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[Pokémon X&Y] So Long as We Can Say - Chapter 4: urn
Title: So Long as We Can Say
Fandom: Pokémon X&Y
Pairing: Professor Augustine Sycamore/Lysandre
Rating: T
Summary: In the aftermath of victory, Lysandre discovers that triumph without peril indeed brings no glory. In more ways than one.
Notes: This is the fic, the one I started early on in the fandom, abandoned a year later, and then finished EIGHT YEARS after posting the first chapter. It's also the starting point for a whole series. Warning for Major Character Death (although it doesn't last) and heavy angst, especially in the early chapters. This is a story about Lysandre succeeding in his plans and then having a really bad time about it. Title is from Shakespeare's King Lear. Warning for mentions of suicide in this chapter.
AO3 Link: Here.
The room he sat in smelled like burnt plastic and something he wasn't entirely sure he recognized, some kind of bitter acid Xerosic probably used for experimenting. The scientist in question was sitting across from him, and even with the goggles there he could read anxiety plainly on his face.
Lysandre took a deep breath.
"I'm fine, then."
Xerosic's mouth twitched. "Well, physically, outside of the toll of everything that's happened, I believe so," he replied, speaking slowly like he was actually giving a diagnosis. "Mentally, you know, I'm not... well, I'm not a doctor."
"Of course."
"I'm not sure what to tell you," he went on, and sure enough his voice lacked any sort of confidence. "If you see, huh, 'him'... you should probably ignore it. Try to focus on positive thoughts."
He tried to smile but it was disastrous. They both thought about how there wasn't much to be positive about but said nothing about it. Lysandre stood up.
Something brushed against the back of his neck, a soft, tentative touch. He knew who it was. He was going to ignore it.
He'd just have to figure out what positive thoughts he could conjure up.
"Thank you for your time," he said, bowing his head.
"It's nothing. I've seen a lot of recruits..." Xerosic slipped two fingers under his goggles to massage his eyelids. "They want me to redo the tests, mostly. But some of them want to talk, and I never know what to tell them."
Lysandre could sympathize, but he didn't really want to say it out loud. Admitting he didn't know how to deal with things better than the rest of them would be admitting he was a disappointment. That thought brought back the touch, more intense, fingers pressing against soft, tense skin. He frowned and turned around, moving to leave, before he remembered there was something else he needed to talk to Xerosic about, outside of his hallucinations – a subject he'd only agreed to broach because Bryony had suggested it, unsure, but so preoccupied with his mental health that Lysandre had immediately complied so as not to worry her further.
He slipped his hand inside his jacket, feeling the hard metal of the key there, warm from having stayed in there for so long, and took it out to show it off to the scientist. Xerosic rose fast to take it and stare.
"That's," he said, breathing quickly.
"It is. It's useless now though, I suppose."
Xerosic nodded, but his eyes were still captivated by the artifact in his trembling hands.
"If we'd had it... maybe things would have turned out for the better," he said, and Lysandre wasn't entirely certain he was talking to him.
He wasn't so confident about that, now. At the time, when the giant had given him the key, he'd thought about it – a short, guilty hope, the possibility that maybe, he had been right to want to do this and merely did it the wrong way – but the tone with which the giant, if he truly was the ancient king of the legend, had spoken of their mistakes had made him realize that no, he was still wrong, and no, a world where the machine had worked perfectly and Celosia hadn't died crushed by a ceiling wouldn't be that much better than the world they had ended up with.
At least Bryony would be happier.
But then, he thought, a selfish whisper that sounded like him, then, you'd truly be on your own.
Xerosic was still not taking his eyes off of the key, as if he thought looking away from it might cause it to disappear.
"Where did you get it?" he asked after contemplating it for so long.
Lysandre wasn't entirely sure what to reply. He decided to be honest. AZ had seemed able to hide from people he didn't want to meet, anyway.
"The giant gave it to me."
"The giant?" Xerosic repeated, incredulous. He brought the key up to his nose and smelled it deeply. "I wish the machine hadn't broken down so I could experiment with it. Ah, well..."
When he finally gave it back, he did so begrudgingly, and Lysandre put it once more in his pocket against his chest. Xerosic shook his head.
"I miss my malamar," he said. His voice sounded about as pathetic as Lysandre felt hearing these words.
He held his hand out and awkwardly patted the scientist on the shoulder. He was surprised to feel him almost lean into it. Then Xerosic straightened his back and the moment was gone. Lysandre backed off.
"Thank you, again," he said. Xerosic nodded, looking at a table.
*
In-between meetings and arguments on how they were dividing the workload for reconstructing and cleaning up the different cities of Kalos, Lysandre spent the next few weeks looking for AZ.
It was in vain, surely – the man had only made his presence known once he'd been ready to talk to him. Still, it occupied his mind. It was better than worrying about Bryony or Mable, or letting himself fall into self-pity – and Sycamore's inviting cold arms.
"You never pay attention to me anymore," the ghost said, brushing palms against his chest, speaking right next to his ear, breathing hard. "So busy with all your living friends..."
It was ridiculous, that even though he knew it was a lie and he knew it was toxic and he knew it was ruining him, he still wanted to surrender to it, to surrender to him at night as he held the key against his heart as if it was some kind of repellant, some kind of holy item he could use to prevent Sycamore from getting near.
"I don't want to talk to you," Lysandre said, even though he knew responding was giving in.
He'd been searching everywhere for the giant, asking recruits, letting Aliana know to be on the lookout, ignoring Bryony and Malva's concerned eyes. Even Xerosic seemed to worry about him.
In this time, so short and yet so long, they truly had gotten closer, it seemed.
He felt a hand brush against his, brush against the key, and he shivered. It felt like it had pressed right around his heart, clutching the organ as if trying to rip it off. Sycamore was close, staring. Kneeling next to the bed he was lying in in the dark.
"You are doing so well, for a murderer," he purred, and he seemed happy, his face beaming as the real Sycamore's might have in other circumstances.
Lysandre looked away.
When he woke up the next morning he didn't remember falling asleep. Sycamore's hand was on his thigh, too close, laughing against his ear. He stood up too fast and felt like he was about to throw up. The key fell to the floor with a metallic echo and Lysandre fell after it, stumbling, his knees hitting the hard floor painfully – but physical pain was preferable to the mental anguish that was brought on by Sycamore's presence.
He picked up the key and put it back safely inside his jacket. He thought about standing up but then realized he didn't want to. Sycamore was humming, somewhere, close still. He ignored it.
There was a knock on the door. It could have been five hours since he'd fallen to his knees. Only one person knew where he was right then, so it had to be Bryony. He stood up, ignoring the pain in his legs. Something brushed against his ear but he pretended not to notice it. A kiss, maybe.
Once he'd opened the door he was struck by how wide Bryony's eyes were. She looked like she was fighting back tears. That wasn't a good sign.
"What is it?" He figured greetings were obsolete when faced with such huge green eyes.
She took a step toward him and he opened his arms to welcome her. She buried her face in the fur of his collar. At the back of his mind, he thought that it probably smelled terrible. He stroked her hair slowly because he figured it could help her feel safe – or maybe it helped him.
He watched her breathe in slowly and then lift her head to look him in the eyes. He looked back.
"One of the recruits is dead," she said. Her voice was firmer than she obviously felt.
"How?" Lysandre replied, ignoring cold hands pressing against his back and kisses trailing down his neck.
Bryony's mouth twitched, trying to form some kind of emotion, settling on something in-between disgust and despair.
