Chapter Text
“Are you… busy, later?”
Augustine paused, pencil sitting on the corner of his lips as his eyes looked over to Lysandre.
Lysandre hadn’t looked up from his task. He was half turned away, taking readings from a hand scanner. There was a mawile sitting on the table in front of him, holding its Mawilite. She kicked her little legs over the side of the table as he took notes on the readings.
“Hmmmm. No. I don’t think so. Why?” Augustine said. He was curious why Lysandre was asking.
The tall man was always so reserved when he came to the lumiose labs that Sycamore proudly led. Their collaboration was only a few months strong, sharing resources between Sycamore’s brilliant team and Lysandre’s ridiculous wealth. This had all started as a mutually beneficial exchange of investment. It was too good to be true the way it was pitched to him, and Sycamore honestly held a lot of questions and skepticism as to the particular motivations Lysandre’s company had in his work. It hadn’t started out well.
He was skeptical when hands were shook and contracts signed. He was unhappy when things started changing much too quickly. Projects were cancelled. New ones were started. Whole new ideas were being flung around at meetings that he couldn’t keep up with.
He reacted rudely when Lysandre’s people came to the lab and started poking around at the inner workings of his space, bombarding him with questions about every little thing they had as equipment. He didn’t like that. He didn’t like how they came and went with impunity. He didn’t like their flashy outfits and their ideas of how he should run his lab. He didn’t like how his own staff was trying to appease him. He didn’t like being so stubborn.
But he didn’t like losing control of his own workplace even more. So he did what any mature adult would do and he dug his heels in like a stubborn old gogoat. If anyone from Lysandre’s company came around he bothered them incessantly with micromanagement. He also declined just about anything with Lysande’s company logo on it just out of principle.
And that’s about when Lysandre came and visited the lab himself. He intruded himself and shook Sycamore’s hand and only asked to have a tour of the facilities. It was obvious he was here to see why the Stubborn Pokemon Professor was being difficult, Augustine told himself. So he took the millionaire on a tour, hoping to just get it over with. But Lysandre stopped constantly, and was so frustratingly polite to Sycamore’s staff. He was so personable, asking questions about their passions and hobbies. Inquiring about their pokemon teams. Augustine didn’t trust him at all, and had no plans on changing his opinions. A half hour tour lasted well over two hours.
And then Lysandre turned his attention onto the stubborn goat of a professor. In the tabloids, Lysandre was often compared to a Pyroar, both in aesthetics and personality. Bold, commanding, and ablaze. He had every advantage against the little grass tufted goat of a professor, and he used his advantages well. Asking questions about what Sycamore enjoyed about his work. Complimenting his work ethic. He even apologized for how overbearing his employees had been, and vowed to improve on relationships. Yes, Sycamore knew that Lysandre was working towards his secretive agendas but if he was willing to compromise, maybe something good could come of this annoyance.
It had left Sycamore cautiously optimistic. He still certainly didn’t trust him. Absolutely not. Then Lysandre visited again, a week later to personally deliver a generous donation, no strings attached, to the lab. Two weeks after that, he came by again to meet with Sycamore to learn about how research was progressing on Mega Evolution. He asked eagerly to be more involved. He even came prepared with his own impressive credentials. By the end of the meeting Lysandre successfully charmed his way into a labcoat and onto the research team. Somehow.
For all of his pomp and circumstance, Lysandre didn’t flaunt himself or his reputation as a lab assistant. If anything, he was no different from everyone else when he put on his lab coat and got to work. Sycamore watched him closely as he conducted simple experiments. If anything, Lysandre was almost…shy. He didn’t bother anyone unless he really had to. Another two weeks passed. Sycamore knew he was getting less and less aloof to this situation. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that.
Now, Lysandre was asking him if he was busy after work. What was his angle here?
For his part, Lysandre continued working, exchanging one mawilite for a different one and then scanning the pokemon again.
