Chapter Text
The thorns scraping against his raw skin, prickly and curved like sickles, were nothing in comparison to the fire raging inside his heart. Augustine Sycamore was a passionate man. Everyone who'd met him could attest to that simple fact. He pursued his interests with single-minded, unparalleled focus, pouring hours upon hours into his studies. When it came to others, Augustine loved hard. His mother had once joked that he could get attached to anything after he cried when she threw away his crude drawing of a Slurpuff.
Perhaps it was no surprise to find himself in such a position, then. Outside the room, back on the couch where they'd been talking, was Lysandre. He was a serious man, stalwart in his beliefs and dedicated to making the world a more beautiful place. Much of his wealth, accumulated though cunning business ventures and inheritances from relatives, was put toward charity work. Augustine had seen him around his Pokémon, scratching under the chin of his Pyroar just right until the lion Pokémon was practically a puddle.
You'd never know that by looking at him, though. Lysandre wore a sharp, fashionable suit in dark black and cutting orange, complete with a cravat and faux fur collar. His face was often in a permanent scowl, appearing more morose or enraged than neutral more often than not. When he spoke, it was with force, his volume only tempered by years as a successful businessman used to pitching himself. In short, Lysandre was intense and intimidating. It was easy to get the wrong picture about him, to peg him as somehow underhanded.
What a pleasant surprise it had been, when Lysandre had first paid Augustine a visit. He was new to being a Pokémon Professor back then, fresh off of his internship abroad with Professor Rowan, using his research into evolution as the basis of his own studies on mega evolution. Lysandre had been as intimidating then, though his hair had been slightly shorter and he'd yet to implement his now-signature faux fur into his fancy designer suit. He'd come by entirely on his own time to sit down and chat with Augustine, listening to his wild theories earnestly.
How liberating it was, to be seen; to be heard. Most of the world had never heard of mega evolution before, and so Augustine's interests were often met with confusion and a lack of recognition. It was enthralling to be able to sit down and talk about the things that had been brewing in his head for years, his conversation partner matching him in enthusiasm all the while. Falling for Lysandre was easy, terrifyingly so. Barely any time had passed, and before Augustine knew it, their talks left him coughing up bright red petals.
He mutely gagged around an unopened bulb as it tickled at the back of his throat, thorns dragging up the already irritated skin of his throat as it came up. This was merely another expression of his passions, another avenue through which his love could be known. The state of his own body should've been of more concern to him, but Augustine didn't mind. Should he confess, he would need to deal with what happened after, the inevitable relationship or destruction thereof. Besides, Lysandre was worth the bodily harm.
Instead of getting up, of swallowing back down those final petals with his blood until he was presentable again and leaving, Augustine lingered, arms on the toilet seat and head resting on them. How easy would it be, to get all wrapped up in daydreams of that man. The fiery hair that looked untamed, but used even better products than Augustine's own. That heavy gaze, discernible without ever needing to turn around and insure its presence. The crisp, clean-cut words that had no room for frivolities, but always made way for pleasantries.
Augustine's lungs burned, aching with the weight of his foolish, hidden attraction. A man like Lysandre was so far above him in too many ways to count. A millionaire, philanthropist, owner of his own booming business. He was descended from Kalos' own long-gone royalty, some final bastion of that old world clinging to the skin of the earth as it kept on turning. Lysandre was driven, dedicated, all the things Augustine had been called. But he was each of those things done right, with a narrowed focus and the guts to see things through to the end.
There were times Augustine wasn't sure if he truly had feelings for Lysandre, or if he only wanted to be Lysandre. His brief stint at the tower of mastery came to mind, that endless grind of training day in and day out grating at him until he couldn't handle it anymore. Surely Lysandre wouldn't have called it quits so soon. He'd have seen his goal through to the end, no matter what it took to get there. Augustine was a bit too flighty, too finicky, always flitting about and changing his mind and running when things got hard.
His job revolved around Pokémon, and he did truly love spending time with the fascinating creatures, but Augustine found that he wasn't very great at forming lasting bonds with them. The team he'd had for his Pokémon journey in his youth were hard-won, but only his Garchomp showed him any real affection. With the rest of them, it was more like they were co-workers than friends or allies. Despite his area of study, Augustine found mega evolution firmly out of his reach. He couldn't reach the bond he suspected facilitated the transformation.
It was… vexing. Answers could be so close, and he'd never know, sheerly by virtue of his own character. Augustine found himself equal parts drooling over footage of mega evolutions in action, and deeply envious of both the trainers and Pokémon involved. He'd tried to reassure himself. Just as Professor Rowan couldn't gain firsthand insight into Pokémon evolution due to being unable to evolve himself, Augustine shouldn't let his lack of firsthand experience get in the way of his studies. And yet, and yet… he found himself wondering.
Lysandre had no trouble with mega evolution. His keystone sat proudly in a silver ring he wore at all times, glittering with every color of the rainbow. Upon Augustine's request, Lysandre had even shown him mega evolution in real time, transforming his prized Gyarados, which he'd had since he was a child, into its mega form with ease. In so many ways, they were very similar men, but Lysandre excelled where Augustine struggled. There was a conviction inside the man that kept him running like a well-oiled machine.
