Chapter Text
“Sena, do you believe in aliens?”
Leo’s hanging his head off the edge of Izumi’s bed, tapping bare feet against the wall to a song still trapped inside his head. Izumi peers at him from the corner of his eye, pencil gone still over a worksheet of half-finished English translations. Leo’s similar worksheet lays discarded and long forsaken on the floor.
“That’s-” his pencil lead breaks, one moment of pressure too long, “-where did that come from, idiot?”
He watches as Leo flips over onto his stomach, head resting in his hands, “It’s important, okay? Scientists everywhere are counting on you.” He blows a puff of air at the bangs that fall against his forehead and it does something funny to Izumi’s stomach.
“...This is irrelevant.”
“Or-!” and Leo’s eyes are dew dropped mint leaves, suddenly wide. “What about werewolves? Or soulmates? True love? The end of the world? Vampires? Ah! Does that mean you think Rei and Rittsu aren’t real? Sena, that’s terrible!”
“You never make any sense, I swear, and stop jumping to conclusions-” he starts but Leo’s already moving on.
“I believe in allllll of them. Probably.”
“Probably? ”
Leo suddenly nabs his forlorn worksheet, scrutinizes it for a split second before flipping it over and promptly starts scribbling on the back. The song must’ve finally come to him. Izumi watches him while he has the chance, unobserved and unguarded, lingering on the slight furrow of his brow, the tiny tip of a candy pink tongue stuck out in concentration. When his eyes flicker up to Izumi’s it’s enough to make him jump.
“Hm?”
Izumi gets his wits back fast enough to shoot back, “Nothing. You’re just...leave me alone. You’re weird.”
“Hahaha! I don’t really want to hear that from you, little Sena!”
He growls and stuffs his nose back into his homework, not thinking much of aliens or love or the apocalypse, forces his fingers to curl into the letters, once, then twice; The soldier marches into battle, The soldier marches into battle.
\\\
Izumi has never liked the sea.
He goes only once, a family vacation a few summers before he joins the program. The memory leaves him with a sour tinge in his mouth, a twisty ache. Most of his time there’s spent under umbrella cover, a layer of sunscreen and thin long sleeves as extra protection, a command from his mother to stay under cover. It’s funny to think of it now; treating his body as some holy thing, something to be preserved in frames and glossy photo paper.
Their town is one of rivers, small streams and ponds and shallow, muddy rice fields. They spent hours under leafy tree cover, dipping in and out of tiny pools and silver fish springs with their white school socks in hand. Arashi complains, always, about her shirt or shorts being ruined when Leo smacks his palm too hard against the muddy water surface, sniffling against Izumi’s shoulder while Ritsu dozes on the sunbaked riverbank rocks. Tsukasa doesn’t join them until they’re almost out of grade school, puffing out his tiny chest to fill his big kid shoes, fingers permanently curled against Arashi’s sleeve for months before he can keep pace with the rest.
Knights: that’s what Leo starts to call them one day, picks up a twig and calls it a sword. They weave a wreath of weeds and call it a crown, Leo traces a heart and a bow on Izumi’s arm and calls it their coat of arms.
His childhood is a normal one, extraordinary in its commonality, nothing that he would take a second glance at if the world hadn’t begun to end without warning while in the middle of it.
The ocean is hot, roiling, unfathomable; far away from Leo’s matchstick smile, so brief and bright Izumi’s afraid he’ll miss it, away from Ritsu’s sleepy teasing, Arashi’s golden-colored kindness and Tsukasa’s wide, earnest eyes. It’s away from where he feels wanted, where he wants to belong. Because he’s prickly and bitter, and none of them seem to care about his emotional whiplash or sharp tongue. For Izumi that’s enough for the ocean to earn a rightful distaste.
He has a feeling the sea might swallow them whole, one day.
\\\
The aliens invade on a Sunday; the Sunday after he and Leo sing together for the first time. The first time Leo writes a song about Izumi Sena.
The first song that makes him wonder about the word devotion, the pawing ache in his chest and the impulse under his skin when Leo smiles, all crooked, all his. It’s bittersweet and warm when Izumi hears his own voice nearly crack, Leo’s ridiculous, manic laughter, the scramble against the borrowed microphone and recorder. They’re lucky the school happened to have one in the first place, old and used as it may be. A relic from their parent’s high school days.
“This is stupid,” he wants to say, shove it in Leo’s face like an i-told-you-so, but the temptation to sing is too much to resist. His voice is rickety, stuck somewhere between childhood and adolescence but it works for their first song; awful and clunky as a beginning to anything might be.
“You’re terrible!” Leo shouts between uneven guitar strums, “Keep going!”
For him, Izumi does.
The breach busts through their childhood the day before Izumi’s turns fourteen. He watches it unfold clustered around their modest kitchen table, tiny television perched on the counter fading in and out of reception, the jumbled rushed voices of news reporters over the distinct noise of crumbling buildings.
It’s all very still, in their paper maché house with their breakable bodies, eerily quiet when his father trails in late from work saying the trains are all at a standstill, that there’s too many people trying to get away.
They have cousins in Tokyo. His mother calls seven times and no one picks up.
Leo climbs through his bedroom window late that night while the world sleeps fitfully, still only wearing his thin pajamas, acting on impulse when he ran through the four backyards that separate their homes and straight into Izumi’s lap. Izumi tosses his comfiest and cleanest sweatshirt at his face as soon as he notices the goosebumps down his arm.
“You’ll catch a cold if you keep this up, stupid,” he mutters, watching Leo quickly pull it over his head, practically bouncing with energy. His hair comes out static-y and Izumi fights the urge to comb it down with his fingers.
Leo smiles, disgustingly happy, “Why should I bother when I know you’ll keep me warm, Sena?”
It makes Izumi backpedal, only for a second, his retort more out of habit and practice than intention, “B-because it's annoying.”
“Aw, Sena, you’re stuttering!”
Izumi throws the nearest pillow with deadly accuracy into Leo’s laughing face. He falls dramatically onto his back, groaning and coughing, “A kill shot...and after how much I loved you...betrayal is so bittersweet-”
“I’ll kick you out, you know. This is my house-”
“Hey, hey,” Leo shoots back up and wiggles closer into Izumi’s personal bubble, and he was pretty damn far into it to begin with. “Wanna hear our new song?”
