Chapter Text
“Adar! You don’t understand me!”
Thranduil sighs a tired sigh, he’s heard this sentence spoken by Legolas so many times that he could probably recite it perfectly himself.
“Then make me understand, Honey.” Thranduil says, his voice is weary, and he can’t help but think back to when Legolas was small and told his father daily that he loved him. Now, Legolas would probably rather cut his hair, which he loved to flick when showing his opinion, than say “I love you”.
Legolas scowls at Thranduil, “stop calling me those nicknames! They’re childish!”
Thranduil was about to argue, but he stopped himself. What was the point? Legolas would just shut down and would refuse to hear anything that his father said.
Instead, Thranduil said: “I just want to know why you must be gone doing who-knows-what in the forest. Forgive me if you have a loving father who cares about where you are and how you are.”
Legolas crossed his arms and looked down, “I just like to be in the forest is that such a problem?”
Thranduil resisted the urge of pulling his long blonde hair. “No, it’s not. But I just want to know what you’re doing in there, because I know that you’re not frolicking around the trees and singing to the butterflies.”
Was that a blush on Legolas face?
Thranduil wanted to look harder, but Legolas had turned around, and all thranduil got was the back of a blonde head.
“It’s none of your business.” Legolas had mumbled it so quietly that Thranduil almost didn’t hear it.
Thranduil scoffed, “none of my business?” He spoke, his voice getting prickly, “Fine, well, if you don’t want to talk to your father, how about you talk to your king? As far as I’m concerned, I’m the ruler of this kingdom and I have a right to know what goes on in my woods.”
Legolas didn’t say anything. Thranduil wanted to scold more, but he knew that it wouldn’t get him anywhere. Thranduil heaved another long sigh, he loved Legolas more than anything, but he didn’t understand why Legolas was freezing him out.
Thranduil spoke again, yet his tone was more soft this time. “You’re my little boy, Legolas, I just want to know that everything’s well. I don’t want you going behind my back, and I don’t want you to feel as though you can’t tell your Ada anything.”
The king didn’t know how Legolas would respond to this, he knew Legolas didn’t like it when Thranduil called him his “little boy”. But in all honesty, the king couldn’t help it, calling Legolas his “little boy” rolled naturally off his tongue.
But Thranduil was a little surprised when Legolas’s rigid posture seemed to soften a little. But his son’s voice still held a thin thread of annoyance, “You want me to tell you what I’m doing? Fine, I’m seeing an elleth.”
Of all of the things Thranduil was suspecting, he didn’t suspect that.
“Oh-“ Thranduil didn’t quite know what to say, “a-an elleth? Well—
“I know what you’re gonna say, ‘what’s her name?’ Right?”
It was scary how sometimes Legolas could read his father like an open book.
That was indeed what Thranduil was going to say though, but he felt strangely sheepish admitting it. He said: “well, if you don’t mind.”
Thranduil felt stupid. Why hadn’t he suspected this? Was it because he was blind? Because he didn’t notice Legolas enough?
Or was it because he refused to think that his baby could have any other personalities and attitudes besides being sweet and innocent?
Legolas turned to look at Thranduil again, arms still crossed, but in a more relaxed way.
“It’s Rin.”
Rin? He knew the elf, she was a daughter of a trusted guard. And he should have suspected that, with how close she was with Legolas, that they would have something going on.
“Are you just ‘seeing her’? Or are you something more?” Thranduil felt awkward, he wasn’t prepared for Legolas to flip over this conversation so drastically, yet he soldiered on.
Legolas looked annoyed again, yet a little flustered by this question again, “I-I don’t know, okay? We just enjoy each others company.”
“In the woods?”
“I-I-I—just…”
Thranduil had clearly made Legolas stammer over his thoughts and words. As to all teenagers do when confronted by their parents about girls or boys.
Thranduil, in the midst of waiting for an answer from the babbling boy, felt a strange sense of…hurt?
His son, his beloved son, had been hiding this part of his life from his father. And who knows how long too? When Legolas was younger, he was always telling things to his father, he always confided in him. Now, it seemed as though Legolas had a whole other life that Thranduil wasn’t a part of.
Thranduil couldn’t help the realization from coming to his head; Legolas didn’t want Thranduil to be a part of his other life.
The blush had Thranduil had thought he’d seen in Legolas’s face came back, and Legolas let out a sort of tantrum-like whine and turned on his heel and stormed off, obviously Legolas knew he had lost this battle and needed to regroup in moody teenager silence.
But just to make sure that his feelings were known, Legolas yelled while stalking away: “Just leave me alone!”
Thranduil stood there and a minute later, he heard the echo of a door slamming. The older elf was alone in the room, his thoughts a mess like his current relationship with Legolas. Thranduil knew sooner or later though that one of them would come groveling to the other apologizing, and if Legolas’s constant mood swings had anything to do with it, he would be the one to came apologizing first.
Or—not, thranduil never knew with that boy.