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Before he could fully notice the impending signs of nightfall, Katana’s temporary room had been washed up in the dusky, honey orange of summer evenings, growing dimmer by the moment. He realized it when he was mindlessly thumbing over scattered scrapes and fresh bandages, each touch bringing a dull pain along with it. His shoulders slumped with a tiredness that could only be comforted by the dwindling warmth that leaked through the window, gently caressing his old, old collection of scars. It was around that exact moment that Katana realized just how much he was taking for granted right then.
Even as the world around him slowed, Katana found himself troubled. Tournament preparation had never been easy, but as someone who already had a rigorous training routine, Katana knew that he had done much more difficult things before. However, if it was only the actual physical side of things that Katana had to worry about, he wouldn’t have been in this very spot to begin with, stuck in a hotel room on the opposite side of Crossroads to his apartment. He, along with several other contestants, had been brought here by Flipside for promotional purposes, and while Katana ardently despised the attention that came with actions like getting his picture taken, he supposed that he didn’t really have a choice in the matter. It was all part of the job, as they say.
For a moment, he wondered if all the bandages would interfere with said pictures. The truth was, participating in these scrimmages had shown him many weak points of his that he had yet to resolve—even some that he couldn’t resolve, though he preferred not to think of them in such a way. Regardless, he wasted many long moments afterward staring down at his bare arms with a detached sort of curiosity.
In a lull between considerations, Katana figured that he should sleep early. The mere concept surprised even him. Rest—as well as grace—were hardly privileges he typically allowed himself, but some voice in the back of his mind compelled him to stay within his limits, if only for one night. He was attempting to pin down this voice, to understand just what was pushing him to grant himself this, when a jarring knock at his hotel room door yanked him out of his head.
Katana sighed, though it wasn’t long before he was slipping his mask back onto his face and lifting himself off of his bed to open the door. He knew that, no matter who it was, having someone appear here so suddenly couldn’t be a good sign—even if they were well-meaning, he was inclined to make this as quick as possible. However, before he could keep that promise for too long, a second, more hesitant rap at the door arrived, soon followed by Katana cracking it open.
Oh. It was Hyperlaser.
In the warming air between the Katana’s room and the rest of the world, Hyperlaser appeared to nearly tremble, as if they knew they didn’t quite belong there. They gazed up at Katana for a few lagging seconds, whatever they were planning to say having evidently been knocked out of their chest by the mere sight of him. His eyes raked over the uncovered, broad expanse of Katana’s arms until a feeling in his gut told him that he wasn’t nearly as slick as he’d like to believe. Katana would pretend not to notice.
“Good evening,” Katana greeted, shifting to the side to allow Hyperlaser in, being responded to with nothing but a disconnected hum. Briefly, he wondered if Hyperlaser had drank too much earlier that night and wandered there on a whim, having truly had nowhere else to go. Then again, they’d been acting in this… jittery, unusual manner practically the entire time they were doing preparation in one another’s presence, and it was nigh-unthinkable that Hyperlaser would ever scrim while drunk. Either way, Hyperlaser didn’t seem interested in maintaining his usual poise.
Eventually, Hyperlaser placed something down on the bedside table—a bottle. “Sorry, I know it’s late,” they replied, more proper this time, visibly straightening up their spine as they did. Even if unintentionally, the way they loosened up in front of Katana could be seen by anyone, as if the loss of inhibition was natural.
Katana subconsciously recognized the drink, the unspoken offer, as Hyperlaser wanting to provide some sort of justification for showing up. It was as if they believed that whatever had driven them to Katana’s doorstep to begin with wasn’t enough of a reason. In fact, it always seemed that, in their mind, there was no valid excuse for the truly simple desires that lay at the root of their encounters.
Further proving Katana’s theory, Hyperlaser spoke again after around half a minute of unbroken silence. “You left early.”
Katana hummed, tilted his head as Hyperlaser averted their eyes from his.
“From the practice, I mean. I wanted to… check on you,” Hyperlaser continued, the words coming out stunted, teetering on the edge of breathy. Greedily, Katana took the confession in stride.
“Apologies, Hyperlaser. Did that disturb you?” Katana asked, all too earnest. When Hyperlaser avoided the question, Katana knew he had his answer.
“…You’re leaving soon, right, Katana?”
“Hm?”
“For Thieves’ Den. I overheard someone mention that you had things to do with the Darkage Clan once the promotional business for the Tournament was done.”
Interesting. “And who did you hear that from?”