Izumi glances between the gentle quirk of his mouth and glint of Leo’s eyes through the darkness; so much like summer green in the dead of winter. He knows he’s fighting a losing battle.
“Sure,” he mumbles, letting Leo nudge one bud into his ear and nestle into his side, their legs tangling together with the sheets and gentle blue of Izumi’s nightlight.
“By the way,” Leo whispers warm into his shoulder, “Happy birthday.”
\\\
Things get harder, after that.
There’s no benchmark shift, no Before or After to tab their life into sections with when the kaiju begin their assault on humanity. Everything continues, much as it had for as long as Izumi could care to remember; his parents go to work every day and while his ballet instructor takes a leave of absence even she comes back, eventually. Izumi still knows Leo’s room like his own and Arashi still falls asleep on his shoulder when a shoot goes too long. He still dislikes spicy things. Tsukasa still spouts English that none of them completely understand.
It borders on disconcerting, how the more things change the more they stay the same. Life rolls, ceaselessly forward, one stream of mundane everyday-ness punctuated with the occasional destruction of a major city, the death of 12,000 people on the coast of California.
But eventually they start to hear the rumors; of recruitment, of fifty ton towers of premium grade steel, of something called the “jaeger program”. The climate begins to change from hopeful despair into blurry optimism that they’re no longer sitting targets; that one day the warning sirens will go silent. It becomes all anybody can talk about soon enough, whispers skittering down the halls and excitement pressed between folded notes passed under desks.
By the time Sakuma Rei returns to his hometown that spring, the rumor is a full blown legend.
The first time Izumi see’s Ritsu’s older brother since middle school isn’t at the gate around the corner from his house but at their school assembly, placed carefully at the head of the stage with co-pilot Hakaze Kaoru in tow. Izumi gives Ritsu one hard look once they’re all seated, watches the way his fists tremble, fingers tied in knots around his sweater sleeves. He doesn’t know the whole story; it’s an obviously tender spot that even Izumi doesn’t push into for fear of getting his hand chopped off.
Rei’s been gone since they were first years, apparently without a single word to his dear little brother, not even so much as a goodbye. Izumi can’t say he understands but, abandonment is a fear that looms low and steady in the back of his own mind, an anxiety he doesn’t dare touch.
The presentation is charismatic, convincing, the story of a path that only the brave and righteous-hearted may take. A worthy cause, the beginning of the end, a hero’s journey out on the Pacific against the odds. Kaoru smiles and half the room falls under his spell. Izumi, personally, thinks it’s all bullshit. Glory paintings are never as deep as they like to think they are.
Everyone’s buzzing with the excitement of it for weeks after, and Izumi watches Ritsu’s victim count pile up as the ones who ask him about Rei quickly learn not to. Luckily there’s Mao, when Arashi and Leo aren’t around to fend off questions, Mao with the sun under his skin and to-do lists scribbled on any blank space he can find. Izumi isn’t sure what to think of him.
Maybe some things have changed, after all.
\\\
“Sena.”
The school roof’s blustery today, pulls at their one-size-too-big clothes and Izumi almost doesn’t catch it when Leo throws his name against the breeze. It had become their new spot in the past few months but he’s starting to think the approach of winter might force them back inside before too long.
“Mm.” Izumi picks at his bento halfheartedly, splitting rice grains to give the illusion he’s eating instead of just playing with it.
Leo stares down at his half-eaten anpan like it holds a whole other universe, then shoves 3 bites worth at once into his mouth. Izumi tries not to laugh at the opposing forces, of Leo’s serious eyes and chipmunk cheeks. He’s still biting it back when Leo turns towards him, determination set in every inch of his pale and fine-lined face.
“Let's become pilots.”
Izumi does laugh now, lets it peel through the air until Leo growls and grabs his hand and grips it tight enough to maybe break a finger or two.
“Sena, listen to me.”
“Ow ? Let go, you-?”
“I’m serious right now!”
“Fine, fine, but my poor hand,“
“We’re knights, aren’t we?” He’s closer now, pining Izumi in place with the mere hold of his gaze, splintering emerald and forest fire smoke. The wind ruffles his hair and Izumi swallows down the lump in his throat that might as well be his heart.
“It’s our duty.”
Izumi wants to counterattack; we were kids, it’s impossible, that’s stupid, something might happen to you, we might never come back again. The reasons all sit on the tip of his tongue, an arsenal, but-
Leo twines their fingers and stands up, dragging Izumi’s arm with him, hairpin smiles when he says, “I know it’s only a selfish king’s request. I know that, but, please. Come with me.” He squeezes where their fingers interlock, and Leo’s no more than a 160 cm but suddenly he’s a tower, a strong rooted creature that makes Izumi bend. It’s all he can do to smile and bow in respectful defeat.
\\\
“You might die.” Izumi stares down his nose at Leo sprawled on his bedroom floor, looking entirely unconcerned with the composition sheets around his head and Izumi’s socked foot against his chest. They’ve had this conversation a million times over in the past few months, but the looming verge of graduation over them is an incentive to have it a million times plus one.
“That’s true,” his look is so very far away again and Izumi has to stop his mouth from twisting in frustration. Decent conversation is hard to have sometimes, when Leo starts to drift. Sometimes it’s like Leo looks straight through him, at some distant horizon that Izumi doesn’t have the capacity to see.
“I might die, but, y’know,” he drums his fingers over the matted floor, tap tap tap tap, “I figured if I could die fighting monsters with you, then it might be worth it!”
\\\
They all go together, more or less. He and Leo apply at the same time, his sudden interest enough to grab Izumi by the chords of his conscious and tug him along, fairly willing. Arashi gets scouted by a recruitment officer in their last year of high school, and Ritsu’s already gone to the Shatterdome by then, tracing and smudging over his older brother’s footsteps to hero status in half the time. The only difference is, Izumi knows that bitterness drives Ritsu more than any promise of fame or good deeds done ever could.
Tsukasa trails behind them a year or two, tripping and dashing to keep up. Izumi lacks the empathy to pity him; even he isn’t that cruel.
