💞 + how prepared is L to cope with outliving augustine and paxton ??
He doesn’t like to think about it. God, he does not want to think about it.
Like, it’s one thing to outlive some of his pokémon. Many species live shorter lives than humans already — it’s expected. But as a younger man he just … assumed he would grow old next to his best friend. (Maybe one day he’d have gotten the courage to be more than friends, had he not kept all of his darker thoughts bottled up. Don’t make him think about those regrets.)
He thought he’d watch Paxton grow up and be there for him as an old man.
Now he has to grapple with the idea of Paxton being an old man in the future and not himself?
That’s his son. He should be older than his son.
He has the years to prepare himself for the whole idea, but Augustine’s going to show his age first and that’s going to break his heart. Not because of Augustine getting older but because he can’t share that with him. No doubt he sometimes stares at the way Augustine’s hair is greying and has to stop himself from dwelling on those thoughts.
So. He’s not totally prepared. He might act like he is, but he’s going to get emotional the first time he notices lines on Paxton’s face or sees larger patches of grey in Augustine’s hair.
He is doing a few things, though, to help himself in the future: he’s taking a lot of photos, videos, and just as many recordings. For the first chunk of time after they’re gone it might be a bit of an unhealthy coping mechanism to listen to their voices, but he knows he’ll appreciate it more the further into the future he goes.