[Pokémon X&Y] The Pangs of Disprized Love
Jan. 10th, 2022 12:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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teamflareTitle: The Pangs of Disprized Love
Fandom: Pokémon X&Y
Pairing: Professor Augustine Sycamore/Lysandre (though only Augustine is present.)
Rating: T
Summary: Under the watchful eye of a pokémon nurse, Professor Sycamore waits for Lysandre to wake up.
Notes: This is a side-story for my multi-chaptered fic So Long as We Can Say. It takes place between Chapter 6 (sun) and Chapter 7 (eclipse) and is told from the point of view of the pokémon center nurse Noémie. This can probably be read independently, just as a post-canon one-shot, though you will miss some subtleties (and a satisfying ending.) Title is from Shakespeare's Hamlet.
AO3 Link: Here.
A thin line of light was pouring out from under the door. She noticed it immediately, breaching the darkness of the corridor. At first, she thought perhaps someone had simply forgotten to turn off the lights: some of the new nurses were prone to being forgetful, no matter how often the head nurse reminded them. Even sticking notes to the back of the head of the chanseys – with their approval, of course – had proved ineffective. She smiled at the memory.
Then she realized it was coming from that room.
Noémie had been transferred to the South Boulevard pokémon center a few years prior. She hadn't requested it; she was fine with her position on the other side of the city, in front of the museum. It was just a little bit closer to her place, too. As it turned out, the South Boulevard pokémon center was a revolving-door workplace, and for a very silly reason: it was the location that stood closest to Professor Sycamore's lab.
When she'd arrived, the head nurse had painstakingly exposed to her that she needed people who weren't only working there to get in close proximity to Lumiose's most wanted bachelor. She'd taken it as a joke, at first, but she'd grown jaded very quickly. Young nurses – of all genders – were absolutely requesting to be transferred to the South Boulevard just so they could get a glimpse of Augustine Sycamore. As a result, Noémie had resolved to work even harder, to prove herself, and also to prove to the professor that they were better than this. To his credit, Professor Sycamore seemed mostly amused by the idea. He didn't seek them out, yet he didn't avoid them either. She'd see him sometimes, letting himself be accosted as if he truly wasn't expecting it, hadn't noticed that this or that freshly employed nurse had been observing him. Who could blame him, really? The few times she'd exchanged words with him he'd been perfectly agreeable. It was just how things were, back then.
Everything was different now.
Noémie walked up to the door slowly, muffling her footsteps as if she was afraid of disturbing, and in a way she was. She pressed her palm against the door frame and nervously tilted her head until her ear was almost brushing against the thin space in-between it and the door.
She could hear nothing for what felt like several minutes, and so she was about to pull back when she noticed someone was very faintly snoring. She closed her eyes and sighed under her breath.
It took three series of sharp but not too loud knocks for the door to open. Immediately, Noémie blinked down at her feet.
"Sorry, Professor," she said, the words coming out a lot less confidently than she would have liked. "You know I can't let you sleep here."
She heard him chuckle, though there was no humor in it.
"It's my bad," Sycamore said. He scratched at the stubble on his chin and then yawned. "I lost track of time. Thank you for waking me up."
It felt childish to avoid looking at him, so she let her eyes move up, even though she didn't want to. It wasn't that she was afraid of him; rather, she was afraid for him, and the state he was letting himself be in. She'd seen him tired, exhausted even, but it was nothing compared to how he was now.
His face was pale as a sheet, the only hint of color coming from the red marks he'd left from sleeping against his crossed arms. He'd never looked so haggard: the circles under his eyes so dark it made him look diseased, his features hollow and drawn, his stubble growing steadily into the beginning of a beard, and his hair all over the place. She knew for a fact he barely ate and only napped throughout the day when he desperately needed a good night's sleep. He blinked at her, his put-on smile faltering upon witnessing her anxious expression.
"I'll leave you to it," he said quickly and moved to leave.
Noémie clenched her fists, willing herself to be just a little bit braver. "Professor," she called out after him.
He stopped in front of the door that led back to the pokémon center's main hall but didn't turn to look back at her.
"You should stay home tomorrow," she pleaded, her voice quiet but kind. "We'll take care of... of him."
"Don't be ridiculous," Sycamore said. "I'll see you in the morning."
Before she could think up new words to convince him to stay, he was already leaving, quickening his pace so she would get the message that he wouldn't change his mind. Noémie sighed.
Shaking her head, she walked once more toward the door of the room the professor had been occupying. The lights were still on, so she entered to turn them off, even though it was the last thing she wanted to do.
She tried her best to ignore the large silhouette of the man lying on the bed in the middle of the room. She'd denied it every time she'd been asked, but she was deathly afraid of him, even in this state. Whenever she glanced at his face, half-hidden under the mask he needed to breathe properly, she remembered the cold, aching terror she'd felt when she'd received his last, devastating message. She'd heard some of the other nurses whisper between themselves that they wished he was dead. She didn't, though not for his sake.
When she thought about the professor's current state, she couldn't help but imagine how he would have taken more fatal circumstances.
She flipped the light switch off once she'd made sure that everything was in order. The first few days, Sycamore had asked repeatedly for permission to sleep in the room, even as they refused every time. One night, she'd found him curled on top of the sheets, his back pressed against the guardrail of the hospital bed, his face resting on his friend's shoulder. She'd felt like crying then, keeping it together just long enough to ask him to leave. When he'd opened his eyes, they'd looked right through her.
There were rumors about him – about them. Among the nurses, of course, but also among the people she'd see outside of her job. Some of her friends were constantly pestering her about it, asking her questions about the professor and his relationship with the man who'd tried to kill them all. She didn't tell them about the time she'd found him sleeping on the bed. She hadn't even told the head nurse.
Noémie closed the door carefully behind her and sighed. It was going to be a long night.
*
The Kalos Champion Diantha smiled kindly at her when she entered the corridor. She was gorgeous, as always, her braided hair tightly wound in a halo around her face. She wore a plain black dress that perfectly complemented the shapes of her body. In her slender and beautiful hands, she held an intricate bouquet of flowers that Noémie couldn't even name. Even if she tried her best to hide it, she looked tired, though nothing like the man she was coming to visit.
"G–good afternoon, Mademoiselle Diantha," Noémie stammered out. She glanced at the door. "He's in the room."
Diantha nodded. "Thank you."
Noémie wrung her hands together once she'd disappeared into the room. It was bad form to snoop, especially on such important people, and especially with the way things were, but she couldn't help the urge. She silently walked up to the door, slightly ajar, and stood there to listen to what was going on.
"...don't need to be here every day," she heard Diantha say. "Augustine, I know you don't care, but..."
"What," Sycamore croaked, his voice flat. "People are talking, is that it? We've already had this conversation, if you remember."
She could hear him pacing around, his shoes hitting the floor tiles hard – angrily, she thought. She bit her bottom lip anxiously.
"I'm not going to stop coming here because it's bad for my image or whatever it is you're thinking," Sycamore went on. His voice sounded strained as if he was holding back tears, or something else, like wrath. "I can't leave him. I'm not going to leave him. You can't make me–"
"Calm down," Diantha said, firm yet gentle. "I'm worried about you. You act like you're on autopilot. You need to rest."
"How do you expect me to rest? I can't leave him," he repeated, "and they won't let me sleep in the room."
Diantha sighed. "He's not going to go anywhere. I'm sure he won't hold it against you if you dare to go back to your place to sleep in a proper bed."
"What if he wakes up and I'm not there?"
The words sprang out, harsh, before she'd even finished speaking. They were met with a short silence. Even though she wasn't in the room with them, Noémie could feel the tension rising. She wrung her hands some more, pinching at the skin between her thumbs and index fingers.
"What if he never wakes up?" Diantha asked, her voice so soft Noémie wasn't sure she'd heard it right at first. She heard her clear her throat and then go on, "Augustine, it's not even been two weeks and you're already like this. What if he stays this way forever? What if he–"
"He's not going to die," Sycamore growled, like an injured pokémon giving out a warning cry. "He's in good hands, and the nurses have assured me that his vitals are fine, and he's responding well to the care the chanseys and blisseys are providing..."
Diantha's heels clicked against the tiles; Noémie pictured her walking toward her friend, perhaps to let her hand lay against his shoulder reassuringly.
"You can't stop living for his sake, it's not helping him, and it's not helping you either," she said. "Even disregarding the... circumstances, you know what you're doing isn't healthy. Please. Go home and sleep."
There were more sounds of footsteps, and some rustling Noémie couldn't identify, and then, to her great dismay, Sycamore began to sob. Quietly, at first, and then louder and louder, as if he was allowing himself to fall apart. She moved away from the door, feeling her heart race even as it broke for him.
She couldn't bring herself to keep listening in after that, especially not when her own eyes began to water. She hurried to the breakroom, where one of the chanseys regarded her with a mixture of concern and confusion. The pokémon approached her carefully once she'd sat down and buried her face in her hands, to pat her on the arm and make little soothing noises at her.
This was such an unfair situation. She remembered the look on the head nurse's face when the professor had asked if they would agree to help, and keep his friend – "friend" – safe and cared for. People would talk, surely, but no more than they already were. He'd looked so distraught then, already worn out, holding his dirtied up lab coat around him like a shield. Later, they'd learned he'd overseen the excavation in Geosenge where they'd managed to dig through what was left of Team Flare's grand design. They'd brought back a body, surprisingly mostly intact considering the fact that he'd been buried under rubble and rocks for several days. Sycamore had stayed the whole time they'd taken care of him, assisting through the whole process, smiling gratefully at the nurses and the pokémons even as it was painfully obvious that he was barely holding himself together.
They all knew, him included, that they were doing this for him, and not for the man who they were looking after. He seemed at peace with that fact, willing to put himself on the line if it meant things would get done. Noémie couldn't even begin to understand it.
Even if the rumors were true, and they had been more than friends – how could you ever come back from this? Betrayal was one thing, but this was something else. He'd had to have received the message, too. He'd had to have stared into this man's eyes as he calmly explained that he was going to kill them all, him included. This wasn't just a mistake or a misunderstanding. Perhaps it was cruel or cowardly of her, to think that if a friend, or worse than that, a lover, had pulled something like this, she would have let them rot under the ruins of their failed attempt at mass murder. Perhaps Augustine Sycamore possessed a kind of bravery, a strength of character that was beyond their reach, to be able to move past this, to be able to still care for someone who'd strived to do such a terrible thing.
Or perhaps, Noémie thought as she let her hands rest under her chin, smiling weakly at the chansey whose soft little paw was still resting on her arm, it was more like a kind of stupidity, or insanity.
She took a deep breath and, after giving the chansey a gentle pat on the head, stood up to walk back through the corridor. There, she found that the door to the room was now half-open. Diantha was standing at the entrance, seemingly lost in thought.
