Perfect Angels
By TICS

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Contact Email: kathmco@tampabay.rr.com

Rating: PG

Main Characters: Elrond, Celebrian, Arwen, Elrohir, and Elladan

Written For: Stephanie

Original Request: Something that includes their whole family, i.e. all 3 children. Can be when they are younger or older it doesn't matter. But nothing sad please.

Genre: Humor; slightly AU

Word Count: 2251

Summary: Elrond gets a little more than he bargained for when Celebrian gives birth.

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“Elrond, my darling… “

Oh, Eru. I know that tone - that deceptively sweet, dulcet tone. The one she uses just before she tries to scratch my eyes out or snatch me baldheaded. Outwardly, Elrond retained the visage of grace and utter calm, but on the inside he was cringing like a cornered rabbit. She’d been the same way with Arwen and he knew exactly what to expect – knew precisely what mood he’d find her in just by hearing the sound of her voice.

And it was only going to get worse as time went on.

Pregnancy somehow – through some hormonal alchemy, some shifting and rearranging of the core of her being – transformed Celebrian into…well, into something else. Something other than the sweet, gentle elleth I married. Quickly he quashed the thought, afraid for a moment that she’d read his mind.

She could read his mind. He was positive of it, although she vehemently denied possessing the ability. It was the only way he could explain how she knew – knew – that he’d eaten the last of the honeyed strawberries just moments before she craved one. Or that he’d snagged the hem of his best robe on a thorn, ripping her delicate embroidery stitches into shreds.

“Elrond… “

There was a bit more urgency in her voice this time, hurrying Elrond’s step as he climbed the gracefully curving stairway that led to the upper floor of his House.

Perhaps it is her time! He prayed to Eru that is was her time, and in the same breath that it wasn’t. If Celebrian’s pregnancy had been difficult for him to endure, her labor would be positively torturous.

Again he squashed the thought even before it could fully form in his mind.

That isn’t very fair of me. She will suffer to bring my child into the world. Still… she tends to want to share everything with me – pain especially. His shoulder twitched with the memory of the gouges he’d suffered from her nails when she’d birthed Arwen. Elrond feared that if she were able, Celebrian would stuff the baby down his throat, pack it down tight and let him birth it himself – just to fully share the experience with him.

As a matter of fact, he recalled her describing just that procedure - at length and in graphic detail - when her birth waters broke as she labored with Arwen.

“ELROND!”

Oh, Eru preserve us! Elrond’s feet flew up the last few stairs, taking two at a time as he raced to their bedchamber. The halls were empty, his footsteps echoing on the stone. He noticed that the other Elves of his House were nowhere to be found.

Everyone seemed to have found somewhere else to be, and for a very good reason.

Celebrian wasn’t picky when it came to sharing her pain. Any pair of ears within reach would do, and every Elf in the House knew it. Erestor had found that out the hard way when Arwen was born. He still claimed hearing loss, to this day.

Elrond paused at the doorway to their bedchamber, his hand on the doorknob. He took a deep, steadying breath, and stepped inside.

“Darling! Where have you been? I’ve been calling and calling… “ Celebrian cooed, turning eyes toward Elrond that held a look more reminiscent of a Nazgul than a dove.

“I was in the gardens, love, and… “ Elrond began, knowing immediately that that – as usual – was the wrong thing to say.

“The gardens? You were in the gardens while I lay here like a beached whale, swollen and aching and ugly?”

“Oh, love, you are not ugly! You- “

“Just swollen and whale-like, then?”

Elrond winced. Mentally, he withdrew his foot from his mouth. He could imagine that he had shoved it so far down his throat that he tasted boot leather on his tonsils. Rubbing a weary hand over his face, he summoned a smile. “Celebrian, is it time? Does the babe begin to work its way into our world?”

“You’re the healer. You tell me.”