But Tsukasa still sees them off at the train platform when they leave; him and Leo with a backpack and one spare bag, Arashi with half her wardrobe and the 2 suitcases to prove it. Her little brother hops from one to the other while her parents hug each of them goodbye, Leo’s parents following suit. It’s painfully obvious Tsukasa’s trying not to cry.
It’s strange, when he’s the only one with nothing to show. No picture worthy family presentation of affection. His parents had kissed him at the door, stood together as he shut the gate to his childhood home and set off down the sidewalk; he could be leaving for summer camp, or a club trip, or a new spring fashion spread across the cover of Non-no. It doesn’t feel any different to him, not yet, anyway.
Maybe it’s the same for his mother and father.
Ruka shows up barely in time, huffing and out of breath, school stocking slipping and wrinkling down her calves. The three small talisman clutched in her hand serve as an explanation, carefully meting out each into their outstretched palms when she asks for them.
“For good luck!” Is all she says, and Leo picks her up and squeezes so hard she squeaks. Arashi looks like she might cry right now, definitely will when they’re on the train. Izumi says a thank you, tries for confidence and reassurance when the tears prick at her eyes, the same vibrant hue of green.
Her brother’s eyes.
\\\
Arashi’s the first to leave them. It’s not surprising when they tow her off after a few days in the Shatterdome’s shelter, and she cries again, faintly and closed lip against Leo’s shoulder, dabs her smudging eyes with the sleeve of his shirt. Izumi hugs back, reluctant and prickly. They’ll see her soon enough, anyway; the world isn’t ending tomorrow and there’s no need to act as if it is.
The room assignments are random, but Izumi switches spots with a boy with steel glinted eyes and obsidian violet hair past his shoulder blades to be with Leo, per his request and Izumi’s compliance. There’s two beds in their room but Leo climbs into Izumi’s on the third night without a word, curls against Izumi’s back like it’s what they’ve always done. They don’t talk about it. Izumi doesn’t mind.
The lessons are all theories of chaos and worm holes and deep space time physics that he knows Leo tunes out after four sentences or less. It’s fine; he’s more than willing to listen enough for both if it means it’ll save their asses later. Luckily the classroom and chalkboards don’t last long; what their brains are capable of is only a prerequisite for what really matters – what their bodies can do.
Nito Nazuna is 160 centimeters of swift kicks to the shin and anger, staff an extension of his slim arms that seem to reach to high heaven. He sends them all face first into a mouthful of mat at least once before they finally get to pair off on their own, nursing their bruising shins and bruised pride all the same. It’s a rite of passage, to survive Nazuna’s kwoon room.
They’re paired in rotations and six turns later, a few freshly blooming red scrapes and sheen of sweat finds them face to face.
“How-“ he thrusts the wooden metered staff forward, down, away, the crack of it splitting against his ears, “How are you-“ Leo jabs and lunges sideways, skims the side of Izumi’s ribs, burning, “-so good at this?”
“It’s like…” the tip of his tongue peeks out in concentration and he lands a solid blow against Izumi’s thigh in his split second of distraction.
“It’s like writing music with your body!” Leo manages, swinging a strike aimed for Izumi’s knees almost too quick to dodge. Almost.
well doesn’t that just fucking beat all he thinks, skidding back on his heels and rushing Leo again and again until neither of them can catch their breath.
\\\
“You’ve been approved,” is what Hasumi Keito says to them when they’re called up to the main control room late one afternoon, after another whole day spent nearly beating each other to death. Leo’s rocking back and forth on his toes, as if he has a premonition, waiting to preemptively jump with excitement. Even after Nazuna’s careful observations and critiques, skin sticky with exertion and clothes clinging to their sides, Leo’s still a loaded gun, ready to fire, red-hot where he grabs Izumi’s hand and squeezes behind their backs.
“We would like to test your compatibility.”
\\\
Leo’s mind in the drift is about as predictable as it is outside of it.
At first it’s invasive, stifling even, after the first initial shock of mind melding passes over. Like stepping into a pair of shoes that don’t fit quite right, being inside another person’s head is an adjustment, and Izumi finds himself stock still while Leo fills in all the space around him, blots out the stars and makes them a new sky. He’s always been better at that; creating and building, songs and doodles and Izumi’s expectations alike.
It takes a few seconds, or maybe minutes or hours. Time doesn’t matter in the drift, but eventually Izumi realizes that Leo’s going through the exact same thing: drowning in Izumi’s tendrils of memory and thoughts and emotions. They’re parallel sinking ships, breaking out and over the surface for air only to breathe in more of other, foreign feelings.
Izumi can’t see Leo, not in the physical sense. He can’t reach out and run his fingertips across his cheek but he can follow the idea of him, a thread that links them together. it’s ok, it’s just me, don’t worry, you know me. and i know you. trust me. Leo’s everywhere and nowhere and Izumi gropes blindly in the dark, searching for anything to latch onto. i trust you.
do you trust me, sena?
When he opens his eyes it’s into green and cerulean, a patchwork of soul and mind and body to make a single whole. Leo’s so bright when he tilts his head and stares Izumi square in the face, breathing synchronized and he looks so sure, so certain, this is right, it’s not a mistake. His heart pounds a strange percussion symphony, hurts when he lifts to meet Leo where he is, neural handshake coursing between them.
i trust you.
\\\
It’s early one morning when a quick succession of knocks comes at their door and jolts Izumi awake from where he’d fallen asleep stretching on the floor. Leo jumps out of the bathroom almost immediately, still only half dressed and Izumi’s about to yell put pants on at least when he swings the door open to reveal Itsuki Shu. Needless to say, it’s the last person either of them might’ve expected to see that early, let alone on the Ranger’s side of the dorms.
Leo leans against the doorframe, tilting his head. Shu looks like he’d rather be anywhere else besides standing outside their door.
“Kiryu wants to see you.” He folds his arms, expression already turning more distasteful by the second.
Leo must be in a good mood because he hums, teasing, “Oooh. What for?” and Izumi vaguely wants to smack him upside the head but the stretch in his thigh muscles is too good to pass up.
“Do not ask me, you fool. I am only to escort you to him.” His speech is stiff, speaks of hardback raising coupled with a type-A personality. “And please put some pants on.”