"Um," Noémie let out when the Champion didn't react to her arrival. "Is something wrong?"
Diantha shook her head, turning to give her a little smile. "Professor Sycamore just left."
"So you convinced him," Noémie said. Then she blushed, realizing that she'd inadvertently revealed that she'd overheard some of their conversation. "I– Can I ask you a question?"
Though she'd crooked one of her eyebrows upon hearing her first words, Diantha's expression was mostly amused, and her tone still kind, when she replied, "What is it?"
Noémie averted her eyes. Her cheeks still felt embarrassingly warm.
"Do you... do you really think he's going to die?
She'd never had to deal with the death of a human being in her line of work – or with the death of a pokémon, now that she thought about it. They'd come close a few times, trainers bringing in pokémons that they'd pushed too far, or strays who'd been abused and left for dead on the side of the road. Before they'd agreed to look after this man, the only injuries she'd taken care of for humans were superficial, the result of children being too reckless or of pokémons being too rowdy. She rubbed the corner of her eyes with the tips of her fingers, hoping that the fact that she'd shed a few tears wasn't too obvious.
"You shouldn't spy on people like this, you know," Diantha scolded her, though she didn't sound angry. "No, I don't think he'll die. Arceus knows this man is resilient. Not to mention, Professor Sycamore would never allow it."
When Noémie looked up at her, Diantha's smile hadn't wavered. It seemed even wider, somehow, although her eyes still held on to some sadness.
"He really... cares about him," Noémie mumbled, incredulous. Diantha raised her eyebrows but said nothing. "I just hope he'll listen to you and rest."
Diantha slipped a hand in a hidden pocket of her dress, taking out a pair of round black sunglasses. She put them on, completing her look, and pushed them up her nose with one of her impeccably manicured fingers.
"Keep an eye on him for me, will you?"
Feeling her face flush once again, Noémie nodded. She straightened her back like she was a soldier receiving an order.
"O–of course!"
*
It took a few more days for the professor to settle on a rhythm that meant he wasn't compromising his health while also making sure he was as available as he could afford. If he continued to nod off sometimes, sitting on a chair next to the bed like a sentinel standing guard, Noémie decided to allow it for now. He was still unshaven, and still obviously wearing the same clothes over and over, but at least the circles under his eyes weren't as pronounced, and he seemed a little less gaunt. Every day, following the example set by Diantha, he brought new flowers, carefully setting them up in a vase near the bed, a combination of store-bought, delicate blossoms and freshly picked-out dandelions or poppies.
He'd noticed that she'd appointed herself in charge of the room, and of him, smiling at her when she showed up to bring him food at lunchtime, and only protesting weakly when she shooed him off in the evening. He even allowed her to stay with him as he ate, even though he knew she was there to make sure he actually was eating.
"You guys cook this stuff, right?" he asked her on one such occasion, after swallowing a mouthful of mashed berries. Once she nodded, he added, "It's pretty good, as far as hospital food goes."
"This isn't really a hospital," Noémie said. She smiled but it lacked enthusiasm. She didn't like sitting so close to the bed, forced to keep its occupant in her field of view.
Sycamore let out a short, strangled laugh. "I guess not. It might as well be as far as this room is concerned, though."
He ate the rest of his meal quickly, stopping only to ask her questions about the pokémon center and how things were going. She liked these casual exchanges. In the soft light diffused through the windows, she thought she could see why so many people were applying to be nurses here. Even like this, exhausted, high-strung and unkempt, he looked handsome. She blushed at the thought, busying herself with taking the tray from him once he was done so she could clean it up.
When she came back, she found him sitting even closer to the bed, holding the hand of the man lying there, rubbing his thumb against unresponsive fingers. She froze in the doorway, struck by the intimacy of the scene she was walking on, and the wistful look on the professor's face.
"Um," she said, in an attempt to make her presence known. Sycamore didn't react. "Do... do you want to be alone?"
He tilted his face just enough to make it clear he'd heard her.
"I don't mind," he said after some time. He paused, smiling just a little bit. His eyes were still fixed on the other man's face. "But I know you'd rather not be in here."
Noémie hung her head in shame. "It's not..."
She couldn't bring herself to lie about this, but seeing him sitting there, looking so pitiful, it felt cruel to tell the truth as well.
"I get it," Sycamore went on when she stayed silent. "I don't hold it against you, or anyone else. I'm thankful that you're willing to help him even though..."
He pressed his lips together, his gaze drifting toward their joint hands.
"You..." Noémie took a few steps toward him and then, after only a couple of seconds of hesitation, sat back down on the chair she'd occupied earlier. "You really care about him."
Even knowing who she was saying this to this time, she still couldn't completely hide the incredulity in her voice. Sycamore's lips trembled ever-so-slightly even as he smiled.
"Sometimes, it feels like the only thing I have left to cling to, these days..." He squeezed his hand around the one he was holding just so, knowing it would have no effect. "You're Noémie, right?"
When he turned to look her in the eyes, she felt her face heat up again, mentally cursing her inability to keep herself in check.
"Y–yes," she stuttered.
"Well, really, thanks for all you're doing for us, Noémie," he said, his smile a little more steady. "I know it's a lot of work, and you're always here... I appreciate it."
Us.
The word struck a chord in her. She wanted to ask, she realized, even though she didn't know if she could bring herself to do it. He'd said "us" – not me, not him, not even him and me.
"It's not that bad," she said and found that she believed it. Sure, the man was heavy, and they had to keep checking to make sure his body wasn't deteriorating – though the professor took care of that most of the time – but all in all, the whole matter had been a lot less daunting than she'd expected.
The worst part, truthfully, was the identity of the person they were taking care of.
"He's... your friend, isn't he?" she tried, cautiously. "Even though..."
With a sigh, Sycamore let go of the hand. "When I brought him here, I knew it'd be complicated. I don't blame you for being wary of him... Although he can't really hurt you right now." He chuckled, but Noémie thought anxiously that he looked like he was about to cry.
"I can't imagine how you feel," she said, looking down at her feet. "For us, this is all he is, but for you..."
"Well, you know how it goes: sometimes you think you know someone, and they turn out to be a lot worse." He chuckled again, holding the hand he'd had wrapped around his friend's against his own cheek. "I'm not going to let him go, though. I'm sorry."
"I can't say I understand it, but... I'm sure he'll be grateful."
Sycamore shot her a look as if she was spouting nonsense. Maybe she was. His smile seemed warmer, though, and his shoulders had relaxed somewhat.
"We'll see," he said.
"If he isn't, I'll tell him he should be," Noémie went on. Her face was hot, but she'd stopped staring at the ground. "Because you're a good person and a good friend."
Now it was his turn to look embarrassed. He hid his eyes behind his hand. "Thanks." He let it slide up until his fingers were buried in his hair, his forehead resting in his palm. "I'd like to think he'd do the same for me, but truth be told, I don't know anymore."
She didn't know what to reply to that, so she said nothing.
They sat in silence for a short while, Sycamore idly scratching at this scalp. He was staring at the bed again, his eyes unfocused. Noémie couldn't help but watch him as he blinked slowly, lost in thought. She was about to ask if he needed anything when he straightened himself suddenly as if struck by an idea.
"Do you think I could– I don't know if this is a strange thing to ask," he hesitated. His gaze drifted between her and the face of the man lying on the bed. "I can't help but think he'd hate to be seen with his hair like this. His beard, too. Would you let me... take care of that?"
Though she wasn't entirely sure why this time, Noémie felt herself flush once again. At this rate, the professor would have seen her with her face red more often than not.
"I–I'd have to ask the head nurse, but... as long as we're here to make sure nothing goes wrong, I don't see why not," she said, avoiding his eyes.
"Right."
He stretched his arms up above his head and then settled back down on his chair. Not without some worry, Noémie thought he still looked tired, though not as much as he did before Diantha's intervention. He pressed his palms against his knees, fidgeting with the fabric of his pants, before reaching down for the bag he kept at his feet, rummaging through it until he'd found what he was looking for: a small, thin sketchbook that had seen better days. She watched intently as he flipped it open, revealing pages and pages of careful notes and doodles of varying intricacy. Most of them were of pokémons, and most of those were of what appeared to be the same garchomp – female if her dorsal fin was any indication.
"Oh," Noémie said. "Do you draw?"
Sycamore hummed. "I dabble," he replied with a chuckle.
Judging by some of the drawings she could see on there, she thought he could give himself a little more credit, but she fought back the impulse to chastise him for putting himself down.
"This is your garchomp, right?" she said instead, trying for a lighter topic. "The one you keep at your lab. I remember the other nurses mentioning that a few times."
"Ah, yes. She's always trying to get my attention these days. I suppose she can tell how I'm feeling." He traced the lines of her neck on one of his sketches with the tip of his nail.
"I'm glad you have people who are there for you," Noémie said. "Or pokémons."
He laughed, and she thought it sounded more sincere, this time.
*
The weather was gradually getting colder. It wouldn't snow – it rarely did in Lumiose – but Noémie found herself dressing in warmer clothing, scarves and sweaters and socks made of imported wooloo wool. Even then, she still shivered and sniffled as she walked through the streets. At least she could settle down inside the pokémon center, carefully peeling the layers of clothing off of her body in the breakroom. She'd just hung up her puffer coat on the rack when she heard a commotion in the corridor.
Before she could reach the door, someone was already knocking on it, three impatient bangs that made her frown. Upon opening it, she was greeted with the sight of a blond man with a very pale face, contrasted by very rosy cheeks. He looked like he'd just been running, breathing fast, his brow furrowed.
"Is the professor here?" he asked before she could think of something to say.
"Do you mean Professor Sycamore?" The guarded tone of her voice seemed to make the stranger tense even more. "He was there this morning, but I just got back... Did you ask the head nurse?"
He scratched the back of his head awkwardly. "She looked busy."
Noémie resisted the urge to roll her eyes.
"I'm sorry to ask this, but... who are you exactly?"
"Oh, no, it's my bad," he said with a little bow of his head. "I'm one of the professor's assistants at the lab. My name's Dexio."
"I thought you looked familiar," she mumbled. She walked out, Dexio at her heels. His nervosity was contagious. "Did something happen?"
Dexio cleared his throat. "We were supposed to meet up today, at the lab, but he never showed up. I thought he was..."
He gritted his teeth. She couldn't comprehend how angry he seemed to be, though she had some ideas. He stopped her before they'd reached the door leading to the main hall of the pokémon center.
"Aren't you going to check that room?" he asked.
"Did you not check it?"
Truth be told, Noémie's patience for his attitude was starting to run thin. She was used to people being short with her, as a nurse, especially those who were worried about the health of their precious pokémons, but that didn't mean she would lie down and take it. Still, she figured she could humor him. She held down the doorknob and found that the door was locked.