“I…” Lysandre spoke with a hesitation unbecoming of him. He cleared his throat and started again. “As you know, I have many interests and projects I am involved in. I am planning on checking in on one said project, and I was wondering if you would like to accompany me.” He looked over, holding his chin high, his professional persona back. He spoke confident and distant. “I think it may be of interest to you, seeing you first gained such great accolades from your fairy type breakthroughs. Professor.”
“Really? A side project concerning Fairy type pokemon?” Sycamore said. “Tell me more.”
Lysandre nodded once. “Just a short ride outside of Lumiose. It’s a project I’ve been working on for a while. I’m eager to debut it, but I would like to get more opinions first.”
“What exactly is your project, Lysandre?” Sycamore asked, now quite curious.
“I would… prefer it to be a surprise.”
“Alright. Then…” Sycamore smiled. “Let’s get these scans finished, yeah?”
Lysandre nodded, and got back to work.
———
As he had said, Lysandre waited for Sycamore to finish up his work in the lobby of the lab. They left the building together and walked to a car, parked ready for Lysandre, as it always was. The well dressed driver opened the door for them. Sycamore side-eyed Lysandre, who entered the vehicle without a word. He got in too.
The car was probably brand new. It smelled brand new. The seat was stiff and plush, in the way it could only be from being sat in only a few times. Sycamore huffed a single small laugh. In the lab, it was easy to forget how Lysandre lived. But in the pristine luxury car, it was clear to Sycamore that every inconvenience was dealt with for Lysandre. Lysandre probably never had to deal with any of the frustrations of daily life he had to organize his whole schedule around. How irritating, the privileges the rich are pampered by.
Lysandre turned his head and tilted it slightly. But he said nothing, and went back to looking out the window with his hands resting on his crossed knees.
They sat in awkward silence for the short drive. Sycamore decided to focus on the passing countryside instead.
When they stopped, Lysandre opened the door for Sycamore. The Professor wasn’t sure what exactly to expect at their destination. He stepped out of the luxury car onto a rough road. Around him, the countryside that surrounded Lumiose was alive with the noise of bird pokemon and the sweet smells of late spring. Several old tan-bricked buildings flanked the road as people went about their day. They were in the outskirts of Camphrier Town.
Sycamore relaxed a bit knowing at least Lysandre had brought him to familiar territory. This ancient town had been good for early mega evolution research, but Sycamore had picked their libraries clean years ago. It was a quiet town, welcoming to tourists, and rich with history. It was also so much calmer than the bustling Lumiouse city. A wonderful rustic little gem of Kalos.
What kind of project was Lysandre operating out here?
If Lysandre stuck out in Lumiose with his designer clothes, tall height, and bright red hair, then here in the countryside he might as well have a spotlight and shining sparkles around him. He contrasted everything this city embodied.
It made Sycamore wonder for just the briefest moment where a person like Lysandre wouldn’t stick out as an anomaly. He couldn’t think of one.
“Welcome, Professor, to my little… passion project. Just this way.” He gestured behind him, to a long dirt driveway that led to a brick building with ivy growing on its old shingle roof. The fence was made of slate grey bricks, aged with time. He clasped his hands behind his back and walked forward. This house was separate from the others and the road enough to hide away.
Everything in the yard of the house had long since overgrown, now full of small wild weeds and dried out branches of once-flourishing plants. An old shed in a far corner had its door lazily sway in the wind, rusted tools left untouched. An old metal decorative bench here, an old trellis there. The house itself was in good shape, if needing some simpler repairs. Most of the windows were intact, and the broken ones had fresh boards installed to keep the interior safe. It was a quaint little house, Sycamore thought. Probably big enough for a single family of farmers. It looked very salvageable from being abandoned.
“I’m going to be completely honest, Lysandre. You’ve absolutely stumped me with… whatever this is.” Sycamore said as he followed. He smiled and stretched before putting his hands behind his head in a casual stance.
Lysandre opened the gate, which made a stubborn squeak. When he looked back again at Sycamore, the professor saw a sort of uncertainty in Lysandre’s eyes. Dare he even say… a touch of vulnerability?
