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“Hush now, amrâlimê…” Thorin whispered as he pulled the shivering hobbit closer against his chest. Bilbo had come down with the flu shortly after moving to Erebor, the cold weather shocking his immune system.
Thorin subtly shifted Bilbo more snugly against his right hip, where his usual aches had been more pronounced. The heat from his feverish body had a similar effect to that of the hot water bottles he regularly used for his pain.
A soft whimper slipped past Bilbo’s lips as he curled closer into Thorin’s chest, and he rubbed his reddened snub nose against the fur of his husband’s cloak, too tired and miserably sick to care about getting it dirty.
Thorin smiled fondly as he noticed this, grabbing one of the many handkerchiefs littering the blankets and gingerly cleaning up Bilbo’s runny nose. He took extra effort to make his aching hands move steadily, for the hobbit’s nose was horribly raw and sore from all the rubbing. Unfortunately, Thorin had rather awful proprioception, and the hanky knocked against a particularly irritated patch of Bilbo’s skin.
Thorin winced in sympathy at the pained squeak that followed, and he reached for a tin of mentholated salve that sat upon the bedside table. He unscrewed it and scooped a bit onto his finger before gently tilting up Bilbo’s head. He applied the salve across the warm, red rims of Bilbo’s nostrils and his septum, before rubbing it in with the pad of his thumb—more for comfort than practicality.
Bilbo leaned into the touch with a pleased smile, and once the process was done, he shuffled further up Thorin’s chest to press his stuffy nose into the crook of Thorin’s collar.
The two stayed like that for many more hours, each peacefully sleeping away their own ailments.
~End?~