Vanilla

Saw: Eight Years

A/N: Hello Beans! /.\ I'm going for a mood of nostalgia in this chapter, and the music above really helps because, clearly, my writing is never good enough without some great music HAHAHAHAH so do enjoy it with the track I've chosen ^0^ this will give you some insight into Leroy growing up home-schooled and a little bit of his complex relationship with his father. It's not as black and white as it is with Xander and his father, as you might have realized.

Enjoy.

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Dicing onions in the kitchen was the only time he was allowed to cry. Each bulbous root had to disintegrate into cubes of exact dimensions in less than ten seconds for five consecutive attempts. He had not succeeded once.

"Eleven-point-three," said his father, glancing up from the stopwatch in his hand. "You can do better than that."

The little lion found himself wondering if he really could do better than that. He'd started the day at a ten-point-seven and somehow worked his way upwards at every bulb through dangerously blurred vision and a persistent sting at the back of his eyes. The fumes scratched at his sinuses and clung to the surface of his eyeball like a wart that no amount of rinsing seemed to be able to solve. Eleven-point-three was onion number thirteen.

He made no sound; reaching for another bulb from the basket and sweeping the previous attempt off his chopping board onto the countertop with the back of his knife. A slip of his heart's desire made him glance at the safety goggles left abandoned by the sink on his right.

For the whole of September that he'd had onion dicing drilled into his muscle memory, Leroy had taken the most hideous form of protective eyewear for granted. Before that, he'd been julienning carrots for two weeks right after turning eight in August. His 'advancement certificate' had been a full knife set courtesy of his father, which the boy himself had never really asked for. At least, not after he'd moved in with Siegfried to be home-schooled by the latter. Back home, with his mother, sure. He did mention it once or twice. But not anymore.

"Remember. You can't be wearing those for the rest of your life," his father reminded with a gentle smile that looked, to him, sinister in nature. "It gets better once you're used to the sting. All bad things do. The sooner you start, the easier it is."

This was what aching arms felt like; and perhaps soon, they, too, would no longer ache. All he had to do was get used to it. It was only his first day without the goggles after all. He'd been hitting a consistent nine-point-five with their company but now that they were out of the picture, he could very well see the difference.

"Alright, that's enough." Finally, they came to a stop at onion number seventeen and when the clock struck twelve—the end of his morning practical session by none other than the celebrity chef himself. "Make yourself some lunch and I'll be back by two to check on your progress with the bourguignon recipe. Did you check the list for today's menu?"

"Aglio Olio."

His father laughed, hands reaching past the tears brimming in the eyes of his boy to the back of the latter's neck, adjusting the length of his apron. "Good boy. Don't worry about the onions. You'll get them tomorrow."

The man straightened up and left in a heartbeat, crossing out the AM box on the weekly schedule pinned to the corkboard by the doorway of the kitchen on his way out. He'd looked over his shoulder with a final wave before grabbing his coat and heading out, leaving his boy alone in the apartment. To the ticking of a clock.