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When Katie swings open the door to his house as per usual, Schlatt looks up, instinctively searching for that impossibly bright grin plastered across her face. When he instead finds a strained, sheepish smile, he raises an eyebrow.
“What’s up with you?”
She raises an eyebrow in return, evidently feigning confusion. “What do you mean, Mr. J?”
He narrows his eyes, watching her stiff movements. His gaze stays trained on her as she walks across the room and flops down on the couch beside him, hands fidgeting with the hem of her suit sleeve.
“Uh-huh,” he mutters, turning his gaze back to the car crash compilation looping on the television. He knows realistically he should press further, but he grimaces internally at the idea of it.
Katie sighs before pulling out a book from her inventory, seemingly trying to avoid confrontation as she flips the pages slowly.
“So, what disaster did you get yourself into today, then?” Schlatt asks sarcastically.
She scoffs, and his eyes flick to the way she winces slightly as the noise escapes her. “Oh you know— the usual?” She says it more like a question than anything else.
He hums noncommittally, narrowing his eyes at her slightly. He can’t help but notice the slight scuff of dirt that sticks out like a sore thumb against the pink of her suit.
“Anything new ‘round here?” She says, sounding purposefully casual.
“Same as always,” he drawls, forcing his eyes to drift back towards the TV again.
She leans back, shifting into her usual sprawl of long limbs across his couch, but she clenches her teeth slightly as she moves. She glances up at him, and when she catches him looking back, she speaks again, “Watching car crash compilations again?”
“Yep,” he says, averting his eyes from hers again.
After, without much thought and under his breath: “Can’t even be annoying without looking like you’re going to collapse?”
Katie looks back, grinning tightly, as if oblivious to his tension. “Relax, Mr. J, you’re too serious sometimes.”
He snorts, leaning back further onto the couch. He looks back over when she shifts, eyes catching on a stray, dark patch of colour that’s begun to bloom on her suit next to the dirt.
He blinks, convinced his mind must be playing tricks on him.
Noticing him staring, she follows his gaze down to her sleeve, eyes widening slightly as she hurries to pull her hand into her lap. “Oh, sorry! That’s… nothing?”
Why didn’t she tell him? Why didn’t she go to someone else?
What the hell is he supposed to do?
He leans forward, fingers twitching at his sides. “What the fuck, Katie?” he says incredulously, disbelief colouring his tone alongside the irritation.
Katie’s smile falters slightly. “I’m fine, man. I probably just scraped it on a branch or—”
“Scraped?” he cuts her off, voice sharper than he’d intended. “It’s bleeding through your suit, you idiot.”
She smooths a hand over the spot where the blood has started to come through reflexively, sucking in a breath through her teeth when she obviously pushes down on whatever wound the blood is coming from.
Schlatt groans, burying his face in his hands. How the fuck did he get himself into this? He just wanted to live in peace on his island. “You’re bleeding.” He gestures vaguely towards her with an outstretched hand. “You’re bleeding all over my brand new couch. Perfect.”
Her usual teasing demeanor slips for a second, and she lifts her arm up in front of her and off of the couch. “Shoot! Sorry Mr. J.”
He shoots her a glare, pushing himself to his feet and moving towards her. “Would you just shut up for a second?” he says, coming to stand in front of her.
She swallows hard, face falling as she leans back slightly. “I just—”
“Stay still, for fucks sake,” he interrupts sternly, eyes scanning her arm. “Seriously, stop acting like a maniac for a minute.”
She’s smiling slightly again, but a flicker of guilt crosses her face. “Well, you know…”
He does not know. He’s not sure he knows anything right now. He certainly doesn’t know why he’s about to waste his materials helping someone who’s done nothing but make his life harder since he met her.
“You are certainly one of a kind,” he mutters.
She shifts her weight forward again, and Schlatt steps closer, hand hovering over her arm, not game to reach for it. “Move down here,” he grumbles, motioning to the floor in front of the couch. “Sit.”
