What Will Console You? by sallysavestheday

What Will Console You?

If illness triggers you, read no further!

Maglor cared for Maedhros after Thangorodrim. He tended the soldiers of the Gap, singing purity and ease into poisoned wounds and terrible, blistering burns. He has bandaged and poulticed and set bones and lanced boils, managed field amputations, and clawed back no small number of souls from the path to Mandos.

Any pride he may have in his healing abilities is undermined thoroughly by Elwing’s twins.

The boys are sick: feverish and surly and achy and limp in their beds. Maglor has become accustomed to their un-elven sweating and the necessity of changing sheets and sleeping clothes and sponging their sticky bodies down. He has made pot after pot of tea, trying to replenish the moisture lost to the fever and keep them from simply melting away. He has reassured himself that they are not really at risk, only uncomfortable, and hopes that the sunrise will turn the tide of woe.

The vomiting is a hideous surprise.

He has heard of it, of course, as a peculiarity of Men, but he could never have imagined the sheer volume of fluid that mortal bodies contain. Not to mention the seeming randomness of the urge, or the lack of control over direction and force. And the smell! Eru, the smell. He clips a clothespin to his nose and rues his life’s choices as the twins moan and wail and heave up his palliative teas.

As soon as one subsides, the other begins: Elros with vigor and volume and Elrond miserably, almost silently, weeping all the while. Maglor holds basins under their straining heads, strokes sticky hair away from their damp foreheads, empties, washes, does it all again and again until it blurs into a hellish routine.

He rages under his breath at Maedhros, inconveniently away hunting Orcs. A nice clean fight would be infinitely preferable to the duties of the sickroom, to the endless roil of these sniveling, gagging, shivering children with whom they have saddled themselves. Maedhros was ever the better caregiver, with the patience of eternity and a gentleness their brilliant parents lacked. But he is not here, and the young ones need tending. Maglor groans and sets another washpot boiling to scald the pile of stinking rags.

The children’s stomachs settle, eventually, or empty themselves beyond any possibility of further upheaval. By that point, there are no clean sheets, no more clean clothes, and their beds are unsavory to an excruciating degree. Two pairs of silvery eyes glaze behind the droop of dark lashes. They need sleep, these suffering little ones, and soon.

Maglor hauls furs and blankets from his own bed and Maedhros’, piling them before the fire in a nest of warmth and softness that he prays will stay unstained. He draws the boys down into it with him, tucking one under each arm like a bird with her chicks. They nestle into the furs, curling against him, two little coals burning softly against his sides.

Elros coughs, and nuzzles into Maglor’s chest. “Nana used to sing, when we were sick,” he mutters, hinting.

Elrond narrows a bleary eye at him from Maglor’s other side. “He won’t know those songs, El,” he croaks. “He doesn’t know what to do with children.”

Maglor’s own eyes burn, suddenly. He remembers chasing a muddy, naked, gleefully shrieking Celegorm through the kitchen in Tirion; bouncing Caranthir on his knee as he tinkered with a new composition; braiding Curufin’s first fluff of hair. These twins are not so different from Ambarussa; they fit just so into the curl of his arms.

He sighs and dredges up a lullaby from the depths of his memory. Tucking the boys closer, he rocks them and sings.

Maedhros slips through the door on silent feet, chilled and weary from the road. The fire is warm, and Maglor’s limpid, mellow voice has filled the room with tenderness. The twins are sound asleep, their small hands clutching Maglor’s hair and sleeves as he breathes another gentle song. Something in Maedhros softens and loosens, listening, and his eyes prick with tears.

Maglor hears him sigh and lifts his head, smiling crookedly and with some chagrin at the general disarray. Maedhros kicks his boots off and settles into the furs beside him, shifting Elros into his own arms as the child grumbles and yawns. He leans and kisses Maglor’s forehead, laughing silently at a sudden memory. Maglor’s eyebrow lifts, questioning, and Maedhros whispers, “Alas, Kano, here we are, together: plagued, I'm afraid, with another set of twins.”