[Pokémon X&Y] Give Me Fire, Burning Hell
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teamflareTitle: Give Me Fire, Burning Hell
Fandom: Pokémon X&Y
Pairing: Professor Augustine Sycamore/Lysandre
Rating: T
Summary: There's a name on his arm, in the crook of his elbow, dark and shiny and unavoidable, and he hates it.
Notes: This is an old fic, from a time period when I was writing fic but not sharing anything. Actually, it's a series of three ficlets, written because I was trying to figure out what I liked/didn't like about soulmate AUs. Warning for references to self-harm in Lysandre's ficlet, the first one. Title is from Mother Mother's Waiting For The World To End.
AO3 Link: Here.
He's had it all his life; two words, written like an afterthought. A soul mark, his mother had said once he'd been old enough to ask. The name of the person he was meant to be with. His soulmate, handpicked by Fate without so much as a consideration for his own opinion.
Others – his parents, his cousin, the few people he could probably call peers if not friends – picture this concept in their minds with reverence, with respect, with an innate trust that however these two words have ended up there on their skin, there is no way they could be wrong. He disagrees. It starts as soon as he's learned what this is all about; he tricks his father's aging pyroar into biting him and scorching the flesh. In the end, his skin is able to heal properly against all odds, but to his dismay, the words are still there. His next attempt is years later, in a fit of rage; he takes hold of his scissors and meticulously cuts through the words again and again, seething behind eyes blurred by tears of frustration and pain. Inevitably, the skin heals, as good as new, perfect; and the words are still there. By the age of twenty, he's started to wonder whether or not cutting off his arm is worth it. The thought that the words would probably merely bloom elsewhere prevents him from making a terrible mistake.
He's had no desire to date, so the mark is not a problem in that regard; if anything, he can always pretend he wants to keep himself for his soulmate to politely refuse rendez-vous and other less tasteful offers. No, the issue is plain and simple: he hates the name, wants nothing to do with it. Fate is a joke and he will not bow down to it. At twenty-five, he's sworn to himself that he'll remain celibate all his life, try to use his time for more productive things, more grandiose projects that will let him carve himself a place in History, with a capital H. He studies legends and science and tries to avoid the subject of soul marks as best as he can. It's easier said than done.
In his research, he ends up stumbling upon papers discussing strong links between pokémons and humans; not threaded by Fate, like the damned words on his arm he's doing his best to forget about, but born out of mutual respect and appreciation for each other. An unbreakable bond between partners dedicated to each other in life and death. He likes it; if only because there's an implication there that he has a choice in the matter. He scratches his fully grown pyroar he's had since he was a child under the chin and thinks about his gyarados he's spent so many months training no matter his mood or the weather.
He meets people: quiet scientists and loud trainers who have names written on their palms or almost hidden away in the shadows that are cast on their necks. They talk to him about what is called mega-evolution, and the most renowned scholar who's been studying it for years.
When he hears his name, his body feels very cold, and then very hot; his arm itches, the feeling almost like a cackle from his treacherous skin. He presses his lips together, contains a frown; maybe it's a mistake. Surely, it's a mistake.
He's stubborn – it's the best worst quality, his mother used to say. He convinces himself that it's just a sick coincidence, that two people, or more, can very well bear the same name. Tells himself it means nothing and decides to meet the man no matter what damned words are written on his arm.
When he sees him, pale grey eyes behind dark locks and a smile on his face like he's never seen on anyone else before, there's a ringing in his ears and a weight in his stomach and his skin is burning. He feels like he's going to be sick. He pales and his mouth curves into a grimace yet somehow the only reaction it gets him is a hearty laugh and something like a blush on the other man's face.
He lets him take his hand to shake it; tries to remember that, after all, what he hates about the name is the concept. He's never given much thought to the person behind it.
"You must be Lysandre," the man says, and he's so radiant about it; his eyes are shining and inescapable and Lysandre wants to listen to him talk forever.