“Carefully,” he corrects quickly, “and for the love of god keep your arm still, I’m not letting you ruin any more of my furniture.”
Katie hesitates, before sliding forward onto the edge of the couch instead, holding her injured arm out above her lap. “Happy now?” she says, going for her usual sass, but it falls flat.
“Thrilled,” he huffs sarcastically, the tight clench of his jaw betraying him. He lowers himself to crouch slightly, inspecting the stain that’s continuing to seep through her suit. Is he going to have to fix that for her too?
Her gaze flickers up to meet his eyes, uncertain. “You’re not mad?” She asks slowly.
“Not yet,” he says, tone clipped. “Just don’t move. And… stop talking. You’re lucky I’m not sending you to bother someone else.”
She exhales, almost resembling a laugh, but it’s a little shaky. Schlatt notices, but doesn’t mention it outwardly.
He sighs heavily, reaching into his inventory and pulling out a health potion and a cloth, rolling his eyes at the realization that he in fact does not have bandages on hand.
Katie eyes him curiously as he fiddles with the little pile of items. “You keep that stuff on you?”
“Not everyone walks around like it’s their first day on earth,” he mutters.
He swallows, before gesturing towards her arm with the hand that’s holding the cloth. “Give it here.”
She hesitates, like she’s going to challenge it, before extending her arm a little further towards him over her lap.
When he lifts the sleeve, it certainly looks pretty bad. Rationally, he knows that’s because of the amount of blood that’s gathered around it as a result of how long it’s gone untreated. How long she let it go untreated, his traitorous mind corrects.
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” she says quickly, seemingly on edge because of his lingering stare.
“Right.”
She opens her mouth to argue, eyebrows furrowed.
“Don’t,” he says flatly.
He pushes her sleeve up further, pressing the cloth to the cut firmly.
Katie flinches when he does this, clenching her teeth.
“Could you hold still for two seconds?” he says, exasperated.
“I am holding still!” Katie exclaims, effectively not holding still as she waves her uninjured hand around.
“You just moved,” he deadpans.
“I flinched,” she corrects, narrowing her eyes at him. “That wasn’t on purpose, it was—”
She cuts herself off with a hiss when Schlatt presses down on the wound with the cloth again.
He pauses, keeping the pressure on the wound.
“Relax,” he mumbles, easing the pressure to check if the blood has stopped.
“I am relaxed.”
“No you’re not.”
“Well you’re the one digging around in my arm!” she replies, finally obviously making an effort to keep her arm still.
“You showed up on my doorstep with an open wound,” he interrupts. “You don’t get to complain.”
He dabs some of the health potion on the cloth and presses it against the cut after he finally wipes most of the blood off, avoiding Katie’s eyes blinking up at him.
“You come all the way here with it like this?” he says, disappointment evident in his voice.
“It stopped bleeding earlier.” She shrugs, mouth twisting into a guilty frown.
“Obviously it didn’t, you think I'm stupid?” he says, emphasising with a frustrated stare.
“Well, it mostly stopped—”
He looks up at her again, shaking his head, and she stops.
“Okay,” she says, frown deepening as if she knows she’s been caught in a lie. “Maybe not.”
He exhales slowly through his nose. “You could have gone to literally anyone else.”
She tilts her head, blinking up at him with that stupid frown still on her face. “But you’re here, Mr. J!”
He snorts, looking away from her sad eyes. “That’s a terrible reason.”
Without another word, he pushes himself to his feet and heads toward the kitchen, rifling through the mostly empty cupboards.
There’s a beat of silent, irritated rummaging before he finally finds the bandages hidden away in the back of a drawer. When he turns around, Katie is watching him from the couch with a small, amused smile tugging at her mouth.
He sighs deeply through his nose and walks back over, dropping the roll of bandages beside her; maybe a little harder than necessary.
“Don’t look so damn pleased with yourself,” he grumbles.
Katie raises her eyebrows innocently, smile growing bigger. “I didn’t even say anything!”
He doesn’t dignify that with a reply, instead crouching down in front of her again and wrapping the bandage around her arm, much more gently than he’d care to admit.
