Fatherhood
It was not often that Maglor was nervous. In fact, nearly everyone who knew the family, would agree that he rarely had a reason to be quick to anger or anything similar like his brothers. Today, however, was a legal exception.
"Maglor, sit down. Rainiel is fine. The doctors are the best we have here in Formenos," Maedhros offered to try and not have his brother walk around the waiting room in anxiety.
"I can not! I am scared for her and the babies!"
Today was the date of the planned Cesarean operation for their twins to be born. Maglor and Rainiel had tried the natural way to get pregnant for several years before a medicinal check had revealed that Maglor suffered from low sperm count, which was rather ironic given the number of brothers he had alongside that he already had a nephew. On the other hand, Maglor had married his beloved wife at a later age than his parents and Curufin, which might have affected the success in the baby-making.
"You will only the wait worse for yourself by acting like this. Sit down and play some music, at least," Fëanor requested to his second born and handed Maglor a flute before gently pushing him down on a chair. To be fair, he could understand why Maglor was so nervous, Amrod and Amras had been a risky pregnancy as well, not helped by that they had been Nerdanel's sixth pregnancy and twenty-four years marked a huge difference in the medicinal care for premature infants.
The whole family had gathered in the same waiting room, behind the operating room where Rainiel was getting ready. If everything went right, two new family members would arrive in a hour.
~X~X~X~X~X~X
The fact that Maglor ended up playing abnormally bad music for being him, on the flute, told the family of how nervous he was.
"Stop torturing the poor flute, Kano!" Caranthir snapped in annoyance, his face turning red in the way that hinted to his mood turning sour for whatever he disliked in this moment.
"The doctors better come with the babies soon or Maglor will misuse that poor flute to death…" Amras whispered to Curufin, who desperately tried to save the hearing of his son by holding his palms over Celebrimbor's ears. Nothing had gone wrong during the pregnancy, but since Rainiel and Maglor were both past 37 years of age, with this being the first successful pregnancy since their wedding ten years earlier, every one of the adults were nervous.
"Are it really that bad for this being aunt Rainiel's first pregnancy, that she is expecting twins?" Celebrimbor asked aloud after that Amrod finally handed over the video camera to the middle brother and took the flute away from Maglor to make the family stop suffering from the bad music.
"37 is a pretty high age for a woman who is giving birth for the first time," Nerdanel explained to her soon-to-be oldest grandchild, knowing that while he was old enough for some details, he was better off to know the full image at a later age as a teenager.
"Maglor Nos Feanor?" a nurse suddenly called from the half-open door, "your wife would like you to meet the babies."
Maedhros gave his brother a push in the back to make him sit straight up before Maglor could protest. The nurse arrived again, carrying one of the newborn twins.
"This is Elros, Rainiel said at meeting him, the oldest one. I will bring out Elrond in a moment."
Once he held one twin in each of his arms, after getting some help from Nerdanel in how to avoid dropping one of them by mistake, Maglor could see that his sons would not be the identical kind of twins.
"Taking after each side of the family, it seems, instead of doing like us and take after mother the most in terms of appearance," Amrod commented as he moved the video camera closer so his second oldest brother and nephews was the focus together, which made Amras jokingly pretended to regret that the newborns would not be mistaken for each other as they grew older.
"And here comes the happy mom."
Rainiel was brought out on the hospital bed she would have for the coming week before she and her sons would be allowed to go home after ensuring that she was healing as she should and there was no health problems for the boys either, but no one could miss the joy on her face.
"Look at you three, my trio of handsome men."
Apparently Elros got tired of meeting the closest family members for now, because he started to cry loudly, with a voice that proved his paternity at least. That naturally led to Elrond doing the same. When handed to Rainiel Elros calmed down a little, it could be as simple as him wanting his mother.
"Alright, you four will be left alone for a private family bonding now when we have gotten to meet the boys."
As such, Fëanor and Nerdanel gathered the rest of their sons alongside Celebrimbor to return home. Before they all left, Caranthir reminded Maglor of that he was welcome to eat dinner with their parents tonight unless he had some leftovers in the freezer to simply heat up in the microwave.
"Enjoy the last week of peaceful sleep now when you can, for after that we will have those two to care for twenty four-seven even with our family members babysitting them long enough to let us get some extra sleep," Rainiel smiled at her husband, watching him hum a lullaby for Elrond. When he looked up, his eyes shone as if he tried to not start crying in joy over their newly founded family.
"I am just so...happy right now. I think we chose good names for them."
"At least our sons will not have a first name and surname that sound nearly identical, like your father," Rainiel laughed, and Maglor smiled since he knew too well what she meant. Then again, Fëanor had never regretted reclaiming the surname of a historical ancestor than using the surname of his own father. As she gave the twins their first milk a peace fell over the married couple, the evening sun painting the hospital room in warm colours though the window. Rainiel could already guess that her husband would get inspiration for music suitable for lullabies which he would play and record on a CD-disk so their sons would fall asleep to the sound of their father's singing voice.
~X~X~X~X~X~X
Author note: in this modern AU the family name is Nos Feanor which is Quenya for House of Fëanor, I imagine it to be taken from a historical ancestor some hundred years ago, and while Finwë used the surname Ñoldóran, which is his canon title as King of the Noldor, this version of Fëanor thought that surname to sound supercilious and changed his surname at marrying Nerdanel, accepting that there have been some jokes about his given name and surname sounding almost identical
Maedhros was born before his parents had passed their respective 19th birthday, and Maglor is two years younger. Curufin followed in the footsteps of his parents and was a married father before turning nineteen as well by marrying his wife Astarë during their first year in college