“Vine Staff.”
Katana’s countenance quickly changed beneath the safety of his mask—though, ultimately, he couldn’t blame the girl for her unease, though she tried to hide it from him. It wasn’t like he kept his allegiance a secret, after all.
As Hyperlaser reached for the bottle again, doubling down on his original, silent proposal, Katana’s eyes narrowed. “Anyway, I didn’t want you to leave without me being able to say goodbye, so I thought I’d keep you company for a little while,” Hyperlaser admitted, only digging himself a deeper hole. He held the bottle out to Katana, though he didn’t seem particularly enthused by the offering, and swirled the liquid in a small circle. “…Unless you have other plans for tonight?”
Hyperlaser said it expectantly, as if he wanted to beat Katana to the punch in confirming his fears. A terribly immature thing for him to be doing, but to be honest, everything about… whatever they were felt that way, at least in his mind. If Hyperlaser had the strength to articulate it all, he was sure that he would finally be able to gain the upper hand over Katana for the first time in his measly life.
“It will only be for a short time. You have certainly been away for longer on contracts for Blackrock.” Katana said it plainly, though not without that one certain lilt to his voice that he always had when talking to Hyperlaser. Similarly, the sound settled in Hyperlaser’s gut just as low as it did all those times before.
Hyperlaser was close to choking on his words, but not before he could try to justify himself once again. “No, I mean…”
His words drifted aimlessly into the summer air, and with it, Katana could feel the mood shift. From early in the afternoon to late in the evening, Hyperlaser had left so much unsaid that Katana could easily stick his fingers into the gap created. In fact, maybe that was what Hyperlaser had wanted all along, in hindsight—it certainly wouldn’t be surprising. Had he really come just to say goodbye to him, or was this…
…Oh, yes. That powerful wanting Hyperlaser felt for him never seemed to cease, did it? There was one thing they’d be truly mourning beneath it all, amidst the fights and the drinks, that belonged to them and them alone. The unspeakable nature of it lied in the implication, striking Katana in the chest, swirling lower and lower until it became shamefully apparent.
Katana only wished that he was as good at brushing it off as he should have been. He supposed that Hyperlaser had degraded his sense of logic, somehow. It wouldn’t have been the first time he’d realized that, but he couldn’t entirely blame himself for it. Some things were simply so unbelievable that the only way you could confront them directly was when they finally managed to graze your neck.
If that were the metaphor he was to use, Katana guessed that his pulse had long stopped by now. He announced this with a rather dumb-sounding drawl from the back of his throat. “Ah…”
Hyperlaser tried to brush it off with a weak chuckle, setting the bottle aside again as it now outlived its purpose. They must have realized it too. “Forgive me,” they said once more, “You know I hate to be so obvious.” Not entirely true—it was more so that they hated to beg for something that they felt they’ll never entirely deserve. Decisively—daringly, even—Katana felt compelled to soothe the burn.
Moving in closer, Katana couldn’t help but find this situation humorous, even if at Hyperlaser’s expense. It really was pointless for them to try to hide anything from one another at this stage, wasn’t it?
“There is nothing to apologize for, Hyperlaser,” Katana replied, voice noticeably smoothened for the mercenary’s listening pleasure, and then he was crowding them in until the backs of their knees hit the edge of the bed. He thumbed his mask up and off of his face, setting it by the discarded bottle before turning his attention back to Hyperlaser, who was now dangerously close to being entirely trapped beneath him. Exactly as he was hoping—as they were both anticipating, Katana was sure.
Gods, just the mere sight of his face made Hyperlaser weak in the knees. Katana, already notably half-undressed himself, allowed Hyperlaser to be attended to first. His hands, sharp and rough with claws and calluses, were capable of nearly obscene precision, pulling open and sliding off Hyperlaser’s thick coat with ease before doing the same to the sweater beneath, careful not to touch with too much carelessness. Still, Hyperlaser shuddered before they could stop themself, their stomach clenching in at the mere whisper of skin-on-skin touch that Katana provided.
That reaction only fanned the flames steadily growing within Katana. When he reached out to help Hyperlaser out of his gloves, his touch purposely scraped against his palm, tracing the lines just forcefully enough to be rewarded with a soul-baring whine, a flush deepening over dark, scarred skin.
