Pie Expectations

by: riverunderhill

Rating: T (some dark thoughts I suppose)
Genre: General/Comfort

Disclaimer: I own neither the characters nor the world conceived by J.R.R. Tolkien.

Remarks: The muses would not leave me alone. They rarely do. So, indulge me.

~~ Begin~~

"I thought you might be here."

The only reply was the sound of a knife scraping the surface of a wooden board. Flour coated every surface.
Legolas barely glanced up at his father. He concentrated more than he had to on the bowl in front of him. He rarely had to look anymore but this time dough seemed the better alternative.

Thranduil gathered his sleeves away from the tabletops and shrugged, defeated before the battle had even begun.

"Why are you here?"

It was difficult not to answer with kingly indignation. The line between parent and sovereign was blurry at the best of times. It could be and often had been erased with the slightest misstep to either side.

"You're angry."

A ball of dough hit the table - a bit of aggressive punctuation to accompany a glare.

"And?" Legolas knew that he was being petulant. He hated the sound of it. Yet at the moment he had committed to rage against his own instincts. Why couldn't he change course now? He threw the dough a few times before scattering more flour and lifting a well worn rolling pin from a side table. The handles, polished glossy with use were still warm.

"It'll be hard if you attack it like that," observed Thranduil, opting for the debatably safer territory of baking techniques.

"The it will be one more thing I ruin, now won't it?" Why did he have to sound like a moody youth? When had talking normally with his father stopped being an option?

Legolas stared at the half-flattened lump of dough, his lips pressed tightly together. He rubbed flour between his fingers in an agitated gesture.

Thranduil wondered at the distance between Legolas and himself. The table between them could have been an ocean for the chasm of sparks and silence that spread before them. Legolas had always been reserved, even for one so young but this clinging silence was unnatural. Somewhere along the way he had missed the change.

Seeing that his son was on the brink of something explosive he selected the route of patience. Noting bowl of whole berries he picked it up along with a small knife and settled himself at one of the side tables. Dropping his robe onto the chair next to him he pushed his sleeves to his elbows and began separating leafy tops from glossy berries.

Legolas, after a short mental debate as to whether or not he wanted his father around, abandoned the now-toughened dough and cleared out the bowl to start again. Four empty crusts were standing ready near the ovens but he could not stop making them. He crushed yellow butter from a cask into the soft flour. Kneading it he could shut off his thoughts and allow the process to take over. There were no decisions in dough, it was all laid out in years of experience and practice.

Thranduil wiped the juice from his fingers and wrist, popping yet another berry into his mouth as a consolation prize for the mess. He watched his son through side-wise glances and noted the tense quickness of his movements. Legolas might have though muscle memory would not betray him but with control given over to his subconscious he revealed more than he wished.

The Gollum-creature had rattled him. If the hissing and sputtering drove you mad then the screams were worse. There were many sighs of relief when climbing trees was found to calm him down if only for a short while. How could Legolas blame himself? They had all been off-balance due to the ghoulish beast. It had been a solution, an alternative to bleeding ears and restless nights. However, if Legolas saw Gollum's escape as a mark against his character then it would take considerable effort to convince him otherwise.

The pies were a start.

Thranduil put the bowl of neatly chopped berries next to the row of empty crusts. Glistening juice was already filling the bottom of the bowl. He loved summer berries and snatched two more before turning to face the annoyed stare which he knew was waiting for him.

"Don't give me that look," he chirped, keeping his tone playful with a mouthful of berry. Shallowing, he continued. "I taught you that, it won't work on me."

Legolas made a vague noise that sounded like dismissal and went back to rolling a thin sheet of dough. Thranduil could feel his patience strain but fought the urge to snap.

He pulled his chair over and sat down at the high table facing his son. Or rather, the oscillating top of his son's head. A spray of flour fell across his hands just as he laid them on the table. He couldn't catch the sigh before it escaped.

"It wasn't -"

"Don't say that!" Snarled Legolas, there was a new dent in the dough from where the rolling pin had been slammed down.

"Fine, " said Thranduil, leaning back in his seat.

"I've already heard it."

"I'm not - !"

"But you were." he lifted the sheet of dough and flipped it over, spraying another handful of flour over the table and onto Thranduil's lap.

"You're making a mess." Thranduil pointed out, keeping his voice level.

'No more than usual!" The empty bowl clattered to the floor. The elvenking stared at the bowl as it wobbled into silence.

"Was that necessary?" and he knew instantly that any other words in any other order would have been better than those he had just uttered. He braced himself for the full impact of his son's temper. Raising his eyes he nearly winced. His son was smoldering so viciously that the air around him could have been shimmering as if close to an open flame. He could see the pain twisted around his son's features.

Slowly he lowered his hands to his lap and shrank in his seat. His child's rage frightened him. It also tore his heart to pieces.

"I-"

"Don't."

"Legolas," he pleaded softly.

His son drew a shaking breath. He ran his hands slowly across the smooth dough, pushing off the excess flour.

"You can't say it wasn't my fault," Legolas uttered through clenched teeth.

Thranduil had no reply, realizing too late that this was not a conversation. Stiffly, Legolas withdrew an empty pie dish and lifted the dough into it. He pulled a slender knife from a block in the practiced motion of a warrior and trimmed the dough away from the rim of the dish.

Thranduil's eyes followed his son's hands. He wished, briefly, that those hands had not already killed in defence of the kingdom. He wished that they had not been awash in the blood of comrades as they died in his arms before his son could even take the hands of the one he would call his life-long love. Those same fingers that sent arrows flying into the throats of enemies were now delicately crimping and folding the dough around the edge of the crust.

