MEDIC

Chapter 11. Restless Nights

Edited 27/05/23 - minor changes to grammar and spelling.

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König softly shut his bedroom door behind him, leaning backwards against it briefly and sighing heavily before kicking off his boots and flopping onto the bed. The large soldier groaned in pain and frustration, his calloused hand resting idly on the heavy bandaging around his ribs. They hurt like hell and every breath that König drew in made his fractured bones grate painfully against each other.

The whole thing was bullshit. Sure, it hurt to move and sure every breath König took made him feel like bashing his head against a wall, but that was still no reason for Dove to go rat him out to Captain Price. König frowned, yanking the sniper hood from off of his face and tossing it sulkily off of the bed. The Austrian made a mental note to get up at the crack of dawn to make sure he got to state his case to Price before the doctor could. There was no way he wasn't going on this mission.

Idle times in the base were far more stressful to König than the majority of his missions were.
Of course the imminent threat of being shot, stabbed or tortured to death was enough to turn the most hardened man's stomach, but for König? It was the only thing he'd known for years. The man had been built from the ground up to be the perfect military weapon, just like every other member of the 141 and KorTac. Despite his generally reserved nature, the thrill of being out on a mission and the threat of death fuelled König unlike any other worldly high he'd experienced throughout his years. But it was a high that came at an even higher cost.

It wasn't just coincidence that Königs psychiatric notes on his medical files were missing. König had, by the grace of god, managed to pull rank with the higher up KorTac officials and captain Price to lock all psychological evaluations and records away as soon as he found out that the 141 and his unit were merging.

Price, as the commanding officer, was the only person who had the level of clearance necessary to access Königs files fully.
When Dove had checked the files they'd thankfully assumed the missing files in his records were due to the previous medics negligence. This, of course, wasn't the case. The soldier was thankful that Price had ensured his information wouldn't be made available to anyone, even the doctors, unless absolutely necessary.

It wasn't like König was given preferential treatment with his sensitive information, a few soldiers on the base had taken advantage of their rank and standing within the team to do the same thing. Lieutenant Ghost had none of his psychiatric details on display for Dove but had provided the doctor with the odd scrap of info for them to add to his file every now and then. Horangi has also opted to lock away some of his mental evaluation notes, though only the parts that concerned his gambling addiction.

König huffed loudly, his fingers running along the edge of the bandages. He closed his eyes, desperately trying to avoid the feeling of becoming overstimulated. The bandages were too tight, König involuntarily fixated on the feeling of the coarse material hugging his chest, how certain patches aggravated his bruised skin with an annoying tickle that König couldn't scratch for fear of causing himself further pain.

"sich beruhigen...breathe."

Königs eyes remained shut as he attempted to sooth himself in his native tongue, his mind focusing on the cooling feel of the duvet under him rather than the unbearably itchy crushing weight of the bandages smothering his torso. It wasn't long before he felt his heart begin to slow, the overstimulated panic ebbing away and leaving König to breathe a little better.

[REDACTED]
"Evaluation shows patient suffers from severe panic attacks due to physical sensory overload. Handle injuries with extreme caution, sedate where necessary."

Königs mind briefly flicked to a section of his psyche evaluation and he couldn't help but scoff out loud. His inability to stop his mind from blowing a fuse throughout previous physical evaluations had failed him at almost every instance where he had needed medical attention in the past, to the point of making a conscious effort to avoid the last medic that Dove replaced...

So why was Dove any different?

König linked his fingers together across his chest and stared blankly at the ceiling above him. There was something about this doctor which made him a little less anxious. Dove was persistent in trying to get to know him, knew not to overstep any boundaries and, for the most part, seemed extremely gentle in how they took care of Königs injuries. Nothing like previous medical personnel the soldier had experience with in the past... even still, your insistence on keeping König out of action and grounded until he had healed was a little too much caring for the Austrians liking.

Königs icy grey eyes relaxed a little as he pictured your face while you were checking his ribs earlier in the evening, his huge body struggled to suppress a shudder as his mind brought back the way you touched him, albeit accidentally. König was, quite honestly, frustrated at how you'd seemingly managed to worm your way into his thoughts with seemingly little effort. It wasn't right, he was a soldier, a high ranking KorTac specialist who's very callsign had enemies trembling...yet here he was, legged out on his bed sporting a rather monstrous erection at the thought of your delicate hand brushing against his chest.

"Gott verdammt..."

❖ ☤ MEDIC ☤ ❖

At the other end of the base you were having a similarly restless night. You'd finished up in the infirmary and had plopped straight into bed the moment you got to your room. Honestly your body ached, despite only seeing König today you were absolutely drained, it was as if spending any extended time with the mountain of a man sapped you of your faculties.

You placed your hands behind your head, using your interlinked palms as a cushion as you closed your eyes and planned out your coming day.
First on the agenda was to visit Price and request that König be grounded until his injuries healed. You knew he wouldn't like it but it was necessary and the thought of him out there doing god knows what with his body in it's current state was absolutely something you couldn't bare the thought of.

König had insisted to you that he was perfectly able to perform as he needed to for this next mission, and truthfully you didn't doubt the honesty behind his words. König was a god damned war machine and he wasn't about to let a little pain get in the way of his objectives...but still, you were his doctor, allowing the man to go out there went against everything you stood for. Your job was to heal, not harm. König would just have to fucking deal with it and be in a mood with you for a little while.

You squeezed your eyes shut and sighed heavily, desperate to continue making your mental chore list for the coming day yet finding yourself continuously thinking back to Königs insanely toned body as you checked him over, the feeling of his muscles involuntarily twitching under your fingers...how his whole body seemed to shudder when you accidentally brushed against his nipple.

It was fine...this was fine...you were on a base crawling with stacked out, beautiful men, you were bound to get a little crush on some of them...it came with the territory...

Just focus on work. Focus. Breathe.

You felt the all too familiar swell of warmth in the pit of your stomach and instinctively crossed your legs, rolling onto your stomach and smushing your head into the pillow with a slap and a comically muffled groan of frustration.

"Of all the men on base why are we crushing for the near seven foot tall walking anxiety campaign."

Dammit.