"...please tell me that not all your home world's poetry is like this."

"Not all of it? But this is everything that isn't really, really old." 

"What year is it in your world? It's 2047 AD in mine."

"2357. I dont know what A.D. means." 

"Our calendar is dated from the alleged birth of Jesus Christ-- do you know who Jesus is?-- but if you don't know what AD is we might have different calendar systems even if both of our homeworlds are Earths."

"Ours is too, I think we just dropped the acronym. I've heard of him but only in the context of history classes." 

"That is the first thing I've heard about your world that makes me like it."

"I come from a gorgeous shining city where everyone is beautiful and nobody has to work, does that help any?" 

"It would probably help more if my instant association with 'city' wasn't 'five minutes away from everyone dying in a nuclear conflagration.'"

He's glancing at Sasha's lips a slightly excessive amount.

"I've never worried about war in my life. I'm not trying to complain." 

"That sounds nice. --Can people work if they want to?"

"Plenty of people have jobs. I don't personally — pretty much no New Pretties do — but even just for New Pretties it's not unheard of, just a little strange." 

"New pretties are"-- he gestures-- "people who just got the surgery? Like you?"

"Yeah. After a while the bone structure softens and you look more mature, that's around the same point that more people start getting jobs and job training and planning for kids." 

"--Maybe I spend too much time around Lily but I'm not sure all the utopia is worth it if it makes all the poetry that bad."

He shrugs and doesn't comment on whether he considers his life worth living or not. 

"It's all I know," he says instead. 

"Actually-- hey, Bar, can you get all the books that are on Lily's Reader, but put them on a reader that's compatible with chargers from Sasha's world? Put it on my tab."

...Sasha is almost entirely unfamiliar with this feeling; it takes him a moment to identify. 

(It can't be the first time — but his memory is faulty, he knows it is —) 

"Oh," he says, very quietly.

"Oh?" 

"You. Look like Lily. When you're happy."

"...do you think Lily would mind if I kissed you?" 

"We're poly."

He's not really sure what poly means, but that can come after the kissing. 

Sasha is good at kissing. He's gotten a lot of practice in the last two years. 

Lev has had a lot of practice kissing Lily specifically, and it seems like the skill might generalize a bit!