Work Text:
See it clear, Hyperlaser. Presumably, you would’ve made it through.
Droplets of water that fell from the sky, puttering across and away from the surface that laid upon the ground. That bare sentence rings heavy, a collapsing brigade upon the gap of which no land’s horizon would’ve been visible, from no end of theirs in sight. In grasp. In day. In light. Nor dark.
The one thing shielding oneself from the tears that rained upon this barren land was nothing but a glassed rooftop, residue of dust and posters that were once upheld by the walls of the bus stop. An electric sign dressed the rightmost wall of the benching area, a digital clock ticking down, lined with lights and flickering text showcasing the next few stops.
Nothing was coming. For quite a while, it appeared.
He had laid his hands upon his helmet that, too, shielded himself from the same wretched landscape. He held his head up back to reality, a blurry, uncertain moment that he couldn’t quite lay his finger upon.
None of his fingers, really.
Hyperlaser’s motorbike leaned against the hardwood of the bench, the dimly lit accents lining the shell of the vehicle becoming one of the few sources that illuminated against the foggy, inescapable dark. Reminiscent; barely, conversely, he hadn’t been in a situation like this since forever. He thought he had fled it, left it all behind, with the spoors that he had always covered up til’ the day he would never find life once more in his butterfly-controlled phenomenon.
He had no room to speak.
Well, he does. Never did. Feels like so.
Perhaps, then, Hyperlaser had no room to cry. Unlike the downpour occurring all right before his own two very eyes — not as though he could see as easily as he did before — his attempts to seize that mere, outright, dreaded, sinking feeling through an outlet he’d call comforting is now no longer palpable from the handheld sensation of emptiness. It is in no right of its own able to be compared to the likes of the inundated storm at the vibration of his feet.
Hyperlaser oftentimes wonders himself if he was that disheartened to be feeling such a nauseating way. He wonders if he is truly the one at fault for it all. Despite it, he begrudgingly keeps going. And going. And going. And going. Not once does he stop to settle, he has a life to live, a fight to survive, but all at once it’s always a reminder that only he can walk away from it.
Yet when the choice finally comes, he comes to a screeching halt. He’s indisposed. Frustrated, desperate, and confused. It all smudges together to one final answer, one he can’t figure out quite yet.
One where both sides of ascension and descension is a maddening bitterness, that of a rigged coin flip. Never won. Won't. And yet it all stabilizes to a point where he can return home, treat his everlasting wounds, and stay near his warmest wishes; whom of which is his companion.
Except he runs back. Back from it all, too.
One shot.
And the clatter of dishes, the sound of footsteps all throughout the boarded flooring, every which-way, his lefts and his rights.
The clink of a glass, two, three, four.
He can’t tell if it’s from the people surrounding him, or the sound of cups stacking upon one another. It isn’t his, he knows it well.
Yet, it’s all so fuzzy. One moment, he was withstanding the hail of rain, against the serene staticky noise that was the cloud’s way of weeping. Now, he was encompassed in the warm lighting from above him, lampshades that were the tint of a soft brush against skin, and it contrasts so drastically between the scarring upon his flesh and skin that peeked through the gaps of his gloves and sleeves, and the darkened, sorrowful palette he himself donned upon his clothing.
That sense of wind barreling away upon him, the items he wore on his person gradually becoming soggier the more time he spent on the road with streetlights illuminating the distance far, far ahead of him, all were a rush in the matter of scrambled, distressed decision-making.
He looks at the contents of his shot glass, a color balancing between the idea of being purely transparent, or an opaque golden’s yellow. Reflecting from it, himself. At least, his helmet, shining back the indistinguishable color the drink had.
He hadn’t even acknowledged anyone sitting beside him. He’d tuned it all out, as if a radio’s volume being set to a pure zero. Hadn’t dare made one glance, especially in such a state he previously was in. He felt rather embarrassed, or, too tongue-tied in his now-conscious mind to even try to break his eye contact away from the glass he held.
Regardless of his focus, in his periphery, the gentlest thud of a cup’s rim settled right next to his, sleeves accented red, colored a familiar grey. Never had he felt so contrived once he noticed it. He was certainly painted like a fool, how he truly processed it all. Hyperlaser wasn’t even certain if he was there before him, possibly having been to bear witness to the stumbling, miserable, oh so crumbling mess that he was when he entered.
Despite that, stillness stirred between the two in the mumbling jumbling nonsense of the bar. Silence. On his end, a gruesome, disconcerting moment of quiet hung in the air. Perhaps it was mutual. Perhaps it was just post-despair dread. He wasn’t sure. He didn’t want to know what he was thinking of this situation, either.
Hyperlaser sighed, moving his muscles back and leaning away from the counter, slowly parting eyes away from the reflection of the glass, redirecting his gaze to what appeared in front of him. He hadn’t even taken one sip from his glass, he noticed.
“I will assume it is a day of yours that needs to be partaken in silence,” Katana began, mindful of his words as he spoke. “whereas typically, we would have already been speaking to one another.”
The tangled string in his head slowly pulled away from its loops abruptly as he loosened up, having not expected Katana to speak so suddenly.
“It…” he trails off, reluctant to even reply. “…appears to be the case.” Hyperlaser rested his hands upon the counter, hands cupping the glass that, too, rested upon the counter.
“As it stands right now, I would’ve liked to go back home, probably… go pet my sweet Princess, or something.” He let out a hoarse, knowingly forced chuckle to lighten the tone. However, that chuckle was one as if someone hadn’t taken a swig of water, one as if someone had been sitting all on their lonesome, tears dropping with a sniffling, muffled cry. Both of which he hated to admit he wished he could do so easily, without so much difficulty.
“Your grievances are shared with me, Hyperlaser. Let that be an affirmation for you.” Katana lowered his head, his peering eyes staring down upon the mercenary, whose voice barely cracked as he spoke. Contrarily, Katana’s composure weighed the situation with a wash of patience he was willing to lend.
The silence came rising over once more similarly to that of the ocean’s tides, something Hyperlaser found hard to respond to. All pills he’s taken have always ended up with it being swallowed anyways.
“It’s appreciated.” He mumbled under his breath.
Now accompanied with nothing but the sounds of the storm that swept outside and the celebrations from the inside of the bar, the unease that followed Hyperlaser had slowly lifted and peeled back like velveted curtains, a clarity he found rather bittersweet.
Misery was never going to be something he could solve over time, but perhaps he could let go of that desperation, this once. After all, a full cup is yet to be a cup half empty.