[Pokémon X&Y] Aspectabund
Jul. 25th, 2022 12:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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teamflareTitle: Aspectabund
Fandom: Pokémon X&Y
Pairing: Professor Augustine Sycamore/Lysandre
Rating: G
Summary: Once you've allowed someone to see you – to peer into your eyes and lay your soul bare – it becomes that much harder to go back.
Notes: For the prompt "aspectabund - letting emotion show easily through the face or eyes."
AO3 Link: Here.
Professor Augustine Sycamore doesn't bother to hide his emotions. It's disconcerting, at first, not so much because it's unusual but because it seems at odds with his line of work. He's a man of science, rigorous and hard-working, and yet he does nothing to hide the aspects of his personality that may do him a disservice.
When Lysandre visits the lab and the professor’s assistant lets him know that one of the rapidashes they've rescued has successfully birthed a foal, his face instantly lights up with bright, childlike wonder, his cheeks heating up with excitement. His assistant seems unsurprised by this display, and so Lysandre merely follows as they make their way toward the proud mother, the professor chatting enthusiastically the whole way.
It takes him off-guard, then, on a warm evening they've spent eating dinner after hours at the café, when the professor's eyes shine sharp and sure and he grips Lysandre by his cravat so he can kiss him open-mouthed.
He's never so much as hinted at the ease with which he smoothly takes control, catches Lysandre in a whirlwind of heat and touch and taste and sound until his knees tremble and his clothes feel too tight for his body.
Then he smiles as he pulls back, flushed skin and warm eyes, and there he is again. Although, Lysandre thinks as he leans down to chase his lips, perhaps the issue lies in thinking of them as separate. He still carries the same intensity; it's just one he would have never seen coming.
When they part once more, the professor's expression says, maybe you just didn't pay enough attention.
He's not exactly wrong about that – not that Lysandre would ever admit it.
The full extent of his foolishness hits him months later, when he finds himself ignoring calls and avoiding chance meetings, stays locked up in the lower basements of his café with his scientists and the followers he's garnered.
Once you've allowed someone to see you – to peer into your eyes and lay your soul bare – it becomes that much harder to go back. To close your face again, to turn off your sincerity. It becomes impossible to find the words that won't betray the full extent of your deception, to continue treading the line between honesty and secrecy.
The professor doesn't ask – but he doesn't need to. Just seeing him, his pleased smile, the quiet storm of his gaze, like the comfort of a fresh drizzle after days of walking through the desert, cuts through Lysandre's resolve like sharp glass.
It doesn't carry the thrill of their intimate encounters, of all the nights he's let Augustine flay him open and marvel at the things he doesn't let anyone else see. No: it festers like an open wound, like the shards are stuck inside his skin, buried so deep that he can't remove them for fear of bleeding out.
He knows too well that the professor can smell his blood in the air. He knows he would worry, though he knows he wouldn't push – but he wouldn't have to.
There's so much to lose, in so many ways; and so Lysandre keeps away, hides in the dark like a pokémon left for dead, licking his wounds. He stares at his reflection on the screen of his holo-caster and smiles until he can no longer see himself in his own eyes.
They meet again when Lysandre visits the lab, claiming he's been busy. The professor's eyebrows twitch downward, though he doesn't frown. He doesn't ask, either.
Lysandre smiles. It comes more easily than he expected. Pretending he doesn't see the way Augustine's expression closes off, his mouth a hard line, is what hurts the most.
Fandom: Pokémon X&Y
Pairing: Professor Augustine Sycamore/Lysandre
Rating: G
Summary: Once you've allowed someone to see you – to peer into your eyes and lay your soul bare – it becomes that much harder to go back.
Notes: For the prompt "aspectabund - letting emotion show easily through the face or eyes."
AO3 Link: Here.
Professor Augustine Sycamore doesn't bother to hide his emotions. It's disconcerting, at first, not so much because it's unusual but because it seems at odds with his line of work. He's a man of science, rigorous and hard-working, and yet he does nothing to hide the aspects of his personality that may do him a disservice.
When Lysandre visits the lab and the professor’s assistant lets him know that one of the rapidashes they've rescued has successfully birthed a foal, his face instantly lights up with bright, childlike wonder, his cheeks heating up with excitement. His assistant seems unsurprised by this display, and so Lysandre merely follows as they make their way toward the proud mother, the professor chatting enthusiastically the whole way.
It takes him off-guard, then, on a warm evening they've spent eating dinner after hours at the café, when the professor's eyes shine sharp and sure and he grips Lysandre by his cravat so he can kiss him open-mouthed.
He's never so much as hinted at the ease with which he smoothly takes control, catches Lysandre in a whirlwind of heat and touch and taste and sound until his knees tremble and his clothes feel too tight for his body.
Then he smiles as he pulls back, flushed skin and warm eyes, and there he is again. Although, Lysandre thinks as he leans down to chase his lips, perhaps the issue lies in thinking of them as separate. He still carries the same intensity; it's just one he would have never seen coming.
When they part once more, the professor's expression says, maybe you just didn't pay enough attention.
He's not exactly wrong about that – not that Lysandre would ever admit it.
The full extent of his foolishness hits him months later, when he finds himself ignoring calls and avoiding chance meetings, stays locked up in the lower basements of his café with his scientists and the followers he's garnered.
Once you've allowed someone to see you – to peer into your eyes and lay your soul bare – it becomes that much harder to go back. To close your face again, to turn off your sincerity. It becomes impossible to find the words that won't betray the full extent of your deception, to continue treading the line between honesty and secrecy.
The professor doesn't ask – but he doesn't need to. Just seeing him, his pleased smile, the quiet storm of his gaze, like the comfort of a fresh drizzle after days of walking through the desert, cuts through Lysandre's resolve like sharp glass.
It doesn't carry the thrill of their intimate encounters, of all the nights he's let Augustine flay him open and marvel at the things he doesn't let anyone else see. No: it festers like an open wound, like the shards are stuck inside his skin, buried so deep that he can't remove them for fear of bleeding out.
He knows too well that the professor can smell his blood in the air. He knows he would worry, though he knows he wouldn't push – but he wouldn't have to.
There's so much to lose, in so many ways; and so Lysandre keeps away, hides in the dark like a pokémon left for dead, licking his wounds. He stares at his reflection on the screen of his holo-caster and smiles until he can no longer see himself in his own eyes.
They meet again when Lysandre visits the lab, claiming he's been busy. The professor's eyebrows twitch downward, though he doesn't frown. He doesn't ask, either.
Lysandre smiles. It comes more easily than he expected. Pretending he doesn't see the way Augustine's expression closes off, his mouth a hard line, is what hurts the most.