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"The fuck happened to you?"
Sevika gawked at the boy who had just walked through the door of their newly-renovated hangout (yay), covered in blood. He had a big, aching bruise circling his left eye, painting his skin purple, and his lip appeared to be split open, dripping a lazy stream of blood down his chin. That wasn't mentioning the other dozen miscellaneous cuts and bruises covering him, but they were the ones worthy of a mention.
When Viktor point-blank ignored her question, she jumped up and stood in front of him, blocking him from going anywhere. "Did someone do this to you? Give me names, I'll fuck 'em up."
He sighed and rolled his eyes as if the fact he was covered in painful injuries was nothing but a minor inconvenience. "Sevika, it's fine. Doesn't matter."
He tried to shove past her but she caught his hand as he did and stopped to examine it. "Holy shit! Did you fight someone?! Did you win?!" She exclaimed, suddenly full of excitement as she pointed out the bruises and open cuts on his knuckles.
"Yes. No. Can I sit down? Everything hurts." He replied unenthusiastically.
Sevika let go of his hand and helped him sit down on the steps when it became obvious he wasn't going to manage alone without breaking something. Once he was sat down as comfortably as he could be whilst covered in cuts and bruises, she ran off to go grab something, coming back with a small rusty box of first aid supplies.
"I stashed this here a while back. You get the shit beat out of you enough times and you know how to prepare." She explained, sitting down beside him and taking his hand again.
"I don't think I want to do it again. Not a very pleasant experience, must say." Viktor grimaced.
Sevika chuckled as she picked up a bottle of disinfectant along with some pieces of cotton which she then soaked in the solution and began dabbing against the boy's knuckles. She ignored the hisses of pain he made. "Now, you've got to give me the story. What happened?"
He shrugged half-heartedly like it was no big deal, just another Wednesday. "Some of the other kids started picking on me again. The usual group."
Sevika nodded. A few times now she'd had to stick up for Viktor and flash her knife at the little shits to make them back off. Not that she did it out of any care for the boy, of course. Not at all.
"I was testing out the new improvements I added to my boat and they tried to take it from me so I decided to stick up for myself, like you do," Viktor recalled.
"And?" Sevika said expectantly.
"I punched one of the boys in the face and gave him a black eye."
"Fuck yeah!" Sevika cheered which earned her a small laugh from Viktor.
"He did give me one of my own to match, but I doubt he'll be so confident picking on me again now that he knows I'm willing to give him trouble for it."
"Exactly." She grinned before the more reasonable part of her urged her to be a little bit more responsible when it came to dealing with a kid. "Maybe next time don't go picking fights you can't win, though."
"But you do it all the time." Viktor huffed with an eye roll for good measure.
"Well... I'm the dumb one and you're supposed to be the smart one. So start acting like it." She snapped back.
They both stared at each other in silence for a moment.
"But you did beat his ass, right?" She finally asked.
"Yeah. I got him pretty good."
She nodded approvingly and held out her fist before realising that he was in no state for a fist bump and instead opened her hand for a high-five instead. "Fuck, I am such a bad influence."
After a bit of laughter, they both settled back down so Sevika could start bandaging his hands. She almost felt like a proud parent, passing down the family trade as she gave him matching bandages to her own.
"I used what you taught me," Viktor mentioned after a few minutes. "On the boxing machine, like protecting my face and punching quickly. Then I stuck my fingers in his eyes. He squealed like a little baby."
Sevika nearly doubled over with laughter at the mental image that gave her. Scrawny, tiny little Viktor clawing some poor kid's eyes out. "Oh the money I'd pay to see it myself."
"Don't tell the doctor about it, though," Viktor added quickly, as if the thought had just come to mind.
"How come?" Sevika frowned, moving closer to start treating the wounds on his face.
"If he finds out I got into a fight? Well, he won't go mental but I'll never hear the end of it." He said with horror in his eyes like one of the doctor's extensively long, disappointed lectures was the worst possible thing he could imagine. Sevika envied him in that way. She could think of much worse a parent could give.
"Well, I won't tell as long as you don't tell him I'm the one that's taught you this shit." She shrugged.
"Deal." Viktor said a little too quickly. Sevika snorted.
She finished cleaning and dressing the wounds on his face and gave his injured cheek a quick pat to be annoying. "For how smart you act, you can be dumb as shit sometimes, you know that?" She teased.
"Eh, I learn from the best."