"You look like him. You act like him. You sound just like him." Tieria's voice trembled, teetering between anger and something close to heartbreak. His red eyes shimmered with unshed tears that refused to fall in the zero-gravity environment of space. The grip of his hand on Lyle's blazer was like iron, fingers digging into the synthetic fabric as if to hold onto something—someone—he could no longer reach. His knuckles had long since turned bone white.
Lyle's chest tightened painfully, the familiar coil of bitterness winding itself through his ribs. But I'm not him. The thought echoed in his mind. He wasn't Neil. He would never be Neil. No matter how much he looked like his brother, no matter how much his voice sounded the one Tieria had grown used to hearing—he wasn't the man Tieria had fought beside, the man Tieria had trusted. The man Tieria had loved.
"But you are very much not him," Tieria spat, voice burning hotter than any particle blast from Seravee. His trembling hands betrayed his feigned mask of composure, but the words hurt nonetheless. "Your actions toward Setsuna prove that beyond a shadow of a doubt! Never would your brother have raised his hand against a fellow Meister in such a manner. Neil would have never—" Tieria's voice caught, his jaw tightening, forcing the emotion back down before it could break through. "He would have been more composed."
Lyle felt his stomach drop at the mention of Setsuna, the image of the young man flashing in his mind—of the moment he had lashed out, the very conscious decision to lay his fists into the pilot of the 00 Gundam. He had convinced himself that Setsuna deserved it. That the beating was justified. Someone needed to bear the weight of his frustrations, the rage, the grief that was festering inside of him. And who better than the man who killed Anew?
It was all a convenient lie.
The cold hard truth of it was that he had just been taking his grief out on Setsuna.
"I had no choice," Lyle muttered, the words falling flat, a pathetic excuse even to his own ears. He knew it. Tieria knew it. Who the hell was he trying to convince?
"No choice?" Tieria's voice cracked, incredulous, fury bubbling to the surface. His jaw clenched so tight that Lyle could see the strain in every muscle. "What utter nonsense! Of course you had a choice! And that's exactly what makes you different. Neil would have never let his grief twist him in such a manner! He would never be so weak!"
Lyle felt something snap inside of him at Tieria's words. Weak? Weak? The audacity of it all clawed at his insides. Neil Dylandy? Strong?
A dark laugh escaped him, bitter and unhinged. "Don't you dare try and bullshit me about my brother," Lyle snarled, his Irish accent thickening as his anger flared. He shook off Tieria's grip with a rough jerk of his arm, and in the same motion, he swung his fist hard into Tieria's face.
The blow landed with a crack, sending Tieria flying backward in the microgravity. His round glasses floated off aimlessly, spinning through the air like broken debris. The impact reverberated up through Lyle's knuckles to his forearm, the pain doing nothing to quench the anger that fuels him. His whole body trembled with the desire to hit Tieria again, to make Seravee's pilot feel the same pain that was eating him alive from the inside out.
"Grief turned my brother into a goddamned idiot!" Lyle hissed, his voice shaking. "I read Celestial Being's records! I watched Dynames's mission recorder! You think he was perfect? You think he didn't make mistakes? You think he's some saint because he protected you in a moment of weakness?" Lyle couldn't help but guffaw. "Neil Dylandy was so goddamned consumed by his grief that he threw his life away!"
Tieria's face went red with rage at the words. "How dare you!" His eyes were glowing with barely restrained fury as he steadied himself, his breath coming in short, sharp gasps. Without his glasses, his expression was raw. Unfiltered in a way that Lyle had never seen before. Revealing cracks beneath his cold exterior.
"How dare I?" Lyle's voice was venomous, word biting through the tense atmosphere between them. "I'm his brother, for fuck's sake! I knew him better than you ever did!" He was shouting now, the anger that had been simmering beneath the surface finally boiling over. Everything was finally crashing down on him. Neil's death. Anew's betrayal.
And Tieria was the perfect target.