They're still holding hands when he finally answers.
"You must be Augustine."
The words burn on his arms, and he hates it. Augustine's hand is warm in his, and he loves it.
It strikes him that maybe Fate isn't such a bad thing after all.
His mother has a mark as well, almost faded, on the back of her shoulder. The man whose name was written there left them when he was a child, with no explanation. He thinks about that when people talk to him about the words, tell him they're the name of the one person he's destined to meet, the one who'll always be there for him. He smiles because he doesn't want to tell them it's a lie. He wants to believe it, too.
She finds someone else, someone whose mark has almost faded as well, disappearing with time, with grief. It darkens as they fall in love as if the soul of the parted is relieved. Her new lover writes his own name atop her old mark, traces it again every time the ink disappears. He watches them be happy, his hand brushing against his waist. He waits.
He's a dreamer, he thinks; that's what he's been told, at least. He thinks about the future the way you'd think about a dream you've had years ago. At night, he lies in bed and looks at the ceiling and wonders who's been chosen for him. He falls asleep with his hand on the mark, dreams of meeting someone who's great and brave and only his.
He spends his childhood days in the mud, running after spewpas and vivillons, watching pidgeys behind bushes with eager eyes. He loves pokémons. As he grows older he realizes there's something there: a calling. His mother ruffles his hair when he talks about wanting to travel to find more pokémons to observe – and to find someone else, too, maybe. He doesn't talk about that.
He never really does. He meets people, he loves them, even. He kisses them and sleeps in their arms and he feels so alive. Once or twice they ask about the mark, trace it with their fingers. They want to know why he doesn't save himself for the one he yearns for. He thinks it's an odd thing to ask. It isn't as if there are rules to follow. If loving other people prevents him from meeting his soulmate then, well. Maybe Fate was wrong. Maybe they weren't made to be.
He grows up fast. He walks through regions and collects knowledge and comes back home, sometimes, to see if his sisters have found their soulmate before him. It's a race, he says. It makes them laugh, but when it actually happens and his sister gets married, they're oddly worried.
He's confident. He knows it'll happen eventually. He's the worst kind of optimist; the one who smiles when he's told he's going to die.
The future isn't that much different from the dreams he'd imagined when it arrives, all things considered: he gets to work surrounded by people as dedicated as he is and he gets to see as many pokémons as he likes. The best part, though, is giving them away to children with bright eyes and shy smiles who are as eager as he was to see the world. Children who have names written on their wrists, or somewhere above their knees, or maybe hidden away on the sole of their feet. He traces the words on his waist when he sits at his desk and smiles to himself.
When he receives the call, he thinks nothing of it at first; people wanting to meet him is not unusual, and he's always eager to share about his work. When he's told the name of his visitor, though, there's a hot, red knot in his stomach and he feels oddly light-headed. The assistant on the other end of the call asks him if he's alright. He's never felt better in his life.
When he walks in he's tall and magnificent, the kind of person who fills an entire room with their presence. Recognition flashes on his face, along with something like fear. It makes Augustine laugh, without really knowing why.
Their hands are warm around each other, the words on his waist sending shivers up his spine.
"Your name is beautiful," he tells Lysandre afterward. It troubles him, it seems. He strokes his sleeve, the crook of his elbow, and Augustine wonders.
"Thank you so much," Lysandre says, and he seems struck by his own words.
Augustine smiles.
Meant to be – merely a week before he would have found the idea revolting. It's easy to rationalize it when he's in that heightened state: the circumstances are a long way from what he thought they would be, Augustine is a lot more interesting and attuned to his personality than he'd ever given his would-be soulmate credit for. They're just words in the end, though, compared to the feeling he gets when their hands touch by accident and he thinks, how would he feel if I touched his mark? how would I feel?