“My family is an old one.” Lysandre started. His voice was wistful. “Generations and generations of leaving our mark on history. We have been fortunate to have ties to multiple royal bloodlines. I have inherited property all over Kalos, tied to those who came before me.” He looked up at the old building. “This one… belonged to one of my great, great grandparents, I believe. She retired to this city because the nobility was… exhausting.”
“You would never know this was where she went. She left her maiden name behind with the courts. This home would be a shocking downgrade for a noble of her status.”
Sycamore listened intently.
“She wrote her memoirs here, in this town. In this house. To think, someone of her caliber, and what she was known for in the history books…. And here, she wrote more books about her neighborhood, than she ever did about her court accomplishments.”
Lysandre touched old stones that made a fence border for some long forgotten garden bed. “She was a chosen one, I believe, by fate to be something great. Her journals have the sharp wit of a political mind. And yet… she chose this place instead. If I had not been lucky, nobody would have ever connected that Miss Maria of Camphrier town was a De Lis. I found one of her journals by chance in my family archive, which eventually brought me here.”
“You are the only person I have told this to. I feel it is… important.” He swallowed. “To understand. Come. Follow.” And Lysandre walked around the porch to go behind the building. Sycamore followed.
Lysandre… Sycamore had never anticipated him opening up so abruptly about something so private to his family. Why him? It felt like deeply privileged information. Lysandre spoke in a way foreign to the Professor. It was… human. Extremely human for a man who always seemed to be wearing a mask.
Sycamore’s eyes were cast low as he walked around the building, watching for debris he would hate to trip. He looked up when they both entered the back of the property, to see Lysandre looking back to him.
His red hair rustled gently in the breeze, and his deep blue eyes shimmered wet with a deep unspoken emotion. Before him, a vast, lush field of flowers danced, partitioned into a rainbow of colors scattered about. The soft wind blew them all, and the late day sun cast the sky in rich golds and pinks. Red, blue, yellow, orange… the flowers all blended like brushstrokes on an immaculate canvas. The plants had healthy, saturated leaves of a lovely green.
The field near to the house was well planted in clear lines of colors. The further from the house it got however, the more nature took over and let the seeds blend and scatter with each other. Instead of perfect lines of color they formed natural formations of their own choosing. Further still, different species grew taller over the delicate little flowers that made up the field. Old berry bushes were ripe with fruit again. Flanking the field were old trees that lent privacy to the space. Sycamore could see the tell tale marks in the earth of large Pokemon; Lysandre must have had his pokemon help him with this massive undertaking.
Flabebe and Floette drifted in the air, clinging to their flower colors of choice. There were dozens of the tiny pokemon, hidden amongst the blooms. They chirped to each other, a community of little fairies hidden away from the world. Small pokemon of all sorts of varieties called this abandoned property home now, but the amount of Flabebe here made it clear they were the most populous. The sweet scent of their flowers ticked Sycamore’s nose. The little fairies paid them no attention. It was beautiful. So, so beautiful.
Sycamore’s mouth hung agape.
“Lysandre. This is your project? It’s. Incredible. Truly. How…?”
“I have been coming here all winter, to get this once fallow field restored to how it ought to be. Me and my pokemon worked when I had the time. A retreat from my obligations. It was a good place to put my stress into. When I first came…” Lysandre’s voice cracked, and his fist trembled. “I couldn’t bear the sight of it.”
“It was so, so ugly, Augustine. Filthy. Not, not the dirt but, there was so much mess everywhere. Abandoned and neglected. So much Littering. Dead weeds and branches. There was nothing here, no life, no pokemon, nothing. It was horrible, so, so horrible.”
Sycamore never saw Lysandre so raw with his feelings. Not ever. He stepped forward to be a bit closer.
“Tht sounds like it was very hard to see, Lysandre.” Sycamore said gently.
“She wrote of this place with so much love. She wrote about having guests over just to see it. Everything she did to make this place perfect, and it still all rotted away. It isn’t fair. It’s not fair.”
