Papa IV "Copia" x GN! Reader (AO3 Link)
Domestic Fluff, GEN with some strong language.
You’re in the middle of recovering from a broken leg, and after a few months of this every appointment feels more like a setback than a step forward. At least Copia had been there. This whole time, your man was there.
Dedicated to my friend @thew0man. I hope this domestic fluff instantly heals you. Thank you for all your support. Keep being your lovely self.
Tags: Gender Neutral, Established Relationship, Healing After Injury, Married Life, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Domestic Fluff. Broken Bones, Wheelchairs, Medical Issues
The lift stops at the fourth floor with a final clunk that knocks a tired sigh from you. Your leg in its cast and new boot stirs and issues a dull ache as a reminder. Your love Copia is wedged in the corner by the buttons, his mismatched eyes blinking in their perplexed way as he waits just a bit more until he's sure the lift’s stopped. He meets your eyes, flashes you a tender smile and a little thumbs up. “Home sweet home, eh?” He chuckles. He squeezes his body around your wheelchair in the tiny service elevator of your flat, nearly stumbling backwards into the hall.
“There you go, I got you,” Copia mutters, placing his hands on either side of the chair to help pull you out.
“I'm fine, I'm fine Copia,” you reply, moving your hands along the hand rims to roll the wheels forward. You exit the lift with a thunk and wince. The painkillers have done their job but your leg still throbs in its boot. The boot is new, and it was a good step towards actually getting over this. In the car you admitted to Copia your exhaustion from today’s appointment, so like a gentleman he brought down the wheelchair.
“Now, amore, we spend the rest of our Saturday relaxing, si?” He says by your ear. “You eh— you need help?”
“No I'm fine.” You give him a weak smile. He's so attentive that those butterflies start to wake. The ones where you're worried for him. You feel a flush of nerves as he continues his friendly chatter as you wheel yourself down the hall towards your flat.
In a few moments you're inside your place and sitting once more on the couch. Copia has arranged a nest of blankets around you as carefully as a mama bird, settling you in for another late afternoon and evening to get through while you heal. Your leg in the cast itches. It always does at the worst time. You stare at it hoping just giving it a tired look will make it stop, but it continues, taunting you. You notice once more an old get well card over the television and its memory continues to sink your mood.
Happy Valentine’s Day, you say to yourself whenever you feel down about your situation. The red and pink, white lace and teddy bears were the decorations festooned across your earliest memories of your accident. The sweet little tributes filled the hospital room but also reminded you too much of how badly you miscalculated. If only I…if I had just…why didn’t I… Over and over the moments replayed themselves in your brain as you stared into the black plastic eyes of yet another “Grin and Bear It!” Plush delivered to your room. Happy Valentine’s Day but it was nearing July. And every time you returned from your doctor’s office it never felt like an improvement, just another problem.
At least Copia had been there. This whole time, your man was there. He had travelled to your hospital bedside as soon as he was able, clearing his schedule to spend time playing Uno and reading you books until you fell asleep. “My love…You'll be well soon,” he had said as he held your hands in his own over the rough hospital blanket. “Believe you'll be well and you'll be well, amore. That's most of it, si? The em— power of the mind and all. Getting you through.”
He's helped you to every appointment he can, kept you clean and fed and comfortable. His whole world was you, even though it had shrunk to the size of your apartment and the occasional wheel around the park to stay sane.
“Let’s get you comfortable, here em—yes, perfetto,” Copia murmurs. He's here even now, adjusting the pillows around you on the couch. He's wearing his Saturday best of ratty red sweatshirt that’s seen better days but over time has become impossibly soft. His freckled cheek is right beside yours, his eyes lowered as he works. He smells of lavender and Florida water aftershave as you lean forward and steal a kiss for yourself. He makes one of those little noises in his throat, frowning comically as he stands up.
“You're distracting me,” he says. “Although I know I am irresistible. As I um— as I seduce you with all of these em…couch cushions.” Copia ends his task with his own thoughtful little kiss on your forehead before moving on to the kitchen nearby.
You learned that when he can't touch you in the ways he wants, he'll stack your table high with food. You're not sure if it's an Italian thing or a Copia thing but watching him putter about in a kitchen calms you down after another long day of being stuck in your thoughts. “We can see that see that gangster film if you like em— which one was it? The one with the guy who…oh, he's in that other film…”
Copia continues his rambling as he chops things in the kitchen. There's the sizzle of oil and the comforting scent of your favorite meal wafts into the living room. You shake your head, laughing quietly to yourself. Spiced tagine chicken, your favorite. Copia's awful proud about how he's figured it out and so now you assume with another chuckle that this is what you're going to eat for the rest of your life.
Or at least until your leg was better. You stare at the new cast now, frowning at it propped up on the ottoman.
You were better, but you were far from recovered. And as sweet as he was, you were worried Copia wouldn’t keep his patience. At some point he’d get tired hauling you from one appointment to another. Would get frustrated from helping you to and from the car, would get bored from all the missed opportunities for sweet dinner dates, concerts or cocktail bars.
It was embarrassing enough asking him for the most basic things that just weeks ago you would do without a thought— damn, if only I—getting up the stairs, bathing, cooking meals. A part of you decided to tell you stories about what was going through Copia’s mind as he doted on you. Surely, this task would be the one to put him over the edge. Yes, this setback, this latest appointment will make his smiles and cheerful demeanor fade. When he wasn’t around you’d sleep. Or lie awake wondering.
Maybe you'll start with a game. Some Zelda or Phoenix Wright, you're not sure. Although you’re halfway through a court case in Phoenix Wright and you don't really remember all the little details anymore. Maybe not. Maybe you'll restart the chapter later, although filing through all that text seems tiring at this point. Fine, perhaps no video games.