The incongruity between the gentle pattern of motion and the palpable rage in the air finally broke through Thranduil's emotional control. He laughed. It was barely a laugh in that it could have been a cough or a loud exhale but he knew it for what it was.

Legolas blinked at the sound of his father's laugh. All the fiery anger racing through him slammed into a mental wall and dissolved into confusion. Numbness spread through his body. The back of his throat constricted and began to burn. He had not experienced this sensation since childhood - the inevitable loss of control was nearly upon him.

Thranduil reached across the table and pulled the pie crust out from under his son's motionless fingers. They began to shake at the lack of distraction. As if in spasm, Legolas' hands began to grasp at air, searching for an anchor that was no longer there.

Parental instincts surged into Thranduil's awareness and he was up and moving around the table before he had fully made the decision. Legolas was staring, unblinking, at the air between his hands and the table. The shaking was becoming more intense. Then, the young elf felt his body pulled sideways and he fought, as he had learned to do.

His nerved were still primed with the energy of battle and they snapped to defend him except there was nothing to defend against his father's arms. Warrior's instincts clashed with the emotional noose that was strangling him and shudder tore through him. He collapsed into his father's embrace.

Thranduil held firm as he felt his son's weight thrown against him. He pulled Legolas closer to his chest and felt his son's hands tugging desperately at his tunic. He absorbed the violent shudders until the worst of them had faded. Everything that had been holding Legolas together dissolved in minutes, leaving him choking but unable to breath for the shaking.

They stood with flour dust settling around them. The kitchen held only the sound of crackling embers and Legolas' muffled, hiccuping breath.

Thranduil kept his breath even, willing his son's body to calm. Eventually he could make out words being spoken into the front of his shirt. Tenderly stroking his son's hair he let the words pour out. Names of the dead came tangled with fragmented descriptions. His son had lost friends before but this was the first time he blamed himself utterly.

The father winced, although he had heard the reports of the raiding party which had leapt upon the small group playing escort to the creature, Gollum he had not given himself to process his grief. Those now dead had been of an age with his son and there were few children born to their people in the years since. He mourned for them as he had for all the others lost to the ever pressing darkness.

It should not be that he was accustomed to constant grief.

His son was breathing more easily now so Thranduil chanced a look down, trying to glimpse his son's face somewhere in the mess of limbs, cloth and hair. There was flour everywhere.

He called his son's name and after an uncertain pause Legolas looked at him. His face was streaked with flour, dry in some places and clotted with tears in others. The moistened flour was already drying, forming cracked patches on his cheeks.

"Don't lie to me, Ada." Legolas whispered.

Thranduil hugged him tightly before letting them slide apart. "I can't make that promise."

Uncertainty clouded Legolas' face. This was not the expected reply.

Thranduil sighed inwardly. He to explain parenthood to one's own child."I cannot tell you it was your fault and then watch that knowledge destroy you." This was not how he wanted to explain it, especially given the circumstances.

"You told me to always acknowledge my errors."

"And acknowledgement is not the same as self-punishment. You cannot judge yourself so harshly."

"But if I hadn't - "

"Those thoughts are pointless." Thranduil interrupted firmly. "You make the best choices you can based on the situation at hand. You cannot do better than that. Nor should you expect to do so."

It would be a long time before Legolas would understand that but that was the burden of his character. Thranduil leaned forwards and kissed his son on the forehead, wishing that banishing his child's despair could be as simple now as it once was.

"Our grief gives no pain to those that harm us," he said, half to himself. Legolas was gathering himself, his stance had regained some confidence. Distracted by relief Thranduil failed to notice the grim determination creeping into his son's expression.

"Come," he said with finality, "we can finish what you started. Or we can at least clean up this chaos." Gesturing to all the floured surfaces his preference landed solidly on the former option.

After a moment's hesitation, Legolas found his bowl and set about making sheets to cover the pies. Meanwhile Thranduil found a spoon and began distributing filling into the waiting crusts.

"Never bake when you're angry," Thranduil remarked over his shoulder. "Rarely does it have the desired calming effect."

The rolling pin paused. "Speaking from experience?"

Thranduil laughed, full of relief that his son was already teasing him.

He made an airy motion with the spoon, "a great many."

"Is that why mother avoids you when you're in here?"

"That's an entirely different reason," Thranduil replied carefully.

Legolas turned to shoot him a quizzical look which was met with a helpless shrug. "I can be a bit controlling."

Legolas smirked, "just in the kitchen?" This earned him a threatening wave of a juice-coated spoon so he quickly schooled his expression into one of innocence.

Thranduil shook his head and returned his attention to the fruit, meticulously working on the age-old rhythm of one-for-the-bowl-and-two-for-me. He allowed himself to bask in the moment of domestic peace, forgetting all that had brought them here for as long as possible.

He convinced himself that the matter was settled but Legolas' mind was far from being easy. An oppressive sense of obligation had rooted itself at the front of his thoughts but he was careful to keep the outward signs of his inner dialogue hidden.

As the pies cooked his decisions were cemented. He needed to do more than go from skirmish to skirmish, waiting for the final onslaught that would surely end them all. He had no more illusions. If he wanted to do penance for his errors then it would have to be on a much larger scale.

His father would definitely not approve. Not that Legolas would give him a chance.

~~End~~

Feedback always welcome.
I've discovered that Legolas deals with emotional turmoil in a very similar manner to myself and with the same amount of success. Funny now that works right?

Never bake angry.