MPREG WARNING! This is about male pregnancy. If it squicks you don't read it. No flames please. Fanfic is about having fun.
Open Wide, please.
Blue-grey eyes met the challenge of summer blue ones squarely. Aragorn stood before the room's only exit, arms folded. Frodo sat, cross-legged, upon the examining table, his own hands firmly in the lap of his nightshirt.
"It's months away." Frodo's lips formed a straight line and his chin lifted slightly in a way that the King recognised as being his most defiant expression.
Aragorn kept his voice even and calm, but gave no indication of backing down. "If all goes according to nature it is only six months away and we need to start planning now."
Frodo's gaze finally dropped and he started to plait his fingers. "If I am to have this child I am sure that "nature" will find a way to birth it." He swallowed, and when he continued his voice had lost its defiant tone. "And if it does not, you said that Lord Elrond could . . . cut it from me if necessary."
Having decided that his charge was no longer quite so set upon bolting, Aragorn stepped away from the door and towards the table. He slid quietly into a chair and laid a large hand upon the smaller ones weaving themselves in Frodo's lap. His action had the desired affect and blue eyes slid up to his face once more.
"Frodo. If cutting is required we will have to make preparations. We will need to know what adjustments your male body is making to the babe growing inside you and we can only know that if you are examined regularly."
A pink flush crept up from Frodo's neck into his cheeks. "But it's so . . . so . . . personal. Can't you just tell me what to look for?" There was a note of pleading now.
"No. I cannot tell you because I do not know. I have never heard of a male pregnancy before," Aragorn replied, softly.
This confession was met with a little shred of resistance. "Then, if you do not know what you are looking for, what is the point of examining me?"
Aragorn leaned back and snorted. "Come now, my dear gentlehobbit. You know very well that the purpose of an examination is to discover what is happening, not to confirm what is or is not expected."
Frodo's shoulders dropped. "But I am not used to being examined . . . down there. It is so . . . embarrassing."
"Would you prefer to have someone who you do not know as personally? Lord Elrond, or even someone from the Houses of Healing?"
"No! No, please, no. I don't think I could bear to have a stranger know about this. If it has to be anyone, I would rather it was you . . . or Master Elrond."
Aragorn made no move. "I can send for Elrond, if you wish. It would probably be him that makes the final decision on method of delivery."
Frodo squirmed. "We need not disturb him yet." Came the almost whispered reply.
Taking Frodo's growing quiet for acceptance, the king and healer arose and rolled up his sleeves. "Let me just wash my hands and I will be ready for you." He poured waiting warm water into a bowl and drew closer a smaller basin, containing oddly shaped instruments that Frodo could only suspect he knew the purpose of and was certain would not be needed.
"Lift your nightshirt up to your waist and lay down on your back. You may use the blanket at the foot of the table to cover yourself to the waist."
Relieved that he was to be left some weak attempt at dignity, Frodo lay to attention, clutching the hem of the blanket white-knuckled to his waist. Soft as the blanket was, it was still a little scratchy on delicate, naked skin.
After carefully drying his hands, Aragorn prized Frodo's fingers clear and folded the blanket a little lower, so that the small swelling of the hobbit's stomach could be seen. Frodo watched as large hands came to rest upon his abdomen, moving about, pressing gently here and there on the tiny swelling that they said contained his baby. When he had explored sufficiently, Aragorn pulled the cover higher to preserve Frodo's dignity and went to wash his hands and collect the smaller basin.
Frodo's heart stopped as he saw the strangely shaped silver item with what looked to be a screw at it's end to spread the two curved shaped paddles. A few days earlier the parent-to-be would have been concerned but not worried about the orifice that the instrument was destined for and would have refused to present his bottom to anyone. But Frodo had acquired a natural hobbit inquisitiveness, which had resulted in him making his own examination in the bath a few days ago. Now he suspected that the shiny metal instrument was destined for an orifice other than the traditional one in his bottom.
Gripping the blanket in white knuckled hands once more Frodo made another attempt to stall the inevitable as he tried to calculate whether Aragorn had any blood ties to the Lady Galadriel. For this examination had become an irresistible force of nature, much like said lady.
Silver blue and summer blue eyes duelled once more and for a few minutes seemed evenly matched. Finally, the healer pointed to the gently steaming basin holding the offending instruments. "I have warmed them."
Frodo pursed his lips in contemplation for a while . . . then Aragorn felt the other's resolve waver. Ignoring Frodo's grip on the upper edge of the blanked, the healer rolled the blanket up from Frodo' feet to his knees. His action was met with a scowl of confusion as Aragorn folded Frodo's knees upward and placed his feet flat upon the table. Then, with a hand on each knee, Aragorn pushed them out sideways . . . exposing . . . everything. He glanced up to see the pale blush on his charge's neck and cheeks turn a deeper shade of rose.
Lifting a small piece of linen, Aragorn threaded it beneath Frodo's frontal anatomy and folded the ends upward, forming an effective sling to present him with a clearer view of the area between Frodo's legs. Then, to Frodo's deepening embarrassment, the ends were passed to him to hold and he made one last-ditch plea for clemency. "Can't you see enough now? Surely you can tell whether cutting will be necessary?"
Aragorn's reply was disappointing but not wholly unexpected. "There does appear to be an orifice forming here but I need to check how deep it goes and what it connects to." He lifted the large metal, double bladed instrument from it's steaming basin and drew his chair directly in front of Frodo, so that he faced the gentlehobbit's most private and personal areas in intimate scrutiny.
"Try to relax, Frodo. And this will be much less painful."
Dark brows drew together in a most eloquent manner that screamed that relaxing was the very last thing on their owner's mind. The small hobbit felt warm metal rest against the newly formed opening and he immediately clenched himself against the intrusion. Suddenly Aragorn found himself in imminent danger of having his head squeezed like a walnut between Frodo's knees.
"Relax. Women go through this on a regular basis when they are pregnant. It is nothing to be frightened of," Aragorn tried to assure him as he dropped the instrument back in the water and attempted to pry Frodo's knees apart again. "Just take a deep breath, Frodo."
Although following Aragorn's advice and allowing his knees to be parted once more, Frodo made what he considered a very valid point. "I am not a woman! And that, alone, makes me frightened," he replied in a slightly peeved tone, one hand trying to ensure that the blanket did not slip and the other still holding tightly to the makeshift sling, protecting the last evidence of his masculinity.
Deciding that he had been gentle for long enough, Aragorn drew on his sternest face, one he had learned from his foster father. "In this aspect you are a woman, and becoming more so every day. So live with it. It is happening." He waited for what he hoped would be the inevitable outraged response.
Even as Frodo took the deep breath to reply Aragorn felt the hobbits lower regions relax and it was then that he swiftly slid the instrument home and started to spread it. Frodo's howl would probably be heard in the Shire . . . an equal mix of pain, surprise and outrage. Aragorn had no doubt that had the hobbit had not been frightened of moving with the large piece of hardware inserted in his newly rearranged anatomy, Frodo would have been up off that bed before you could have said, "Breakfast."
Having finally got him effectively immobilised, Aragorn drew a small oil lamp closer and bent at last to perform that which he had been struggling to do for several minutes. At the other end of the table, Frodo's head dropped back against the pillows with a defeated thump.
Aragorn was not so wrapped up in his work that he failed to hear the whispered threat that Frodo spoke to the ceiling.
"One of these days, Strider. One of these days I am going to get my revenge for this. And a hobbit never breaks his promise."
END