Painting? Copia’s left your iPad on the side table within reach. But you're not sure what to paint. And the last one needs some color correction and the thought of fiddling with the smallest adjustments that nobody will notice except you is far from appealing. There's nothing on the TV of any interest to you at this hour. You pick up a book you've been planning on reading but after a few minutes the text swims in front of your eyes.
Or you could always do the jigsaw puzzles. Dear God not the jigsaw puzzles.
You click on the television just to have noise to fill the air. It's two women crowing about handbags on a home shopping network. That’ll do. You set it all down and stare at the ceiling.
“I will set my alarm for eh— the three times a day you need the small white round ones, and the twice a day the long pill capsules and of course the injections….how many do we need?” Copia stares at the doctor’s note, mouth slack like he's attempting to translate an ancient curse carved into the side of a pharaoh's sarcophagus. “How, how do they write like this, tesoro? Is this em— is this English? Cazzo, what is this…”
“Twice a day,” you sigh. You're not happy about the shots but at least your man's been a champ when it comes to helping you with them. However, last two times he made you laugh too much to hold still. “Look away, dear, I’m eh—too scared to look too,” he joked, covering his eyes.
Dinner is set to steam on the stove for a while. He returns from the kitchen, with his Kiss the Cook apron on with the matching tacky fish-shaped oven mitts you brought back from Brighton for him as a joke. The money was worth the polite, nervous smile he gave you when he opened the gift. Now he uses them with pride cooking every night. Getting better at your favorite spiced tagine chicken recipe. He's close, almost.
“Is there anything else? Anything I can get you em—before dinner?”
All this fussing, all the delicious smells of your favorite meal and the buzz of shows on the TV and the warmth of the blanket he's draped on you spins in your mind. You want to be happy. You want to be at peace, but the twist in your chest doesn't go away, and in fact the more he dotes on you and mutters sweet nothings the more that tightness winds.
And right now, it just snaps. You let out a sob, something that you thought wouldn't be detected but is too loud across the space. Copia freezes. He heard it. Fuck. The tears pour out like fizz from a shaken soda can.
“I just…Copia, I'm sorry!” The scene swims in the onslaught of your tired tears. He's frozen in his bewildered mismatched expression, holding onto an oven mitt like a life raft against a tsunami. It's all too much but you can't stop now. “I'm so sorry you have to see me like this. You have to…take care of me like this. After— God, I'm such an idiot! I wasn't thinking and now…now you have to…I'm like a helpless little nothing over here, and it's my fault!”
You don't want to look at him. You've already wasted enough of his time. He's seen you at your absolute worst, and even worse than that carried you around like you were his nonna. You have the image of him wheeling you around some Italian square, pigeons flying about while you tighten your old lady scarf around you. The idea of that injects you with a odd feeling of pity and mirth, and you utter a tired noise you're not sure is a laugh or another sob, but it's an embarrassing honk just the same.
“You’ve done too much. I…” And you say the quiet part out loud. “Copia I don't deserve all this.”
“Amore…is that it?” Copia settles in next to you and places his hand on your good leg.
You nod wordlessly, tears still streaming down your face. The people in the television laugh, unknowing of your inner turmoil. But the secret’s out now. To everyone, including yourself.
“In sickness and in health, si?” His mouth quirks as he struggles to stay serious. “That's ah…that's fifty percent of that sentence, yes? There's good times and there's em—well, not so good times.”
Now you want to apologize for being such a baby. From nonna to whining baby, the shame is giving you whiplash but his touch keeps you tethered in place. “Copia, I’m—”
“Sickness and in health. One hundred percent. I love you one hundred percent, amore,” he says bringing your hand to his lips. His eyes never leave yours as you feel his soft lips graze your knuckles. “Love is getting through the hard times, is it not?”
The moments of shame still dance in your head but his warm presence wards them off. His gaze has softened into something more, deeper. He knows all about you, he always has. So why not give into it. Give in to his gentle glance of love. “Amore….” he presses.
“Copia, thank you,” you whisper as he leans into an embrace.
“We'll laugh about this one day,” he purrs in your ear, his scent enveloping you once more. You bring a hand up to run your fingers through his hair and he utters one of his pleased little myehs that usually make you chuckle.
“Yeah, we will,” you sniff.
“Laugh about it on the Amalfi. Over some gelato. And now I'm retired we can really get into it, you know? Doing nothing somewhere nice. Would you like that?”
You would. The blue sky and the pink gelato and the white sand. His handsome freckled face laughing in the sun. His gold cornicello on a chain against his chest barely covered by a crisp linen summer shirt. And his black socks. Those fucking dress socks in his old man slides. Your smile returns. “I really would, Copia.”
He meets your eyes and senses the change in you, returns your shy smile with his own. “I love you,” he murmurs. He leans in close once more as his mouth meets yours. That tender kiss never gets old. What your mind can't learn from his words its taught with his lips. And they're damn good at convincing you you're loved more than you’ll ever know.
He pulls back with a gentle caress of your cheek and your tears become happy ones. You love this man, and he loves you. He'll love you whether he's sitting at an exotic cafe or your bedside at the hospital. It's the same place in his mind, as long as he's with you.
“But until then we can bear a few Downton Abbey reruns, si?” He settles in next to you and curls his fingers around your own. “What is this…lord so and so? What's her face em— what is she up to now?”
“You'll have to actually watch instead of talk over it, Copia dear,” you reply.
“Right, right. I'm suffering more than you, tesoro,” he chuckles. “Let's ah…keep it all in perspective, here.”
“Of course,” you say, and you rest your head on his chest. He's still wearing his silly apron but you couldn't care less. You can hear his heart beat through it just the same.
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I'm reblogging some cozy stuff for Valentine's Day