It's passionate, obviously – but he's a passionate man. He's passionate about everything that strikes his fancy. It makes sense that his – love? would be nothing but furious bursts of passion. It's terrifying, mostly, if he had to be honest. Thankfully, he's spared that humiliation.
It's hard to focus properly when even standing next to each other makes their heartbeats erratic and loud. Once, Lysandre wonders if he's going to pass out. Augustine looks up at him, the line of his mouth unsure, like he wants to say something but doesn’t know how to say it.
He licks his lips. Lysandre's face feels like it's caught on fire.
"Is something wrong?" he asks, his voice somehow under control. He regrets it immediately.
"Can I see it?" Augustine counters, avoiding his eyes now. For a second Lysandre has no idea what he's talking about; then he lets his mouth fall open in a silent "ah."
He only hesitates for as long as it takes the other man to blink and look at him directly again. He starts unbuttoning his shirt, and when he's done he suddenly wonders why he hasn't simply rolled up his sleeve. It's too late, he figures. He takes off his shirt and the writing on his arm shines in the artificial light of the laboratory.
Augustine's gaze flickers to his chest, his eyes unreadable, before finally falling on his own name, immortalized on the skin. The simple act of looking at it is already sending waves of heat from Lysandre's mark to the rest of his body; he'd be unsurprised to find himself succumbing to spontaneous combustion.
"Can I," Augustine starts again. The whole situation suddenly strikes Lysandre as being on a level that transcends intimacy – if he were looking at him fully naked, it wouldn’t even come close to comparing. Augustine licks his lips again, and he’s trembling a little, maybe. "Can I touch it?"
Lysandre wonders if love is supposed to feel like this, or if this is just the soul marks. He nods because there's no way he can answer.
When tentative fingers press against the words, there's magma suddenly boiling in his veins; his breath hitches, he can't speak, he's sweating and he's almost certain he's on the verge of climaxing. It's the scariest thing that's happened to him since that time as a teenager when he'd fallen overboard as he was traveling to Hoenn in an overpriced cruise liner. He closes his eyes and clenches his jaw because he's suddenly afraid he might start – moaning, or worse.
He opens them again when the fingers slide away, a gentle caress that leaves him shivering. Augustine is looking up at him again, and his eyes are shining as they had when they'd first met.
There's a question there, but they both already know the answer. Augustine takes his hand and carefully guides it under his shirt, lets it rest against his waist where his skin is hot to the touch, and sighs, the sound almost obscene as he leans into Lysandre's hand and Lysandre doesn’t know if he wants this to continue forever or for it to never happen again.
When they break away from each other they're out of breath as if they'd just run for hours and hours. Lysandre feels exhausted but oddly fulfilled.
There's something he thinks he has to say, but it's not something he's had a lot of experience with explaining. He puts his shirt back on, watches Augustine lean against the nearby desk, his face reddened and the cruises on his clothes near where his hand had been.
"I've, um. I've never been in a relationship before."
Augustine glows like he's the sun, and for a heated second, Lysandre thinks that maybe he is now as far as he's concerned.
"That's fine, we don't have to do anything you don't want to do," he smiles, so kind. "I've waited for so long already."
I haven't, Lysandre thinks – and, well, he hasn’t. If anything he's waited for all of it to go away, for the mark to disappear and for him to finally be free. He doesn't want to lie, even by omission.
"I've wanted nothing to do with this for a long time."
It's a confession, of sorts. It makes him feel vulnerable. Augustine takes a step towards him and lets his hand rest on his arm, close to where he now knows his name is.
"Let's get back to work," he says.
He gives him a little squeeze; Lysandre sighs, defeated. He thinks about the mysterious ways of Fate and the look on his parents' faces if they could see him right now.
They work in silence until night falls.
Fandom: Pokémon X&Y
Pairing: Professor Augustine Sycamore/Lysandre
Rating: T
Summary: There's a name on his arm, in the crook of his elbow, dark and shiny and unavoidable, and he hates it.