Before he could get ahead of himself, though, Hyperlaser attempted to lurch forward, gaining purchase on Katana’s shoulders before sinking downwards. It brought Katana further down with him, his touch lingering on his chest for much longer than it reasonably should have. Ever so obviously, Hyperlaser couldn’t help but admire the broadness of his build, the unavoidability of his strength. Even in his softer areas—which Hyperlaser greatly enjoyed, as well—Katana was irrevocably powerful. Hyperlaser could lose himself in the intoxication that fact made him feel.
Then, settling on the waistband of Katana’s briefs, Hyperlaser finally found it in themself to string a sentence together. “Please… let me make amends.”
Katana leaned in, feeling Hyperlaser’s fingers sink further into the fat of his hips. “There is no need.”
“No, I mean it,” Hyperlaser panted, tone bordering on desperate as Katana tried to tug his pants down, his mind swimming with ideas. “K-Katana, you—your rope.”
Katana blinked, scarred lips pursing with curiosity. “What?”
“Use it,” Hyperlaser breathed, “We both know what you’re capable of.”
Another, louder part went entirely unspoken. You’ll have me at your mercy.
Katana hated how quickly he acted after such a simple request, knowing entirely well that his rope had been discarded halfway across the room. Hyperlaser was well and truly overindulged, wasn’t he?
It didn’t take long for the two of them to settle into a position from there, with Katana acting just as swiftly to come up with a tie for the occasion. When Hyperlaser offered his wrists, Katana held them down with one hand, pulling them into a slip knot with the other. Once they were fastened, Hyperlaser’s arms were pressed to his chest, the slight discomfort of the rope digging into his skin only intensifying the boiling in his blood. The coinciding image helped to paint a rather darling image, too—that of Hyperlaser’s forearms covering up the small swell of his tits, his flush reaching down to the softest parts of him, the plentiful length of the remaining rope surrounding his body. It was a compellingly innocent yet unmistakably lewd sight, especially as he was so brazenly opening himself up for Katana’s gaze in every other way.
When looking down at Hyperlaser, their legs framing his hips, Katana felt like he could well and truly rip them apart without a speck of remorse. With that in mind, Katana didn’t hesitate in undressing them the rest of the way, pushing their legs up as he tossed their pants to the side. His eyes flicked down, past Hyperlaser’s trembling abdomen and narrow hips, to find their thighs practically shaking from sheer desire, the poor Inphernal visibly struggling not to grind against the air. Being beneath Katana had already rendered Hyperlaser all melty and soft on the inside, as much as he would like to delay the inevitable and give Katana some semblance of a chase.
As if on cue, Hyperlaser’s incessant staring found its way downward, as well. It had to be some horribly cruel joke, how Katana was so much larger than Hyperlaser in every single way. Hyperlaser couldn’t take his eyes off the small, visible tent in Katana’s briefs, shifting his hips up in a silent plea for him to do something, anything.
Eventually, though, even his attempts to keep quiet ended up moot. “Katana…”
“What is it?” Katana asked, playing coy, voice a low bedroom purr. Hyperlaser felt himself clench up at the mere sound of it. He earnestly wondered if he was wet enough and Katana was big enough to just put his legs on his shoulders and actually slide inside of him, improbable as it sounded.
(Something he only could have wondered when he was so horny he looked stupid, to be blunt about it.)
“Just… p-please, gods,” Hyperlaser babbled, not even entirely sure what they were begging for. As if playing a game of hot and cold, Katana’s hand trailed down the outside of Hyperlaser’s thigh, finding his way around the curve of their thigh to where they needed him most. Through that layer of fabric, Katana’s thumb rubbed a line down Hyperlaser’s center, firm and achingly slow, testing them.
“Please…?” Katana dragged the parroted word out into the night, savoring the taste, letting Hyperlaser know that he was entirely aware of their predicament. It was an entirely different side of him that only they got to see, terrifying and exhilarating all at once. Hyperlaser wanted to cry. “What are you so desperate for, Hyperlaser?”
His fingers continued pressing circles into Hyperlaser’s cunt, playing so dangerously that his voice gained a pleased edge for it. Hyperlaser couldn’t squirm into or away from it, though not for lack of trying. “Already so needy, yet you cannot ever seem to find the words to express your desire… Must I pull it out of you by force?”
It was an entirely hypothetical proposition, and yet Hyperlaser felt close just from the thought. Before they could try to hide their shame, shut those trembling thighs of theirs and croon out something barely alive, Katana had already caught on. He was too damn observant for his own good, Hyperlaser swore on it. With the intentional swiftness only Katana could have, his fingers found the waistband of their underwear, pushing their legs up even higher as he pulled off their last layer of protection. At that point, Katana was so close that he was nearly pressing his lips to Hyperlaser's helmet, red horns obscuring their vision as they resisted the urge to buck up against him.
