For the most part, Celebrimbor is a pretty heavy sleeper and doesn’t tend to move around a lot. Nightmares are pretty rare
They usually only occur when he’s been stressed or worried about something. It’ll play on his mind and remind him of things in the past that haven’t gone to plan either
The poor boy gets nightmares about a whole range of things - even in the first age alone he went through quite a bit of shit
Most of them involve the last time he saw his parents, his father before renouncing him at Nargothrond, the look of betrayal on his face, and his mother on the shores of Valindor before he made the worst decision of his life
Celebrimbor gets very clammy when he has nightmares, it’s not very glamorous. He’ll toss and turn as well to the point where it might wake you up
If it doesn’t and you continue to sleep, Celebrimbor won’t usually wake you up for comfort. In fact, he’d prefer it if you stayed asleep.
That way he can watch you sleeping peacefully as he calms himself down, trying to match his hyperventilation with your own steady breathing
It’s rare that just being next to you isn’t enough to lull him back to sleep. If the nightmare is really bad, he’ll cuddle into you a little more
Even if you stay sleeping, it’s pretty easy to tell the next day if he’s had a restless night. He’ll have dark shadows beneath his eyes and be considerably more withdrawn
You don’t even need to be awake but at this point it would help if you were. All Celebrimbor wants to do is rest his head on your chest and have you run your fingers through his hair
He doesn’t really need much verbal reassurance from you, and doesn’t like having a conversation about what the nightmare was about
There’s nothing you can say that will right the wrongs of the past so there’s really not much point in trying
You just have to hold him close and love him in spite of all the darkness
