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Bravern stood outside the TS hangar, alone. How he wanted to proclaim to all who would listen of the incredible, unfathomable feeling he’d experienced with Isami. Their wills, their souls, combining as one, the knowledge of them together being an unstoppable force. It had all led to this moment. Even if anyone were around to hear him, they could never understand. And yet something troubled him. That still human part felt…worried. Where do they go from here? For the first time since his second birth, Bravern doesn’t know. He doesn’t know what the last Death Drives pose. He doesn’t know what awaits them in Europe or in America…home, something pings inside him, as if he were about to forget something. Lewis Smith’s home. Honestly, he didn’t have much of one anyway, not since his parents died. Not since he abandoned all ties to what remained of his life to become the hero he dreamed of being. The one that was always there. The one that would save everyone so no one else would have to die. So no one else would be alone like he had been for so long. So alone until…
“Bravern? Have you seen Isami?” a voice called to him, breaking from his train of thought. He looked to see Miyu and Hibiki standing near him, concern painted on their faces.
Isami. He shook his head. “Miyu, Hibiki, unfortunately, I have not. He requested a moment to himself.”
“If…if you see him, could you tell him it’s…It’s Lewis’s…” Miyu wiped at her eyes and Hibiki held her close. “He…should go to Smith’s memorial.”
Oh . “I will find him.”
“Are you going to go?”
Bravern looked into the distance. “I would be a distraction.”
“He’d want you there,” Hibiki said. “He thought you were amazing.”
Bravern smiled as sympathetically as he could. “I will find Isami.”
He waved reassuringly as the two women left and then relaxed his posture. Lewis Smith’s memorial. Well, it was fitting. He did die, after all. Sure, he’d been reborn, but he couldn’t tell anyone that. They wouldn’t have believed it and things wouldn’t have happened how they should. He and Isami wouldn’t have been joined in the most euphoric of ways…but now…should he tell them? Should he allow them to mourn someone who wasn’t entirely gone? He didn’t have the answers. This was uncharted ground.
“I’m not going,” he heard. Isami! He looked around to see Isami leaning against the wall of the hangar. “If you want to tell them, then whatever, but I’m not going.”
“Isami, they are only worried about you. They know how close you…”
“Shut up!” he yelled. “What do you know? What do they know!?”
“Isami...”
Isami bowed his head. “I can’t go. If I go…If I go, then I’m saying goodbye and I can’t do that. Not yet. We haven’t…” he clenched his hand into a fist and held it over his heart. “We haven’t finished saving the world yet. We promised. So not until we’re done. I can’t until then.” He heard Isami’s voice crack as he spoke. Isami rushed toward Bravern and leaned face first against his foot. “Why couldn’t we save him?” he cried. “Why didn’t you want to save him?”
“It couldn’t be helped.”
Isami pounded on him with his fist. “You didn’t even try. It was like you wanted it to happen. Nothing has ever been impossible with you. So why this!? Why did I have to lose him!?”
Bravern had a growing concern that there would never be a good time to tell him. But oh, how he wanted to. Smith isn’t gone , he wanted to say. He’s here. He’s a part of me. I’m him. I’m with you. I love you. I became this because I love you and I am never leaving you, my soulmate . Isami would hate that. He was mourning and revealing the truth now when he could have and should have far earlier would cause more pain than he already had. Isami was suffering and it was his fault.
“You’re being awfully fucking quiet,” Isami sneered. “What's wrong? Don’t you have something to say? Some stupid platitude that sounds like it’s from a sentai show?”
Bravern shook his head. “Lewis Smith was a good man. You are in mourning over the loss of your partner. I want you to be able to…”
“Partner, huh?” Isami said with a small, sad smile. “Is that all it is?” He looked up into Bravern’s face, that sad smile morphing into something resigned and defeated. “You’re nothing without me and you know that.”
Where was this coming from? “We’re more powerful when we combine, Isami. I thought that was clear.”
“You’re nothing without me,” he repeated. “Just like I’m nothing without him. Do you understand?” Isami turned his face away and clenched his eyes shut. “Tch. How could you? You’re not even human.” Isami pressed his forehead to Bravern’s foot again. “He was my hero,” he said, voice so soft, it almost didn’t reach Bravern’s auditory receptors.
“ Isami… ” I should have told him. How could I now?
“Bravern?”
“Hm?”
“Can I…can I come in?”