“Dear,” Katana nearly moaned, hands stroking over the sensitive expanse of Hyperlaser’s raised thighs, “Open those legs for me further, will you?”
Hyperlaser shamelessly sobbed, knowing that he was in far too deep by now. He didn’t think he had ever been so aroused by nothing but words, nothing but concepts. He eagerly complied, parting his thighs until Katana was granted more than enough space to do anything he wanted with him.
That same hand that was teasing Hyperlaser before—while Katana’s voice was rumbling through his head and turning his thoughts to mush—soon found its spot once again, claws grazing the peak of his sensitivity. Just one press of his thumb against the hood of Hyperlaser’s clit was enough to make them gasp like they’d been suffocating, their voice being raised higher, louder the longer they struggled to keep their legs open.
“Oh—!” Hyperlaser squeaked, unable to pry his eyes away from Katana playing with the bare expanse of his clit, his arousal now noticeably pooling beneath him. Then, Katana twisted his wrist, his other fingers shifting to rub along Hyperlaser’s disgustingly slick folds, and it was all so much that whatever words Hyperlaser were thinking to say immediately escaped him. Not that he thought it would be the most profound thing in the world, anyway.
The callused pads of Katana’s fingers found their way up and down the swell of Hyperlaser’s pussy, terrifying in their consistency, leaving them mewling and arching into him until their muscles ached. Hyperlaser was always mortified by Katana’s uncanny ability to break him apart with nothing but his fingers, his mouth, his voice—but in time, that was all washed away by the pleasure that soon followed, so fast that he was hardly given time to comprehend it. He truly was a hopeless, helpless thing beneath Katana, no matter how much he tried to resist it. It was strangely humanizing, if only for how embarrassing it was.
Hyperlaser hated that, ultimately, that fact was always what did him in before anything else.
“Oh, fuck—Katana…” Hyperlaser whined, shimmying meaninglessly against Katana’s touch only to be beaten out by him applying twice the amount of pressure. “G-Gonna come—please, gods, I’m gonna come…”
To be honest, it was a wonder they were able to last this long to begin with. Apparently feeling both delighted and generous, Katana soon swapped the precision of his thumb for the expanse of his palm, grinding down directly against the underside of Hyperlaser’s clit. That overwhelming, inescapable sensation, so simple yet so completely undoing—it was more than enough to make Hyperlaser finally give in.
Hyperlaser made a sound as if he was in some deep, deep agony, and the first thing Katana noticed after that display was the immediate, positive splashing against his hand. Their thighs squeezed uselessly around Katana’s bulky waist, their hole spasming around absolutely nothing, as if they were hoping to push him away but only ended up drawing him in further. And it worked—all it did was lure Katana further in, increasing the friction between them, encouraging Hyperlaser to continue helplessly squirting against his palm. Hyperlaser wasn’t sure that he’d ever felt so dirty, all unraveled beneath Katana’s touch. Katana had always had a habit of surprising him, though.
Hyperlaser was barely able to get through his burning, aching aftershocks before Katana finally pulled away, looking down at his absolutely soaked hand. Hyperlaser cried out something incoherent, falling back onto the mattress, still not having returned to the Inpherno quite yet. Out of the corner of his eye, he swore that he saw Katana lick at his dripping fingers—the pervert. He really never would’ve guessed it.
Then, not giving Hyperlaser a moment to catch their breath, Katana was shoving down his briefs in what could most lightly be described as a fit of impatience. Only now was Hyperlaser noticing just how much Katana was restraining himself. It was a bad habit of Katana’s—holding himself back so as to not actually harm Hyperlaser in any way, as if the whole truth of his desire would break some sort of illusion between them. What a fortunate, funny thing it was that Hyperlaser practically enabled it, then—that he chased after Katana’s sadism with such rapt enthusiasm. If it was truly so exceedingly difficult for them to hide anything from each other, there couldn’t have been much of a point to it, after all.
“K-Katana,” Hyperlaser croaked, staring directly at Katana’s newly revealed cunt, nearly whining at the sight. His clit had to be at least twice—no, three times the size of their own. Hyperlaser could tell from the way it visibly twitched that he was so much more aroused that they were led to believe. Their body was bracketed once more by Katana’s, their legs being raised up so that their ankles rested on his shoulders, their cunt lining up dangerously close to his.