"He threw himself out of a window in one of the buildings he was taking care of." The hands had claws instead of nails and they were trying to dig their way inside through his back, get at his ribcage and take it apart. "Lysandre, I'm sorry." The words burst out from her mouth and this time she started crying for real, deep bellowing sobs that shook them both.
Threw himself out of a window, he thought. Dying was better than being here, surely.
He didn't feel like crying. He didn't feel like much at all.
It was different. It wasn't like at first, when he didn't know how to deal with his grief and his fears and that feeling in his gut that told him he'd made a terrible, irreparable mistake. It wasn't like when he'd first seen Sycamore's ghost standing on his grave and thought he was going to die, or pass out, or sink into the ground. It wasn't like all these times he'd watched people cry and scream and cry and he hadn't known how to react or what to do.
No. It was nothing like that because it was nothing. There was nothing there. There wasn't even the aching feeling of Sycamore's presence, of Sycamore's nails digging into his flesh. He held on to Bryony as she cried and said nothing.
He still hadn't said a word hours after, after seeing the corpse, like a dismantled puppet, another corpse. Surely this was revenge. Surely Yveltal was still there, reaping what was left of the miserable world he'd achieved. He sat in silence with the rest of them. They were staring at him, he knew. He thought about the day he'd buried Sycamore. He thought about trees growing in the dirt of shallow graves.
Malva said something about a funeral. He looked at her. She was expecting a response, he realized. He opened his mouth to speak but no words came out. Bryony put her hand on his arm, a familiar gesture.
"They're all very angry," Malva went on. She looked apologetic as if somehow this was her fault when they all knew it was his. "I think a proper burial could appease them."
"That's a good idea," Bryony said, and Lysandre wanted to agree but found that he couldn't. He closed his mouth.
They shot worried glances at him throughout the rest of the meeting but nobody confronted him. Nobody tried to get him to talk, to respond, give a speech, anything. Nobody tried to get him to react.
When he stood up alongside Bryony he found himself leaning against her. She didn't complain, merely guided him out.
In front of the entrance of the building they had been in stood AZ. He looked down on them with something akin to pity.
"It's you!" Bryony let out with a gasp.
Before he could even register it was happening, Lysandre collapsed.
*
When he came to, he was outside, lying on the grass. Sycamore was lying next to him. It took longer than it should have for Lysandre to realize he was dreaming.
He sat up fast, on edge. This was different from his usual dreams. There was something tangible, something real in the air as if he was actually awake. He heard Sycamore chuckle next to him.
"Hey, Lys," he said, and his voice was so happy and full of life, it stirred something painful in Lysandre's guts, even through the emptiness he felt still. "Don't worry so much. Enjoy this moment."
He turned his head, and suddenly Sycamore's face was there, and in the next moment they were kissing and Lysandre found himself powerless to stop it. Instead, he felt himself relax into it, relax into the fantasy of Sycamore's mouth on his and his tongue slowly brushing inside and his hands on his chest and–
There was a sound, a rustle. It came from far away. Somehow, it sent a shiver down Lysandre's spine, and he broke the kiss with a start. Sycamore did not remove his hands. He smiled.
"Looks like we have a guest," he whispered. He sounded disappointed, as if he regretted that they couldn't spend this dream alone. Lysandre shamefully thought that he could have lived with kissing Sycamore for longer, even if it was in a dream.
As if he'd heard the thought – and of course he had – Sycamore laughed, but for once there was nothing cruel or mocking there. No, somehow, this Sycamore was so close to the real one that it made Lysandre's heart ache. He realized then that the emptiness he felt had melted away through the kiss.
Sycamore's thumbs played with the fur of his jacket. He leaned over slightly, staring at the horizon.
There was something there, Lysandre suddenly noticed. The guest. They were an extraordinary figure: from afar, he could see that they were enormous. They were four-legged, and perhaps blue – from far away it could be hard to really tell.
What were they? Could they be a pokémon? Were they friend or foe? Should he be afraid?
Immediately, he felt Sycamore's hand touching his face, soothing.
"Shh. I told you not to worry."
The guest stopped, and from where they stood came a long and loud cry, reverberating through the empty plain. It made no sense for it to sound like this. Sycamore caressed his cheek.
"It seems our guest isn't going to be here in time," he whispered, moving again to get to Lysandre's mouth. When he felt Sycamore's lips back on his, it was as if he really was melting away, and slowly everything was fading, and fading, and...
When his vision refocused he was met with Bryony's anxious gaze. Her mouth opened slowly, forming an o shape.
"He's awake!" she yelped, too loud.
Slowly, carefully, Lysandre turned his head. It hurt. As the rest of his senses began coming back to him he realized he was lying on the pavement; they hadn't moved him at all. He wondered briefly if it was because they were worried it might worsen his condition. Xerosic was standing next to Bryony, seemingly made very uneasy by AZ's towering height, even as he was bending over next to him.
Lysandre's eyes twitched back to Bryony. "What... happened?"
"We don't know! We were leaving and then the giant was there and the next thing I knew, you were collapsing! Malva is taking care of things, thank Arceus. She's telling the recruits about the funeral. Aliana and Mable are helping."
This was all said very fast, a bit too fast to Lysandre's growing headache's liking, but he could understand the gist of it. He pushed himself up to a sitting position, more or less in vain. It felt as if any strength that remained in his body had just vanished into thin air. Bryony, quick to assist him as usual, helped him up as best as she could until finally Lysandre was sitting more or less upright on the cold, slightly damp floor of Lumiose City.
"You've seen it," AZ said out of nowhere, seemingly unable to keep the words he wanted to say in any longer. It wasn't a question, merely a statement.
Lysandre ran a hand through his hair, his expression twisting in disgust as he contemplated the fact that he'd been left lying on the pavement for at least several minutes.
"I'm not sure I know what you're referring to," he let out finally – almost in a sigh. He did not look up at AZ, as he feared that would be too much effort for his strained body.
The emptiness in his heart seemed truly gone. That was strange. He thought back to what had caused it and felt nauseous. For a second, he almost thought he was going to pass out once again, but he clenched at his chest and managed to calm his breathing.
He felt Bryony's hands on his shoulders.
"Are you alright?" she asked, her voice tense with worry. "You need to rest."
"No," Lysandre said, trying to get away from her. He finally looked up at AZ, meeting his calm black eyes. "We need to talk. I was searching for you."
"I know," was all AZ had to reply to that, his tone as neutral as it always was. Lysandre frowned.
"Really," he mumbled. He tried to stand up, grimacing when Bryony and Xerosic immediately moved to support him. His legs were shaking. He felt weak and strangely helpless.
At least Sycamore wasn't there to torture him further. He thought back to their kisses and felt his stomach churn. How could he let himself fall into these fantasies when there was so much left to do still? How could he let himself afford to faint and have ridiculous dreams about sharing affections with a corpse when one of his own had just thrown themselves out of a window? He batted his scientists away, more harshly than was necessary. Without them there, he found himself unsteady.
The giant was still observing him, saying nothing. There was concern on his face, maybe, and something else, something bitter, maybe sour.
"Do you... do you know about what I just dreamed of?" Lysandre asked. Bryony put her hand back on one of his shoulders, bold. He knew she wouldn't let him get away without making sure he was alright.
"I will not speak of it in front of them," AZ said slowly.
Lysandre took a deep breath and turned toward Bryony's scrunched-up face. "Bryony, I–"
"You're hurt," she said. "At least let Xerosic look you over."