Notes: This is an old fic, from a time period when I was writing fic but not sharing anything. Actually, it's a series of three ficlets, written because I was trying to figure out what I liked/didn't like about soulmate AUs. Warning for references to self-harm in Lysandre's ficlet, the first one. Title is from Mother Mother's Waiting For The World To End.
AO3 Link: Here.
LysandreThere's a name on his arm, in the crook of his elbow, dark and shiny and unavoidable, and he hates it.
He's had it all his life; two words, written like an afterthought. A soul mark, his mother had said once he'd been old enough to ask. The name of the person he was meant to be with. His soulmate, handpicked by Fate without so much as a consideration for his own opinion.
Others – his parents, his cousin, the few people he could probably call peers if not friends – picture this concept in their minds with reverence, with respect, with an innate trust that however these two words have ended up there on their skin, there is no way they could be wrong. He disagrees. It starts as soon as he's learned what this is all about; he tricks his father's aging pyroar into biting him and scorching the flesh. In the end, his skin is able to heal properly against all odds, but to his dismay, the words are still there. His next attempt is years later, in a fit of rage; he takes hold of his scissors and meticulously cuts through the words again and again, seething behind eyes blurred by tears of frustration and pain. Inevitably, the skin heals, as good as new, perfect; and the words are still there. By the age of twenty, he's started to wonder whether or not cutting off his arm is worth it. The thought that the words would probably merely bloom elsewhere prevents him from making a terrible mistake.
He's had no desire to date, so the mark is not a problem in that regard; if anything, he can always pretend he wants to keep himself for his soulmate to politely refuse rendez-vous and other less tasteful offers. No, the issue is plain and simple: he hates the name, wants nothing to do with it. Fate is a joke and he will not bow down to it. At twenty-five, he's sworn to himself that he'll remain celibate all his life, try to use his time for more productive things, more grandiose projects that will let him carve himself a place in History, with a capital H. He studies legends and science and tries to avoid the subject of soul marks as best as he can. It's easier said than done.
In his research, he ends up stumbling upon papers discussing strong links between pokémons and humans; not threaded by Fate, like the damned words on his arm he's doing his best to forget about, but born out of mutual respect and appreciation for each other. An unbreakable bond between partners dedicated to each other in life and death. He likes it; if only because there's an implication there that he has a choice in the matter. He scratches his fully grown pyroar he's had since he was a child under the chin and thinks about his gyarados he's spent so many months training no matter his mood or the weather.
He meets people: quiet scientists and loud trainers who have names written on their palms or almost hidden away in the shadows that are cast on their necks. They talk to him about what is called mega-evolution, and the most renowned scholar who's been studying it for years.
When he hears his name, his body feels very cold, and then very hot; his arm itches, the feeling almost like a cackle from his treacherous skin. He presses his lips together, contains a frown; maybe it's a mistake. Surely, it's a mistake.
He's stubborn – it's the best worst quality, his mother used to say. He convinces himself that it's just a sick coincidence, that two people, or more, can very well bear the same name. Tells himself it means nothing and decides to meet the man no matter what damned words are written on his arm.
When he sees him, pale grey eyes behind dark locks and a smile on his face like he's never seen on anyone else before, there's a ringing in his ears and a weight in his stomach and his skin is burning. He feels like he's going to be sick. He pales and his mouth curves into a grimace yet somehow the only reaction it gets him is a hearty laugh and something like a blush on the other man's face.
He lets him take his hand to shake it; tries to remember that, after all, what he hates about the name is the concept. He's never given much thought to the person behind it.
"You must be Lysandre," the man says, and he's so radiant about it; his eyes are shining and inescapable and Lysandre wants to listen to him talk forever.
They're still holding hands when he finally answers.
"You must be Augustine."
The words burn on his arms, and he hates it. Augustine's hand is warm in his, and he loves it.
It strikes him that maybe Fate isn't such a bad thing after all.