Augustine had once been told that he was, quote, "A disgrace of a student who should give up on his doctorate unless he wants to find himself jobless and swimming in debt for the next thirty years." Now, he took that as a compliment, given that the college professor who'd bestowed upon him such a scathing review hardly said anything nicer to anyone else, but it still stung. He was 'too intense' for some people, but 'had his head in the clouds' to others and 'didn't know what he wanted out of life' to even more. It was exhausting.
In comparison, Lysandre was everything Augustine wished he could be. He was good with people and Pokémon, goal-oriented, constantly chasing his next business venture. Perseverance came in spades with Lysandre. But Augustine couldn't help but… pity the man, somewhat. Every so often, Lysandre would talk to him after another charity event, drained and somehow empty. As if the very act of giving sucked the life out of him, which was absurd, given what Augustine knew of him. Lysandre loved helping others!
But thankless jobs like those didn't pay anything, he supposed.
Sometimes, he liked to imagine helping Lysandre out of those funks. Augustine pictured him leading Lysandre away from the crowd, bringing him somewhere secluded and private. Or perhaps it would be after the fact, and they'd stumble their way into an apartment or hotel room after knocking back a few drinks. Augustine would cup his face and pull him in for a kiss, not letting go until Lysandre could smile again, until his eyes stopped looking so glassy. Things would escalate, hands roaming, touches lingering.
His breath caught on a new wave of roses, and Augustine ducked his head back down to retch them up into the toilet bowl. The sharp sting of the rose thorns only made his mind sink deeper, clinging to that illusion of having Lysandre, holding him close as they became impossibly close. The thought of such a scenario made his head spin, or maybe that was the oxygen deprivation. Either way, Augustine forced the scenario out of mind. He was perfectly content with the way things were between them. Nothing needed to change. It was fine.
All his heaving brought up a wave of bile, stomach acid searing against his raw throat. He bit back a whimper as the wave of pain passed through him, pins and needles and burning flame. When it at last abated, Augustine's mouth tasted both acrid and floral, a nauseating combination in both taste and smell. He weakly reached out and flushed the toilet. Eventually, his impromptu sessions of flower vomit were going to force him to call in a plumber, but for now, he let the issue lie. Perhaps that was how he and Lysandre would act as a pair; acidic and floral in harmonic discord.
A long sigh left his throat, the warm air sending shocks of pain through him. Another night of cold water and ice cream, it looked like. Augustine would put ice to his throat if he thought it would help, but that would cut off his circulation, unfortunately. Heaving himself to his feet, he took in the state of the room. Red petals were scattered across the floor, not so many to be gratuitous, but enough to take some time to clean up. Augustine grabbed some toilet paper, dabbing at the corners of his mouth to wipe off the remaining blood.
The clean-up had become routine. There was even a small broom in the corner of the bathroom, discreetly standing at the ready to herd uncooperative petals together. It took little time for Augustine to get the bathroom looking presentable again, any evidence of a flower-related incident wiped clean in record time. He studied his reflection in the mirror, wiping off any flecks of blood from his skin and running his tongue over his teeth. Augustine was so caught up in his efforts that be didn't notice that the shadow beneath the door disappeared when he turned back around.
---
Lysandre was dead. All that had happened in the last twenty-four hours, and that was somehow the most pressing piece of information Augustine was forced to wrestle with. Geosenge Town was in ruins, a massive crystalline flower-shaped machine lying crushed. Lysandre had been inside of it, beneath it, when it fired a beam that landed back onto itself. A ripple of energy had echoed across all of Kalos, and Augustine, who'd been fighting Team Flare trying to get out of Lumiose City, had been helpless to do anything more than watch.
That beam… Lysandre had fired it. He was Team Flare's leader, the brains and money behind the group that had begun gaining influence over Kalos across the last few years. On that Holocast he sent out, he'd admitted as much, said it plainly in his own words, and yet Augustine still couldn't bring himself to wrap his head around it. His mind couldn't reconcile the generous, passionate philanthropist with the raving lunatic who had broadcast to the entire region - maybe even the entire world - that he hated all but his most devout followers.
That he intended to end them all, one way or another, with the massive beam that had instead struck him down.
Augustine could barely breathe. He'd retreated to his apartment in a trance and turned on the news, feeling that gaping hole in his chest grow as the new channels covered the entire event. There were few casualties; when the Ultimate Weapon, as it was called, was activated and lifted from the ground, most had been able to evacuate Geosenge Town. Those that hadn't left mostly stood back far enough to avoid the worst of the debris as the machine destroyed itself. Though, that was of little reassurance. Lysandre's Holocast made sure everyone knew his intentions.
