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Lyle likes Anew.
It’s not hard to like Anew Returner: he’s liked her since the first time he saw her, because how could he not? She has large eyes, soft hair and a gentle voice and she is kind as Virgin Mary, as his dad used to say.
Anew likes butterflies, and likes sunsets, and likes soy sauce a little bit too much in Lyle’s opinion, but it’s actually really hard not to smile when he sees her dunk half the bottle on her French toast one morning, causing everyone’s conversations to cut short as they stare in shock. Anew doesn’t remember much about her past, but she remembers she likes onion rings, and piña coladas, and Lyle likes to hear her talk about it, perhaps a little bit too much.
Lyle likes it when they’re at the hangar, leaning against the railing, and she presses her arm against his, a chaste touch that makes it really hard to focus on whatever she’s saying, because she’s right next to him, and he could wrap his arm around her waist with so much ease, and she smells like oranges, and fresh laundry, and home.
Anew looks innocent, but she knows how to smoke; the day he offered to teach her, and she took the cigarette right out of his mouth and took a long drag while looking at him in the eye before blowing the smoke in his face will always be clear as day in his memory. She knows Lyle thinks she’s naïve, and enjoys dropping innuendos when he’s drinking something to watch him sputter and cough.
Lyle really likes Anew, because she’s a dork : he’s walked on her wearing headphones while cleaning, singing Pour Some Sugar On Me completely out of tune a couple of times and it never fails to make his day (he always leaves without her noticing; it’d be cruel to interrupt her when she’s having so much fun).
Both Lyle and her have slipped on the wet floors at Krung Thep, in the exact same place, multiple times, and Lyle’s favorite sound in the world is her yelp as she falls backward and then the obnoxiously loud snort she makes before dissolving into giggles, like a schoolgirl. Lyle even slips on purpose once, just to see the way she practically howls with laughter. She falls down too when she tries to help him and they both laugh until they have tears running down their cheeks and their sides hurt, sitting on the floor because they’re laughing too hard to get up.
Ian is the one that finds them both, sitting on the floor with their backs against the wall, leaning against each other trying to stop laughing and absolutely losing their shit again when they finally manage to take a deep breath and look at each other. Lyle’s butt hurts badly from sitting on the hard floor, but that only makes him laugh harder, and he doesn’t care, because Anew’s hand is on his shoulder and she is snorting so hard it echoes in the narrow space, and he barely hears Ian when he turns a corner and blurts out:
“What the hell are you two doing ?”
Both Lyle and Anew turn to look at him, and then burst into laughter again, unable to help themselves. Lyle swears he must have busted a rib-his side hurts and he’s literally wheezing for air, but he can’t help it. It’s been literally years since he laughed like this, since he heard anyone laugh like this, and he doesn’t want it to stop.
Just a week later, Lyle offers her a drink, and they spend the whole afternoon inside his cabin sharing the bottle of whisky he brought with him aboard the Ptolemy, sitting on his bed.
As they drink directly from the bottle (none of them thought of bringing glasses, but Anew doesn’t seem to mind-she grabs the bottle and flicks her wrist to tip it back like an expert), they start getting closer-before the bottle is halved Anew is pressing herself against his side and his arm naturally slips around her shoulders, and Lyle swears he’s never felt this comfortable in his life. Anew is talking about music-how much she likes old rock, and what bands she wishes were still around, and Lyle has trouble listening, because he likes so much the solid, warm weight of Anew, her scent of oranges and fresh laundry and all the things he loves.
She has to gently nudge his chest with the bottle for him to realize that he hasn’t heard a single word she’s said for the past five minutes, but she doesn’t seem angry when he finally looks at her. The whisky has put a nice flush on her cheeks, her lips glisten and when she chuckles he can feel the liquor on her breath and it’s unbearably pleasant.
“Spacing out already?” she says, showing no hints of actual concern. Lyle has to laugh-Anew must have realized by now that she has him completely wrapped around her finger. Anew could shoot him in the foot and he’d thank her, at this point. He takes the bottle she offers without looking away from her face.
“Did you really just make a fucking space pun, Returner? Really ?” he blurts out, and as expected, she laughs, closing her eyes and pressing her face against his neck. Lyle’s skin breaks into goosebumps and his heart feels like it’s going to jump out of his throat, but if she feels it, she doesn’t point it out. He can feel Anew’s breath against his collarbone, her unbelievably soft, lavender colored hair tickling his chin, and he’s painfully aware of the leg she threw over his thigh, as if she were trying to touch as much of him as she could.
(Anew likes touching-he noticed that very shortly after they met-Anew likes holding hands, likes placing her hand on people’s shoulders, loves hugging Mileina, and Mileina loves hugging her back. Anew Returner is a touchy person and Lyle can’t say that he dislikes it, specially when Anew is pressed like that against him, almost draped over him.)
He almost kisses her that night, but he doesn’t dare to ask, and spends the rest of the week day dreaming of soft lips that taste of whisky, and has to wonder if she does the same, when he sees her empty the soy sauce bottle on her food at lunch.
The first time Lyle kisses Anew Returner, everything is perfect.
The sunset has lit the horizon on fire, the whole world is red and gold; the evening is warm, and flocks of birds cross the sky.
The first kiss lands on her forehead, because he’s nervous, so nervous that he can feel his heart beating inside his throat, his palms sweating inside his gloves like a teenager’s, and he doesn’t dare to press his lips against hers.
Her face almost makes him laugh-he can’t believe that after all they’ve done she’s surprised by him confessing his feelings. But Anew gets over the shock really fast, smiling from ear to ear and stepping closer to him to kiss him properly.
Anew has to stand on the tips of her toes and wrap her arms around his neck to kiss him, and he has to keep himself from sighing into the kiss, because the feeling of being this close to her, the taste of her mouth and the scent of home are irresistible. His knees feel like they’re going to give out with excitement.
Lyle swears then that everything, that dramatic sunset with its blinding reds and golds, those birds flying towards the sun, that scent of oranges and fresh laundry that lingers in Anew’s hair, is happening inside his chest.
Lyle kisses Anew and everything is perfect .