"Well. He's probably not there, since this room doesn't lock from the inside."
She turned to face Dexio and tell him that he could wait in the breakroom if he wanted, and stopped dead in her tracks. The professor was standing behind him, his lips pressed together in a displeased line. He'd wrapped himself in a maroon coat that looked very warm, while also clearly being two sizes too large for him.
"Is something wrong?"
The sound of his voice made Dexio turn around as well.
"Professor! We were looking for you. We kept ringing your holo-caster, but you wouldn't answer, so I came here to see if you were..."
"I went for a walk and lost track of time," Sycamore said. They stared at each other. Noémie thought that she'd somehow ended up in the middle of some conflict she wasn't sure she wanted to be involved in. "I needed to clear my head. I probably left my holo-caster here, actually."
He walked up to the door and unlocked it. Once he'd entered, Dexio moved to follow him, but he stopped at the threshold, glaring into the room. Noémie stayed where she was, playing with her hands to distract herself from the fact that she had no idea what to do. She resolved to wait and see, to make sure that the situation – whatever it was – wouldn't escalate.
The tension in the way Dexio was holding himself had only worsened upon being confronted with the sleeping form on the bed. He clenched his fists, visibly holding himself back. He watched as Sycamore slid his bag around his shoulder and then, after only a few seconds of hesitation, brushed a few strands of orange hair away from his friend's face. He wore that same wistful expression Noémie had seen before, undeterred by their presence.
Dexio cleared his throat, much louder than necessary.
"You know," he started, and already Noémie could hear in his voice that he knew this was a bad idea, "you don't actually need to be here all the time... The nurses here," he turned his head just enough to sneak a glance in her direction, "seem to be taking care of him just fine."
Even though she agreed with him, she didn't like how he'd said the word. Judging by the closed-off, cold expression on the professor's face, he didn't appreciate it much either.
"We've talked about this, and you know I won't change my mind," he said cautiously. "I respect your opinion, of course, but..."
"He's dangerous," Dexio spat out.
Sycamore's lips stretched into a joyless smirk. "In case you haven't noticed, he's currently unable to hurt anyone."
"He's hurting you." His voice cracked on the last word, his shoulders shaking slightly. Sycamore's smile faded instantly. "Sina was worried sick when you wouldn't answer, she really thought... we really thought something had happened to you. Every day you come here to spend time with him and for what? He tried to–"
"Dexio," Sycamore warned him, though his tone was soft. He took a deep breath, clutching the strap of his bag as if it were a safety rope he was clinging to.
Dexio shook his head. "No, Professor, listen to me," he pleaded. There was still some anger in his voice, buried just under the surface of his concern. "Look at you. That coat you're wearing..."
Blinking rapidly, Sycamore looked away as his cheeks reddened. "This has nothing to do with you, or anyone else. It's cold, and I needed something to wear..."
"It's his coat," Dexio said.
"Well, they let me have it, you know, when they had me gather all of his belongings," Sycamore snapped back. He stood very straight, his legs spread apart and his shoulders squared in an attempt, perhaps, to seem intimidating, or just more in control of himself than he was. "It's my coat now. This has nothing to do with you," he repeated.
Noémie chewed on her bottom lip for a few seconds, crushed by the tense atmosphere as the two men openly glared at each other. Surely she had to say something, but the only words that came to mind were, "P–please don't fight here."
The small, strangled sound of her voice seemed to bring both of them back to reality.
"Sorry," Dexio said, looking down at the ground. "It's just– I wish things had gone differently. Even for him." He gave a nod toward the bed.
Sycamore sighed. His hand was still gripped around the strap, so tight his knuckles had gone white. He shook his head, taking a few steps toward his assistant.
"No, it's my fault. I should have made sure I had my holo-caster on me. I'll go with you to the lab."
He stopped as they passed Noémie, letting his free hand drop on her shoulder, a familiar gesture that left her feeling a little bit out of her depths. He smiled.
"Thank you so much, as always."
Avoiding his eyes, she nodded, trying her best to ignore the fact that she was blushing once again.
"Don't mention it."
She watched them leave, Dexio walking very close to the professor, as if he worried he might lose track of him again, and then turned back toward the room. Not entirely certain of what she was doing, she approached the bed, her gaze falling on the face of the man lying in it.
Before everything that had happened, she'd seen him a few times – on TV or in holo-caster adverts, talking about his projects, his life's work, about his goals and his hopes for the better future he wanted to build. He'd always had that look in his eyes, that spark that she supposed was passion, or ambition, but seemed to be hiding something else, something dark that could be felt even more strongly when in his physical presence. They'd never really run into each other; once, maybe, she'd caught a glimpse of him on his way to the professor's lab, walking effortlessly through the crowd. She'd never seen anyone this tall before or since. She'd wondered, then, as she'd wondered every time she'd seen him, what exactly he and Augustine Sycamore had in common.
When he'd sent out his call, his last, macabre message, the darkness within him had been written plainly on his face, somber and solemn, and in his voice, low and devoid of strong emotions. She'd felt ice in her stomach then, stalactites forming from the panic in her mind and dropping down, over and over. She'd thought about dying. At no point, like some other people who were in the pokémon center around her, had she doubted that he was telling the truth, that it wasn't a stunt, or a lie, or a marketing ploy to promote some new project he was working on.
The absolute terror she'd felt upon seeing his face had told her that he was sincere, that he really was doing this – that he really was willing to kill as many people as he needed in order to fulfill his ideals.
Looking at him now, lying on this hospital bed, surrounded by machines that made sure that his deep sleep would someday end, he seemed oddly peaceful, his features relaxed, his breathing slow and even. The professor was conscientiously taking care of grooming him now, brushing his hair when they moved him to make sure his body wasn't suffering from constantly being in this position, and even trimming his beard a few times. She'd stay in the room as he did, sitting on one of the chairs, averting her eyes from the scene because she couldn't help but feel as if she was intruding on something private that she wasn't supposed to see. To his credit, Sycamore seemed to take the whole matter with his usual amount of easiness, simply satisfied with being able to look after his friend the way he'd been allowed to. Sometimes, she heard him talk to him under his breath, without being able to decipher what he was saying.
She ran her hand on the guardrail, thoughtful, as she walked back to the door. There were so many things she wished she could do to help the professor, so many words she wished she could find to reassure him, but all she could do was stay here, and do what she always did.
*
The presence of their unusual "patient" in the pokémon center was an open secret at this point: most people who resided or worked at the South Boulevard knew, at least, and the rumor had spread throughout the whole city. Noémie had often wondered why there'd never been any kind of journalist or reporter around, trying to bribe them into getting a glimpse of him, but then she'd remembered Malva, the holo-caster ambassador, who no doubt had enough connections to make sure this wouldn't happen. The professor, too, seemed to make sure to take the brunt of the attention when it came to this matter. On several occasions, she'd caught him gently telling off small groups of people carrying cameras near the lab as she walked to and from the pokémon center.
He'd stopped wearing the large, maroon coat since Dexio had pointed out where it came from. It made Noémie a little sad, though she couldn't pinpoint why.
She'd just let the chanseys out of the room one quiet morning when the professor showed up, looking particularly frazzled. It struck her as strange, as he'd seemed to have slowly but surely gotten accustomed to his current situation in the last few days. She hadn't seen him act as erratic as he had at the start; mostly, she'd sometimes find him talking to himself while alone in the room, or to the man he was visiting, discussing things like his current workload, the way his rescued pokémons were doing, or other, more personal matters that she didn't feel comfortable listening in on.
"Professor, good morning," she said kindly.
He ran his hand through his hair before answering, the corners of his lips curling into the beginning of a smile.
"Good morning."
With that, he dropped himself on the chair near the bed, letting his bag fall to his feet. His brow furrowed upon looking at the bed's occupant, his attempt to appear more positive than he was immediately abandoned. She took a few steps toward him, cautious.
"Did... did something happen? You look troubled." She was proud to hear her voice didn't tremble – much.
"Oh, the usual," he said, the words coming out slowly, almost reluctantly. "I don't mind answering for him, but it does take its toll after a while."
Noémie rubbed the sleeve of her shirt absentmindedly.
"Are people bothering you again?" She hadn't seen anyone like that in the vicinity recently, though that didn't mean much; since she didn't have to deal with them, she could tune them out with relative ease.
"You know..." Sycamore started, then let his voice trail off. He chuckled humorlessly before continuing, "The first few weeks, a few of my scientists resigned, saying that they couldn't trust in my integrity anymore, that if I was still willing to associate myself with someone who would do such a thing, then how could they know that I didn't have any bias when it came to other matters, like our research?" He sighed, letting the palm of his hand fall against the guardrail. "I don't blame them, and I don't blame anyone who's suspicious of me now. I wish I could explain it... I wish other people could see him the way I see him."
She watched him rub his thumb against the plastic, trying desperately to find the right words to console him.
"Maybe... Maybe when he wakes up, it'll be easier," she said.
Sycamore smiled at her, the tension in his features relaxing slightly. "Yeah, maybe."
"I'll make you some tea," Noémie suggested.
She didn't wait for his reply, hurrying to the breakroom so she could brew him some of the high-quality tea she'd had imported from Galar. When she came back a few minutes later, he'd taken out his sketchbook and was very absorbed in drawing. She watched him for a moment, hunched over slightly as he quickly traced lines on the page, his forehead creased not in worry but concentration, his tongue darting out to lick his lips. From time to time, his eyes would glance at the face of the man still sleeping in the bed, and then back at the sketchbook.
When she began to feel a bit silly about standing there with the steaming cup of tea in her hands, she cleared her throat. Sycamore looked up at her and blinked, straightening himself.
"Oh, thank you," he said when she handed him the cup. He pressed the palm of his hand holding the pencil flat against the sketchbook and took it with the other, blowing on it softly. "This smells amazing. I can't remember the last time I've had a good cup of tea."
"It's galarian tea," Noémie said as he took a sip, bristling with pride even though she had no hand in manufacturing it. "I've heard it's very effective for treating stress."
"It's true! I already feel much better," Sycamore said with a grin that made her cheeks redden again.
She excused herself to brew herself a cup. As she waited for the water to boil again, she thought about the glimpses of the drawing she'd caught through the gaps in-between the professor's fingers. The confident lines of a face he could observe freely now that its owner was always sleeping... She would have called it romantic, in a way, were it not for the fact that she could not associate that man with romance, especially not alongside the professor.
It was naive of her, she knew. At this point, she'd seen and heard enough to know that there was definitely more than friendship between these two – at least from Sycamore's side. But the thought, when she let herself consider it, pained her too much. It was too cruel to think that someone could do something like this, knowing the damage they'd bring to someone who loved them this much, even now. Knowing that they'd die, had they been successful. She stared at her resigned expression reflected in the water as the tea leaves slowly worked to darken it up.