The pale man looked in his direction. He couldn't see his eyes, but from the tense line of his mouth Lysandre could tell he was annoyed by the way Bryony kept treating him like some kind of doctor.
"Bryony, I don't believe this is necessary," Lysandre protested gently, meeting her uncertain gaze. "I'm fine. I'll have a quick conversation with..." He almost said King AZ but the words did not escape his mouth: there was no way he could reveal that particular factoid out loud. They probably already had enough doubts regarding the giant's identity as it was. "With the giant," he said instead, attempting a pleading smile. "Then I'll mend any wounds I might have sustained."
She was still frowning, unconvinced, but as soon as her eyes blinked from him to the giant, Lysandre could tell he had won her over.
"Okay," she relented. "Don't be too long."
With that, she walked away, her posture denoting her frustration, and Xerosic soon followed, his lips still pressed together. Surely he was dying to know more about AZ – Lysandre recalled he'd told him that it was the giant who'd given him the key to the machine – but he seemed to realize this was not the appropriate time to gather data. How uncharacteristic, Lysandre thought.
When he turned toward AZ again, he was walking away as well, beckoning him to follow. He complied only because he needed to know what all of this meant.
They were walking toward the outskirts of Lumiose. The giant was silent.
"What did you mean by 'you've seen it'?" Lysandre asked after several minutes, unable to wait any longer for answers.
Despite his obvious lack of patience, AZ still took several more minutes to consider his reply.
"I am unsure whether or not talking about this might compromise your chances to make amends," he said finally, speaking carefully. "I know you've dreamed of a large oncoming creature. Am I wrong?"
"You are correct," Lysandre said, maintaining his composure somewhat adequately. "I was in a plain and something was approaching. A guest," he added thoughtfully, remembering Sycamore's words.
"Were you alone?"
From the way AZ had asked his question, it was evident that he already knew the answer. Lysandre tensed.
"No."
AZ seemed to understand that he would not get any further explanation. He nodded.
"I will tell you what I know, or as much as I can," he said as they reached one of the nearby routes. "Do not refrain from judging me. I am aware of the poor choices I've made."
Lysandre raised his eyebrows but said nothing. Careful not to step on any flower in the process, AZ sat down in the grass and gestured for Lysandre to follow. He'd already fallen over the lumiosian pavement, grass couldn't be much worse. He sat as well, facing the giant, his legs crossed. Though it took all of his patience, he waited for him to speak, wondering where Sycamore was. It seemed his presence had turned erratic in the last few weeks. It was as if his mind was hesitating between settling down and doubling its efforts to break apart.
"You are my brother's far descendant," AZ said. This was not what Lysandre had been expecting, yet he managed to hide his surprise.
"If what you say about being the ancient king is true, then yes. I am."
AZ smiled. When he did, the warmth it brought to his worn-out face couldn't entirely balance out the sadness kept inside his eyes.
"You don't look much like him," he said pensively.
Lysandre couldn't help but scoff. "It's been three thousand years... although, I remember my father was often told he looked somewhat like him."
Thinking about his family wasn't something he particularly wanted to do. He'd failed in his attempts to uphold his father's legacy and standards, of course. His father had been a good man, accomplishing his duty selflessly and with great respect for those he'd met along the way. In contrast, Lysandre had failed as soon as he'd let his pride get the best of him.
The giant seemed to notice he'd conjured some bad memories. "Do you miss your pokémons?" he asked.
In the absolute silence of the route – with no bird pokémons there to chirp, no rodent pokémons to roam around, no wild pokémons to attack them – his deep, solemn voice seemed to linger for longer than it should have.
"Of course," Lysandre hissed, too loud, hurt somehow by the idea that he could not miss his precious companions. There was nothing more to say to that.
"I miss my brother," AZ said with a resigned sadness in his voice. "After all that happened, he was the only one who did not scorn me, the only one who did not reject my presence. I was surprised because I'd always thought he was jealous of me, of the fact that I was king and he was not. I thought he'd rejoice... but instead, it seems he decided to learn from my mistakes." He let out a little strangled laugh. "While I did not."
Lysandre said nothing, waiting for him to go on. He ran his fingers through the grass, thinking about the old legends. The king whose companion had been taken away from him... who brought her back and murdered those involved in the war in retaliation. There didn't seem to be much of that passionate anger left in this giant of a man, only shame and guilt and somewhere maybe, a small hope that one day she would forgive him. Would he be able to forgive himself then?
"I was not... stable," AZ continued, staring into the horizon as if he could see something else there. "I was unfit to rule, naturally, but I was unfit to do most of anything. Flo– she... she was gone, and I had lost everything I had. My precious friend... my kingdom... my sanity... My brother was the only thing I had left. He kept me by his side... told the people that it was safer this way, that he would not stand for me to suffer further punishment when I'd already been punished severely by my own foolishness. I spent days and months inside myself... ruminating regrets and failures and reliving the moment when she'd turned her back on me and left me in shambles."
"Were you angry at her?" Lysandre asked, looking up at AZ's face – but it was obscured by his hair. He could only see him smile.
"I didn't understand... I didn't understand why she'd leave me after all I'd done... after all I'd lost... but I was angry at myself because surely I was the one who had done something wrong."
He sighed, and Lysandre nodded. He understood how the giant felt all too well.
"As I thought about all this each passing day, I never could fully bring myself to regret what I had done, merely the consequences that had followed. I did not regret bringing her back... and although I never did admit it to my brother, at the time, I did not regret killing them all. It had ended the war, in the end. They should have thanked me instead of shunning me."
The mouth of the tall man had taken on a sharp angle, turning into an ugly grimace, all tensed jaw and clenched teeth and pursed lips. From where he sat, Lysandre found him powerful and threatening, feeling almost afraid of him for the first time since they'd met each other. As fast as it had appeared on his face, the feeling passed, leaving instead an expression of intense misery. AZ pressed a shaky hand up to his cheek, letting out another long sigh.
They sat in silence for some time. Lysandre had no desire to press the former king or harass him with questions about his past. He was curious, certainly, but if he had to be honest – although it was a thought too cowardly to be expressed honestly – he was not looking forward to going back to Lumiose and his people. He was not looking forward to disappointing them once more.
Lysandre let his hand run through the grass once more until it met a flower with bright white petals. He caressed them with one finger. The professor liked flowers. Lysandre had bought a bouquet for the lab once, and he'd appeared so delighted, it had warmed Lysandre's heart for that whole day. Now, it was a bittersweet memory, one that seemed to have occurred centuries and centuries prior.
He thought back to the dream – again. He thought back to Bryony telling him that surely if he'd had any feelings for Professor Sycamore, there was no way they'd been one-sided. It was too late to know for sure.
"Do you regret it now?" Lysandre asked, his mouth dry.
"I think so, but it's too late," AZ's voice was so bitter it was as if Lysandre himself could taste it on his tongue. "After what you've done, I've lost hope of ever seeing her again. Guiding you is the only way I can make amends in this world."
Lysandre frowned but refrained from making any kind of remark. "Tell me about the dream."
"I had it months and months after everything that had happened. I was standing on the battlefield, empty but covered with red grass, and she was there, and we were happy. I heard a cry, and on the horizon, so far away I could barely see its shape, something was coming. Something was coming toward us."
AZ took a deep breath, clenching and unclenching his left hand against his chest, right where his heart was.
"I kept having the dream, and every time it was getting closer, and closer, and soon I could recognize what it was from ancient engravings we had of our legends."