Lysandre’s voice cracked even harder and he looked on the verge of tears. “She gave up everything for this. I needed to make it beautiful again.” His composure then completely gave way to a sort of grief.
“If… if I could, I would keep it safe…keep it beautiful… forever. Never rotting. Alive, and rich, and beautiful, and safe. Like it is supposed to be.” Desperation made Lysandre sound like a completely different person than Sycamore had thought him to be.
Sycamore’s better judgment said that this was outside of his area of expertise. That he didn’t really know Lysandre all that well. But he still stepped closer, and put his hand on Lysandre’s shoulder. It surprised both of them.
“You’ve done a very good thing here, Lysandre.” Sycamore spoke as gently as he could. “I’m sorry that it wasn’t what you expected when you first came here, but, I mean, just look at it. It’s amazing. You’ve really made a difference here.”
“Nothing is set in stone.” Sycamore continued. Lysandre was showing him a shocking amount of vulnerability. The least he could do was… try to do the same.
“I’ve been stubborn because change frightens me too.” Sycamore said. “I want to keep things the same. My lab, my assistants. Whenever they come or go, I feel… scared.”
Sycamore smiled at Lysandre. “It took me so long to be ok with it. Most of the time, things work out for the best. And, I don’t know. I think maybe, this is a good example.”
“You did this. You made a difference here, just because you wanted to. I think your ancestor would be proud to see it. And! And, now you have this; something in common together.”
Lysandre looked out on the flower field, closed his eyes and nodded slightly.
“I think you should keep doing it.” Sycamore said.
“What… what do you mean?”
“Things like this. Stuff that makes you happy. I can’t imagine how stressful it is to be… well. You. Mister-creator of holo-tech. Mister-at every big celebrity gathering in Kalos. Ceo of a gigantic company.”
Sycamore realized his hand was still on Lysandre’s shoulder, so he brought it away and gestured to the field.
“I think if anyone understands why she chose to live a quiet life out here, it’s you, Lysandre.”
Sycamore fell quiet and let his words sit with his companion.
—-
The sun set slowly, and at some point the two of them found a place to sit and just talk. It was a lot easier to connect outside of all the expectations they both carried at the lab. Turns out, they had a whole lot more in common than either of them realized.
Lysandre really opened up about his feelings. Working at the lab was actually just another way he found to escape, and find purpose. He admitted it was selfish, to which Sycamore refuted. If he was truly being selfish, he wouldn’t try so hard to please the scientists around him and accommodate them.
Sycamore empathized with Lysandre. For him, all he had to do was change his clothes, tuck his scraggly hair into a hat, and he would disappear into a crowd as just another man. Lysandre couldn’t. Sycamore could leave Kalos and completely change his life path on a whim. Lysandre couldn’t.
But at least, if Sycamore could do anything, he could be a friend. A shoulder. A confidant. Shelter.
They returned to that field many times as the lively spring dragged on into summer. They harvested and donated flowers to the town, interacted with the flabebe that in time grew comfortable with the two of them.
Shared a laugh at Sycamore’s poor, anxious Gabite, who didn’t trust the itsy bitsy little fairies at all, and ran from them when they snuck up too close. Lysandre’s Honchcrow loved to perch on top of the old house and heckle them.
One sunset evening in fall, Sycamore’s fingertips brushed gently against Lysandre’s chest as he finally gave him a kiss.
One cold night in winter, Lysandre’s hands tangled into Sycamore’s hair, too greedy to let go.
Lysandre felt such conviction when he touched Sycamore’s face, smelled his cologne. Sycamore didn’t ask anything of him because of his status. He didn’t judge, he didn’t try to manipulate him for his own gain. He actively tried to meet Lysandre in the middle when they disagreed on philosophy. But most importantly, Sycamore cared. He cared about him and he felt, somewhere in his heart, that no matter what, Sycamore would always, always care.
And that gave him hope. Lysandre hoped, deeply, even as his mind drifted to darker places and when his ambitions grew larger and larger, that Sycamore would still see him, the real, beautiful him, and care to preserve it.