Chapter Text
Lumiose bloomed. The old king AZ finally rested. Time continued its quiet march forward, as it was.
L attended the funeral. Skulked about the city. Passed the torch (dog) to the next marathon runner (plucky child hero of the city). Made amends with Mable. Got a book thrown at him from Mable. Got a hug from Mable. Got a second, heavier book thrown from of course- Mable.
Got reintroduced to an old flame- (flare?) From Darling Dearest Miss Mable.
Remember, all at once, the Kalos Professor. Apologize like no man ever had before. Try to make things right. Ride in his car. Listen intently.
——
The sky was a dark, rich grey as L looked over the old house. Bundled up warm in a new coat, he stood as the wind rustled the large white collar of fur. He appraised the structure as familiar. The smell, the temperature, it was all there in his mind somewhere. Looking at it, he would say it was like looking at a painting that you swore you’d visited, but it couldn't possibly be true. That painted cottage didn’t exist. That was how this place felt. Pigment made solid.
Sycamore stood beside him, watching L’s reaction carefully.
“Is this house really mine?” L asks. “It doesn’t… look like a millionaire's home.”
It’s quiet for a beat before Sycamore laughs. “That’s exactly what I thought when you brought me here for the first time!”
“It was yours, yes. But when Lysandre Labs as a whole was disbanded, I was given a hold of some of your more… personal projects. Now, it’s mine.” He scratched the back of his head in an awkward way as he went forward. “Hopefully… I would like to say it’s ours , but… well. One step at a time.”
“It’s old.” L observed. “You and I must have put a lot of work into it. Because it looks like it has no reason to still be standing.” Sycamore laughed a little.
“Like you?” He quipped.
L snorted.
L leaned over Sycamore and enveloped him in his arms and draped his tall self around the smaller man like one would hold a jacket above their head. L’s head rested atop Sycamore’s. His new gigantic jacket made it even easier to be like a blanket.
Sycamore hadn’t worked up the courage to tell him he used to do that in the past as well, lest he spoil the gesture and cause L to stop.
—-
They sat then, together, in what remained of the garden. Their conversations flowed easily, yet stepped cautiously around the difficult subjects looming overhead. One of them was going to have to address the obvious. It surprised both of them that it was L who took the initiative.
“Doesn’t it bother you?” L asked, looking across the grey blue horizon. “I’m going to live so much longer than you.”
The silence between them lingered.
“I know.” Sycamore said back, finally. “But no, it does not bother me at all.”
“How.” L said, failing to mask the pain of hearing how earnestly Augustine spoke. As if they weren’t discussing an eternity of coming grief.
“L, please. Indulge me, won’t you?” Augustine spoke softly. When L nodded just slightly, he continued. “I know, from your perspective, it sounds like a fool's errand to try to make anything between us work again. I know its… scary. You’re right, I will die one day, and you’re going to live on without me. That is an immutable fact. Yes?”
L frowned, furrowed his brows trying to hold his emotions in control, and nodded.
Sycamore continued, “…My love, it’s… well, it’s not any different than what everyone who loves and has had love goes through. Really, when you think about it.”
L looked at Sycamore aghast at how casually he talked. Sycamore didn’t falter.
“We outlive some of our pokemon, and some of our pokemon will outlive us. We take care of them untill we must say goodbye. I will live longer than some of my students. And most will live longer than me. But, there's no reason to be afraid of spending our time together while we have it.” He smiled to L, some deep wisdom resting in the laugh lines of his face.
“You wouldn’t call the short five years AZ had with his Floette foolish, or selfish, or bothersome, no? I think we all wish it was longer… but they had that time together. I know at least he was satisfied with it.”
“In the five years you were gone I grieved. It wasn’t easy, not at all. All the emotions… anger, sadness, relief, frustration. But it did get better. I still missed you terribly but I found joy again in all the little things that reminded me of you. Your smile still shined in my memory.” That pulled a small smile from Sycamore.
“Then I started seeing little fragments of you everywhere. So I took a leap of faith and traveled. Took on new students. Started new projects. Tried to do… what I think you would have wanted me to do.”
He straightened up, and had a bit more confidence facing the changing horizon of the uncertain future ahead of them.
