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1) It's an immense honour - and people will be jealous.
You're twenty-nine when you get the call that you've been appointed the Pokemon Professor of Kalos. For the first minute or so, you're completely speechless - then you let out a yell that makes you glad that you're home alone, and do a dance around the room that definitely makes you glad that you're home alone.
It takes about five minutes for absolute elation to turn into sheer terror, admittedly, but that's only to be expected. The regional Pokemon Professor... You have a doctorate, if you taught at École Polytechnique Lumiose, you'd be able to call yourself a professor anyway... but the title means so much more than just being a highly qualified teacher. It means recognition, it means the ruling bodies that overlook the international trainer system has chosen you, of all the scientists in Kalos, to be the public face of the entire region.
You tear up a little when you tell your nearest and dearest, and they don't begrudge you your tears of joy.
You're still glad they don't see the ones from later when you hear what some of your peers have been saying behind your back.
"Brainless prettyboy." "Just trying to sex up the region." "Probably blew his way to the top."
You set your jaw and take revenge in charm and false smiles, in taking that reputation for being pretty and inoffensive and shaping it into your armour, in throwing yourself into your research so that no one can ever say you didn't earn this.
2) The first time they call you Professor, you won't immediately realise they mean you.
"Yo, Professor!"
It's just some guy on Southern Boulevard, someone who has apparently recognised your picture from the paper (the paper! You were in the paper!) earlier in the week. You're on your way to the labs for the first time as The Official Pokemon Professor of the Kalos Region (you're not sure the capital letters will ever wear off), and the man is still smiling before you realise that he's talking about you.
Yeah. That's you, now. The Professor.
He chuckles knowingly, perhaps guessing from the slightly dazed expression on your face that it hasn't quite sunk in, and wishes you all the best, and you continue down Southern Boulevard with a spring in your step and a grin on your face.
3) You won't be able to stop smiling for a week the first time you step into your new labs.
There is a sign out the front that says Sycamore Pokemon Laboratory and you're pretty sure your face is about to split in half from your smile as you step through the front door.
There's a shiny new research space - well, not that shiny, your budget isn't bottomless, but it's clean and decently equipped and it's yours, yours and the researchers that are now under your employ, and you've worked side by side with them and now you're technically their boss, and it's a little overwhelming, honestly.
But you know these people. You know they'll help you adjust, and you're determined that you'll continue to see them as equals and peers, no matter what your title.
Out the back is a Pokemon habitat, and you want to lie down in the grass and gaze up at the glass ceiling, basking in the warmth. Instead, you settle with sitting, one of the resident Azurill bounding over to inspect the new professor, and you're fairly sure this will be your favourite place until your co-workers suggest you check out your new office.
You have your own office, and you line one wall with bookshelves and cover all the spare spaces in paintings, and one side looks over your city straight down Vernal Avenue to Prism Tower and the other looks out over your garden, and there's a comfortable armchair in the corner and a phonograph you bought with your first ever pay cheque and then had to live off instant noodles for a month to afford it. When everyone clocks off for the day, you dig out one of the records you've bought with you and dance on your own, arms held out to an invisible partner, and thank everything that has brought you here.
4) You're a public figure now – kiss your private life goodbye.
The first time you're interviewed for the paper, your mother calls up and says she cut it out and framed it.
The second time, she says the same.
The third time, she laughs mareepishly and says that maybe she won't, this time, you're going to be in the papers a lot, dear, and she's going to run out of wall space.
You go out for lunch with your sister, and a photographer snaps a photo and claims that you're spunky superstar Diantha's new mystery man!, and you return to the lab to find the tabloid article cut out and framed in the break room and your co-workers teasing you good-naturedly, and you sort of want to gag a bit at the idea but you're honestly also amused.
(Diantha gets her publicist to call up the tabloid and point out, first, you're not a mystery man, you're the regional professor, and second, you're her twin brother. They don't do it again. ...Mostly.)
It's bizarre being a public figure. You spend more time than you ever have making sure you look presentable when you leave in the morning, just to ensure that you're not photographed looking like the walking dead. You find yourself learning to appreciate back streets and tiny cafes where they don't know you, and only have lunch with Diantha at Cafe Soleil when you're both feeling up to the inevitable scrutiny.
You learn to make eye contact and how to make small talk easily and how to keep still when talking to others, collapsing in your armchair when you're safely back in the office to unwind, or else go out to the Pokemon enclosure to check up on, train, and play with the Pokemon there and burn off the excess energy. Your reputation eventually settles on the 'eccentric' label, which is a socially acceptable enough replacement, and you learn to shape your public persona around yourself, to let them see only what you want to see.
Of course, it's more than a little frustrating when you find a very red cafe and its very red owner and promptly lose your heart to him.
"Professor Sycamore," he murmurs, and you feel your cheeks go the same colour as the walls.
"Call me Augustine."