AugustineThere are words on his waist, above his thigh. He likes to press his fingers against them when he's nervous. They're warm and beautiful; that's what the people he undresses for say, every time.
His mother has a mark as well, almost faded, on the back of her shoulder. The man whose name was written there left them when he was a child, with no explanation. He thinks about that when people talk to him about the words, tell him they're the name of the one person he's destined to meet, the one who'll always be there for him. He smiles because he doesn't want to tell them it's a lie. He wants to believe it, too.
She finds someone else, someone whose mark has almost faded as well, disappearing with time, with grief. It darkens as they fall in love as if the soul of the parted is relieved. Her new lover writes his own name atop her old mark, traces it again every time the ink disappears. He watches them be happy, his hand brushing against his waist. He waits.
He's a dreamer, he thinks; that's what he's been told, at least. He thinks about the future the way you'd think about a dream you've had years ago. At night, he lies in bed and looks at the ceiling and wonders who's been chosen for him. He falls asleep with his hand on the mark, dreams of meeting someone who's great and brave and only his.
He spends his childhood days in the mud, running after spewpas and vivillons, watching pidgeys behind bushes with eager eyes. He loves pokémons. As he grows older he realizes there's something there: a calling. His mother ruffles his hair when he talks about wanting to travel to find more pokémons to observe – and to find someone else, too, maybe. He doesn't talk about that.
He never really does. He meets people, he loves them, even. He kisses them and sleeps in their arms and he feels so alive. Once or twice they ask about the mark, trace it with their fingers. They want to know why he doesn't save himself for the one he yearns for. He thinks it's an odd thing to ask. It isn't as if there are rules to follow. If loving other people prevents him from meeting his soulmate then, well. Maybe Fate was wrong. Maybe they weren't made to be.
He grows up fast. He walks through regions and collects knowledge and comes back home, sometimes, to see if his sisters have found their soulmate before him. It's a race, he says. It makes them laugh, but when it actually happens and his sister gets married, they're oddly worried.
He's confident. He knows it'll happen eventually. He's the worst kind of optimist; the one who smiles when he's told he's going to die.
The future isn't that much different from the dreams he'd imagined when it arrives, all things considered: he gets to work surrounded by people as dedicated as he is and he gets to see as many pokémons as he likes. The best part, though, is giving them away to children with bright eyes and shy smiles who are as eager as he was to see the world. Children who have names written on their wrists, or somewhere above their knees, or maybe hidden away on the sole of their feet. He traces the words on his waist when he sits at his desk and smiles to himself.
When he receives the call, he thinks nothing of it at first; people wanting to meet him is not unusual, and he's always eager to share about his work. When he's told the name of his visitor, though, there's a hot, red knot in his stomach and he feels oddly light-headed. The assistant on the other end of the call asks him if he's alright. He's never felt better in his life.
When he walks in he's tall and magnificent, the kind of person who fills an entire room with their presence. Recognition flashes on his face, along with something like fear. It makes Augustine laugh, without really knowing why.
Their hands are warm around each other, the words on his waist sending shivers up his spine.
"Your name is beautiful," he tells Lysandre afterward. It troubles him, it seems. He strokes his sleeve, the crook of his elbow, and Augustine wonders.
"Thank you so much," Lysandre says, and he seems struck by his own words.
Augustine smiles.
Aftermath (Lysandre POV)It's not love at first sight, exactly; at least, it's not what he's always imagined love at first sight to be. Not that he'd ever given it much consideration. No, it's more – a strong, burning feeling in his chest. A deep-seated conviction that as long as he's there with him, he's where he's meant to be.
Meant to be – merely a week before he would have found the idea revolting. It's easy to rationalize it when he's in that heightened state: the circumstances are a long way from what he thought they would be, Augustine is a lot more interesting and attuned to his personality than he'd ever given his would-be soulmate credit for. They're just words in the end, though, compared to the feeling he gets when their hands touch by accident and he thinks, how would he feel if I touched his mark? how would I feel?