Katana hummed, hips tilting downwards, mortifyingly close to meeting them halfway. “You make me a dangerous man, Hyperlaser,” Katana teased, though the words didn’t quite come out that way. The sound sent shivers down Hyperlaser’s spine regardless.
“Dangerous?” They repeated the word in disbelief, trying to understand what prompted Katana to say such a thing. They wouldn’t deny the claim, though—not as long as they were on the receiving end of that danger.
Katana drawled out a disastrously needy “Yes,” finally sinking down enough to create some friction between them. Hyperlaser just took it, rocking forward to provide Katana with more incentive, sensitive and weepy beneath his weight. Hyperlaser didn’t care if his body was still too tender for all this—it didn’t matter, not with Katana so irrevocably in control. Katana rolled his hips into him, grinding their clits together desperately, and Hyperlaser mewled in pure devastation.
As Katana gradually found a rhythm, not allowing an inch of space between the two of them, Hyperlaser felt like they were losing their mind. They couldn’t bring themself to do much more than fuck back against him, wrists still bound to their chest and legs still trapped in that obscenely revealing position. It didn’t help that Katana’s face was so close to theirs, making everything feel so much more intimate; as it turned out, trying to avoid something that was determined to make itself unavoidable was so much more moot than Hyperlaser realized.
Gross, lecherous sounds erupted from between their bodies, mingling with the too-good, syrupy sound of Katana’s moans, both making Hyperlaser’s head spin. He didn’t even want to know how wet he was now. “Ah…” Katana rumbled, so close to Hyperlaser’s neck that his helmet nearly fogged up, “Is this it? Is this what you were hoping for?”
Hyperlaser didn’t have it in him to bluff anymore, not when every fiber of his being was making the truth so shamelessly clear. “Yes, Katana—fuck, yes,” he babbled on, nearly too fucked-out to be able to say much else. “Want it, want it all—c-come on, give me more, make it hurt—”
Katana moaned again, low and predatory. Hyperlaser felt that they might burst. They were pressed so tightly against Katana in every single way, a positive feedback loop forming between them with each push and pull. Hell, Katana was thrusting so roughly now that it really felt like he was trying to fuck them, as if he could feel the rhythmic clench of their insides for himself if he just tried hard enough. If Hyperlaser closed their eyes, they could sink into the fantasy, as well, feeling Katana so deeply within them that it knocked every part of them loose. The idea of being so entirely, unambiguously Katana’s made Hyperlaser feel dizzy, entirely too ready to take what they knew wasn’t theirs.
It was this that ultimately led them both into another climax—Hyperlaser’s second, Katana’s first.
A desperate, bone-deep groan followed Katana’s cresting, his hips rocking ever deeper into Hyperlaser’s oversensitive, squirming cunt. This time, he felt the surge of wetness drenching his thighs and crotch directly, so overpowering that Katana could taste it in the back of his throat, every part of them growing slick and frictionless and greedy. Shamelessly, Katana leaned down to lick at Hyperlaser’s neck in the midst of their climax, delighting in their racketing pulse and the naked fact that only he could make them sound like this, taste like this. It was the kind of realization that made horrible, treacherous thoughts bubble in Katana’s mind—the ones that made someone like him truly feel like a dangerous man.
Hyperlaser tilted his head to the side, allowing Katana in without hesitation, and he wasted no time sinking his teeth into his shoulder. Hyperlaser yelped, sinking into the sensation immediately, happily allowing Katana to bring him in closer even as his body screamed at him. His legs opened impossibly further, eager and sticky-sweet in the wake of overstimulation. All of it was such a mess.
There was a kernel of truth in there, in that Hyperlaser loved seeing how far Katana’s limits could be pushed, both in and outside of combat. Some stupid, Inphernal part of his mind left him terribly curious about so many things—How much stamina did he really have, stowed away in that body of his? Why did he always hold himself back to an uncanny extent when it came to Hyperlaser specifically? How could Hyperlaser expect to discover Katana’s past through the window of his scars?
Eventually, though, it all melted away along with every other bit of Hyperlaser’s reasoning. When Katana moaned so wickedly, so close to his ear as he humped against him, gripping his thighs so hard they threatened to bloom with purple bruises, he couldn’t bring himself to think of much else.
Sloppy and uncoordinated, simmering in summer night heat. Nothing about this was remotely close to who Katana really was. For that, Hyperlaser would love to see this side of him come out more often—not that he’d ever tell him that.
