A/N: What if Cyrus wasn't the only one with no passion?
He was after professor Rowan, breathing hard and anxious with the thrill of a good deed done. Lucas trekked through the sand of the lakeshore, his sneakers becoming sopping wet, his forehead moist with cold sweat. It was a cold day; misty morning and crispy air, small piles of dirty snow by the side of the sandy road. He'd forgotten his scarf back at the lab, his mind sizzling with juvenile enthusiasm, because he would finally be doing his first field research.
It didn't matter he was being watched by professor Rowan. It didn't matter his throat burned with the cold breeze and with his effort. It would be his first step outside Sandgem, his first step into something like independence or a higher state of mind. He'd woken up before six and hadn't even managed to fall asleep, after. His father was proud, his mother was smiling, his sister was staring at him like she wanted him to go fall off a cliff, because it was too early for that racket, Lulu!
The briefcase almost slipped out of his hand as he tripped over a puddle, attempting to do his best not to soak his shoes further. He silently hissed, feeling both his throat and his pride burn. If he messed up, his first mission would obviously be a failure, and right before he ended it, too. Lucas raised his eyes to meet the road's end, and he sighed with relief at the sight of professor Rowan and – and –
"Ah, Lucas, you're finally here," the elder man said. Lucas frowned at him, because, well, he'd been the one who'd forgotten his research notes, and the pokéballs, too—and the research notes and that especially designed silver pen which professor Elm, from Johto, had given him, his pocket watch, which had been an anniversary present from Mrs. Rowan, and even – "I just ran into these two children. I believe they're around your age, hm, Lucas?"
The blue-haired boy blinked, feeling his cheeks flush as he quietly informed the professor that he'd forgotten his things. The man stared at him, almost as if confused, and then all doubt cleared from his face. "Ah, yes. Well, what are you waiting for? Provide these two with a pokémon, will you."
Lucas could almost feel his face drain of color as he leaned down to open the valise. Several papers went askew and landed on the soft ground, and the boy bit down on his lip as he leaned down to catch them surreptitiously, before the professor noticed. It was then he looked up to find the bright smile of a blue-haired girl –
"Would you hurry up? I can't stay here all day, okay!"
The two in front of Lucas were direct opposites, if it came to that; she was pallid, a shy thing with pretty eyes and meek voice. He was blond, loud, unafraid and unabashed. Lucas felt something tug at his stomach as the boy – who proceeded to introduce himself –, Barry, exclaimed about his love about pokémon, and about the girl's – Dawn – unconditional love for everything around her. The blue-haired boy felt himself flush: did that mean she loved him, too?
"I'll let you choose first, Dawn, because I'm a gentleman – "
Lucas' vision narrowed down to her eyes, her white skin, the contrast between the red of her scarf and the pink of her lips, and he could only focus onto the delicate fingers wrapped around the pokéball. At least until the professor called him out, and they headed back.
"Excuse me, folks."
He looked back five times, maybe more.
"If you'd chosen turtwig, we'd have the same pokémon!" His fantastic cheerfulness was completely out of place in the sterile lab. His dad looked at him from the shelves, half-preoccupied, half-aware, and Lucas looked away from his cold lenses. Dawn stared at him, her head leaning to the left as she blinked. "Well, not – not that it matters, of course."
He stared at her for the whole speech and the whole instructions-phase that Rowan would inevitably hand out to anyone even barely willing to chase after an impossible delusion – you be good and have this pokédex and I had a dream and … – and as he did so, he realized there was nothing about her he could find minimally imperfect.
"Do you really not mind helping me?" she said, softly, as if she was afraid that her voice would break if she spoke too loud. "It's not an emergency."
Lucas just shook his head as he went through, glancing at her when he thought she wasn't looking. The weather was clear but cold and dry, and her lips were chapped. Her nose was red. He wondered whether she had a cold, or was in the midst of developing one. He very well couldn't have that. Especially not with all these funnily-dressed people lying about. No – he couldn't have any of that…
He bit on his lip as he tried to think of ways to ask her if all was well.
They didn't know each other that well. It was unfair that someone who was just acquaintances with someone would care so much about that acquaintance. It was unfair and awkward, because sometimes he, well, he would rush too fast to help her, or he would stutter and spit out things that made absolutely no sense. And Dawn would always have that undecipherable smile, the affected grin that would never tell him whether she was fine or not fine.
"I'll do it for you, but only you," Lucas said, jokingly, but not very amusingly. Dawn hurried to his side and smiled at him. It was moments like those that made Lucas wish for some kind of dictionary of feelings, because seeing that uncomfortable manner of joy made him feel weird. The strange kind of weird – not the lovey-dovey kind of weird.
"It's just a coin-case, it's not something like …" and her voice faded out, softly, like candy cotton in someone's mouth; she was almost concerned, he could tell.
"My pokédex?" He struggled not to sound strained or angry, but – Dawn noticed, blinking at him without expression. Her eyes apologized to him, and like everything else she'd have given him, Lucas accepted thankfully, forgiving her in an immediate moment. They walked soundlessly through Veilstone's streets, him marveling at the blue sky and her just looking ahead. They were close enough that their hands touched; Dawn didn't look sideways like him, nor did she make a big fuss about his dry, bony fingers, and Lucas had never felt as flustered as he did then, all heated cheeks and neck rubs and mumbled apologies –
"Let's just keep walking," she murmured, not stopping.
