She's My Collar - Katya x Reader

33: Spineless in my Tomb of Silence

You felt weird having to change in the bathroom in your own home. It wasn't like Katya didn't know every inch of your body inside and out, but you still wanted to keep some of your dignity.

The two of you walked a very fine line by forced proximity. There were so many words unsaid between the two of you, but neither of you seemed willing to be the first to shatter the fragile truce you had established between you.

You slept in the bed next to her at night, only because you were unwilling to make her sleep out on the couch with her still-healing shoulder, as that was a recipe for musculoskeletal disaster. You were very careful not to touch, keeping a pillow between you if only because you didn't want to accidentally shove at her shoulder in the middle of the night and hurt her.

But she was so warm. Katya had always been so warm, and you hadn't realized how cold you were at night without her space heater of a body in the bed next to you. Sometimes, you would wake before she did, with your head buried in the pillow between you and your fingers curled around hers, as if they had unconsciously sought each other out in the night like magnets.

You supposed you missed having the full force of Katya's affections turned on you like the sun. She wasn't cold, now, but there was a wall up between you, and you both felt it.

Maybe it had just been something to be loved by someone who reviled all else. It had made you feel special, wanted. You had grown comfortable in each others' orbit, and now you felt that pull towards Katya like the tides, like gravity, just how you always had.

But you had made each other into gods, and when you make someone into a God, it's difficult to control what kind of god they eventually become. Katya had worshipped you, but you just wanted mutual understanding, not supplication.

You were at an impasse. You weren't willing to push her away until she had healed, and she was not physically able to push you away until she could take care of herself. So you held each other at arms' length, being cordial, friendly, but not warm. Nowhere near the raging bonfire it had been before.

The weight of the words unsaid still hung between you, like an anvil ready to drop at any minute. You had let go of your anger, but you still felt that echo of fear that had haunted you for weeks after that final day.

You left Katya alone after making her swear on pain of death to call you if anything happened, and to promise not to try to get up by herself. You had sent Ivan a text letting him know you were leaving her alone, and he promised to stop by to check on her, something that eased your anxieties a little.

You still couldn't help being fidgety in the car on the way to the school, drawing irritated looks from Bob, and when you finally sat down with your two students, you couldn't keep the nervous energy from making your leg shake continuously.

They were good kids. They spoke English shockingly well, and they were polite, if a bit reserved. They were learning about the cardiovascular system, and as you spread out the charts and illustrations on the desk and began to try to explain the flow of blood through the heart from the body through the vena cava, through the right atrium and ventricle, to the lungs to become oxygenated, then back through the left side of the heart through the aorta to pump oxygenated blood to the rest of the body.

You gave them blank diagrams of the heart and had them draw the flow of blood, had them explain it back to you as if they were teaching it to you, and watched that spark light in their eyes as they finally felt like they understood. You had brought your stethoscope, and you let them use it to listen to their own hearts as you pointed out where they could hear each valve opening and closing, watched their faces light up as they listened to the Lub-dub, Lub-dub of their life's blood pumping through the organ under their hands. You sent them on their way with homework, blank diagrams to be filled out and short answer questions about the flow of blood through the body.