Chapter Text
It was night, when it happened. Far later into the night than anyone should still be at work, and yet here Jon sat. Alone, he assumed. Everyone else had the good sense to fuck off home hours ago.
He had gotten caught in a research loop — like you find on Wikipedia sometimes, where every source only cites something else that tells it second hand and digging through to find the beginning would leave you wandering through a frustratingly short maze of purple links — and there was a time difference with his only real lead. He’d in theory been waiting up for it to become a reasonable time to respond to emails wherever they were, but as the hours crept on he found himself thinking that even if they did send a reply as soon as they saw it, he’d been in no fit state to answer.
When his heavy head slipped out of his hand and he nearly brained himself on the edge of his desk, he gave up. He knew the response would lead nowhere, because there was nowhere for it to lead, and was tired of pretending to believe otherwise to satisfy his superiors. He was going home.
Grabbing what little belongings he brought to work with him and stuffing them into the equally meager bag, he got up and left the room before he could change his mind. He walked as swiftly as he could manage on such stiff legs towards the exit, suddenly very annoyed with himself for wasting so much time he could’ve spent sleeping, now that his priorities has changed. It was that annoyance, combined of course with the wave of exhaustion that he could feel building on the near horizon, that meant Jon didn’t notice the singing until he was nearly in the same room as it.
He slowed when he did, not out of fear or anything the sort — the institute could get quite creepy at night if you weren’t used to it, but Jon was, and it hardly bothered him anymore — but simple curiosity. It wasn’t impossible for someone else to have stayed so late but he’d never encountered anyone past midnight before. More than that, it was familiar. Not the song, or the singing, but the voice — a man’s voice, surprisingly smooth and clear.
Jon peeked into the lobby the music was reverberating from and found his suspicions confirmed. There stood Elias, seemingly having just entered the room himself, wearing wired earbuds and singing quietly. He hummed the lyricless tune with a lot more talent than Jon had ever expected and with the echo of the empty room it was quite beautiful, clearly well practiced.
It was with that thought that Jon noticed that Elias had hardly moved from where he’d entered, seemingly drifting sideways from the door he’d entered instead of going straight across. Yes, instead of walking directly out the front doors onto the street to go home the other man was…..dancing. Swaying back and forth with his arms lifted gently in front of him, moving far more gracefully than a man who spent so much time behind a desk had any right to. He stepped forward and back in loose circles, tracing the patterns in the tile in what Jon realized was a waltz.
Or half of one, anyway.
All at once Jon felt like a terrible pervert, spying on the other man like this — peeping from the shadows at what was obviously a private moment. He again wanted to kick himself for not leaving hours ago. It’s not like he could interrupt now that whatever this was had begun though, and not wanting to skulk back to his computer he was left with little option than to keep watching.
He wasn’t at risk of getting caught at least — Elias’s eyes had remained closed the whole time, apparently purely confident that his movements wouldn’t bring him stumbling into the reception desk or a wall — and unless he randomly decided to walk back through the door Jon planned to leave from, it was unlikely he’d spot him even with them open. The moon was bright but they were still in a very old building, with sturdy walls and narrow windows.
The song built as it neared its end, and though the intricacy and volume both increased it seemed not to strain him at all. In fact he still seemed quite peaceful, the ever present crease between his eyes gone when he stepped close enough for Jon to see.
He leaned oddly as the music crescendoed, spinning an imaginary partner and making Jon think vividly of the fluffy, flowing dresses that would flare out with such a movement, balancing the performance. He wondered who the last person Elias had danced properly with was. As far as Jon knew he didn’t have a partner of any kind.
He wondered briefly what the dance would look like with matching figures instead, a pair of sharp cut suits, and banished the thought just as quickly.
The last beautiful note hung in the air as the song ended, Elias now poised in the center of the room. He bowed deeply to an imaginary audience as the echo faded, the facing the entirely wrong direction from his real one. Posture perfect, he stood there for a moment more, head slightly tilted back and breathing only a little heavier than he had before.
Then he briskly turned on his heel and strode out of the lobby as if nothing had happened.
Jon blinked, suddenly again alone in the institute. He stood dumbly there in the dark longer than he should have, still tired and now oddly off balance. It was strange, to now share this small intimate thing with a man he barely knew. Especially when said man didn’t know that they shared it.
With nothing to keep them away though, thoughts of his bed returned to him, and Jon soon followed Elias’s footsteps out of the lobby.
He called a cab, not wanting to somehow end up on the same train as the other man, and made it home without incident. He collapsed into a dreamless sleep tinted only faintly with classical music as soon as he fell into bed, and thought of it no more.