"A legendary pokémon," Lysandre let out, surprised despite himself. "Xerneas?"
Before he could even finish his sentence, the giant barked out a short, unhappy laugh. "No, of course not. Why would Xerneas come back to us? Don't be a fool. No, it was not Xerneas. Who it was is irrelevant. What matters is that They came to offer me, and you, a choice."
"A choice," Lysandre repeated evenly, the fast tempo of his heart completely absent from his voice.
AZ nodded. "The most important choice. The choice to do it all over again. The choice to fix things. The choice to regret."
Unable to stop himself, Lysandre rose to his feet, his whole body trembling. He could hear his heartbeat very loud in his ears, reverberating inside his skull. He felt like he was about to pass out again.
Even standing up while the giant was still sitting, there was no way to tower over him, no way to appear threatening – he could only appear desperate.
"Why did you say no?"
Lysandre hadn't meant to speak so loudly. AZ didn't react. He didn't look at him, his gaze instead focusing on the small flower with the white petals.
"I thought that a world where she was dead would always be the wrong choice." His voice didn't tremble. "It was worth it, to me. Standing atop the hill above the battlefield and seeing all the dead bodies there. Looking into her sad little eyes only to be met with contempt and disappointment before she flew away. It was worth it. I wouldn't take it back."
The world had started to spin and Lysandre knew instinctively that he could only make it stop by sitting back down where he couldn't fall any lower, and so he did, feeling disoriented and only vaguely aware of his own body.
"I don't understand," he mumbled, his teeth chattering. "I don't understand how you could stand this feeling."
AZ turned his head to look at him but kept his mouth shut.
"I don't want to feel like this anymore, I don't," Lysandre went on. "How can you be fine with the knowledge that you've brought so much destruction for nothing? All I was trying to build, none of it matters now, all I believed in– it's all buried under rubble and corpses and piles of ash."
Something touched his shoulder, soft, and Lysandre realized he'd bent his body forward as if he'd been attempting to curl inside himself. It was a hand, huge and warm. The king's hand. He looked up at him and he was smiling.
"In this regard, you are worth more than I am," AZ said, and his gentle voice was the most soothing thing Lysandre had heard since everything had begun to fall apart. "I believe, as has been my conviction since I first saw you, that you will make the right choice."
"But... why? Why would we be given a second chance?"
The giant shook his head slowly. "This I cannot say. You will have to ask that yourself."
They stayed as they were for a little while longer, AZ's hand still holding on to Lysandre's shaky shoulder as if to keep him firmly grounded. He barely flinched when the king let go. He could taste copper in his mouth.
Dusk had started to taint the sky purple by the time Lysandre stood up again. A hand pressed against his back, steadying him. It was cold, as ghosts probably were. His body felt weary, as if they'd sat there together for centuries – two statues decorating a sad flowerbed.
"Will I see you again?" he asked the other man, after a second of hesitation.
The king looked up at him and smiled, but gave no reply. His skin was a wrinkled piece of paper upon which had been written the old legends of a fallen leader. Lysandre wondered how a man could walk the world for thousands of years without falling prey to a disordered mind.
"I know you will make the right choice," AZ said finally, echoing his own words. "We will see each other, then."
Lysandre nodded, unsure of what to say. The moment felt surreal, and heavy, like standing at the brink of incredible changes. He wanted to thank the giant, or maybe apologize for what he'd been through, but it was pointless.
All he could do was do the right thing.
When he looked back after walking away, almost at the edge of the route, it was empty. Nobody was there.
*
The dreams were – exhilarating.
They were like a drug of the worst kind. Sycamore seemed to have given up on torturing him during the day and now fully dedicated himself to distracting him during the night. His quality of sleep was greatly improving, but his ability to focus and even care about his waking life was starting to be severely compromised.
The figure was getting closer. Despite this, he remained unable to tell what it was, partly because he was too busy shaking and panting from the way Sycamore relentlessly touched him, caressed his body, played with his hair.
Sometimes, he thought back to Sycamore's reassurance that his attraction to a made-up phantom was not indicative of lust for the deceased. It was hard to believe now, when he'd wake up drenched in sweat, appalled by the mess he'd made of himself. He could barely bear to face Bryony.
At least things had settled down, for now. The funeral ceremony had been a dreadful thing to go through: pale grey faces staring at a hole, wondering who would be next. It reminded him of burying Sycamore, of being unable to attend his mother's funeral, of AZ's talk of a battlefield covered in red grass.
The capital was truly starting to get back to life, on a smaller scale. Sometimes, when he was out with Bryony on a walk or on his way to meet up with Malva and Xerosic, he'd even see some of the recruits in their new civilian clothes, marching alongside each other and laughing as if nothing had changed in the world after all. Professor Sycamore's laboratory still stood, empty and in ruins. He'd gone back for papers and – for no reason other than grief-filled nostalgia – for the old gramophone, but on most days he could barely take three steps in the main office without wanting to collapse and break down. No one else wanted to enter that cursed place.
There were precious documents: books and notes and files containing diagrams and pictures. In fairness, they were pointless now. There was no reason to keep them around except for further sentimentality. On the last pages of a worn-out diary the professor seemed to use to write down inventories and to-do lists, Lysandre found sketches: drawings, some meticulous and some messy, of pokémons, of assistants, and even, almost at the very back, of him, looking stern and focused.
He hid the book under his bed and then, after a dream where Sycamore had been particularly tactile and his touch had been particularly scorching, burned it in the bathtub. The pages coiled and crackled until there was nothing left but ashes, and a smell Lysandre now found nauseating.
*
Bryony's eyes were unsure and tired when he asked her about the future and the past, half-closed behind green strands of hair she hadn't been taking great care of these last few weeks.
"If you could go back," Lysandre said, but he didn't finish his sentence. His hand was messing with the key he kept inside his jacket – she knew, and he knew that she knew, but the gesture had long stopped being a conscious act.
"You know what I'm going to say," she sighed. "You seem preoccupied, lately."
She was worried, and did she ever not worry about him? In a way, seeing her desperate to protect and reassure him made him feel even more powerless. He should have been the one trying to take care of her.
He was already having such a difficult time taking care of himself, however.
"I've been thinking," Lysandre said, his grip tight around the warm metal of the key, "about a lot of things. About what's right. What has to be done."
"What has to be done?" Bryony asked, brow furrowed.
Lysandre tried to think of an acceptable answer, but he didn't have one himself. He didn't know what he had to do. The giant had seemingly disappeared, and the guest in his dreams was getting closer a lot more slowly than he'd anticipated. He let go of the key.
That night, Sycamore held him by the shoulder as he whispered things in his ear that he couldn't understand. The guest was so close but blurry, like an image on a screen corrupted by parasites.
They threw their long head back, and let out a bellowing scream.
Lysandre awoke with a start, and almost screamed himself. Sycamore was looming over him, his hands gripping his shoulders, pushing him into the mattress. He looked akin to the monsters people would describe from sleep paralysis. A gengar playing a joke on him before devouring his nightmares.
"Let go of me," Lysandre growled, but his voice was pathetically weak. Sycamore smiled.
"It's almost time," he said, and the next moment the pressure was gone, and the ghost as well. Lysandre stayed immobile for a long time, listening to the loud sound of his panicked heartbeat inside his head.
Fandom: Pokémon X&Y
Pairing: Professor Augustine Sycamore/Lysandre
Rating: T
Summary: In the aftermath of victory, Lysandre discovers that triumph without peril indeed brings no glory. In more ways than one.