And it would be extremely nice to be able to walk down the street holding your eventual boyfriend's hand, but your relationship is just another thing you have to hide, but perhaps...
Perhaps, one day you'll be brave enough...
Perhaps...
5) Raising baby starters is as heartbreaking as it is rewarding.
One of the best things about your new job is getting to raise baby starters to hand out to new trainers.
One of the worst things about your new job is having to say goodbye to the baby starters you've raised to hand out to new trainers.
It feels a little like how you imagine children moving out to feel like, and you have to curl up in your armchair with the door locked and music playing the first time you give away a little Fennekin to a wide-eyed and joyful new trainer. And you wonder, will the trainer know how he likes to nap in the sun? Will they know that his favourite berries are Pecha berries and he startles easily at loud noises then tries to attack the source, and will they find that spot right behind his left ear that makes the little Fire-type practically purr?
It gets easier, it gets harder. You restart the Pokedex program when you're thirty, choosing two ambitious teenagers to travel through Kalos and collect data along with their new starters. You keep in touch, you see how their Pokemon grow, and you find yourself missing seeing how they change by the day.
The first of your students brings back an injured Gible one day, after he's finished his journeys through Kalos with his Charmeleon and has taken on an assisting role at the lab, and you name the Gible Artemis and practically treat her as your own child, and it's not so bad after all.
After Alain comes Sina and Dexio when you're thirty-one, and they become full-time assistants as well. They name themselves the Defenders of Kalos; you get them a pair of snazzy masks and scarves. Sina takes to it with alarming enthusiasm; Dexio mostly goes along with it.
Your little lab family starts to grow.
6) Along with your private life, you can say goodbye to to your free time.
You have a scheduled catch-up with one of your students; Lysandre is conducting job interviews at the cafe.
You have a meeting with some of the lab's financiers; Diantha is in another region on a shoot and won't make lunch.
You have a sick baby Chespin you need to keep an eye on; Lysandre is working overtime on a major Holo Caster glitch.
You have an article to write for the daily paper; Diantha has challengers to face at the Pokemon League.
You fall asleep at your desk after pulling an all-nighter to finish a paper; you arrive home to find the dinner Lysandre made you cold and him asleep, still clothed, on your bed, and you're too weary even to undress beyond taking off your shoes and watch, burrowing under his arm, and immediately falling asleep again.
You wake up with the pre-dawn light stealing across the room when Lysandre finally stirs himself, and it's a blissful hour before you both need to get ready for your respective work, but, Arceus dammit, it's been far too long since you've actually been able to just spend time with your boyfriend. You manage to catch minutes, perhaps an hour at a time, you manage to drop by the cafe for a coffee and - if business is slow that afternoon - maybe even some conversation, and your relationship manages to fill in all the gaps left by your work, stolen moments all the sweeter for their rarity.
The Pokemon League closes for a week while they enact repairs on the electrical system, and with no movies currently in filming, Diantha drops by your labs every lunchtime for a full consecutive six days, and you manage to catch up on your twin's life for the first time in approximately a year.
It's a good job, a valuable job, but you miss them. You miss your sister, you miss your boyfriend. You miss sunny Saturday afternoons and lazy Sunday mornings, and you wonder how long you can go on before you pass out from exhaustion.
You keep going.
7) You can help your students in more ways than just setting them on their journeys.
Somehow, you have a knack for choosing neurodivergent students. The five you choose when you're thirty-three are certainly a varied group - Trevor is definitely autistic, Shauna is either autistic or has ADHD, you're fairly sure that Tierno, like you, has both. Calem is quiet and driven and you're a little taken aback by his sheer ambition, but knowing his parents means it's not too much of a surprise, and Serena, the newcomer to Kalos, is still an unknown figure.
She's a superb battler, though, and you watch the Fabulous Five set off and have a feeling that they're going to change the world.
It's not bad, supporting these kids. You can text advice to Trevor over his Holo Caster about how to cope with sensory overload when staying in the Pokemon Centres, can relate your interest in Pokemon biology to Tierno's interest in dance and dancing moves. The way Shauna moves around a room reminds you sharply of yourself at her age, and you catch familiar insecurity beneath familiar cheerfulness and vow to keep an eye on her.
(When you mention to Lysandre one evening that she had been looking unsuccessfully for a Moon Stone for her Skitty, he only smiles. The next day she calls up on the Holo Caster, full of excitement about the Moon Stone someone had left for her at a Pokemon Centre, and you get the feeling that you're not the only one who has started to refer to them as 'your kids'.)
And when the love of your life starts turning passion into extremism, when his dark moods alarm and frighten you and you can see him falling away from you, you straighten your back and turn to the children to stop him and to save him.
8) In times of crisis, you will have the influence to change things.
Lysandre makes his announcement, and you want to run to him, to beg and to plead for him to stop, to come home to you.