She left him behind for a second, until he ran after her with more than urgency.
"Do you sometimes maybe think of returning home?" she asked him once, after he'd met her in Jubilife City. They headed to a coffee shop, because both were tired and slightly dismayed about everything. Lucas almost felt his heart stop; he remembered the cynical glance of his father, the annoyed frowns of his kid sister (because, technically, he was an assistant, and she was being teased in school about it), the quiet glances of his mother. He wondered whether Dawn knew, but then he remembered she was just a friend (if even that), and friends cannot read minds ever.
"Sometimes," he lied impassively, "What about you?"
She poked at her muffin with a plastic fork, and he knew she was trying to buy time. But, like all gentlemen, he pretended not to notice.
"Sometimes, I guess," she lied back, charmingly.
A year passed and he didn't see her again; but he heard about her, in the news, in talk shows. She was gaining fame at the same time he was struggling with faulty pokédex mechanics and elusive pokémon. Half the time (more), he'd just give up and head to the pokécenter, where he could sit down and watch the people come and go. Sometimes, they would show him his prized pokémon, but only if he'd ask for a battle; he didn't like to do that a lot, because he'd always lose.
He was living on pity. Most of the time, he would make some change because he would help the nurses. Helping the nurses gave him a chance to peer inside most of the pokéballs, even if most nurses didn't particularly like that he would do it—he didn't care. Lucas didn't really care. It was that, or returning home with an empty achievement, and he couldn't very well have that.
… Did he ever feel like going back home?
Would he ever feel like going back home?
There was no pleasing answer to those unpleasing questions.
Sometimes, he would start dialing her number, only to let it ring twice.
Then, he would hang up.
The next time he saw her, there was no tea. There was no cookies. No delightful scones with sliding hot butter on top, and jelly in the middle. There was not a tea house with polite windows and white curtains. There was no small banter with his awkwardness and her detachedness. The small walk through the city was gone and deceased, buried under Mt. Coronet's deadly weather. He was so bloody cold …
The world was in danger: there was no time nor disposition for love. His fingers stretched dangerously, breaking the space-continuum, and then returned to normal. He didn't notice – at his side, a Galactic commander coughed, aghast and disgusted. Dawn was the same; wearing a skirt in such cold weather still, the soft skin of her arms just outside of his reach. He trashed against the purple-haired woman who was trying to restrain him.
"Don't go in there!" Lucas shouted, his voice but a whisper above the whipping wind. Behind him, Barry – an acquaintance, the kind of acquaintance that he didn't care much for (not like he cared for her) – was jumping all over the place, scrapes on his face, tremors on his voice. "Dawn! Damn it, don't go in there!"
Her hair – a gorgeous kind of blue, contrasting against the white, gray sky – was wildly smacking back and forth, but she still didn't seem affected. He had never seen her afflicted by something, so he didn't know – he had no clue as to why Barry was so tormented. She didn't do as much as to look back as she elegantly climbed into the sucking black hole. Lucas could feel an elastic kind of pull on his bones as he neared; it nearly hurt, but then she was gone and everything was back to normal. He ran a hand across his face, fearing that somehow he had become disfigured or injured.
Then he remembered; she was gone, jumping inside a scientific aberration without even looking back at him … In that moment, he knew they wouldn't ever be the same. But he didn't know why she was like that, and he didn't like it. Lucas fell to the ground, and didn't even wince when he scraped his knees, hard.
Behind him, someone started hyperventilating. He closed his fingers into a fist and then breathed, ignoring the wet, hot tears falling through his cheeks.
She returned unscathed.
The same wouldn't, however, apply.
"Where's Cyrus? What happened to him?" he asked, once he'd been checked by all the experts, all the doctors, all the nurses. She hadn't complained once; he knew mundanely affairs didn't concern her. He knew she was there – not for him, but for something else. The bend of his elbow had small punctures, from the IV drops, from the blood tests. Lucas didn't know why he was the one being examined, when the girl before him had returned from a nightmare with nothing but another pokémon.
Dawn looked up from her lap, almost as if surprised that he hadn't forgotten what had happened … before. The incident was a taboo. What had happened to Cyrus? What had happened to her? Why did he want to know so bad? Was this still love or something far sicker?
"He stayed … behind."
Lucas felt a pang of something at the feelings in her voice. She felt more emotional over a sociopath – a world-killing, mass-murderer sociopath – than she did about him. The bitterness of it made him smile. Dawn noticed, and held his hand with a sad frown, intertwining his fingers. She stared at their hands like she was witnessing something confusing and absurd. He wanted to shout her, tell her that everything would be alright, that he would fix her –
And only then did he understand. She'd wanted to stay behind, too.
Sometimes, they would meet and talk about before (when she became champion, when he got out of the hospital, when they understood that life wouldn't get better). There would be scones and lemonade and tea, with silver forks and beautiful napkins. The smell of fresh bread in the air, small white curtains around the windows. Perfection.
"Cyrus was the only one who understood."
"But," Lucas started, and let the words die in his tongue.
I tried to. Isn't that worth something?