When she returned to the room once again, she saw that the professor had dragged the second chair to his side. The empty cup was sitting on the floor next to his bag, and he was back to being fully absorbed in the act of drawing.
"You should give yourself more credit," Noémie said as she sat. She took a careful sip of her tea – too hot. When he shot her a confused look, she added, "When you said you dabbled... This looks really good."
"Ah, well," he mumbled. He breathed out through his mouth, blowing off a strand of hair that had fallen in his eyes. "It's kind of embarrassing, isn't it?"
He looked down at his half-finished sketch, letting Noémie see it fully. There was definitely something intimate in the way he'd painstakingly rendered the weight of his friend's eyelashes, resting against his eyelids, or the sharp lines of his nose. She couldn't help but glance away, too struck by the feelings she could read in it – the longing, the desire to touch, perhaps to peer into these eyes again. Romantic indeed.
"I don't think it's embarrassing," she said, even though she knew she sounded embarrassed as she said it. "But your feelings are... coming through, I think."
"That's what's embarrassing," he retorted. With an uncomfortable chuckle, he slammed the sketchbook shut, hiding his heart away from prying eyes.
Noémie sipped her tea slowly, to savor it, and also to give herself something else to focus on. If her face flushed again, she could tell herself it was because of the steam.
"Noémie, can I ask you something?"
She started, choking on her mouthful of tea as it went the wrong way down. She coughed in her sleeve, turning away from him, until she felt she could breathe again.
"Sorry," he said once she'd turned back toward him, her empty cup now discarded inside the one he'd left next to his bag. "I didn't mean to startle you."
"No, it's okay," Noémie said with a faint smile. Surely this couldn't get any worse. "What did you want to ask me?"
Sycamore rubbed the back of his neck lightly, gathering his thoughts before answering.
"This past month, people have been constantly telling me that I'm making a huge mistake," he started slowly, looking down at the closed book on his knees. "And you know, maybe they're right. But you've been here, taking care of us all this time, and you've never tried to convince me to let him go."
His gaze slid back up to meet hers. She tried her best to hold it.
"Why?" he asked.
"It's just... you already seem so pained," Noémie said softly. She blinked away the urge to break eye contact; she owed him that much. "I can't imagine how difficult this must be for you. And," she added with a tentative smile, "I don't think I could convince you."
"You're right about that." Sycamore's smile was strangely peaceful, considering the circumstances. "I don't think even he could convince me."
And wasn't that the truth, she thought when she finally looked away. If the things this man had tried to do couldn't get the professor to break away from him, surely nothing else could. She didn't have to like it, but she'd come to accept it, somehow, through the days she'd spent with both of them – though one of them wasn't really there, of course.
"What was he like? If you don't mind me asking." She let her gaze travel to the other man's face, half-hidden behind the mask still. "I've only seen him in passing, or... you know."
Out of the corner of her eyes, she could see Sycamore's expression shift from surprise to an odd sort of melancholy. Nobody who'd asked him about his friend – his ideas, their relationship, and everything that that entailed – these last few weeks had done so in a positive light, she figured. He'd likely had to go through several rounds of interrogation, to determine whether there was still a threat, whether he was involved, whether it needed to be investigated further. Even his friends and acquaintances, like Diantha or Dexio, presumably only wanted to discuss the worst, to ask how he was holding up now that it had happened, now that everything had changed. Noémie waited for him to speak without daring to look at him just yet, for fear of scaring him away.
"He was very... intense," he said finally. There was restraint in his voice as if he was afraid of what might come out if he didn't work to temper himself. "We could talk for hours about our fields of work. He was one of the most brilliant people I've had the privilege to know. You know he's behind the holo-caster, of course," he didn't wait for her to nod, though she did anyway, "but that's only a sample of what he was able to come up with. Sometimes I really thought he could do anything he put his mind to." He breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth, the sound between a scoff and a sigh. "I suppose he proved me right, in the end."
He scratched at his chin, deep in thought. Noémie tilted her face toward him.
"Were you and him," she started, before interrupting herself. He didn't react. "I'm sorry if this is hard for you to talk about."
"It's alright," he said. He rubbed the bags under his eyes with the tips of his thumb and index finger. "I'm used to it. It feels like I've done nothing but talk about him for a month." He chuckled lightly, letting his eyelids fall shut. "And I doubt it's going to end there."
She watched him lean against the back of his chair, throwing his head back, his fingers now rubbing the creases on his forehead.
"If you're curious about," he paused, considering his next words, and then went on, "our relationship, I don't know how to describe it. Feels like the kind of thing that would take hours to explain. I couldn't begin to tell you how he felt, but as for me, well..."
He opened his eyes, gesturing toward himself with both of his hands, the exuberance of the movement a stark contrast with the dull ache she could see in his gaze.
"It's obvious, right?"
Noémie smiled, sheepishly at first, and then a bit more certainly when he smiled back. "He's lucky to have you on his side."
Sycamore laughed, almost sending his chair toppling over with him, holding on to the sketchbook still sitting on his knees with one hand. It was a wild sound, honest but also a little unhinged, and she thought it fit the situation well enough.
"I'll be sure to tell him when he wakes up," he said once he'd calmed down, running a hand over his face.
They spent the rest of the day quietly, discussing the pokémon center's latest gossip in hushed tones, talking about how the professor's garchomp was doing, and about where he could order galarian tea like she had. He didn't open his sketchbook again, but when Noémie came back from cleaning up their trays after lunch, she caught him hunched over the bed, holding a restful hand, his hair brushing against the sleeping man's face. She returned to the breakroom, telling herself she had something left to do there, and wondered how much longer it would take for him to wake up.
*
It was nearly winter now, and yet the professor still brought back fresh flowers for the room. She'd asked him, more to hear him talk about his friend again than anything else, what kind of flowers he liked. Sycamore had laughed then, his face charmingly flushed, and admitted that he didn't think the man cared for flowers very much. He'd appreciate the gesture to pretty up the room, at least. Maybe.
The world was moving on around them, she thought, much faster than she expected; yet the professor remained, a constant presence at the eye of the storm, avoiding the disapproving looks and the contemptuous whispers in his path. She still found him, some mornings, his figure bent above the bed, as if in prayer, his head held down with his hair in his face, but outside of these moments, he looked more content, confident in whatever the future would bring him. She couldn't help but admire him.
He'd taken to showing up earlier in the morning, before Noémie even, and leaving sometime after lunch, occasionally coming back in the evening. She'd heard from the head nurse that he'd thrown himself into his work, helping the children he'd picked as his pupils bring back some of the order that had been disturbed by Team Flare's actions. He was still tired, still prone to lightly pressing his fingers against unresponsive flesh, but he was finally allowing himself to focus on something else, something that wasn't sitting in a room and waiting.
As soon as he stepped into said room, though, there was nothing else. Even during their idle chats, his eyes always remained fixed on the bed. In his mind, too, Noémie gathered – though she never asked – he was always here.
"I keep thinking I saw him move," he said to her one evening. He'd stayed the whole day that time, like he had at the beginning, looking particularly shaken for reasons she didn't dare to ask. "The machine seems like it's acting weirdly as well, don't you think?"
They'd both tuned out the soft beeping after a few days, yet Noémie thought she understood what he meant: some of the recent readings had been different. It had happened before, a few weeks ago, and been inconclusive. She didn't have the heart to tell him that.
"Maybe," she said.
He looked anxious, suddenly, his features drawn, almost like the first few days, when he was at his worst. It felt like such a long time had passed, when she knew that it had barely been two months. If she'd been a little braver, she would have touched his arm, to let him know she was there for him. Instead, she wrung her hands together, mimicking his worry.
"Sorry," he said in a sigh, defeated. His eyes scanned the room, stopping to stare at the vase. A hint of a smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. "I'll come early to bring new flowers tomorrow. We'll see what happens then, right?"
She nodded, looking at the foot of the bed.
The next morning, holding an impressive bouquet of red roses and yellow flowers she didn't know the name of, he asked her if he could be alone. She agreed, and when he thanked her she could tell that he knew she would remain at the door, making sure he was alright. She couldn't bear the thought of seeing him relapse, of finding him in the bed as she had at the beginning of it all. He seemed at peace with the idea.
She stayed in the breakroom for a while, to allow him some privacy, distracting herself by playing with the chanseys, before returning to the door. Tilting her head so she could listen through the gap, she thought back to Diantha's first visit, and how she'd gently admonished her for listening in.
"...been so long since I last heard your voice," the professor was saying, his own voice so very soft, almost dreamy. "Your real voice. I keep replaying that horrible message just so I don't forget... It's funny. It's not even been that long. You'd probably be more patient than me, if the roles were reversed, huh..."
He sighed. She couldn't bring herself to look through the gap – it felt more voyeuristic than simply listening, somehow – so she imagined him, sitting very close to the bed, caressing a hand, a face, keeping his head down.
"I miss you," he said, and she could hear the strain of held-back tears as he spoke. "That's the funniest part, isn't it? Every day I listen to you talking about how you're going to kill me and all I can think about is how much I wish you were here to say it to my face."
Noémie chewed on her bottom lip, fighting the urge to fidget with her fingers. Sycamore said nothing for what felt like a long time, so long that she wondered if maybe he'd fallen asleep. When she finally gathered the courage to take a peek, the door opened before she could even brush the doorknob.
"Hey," Sycamore said. He was smiling, but his eyes were wet, his cheeks a little red from where he'd rubbed away tears. "Thanks."
She nodded. "Do you want... some tea?"
"Sure. I'd love that."
He left after lunch, after they'd spent the whole morning together, barely speaking. Sycamore's hand never let go of his friend's, his other hand gripping his cup tight as he drank. He didn't come back in the evening.
*
Two days later, Noémie arrived earlier than usual, her eyes still half-shut from sleep even after spending so long in the cold morning air. She didn't realize why the chanseys were agitated, pawing at her urgently as she walked to the breakroom, until her eyes fell on the panel next to the door, showing off the lights connected to the rooms' call system.
One of them was on.
Her fingers trembled around the shape of her holo-caster as she hurried to make the call, the device nearly escaping her grasp.
"Professor," she said to the faint hologram when he answered, her heart beating so hard in her ears she could barely hear herself. "He's– I think he's awake."
Before he hung up on her, not even bothering to say a single word, she thought she saw his eyes shine with an intensity she had never witnessed.
His eyes were still bright when he arrived. He seemed both lighter, and more burdened than ever, the look on his face that of a drowning man finally grasping for the shore. Noémie couldn't bring herself to speak; her heart was still beating loud and fast inside her chest, from relief for him and from fear, as well, of what was in store for them in the future.
She nodded at him from the entrance of the breakroom, and he nodded back, moving to take hold of the doorknob.