“You know,” she starts slowly, uncomfortably genuine for her, “you didn’t have to do all this.”
“Yeah, well, I kind of did,” Schlatt mutters, wanting to rid the conversation of the sudden sincerity, pulling the bandage tighter. “You already bled all over my couch.”
As he finishes the wrap and ties it off, she grins at him again, just as bright and obnoxious as he’d been expecting when she first showed up.
When he lets go, she waves it around, flexing her fingers experimentally.
“Hey,” she says, impressed. “This is some nice work!”
He scoffs. “Are you kiddin’ me? Of course it is.”
She laughs quietly at that, leaning back against the couch as she rolls her sleeve back down. When she notices the stain, as if she actually does lack complete object permanence, she exclaims with an exaggerated frown: “What am I supposed to do about that?”
Schlatt glances at it once, shrugging.
“Very helpful,” Katie replies with a snort.
“You asked.”
“I asked what I’m supposed to do about my suit,” she argues.
“Well,” he says, pushing himself up from the uncomfortable crouch and sitting on the couch beside her, “maybe you shouldn’t have bled on it.”
She watches him as moves, before looking back down at the stain like she might be able to will it away if she stares at it long enough.
“Do you… have a washing machine?”
“Do I–” he says incredulously, gesturing towards the rest of the house. “Yes I have a washing machine.”
“Okay, that's great,” she says, brightening immediately. “So… should we–”
“You,” he interrupts, pointing a finger at her accusingly, “can figure that part out on your own.”
Katie stares at him with squinted eyes, before whipping her head around to look for this alleged washing machine.
“Where is it?” she says after a beat.
Schlatt pinches the bridge of his nose. “It’s not in the living room.”
He watches her for another second before letting out a long, exhausted sigh and pushing himself to his feet.
“Okay, you know what? Nevermind.”
Katie turns to him, eyebrows raised in confusion. “What?”
In lieu of an answer, he walks past her and up the stairs, rummaging around in his chests.
“Where are you going?” She calls after him.
“Would you just hold on for a minute?”
He comes back with a wrinkled t-shirt bundled up in one hand. He doesn’t give her a chance to look at it for too long before he’s tossing it in her face.
“Wow,” she blinks at him, mouth falling into a flat line.
“Go and change,” he says flatly. “You can go upstairs.”
She holds the shirt up, examining it as if it’s a piece of art. “I didn’t know we had communal clothes now, thanks neighbour!” she says, amused.
“Do you want me to kick you out?” he argues back.
She glances down at the stain on her sleeve again with a frown.
“Okay,” she says, before hurrying up the stairs and to get changed.
When she comes back, she finds Schlatt standing in the kitchen, holding out an expectant hand.
“Give me the damn suit already, I’ll deal with it.”
“Sir yes sir!” she says, mock saluting before tossing him the suit jacket.
Before he can say anything else, —like tell her to get out of his house now that she’s not at risk of bleeding out— she’s barrelling past him and making herself perfectly comfortable on his couch again. He rolls his eyes as she yawns exaggeratedly and changes the video that had been playing on the television.
“Unbelievable,” he grumbles to himself.
He turns toward the sink, trying to rinse the blood out before it stains more than it already has. Behind him, he hears the TV volume ticking up slightly.
“Don’t turn that up,” he says immediately.
“I can’t hear it,” Katie whines in reply.
“You can hear it just fine, the whole island can hear it at this point.”
“I literally can’t.”
He turns around to glare at her, finding her staring back at him with wide, faux-innocent eyes.
“You are the worst fuckin' houseguest on the planet,” he groans.
“Wow, guest?” she says, offended. “After everything we’ve been through?”
“We haven’t been through anything,” he replies. “You show up and cause problems for me.”
Katie grins at that, turning her head away from him to lean back against the couch.
“Maybe you should stop leaving the door unlocked then, Mr. J.” She sings teasingly, before pausing. “Well– Don’t actually do that though, it’d be really annoying.”