Notes: This is the fic, the one I started early on in the fandom, abandoned a year later, and then finished EIGHT YEARS after posting the first chapter. It's also the starting point for a whole series. Warning for Major Character Death (although it doesn't last) and heavy angst, especially in the early chapters. This is a story about Lysandre succeeding in his plans and then having a really bad time about it. Title is from Shakespeare's King Lear. Warning for mentions of suicide in this chapter.
AO3 Link: Here.
SERIES NAVIGATION
So Long as We Can Say (starting point)
The Pangs of Disprized Love / And With Your Hands Your Hearts / Wisely and Slow (main story)
That Give Delight and Hurt (Not) / Daggers in Men's Smiles (explicit spin-offs)
CHAPTERS NAVIGATION
Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4 / Chapter 5 / Chapter 6 / Chapter 7 / Epilogue
The room he sat in smelled like burnt plastic and something he wasn't entirely sure he recognized, some kind of bitter acid Xerosic probably used for experimenting. The scientist in question was sitting across from him, and even with the goggles there he could read anxiety plainly on his face.
Lysandre took a deep breath.
"I'm fine, then."
Xerosic's mouth twitched. "Well, physically, outside of the toll of everything that's happened, I believe so," he replied, speaking slowly like he was actually giving a diagnosis. "Mentally, you know, I'm not... well, I'm not a doctor."
"Of course."
"I'm not sure what to tell you," he went on, and sure enough his voice lacked any sort of confidence. "If you see, huh, 'him'... you should probably ignore it. Try to focus on positive thoughts."
He tried to smile but it was disastrous. They both thought about how there wasn't much to be positive about but said nothing about it. Lysandre stood up.
Something brushed against the back of his neck, a soft, tentative touch. He knew who it was. He was going to ignore it.
He'd just have to figure out what positive thoughts he could conjure up.
"Thank you for your time," he said, bowing his head.
"It's nothing. I've seen a lot of recruits..." Xerosic slipped two fingers under his goggles to massage his eyelids. "They want me to redo the tests, mostly. But some of them want to talk, and I never know what to tell them."
Lysandre could sympathize, but he didn't really want to say it out loud. Admitting he didn't know how to deal with things better than the rest of them would be admitting he was a disappointment. That thought brought back the touch, more intense, fingers pressing against soft, tense skin. He frowned and turned around, moving to leave, before he remembered there was something else he needed to talk to Xerosic about, outside of his hallucinations – a subject he'd only agreed to broach because Bryony had suggested it, unsure, but so preoccupied with his mental health that Lysandre had immediately complied so as not to worry her further.
He slipped his hand inside his jacket, feeling the hard metal of the key there, warm from having stayed in there for so long, and took it out to show it off to the scientist. Xerosic rose fast to take it and stare.
"That's," he said, breathing quickly.
"It is. It's useless now though, I suppose."
Xerosic nodded, but his eyes were still captivated by the artifact in his trembling hands.
"If we'd had it... maybe things would have turned out for the better," he said, and Lysandre wasn't entirely certain he was talking to him.
He wasn't so confident about that, now. At the time, when the giant had given him the key, he'd thought about it – a short, guilty hope, the possibility that maybe, he had been right to want to do this and merely did it the wrong way – but the tone with which the giant, if he truly was the ancient king of the legend, had spoken of their mistakes had made him realize that no, he was still wrong, and no, a world where the machine had worked perfectly and Celosia hadn't died crushed by a ceiling wouldn't be that much better than the world they had ended up with.
At least Bryony would be happier.
But then, he thought, a selfish whisper that sounded like him, then, you'd truly be on your own.
Xerosic was still not taking his eyes off of the key, as if he thought looking away from it might cause it to disappear.
"Where did you get it?" he asked after contemplating it for so long.
Lysandre wasn't entirely sure what to reply. He decided to be honest. AZ had seemed able to hide from people he didn't want to meet, anyway.
"The giant gave it to me."
"The giant?" Xerosic repeated, incredulous. He brought the key up to his nose and smelled it deeply. "I wish the machine hadn't broken down so I could experiment with it. Ah, well..."
When he finally gave it back, he did so begrudgingly, and Lysandre put it once more in his pocket against his chest. Xerosic shook his head.
"I miss my malamar," he said. His voice sounded about as pathetic as Lysandre felt hearing these words.
He held his hand out and awkwardly patted the scientist on the shoulder. He was surprised to feel him almost lean into it. Then Xerosic straightened his back and the moment was gone. Lysandre backed off.
"Thank you, again," he said. Xerosic nodded, looking at a table.
*
In-between meetings and arguments on how they were dividing the workload for reconstructing and cleaning up the different cities of Kalos, Lysandre spent the next few weeks looking for AZ.
It was in vain, surely – the man had only made his presence known once he'd been ready to talk to him. Still, it occupied his mind. It was better than worrying about Bryony or Mable, or letting himself fall into self-pity – and Sycamore's inviting cold arms.
"You never pay attention to me anymore," the ghost said, brushing palms against his chest, speaking right next to his ear, breathing hard. "So busy with all your living friends..."
It was ridiculous, that even though he knew it was a lie and he knew it was toxic and he knew it was ruining him, he still wanted to surrender to it, to surrender to him at night as he held the key against his heart as if it was some kind of repellant, some kind of holy item he could use to prevent Sycamore from getting near.
"I don't want to talk to you," Lysandre said, even though he knew responding was giving in.
He'd been searching everywhere for the giant, asking recruits, letting Aliana know to be on the lookout, ignoring Bryony and Malva's concerned eyes. Even Xerosic seemed to worry about him.
In this time, so short and yet so long, they truly had gotten closer, it seemed.
He felt a hand brush against his, brush against the key, and he shivered. It felt like it had pressed right around his heart, clutching the organ as if trying to rip it off. Sycamore was close, staring. Kneeling next to the bed he was lying in in the dark.
"You are doing so well, for a murderer," he purred, and he seemed happy, his face beaming as the real Sycamore's might have in other circumstances.
Lysandre looked away.
When he woke up the next morning he didn't remember falling asleep. Sycamore's hand was on his thigh, too close, laughing against his ear. He stood up too fast and felt like he was about to throw up. The key fell to the floor with a metallic echo and Lysandre fell after it, stumbling, his knees hitting the hard floor painfully – but physical pain was preferable to the mental anguish that was brought on by Sycamore's presence.
He picked up the key and put it back safely inside his jacket. He thought about standing up but then realized he didn't want to. Sycamore was humming, somewhere, close still. He ignored it.
There was a knock on the door. It could have been five hours since he'd fallen to his knees. Only one person knew where he was right then, so it had to be Bryony. He stood up, ignoring the pain in his legs. Something brushed against his ear but he pretended not to notice it. A kiss, maybe.
Once he'd opened the door he was struck by how wide Bryony's eyes were. She looked like she was fighting back tears. That wasn't a good sign.
"What is it?" He figured greetings were obsolete when faced with such huge green eyes.
She took a step toward him and he opened his arms to welcome her. She buried her face in the fur of his collar. At the back of his mind, he thought that it probably smelled terrible. He stroked her hair slowly because he figured it could help her feel safe – or maybe it helped him.
He watched her breathe in slowly and then lift her head to look him in the eyes. He looked back.
"One of the recruits is dead," she said. Her voice was firmer than she obviously felt.