He unlocked the door. Noémie looked away.
Fandom: Pokémon X&Y
Pairing: Professor Augustine Sycamore/Lysandre (though only Augustine is present.)
Rating: T
Summary: Under the watchful eye of a pokémon nurse, Professor Sycamore waits for Lysandre to wake up.
Notes: This is a side-story for my multi-chaptered fic So Long as We Can Say. It takes place between Chapter 6 (sun) and Chapter 7 (eclipse) and is told from the point of view of the pokémon center nurse Noémie. This can probably be read independently, just as a post-canon one-shot, though you will miss some subtleties (and a satisfying ending.) Title is from Shakespeare's Hamlet.
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)
A thin line of light was pouring out from under the door. She noticed it immediately, breaching the darkness of the corridor. At first, she thought perhaps someone had simply forgotten to turn off the lights: some of the new nurses were prone to being forgetful, no matter how often the head nurse reminded them. Even sticking notes to the back of the head of the chanseys – with their approval, of course – had proved ineffective. She smiled at the memory.
Then she realized it was coming from that room.
Noémie had been transferred to the South Boulevard pokémon center a few years prior. She hadn't requested it; she was fine with her position on the other side of the city, in front of the museum. It was just a little bit closer to her place, too. As it turned out, the South Boulevard pokémon center was a revolving-door workplace, and for a very silly reason: it was the location that stood closest to Professor Sycamore's lab.
When she'd arrived, the head nurse had painstakingly exposed to her that she needed people who weren't only working there to get in close proximity to Lumiose's most wanted bachelor. She'd taken it as a joke, at first, but she'd grown jaded very quickly. Young nurses – of all genders – were absolutely requesting to be transferred to the South Boulevard just so they could get a glimpse of Augustine Sycamore. As a result, Noémie had resolved to work even harder, to prove herself, and also to prove to the professor that they were better than this. To his credit, Professor Sycamore seemed mostly amused by the idea. He didn't seek them out, yet he didn't avoid them either. She'd see him sometimes, letting himself be accosted as if he truly wasn't expecting it, hadn't noticed that this or that freshly employed nurse had been observing him. Who could blame him, really? The few times she'd exchanged words with him he'd been perfectly agreeable. It was just how things were, back then.
Everything was different now.
Noémie walked up to the door slowly, muffling her footsteps as if she was afraid of disturbing, and in a way she was. She pressed her palm against the door frame and nervously tilted her head until her ear was almost brushing against the thin space in-between it and the door.
She could hear nothing for what felt like several minutes, and so she was about to pull back when she noticed someone was very faintly snoring. She closed her eyes and sighed under her breath.
It took three series of sharp but not too loud knocks for the door to open. Immediately, Noémie blinked down at her feet.
"Sorry, Professor," she said, the words coming out a lot less confidently than she would have liked. "You know I can't let you sleep here."
She heard him chuckle, though there was no humor in it.
"It's my bad," Sycamore said. He scratched at the stubble on his chin and then yawned. "I lost track of time. Thank you for waking me up."
It felt childish to avoid looking at him, so she let her eyes move up, even though she didn't want to. It wasn't that she was afraid of him; rather, she was afraid for him, and the state he was letting himself be in. She'd seen him tired, exhausted even, but it was nothing compared to how he was now.
His face was pale as a sheet, the only hint of color coming from the red marks he'd left from sleeping against his crossed arms. He'd never looked so haggard: the circles under his eyes so dark it made him look diseased, his features hollow and drawn, his stubble growing steadily into the beginning of a beard, and his hair all over the place. She knew for a fact he barely ate and only napped throughout the day when he desperately needed a good night's sleep. He blinked at her, his put-on smile faltering upon witnessing her anxious expression.
"I'll leave you to it," he said quickly and moved to leave.
Noémie clenched her fists, willing herself to be just a little bit braver. "Professor," she called out after him.
He stopped in front of the door that led back to the pokémon center's main hall but didn't turn to look back at her.
"You should stay home tomorrow," she pleaded, her voice quiet but kind. "We'll take care of... of him."
"Don't be ridiculous," Sycamore said. "I'll see you in the morning."
Before she could think up new words to convince him to stay, he was already leaving, quickening his pace so she would get the message that he wouldn't change his mind. Noémie sighed.
Shaking her head, she walked once more toward the door of the room the professor had been occupying. The lights were still on, so she entered to turn them off, even though it was the last thing she wanted to do.
She tried her best to ignore the large silhouette of the man lying on the bed in the middle of the room. She'd denied it every time she'd been asked, but she was deathly afraid of him, even in this state. Whenever she glanced at his face, half-hidden under the mask he needed to breathe properly, she remembered the cold, aching terror she'd felt when she'd received his last, devastating message. She'd heard some of the other nurses whisper between themselves that they wished he was dead. She didn't, though not for his sake.
When she thought about the professor's current state, she couldn't help but imagine how he would have taken more fatal circumstances.
She flipped the light switch off once she'd made sure that everything was in order. The first few days, Sycamore had asked repeatedly for permission to sleep in the room, even as they refused every time. One night, she'd found him curled on top of the sheets, his back pressed against the guardrail of the hospital bed, his face resting on his friend's shoulder. She'd felt like crying then, keeping it together just long enough to ask him to leave. When he'd opened his eyes, they'd looked right through her.
There were rumors about him – about them. Among the nurses, of course, but also among the people she'd see outside of her job. Some of her friends were constantly pestering her about it, asking her questions about the professor and his relationship with the man who'd tried to kill them all. She didn't tell them about the time she'd found him sleeping on the bed. She hadn't even told the head nurse.
Noémie closed the door carefully behind her and sighed. It was going to be a long night.
*
The Kalos Champion Diantha smiled kindly at her when she entered the corridor. She was gorgeous, as always, her braided hair tightly wound in a halo around her face. She wore a plain black dress that perfectly complemented the shapes of her body. In her slender and beautiful hands, she held an intricate bouquet of flowers that Noémie couldn't even name. Even if she tried her best to hide it, she looked tired, though nothing like the man she was coming to visit.
"G–good afternoon, Mademoiselle Diantha," Noémie stammered out. She glanced at the door. "He's in the room."
Diantha nodded. "Thank you."
Noémie wrung her hands together once she'd disappeared into the room. It was bad form to snoop, especially on such important people, and especially with the way things were, but she couldn't help the urge. She silently walked up to the door, slightly ajar, and stood there to listen to what was going on.
"...don't need to be here every day," she heard Diantha say. "Augustine, I know you don't care, but..."
"What," Sycamore croaked, his voice flat. "People are talking, is that it? We've already had this conversation, if you remember."
She could hear him pacing around, his shoes hitting the floor tiles hard – angrily, she thought. She bit her bottom lip anxiously.
"I'm not going to stop coming here because it's bad for my image or whatever it is you're thinking," Sycamore went on. His voice sounded strained as if he was holding back tears, or something else, like wrath. "I can't leave him. I'm not going to leave him. You can't make me–"
"Calm down," Diantha said, firm yet gentle. "I'm worried about you. You act like you're on autopilot. You need to rest."
"How do you expect me to rest? I can't leave him," he repeated, "and they won't let me sleep in the room."
Diantha sighed. "He's not going to go anywhere. I'm sure he won't hold it against you if you dare to go back to your place to sleep in a proper bed."
"What if he wakes up and I'm not there?"
The words sprang out, harsh, before she'd even finished speaking. They were met with a short silence. Even though she wasn't in the room with them, Noémie could feel the tension rising. She wrung her hands some more, pinching at the skin between her thumbs and index fingers.
"What if he never wakes up?" Diantha asked, her voice so soft Noémie wasn't sure she'd heard it right at first. She heard her clear her throat and then go on, "Augustine, it's not even been two weeks and you're already like this. What if he stays this way forever? What if he–"
"He's not going to die," Sycamore growled, like an injured pokémon giving out a warning cry. "He's in good hands, and the nurses have assured me that his vitals are fine, and he's responding well to the care the chanseys and blisseys are providing..."
Diantha's heels clicked against the tiles; Noémie pictured her walking toward her friend, perhaps to let her hand lay against his shoulder reassuringly.
"You can't stop living for his sake, it's not helping him, and it's not helping you either," she said. "Even disregarding the... circumstances, you know what you're doing isn't healthy. Please. Go home and sleep."
There were more sounds of footsteps, and some rustling Noémie couldn't identify, and then, to her great dismay, Sycamore began to sob. Quietly, at first, and then louder and louder, as if he was allowing himself to fall apart. She moved away from the door, feeling her heart race even as it broke for him.
She couldn't bring herself to keep listening in after that, especially not when her own eyes began to water. She hurried to the breakroom, where one of the chanseys regarded her with a mixture of concern and confusion. The pokémon approached her carefully once she'd sat down and buried her face in her hands, to pat her on the arm and make little soothing noises at her.
This was such an unfair situation. She remembered the look on the head nurse's face when the professor had asked if they would agree to help, and keep his friend – "friend" – safe and cared for. People would talk, surely, but no more than they already were. He'd looked so distraught then, already worn out, holding his dirtied up lab coat around him like a shield. Later, they'd learned he'd overseen the excavation in Geosenge where they'd managed to dig through what was left of Team Flare's grand design. They'd brought back a body, surprisingly mostly intact considering the fact that he'd been buried under rubble and rocks for several days. Sycamore had stayed the whole time they'd taken care of him, assisting through the whole process, smiling gratefully at the nurses and the pokémons even as it was painfully obvious that he was barely holding himself together.
They all knew, him included, that they were doing this for him, and not for the man who they were looking after. He seemed at peace with that fact, willing to put himself on the line if it meant things would get done. Noémie couldn't even begin to understand it.
Even if the rumors were true, and they had been more than friends – how could you ever come back from this? Betrayal was one thing, but this was something else. He'd had to have received the message, too. He'd had to have stared into this man's eyes as he calmly explained that he was going to kill them all, him included. This wasn't just a mistake or a misunderstanding. Perhaps it was cruel or cowardly of her, to think that if a friend, or worse than that, a lover, had pulled something like this, she would have let them rot under the ruins of their failed attempt at mass murder. Perhaps Augustine Sycamore possessed a kind of bravery, a strength of character that was beyond their reach, to be able to move past this, to be able to still care for someone who'd strived to do such a terrible thing.
Or perhaps, Noémie thought as she let her hands rest under her chin, smiling weakly at the chansey whose soft little paw was still resting on her arm, it was more like a kind of stupidity, or insanity.
She took a deep breath and, after giving the chansey a gentle pat on the head, stood up to walk back through the corridor. There, she found that the door to the room was now half-open. Diantha was standing at the entrance, seemingly lost in thought.