“You know you don’t have to ask, Isami.” He laid his palm open on the ground for Isami to step on and lifted him up to his cockpit. Euphoria filled him as Isami stepped inside. “Is there somewhere you wanted to go?” he asked, materializing Isami’s pilot seat, eagerly awaiting Isami’s touch.
“Is that all you can make?”
“I’m capable of a lot, Isami. What do you need?”
“I don’t need to pilot,” he said, sitting at the edge of the pilot platform and folding his knees up to his chest. “I just want to be here. When…when we combined to form Burn Bravern I…felt like he was here. Like he was with me.” He brought the heel of his hand to his eyes. “I want to feel that again.” Bravern said nothing and Isami continued. “Why me? Why did you choose me? Why not him? Being the hero that saves everyone was his dream. Not mine.”
“Don’t speak like that, Isami. You are a hero. That’s why our souls resonate as one. That’s why we can combine. That’s why you alone can pilot me.”
Isami didn’t say anything more for a while and the mood he was exuding filled Bravern with sorrow. He’d caused Isami so much pain, so much anguish. Because of him, Isami had been tortured and his mental health to barely hang on by a thread. But it was the only way things could be. If he hadn’t become Bravern, Isami would have died. Lewis would have likely followed, and Bravern wouldn’t be there in the first place. All of humanity would die. He hoped one day he could make Isami understand.
“I don’t know what you’re keeping from me, Bravern,” Isami said at last. ”I can’t fully trust you because of it.”
“When the time is right, I will tell you.”
“I hate when you’re cryptic.”
“I know, but I am here to help you, Isami,” he said. “I will see that you fulfill your promise to Lewis Smith.”
Bravern could hear Isami cry again. “I was right. I can still feel him here.”
I’m right here, Isami. I’ve got you. You’re in my heart. You’re in my soul. Without you, I’m incomplete .
“Can I stay?”
“Of course, Isami. I will keep you safe inside me as long as you want.” He wanted to hold Isami and never let go, and having Isami inside him was just as fulfilling. All of him surrounded Isami, binding them together. He wondered if Isami could feel it too. “For what it’s worth, I am sorry about Lewis Smith.”
Isami only sat in silence. His sorrow flooded through Bravern. There had to be more he could do or say. Perhaps he could help him relax. “Isami? Stand for a moment.” Isami did so and the pilot platform dematerialized and a bed formed in its place. “Is this more comfortable?”
Isami nodded and laid down in a fetal position on the bed, cradling one of the pillows in his arms and staring at the HUD in silence.
“Is there something you want to see?”
“ The Abyss,” he said after a brief pause.
Oh, so he wanted to distract himself? What a simple ask. “Theatrical or Special Edition?”
“It doesn't matter.”
“It does, Isami. The entire meaning of the film changes with the ending.” Lewis Smith had had this debate multiple times in his life and stood firm behind the Special Edition.
Isami paused and Bravern felt his pulse increase briefly before it calmed and he asked, “Which do you prefer?”
“This is for you, Isami.”
“Just put one on,” he snapped.
His memory recalled the film and started displaying it in its own popup. He could feel Isami’s tension start to dissipate and his attention focused on the movie and apparently nothing else. Disassociating. Trusting Bravern to protect him as Isami lingered outside himself for two and a half short hours. The Lewis Smith part of him couldn’t help but take in the movie. It was his memories of it, after all. Even in this moment, seeing the recollection of a film they both enjoyed, he felt connected so profoundly to Isami. For a moment he imagined himself human again. That this wasn’t some bizarre, near magical cockpit from some anime. That where they were was a living room of their shared home. This was them together, breathing the same air, sharing the same space and experience. There was nowhere else in existence he would rather be. There was nowhere else he could possibly exist than with Isami. I should tell him.
“Hey, Bravern?” Isami asked.
“Yes, Isami? What do you need?”
“Thank you, for this. You…you make me feel safe. Just like he did.”
“I will always be here for you, Isami.”
Bravern felt Isami squeeze the pillow - part of him - close. “Please don't leave me.”
“I won't.” He could feel and interpret Isami’s vitals when Isami was inside him, and felt nothing but pure calm as he felt Isami drift into sleep as the movie continued to play. He formed a blanket over him. “I love you, Isami,” he said once Isami was deep enough in rest that he wouldn’t hear.
“I love you, Smith,” he muttered in his sleep.
I need to tell him.