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Anyone could cry. Anyone could feign a wince, wrist grabbed by a grunt proving they’re worth their Épice Noire. Anyone could say they’ve forgotten, as who can prove otherwise? Anyone could dress themselves up as weak.
The man Corbeau knew five years ago did nothing that didn’t serve him. This act—the simpering amnesiac—must be picked apart, meat pulled from bone. Corbeau refused to be kept in the dark. Never again.
Though, Corbeau shook Lysandre a hundred different ways and the truth had yet to tumble out. Did “L” have to bleed to prove his authenticity?
No.
“Do you realise,” Corbeau began, staging his own lines, off book, “how many lives you ruined irrevocably?”
He went on, describing the ripple effect Lysandre’s actions continued to have on innocents and sycophants both, sparing no detail. People afraid to leave their houses. Others left desolate, unemployable. Some fleeing Lumiose, unable to walk the same streets a man like Lysandre had, the city tainted by his ghost.
After Lysandre vomited on the polished floor, he drew a wretched breath, clutching his stomach, and managed a broken, “I…”
A dry heave interrupted whatever he was about to say next, and Corbeau stared, eyes wide, at the trembling proof of vulnerability. Guilt and pity tangled in his guts. Heat gathered under his armpits and high on his cheeks. There was something else, though: an itch Corbeau didn’t know had plagued him since Lysandre limped back into his life. And oh, he wanted to scratch it.
He pulled his handkerchief from a pocket, the magenta silk matching the wet lining of Lysandre’s lower lip.
“Clean yourself up,” he said, tossing it to him.
~
Corbeau needed further proof of vulnerability, so he scratched the itch until it bled, scabbed, then tore anew.
Just making sure. He was just making sure…
He asked Lysandre to kneel before him, steeled his expression when he did, sinking obedient yet unstable down onto those damaged knees, (offered access to his private physician who’d help with that pain.)
He encouraged Lysandre to drink up after explaining what was in the tea, watched him come apart in all the ways he’d said he would, (held him during the sweaty comedown, stroking his silver hair.)
He asked Lysandre to strip just to see if he’d question it, (handed him better clothes to dress in once he was down to his underwear.)
He pressed Lysandre to keep eating, plate upon plate of rich food piled before him, buttery meats and creamy desserts his stomach wasn't used to, (rubbed between his shoulder blades when he inevitably couldn’t keep it down.)
He mocked the flaccid swing of Lysandre's cock while fucking him on all fours, thinking only of the man he once was, (but breathing “L” into his nape as he finished inside him.)