Izumi sighs when he finally swings his legs back to normal sitting position, draws himself up to standing and nabs the nearest pair of sweatpants he can find laying in their laundry hamper. He stuffs them at Leo’s chest and pretends not to see him beaming when he fumbles and slips them on. It’s become a habit he doesn’t think about anymore; making sure Leo’s properly clothed.
Shu scrutinizes him next, narrows his eyes and tightens his arms across his chest. Izumi’s used to being stared at, picked apart and dissected; he can handle one fragile ex-Ranger with a superiority complex.
“Lead the way, then.” He gestures lazily and something in Shu clicks into place, turning down the hallway at a speed walk without so much as a second glance spared between them.
The trek from the pilot dorms to the Shatterdome’s main body is long and winding. Leo stays close, their shoulders brushing and steps in sync. Normally, if it was anyone else, it might be irritating, but his annoyance refuses to spark today, damp from where Leo and lack of good sleep steps against the fuse.
Izumi’s only ever seen the hanger in passing. A glimpse of sparks through a closing doorway, passing by the wide windows that line the top floor hallways, a lookout over the hanger’s thousands of meters of space and sound and metal.
It’s even bigger than he could’ve imagined, unthinkably open aired and crowded all at once. They both have to keep gaping at a minimum to stay with Shu’s clipped pace, ducking and weaving in and out the pathways carved by technicians and mechanics in their everyday rut about the place. He stops them with an abrupt raise of his hand next to what appears to be a jaeger’s left foot, raised and locked into place by an apparatus of steel and cranks.
Shu clears his throat, loud and obvious. Leo’s head keeps tilting farther and farther back, following the line of the ceiling all the way up. Izumi flicks his nose.
“Kiryu.”
There’s a slight shuddering, the roll of wheels, and then Kiryu Kuro’s head appears from under the jaeger’s massive appendage.
“Oh. Good. You found them.”
Kuro’s six feet of hard striped muscle and gruff edges, dark eyes always narrowed and body pulled tight ready to spring. His hair’s a streaked back mess from running his hands through it, some refusal to clip it back away from his eyes.
Shu sniffs again, brushes some imaginary dust from the front of his work shirt. “You say that as if you had doubts.”
“No doubts intended.” Kuro swivels out completely from underneath the jaeger, stretches to his full height and wipes his hands on his pulled down jumpsuit. “Thank you, Itsuki. I can handle it from here.”
“Hmph. Obviously.” and then he’s gone, without so much as a second glance spared.
They both watch the empty space where Shu once stood for a few seconds, a few seconds too long, apparently as it prompts Kuro to add, “He doesn’t like crowds. Or people, really.”
Izumi raises an eyebrow while Leo nods, still looking around, probably creating his own world in the confines of the hanger’s walls. He watches from the corner of his eye, the flickering movement of perpetual creation behind Leo’s own green gaze.
“Anyway,” Kuro pats an open palm against the panels of steel beside him, glances between the two of them and the jaeger’s looming profile, meters and meters above them. “What do you think?”
“Of what?” Leo’s reply is almost immediate; it must’ve killed him to be that contained for so long.
“Lionheart.” There’s the faintest smile on Kuro’s lips when he says it, “She’s all yours.”
Izumi’s still focused on Leo, watching for the tiniest flits that pass over his face, configuring, disbelief, excitement. Then everything suddenly snaps into place.
Leo’s sprinting ahead of him before Izumi can so much attempt to grab at the hood of his jacket, instead nearly tripping over his own feet to keep up with him when he races forward, turning sideways to squeeze through narrow spaces, mouth gaping. Izumi keeps glancing up, back and forth between Leo and the jaeger. Their jaeger.
“Lionheart …” he breathes the name into the air like a prayer, brings his hand up to a midnight blue black armor panel, tracing the gold outlines with the ghost of his fingertips. It towers over them, and Izumi cranes his neck to look into its jagged cut face of silver and steel; where their control center is. A smile curls at his lips and it feels dangerous, this explosive kind of happiness.
He catches Leo’s reflection in the cold tempered, inky steel, snatches his wide-eyed gaze and fights the smile that threatens to crack his face. He registers the faint echo of it, Leo’s excitement, tingling under his skin and brushing up against his own, sparking warm in the pit of his stomach.
“This is only part of the reason I called you both here.” Kuro’s leaning up against a table piled with tools, eyes quiet and level, somehow magically slipping back behind them without notice.
“Tetsu,” Kuro’s voice echoes over the drill and hum of human and electric activity alike. A black spike of hair pops up from behind a workbench, unidentified streaks of coal stripping his sharp face. He trots over, casting only a glance their direction, a little weary, a little awestruck.
“Find that mad dog and tell him we’re running hydraulics testing on Eclipse in fifteen minutes. Nightwing needs to be ready for transport by tomorrow, just in case. Oh, and-“
‘Tetsu’ is already scampering off, an ossu! thrown over his shoulder and skid of his sneakers the only confirmation he’d heard anything at all. Izumi swears he hears Kuro mutter a good enough, I guess, before turning his full attention back to them.
He watches Leo flit around Lionheart like it’s the most amazing thing since steamed rice. Not that Izumi isn’t thinking the exact same thing. He just, knows how to control himself. Then Kuro’s gaze suddenly flicks to Izumi, all analytical and warm. It’s a strange dichotomy.
“I’ll take on your drivesuit designs myself. It’s always easier if we’ve met the pilots in person.”
Leo throws his hands in the air in victory, spins on his heels and catches himself on Izumi’s elbow. The question burns behind his throat, claws its way out even though he knows it’s undeserved; they should be grateful for the chances, for the fortunate opportunities. But something tells him to ask nonetheless.
“Why’re you doing this for us?” It comes out rude, more curt than he intended, but it’s not as if Izumi has a stellar reputation to uphold anyway. He can afford this, if it means the answer is what he believes it to be.
Kuro’s thoughtful expression shifts carefully, near imperceptible. “The commander is interested in you.”
A molten rock sinks its way slowly into Izumi’s stomach, Leo suddenly pulled to a point, narrowed in on Kuro’s response. He seems to realize it sooner than most. Izumi’s a little impressed.
“But, I’m also interested,” Kuro continues, an attempt at assuagement, “It’s been awhile since I’ve seen Rangers that look death in the face the same way you two do.”
