Work Text:
sycamore
“I see you worried, see you hurried addressing the jury. Oh, how I wish you were innocent. You are hurting and it’s so magnificent.”
You’ve never been good at hiding your emotions, Lysandre. You burned so passionately when talking about your perfect world and now you are shivering in fear in this world that you didn’t want, and it doesn’t want you either. I wish you were innocent. I wish I could stand up like a righteous man and fight for you, prove to the jury that you have a heart. I know you do—could a heartless man have touched me so tenderly, smiled at me with such honesty, cared about his Pokémon so sincerely? You said I’m naïve for trying to see the good in everyone, and maybe you’re right. I should stop seeing the good in a man who thought I was not good enough to stay in his vision of a world. Yet I keep watching you and wondering: if a small part of you doesn’t regret all of this, then why are you so afraid? Is it me? You are avoiding my eyes, as if you are afraid of the guilt that will (hopefully) consume you.
lysandre
“Ain’t no fucking roses to our condition, don’t let them beat you into submission. I want to turn this anger into a nuclear fission.”
I am a torn man, and no sentence or punishment they could give me would come close to the torture I am going through right now—with you so close to me. Don’t think I am angry about this. I may deserve to die, but I don’t deserve to sit here. I cannot meet your gaze, Augustine, because it will kill me. I would break down sobbing like a child, and I may have lost everything, but I still have my dignity. I am angry, my love—not at you, not even at the world. I am angry at myself. The biggest punishment is that I survived and that you have to see me like this. Why don’t you hate me? I can see you staring at me with a twisted curiosity, and your stern expression is like a knife slowly piercing through my heart. Please kill me; I have been defeated.
sycamore
“Are we at war with each other? I don’t think so—I think you are at war with yourself.”
As I said, you are terrible at hiding your emotions. I can see all the loathing, all the hate in your eyes behind the fear. I know you don’t hate me, Lysandre. All of that anger is directed at yourself. You are at war with yourself; you have been for many years. Now it has resurfaced, and I wish I could have held you and kissed the pain away, but instead you walked away from me, so far I couldn’t reach you anymore. Even with your big frame and proud eyes, you are just a mere human wishing to change the unchangeable. You are nothing special—you are like everyone else. And that is OK.
Now tell me: should I tell them about the man you used to be? About the kind man who would give and give and give, or about his evil twin who woke up one day and tried to take everyone’s tomorrow?
“We could be fighting together, instead of fighting ourselves.”
During the whole trial I say nothing. Nothing comes out of my sore throat that did nothing but choke up sobs last night. We were such a good team, mon amour. It is a shame that I cannot hate you, because I so desperately want to. It would make things so much easier, but here I am—my heart is being torn to shreds by you avoiding my gaze. Give me at least the gratification of seeing you suffer. I will never understand what you hated so much about this world. We were making it a better place every day together. You had so many brilliant ideas about the future—we could have had a future.
“React, respond.”
Oh, please, look at me. React and respond like you did when my hands touched your body.
lysandre
“Yet what makes us different makes us the same. The best part I know is when we were connected.”
I finally look at you. I see your pain. You are so beautiful it hurts me deep inside; your cold grey eyes are unmatched to anything that I could ever imagine existing in my world. I know what we wanted was the same, but we are not the same person, Augustine. You see the good in people, and I envy you for that. I wish I could too. All I see is their greed and the despair they cause. I wish I could be more like you, and the irony is that I fell in love with you because of that. I don’t think I ever want to look away now. You bring out the best in me—still do. I want to stand up and scream, “Here I am, lock me up, I am not innocent!” but I want to look at you forever; I cannot let you go. Not yet.
Only as you break our eye contact when the jury is calling your name am I ready. I can become a better man, I promise. Even if you will never see it happen, I will make sure that everyone knows you were the reason.