"How?" Lysandre replied, ignoring cold hands pressing against his back and kisses trailing down his neck.
Bryony's mouth twitched, trying to form some kind of emotion, settling on something in-between disgust and despair.
"He threw himself out of a window in one of the buildings he was taking care of." The hands had claws instead of nails and they were trying to dig their way inside through his back, get at his ribcage and take it apart. "Lysandre, I'm sorry." The words burst out from her mouth and this time she started crying for real, deep bellowing sobs that shook them both.
Threw himself out of a window, he thought. Dying was better than being here, surely.
He didn't feel like crying. He didn't feel like much at all.
It was different. It wasn't like at first, when he didn't know how to deal with his grief and his fears and that feeling in his gut that told him he'd made a terrible, irreparable mistake. It wasn't like when he'd first seen Sycamore's ghost standing on his grave and thought he was going to die, or pass out, or sink into the ground. It wasn't like all these times he'd watched people cry and scream and cry and he hadn't known how to react or what to do.
No. It was nothing like that because it was nothing. There was nothing there. There wasn't even the aching feeling of Sycamore's presence, of Sycamore's nails digging into his flesh. He held on to Bryony as she cried and said nothing.
He still hadn't said a word hours after, after seeing the corpse, like a dismantled puppet, another corpse. Surely this was revenge. Surely Yveltal was still there, reaping what was left of the miserable world he'd achieved. He sat in silence with the rest of them. They were staring at him, he knew. He thought about the day he'd buried Sycamore. He thought about trees growing in the dirt of shallow graves.
Malva said something about a funeral. He looked at her. She was expecting a response, he realized. He opened his mouth to speak but no words came out. Bryony put her hand on his arm, a familiar gesture.
"They're all very angry," Malva went on. She looked apologetic as if somehow this was her fault when they all knew it was his. "I think a proper burial could appease them."
"That's a good idea," Bryony said, and Lysandre wanted to agree but found that he couldn't. He closed his mouth.
They shot worried glances at him throughout the rest of the meeting but nobody confronted him. Nobody tried to get him to talk, to respond, give a speech, anything. Nobody tried to get him to react.
When he stood up alongside Bryony he found himself leaning against her. She didn't complain, merely guided him out.
In front of the entrance of the building they had been in stood AZ. He looked down on them with something akin to pity.
"It's you!" Bryony let out with a gasp.
Before he could even register it was happening, Lysandre collapsed.
*
When he came to, he was outside, lying on the grass. Sycamore was lying next to him. It took longer than it should have for Lysandre to realize he was dreaming.
He sat up fast, on edge. This was different from his usual dreams. There was something tangible, something real in the air as if he was actually awake. He heard Sycamore chuckle next to him.
"Hey, Lys," he said, and his voice was so happy and full of life, it stirred something painful in Lysandre's guts, even through the emptiness he felt still. "Don't worry so much. Enjoy this moment."
He turned his head, and suddenly Sycamore's face was there, and in the next moment they were kissing and Lysandre found himself powerless to stop it. Instead, he felt himself relax into it, relax into the fantasy of Sycamore's mouth on his and his tongue slowly brushing inside and his hands on his chest and–
There was a sound, a rustle. It came from far away. Somehow, it sent a shiver down Lysandre's spine, and he broke the kiss with a start. Sycamore did not remove his hands. He smiled.
"Looks like we have a guest," he whispered. He sounded disappointed, as if he regretted that they couldn't spend this dream alone. Lysandre shamefully thought that he could have lived with kissing Sycamore for longer, even if it was in a dream.
As if he'd heard the thought – and of course he had – Sycamore laughed, but for once there was nothing cruel or mocking there. No, somehow, this Sycamore was so close to the real one that it made Lysandre's heart ache. He realized then that the emptiness he felt had melted away through the kiss.
Sycamore's thumbs played with the fur of his jacket. He leaned over slightly, staring at the horizon.
There was something there, Lysandre suddenly noticed. The guest. They were an extraordinary figure: from afar, he could see that they were enormous. They were four-legged, and perhaps blue – from far away it could be hard to really tell.
What were they? Could they be a pokémon? Were they friend or foe? Should he be afraid?
Immediately, he felt Sycamore's hand touching his face, soothing.
"Shh. I told you not to worry."
The guest stopped, and from where they stood came a long and loud cry, reverberating through the empty plain. It made no sense for it to sound like this. Sycamore caressed his cheek.
"It seems our guest isn't going to be here in time," he whispered, moving again to get to Lysandre's mouth. When he felt Sycamore's lips back on his, it was as if he really was melting away, and slowly everything was fading, and fading, and...
When his vision refocused he was met with Bryony's anxious gaze. Her mouth opened slowly, forming an o shape.
"He's awake!" she yelped, too loud.
Slowly, carefully, Lysandre turned his head. It hurt. As the rest of his senses began coming back to him he realized he was lying on the pavement; they hadn't moved him at all. He wondered briefly if it was because they were worried it might worsen his condition. Xerosic was standing next to Bryony, seemingly made very uneasy by AZ's towering height, even as he was bending over next to him.
Lysandre's eyes twitched back to Bryony. "What... happened?"
"We don't know! We were leaving and then the giant was there and the next thing I knew, you were collapsing! Malva is taking care of things, thank Arceus. She's telling the recruits about the funeral. Aliana and Mable are helping."
This was all said very fast, a bit too fast to Lysandre's growing headache's liking, but he could understand the gist of it. He pushed himself up to a sitting position, more or less in vain. It felt as if any strength that remained in his body had just vanished into thin air. Bryony, quick to assist him as usual, helped him up as best as she could until finally Lysandre was sitting more or less upright on the cold, slightly damp floor of Lumiose City.
"You've seen it," AZ said out of nowhere, seemingly unable to keep the words he wanted to say in any longer. It wasn't a question, merely a statement.
Lysandre ran a hand through his hair, his expression twisting in disgust as he contemplated the fact that he'd been left lying on the pavement for at least several minutes.
"I'm not sure I know what you're referring to," he let out finally – almost in a sigh. He did not look up at AZ, as he feared that would be too much effort for his strained body.
The emptiness in his heart seemed truly gone. That was strange. He thought back to what had caused it and felt nauseous. For a second, he almost thought he was going to pass out once again, but he clenched at his chest and managed to calm his breathing.
He felt Bryony's hands on his shoulders.
"Are you alright?" she asked, her voice tense with worry. "You need to rest."
"No," Lysandre said, trying to get away from her. He finally looked up at AZ, meeting his calm black eyes. "We need to talk. I was searching for you."
"I know," was all AZ had to reply to that, his tone as neutral as it always was. Lysandre frowned.
"Really," he mumbled. He tried to stand up, grimacing when Bryony and Xerosic immediately moved to support him. His legs were shaking. He felt weak and strangely helpless.
At least Sycamore wasn't there to torture him further. He thought back to their kisses and felt his stomach churn. How could he let himself fall into these fantasies when there was so much left to do still? How could he let himself afford to faint and have ridiculous dreams about sharing affections with a corpse when one of his own had just thrown themselves out of a window? He batted his scientists away, more harshly than was necessary. Without them there, he found himself unsteady.
The giant was still observing him, saying nothing. There was concern on his face, maybe, and something else, something bitter, maybe sour.
"Do you... do you know about what I just dreamed of?" Lysandre asked. Bryony put her hand back on one of his shoulders, bold. He knew she wouldn't let him get away without making sure he was alright.
"I will not speak of it in front of them," AZ said slowly.