He huffs under his breath after a moment and shakes his head, “Everyone’s eyes are on Sena and Tsukinaga.”
\\\
Their first drop in Lionheart is like learning how to walk again. Second-nature, an adjustment, but less jarring and more reassuring. Like they belong there with an iron second skin, cruel curving titanium blade locked in Leo’s fist, a set of freezing water reactors embedded in Izumi’s palm. Lionheart ’s built to stop and gash, two sides working wholly to create a fiend. They are cold and tempered and when they initiate the handshake Izumi feels like he’s won the world in a snow globe.
The twins brief them on the transport fly over, a city down the coast only a few minutes away with their speed.
“Our information says it’s a cat 3, but it’s large enough to be on the border. Be careful.”
“Sorry to dump you here alone on your first run, but the labs really want a sample of this one, and you’re one of the few who can do it!”
“Don’t speak too soon…” he feels the need to answer.
Yuuta and Hinata, respectively, parry back and forth, almost impossible to distinguish.
“That’s quitter talk, Sena! No quitters in my jaeger!”
“Hey, it’s mine too, idiot.”
That earns them a laugh, from someone in the control room. Glad his casual exclusion from ownership is amusing.
“Tsukinaga-kun, Sena-kun.” Eichi’s voice finally creeps over the line, drenched in honey, “I look forward to commanding your performance today.”
Something passes over Leo’s face, only there for a flicker of a second when Izumi glances in his peripheral. A hidden rumbling; thunder and purple storm clouds under his skin. But it’s gone before Izumi so much as opens his mouth.
“We’ll be in your care then, Emperor,” Leo half growls and Eichi’s breathy laugh is hardly a whisper.
“My knights will be upset if we don’t come back safe, after all!”
“Roger that, then.”
unnecessary, Izumi saves his words with a disgruntled look.
Leo’s smile goes wide, feral, nope! definitely needed!
“Coming up on your drop zone. Ready?” Static bursts through Yuuta’s line, a definite sign of foreign interference.
“Permission to smash its head in and send it all the way to Saturn?” Leo says, and Izumi can almost see him grinning, wild and lovely right next door. He doesn’t turn his head to look, keeping his gaze trained ahead but the mental image is infectious; Leo’s thoughts spilling over into Izumi’s at a hundred miles an hour: pork buns, monsters, Sena!, ocean, excited, Sena, love, love, I love you-
Hinata laughs into both their ears, lighthearted sing-song a little too cheery for steaming guts and kaiju blue, “Permission granted.”
“Ready to drop,” Yuuta chimes, right on time.
Izumi’s pulse goes sticky in his veins, thundering down to the tips of his toes and he knows Leo feels it too. It’s a rush of blood to the head that’s almost dizzying when they take their first titan step onto the city’s broken tar black asphalt and click Lionheart ’s vorpal blade into place, singing.
\\\
By the time they make it back to the Shatterdome, pinky-linked and flushed proud, Arashi’s halfway through a bottle of sake and a retelling of their childhood stupidity. The crew and rangers all crammed into the mess hall and into the soft worn benches; a victory celebration fit for heroes. Or something like that.
They fit their way in, snug between old friends and acquaintances. Izumi draws back, tries to withdraw into the quieter outer reaches but Leo’s hold on his wrist doesn’t falter when he sits between Arashi and another softer faced recruiter, patting the empty space next to him. Izumi grumbles and sinks down, too tired and damp with sweat to fight it.
Arashi’s launching into another story this time, much to everyone else’s encouragement. Souma, the stiff bamboo stalk of a boy is nodding along attentively to every word she says while Adonis combs through his waterfall hair with his fingers, absentmindedly. Tsukasa weaves his way through to bring them all cups of tea and Hajime follows with bowls of rice and heaps of tamagoyaki. It’s the only reminder that it’s in fact middle of the night morning, the twilight hours after midnight and before dawn. He idly runs his fingers up and down Leo’s thigh to stay anchored, watches him scarf down food like he’s starved while Izumi eats with a quiet efficiency.
He doesn’t bother to look up until he hears his name, comfortable in Leo’s meandering wake of noise and colorful explanations. Of course, as always, Arashi doesn’t plan on letting him drift by unscathed. It’s rare that they can all be together like this and yet she’ll still find the time to poke at Izumi’s ego when he’s not looking.
“Why don’t you tell us a story, big shot Mr. Ranger?”
He takes a sip of tea, peers at her over the edge, “I’m not obligated to say anything.” Then again, “Unless you want me to tell them about the time you actually kissed a frog thinking it would be a prince. Remember that? How old were you, fourteen?”
She gapes at him unceremoniously, even earning a soft smile from Adonis, the implacable marble god statue. He raises an eyebrow, a challenge. It feels oddly like coming home.
“Izumi-chan was such a sullen, miserable child.” Arashi starts as if nothing happened, swipes another coat of clear polish over her pinky, drawing back to admire her handiwork. She must’ve started them while Izumi wasn’t stabbing the remainders of his food rather than eating it.
“Anytime he didn’t want to do a shoot he’d make me bail him out. Totally not cute at all. All he wanted to do was dance and hang out with Ou-sama.” A pause, “He also couldn’t tie his shoes until grade school. I had to teach him.” She blows a stream of air over her nails and he can almost see it in her eyes. Checkmate, Izumi-chan.
He narrows his eyes between her serene smile aimed at him and the tiny clear bottle, calculating the effort it would take to knock it from her hands. Sometimes things call for a change in tactic, instead.
“Don’t talk like you’re my mom or something, Naru-kun. Grosses me out.”
Leo, who’d been tying his jacket drawstring in knots suddenly decides to join the conversation again, “Sena just hates fun sometimes! Right, darling?”
“Excuse me?” he tries not to choke and effectively fails.
“A joke! It was a joke! Don’t pinch me, okay, I get it!”
Mao hides a laugh with a poor excuse of a cough against Ritsu’s shoulder, tightening his arms around him when Ritsu stirs but doesn’t wake. It’s new, seeing them close like that, and makes Izumi feel like he’s missed something important in the yearlong gap Ritsu had ahead of them.