It took even less time for Katana’s second—and Hyperlaser’s third—climax to arrive, rocking down their spine like it was possessing their entire body. There was a sense of finality in it that time, with Katana leaving messy, relishing kisses up and down their neck and shoulder, his pace slowing to a heady, firm grind. It was as if he was trying to bring both of them back down with even more pleasure, if such a thing were possible. Still, Hyperlaser continued to gush against him weakly, the still-obvious desperation emanating from him having become humiliating beyond belief. Hyperlaser was telling the truth, even in his bleary, sex-drunk state—he did want everything Katana had to offer. Though… both of them knew that he probably couldn’t take it, unfortunately. Maybe Katana had the right idea when it came to restricting himself.
At the end of it all, Katana was tactful, decent. He took Hyperlaser places they couldn’t go otherwise with nothing but that unwavering diplomacy. In truth, Hyperlaser didn’t know he could want something as desperately as they did these impossibly intimate, warm moments alone with Katana. They remained in that position for a good while, with Katana being as careful as always not to crush Hyperlaser under his weight. More careful than he ever had to be. Hyperlaser wouldn’t have it any other way.
When Katana moved to untie Hyperlaser’s wrists, they couldn’t hide their bleary amaze at the ease he did it with. His tie of choice was usually only one he reserved for emergencies, when he or a superior needed someone restrained in less than a minute. It was initially practiced for the purpose of combat and service, just as he did nearly everything else. In the interest of keeping a sense of mystique, though, he wouldn’t tell Hyperlaser such unnecessary details.
Hyperlaser’s wrists had turned reddish with rope marks, the pattern sitting prettily over thoroughly scarred skin. Even as they closed their eyes, they could feel Katana ogling them. Maybe that was the only time he could really bring himself to do so, when he thought Hyperlaser wouldn’t know. It was almost cute how coy he could get directly after being so obscenely self-indulgent.
“Katana,” Hyperlaser managed to croak out when he finally pulled away, their legs dropping to the bed like lead weights. “My thighs are numb… I-I’m sorry, this is embarrassing.”
“Why? What about it is embarrassing?” Katana replied, pulling the rope away. He couldn’t deny that he felt the exhaustion, too.
“Do you ever think that maybe we’re a bit too… old for this?” Hyperlaser asked, the question woefully open-ended due to him having lost so much of his ability to articulate. When the question was met with a palpable pause, Hyperlaser sighed. “Come on. Y-You know what I mean.”
…Did he, though? After a moment of awkward silence, Hyperlaser sighed, trying to raise himself up on his elbows. “You… You don’t ever feel bad about any of this?”
“Why should I?” Katana challenged him, voice still as husky as if they were still in the midst of the act.
“I always thought that you would be the more… conservative type, I suppose. Proper.”
A thought crossed Katana’s mind, overly petty yet incredibly true—could a prude have done any of those things to you? He only hoped that Hyperlaser could remember the previous nights they’d spent together before he was so open and unrestrained.
Instead, Katana only sighed, something far too similar to a chuckle escaping from his throat. “I assure you, if I was ever uncomfortable with our… encounters, I never would have let them be anything more than drunken mistakes. I trust that it is the same for you?”
“Ah…” Hyperlaser seemed to struggle with words for a moment—still catching his breath, it seemed. “I guess you’re right.”
He watched Katana for a couple minutes longer, unquenchable curiosity guiding him to stay awake even as his entire body was wrung to exhaustion. A quiet fear crossed his mind—that of waking up to Katana no longer being there—but to his surprise, he was perfectly able to recognize it as false.
Minutes later, Katana returned to clean Hyperlaser off, and the sensation of his kind, gentle touch caused him to abruptly fall asleep in a rather awkward position. Katana couldn’t bring himself to wake him back up.
…
The next morning, both Hyperlaser had some rather… telling marks to cover up for the photoshoot, with Katana taking due diligence in helping them regain their modesty for the public. Katana was certain that he’d feel the events of the previous night all the way from Crossroads to Thieves’ Den. In an attempt to further hide the evidence, Hyperlaser stayed five strides apart from him on the way to the Flipside Tower, though that quickly proved to be in vain by the stumble in their step. When they both got side-eyed by Vine Staff along the way, neither of them seemed to mind.
All at once, beneath the summer morning sun, Katana had been reminded once again of just why he was so devastatingly fond of the person Hyperlaser brought out of him. But, for the time, that person could remain as only existing between the two of them, preserved in a bottle for only the most special occasions. It was what Hyperlaser would want.