands. Long experience in hiding it.
“Dreadful,” Elias murmurs to himself, almost with admiration.
The boy does blink at that, asks: “Pardon?”, but that is all.
“I said ‘wonderful’,” Elias replies easily. “Now, could you elaborate on the skills you could put in our service?”
Jonathan Sims licks his lips before he gets another syllable out of his thirsty mouth to valiantly defend his irrelevant qualifications; Jonah has already stopped listening. He’ll need to look into why the Spider would choose to send one of its marked preys to him, but it is quite clear that the boy and his secret self-torturing dirty mind belong at the Institute.
Jonathan is a horrible little pervert, but a capable researcher, when he isn’t having lurid thoughts of sexual degradation about the people he is talking to. Or, to be perfectly fair, he is a capable researcher despite the regular stray pornographic intrusive thoughts. He has his control of it down to an art — the only external manifestations of his mental struggling are a pinch of his lips, a clenched jaw, the occasional impatient flinch away when touched, which most of his interlocutors interpret as scowling and prickliness.
Most of it is quite benign, frankly. Wonderings about people’s sexual life, kinks, what they might look like naked. He protests his desk neighbour Timothy’s oversharing about weekend escapades, but pictures the stories vividly and elaborates on them; mentally dresses up Sasha in a new dominatrix outfit every time he hears her heels clack; hypothesises down mental lists of acrobatic sexual positions whenever a colleague complains of aching back or neck, thinks about concealed lingerie and collars and sex toys every time someone shifts.
Deliciously invasive and voyeuristic, certainly, but harmless; the most interesting part of it all is actually that Jonathan hates it all so much. Part of the fear he emanates is at the perspective of slipping and being exposed, but most of it is terror, disgust and repulsion at the thoughts themselves. Elias doesn’t even need to do anything to make the boy miserable; he does it all himself. Very efficient.
The second most interesting part is that contrary to that initial preview, the imagined scenarii barely ever involve Jonathan himself. In fact, in nearly four years now, Elias has only caught his mind jumping to abuse of power and violent assault, or really any action on his person, when it comes to Elias himself.
Corporal punishment for each of the complaints against him he is informed of; bare-handed spanking with the signet of Elias’s ring leaving a trace in his buttocks, a beating with the antique cane Jonah Magnus used displayed in the Head office, a lashing across his back with Elias’s new belt and ornate buckle. Elias cornering him in one of the narrow dead-end rows of bookshelves in the library and gagging him, making it slow and quiet so no one would hear and help. Elias grabbing him by the scruff of his collar in front of everyone and dragging him like a cat through the hallways of the Institute to fuck him in his office, everyone seeing, everyone knowing, and no one stepping in.
Aww.
Jonah isn’t going to do any of that, of course. What experiments he used to run in carnal pleasures never compared to the delights of knowledge; he stopped bothering with those pursuits over two hundred years ago and has never found cause to change his mind since. The pleasure and amusement he does derive from Jon’s little fantasies is better than his usual disdain for those sorts of affairs, but no different in nature from what he finds in Rosie’s morbid nosiness and mean gossips.
Currently, due to the echo of the circumstances, Jonathan has returned to that nostalgic first fantasy of the casting couch, updated and improved: Elias has a face now in his mind, a slick smirk, and his hands are rendered in attentive detail as they grab Jon’s tie and tug him down hard. They know each other better and so Elias says Jon’s name, holds his head and strokes his face while brutally fucking his mouth. Come on, Jon, I know this is all you’re good using for but you need to work for it. I expect better than this from you, don’t let me down. This time, Jon doesn’t necessarily want the promotion, as he is piercingly, exquisitely aware of his inadequacy for the (mundane) role of archivist; but what he is desperate for is Elias’s satisfaction, manifesting in a hot splash down his throat, then over his face, Elias’s strong hands sharply yanking Jon’s head back by the hair.
“Thank you for the opportunity, Elias,” Jonathan says evenly, his breathing calm, while he thinks about panting for air and Elias’s come dripping from his cheek into his gaping mouth, gagging, gasping, Elias, heaving, heart thrumming, did I do good?
Elias smiles, says, “I know you are a good fit for this position. Don’t let me down.”
Jon nods stiffly and stands up, while in his mind, Elias pulls his hair and calls him a good-for-nothing whore.
Jonah isn’t interested, exactly.
But Jon can be a beautiful sight.
Despite operating on a default baseline of irritation, Jon rarely gets properly furious like this. Disheveled, gesticulating, flushed, wild-eyed, entirely focused on Elias. It is, alas, marred by being targeted at him, and Jonah unfortunately cannot afford to tolerate that lack of respect from his Archivist at this point. Even more inconvenient, Jon not being afraid of him means Jonah doesn’t really have an easy way to put him in his place and ensure his continued cooperation any more, short of randomly killing an assistant (which is a hassle he’d rather avoid).
Luckily, Jonathan’s filthy little mind is, once again, sabotaging him without Jonah needing to lift a finger.
“Kidnapped, Elias!” he repeats, seething. “And you did nothing to help, and you’re doing nothing to help now!” he continues, all the while his dirty dirty little brain replays a snapshot of the traumatic month he just went through and inserts Elias into the scene. Elias tying him to a chair. Elias’s hands running all over his naked body, lotioning every inch, every crevice and orifice. Elias wearing him, in a less literal but much cruder way.
Jon’s rant doesn’t so much as hiccup — “It’s not like I’m asking for much! Information, explanations, anything to let me understand what nonsense you’ve thrown me into!” — but nausea is starting to take over him; he’ll have to calm down soon enough.
Elias smiles.
“What?” Jon snaps at him with fresh annoyance. “What could you possibly find funny about this? I hope for you this is good news for me, Elias. Are you finally going to give me something, anything I want?”
Oh, the darling.
Elias stands, not brusquely but with no warning, and Jon jumps, then, out of pure spiteful rebelliousness, clamps down instead. He pushes himself back deeper in the uncomfortable guest chair of Elias’s office, gripping the armrests with both hands, and glares up, as if daring Elias to dislodge him.
Despite the scenario playing in his mind, he is not at all expecting the real Elias to lean down into his personal space.
Elias’s movements are pointed, strategically thought-out. He closes one hand over Jon’s wrist, in precisely the same spot, applying the same pressure as Orsinov’s restraints did, and Jon’s arm stiffens under his palm. His other hand combs through Jon’s hair and closes on a fistful, specifically the same way his imaginary alter ego so often does, and Jon’s eyes widen and his breath stops short as if he had pulled.
Jon’s brain slams to a halt and sudden silence, but for the single resonating thought of: Fuck, and then, glacial: He knows.
That’s a brand new flavour of fear, from him; fresh, crisp. Jonah can almost taste it on his tongue; he savours it like a piece of candy before leaning in.
Fuck, Jon thinks again, louder, panic rising like a tidal wave, his pulse suddenly rushing under Elias’s hand, fuck me fuck me fuck me, so loud in his head as Elias’s mouth brushes his, oh god don’t touch me please don’t, so loud he almost doesn’t hear the answer Elias breathes over his lips:
“No.”
As Elias straightens up, he smiles again, fondly, in response to Jon’s haggard and lost gaze.
He has more important business to attend to, and Jon’s little outburst has wasted enough of his time as is; Jonah has no qualms abandoning his shaking Archivist to sit alone in his office, guiltily turned on and devastated, with the new piercing awareness that Elias is paying attention to his thoughts and acts. He does keep an Eye on him, though, just in case Jon decides to do anything about that horrified arousal.
Jonah isn’t interested in taking part, but he is curious.