In a way, it was beautiful. The ancient machine shimmered and glistened like the finest of crystals. Like a rainbow, or a keystone, or fresh morning dew. But it was strewn about in pieces, haphazardly discarded. The beauty that Augustine knew Lysandre to love so much had wilted and died, at his own hands. If Lysandre were there to see it from the outside, he would call it a waste. Unfortunate. Augustine's hands shook. If Lysandre were there… Well, that was the problem, wasn't it? Lysandre wasn't in his apartment with him. He wasn't anywhere.
The rubble had been picked over in a mad dash to save any caught up in the blast, but Lysandre's body hadn't been found. It was nowhere to be found at all, as if it'd up and vanished. A part of Augustine clung to that, to the vain hope that Lysandre was secretly alive, that he was healthy and unharmed. Disgust brewed at the base of his throat, directed toward himself. What was wrong with him? Why would he wish for the wellness of that- that backstabbing maniac?! It was better that he was gone, surely. No more harm to cause.
But he was sad, and Augustine couldn't escape that. It clawed at him, sinking in fangs around his jugular, threatening to make him bleed out. A grief so vast and overwhelming that he could hardly suck in a breath. Tears streamed down his face, long-forgotten, locked on the screen as day turned to night outside. In his heart of hearts, Augustine knew Lysandre to be dead, and somehow, that was even worse. What about their talks, where both sides would entertain the other? What of Lysandre Labs, or his beloved Pokémon?
And what was he supposed to do with these emotions swirling around inside of him? Augustine lurched forward, coughing and choking. Familiar flowers wormed their way up his throat, thorns piercing straight into his skin. The sweet relief of his own delusions were gone, providing no barrier between the pain of the thorns and his mind. Every inch was torture, and Augustine couldn't help but cry a near-silent scream. The flowers fell to the floor with a wet slap, slathered in thick, viscous blood that clung to the entire length of them.
He froze. The petals… weren't supposed to be that color. His roses had always been red, deep and bold, a symbol of the passion he held in his heart for a similarly passionate man. Too passionate, he snarked to himself, in light of the day's events. Augustine reached down, blinking away his tears as he held a rose close to his face. It was hard to make out beneath the blood, but the color of the petals was different. Near the base they were still red, albeit dark. But at the tips, the petals had gone fully black. His heart stuttered to a stop in his chest.
Black roses. There were black roses in his lungs. Suddenly, it felt as though every inch of his body was lined with lead, and the rose slipped from his grasp, but not before one of the thorns snagged on his finger. Augustine collapsed against the cough, air firmly knocked out of him. That was confirmation, right? Black roses… Everyone knew what they meant. Such a solemn color could only evoke one image in the mind's eye. He'd known. Augustine had known, and yet the strength still bled out from his body slowly, gradually, until there was nothing left to give.
The world became nothing more than a blur. Noise ground down to indistinct buzzing, senseless and grating. He reached up, arms moving as though in slow motion, and put his hands over his ears. Stop… He wanted everything to stop. No, he needed it. Needed to be able to swallow down the blood in his throat, to hear his own thoughts. Augustine had to push away the irrefutable truth, shove it out of mind and out of sight. It was too harsh a truth, too brutal. Only a week ago, he and Lysandre had met in his café for coffee.
There was no way he could be dead. It was- like one of those corny movies that Diantha had told him she secretly wanted to star in, where a character was never really dead unless it happened on-screen. Somehow, sometime, someway, Lysandre would return to him… right? They had yet to find his body, even though they'd unearthed the corpses of a handful of his subordinates. Lysandre, who was at the center of the blast, should've been easy to locate. So, he had to be alive. There just wasn't any other option. It was simple logic.
Once more, Augustine felt thorns dig into the inside of his throat. He coughed around them, breaths hitching until he couldn't stop sobbing. The roses fell onto the couch beside him as he turned his head, their gradually-darkening petals taunting him. Augustine's face was a mess of fluids, blood and tears and snot all mixing together. He curled into himself, hiding his face in a nearby throw pillow. Gagging and sobs echoed off the walls of his apartment, a symphony of grief for him and him alone. His throat grew numb to the innumerable thorns that came up.
Augustine wasn't sure how long he stayed there for. When he finally didn't feel like a black hole collapsing in on itself, his face was caked in dried everything, skin irritated. Blood bubbled up in the back of his throat, the entirety of it scraped beyond all recognition. His couch was stained a dark red from too much blood, and when he tried to stand, his vision threatened to go dark and send him plummeting to the floor. Augustine braced himself on the back of the couch as he fought to stay upright. Each blink he took made his eyes sting.
Many more days passed like that. They all blended together, between the bouts of crying and the raging roses in his lungs tearing him up from the inside. It was a call from Diantha that brought Augustine back to his senses. One of the children he'd entrusted a Pokédex to, the very same one who ultimately stood against Lysandre and his sick plot, had beaten her, and was to be crowned the region's champion. He was needed at the ceremony. Augustine dried his tears and freshened up. He swallowed back the flowers in his throat. There was a ceremony for him to attend.
Elsewhere, far beyond Augustine's sight, a black and green dog Pokémon regarded a tall, ragged man with concern as he coughed up flowers whose petals slowly faded from a blazing, unyielding orange to a stark, milky white.