Feeling a distinct lack of post ZA perfectworldshipping so damnit I'm making my own. Snippet under the cut while I go back to psychologically tormenting everyone's favourite professor <3
It was a brisk day, autumn just starting to settle in across the region. He pulls his jacket just a bit tighter around himself, picking up the pace as he weaves through familiar turns along the old route.
It’s been five years since Augustine Sycamore left Kalos. Five years since that awful day. He can still see it in his mind; the translucent image of his lover over the holocast, proclaiming his intent to end the world as they knew it. He remembers feeling like the ground had given out beneath him, Lysandre looking both nothing like and exactly like the man Augustine had grown to love.
He shoves those memories to the back of his mind- as best he can, anyways- as he climbs the last hill. He can see it now, the skyline of the humble town forever changed since that day. The remains of the Ultimate Weapon, a hulking crystalline mass, stand proud in the centre of Geosenge town. The way it glimmers in the sun is almost taunting, deceptively and sickeningly beautiful. A gorgeous wonder for tourists unaware, and a harrowing reminder of how close death truly lingers for the people of Kalos.
Augustine doesn’t know why he came here. No, that’s a lie. He knows exactly why he came here; it’s the same reason he came here five years ago. He’d come here as soon as he could, desperate to stop Lysandre, to pull him back from the edge. By the time he’d arrived, however, it was already too late. The bunker they’d hidden away in had evidently collapsed, and somewhere in that smouldering wreckage was the man Augustine loved more than anyone. His memories blur from there- emergency crews and survivors, Team Flare uniforms turned grey from soot and ash, and the smell of acrid smoke burning his lungs. He doesn’t know how long the rescue efforts took, he doesn’t know when the paramedics on scene told him he should go home and rest- like that was even possible. What rest was there to be had in a bed that still smelled like the man still trapped in that ugly mess of metal and debris? Augustine slept on the couch that night.
The days had passed like a blur, putting on the face of the happy carefree Professor Sycamore that everyone expected by day, only to return to his empty apartment each night worse off than the one before. He was exhausted, going through the motions while waiting for any news from the Geosenge site. The day they announced an end to the rescue efforts, Diantha showed up unannounced. Few people knew about their relationship, both of them being public figures and Lysandre preferring his privacy, but Diantha was a dear friend to them both. He couldn’t hide his pain, not from her. The funeral happened a week later. There wasn’t a body, one was never recovered. Augustine sometimes wondered if it would have been better if there was one.
It had been a quiet affair, but not entirely by choice. Where once Lysandre was lauded as one of the finest men in Kalos, beloved by all, Augustine instead sobbed quietly hand in hand with Diantha as a young man Augstine didn’t recognize laid flowers on the empty casket. In the back of his mind he wondered just how much Lysandre had kept from him.
It’s a thought that comes unbidden to him now as he stares at the giant floral monolith in front of him. He stares at it like it will answer all his problems, like he could unravel the mind of a dead man by staring into the depths of his greatest desire. Oh, who is he kidding. Lysandre is dead. He died five years ago in the depths of his own madness, and he’s never coming back. A part of Augustine can’t help but to hold onto hope, even now. Maybe he’s too much of a romantic... He lets out a heavy sigh, eyes trailing beyond the monolith to the site of the old bunker. It’s gone now, cleared out after the criminal investigation. But the scars remain, on the land and on Augustine’s heart.
Unconsciously his feet carry him over to the patchy soil, kneeling despite the protest from his knees. It hurts to think that he’s growing old without Lysandre.
“Salut, mon ami,” His voice is quiet, barely more than a warbling whisper.
“I’m sorry that it’s taken me so long... so long to come back.” His voice breaks, throat tight with emotion he’s barely voiced in these long five years. How do you explain to anyone who wasn’t there that you are grieving a man most famous for his attempted genocide? How do you explain to them how much more than that that he was? His passion, his desire for a better world that drove his every action? The way he’d sit and listen to Augustine’s theories and studies with rapt attention, never once letting him apologize for rambling. How do you explain the hole he left behind to someone who would never know him beyond faceless atrocity? How- He shakes with sobs as he comes fully to his knees, leaning forward to rest his forehead on the uneven soil.
How horribly unfair that he has to live while Lysandre got to die, never knowing the pain he’d left in his wake. Augustine could almost hate him for it.
“Why did it have to be you, Lys?” He asks no one in particular. A dead man can’t respond, after all.
They were supposed to celebrate their tenth anniversary next month. Instead Augustine sits alone in the technicolor shade of the beautiful weapon that stole his lover away.
“I miss you.” He knows there’s no point in saying it aloud. There’s no one left to hear him. Sometimes he wishes Lysandre had succeeded, if only so he wouldn’t have to know this pain.
“It’s been five years now, mon amour.” It’s hard to stop the words now. He just hopes passers by don’t stop to eavesdrop on the depressed ex-professor talking to a dead man.
“I haven’t been home since your funeral. I haven’t even cleaned out the apartment.
“I can’t stand being there, knowing you’re not. Knowing you never will be ever again. How am I supposed to move on, Lys?”
It’s a pathetic display, sure, but maybe allowing himself to truly feel his grief is what he needs. And perhaps later, to really seal the deal, he’ll hole himself up in a hotel room with a bottle of wine and try to forget the gaping hole in his chest.
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