Hi! I’m not sure if requests are open (genuine apologies if they’re not, feel free to ignore me!!) but I was wondering how König might react to an S/O with a lot of chronic pain? I know that’s kind of a weird thing to ask,, I just adore how you write him (dark König too !!) and I suffer with horrible chronic pain, particularly in my back, legs and shoulders. I’m essentially in pain 24/7 and its yucky but your version of König is so lovely I’d be honored to see how you think he’d feel about it or comfort them!!
Affliction. Affection.
(König x GN! Reader)
Call of Duty Masterlist
Rating: General
Word count: 1.6k
Tags: Sickfic, Fluff, Domesticity, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Cuddling, Caretaking, Love Languages, Acts of Service
A/N: (This touched my heart, anon. I also deal with chronic pain, thought mine is much less consistent than yours. It's something I think about a lot in terms of caring partners and love languages. So I wrote a bit about how I'd want to be comforted on a particular bad pain day, in hopes maybe you'd be able to relate as well. I hope you enjoyed ❤️)
It’s the pain that rouses you from sleep.
You don’t even realize that’s what it is at first, woken more by your whining, uncomfortable whimpers than the twisting, taut sensation of your muscles pulled too tight. A bowstring drawn back, threatening to snap. The pain extends outwards, like fissures it delves deep into you, letting you gaze into the depths where the thorny weight of hurt bubbles upwards along your hips, your spine, your legs.
The bed is empty aside from you, you realize, when you reach for him. Normally you’d be displeased that he’d leave you. Now, however, you can’t summon the power to care, instead hauling the blankets warm and thick around you. You burrow into them, cocooning yourself as if the layers can insulate you from the hurt that extends ever outwards. Knees up to your chest, face hidden underneath the sheets you whimper at the pain, vulgar, fetid as it churns in your stomach with the tell-tale murmur of nausea.
König is somewhere beyond you, fumbling in the kitchen. You hear the clank and clatter of pans and cupboards in the small space you two share. His gangly limbs don’t fit the scale of it, constantly misjudging his reach, his height as he bangs or bumps something in the way. It’s an adorable feature to the soldier, usually allowed all the space he needs within the field of battle to stretch, tower to his full potential like the leviathan he is.
There’s a clatter, followed by a hushed, hissed curse as König scrambles to right whatever it is he’s accidentally touched. Yet it’s followed by silence when he spares a glance back at the open door of the bedroom, as if making sure he hasn’t disturbed you.
You don’t bother to look up, focusing instead on your breathing, trying to quell the sharp ache that rises fiercely inside you with every heartbeat. In through your nose, holding, then releasing and trapping the warmth of it below your covers. You can feel the blood rushing in your ears, unable to stop a stifled groan of pain as the ache washes over you once more, twisting, pulling, hurting.
König’s footsteps draw near, his quest in the kitchen now abandoned as he takes in your curled form burrowed deeply within the messy covers. You hardly notice, entire form rigid with discomfort as you try to focus on something, anything other than the horrible, sickening churn inside you.
“Liebling?” König asks after a minute of silence, wordlessly watching you stiffen and shudder in the sheets. When you don’t answer, however, he draws closer, at last crouching beside you. Even at this position you still have to look up at him when he delicately peels the sheets away from your face, baring you to him.
“Liebling, what’s wrong?” He asks, and the sound of his voice alone melts some of the hurt inside you. His eyes are gentle, soft, when they look down at you, brow knotted as he takes in the distress that washes over your face with the next wave of pain.
“H-hurts.” You manage, voice a touch raw with both discomfort and the bleariness of sleep.
König breathes, lets out a held breath at your response. Then your vision darkens for a moment as his hand reaches out to the space between you, settles at last over your face, where it cups your cheek in a tender caress. You can’t help the little whine that escapes you at that, as you nuzzle into his palm.
“I-I’m okay.” You tell him after a few deep breaths. “Just a bad pain day. I’ll be okay.”
Yet when you look up after scrunching your eyes König’s face remains unchanged, eyes shiny with anxiety, wide with worry as he gazes at you.
“How bad?” He asks, and you blink at the timidness of his voice, unsure and searching for the answer in your gaze. Then, quieter, he ventures: “You…you’ll be okay?”
It’s the uneasiness there that loosens your limbs in surprise, allowing that ache inside you to dull even for a few moments. There’s an almost boyish heartache to his gaze, distressed and a touch inconsolable to the twisting grimace across your face. It’s as if he almost doesn’t believe you when you try to reassure him, plagued relentlessly by the thought of your pain as if it were his own.