"Um," Noémie let out when the Champion didn't react to her arrival. "Is something wrong?"
Diantha shook her head, turning to give her a little smile. "Professor Sycamore just left."
"So you convinced him," Noémie said. Then she blushed, realizing that she'd inadvertently revealed that she'd overheard some of their conversation. "I– Can I ask you a question?"
Though she'd crooked one of her eyebrows upon hearing her first words, Diantha's expression was mostly amused, and her tone still kind, when she replied, "What is it?"
Noémie averted her eyes. Her cheeks still felt embarrassingly warm.
"Do you... do you really think he's going to die?
She'd never had to deal with the death of a human being in her line of work – or with the death of a pokémon, now that she thought about it. They'd come close a few times, trainers bringing in pokémons that they'd pushed too far, or strays who'd been abused and left for dead on the side of the road. Before they'd agreed to look after this man, the only injuries she'd taken care of for humans were superficial, the result of children being too reckless or of pokémons being too rowdy. She rubbed the corner of her eyes with the tips of her fingers, hoping that the fact that she'd shed a few tears wasn't too obvious.
"You shouldn't spy on people like this, you know," Diantha scolded her, though she didn't sound angry. "No, I don't think he'll die. Arceus knows this man is resilient. Not to mention, Professor Sycamore would never allow it."
When Noémie looked up at her, Diantha's smile hadn't wavered. It seemed even wider, somehow, although her eyes still held on to some sadness.
"He really... cares about him," Noémie mumbled, incredulous. Diantha raised her eyebrows but said nothing. "I just hope he'll listen to you and rest."
Diantha slipped a hand in a hidden pocket of her dress, taking out a pair of round black sunglasses. She put them on, completing her look, and pushed them up her nose with one of her impeccably manicured fingers.
"Keep an eye on him for me, will you?"
Feeling her face flush once again, Noémie nodded. She straightened her back like she was a soldier receiving an order.
"O–of course!"
*
It took a few more days for the professor to settle on a rhythm that meant he wasn't compromising his health while also making sure he was as available as he could afford. If he continued to nod off sometimes, sitting on a chair next to the bed like a sentinel standing guard, Noémie decided to allow it for now. He was still unshaven, and still obviously wearing the same clothes over and over, but at least the circles under his eyes weren't as pronounced, and he seemed a little less gaunt. Every day, following the example set by Diantha, he brought new flowers, carefully setting them up in a vase near the bed, a combination of store-bought, delicate blossoms and freshly picked-out dandelions or poppies.
He'd noticed that she'd appointed herself in charge of the room, and of him, smiling at her when she showed up to bring him food at lunchtime, and only protesting weakly when she shooed him off in the evening. He even allowed her to stay with him as he ate, even though he knew she was there to make sure he actually was eating.
"You guys cook this stuff, right?" he asked her on one such occasion, after swallowing a mouthful of mashed berries. Once she nodded, he added, "It's pretty good, as far as hospital food goes."
"This isn't really a hospital," Noémie said. She smiled but it lacked enthusiasm. She didn't like sitting so close to the bed, forced to keep its occupant in her field of view.
Sycamore let out a short, strangled laugh. "I guess not. It might as well be as far as this room is concerned, though."
He ate the rest of his meal quickly, stopping only to ask her questions about the pokémon center and how things were going. She liked these casual exchanges. In the soft light diffused through the windows, she thought she could see why so many people were applying to be nurses here. Even like this, exhausted, high-strung and unkempt, he looked handsome. She blushed at the thought, busying herself with taking the tray from him once he was done so she could clean it up.
When she came back, she found him sitting even closer to the bed, holding the hand of the man lying there, rubbing his thumb against unresponsive fingers. She froze in the doorway, struck by the intimacy of the scene she was walking on, and the wistful look on the professor's face.
"Um," she said, in an attempt to make her presence known. Sycamore didn't react. "Do... do you want to be alone?"
He tilted his face just enough to make it clear he'd heard her.
"I don't mind," he said after some time. He paused, smiling just a little bit. His eyes were still fixed on the other man's face. "But I know you'd rather not be in here."
Noémie hung her head in shame. "It's not..."
She couldn't bring herself to lie about this, but seeing him sitting there, looking so pitiful, it felt cruel to tell the truth as well.
"I get it," Sycamore went on when she stayed silent. "I don't hold it against you, or anyone else. I'm thankful that you're willing to help him even though..."
He pressed his lips together, his gaze drifting toward their joint hands.
"You..." Noémie took a few steps toward him and then, after only a couple of seconds of hesitation, sat back down on the chair she'd occupied earlier. "You really care about him."
Even knowing who she was saying this to this time, she still couldn't completely hide the incredulity in her voice. Sycamore's lips trembled ever-so-slightly even as he smiled.
"Sometimes, it feels like the only thing I have left to cling to, these days..." He squeezed his hand around the one he was holding just so, knowing it would have no effect. "You're Noémie, right?"
When he turned to look her in the eyes, she felt her face heat up again, mentally cursing her inability to keep herself in check.
"Y–yes," she stuttered.
"Well, really, thanks for all you're doing for us, Noémie," he said, his smile a little more steady. "I know it's a lot of work, and you're always here... I appreciate it."
Us.
The word struck a chord in her. She wanted to ask, she realized, even though she didn't know if she could bring herself to do it. He'd said "us" – not me, not him, not even him and me.
"It's not that bad," she said and found that she believed it. Sure, the man was heavy, and they had to keep checking to make sure his body wasn't deteriorating – though the professor took care of that most of the time – but all in all, the whole matter had been a lot less daunting than she'd expected.
The worst part, truthfully, was the identity of the person they were taking care of.
"He's... your friend, isn't he?" she tried, cautiously. "Even though..."
With a sigh, Sycamore let go of the hand. "When I brought him here, I knew it'd be complicated. I don't blame you for being wary of him... Although he can't really hurt you right now." He chuckled, but Noémie thought anxiously that he looked like he was about to cry.
"I can't imagine how you feel," she said, looking down at her feet. "For us, this is all he is, but for you..."
"Well, you know how it goes: sometimes you think you know someone, and they turn out to be a lot worse." He chuckled again, holding the hand he'd had wrapped around his friend's against his own cheek. "I'm not going to let him go, though. I'm sorry."
"I can't say I understand it, but... I'm sure he'll be grateful."
Sycamore shot her a look as if she was spouting nonsense. Maybe she was. His smile seemed warmer, though, and his shoulders had relaxed somewhat.
"We'll see," he said.
"If he isn't, I'll tell him he should be," Noémie went on. Her face was hot, but she'd stopped staring at the ground. "Because you're a good person and a good friend."
Now it was his turn to look embarrassed. He hid his eyes behind his hand. "Thanks." He let it slide up until his fingers were buried in his hair, his forehead resting in his palm. "I'd like to think he'd do the same for me, but truth be told, I don't know anymore."
She didn't know what to reply to that, so she said nothing.
They sat in silence for a short while, Sycamore idly scratching at this scalp. He was staring at the bed again, his eyes unfocused. Noémie couldn't help but watch him as he blinked slowly, lost in thought. She was about to ask if he needed anything when he straightened himself suddenly as if struck by an idea.
"Do you think I could– I don't know if this is a strange thing to ask," he hesitated. His gaze drifted between her and the face of the man lying on the bed. "I can't help but think he'd hate to be seen with his hair like this. His beard, too. Would you let me... take care of that?"
Though she wasn't entirely sure why this time, Noémie felt herself flush once again. At this rate, the professor would have seen her with her face red more often than not.
"I–I'd have to ask the head nurse, but... as long as we're here to make sure nothing goes wrong, I don't see why not," she said, avoiding his eyes.
"Right."
He stretched his arms up above his head and then settled back down on his chair. Not without some worry, Noémie thought he still looked tired, though not as much as he did before Diantha's intervention. He pressed his palms against his knees, fidgeting with the fabric of his pants, before reaching down for the bag he kept at his feet, rummaging through it until he'd found what he was looking for: a small, thin sketchbook that had seen better days. She watched intently as he flipped it open, revealing pages and pages of careful notes and doodles of varying intricacy. Most of them were of pokémons, and most of those were of what appeared to be the same garchomp – female if her dorsal fin was any indication.
"Oh," Noémie said. "Do you draw?"
Sycamore hummed. "I dabble," he replied with a chuckle.
Judging by some of the drawings she could see on there, she thought he could give himself a little more credit, but she fought back the impulse to chastise him for putting himself down.
"This is your garchomp, right?" she said instead, trying for a lighter topic. "The one you keep at your lab. I remember the other nurses mentioning that a few times."
"Ah, yes. She's always trying to get my attention these days. I suppose she can tell how I'm feeling." He traced the lines of her neck on one of his sketches with the tip of his nail.
"I'm glad you have people who are there for you," Noémie said. "Or pokémons."
He laughed, and she thought it sounded more sincere, this time.
*
The weather was gradually getting colder. It wouldn't snow – it rarely did in Lumiose – but Noémie found herself dressing in warmer clothing, scarves and sweaters and socks made of imported wooloo wool. Even then, she still shivered and sniffled as she walked through the streets. At least she could settle down inside the pokémon center, carefully peeling the layers of clothing off of her body in the breakroom. She'd just hung up her puffer coat on the rack when she heard a commotion in the corridor.
Before she could reach the door, someone was already knocking on it, three impatient bangs that made her frown. Upon opening it, she was greeted with the sight of a blond man with a very pale face, contrasted by very rosy cheeks. He looked like he'd just been running, breathing fast, his brow furrowed.
"Is the professor here?" he asked before she could think of something to say.
"Do you mean Professor Sycamore?" The guarded tone of her voice seemed to make the stranger tense even more. "He was there this morning, but I just got back... Did you ask the head nurse?"
He scratched the back of his head awkwardly. "She looked busy."
Noémie resisted the urge to roll her eyes.
"I'm sorry to ask this, but... who are you exactly?"
"Oh, no, it's my bad," he said with a little bow of his head. "I'm one of the professor's assistants at the lab. My name's Dexio."
"I thought you looked familiar," she mumbled. She walked out, Dexio at her heels. His nervosity was contagious. "Did something happen?"
Dexio cleared his throat. "We were supposed to meet up today, at the lab, but he never showed up. I thought he was..."
He gritted his teeth. She couldn't comprehend how angry he seemed to be, though she had some ideas. He stopped her before they'd reached the door leading to the main hall of the pokémon center.
"Aren't you going to check that room?" he asked.
"Did you not check it?"
Truth be told, Noémie's patience for his attitude was starting to run thin. She was used to people being short with her, as a nurse, especially those who were worried about the health of their precious pokémons, but that didn't mean she would lie down and take it. Still, she figured she could humor him. She held down the doorknob and found that the door was locked.
"Well. He's probably not there, since this room doesn't lock from the inside."