“But Leader, you weren’t much better either,” Tsukasa pipes up from between Tori and Hajime stealing bites of his cake, Tori needling and poking his side until Tsukasa’s pout shifts from Leo to him.
Leo gasps, all mock shock and embarrassment when he leans dramatically across the table as if to reprimand him, “I was a perfect child, thank you very much. The role of my sister’s prince and my knights’ king was a lot to handle before you’re ten years old. I think it was…” he stops, mouth twisting in concentration and Izumi practically braces himself. “I think it was marvelous.”
His English is a cheap copy of Tsukasa’s smooth accent, achievable only through pure imitation. It’s enough to make the whole table burst into laughter, Hajime giggling soft and pink into Tsukasa’s shoulder while he turns an impressive and stuttering shade of red.
“I’ve been mocked…by Leader,” his mouth moves but barely any sound comes out, and Leo’s undignified look only makes everyone else’s chuckling grow.
“C’mon, Suo, I worked hard on that! You don’t appreciate my efforts?!”
And so it goes. Arashi quips at him but it lacks any bite, Ritsu wakes up enough to steal his cup of tea and stir everyone more. Tsukasa fetches his chess set and loses twice to the gentle-aired recruitment officer, Yuzuru, in back to back and surprisingly brutal matches.
Leo’s leaning hard against his side by the time morning comes, distractedly playing with the drawstring of Izumi’s jacket now after effectively tangling his own, chin resting on Izumi’s shoulder. The room’s slowed now, most trickling off to sleep a few hours before their shifts start or an alarm sounds. Izumi feels like he’s become rooted to the spot, entirely too exhausted to move without an incentive.
“Think they’ll want us to do a press conference tomorrow?” Leo nuzzles closer and starts to tug on Izumi’s sleeve, tracing the ribbed cuff and the edge of Izumi’s palm.
He heaves a sigh. “Probably. It’s part of the job, isn’t it.”
Leo hums. When he’s like this, tired and tamed it’s almost enough to convince Izumi there’s a normal human being hidden in there.
“Tired?”
He watches the soft bob of ginger hair against his shoulder when Leo rubs his cheek against the jacket’s thin fabric. His hair’s getting longer now, even when he pulls it back the tip of it still reaches around and tickles the edge of his clavicle. I should offer to cut it sometime, Izumi thinks, hazy.
“Don’t touch my hair,” Leo mumbles, nestling closer like he’s trying to become one with the sleeve of Izumi’s jacket. Then he jerks up, a delayed reaction, and they both stare wide-eyed at one another, blinking in mixed shock and relief.
“Did you just-?”
“Yeah.” Leo’s a little breathless, pink dusting from the tip of his nose and across his cheekbones. “Woah.” Then after another moment, do it again!
\\\
Kuro had warned them about this.
It starts with the haircut, him catching bits and pieces, just scattered fragments of Leo’s thoughts when he’s close by, stronger when they’re side by side. The first time Izumi’s having a staring contest with his curry when Leo reaches out to tuck his hair behind his ear and yells PRETTY right into their headspace; it makes Izumi throw his spoon across the table. It happens again when Leo rolls his ankle during a run with Tsukasa and Izumi feels the twinge of it back in their room.
The ghost drift is like sharing an apartment, Leo in one room and him in his own with a connector in between; one he could never truly step out of. It’s an adjustment but, then again, he’s always wanted to know what Leo’s thinking.
“What’re you looking at, idiot?”
“You, silly Sena.”
Sometimes it creates more problems than it solves.
“...why?”
“Because you’re..good looking? No that’s, not it – hm. Because you’re beautiful?”
“Aren’t those the same thing? You idiot,”
“Eh? No way! Being beautiful is special! It’s like an extra prize that only the genetically fortunate win! Haha!”
Izumi shuts his eyes and sniffs.
go to sleep
don’t wanna!
He pushes a heap of exhaustion across their drift, like a test, just to see if it’ll work. Leo strikes back with a cacophony of sound, turns up the volume of his thoughts to blast through Izumi’s window. He opens his eyes to slits and does his best to glare while Leo chuckles behind his hand.
“So,” since he won’t be sleeping anytime soon, “-you just like looking at pretty faces, then? Is that it?” It’s another test, a dip of his finger to tests the waters.
“No!” Leo starts and clamps his mouth shut, gears spinning in his head and thoughts churning in Izumi’s direction, a projection. Izumi gets brief glimpses of Arashi sleeping, Ritsu smiling and Tsukasa pouting, his own face a thousand different ways, light and shadow, frowning and smirking. The world according to Leo.
“What the hell,” is what he barely manages, trying his best not to sputter at how clear it’d been. How Leo had practically shoved it in his face.
“I think you’re beautiful and like looking at you because I love you, Sen- mpfh-”
Izumi’s pillow comes down over his face three times, each accompanying a growing volume of something he could only describe as giggles.
“You can’t say stuff like that when we’re in bed together, stupid!”
“Sena, don’t be so scandalous, what will people think?!”
“We’re the only ones here, dumbass.”
And Leo’s suddenly everywhere, his arms thrown around Izumi, knees against his thighs, face buried in his neck. “Exactly! I have you all to myself!”
Warmth curls up all around him, wraps scalding tendrils around his arms and his chest, anywhere close enough for Leo to touch.
get off he thinks, without any real force. His palms are cinderblocks, heavy when they land on the dip of Leo’s shoulder blades, the small of his back. The force is there; the force to push him off, push away, away, away, but it’s snubbed out as soon as the thought surfaces.
don’t think so!
Leo’s resting his cheek against his chest now, gazing up like Izumi’s strung the world together.
don’t do that, he tries to shut the door between them, hoping he’s alone, it’s not fair.
\\\
It isn’t. Leo doesn’t play by the rules, even if he won’t break them. He’ll bend and find loopholes and make his own, but never break. It’s a practice Izumi’s slowly getting the hang of after all these years, too.
happy.
He casts it across the tiny space between them one night, side by side, tip of his finger tracing the delicate lines of Leo’s upturned hand. They’re both exhausted, sated after days of no breach activity: a category 3 with twelve pairs of eyes and as many rows of shark teeth to match. It’d taken hours, memory turning hazy with sweat and sea spray but he remembers finally sliding Lionheart's blade through the thick of the kaiju’s skull, Leo bowling him over only half out of their drive suits and kissing his face all over.
that was amazing! we’re amazing! you’re amazing, Sena!