“So, no. It doesn’t bother me. I know that loving you, and you loving me, isn’t going to damn you to a thousand years of suffering. There will be times it won’t be easy, but that’s true of any relationship. And if it works, it works, and if it doesn’t, at least we tried.”
L couldn’t exactly refute Sycamore’s grounded logic. Living a thousand years or not didn’t excuse him from the many universal human experiences the world offered. He had put up a thousand walls when he learned of his psudo-immortality. Sycamore was now doing an efficient job of going through them.
“Who you were five years ago I will miss, I won’t deny that. I fell in love with him, flaws and all. But I remember when I first met him.”
Sycamore appraised L in his awkwardness. He stood like he didn’t belong, uncertain and guarded of the world. Lysandre wore a confident mask but was vulnerable to the darkness of the world. He didn’t know who to trust and fell into despair when the world fell short of his grand expectations.
L said up and down he didn’t know or remember Lysandre beyond surface level memories - swore that he was so different. Maybe it frightened him, maybe he was ashamed, maybe it just was a ruse to start over again. But when Sycamore compared them side by side, their overlap was stronger than it appeared on the surface.
Lysandre and L both had strong convictions in their sense of justice. Both of them had a fickle way of expressing their feelings, and try as he might to deny it, L still gravitated towards the bright scarlets that he did in the past. Neither of them could stand by and watch- active participants. Both want to make a difference in the world. A beautiful world. A better world.
Barely any memories, but L knew all of his pokemons’ favorite places to be pet, their preferred foods. Their quirks. Sycamore would call it something deeper than a memory that kept those things intact. A part of his core that remained, despite everything.
“I remember meeting a man that struggled to connect with others. A man who hid his intentions from everyone, yet so badly wanted to lift others up. He was a flawed, human man, just like everyone else. And he suffered for it when he couldn’t accept help.” Sycamore said.
“I would hope that if there was one thing you could do for me, it’s to not be afraid to reach out to us when you need it.”
L stood, shuddering with guilt. But, he also exhaled a deep breath of tension he was holding in. He ran his hand through his hair (just like he used to) and the little sprig of hair on his forehead popped back up after he pat it down.
“I-“ he started. He held a hand to his face and waved the other one at Sycamore, gesturing something, but without words his meaning was anyone’s guess.
“I promise I’m going to do better this time.”
He nodded, looking at Sycamore with a familiar determined scowl. It was one he wore when confronted with a problem, when he was faced with an obstacle, when a challenge stood in his way. He looked a bit intimidating but really it was just a relief to Sycamore that L was still able to stand for his convictions.
“I do not know what my future holds, Professor. If my suspicions are correct, that future will be a very, very long one. In time, I believe, perhaps all of my memories will return, and when that day comes, I will have to confront who that man was. Him, and myself.”
He reached and placed a hand atop Sycamores. “I hope-“ L spoke, “That you will be by my side when that day comes. I cannot run from the past and what I did to the people I loved. You’ve been nothing but kind to me, and I would be a fool to push you away again.”
“Your forgiveness is more than I deserve, but I will not squander it. In the time that we have, I will try all that I can, to be what you see in me, Augustine Sycamore.”
And Sycamore knew that he would give him that chance. However many years were to come, he would stand beside L.
L couldn’t know what the future looked like for him, but he knew that he saw potential in the little things his place of privilege blinded him to in his past life. He could see the people not as a billionaire above them, but a servant amongst them.
Augustine would say that he had found the freedom he was looking for, though L couldn’t grasp the true gravity of what he meant. Maybe in time, he could remember, but for now, he was content with what he had.
—-
“You have returned." The living world would say in the small barks of a green dog.“You have regrown from the roots of what you once were. As you were in the summer and as you had died in the fall. As you had slept in the winter, so now you return in the spring.”
And the soft words spoke in the leaves of the trees and the chirps of the birds.
“You are as you should be, proud red lilly of the sun. You are as you should be, humble white lilly of the earth. Again you have come, as you were always meant to do. Live a full life, Perennial Bulb, in touch and in balance with the cycles of life and death. In the shade of a great and sturdy tree, plant your roots once more and grow again.”
“You are worthy.” The dog would speak.
“You are chosen.” The Red Lilly boasted.
“You are loved.” The Sycamore Tree soothed.
“I am at peace.” The White Lilly said to himself, and he was sure.