Lysandre makes his announcement, and you curl yourself into a ball under your desk, crying, panicking, hyperventilating, hands clenched so tightly in your hair you're almost pulling it out at the roots.
Lysandre makes his announcement, and you dig your nails into your arm and rock back and forth as you ask why, why, why. Why weren't you brave enough? Why didn't you ask him what he was doing, why didn't you stop this?
Why?
Why?
Why?
Lysandre makes his announcement, but you've already sent Sina and Dexio to investigate.
Lysandre makes his announcement, but you've already told Serena and Calem and Shauna to keep their eyes open.
Lysandre makes his announcement, but you've already contacted Tierno and Trevor and directed them to route ten.
Lysandre makes his announcement, and you straighten up, wipe your tears away, and get to work.
9) Just because they're your students doesn't mean you can't learn from them too.
Lysandre is alive, in hospital under armed guard, and bound for (best case scenario) psychiatric treatment that will take his state of mind into account.
Serena is shellshocked. The saviour of the world, certainly. But shellshocked.
Calem and Shauna, Trevor and Tierno, Sina and Dexio, they're tired, worn down by their race to help Serena and stop Lysandre. Shauna is very quiet as you check up on her at the Geosenge site; Sina and Dexio have not let go of each other's hands.
And you're...
You're...
You're planning a parade to thank them for all they did to save the world (to stop Lysandre). You're letting your footsteps carry you through Couriway, through the town you were born and raised in and the town where you quietly, shakily apologise to Serena for your weakness, for your cowardice.
You battle her, and she wins, and her conviction lets you move on for the day, to give you strength enough to plan the parade and award her the highest honour, and she's a child who has been put in a position where she never should have had to be in and it's all. Your. Fault.
You find yourself in Geosenge, feet dangling into the pit, gaze fixed on the rubble where they dug Lysandre out from. Why had he done it? Why is he now lying in a hospital bed, having to adjust to his broken body, why will he now have to face trials and examinations and possible imprisonment?
Why couldn't you stop this?
Serena approaches silently; you don't notice her until she sits down beside you and follows your thoughtful gaze. "The worst part is," she says, "I think I could see his point. Same with Shauna and Calem. He's not wrong, he just..."
"Went about it the wrong way?" you suggest wryly.
She nods once, and asks you what he's like, and you tell her.
She's silent once you finish, and you find yourself watching her curiously, this child with her battle prowess and the determination that helped her save the world.
"I think," she finally says, "Once he's better... I think he really will save the world. And I want to help. So do Shauna and Calem and the others. And..." She looks at you, long and thoughtful. "And I think you will too. He needs you, right? I don't think you realise that you were helping him all this time. I think that's why he didn't end up doing it in the end. Why he gave me the choice. He could have just made sure I never got the key and activated it and I wouldn't have been able to do a thing, but he gave me the chance to stop him because of you."
She blows a strand of hair out of her eyes.
"He wouldn't have ever hurt you, I think. I think he was desperate and scared and sick, and he couldn't have made himself stop, but he could help me stop him. He's gonna need you, Professor. And then I think you're both going to do amazing things."
For the first time in a week, you manage to properly smile.
10) This is your life now.
And your life goes on.
Serena and Shauna and Calem and the rest of your brilliant and brave students excel in whatever they choose to do. Calem eventually defeats Diantha and begins his new career, starting as a trainer in a gym. Tierno moves to Unova to study dance professionally; Trevor and Serena start university to learn how to make tangible changes to the world. Shauna strikes up a proper friendship with Lysandre, and you watch with a smile on your face as her good cheer helps to restore his optimism. She's become a part of your family, they all have.
Lysandre gets the help he sorely needed, still confined to the hospital but healing, recovering, learning to channel his passion into ways to genuinely help the world. Those members of Flare that truly believed in his goal of saving the world from inequality and a lack of resources begin programs (once they're released) to help prevent hunger, or homelessness, or a lack of education and training and opportunity, and the rest... well, you can't really say you're too disappointed that Xerosic ends up in prison.
And you return to your labs.
You turn thirty-four, you choose new students to travel Kalos with a Pokedex and a starter.
You research new developments in Mega Evolution, guiding the students of yours that choose to make use of it.
You work hours that are probably too long, you take back streets for a bit of privacy, you fall asleep at your desk. You race Pokemon around the enclosure, you dance in your office when no one is looking, you coo over each new baby starter and watch with sadness and pride as they set off on their own adventures.
You are Augustine Sycamore, Pokemon Professor of the Kalos region. You're thirty-four, you're gay, autistic, and have ADHD and there's nothing wrong with any of those, you visit your boyfriend in hospital, you see your sister whenever you can, you bury yourself in research, you send brilliant kids on their way to see the world, you find happiness in consuming your body weight in coffee on a weekly basis and sunny Saturday afternoons and in seeing the world remade into a better place, build on foundations of passion and love.
And you wouldn't give up this life for anything.