You feel your gaze soften upon his own, feel the sharp, ragged corners of you dull to fit into the soft confines of his tender heart.
“I’ll be okay, I promise.” You murmur to him, and that at last seems to draw the veil of melancholy back from his expression. König’s thumb grazes across your cheek, scraping against your too warm skin.
“Can I do anything?” He asks gently, entreating as if he’s offering himself to the altar of you. “Food? Medicine? H-Heizkis-...what is the world in English…” You watch as his face takes on a new expression, perplexed and vaguely annoyed. It draws a smile from you, upturning your lips even as you grimace.
“...Heating pad?” You offer helpfully, and König’s eyes brighten as he nods in recognition.
“Ja.” He replies quickly, sitting up a little taller, expectant and enthusiastic in his efforts to help.
“Mm.” You murmur, tucking your face into his hand so your lips graze the inside of his palm. He shivers.
“A heating pad would be nice, actually.” You return. “And some painkillers. Though I think I’m a little too nauseous for food.”
König’s brow draws again at that.
“You should have something, vöglein.” He murmurs gently. “Your stomach will hurt if you do not eat.”
“It hurts already.” You whine, but that doesn’t seem to deter him, expression unbudging. “...Maybe just some crackers?”
König nods, resolute now in his mission, ever the soldier. Yet just as he’s about to draw away he pauses, turns his eyes back to you.
“...I need my hand, liebling.” He tries gently, but your fingers only encircle his too large wrist instead with a little noise of protest. “...Bitte?”
You turn your watery gaze up to him, eyes wet with pain and the remnants of sleep.
“You’ll come back?” You ask, and you feel like a child, clinging to the mere comfort of his touch.
König melts.
“Of course.��� He murmurs, and the shadow of him dwarfs you as he draws near, allows his lips to graze across your brow in a tender, lingering kiss. “Soon.”
You release him then, with a small sniffle, allow him to retreat so you can again curl into the mess of blankets around you. His footsteps fade, and you try to focus not on the pain but the sound of his movements, the remaining echo of his voice that soothes at the tender heart of you.
It feels like he’s been gone forever by the time he at last returns, again fumbling on the other side of the bed until there’s a telltale click of a heating pad turning on. You reach for it automatically, only to find your outstretched arm caught in his grasp. A confused, bedraggled noise is torn from you when König gently pulls you from your nest of tangled sheets. Yet suddenly there’s arms around you, lifting you, moving you as the bed shifts under his weight.
He settles at last behind you, his back braced against the headboard, legs sprawled on either side of you as you’re propped up against his chest. The sudden cold of the room leaves goosebumps trailing along your arms. Yet before you can protest there’s a hand gripping yours, allowing it to settle around a glass of water, the other depositing two tiny capsules into your upturned palm.
His touch follows yours as you take the medicine, swallow the water in one go. You think that’s enough with the way König rumbles down at you, like the sound of wind through a fir forest, pulling at the trees. Yet when you try to shift, tuck your head into his chest you find yourself instead being directed towards a single slice of warm bread, the steam curling up and filling your nose.
The putrid pull of nausea threatens your stomach, but you eat anyways, letting warmth curl across your tongue until the bread is gone. It’s then, only then, that you allow yourself to go fully limp in König’s arms, sinking into his heat and trying to burrow into the dip of his ribcage. You hardly hear him as he moves once more, one arm securely fastened around your waist as he slides downwards. The touch flares the hurt there, and when you whine his lips settle across your shoulder in an apology, muttering in tender German until he at last allows you both onto your sides, draws you back into him.
The heating pad appears a moment later, pressed against your front and you sigh at the blessed heat there, drawing the pain from you like siphoning poison from your limbs. As you settle you feel him reach, draw the covers over your form once more.
“Better?” He asks after several moments of blissful silence, where the world softens at the edges and allows you to sink into momentary relief.
“Much.” You reply simply, voice groggy as drowsiness pulls at you once more. Then, after a moment. “Thank you, König. Danke schön.”
König hums, and the sound echoes in his chest like the creak of elder trees atop foggy mountains. His arms fold around you, nose bumping against your shoulder as he too, buries himself in the relief of you.
“The pain will get better.” He murmurs there, voice a little helpless at the mere touch of you. “I’ll be here until it does, and I’ll be here after too, meine Liebe.”
The pain in your limbs feels dulled by the golden, yielding touch of him, here to hold you away from the bitter wash of pain within the sweetness of his embrace.
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