It's passionate, obviously – but he's a passionate man. He's passionate about everything that strikes his fancy. It makes sense that his – love? would be nothing but furious bursts of passion. It's terrifying, mostly, if he had to be honest. Thankfully, he's spared that humiliation.
It's hard to focus properly when even standing next to each other makes their heartbeats erratic and loud. Once, Lysandre wonders if he's going to pass out. Augustine looks up at him, the line of his mouth unsure, like he wants to say something but doesn’t know how to say it.
He licks his lips. Lysandre's face feels like it's caught on fire.
"Is something wrong?" he asks, his voice somehow under control. He regrets it immediately.
"Can I see it?" Augustine counters, avoiding his eyes now. For a second Lysandre has no idea what he's talking about; then he lets his mouth fall open in a silent "ah."
He only hesitates for as long as it takes the other man to blink and look at him directly again. He starts unbuttoning his shirt, and when he's done he suddenly wonders why he hasn't simply rolled up his sleeve. It's too late, he figures. He takes off his shirt and the writing on his arm shines in the artificial light of the laboratory.
Augustine's gaze flickers to his chest, his eyes unreadable, before finally falling on his own name, immortalized on the skin. The simple act of looking at it is already sending waves of heat from Lysandre's mark to the rest of his body; he'd be unsurprised to find himself succumbing to spontaneous combustion.
"Can I," Augustine starts again. The whole situation suddenly strikes Lysandre as being on a level that transcends intimacy – if he were looking at him fully naked, it wouldn’t even come close to comparing. Augustine licks his lips again, and he’s trembling a little, maybe. "Can I touch it?"
Lysandre wonders if love is supposed to feel like this, or if this is just the soul marks. He nods because there's no way he can answer.
When tentative fingers press against the words, there's magma suddenly boiling in his veins; his breath hitches, he can't speak, he's sweating and he's almost certain he's on the verge of climaxing. It's the scariest thing that's happened to him since that time as a teenager when he'd fallen overboard as he was traveling to Hoenn in an overpriced cruise liner. He closes his eyes and clenches his jaw because he's suddenly afraid he might start – moaning, or worse.
He opens them again when the fingers slide away, a gentle caress that leaves him shivering. Augustine is looking up at him again, and his eyes are shining as they had when they'd first met.
There's a question there, but they both already know the answer. Augustine takes his hand and carefully guides it under his shirt, lets it rest against his waist where his skin is hot to the touch, and sighs, the sound almost obscene as he leans into Lysandre's hand and Lysandre doesn’t know if he wants this to continue forever or for it to never happen again.
When they break away from each other they're out of breath as if they'd just run for hours and hours. Lysandre feels exhausted but oddly fulfilled.
There's something he thinks he has to say, but it's not something he's had a lot of experience with explaining. He puts his shirt back on, watches Augustine lean against the nearby desk, his face reddened and the cruises on his clothes near where his hand had been.
"I've, um. I've never been in a relationship before."
Augustine glows like he's the sun, and for a heated second, Lysandre thinks that maybe he is now as far as he's concerned.
"That's fine, we don't have to do anything you don't want to do," he smiles, so kind. "I've waited for so long already."
I haven't, Lysandre thinks – and, well, he hasn’t. If anything he's waited for all of it to go away, for the mark to disappear and for him to finally be free. He doesn't want to lie, even by omission.
"I've wanted nothing to do with this for a long time."
It's a confession, of sorts. It makes him feel vulnerable. Augustine takes a step towards him and lets his hand rest on his arm, close to where he now knows his name is.
"Let's get back to work," he says.
He gives him a little squeeze; Lysandre sighs, defeated. He thinks about the mysterious ways of Fate and the look on his parents' faces if they could see him right now.
They work in silence until night falls.