Oh, Valar! I’ll need to examine her, and that will necessitate me being within hair-pulling range. Pushing up his sleeves, he swallowed hard and moved closer to the bed. At once, a small fist shot out and twisted in the fabric of his robe, pulling Elrond down until his nose was nearly touching Celebrian’s.

“Get this thing out of me…NOW!” she growled, making Elrond wonder – and not for the first time – if Galadriel and Celeborn had been completely truthful about her ancestry. She sounded as if she may have had warg somewhere in her bloodline.

“Celebrian, be reasonable, dearest. You know that I cannot take the babe. It must find its own way into the world, and at its own pace.”

Here it comes. This is the part where she tries to remove my kidneys through my nostrils. Elrond steeled himself, silently swearing not to scream.

This time.

“I don’t care! It hurts, Elrond! Do you have any idea of the discomfort I’m in? My ankles are so swollen that I can swear that they slosh when I move them. My back feels as though an entire herd of oliphaunts is stampeding up and down over my spine. And your…your spawn refuses to lie still for even five minutes! It’s been kicking me so fiercely that we may not need to worry about my labor – it may very well just kick itself free through my bellybutton.”

If Elrond didn’t have an idea of the level of discomfort Celebrian was experiencing, that changed soon enough as she took hold of an ear and tried to twist it off his head. “I want this pregnancy over with, Elrond. Know this, son of Eärendil, if this child seeks to commit matricide before he is even born, I. Am. Taking. You. With. Me.”

Each word was punctuated by a sharp twist, until Elrond was certain he would find his ear laying on the floor, a useless lump of flesh. 

Perhaps he could pickle it and the Valar could reattach it when he at last sailed West to Valinor.

He suddenly harbored no more doubts about Erestor’s claim to hearing loss. He was also positive that labor had indeed begun for Celebrian. Even at her worst, she was never this bad until she was in the full throes of labor.

Grudgingly, he admitted that she hid it well. Her voice had never once risen above a very lady-like, genteel screech.

 When Celebrian finally released his throbbing ear, he laid a gentle hand over her stomach. Immediately, he felt a strong contraction roll through his wife’s abdomen, cringing himself at its strength. Another started soon after the first subsided.

No wonder she was ready to rip someone a new orifice.

“It will be very soon now, Celebrian,” he said, lifting her bedclothes and bending her knees. Her birthing blanket was already spread underneath her hips. A neat pile of swaddling lay next to her, along with a pair of shining golden shears and a length of silver thread that Elrond would use to sever the babe’s connection with her.

He smiled gently, again impressed by her fortitude. No matter how difficult she was she had still sought to make his life easier by getting the necessary equipment ready beforehand.

She was ever like that, always trying to make his life easier, smoother, and less stressful.  And she was strong, his delicate, ethereally beautiful wife. For all that her tongue could be sharper than an orc’s blade at times like these, she was able to keep her head about her.

Well, usually.

Surreptitiously, he slid the shears just out of her reach so that she wouldn’t be tempted to remove any part of his anatomy that Elrond had grown overly fond of having.

“Bear down, Celebrian!” Elrond urged, gritting his own teeth as she strained. “Hold, love,” he ordered when he spotted the crown of the babe’s head. “Cease pushing, Celebrian!”

A string of curses that might have aged him had he not been immortal sprung from his wife’s lovely lips, but she did as he’d ordered, her hands fisting in the sheets as she struggled against the urge to bear down.

“Alright, love…push!” Elrond called, cradling a tiny head with a shock of midnight black hair gently in his hands.

A short while later, the head proved to have an entire baby attached to it, as he delivered a wet, slippery new ellon into the world.

“A boy, Celebrian!” Elrond grinned, bursting with pride over his son. “We have a son!”

“Are you certain, Elrond?” Celebrian asked, lifting her head up, trying to see.

“I may be old, Celebrian, but I still recall the difference between an elleth and an ellon. Trust me…he’s a boy. A big boy,” he chuckled, walking around the bed. “His father’s son.”