She turned to face Dexio and tell him that he could wait in the breakroom if he wanted, and stopped dead in her tracks. The professor was standing behind him, his lips pressed together in a displeased line. He'd wrapped himself in a maroon coat that looked very warm, while also clearly being two sizes too large for him.
"Is something wrong?"
The sound of his voice made Dexio turn around as well.
"Professor! We were looking for you. We kept ringing your holo-caster, but you wouldn't answer, so I came here to see if you were..."
"I went for a walk and lost track of time," Sycamore said. They stared at each other. Noémie thought that she'd somehow ended up in the middle of some conflict she wasn't sure she wanted to be involved in. "I needed to clear my head. I probably left my holo-caster here, actually."
He walked up to the door and unlocked it. Once he'd entered, Dexio moved to follow him, but he stopped at the threshold, glaring into the room. Noémie stayed where she was, playing with her hands to distract herself from the fact that she had no idea what to do. She resolved to wait and see, to make sure that the situation – whatever it was – wouldn't escalate.
The tension in the way Dexio was holding himself had only worsened upon being confronted with the sleeping form on the bed. He clenched his fists, visibly holding himself back. He watched as Sycamore slid his bag around his shoulder and then, after only a few seconds of hesitation, brushed a few strands of orange hair away from his friend's face. He wore that same wistful expression Noémie had seen before, undeterred by their presence.
Dexio cleared his throat, much louder than necessary.
"You know," he started, and already Noémie could hear in his voice that he knew this was a bad idea, "you don't actually need to be here all the time... The nurses here," he turned his head just enough to sneak a glance in her direction, "seem to be taking care of him just fine."
Even though she agreed with him, she didn't like how he'd said the word. Judging by the closed-off, cold expression on the professor's face, he didn't appreciate it much either.
"We've talked about this, and you know I won't change my mind," he said cautiously. "I respect your opinion, of course, but..."
"He's dangerous," Dexio spat out.
Sycamore's lips stretched into a joyless smirk. "In case you haven't noticed, he's currently unable to hurt anyone."
"He's hurting you." His voice cracked on the last word, his shoulders shaking slightly. Sycamore's smile faded instantly. "Sina was worried sick when you wouldn't answer, she really thought... we really thought something had happened to you. Every day you come here to spend time with him and for what? He tried to–"
"Dexio," Sycamore warned him, though his tone was soft. He took a deep breath, clutching the strap of his bag as if it were a safety rope he was clinging to.
Dexio shook his head. "No, Professor, listen to me," he pleaded. There was still some anger in his voice, buried just under the surface of his concern. "Look at you. That coat you're wearing..."
Blinking rapidly, Sycamore looked away as his cheeks reddened. "This has nothing to do with you, or anyone else. It's cold, and I needed something to wear..."
"It's his coat," Dexio said.
"Well, they let me have it, you know, when they had me gather all of his belongings," Sycamore snapped back. He stood very straight, his legs spread apart and his shoulders squared in an attempt, perhaps, to seem intimidating, or just more in control of himself than he was. "It's my coat now. This has nothing to do with you," he repeated.
Noémie chewed on her bottom lip for a few seconds, crushed by the tense atmosphere as the two men openly glared at each other. Surely she had to say something, but the only words that came to mind were, "P–please don't fight here."
The small, strangled sound of her voice seemed to bring both of them back to reality.
"Sorry," Dexio said, looking down at the ground. "It's just– I wish things had gone differently. Even for him." He gave a nod toward the bed.
Sycamore sighed. His hand was still gripped around the strap, so tight his knuckles had gone white. He shook his head, taking a few steps toward his assistant.
"No, it's my fault. I should have made sure I had my holo-caster on me. I'll go with you to the lab."
He stopped as they passed Noémie, letting his free hand drop on her shoulder, a familiar gesture that left her feeling a little bit out of her depths. He smiled.
"Thank you so much, as always."
Avoiding his eyes, she nodded, trying her best to ignore the fact that she was blushing once again.
"Don't mention it."
She watched them leave, Dexio walking very close to the professor, as if he worried he might lose track of him again, and then turned back toward the room. Not entirely certain of what she was doing, she approached the bed, her gaze falling on the face of the man lying in it.
Before everything that had happened, she'd seen him a few times – on TV or in holo-caster adverts, talking about his projects, his life's work, about his goals and his hopes for the better future he wanted to build. He'd always had that look in his eyes, that spark that she supposed was passion, or ambition, but seemed to be hiding something else, something dark that could be felt even more strongly when in his physical presence. They'd never really run into each other; once, maybe, she'd caught a glimpse of him on his way to the professor's lab, walking effortlessly through the crowd. She'd never seen anyone this tall before or since. She'd wondered, then, as she'd wondered every time she'd seen him, what exactly he and Augustine Sycamore had in common.
When he'd sent out his call, his last, macabre message, the darkness within him had been written plainly on his face, somber and solemn, and in his voice, low and devoid of strong emotions. She'd felt ice in her stomach then, stalactites forming from the panic in her mind and dropping down, over and over. She'd thought about dying. At no point, like some other people who were in the pokémon center around her, had she doubted that he was telling the truth, that it wasn't a stunt, or a lie, or a marketing ploy to promote some new project he was working on.
The absolute terror she'd felt upon seeing his face had told her that he was sincere, that he really was doing this – that he really was willing to kill as many people as he needed in order to fulfill his ideals.
Looking at him now, lying on this hospital bed, surrounded by machines that made sure that his deep sleep would someday end, he seemed oddly peaceful, his features relaxed, his breathing slow and even. The professor was conscientiously taking care of grooming him now, brushing his hair when they moved him to make sure his body wasn't suffering from constantly being in this position, and even trimming his beard a few times. She'd stay in the room as he did, sitting on one of the chairs, averting her eyes from the scene because she couldn't help but feel as if she was intruding on something private that she wasn't supposed to see. To his credit, Sycamore seemed to take the whole matter with his usual amount of easiness, simply satisfied with being able to look after his friend the way he'd been allowed to. Sometimes, she heard him talk to him under his breath, without being able to decipher what he was saying.
She ran her hand on the guardrail, thoughtful, as she walked back to the door. There were so many things she wished she could do to help the professor, so many words she wished she could find to reassure him, but all she could do was stay here, and do what she always did.
*
The presence of their unusual "patient" in the pokémon center was an open secret at this point: most people who resided or worked at the South Boulevard knew, at least, and the rumor had spread throughout the whole city. Noémie had often wondered why there'd never been any kind of journalist or reporter around, trying to bribe them into getting a glimpse of him, but then she'd remembered Malva, the holo-caster ambassador, who no doubt had enough connections to make sure this wouldn't happen. The professor, too, seemed to make sure to take the brunt of the attention when it came to this matter. On several occasions, she'd caught him gently telling off small groups of people carrying cameras near the lab as she walked to and from the pokémon center.
He'd stopped wearing the large, maroon coat since Dexio had pointed out where it came from. It made Noémie a little sad, though she couldn't pinpoint why.
She'd just let the chanseys out of the room one quiet morning when the professor showed up, looking particularly frazzled. It struck her as strange, as he'd seemed to have slowly but surely gotten accustomed to his current situation in the last few days. She hadn't seen him act as erratic as he had at the start; mostly, she'd sometimes find him talking to himself while alone in the room, or to the man he was visiting, discussing things like his current workload, the way his rescued pokémons were doing, or other, more personal matters that she didn't feel comfortable listening in on.
"Professor, good morning," she said kindly.
He ran his hand through his hair before answering, the corners of his lips curling into the beginning of a smile.
"Good morning."
With that, he dropped himself on the chair near the bed, letting his bag fall to his feet. His brow furrowed upon looking at the bed's occupant, his attempt to appear more positive than he was immediately abandoned. She took a few steps toward him, cautious.
"Did... did something happen? You look troubled." She was proud to hear her voice didn't tremble – much.
"Oh, the usual," he said, the words coming out slowly, almost reluctantly. "I don't mind answering for him, but it does take its toll after a while."
Noémie rubbed the sleeve of her shirt absentmindedly.
"Are people bothering you again?" She hadn't seen anyone like that in the vicinity recently, though that didn't mean much; since she didn't have to deal with them, she could tune them out with relative ease.
"You know..." Sycamore started, then let his voice trail off. He chuckled humorlessly before continuing, "The first few weeks, a few of my scientists resigned, saying that they couldn't trust in my integrity anymore, that if I was still willing to associate myself with someone who would do such a thing, then how could they know that I didn't have any bias when it came to other matters, like our research?" He sighed, letting the palm of his hand fall against the guardrail. "I don't blame them, and I don't blame anyone who's suspicious of me now. I wish I could explain it... I wish other people could see him the way I see him."
She watched him rub his thumb against the plastic, trying desperately to find the right words to console him.
"Maybe... Maybe when he wakes up, it'll be easier," she said.
Sycamore smiled at her, the tension in his features relaxing slightly. "Yeah, maybe."
"I'll make you some tea," Noémie suggested.
She didn't wait for his reply, hurrying to the breakroom so she could brew him some of the high-quality tea she'd had imported from Galar. When she came back a few minutes later, he'd taken out his sketchbook and was very absorbed in drawing. She watched him for a moment, hunched over slightly as he quickly traced lines on the page, his forehead creased not in worry but concentration, his tongue darting out to lick his lips. From time to time, his eyes would glance at the face of the man still sleeping in the bed, and then back at the sketchbook.
When she began to feel a bit silly about standing there with the steaming cup of tea in her hands, she cleared her throat. Sycamore looked up at her and blinked, straightening himself.
"Oh, thank you," he said when she handed him the cup. He pressed the palm of his hand holding the pencil flat against the sketchbook and took it with the other, blowing on it softly. "This smells amazing. I can't remember the last time I've had a good cup of tea."
"It's galarian tea," Noémie said as he took a sip, bristling with pride even though she had no hand in manufacturing it. "I've heard it's very effective for treating stress."
"It's true! I already feel much better," Sycamore said with a grin that made her cheeks redden again.
She excused herself to brew herself a cup. As she waited for the water to boil again, she thought about the glimpses of the drawing she'd caught through the gaps in-between the professor's fingers. The confident lines of a face he could observe freely now that its owner was always sleeping... She would have called it romantic, in a way, were it not for the fact that she could not associate that man with romance, especially not alongside the professor.
It was naive of her, she knew. At this point, she'd seen and heard enough to know that there was definitely more than friendship between these two – at least from Sycamore's side. But the thought, when she let herself consider it, pained her too much. It was too cruel to think that someone could do something like this, knowing the damage they'd bring to someone who loved them this much, even now. Knowing that they'd die, had they been successful. She stared at her resigned expression reflected in the water as the tea leaves slowly worked to darken it up.
