Page 75 of Katya and the Young God

She gets a few moments of wild eye blinking, but she’s not going to let up on him that easily.

“I thought I hallucinated that,” he mumbles, and it’s almost skating away from the responsibility, so she just fixes him with a cool gaze.

She knows the look unnerves men, that’s why she keeps it.

“I...apologize for any boundaries crossed,” he says, slowly, testing the words out, feeling for what she wants him to say. “I thought I was going to die, and you didn’t look real.”

She just sips from her coffee, and when it becomes apparent that’s all he has to say, she shrugs. “Do you need food?”

Again, the surprised look.

“You have an open stab wound and every Demigod I’ve known needs calories to heal.” She pushes herself up off the couch. “Also you bled all over my couch.”

“It’s a hideous couch,” he says, almost reflexively.

“And all over my favorite pajamas.” She tosses him one of the bags of Corn Nuts that came with the cabin, and he lets it hit the couch next to him. “I’ll make something bigger, but get started on those.”

He doesn’t give her a retort, just keeps on fixing her with a quizzical look, like she’s a bug under a magnifying glass that he truly can’t understand.

“Just like that?” He asks, holding the bag of Corn Nuts like it’ll explode on him.

“I’m going to venture a guess that, if they were stabbing you, they weren’t exactly feeding you correctly,” she says, giving him a critical glance, pulling out some quick food from her fridge.

Again, the narrow-eyed, heavy-browed look. “Pardon me if I’m not the most trusting of sudden goodwill,” he says, and he’s acting so much like Iakov that Katya knows she can never, ever tell him.

She’d be offended, if it wasn’t for how utterly lost he looks. Like every motion she makes is a new, confusing reality for him to confront, and he doesn’t have a framework for it.

Like this sort of easy kindness doesn’t come easily to him. Like he’s used to things being held over him instead, like he’s expecting some sort of rug to be pulled out from underneath him.

“You want my help to save a little girl from torture, that’s fine enough for breakfast in my book,” Katya says, as soft as she can, and something in her tone of voice wakes up Stepan, who springs to his feet. “So shut up and accept some food.”

* * *

K (10:21 AM):I know you said you’d be out of contact, but I could use a powerful Demigod to help rescue a little girl, so give me a call back?

* * *

She checkshis bandages after breakfast, and he’s so clearly uncomfortable from the attention that she makes it as quick as possible.

The wounds seem clean, but she re-washes them as quickly as possible, ignoring the small hissed out breaths that he very clearly tries to suppress.

“I know you said your healing skills weren’t working anymore, but you’re still in better shape than a human would be,” Katya says, as she fixes on a new butterfly bandage, pulling the edges of the skin through.

He’s very obviously looking anywhere else but the wound, his face twisted up into a comically uncomfortable expression. “Still seems intolerably slow,” he says, still wincing. “I used to be able to take these and be fine in a day.”

That seems like an exaggeration, but Katya just shrugs, taping more gauze over the wound, and he flinches with each graze of her hand over the area. “Near as I can tell, you’re roughly where I would be about a week and a half after the injury,” she says, balling up the used gauze. “So barring actual infection, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be fine. How’s your power levels?”

“What?” Another puzzled look.

“You said your heart would give out if you teleported, it didn’t, how’re your levels?” She hates playing nursemaid, hates playing medic, but she’s not going to let him weasel out of telling her. “So, check yourself, how’re you doing?”

He gives her another lost, puzzled look, like he can’t believe she’s doing this, and Katya’s inclined to share that assessment. “Not great,” he admits, after a long moment, but still looking at her.

Suddenly, as if sensing they’re done with the wound, Stepan heaves himself onto the ugly floral couch between them, plopping his head down on Pieter’s lap.

His eyes soften when he does, and, slow, he reaches down and twists his fingers into his dog’s fur, like the mere presence of him causes something inside to relax.

“Pardon me if I don’t know how to react,” Pieter says, his accent deepening with each word. “I didn’t think that I would ever get a welcome from you after the mountain, after what happened with Vanya, I didn’t think, in my wildest imagination, that you would be kind.”

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