Lysandre took a deep breath and turned toward Bryony's scrunched-up face. "Bryony, I–"
"You're hurt," she said. "At least let Xerosic look you over."
The pale man looked in his direction. He couldn't see his eyes, but from the tense line of his mouth Lysandre could tell he was annoyed by the way Bryony kept treating him like some kind of doctor.
"Bryony, I don't believe this is necessary," Lysandre protested gently, meeting her uncertain gaze. "I'm fine. I'll have a quick conversation with..." He almost said King AZ but the words did not escape his mouth: there was no way he could reveal that particular factoid out loud. They probably already had enough doubts regarding the giant's identity as it was. "With the giant," he said instead, attempting a pleading smile. "Then I'll mend any wounds I might have sustained."
She was still frowning, unconvinced, but as soon as her eyes blinked from him to the giant, Lysandre could tell he had won her over.
"Okay," she relented. "Don't be too long."
With that, she walked away, her posture denoting her frustration, and Xerosic soon followed, his lips still pressed together. Surely he was dying to know more about AZ – Lysandre recalled he'd told him that it was the giant who'd given him the key to the machine – but he seemed to realize this was not the appropriate time to gather data. How uncharacteristic, Lysandre thought.
When he turned toward AZ again, he was walking away as well, beckoning him to follow. He complied only because he needed to know what all of this meant.
They were walking toward the outskirts of Lumiose. The giant was silent.
"What did you mean by 'you've seen it'?" Lysandre asked after several minutes, unable to wait any longer for answers.
Despite his obvious lack of patience, AZ still took several more minutes to consider his reply.
"I am unsure whether or not talking about this might compromise your chances to make amends," he said finally, speaking carefully. "I know you've dreamed of a large oncoming creature. Am I wrong?"
"You are correct," Lysandre said, maintaining his composure somewhat adequately. "I was in a plain and something was approaching. A guest," he added thoughtfully, remembering Sycamore's words.
"Were you alone?"
From the way AZ had asked his question, it was evident that he already knew the answer. Lysandre tensed.
"No."
AZ seemed to understand that he would not get any further explanation. He nodded.
"I will tell you what I know, or as much as I can," he said as they reached one of the nearby routes. "Do not refrain from judging me. I am aware of the poor choices I've made."
Lysandre raised his eyebrows but said nothing. Careful not to step on any flower in the process, AZ sat down in the grass and gestured for Lysandre to follow. He'd already fallen over the lumiosian pavement, grass couldn't be much worse. He sat as well, facing the giant, his legs crossed. Though it took all of his patience, he waited for him to speak, wondering where Sycamore was. It seemed his presence had turned erratic in the last few weeks. It was as if his mind was hesitating between settling down and doubling its efforts to break apart.
"You are my brother's far descendant," AZ said. This was not what Lysandre had been expecting, yet he managed to hide his surprise.
"If what you say about being the ancient king is true, then yes. I am."
AZ smiled. When he did, the warmth it brought to his worn-out face couldn't entirely balance out the sadness kept inside his eyes.
"You don't look much like him," he said pensively.
Lysandre couldn't help but scoff. "It's been three thousand years... although, I remember my father was often told he looked somewhat like him."
Thinking about his family wasn't something he particularly wanted to do. He'd failed in his attempts to uphold his father's legacy and standards, of course. His father had been a good man, accomplishing his duty selflessly and with great respect for those he'd met along the way. In contrast, Lysandre had failed as soon as he'd let his pride get the best of him.
The giant seemed to notice he'd conjured some bad memories. "Do you miss your pokémons?" he asked.
In the absolute silence of the route – with no bird pokémons there to chirp, no rodent pokémons to roam around, no wild pokémons to attack them – his deep, solemn voice seemed to linger for longer than it should have.
"Of course," Lysandre hissed, too loud, hurt somehow by the idea that he could not miss his precious companions. There was nothing more to say to that.
"I miss my brother," AZ said with a resigned sadness in his voice. "After all that happened, he was the only one who did not scorn me, the only one who did not reject my presence. I was surprised because I'd always thought he was jealous of me, of the fact that I was king and he was not. I thought he'd rejoice... but instead, it seems he decided to learn from my mistakes." He let out a little strangled laugh. "While I did not."
Lysandre said nothing, waiting for him to go on. He ran his fingers through the grass, thinking about the old legends. The king whose companion had been taken away from him... who brought her back and murdered those involved in the war in retaliation. There didn't seem to be much of that passionate anger left in this giant of a man, only shame and guilt and somewhere maybe, a small hope that one day she would forgive him. Would he be able to forgive himself then?
"I was not... stable," AZ continued, staring into the horizon as if he could see something else there. "I was unfit to rule, naturally, but I was unfit to do most of anything. Flo– she... she was gone, and I had lost everything I had. My precious friend... my kingdom... my sanity... My brother was the only thing I had left. He kept me by his side... told the people that it was safer this way, that he would not stand for me to suffer further punishment when I'd already been punished severely by my own foolishness. I spent days and months inside myself... ruminating regrets and failures and reliving the moment when she'd turned her back on me and left me in shambles."
"Were you angry at her?" Lysandre asked, looking up at AZ's face – but it was obscured by his hair. He could only see him smile.
"I didn't understand... I didn't understand why she'd leave me after all I'd done... after all I'd lost... but I was angry at myself because surely I was the one who had done something wrong."
He sighed, and Lysandre nodded. He understood how the giant felt all too well.
"As I thought about all this each passing day, I never could fully bring myself to regret what I had done, merely the consequences that had followed. I did not regret bringing her back... and although I never did admit it to my brother, at the time, I did not regret killing them all. It had ended the war, in the end. They should have thanked me instead of shunning me."
The mouth of the tall man had taken on a sharp angle, turning into an ugly grimace, all tensed jaw and clenched teeth and pursed lips. From where he sat, Lysandre found him powerful and threatening, feeling almost afraid of him for the first time since they'd met each other. As fast as it had appeared on his face, the feeling passed, leaving instead an expression of intense misery. AZ pressed a shaky hand up to his cheek, letting out another long sigh.
They sat in silence for some time. Lysandre had no desire to press the former king or harass him with questions about his past. He was curious, certainly, but if he had to be honest – although it was a thought too cowardly to be expressed honestly – he was not looking forward to going back to Lumiose and his people. He was not looking forward to disappointing them once more.
Lysandre let his hand run through the grass once more until it met a flower with bright white petals. He caressed them with one finger. The professor liked flowers. Lysandre had bought a bouquet for the lab once, and he'd appeared so delighted, it had warmed Lysandre's heart for that whole day. Now, it was a bittersweet memory, one that seemed to have occurred centuries and centuries prior.
He thought back to the dream – again. He thought back to Bryony telling him that surely if he'd had any feelings for Professor Sycamore, there was no way they'd been one-sided. It was too late to know for sure.
"Do you regret it now?" Lysandre asked, his mouth dry.
"I think so, but it's too late," AZ's voice was so bitter it was as if Lysandre himself could taste it on his tongue. "After what you've done, I've lost hope of ever seeing her again. Guiding you is the only way I can make amends in this world."
Lysandre frowned but refrained from making any kind of remark. "Tell me about the dream."
"I had it months and months after everything that had happened. I was standing on the battlefield, empty but covered with red grass, and she was there, and we were happy. I heard a cry, and on the horizon, so far away I could barely see its shape, something was coming. Something was coming toward us."