Tieria pushed himself forward, his hand still outstretched as if he wanted to grab Lyle again, to ground himself, to shake some sense into him. "You don't know a damn thing," Tieria hissed, voice low but seething with emotion. "Neil was more than just your brother—he was a part of Celestial Being! He was—" He faltered, eyes flickering down for a moment before meeting Lyle's again, harder this time, like freshly tempered steel. "He was everything to me."
The confession hit Lyle like a punch to the gut. For a moment, the fire inside him flickered, dulled by the sudden realization of what Tieria was saying. This wasn't about Setsuna. Or Anew. Or even Lyle's differences from his brother. This was about Tieria's grief—about how he had lost Neil too. But instead of finding some kind of understanding, some bridge to reach across, the rage only twisted tighter inside Lyle, feeding on the jealousy, the resentment that had been festering for too long.
"Everything?" Lyle spat, his voice filled with disbelief and something close to disgust. "Neil was a fucking mess, Tieria! He wasn't the hero you're making him out to be! He was weak—so damn weak he let his emotions cloud his judgment. The death of our family turned him into a terrorist for Chrissake!" Lyle could see the words cut deep, the way Tieria's face twisted in pain, but he didn't stop. He couldn't stop. The words poured out like hose, fueled by years of unresolved bitterness. "He didn't die a hero. He couldn't even avenge our family! He died because he couldn't let go of his anger, because he couldn't move the hell on. And you—" Lyle's voice cracked with contempt, "you're still clinging to a dead man, as if that's going to bring him back."
Tieria's breath hitched, and for a second, Lyle thought he might actually cry. The emotion swirling in those red eyes was enough to give him pause, but Tieria recovered quickly, his anger flaring up once again. He lunged forward, hands fisting into the collar of Lyle's shirt, yanking him forward with more force than Lyle would've thought possible in zero-gravity.
"You don't understand anything!" Tieria screamed, voice now hoarse. His face was so close now that Lyle could feel the heat of his breath, could see the way Tieria's lip trembled with barely restrained rage. "Neil sacrificed everything—for me, for us! He wasn't weak, he was human! And you—you're nothing but a pale imitation, a coward who's too afraid to face his own pain, so you lash out at everyone around you! You think your grief is special? You think your suffering makes you unique?" His voice dropped to a near-whisper, trembling with something far more dangerous than anger. "You're just selfish, Lyle Dylandy."
The accusation hung in the air between them. Lyle's heart pounded in his chest, and for a moment, he thought he might actually kill Tieria. He felt his finger twitch in the same manner he would pull the trigger on Cheridum's control stick. He was itching to throw another punch– but something stopped him.
Tieria's flushed face, his chest heaving from screaming—he was close, too close. It was in that proximity that Lyle could feel something shift within him. It wasn't just rage fueling him anymore. There was something else, something volatile. Something electric. Something that had been building since the first day he had stepped foot on the Ptolemaios.
Before Lyle could fully process what he was doing, he surged forward, crashing his lips against Tieria's in a bruising, angry kiss. The collision was messy, full of teeth and hate, as if they were trying to tear each other apart even now. It was an explosion of pent-up emotions—anger, grief, longing, all twisted together into something neither of them could control.
Tieria stiffened at first, shocked by the suddenness of it, but then he responded with equal intensity, his hands fisting tighter into Lyle's shirt, pulling him closer instead of pushing him away. There was no gentleness, no tenderness—just raw, unfiltered emotion. There was nothing affectionate about this. It was purely about release.
When they finally pulled apart, both of them were breathless, floating in the dim light of the pilot lounge, eyes still burning with fury. Tieria's chest heaved as he glared at Lyle, his voice low, breathless, but still hot with anger.
"This doesn't change anything," Tieria hissed, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, tears still hanging at the corners of his eyes. "You'll never be him."
Lyle's jaw clenched. He wanted to shout, to scream that he didn't want to be Neil, that he didn't need Tieria's approval. But was that true? He wasn't sure anymore. His brother's shadow was always there. Always looming over him.
"No," Lyle muttered, voice hoarse, his gaze hardening. "I'm not him. And I never will be."