“Poor child,” Celebrian smirked, taking her son and putting him to her breast.

Suddenly, she grimaced. “Elrond? The afterbirth… “

He trotted around to the front of the bed again, ready to relieve her of the placenta, when suddenly he cocked his head, his features cast in a puzzled expression. This doesn’t look like any afterbirth I’ve ever seen. It’s…hairy. Oh, for the love of the Valar! It’s another one!”

“Celebrian? Darling? Um…I need you to push, sweetheart.”

The words were hardly necessary since Celebrian was already bearing down, their newborn son still cradled in her arms. Elrond dashed around the side of the bed, snatching their firstborn son from her and placing him in the bassinet that stood nearby. He returned quickly, just as a second dark head emerged. 

Just a few moments later, he was gazing with pride at two identical babes, both with thick thatches of black hair that stuck up on their heads in every which direction, both of which had cries that sounded the tiniest bit like goats bleating, and each noisily sucking at one of his wife’s breasts.

“Easy there, sons. I need to use those later,” Elrond laughed, winking at Celebrian.

“You’re an idiot, Elrond. Sweet, patient, and just as handsome today as the day I married you, but an idiot just the same,” Celebrian said. Her musical laughter joined his baritone, and he knew at that moment that all was right with the world.

Arwen came in soon after, peeking shyly around the door. Elrond scooped her up in his arms so that she could see her new twin brothers.

“That one is Elladan,” Elrond said, “and that one is Elrohir.”

Celebrian sighed. “No, dear. This one is Elrohir, and that one is Elladan.”

“They looked all wrinkled up, like old apples,” Arwen said, crinkling her nose. “And they’re blue. Are they supposed to look like that? They will make very ugly elves when they grown up. Are you sure they aren’t orcs?”

“That isn’t very kind, Arwen. They’re beautiful,” Elrond admonished. “They look just as you did when you were born. They won’t be wrinkled or blue for very long.”

“Well, that’s good, then,” Arwen said. “I guess we can keep them.”

Celebrian laughed again, handing one of the babies to Elrond. “I think that’s a splendid idea, Arwen, especially since I don’t think I could return them, even if I wanted to.”

“I would never give any of you up,” Elrond said, feeling his heart swell with love at his family. “You are all perfect, and all mine.”

“Good thing too, because I am never going through that again, Elrond. You can sleep in the guest room from here on out,” Celebrian said. But the twinkle in her eyes told Elrond she didn’t mean a word of what she was saying. Her words were mischievous, but there was nothing but love in the look she gave him.

Elrond sighed contentedly then set about cleaning up and making Celebrian comfortable. Two sons! Two! Just as his brother and he were, identical down to their tiny fingers and toes – except that his sons would never give him a single moment of trouble.

Father used to say that Elros and I were incorrigible, always playing jokes on people and getting into mischief, but in that regard my sons will be different. They will behave themselves. Look at them! Perfect little angels - that’s what they are. And that’s what they always will be.

***

CRASH!

The crash – actually, it was more of an explosion – reverberated through Elrond’s House, sending every Elf in the House running in the direction of the Hall of Fire.

Except for Elrond.

Elrond sat at his desk in his study, his head in his hands. That was probably the vase that his father had carried with him from Valinor. No doubt it had joined the statue of his mother, the pair of crystal goblets that had been given them by Galadriel and Celeborn for Celebrian’s and Elrond’s wedding, and the wine decanter that Mithrandir had gifted them with several hundred years earlier, splintered into a million unrecognizable pieces.

Destroyed, along with just about every other breakable object in the House, by two of the most uncontrollable, incorrigible, disobedient, dyed-in-the-wool hooligans to every draw breath.

His sons.

His perfect angels had turned out to be much more like he and his twin brother had been than Elrond would have liked.

And yet, despite all the destruction, and the glue in the honey pots, and the short-sheeted beds, they were, along with Arwen, Elrond and Celebrian’s perfect little angels.

And always would be.

 ~ End