He tries to compartmentalize it, happy, an unfamiliar word that stings when he reaches out to touch, sours in the back of his mouth when he tries to say it out loud. It’s never been quite right; sitting impatiently in his throat like it doesn’t belong there.
really happy.
It’s embarrassing already, a silent admission in their private headspace and yet it still feels like a violation; a pact they signed years ago to never let things go this far.
Leo’s breathing steady and quiet, asleep, maybe, and Izumi contemplates grabbing his shoulder and shaking him awake, hey? did you hear me? did you know you make me happy? happier than anyone in the world? did you know-
me too
Izumi inhales so sharp it’s needles in his lungs. Leo cracks two tired eyes, corner of his mouth pulled up, and his voice is well worn with exhaustion, warm and barely a whisper.
“You make me really happy too, Sena.”
He’s feels raw and overexposed, busted open with all his filth and dirty deeds clinging to the curve of his rib cage, nowhere to hide, nowhere to run. Leo nabs Izumi’s hand where it’s stilled against one of his thin knuckle lines and shuffles in closer, bringing the flat of his fingers to rest near his lips. Almost, barely close enough to touch.
\\\
“You’re coming with us when we drop tonight.” Ritsu says over breakfast, head still planted firmly on the tabletop, cup of tea growing cold beside him. If Izumi didn’t know any better he’d have thought he was sleep talking. Mao had carried him in, spotted Izumi and made a beeline, dashing back off with a lingering touch on Ritsu’s cheek and throwaway thanks in Izumi’s direction.
“What for?” It’s too difficult to tuck the annoyance in his voice away at six in the morning. Not as if Ritsu minds, anyway. They each have a few kills under their belts now, comfortable enough to sit in the canteen without the same edge of apprehension as the first couple of months brought.
The shrug of his shoulders is an absolute bare minimum of effort. “Maa-kun told me to let you know. Ecchan’s orders.”
Something about the Emperor’s name, even in cutesy Ritsu nickname form, stirs a swirl of unease into his morning coffee, makes it harder to swallow down.
“Ah.” Ritsu starts, stops, maybe thinking better of it. “Suu-chan and Haakun, too.” He shifts to let his chin rest on the tabletop, the first veritable display of being alive he’s given since being dumped there to disturb Izumi’s peaceful, ungodly hour of the morning. Ritsu looks at him and the air goes chilly, creeps under Izumi’s thin cotton t-shirt.
“They said it’s gonna be a big one.”
\\\
roof. come.
why?
Leo sends a long, pleading pleeeeaaassseeeeee until Izumi shoots him the mental equivalent of the finger along with an i’m coming.
When he creaks open the door at the top of the stairs he’s blinded, almost immediately. The sun’s breaking out from behind the clouds at just the right moment, scattering ashen light over the building top and dull gray-green ocean surf. Leo’s leaning up against the railing, practically halfway over the edge. Izumi’s jolt of panic whips and snaps across the drift and Leo puts his feet back on solid concrete, whirling to meet his eyes as he walks.
“Don’t do that kind of shit, idiot.”
“You’re so cute, Sena, don’t you know your little tsundere act won’t work on me anymore?”
“Did you call me up here to insult me? I’ll leave.” He sticks his index finger against Leo’s cheek once he’s close enough and Leo grins around it, shakes his hair loose from the breeze.
“Nope! Just for old times’ sake.” Leo tilts backwards on his heels to lean his elbows against the railing, facing the door while Izumi turns towards the sea.
“Nostalgic, isn’t it?”
Izumi scowls at the long drop below their feet, annoyed all over again at Leo’s carelessness.
“We didn’t live next to the ocean in high school. It’s nothing alike. Also, this roof is too high-”
Leo wails, “You’re hopeless! Totally hopeless! What am I gonna do with you? Dear God, please send a curse of sentimentality upon sweet Sena. Amen, and- huh?! Wait a minute! He’s laughing! It’s a miracle, everyone, Sena Izumi knows how to laugh!”
And he is laughing, struck suddenly with how ridiculous it is. They kill vicious sea monsters from another world in their giant humanoid piece of miracle machinery and Leo can still make him remember the breeze off their high school’s roof, the scent of drying laundry and poorly recorded song stanzas. He still stands on his tiptoes on the edges of buildings and doesn’t expect Izumi to jump in and save him.
“You’re...” He’s wheezing, choking on his own rusty laugh, “-you’re so dumb.”
now look who’s being insulting, Leo forgoes speaking, a pout twisting his mouth.
Izumi waves his hand, shooing away the thought from in front of Leo’s face, nudging their elbows together. He waits a few minutes for the silence to grow and stretch between them. He still doesn’t love the ocean, how it stretches so far off into the horizon, far away from anywhere small footsteps alone could take him. It’s there as a quiet reminder, their mistake and salvation all bundled up into a few neat millions of kilometers of salt and sea.
“You’re right,” is what he finally admits. “It’s nice.” He keeps his eyes on the outgoing tide, the ceaseless push and pull.
Leo’s gone quiet, for once, that faraway gaze overtaking his eyes; a veil. Izumi knows it’s there without looking, senses it like a silent and ugly elephant in the room.
“But I still don’t see what you love about it so much.” He’s talking to fill the void, the spots Leo neglects to pencil in a respectable answer.
“You don’t have to get it, because I love all of it! The view and the water and sand and our roof and every roof and you.”
“…you just tacked me on at the end there, didn’t you?”
“Hmm, but it’s true,” Leo tilts his face up to the sky, sea salt moon and the last remainders of sunlight sliding over the crown of his head, gentle red fire on the curve of his lip. All of a sudden Izumi very badly wants to touch him. “I love everything about you, Sena.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“I do!”
The eye roll is involuntary, “You tell everyone you love them.”
Leo rolls a little closer, eyes still trained on the bruising sky. “But you’re different, y’know.” He pouts and Izumi crushes the cute from his mind before it drifts away. “I love you in the ‘I wanna marry you’ kind of way, Sena.”