When she returned to the room once again, she saw that the professor had dragged the second chair to his side. The empty cup was sitting on the floor next to his bag, and he was back to being fully absorbed in the act of drawing.
"You should give yourself more credit," Noémie said as she sat. She took a careful sip of her tea – too hot. When he shot her a confused look, she added, "When you said you dabbled... This looks really good."
"Ah, well," he mumbled. He breathed out through his mouth, blowing off a strand of hair that had fallen in his eyes. "It's kind of embarrassing, isn't it?"
He looked down at his half-finished sketch, letting Noémie see it fully. There was definitely something intimate in the way he'd painstakingly rendered the weight of his friend's eyelashes, resting against his eyelids, or the sharp lines of his nose. She couldn't help but glance away, too struck by the feelings she could read in it – the longing, the desire to touch, perhaps to peer into these eyes again. Romantic indeed.
"I don't think it's embarrassing," she said, even though she knew she sounded embarrassed as she said it. "But your feelings are... coming through, I think."
"That's what's embarrassing," he retorted. With an uncomfortable chuckle, he slammed the sketchbook shut, hiding his heart away from prying eyes.
Noémie sipped her tea slowly, to savor it, and also to give herself something else to focus on. If her face flushed again, she could tell herself it was because of the steam.
"Noémie, can I ask you something?"
She started, choking on her mouthful of tea as it went the wrong way down. She coughed in her sleeve, turning away from him, until she felt she could breathe again.
"Sorry," he said once she'd turned back toward him, her empty cup now discarded inside the one he'd left next to his bag. "I didn't mean to startle you."
"No, it's okay," Noémie said with a faint smile. Surely this couldn't get any worse. "What did you want to ask me?"
Sycamore rubbed the back of his neck lightly, gathering his thoughts before answering.
"This past month, people have been constantly telling me that I'm making a huge mistake," he started slowly, looking down at the closed book on his knees. "And you know, maybe they're right. But you've been here, taking care of us all this time, and you've never tried to convince me to let him go."
His gaze slid back up to meet hers. She tried her best to hold it.
"Why?" he asked.
"It's just... you already seem so pained," Noémie said softly. She blinked away the urge to break eye contact; she owed him that much. "I can't imagine how difficult this must be for you. And," she added with a tentative smile, "I don't think I could convince you."
"You're right about that." Sycamore's smile was strangely peaceful, considering the circumstances. "I don't think even he could convince me."
And wasn't that the truth, she thought when she finally looked away. If the things this man had tried to do couldn't get the professor to break away from him, surely nothing else could. She didn't have to like it, but she'd come to accept it, somehow, through the days she'd spent with both of them – though one of them wasn't really there, of course.
"What was he like? If you don't mind me asking." She let her gaze travel to the other man's face, half-hidden behind the mask still. "I've only seen him in passing, or... you know."
Out of the corner of her eyes, she could see Sycamore's expression shift from surprise to an odd sort of melancholy. Nobody who'd asked him about his friend – his ideas, their relationship, and everything that that entailed – these last few weeks had done so in a positive light, she figured. He'd likely had to go through several rounds of interrogation, to determine whether there was still a threat, whether he was involved, whether it needed to be investigated further. Even his friends and acquaintances, like Diantha or Dexio, presumably only wanted to discuss the worst, to ask how he was holding up now that it had happened, now that everything had changed. Noémie waited for him to speak without daring to look at him just yet, for fear of scaring him away.
"He was very... intense," he said finally. There was restraint in his voice as if he was afraid of what might come out if he didn't work to temper himself. "We could talk for hours about our fields of work. He was one of the most brilliant people I've had the privilege to know. You know he's behind the holo-caster, of course," he didn't wait for her to nod, though she did anyway, "but that's only a sample of what he was able to come up with. Sometimes I really thought he could do anything he put his mind to." He breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth, the sound between a scoff and a sigh. "I suppose he proved me right, in the end."
He scratched at his chin, deep in thought. Noémie tilted her face toward him.
"Were you and him," she started, before interrupting herself. He didn't react. "I'm sorry if this is hard for you to talk about."
"It's alright," he said. He rubbed the bags under his eyes with the tips of his thumb and index finger. "I'm used to it. It feels like I've done nothing but talk about him for a month." He chuckled lightly, letting his eyelids fall shut. "And I doubt it's going to end there."
She watched him lean against the back of his chair, throwing his head back, his fingers now rubbing the creases on his forehead.
"If you're curious about," he paused, considering his next words, and then went on, "our relationship, I don't know how to describe it. Feels like the kind of thing that would take hours to explain. I couldn't begin to tell you how he felt, but as for me, well..."
He opened his eyes, gesturing toward himself with both of his hands, the exuberance of the movement a stark contrast with the dull ache she could see in his gaze.
"It's obvious, right?"
Noémie smiled, sheepishly at first, and then a bit more certainly when he smiled back. "He's lucky to have you on his side."
Sycamore laughed, almost sending his chair toppling over with him, holding on to the sketchbook still sitting on his knees with one hand. It was a wild sound, honest but also a little unhinged, and she thought it fit the situation well enough.
"I'll be sure to tell him when he wakes up," he said once he'd calmed down, running a hand over his face.
They spent the rest of the day quietly, discussing the pokémon center's latest gossip in hushed tones, talking about how the professor's garchomp was doing, and about where he could order galarian tea like she had. He didn't open his sketchbook again, but when Noémie came back from cleaning up their trays after lunch, she caught him hunched over the bed, holding a restful hand, his hair brushing against the sleeping man's face. She returned to the breakroom, telling herself she had something left to do there, and wondered how much longer it would take for him to wake up.
*
It was nearly winter now, and yet the professor still brought back fresh flowers for the room. She'd asked him, more to hear him talk about his friend again than anything else, what kind of flowers he liked. Sycamore had laughed then, his face charmingly flushed, and admitted that he didn't think the man cared for flowers very much. He'd appreciate the gesture to pretty up the room, at least. Maybe.
The world was moving on around them, she thought, much faster than she expected; yet the professor remained, a constant presence at the eye of the storm, avoiding the disapproving looks and the contemptuous whispers in his path. She still found him, some mornings, his figure bent above the bed, as if in prayer, his head held down with his hair in his face, but outside of these moments, he looked more content, confident in whatever the future would bring him. She couldn't help but admire him.
He'd taken to showing up earlier in the morning, before Noémie even, and leaving sometime after lunch, occasionally coming back in the evening. She'd heard from the head nurse that he'd thrown himself into his work, helping the children he'd picked as his pupils bring back some of the order that had been disturbed by Team Flare's actions. He was still tired, still prone to lightly pressing his fingers against unresponsive flesh, but he was finally allowing himself to focus on something else, something that wasn't sitting in a room and waiting.
As soon as he stepped into said room, though, there was nothing else. Even during their idle chats, his eyes always remained fixed on the bed. In his mind, too, Noémie gathered – though she never asked – he was always here.
"I keep thinking I saw him move," he said to her one evening. He'd stayed the whole day that time, like he had at the beginning, looking particularly shaken for reasons she didn't dare to ask. "The machine seems like it's acting weirdly as well, don't you think?"
They'd both tuned out the soft beeping after a few days, yet Noémie thought she understood what he meant: some of the recent readings had been different. It had happened before, a few weeks ago, and been inconclusive. She didn't have the heart to tell him that.
"Maybe," she said.
He looked anxious, suddenly, his features drawn, almost like the first few days, when he was at his worst. It felt like such a long time had passed, when she knew that it had barely been two months. If she'd been a little braver, she would have touched his arm, to let him know she was there for him. Instead, she wrung her hands together, mimicking his worry.
"Sorry," he said in a sigh, defeated. His eyes scanned the room, stopping to stare at the vase. A hint of a smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. "I'll come early to bring new flowers tomorrow. We'll see what happens then, right?"
She nodded, looking at the foot of the bed.
The next morning, holding an impressive bouquet of red roses and yellow flowers she didn't know the name of, he asked her if he could be alone. She agreed, and when he thanked her she could tell that he knew she would remain at the door, making sure he was alright. She couldn't bear the thought of seeing him relapse, of finding him in the bed as she had at the beginning of it all. He seemed at peace with the idea.
She stayed in the breakroom for a while, to allow him some privacy, distracting herself by playing with the chanseys, before returning to the door. Tilting her head so she could listen through the gap, she thought back to Diantha's first visit, and how she'd gently admonished her for listening in.
"...been so long since I last heard your voice," the professor was saying, his own voice so very soft, almost dreamy. "Your real voice. I keep replaying that horrible message just so I don't forget... It's funny. It's not even been that long. You'd probably be more patient than me, if the roles were reversed, huh..."
He sighed. She couldn't bring herself to look through the gap – it felt more voyeuristic than simply listening, somehow – so she imagined him, sitting very close to the bed, caressing a hand, a face, keeping his head down.
"I miss you," he said, and she could hear the strain of held-back tears as he spoke. "That's the funniest part, isn't it? Every day I listen to you talking about how you're going to kill me and all I can think about is how much I wish you were here to say it to my face."
Noémie chewed on her bottom lip, fighting the urge to fidget with her fingers. Sycamore said nothing for what felt like a long time, so long that she wondered if maybe he'd fallen asleep. When she finally gathered the courage to take a peek, the door opened before she could even brush the doorknob.
"Hey," Sycamore said. He was smiling, but his eyes were wet, his cheeks a little red from where he'd rubbed away tears. "Thanks."
She nodded. "Do you want... some tea?"
"Sure. I'd love that."
He left after lunch, after they'd spent the whole morning together, barely speaking. Sycamore's hand never let go of his friend's, his other hand gripping his cup tight as he drank. He didn't come back in the evening.
*
Two days later, Noémie arrived earlier than usual, her eyes still half-shut from sleep even after spending so long in the cold morning air. She didn't realize why the chanseys were agitated, pawing at her urgently as she walked to the breakroom, until her eyes fell on the panel next to the door, showing off the lights connected to the rooms' call system.
One of them was on.
Her fingers trembled around the shape of her holo-caster as she hurried to make the call, the device nearly escaping her grasp.
"Professor," she said to the faint hologram when he answered, her heart beating so hard in her ears she could barely hear herself. "He's– I think he's awake."
Before he hung up on her, not even bothering to say a single word, she thought she saw his eyes shine with an intensity she had never witnessed.
His eyes were still bright when he arrived. He seemed both lighter, and more burdened than ever, the look on his face that of a drowning man finally grasping for the shore. Noémie couldn't bring herself to speak; her heart was still beating loud and fast inside her chest, from relief for him and from fear, as well, of what was in store for them in the future.
She nodded at him from the entrance of the breakroom, and he nodded back, moving to take hold of the doorknob.
He unlocked the door. Noémie looked away.