AZ took a deep breath, clenching and unclenching his left hand against his chest, right where his heart was.
"I kept having the dream, and every time it was getting closer, and closer, and soon I could recognize what it was from ancient engravings we had of our legends."
"A legendary pokémon," Lysandre let out, surprised despite himself. "Xerneas?"
Before he could even finish his sentence, the giant barked out a short, unhappy laugh. "No, of course not. Why would Xerneas come back to us? Don't be a fool. No, it was not Xerneas. Who it was is irrelevant. What matters is that They came to offer me, and you, a choice."
"A choice," Lysandre repeated evenly, the fast tempo of his heart completely absent from his voice.
AZ nodded. "The most important choice. The choice to do it all over again. The choice to fix things. The choice to regret."
Unable to stop himself, Lysandre rose to his feet, his whole body trembling. He could hear his heartbeat very loud in his ears, reverberating inside his skull. He felt like he was about to pass out again.
Even standing up while the giant was still sitting, there was no way to tower over him, no way to appear threatening – he could only appear desperate.
"Why did you say no?"
Lysandre hadn't meant to speak so loudly. AZ didn't react. He didn't look at him, his gaze instead focusing on the small flower with the white petals.
"I thought that a world where she was dead would always be the wrong choice." His voice didn't tremble. "It was worth it, to me. Standing atop the hill above the battlefield and seeing all the dead bodies there. Looking into her sad little eyes only to be met with contempt and disappointment before she flew away. It was worth it. I wouldn't take it back."
The world had started to spin and Lysandre knew instinctively that he could only make it stop by sitting back down where he couldn't fall any lower, and so he did, feeling disoriented and only vaguely aware of his own body.
"I don't understand," he mumbled, his teeth chattering. "I don't understand how you could stand this feeling."
AZ turned his head to look at him but kept his mouth shut.
"I don't want to feel like this anymore, I don't," Lysandre went on. "How can you be fine with the knowledge that you've brought so much destruction for nothing? All I was trying to build, none of it matters now, all I believed in– it's all buried under rubble and corpses and piles of ash."
Something touched his shoulder, soft, and Lysandre realized he'd bent his body forward as if he'd been attempting to curl inside himself. It was a hand, huge and warm. The king's hand. He looked up at him and he was smiling.
"In this regard, you are worth more than I am," AZ said, and his gentle voice was the most soothing thing Lysandre had heard since everything had begun to fall apart. "I believe, as has been my conviction since I first saw you, that you will make the right choice."
"But... why? Why would we be given a second chance?"
The giant shook his head slowly. "This I cannot say. You will have to ask that yourself."
They stayed as they were for a little while longer, AZ's hand still holding on to Lysandre's shaky shoulder as if to keep him firmly grounded. He barely flinched when the king let go. He could taste copper in his mouth.
Dusk had started to taint the sky purple by the time Lysandre stood up again. A hand pressed against his back, steadying him. It was cold, as ghosts probably were. His body felt weary, as if they'd sat there together for centuries – two statues decorating a sad flowerbed.
"Will I see you again?" he asked the other man, after a second of hesitation.
The king looked up at him and smiled, but gave no reply. His skin was a wrinkled piece of paper upon which had been written the old legends of a fallen leader. Lysandre wondered how a man could walk the world for thousands of years without falling prey to a disordered mind.
"I know you will make the right choice," AZ said finally, echoing his own words. "We will see each other, then."
Lysandre nodded, unsure of what to say. The moment felt surreal, and heavy, like standing at the brink of incredible changes. He wanted to thank the giant, or maybe apologize for what he'd been through, but it was pointless.
All he could do was do the right thing.
When he looked back after walking away, almost at the edge of the route, it was empty. Nobody was there.
*
The dreams were – exhilarating.
They were like a drug of the worst kind. Sycamore seemed to have given up on torturing him during the day and now fully dedicated himself to distracting him during the night. His quality of sleep was greatly improving, but his ability to focus and even care about his waking life was starting to be severely compromised.
The figure was getting closer. Despite this, he remained unable to tell what it was, partly because he was too busy shaking and panting from the way Sycamore relentlessly touched him, caressed his body, played with his hair.
Sometimes, he thought back to Sycamore's reassurance that his attraction to a made-up phantom was not indicative of lust for the deceased. It was hard to believe now, when he'd wake up drenched in sweat, appalled by the mess he'd made of himself. He could barely bear to face Bryony.
At least things had settled down, for now. The funeral ceremony had been a dreadful thing to go through: pale grey faces staring at a hole, wondering who would be next. It reminded him of burying Sycamore, of being unable to attend his mother's funeral, of AZ's talk of a battlefield covered in red grass.
The capital was truly starting to get back to life, on a smaller scale. Sometimes, when he was out with Bryony on a walk or on his way to meet up with Malva and Xerosic, he'd even see some of the recruits in their new civilian clothes, marching alongside each other and laughing as if nothing had changed in the world after all. Professor Sycamore's laboratory still stood, empty and in ruins. He'd gone back for papers and – for no reason other than grief-filled nostalgia – for the old gramophone, but on most days he could barely take three steps in the main office without wanting to collapse and break down. No one else wanted to enter that cursed place.
There were precious documents: books and notes and files containing diagrams and pictures. In fairness, they were pointless now. There was no reason to keep them around except for further sentimentality. On the last pages of a worn-out diary the professor seemed to use to write down inventories and to-do lists, Lysandre found sketches: drawings, some meticulous and some messy, of pokémons, of assistants, and even, almost at the very back, of him, looking stern and focused.
He hid the book under his bed and then, after a dream where Sycamore had been particularly tactile and his touch had been particularly scorching, burned it in the bathtub. The pages coiled and crackled until there was nothing left but ashes, and a smell Lysandre now found nauseating.
*
Bryony's eyes were unsure and tired when he asked her about the future and the past, half-closed behind green strands of hair she hadn't been taking great care of these last few weeks.
"If you could go back," Lysandre said, but he didn't finish his sentence. His hand was messing with the key he kept inside his jacket – she knew, and he knew that she knew, but the gesture had long stopped being a conscious act.
"You know what I'm going to say," she sighed. "You seem preoccupied, lately."
She was worried, and did she ever not worry about him? In a way, seeing her desperate to protect and reassure him made him feel even more powerless. He should have been the one trying to take care of her.
He was already having such a difficult time taking care of himself, however.
"I've been thinking," Lysandre said, his grip tight around the warm metal of the key, "about a lot of things. About what's right. What has to be done."
"What has to be done?" Bryony asked, brow furrowed.
Lysandre tried to think of an acceptable answer, but he didn't have one himself. He didn't know what he had to do. The giant had seemingly disappeared, and the guest in his dreams was getting closer a lot more slowly than he'd anticipated. He let go of the key.
That night, Sycamore held him by the shoulder as he whispered things in his ear that he couldn't understand. The guest was so close but blurry, like an image on a screen corrupted by parasites.
They threw their long head back, and let out a bellowing scream.
Lysandre awoke with a start, and almost screamed himself. Sycamore was looming over him, his hands gripping his shoulders, pushing him into the mattress. He looked akin to the monsters people would describe from sleep paralysis. A gengar playing a joke on him before devouring his nightmares.
"Let go of me," Lysandre growled, but his voice was pathetically weak. Sycamore smiled.
"It's almost time," he said, and the next moment the pressure was gone, and the ghost as well. Lysandre stayed immobile for a long time, listening to the loud sound of his panicked heartbeat inside his head.