Izumi’s heart lurches, crashes and batters against his ribcage like a frightened animal and, oh god, he’s going to die. They’re going to type up his autopsy report with the words Tsukinaga Leo listed under cause of death.
“Don’t be stupid-”
Leo laughs and it’s loud, too loud, “Do you want me to write it down and make a list of everything I love about you? Because I can-”
“No."
“Too bad!”
He groans, stuffs his face as far into the crook of his arm as he can, “Shut up, stupid, idiot Ou-sama.”
“That’s so redundant it’s funny! See, it’s easy to see why I love you! You’re spiky and get mad at me easily but it’s not because you hate me or something,”
“Oh yeah? Wanna bet?”
Leo shuffles even closer along the railing, and his grin is like when they were eleven and heard Tchaikovsky in their music class; the smile Leo had when he fell in love with music. It’s the same except different because now Leo’s looking at him not at a scribbling of notes on a page and suddenly it’s like the earth’s been ripped out from under his feet and replaced with rolling ocean.
“Mm!” he throws up a peace sign, chomps his fingers together to poke at Izumi’s side like a small, scaly creature.
“I’d bet my life on it!”
\\\
The sun’s already beginning to set when they station a handful of kilometers off the coast, bloody sunset to their backs and the waves barely lapping at Lionheart’s heels. Eclipse kneels in closer to the shoreline, black and red reflective panels making it look smaller than it truly is in the fading half-light. The cold clip of its spiked fist and artfully curved, half-moon armor fits its pilot’s fighting style; close, bloody-handed and secure. He’s seen Ritsu and Mao do battle more times than he cares to count and it’s a little mesmerizing, how well they click.
Leo must sense his train of thought, pouting at him when he pulls on the sleeve of Izumi’s conscious through the drift. He shifts to look Leo in the eye even though he doesn’t need to, takes in his puffed out cheeks and narrowed gaze.
your face is ridiculous
All Leo sends back is a series of clicks. Izumi rolls his eyes but it’s hard to hold back the pulsing fond that rolls between them, huge and unintentional. It’s almost frightening, being close to something that massive and unknown.
gross
we’re adorable! you’re adorable! embrace it, Sena!
“It sure is quiet out here,” Mao snaps them both back to reality, to Izumi’s annoyance.
“Don’t fall asleep, Rittsu!” Leo’s voice is abrasive outside their head, almost too much.
The line buffers for a moment, a characteristic sigh, “Please do not encourage him, Leader.”
King Killer is an old relic from a bygone age; a reliable Mark 1 that every rookie cycles through before getting their own jaeger. Another rite of passage that every pair of pilots goes through – Tsukasa and Hajime serving as no exception.
Ritsu’s yawn is probably real when he says, “It’s too late. Goodnight.”
“At least try to act professional. We have company,”
“Are you referring to me, Aoi-kun?” The upright formality belongs to only Keito, second in command with all the dirty duties of an actual commander still resting on his shoulders.
Two resounding yes! come at once and Leo snorts softly at Keito’s almost palpable bewilderment across their communication line. He clears his throat and Izumi can almost see his peering gaze.
“I’m merely here to observe the new Ranger’s first run in the Commander’s stead. The rest of you can pretend I do not exist if it so pleases you.”
The sea floor trembles, and they all sense the announcement before it comes:
“And we’re live, folks. There’s our breach action.”
“Don’t take them all for yourself this time, Ou-sama.” Ritsu’s barely above a drawl, the edge hidden underneath.
Leo throws a crooked grin in Izumi’s direction and he catches it with one of his own.
“It’s not like we can help it, Kuma-kun.”
“Try to keep up now!”
“Category two, incoming.”
The stretch of water to their left ripples harshly, as if carved away and opened like a hatch, a row of blood orange dorsal fins slicing through the opening like a gash. Tensions snaps with all eyes on the water, and Izumi counts their breath in sets of threes, tightens his grip on the controls like a vice.
A screech launches through the water and then they’re moving, the kaiju’s magenta streaked head bursting through the surface and barring two hognose snouts. Eclipse starts out the closest, snagging a striped neck barely in time. The kaiju struggles, jaws snapping too close for comfort before a harsh curved saw blade fist swings low, cuts a deep edge across one thrashing throat into the other. Blue spurts across Eclipse's chest plate, steaming and acrid in the dying remnants of a summer day.
Leo’s charging before they exchange a single word, arching back to flank the flailing, spiked tail and bury their blade deep against a shoulder muscle. It’s small fry for them, something either could’ve handled on their own. Izumi grits his teeth and grabs a solid hold of slick scale flesh and twists, ice coursing down through his veins and stabbing deep against a rapid beating heart.
And then all hell breaks loose.
He’s used to hearing the command tower in his ear as a constant, but it’s suddenly chaotic, a dozen different voices all at once. The crash from behind them shakes the ocean floor beneath, and Leo curses in his ear, extracting and swiveling to smack a snarling maw with the back of their left fist.
double event, the vocabulary surfaces in his mind, dredged up from early lessons in the Shatterdome’s recesses. Then Ritsu’s words that same day, just a few hours old, they said it’s gonna be a big one.
“Suo, take the rear!”
King Killer’s there fast, but not fast enough, giving the kaiju enough time to slink it’s way around their foot and tug, just out of Izumi’s reach. They tumble backwards, the taste of saltwater only a memory when their pod goes under but disorienting all the same.
okay? He sends, just to make sure. A claw scraps across their window pane, squealing. They manage to snag a leg this time and Izumi breaks it off after a second of frozen energy collapses the bones within in.
i’m fine. suo?
As if on cue the kaiju’s thick neck is clamped on and pulled up to the surface, bringing them with it. King Killer has it in a chokehold, and it takes no urging for Leo to slice up and through its abdomen, like gutting an eel. It struggles, lashes out and smashes against their lower frame, a sickening noise that sends them back under the water.
The sound is deafening when they climb their way back up, the ocean shelf drop off a gentle slope below. The crash above them send a spool of dread and tightens around Izumi’s lungs, water obscuring their pilot pod panel, so much so that they almost don’t catch it. He blinks, maybe for a second too long.
The sea opens up, pitch black, and when Izumi looks again it’s just in time to see King Killer’s right side be crushed into a pile of scrap metal and fall into the sea.